When you have a financial related website or indeed any website you will find that there are many things that you need to learn in order to have a productive website for your business or services. It is important that you maintain control of your website with many things including search engine optimisation, as well as having a usable site for customers. While links and press releases can be extremely important to the overall advertising of your website there is a lot more to having a successful website.

First of all you need to consider where your website is located and if it will be easy to find. You will find that some of the press attention does not actually include a link directly to your website, but instead asks the customer to search for it. The fact is you have to make sure that everything you are advertising is going to be available via links. If you have a report or book that you are offering you must make sure that the link is on the page and that it is working. There are a lot of little things that you can miss if you are not paying attention to your website. Below you will find a number of steps to help you build a friendly and easy to use websites, so that you may have a productive website.

• When you first get into building a website you may hear the term site map. A site map is for the benefit of the customer, in that they are able to use the website map in order to get around your web page. Even if you have three pages to your actual website you are still going to need some type of site map. The site map needs to be text based and extremely detailed, to help the customer understand where they will be going and whether they want to click on that particular link. All web pages on the website need to be linked. This means that you are going to create a link to every page and back to every page. In other words if you are on the home page you should have a link to every web page. From the other web pages you should have a link back to the home page as well as to the other pages you have.
• Navigation is going to be extremely important as well. You will find that a logical structure on your web page is going to do more for you. You will create, what is called, a navigation menu. The navigation menu is actually apart of the site map. The menu should offer logical headings and the descriptions of the links. You want to create little blurbs to entice your customer to the actual web pages the menu is talking about. This means that offering too much information is going to give the customer what they need, and they will not look further, but a short description about the next page on the menu will help them find what they need with ease.
• Errors are seen as a deterrent to any website. You need to check all of your links, advertisements, articles, and any words that you have spelled on the website. There is nothing worse than someone searching for information and spotting errors. They generally don’t trust the website and will search for other information elsewhere. You also need to check your links on a regular basis. Some of the links you may have on the page can become defunct. This means that when a customer tries to find that link they are left with nowhere to go. Link Defender and Internet Seer can help you check your links.
• You need to use a specific design and layout on your website. While the information on the website needs to be refreshed the layout should remain the same. There is nothing worse than trying to find something on a webpage that has been moved when the web designer is updating information. Typically a customer is going to get used to where the menu is, the site map, and where they need to go for information and links. If this has been changed they are going to spend less time on the site, and quite possibly refuse to come back. The idea is that you don’t mess with success. While the information needs to change because it will become stagnate to return visitors they don’t appreciate layout changes.
• Searching on an internet site is very important. You can include a search tool that searches just your website for the information. There are many customers who know what they are looking for, and when they hit your website they would rather just do a quick search, rather than going through all of the links. It is important to provide the search tool and to make sure your site is set for specific keywords someone may search for. You will find that the Atmoz Site Search is going to be one search tool you can provide on your website to search within your own site. It can also allow for a wider search among other similar websites. The tool is customizable.
• Tools that help gain return customers are usually forums, newsletters, and guest books. It is important that you make sure these tools are working properly. In other words you want to make sure the forms the customer fills out for feedback, signing the registration for newsletters, and the guestbook is going to work. You will find on some websites the link to the forums or other forms are not working because the person hosting the site forgot to check them. Your visitors will want these items to work. If they find the newsletter form or other forms decline to submit or will not open they are again going to seek a better managed site.
• If you have a website with a shopping cart, as you are selling products you need to make sure that the cart is actually working. You will find that you need to have descriptions that are clear and concise regarding the products, the price is stated clearly, and that you have the information regarding shipping and tax available to your customers. The shopping cart is a wonderful tool to make sure that the shipping and tax are mentioned before the customer actually purchases the item. The description can be on the first page as well as the price. Then once they add the item to a shopping cart all information should be listed again as well as the shipping and taxes to help them follow through with the entire purchase. A lack of shopping cart can be detrimental and leaving the shipping and tax until the very end doesn’t often ensure confidence.
• Contact details are a must. Have you ever been to a website that made you work for the contact information? I bet you have been to at least one, where the contact information was not on the home page in either of the four corners or at the bottom. In fact you may not have found any contact information at all. If you have then you realise how important it is that you have the contact information front and centre, and that you only have one link to the information. Another thing a lot of sites do is offer their email address, and then say click the link below for a telephone number or further contact information. This is usually very annoying as more often than not we want a live human being. You can also use a Natata Anti Spam Encoder to protect the email address.
• The last tip for making your website a little easy to use is making it search engine happy. In other words you want to make sure your website will be picked up by the search engines and that it is very compatible. You will need to have text based information rather than graphical or javascript to make sure that many of your customers can actually access the page. You also want to make sure that your visitors will be able to find you through a search engine, which means the appropriate keyword densities and relevant information should be supplied.

You, as the website host will have the ability to make sure that everything on your website is designed towards a user friendly website. First Union, for example are an example of a user friendly mortgage website which has clear navigation and even has a virtual guide to help the user find what they are looking for quickly and easily. The Money Made Clear website is also very user friendly.

You may find that after reading this article there are a few things you need to check on or change. Keep in mind that the up keep of any website is going to be a fulltime job, but as long as you have certain aspects in place it will go very smoothly each time you update.