Every business needs a website, but what are the most important things to focus on?

  1. The domain name.  Domain names are nowhere near as important as they once were, but I list them first because they are difficult to change after you have become established.  I personally would suggest not spending one extra cent over the lowest price domain name you want.  A .com is preferable to a .info only because people recognize immediately that .com refers to a website.  A .info name will have this status in a few years too, but will cost you less than a dollar a year, and there are better choices available.  Example: Which sounds more trustworthy, refinance.info or 123bestrefinancesite.com?  (Don’t look for or click on them, they are just hypothetical)
  2. The page title. This means the title of the page which shows up at the top of your browser window.  It is in your HTML code in the <title> section inside the <head> portion of your page.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you might want to consult a professional, because this is only the beginning of what could be a very time consuming process.  It always makes me cringe when I hear that a lawyer who charges hundreds of dollars an hour wants to spend hours of his or her valuable time making a website because professional web designers and developers “charge too much.”  Then I look at the title of a lawyers web page and it is a list of the names of the partners in the firm.  Seriously, people searching for a lawyer aren’t searching for your name.  I used to be a teacher and repetition works: Make your page reflect what people are searching for, not what you want them to find.
  3. The page description. Yes, it is important, because often it is what search engines will use under your title in search engine results.  In my opinion this makes the description more important than any online ad you might have.  Even if a search engine never looks at what you write there, it still matters because people will read it.
  4. Regularly updated content. Should I keep using lawyers as examples?  Lawyers have the answers to so many questions that people are willing to pay money for.  Why do lawyers’ pages usually look like a high school student made them?  Do criminals and drug dealers really identify with gavels, scales of justice, and leather bound books as a theme?  No, no, no.  Publish according to what people are searching for, and they might just read what you want them to find.
  5. Off-page factors. Off-page factors are the links to your page, and what others are writing about you.  I put it last because it is the least important.  Many self-proclaimed search engine experts will disagree with me and tell you that having a large number of inbound links will improve the ranking of your site in search engines.  They are right, but if people don’t find what they are looking for when they see your site at the top of a search results page, they still won’t buy anything from you.  Concentrate on link-building and eventually you will look like a spammer, and you may as well be selling Viagra.