Designing to Effectively Address Searchers’ Needs

Category: Search Engine Marketing Guide

Many websites are designed to control the visitor’s path through the site using the home page as the starting point, assuming that this is the primary way the visitor starts a visit. Since more and more visitors are arriving via search engines, they are entering on pages other than the home page. This is a fundamental shift in the Internet and requires your website be designed accordingly.

Effectively Addressing Searchers’ Needs

Whichever page a customer lands on must immediately provide enough information to show the customer that what they are seeking has been found. Failing to do so will quickly send the customer back to the search results. The landing page must also provide enough contextual information regarding the rest of the site so that the customer can begin appreciating what the website is about.

You may already have many of the pages for which your customers are looking, and all that is needed is to ensure that search engine listings (organic and paid) are directing customers to the right pages and that those pages are designed to best represent your website. If you do not already have one or more pages that directly address an identified important keyword phrase, then new content pages may need to be created. All pages on your website should present ample information in the form of navigation controls and content to lead the searcher to more appropriate pages if the page on which they landed is not exactly what they are looking for.