Creating a Web Site for Service Activities

This preparation consists of several sub-steps.

Analysis of Competitive Websites and Keywords

 

Researching and studying competing sites (usually, all sites on the first page of Google search are competitive results). Keyword research is required as SEO heavily relies on ranking pages on keywords and content. Hence, online marketers constantly check and analyze the top 10 organic results. This also applies to social media and other channels.

You get a good overview of the situation when this is done well. Based on this, you can conclude how difficult or easy it will be to rank a page. Also, is it necessary to produce additional content that will be part of the ‘expansion of the website’?

 

The meaning of a website can only be purely presentational and generally informative, and it will serve as an information and marketing tool. But in any case, one of the main reasons you want a website is to reach more customers or clients through the Internet. For this reason, your website should not be just a low-value advertising and marketing tool but remain to target the right audience. Also, how will they come to the site? At this stage, it is necessary to plan SEO pages for all essential subpages.

Website Sub Pages

• Home page
• Services page
• Price page
• Page “About us” or info
• Contact page
• A page with testimonials, recommendations, user experiences, or completed projects
• Blog section

Some of the essential SEO elements of each of these pages are:

• Headlines H1 (each has only one H1)
• Descriptions (a unique and complete description of each of these subpages or landing pages)
• Keyword – primary for each subpage
• Link structure (as short as possible, as simple as possible)

These are always essential SEO elements. And these basic elements on the pages are rarely done correctly. This could be due to a shortage of:

• time,
• knowledge,
• will,
• and money.

Once you have done that, you already have what we call a ‘healthy foundation’ for the future function of, first and foremost, a service business – increasing the profitability of a service company, craftsman, or self-employed person. Profitability means how to earn or produce more in less time. This context increases business profitability with less financial investment (and more time and knowledge). The result is a cheaper way to reach customers using the Internet as a business/promotional tool.

The next exciting step includes;

Website Design and Functionality

As for WordPress, choose ready-made design templates. Or, possibly use the so-called “web builders” with which you ‘match’ the page’s appearance with pre-made elements organized and arranged in a meaningful and proper order according to the basic principles of web design.

Using a ready-made template can help employ additional elements on web pages. This is for a technical reason because various add-ons can create other problems, and you certainly want to avoid that and focus on the most important thing – bringing visitors to the site. In this part, the speed factor of the site is essential, especially on mobile devices. The template should meet two conditions:

1. The design and aesthetics of the site should meet the client’s needs and its customers. The ratio is 75 % in favor of the user and 25 % in favor of the client and his wishes and ideas).
2. Functionality is the order and arrangement of elements (boxes, columns, tables, sliders, galleries, space between elements, etc.). Try to avoid sliders as much as possible.

WordPress

With the development of WordPress, attractive solutions have emerged, such as web builders. Also, WordPress plugins with which the page is built by inserting elements, arranging them on the page as desired, and then inserting content into them. Though we are not so fond of such an option, we are more inclined to ready-made templates primarily technically optimized for fluid, easy, and pleasant site operation. The user is satisfied with the experience of surfing the site and what is in the site owner’s interest. Also, the meaning of all this is there are only minor technical interventions and optimizations needed, such as:

• marketing
• site expansion plan

The result is that it provides value to the website, thus increasing its profitability through Internet marketing.

Determining the Purpose: The Goal of the Existence of a Web Site – KPI

It would be best to turn on Google Analytics regularly and see where your sales are coming from and how big they are. Known as a sales funnel, something like that is not easy to set up. One or more of the site’s main goals need to be identified and set. This is called the Key Performance Indicator. E.g. for service activities, the classic KPI is client requests. It is in the site owner’s interest to receive as many requests for his services as possible.

What is a KPI?

When a KPI is known, technical actions should be taken into account and implemented. Also, that KPI must be measurable to be accurate, and if there are more sales and better earnings, it is because of reaching that KPI. That is, again, a rather technically demanding part of the job.

For example, the KPI connects via Google Analytics to an important subpage or landing page such as a “Contact” page or “Request service” when the user comes to that page, fills out the form, and clicks on the “Send” button, or something similar. They are then shown a “Thank you” page, and a visit is recorded on that page, which Analytics records as goal achievement. In addition, the most crucial information is that we can see where users come to that contact page, which web traffic source converts better than others, and what further pays off to invest and maintain.

This May Be Overlooked

One part that may have been overlooked and helps increase visits and better rankings is backlinking. For example, you can know which web traffic source converts well and which content and ads people buy better or more. If you have an active Google Ads campaign, two banners on two different portals, and three Facebook ads, you can easily see which campaign converts better (where the most requests for offers come from). Therefore, it is known which investment is profitable and which isn’t.

KPI is critical in SEO optimization

When a page is created, the KPI is determined, which is realized through SEO optimization. And every other platform (Google or Facebook) has its KPIs through its campaigns. A few more examples are:

• Time spent on the site
• A specific number of open pages
• Specific “event” on the page

A simple conclusion to this section would be to consider this the main task for your site’s existence. And what will it primarily serve?

Choosing a Domain and Web Hosting

Proper choice of web hosting and domain is crucial. Each domain consists of two parts: names and extensions or suffixes (.com, .net, .biz, or official for the country you are in). In any case, if you plan to run a local website at the national level (for your country only), it is better to register a domain with an official state extension than with .com or some other. This applies to many cases but is not a strict rule, and there are exceptions.

The Influence of a Domain Name

Also, from a technical point of view, it is not influential in better ranking. Although there are claims that local extensions rank better than others, say .com, this effect is minimal. Many other factors (such as content and its quality in the first place) are more critical. The mere domain extension is a minor factor, and if additional ‘stronger’ aspects of the site are more influential, then the extension has little significance. Though, the national extension has more national brand features.

The Domain Name itself is Much More Important.

The name should be a brand or combined with one highly sought-after term relevant to your business. These two combinations give the best domain names for your company or business.

A recognizable domain allows users to respond quickly or remember the domain name when he wants to return to the page. If the name is very similar to others (competition), there is a problem with the frequent return of old visitors to the page. This is because all domains (their names) are very similar. That is why it is vital to brand a domain as a unique and preferably easy-to-remember name that users associate with a solution (you and your answer) for a problem or need they have. Sometimes it can be arduous, but it is worth the effort.

Hosting

As a rule, there are no significant conditions for web hosting except for a sufficient amount of space and a few more technical details. Some general authorities would be the following:

• A local or national website – domestic web hosting (the closer the server is to the user, the better).
• Smaller pages and quality shared hosting are enough.
• For more complex and more extensive sites (portals and web stores, etc.), a separate (dedicated) server is the right option.

Remember that quality shared web hosting with 2-4 GB of storage space is sufficient for companies and trades engaged in services.

GDPR, Cookies, and SSL Certificate

SSL certification has become a standard add-on, the same as responsive web design is no longer something ‘mandatory’ or ‘modern,’ but simply a reality. With hosting and domain, SSL can be free.

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is an obligation that the EU must respect. Why was GDRP created? Large companies are increasingly beginning to violate the political control of the masses and impose their own. It primarily refers to Facebook and Google. Never before have some large corporations had such a large amount of information and personal data. When the Internet age came, it started to change. That is why the EU created the GDRP.

GDRP is a procedure you should follow in your web project, but you should not be afraid of penalties or levies if you do not provide or ignore them. It is a control mechanism that should protect you (the user) from stealing personal data that third parties use for illegal purposes. But who guarantees it to you, and in what way?

Distribution of Link Juice and Internal Website Structure

These are purely technical details and valuable information to understand this topic to write a little about it.

Link juice refers to the distribution of link strength of a site. The site’s internal structure is essential to make, organize, and deploy well to make sense for both the user and Google. The internal structure is the number of subpages, their interconnection and arrangement in the main site menu, and their ‘strength’ and importance.

Google Algorithm

The Google algorithm uses links to give a specific SEO strength to a landing page, e.g., the home page has the highest strength of, say, 10 points. Further, these 10 points are divided by the number of subpages (their links) on the main menu, so if you have seven items on the main menu, each will get one-seventh of the strength of the home page. 10/7 = 1.43. So each item on the main menu will have 1.43 link juice points. This link juice represents the strength of each subpage (it can later be strengthened or internal links weakened). That is the part when they say internal linking is essential. That is precisely why.

Priority and the greatest possible strength is given to the essential items of the site – subpages, while the power of those less important should be removed entirely: like, for example, these pages – “Privacy policy,” “Terms of use,” “Impressum,” and the like that are there because regulations say they should be.

Website Structure

Also, further in the website structure, when you have these seven subpages and let each have three links leading further from that subpage, those 1.43 are again divided by the number of connections. In this example, by 3. Thus, each subpage will have a juice link strength of 1.43 / 3 = 0.48. This says that it is essential to plan well and determine the site’s structure so that those most critical subpages are at the very top of the structure and get the most link points.

When it comes to the websites of service companies and industries, there is always a relatively simple structure that seldom exceeds ten subpages from the main menu. Each significant landing page will be able to get link juice points. An additional opportunity is hidden in the “Contact” page (because it is always somewhere in the main menu), so it is at the top of the structure and takes away many points. In most cases, this page only serves to share contact information, an address, or a location, and it has that contact form that is just as important.

The extra value lies in that such a contact page is also a page for scheduling requests (so that you don’t have a particular subpage just for that (because the link juice is then taken away from the others). And the contact information that must be there can be used to contact in general, not just to send offers from potential customers, so we do not have to have one subpage for contact, which will be called “Contact,” and another for scheduling requests or ordering a service that will be called, e.g., “Request service.” Instead, you need to have only one that will have the function of both. It is a compromise worth considering, and there can be many such situations.

What To Do After Creating A Website

After creating a website, the vital segment is, first of all, the backup. There are many ways the site can be protected from unwanted intrusions. A backup is done regularly (depending on the dynamics of upgrading or expanding the site – adding new content, new subpages, etc.) – from several times a month to once a month. At best, if the expansion dynamics are not so great (new things and new content are not added so often to the page). It is, first and foremost, a simple yet elegant solution. And we suggest manual backup because you have complete control, so you are the safest.

Backup

Why a manual backup? With suitable WordPress plugins, you can protect the page from unwanted attempts to login to the admin.

After the backup, there must be a plan to expand the website. The two primary models of site expansion are content marketing and SEO. One is about creating (producing) and adding content to a website, and the other is optimizing it. It is best when producing content with SEO optimization and quality content elements. Also, it is the most cost-effective form that requires more time than money.

Total Control

Primary models are long-term, with a longer time interval to achieve results but with a more lasting and robust marketing effect. Build a website that you have maximum control over. The Internet is, first and foremost, an information tool. If you distribute more information through a network, you take more traffic from the network that consumes that information in web content. And such an approach creates a relationship of trust and authority and creates conditions for sales.

Social Media

Secondary models are social networks and partnerships with other sites. Particularly fruitful are partnerships (due to networking). Social networks aim to increase web visitors (although it is sometimes cheaper to stay on the net from which you redirect them to the site). At the same time, partnerships with other sites are there to get relevant backlinks that strengthen the pages’ SEO and rankings, which again results in higher traffic and sales.

Regarding sales, consider using email marketing services such as Benchmark, as you will spend less time on setup and customization and more time watching your email contact list grow. Sometimes you will get entirely or less relevant backlinks over time. It is more difficult to achieve a negative result. 

Connecting the Website with Google Services and Facebook Pixel

Connect to Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a primary web analytic tool. What each page should have about Google Analytics is the tool itself set up on the page, and the main goals of the website to be tracked are set up as well. These goals are, among other things, the KPI discussed above.

And just linking Google Analytics to a page isn’t that complicated. You need to have a Google account to connect to and use later. You have a Google account if you use Gmail. Visit analytics.google.com and sign in with one of your Google accounts.

Connect to the Google Search Console

The Google Search Console is a great web tool personalized for each site after creation that needs to be linked to the Google Search Console. Connecting a site to the Google Search Console is quite simple. You need to have a Google account, search.google.com, and add a link from the site you want to link to the Google Search Console.

This is followed by verification – confirmation of ownership and access to the site. Verification can be done in several ways. The simplest is to download the HTML file from the Google Search Console (the link to download the HTML file is provided in the connection instructions) and transfer it to the server – web hosting (root folder) where the page is located. Then, confirm the verification, and the page is linked. When you do so, the data you will see in the Google Search Console will begin to appear over the next period.

Connecting Facebook Pixel and Website

Facebook Pixel is a handy marketing tool. Once added, it measures the performance of Facebook advertising and monitors each visitor’s interaction with your site.

The Facebook Pixel is activated every time a visitor from Facebook comes to your website and sends this information to the Facebook Ads Manager. Since Pixel monitors Facebook users, you can easily use Pixel for remarketing on Facebook and for a more detailed insight into online users’ behavior during their site visits. Integrating into the site is difficult, so it would be best to look for tutorials. We will say there are more ways to link a Pixel to a website in WordPress. The use of a plugin is one of them.

The goal of Investing in Website Design

Ultimately, the blog post turned out to be longer than we planned, mainly because we wanted to draw your attention to the link juice and structure. We explained that such websites’ preparation, planning, and design are critical here – and these are essentially simple structures. Through this text, we have roughly described all the essential elements that accompany the creation of each site, primarily for service activities (companies, crafts, general companies).

Further, we have WordPress as a great free tool and platform, primarily for small clients and smaller projects. Like any tool, you need to know how to use it correctly. To avoid confusion in professional circles that we generalize and claim WordPress is best for everyone and everything, we will say it is not valid.

The process of creating a website should include market elements and target groups. This applies to:

• The visible part is the brand, the company’s personality, customers, activities, visual feelings, and the like. It is more about web design and user experience.
• User needs – offers and solutions they want and information they seek.

The focus is on planning, preparation, and communicating with the client. Sometimes it will take more time to talk about what is more important, why it is like this and not different, or what is needed and what is not. Sometimes you will need to remove your desires, put them aside, and react better.