Building a clean and concise website is essential for SEO and potential sales.  Humans and search engines should be able to navigate your site.  The common problems are broken links, blurry pictures, outdated templates, and spelling mistakes. In the limousine business, first impressions are everything. If you can’t build a coherent website, nobody is going to book your cars.

Design

Keep it simple stupid.  You don’t need Adobe Flash and a thousand fancy graphics to build a great site.  If you don’t believe me, check out Google and Craigslist.  These sites are so ridiculously simple a 5 year old could’ve designed them.

Most sites have a simple menu in the sidebar with text and graphics in the body.  Even huge ecommerce sites like Amazon and ebay follow this formula.  You would be wise to do the same.

Homepage

A site’s design should be aesthetically pleasing with straightforward navigation.  The homepage should be streamlined and direct clients to the most important pages.  Here a few things to keep in mind:

Strong Design – A well designed site conveys professionalism.  Consider purchasing a great looking template from a company like Template Monster.

Primary Keywords – Target the most important keyword phrases on the home page.  If you operate in Phoenix, these would be “Phoenix limo” and “Phoenix limousine.”

Direction – Multiple links should direct clients to the most important parts of your site.  These should be pages like “vehicles”, “packages”, and “rates.”

Linking – Link to the homepage from every page on the site.  These links should include the primary keyword phase used on the homepage.

Site Optimization

Strong design shouldn’t stop with the home page.  Every part of your site should be optimized.  The following tips should help:

Text Navigation – At their core, search engines are text readers.  Google has come a long way, but it still has difficulty reading complicated Adobe Flash sites.  Always use text-based navigation.

Graphic Navigation – If you use graphic navigation, use descriptive alt text with a keyword.  Also add secondary text-based navigation in the footer.

Site Map – Use a Google site map to help the search engines read your pages.

Interlinking – Use descriptive or keyword based text to link between different pages on the site.

Direction – If you want potential clients to visit an important page, direct them there.  This is best accomplished by telling them to “please click here” or some other direct phrase.

Link Out – If you link out to trusted sites, potential clients will view your website as a trusted resource instead of a sales pitch.

Wrap up

Good sight design and SEO aren’t mutually exclusive.  Keep the design simple, but always remember to use primary keywords, interlink pages with text-based navigation, and direct visitors to your most important pages.

Building an SEO friendly site isn’t difficult, but it does require patience and precision.