Your Website Matters

It is common knowledge that having an online presence is important in today’s market. Consumers are beginning, and completing, their shopping experience online at a growing rate. According to recent consumer research on lighting buying habits conducted by the ALA BiNational Advertising and PR Program and Home Accents Today, 65 percent of all respondents reported they first visited a website to gather ideas about lighting.

The good news is this indicates consumers are searching online for lighting. The bad news is they may not always be finding ALA members’ websites. According to the ALA consumer research, many are uninformed about what lighting showrooms can offer. Less than half of respondents reported they believe showrooms carry affordable products, half reported believing showrooms can help with installations and wiring, and about two thirds of respondents believe showrooms could help them learn more about important topics such as energy-efficient technology and how much light is needed.

Getting Noticed

One of the keys to fixing these common misconceptions about lighting showrooms is ensuring consumers are landing on ALA-member websites when they search for lighting online. This involves the complicated and sometimes daunting task of improving website SEO, or search engine optimization. Here are a few tips from popular search engines, such as Google and Bing, to get started on improving SEO:

1. Update content regularly – When it comes to SEO, website relevance is important, and regularly updated content is viewed as one of the best indicators of a site’s relevance. However, it is important to make sure the content included is high quality. Relevant, readable content will increase the amount of time average users spend visiting the site, which in turn improves SEO. The ALA blog contains content available to members for repurposing and sharing over their websites.

2. Use key words – This involves considering for what consumers will be searching when looking for a particular site. For example, having content that contains terms like “energy efficiency,” or “good lighting design” can direct users to a page when they search these topics. It is important to write for the reader though; a mix of random keywords on a page will not help the page’s overall SEO.

3. Share – It is crucial to add social sharing buttons to web pages, this allows users to easily share or bookmark pages of interest to them. The more users share and save a website’s content, the more relevant it will appear to search engines.

4. Keep it organized – A site full of clutter or duplicate content will not rank as user-friendly or relevant. It is recommended that site owners sort through the content on their sites and keep an organized list to prevent duplicate information or disorganized content.

These are just a few tips to get started improving SEO. More information can be found online, from a professional and through tools like Google Analytics.