In the world we inhabit design impacts behavior, and those who understand how to impact behavior adjust their designs accordingly. According to Dr. B.J. Fogg, three elements must come together at the same time in order for a desired behavior to occur. These three elements are motivation, ability and trigger. Should the desired behavior not occur, you can assume one of the three elements was not present.

How, you might ask, do these three elements of behavior relate to your legal website? Well, presumably the goal of your law firm’s website is to achieve maximum conversion. You want visitors to your website to receive something of value and, in turn, become a client. You want your visitors to be highly motivated to call your office and set up an appointment, you want that action to be easily accomplished and you want a trigger in place that prompts that behavior.

Motivation

Looking at the three elements separately, let’s consider motivation. In most cases you can presume that your visitor already has a certain amount of motivation to come to your website. After all, few people browse legal websites with no goal in mind. Most people who click on a legal website have a particular problem which they need an attorney’s help with; they are motivated to find the help they need. Your use of an effective design, layout and sales copy can certainly boost motivation, but it is nearly impossible to create motivation in this instance artificially.

Although there are many motivators, hope and fear are possibly the two most likely to bring visitors to your website. If the person has been arrested or a family member has been arrested, then they are fearful for the future. Hope is where your website comes in. You must offer both high-quality information as well as hope that you can use your legal skills to increase the odds of a positive future.

Ability

Next comes ability which is essentially whether the task at hand is easy for the person to accomplish. In other words, if you want your visitors to sign up for your weekly legal newsletter yet it takes filling out a long form to do so, you have made the task difficult—and in most cases any level of difficulty on the Internet causes visitors to hit the back button and seek out a more user-friendly website. Motivation is simply not enough when you are looking for conversions. It’s more effective to make the task easier to accomplish rather than artificially attempting to increase motivation. Simplicity is key for your legal website; it can be very professionally and well-designed while still being simple for the average user to navigate.

Trigger

Finally comes the trigger—if there is no appropriate trigger the desired behavior will simply not occur even if motivation and ability are firmly in place. The trigger is what causes human beings to take action, so your call to action on your website is a trigger. Watch the content of your trigger carefully and remember that the trigger must proceed in small, easy-to-accomplish steps rather that a blaring “hire me now” button. When the three elements come together beautifully you likely have a highly experienced website designer to thank! 

Finding a Web Designer Who Understands Lawyer Websites

We are experts in lawyer website design and would appreciate the opportunity to discuss highly successful strategies for your legal website. When you call you will speak with a knowledgeable consultant rather than a sales rep. Call (800) 877-2776 today for your free consultation.

When designing a new legal website it’s difficult to prevent your own feelings about color and design from creeping into the picture, however color is an extremely important element which should be carefully considered. As a matter of fact, color could very well be the most important element in your overall design. As you know, the Internet is very much a visual medium. In order to get your message across in the very best way possible, take a few moments to consider your color scheme.

We have all heard that the color red is an attention-getter, green reflects nature, blue is calming and reflects trustworthiness and yellow is a happy, fun color and on down the line of colors.  Further, our society associates certain colors with specific genders such as pink for girls and blue for boys. While you don’t have to choose your color scheme based entirely on the psychological effect of colors on human responses and choices, you should at the very least determine your ultimate goals and use colors accordingly to achieve those goals.

Identifying Your Target Market

It’s extremely important that you be able to identify your target market when considering colors for your legal website. Different colors will appeal to different markets; men tend to prefer different colors than women, some colors are much more appropriate to a professional business than an ice cream shop and children will generally prefer the bright primary colors. Research indicates that well-educated people will usually prefer the blended colors such as blue-green, blue-violet, red-violet, yellow-green, yellow-orange and red-orange (known as tertiary colors).

The less educated will often prefer simpler primary and secondary colors. In the same vein, wealthier people will often choose more complex and sophisticated colors while the working class or blue collar workers tend to prefer bright, warm primary colors and the secondary colors of the rainbow. Those in the 65 and over crowd generally identify yellow as their least favorite color and prefer clean, clear colors such as fresh blues, pinks and greens. This age group is  more comfortable with calmer, muted colors. If you are going for a solid business/professional look, the more serious your business, the darker the colors such as dark blue, dark green, dark red, dark indigo, black and gray. Using these colors takes design know-how, however, to avoid having your website look excessively funereal.

The Many Ways Colors are Implemented

Not only will you have to choose an overall color scheme for your legal website, you will also need to choose the best colors for text, links, background and images. Using red in places you want action to be taken could be a good idea as well as in areas which are directing your visitors around your website. Links are generally blue which is smart, since the color suggests credibility. White is almost always the best choice for background text color as it provides the highest level of readability. Pastel colors could also work as a text background in some businesses, but possibly not for a law firm.

Whatever you do, don’t try to throw in a little of every color in hopes you will appeal to every demographic—all you will do is create a look of chaos. Keep your site simple and limit the number of colors you use to make it aesthetically pleasing to your visitors. For assistance determining the best colors for your website, call (800) 877-2776 for your free consultation from experts in lawyer website design. We have extensive experience specifically in lawyer website design. You will never speak with a sales representative but will always talk directly to a highly experienced consultant. Call today!

It is likely that the entire purpose of your legal website is to draw in new clients, thus increasing your annual revenues. The question is whether your site is fully optimized to support that goal? There are several factors which can have significant bearing on your site’s ability to generate conversions and most of them are very simple to implement if you haven’t already done so.

Access to Your Firm

Even though we are deep into the Internet, that doesn’t mean that telephones are not frequently used, particularly among those in an older age bracket who may be more comfortable with actually hearing a real voice on the other end of the line. Where is your telephone number positioned on your site? Experts say the number should always be on the top right hand corner and on every single page of your site if you want to reap maximum benefits from it. You want to both make it extremely simple for potential clients to contact you as well as building trust. Even in the digital age an old-fashioned chat with a potential client can often make all the difference, so keep your phone number prominently displayed for maximum sales.

Ease of Navigation

If your legal website is not easy to navigate, you will lose potential clients before you even get started. Is it readily apparent from the moment a visitor lands on your site what you do and who you are? Are your legal specialties prominently displayed? Your navigation should make it extremely easy to get from one place to another and should include trust-building pages such as “About Us,” and “Contact Us.” Your navigation pages should be more than an outline of your available web pages, and it could be helpful to list your specialties in the main navigation rather than under the services page. Speak to what your clients are looking for and make everything quick and easy to find.

Be Clear About Your Message

What makes your law firm the better choice for a potential client that your competition? While you certainly know the answer to that question, have you effectively communicated it thoroughly to visitors? It’s important to be perfectly clear about what services you are offering as well as what your clients are looking for. Take a look at your home page and give it an honest critique—does it fully represent who your firm is and what you stand for? If you are not absolutely sure about the answer to that question, then you must determine what your message is, say it out loud, then put it into the form of a concise, well-presented home page.

Strong Call to Action Within a Brilliant Design

Have you made it extremely simple for potential clients to utilize your legal services? In other words, even if they fully understand your message, are they clear about what to do next? It’s very important that you have a strong call to action message with a defined process which offers a simple path for your visitors. And supposing your call to action is right where it should be but it doesn’t seem to be doing its assigned job? Take a look at what is surrounding that call to action—if you see a web presence which is dated or dull, then it is unlikely your potential clients will hang around to read your content, no matter how interesting or compelling it. Because the world of web design is ever-changing and evolving, it’s imperative that you keep up with those changes to avoid having your website look tired and uninteresting.

Through the years we periodically hear murmurings that “SEO is dead.” In the end, nothing will kill SEO, yet many people have a deep dislike of the term largely because they misunderstand what SEO is all about. While it is true that website owners should ensure their content is friendly both to search engines and to regular human beings search engines remain the primary way people look for websites albeit not the only way. Websites are found in some cases through word-of-mouth, traditional advertising, web directories or links from other sites.

In some instances these less traditional methods of site location can be at least as effective as search engines. While websites will always have to concentrate on search engine optimization—ensuring the site is as relevant as possible—remember that search engines are fickle creatures that you should never totally build your business around.  Think about what happens nearly every time Google makes major changes to its algorithms—many sites which were doing great suddenly lose high quantities of traffic.

Coming Through Google’s Changes Unscathed

Despite the frustration felt every time Google releases Pandas or Penguins there remain lots of sites, both large and small, start-ups and the well-established which have done quite well with search engine optimization. While some experts believe that SEO is not a viable marketing strategy for start-ups due to their small budgets and unwillingness to engage in any black-hat SEO tactics, there are plenty of start-ups and small sites which get large chunks of their visitors through SEO and that have come through Google’s changes relatively unscathed. The trick is to remember that SEO is a piece of the puzzle in the marketing mix, not the only piece.  SEO is not about tricking search engines or ruining great web design, rather it is about building great content, understanding all the ways your visitors might attempt to find your site, and making sure your content is both search-engine friendly as well as human being friendly.

Tips for Increasing Your SEO

So long as you remember a few key SEO factors it will continue to serve you well, remaining a very viable marketing strategy. You must first realize that SEO is not a one-time event, rather something you must commit yourself to. Keeping up with the changes in search engine algorithms is important because what worked last year might not work so well this year. You must be in it for the long haul, and put in the time it takes to keep up with changing SEO tactics and search engine algorithms.

It takes considerable patience to be successful with SEO since results can sometimes take months to become obvious, particularly for those with a brand-new online presence. Using Google Analytics or a comparable analytics software will help you track what is working and what is not, so get on board early on. Always include a site map page for your legal website since search engine spiders can’t index pages they can’t crawl. A comprehensive site map allows the most important pages on your site to be found

Ensure you have a unique yet relevant title and meta description on every single page of your website. Many experts feel that the page title may well be the most important on-page SEO factor in your entire site. While the metal tag doesn’t necessarily improve your rank, it often appears below your listing so should be comprised of relevant keywords. While you need the blessing of the search engines in order to have a successful site you should nonetheless write for your users first and the search engines second. Sites that are built only around what the search engines want may not be particularly user-friendly for your humans—the ones who actually buy your product or use your services. Search engines love blogs, so make sure your law firm has jumped onto the legal blog bandwagon to increase your exposure and help you garner new links. In the end, SEO will likely never die and will remain a very viable marketing strategy for a long time to come so long as you remember to remember your living, breathing users as well.

As you may—or may not—have noticed, Google introduced their latest algorithm changes on April 24, 2012, nicknamed the Penguin. Then on May 26^th, Google announced a “data refresh” for the Penguin. The latest algorithm is said to be aimed primarily at web spam and any sites which Google feels are violating its quality guidelines.  When the initial Penguin came out Google stated that anyone who had been “hit” by the changes had been penalized, yet many sites which did not appear to be spamming in any way nevertheless suffered serious drops in traffic. Experts feel that the sites which saw a drop in traffic with absolutely no black hat SEO techniques going on were not actually penalized they merely failed to receive the same amount of credit as before since other sites were being penalized. While this doesn’t appear to make too much sense to those who faithfully follow Google’s stated guidelines, it could actually take a bit of time for the dust to settle, allowing you to see where your site stands.

How Do I Know If My Site Was Hit?

According to Google, there is no way to definitely know if your site has been slapped by the Penguin. If you noticed a major drop in traffic soon after the April 24^th, you can figure you were probably hit. In the same vein, if you saw a rise in traffic, then it’s likely you benefitted from the update. However, there is a caveat here: On April 19^th, Google also released an update to the Panda algorithm—while Penguin is targeting spam, Panda simply targets any pages which may not be spam, but are definitely poor quality.  Take a hard look at your Google Analytics or any other program you use which analyzes your site’s traffic, looking closely at the dates. You should be able to determine whether you suffered a serious hit, benefitted, or saw relatively little change at all as well as whether the changes came from the Panda or the Penguin.

I Was Hit—Now What?

Since the Penguin was primarily targeting spam, you must remove anything that even hints of spam. Google may have flagged what they consider spam on your site and sent messages—if so, take their recommendations and make the changes immediately. If you’ve received no notices, then take a painstakingly careful look at your entire site. Is there any duplicate content at all? Have you engaged in any sort of low-quality article marketing or blog spam? Do the internal/outbound links on your firm’s pages indicate any type of keyword stuffing? Additionally, take a look at the following areas:

• Have you recently launched a very aggressive SEO campaign?
• Have you kept your most relevant content properly above the fold?
• Is your site slow as molasses in loading?

Any one of these issues can get your site penalized, so you will want to ensure your website is following all the guidelines and not engaging in sort of black hat SEO techniques.

Making SEO Work for You

Google believes that you can use SEO effectively in a positive and constructive manner to make your site more easily crawled and more accessible. Make sure you’ve done your keyword research rather than simply inserting your legal industry jargon here and there.  Anything which lends credibility to your site as well as making it more compelling will help you with SEO as well as with social media. If you have cleaned up your site of anything even resembling spam, and consistently publish only high-quality content, there is little to worry about from Google’s latest changes or the ones to come.

By now it’s a sure bet that you are well aware of the necessity of publishing only the highest quality content on your legal website. Your content must be interesting, compelling, and must give the reader something of value. When your company engages in content strategy, however, it goes a bit beyond the words on the page and encompasses the challenges all sites face from web pages, mobile apps, print materials and social media. You want to ensure that all your efforts to publish only the highest quality content are paying off for your business as well as to your visitors—the ones you hope will eventually become clients. It’s easy to find your site has gotten bogged down in strategy issues, and although most of these mistakes can be relatively easy to correct, you must make it a priority or your site will take a hit.

Reacting Without Planning

While it can sometimes feel that you are on an endless treadmill where your content is concerned, simply trying your best to keep up with your firms brand campaigns, projects and new services, it’s important that you do more than simply react to all the demands being thrown at you. Of course you also must respond to user requests as well as staying up with and responding appropriately to your competitor’s actions. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, so take a deep breath, sit down with your team, and actually map out a strategy which allows you to plan your content for the future of your firm. You will always be busy—probably excessively busy—but a plan can keep you from getting behind and shifting into reaction mode. Remember to involve all those in your organization who are a part of the content process otherwise tasks will be duplicated and there will be an overall lack of quality control.

Expecting Miracles

Of course the content on your pages is extremely valuable to your firm and to your potential clients however it can be difficult to show that value as a clear return on investment. Of course you—and every other website owner—want a fast, indisputable manner to determine whether the investment in content is worth the effort. Determining your content’s ROI is much more complex, and requires both your time and effort. You must first define exactly what it is you expect your content to achieve then ask yourself whether those goals are being met. What is that particular achievement worth to your firm?

Add in the cost to your firm of creating the content and regular maintenance of the content and calculate the final cost, although it’s unlikely you will come up with an absolute number since evaluating content is a bit subjective. Measuring your content with an analytics program alone will never give you the complete picture of how your content is doing, so think about asking your peers or external content experts to give you an evaluation of your site’s content. Most experts believe that every hour you spend in analysis of your site will save many, many more hours of content creation, delivery and maintenance.

Focusing on Quantity Rather Than Quality

Yes, you should post often, particularly if you have a legal blog. It’s extremely important to keep your content fresh if you want your clients to keep returning for more, however don’t fall into the trap of believing that publishing anything—so long as you publish often—is  better than publishing nothing. This is simply not true. First, more content obviously costs more to create, takes more time for maintenance and can actually subject your users to information overload. Scale back and ensure each and every piece of content you publish is first and foremost high-quality information that your users will find highly relevant. Then ask yourself if each particular block of content supports one of your firm’s primary business objectives, if it fills a distinct need of your readers, and if there is a person available to maintain it. The content which survives these rules will, in the end, be much more valuable than content posted simply to post. Plan wisely for every piece of your site’s content, then keep planning—remember why your user is interacting with your site in the first place, and never underestimate the power of your content.

When you have made the decision to have a website designed for your firm—or even if you have an existing site—having a solid strategy for your website design can help you stay on track, ensuring your site tells the story you envision. If you have actually worked with all those involved and have determined a web design strategy that you can easily articulate and write down on paper, then you will have no doubts that everyone is on the same page once you begin implementing that plan. Of course as your site evolves, this web design strategy may change, however you will always need to be able to put that strategy down on paper and have all key players agree to its implementation. Don’t have a clue how to best articulate your design strategy? Below you will find some tips for doing just that. Your design strategy doesn’t have to be a fifty-page dissertation, rather just a couple of well-defined pages.

• First and foremost, what is the purpose of your site, or why does it exist. You should be able to write the purpose of your site, or its goal, in three to four succinct sentences. You want every person in your firm to be able not only to remember the goal but to repeat it if necessary, therefore it should be highly strategic, short, and to the point.
• Second, put down on your paper a side-by-side analysis of all your problems and their potential solutions. In other words, perhaps your website has had its struggles with redundant content. That’s your problem, so you must now define a workable solution, which could be something as simple as choosing a highly experienced legal web writer who can provide authoritative content, or blocking out the time to write your own content.
• Work hard at developing your brand, and consider using your tagline to further that goal. Your tagline is your firm’s opportunity to tie everything together with a phrase your potential clients will find highly memorable. Brainstorming with others in your firm can lead to an exceptional tagline that will help your brand come together and solidify for your readers.
• Do you have a clear view of who your firm’s audience is? Consider writing up a “profile” of your average visitor as well as another of the visitors you would like to attract in the future. Use your analytics program to determine where visitors go on your site as well as what they are searching for, and bend your web design to fit these needs and preferences.
• Define your tasks then prioritize them. Once you’ve clearly defined your target audience, consider what content and services your site offers them and ask yourself if that content and those services are fully meeting your user’s needs. Whether you are talking about editorial content or instructional content see what the majority of your readers are looking at then add new, fresh content in that area and retire the content that doesn’t appear to be working.

Further Benefits of a Web Design Strategy

A clearly defined web design strategy can provide an historical reference point for your entire site, and supports accountability since all the elements of your design become traceable.  A web design strategy ensures everyone involved is on the same page and that your business tactics are a result of strategy rather than a gut reaction. Once you’ve stated your web design strategy, you can essentially quit talking about it, allowing you to get down to the job at hand and prioritize the workload. Your web design strategy can actually tell a compelling story of what your site will accomplish and why it matters, leading you straight into success.

It’s easy to find yourself in a panicked tailspin when you look at your ranking one day find you’ve taken a Google algorithm update hit and fallen off your treasured first page. It’s equally important not to have a knee-jerk reaction, rather to look at the situation calmly and analytically. First of all find out whether your site has been penalized, and a drop in rankings does not always answer this question. There are ways to determine if your site has suffered a Google penalty; first, compare your rankings to those of your closest competitors to determine whether they too have dropped or if it is only your firm’s site.

Your location can affect your rankings, so have others check your ranking as well. Make sure you stay up with Google’s Panda, Penguin and any other algorithm changes that are implemented. In general, issues that will result in being penalized include keyword stuffing, publishing duplicate content, paid links or questionable links. Not only should you keep up with algorithm updates, you should also keep a log of all changes made to your site. If you keep up with your analytics, your changes and Google’s changes you should be able to get a pretty fair idea of why your ratings have dropped.

Specific Issues to Take a Look At

In some instances a drop in page rank can be directly tied to one or more links to your site which have been removed and which formerly provided a substantial amount of PageRank. Since pages with low or medium-level PageRank tend to get most of their strength from a relatively small number of links, losing even one of them can cause significant impact. Next, ask yourself how “old” your site is. If it is less than six months old, it could have benefitted from Google’s help for new sites so they can be more easily found by users. Unfortunately that assistance generally only lasts about six month, and if you have not engaged in a solid link-building program during that time, you may find that the honeymoon is over and your rankings have taken a hit.

Violating Guidelines

The search engines are punishing offenders more quickly when their guidelines are obviously being violated. Hidden text is one trick that can get you in serious hot water with the search engines, causing your rankings to slide. Never hide any text by making it the same color as the background of your page and never stuff keywords on your page in a way that only search engines will see them. Both are serious no-no’s and you will pay for the violation. Next, ensure you have no “thin” content on your pages. Your goal is always first and foremost to offer exceptionally high-quality content which brings something of value to your readers. In other words it is both informative and compelling, and updated frequently.

Google has also begun penalizing sites which show a high ratio of advertising to content and those which show a significant amount of white space above the fold, meaning users must scroll down to get the most important information. Google’s goal is to enhance the user experience, and if they feel you are not assisting them with that goal your rankings will suffer. Never have multiple domain names which point to the same site—although it makes sense that this tactic would increase your rankings, quite the opposite is true and will trigger the search engine’s methods for filtering duplicate content.

Broken links, problems accessing your site, a site with a slow response, error codes and any form of duplicate content will also lead to a drop in page rankings so take the time to look carefully at your website and change any issue which is causing your site to suffer a drop in rankings.

You may not think of the content on your website as storytelling in any way, shape or form. After all, legal websites are serious in nature and provide a distinct service, generally to those who find themselves in hot water of some kind, desperately needing the services of an attorney. Even the word, “storytelling,” is more likely to bring up memories of telling scary stories around the campfire, or listening to your grandfather talk about his early life. Storytelling, by its very nature, leaves an impact on those who hear the story. This impact is a direct result of human nature which makes us to relate what we do and who we are to the stories we hear. Storytelling is an interaction with an audience which can sway them to make specific purchases or decisions, and, after all, isn’t that what the goal of your legal website is as well? So, within the context of a legal website, how do you tell a great story, offering a bridge of sorts between you and your audience which clearly differentiates your firm from the competition?

The Components of a Great Story

In the end, storytelling is an art and as such it requires structure, process and thought in order to deliver your intended message to your target audience. If you do any amount of reading, you know that great stories have a specific structure which effectively brings your reader on a journey that has the ability to change or transform. While this sounds extreme for the application, remember that every single decision we make every day involves our emotions. Decision making has a specific format and is relatable by others just like storytelling.  Once you’ve determined the structure of your story, you will have to follow some relatively simple steps to ensure the creation and delivery.

• Your story must first achieve the goals of your business, and must clearly communicate your highly focused message.
• If you don’t have a solid grasp of your targeted audience, then your story cannot possible be effective.
• Experiences and moments which are captured within your story will engage the emotions of your readers and give it meaning.
• You always want to ignite a reaction among your readers, meaning you have engaged their emotions. You must develop a voice during your storytelling, have a clear opinion and take a position if you want your readers to commit to your story.

Unfortunately, many brands tend to say the same thing as their competitors, particularly in the legal profession. Take a critical look at your site and try to find what sets you apart, what makes your firm unique and special and whether that is clearly communicated to your readers. If not, it’s time for a major overhaul. When users land on your site, they must have an almost immediate sense of what your firm is all about, how you will help them solve their immediate problem, and why they should choose your firm over another.

Since the average user spends from 5-10 seconds determining whether or not they want to remain on a website, your window of opportunity is incredibly small. You must “hook” your user almost immediately with a fabulous web design, compelling headlines which tell your reader there is something of value here, and a uniqueness that is instantaneous to your reader. In short, great stories are literally the backbone and the DNA of your brand, so reconnect and bring them to the surface. An engaging story will literally make the difference between success and failure for your legal website so ensure you are giving your users what they need and want.

In some recent task-testing it was found that a whopping seventy percent started their task by clicking on a link while the remaining thirty percent used search. What this tells all website owners is that while it will always be important to have great search engine optimization, the underlying navigation could be even more critical. If you are someone who almost always types your search query in—like me—you may wonder who out there is using links instead. Well, the fact is that it is both easier and faster to click on a link than it is to type in your own search query. And so long as you have a page of links that appears well-organized and reasonably named, then clicking on a link makes sense. Unfortunately, there are scores of links that are just downright confusingly named.

When Links Fail

For instance if you were looking for a specific type of keyboard you might not be too inclined to click on a link labeled “electronics.”  In fact, that’s exactly where you would want to go if you wanted to look for that keyboard on Amazon. With most of us, the more words you see in the link which correspond to those floating around in your head, the more apt you are to click the link. After all, we as a society are incredibly busy and want what we want in the quickest way possible—including information. What does this mean for you and your legal website? Well, just because Google exists, you can’t take it for granted that it will bring your users directly to your site, particularly if you have a site which is poorly organized. The question that must be answered is whether web users will even bother to go to homepages and attempt to decipher each site’s navigation or will they simply rely more and more on Google to tell them where they want to go.

Making Each Page Count

Think about this—when users arrive at whatever page on your site Google sends them to, their impression and belief is that this page fully encompasses everything on your site.  In other words, when users land on a page within your site, they have usually been directed there through a search query or because someone else has told them to read something specific on your site. What this should tell you immediately is that every single page of your website must be stellar—you can’t simply have a great homepage, then let the rest of your site slide into the mediocre category.

You must look at every single page as though this is the only page your readers will see then ask yourself how those readers will view your law firm after looking at that particular page. Further, if you want your users to see your other stellar pages, you must ensure your site has extremely clear menus and links which allow them to easily navigate throughout your website. Unless you’ve provided the type of navigation and content features such as related articles and comments, you have limited the ability of your readers to access more content on your site. And let’s face it—those readers who are unable to easily find more great content will likely move on to other sites.

Navigation and Search Must Work Together

In the end, navigation and search are impossibly intertwined and your goal is to ensure they are both the absolute best they can be. To become more visible via a search query, concentrate on highly effective titles for your content which can greatly boost your ability to be found. Think of the search engines like a giant library index and it will make much more sense when you are titling articles. Work hard to provide fresh, original content often that others will naturally link to and provide your users with multiple search access points within each article and you will be on your way to improving your PageRank and helping users find your site—then stay there.