Is your economic development website optimized for the best performance and greatest impact? Here are 5 tips to help maximize your website performance and make your site work harder for you.

1. 5 Tips to Optimize Your
Economic Development Website

2. Simply “existing” online is not enough
in today’s digital age…

3. Is your economic development website optimized
for the best performance and greatest impact?

4. Here are some steps you can take to help
your website stand out from the pack…

5. TIP #1: PROVIDE TARGETED CONTENT
• Carefully consider your audience and craft your
content to cater to their needs
• Find keywords, data, infographics, information, etc.
that they are searching for
• Write what they want to read - not what you want to
write

6. TIP #2: INTEGRATE IMPORTANT KEYWORDS
• Weave descriptive keywords into your website copy
to grab the attention of web visitors and search engines
• Choose more unique keywords over more general
keywords
• Add keywords into copy, headers, image descriptions,
and meta-descriptions for the biggest impact

7. TIP #3: USE IMAGES
• People process visual information 60,000 times faster
than written information
• Images can help communicate your story to readers
quickly
• People don’t read big blocks of text anymore – it is all
about “scanability”

8. TIP #4: SIMPLIFY YOUR CONTENT
• Shorten everything you can while keeping your concise
messaging
• Use bullet points and short paragraphs to communicate
information to readers
• Visitors stay on a page for an average of 15 seconds – make sure
to communicate your written message in that time, or it may be
missed

9. TIP #5: ADD SOCIAL SHARING BUTTONS
• Spread your visibility across channels by adding social sharing
buttons
• Add to all types of content: blogs, presentations, offers,
infographics, etc.
• Social sharing buttons help get your visitors engaged with your
content and community

10. LEARN MORE
• To read more about this topic, click here!
• Websites as Lead Generation Tools
• 3 Things You Can Do to Get Your Website Mobile Ready
• Become certified in Digital Economic Development with
Community Systems’ Digital EDU Training Program