by Tony Gonzalez
January 6, 2012 1:19 PM
The Internet has become the 'go to' place for information of all kinds. Using the Internet is faster and provides more information than hunting through ads in a newspaper or the yellow pages in a phonebook when looking for a storage unit to rent.
As the owner of a self storage business, the goal of your webpage should be to convert site visitors into customers. You need to give them as much information as possible so they will be convinced to rent a unit from your storage facility.
Whether you create your own webpage or you have someone else design it, there are five things that you need to keep in mind.
Look and feel. The look and feel of a website refers to how it looks and the feeling that people get when they see it. It should look crisp, clean and professional. White is a professional looking color so incorporate that into your color scheme. Avoid a black background, fluorescent or neon colors, pastel colored fonts, and animated icons. These are not professional and are hard on the eyes of the reader.
Clarity. Is the content easy to read and understand? Are your policies on hours of access, sizes of your units, specialty features and services, renting and making late payments clear? If not, you might want to consider hiring a writer to help you improve the clarity of the content of your pages. You might have paid a company to professionally design your website but did they have a professional writer write the content? Sometimes web designers are great at web design but lousy at writing content.
Consistent navigation. Is the navigation consistent from page to page? Is it always in the same spot? Two of the most common places for a navigation bar are along the top of the page and down the left-hand side. Don't make your prospective customers hunt around to find your navigation. The navigation on the first page should be consistently followed on all of your other pages in your website.
Meta tags. Meta tags are parts of the code that search engines index so that people can easily find your page. Spend a few minutes thinking about the words that people might use to search when looking for a storage facility. Then, put them in the meta tags. You should also include the words storage, self storage and/or mini storage. Also include the name of your business, your city and state,
Online reservations and payments. Being able to take online reservations or make online payments requires sophisticated programing. This programming is more expensive than just having a simple site with only information. However, it makes it much easier for people to rent from you and make payments. If you don't have this feature on your website, I highly recommend that you seriously consider adding it.