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Every website has a purpose. Whether its
to "Build your Brand", "Provide product information to drive local or national
sales" or "Sell products or services directly over the internet", your website
must promote your business or interest in the best light possible. A poor
website design will not be spidered by the search engines and will not deliver
results.
We try to teach the KISS principle ( Keep It Simple
Stupid). You need your site to be simple to navigate, get the point across, use
pleasing graphics, colors and a slight bit of animation when needed. |
There are techniques of
website design that are not seen on the pages. These hidden tags ( Meta Tags )
are seen by search engines and are an integral part of any good website design.
Some people say that Meta Tags are not needed anymore, but do they really know
what the search engines will spider. I'd rather put them in, even if they're
not needed. I'll tell you more about this later.
Build your site with
these points in mind; "Organization", "Simple Navigation", "Attractive Look and
Feel" and "Very Focused Content Pages". So what does all of this mean?
Organization:
Have you ever gone to a website and couldn't figure out what it was all about?
Each of your web pages has a purpose. Putting your pages in organizational
groups will help your prospects find their information quickly and efficiently.
Don't breakup your content too much. A search engine spider reads from upper
left to lower right. The higher your most important information is, the better
your page will rank with the search engines but that's for later. Go to the
BEST SEO sites and see how they are organized. Look at what these people do.
They are in the business of search engine ranking and they should know what a
successful website design looks like. This site is pretty simple, isn't it and
although it's a new site, it will rank highly.
Simple Navigation: Easy to use, prominent
menus, help your prospects get to what they want fast without having to go
through page after page. If you use Java script menus, like those at the top of
the page, also use text links somewhere else to the same pages. Search engine
spiders can't read Java ( at least as I write this ) so you have to tell them
where to go with text links or a "sitemap". You should also include a "sitemap"
and call it that. A sitemap.htm is a webpage with a text link to each and every
page on your site along with a title and very short "keyword"
explanation.
Attractive Look
and Feel: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder! Soft, pleasing
colors work best on the internet. Bright, bold, screaming colors are not only
hard on the eyes but can actually portray your site as "aggressive". Don't use
really small text ( some search engines actually penalize you for small text )
and always use contrasting colors. Never "hide" text. Using the same color text
as the background ( which sounds silly but is a "Blackhat SEO technique" will
also get you penalized ). Make your site readable and people will stay longer
and actually read what you have to say. Imagine that!!!!! |
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Very
Focused Content Pages: There is a phrase in this business which
is "Content is King". The meaning of this is simple. Search engines can only
understand words. If your page is designed to sell "Widgets", you talk about
"Widgets" and nothing else. You want to give your prospects as much information
about "Widgets" as you can. This concept is the main ingredient in high
rankings on the search engines and must be incorporated in the design of your
website.
If you need e-commerce, we designed our e-commerce sites
around an excellent shopping cart provided by
Cyberstrong. Their
eShop cart is ASP based and has a multitude of options. It
has proven to be very reliable and can be easily customized by us to give your
website a great look. If you only sell a few items, use
PayPal. You can setup an
account very easily and they will give you the codes to use their simple
shopping cart or direct buttons. |
| If you're just getting started, use a WYSIWYG (
What You See Is What You Get ) HTML Editor program like
Coffee Cup
( inexpensive ) or
Dreamweaver ( expensive ). I personally use an old piece of
software called HotMetal Pro 6.0 which is no longer available but keep an eye
on
Ebay
and you might find one. |
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