Considering A WebSite Or Unhappy With The One You Have?

By Laura Symons

Considering a website or unhappy with the one you have?

Making the most of the World-Wide-Web from Services-WEB-Design

Part one - A website to generate new business

There was a time when a great website was measured by its content and design. Whilst these remain important factors time has moved on and competition has grown fierce.

Where HTML skills used to be all that was required today to be successful, delivering value to the client, is more about a deep understanding of how the World-Wide-Web actually works and more importantly how to compete.

But first as a potential client you need to know who is who. There is a difference between Web Designers and Web Developers. The first deals with the layout and design whilst the latter deals with integration of a website to back end services such as a database or internal transaction systems.

The Web Designers job is to translate your desire into a website. The key part of this is to understand the purpose of the proposed website:

1. Generate new business by attracting new clients
2. To sell goods and/or services (e-commerce)
3. Provide information to subscribers (such as a club)
4. Reference site or on-line brochure
5. Education

The design in each case will be very different:

1. Generate new business by attracting new clients

The design needs to be mean, lean and very simple. Every component needs to purposeful as well as attractive. The design strategy is concentrated on getting good page rankings so that your site is displayed within the top 10-20 "search engine" page results.

Think about how you find things on the web. If like me you think of a combination of words that describe what you are looking for and enter it into a search bar. Usually after a couple of refinements we get to what, or close enough, to what we are looking for.

The combinations of these words are called "Keywords". Search engines such as Google, MSN, Yahoo and ASK.com etc look for the sites based on Keywords that best match the users query. They then return a page or more listing sites that fit the query sorted by relevance and popularity. This called a "page rank".

Associating keywords with your proposed site is an essential part of the design. The designer must decide which keywords to suggest / use for your site before anything else.

Try this exercise using your preferred search engine:

Create a search using these words: "Restaurant"

At the time of writing this article I got 329,000,000 results

Repeat the exercise using:"Bristol Restaurant"

At the time of writing this article I got 1,800,000 results

Repeat the exercise one final time using: "Bristol Vegan restaurants"

At the time of writing this article I got 101,000 results

Why is this important? Well if you publish your new website based on "Restaurant" as your keyword you would enter the competition for a top 20 result spot at number 329,000,001st. Which, I am sure you will agree, is not a great place to start.

Whereas if we used "Bristol Vegan restaurants" with only 101,000 competitors the opportunity to get a top 20 spot is relatively easy, in web terms 101,000, to a good web designer.

In fact if you chose to call your website / business "bristol-vegan-restaurant" you would get the number one spot within 2-3 months just based on the name!

A good web designer should begin with the "keywords" to enable your website to potentially attain a top 20 position. This is required to generate new business by being seen by as many potential clients as possible.

But why does the site need to lean, mean and simple? Having got our "keyword/s" the website needs to be "search engine" friendly. Search engines crawl and index millions of web pages per hour. When it finds a page it automatically follows links found on the page to other pages or indeed other websites. This is big area of discussion and we will cover more further on.

To keep things simple, when a search engine finds a page it reads it from top left to bottom right. It assumes that the content it hits first ranks higher than those further down. With this knowledge the designer will ensure that the keywords are in prominent positions and will often insert HTML tags to define importance.

These tags are known as header tags, which run from H1 downwards. Using our example an H1 header tag would be given to our keywords "bristol vegan restaurant". The search engine will index these words with a higher priority than any others.

Meta tags are still useful, this is a page description that is not seen by a visitor to the site but is used by a search engine. The meta tag contains the keywords associated to each individual page and a general description which is displayed in the search results are. Meta tag descriptions must be less than 200 characters and the keywords must be relevant to the individual page.

Importantly each page of the website is indexed, over time, so every page is important and needs an individual address to attract page ranking.

Search engines do not index pictures, graphics or media, hence the need for simplicity, although it does look for alternate tags associated to pictures, graphics and media. The tag is a name given to the item to assist those who may be partially (or in the case of media item) totally blind for example. It is called an Alt tag as the image or media can be accessed and displayed by using the Alt key and an associated keyboard letter. Therefore, a good web designer will know and attach tags to these items.

However, simplicity, meaning mainly well organised text, is the key. The use of rich media may give your website a visual X factor but in terms of search engine ranking it works against you. Of course having said that it is something that can be added later once established.

Which brings us on to the other most critical factor for success. We talked earlier about how a search engine follows any links it finds on a web page. Links from external websites to your site is critically important. Search engines will take the view of your sites popularity not by the number of visits, but by the number of other sites linking to it.

Long term this is the only guaranteed way to ensure that your websites ranks highly in search results. They are called "back links". There are a number of organisations that will offer to provide back links to your site for a monthly fee. In principle this sounds great, in reality the search engines recognise these organisations as "link farms" and you and they risk being blocked by the search engines completely.

Links have to be relevant to your site. The best way to achieve this is by reciprocal links built up over a number of week, months and years.

In my next article I will cover back link strategies, website marketing and advertising as well as moving on to the next topic of e-commerce.

You can download more articles and sign up for new articles directly from the Services WEB Design website

Laura is the chief editor at Services WEB Design.

We provide a complete solution for new to the web clients and those clients who are unhappy with their existing websites performance. More articles are available on our site and you can subscribe to receive future articles Visit http://services-web-design.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Laura_Symons
http://EzineArticles.com/?Considering-A-Web-Site-Or-Unhappy-With-The-One-You-Have?&id=429974

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	Free Website Design Templates view actual page \| download view actual page \| download view actual page \| download Considering A WebSite Or Unhappy With The One You Have? By Laura Symons Considering a website or unhappy with the one you have? Making the most of the World-Wide-Web from Services-WEB-Design Part one - A website to generate new business There was a time when a great website was measured by its content and design. Whilst these remain important factors time has moved on and competition has grown fierce. Where HTML skills used to be all that was required today to be successful, delivering value to the client, is more about a deep understanding of how the World-Wide-Web actually works and more importantly how to compete. But first as a potential client you need to know who is who. There is a difference between Web Designers and Web Developers. The first deals with the layout and design whilst the latter deals with integration of a website to back end services such as a database or internal transaction systems. The Web Designers job is to translate your desire into a website. The key part of this is to understand the purpose of the proposed website: 1. Generate new business by attracting new clients 2. To sell goods and/or services (e-commerce) 3. Provide information to subscribers (such as a club) 4. Reference site or on-line brochure 5. Education The design in each case will be very different: 1. Generate new business by attracting new clients The design needs to be mean, lean and very simple. Every component needs to purposeful as well as attractive. The design strategy is concentrated on getting good page rankings so that your site is displayed within the top 10-20 "search engine" page results. Think about how you find things on the web. If like me you think of a combination of words that describe what you are looking for and enter it into a search bar. Usually after a couple of refinements we get to what, or close enough, to what we are looking for. The combinations of these words are called "Keywords". Search engines such as Google, MSN, Yahoo and ASK.com etc look for the sites based on Keywords that best match the users query. They then return a page or more listing sites that fit the query sorted by relevance and popularity. This called a "page rank". Associating keywords with your proposed site is an essential part of the design. The designer must decide which keywords to suggest / use for your site before anything else. Try this exercise using your preferred search engine: Create a search using these words: "Restaurant" At the time of writing this article I got 329,000,000 results Repeat the exercise using:"Bristol Restaurant" At the time of writing this article I got 1,800,000 results Repeat the exercise one final time using: "Bristol Vegan restaurants" At the time of writing this article I got 101,000 results Why is this important? Well if you publish your new website based on "Restaurant" as your keyword you would enter the competition for a top 20 result spot at number 329,000,001st. Which, I am sure you will agree, is not a great place to start. Whereas if we used "Bristol Vegan restaurants" with only 101,000 competitors the opportunity to get a top 20 spot is relatively easy, in web terms 101,000, to a good web designer. In fact if you chose to call your website / business "bristol-vegan-restaurant" you would get the number one spot within 2-3 months just based on the name! A good web designer should begin with the "keywords" to enable your website to potentially attain a top 20 position. This is required to generate new business by being seen by as many potential clients as possible. But why does the site need to lean, mean and simple? Having got our "keyword/s" the website needs to be "search engine" friendly. Search engines crawl and index millions of web pages per hour. When it finds a page it automatically follows links found on the page to other pages or indeed other websites. This is big area of discussion and we will cover more further on. To keep things simple, when a search engine finds a page it reads it from top left to bottom right. It assumes that the content it hits first ranks higher than those further down. With this knowledge the designer will ensure that the keywords are in prominent positions and will often insert HTML tags to define importance. These tags are known as header tags, which run from H1 downwards. Using our example an H1 header tag would be given to our keywords "bristol vegan restaurant". The search engine will index these words with a higher priority than any others. Meta tags are still useful, this is a page description that is not seen by a visitor to the site but is used by a search engine. The meta tag contains the keywords associated to each individual page and a general description which is displayed in the search results are. Meta tag descriptions must be less than 200 characters and the keywords must be relevant to the individual page. Importantly each page of the website is indexed, over time, so every page is important and needs an individual address to attract page ranking. Search engines do not index pictures, graphics or media, hence the need for simplicity, although it does look for alternate tags associated to pictures, graphics and media. The tag is a name given to the item to assist those who may be partially (or in the case of media item) totally blind for example. It is called an Alt tag as the image or media can be accessed and displayed by using the Alt key and an associated keyboard letter. Therefore, a good web designer will know and attach tags to these items. However, simplicity, meaning mainly well organised text, is the key. The use of rich media may give your website a visual X factor but in terms of search engine ranking it works against you. Of course having said that it is something that can be added later once established. Which brings us on to the other most critical factor for success. We talked earlier about how a search engine follows any links it finds on a web page. Links from external websites to your site is critically important. Search engines will take the view of your sites popularity not by the number of visits, but by the number of other sites linking to it. Long term this is the only guaranteed way to ensure that your websites ranks highly in search results. They are called "back links". There are a number of organisations that will offer to provide back links to your site for a monthly fee. In principle this sounds great, in reality the search engines recognise these organisations as "link farms" and you and they risk being blocked by the search engines completely. Links have to be relevant to your site. The best way to achieve this is by reciprocal links built up over a number of week, months and years. In my next article I will cover back link strategies, website marketing and advertising as well as moving on to the next topic of e-commerce. You can download more articles and sign up for new articles directly from the Services WEB Design website Laura is the chief editor at Services WEB Design. We provide a complete solution for new to the web clients and those clients who are unhappy with their existing websites performance. More articles are available on our site and you can subscribe to receive future articles Visit http://services-web-design.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Laura_Symons http://EzineArticles.com/?Considering-A-Web-Site-Or-Unhappy-With-The-One-You-Have?&id=429974 More Web Site Design Articles: 8 Specific Ways to Avoid Common Web Design Mistakes Handy Hints For Web Designers How to Create a Website - The Basics Website Design Tips For Site Appearance Your Website Layout The Basic Skills Needed to Become a Web Designer - Simple Programs You Can Teach Yourself XHTML Equals to Browser Compatibility Information About Web Design Training You Can Have a Bright Career in Web Design Taking Your First Steps Toward Creating a Personal Website Inspiring Designs For Your Website How to Design a Successful Website - A Practical Guide! 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