Sandhill Website Design

Using Analytics For Content Ideas

Anne — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 04:43:40 +0000

Today I met with a client to review the Google Analytics on her website. For a relatively new site (less than a month old at this point) it’s getting some decent traffic.

But, truth be told, a bit of that traffic comes from redirect traffic from her old domain name (about 10%). And, yes, I excluded my IP address from visitor traffic stats, so traffic from my computer wasn’t be factored in– something you want to avoid as the designer of a site that you visit repeatedly day after day.

I went over some of the statistics that were being tracked already. A bounce rate of 36% and an average time on site of almost 3:30 minutes are really good numbers to start with.

Then we looked at keywords that were bringing people to her site. No surprise that the large majority was coming from the keyword that is her name. I attribute that to her being in the business on writing and speaking of veterinary medicine issues (mostly human resources and compassion fatigue) for a few years now and has built up quite a bit of “brand awareness” for her name.

But, paging further down the list of keywords in Analytics revealed that there was a handful of keywords that lead to people immediately leaving the site. So, initially, Google ranked her site well (or good enough) on a particular keyword, but the person decided the page really didn’t have the information they were looking for.

Then, a light went on for me. (If someone else on the Net has proposed this idea I apologize for “stealing” it, but to my knowledge I don’t think I’ve read this anywhere. If this idea IS out there somewhere please leave a comment here and I’ll get back to you.)

These particular keywords would make great fodder for future content pages or blog posts. If someone was searching for something like “human resources management veterinary practice”, found her site, but immediately bounced, well that would make a pretty good keyword for future content.

Sure, so far only one person searched for the term “human resources management veterinary practice”, but her site is very young and there’s bound to be more people searching on related keywords in the coming months and years. So, getting that focused content written and on the site now will pay dividends down the road.

So, take a closer look at your traffic sources by keyword in your Analytics (you are running it the background, right?) and I’ll bet you can find a handful of these such keywords. Ones that produced a high bounce rate. You just found some great ideas for content!

Best Website Design Software

Anne — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:20:20 +0000

Saying what might be the best website design software is like picking the best football team. Everybody has their favorite. And everybody has a list of reasons why theirs is the best.

You should first ask yourself what you want your website to do. Let’s see if your reason might fit in here:

I’d like a website to get my business more customers (like a brick and mortar store).
I’d like to sell things with a website (like hard goods or digital products).
I need to promote my name [brand] and services (eg: speaker, writer, musician, photographer, artist, etc.
I’d like to keep my current clients and customers informed of what’s going on with my business and maintain relationships

Each one of these has a slightly different solution, but not vastly different. And the tool of choice to build that website will depend on what the designer is most comfortable with.

Two Classes of Website Builders

Generally there are two classes of website design software: 1) WYSIWYG (which stands for “what you see is what you get”) & source code editors (sometimes called HTML editors), and 2) content management systems (henceforth referred to as CMS). I have used both for different websites and generally prefer a CMS for added functionality, especially form processing.

Starting With “Training Wheels”

Even if you end up using a seamless WYSIWYG editor it’s really a good idea to start with a simple HTML editor. For quite awhile I used Arachnophilia because it was free. In the long run it really helped me understand code and the basics of how a website is put together.

You can also learn a lot about code and design from looking at the source code behind a website. You run across a site that has a particular element you like and you can generally figure out how they did it by looking at this code (and accessing their style sheet). How to do this is slightly different between browsers and operating systems, but generally when you’re on a website you want to look at simply click on View in the top menu bar, and then something like Source or Page Source.

Here’s a partial list of text and source code (HTML) editors (there’s a nice list at Wikipedia, here):

Notepad, the simple text editor that comes with Windows
TextEdit, the text editor for Mac
TED Edit
Scintilla
Notepad++
Arachnophila, mentioned before

WYSIWYG Editors

I’m a bit sheepish to admit that the very first website builder I used was Yahoo Sitebuilder. This tool made it seem deceptively simple to build a website. The code that is generates, though, is pretty bloated (maybe they’ve improved that since I last used it a few years ago).

Because I was frustrated with that first site not ranking for anything in a search I did some research on what that takes to get a website to rank better. In hindsight I think that was the beginning of an obsession for me (it’s just such a thrill to get a site to rank well). I eventually came across SiteBuildIt!, but more on that later.

Even with a WYSIWYG editor the upside is that, once you learn the rules and strategies for SEO (search engine optimization), you can use a simple site builder to create a site that ranks well for your target keywords

Adobe Dreamweaver, for many it’s the industry standard; pricey!
Kompozer
CoffeeCup
Sea Monkey
Amaya

And here’s a bunch more you may want to consider. Some are pretty expensive, and some are free. But, even something like CoffeeCup, even though not free, is pretty reasonable in price.

Content Management Systems

CMS’s, as they apply to web design, are basically software systems that take in the content for a website (text, images, movies, sound, etc.), keep it organized, and deliver it to the viewer through a web browser in a neat and orderly fashion, all in a consistent look & feel and navigation. They can make the building and rending of a website both a lot easier and a lot more complicated (managing add on plugins or modules can be a juggling act).

Wordpress is sometimes touted as such a simple CMS that “anyone can build a website” with it and call themselves a “designer”. But, just like easy WYSIWYG builders the tool is only as good as the designer at the helm. The best oil paints and brushes won’t make you a Picasso. As for any art form (and web design can be seen as an art, I feel), it’s not the medium, but how you wield it and what you say with it (my other passion is painting so I know a tad about art).

For a dizzying list of CMS’s out there take a look here. Here’s some of the more common ones:

Wordpress, a common blogging platform, but can be used to build a non-blog content rich site.
Movable Type, also used for blogging & straight content sites.
Drupal
Joomla

The Best Web Design Software?

In the end no one is really going to agree on what THE Best website design software is. Everybody has their favorite horse in the race. And, following that analogy, there are also a lot of “also ran” website building tools that you don’t hear talked about.

Maybe it would be better to look at a website builder that gives you the whole package of design help, keyword research tools, and internet marketing tutorials. Because, in the end, if you build a fancy website and it sits on page 20 of a search it’s as good as non-existent. Sure, there are other ways to get the word out about a website so that people come to visit it (print advertising, word of mouth, etc.), but if your site can’t be found in a search you’re leaving out a huge part of successfully marketing your business.

One in particular that I never hear talked about is SiteBuildIt! (also known as SBI!). Going through the tutorials and learning about the focus of building a business around a website, rather than building a website for your business, was such a great paradigm shift for me. Frankly, I think their course “Building A Business Using The Internet” should be offered with every tech school web design program.

Actually, I did go through getting the class listed with UW Fox Valley continuing education about a year ago, but unfortunately there weren’t enough people that signed up for it. I would really love to teach that course because there’s so much valuable information in it.

If the course description sounds interesting to you and you think you’d like to take it please contact me and I’ll talk to UW Fox Valley again about offering the course. Or, talk to Cathy Paynter about running the class again (she’s the director of the continuing ed program). It could be just the thing your need to get your business to take off.

Review of Linchpin

Anne — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:45:27 +0000

Ok, I couldn’t help myself. I had to start on page 101. The statement in Seth’s letter that he hoped we’d bookmark page 101 was just too tantalizing.

It turned out to be the chapter entitled “The Resistance”. Essentially looking for the factor that leads to people resisting becoming real artists, game changers, linchpins in their businesses, visionaries… is a small, but very powerful part of your brain laid down a million years ago. (Actually, it was more like 300 million years ago when the reptiles evolved.) Does that give you a clue? Yep, that nasty little reptilian brain.

The lizard brain, which I agree with, prevents us from moving out of our comfort zone, trying new things, seeking to do anything that makes us stand out from the crowd. Some people may be born with a better ability to quiet that lizard brain and strike out to do things that get them noticed. But, for the majority of people, overcoming that little inner voice is just too difficult.

This book, overall, is amazing! Seth really hits the nail on the head about many things related to doing your work with art and passion, all while being able to pull the trigger and “ship it”. Those people that are able to step into a situation (business or otherwise) and create order from chaos in an artful, passionate, and skilled manner are ultimately the most valuable people. And you have to be one of them!

This book really gets you thinking about looking at your work in a different way… a very different way. He calls on us to wake up and do the “emotional work” of being an artist in whatever we do. To stop plodding around the office taking up space and expecting a paycheck.

When it comes time to make cuts, who do you think will be the first to go? Someone who does their job and nothing more, or someone who makes their own road map to excellence above and beyond their job description?

This is why it’s so fun and soul satisfying to be self employed! I get to make my own map every day and stand out with a great service that I feel passionate about (web design and seo). I’m definitely doing “the work”, a term Seth uses to describe an emotional and heartfelt involvement in what you do for a living (did I get that right, Seth?).

Ok, enough of this review. Just go buy the book! It may just change your life.

Bad Website Design

Anne — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:15:02 +0000

Illustration by Dean Proudfoot
at Idealog.*

You know it when you see it. Bad design. Whether it’s a house, or a dress, or a website, there’s just something about less-than-stellar design that can really stick out like a sore thumb.

But, sometimes, it’s really hard to put your finger on what exactly isn’t quite right. And when it comes to bad website design there are a lot of opinions on what makes a site not just good, but great.

There are, however, some very obvious things that stick out to clearly make a website distasteful (and please leave a comment at the end if you want to add to this list!).

Elements of Bad Website Design

1. Frames. These are the sections of a website that have their own scrolling areas. There’s really no need for frames. 2 reasons not to use them: 1) They’re annoying to visitors, 2) Some browsers have a hard time rendering them.

2. Sound. Unless you’re a musician I would strongly advise against using any kind of sound. If you really must, then have a way for the visitor to turn it off. The only time I’ve seen music done very well was on a photographer’s website. It was set to a very tasteful slideshow presentation of their photos. It added an emotional touch that made me want to pick up the phone and give her a call to hire her!

3. Flashing Animation. Animated gif’s are even worse. This is similar to the reason for not using sound. It forces a barrage of images on the visitor that can easily cause them to hit the back button. Flash animation must be very reserved and subtle. The only site I have Flash on is In Its Place. The header graphic gently scrolls through before and after pictures of client’s messy homes.

4. Flashing Background. ANY background has to be done carefully (ie. subtly). But, a flashing background is too strong visually to compete with the content of a site.

5. Obnoxious Colors. The topic of color for websites could be a whole site in itself. Selecting colors, and the psychology of colors, is a fascinating topic for me. So far this is the best resource I’ve found for helping pick the right colors for a website: Color Scheme Designer 3. Playing around with different combinations just makes my mouth water! I bet this tool could even be used for picking colors for interior design. Beautiful stuff.

6. Inconsistent Navigation. The same navigation scheme should really be on every page of a website. And the most easily read and used style of navigation is to place it vertically along the left hand side of the page. It’s also a good idea to have redundant navigation, meaning more places on your site for visitors to find information. Put a few important pages in a horizontal navigation near the top, and similar links to those pages at the bottom.

7. Difficult To Read Text. It seems to be very trendy right now to make the color of text a mid-level grey color. It’s jokingly referred to as the “devil’s color” because the hex code is #666. Making your text anything but black increases the difficulty with which it can be read, especially by the elderly and others with vision problems. Black text on a white, or nearly white, background (and a large enough font) will make it a lot easier for a visitor to read your information.

8. Broken Links. Isn’t it annoying when you try to follow a link from a site and it goes nowhere? Keep up-to-date on your links by checking them with a link checker.

9. Broken Pictures. Either the background coding is wrong in referencing where the picture lives, or the webmaster didn’t upload it to the right folder on the site. And if an image is referenced off-site to a now-nonexistent picture then the link needs to be taken down.

10. Image Files Too Large. Most digital cameras now take pictures that are several megabytes large. That’s great for printing out a large hard copy image, but it doesn’t work for a website. Especially now that search engines will be factoring in how fast a page loads. Those big images are really going to handicap your site, not to mention really annoy anyone with a dial-up connection.

The rule of thumb for images on any website is to keep the file size under 100k, and to size the image to exactly how you want to display it on your site. Don’t rely on setting the height and width in your code to render the image the way you want, do that in your image editing software first.

11. Splash Page. Who is really going to be convinced to buy from your company solely on a flashy splash or entry page? They are annoying, and an invitation to hit the back button. A visitor comes to your site to solve a problem, not be impressed by your theatrics.

When I set off to write this post I thought this would be a fairly simple article. I’ve ended up doing much more research on this topic than I intended. Which is a good thing! You can never learn too much about web design.

Designing a website for best usability and conversions (convincing browsers to become buyers/clients) is a never ending game. You learn from every website project you create and manage, and hopefully apply those lessons to improve your future websites and make your current ones better.

That’s one of the wonderful things about building a website… it’s an ever-changing entity that needs to be tended, much like a garden, for best results in the end.

Other’s Opinions of Bad Website Design

The classic resource for finding badly designed web sites is Web Pages The Suck. They’ve been around for a very long time (close to 15 years now). Vincent Flanders, the guy that runs the site, offers 2 very long checklists for redesigning your site. Very helpful and insightful.

Just going through the examples gives you a really good idea of what doesn’t work. Sometimes there’s no accounting for taste, as they say.

The biggest point Flanders makes is to ask yourself “does my site talk about how great my company is, or does it talk about how I can solve my customer’s problems?”. That’s part of the reason I don’t have my resume on this site. Why should you care about my past work history? I put forth samples of my work, and talk about how I can build your business a great website that brings in customers for you (and give you a roadmap if you want to do it yourself!).

A couple other good resources are Bad Design by, of all people, the United Nations (no kidding). Another one is Top 10 Mistakes in Web Design by Jakob Nielsen, the guru of web usability.

In the end if you don’t really learn anything from every website you build, then what’s the point? Sure, every site has some issues, which will hopefully be corrected over time. That’s the beauty of web design… a website is such a fluid entity that it’s fairly easy to modify what doesn’t work.

As my Dad sometimes says: “Some people can serve as a horrible example.” Same goes for website design.

Update 2/11/10. After talking to a friend I think there’s another item that could be added to this list:

12. Call To Action Make it easy for people to buy your product or contact you. Don’t make them hunt for that kind of information. Whether it’s an “add to cart” button or a “contact us” link it needs to be made obvious.

*From Idealog magazine, New Zealand.

Web Designers in Appleton

Anne — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:05:52 +0000

The business of web designers trying to get their own sites to rank well can be a cut throat competition.

Do a web search in any major city for “web designer XYZ” (insert your city for XYZ) and you’ll come up with some pretty interesting results. These people are, after all, pros at getting their clients’ site to rank well (if the design firm touts itself as an expert in search engine optimization). Get your site on the first page of Google for that search term and you have a much greater chance of snagging a customer.

Web designers in Appleton are no different. Appleton, WI, is a fairly large metro area. If you take into consideration the extended urban communities (Little Chute, Kaukauna, Darboy, Kimberly, Grand Chute, Neenah, Menasha, etc.) it’s probably the 3rd or 4th largest collection of urbanites in Wisconsin. That’s a lot of people, a lot of businesses, and a lot of web design firms.

But, when you step back to consider your particular needs in building a website for your business you’re well advised to use other methods in addition to the Internet to find them. Doing an Internet search may start you on some good leads, but you ultimately have to consider many more criteria.

Some things to consider in choosing a web design person or team is to ask what their specialty is. Ultimately web designers can’t be everything to everyone. There are so many routes to diversify in the field of web design it’s really quite mind boggling. Be wary of any designer that says they’ll take on any job.

Areas of Specialty

Some areas of specialty in web design include Flash animation, video production, e-commerce development, content management systems, content writing, search engine optimization, social media campaign management, Adwords management, and link builders. I’m sure I’m forgetting some… probably many. But, these are the most common.

Currently web designers and Internet users are becoming less enamored of using/seeing Flash animation. Don’t get me wrong, Flash can be an effective tool to catch and keep a visitor’s attention if done in the wright way (which usually means VERY sparingly and subtly). Personally, I don’t do Flash. I’d rather subcontract that out then to take the time to become an expert in that particular software.

Good video production probably has much more power in converting browsers to buyers. Video and film is a powerful media to tap into people’s emotions. But great video takes not only years of being behind a camera and then analyzing hours of “footage” (maybe it should be called “pixelage” now?) to develop an eye for creativity in that media, it also takes some pretty pricey equipment. It’s my opinion that good video is generally a better investment than Flash.

The next biggest area of specialty is search engine optimization. It’s a bandwagon that’s hard to resist jumping in on. And why not? Making yourself an expert in how to get a site to rank well is a good card to play in convincing a potential client.

And the up-and-coming star is social media. Knowing the ever changing social media landscape and how to best use it for marketing purposes is a tough specialty to keep current on. For those designers that naturally gravitate to using social media sites for their own personal lives it may seems like the media is a natural gold mine for customers. The downside of social media is that the crowd can quickly turn on your business for the slightest infraction of on-line social etiquette. It’s an arena that’s not for the faint of heart.

Word of Mouth

Word of mouth referrals are the time tested way, in any field, of securing new relationships with customers and clients. Personally, despite my love on the Internet and computers, I feel it’s THE best way to find your next gig.

Ask your friends and family that have hired a website done how they like it, how they like getting along with the designer or design team, how they feel about the follow up customer service they got. Their feedback to you is one of your best tools for hunting down a good designer.

Check Out Your Competition

Your strategy here? Pull up the websites of your business neighbors. You can usually find a link at the very bottom as to who designed and built the site. Follow that link back to the designer’s own website. Tour around their own site and see what you think.

But first, ask yourself 2 things before you pick up the phone. Do you like their site? And, can you find it on the first or second page of a search for their particular field (eg. “florist appleton”)? Then it’s probably safe to jump in and make a call of inquiry to the designer.

Face to Face

In the end a face to face meeting will give you a fantastic idea if this person is appropriate for the web design project you have in mind.

Do they ask a lot of questions of your business, like where your current clients are coming from and what vision YOU see for your website. Can they really grasp the nature of your business? Can they see that your business is your life blood, your vital source of income and respect the depth of commitment you have to nurturing your baby? Or do they blast you with techno-jargon and their grand idea for a website?

Your gut reaction will probably lead you down the right path in hiring them or not.

Finding the Right Fit

My final advice is to keep in mind that your least expensive proposal for a website should not be your only criteria for selecting a designer. You may end up paying more in the end when your cut-rate designer spends 6, 8, 12 months on a project that could’ve taken a more seasoned pro a week or 2. And all that time you were missing so many potential customer that could have found you through a Web search.

There are many web designers in Appleton to pick from. Take your time, do your research, and then trust your instinct as to who will be the best fit for your project.

Overcoming Writer’s Block

Anne — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:00:07 +0000

Writer’s block stinks. There’s no two ways about it.

Get SOMETHING on paper!

You know you have to produce something for an approaching deadline, but you just can’t manage to tease it out of your head and onto paper (or a computer screen). And there’s not a problem with lack of knowledge in your field. You’re the expert, after all. But your wealth of experience and knowledge just sits there, mocking you from within the recessing of your brain.

And there’s the key. It’s your brain, or more specifically your lizard brain, that’s taunting you into believing that whatever you write won’t be good enough. I’m currently in the process of reading the pre-release of Seth Godin’s “Linchpin, Are You Indispensible?”, where he talks about the nasty lizard brain that keeps us all down, telling us we can’t possibly be good enough (stay in line and be a cog for your own survival sake, it says).

There is a place for the lizard brain. Like when you’re truly in a survival situation. It is absolutely superlative at demanding super-human feats of strength and endurance when being chased by a bear, or having to walk to the nearest neighbor in a blizzard when your car breaks down, or finding yourself lost in the backwoods. That is, if you have some control over it going completely beserk with fear.

But, the lizard brain is very counterproductive when it comes to functions of creativity, leadership, or standing out from the crowd. That’s when your higher brain function, ie. your cerebrum, need to ignore the lizard. But, after a lifetime of listening to the lizard it can be extremely difficult to counteract. Like anything in life it takes practice and a few helpful tools to get you in the right direction.

Some Tools for Overcoming Writer’s Block

Here are a few things that help me. They may not work for everyone. It may take some time and several tries to find the “secret sauce” that works for you.

1. Just write something… anything. Whether you type at a computer or write on paper get something “on the page”. Start with a shopping list, a household to-do list, a description of the clothes you’re wearing, a description of your car or house, your thoughts about the news you heard this morning.

I would stay away from hateful writing here, though– bringing out a laundry list of what you can’t stand about your partner or boss or kids, etc. It will just put you in a negative vibe that’s hard to get out of. Hateful writing is a version of the lizard coming out. Let’s not feed the lizard.

2. Use a different vehicle, or medium, for your communication. If you usually compose on the computer then take out a notebook and pen. If you usually write on paper then try speaking into a recorder of some kind. If you usually squirrel yourself away in your office then call or sit down with a friend to talk. Shifting to a slightly different medium for communication will nudge your creative juices a bit.

3. Pretend you’re talking to a friend about what you do. Then with your screen or notebook in front of you simply record that imaginary dialogue you’re carrying on. So what if it’s not Grapes of Wrath material. No judgments here.

4. Get out! Don’t chain yourself to your desk until you’ve produced you’re finest work. Another lizard tactic. Step away from your usual writing spot and change your perspective, literally. Go for a walk, run, ski, hike, swim. Moving your muscles and blood flow could be just the trick to quiet the lizard. Pesky fellow, isn’t it?

5. Pretend and visualize. Do a form of meditation and bring into your mind’s eye a picture of yourself writing, sitting in a chair composing. Then submitting your work to a publisher or editor, with smiles on both your faces. Then having a wonderful conversation about what a great writer you are. Then holding the book or magazine or newspaper or e-reader in your hand and seeing your words on the page. You may even go a step further and visualize yourself getting calls from other writers to interview you. What you can imagine will flow into your reality easier.

6. No excuses. Yes, everyone has bills to pay, grass to mow, sidewalks to shovel, cars to fix, families to make dinner for, parties to go to (well, not literally everyone, but you get my point). There will always be some sort of excuse to put off the important work of creativity. Get down to your writing and life will go on without you. After you get in a few hours of writing then you can go take out the garbage.

7. Read. Reading other people’s work is a great way to get some writing juices flowing. This one is my favorite, actually. One venue that’s always been a winner, in terms of stimulating my own writing, is reading Scientific American. No kidding. I’m kind of a science geek at heart and love to think about all the intricacies of the universe. So reading on the topics you find there is very nourishing to my higher creative/intellectual/cerebral side. I get in that vibe after reading an article or 2 there. Find your favorite genre and read, read, read.

8. Set your work in a “cooler”. My final piece of advice is to set your piece of writing in a place where it can cool off and age a bit. Much like a fine wine. After you’ve tapped into your inner guru (and, yes, everyone does have one) then step away from your work for awhile– but, not for too long. It can be a few hours, it can be a couple days. Coming back a month or year later may make it more difficult to pick up the thread you set aside.

Even if you’re blogging it’s a good idea to hit “save draft”, walk away from your computer for awhile, and then re-read what you’ve written. It is very tempting to hit “publish” as soon as you feel you’ve come to the end of your piece. Resist.

9. One more thing: throw out your style manual! Style manuals are for the “tighty whities” in the world. Just my opinion

Give these a try. Sometimes one method will work a whole lot better than another depending on your state of mind. No judgment. Squash the lizard. Or at least lock it away in an airtight glass box for awhile.

You’re The One Who Holds The Key

In the end it’s up to you to get the ball rolling. Now go write something! Overcoming writer’s block takes a leap of faith to try something different.

And thank you, dear reader, for reading this! Producing this post has helped me to define some great ways that help me to quiet that reptile brain. The act of writing this out is therapeutic for me, too. Hope my list helps you!

Other sources to unlock your creativity:

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life by Julian Cameron
Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg
On Writing by Stephen King

Free Link Checker

Anne — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 02:32:40 +0000

There have been many useful and interesting add-ons to Firefox to increase usability. I just recently discovered another one: a free link checker from Kevin A. Freitas. It’s a great way to check your link validity, but one page at a time (which can get a little tedious).

For smaller sites this is a great option, but for larger sites you’ll probably need to go with something with more firepower, like Web Link Validator. There’s a “lite” version (which is free) and a heavy-duty professional version (with a heavy duty price tag!).

For Wordpress there a nice little plugin called Broken Link Checker. With this plugin you can check your links for any breakage from the back end admin panel.

And for anyone who doesn’t know about the relevance of broken links check out Google’s word on link checking and broken links. Webmaster Tools does list any crawl errors that come up for your site, but depending on the kind of error it may not show you the source page of the error. Frankly, I don’t think this is very helpful to list an error and then not give an indication of where to find it on your site.

If you have other suggestions for free ways to check you site’s links please let me know. I’d love to add to this list.

Web Design Trends to Avoid

Anne — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:39:47 +0000

Having a website with a great design, animations or flash may not always be as great as you think it is. Some of these can be a complete turn-off to your visitors. You do not want your potential clients to click the back button as they land on your website. If you already have a website and considering a redesign or you are looking forward to get your first website; below are a few trends that you should avoid.

Unreadable Text

Some websites have their font so small that is it almost impossible to read. You need to keep in mind that everyone might have a different screen resolution, you must take this into consideration so the font do not look too big and neither too small. Even better you can have an option to automatically increase or decrease the font size with a click.

Cluttered Content

It is important to have white spaces on your website for the eyes to rest. White or blank spaces make it much easier to read and move around elements on a webpage. Also it is much easier for a visitor to pay more attention to the “call-to-action”

Animated Backgrounds

We all know that it is a lot easier to read a book than reading online. If there is an animated background, it becomes difficult to read and annoying for the eyes.

Website Completely in Flash

No matter how much you like flash, know that some people may have flash disabled in their browser thus they will not be able to see your website. One more thing to avoid is to have a flash intro which is bad if you want to optimize your website for the search engines.

Having a good website that converts does not always mean you should have lots of graphics. Though it is important you must also give as much attention to content. Unlike what you might have heard, creating a website requires a lot of planning and time, so it is best that you avoid everything that will not help your website to achieve its purpose.

About the Author:
Rubeina Sawdoo is from Mauritius, a nice little island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Webline Ltd offers quality web design services. Visit the website at www.WeblineUK.com for more information.

3 Key Aspects of a Search Engine Friendly Web Design

Anne — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 03:29:53 +0000

When first embarking on a new website design; an important part of the design process should consider exactly how the website is going to be promoted. This is particularly important if you want the website to be found by the major search engines.

Any designer you commission for your website design should at least be familiar with a process called SEO search engine optimization, know how to use meta tags, and understand the limitations any search site has when it comes to spidering your website.

SEO Search Engine Optimization

The first thing that needs to be understood is that when an inquiry is typed into a search site such as Google, the software will try and find websites that are the best match for that inquiry. The actual inquiry itself is called either a keyword or a keyword phrase.

Some keywords are used far more frequently than others so even at the stage when you are first creating the content for your website you should be targeting the keywords that are entered into the search sites more frequently. Ideally your content will exactly match the keywords and provide the best chance for your site being listed high up on the search engine results pages (SERP).

It is also important where you place the keywords; the first place the search site looks for the match is in the name or title of your site, after which comes the sub titles and headings followed by the description and then finally in the content text.

This is done on a page by page basis rather than a site basis. So each of your pages should have titles, headings and descriptions that accurately reflect the content in that page, and that match frequently entered keywords.

This is why finding and using the correct keywords is such an important part of SEO search engine optimization and why you need to be writing content for your website that will ultimately help the search sites match you to inquiries.

Search Engine Friendly Navigation

Many modern website designs have adopted the use of flash, java driven menu systems and graphics as navigation elements. The upside of this approach is that excellent graphical images can be created that are very aesthetically pleasing.

The downside is that search engines cannot find text that is buried in a graphical image or is delivered by an external java script file. For all intents and purposes, search engines look for text; including the text that provides the links to other parts of the website. So when spidering the site the primary method for finding all the pages included and establishing the contents of the pages is by reading the text on the site.

There are ways and means of overcoming this problem. For example a site map containing information that describes all of the pages of interest to the search engine can be submitted to the search site so that listed pages are included in their index; this is rather than relying on the search engines finding the pages for themselves. There is a protocol that has to be followed for a site map to be accepted; but this is not particularly difficult to achieve.

You can use what is called the ‘alt’ tag to provide descriptions of any images included in the content of your site. There are other reasons for doing this anyway to ensure design standards are met in general.

There are also techniques that can be used to create navigation systems that can look equally as impressive as some of the script driven methods but are text based and consequently search engine friendly.

Meta Tags

As a final word on this subject, make sure that your designer also understands the use and implementation of meta tags. This is information included in the header of the website page that for the most part is invisible to visitors but serve the purpose of providing instructions to search sites to help them understand how to deal and interact with your website.

Taking care of all of these factors will ensure your website is truly search engine friendly.

About the Author:
Brian Stephens. Visit Moulin Website Design for more information on whats involved when designing a website. SEO Search Engine Optimization provides an in depth look at SEO in general.

How to Choose the Correct Web Design Company

Anne — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:45:34 +0000

In today’s world a website is representing the Business brand of your company. People are very cautious to take decisions about which web site design company to choose from as there are many choices available in the world.

There are lots of companies available in the market to design a web site. Now the question is whom to choose? It will not be easy for you to get the correct person or company because it requires little homework. The simplest thing is there are few simple questions you need to ask before selecting the website design company or an individual which delivers you quality output with reasonable price. With price there are other parameters to take into consideration such as company portfolio, Resource skills and qualifications, strength of the company etc.

You first need to take a look at the company portfolio. This is an easy way to judge the capabilities of the company. You need to consider basic questions like: Is their portfolio versatile? Do you see depth in their capabilities? Does they only work in similar kind of domains? You can prepare a checklist of your thoughts to judge a website design company. The basic skills you should look into website design companies can be expertise in Graphics Design software like Flash, Photoshop HTML and SEO etc.

The price of the web site design companies varies from one to other. Out of all the companies in the market you will find mostly two kind of pricing pattern. The first one is to charge a fix price for entire project and the second is price per resource count. Now it is up to you to choose correct web design company from these two kinds of pricing patterns. The best way to judge a web site design company is to ask them to provide a presentation of their skills and capabilities along with their portfolio and while seeing presentation you can ask related questions to them to satisfy your needs.

You should not get attracted with the size of the companies or their infrastructure. Rather you need to ensure that the web design company will be able to meet all deadlines. Often the complexity of the website is greatly affecting the time line. In that case you can ask for what if they do not meet proposed deadline?

You can consider about individuals who have proven experience into web site designing and Graphics Designing. Also check for the certification if they have in Web design. This will make sure that you met the right company to hire for your web designing project.

About the Author:
SPINX Inc, is a leading Website Design Los Angeles company offers services like Web Design Pasadena, Website Design West Hollywood, Website Design Santa Monica & also across the world.