Building a new website or even re-designing your current one can often be a daunting and at times stressful process. That’s why it’s imperative to work alongside a web design company that you trust, have a good rapport with and have built an advantageous working relationship with. This will enable you to get the best out of your investment and be left with a great end product; a website that fulfils all of your criteria, as well as some of those more technical ones you may not have known about.

1. Usability

Usability is key to the success of your website, and this encompasses a wide range of things from accessibility to familiarity. Firstly it’s important that your target audience can use your website. You should present content to the user in a clean manner in a way that is obvious so that they can intuitively navigate around your site. Accessibility is also important, and this is twofold. Your website should be accessible not only to individuals that may have different requirements, such as those that use screen readers, it should also be accessible to those users who are using a variety of different hardware devices or running on several different browsers. By ensuring that your website meets all of these criteria it will mean that you do not alienate any of your target audience.

2. Extensibility

When designing a website it’s all too easy to get wrapped up in what you want in the here and now, but it’s important to remember that you are making a large investment and that this is something that should be able to change and grow over your time as your business does. This is where extensibility comes in; you should discuss with your web design agency how easily you will be able to amend and add to your website over time, as well as add important upgrades as technological advances are made. This will prevent you website becoming outdated in only a short period of time and keep your costs lower going forward.

3. Design

And of course good design is imperative to creating a successful website. Your website should be designed to suit your target audience. Whether this is a b2b market or a children’s website, tailoring your design to meet the specific needs of your target audience will put you on the route to success. Your site design should be unique and memorable, still incorporating the previously spoken about familiarity in the manner in which it works.

4. Functionality

Every website has a different purpose, whether your website is an ecommerce site, informative website or a membership website, you will have to ensure that your newly designed site has the functionality to meet each of your specific needs. Whether this be the ability to take online payment or update fresh news through an RSS feed. You should ensure you work alongside a web agency that will be able to provide you will all the aspects you require.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nikki_Maidment

“You don’t need to use SEO, it’s a waste of time.”

“The bigger, the better.”

“Every page needs flash.”

Unless your company has a marketing department the size of a small nation, chances are the person assigned to maintain your website also has other responsibilities. Getting new information uploaded or changes made can be a challenge.

The problem is, anyone can build a website. All it takes is some basic knowledge of coding, a hosting site and some time. Most of us know a 16 year old that would be thrilled to do it for a small fee. Better yet the owner’s wife’s cousin’s nephew will do it for free! And that’s exactly what the site will look like.

Smart business owners are realizing that what they need to get ahead with their marketing strategies is to place their money where it can do the most good. Hiring a professional to design and create an impactful and useful website is one of those places.

Spending time online looking around, a person can find dozens of websites in just a matter of minutes. Each one of these sites has the goal of offering you something you want or need even if it’s only information. But what is it about a website that keeps you engaged?

Most companies wouldn’t think to give their website an IQ rating. After all, what more is needed other than your normal site map set up? If simple and basic is how you view your marketing strategy, your website will reflect that. There isn’t anything wrong with average.

Instead of middle of the road, why not punch things up a bit instead. Capturing and gaining repeat clients takes more than what every other company offers. Your website should reflect that.

An online marketing campaign begins with your website design, not ends with it. Conversion and ROI are the ultimate goals of any campaign. Does your website reflect those goals?

A well designed website also helps you to increase revenues. How can you turn that away in these economic times? It can also help decrease costs, and build better relationships with customers and business associates. Who doesn’t want that?

Statistics show that your website has only a 6-10 second time span to grab your visitor’s attention. In that time the visitor has already scanned the page to find what they are looking for, made an assessment of viability and either pulled up a chair to stay a while or moved on quicker than Superman.

Chose a web development team that knows what they are doing. There are 5 important things to look for when hiring an affective web design group:

1. They listen.

You know your product inside and out. The agency you choose should pay attention to that and use that knowledge to design your website. If they aren’t asking you questions, you have to wonder why not. If the content isn’t going to be relevant to your business why bother?

2. They are mobile.

According to research, more that 30% of mobile phone owners have browsed the Internet via a mobile handset. Computers are no longer limited to desktops and laptops. Make sure their development team has the expertise to identify the various mobile browsers and can arrange content to fit them.

3. They know how to write.

People don’t read websites the same way they read print material. Web users are active, not passive. The longer the text, the less likely they are to read it. And they don’t believe in hype unless it can be backed up. A good design team will have skilled copy writers available.

4. They think globally.

Consumers and businesses alike are turning more and more to the Internet to purchase their goods and services. Your website needs to tailor itself to that end. E-business is more than e-commerce. Offer the world a way to interact and purchase your wares. Your design team should know how to expand the scope of e-commerce to transform your company globally.

5. They stand behind their services.

At the end of the day your web design team should want you to be happy, no matter what. Satisfaction is key. Make sure they stand behind their work, the same as you do. Guarantees in writing indicate they aren’t going to take your money and run.

Understand that your firm’s web strategy is not only about creating a visually interesting web presence; it is about increasing your sales and optimizing visibility to your target audience.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Grace_OMalley

With the rapid expansion of the internet, and the exponential increase in the number of websites in operation, with new ones coming up by the dozens on a daily basis, it is becoming important for business websites to stand apart. For that matter, it is equally important for personal websites to stay a cut above the internet fluff. A professionally designed website can prove immensely helpful in achieving the primary objective of any website, that is to attract visitors. For business websites, it is also important to convert these readers into customers.

A professionally designed website is is also very important to create a lasting impression in the minds of visitors as this helps in the branding efforts of a website. The most critical characteristics and attributes of a professionally designed website are:

Good Content:

It is needless to say that good content is the primary determinant of a professional website. By good content, it is meant that the content should be relevant, in sufficient quantity, suitable to the user query, readable and usable, visually appealing and free of grammatical and typographical errors.

Easily Accessible:

The website and all of its webpages should be easily accessible to the users. For example, a lot of users search for a website name without typing the prefix ‘www’ before the name. Care should be taken that the website is accessible any which way the user types the domain name in the browser. The error pages should also be customized to help the user to discover what he/she is looking for.

Easy, Intuitive Navigation:

The navigation of the website should be easy, intuitive and accessible. The navigation menu should be displayed prominently on all the webpages. In addition, ‘breadcrumbs’ should also be provided for easy navigation within the website.

Logical and Clear Structure:

The website and its webpages should be structured in a clear and logical manner. All the information and content should be properly categorized and classified, and at every point, the website should offer users the most relevant webpages.

Cross-Browser Compatible:

A website is likely to be visited and read by a number of visitors from across the world, and who would be using different browsers. It is a common problem with most websites that they do no resolve well in all browsers, or at least, a wide variety of browsers. Care should be taken at the early stages of website designing to ensure that the website is properly visible in a wide variety of browsers. Even within the same browser, different screen resolutions may affect the visibility of website.

Easy to Maintain:

A professionally designed website should be easy to maintain. Of course, ‘easy’ is a relative term – the ease of maintenance will greatly depend on the type of website – a small personal website will cost significantly less in maintenance when compared to a e-commerce website, and much easier. In some cases, the webmaster may need to seek professional help for regular maintenance activities also.

Search Engine Optimized:

The most important attribute of a professionally designed website is its ability to attract good traffic. This means that a website should be search engine optimized. This is a regular process, and includes a number of activities such as adding relevant content regularly, using meta tags, good use of primary and long tail keywords, backlinking, and optimizing for the social media.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Meghan_Morrison

There are a lot of reasons for anyone to get into website design. You don’t even have to have a formal business to do it. It just puts your name out there. Here are some of the other benefits you may incur by having a website out there on the Internet.

One of the most important perks of having a website for any reason is that it puts your name out there in the sea of one billion names. If you design the site smartly, your web pages could come up in any number of searches. This could lead to big things later on down the road, even if you are not ready right now.

One of the biggest reasons why most people will not do a website is because they are afraid it won’t be any good. That is where site designing software, and hosting sites come in handy. There are some services available that offer easy to use templates and HTML tutorials. Take advantage of these sites when you are just starting out. It is encouraged that you be the designer of your personal website. Many people learn by experience.

Alternately, you can hire a web page designer. Many of this individuals design websites on the spot. They be as simple as graphics and text, or as fancy as having music, chat rooms. The choice is all up to you.

If you don’t already have a business to promote via a website, that is okay. Many individuals design websites for more personal reasons. They keep blogs, digital scrapbooks, or fan pages. For some people, keeping a website allows them to show creativity digitally.

No matter if you’re a small or large business owner, or a stay-at-home mom who is looking for a way to share tips on childcare, website design is something to consider. The benefits can far outweigh the negative impact. Who knows? Maybe you will end up becoming an Internet sensation. You’ll never know, unless you try!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Halim

1. Search Engine Friendliness

A search engine friendly web site helps you get indexed on search engines and hence brings you more organic traffic. It also helps you with popularization of your business and your brand identity. Make sure that your website has all the pages properly named, with proper title tags, and keyword rich content.

2. Usable Web Design

3. Accessible Web Design

4. Social Media Widgets

5. Easy to Maintain Web Design

This article is an ever-changing list of some common, controversial, and often forgotten mistakes that are made in web development. Most of them will apply to any website or blog, but please keep it mind that there will be cases where these would not apply and some you may dislike.

1. Presuming the phase “If you build it, they will come” – Even if you achieve the perfect website you still have to take steps to market that site. It becomes increasingly more necessary that you take the time to put the word out about your website online and offline. If you do not take the time to brag about your site, no one will.

2. Do not blend advertisements into content – It may increase your click through rate in the short term, but when a user thinks they are clicking on an internal link and then finds out you just tricked them – most will not be coming back.

3. Avoid splash pages (intro) to your website – These luckily are a dying fad, but at one time these were what a lot of websites prompted visitors with when they first gained access their website instead of the content they were attempting to reach.

4. Make unvisited links a different color from visited links – This is a basic usability tip. Users recognize the default link color easily, and are use to seeing visited links change color – it helps ensure they do not revisit pages unintentionally.

5. Ensure that your website is cross-browser compatible – Browsers are not created equal, and not all of them interpret code the same way. Like it or not, you need to make sure that your site appears correctly in popular browsers – browsershots.org is a great tool for doing this.

6. Music Players – Do not place a music player on your website; if I wanted to listen to music I would open my music player. It simply annoys visitors, and they have to hit the stop button every time they load another page. If you run a site related to music, then allow the user the option of starting the player when they are ready.

7. Do not overuse Flash if not necessary – Not only does Flash increase the load time of your website, it hurts your SEO, and excessive usage of Flash might also annoy some visitors. I suggest that you only use it when necessary.

8. Keep browser features intact – Do not break the back button, forward button, adjustments to focusing or any other browser functions – some people rely on them.

9. Do not open links in new windows – Allow the user to control his/her destiny, if they wish to come back to your site then they will by using the back button or other browser features.

10. Get your point across quickly – You need to make sure that the user can quickly identify the contents of the webpage; if they cannot figure out what the page is about then it’s pretty common they will just leave. Use your title tags, and headings to spell a clear message to the user.

11. Do not adjust the browser window size – Let the users control their own browser, resizing a browser can affect other tabs/windows they currently have opened.

12. Do not use hidden text – You should never attempt to trick search engines by using hidden text to fill your page with keywords or content to improve search engine ranking – this is simply an easy way to get ban from search results all together.

13. Do not try keyword stuffing – When adding the keyword tags to your pages ensure that the keywords you pick are relevant to the content on the page. The best thing to do is make sure each keyword is mentioned in the content multiple times. If you choose not to follow this rule it could result in a ban from Google.

14. Do not use visible visitor counters – Not only are these things unprofessional, they are completely pointless for visitors to even see. You should instead use an app like Google Analytics to quietly track all of that information for you.

15. Do not underline or change colors of normal text – Users have come to identify underline and different color text as links. Try to follow this simple rule so that users are not confused about what is a link and what is not one.

16. Format Content Correctly – Different standards apply when writing internet based content – you’re not writing a book. Make use of elements like bullet points, headers, sub headers, and list. Break content up.

17. Do not use tiny font sizes – Ensure that contents readable for all different kinds of visitors. The older the visitors are the more likely they will have a harder time reading the content, and most of these same people are unaware of browser resizing options.

18. Be consistent – Do not change the theme or link colors midway in the site. Ensure that your theme follows the same throughout the site.

19. Do not put text (content) into images – Put text in HTML when possible. Web designers will sometimes use images for their content or information because they mutilate fonts and sizes easily. But this is non-robot friendly (SEO), cannot be easily resized (like text can), doesn’t work for text reading software for the blind, and will increase load time.

20. Avoid bright harsh colors – Ensure that the font color is easy to read on your choice of background color. Also keep in mind just because you can read your bright pink font on your yellow background doesn’t mean everyone can. I have always found that black font on a white background to be the best choice.

21. Provide a basic search function – Search ability is one of the most important navigators in a website. You can now give your visitors the power of search by using Google’s Custom Search Engine.

22. Use ALT and TITLE attributes – Make sure you are making use of these attributes because it will not only help your SEO, but also help the blind with text readers.

23. Do not require a registration unless necessary – Do not force users to sign up when it’s not necessary. Period.

24. Make use of standard fonts – It would be wise to use standard web fonts when creating a website, because if a visitor doesn’t have the font you have selected then it will pick a different one to replace it.

25. Using Pop-ups – Making use of pop-ups for content based pages or even ad based pages has become a bad idea over the years with the increase in pop-up blockers.

26. Over-crowding – This is pretty common for web designers to add to many elements to pages. It gives off an unprofessional look and is difficult to navigate through all the information.

27. Lengthy Pages – People avoid reading lengthy pages. Being brief with your message will normally cause those pages will have a higher readership rate. If necessary setup a series of well navigated pages if you have a lot to say.

28. Slow loading pages – Believe it or not, people still have dial-up. Visitors will quickly move on to a different webpage if yours doesn’t load quickly enough. Attempt to trim your pages down so even the visitors with the worst internet connection can access information is always a good idea.

29. JavaScript based navigation – Not only does Google promote you to avoid the use of JavaScript based navigation, but also some users and companies run with scripts off while searching the internet making them not able to properly navigate your website.

30. Get a Sitemap – Sitemaps are simply a page with list of the most important or all of the pages on your website. Creating an XML Sitemap file for your site helps search engines discover the pages on your site easily.

31. Do not disable right clicking – Normally the webmasters doing this is attempting to stop the you from gaining access source code or image locations, but it’s highly annoying and users can still access those areas even after right click function is disabled by using the main menu.

32. Refrain from complex URLs – A keyword based URL structure will not make only improve your websites search engine rankings, but will also help visitors easily indentify content by URL name.

33. Do not use images for navigation links – When creating your websites navigation you should make use of text instead of images. Text based navigation is not only better on your load times but also you should never do something that you can easily be create with a style sheet.

34. Optimization of CSS & Images – Take the time to optimize your CSS and images – this will help lower load times and total weight of your website un-cached will be reduced. CleanCSS.com.

35. Common problems exist with Flash, Frames and AJAX – you can’t link to certain web pages. Try not to use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for better SEO results.
User Submitted

36. Do not have video start playing automatically – too many sites do this these days and I do not ever want a video to start playing every time I hit a particular website’s homepage.

37. Animations and flashing text effects is so 1999 – Cheesy Animations and those flashing text effects that can be done using CSS were widely popular in the earlier years of the internet but we have moved past that.

(This article was originally posted on the website http://netjelly.com. Here is a link to the original article. I just want to be clear, I did not write this article, but it is a great article. Thanks. Published by Zach Hornsby, on October 25th, 2009 at 8:57 am.)

With so much misinformation out there, along with a lack of knowledge about how SEO works, you could end up getting your website banned from the search engines. Learn how to avoid common mistakes with these 10 simple do’s and don’ts.

10. Don’t Use Flash for SEO.

Flash websites are very eye-catching but search engines cannot read or index this type of content. If it is impossible to avoid a Flash-centric website and you need search engines to index it, you will have to offer an html version too. Search engines don’t like Flash sites for a reason – a spider can’t read Flash content and therefore can’t index it.

9. Don’t Use too Much JavaScript.

Searchbots are not designed to read and understand JavaScript code. If a website contains a few lines of text in the JavaScript code, chances are that searchbots will ignore the entire block of code along with the text. This is true in the case of JavaScript menus. Try to keep the use of JavaScript to a minimum. Alternatively, create an external JavaScript file if it is unavoidable.

8. Do Implement a Robots.txt File.

The primary purpose for using a robots.txt file is to gain complete control over the data indexed by the searchbots. Implement a Robots.txt file only when you want to prevent unwanted web pages from being indexed. A robots.txt file is always placed in the root folder of the website where the searchbots can access it easily.

7. Do Target the Correct Keywords.

Targeting the wrong keywords is a common mistake many optimizers make and even worse – veteran SEO professionals do it. Marketers select keywords that they think are explanatory of their website but the average searcher does not think in those same keyword terms. Picking the right keywords can increase or decrease traffic to your SEO campaign. A first-class keyword suggestion aid, for example the Google search-based keyword tool will help you find keywords that are appropriate for your site.

6. Do Include Long Tail Keywords.

With a million websites competing for short tail keywords, it can take more than 6 months to rank in the top 20 for a competitive keyword. In this case, long tail keywords come in handy. Long tail keywords are more specific and can contain the name of a specific product, brand or city. Ranking for long tail keywords is comparatively easier and the rate of conversion is better than that of short tail keywords. Do include keywords in the title tags.

5. Do Maintain a Uniform URL Structure.

If your website is dynamic, then you need to modify the URL structure of the web pages. This maintains uniformity and helps searchbots to understand which page it is indexing. It is very easy to maintain the URL structure in dynamic websites. Blogging platforms like Wordpress provide an option for permalinks. Customized dynamic websites can use URL rewrite in the .htaccess file for the same.

4. Don’t Link to Low Quality Websites.

Link building is a very crucial aspect of search engine optimization. Search engines consider the number of incoming links to a website as an indication of their popularity and give them priority rankings. Many beginners fail to realize that it is links from authoritative and quality websites that are important and they mistakenly link to low quality websites for higher rankings. This tactic can cause the credibility of the website to go down with search engines and in some cases, the website may get banned.

3. Do Perform Competitive Intelligence.

Before starting your search engine optimization program, visit the competing websites in the top results. Research these types of questions:

A. How many websites are competing for the same keyword? B. How old are the websites in top search engine results pages? C. How many back links do the top ranking websites list? D. What type of social media is used by the competing sites?

2. Do Take Advantage of Google Analytics.

2009 was the year when web analytics gained momentum. Google Analytics came up with advanced metrics and intelligence report features which revolutionized free analytics tools. Companies realized the benefits of using web analytics tools to extract their relevant data. Implement Google Analytics to analyze data and build a 2010 plan to increase traffic and rates of conversion.

1. Do Create Fresh Content.

Search engines are famous for penalizing a website for publishing duplicate content. With plagiarism on the rise and availability of content checking tools such as Copyscape, marketers have become more cautious. Yahoo is considered to be among the harshest of all the search engines with regard to this penalty. Add fresh content to your website to help build visitor interest and credibility with the search engines.

These 10 simple do’s and don’ts can help you to avoid making potentially dangerous seo mistakes and ensure your site is indexed and boost rankings.

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/web_design_and_development/article_1994.shtml

In today’s business world it astounds me how many new businesses start up without a website in place. The benefits are endless and on the whole a well maintained website can only have a positive effect on a new or established business.

So what are these benefits?

Your customers have an open door to your business twenty-four hours a day. They can access up-to-date information on products and services that you offer and how to obtain them. Online sales are growing every year, a trend which is unlikely to change, so why not use your website to its full potential and gain some extra sales?

Though the internet is global and you can reach a worldwide market, it is important to remember, especially for smaller businesses, that local business could be a large percentage of your income. The internet is still used by people on your door step looking for local services/products. Having your website appear in local directories can only be beneficial to your business.

How much should I spend on advertising?

Advertising your website needn’t be expensive. By simply adding your web address to your stationery and emails, traffic will start to flow to your site. Vehicle decoration is also another good way for you to advertise.

Which is easier to remember – a telephone number or a web address? I pass the same vans on my way to work most days. I see the company name, telephone number, etc but I can never remember each phone number. On the other hand, I can remember the web address for most companies. Get the point?!!

In my opinion starting a new business venture without a website is like entering a running race with your laces tied together! Untie those laces and make your business a success.

Still think you don’t need a website?

Madness.

Article Source: Written by Sid Dixon
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/web_design_and_development/article_1914.shtml

I found this great article about Color theory and how it is used in creating websites. Colors invoke different emotions from people so choosing the best color for your design is important. To read the complete article on color theory click here.

Color theory is the practice of using the meaning behind colors to bring about a sensory experience. This practice can be applied to web design with some knowledge and thought.

People will often disagree about what certain colors mean and what colors designers should use to implore a certain emotion. However, what can’t be argued is that consumers do have emotional responses to colors.

Article Information:

A Look into Color Theory in Web Design
March 8th, 2010 by Shannon Noack

Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_1428570_4.html
Web usability covers a broad range of areas but generally it focuses on ensuring you keep visitors on your website and help them achieve their goals. In many cases you can make improvements to your site by adding or altering content, and in other cases a web designer may be needed to make technical changes.

Often a small number of seemingly insignificant changes can collectively improve the experience of a user. For instance, by removing any annoying or frustrating feature from the path of a visitor, they are less likely to leave your site and visit your competitors site instead. Do you really want to lose potential sales to your competitors?

It is a good idea to put together a web usability checklist so you can tick off each item before the
website design is finalized and the site goes live.

Items on such a checklist are wide and varied but these are the absolute basics:

Navigation

Each page should have the same navigation (menu) otherwise visitors will get confused and won’t know how to get back to where they came from on your site. Make sure you include a link to your Home page in case visitors entered your site via an internal page.

Content

Clear and simple is best. Small bullet-pointed paragraphs with visible headings make it easier for your visitor to find what they are looking for. Emphasise important text by using, for example, a different font or colour. Whatever you do, don’t be tempted to bold and capitalise sentences as you will give the
impression of SHOUTING. Write for your visitor so try to avoid jargon and marketing text.

Links

Are links in context i.e. do you have some text before the link explaining where it is leading to. All links should be obvious, preferably underlined and changing colour once clicked on. Above all, make sure your links are not broken.

Branding

Ensure your brand is consistent throughout the site. This not only means placing your logo in the same place on every page (usually the top left) but keeping all fonts and colours consistent. Page layout should be consistent as well. Visitors should not be left wondering if they have gone to another site by mistake when they click on another page. This is one of the main elements of the website design.

Contact

It is surprising how many websites do not make the contact information more obvious. Do not make it hard for people to contact you. By all means have a contact enquiry form but also display your telephone number as not everyone will want to fill in a form to get in touch with you.

As mentioned above, these really are the basics of website usability but it is surprising how often these are overlooked during the process of website design.