Effective Web Site Design
I had a friend ask me, "What’s the number one thing to do for a really great looking website?" I in turn asked him, "Why do you care about your website looking good?" He just looked at me strange and followed up with, "Why wouldn’t I?" This started out my bleary eyed Saturday morning breakfast, and all I wanted to do was watch my Saturday morning cartoons (good thing I have Tivo).
As a reader, I ask you, what is the first thing you do when you want to look up something on the web? For most of you, unless you know the website by heart, you have saved it in your favorites or bookmarks, or have searched for it in a search engine like Google, Yahoo, or MSN. When I asked this of my friend he answered with a resounding, "Depends". "Depends on what?", "On what I’m looking for." I had to change my tactics so I asked, "When you go to a website, do you sit there and ogle the graphics or the flash menu? Or, do you try and find the info you were looking for?" He replied with another resounding, "Depends".
My headache started at that instance and I began to see that I would have to drag him by hand into the world of effective web site design.
To truly understand effective website design an analysis of the workflow of the average web surfing habits is extremely helpful. What is the first thing you do when you want to look up something on the web? Most people use a search engine, so let’s look at how search engines work.
The three top search engines look at your website, analyzes the text on the site, and puts the count of the words and phrases of each through some math to give it a score. It then saves all the information, including the website address, on its own internal servers. When a user puts in a word or phrase, the search engine checks it against what it has saved and gives back the best matches. If you put up a site that has nothing but pictures or flash you will not be able to find the website through a search engine, because there are no words or phrases for the search engine to score. This brings up a combination of two very important items for a website, visibility and relevancy, or how your website looks to search engines, and how relevant the content on the website is to what is being searched for by the user.
My friend then generally asked if he should be concerned with the looks of the site. My only answer was that unless you have a specific marketing campaign that has to have a certain look, motif, or color scheme, most web site designers will take your content and apply their own creativity to the design of a web site for you. Sometimes what we think is cool and neat on a website goes against the ability of a search engine to see what is on the site. If the site is being made with a certain artistic goal then making a compromise and taking a hit against search engine optimization could be necessary. If the goal is to reach as high as possible on search engines then you may not be able to utilize something artistic or creative.
That’s when we get to creativity. Complicated flash animations are cool for some sites but you definitely take a hit against search engine optimization. Having an entire site in flash is not something that should be done unless you have your brand firmly established.
When we were done, my friend looked like he was beginning to get a headache. Mine was slowly subsiding as I got him to realize that there is a whole lot more to creating an effective website then just great looks. I was able to go back to my Saturday cartoons that were recorded on my Tivo.
We do a lot of work with web sites, marketing and search engines, and I definitely find that there are 4 things to keep in mind when creating a web site:
- Visibility – How your web site looks to a search engine, ultimately content driven.
- Relevancy – What does your content say and is it relevant to the topic.
- Creativity – The visual appeal to the humans looking at your site.
- Usability – How does the site function to both search engines and people.
If you’re about to dive into having a web site built for your business, be ready to write a few pages of content or hire a copywriter. The content on your site is what the search engines and people will be looking at. Also consulting with someone who knows about web sites and web marketing before you launch a web site, and actually listening, can save a lot of money in the long run.
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