Web Design and Search Engine Optimisation
There's a lot of information out there
on web page design, so much is useful, but only if
you are not serious about having a high ranking in
the search engine. Search engine ranking is critical
and valuable. Just think yourself, how often do you
have the time or the inclination to go past the first
page of a google search.
The search engines are changing
their crawling habits of sites all the time. It can
be hard keeping upto
date with their procedure. That's why it's important
to have somebody that's able to enhance your front
page. Not by flashy entrances where the customer
gets tired of waiting for your site to download,
so they backspace to the search engine, google, yahoo,
dmoz or the like and finds another link, usually
your competitor. Not by inserting frames and flash
and other tricky devices such as counters, that are
done for the administration department of your company,
so they can feel important amongst their peers at
the next boardroom meeting with a flashy design.
These
design are not only expensive but quiet often they
rank poorly in the search engines eyes, transferring
to lower sales than what you might of had. Some web
designers even have the gall to promise you links
from their bank of other subscribers. This is cheating
the system and it's an old and worn out trick. All
search engines are awake to this and if your designer
is putting this up as "enhancement of your site" better
get someone else to handle in effect what is your
cyber store front.
Some of the major mistakes that
designers use in their design are :
1. Splash pages
- warm and fuzzy but time consuming and almost useless
in the search engines eyes, due
to lack of content.
2. Small and Low-Contrast Font Face .If it's hard
to see it's hard to read.
3. ALT Tags on Images - if it's on your page make
sure the search engine knows.
4. Make sure the surfers can navigate away easily
from your site, even if it's to another site that
you think might be of interest to them. Make your
site friendly and the chances are you'll have repeat
visitors. Yhe more people stop at your store the
more people shop at your store.
5. Back button reliance is a no no, give them a home
page button to click on to.
6. Music, not good, especially on the home page .
How annoying everytime you hit the home page button
you have "THAT" music again.
7. Unclear font. Make sure that your page is easily
readable. Don't mix capitals with lower case. Keep
your font at something like Arial or Helvetica.
Don't centre all your texts. The title is usually
placed
there, however the main part of the text is better
to the side.
Of course these things don't apply
to all sites, generally they hold true to most.
To maximize your
seach engine ranking simple is usually better.
