10 Steps Toward a Successful Website

April 6, 2010 by Ray

Establish a concise list of objectives.
What do we want to accomplish?
Understand the target audience.
What information do they need, and how fast? Will graphics help?
Provide quality content and keep it concise.
It must immediately convey it’s purpose, or visitors will leave.
Develop a site map based on a logical sequence to display information.
The navigation flow from page to page should be logical and consistent.
Utilize multimedia features if they aid communication.
Mouse rollovers, animated images, sound, etc. can reinforce the text.
Make it Search Engine friendly. Appropriate title, SEO keywords and META tags are essential to generating traffic.
Maintain the site on a regular basis to keep it fresh and give visitors a reason to return.
Integrate the site with other components of your marketing plan.
Work with a professional developer who has an understanding of both technological and marketing aspects.

Cross-browser compatibility and screen resolution concerns

January 28, 2010 by Ray

Are you sure that all of your website visitors see the same thing when coming to your URL? There are many different viewing possibilities such as browser, screen resolution and individual PC color and contrast settings. View your site in various combinations to be sure that everyone receives the same experience.

Strive for cross-browser compatibility
The same web page can appear differently when viewed in different browsers. Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and others each display code differently, so you must be careful to view pages in each before going live.

Usually, you can find common ground by utilizing code (stylesheets/CSS) that all of the major browsers recognize, but there may be cases that you should create distinct versions of the same page(s). Issues that may arise are the use of features such as image maps, frames, javascript, java applets, or operating system-specific controls. Test in as many environments as possible!

Layout and design for multiple screen resolutions
As mentioned earlier, another challenge is to make your pages attractive at various screen resolutions. The vast majority of PCs display 1024 x 768 pixels while most laptops are set to 1280 x 1024. There are still a number of surfers using 800 x 600. Setting pages to show a set page width of 800 pixels will display the same on each of these, and if centered, will simply have larger left and right margins to those with greater resolution.

Be careful with the code

Validate your HTML code
After designing pages, it’s a good habit to get into using HTML Validator software to reduce errors that could cause display problems in some browsers and penalize you in some search engines.

Site Structure and Uniform Layout

September 29, 2009 by Ray

Color schemes, font size, layout of pages, and navigation structure must be consistent throughout the site for the benefit of both humans and those search engine “tigers” that we want to keep well fed at all times!

Functional and uniform layout
Keep navigation consistent and clear. It is the most important concern for good “usability”. Visitors are more likely to stay at your site when they realize how quickly they can find their way around. Keep the link names (“anchor text”) as simple as possible. Your home page link should be easy to find so people can “start over” if they get lost.

Understandable Navigation
Arrange the pages (navigation) as if you are giving a tour which culminates in a purchase or contact. The hierarchy of the site should flow from most requested information to the least important so that significant areas are easy to find.

Keep site structure logical
Create a list or flowchart of the major content areas and sort individual pages into their relevant categories. It will be easier for visitors to locate the specific information they want if the structure makes sense. If a series of pages is dedicated to a particular purpose, include it as a directory name within your hosting account, giving you additional credit for keywords. For example, a shoe store may categorize items by type and then each type by brand. Great choices of directory and page names for “ABCShoes.com” could be:

Running Shoes
ABCShoes.com/running/asics.html
ABCShoes.com/running/brooks.html
ABCShoes.com/running/nike.html

Tennis Shoes
ABCShoes.com/tennis/reebok.html
ABCShoes.com/tennis/brooks.html
ABCShoes.com/tennis/nike.html

Keep the structure relatively flat, meaning as few layers (directories, sub-directories) as possible. Shorter paths to internal pages result in more credit by search engines.

Organize link menus
Ensure easy access to each page. Large sites may need a Site Map, Search Feature or drop-down menu such as at http://www.HealthandEndurance.com. In particular, a horizontal or vertical drop-down menu allows easy categorization of pages, while using a small area of the page. With multiple sub-menus, visitors can jump from one page to another with minimal clicks. New pages can be quickly added at to the appropriate location.

Maintain consistent layout features
All pages must show consistency in terms of backgrounds, colors, navigation, font sizes, etc. If they don’t look like they all belong to the same website, you don’t look professional. It also invites confusion.

Get a Great Domain Name

June 24, 2009 by Ray

Finding the best domain name (web address) can help you achieve higher search engine ranking.

Use search terms in domain name
When the internet was in it’s infancy, everyone scrambled for the shortest possible web addresses. This works well when your name is “IBM” but can get tricky if your name is “Peoria Day Nursery and Children’s Center Preschool”. Abbreviations can work well if they are logical, but for search engine purposes, “PDNCC.org” is not helpful since it doesn’t include words that people would search for such as nursery, children, preschool, daycare, etc.

Keywords included in web addresses carry considerable weight with search engines. They figure that if the word “school” is part of a web address, then that site would likely be of interest to a web surfer doing a search including the word “school”. So if the name of your organization is “ABC company” and you sell shoes and boots, for SEO purposes, instead of ABC.com you’d be better off with ABCShoes.com or ABCShoesandBoots.com. Adding dashes (-) to separate words does not necessarily help, and it could confuse people.

While it is always proper to use the company name as the domain, if your site has a particular geographic focus, including it can give a significant boost in rank. Using your location as part of the URL helps you show up when visitors key in the city or state they are interested in. “ABCShoesNewYork.com” tells us your company name, what you sell and where you are.

Many organizations purchase several domain names, to prevent their competition from using similar ones to try to confuse people into visiting the wrong website.
At around $10 per year for each name, purchasing a few could be inexpensive insurance. ABC may go with ABCShoes.com, ABC-Shoes.com, ABCShoesandBoots.com, ABCShoes.net and have each of those domains forward to the official web address so visitors would end up at the same destination regardless of which of the above they punched in.
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