Posts Tagged ‘design’

Recently I had the unfortunate task of telling a business person some really bad news about her site.

She was asking for some ideas on how to get more visitors to her site as well as making it more visible on Google. I checked out her site which was very nice but I noticed one HUGE problem, it was completely built in flash. Because the site was built in Flash it probably cost her roughly $1000 dollars. The bad news about it being in Flash is that the search engines will only index it as a single page site without any content.

Considering content is one of the most important aspects of SEO if the search engines can’t read it, I don’t care how nice it is, the site will bring minimal traffic, if any.  You can add description tags and title tags that are excellent but because that is not a primary concern with search engines, you will receive minimal benefit from it.

It is true that Google purchased the rights to the technology to interpret Flash. However, they have not implemented it and no other search engine can read it.  When they do implement it, they will only read the text inside the Flash, not pictures of text, since Flash sites are basically moving pictures, Flash sites will still not be as indexable as other sites.

There is NO aesthetic advantage to designing an entire site in Flash. In fact, you can achieve almost the same effects with JavaScript, and CSS, which won’t interfere with search engine indexing.

Flash is great for accents, but not for entire site coding.

I wasn’t really thrilled about telling the person about her site.  Especially since I knew approximately how much she paid for it, but as a web designer I felt I had a moral and ethical duty to tell her.  Was she upset?  Probably, but I haven’t heard a response from her.  My only concern is that she went back and talked to the person who created the site for her, asking them about it.  Not because I am fearful of the backlash but because of the fact that her web designer probably told her I was full of it and that Google and other sites can index her Flash site just as well as any other site.  The reason I am sure that her web designer told her not to worry about it is because they created the site for her to begin with, knowing that her site would have a hard time getting indexed and getting traffic.

Just because a site can have a ton of bells and whistles doesn’t mean it should.  This also goes for advertisements, or anything that does not serve a purpose to your site visitors such as music playing in the background, a video of the site owner/CEO talking about how great their business is or even saying welcome.

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Bet you thought I was actually talking about your website. Unfortunately, the reality of it is that some “professionals” really do produce websites that suck.  If you don’t have the experience of creating a website, you very well may inadvertently create a website that sucks.

There are a few different things that need to be considered when creating or having a website created for you.

Design

The design has to be appealing and portray your business in a positive light.  It also has to match your marketing message or your target market.  For example, if you are selling vibrant lively plants, you want a vibrant and living site feel.  If you are selling legal services, you don’t want your site to feel like you should be behind bars. The colors also have to be consistent with your marketing message.  You’ll want to make your target market feel comfortable, so they’ll want to trust you.

Organization

Your website needs to be organized and not cluttered.  I am surprised at all the websites that I see that are so cluttered that you have no idea what their message is and you don’t know where to even start when it comes to browsing the website.

Personality

Your website needs to have some personality in it.  It gives  the visitor the ability to feel as if they know you and feel connected to you in one way or another. It helps define you as distinctive, and helps start the trust building process. For very small businesses, personality is one of the major strengths, and something a faceless corporation cannot compete with – so getting some great character into your site is very important.

Know Your Target Market

When you are creating the content of your website it is extremely important to know and understand your target market.  Are they fact finding types?  Are they creative types?  Why would they want to work with you?  All of these have some type of bearing on what your content should say. If they are more of the fact finding types then add some facts to your website that corresponds with why they would want to work with you.

Keep your potential clients’ needs at the forefront.  Do not base your content on what you can do but how you can help them.  Let them know that you understand them and you can offer solutions for problems they may have.

What Do You Do

If the product/service that you are offering is well known, this may not be as critical.  However, if it is not, you are going to want to tell your clients what you are, what you sell, and why they would want it. This isn’t as simple as it seems – because they don’t really want to know what you DO, they want to know how you can help them, and how your method is going to be more helpful long term. Describing this well is critical, and one of the major areas where do it yourselfers and new professionals fail to produce an effective result.

Navigation

This goes along with organization and design.  If you make your website so it is difficult to navigate or understandable, you will lose those potential clients.  By nature, humans are extremely impatient beings.  You need to give them the information that they need, when they need, and easily found. Navigation should be consistent from page to page also, so they only need to figure out your standard once.

Load Speed

Believe it or not, there are still several people who do not have access to high speed internet.  If you use flash or some other application that takes a long time to load, you will lose those clients who don’t want to wait.  They will leave your site before they even get a chance to enjoy it.

SEO and Accessibility

These two areas are closely interrelated when done correctly. Failure to get them right will hamper site visitors, reduce your traffic, and cost you over and over.  SEO can outright HURT you if it is done wrong, and the rules change frequently, so you need to work with someone who can help you optimize your site in a way that won’t bite you if things change in a couple of months, and who is not using last year’s rules which will bite you NOW.

If you have a website and it just is not making you the money that you know it could, step back and take a look at it.  Take the emotional connection you feel for that website out of the realm of things and put yourself in the shoes of your potential clients and decide whether or not your site appeals to them.  Remember, your site is just another site among the millions of others offering the same thing and if yours doesn’t catch the attention of clients quickly, it will not bring you business.

If once you take these things all into consideration, try and fix it or if you are still not sure what to do, talk to a professional web designer.  One who is willing to listen and help you out.

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