Website Design Basics

It is critical to optimize your site for search engines (SEO), but it does not end there. It is also important to consider the experience of your customers once they find your site on the web and on the value your site can contribute to your business. In other words, if potential customers find your site, but don't like it or if it is not effective in communicating your message, what have you gained? They will simply go to the next site in the index; your competition. Web designers must consider the complete package including search engine rankings, user experience, and direct value added features.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

If your customers can't find your site, you might as well not have one. You can increase traffic using several methods such as advertising campaigns, direct contact approaches, posting on lists and directories, or simply by word of mouth. There are hundreds of methods, but wouldn't it be nice if potential customers from around the word found your business online simply by typing a couple of key words into Google or another search engine. To rank near the top of these lists your site must be designed with search engines, spiders, and bots in mind. This is SEO.

The design of a site alone will not guarantee good rankings, but it is a necessary start. Below are listed some techniques that may improve rankings:

Design and plan your site up front with Search Engine Optimization in mind. Search engine considerations may be made as early as domain name selection. Don't make SEO an afterthought, after you are done. It may not be possible at that time without an enormous effort and redesign.
Avoid problem areas for spiders and bots such as the use of Frames, URLs more than 5 levels deep, URLs that contain '?' or '&', and dynamic JavaScript navigation.
Do use a navigation scheme that is search engine friendly with simple links. Do add links between pages. Do construct a site map. In these ways all of your pages will be indexed.
Keywords should be placed in page titles using header tags, in site URLs, and even in the domain name.
Don't use a gateway page, as this could be a red flag for Google and may reduce your ranking. Note: some webmasters have abused gateways filling them with excessive or plagiarized key words and verbiage that does not characterize the site content.
Make sure you write unique title and description tags for each page in your website.

Visitor Experience

Visitor experience is King. Consider your target audience and make sure, that is the basis of your site design. Below are some general guidelines to consider.

Keep it simple, stupid. Decide on the message you want to convey with each page and stay on point. Remove distractions. Make sure the site navigation is not complex and not too many layers deep.
Eliminate the wait. Pages load quicker with wide band width connections, yet surfers are less patient than ever. There is nothing more aggravating for many visitors than waiting for some fancy intro graphic to load that serves no direct purpose. For the same reasons keep images small as well.

Value Added Features

A fairly simple website that conveys the desired message, is straight forward to use, and friendly to search engines is wonderful. However, if your going to go through the trouble of building a site, why not utilize features that can save you time and thus allow you to focus more time on your business. What you have available is a platform that is secure, can be custom programmed, stores information, and is accessible around the world to you and your customers. Don't allow your competition to utilize this advantage alone. A point to consider, as well, is that your customers are expecting more options online and are looking for ways to save themselves time.

Below is just a couple of ideas on what can be done:

Security and password authentication that only allows the appropriate people to restricted areas.
Employee timecards filled out online at the job location.
Project tracking or online scheduling that your employees have access to in the field or at home.
Shopping carts that allows you customers to configure their orders and tracks stock.
Online configuration of products.
Give your customers access to check on order status.
Returning customers do not have to refill out all of there personal or company information each visit.