| Building a useable website can seem daunting. Here is | | | | never stand up to the competitions. |
| a quick guideline to help you on your way. | | | | 6.Don’t design in Flash Seemingly technical |
| 1.It’s all about your content To get your | | | | in nature or “neat†perhaps flash |
| website listed appropriately the content of your | | | | animation only serves to distract visitors from what |
| website needs to be nested between the tags. This | | | | they came to your site for in the first place, your |
| way it gets read by the search engines. Your | | | | product or service. Your services are what visitors |
| content also needs to be unique and get your point | | | | are interested in not a blinking, noisy, website. Flash |
| across.What is it about your product or service that | | | | also creates major problems with getting it properly |
| is better and different from your competitions. This is | | | | indexed. There is no way for the search engines to |
| called your usp or unique selling proposition and should | | | | extract content from your website as it is all |
| be conveyed clearly and immediately upon hitting the | | | | contained with in the swf. If you absolutely must |
| page. | | | | have a flash page it is imparitive to offer an html |
| 2.Make effective use of your title and description | | | | version as well. |
| tags These are your two most important tags when | | | | 7.Easy on the eyes Graphical elements play a huge |
| it comes to referencing your page content. Meta | | | | role in a website design as well. You need to make |
| keywords rarely have any impact what so ever on | | | | sure you don’t have any extreme |
| your pages listings. | | | | contrasts between colors and that you |
| 3.Make sure content is well formatted It is very | | | | don’t use really bright colors as they are |
| important to break up your content with italics, bold | | | | quite hard on the eyes. Your logo or brand should be |
| text, bulleted lists, etc. Well formatted content | | | | clearly displayed on the home page and in more than |
| makes your pages more accessible to visitors but the | | | | one place. |
| search engines also. Visitors scan across your page | | | | 8.Instill a sense of well being with ease of use Make |
| rather than read it so it makes sense to format your | | | | sure you have all legal documents in place such as |
| page so it can be browsed yet still convey your | | | | privacy and return policies. It is also important to |
| message. | | | | have all of your contact information pricing etc. |
| 4.Proper code Having proper progamming in place is | | | | displayed in a manner that conveys legitimacy. It |
| quite simply a must. Web standards have changed | | | | should be very easy to contact you for any |
| substantially over the years and it is important to | | | | questions your visitors may have. |
| make sure your pages validate both html and css. | | | | 9.Include an opt-in newsletter A great way to |
| Think of it this way. How effective could you get | | | | generate return customers is to offer an opt-in |
| your point across if you were talking swahili. Your | | | | newsletter. This allows for direct marketing to people |
| code is no different. Why make it difficult for the | | | | who you know are already interested in your product |
| search bots to index your content. | | | | or service. What better way is there to keep |
| 5.Do not use Front Page, Dreamweaver, or any other | | | | customers abreast of new products or changes in |
| WYSIWYG editor. | | | | the services you offer. |
| While accurate, MS Front Page, for example, makes | | | | 10.Use a trademark or tag line In our case we |
| it easy for just about anyone to throw up a web | | | | trademarked the manipulated at symbol with the |
| page it doesn’t take W3C compliancy into | | | | phrase bringing e-solutions to you, thereby |
| account Hence the code it outputs is an absolute | | | | effectively increasing the strength of our brand. We |
| train wreck. This is terminal for your website as you | | | | are now able to effectively convey who we are but |
| need a strong code base (foundation) or your site will | | | | give a good creative idea as to what we do. |