Web Design Information |
|
Hiring The Right Webmaster
The Questions You Should Be Asking ? When interviewing webmasters, don't let price be your deciding factor. Among webmasters there is a split between those who are skilled in the fine art of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and those who are not. To obtain high rankings for your site on the major search engines, multiple SEO Marketing tactics must be included within the design of your website. As an online business owner you should be concerned with the depth of SEO Marketing knowledge possessed by the person you hire to design and build your website. Do you know the right questions to ask a potential webmaster to ensure that you are doing business with the right person? The process of hiring a webmaster may appear to be as simple as contacting a few designers and getting price quotations for their services. In the end you select the lowest bidder and move towards getting your new website built. Do not confuse price with function. Typically, a very low price indicates a finished product that will not be capable of competing for business online. Additionally, there are some designers who can accommodate you not only with design services, but with hosting services as well. They will charge a very small fee for the design services, which looks great on paper, only to hit you hard with a high monthly fee for your hosting. In the end you pay far more and your website is still not ready to compete on the search engines for any volume of business. How important is SEO Marketing to the design and development of your new website? Remember, if your site cannot be found in the first three pages on the major search engines, it won't matter what you spent or how lovely your website is; no one will ever see it, and therefore, no one will be able to do business with you. SEO Marketing should be at the core of your entire web design process. The Obvious Questions: May I view your portfolio? A webmaster should be ready and willing to show off their past projects to you. If they have nothing to show you ? run. Do you have a list of references? A qualified designer should not only be proud of their work, but so should their clients. Contact a few of their clients to verify their overall satisfaction with the design and the process involved. Keep in mind, good designs cost money and also take time. What software do you use to design? To the untrained eye this question may seem ridiculous. The truth be told, there are vast differences between webmasters and their skills. As it stands there are a small handful of great design programs which would qualify your potential designer as possessing the experience required to get the job done. However, there is one design program that will immediately disqualify your designer as someone who knows what they are doing; Microsoft's FrontPage®. If they say, "FrontPage®", say something polite as you hang up the phone. The Not So Obvious Questions Do you have any SEO experience? While some designers cannot even spell SEO, others will readily admit to their lack of expertise in such matters. Obviously you are seeking out a designer who claims to be well versed in the practices of SEO Marketing. How can you tell the difference? Ask them to show you some of their top ranking sites on Google, Yahoo, MSN or other major engines. The search phrases they use to find their client's websites should be commonly worded phrases that people would actually think to type on the engines, and not some cryptic, uncommon mixed-up set of words which many so-called SEO Marketers use to justify their poor work. Remember, we can all rank high by typing in our company name, it's the sites that rank high when you type in the nature of their product or service that makes for good SEO. Do you incorporate SEO into your designs? Many designers will offer SEO services to you 'after' your site has been completed. For some, they must outsource these services as they are not qualified to perform SEO page optimizations during the design phase. A good SEO job requires that the majority of the text on a website be completely rewritten. So if you're not including this with the design, you'll be paying a whole lot more for it down the road as the SEO Marketer must take your nicely written content, tear much of it apart and rewrite it so as to appeal to the engines for higher rankings. How much text will you include on my web pages? While this question will obviously have a different answer for each page of your site, a smart SEO Marketer knows that a minimum of 300 to 400+ words per page will assist your site in obtaining and more importantly keeping higher rankings over longer periods of time. To the search engines text content is king. Text is "essentially" the single largest factor in helping a search engine determine your position in the rankings. What else you should know . . . Flash and Graphics are not text. While search engines are slowly becoming able to read the text content for some types of Flash presentations, such presentations are still mostly what the name implies ? "Flash". The sparing use of Flash to enhance the look and feel of your site is never a bad idea, as Flash can add a very professional visual aspect when used appropriately. However, there are several site architectures which are fully encased within a Flash presentation, where the entire site is Flash. Such sites will be hard-pressed to ever gain any ground on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), as Flash content simply does not contain the same relevance as standard HTML based pages. Graphics, on the other hand, cannot be read at all. Graphics, even those with text on them are simply rectangular voids to the engines. None of the content from a graphic image can be read or used for the purpose of optimizing your pages for the search engines. Frames aren't as bad as they used to be. The use of 'frames' in web design are no longer posing the obstacles they once did. Like some types of Flash, many of the major engines can now decipher frames-based websites and deliver visitors to your site based on the content of framed pages. There are a few tricks that experienced webmasters use to ensure that the frame structure remains in tact no matter what page a visitor is initially delivered to on your site. In closing, beware of the webmaster that tells you that they will 'SEO' your site by submitting to the major search engines. Submitting a website is not at all part of the intricacies involved in performing true SEO optimization on the pages of your website. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise. Submitting your site could certainly be included as part of your SEO services, but submissions are not themselves SEO Marketing. Kevin McElligott owns and operates iTech Developers, a web design, web marketing and web hosting company. With over 15 years of experience, Kevin is moving in the direction of "consumer advocate" by taking his technical background and applying it toward helping to protect the online business owner. He worked through most of the 1990's as a Novell NetWare and Microsoft NT network technician. During his final years as a net-tech, he taught MCSE certification courses for a short time before completely changing his focus to the Internet in 1998. Starting in 1995 he began developing websites, and by mid 1996 had started a second company which focused solely on website design, hosting and marketing services which is his current company, iTech Developers. Working in and around web development, he's discovered several trends in the industry which consumers need to look out for. He continues to teach and consult for both small businesses and established businesses alike. He can be reached at "kjm@itechdevelopers.com". Visit his website at http://www.itechdevelopers.com
MORE RESOURCES: Best web design software of 2024 TechRadar Top Web Design Firms Announced by SEMFirms for May 2024 24-7 Press Release Renowned Designer and Entrepreneur Thom Fajemisin, the Creative Force Behind the Redesign of the Ducati Logo ... News Channel Nebraska Website Design Competition - MCWT Michigan Council of Women in Technology Graphic design trends | Web Design and Content Marketing Crescent Vale Why (and How) I Learned Web Development as a Data Scientist Towards Data Science MDS launches new web design services Boating Industry New Insurance Lead Generation Company Increases Online Visibility for Niche Insurance Agencies and Carriers Kentucky Today Moving Your Website into the Web Design System (WDS) Washington State University 33 Best Web Design Companies 2024 Built In 18 beautiful parallax scrolling websites Creative Bloq 9 Chicago Web Design and Development Agencies To Know Built In Chicago Napa's Internet Marketer: Interactive websites: How you can raise the bar on design Napa Valley Register 30 Best Web Design Agencies To Partner With in 2024 Influencer Marketing Hub Top Web Design Trends 2024 Designmodo Why isn't Adobe doing web design better? Creative Bloq How to design a website: A beginner's guide CNN Underscored 6 ways AI is changing web design Creative Bloq TSTC Marshall spotlights online web design and development program Marshall News Messenger Are you up to build the next best website? Get started with one of these 5 web design courses Fortune Website Design | Alton | Edwardsville | St Louis RiverBender.com 8 Things I know about ... Web design trends for 2024 Worcester Business Journal Jeremy McGilvrey, A Houston Web Design Agency, Inks Long-Term Lease In Prestigious Williams Tower Office Space Yahoo Finance Sweb CEO puts AI to work for small business web design San Antonio Report 5 seriously useful AI web design tools Creative Bloq Valve and Picnik vets Hatch new idea — a no-code web design platform for 'tech curious creators' GeekWire Design Studies (Minor) | College of Liberal Arts UNH's College of Liberal Arts 25 Awesome About Us Page Examples For Web Design Inspiration Search Engine Journal Valpo Web Design & Marketing helps businesses through intentional design and forward thinking Valpo.Life The best free blog websites Creative Bloq Information technology students delve into web design with capstone project University of Missouri College of Engineering Valpo Web Design & Marketing | Partners Valpo.Life Web Design Statistics 2024 and Facts Enterprise Apps Today Valpo Web Design supports NWI No Child Hungry in fight against food insecurity with new website Valpo.Life How to Design an ADA-Compliant Website | CO- by US Chamber of Commerce CO— by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Michelle Belleville Science@NASA The 39 best free web fonts Creative Bloq 18 Free Web Design Tools, Winter 2024 Practical Ecommerce Locofy.ai's accelerates web design-to-code with AI as it pioneers Large Design Models Markets Insider Top 12 Web Design Agencies in the US for 2024 Influencer Marketing Hub 25 Best eCommerce Website Design Examples for 2024 Influencer Marketing Hub How web design trends have evolved Creative Bloq Best web development tool of 2024 TechRadar 6 great tools for testing responsive design for websites Creative Bloq 17 Free Web Design Tools, Fall 2023 Practical Ecommerce The 15 best iPad apps for designers Creative Bloq Mizzou alumna uses web design expertise to give back to engineering, community University of Missouri College of Engineering 38 Web Development Stats You Should Know in 2024 Influencer Marketing Hub |
RELATED ARTICLES
10 Nifty Ways to Prolong Your Visitors at Your Website Increasing the length of time a visitor is on your website will dramatically improve your conversion to sales. Use these ten points to check you are prolonging to stay of your visitors. What Does Your Website Say About Your Business? QUESTION: My business is very small, just me and two employees, and our product really can't be sold online. Do I really need a website? -- Robin C. Hiring The Right Webmaster The Questions You Should Be Asking ?The Answers You Should Be ReceivingWhen interviewing webmasters, don't let price be your deciding factor. Among webmasters there is a split between those who are skilled in the fine art of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and those who are not. Understand Your Color Any design on a web application involves the effective input of color scheme in order to impress web surfers, instill a certain image or identity associated with the kind of web site it represents, and add impact to the web pages. However, very few possess the talent and skill of developing a harmonious color scheme. How To Design Your Web Site With CSS Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) allows you to create fastloading pages, increase your search engine rankings, andmodify your whole site with one style sheet. So why don'tmore people use them? This is because they got so used tohtml design and are afraid or too lazy to upgrade theirskills. No More Jargon! Pamper Your Audience! When your company built its website, did you think about the content (the text) of your site? Did you write it for your customers? The answer to these questions is often 'No.'The first mistake most companies make when filling their website with content is overlooking who they're writing for. Website Registration Roadmap - How to Create Your Own Website in 7 Easy Steps Creating your own website is actually easy in today's world of affordable and free web hosts and website building software. Fortunately, even if you have no Internet experience at all you can simply follow directions and build your own website in seven easy steps. 4 Things That Make A Web Site Great First you need original content. Content is the heart beat of any exceptional Web site. Should You Bother Learning HTML to Build Webpages? The most popular method to build webpages today is to use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) software. Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver are prime examples of WYSIWYG software. Do-It-Yourself Web Design for Home-Based Businesses Home-based businesses need a strong web presence to combat the inflated advertising and marketing budgets of their larger competitors, but establishing that presence through a professionally designed and developed web site may not be an affordable option. In many cases, the only cost-effective way to get the web site you want for your business is to do it yourself. The Key to Getting More Magic Shows Booked Online This article is the result of a conversation I had with a magician about his website. He wanted to know if I could build him a nice looking site that had his name and contact information on it. Is Your Website Color As Inviting as Your Home? Does Color Really Matter? We've all read the countless publications about effective web site design, outstanding written content and the never ending need for search engine optimization. But often the importance of color for a web site is overlooked. Web Copywriting: The Psychology Of Scarcity, Less Is More If You Want Faster Sales Countdown to Armageddon - at least you'd think so judging from some of the garish copy and blaring headlines screaming at you from so many websites.At the opposite extreme though, you've some sites which don't even have a single decent headline anywhere that captures visitors attention, let alone leads them into captivating copywriting that'll get them a sale. Appropriate Key Words Choice What do the key words represent?Key words - these are the words that the users enter in a given search engine to find services or products you offer. It is extremely important to know what key words they will use. 3 Tips For Writing Content That Will Make You Sales Content is king. Without content your website is an empty shell, a skeleton with no flesh, an empty vessel. Owning Your Own Web Site Is A Must Owning your own website is a must if you are doing businesson the Internet.There are so many factors involved in creating a web site layout and or design that there is really no right or wrong design. Discover 7 Proven Shopping Cart Enhancements to Increase Your Sales For online businesses with their main goal of selling products, shopping cart abandonment can mean the difference between profitability and loss. But since recent surveys suggest that less than 50% of retailers know their shopping cart abandonment rate, let's review what it is and why it is important to know. Why Web Pages Appear in the Wrong Location after Uploading to my Website? If your are a new web designer, you may face a common problem after uploading your web page to your web server. The problem is that the web page appear in the wrong location on your website, and will not be accessible when you type its address in the browser address box. Web Design: Use it to Showcase the Message If you are designing a web site for which the achievement of high conversion rates is a priority, focus your design efforts on showcasing and highlighting the content and copy.For sites where conversion rates are a priority, the primary purpose of design should be to present the message in such a way that it delivers the maximum impact. How to Hire The Right Web Design Firm Regardless whether you manage a small business, charitable organization, or Fortune 500 company, choosing the right web design firm can quickly become a full-time research project. With thousands of design firms to choose from, what factors truly determine which design firm is best for your business?The primary considerations for choosing a web design firm are:* Price* Customer service/access to support* Credibility indicators of the design firm* Portfolio and design experience* Other services offered (domain renewal, hosting, SEO)* Turnaround timeLet's take a closer look at each consideration in detail, and explore how to identify and qualify the right design firm. |
home | site map |
© 2006 |