SEO

We’ve listed 10 of our biggest bug bears that we hate to see on websites – or at least those we can think of straight off the top of our heads! These aren’t necessarily in any order of annoyance, and we’d like you to feel free to comment with any of your own pet hates. Take these with a pinch of salt of course, as everyone’s tastes are different!

1. Not everyone has access to a fast broadband connection or a whizzy pc – so your fantastically amazing graphics may well irritate the hell out of us while we’re sitting there patiently waiting for them to load!
2. We don’t all use the same internet browser – so make sure your website looks as good in Internet Explorer as it does in Mozilla, or Opera, or blah blah blah! You might be surprised at how differently your website can look in different browsers – so make sure you check it out!
3. Repeat after me: “Less is more when it comes to design”! And that includes colour too!
4. Splash screens – OK haven’t we moved beyond these yet?! There’s a reason there’s always a skip button on flash intros – so give people the option to view your lovely flash pages, rather than sticking them on your home page and forcing us to come via these page!
5. This should be your mantra – “set up a site map”, “set up a site map”, “set up a site map”! Seriously check out Google’s easy site-map generator tool for doing just this. You really don’t have an excuse now!
6. We love the use of media in websites, but make sure you use sound intelligently. Clicking on a website and suddenly being exposed to loud music/noise can be startling in the extreme! So make sure you use your sound effects wisely and for the benefit of all!
7. Broken links are a no, no! Seriously, why would anyone bother returning to a web page if the links are broken? Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy!
8. Using Ajax can interfere with your browser’s history, so if you use it on your home page and someone clicks on your Ajax link within the home page, they may not be able to click back on their browser bar to return to the home page. This is very annoying people! Don’t forget – usability is key!
9. Websites that are slow to load. In fact, we hate these so much we may just not wait around. Repeat after us: “My website must load in under 8 seconds!”
10. We hate websites that are hard to read – that means hard to read fonts, use of badly contrasting colours, and horrible background images that obscure the text!

Any more you can think of?

There are lots of things to consider when setting up a new website. So we’ve outlined just a few that we think are key and which you really need to keep in mind when setting up a new site. So whether you’re setting the site up on your own, or using a web designer, just make sure you’ve got these covered!

Objectives and Target Audience

Your objectives and audience will dictate the look and feel of your website. So think carefully about what kind of web presence you want. Take into account all your current needs and requirements, and factor in any future expansion you’ve got planned. Give careful consideration to the purpose of your site. What are you trying to achieve, what are your main aims and objectives? Maybe you’re selling a product, or service, or using your site to market an off-line business. Your objectives and your target audience are going to drive the look and feel of your site, so make sure you know what they are before you start building your site. That way you can make sure your website achieves them all!

Website Design

Give careful thought to the design and structure of your website. Do you need a content management system (CMS)? Even a small website can benefit from a good CMS allowing you to easily develop and expand your website – it can be difficult to update static sites, and a good CMS can save you money in the long term. continue

What is the point of SEO? You could say it’s to get you noticed! The internet is a big place. You can build the most amazing website the world has ever seen, but if no-one knows it’s there – then unfortunately it’s just money down the drain!

This is where SEO comes in – the purpose of SEO is to increase traffic to your website, thereby increasing conversions too. You want to rank as highly as possible in the search engine results for your all important keywords, and this is where SEO comes in. SEO is natural or organic search, which means it doesn’t cost you anything, apart from the time it takes you of course. And this can be considerable!

But whilst you may not have limitless resources to spend on SEO, you can at least make sure you cover the basics to give you a head start on your competition. So make a start by picking your keywords carefully to ensure they reflect your website accurately and whatever service or product you are offering. The content of your site is very important – your website should be well written, easy to read and keyword rich. These are the things that will help drive traffic to your site, and score you plus points with the search engines, helping you increase those all important rankings. And most important of all, keep that content up to date! continue