Tag: Web Design

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When Should You Update Your Website?

I’ve just this week done reviews for several clients about why their organic placement is slipping or is non-existent. There has been a common thread to each of these clients. The code on their site is bad, in some cases really bad. What exactly do I mean?

In some cases a site is so old or has so many problems that a redesign may actually be cheaper than a rework of the code to try to bring a website better performance. Here are several specifics to consider:

  1. Is your website built from a host’s template? Guess what, it may be pretty but contains code that slows page load time (which Google considers and weighs now for organic placement). Additionally there are missed opportunities to build in SEO tactics as you even name elements when you use a template.
  2. Is your site built with FrontPage and you are pasting in content from Word? Did you know that many of these WSIWYG that is What You See Is What You Get editors (not Dreamweaver fortunately) add all kinds of depreciated tags or span and style tags to the actual paragraph itself. This makes a page so very code heavy, slows speed, and makes it very hard for a webmaster to update. If you don’t update a site in FrontPage where it has been created and is how it is managed your can really mess up the webmasters syncing protocol and potentially lock them out from doing further updates. In fact, even worse is that FrontPage has been depreciated by Microsoft and so not even used by most professional webmasters. When I see code that FrontPage has created I know that the site may have been built in 2005  or about that time which is really pretty old technology.
  3. When you consider what it costs to have someone like me review and upgrade the code, rework the content to use SEO tactics on an old site or a template-driven site, a new design may actually be more cost efficient. It is simply not a good idea to spend $2,500 to $3,000 to rework a very old website, or one that is controlled by a template where certain aspects simply cannot be changed.

For sites such as this where the site owner may not have the money for a redesign, there is still hope. There are inbound marketing approaches that can be done in the meantime to help build link activity, and content creation updates that can help a site until there is the budget for a full redesign. Sometimes even just the rework of the home page can put a bandaid temporarily on the problem until there is more money available for a redesign and upgrade.

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When Was the Last Time You Redesigned Your Website?

I am often asked to perform code optimization services on websites in an effort to improve organic search placement. One of our determining factors of if we will consider a project as a good match for us, is how recently the site had been created. If your website is three, four, or five years old, it is by far better to invest in a website redesign with a firm that focuses on organic placement than it is to try to put an SEO band-aid on an old website.

Content creation and optimization services are not inexpensive. It is not unusual for a 15 page website to cost over $2,500 to optimize plus including new website pages and content as part of the process. However if the website looks dated, is not using new technology, or is not built with reader and search engine friendly code, we will typically not take on the project as it is not providing good service to the client in the long run.

The look and feel of websites have changed over time and it is important that your website have a contemporary feel. Content is one of the most important factors in getting organic placement. If your website has very little content and has a website design that does not allow site growth (both in the navigation and amount of content on the page), the money that would have been earmarked for code optimization should be saved for redesign and new content creation.

Be smart about how you spend your money especially when it comes to your website.

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Why Not Put Just a Wee Bit of Content on Your Home Page

I get asked this question a lot “Why do big companies just have a wee bit of content on their home page?”. There are several reasons why a website owner would want just a wee bit of content on their home page but nearly all reasons will not help you to garner search engine placement.

  1. Mistaken idea that the home page should be “pretty” and not have much content but lots of images.
  2. Mistaken idea that the home page is not important.
  3. Missed opportunities to introduce the depth and breadth of the website.

When I first started in web design 10 years ago, splash pages were the rage. A splash page  is where you had a graphic intense home page that had little if any content and was very different in look from the inside pages of your website. We have now moved away from this model as an industry. Now nearly every SEO and web design expert consider the home page crucial real estate for search engine placement.

You simply cannot garner the organic search placement you need to be competitive in today’s online marketplace with images or Flash components (that search engines cannot read) as key factors on your home page. For small to medium sized businesses the best plan is to have a keyword dense, web authority focused home page.

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Are You Trashing Up Your Website?

After a new website is launched, we do encourage all clients to routinely add to their website as it should be considered a work in progress. However sometimes in an effort to improve the site over time, the client ends up adding too many peripheral items that can impact the look of the site and the reader’s experience.

Particularly I have seen sites move from a “clean” polished look to a jumble when an indiscriminate amount of items are added to right or left side bars. Typically adding new content in the middle body section does not impact the overall look, but when you add to the sidebars, watch out!

It makes sense that if your page design has a left sidebar for features that you rotate features, but when you add, add, add, and never remove the site can start to look overly busy and become distracting to the reader. Add moving or animated graphics to this jumble, and suddenly your site takes on a “junky” look. I recommend that if you feel that you will have special promotions or features that you want in a sidebar location that you have these items integrated into your website design layout ahead of time, then stick with the number in the original design and rotate as needed. You can even have a features page linked from the sidebar and use the actual features page to highlight even more items.

The key here is to have smart growth, consider adding pages instead of sidebar features, add to your navigation instead of creating graphic boxes or highlights that site only on your sidebars. Keep your website looking “fresh” as your designer intended and don’t “cheapen” the look over time.