Webappers.com is my new favorite resource for all things related to web design and usability. I have already found useful icons, jQuery and JavaScript tools, and other open source goodies.
Posts Tagged ‘Web Design’
Web Design Resources
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009How to 301 Redirect the Non-WWW to WWW
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009Tutorial: Redirecting non-WWW to WWW
I have seen a lot of clients get frustrated quickly after I tell them to set up a 301 Permanent Redirect from the non-WWW version of their website to the WWW version.
Example: Redirect http://domainname.com to http://www.domainname.com
It is important to note that this method only applies to servers running Apache. Be very careful when you change the .htaccess file because it can cause your entire site to fail with a simple typo. I recommend hiring an experienced web designer to do this for you.
First: open your .htaccess file. It should be in the root folder of your website (usually www). If it doesn’t exist, create a new file named .htaccess – that is the entire file name, so don’t add a .txt extension or add anything in front of the period.
Add the following lines (if there are already some code in the file, add these lines above them):
RewriteEngine onRewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domainname\.comRewriteRule (.*) http://www.domainname.com/$1 [R=301,L]
REMEMBER: Be extremely careful, and make sure you know what you are doing. Depending on the structure of your website, adding these lines in the wrong place can break your website.
I am working on a large post explaining what the .htaccess file is and now to use 301 Permanent Redirects for many reasons – I will publish it as soon as possible.
Web Design Inspiration
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009
I ran across PatternTap.com about a week ago and have been using it to manage and UI design elements. It’s a very handy tool for any designer – it mainly targets web design but graphic and print designers will find it handy as well.
I offered a suggestion that would allow me to use PatternTap on a constant (as in hourly) basis: a FireFox plugin or a bookmarklet that I could use to highlight some features on the page and then contribute those features under the appropriate category. They responded quicly and told me that they’re working on that – I can’t wait.
Office Max Website Navigation
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009As I was shopping for an external hard drive I ran across the Office Max website and was very impressed by the usability of their shopping cart.
Instead of the common Category -> Sub-Category -> Etc. -> Product navigation, Office Max uses an alphabetical navigation bar, with a drop-down featuring products beginning with the letter you are hovering over. The most common products and categories under each letter are bolded as well.
Bravo, Office Max – I love the design, and the shopping cart is extremely light-weight. It loads fast, looks good, and best of all, it is extremely intuitive and user friendly (if only their online prices were a little better … 
).
Website Changes, Redesigns and SEO
Friday, January 2nd, 2009If you just made significant changes to your website design, or are thinking about giving your website a face lift/some major on-site SEO optimizations, you are probably wondering what kind of impact those changes will have on your search engine rankings.
Several of my SEO clients have seen some serious fluctuation after making major changes to the copy or structure of their website, and come to me asking, “Those changes are supposed to help my rankings – but I just dropped out of site! What’s going on?”
Watching search engine rankings decline after paying a bundle on SEO and web design changes can be painful, and you will likely see a temporary decrease in site traffic, but if you can stomach the temporary set-back, you will be better off for it in the long run.
Changing your website may temporarily hurt your rankings, but it will come out on top after some fluctuation.
If you see some fluctuation, don’t let it surprise you. Search engines are just re-evaluating the new content on your site – it has changed a lot since the last time they visited your site, and have to make sure that your site is still relevant to those keywords.
You’ll see some fluctuation – your website rankings will probably drop at first, then shoot up and down for a few weeks like a Californian seismograph, but in my experience, you can count on it coming out on top in the end – with much higher rankings than the website had before.
The good news: it won’t hurt for long. It will usually take between 30 and 60 days to see the improvement you are looking for, but think of what you’ve gained:
- You now have a SE-Optimized website, so you are going to see more traffic in the future for keywords on all of your pages.
- New content will be ready for search engines
- Your website is more user friendly and useful for your visitors
- The optimized content on your website will bring relevant traffic for a very long time – SEO has to be part of your long-term marketing strategy
Tips for redesigning your website without losing SEO value:
- Use 301 Permanent Redirects to redirect users who may be visiting the former pages on your site via bookmark links, old marketing material, or various links around the web. Redirect them to their new equivalents or to relevant pages. Using a 301 Permanent Redirect will preserve the SEO value of the former web pages, and channel them to the proper destination. Links and search engine rankings that pointed to old pages on your site will still be relevant, and the new pages will rank for the same keywords as the previous page did.
- Keep the content that worked for you. And throw out the rest. Keeping the content that your visitors (and search engines) liked will keep them coming, and will reduce the negative fluctuation that will follow the redesign.
- Take advantage of the redesign to do everything right. Make sure your title and meta tags are unique, look over your navigation structure, make sure you are using text links, and proper semantic XHTML structure to aid search engines in determining the structure and heirarchy of your website.
Templates Are For Losers
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008Why branding is important, even for small business websites.
Last week, comScore issued a press release with an interesting find:
“The most effective online marketing tool for both patients and prospects is the brand’s Web site. It’s important to realize, though, that visits to a brand Web site are achieved through the use of a variety of offline and online tactics, such as online banner ads, search and offline advertising. This is why it is essential for marketers to develop fully-integrated campaigns that not only raise awareness and educate consumers but that also drive visitation to a site.”
- Bridget O’Toole, comScore Executive Vice President
comScore researched web sites and internet marketing techniques in the pharmaceutical field and found that previous exposure to a Pharmeceutical brand through online and online advertising increased brand awareness and favorability: those critical ingredients to dominating the competition.
What does this mean for small businesses?
That means if you’re using a weak, un-branded template web site that everyone and their neighbor has seen dozens of times, you’re going to lose to your competition with a more branded web site.
Using cheap (hopefully free – it’s just a template!) templates is never cost-effective. There are some nice templates that may be close enough to your brand to pull off, but the number one reason I would never suggest using a template is because using a template gives the impression of being completely finished – buttoned up.
Just as Ms. O’Tooele points out, however, your website is your most effective online marketing method, and like all marketing campaigns, it needs to be tweaked, optimized, and fine-tuned to maximize it’s revenue-building potential.
The second reason why you shouldn’t go for the cookie-cutter template: you lose your identity. I’m always disappointed when I come to a template site because I wanted to see that company’s identity, not a yellowpages column. What makes your company unique? What’s your USP? Make your site communicate that effectively. The reason is obvious in these two screenshots:
I searched for “attorney lincoln nebraska” and found these two results near the top: guess which one I would trust with my business?
SEO Tips for Small Business Websites
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
Simple techniques that will put you ahead of the competition.
Every day I help dozens of small businesses optimize their websites to improve their visibility and rankings on search engines, and every day, I ask one client to make many of the same changes as the last.
Small business websites generally face some major obstacles to ranking well on Google, and competition is rarely one of those obstacles – at least not in this stage in the game as most small business owners still seem oblivious to the potential in being ranked first in search engine rankings – of course, competition varies within industries (apologies to all the real estate agents that are reading this). In my experience, once these obstacles are out of the way, small business websites (for auto repair shops, day spas, shooting ranges, etc.) climb very quickly to the top spots on search engines.
So what does it take to step ahead of the competition?
1. Design it right – the first time
Small business websites have two inherent enemies: the owner, and his/her budget. I wish I had recorded (because I promise you’d be surprised) all the times I’ve heard:
I made this site myself with Dreamweaver/SiteBuilder/[an online tool] but it doesn’t seem to be appear in search engines
or
I can’t make the changes you asked for because the tool I built my website with doesn’t give me access to the HTML/my web designer says that those changes are just too hard (web designer is inadequate)
The best advice I can give (and as a web designer you’ll hear this from me again and again) is to find a professional web designer. Small business owners often either look for the cheapest, most affordable solution and sacrifice quality and the ability to test and improve their website, or they try to do it themselves, thinking that the FrontPage 2000 class they took in High School qualifies them to make the company website – besides, it saves money, right?
There are plenty of affordable web designers (no I’m not talking about the friend of your nephew’s girlfriend) that will work with you to make a website that reflects your brand, product, and customer base.
Don’t forget – websites are promotional. You wouldn’t pay for a cookie-cutter mailer or pay for billboards on roads with no traffic (see where I’m going with this?) - so don’t expect that using the cheapest/simplest web builder or template is going to be a smart investment.
When it comes to building a website, think in the long-run. A website that can’t be found is a waste of money; same with a website that doesn’t sell effectively. You shouldn’t have to pay a lot for a well-built website, but you’ll be paying more if it is built in a non search-engine-friendly way or in a way that doesn’t allow you or your designer to make changes to the HTML code on your site.
2. Use keywords
Please – include keywords on your site. The copy (text not contained in images) on your site is the only indicator that search engines have in determining what your site is about and what keywords it should rank for.
If your site doesn’t say “Plumber in Reno, NV” anywhere on your site, then it will never rank for that keyword.
When determining keywords to target, think of what you would type to find a similar service/company/product in your area. When you are searching for Pizza in Athens, GA, you will probably type something along the lines of “Pizza Athens GA” – this works with nearly every industry. The “[industry/category/product] [area]” keyword model is a good example to follow.
Where to place keywords: Once you have chosen a few keywords to target, use them in an intuitive, relevant way in your body copy. It shouldn’t be hard to include them if you talk about your area and industry right on your home page (which is the page you should focus on the most – none of those “Enter Here” pages that waste users’ time and tell search engines that your site is about “Enter Here”).
3. Avoid using Flash
As a designer, this has always been a difficult recommendation to make. I love Flash – I think it’s pretty, and it is also (especially the latest version) versatile, interactive, and makes for some great applications (see jooce.com). But until July 1, 2008 it has not been search-engine-friendly. Google just began indexing Flash, but its SEO value has yet to be tested and determined so my advice is still to only use Flash for logos, banners, and other small graphical calls to action that don’t need a lot of text.
4. Take advantage of title tags
You don’t have to be familiar with HTML to master this one (very) helpful technique: using title tags correctly. Title <title> tags are found towards the beginning of your HTML and all you have to worry about is the text between the opening <title> tag and the closing </title> tag.
Too many websites don’t take advantage of the SEO value that Title tags have to offer; they use titles like “Home,” their domain name, or their business name. I recently read a very good article that discusses using your business name in title tags – it is certainly worth re-thinking.
Research has shown – and the experts agree – that title tags are one of the most important factors that search engines take into account when they index your website.
How to use Title Tags correctly:
Do:
- Make the title tag on each page of your website unique
- Try to keep it under 65 characters (that is all that is visible on search engine results pages)
- Include keywords that are specific to the respective page, and describe the theme of the content on that page
Don’t:
- repeat keywords
- repeat the name of the page (instead of “About Us,” write “About [Company Name] – San Diego Dentist”)
- worry about fitting in every keyword you want to rank for – just add the most important one, or – if there is plenty of room and it makes sense – two
- forget that this is what users see in search engine results – so make it relevant for users (not just for search engines)
5. Promote your site
I am always surprised that my clients want to be found on Google, Yahoo!, and MSN, they are willing to pay me for it, but they haven’t spent the time to add their business profile on Google Local, Yahoo! Local, or MSN Local. Here are the links to these business profiles (this gets you on Maps and business directories for all three search engines:)
- Google Local – Gets you in local listings and Google Maps
- Yahoo! Local – Gets you in the Yahoo! business directory and maps
- Live Search (MSN) Local Listing Center – Adds your business to MSN Live maps
It is also helpful to add your business to these directories:
- Dmoz Open Directory Project – adds your site to hundreds of online directories.
- InLocal.com Local Business Directory – there is a free version, and the paid version gets you into over 70 directories.
- YellowPages.com
- SuperPages.com
This is Part I of the Web Design Guide for Small Businesses Series.
Note: Here is the PDF Version of this post: Web Design Guide – Part I: SEO Tips for Small Business Websites.
