website Archives - identityXperts

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5 Basic Ways to Help Your Website Become SEO Friendly

If you are responsible for developing a website for your business, then you should know the fundamentals of effective web design. One behind-the-scenes success factor for any website is that of search engine optimization (SEO). Search engine optimization is the process of making your site as visible and relevant as possible to search engines so that it ranks as highly as possible when people are using the web to find products or services related to your business. Here are five basic ways to help your website become SEO friendly:

Optimize your graphics

Search engines do not recognize graphics (even graphics with text and Flash graphics, for that matter). Therefore, if your pages are image-heavy, the search engines are missing out on a lot of what makes your site relevant to site visitors. Optimize all of your graphics by adding descriptive alt tags.

High-quality content

When search engines “crawl” your site, they populate the content in a way that enables them to determine the relevance of your pages. Therefore, if you want your website to rank highly for searches related to your business, your content should be well-written and targeted to your audience.

Keywords

Keywords and keyword phrases are terms that web users might use to query a search engine for your business product or service. In addition to loading your content with high-quality keywords, you should also use relevant keywords when titling your pages and writing your page descriptions and headers. Use an online service like Google’s free keyword tool to find keywords that may be most effective for your purposes.

An SEO-friendly URL

Your site’s URL should be short, concise, and descriptive of your business brand. It is a good idea to use relevant keyword phrases in your URL to make it as SEO-friendly as possible.

Site structure

Search engines need your help in identifying relevant content on your site. One of the best ways to do that is to structure your website in a way that flows and is easy to follow from page to page. Your sitemap should make sense logically and should efficiently lead to any and every relevant page of your website.

When it comes to building your brand, your website is one of your most powerful tools. Contact Dr. John Elcik at identityXperts to handle all of your web design needs. We can be reached by phone at (561) 543-2892 or email: jelcik@identityXperts.com.

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5 Tips to Help Your Website Load Faster

When it comes to your website, you must consider more than just design. Some factors determine whether or not your site visitors will stay to explore or leave without so much as a goodbye. One thing that can make or break your website’s success is the amount of time it takes for your pages to load. After all, web surfers are a finicky bunch; they lose interest quickly if they can’t move around your site quickly and efficiently. So, what steps can you take to prevent page load lag? Here are five tips to help your website load faster:

Cut out unnecessary coding

Bulky coding slows downloading speed because browsers must read through everything as they load your pages. Therefore, just going through your coding to eliminate unnecessary white space and tag elements can reduce the amount of time it takes for your pages to load.

Enable caching

PHP caching will store images and other vital information from your site on visitors’ computers when it is downloaded the first time so that your site visitors can subsequently retrieve that data in the blink of an eye.

Trim your images down

Graphics take much longer to load than text, so you should be strategic about your use of them. There are a few things you can do to trim down your images. First, assess the pictures you are using to determine which are necessary, and then keep only those. Second, scale the images down if you can (as smaller images will load faster than larger images). Third, if you have a page with many photos (an online catalog page, for example), then you can give each image its page instead of including all of the pictures on one, slow-loading page.

Optimize your database

There are numerous ways you can optimize your database to decrease your site’s load times. Simple search the web for “database optimization” to learn the details of how to get optimal performance out of your site by optimizing your database.

Find a new host

Believe it or not, the distance you are from your host affects how quickly your site loads. You can decrease your page load time by simply choosing a host that is nearby.

Additionally, some of the cheaper hosting companies use inferior equipment. This can significantly delay your site load. Consider upgrading.

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Web Navigation is So Important to Your Website

All good web designers know not to overlook specific aspects of web design like navigation. Navigation is just what it sounds like – how people get around on your website. If your site is lacking in effective navigation, it is not going to work for your business the way you need it. Here are some reasons why website navigation is so important.

Web Navigation

People can enter your site from several different pages.

Some people make the mistake of designing their website entirely on the home page. It is important to remember, however, that a multitude of your site’s pages may be ranked simultaneously by search engines. People will be able to access your website from pages other than your homepage. Without proper navigation, visitors could get stuck on a page and not be able to move on to explore more of your site.

You don’t want to put your site visitors to work.

Simply put, users don’t want to work hard to explore your site. A lousy navigation network can mean multiple clicks (and guesses) to get the desired information. If you force your visitors to put in too much effort, you will lose their interest. And you will lose them.

Your site should be well-organized.

Again, this comes down to helping your site visitors find what they need, with as little effort as possible. You can’t expect people to understand how to get where they want to go automatically. Navigation is your way of organizing your site. For example, by making good use of primary navigation, secondary navigation, menus, and internal linking, you can create a user experience that is likely to keep people interested, and loyal, to your site.

If they can’t find it, they can’t read it.

You put a lot of money and time into creating, aggregating, and commissioning content for your site. Simply put, if your website is not designed with navigation in mind, your visitors won’t be able to find your content. If they can’t find it, they can’t read it. So what good is that content?

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Design Essentials for Websites: 5 Must-Haves

When people think of web design, they often think of things like graphics, page layout, and attention-grabbing fonts. And yes, these elements are certainly part of web design. The truth is, however, that web design essentials encompass much more than just aesthetics. Are you interested in learning more about what makes a great website design? Then check out these five must-have website design essentials:

Navigation.

Navigation pertains to how people will get around on your site. You can’t make them work for it. You want all of your content to be readily available, and good navigation is the answer. Use primary navigation, secondary navigation, text menus, internal links, search boxes, and breadcrumbs wisely. Do this throughout your site to ensure your site visitors can easily find what they are looking for.

Leading the eye

Navigating through the site, you must also help visitors determine how to focus their attention on each page. You must “lead the eye,” so to speak, by strategically applying weighting, placement, positioning, spacing, and highlighting techniques to guide your visitors from areas of primary importance to supporting or secondary areas.

Typography

The type and size of font you use will significantly impact the user experience and will go a long way in creating the impression you want (or even one you don’t want if you are not careful). Additionally, you must consider line spacing, text effects, line length, paragraph size, and emphasis (italics and bold) when placing your typography.

Clarity

While it may be tempting to pack your website with all the neat graphics and informative content you can, it is more important that your site visitors can quickly ascertain what is on your page. Keep in mind that simplicity is almost always preferable over complexity when it comes to web design and that too many visuals (or too much information) could end up looking like nothing more than a jumbled mess to your site visitors.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Your site is no good if others can’t find it on the web. When it comes to design essentials, good SEO practices include using alt text for images, no-following outbound links that are irrelevant to the site, and labeling page titles and headers effectively.

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A Great Website is a Branding Opportunity

If you know anything about marketing, then you know that branding is equivalent to your business success. There are numerous ways to grow and strengthen your brand, and you should be taking advantage of all of them. Your company website is one such branding opportunity that you just cannot afford to miss out on, and you should, therefore, put some serious time and effort into creating a site that works for you. Want to know why? Here are some ways in which a great website builds your brand:

Your logo

There’s no doubt you understand the importance of your logo when it comes to branding. Your website should display your logo prominently and on every page. Doing so is just another way of etching that logo into customers’ minds.

Your image

You know who your target market is, and your business image should be relevant to that audience. When you create a business website, some choices must go into the design – options like color, content, layout, graphics, and navigation. All of these design choices will contribute to your business image, which in turn will help strengthen your brand.

Connection. By creating a website that is inviting, informative, and easy to navigate through, you are giving your customers (and potential customers) and an avenue through which they can keep in regular “contact” with your business. Remember that your brand is an abstract thing, based on the impression you give people, as well as all the things they associate with your business. Forging a connection with your company is integral to strengthening your brand, and a great website is a very effective way of doing that.

Personality

Your website is a great place to express your business’ perspective, philosophy, and experience. A website gives your brand a personality. Your brand must be personable in this way, as this is what will endear it to customers, giving them a lasting impression that will keep them coming back for more.

Call to action

When you create content for your website, you have a great chance to inspire your site visitors to engage – thus strengthening your brand. Do this by way of a call to action, such as, “Contact us today to learn more about this exciting opportunity!”

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How a Good Website Design Creates a Great Impression

Your business needs a strong web presence to be successful in the Age of Information and that your website is integral to your web presence. However, do you realize the importance of good web design when it comes to your business brand? That’s right – it’s not just enough to have an aesthetically pleasing site with good content. Good design is more complicated than that, and it can mean the difference between having an effective or ineffective website. Want to know why design is so important? Here is how a good website design creates a great impression:

Professionalism

When you take shortcuts, it shows. Don’t make the mistake of taking shortcuts with your web design. Sure, your teenage cousin knows a thing or two about creating websites. Still, unless he can create a top-notch, professional-looking site for your business, your site is just going to look amateurish. And your site visitors will get the impression that you are an amateur—spring for a good website design.

Navigation

Good design creates an effortless experience for your site visitors. You don’t want people to have to work or make guesses to find their way around your site. By providing them with straightforward, simple, and well-organized site navigation, you are giving your visitors the impression that you care about catering to them. You are also ensuring they can find (and read!) all of the valuable content you have on your site.

Branding

Your website design should be in line with your business branding in every way – from the colors to the fonts. That means that good web design, with your brand in mind, will elevate your brand and increase brand awareness, thereby creating a lasting impression for your visitors.

Attention-grabbing

You have a minimal window of time in which to grab new site visitors’ attention and pique their interest enough to want to stay and explore for a while. Studies show that a first impression in the web world may take as little a fraction of a second to form. Good web design will snag your site visitors and enable you more time to get your message through to them. In a world where first impressions are so vital, you must invest in sound design.

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Making the Most of Your Website or Blog

Chances are you’re putting a lot of time, energy, and effort into your blog or website. Are you getting the results that you want? Are you achieving your online business goals? If not, you may not be making the most of your website or blog.

Test, Test, and Test Some More

The best way to make the most of your website or blog is to test what works and what doesn’t. There are many different things you can check and ways to test. You can test headlines, test calls to action, and test different content formats.

For example, your audience may respond more energetically to video content than they do to print material. Or maybe reviews are preferred over “how-to” articles. Testing is the only way to know what your audience is responding to. Once you know, then you can adapt your strategies and tactics. Split testing is often the easiest method to test.

Analytics

Analytics is almost a website or blog essential. It tells you who visits your site, how long stayed, and what pages navigated. Analytics can also tell you the organic keywords used, or the link used, to find your website. Google Analytics is a free tool that makes it easy to create an account and then literally cut and pastes a piece of code into your site’s code.

Just cutting and pasting code isn’t enough, though. You also need to review the analytics and base your strategy and decisions on the information. For example, if you find out that the majority of your visitors come from the south, then you might create more content, promotions, and offers that appeal to that region.

Facilitate Engagement

If you’re not encouraging participation, comments, and interaction, then you’re missing out. Create systems and opportunities to connect and allow conversation. Blog commenting is a start.

However, the posts need to ask questions and motivate responses. Even more, you want to reply to comments in a thoughtful manner that drives more comments and feedback. Plug-ins that create forums, chats, and social media participation are another means to facilitate engagement.

To make the most of your website or blog, you want to create a more reliable connection with your audience and visitors. By testing, using analytics to track the results, and by creating opportunities for conversation, you’re able to take your site to the next level. It strengthens your relationships with your audience and helps increase traffic, opt-ins, as well as conversions and sales.

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3 Website Design Elements to Avoid

There are design elements to avoid. When you design a website, your most important goal is to make it as easy as possible for visitors to use it while still providing a welcoming aspect that represents what your business is about. No matter how wonderful your product or service might be, your website has to present it well, or you won’t be making any sales; instead, your visitors will be clicking the back button.

When we talk about good website design, we aren’t talking only about art or graphic design. You must take into account; accessibility for the user, the layout and interface design, and of course, the graphic design. Each of these contributes to an overall well-thought-out website design.

To help you out, we’ve made a list of a few of the worst features that come up in web design. After you read this list, you can check out your own site and see how it compares; if you notice any of these features on your website, perhaps it’s time to revamp your design.

Background music

Too many sites seem to want to provide a soundtrack with looping background music. Frankly, we really only recommend it for websites that are promoting a band or other music-related products. While having a little tune playing under your site might seem fun at first, it can be a real annoyance to a website visitor trying to browse your site – every time they click over to another page, the music starts all over again. Many visitors will either turn down their volume – or worse, click away from your site. What’s more, visitors with a slow internet connection have to wait for the music to download when they visit, slowing down their ability to browse your site.

Text that’s too big or too small

Like we mentioned, there’s much more to the design than simply the graphics – user-friendliness is a big part of what makes your website work. And a part of that is the text size; text needs to be large enough to be legible but not so large that it makes it hard to read. Another thing along the same lines is the text color – make sure that there’s enough contrast between the text and the background that you can read it without straining.

Popup windows

Many surveys have found that popup ads or windows are among the top annoyances on the internet; most people ignore them or immediately click the back button rather than deal with them. In fact, most people have put popup “blockers” on their computer so that they rarely have to see the things. So not only are they annoying to the people who do see them, whatever message you’re using them to convey is not being seen by many people who come to your site. If that message is important, it’s most likely getting lost; you need to find a better way to get it in front of your visitors.

Remember that as a webmaster or site designer, your main concern is making sure that your site effectively conveys your message to your visitors. Take a good look at your site to ensure that your message isn’t being lost or ignored because of a relatively minor design flaw!

Dr. John P. Elcik, IV
The Pragmatic Web Designer