Posts Tagged ‘ Web Design ’

Benefits of a Website Redesign

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

There exists many aspects of Search Engine Optimization that can be utilized to rank higher on search engines. Unfortunately, there will exist those websites that no matter how much they are optimized, will never rank on the first page of search engines, and/or will not be working towards attracting new customers. These websites are perfect candidates for web redesign services. When redesigning a website, it is important to plan ahead of time before the design process begins to find out what the primary goals of the new design will be. Is the design process going to focus on attracting new customers or will it focus on catering to existing clients? After the goals have been set, you can begin the process of redesigning your site.

If your goals are to rank higher, you want to consider the benefits and disadvantages of different types of designs and embedded material and how it will effect your SEO. Certain “best practices” strategies can be used in creating a good SEO friendly site. One of the most effective strategies is in CSS programming. Using CSS to set up your website layout will effectively separate your HTML from each element’s style (CSS). This will make it a lot faster for Search Engines to be able to index your content because they are essentially skipping the additional code that defines the look of a site. At Saba SEO, we pride ourselves of using CSS programming whenever possible instead of resorting to convenient tables for your page’s layout. If you need a website design that is consistent and easy to edit, you may also want to consider building a website template and creating a dynamic content library. A template and library items will allow you to easily make changes to repeating parts of your site without having to make the same changes over and over to each page.

You may also want to subscribe to website design best practice standards to ensure your site meets the proven criteria for easy customer conversion, and lead generation. Upon reaching a website, it is natural for a visitor’s sight to begin on the top left hand side of a website and begin reading left or down from there in an “F” or “Z” pattern. By organizing your webpage material accordingly, you can make certain aspects of your site more prominent. A “free consultation” button on the lower right hand of the page will not be as visible as a button which falls within this “Z” or “F” pattern. Many visitors also avoid scrolling through a page, choosing to keep their cursor closer to the top of the window. For this reason, it is also recommended that all of the web pages’ important content fall above the fold (bottom of the visible page before scrolling down).

Each page of a website should also incorporate some sort of “call to action,” which will serve as an incentive to your visitors to take action. Perhaps it is to sign up for your company newsletter, or it can be a lead generating form. Either way, you want these things to be prominent so that they are not skipped. It was not uncommon in the past that these “calls to action” were mostly reserved for the website’s home page, but with “Landing Page Optimization” (a way to make each page in a website unique and draw visitors) it is possible to have your interior pages act like small catching nets, acting like mini home pages. For this reason, a call to action must be included in every page to ensure that all of your visitors are given the option of taking action. Otherwise, you will only gain leads from those pages displayig the call to action.

Other good practices also include clear navigation, and targeted content. If a visitor cannot find their way around your site or links lead to irrelevant information, your site will suffer from a high bounce rate. This means that visitors may come to your site, and quickly leave. You can avoid this by making a visit to your site a pleasant experience.

If you are in the position of gaining a competative advantage by choosing a website redesign, call us today to schedule a free consultation. 866.937.1717

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Design vs SEO

Monday, August 10th, 2009

In a fight to the finish, who would win in the epic battle of  Design vs SEO. This question comes up time and time again. I have had to face this question myself several times. As a passionate designer, my heart races to defend design as the most important of all assets in our website creation toolbox. As an SEO expert, my brain kicks in to say, “what good is design if nobody sees it?” This battle rages on as one’s idea of aesthetics may contradict SEO best practices, and how a website with bad design may make the most searchable of sites unpleasant to read, leading to high bounce rates. Often, a designer may provide a website for a client, only to find that after 6 months, no traffic has been generated. After an SEO expert comes to review the site, he may easily find that the site will need to be redesigned to rank. This is a nightmare that companies have had to face for far too long.  In an effort to understand this battle, we will examine the strengths  of the two competitors.

Design: Design has existed for a long time. Ask a creationist and he will tell you that God himself is a designer. Humans have been designing since we first picked up a stick and drew in the sand or placed an image on a cave wall. It has since then developed into a language of its own capable of speaking millions of words without saying anything at all. It is capable of drawing on emotions, and it is able to encourage the viewer to take action. Good design can add up to more than the sum of its parts, meaning that it can tell an entire story just by the relationship between images. This has innumerable applications in the business world and is used everyday by advertisers to draw people online or to the stores. Advertising without design is just radio.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization is a protocol by which a website will find a competitive advantage over its competitors by filling in all of the possible cracks of a website with useful information that may make the site easy to find. Good SEO techniques involves good research and can easily allow a small company to compete with larger, more established organizations. SEO is the method by which one can spread their message and the way in which one is found by those searching. SEO also allows for greater networking possibilities and can add legitimacy to a company by making them a resource to the market or a authority figure to searchers. It is a valuable tool that becomes more and more necessary to companies every day.

The division and competition between the two studies continues to grow as very few designers are taught the fundamentals of good SEO. The nuances of effective SEO based design strategies are therefore left behind when a designer begins a project, making it hard to optimize in the future and costing the company thousands of dollars in a re-design. We strongly suggest that when you begin a website, you ask your designer if they are familiar with SEO strategies and if they are capable of designing a website that can be optimized. If they do not, then you should probably look elsewhere. In order to get a website that will benefit your company, here are a few technicalities that your designer should know, so ask them:

1. Why are CSS layouts are more search friendly than html tables?

2. Why should my page be designed in a Z or F pattern of hierarchy?

3. Why should my website load fast and how will you accomplish this?

4. Why should my navigation should be streamlined?

5. Are you familiar with my company brand?

6. Why does each page need to have unique and original html content?

7. How easy will it be to edit my website?

Although there are other factors to consider, the way your designer answers these relatively simple questions should be a good indicator of how prepared they are at providing you a website that is both well designed an easy to optimize. After all, these should be simple questions to answer if they are even minutely experienced with SEO friendly design. Otherwise, they may provide a great looking site, that will do you no good.

This competition of titans continues to grow as people continue to debate which is better. Rather, at Saba SEO, we encourage one to view the two as a married couple. This couple may have its occasional fights, but once the disagreements are settled, the two emerge stronger than ever in a solid union. Similarly, in any successful website, you cannot have one without the other. This is why our web design team is versed in both design and SEO, this way, design can continue with SEO efforts in mind, avoiding future conflict of interest between the two. It also allows us to provide a service at a lower price as we begin with SEO research before we even start designing a site, making the entire process quick, affordable, and easy to edit.

If you are ready to go with a professional San Diego Web Design Company, contact Saba SEO today at 1-866-937-1717. We optimize new and existing websites for top results on all major search engines.

For more tips please cut and paste the following urls to your browser address bar:

The 5 hats of Website Development

http://sabaseo.com/blog/the-5-hats-of-website-development/

Introduction to Search Engine Optimization

http://sabaseo.com/blog/search-engine-optimization-with-saba/


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