Archive for the ‘website design’ Category

Half-Baked Website Design

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

From the exterior, it resembles a mini-sized, personal cake, evoking the taste of a sweet, moist object of nibbling affection. One bite in, and there’s nothing worst than a gummy, undercooked muffin with remnants of raw egg. The under-baked muffin is analogous of half-baked Website design.

With small businesses dominating the economy, there are a lot of entities that understand the importance of having a solid brand identity and unforgettable website design.   But, without the traffic, it does not matter how magnificent the design is. If people can’t find a website, its mesmerizing qualities are merely irrelevant. It’s like the muffin that looks good on the outside that no one wants to eat.

Under cooked baking goods are the outcome of one of  three issues:

1)    The temperature of the oven was not hot enough.

2)    The muffins were not baked for the appropriate amount of time

3)    The ratio of egg and milk was inadequate to the flour  / muffin mix.

 

In the realm of search engine optimization and SEO / marketing, half-baked Website

Design is the byproduct of three inefficiencies:

 

1)    The website design lacks certain search engine optimization qualities to attract traffic.

2)    The content has a deficit of keyword density, link structure and other SEO components to gain search engine popularity.

3)    Website design is comprised of  flash, static, frames or other features, which can be problematic for search engine indexing

Amending these baking missteps is a matter of seeking professional assistance. Just as epicures rely on Alton Brown, Emeril and Paula Dean to impart the secrets of baking intelligence, companies in quest of website design, affording a healthy ROI can contact the Net Impact for advice. 

Website Design: McGwire Vs. Babe

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

If you were to compare your company’s website design to famous baseball players, would your site be emblematic of Mark McGwire or Babe Ruth? While these players did not compete or play during the same era, both set and broke amazing home run records.

As we know — today, Babe Ruth had some unhealthy habits. Back then, baseball players could down a couple of hot dogs and slam a few beers, before hitting a homer. That’s how Babe played the season he came up with 60 home runs. Nevertheless, the wins were genuine, free of any superhuman inducing powers. Mark McGwire didn’t down any hot dogs during the season that he set the new 70-home run record. In fact, he went the other way with steroids.

As for  website design, who do you prefer to emulate, Mark McGwire or Babe Ruth? Organizations who are concerned with protecting their legacy generally mimic Babe. While, their site may have a few flaws, they conduct business above board. When Google indexes their site, it is free of the steroid-esque qualities.

  • Door way pages
  • Misleading meta tags
  • Stuffed Keywords
  • Misleading title pages
  • Link exchanges

In the end, it’s up to the Major League Baseball organization to determine how to document the history books about baseball players, who broke records under the influence of steroids.

Unfortunately, Google is not so forgiving. Although, Google will never question the legitimacy of the company Website developed using ethical website design and SEO programming, websites not meeting appropriate design standards can be penalized, and potentially  excluded  from their search engine results.

Is your website design developed using ethical programming? Contact The Net Impact for a site analysis.

Web Design in the Eye of the Beholder

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Does your company covet the site designed using flash animation? Have you ever watched he classic Twilight Zone, episode titled, ‘The Eye of the Beholder’? It’s the one, where a bandage-faced woman lays in wait for the removal of her surgical dressings. Enduring the eleventh reconstructive procedure, she yearns to look like everyone else on her planet. In actuality, the others’ faces bear a resemblance to the swine species.  “The Eye of the Beholder” is analogous of Web design. Not saying that companies want their site to be branded using the icon of a pig, flash has its place in web design. 

If you click on the following link: “Website design, you will see a home page void of photos, colors and layout. From a first impression, it seems like the company Web site lacks the design qualities that The Net Impact preaches about. However, upon a close assessment, the page is designed to accommodate all platforms: desktops, personal computers, Mac, and mobile technologies.

Rather then overwhelm visitors with a flash presentation, the site accommodates all operating systems, making it easier for anyone to find and click onto interest specific information. Moreover, market research suggests that most business-to-business prospects prefer the traditional HTML presentation than flash.

Next, upon the click of content management system, the visitor is taken to a page, where, each Web page features Web design continuity. In other words, each page has the same site navigation, layout and design features.

And while, the home page is not comprised of all the bells and whistles, which bellow “super-slick” web design, few site visitors abandon the site because they were unable to find specific information or the animation took too long to load.

So, in the eye of the beholder, user-friendly, SEO driven Website design  appeases every end-user.