Avoiding Common Web Design Mistakes

When I started to design for the web I already had some basic coding experience, so I figured, how hard could it be to get serious about it? Take your images, headings and body copy. Link it all up and no problem! So little I knew then...

Major problems..

What I learned; the basic experience I had didn’t translate well as I worked. I had images everywhere, text flowing over and around them. Different fonts on every page. Differing background gradients and transparencies. And I had yet to account for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, etc, both the Windows and Mac versions. My ideas were great, but they were a nightmare to code.

Being that it was my first real foray into the design and construction of a website, I hadn't used a stylesheet to layout and control my flow and design. But, if you follow the guidelines below, you’ll avoid some of the most common web design mistakes and save yourself a lot of frustration.

1) Reuse design elements
Using different fonts and design accents on every page in web design is a no-no. The more elaborate the design, the harder it is to code. Visitors expect every page of a website to have a consistent look and feel. Keep your font sizes consistent from page to page and reuse graphics and icons where you can. If you carry your design elements throughout your website(fonts, icons, bullets, and graphic accents, for instance), your CSS will be much simpler to write and visitors will appreciate the unity of the finished site.

2) Make your designs web compliant
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve finished coding a website, opened it on another computer, and been shocked by how different the fonts and colors were from the finished code. You can avoid a lot of problems if you make your designs web compliant. Stick with compliant fonts for easy declarations in your CSS, and work around compliant color codes where possible. If you decide to step outside the safety zone, test your designs early, often, and on different computers with different monitors.

3) Expect your site dimensions to change
There’s no such thing as "perfect” in web design. Even a minor update to a website can wreak havoc on a weak layout. So, make sure any element that has constantly changing content can accommodate changes to width and height. Use extra space as padding and test headings and sidebar links to see how they look when wrapped over two or even three lines. When content spills out of a container or causes your layout to come apart when you or a client updates the site, it comes across as sloppy and unprofessional.

4) Using a similar CSS layout for every website
If you change the stylesheet for every design, you have to start your from scratch. If you stick with a fixed container width for your designs, on the other hand, after a few websites you should work out a custom CSS framework you can drop into any layout to help expedite the coding process.

5) Design with your content in mind
The websites I designed in the past were dominated by pictures for the most part. But content is king on the internet. It takes keyword rich content to attract search engine spiders and drive traffic. So a website has to be more than just a great looking design. You should plan for a decent amount of text on each page. 350 to 500 words is a great figure to aim for with relevant content in mind.

-Nathan

SEO Task for Marketers, NOT Web Developers

SEO should really be left to a marketing brain not your webshop designer.

Having a clean coded website is very important but that clean code will only benefit you once you start trying to get your website ranking in the search engines.

Rankings alone do not generate business; marketing and rankings together generate business in a great way. Yes rankings are very important but if your website is not built with the user experience in mind also than all the rankings in the world will not allow your website to convert properly.

Buyers need to see more than a just a website ranking in search results. A press release written by a marketing person and distributed through the right channels could get you a story in an online or offline publication.

A press release written by a technical SEO person for the sake of rankings will most likely not get picked up anywhere and virtually no positive effect.

Search engine and visitor trust factor is something that not only the search engines need to see but also your audience. A potential customer will be much more inclined to purchase from you or give you a call if they see you in multiple areas, the only way to really be visible in multiple areas is to come to the party wearing your marketing hat.

A marketing approach to building your rankings will not just build your rankings but also build your business.

This was a snippet from PW story

The tricky areas of SEO

The tricky areas of SEO are what make it an art more than a science. An experienced professional will have developed a feel for what is and what isn’t permissible.

They are also likely to have developed a personal relationship with the search engines, meaning problems could get fixed faster.

It is always advisable to consult an expert when you are about to embark on optimization, and you can talk to us at Fresh Traffic if you are unsure about the grey areas.

Optimization? or Marketing?

In the wide world of the Internet, there's a million and one tips and tricks to promote your self and your business. Adwords, Twitter, Facebook, blogging, and all of the ups and downs associated with them. But for you, and your business, with the alternatives out there which one should you consider?

Well if the budget and time allows, all of them.

But realistically, unless you have a dedicated team devoted to each aspect of your online marketing campaign, self managing it can be tedious and time consuming. So pushing aside (for now) all of the social mediums, Twitter, Facebook, blogging etc, leaves with two avenues to explore. Searh engine optimization (SEO), and Search engine marketing (SEM).

SEO, is the holy grail of the internet business, and done properly, can solidify you and your business as an authority in your niche market. It takes time, effort, and a careful eye to ensure it's done properly and to maximum effectiveness. SEO is how you can grow from relative obscurity on the internet, to success and remain a star. The organic method to climbing the SERPs, Googlers know and embrace websites in the top 10 as the "go to" sites in their queries.

SEM, is a more instant approach to marketing. Using mostly sponsored ads in the SERPs, proper use and care of an SEM campaign can help increase, or begin, traffic flow into your site. The double edged side of using search engine marketing as opposed to search engine optimization however, is that most Googlers know that the sponsored ads are not organic, they're paid for.

Which method you decide is best for your site, is up to you, just know that you need to look no further than Fresh Traffic to answer your questions.

A step up

OneRiot, a real-time search engine for web and video content, has launched a new Twitter search engine with a unique angle: Rather than focus on what people are saying, the search engine focuses on the web pages people are linking to.

But whenever the subject of real-time search and/or Twitter search comes up, inevitably the argument heads to "too much meaningless chatter to find anything of value". It’s a generally fair argument. But OneRiot thinks it’s found a way to cut through the layers of noise.

How Does It Work?

One Riot crawls Twitter, looking for tweets with embedded links, then crawls and indexes the content being linked to. The OneRiot search algorithm includes spam checking and has checks for relevance, and a “hotness” factor for URLs that are being talked about a lot in recent tweets.

As you do a search, you can see the focus is on content — the URLs people are discussing and sharing on Twitter. But Twitter being a social site, OneRiot’s search results also include some social elements for anyone who wants to dip into the conversation. Each result includes a reference to how recently the link was shared on Twitter, how many tweets mention it, and who first posted it on Twitter.

It’s a unique approach to Twitter search that should prove particularly beneficial to the business community embracing social media advertising. In a short time testing the service, I found that it does bypass a lot of the chatter, and leads more quickly to relevant content. And there’s convenience too, in that OneRiot’s search expands shortened links, so you can see the actual content link.

An alpha version of their Twitter search engine is available now at twitter.oneriot.com.