Web Design News

Over on Small Business Trends there’s an interesting post - New Business Ideas: Targeting Nostalgic Consumers - that suggests that there’s a the market for nostalgic items is booming.

That’s something that we, as web designers, should be keeping in mind too.

Here is a site that my partner found in her travels around the Net. It’s produced by a state government here in Australia and it features some navigation that … well … is very different.

I wonder how many people have trouble reading it?

… does it really work?

There are lots of web designers out there who proudly proclaim that they submit every new website to all the search engines as if it’s some major selling point for their services. I suppose that it sounds quite impressive to clients who have little or no Internet experience but to those who do it sends a different message.

There was a time when it did pay off to submit sites to the search engines … although there was one particular search engine years ago that actually marked down those sites that were submitted … but these days it has almost no one in the world of SEO  believe that it has any effect at all.

But it still sounds good and makes those trumpet that service look important. I wonder what they’ll do when clients do begin to understand how search engines really work?

 It seems that our latest site - nothing much other than a brochure site - was already visible in the search engines before it was completed and the client has already made more from the site that what we charged her to produce it. Of course, developing the knowledge base to achieve results like that isn’t very exciting but it certainly pays off in the long term.

Sooner or later you’re going to be confronted with a client who may want to show different things to different site visitors depending on where they’re coming from. That’s when you start getting involved in geotargeting or geo-location.

If you haven’t encountered geotargeting or geolocation yet you’ll find an excellent article about it here. You’ll also find that it’s not something you set and forget; to be effective geotargeting is something that needs some attention every month.

I swear on a stack of bibles that in all my 10 years of web designing I have never … ever … embedded sound in a website and after completing the client’s website I am currently working on I will never … ever … embed sound ever again.

The reason why I will never use sound again is because I’ve just been psychologically damaged for the rest of my life. I wanted to brush up on the EMBED command and so I went to a site that Google recommended and there was subjected to the most hideous aural torture you could possibly imagine.

I was stuck listening to the most soul-destroying rendition of the 1812 Overture I have ever heard. It sounded as though the musicians were playing tin whistles and a garbage can lid and the cannon … was a cap gun.

I am now a shattered man.

It’s sometimes interesting to look at the print advertising used by web design businesses. Some of them make the same mistakes in both forms of advertising.

You’ll find a short article here on the changes that are occurring in the way people use the Internet.

It’s of some importance to us if you read between the lines

Good web design is about more than just pretty pictures. Good web design is about more than just the text that’s included on the site. Good web design is also about the site’s directory structure -  - that part of the site that surfers don’t see but search engines do.

When a client asks us to review a site … or do something - anything - to improve its rankings in the search engines we often find a site that has a structure that looks like it was built while the designer was off his or her face.

Site structure may not appear to be very important to the designer who wants to impress their client with their ability to build something that looks pretty but site structure is very important for the client after the site goes live. If it’s not done right then the client could end up spending a lot of money to get their site rebuilt so that it is right.

So why not do it right from the beginning?

If you’re not sure what really does constitute good site structure then read 7 Maddening Site Mistakes - it will have a lot to teach you.

What is your advice to clients who want to buy links for their website?

Do you tell them about the warnings that Google has issued? Do you tell them to concentrate on purchasing quality links from places like the Yahoo Directory or do you tell them to go out and buy as many links as they can get their hands on?

Sometimes desperation drives people to buy links from neighbourhoods that Matt Cutts would consider as bad and their clients would too. Would you buy a link that put your business on the same page as links to some shady websites?

Sometimes buying cheap links does far more damage than you might think … but then, as a professional web designer, you should know that.

We often recommend that to clients that they should think seriously about having a blog on their website. The advantages are obvious but are there any disadvantages?

Well one or two posts in a month tends to say nothing positive about any business … except that they really have very little to say and may not be on the cutting edge of their industry.

So don’t rush in to recommend a client has a blog on their website unless they really do have something to say.