Toll Free: 877 990 1416

Posts Tagged ‘website design’

Top Website Development Tips

Monday, May 24th, 2010

You have a website and want it to rank high, but don’t know where to begin from? You can get high rankings and increase web traffic to your site by following these tips

•    Study what keywords visitors use most often on search engines that relate to your products or services; to increase website traffic use these keywords as text in the design.

•    ”Keep It Simple” – majority of all web designers use too many graphical images and programs like Java, Flash, etc. which results in lower rankings and less traffic.

•    Web pages are made using cells and tables.  Use as few cells and tables in your web design as possible.

•    Create good Meta Tags.  Every page should have special keywords in the Title and the Description Meta Tag.

•    Limit the number of times you repeat words in your Keyword Meta Tag.

•    Put the essential keywords at the top of the page as text headers.

•    The most important keywords and page should be on the first side of a website.

•    Never include pages that re-direct people to other pages.

•    Limit the use of services that automatically submits your URL to the top 10 search engines.

•    After finished with a page, run a spell checking program and then compress the html code.

•    Follow your search engine rankings and website traffic.

•    As the website is indexed, your web designer should go back and improve pages that didn’t get high rankings on keywords.

•    Make a small change on each web page every 3 months.  Search engines like to see that changes.

Tips to Keep Rankings after Website Redesign

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

1. File Names

Never change your file names unless it is completely important to reform the file hierarchy as not only you risk losing valuable rankings with page renaming, but also you might lose existing customers who could have bookmarked the now-moved page. If you do not have a choice but to rename file names, the use of a 301 redirection is the best solution. Your customers are automatically redirected to the new location while using 301 redirection.

2. Site Structure

Together with file names, site structure changes may include your domain name. The above rule still holds true if your domain name is the only change you make to your site. Even with correct 301 redirects, your rankings may drop notably.
Ensure that you have 404 redirects in place. Either direct “page not found” traffic to a custom 404 error page, or to your site’s home page.

3. Image Links

In case your present website uses text links to the home page, ensure that they are carried over to the new website design without losing the relevancy.

4. Content Management Systems

Today lots of new sites use CMS for content management which can destroy your rankings from time to time. Before switching to a CMS make certain that changed URL’s are accurately covered with 301 redirects and try to find a system that offers clean URL strings with minimal extra characters.

5. Content

If your new site has wholly fresh textual content, make sure that the keyword densities remain as close as possible to the old copy.

6.Title and Meta Tags
Make sure to copy the title and meta tag of your old page to the new version.

Web Design Myths

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

1. Adding too much graphics is helpful

It is right that graphics can build easy communication, but overuse of graphics may make it difficult. The page with heavy graphics takes a lot of time to load. Web design which is rotating simple and loading graphics easily is always pleasant for the visitor.


2. Use of too much color will make the site beautiful

Capturing website design is the key to attract a web visitor, but there is no need for a website design to look like a rainbow. Research proves that myriad of colors may spoil the outlook of website. Also it is possible that the web visitors may get irritated with the use of too much colors. So the website designer should always use the colors that go well with the theme and purpose of the website.

3. Flash is needed to add attractiveness to the website

Flash is usually used while creating advertisement banners and animations during website design. The flash banners may add reliability to a particular web design, at the same time they have many disadvantages. Web designer should remember that not all people have flash plug-ins installed in their computer so people may lose their patience if they are asked to download plug-ins to view your site. So a web developer should offer the choice of non-flash version along with the flash version, which permits the web visitor to browse through the information.

4. Website will look same in all browsers

Even designing successful websites many web developers believe that the website will look same everywhere as it appears on their PC. Though today, different website browsers perceive HTML pages in different manner. So a website developer should always make sure that the website is optimized with web standards adopted by different browsers.

Key factors for SEO Rankings

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

Website Structure

A search engine and user friendly website design is very useful for your business. Choose keywords to get your website on top in search and always put them in the domain name. This will heighten your site top rankings in search engines. In the internal linking structure there should not be any broken link that would create hindrance for search engine robots to crawl a particular page.

Use original content for your web page, a duplicate content will never help you to get top rankings from search engines; moreover, search engines may block your site. Incorporate your keywords or phrases in the content text with keyword prominence, frequency, density and proximity. Use H1 tag for heading or title text and h2 for sub-heading text, it gives bonus points for higher rankings.
It is better when the title is short and descriptive. Use 6-8 words or 60-75 characters in the title. Write an appealing description tag using keywords.

Backlinks

If you can generate more backlinks to your website, it is great, as you can beat your competitors and get to the top of search engines. Remember getting one backlink from a high page rank site is better than getting 10 links from sites that have low page ranks. Always give preference to quality of the links but not to the quantity.


Promotion of the site

Promote your site with posting articles, making social bookmarking, writing press releases, uploading videos.

Plan and Design a Website Structure

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

An effective website structure enhances user experience and allows search engines to determine the subject matter and relevancy of your site. You should create a blueprint before you begin your website design and content creation. It is important to keep all related website content grouped together into categories. Each of your categories should have unique directory and file name structure, so that when your website is indexed by search engines, your site demonstrates a wide breadth of content related to the subject. By doing this your website can be viewed by search engines as an authority across various areas.

You need to spend a long time working on your website structure. Failure to have a properly structured site can make it difficult if not impossible for search engines to properly index your website. Such a failure may lead search engines to omit your website from the search results. The spiders can conclude your website does not have any authority for the subject or the matter.

An effectively designed sitemap increases the likelihood that your site is indexed by search engines. A well built sitemap demonstrates the internal framework and organization of your website’s content to the search engines. A sitemap should reflect the entire navigational framework of your website so that search engine spiders can find and index all your content.

Key Elements All Websites Should Have (1)

Friday, April 30th, 2010

A lot of details should be considered before designing and developing a website. As you’ve completed the planning stage of your website, plan the next steps beginning from User Interface Design to Content Creation and to actual Development. There are also some points concerning Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as well.

Here are some elements that should always be included on any website.

1. Fine Visual Design

It does not mean that every website needs an incredible visual design. Usually all you need is a clean and simple design. First impressions are decisive. Although a good web design alone will never keep someone on your site, an eye-catching design will at least attract visitors.

2. Thoughtful User Interface

The foundation of any good functional website is the user interface. While designing a site, you’ll need to bear in mind your average user – that is who your ideal customer is.It works well if you create an image of your ideal visitor and have it in mind when planning out the website design. Make sure that on your site you offer everything that they would want to find.

3. Primary Navigation above the Fold

To have an easy to navigate website ensure that the primary means of navigation are kept above the fold. Elements that need to be included here are your logo, linking back to your home page, as well as links to the main sections of your site.

4. Repeat Navigation in the Footer

If you use images (or flash) for your main navigation, offer a duplicate set of navigation links in your footer. Even if you use text links at the top, the repetition is still helpful. Often times the footer will link to additional information as well.

An Introduction to basic Website Structure

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

Optimizing the basic website structure greatly increases the possibility that search engines will successfully locate and index your content. Search engine ranking algorithms analyze numerous on-site factors when determining where web page ranks for particular search terms. Some of these factors include your website content, your domain name, your website structure, your navigational linking structure and the accessibility of all your pages, also your credibility. There are a lot of ways to optimize these factors – starting with choosing reliable web hosting, choosing an appropriate domain name, optimizing your site for all web browsers, creating a logical site structure and navigational menus, generating a sitemap, up to creating an “About us” and “Privacy Policy” pages.

On-site factors are essential for the process of search engine optimization or SEO. A well-optimized design and structure help to improve the overall performance of your website, help users to navigate it, and allow search engines to find and index all your content.

During the process of website design or website redesign, just ask yourself a couple of questions:

  • Does my website appeal to visitors?
  • Is it search engine friendly?

Once you answer these important questions you can build every page as a balance between the needs of search engines and the experience of the user.

Why Your Business Needs a Website?

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Your website is the face of your business on the internet. It must exactly reflect your products and services and address the needs of your customers.

A website has become a key part of any business that is supposed to inform your potential customers about yourself. Customers expect to be able to find out about your business, products and/or services from your website at any time they want. Therefore if you don’t have a website then you are missing out the opportunity of gaining more customers, moreover you can lose the existing ones.

A website is open for 24 hours a day; this means that customers are able to visit your site anytime.  The information is usually fresh in websites as a website may be updated at any time.

A website can save your time and can help your customers save theirs too. You can provide any information  you like about your business, therefore reducing the time spent on pointless phone calls, and at last saving your money. A website gives you both the opportunity to make money and save it.

First-class website design can create a positive sensation of your business. It is a great way especially for small businesses to ingrain confidence. In turn, it can help you to win larger contracts and develop into a successful business.
If you have an out of date website that is not optimized for search engines, or simply its design creates the wrong perception of your business, you are losing your business!

NexusLab offers web design, web development and SEO services both to the companies which are eager to improve their existing website and to new ones that want to have a flying start in online market.

Website Design Planning

Friday, April 9th, 2010

Web design is planned at the stage of website formation. Usually web page design is made by markup languages that support readability on different Internet browsers. A website is composed of a collection of web pages that are full of information referring to the subject covered in the website.

Website design tips are needed for website individual pages and refer to the way they are linked to each other. While designing a web site the content of the pages and the graphic they display should be taken into account. As all these pages form one website, they should have a constant layout. The layout of the web pages is of great importance for a website design. Technologies like the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) can be used for retaining a constant layout throughout the website.

Navigation between the different pages of a website is another element of web design. Make the navigation easy for the users to understand. Avoid excessive cascading of links on the web pages. It is important for the web designer to consider the fact that different users use different browsers. Due to this, browser compatibility becomes greatly important in website design. The primary principle behind the web design is that the website content cannot be compromised.

Website Redesign

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

Your website is certainly one of your company’s most important possessions. It is the base of your internet marketing strategy. A website needs a nonstop improvement. One of these possible improvements is website redesign. When you start redesigning your website take into consideration that it is not just color changes, but also fresh content.

The best website design in the world won’t be of any value without a forceful content. People visit your site to learn about your offerings. Make sure you’ve created a content that is easy to find. You know your business inside and out, spend time writing about the benefits. Use this chance to build trust and authority with your customers. Include timely blog posts and articles.

Today’s business world is very active, both offline and online. As an online business it is important that you retain existing clients. For this purposes it is important that you preserve your website as well as promote it by website redesign in a timely manner. This does not surely mean that you redesign the whole site monthly, but there are specific periodic changes that you need to do.

It is recommended that you redesign your site every 12 months and do it with some assumption. Let the online clients know that you are launching a new web design with better features; this makes them believe that you are good at business, and you’ll gain new clients who will seek to work with a successful company.

Don’t be amazed if you come across a lot more traffic and interest once you have redesigned your site.