The process of website design and development consists of several "musts":
- Design
- Content Management System (CMS)
- SEO
And here we come across issue 1: Design
There are lots of ways to design a website. There are lots of designers who offer their services and show incredible designs to support their statement that they are the most appropriate, the most creative, unique, talented... in short, they are the best for a web design project.
But do they know how how to create a design that will market and sell?
Do the know the basics of marketing?
Do they know that not any design (even the most unique and beautiful) can satisfy the demands of the users?
Do they know how to make their design fit the SEO requirements?
Do they know how to design the site in a way that will lead the visitors to fulfill the purpose of the site (purchase, subscribe, etc.)?
Do they know how to design the site in a way that will lead the visitors to fulfill the purpose of the site (purchase, subscribe, etc.)?
Before choosing a web design service provider, one should ask himself those questions. One should remember, that the website has to be a marketing tool, and not one more useless piece of artistic creation, hanging somewhere in the wide and often deserted fields of the World Wide Web.
Issue 2: Content Management System
A) Content Management System Providers
Yes, there are lots of them. Some of those systems are hosting related, some are not. Some are being given away for "free" (I'll explain this later), some come to 12,000 - 20,000 shekels.
Cheaper systems and system given for "free" are mostly based on existing templates. This means that the user can only change the top pictures, insert their own logo, change/insert pictures, menus and content (text). The design of the website is predefined. These designs are not flexible, you won't be able to change the location of various elements on the page, it will never be unique.
Besides that, you will be bound to your CMS provider hosting (which may be more expensive than other hosting options). The moment you decide to leave this hosting, you'll also lose your website. You won't be able to "relocate" it to another hosting.
There is a limited number of web-based CMS's that allow unique designs. You, or rather your web-master or designer will need to learn how to integrate your website design with such CMS. Those systems are much better in quality, more flexible and, of course, more expensive. Prices of those systems (not including design and integration) vary between $200 - $1000, depending on the system and system modules required by the client.
Another kind of CMS is a "stand-alone" system that doesn't require any specific hosting. Those systems are usually very flexible, well-designed, user-friends... It's a pleasure to use them. Although, it's not such a pleasure to pay for them, as they are (mostly) very expensive. However, as we all know, reliability and quality are sometimes worth paying for, especially when we are planning for a long-term. Cheaper solutions may cost you more at the end of the day. When you need to change something that a cheaper system doesn't allow you to change, or need some functionality not supported by a "free" system, you'll need to look for solutions... and will end up either not having this functionality or building another website (and paying twice).
B. Content Management Systems and SEO
Not all cheap or "free" Content Management Systems allow optimization; although most of them do allow insertion of the basic meta-tags (keywords, title, description). However, there exist more meta-tags and some of them are very important. For example, for geographic targeting.
It's also (almost always) impossible to optimize the template menus for recognition by search engines. Menus are critical as they usually represent many important keywords. In the other words, if you decide to use template-based Content Management Systems, you should pay attention to their SEO functionality.
Content Management Systems that don't require the use of templates are more flexible and almost always allow direct access to the code or supply other ways to insert as many meta-tags and to do whatever changes the client may require.
Issue 3: SEO
It's still called SEO... at least it's known as SEO. But when we talk about IT, we actually mean a whole set of actions aimed at promotion of a website and increasing quality traffic to the website.
IT includes:
Besides that, you will be bound to your CMS provider hosting (which may be more expensive than other hosting options). The moment you decide to leave this hosting, you'll also lose your website. You won't be able to "relocate" it to another hosting.
There is a limited number of web-based CMS's that allow unique designs. You, or rather your web-master or designer will need to learn how to integrate your website design with such CMS. Those systems are much better in quality, more flexible and, of course, more expensive. Prices of those systems (not including design and integration) vary between $200 - $1000, depending on the system and system modules required by the client.
Another kind of CMS is a "stand-alone" system that doesn't require any specific hosting. Those systems are usually very flexible, well-designed, user-friends... It's a pleasure to use them. Although, it's not such a pleasure to pay for them, as they are (mostly) very expensive. However, as we all know, reliability and quality are sometimes worth paying for, especially when we are planning for a long-term. Cheaper solutions may cost you more at the end of the day. When you need to change something that a cheaper system doesn't allow you to change, or need some functionality not supported by a "free" system, you'll need to look for solutions... and will end up either not having this functionality or building another website (and paying twice).
B. Content Management Systems and SEO
Not all cheap or "free" Content Management Systems allow optimization; although most of them do allow insertion of the basic meta-tags (keywords, title, description). However, there exist more meta-tags and some of them are very important. For example, for geographic targeting.
It's also (almost always) impossible to optimize the template menus for recognition by search engines. Menus are critical as they usually represent many important keywords. In the other words, if you decide to use template-based Content Management Systems, you should pay attention to their SEO functionality.
Content Management Systems that don't require the use of templates are more flexible and almost always allow direct access to the code or supply other ways to insert as many meta-tags and to do whatever changes the client may require.
Issue 3: SEO
It's still called SEO... at least it's known as SEO. But when we talk about IT, we actually mean a whole set of actions aimed at promotion of a website and increasing quality traffic to the website.
IT includes:
- Code optimization (code should be "clean", readable for search engines, there should be a certain balance between code and text of the website page, meta-tags, alt attributes, keyword density and many more.
- Site optimization: correct linking navigational system between the pages of the website, content optimization, image optimization, etc.
- Registration with quality indexes and directories (not all the directories are good, some may even hurt the website rating and SERP - Search Engine Results Page).
- Links exchange - this becomes more and more difficult, since Google has "learned" to identify reciprocal links and once it "sees" two websites linked to each other it just ignores it. It's a hard work to find quality back links from industry related websites, blogs and communities.
- Blog - is another way to promote your website.
- Participation in various blogs, communities, work with social media sites...
All this is a complex work aimed at promoting a website.
That's why it's important to find a company that can offer you a combination of professional market oriented web-design, flexible and functional Content Management System and SEO/SEM services.
Only the combination of these three crucial aspects will make your website truly functional.
Remember: your company website is not a mere decoration. It's a powerful marketing and sales tool.
You can read more articles about marketing, SEO and related issues at http://bizi-marketing.co.il/articles.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment