I often get consulted by other readers to take a look at their current website and see if the site is search engine optimized. Honestly 90% of the time, the website is NOT. Keep in mind that building websites is not “rocket science”, there are so many tools out there that will help you build a website without even knowing the basic web languages (HTML, Java, PHP, etc.)

Majority of the time, websites out there are very typical, the kind of sites produced by newcomers to the web design. t might score well in terms of uniqueness or     gadgetry but scores badly in terms of navigation and search engine readiness. In many instances it only works in one browser, it doesn’t work well under other browsers like Firefox, Netscape, and more.

In most cases, my clients’ consults me because the website does not drive enough visitors to even keep it up on the web. People always think that once you build a  site, visitors will just magically come. I would like to point out some of the most important things that each website designer should consider before building a website.

To be competitive out there on the web, I believe these are the basic things to consider.

1. Search Engine Friendly

I suggest for all web designers to read Google’s website design standards, this guideline will help the site to get indexed and ranked by Google. By following these guidelines, you can also avoid being black-listed by Google.

2. It is not all about the LOOKS

Regardless, how tech-savvy the site is or if it is full of flashy movies, if you don’t consider the easy navigation and content management then I don’t rank the site as much. Just look at “google”, they are so successful with their website but its nothing flashy or awesome. In fact, it is so plain that anyone can navigate through it.

3. Navigation will get you through

A good navigation system must be easy to use and understand, keep in mind not everyone out there are computer savvy like most of us. I know there are many fancy navigation menus out there such as Java-script / Active-X driven. I suggest having an alternative script in case others don’t have their Javascript turned on. I also suggest adding links on the bottom of the site for the most important pages of the web such as home, contact us, products, etc.

These are just some of the major pointers that I check when judging / analyzing a new website design. I know there are more important guidelines that to follow but this article will be a lot longer if I go all over them.

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About this Author

Shalyn S. is a Sr. Website Developer and Marketer. She has been a freelance website designer for the longest time where she designed over 100 + websites. She and her business partners decided to form FLORIDA WEBSITE DESIGN where they offer services from website design, marketing, search engine optimization, local marketing, hosting, logo design, and printing.

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