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According to a recent survey, two thirds of us turn to the Internet first when we are looking for a product or service. So it’s now more crucial than ever that your business has a web presence, whatever it’s size – as you’ve no doubt been advised.

But if you’re not particularly tech-savvy how do you know what kind of website you’re looking for? And how do you articulate what you need to your web development company? We’ve put together a short article to point you in the right direction, and hopefully cover some of the basics about web design.

Static vs. Dynamic

Websites can generally be divided into two camps – static or dynamic.

Both are rendered in the web browser of a user using HTML, however with a static website each page is created, using an editing program such as Dreamweaver or, preferably, is hand coded. With a dynamic website, the output of a program on a web server delivers the content.

Putting it simply, a static website can only be edited by someone with HTML skills or using basic page editing software such as Contribute to edit text. A dynamic or content-managed website, on the other hand, can be edited by anyone who has a login and password.

Static websites are generally cheaper in terms of initial outlay, but in the long-term they often work out more expensive. Think about how often you are likely to want to update your website, change your metadata, or add or delete pages. If you have to go back to your web developer every time you need such a change making, costs could soon rack up. The alternative is learning some HTML yourself but is that really a cost-effective option while you are trying to run a business?

The only time I would ever recommend a static website to a client is if they require a simple brochure website only, which is not going to require many updates.

A simple content managed website costs only marginally more to create than a static one and ,in the long run, the amount of time and money you will save by being able to quickly and simply update your website without any HTML knowledge is a fantastic benefit.

Content-managed websites are generally better for search engine optimisation purposes (SEO) too, as the search engines love fresh content. Which bring us neatly onto the next point:

Search Engine Friendly Sites

A website always needs visitors, which means you need to make sure it appeals to the search engines too. Search engine optimisation is a huge topic, and much of it depends on your content these days. So in part one of this article, I’m just going to cover the basics from the website building side.

Flash

Yes it looks very pretty, and flash I'm fairly sure hence the name. But is it any good for the search engines?  No, not really. Search engines cannot read flash content (yet) so they cannot index your site if it is too flash heavy.

A small amount of Flash can have it’s place in banners, presentations or photographic displays, although if your developer can produce the same results in JavaScript that would be a distinct advantage.

For the content of your site try and stick to plain old HTML, it’s far more search engine  - and often people - friendly.  What many people don’t consider is that a flash heavy, effect driven website can alienate huge swathes of your audience, for example the visually impaired or migraine sufferers.

Always ensure that your main menu is not designed in Flash – if it is the search engines will only index the home page and all your effort on the other pages will be wasted.

If you must have a lengthy flash intro on your site – although preferably don’t - always make sure there is a skip option. Nothing is more likely to make your visitors turn off than a needless, time-consuming intro that prevents them reaching the page they need.

And – although this should go without saying in 2009 – never settle for a website which is designed in frames. If that’s the way that your web development company are still building their sites, then you really ought to be looking for a new one.


JavaScript

Scripting is a great way to add some nice effects to your site and can be used to validate forms or gather information about your users. Again, though it's worth noting that you should never overload a site with effects.

A classic example of a site that’s overloaded is http://www.angelfire.com/super/badwebs/. It may be a slightly dated example but it illustrates how, with so much moving on the screen, a user cannot concentrate on the content.

Function over form

When you are planning a website, you should always choose function over form. Users will almost always prefer a site that is not flashy, and delivers the services and content they were looking for, rather than a site that is overloaded with useless effects and is impossible to navigate.

Speed

The size and format of the images on your site is really important. Nothing will test your visitors’ patience more than having to wait for huge images to download or watching them appear line by line on their screen.

It’s also important that they’re in the right format to appear on your website – the white box with the red cross on it, where an image should be is the epitome of unprofessionalism, and usually indicates the wrong format or size.

A good web development company will ensure that your images are sized correctly, at the correct resolution (usually 72dpi for websites), in the right format (normally JPEG’s, GIF’s or PNG), and won’t be afraid to tell you if the images are poor quality or even just not interesting enough.

Ease of Navigation

The structure of your site, and the ease of your navigation is crucial to it’s success. Don’t frustrate your visitors by making it difficult for them to find the information that they need. Ideally, a visitor to your site should never be more than three clicks away from the information that they need. Remember that most of us are leading busy, stressful lives and don’t have a great deal of time to waste searching for information. If people can’t find what they are looking for with the minimum of fuss, they will be tempted to click on to your competitor’s site instead.

Cross Browser Compatibility

You've just got your shiny new website finished, you think it looks great, but then your friend rings you and says it looks broken.  This is because different browsers can display websites in different ways, and any web designer worth their salt should be checking for cross browser compatibility.

Before it goes live, your website needs to be tested in the following web browsers:

Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari. If it works in all those browsers, then you can probably consider it cross browser compatible.

A good web development company will also check what the site looks like at different screen resolutions. Not everyone uses the same screen resolution and what looks good at 1024 by 768 might not look as good on a larger screen.

Hosting

Unless you are planning to build the next Amazon website and have a good half a million in capital behind you, you should be able to get away with a relatively cheap web hosting package that you can update as the number of visitors to your site increases.

Anything in the £50 to £100 pounds per year range should be adequate for your standard business website. For sites that incorporate extra features, such as forums, blogs or e-commerce anything within the £200 to £500 per year range will probably do the job.

Domain names

Domain names usually only cost £25 or less for two years, depending on whether you choose .com, .co.uk, .org etc.

The only time you'll pay more for a domain name is when you are buying an established domain like pizza.com, though if you do this you clearly have more money than sense.

This type of domain name was far more valuable before people got their heads round search engines, and typed what they were looking for, i.e. pizza into the address bar. Nowadays people are much more search savvy, and there is little additional value in this kind of domain name.

There is some evidence to suggest that if your domain name has one of the keywords that you are targeting in it, then it will help with your search engine rankings. However, I wouldn’t worry too much about this – it’s far more important that your domain name reflects your company’s name and brand and is relatively easy to remember.

Your domain name really does not matter too much as long as you keep it sensible. For instance don't buy fart-goblins.com if you are a car dealership, unless of course that is your name.

Beware of domain names that can be easily misinterpreted though – some classic examples include expertsexchange, which has now been changed to experts-exchange.com, and www.penisland.net, the website for a company who do a roaring trade in………..pens, obviously!

Finally, I should just add that this article is just the starting point and that it’s unlikely that just having a website will turn you into an overnight millionaire. While it is true that there are a lot of people in the world that have made a lot of money with the advent of the internet, none of them made it over the course of a single night. In fact many of the popular sites that make money today took a lot of investment to come about, either financially, with an investment of time or both. On top of this the vast majority of money made from the largest sites is made from advertising and not always their products or services.

The most crucial component for getting your site noticed is good quality content, and we will cover that in a separate article. Hopefully these basic tips give you a good starting point for getting a good website built for your business.

As always, feel free to contact us with any comments or questions that you have about the points in this article.

Posted on 26 May 2009 By Graham Bacon