Posts Tagged ‘site architecture’
October 8th, 2009 | 
Author: The phrase “web design strategy” means different things to different people, and involves a lot more than just the design decisions. The term seems to imply that it is all about colour, page layout and the use of Flash animations. These factors are part of the big picture, but the bigger picture is about the overall web design.
One needs to find out how the website overall architecture will affect its visibility to the major search engines. Specific web page elements like the navigation and technologies used like CSS or JavaScript can either interfere with or help a search engine’s ability to “spider and rate the website. Sometimes an element can do both, at the same time!
A high ranking in the Google results is useless if site visitors aren’t being converted into buyers. A successful site architecture and web design strategy will address the needs of both the search engines and your visitors/customers.
Directory setups
Generally speaking, the pages in or nearest the root directory are the most important pages of your site. Essentially, by placing them near the root you are telling the search engines your priorities, strengths, and focus. One of the SEO myths is that search bots won’t “crawl farther down that a third subdirectory. This is not true nowadays. As long as related pages are linking with each other in a spider-friendly way, the search engines will keep on searching. Many experts in the field recommend that the most important pages be kept in the root directory.
Navigation is key
A key element of your website design is the navigation. Sets of buttons are generally friendlier than pull-down menus (DHTML), but plain old hypertext links are even friendlier than those buttons. While it is true that these text links are easiest for programmers to format, the website design must consider the preferences of the end users, not the site designers or owners.
File names, directories, URL’s
When queried on which URL is more memorable – domain.com/car/seats.html or domain.com/carseats.html – more than 90 percent of people in an online survey reported preferring the one without the subdirectory. A surplus of “forward slashes” is a common complaint heard by website designers who take the time to check in with actual users.
Many SEM experts create extra subdirectories as a means of adding another keyword in a URL, assuming that it will help ranking. It is fairly well established that keyword-rich title tags are far more beneficial than keyword-rich URL’s. Never forget for whom you are creating those URL structures. It’s the users. URLs that are easy for users to remember are also easy for them to pass on to others.
Web page categories
Some usability professionals have broken web pages down into seven specific types, while others assert that there are 11, or an even dozen, or more. The actual number is not really that important. The knowledge to take away is that there are different types of pages that SEM-oriented web strategies must consider. Which ones you will employ depends both on your type of business and your approach. And how you will conceive, design and promote each web page will depend to a great extent on the type of page that it is.
Some web page types are home page, category/gallery page, advertising (landing) page, product page, news/media page, form page, services page, shopping cart page, search/results page and “credibility page. Each one naturally requires a different approach. It would be silly to optimize your product page the very same way you optimize some other kind of page, since optimization and design strategies differ according to many factors, not the least of which are the calls to action (CTAs) for each page type.
Layout, look and feel
Naturally, layout strategies will be as varied as the different page types, and a product page will not work according to the same principles as a news page. Of course, you also have to have an integrated and consistent overall design. When you are planning for a site, you need to focus not just on the overall effect, but all the individual ones that are put into play on each page. There must be some overarching sense to the site, while still allowing for differences at the page level.
Successful website design and web strategy entails issues of language, design, colour, shape, layout, look and feel. The strategy must make sense while allowing for sufficient flexibility and creativity “along the way.” Certainly you want to improve the ability of search engines to access your keyword-rich content, but the bottom line is that you want to increase those site conversions.
Discount Web Design is one of the leading Website Design company in the UK offering quality web development and SEO services.
Article Source: Plan A Website Design Strategy To Include Search Engine Marketing
If people cannot navigate through your site, they will quickly leave. Thus, designing effective navigation on your Web site is crucial. But there are some basic things you need to do before you can start worrying about rollovers or links, images or flash.
Information Architecture
Before you can even start to plan your navigation, you need to define your site’s information architecture. Information architecture is the taxonomy or structure of your Web site.
Some common taxonomy elements on a corporate or business Web page are:
* Products – the products or services the company sells
* About – information about the company
* Investor Relations – information specific to investors
* Support – help for customers
Some common taxonomy elements on a personal Web page are:
* About Me – information about the page author
* Favorite Links – links that the author likes
* Friends and Family – information about the author’s friends and family
Organization
Once you’ve determined your site architecture, you need to decide how to organize it. You might have it all live in one directory, and just link to the major pages from your front page. Or you might have all the sub-pages separated into directories.
When thinking about your organization, you should think about how your customers might wander through it. Flow charts and storyboards can help you map out exactly how you would like to encourage your readers to use the site. You might want to map out several paths for your readers to use.
Navigation Design
Once you have an idea of the architecture and organization, you’re ready to think about the design of the navigation. There are several things you should consider in deciding on your navigation design:
1. Accessible
The navigation of your site is possibly the most important part of any given page. So it should be as accessible as you can make it. This means avoiding special effects like Flash, Java, or JavaScript as your only navigation method.
2. Meaningful
Keep your navigation meaningful. Make the links clear – don’t try to get cute or use terms that are internal to your organization. Someone who has never been to your site before should know immediately where the link will take them.
3. Understandable
If you want to use images for your navigation, make sure that there is some text associated with them. ” Mystery Meat Navigation” is the use of non-descriptive images as navigation, and it’s much more common than you might think.
4. Prevalent
Your navigation should appear on every page of your site. While you don’t need to have identical navigation, the basic structure should be the same throughout the site, with changes used only to indicate location within the hierarchy.
Once you’ve designed your navigation, then you can begin to use it. Keep in mind that it is really tempting to change your navigation structure while you’re in the middle of implementing it. But if you decide to do this, be sure that you’re making the change globally and that it fits with the original goals of your taxonomy and information architecture. My recommendation is to implement the original design and wait a week or two. If at that point you still want to change it, and the change will work, then go for it. You might just find that your planning and preparation were ultimately correct and not change it at all.
Article Source: Effective Web Navigation
The phrase “web design strategy” means a range of different things to different people, and involves more than merely “design” decisions. The term seems to imply that the issue is about color, page layout and the use of Flash animations. Yes, these factors are part of the big picture, but the “bigger picture” is about the overall design of your website, meaning its entire “architecture.”
You need to find out how your site’s overall “information architecture” affects its visibility to search engines. The truth is, specific web page elements like your navigation scheme and technologies like CSS (Cascading Style Scripts) or JavaScript can either interfere with or aid a search engine’s ability to “spider” and rate your site. Sometimes an element can do both, at the same time!
The whole topic of a “site architecture” or web design strategy that supports Search Engine Marketing (SEM) has really been quite poorly addressed. Many companies that do SEM consulting have less than state-of-the-art knowledge of how information architecture and design strategy affect a site’s usability and organic rankings. If your consultant, or your own research, is focusing only on search advertising, media buys and bidding processes, you are not getting the whole picture.
A top position in the Google results is useless if site visitors aren’t being converted into buyers. A successful site architecture and site design strategy will address the needs of both the search engines and your visitors/customers.
Directory setups
Generally speaking, the pages nearest the root directory are the most important pages of your site. Essentially, by placing them near the root you are telling the search engines your priorities, strengths, and focus.
One of the oldest and “wrongest” SEO myths, however, is that search bots won’t “crawl” farther down that a third subdirectory. This is not true now, if it ever was, because as long as related pages are linking with each other in a “spider-friendly” way, the search engines will keep on searching. Many experts in the field recommend that the most important pages (up to 200, if you have that many) can be kept in the root directory. This means pages that are important to your target audience, not your consultant or IT expert.
Navigation is key
A key element of your site design is the navigation scheme. Sets of buttons are generally friendlier than pull-down menus (DHTML), but plain old hypertext links are even friendlier than those buttons. While it is true that these text links are easiest for programmers to format (a click with CSS), the site design must consider the preferences of the end users, not the site designers or owners.
The fact is, many usability tests and user focus groups reveal definite preferences among Internet users for intuitive buttons and those dynamic, pull-down menus. Even though some usability experts may not recommend these latter approaches, you really must consider how the users react to them, since it is their actions that lead to sales and rankings, not the theories of the tech squads.
File names, directories, URL’s
When queried on which URL is more memorable – domain.com/car/seats.html or domain.com/carseats.html – more than 90 percent of people in an online survey reported preferring the one without the subdirectory. A surplus of “forward slashes” is a common complaint heard by site designers who take the time to check in with actual users.
Many SEM experts create extra subdirectories as a means of adding another keyword in a URL, assuming that it will help ranking. It is fairly well established that keyword-rich title tags are far more beneficial than keyword-rich URL’s. Never forget for whom you are creating those URL structures. It’s the users. URLs that are easy for users to remember are also easy for them to pass on to others.
Web page categories
Some usability professionals have broken web pages down into seven specific types, while others assert that there are 11, or an even dozen, or more. The actual number is not really that important. The knowledge to take away is that there are different types of pages that SEM-oriented web strategies must consider. Which ones you will employ depends both on your type of business and your approach. And how you will conceive, design and promote each web page will depend to a great extent on the type of page that it is.
Some web page types are home page, category/gallery page, advertising (landing) page, product page, news/media page, form page, services page, shopping cart page, search/results page and “credibility page.” Each one naturally requires a different approach. It would be silly to optimize your product page the very same way you optimize some other kind of page, since optimization and design strategies differ according to many factors, not the least of which are the calls to action (CTAs) for each page type.
Layout, look and feel
Naturally, layout strategies will be as varied as the different page types, and a product page will not work according to the same principles as a news page. Of course, you also have to have an integrated and consistent overall design. When you are planning for a site, you need to focus not just on the overall effect, but all the individual ones that are put into play on each page. There must be some overarching sense to the site, while still allowing for differences at the page level.
Successful site design and web strategy entails issues of language, design, color, shape, layout, look and feel. The strategy must make sense while allowing for sufficient flexibility and creativity “along the way.” Certainly you want to improve the ability of search engines to access your keyword-rich content, but the bottom line is that you want to increase those site conversions. Keep your eyes on the prize and stay vigilant.
Moonrise Productions is a custom web design company specializing in custom web development and design. Whether you need web application development or social network web design contact us and we’ll get it done right.
Article Source: Planning A Web Design Strategy To Include Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
When the topic of conversation turns to web site design, the common picture that comes to mind is usually a group of talented graphic designers who are all working hard to come up with a visual masterpiece using sophisticated graphic design software.
While this is often the case especially when Perth web design team GTP iCommerce (GTP) is involved, there are many people who confuse graphic design as being synonymous to web design and this is not the case.
According to GTPs Perth web design team, a professional, visually appealing graphically designed website is a secondary consideration to building a successful internet marketing strategy and a performing web site needs more than just good graphics.
The Perth web design studio recommends focusing on the site architecture which involves considering a) What are all the elements required in the web site before design starts and b) grouping all these elements into an easy to use navigation structure that will make the end user experience simple. According to the Perth web design studio, a poorly designed site with a good architectural structure will out perform an attractively designed site with poor architecture every time.
Managing Director Dale Carter says that a web site is something that is to be used and navigated like a map not just looked at and admired like a piece of art. By making it easy for your customers to find the information they want and then do something useful such as buy the product or request a brochure your site will perform far better than something that just looks nice
The ideal result is to get the sites architecture correct and then use good web design to enhance the total visual appeal of the site.
This, according to the GTP Perth web design firm, is similar to needing both an architect to design a functional living space whereby all the bedrooms, bathrooms and living areas are integrated and well laid out in relation to each other and then using an interior designer to decorate and bring the spaces to life.
A poorly designed house even with good interior design will never be as appealing as a house with good architecture – as the interior design can always be changed. Similarly GTPs Perth web design firm say that with good structure you can redesign a web site after a period of time to keep the look fresh while conserving an effective site architecture that generates sales.
Good Perth web design companies knows that the foundation of well conceptualized site architecture is critically important to building an effective online business that can expand over time without significant additional outlay.
To identify good site architecture for your business
1.Research extensively your competition via Google
2.Research similar industries in other parts of the country or the world. Not just your local competition.
3.Take screen shots and print outs of these web sites for future reference.
4.Referring to your screen shots, write down all the link headings and variations of link headings and then consolidate duplicate headings. (e.g. About us and Company Profile are the same heading just named differently)
5.Group similar topics together and functional features together
6.Use word, excel or a piece of paper to organize the links into sections and positions. Repeat this process for each main section in your site to show how internal pages look
7.Take this structure to your web designer to discuss, refine and design
According to Perth web designer GTP, by establishing a well-formed site architecture up front, you will save money in the long term. More importantly you will find your web site is far superior in terms of sales lead generation and online sales bringing you a higher return on investment.
Perth web design company GTP also recommends building your web site with a) a flexible content management system that allows you to add pages and sections into your site yourself within the defined architecture and b) a user registration or email capture capacity as well as c)an email and autoresponder marketing platform to communicate and convert sales leads.
Finally Perth web designer GTP warns not to forget that d) your web site pages need to be able to have search engine optimisation work done on them. Therefore your site platform should have this in place other wise you will eventually need to move to a more flexible platform costing you more money.
Dale Carter runs a Perth web design and internet marketing firm and has helped more than 500 companies develop and implement successful web site strategies since 1996.
Dale Carter runs a Perth Web Design and internet marketing firm and has helped more than 500 companies develop and implement successful web site strategies since 1996. Visit http://www.gtp-icommerce.com/
Article Source: Perth Web Design Team Finds Site Architecture More Important Than Graphic Design.
Mambo (formerly known as Mambo Open Source) is an Open Source web development software and content management system (CMS.) It is structured on PHP programming language and so, it requires professionals who are proficient in PHP programming in order to use Mambo website development. He or she should have professional knowledge in MySql database as well.
Now when we speak of Mambo design, you would find hundreds of free templates in Mambo website design & development to give the exact look to your website, web browser-based content editor, multimedia supports and lots more to make your site more profitable.
How to get the best benefit
You would always want to get the best benefit from Mambo website development, right? Well, for that you need to require proper understanding of the site architecture, information flow…etc. You should be able to integrate other essentials for the right promotion or advertisement of the site. Remember, that unless you get a good professional who is well equipped with all the latest version of Mambo website design & development, it would not be possible to get the best benefit. So, it is best if you can get someone who is thorough with the latest web development standards and essentials.
Mambo website design helps to create and organize websites ranging from the simple ones to the complicated corporate sites. It also helps to run high-powered website very easily. For extensions and linking of plug-ins, Mambo plug-in scripts are used. What’s more, it helps you to increase search engine ranking of websites. Mambo developers design templates where they place code in PHP in its main file “index.php.” This helps to have dynamic components in a website. They use shades, styles, fonts when they utilize its CSS file. The developers also place many modules as required on the website with the use of Mambo website design and development. In this way, logins can also be placed in a module. So, get the best benefit from Mambo website development by getting an expert professional for your website.
I am the webmaster at www.synapsewebsolutions.co.uk – A web design and development company offering quality and cost-efficient offshore Mambo Website design and development solutions.
Article Source: Getting the Best Benefit from Mambo Website Development
WEB DESIGN
While operating your business on the internet, it is extremely critical to promote your business through internet marketing activities and reaching to the intended audience through SEO techniques. These however are based on the basic premise that the website is an efficient network that solves the clients’ problems with ease. Naturally, a robust product or service sells better given the same marketing effort.
What does ‘web design’ include?
Web design & development is an integrated process, which ascertains that the website runs efficiently on the World Wide Web. Web design and development is extremely technical activity as it involves designing the site architecture; actual development of the site; hosting it on the World Wide Web, handling the request traffic & responding to it, maintenance and up gradation of the website.
Our web design services are provided by extremely competent and efficient set of programmers and content generators. We follow robust processes that make sure that the designing procedure works in sync with the SEO guidelines and ensure that websites are optimized to rank higher on search engines’ result pages. We work on content for banner ads and social media marketing that brings in effective revenues for every dollar spent.
Our designers work towards a strong architecture of the website that can not only handle high load of traffic but make sure that the web site delivers better solutions for clients’ business.
Other activities in web design include buying domain names for the website to ensure the website’s URLs and other similar URLs bring the customer to the clients’ websites. To take a website up on the World Wide Web requires hardware and infrastructure support. Our web hosting activities include disk space, dedicated servers, able connectivity and other procedures. Running a website can be similar to running a vehicle; it requires constant monitoring and maintenance. Constantly updating the content to keep audience updated, site monitoring to ensure performance and user reach, security revision to ensure protection from harmful attacks and such similar tasks are carried out by us to ascertain good website management and maintenance. We also provide business closure in terms of providing support through emails and telephone calls to customers in who is need of resolution to queries.
Our service in web design is a holistic approach to provide solutions to client problems and ensuring that our services stand out in the industry based on the quality we provide.
Michael Tench,
Article Author for Web Design, SEO and PPC in Tampa
http://www.weboptium.com/web_design.html
Article Source: Web Design Bradenton – Web Development Tampa – SEO Firm Tampa
In today’s modern times, projects can be accomplished without even meeting the client. With the growing ease of the Internet, VA Services industry is flourishing in India and providing us with a new class of new class of skilled entrepreneurs – the Virtual Assistants who help you in making your work easy. Virtual Assistants provide you with following benefits:
• Increased productivity,
• More time for family, friends, hobbies and interest,
• Payment for time on your tasks only,
• Support for growing a business,
• Handling both business and personal tasks,
• No additional office space or equipment,
• No tension of payroll taxes, insurance, holiday or sick pay, overtime, or paid
vacations,
• Same virtual administrative assistant can be used even if you relocate.
Ramps Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Established in 2006 Ramps Software Solutions specializes in VA Services and eBusiness optimization solutions for companies across the globe.
Web-based application services at Ramps Software Solutions include:
• Prototype development,
• Site architecture planning,
• Creative graphic design and photo imagery,
• E-Commerce solutions,
• Content management systems,
• Programming solutions using Microsoft technology,
• Multimedia production,
• SEO and site globalization services.
Ramps Software Solutions is a myriad of business services and provides VA Services virtually via phone and internet based technology. Our VA Services are a helping hand to a successful business.
VA Services at Ramps Software Solutions include:
• Administrative support,
• Data conversion,
• Online data entry,
• Writing blogs,
• Copyright articles & e-books,
• Web mining, and
• Internet research related jobs.
Ramps Software Solutions – A customer driven organization offers an innovative range of both development and support services under one umbrella. What makes Ramps Software Solutions unique is the creative approach in building applications, focus on quality and commitment to the customers. The corner stone of our success is Our Workforce. To invest in our staff and work environment in order to create a congenial environment that promotes creative thinking and intellectual interaction facilitating teamwork is our philosophy.
As a result, the highly motivated and trained professionals at Ramps Software Solutions put their hearts and souls into the projects they are involved in.
Benefits
Once you are with Ramps Software Solutions, you can say goodbye to impossible deadlines and administrative work overloads.
Ramps Software Solutions is the outsource solution for both short term and long term support services for small businesses, associations and entrepreneurs.
Ramps Software Solutions is committed to ensuring unparalleled satisfaction to all customers no matter big or small.
Associating yourself with Ramps Software Solutions will have following benefits:
• Increased efficiency and productivity,
• Projects done accurately and on time,
• Saving money on office space and equipment,
• Reduced responsibility of hiring staff.
The above benefits help you to present a more professional image to your clients.
Whether you’re looking for someone who can handle your general office needs on a continual basis, or someone for that special project, Ramps Software Solutions can be your stop.
For more information, visit http://www.rampssoftware.com
http://www.rampssoftware.com
Article Source: Future of VA Services in India