Faq: Web Design & Search Engines

No, I cannot guarantee this. And you should be cautious of anyone who tells you otherwise.

Improving a website's search engine ranking requires Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This can be a broad and complex undertaking and is far from  an exact science.

However, any website I build does include routine on-site search engine optimization. This consists of a properly coded site and general recommendations on formatting your content to help boost your web site's search engine ranking. I also offer more in-depth, long-range SEO for an additional fee.

Rather than being a one-time endeavor, SEO is an on-going process  that continues for the life of your website.

Contrary to popular belief, a web site will not appear in the search engines the moment it is put online. Sometimes it can take many months for the site to appear. How long it takes depends on a variety of factors, including the fact that each search engine operates in a slightly different manner.

See the following questions for more information on how to get traffic to your web site.

Your web site can be one of the most effective marketing tools available for promoting your business. However, it’s a common misconception that the moment your web site goes live, thousands of people will immediately find it and purchase the products or services being offered. The reality is not quite so simple. To get to your web site, people have to know it’s there — your web site has to be promoted so it in turn will promote your business.

For more detailed information, download this brief tutorial on how to get more traffic to your web site (pdf file)

Yes, I do add Meta Tags to every web site I build. These are hidden tags in the code that can, to some extent, help the search engine ranking of a web page.

However, it's important to understand that Meta Tags are only a small portion of getting your web site listed in the search engines. More important is the visible text on a web page, as described in the above question "How do I get more traffic to my web site?".

To work with a web site designer, there is no need for you to know anything about web site coding or other intimidating technical issues. However, you will need to provide input on issues such as:

• How do you want the web site to look?
• What do you want to say about your company, your staff, and your services or products? Who will write this material and organize the information? You or a professional writer?

My expertise is with the design and building of web sites — creating the look and feel of the site, helping to decide how the information is arranged, and dealing with the technical aspects of building the site.

The creation of the content to put in the web site is the responsibility of the web site owner and/or their marketing person.

If needed, I can put you in touch with professional marketing people or copy writers who can assist you with formulating your overall message.

Professional, custom web sites require care and planning to do things right. In most cases, I suggest allowing 4-8 weeks for a site's completion.

The timeline is very much dependant on how well-prepared the client is — if they have their copy written, photos taken, and various other details worked out. For some clients, we've had their web site completed within a couple weeks. For others, the process turns out to be more complex than they anticipated and the site has taken longer to finish.

Why does it take so long for you to build a web site? My friend put his web site online in one day.

There are, indeed, resources available to put a web site online in one day. Generally, those web sites are mass-produced templates with little customization, nor effort put into proper search engine marketing. For those not in need of a custom web site, this option may be sufficient.

Additionally, one of the more crucial aspects to building a professional web site is planning for ease of future maintenance. In many cases it can be quite easy to put a quickie web site online almost overnight. But that approach often doesn't take into account the issues involved in making future edits. As many "quickie" web site owners have found, if it's too much of a hassle to maintain, then the web site just ends up sitting there outdated and useless.

You will have full ownership of your web site once it's completed. You can manage it however you wish.

However, there are a variety of factors that may affect your decision to do so. Editing a web site is not as simple as, say, editing a Word file. The complex coding of a web site can create challenges for those who may be less technically savvy.

Some companies may not have employees with the ability or comfort level to learn a new technical skill. Or it may be that the web site updates will be so rare that it's easier to simply pay someone else to do it. Each situation is different.

During our initial meeting, we can discuss your needs and decide which is the best solution for your situation.

It's possible that the "neighbor's nephew" approach could be sufficient for your needs. However, much more goes into creating a successful web site than simply tossing a page or two up on the internet.

• Professional planning. An experienced web site designer has the knowledge and resources to know what works well for a professional web site — an understanding of the complexities of search engines, knowing the best approach for choosing a domain name, organization of the site's content, the variables in how different visitors will see a site, and much more.
• First impressions are important on the web. A professional web site design that properly represents your business can prevent visitors from clicking to another site. If a web site looks amateur next to its competitors, the visitors will likely choose the competitor.
• Search engine optimization (SEO). A web site's ability to be found in the search engines can be crucial. After all, if no one knows your site is there, it's basically useless. You can find out more about web site search engine issues in the questions above, or by visiting the SEO page.

Possibly. Much depends on the scope of your needs. If you simply need someone to add or modify text in your existing site this may not fit with my workload. If you're looking for a significant redesign of your web site this is more in line with what I offer.

Whether this can be done depends on a number of factors, including the way the site was coded, whether there is access to the existing files, etc. Although web sites can be very flexible, the coding required to put it all together can be very complex. If your site is older, it's often best to create a new web site from scratch, rather than trying to modify outdated, inefficient code. It all depends on the particular circumstances.

Since beginning web design in 1998, I have had the opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects, including web sites for:

• Cooking schools
• Catering companies
• Architects
• Law firms and attorneys
• Dentists
• Restaurants
• Biotech
• Pet food
• Financial advisors
• Artists and Art Galleries
• Vacation homes
• Landscapers
• Insurance
• Pet Rescue
• Musicians
• Yacht designers
• And many, many more

I am located in Kirkland, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. Although many of my clients are from the Seattle area, I've created many web sites for companies in other areas of the country.

I am not currently offering Flash. In many cases, Flash is overused on web sites, to the point that the web site visitor is annoyed and irritated. I believe in keeping sites clean, simple and easy to navigate.

This does not mean that in the right circumstances, small Flash elements cannot enhance a site. Used properly, Flash can be quite beneficial.

Yes, of course. This is an example of search engine optimization (SEO).

Since some people spell website as one word, and others spell it as two words, putting it both ways on my site helps draw traffic from a broader group of people. As you can see, there's a lot of detailed thought that can go into SEO.

Those are all images of Seattle's Experience Music Project. Since I'm also a photographer, I decided to integrate some of my photo work into this site.

One of the great frustrations of designing web sites is the fact that it’s impossible to know for sure what the web site visitor is seeing on his or her screen. The fact is, what looks one way on my monitor can end up looking somewhat different on yours. Or what looks a certain way on your home monitor may not match perfectly to what you see when you look at the same web site from your office.

What’s going on here? A familiar analogy is television. In your living room you may have a 72-inch liquid crystal television that makes you feel like you’re right in the picture...

Continued here (PDF file)

A browser is what you are using right now to view this web site. This is a software program on your computer that interprets web site code and displays it on your computer screen. You are very likely using either Firefox or Internet Explorer. There are many others browsers available and each has its own bells and whistles. But when it really comes down to it, the basic use of any browser is the same - to view web sites on a computer.

Every few years there are new and improved versions of the browsers. Newer versions have the capability of displaying more current web site code, thus giving you a richer experience when viewing web sites.

If you want to be able to view web sites properly, you should make sure your computer has the most recent browser version available, since older versions may not understand newer code.

Older browsers are often not capable of displaying newer web sites properly. Newer versions of the browsers offer you a better viewing experience, with more interactive content and nicer graphics.

Internet Explorer 6, for example, was released in 2001 and has many limitations by today's standards. If you are using version 6 of Internet Explorer you may not be seeing most sites to their best advantage. It's strongly suggested that you update to the current version, which is now Internet Explorer 8.0. It's free!

"Browser compatibility" refers to the fact that different web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.) can interpret web site code in slightly different ways. Thus, a web site may display differently from computer to computer.

Generally, these differences are very minor. However, there are some older/outdated browsers where the differences are significant. This is especially true of Internet Explorer 6.0, which is used by a minority of web surfers.

It's strongly encouraged that you use the most current browsers to insure that you will see web sites as intended.

Don't worry, you haven't done anything wrong. The most common reason for the "back" button on your browser not working is that you clicked on a link that opened a second browser window. This new window opens up right over the previous one, sometimes completely covering the original window (click here for an example). And because the new browser window hasn't already been to the previously visited pages, you don't have the option to go backwards. When this occurs, simply close the new window or minimize it on your screen. The previous web page will then be displayed.

The "refresh" button is used to reload the current page of a web site in order to make sure it is displaying the most current information.

When you "go to" a web site, you are telling your browser to retrieve those web site files (text, graphics, photos) and download them to your computer. So when you're sitting and looking at a web site page, what you're actually looking at are static files that reside on your computer.

When you visit the same web site at a later time, your browser automatically checks to see if there are any changes to that page, even if only a one-word modification. If so, it should retrieve the newest information and display that to you.

Occasionally, often for reasons that aren't clear, the revised information does not download automatically and you end up seeing the old version of the site. If you click the "refresh" button it will manually prompt the browser to retrieve the most current version of the page.

Search engines are very complex. There are many search engines and each has its own way of categorizing information. Currently, Google is the most popular.

While there can be many reasons a particular web site doesn't appear when you search for it, one of the most common is that the search words you used are too broad. For instance, if you are looking for a web designer in Seattle, it usually won't do any good to search simply for "web designer". That would be much too broad and you would end up with hundreds (probably thousands) of web sites for designers from New York to New Delhi.

You need to be more specific with your search terms. In this case, you might want to try searching for something more targeted, such as "web site designer in Seattle", which would narrow down the results to something closer to what you're after.

Another reason that a web site may not appear is that the web site itself is not "optimized" to be found by the search engines (see details of this above, under "How do I get more traffic to my site?"). The site may be poorly coded, or may not include the relevant keywords that people are searching for.