As we approach the 100 year anniversary for the Titanic disaster, and with the greatest of respect to all of those who suffered losses as a result of this disaster, I have collected a few thoughts on the sorts of website disasters we ought to avoid.

In the aftermath of the Titanic disaster, there was a huge investigation into the White Star Company’s safety strategy and procedures. In that case, the loss of life was shocking and truly tragic. We are lucky that a disastrous website would not constitute a risk to life although it might threaten your livelihood if it is not fit for purpose. Here on some thoughts on things you should watch out for.

1. Safety & security.

Do keep an up-to-date backup copy of your website. Hosting companies can be attacked by viruses or hackers so don’t rely on their storage alone. If your website uses some sort of database system as part of a Content Management System (e.g. WordPress, Joomla) then ensure that you have a database dump as well as the website files. If you use WordPress then be aware that this platform is particularly susceptible to attacks and you may need to update your installation (and plugins) often to reduce security risks. If in doubt about backups, check with your website designer to check on backup policy and obligations.

2. Use harmonising, complimentary colours. Avoid colour clashes

If the colours are clashing and garish or, at the other extreme, too bland, then your visitor will lose interest in your website, it’s content and your messages. Don’t let your website be a colour disaster!

3. Don’t be too cheap

I know that everyone has to be budget conscious in the current economic climate but I would plead with you to not let your sister’s boyfriend or the IT guy you used to work with put together your website as an evening project. The quality of your website will be the product of a graphic designer’s skill and a website developer who is aware of latest technologies and latest browser compatibility issues. Remember that your website represents your business in every way. If your website looks shoddy or performs inconsistently then that will be how your business will be perceived.

4. Your website can’t be found by internet searches

Having a nice looking website up on the internet is one thing but getting visitors to visit it is quite another. If your goal is to attract visitors to your website then your website should be optimised to maximise its appeal to the search engines. This involves understanding your target audience, understanding which keyword searches they are likely to make and then optimising your site to maximise your chances of being found for those keyword searches. I do recommend talking to an SEO expert.

So keep watching for those hidden icebergs and good luck with your websites!

Introduction
Before I ever thought of becoming a web designer I was a modern languages graduate. I therefore became quite excited when our first multi-language website opportunity came along! That website has now been translated into 5 different languages and is under review. So what are the considerations in producing a multi-language website?

Language translation
The language translation itself should ideally be translated into native language by a native speaker, or if that is not possible a native speaker should carefully proof read the resultant translation. No matter how proficient we think we are in another language it is all too easy to make mistakes. I am reminded of the French play “Le rois se joue” (The Kings Plays himself) which was memorably translated by an American publisher as “The Kings is playing with himself”. Even though I am a French language graduate I would always get a natural French speaker to check any work that I undertook.

Cultural differences
In order to be effective your website needs to take account of any cultural differences. For example an American company will most likely be very up-front and direct in it’s tone. On the other-hand, I have visited Scandinavian countries in sales meetings where this approach would be considered rather crass and vulgar and where “understated”  is very much the norm. So your language translation may need to take account of expectations in terms of the tone of language used.

Google Translate and online translation sites
In this day and age translation tools have come a long way and one person has asked me why we don’t all just submit pages to Google Translate to get the job done! Well, it is rather naive to think that an automatic translation service can yield a professional, readable document. Certainly Google Translate has it’s uses, if you have no idea what a foreign language website is saying then you get certainly get a sense for it but idiom translator it is not. You may find it useful for the trsnslation of unambiguous items such as country names but any kind of complex sentence or grammar structure will be unlikely to be rendered correctly. It will be interesting to see how this technology advances in the coming years but for now it is an aid to understanding rather than a comprehensive translation service.

Getting the website layout and code right
I have found that utf-8 encoding works best for most languages I have encountered (European). You will most likely want to set the correct locale with a lang=”<whatever>” setting.

You will need to be disciplined in localizing every string and phrase that could appear to the user, error messages, labels, instructions etc.
Layout – you will find that some languages are more verbose than others so allow time for tweaking menu options etc where size is critical. For some languages you may have to make more more radical considerations e.g. Arabic reads from right to left. You would likely need to have separate CSS files to handle this (swap side bars around etc).
Date formats would need to be formated according to the culture code.

Web Design in High Wycombe UK – is that any different from Web Design in other parts of the UK or other parts of the world?

I am a Northerner who has migrated southwards, my peculiar accent is sometimes noted but by and large I fit into the southern world. However there are definite regional differences, I often dip up my meal sauces with bread as my wife looks on in a bemused fashion, I have less tendency to diphthongize my vowels and I can’t believe the biased reporting towards London based football teams.

So I’m wondering, in this world which seems to be moving towards globalisation, if there are regional or national website distinctions? Is there a difference between a Home Counties versus a Northern website? Probably not. But is there a difference between an Indian and a UK website, or an Italian versus UK website?

I am putting the question “out there” for you to think about, my thoughts are that there are national differences. These are my own subjective thoughts but, for example, when I was checking Australian newspaper websites earlier this year for the Ashes Test reports, I found that the sites were generally smaller in screen size and less “designed” than UK press sites. I would suggest that national traits and characteristics are bound to come through. I designed a website for Caribbean lady and she was very much in favour of using vibrant colours which I would associate with a Caribbean tradition for colour and vibrancy.

If you have any thoughts about national website differences I would be very interested to hear from you.

You may have heard photographers talk about the rule of thirds. If you haven’t then what this means is then when composing a photograph, it will always look more balanced and effective if the photograph is snapped such that the subject matter is arranged in an aspect of thirds or 2/3 to 1/3.

To look at an example from the art world, if you take Da Vinci’s last supper you will see that it can be divided up into thirds. This is a kind of Golden Ratio, artists and designers have been using these proportions to create aesthetically pleasing works and this rule also works in Web Design.

Websites usually benefit from being arranged into columns or sections. These columns generally “look right” when arranged into thirds. So if you are going to have 2 columns, these will look best if arranged with one column 1/3 wide, the other 2/3 wide. If you are going to have 3 columns then that will be fine too. 4 columns won’t work as well.

If you take a look at your favourite websites and imagine a kind of grid over them, you will find that almost all of them obey the rule of thirds.

Recently Rosie (of Amodeo Web Design) had the opportunity to be a business dragon or judge at the Newlands Girls School Enterprise day in Maidenhead. She had a great time and really enjoyed watching and helping the girls put together a business plan for the sale of cosmetics products.

Rosie is 8th from left

This prompted the question, does a web designer make a good dragon?

The answer is – they ought to!

Web design and development used to be a technical discipline. Back in the early days of HTML, content was mixed in with code and you needed a web developer to update this tangle of code and content. We called these people webmasters, they were a kind of web systems administrator. Then came along the idea of separating content from the web page infrastructure. More of the style instructions (page formatting) were separated into style sheets (Cascading Style Sheets) which could be referenced from the HTML pages. Content Management Systems came along and although they had varying levels of control and flexibility they allowed non-technical marketing people to start to control web content management.

Today, speaking personally as a web designer, I cannot consider creating a website without understanding the objectives of a business, the purpose of the website and the objective of each page of that website. In this day and age a website must be tightly coupled to the business activities that it supports. A web designer or web design team has a much more diverse role these days, they have to be tuned in to the sales requirements, the marketing messages, the psychology of colours, understanding of the target audience, the beauty and design of the site, the useability of the site, as well as technical aspects such as performance, speed, ability to update the site, compliance with various platforms and browsers.

“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations.” – J. R. R. Tolkien. Let’s be aware of the business dragon in all of us and use the dragon with our websites!

This is one of my favourite topics. I do periodically take a look at browser popularity in order to gauge what website audiences are generally using. One place to check out browser statistics is:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Just a few cautionary words in looking at these stats, you are looking at a general picture here. Some industries are notoriously slow to migrate (e.g. Defence industries where new operating systems and applications all have to be security validated) so you should try to be aware of niche variations. Also you should note that not all website hits are necessarily from humans which may lead to over-estimation etc. However, if we accept that the results will at least give us some idea of the current trends we can take a look at what is happening with browsers and perhaps draw some conclusions.

Here is an overview of browser usage amongst the main 5 contenders:

Up to around 6 or 5 years ago Internet Explorer dominated browser usage and my perception is that the market was fairly static. Users would use IE by default, it was in those days installed by default on Windows (the 2009 ruling changed all of that). IE users seem to be slow to upgrade to newer versions. Even today, IE 9 has been out for 4 months and its uptake is a little as 4% (of the whole market segment).

Google Chrome has emerged as a popular browser and it has a very aggressive upgrade schedule. This newcomer (2008) is already up to version 14 and version 12 appears to be the most popular. Chrome accounts for 28% of the market share and appears to have overtaken IE (24%). A huge advantage of Chrome is that it is noticeably quicker than the rest.

Earlier this year Firefox, a browser which has become the most popular browser in recent years, announced a more aggressive upgrade package. Firefox 4 was very long in the making, it was released in February 2011, Firefox 5 has followed in June and FF 6 beta is already available. Interestingly FF users seem to upgrade very promptly:

Safari still has quite a low market share (4%) although it is undoubtably popular with Apple users.

My own plea is that users upgrade as soon as they sensibly can. Browsers are generally becoming more standards compliant which is good for everyone, HTML5 and CSS3 will be a step forward in terms of developing websites and the sooner we support those standards the better!

Life is full of balancing acts and I’m sure we recognise that we often have to decide upon a solution that has to service a number of requirements. My hybrid bicycle has to cope with cycling on roads and trails because I don’t have the budget or space for a specialist road bike and mountain bike. In a somewhat similar way, a website has to look as creative, unique and professional as it is possible to be but without compromising the usability of the site and accessibility of content.

The graphical impact of a website is very important. When I am asked to look at websites and make recommendations – then I often find that images are of poor quality, low quality clipart has been used, colours often clash. The reasons for this are often understandable, many websites are put together by business owners, or an employee who may be able to put something together technically but who is lacking in design awareness. Using high quality images and ensuring that a website is pleasing on the eye with a complimentary colour palette can go a long way towards creating a site that demonstrates credibility, brand presence and professionalism.

A good design will introduce balance, proportions and colour that will be naturally very pleasing.

Easy to navigate? You decide...

At the same time a website has to be usable, it has to be easy to find your way around and it has to showcase your content. For example, as tempting as it may be to have a menu system that features complex animations or expressive typography, we have to be pragmatic here. The brain has become accustomed to seeing menu options across the top of a web page or down the left-hand side. If you deviate from that subconscious expectation then you will introduce an inhibitor to accessibility of your website.

Unless your business is very arty or graphical, then your website text or content needs to be found very quickly by your visitors. Your key messages need to be immediately placed in front of your guests. To this end I would suggest not over-elaborating the graphics on your site to the distraction or exclusion of content. You want your visitors to be able to see important information clearly, without having to scroll below the page fold.

Overuse of distracting graphics

It’s all about balance, your website needs to be graphic, professional and a showpiece for your content. If you don’t get this right then users will click away very quickly.

In this post, I will briefly outline what the search engines are looking for when they trawl your website.

1. Value of the content of your site.

2. Quality links coming into your site from Authority (other highly ranked) sites.

3. Quantity of inbound  links is not important to Google but is important to Yahoo. Google dominates the market share.

4. Natural approach to linkage to your site. Do use a range of different link types and consistently build links. Search Engines don’t want to see too much of the same thing.

5. Link building is not just about building links to your site, it’s about promoting your brand

Search engine marketing is becoming more ever more popular and it is not enough to simply create a website and hope that search engines and other visitors will find you.

Here are some tips to help increase your company’s chances of getting good results.

Relevance of copy is essential. It is important to put as many keywords in the text as possible in order to improve search optimisation and this should be done as naturally as possible – Google is constantly updating its search algorithms to identify blatant stacking of keywords. So yes you should include relevant keywords but I recommend that you don’t simply provide lists of keywords.

Another important technique is the proper use of tags. The title tag is considered one of the most important tags of your webpage. The page title is the first thing that a search engine looks for and analyzes in determining the content of a particular page. Including keywords in the title is important as it is the most visible part of the webpage, however do limit this tag to 160 characters. While it is important to include one or two keywords, it is also essential not to go overboard by putting too many keywords in the title tag.

Heading tags must also be considered in writing out site copy. A proper heading tag gives emphasis (in Google’s view of things) to the priority of the content and enhances search engine optimisation.

Images are another important aspect of the webpage and the alt tag has some value here. It places additional relevant text to the source code which search engines can then see in optimizing your site. The frequency of the keyword on the page, including those on the images, makes for better results in search engine listings. This is also helpful to the visually impaired who may also be potential clients.

Link building helps generate traffic from other websites or blogs and particularly, if you can obtain links from popular sites i.e. sites that are themselves highly ranked by Google.

These are just some of the things which are vital in getting your web page towards the top of search engine listings. It is generally an ongoing activity to continually monitor traffic, refine your site and keywords, build links and write blogs & articles which may have backlinks to your own site.

Nowadays web sites are as cheap as chips. It seems that everyone, and their sixteen year old son, can build them for next to nothing. Very tempting when budgets are tight. The trouble is that, on the surface, many websites look very similar. They all fit on the same screen and have some attractive graphics, a little bit of Flash animation and a navigation bar. So what is the problem?

There would be no point in buying a Porsche if all it had was a lawnmower engine under the bonnet. It would look great on the road but be overtaken by cyclists and pedestrians. Not quite the image.

The same applies to your website, it is not the chrome bumpers that matter, but the engine that drives it and the functions it can perform.

If you are in business, then the whole purpose of a website is add value in a number of specific ways. Not just to be the screen equivalent of a nicely designed leaflet online. In these competitive times, that won’t achieve what you require.

So instead of worrying about the colour of the paintwork, the first things to think about are the needs of the business, and what your website absolutely needs to deliver.

Firstly, a website is capable of giving immediate credibility for you and the business. When you are speaking to a prospective client on the phone, they will probably by looking up your website during the conversation. It reinforces what you are saying, and at the same time projects your brand image and the quality of your offering. You will need to decide what you need that to be and whether an obviously off the peg template website reflects the quality of your business. Never forget, you only have one chance to make a first impression!

But the look of the website is only a relatively small part of the picture. Getting it found is entirely another. Search engines these days are very sophisticated at the way they marry up a problem with a solution. They also have very specific ways of rating a website and ranking it in order of relevance to any particular search phrase.

It is all very well for some people to rashly promise “We can get your site to the top of Google!” The question is top for what? The more you clearly understand what you customers are likely to search for, the easier it is for you to focus all the content towards that subject or problem. If your content is really well constructed with a search in mind, you will have done half the job of optimising your site yourself.

There is no smoke an mirrors to Search Engine Optimisation, although many companies would like you to believe there is – so they can charge you large amounts of money on a regular basis. Not, of course, that they would give you any guarantees of results!

Search engines do like site that always contain fresh content. Sites with static content may start strong but will quickly slip down the rankings. Build in from the beginning a news feed, an RSS feed, and a content management system which allows you to post new information yourself on a regular basis.

The search engines also look at all the basics. Not just the Metatags that everybody used to speak about, but having the right page descriptors, text associated with every graphic and every photo. keywords turned into links, a site map and many more.

This should all be done as part of building the foundations of your site, so working with a web design and build team that understand this is essential.

As they say in management consultancy-speak, “You cannot manage what you do not measure.” Right from the date you switch it on, you need to keep a close eye on the number of visitors to your site on a daily basis. Visitors, not hits! They are not the same thing, although many people wish they were. In the same way that to pilot a boat towards the port, you will need to make constant tiny changes of course, so it is with a website. A good website is never finished. It is always growing and evolving, as indeed the market place is also changing day by day. With your finger on the pulse of this change, you can make sure that your website is total relevant to the changing needs of your customers.

The most important thing to work on is the “call to action” on your site. What is it that you want people to do as a result of their visit? It they visit, look round for a moment and then leave without a trace, you have missed the point!

If your visitors find you site because they are searching for a particular need or to solve a problem, why not offer them the gift of your knowledge on the subject, in the form of a free ebook download? If it is really relevant to their needs, and not a thinly disguised advert, they will download it and read it. But before that can do so, they have to put their email address into a box to enable it to be sent to them. A perfectly reasonable transaction, which then gives you the opportunity to follow up with a “thank you” email, and start to build a relationship with them. To leverage your time, there are many simple programmes you can inexpensively bolt on to your site to manage this process for them.

If your business has multiple offerings, solving many problems or addressing many different needs, then one website – no matter how well constructed – is going to rank highly in the search engines for each one of them. To overcome this, many smart businesses are putting up a series of microsites in orbit around their main site, attract traffic to each separate niche.

Search Engine optimisation is not a life raft to be thrown at a drowning website which is not achieving its objectives. Build the site with clear objectives in mind and put down strong foundations right from the start. Of course, you will need to fine tune it on a regular basis, and that need should be discussed up front and build it to your budget.

Yes, this will cost more to do than the average sixteen year old neighbours son’s friend will charge, but better that than to have to start again in six months time when it hasn’t worked.

Website may well be as cheap as chips, but there is a law in business which stares that you always get what you actually pay for. And in business, when the chips are down, you need a professional to deliver results you can rely on.