When we think of a web site, the first element that comes to mind is the web design, the look and feel. The web design aspect is by far a critical one in the whole web site project. Get it wrong and the whole investment could be a waste. But a great web design on its own will not sell. You need content on your web site and you need up-to-date content. Content is text, informative, well written material that gives at least a good overview of what your services and products are about.

Unless you already have a strong brand or have a huge marketing budget, a flashy web design alone, you good a number of words on your web site to communicate your services and products to your online visitor. If it’s true that internet surfers do not generally spend much time on each web site, it is equally true to say that someone who is interested in your web site will expect to read a bit more about what you do and what you are selling. Of course the web design must not be crowded with text alone. A good web designer will strike the right balance between content and imagery and web design elements like flash for instance.

Remember also that it is not enough to have a great looking web site online, your potential customers must see come across your web site. Today, most people will use a search engine and type in a number of keywords to look for services and products. Your aim in having a web site is to get as high up the ranks on the search engines as possible. Whilst you could pay to advertise on search engines, the most efficient and sought after strategy is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

When it comes to SEO, content is king. Think about it, search engines are looking to present their users with the most relevant web site and one way of determining if a web site is relevant to a keyword is to analyse the content of the web site. Search engines crawlers do this job. These software will crawl every web site and analyse the content. Images and flash animation are invisible to the search engine crawlers. So text on your web site is what will make the difference.

A good web design practice is to get the balance between the look and feel and the content, text and information. A good web design specialist will use various techniques and styles to actually blend the content in with the web design. It the design is correct, the text will not crowd the web design and reading will be a pleasant experience for your web site visitor.

Keeping the content up-to-date is very relevant to search engine optimisation as well. If you have a web design with a few pages, it is relatively easy to update the content. However, if the web design comprises hundreds of content pages, you must build in what is called a content management system (CMS). There are lots of good CMS web design packages available online or you can have a custom built CMS to suit your needs. Once your CMS is integrated into your web design, updating your web site is child’s play.

Ralph Ramah
http://www.discountwebdesign.co.uk/