• Web development – many beginners use the terms “web design” and “web development” interchangeably. In fact, building a web site from scratch is a lot like building a house from scratch. Many subcontractors are needed to build the house, from plumbers to electricians to carpenters. Likewise, the construction of a web site, particularly a complex site, often requires many different specialists in a variety of programming or coding fields. The term “web development” is an all-encompassing term similar to “real estate development.” It includes every aspect of the web site construction process, from design through completion.
• Web design – this phrase refers specifically to the design aspect of building a web site. Again, using the home construction analogy, a “web designer” is technically like the architect of a building. He or she decides what the site will look like and how the various pieces, such as navigation bars, will function together. The designer may or may not be involved in actually writing the code that puts flesh on the design skeleton.
• Search engine optimization (SEO) – this is a part of the development process that few web designers are truly familiar with. It involves writing the code and content of the site in such a way as to make it more “authoritative” on a particular topic in the eyes of the various search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
• Search engine marketing – getting a site to rank well in the search engines is not accomplished solely by optimization. Other factors, such as link popularity, come into play. The phrase “search engine marketing” encompasses all of these and includes search engine optimization.
• HTML – the fundamental language of web pages. All novices MUST learn HTML if they are to ever be truly proficient at ANY of the web development specialties.
• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) – like HTML, this is a fundamental language of web pages. The difference is that HTML is focused primarily on organizing your content, while the primary purpose of CSS is to make your content visually appealing.

Any prospective student of web design or development should begin by learning the disciplines listed above, then proceed to more advanced specialties as needed.

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1. Your site is confusing. Eye-catching is one thing, but is it clear to a visitor where important information about your business is located? I frequently come across sites which fail to provide easy navigation schemes, thereby hindering my quest to find the information I’m looking for. Make sure your site makes sense and that everything is easy to find and follow.
2. You still have a site that plays background music. Newsflash: this was cool, oh, about fifteen years ago, back in the days when everything about the ‘net was new and exciting. In this day and age, with sites like Youtube, ESPN, etc. sound is no big deal. Visitors want sound when they want it; they don’t want it shoved in their faces when they visit your site.
3. Your text is illegible. I’m frequently amazed at the sites that feature text that is too small, light against a light background, or dark against a dark background. What are these people thinking? Sometimes, in our quest to get “design cute”, we can go overboard. Make sure visitors can read your text.
4. Your site opens with a flash intro. See item #2, above. Like background music, flash doesn’t “wow” anyone anymore; I personally find it to be more of a nuisance to get through than anything. As a matter of fact, it can hurt your search engine rankings. Lose it.

Allways remember: an ugly, but well-structured, easy-to-read website with few hindrances is better than a beautiful, flash-heavy, hard-to-navigate site. Fortunately you can have the best of both worlds. And after all, aren’t sales/conversions really what you’re after?

The post Does your website need an overhaul? appeared first on Aartek Systems.

Considering the relatively low cost involved (web sites are available for as little as $400 plus $20 a month for hosting), any business that is serious about competing in the Greenville or Upstate area (or the modern economy in general) absolutely has to have a web site.

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Internet Marketing – The term “internet marketing” encompasses all areas of marketing or promoting your business or service via the internet or World Wide Web, including search engine optimization (SEO), paid advertisement, email marketing, and any other online method.

Keyword Analysis – The process of collecting keywords/keyphrases related to your site and researching as many as possible to determine which are the most economically attractive in terms of demand and competition. Demand represents the number of searches on a particular keyword/keyphrase over a given period of time, while competition represents the number of websites competing for those keywords. For best results, a website should target keywords that are high demand (lots of searches) and low competition.

Keyword/Keyphrase – A word or phrase that describes a product or service that your business offers.

Link Campaign – A coordinated effort to increase the number of links from other sites to your site.

Link Popularity – the number of links from other sites to your site. Very popular sites have many links to them from other sites. Link Popularity is a major factor considered by search engines in their rankings.

META Tags – Code placed in the hidden heading section of a web page. Common META tags are the keywords tag and the description tag. META tags were once used by search engines to determine a site’s ranking, but were so abused that they are now largely ignored when ranking a site.

Organic Search Results – The normal, non-paid results (as opposed to Sponsored Listings – see below) returned by a search engine in response to a search request. These are the results considered most relevant by that particular search engine.

Pagerank – A proprietary value Google assigns to each website it indexes. The exact algorithm used to determine Pagerank is a proprietary secret, but sites with higher Pagerank are generally considered much more important than sites with lower Pagerank.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) – A form of advertising in which the advertiser pays a certain amount each time his advertisement is clicked by a visitor.

Reciprocal Link – A common link-building strategy in which two sites link to each other. Reciprocal links hold much less value to search engines than one-way links in determining your site’s ranking.

Search Engine – a program that is used to find websites related to a particular keyword or keyphrase and rank them in order of relevance. Examples are Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – The process of tweaking a web page to make it as search-engine friendly as possible for a particular keyword or keyphrase.

Search Marketing – Similar to Internet Marketing, but differs in scope. While Internet Marketing refers to any form of marketing which utilizes the internet (email, for example), search marketing refers specifically to marketing through search engine results including both organic and pay-per-click marketing.

Spamming – the process of using unethical techniques to attempt to manipulate search engine results in your site’s favor. Many forms of spamming (such as stuffing your site full of keywords and little else) have long ago been made obsolete by new search engine algorithms, and such techniques will get your site ignored at best and banned from the search results altogether at worst.

Sponsored Listings – The advertisements usually listed above or to the right of organic results in response to a search request. These listings are paid for and used by advertisers to get more exposure than they might if they relied on organic (non-paid) results alone.

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Our strategy for maximizing your web site’s visibility is based on a combination of tried and true methods commonly used by SEO experts across the web, proprietary techniques found to be successful as a result of our own research and testing, and the latest SEO adaptations to the ever-changing search engine algorithms, which we are constantly studying in order to stay up-to-date.

In addition to search engine submission services, we also offer website promotion services such as pay-per-click (PPC) and link-building strategies.

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