One of the most important things to consider when creating a new website is the structure and navigation of the web pages. Web Design should be an intelligent solution to enhance your online presence by providing a user friendly website for your potential clients or customers. Before sitting at a computer to begin the construction of a website a designer should create on paper a sitemap / diagram that will provide clear instruction of how the website should be designed and linked together. The linking of web pages forms the foundation of how your website will be navigated. The simple solutions are often the best but this still takes a degree of planning and experience to perfect.

 

Your homepage should be the point at which your visitor can access any page or at least the main sections / categories with only one click of the mouse. It is essential that the navigation bar be positioned in an obvious place for your visitor and that its usage be as simplistic as possible to create a confidence within your visitors when they try to find their way around the website. One of the most difficult things when it comes to Web Design is to see is how easy your website is to navigate. If you are very used to websites and their construction then what you feel is a simple navigational solution may not be so simple to users that are less advanced when it comes to the world wide web and if you are a web designer then the majority of your business will come from businesses or individuals that do not know how to construct a website so you do not want to scare off potential customers with complicated website to navigate. The best test is to ask somebody who has not seen your website before and has little knowledge of the internet / websites to visit your site and see how easily they can find their way around.

 

Firebubble provide intelligent solutions for websites and their navigation as we have learned from experience what works best. If you would like assistance with the construction of your website please contact the studio with your requirements.

It is common knowledge within the SEO Search Engine Optimisation industry that building links from other websites pointing to your Website helps you attain a higher position in the search engine listings for relevant search terms / keywords. This part of the optimisation process is easy to grasp, you simply build links through other websites that point to your own website. The more difficult part of this strategy is knowing which links have value and which links are just additional ways for a business or individual to waste their time. So an important factor in any link building strategy is to know which links have value. There are many factors which influence the strength of a link through the eyes of the search engines such as Google and Yahoo. These factors can be titled as Relevant, Keywords, Indexed, Page Rank and Non-Harmful.

Relevant

If you want strong links to your site then you need relevant links from web pages that contain content which is relevant to your own website. For example you do not want to build links to a logo design website from a page about wooden fences! This is a bad move. You need links from relevant and authentic web pages, it’s that simple.

Keywords

The most important thing you need before beginning any seo / link building journey is a list of relevant keywords / search terms that people use to find websites such as your own. If you created your list of keywords / search terms in a matter of minutes you probably did it wrong. Many people make the mistake of picking the most obvious search terms / keywords but these terms usually have many competitors all fighting to get to the top of the Google and Yahoo listings.

A new website stands little chance of building a strong online presence when they try to compete with the bigger websites that have been online for years. You need to be realistic about your chances of obtaining a position in the search engines that will be beneficial to you. Fortunately though for the smaller websites while the big websites are fighting over the giant search terms, small websites can focus on the niche keywords / search terms. For example if you have a website about Search Engine Optimisation, then rather that building links for the search term ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ you could try involving the area in which you offer this service, for example you could have ‘Search Engine Optimisation Leicester’ for your key phrase and you would stand a far greater chance of achieving a listing in the search engines that will provide visitors to your website.

There are lots of these keyword niches so it is often a good idea to have a few niche key phrases that will generate a reasonable amount of visitors to your website or ‘traffic’ as it is known in the SEO industry. You should build your links to your website from other websites containing your niche keywords.

Indexed

Not all pages on the internet are indexed / read by the search engines. In fact lots of web pages that you can build links from will not be indexed. This means that your links will also not be read by the search engines and from an SEO point of view this is not good. If the links are not indexed then they will not count. Although it can be good to have links from popular websites that do not offer indexed pages as if the pages have a lot of visitors they can click through to your site but this will not strengthen your website in the eyes of the search engines it will only send a number of visitors to your website and this number is usually very small. To check if the blog or article website you are building links from will be indexed you need to look at the source code for the web page this will tell you if the page will be indexed or not. If the page contain no follow / index instructions to the search engines then the page will not be indexed and neither will your links that you build from that page.

Page Rank

Page Rank or PR as it is known in the SEO trade is a score that Google awards your website based on how important Google feels your website to be. Many people get too obsessive over Page Rank but it can serve as a good indication of how your website is doing with respect to its SEO in comparison to other websites. The Page Rank or PR which google awards to each page on a website is marked out of 10.

It is almost impossible to achieve a PR 10 and it is very unlikely that a PR of 9 will be achieved by a business website (PR 9 is more realistic for massive websites like Facebook and Myspace). A realistic PR to aim for would be a PR 4 or PR 5 website. Page Ranks are achievable of higher but this is really for individuals and businesses that really understand the world of SEO and work many hours to achieve the results. It is usually not necessary to have an extremely high Page Rank though for Business services and you can easily find your website top of the Google and Yahoo listings with only a PR 2 if you choose the right Key phrase.

Non Harmful

Building links to your websites is generally a safe business but there are a few circumstances to avoid. The first is to not only join blogs just to post comments that are only intended to build links. Try posting useful informative comments about the subject. You should try to enjoy blogging rather than just spamming / ruining the blog for everybody else by posting meaningless links (to humans) just to achieve better search engine results. You may also be thrown off the blog website if you are not respectful towards it. They are there to provide useful information and to be an enjoyable experience not just for link building.

Another link building strategy to show caution towards is the exchange of links. Once your website begins to show a little strength in the search engines you will no doubt be contacted by other website owners asking to exchange links. This is usually done by you placing a link pointing towards their website and they place a link on their website pointing towards your website. This is usually ok but you should only link to relevant websites and also you should expect a PR of the same value from the page you are receiving a link from. As you do not want to add a link from your own web page that has a PR of 2 when the other website only has a PR0 on the web page that contains your link.

You should try to build links that are informative to your websites visitors as it is all too easy to forget that it is your visitors you need to impress more than the search engines. You should also never link to link farms as these websites are frowned upon by the search engines and can seriously damage your websites integrity. Link farms are websites that only promote links they have no useful information they are only there to trick the search engines and they all get caught in the end. Do not confuse these with directories that list business services they are usually fine. If you are unsure about linking to a website then it is probably best to either seek advice or not bother with the link.

If your business is in need of SEO – Search Engine Optimisation services please contact our UK studio for a free quotation. We can create packages to suit realistic budgets so that you are in control of how much of an investment you wish to make on your websites optimisation.

SEO is the term used for Search Engine Optimisation. SEO is basically sophisticated techniques for getting your Website to rank higher in the Search Engines such as Google and Yahoo. For example firebubble offer Web Design over the internet so our approach could be to optimise our site so that we appear in the Search Engines for a related search term (Search term being what our potential customers type in to Google, Yahoo, etc) like Website Design UK. To optimise a Website for certain Search terms or Keywords as they are called in the SEO industry you need to first have a Website that is Search Engine Friendly. The way in which a Website is constructed is very important to how well your Website will rank in the Search Engine Listings. If you have a Website that contains large files / images or your Website features poor content and the pages are not linked together in an intelligent way this will all effect your listings positions for Search terms / Keywords. You basically need to provide the Search Engines with a Website that they love and there is a huge list of Optimisation factors which effect this affection.

Firebubble build Websites for our clients that are Search Engine Friendly. We also offer an SEO / Internet Marketing Service to get your Websites up in the Search Engines listings for relevant Keywords. If you have a Website that is not attracting many visitors and you are unsure as to how well constructed your Website may be, then e-mail our Web Design studio and we will give you an honest opinion of how well your Website is constructed in the eyes of the Search Engines such as Google and Yahoo. We offer a Basic Web Design Package for smaller Businesses and this is an excellent and affordable start to building an Online presence.

If your looking for an affordable website for a small business then you may be interested to know that firebubble can now offer a Basic Web Design Package to help grab your visitors attention, hosting and maintenance. Not only this your Website will also be built by a professional UK Web Designer and we will construct your Website so that it is Search Engine friendly. This is very important as if you decide you want to get higher in the Search Engine listings in the future through employing SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) techniques the ground work will already be done so you will not have to have your site reconstructed which can be very expensive for larger Websites.

A 3 page Website is just the right size for a Small Business that whishes to advertise and inform potential customers of their products and services Online. Having a Professional Website also makes your Business more creditable in the eyes of your clients / customers and Business associates.

The Package also includes a flash animation. An example of a flash animation can be seen on our home page. The animation helps to grab the attention of visitors to a Website and also looks very Professional.

The Basic Web Design Package is also tailor made to individual requirements so that you receive a bespoke custom built Website. If you would like more information on our Web Design or SEO services please contact the studio. We also create projects to realistic budgets so that our clients feel comfortable about the overall cost.