Great web design starts with a great internet marketing strategy for your business.
Hi there, I'm Melanie Williamson Capell - the principal of our company and the director of web design projects for our valued clients. As an internet marketing strategist for small-to-medium sized businesses, I'm often called upon to give commentary on the state of internet marketing today, and to provide specific advice to individual organisations. Here are some of my keynotes for 'free'...
Art for art's sake, money for nothing
It's natural for some people to feel that the visual appeal of their site is all-important. But it's a fact that some of the most beautiful-looking websites on the internet have a very hard time getting good ranking in search engine results. Therefore, they lack sufficient traffic coming from searches ("organic traffic"). Poor performance in search engine results could be survivable for businesses that people already know about, and can search for by name. Otherwise - to attract new customers, enquiries, and fresh leads from the internet, or make instant sales through an online store - these fancy 'show pony' websites with poor search engine optimisation ("SEO") would need to rely on search engine advertising (what they call "pay per click" or "PPC"). Much of the technology used to make websites look very flashy is self-defeating when it comes to success in the crowded internet marketplace. There are many reasons why most of the world's most popular and successful websites are relatively plain and simple in their design ('form over function'). For examples of 'function over form', think of eBay and Wikipedia. The internet is about information. Information is indexed by search engines and delivered to search engine users according to an extremely complex criteria. Design gimmicks don't matter a cracker to Google, and most likely get in the way of what search engines are looking for. Don't bother investing in dancing elephants for your website. Well, not at least until you know that the structure and content of your website is user-friendly, appealing, informative - and speaking about your business to search engines in the language they understand.
Art for art's sake, money for nothing
It's natural for some people to feel that the visual appeal of their site is all-important. But it's a fact that some of the most beautiful-looking websites on the internet have a very hard time getting good ranking in search engine results. Therefore, they lack sufficient traffic coming from searches ("organic traffic"). Poor performance in search engine results could be survivable for businesses that people already know about, and can search for by name. Otherwise - to attract new customers, enquiries, and fresh leads from the internet, or make instant sales through an online store - these fancy 'show pony' websites with poor search engine optimisation ("SEO") would need to rely on search engine advertising (what they call "pay per click" or "PPC"). Much of the technology used to make websites look very flashy is self-defeating when it comes to success in the crowded internet marketplace. There are many reasons why most of the world's most popular and successful websites are relatively plain and simple in their design ('form over function'). For examples of 'function over form', think of eBay and Wikipedia. The internet is about information. Information is indexed by search engines and delivered to search engine users according to an extremely complex criteria. Design gimmicks don't matter a cracker to Google, and most likely get in the way of what search engines are looking for. Don't bother investing in dancing elephants for your website. Well, not at least until you know that the structure and content of your website is user-friendly, appealing, informative - and speaking about your business to search engines in the language they understand.