The Apheus Blog

You might think that after you get a website, business will just start pouring in and you’ll become an instant online success. You can dream all you want, but it just won’t happen without some type of plan in place to promote your website. One of the most popular and cost effective promotion methods is with the search engines. But how do you get your website in front of your intended audience when there are thousands of other websites competing against you? That’s where SERP marketing comes into play.

SERP stands for search engine results page, which is the webpage that appears after you type a keyword or phrase into a search box on Google, Yahoo or Bing. Most SERPs consist of two elements – organic search results and text advertisements. Organic search results are achieved through various search engine optimization (SEO) techniques on your website with ranking determined by the search engine. Text advertisements are pay-per-click (PPC) ads targeting specific keywords that you purchase from a search engine. SERP marketing combines these the two elements of SEO and PPC to achieve the best results when trying to attract potential customers via the search engines.

In the image below, you can see a Google SERP and where the basic elements reside. There are two PPC areas shown in red, one to the right and one above the organic results, shown in green. These can vary depending upon the search term and the search engine involved.

Organic Search Results with SEO

Everyone wants to be in the top 10 spots on a SERP. Who wouldn’t? According to a leaked AOL search database report, about 90% of all search engine users will usually click on one of the top 10 results on the first results page. Only 10% of users will move on to subsequent pages. The report indicates that users will typically choose the first result given about 42% of the time while the tenth result only receives about 3% of the clicks. In total, the top 5 spots receive over 73% of the total clicks. Obviously, the effectiveness of a top 10 search ranking cannot be ignored.

Getting high rankings in organic search results is not an easy task, but once you’re there, the benefits can be enormous. The only legitimate way to achieve these high search rankings is with appropriate search engine optimization techniques. SEO is a tricky business and it can take a great deal of time and effort to achieve the desired results. Getting your website organically listed on a SERP is extremely desirable.

Advertising with PPC

The other method of getting on a SERP is with pay-per-click advertising. All of the major search engines offer PPC tools – Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter for Bing. How PPC works is that you pick specific keywords for your ad, write your ad and then bid against other advertisers for placement on the SERPs. The ad is displayed alongside the organic search results and search engine users have the opportunity to click on your ad, taking them to your website.

Unlike organic search results, PPC does cost money – and if you’re not careful, it can cost a lot of money. For some extremely popular keywords, a bid can cost you $5 per click or more when there are several websites competing against you. If you have it in your advertising budget to spend that much, then go for it. However, most website owners can’t afford click rates that high and one mistake can easily wipe out an entire marketing budget for the year in a single day.

For most PPC advertisers, I recommend a “choose your battles wisely” approach to pay-per-click. If every advertiser is bidding on a specific keyword, try an alternate keyword at a lower rate. The results may surprise you. While you may not get as many clicks as the more expensive keyword, you won’t be spending as much money on PPC ads as the other guys.

SEO + PPC = SERP Marketing

If you want to get the best possible SERP results for your website, you need to combine search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising. While either one can be effective as a standalone products, think about what they can do together. The goal of SERP marketing is to create the perfect blend of SEO and PPC in one convenient package so you may achieve the maximum return on your investment.

Run away – far, far away! Bad web design is everywhere. I was just looking up the website for a well-respected local company that has been in business for well over 100 years and I was horrified when I saw the site. As soon as I opened the homepage, I saw the tell-tale signs of an old Microsoft theme – Sherlock Holmes would’ve had an easy time solving this case. Taking a quick peak at the source code proved my suspicions.

A bad website is a poor reflection of an organization and it could be greatly hurting them on several levels. Research has shown that most people will research a product or service online before actually making a purchase. Many potential employees will research a potential employers before applying for a job. Donors wanting to make contributions to non-profit groups will often research potential donees long before making a donation. Most people now use the internet to make their travel plans to historic sites, museums, and tourist attractions.

I spend a lot of time in the online world. After all, I work here. In my time, I’ve seen my share of bad websites with varying degrees of badness. Some are just so bad that you can’t even attempt to view them. I can understand personal websites since those are usually created by an amateur and I overlook the coding mistakes, poor graphics, and lack of navigation. But I have an entirely different opinion about websites for businesses, non-profits, and other organizations.

A commercial website should be treated as a mainstream component in any business or marketing plan, but I feel like many groups treat their websites like red-headed stepchildren. There is no excuse for bad web design these days – there are thousands of good designers in the world who will gladly offer their website design services – usually at a very affordable rate. Businesses and groups of all sizes cannot afford to neglect their websites. Forcing visitors to view ugly websites is cruel and unusual punishment and should be against the Geneva Convention. The online community deserves better and I am on a mission to make the internet a beautiful place to visit.

I would venture to say that there are web developers and designers in almost every major community in America today. Every one of them is different, offering a variety of services for their clients. In addition, they offer a broad set of skills and skill levels. Some may be superb designers, easily able to create magical graphics, but have no clue what search engine optimization is. On the flip side, some developers are code junkies and can build bullet-proof PHP scripts, but couldn’t tell you the difference between red and green (maybe they’re colorblind). In any case, there is probably a local web designer in any given area.

The Battle with Off-Shore Designers

Why is it that when some local businesses decide to buy website design services that they go off-shore? I would say that 90% of the time, price has something to do with it. Off-shore web designers are usually so cheap that no domestic web designer can possibly compete on the basis of price. However, the quality of service you receive from these off-shore web designers is usually less than stellar and once the project is complete, getting service after the sale is almost impossible.

I’ve bid on some web design projects only to be underbid by an off-shore designer by hundreds or even thousands of dollars. For a project that may take a designer 30-40 hours to complete, an off-shore designer will bid only $100. But, it has to make you wonder what the client is getting.

So how does a domestic web designer compete with an off-shore designer? It’s quite simple really – offer superior website design services that the off-shore designers can’t possibly match. Off-shore designers are typically interested in one thing – pushing as many websites through their system as possible. This doesn’t leave much room for quality service as you would expect from a domestic company.

Bigger Isn’t Always Better

Another problem faced by local web designers is the often unwarranted perception that bigger is better. Many potential clients seem to think that they’ll receive better service from a huge design house New York City than their local company. This isn’t always the case. In addition, these large design firms often charge New York City prices, resulting in clients overpaying for the services that they do receive.

Buying from a local web designer has a number of advantages. A client will usually receive more personalized service from someone locally rather than someone on a few states away. The level of service is often tailored to the specific needs of the business since a local web designer may often times be a customer of the business in question. Many web designers often feel that they have a personal interest in the success of a website they design for a local client. I know that I have often gone that “extra mile” when dealing with local clients simply for the fact that these people are often my friends and family.

Buying from a local web designer also helps the local economy. When someone buys local, about $73 out of every $100 stays in the community. In contrast, buying from a web designer hundreds of miles away will easily result in $0 staying in the local economy. If a client wants to support their local economy, then buying local is definitely the way to go.

Another problem faced by many small businesses is what I would call the big box mentality. If someone purchases a bicycle from a big box store like Wal-Mart, is it actually better than one bought from the local bike shop downtown? Probably not – and the level of service the customer receives from the small shop downtown is probably going to be much better. The big box mentality is the same for almost any type of business – including web design. Overcoming the often ill-conceived notion that bigger is better is a tough obstacle to hurdle, but it can be done.

Website Design Priced Right

In my area, I try to keep my prices low to match the local economy. Could I charge the same rates as a web designer in New York City? I could, but I won’t. The reason is simple – the majority of small businesses in my local area can’t afford to pay a designer upwards of $200 or more per hour for my services. Are the services I offer worth $200 per hour? Sure they are – in the right area, just not here. Since the bread-and-butter of my business is with local companies, I want to make sure I cater to their every need – including the price.

Having a low price often creates its own problems. One question I have been often asked is, “Why are your prices so low?” When a client is used to seeing inflated prices for website design services, they’ll often have this misconceived notion that they’re not getting the same level of service. This simply isn’t true, and I’m often forced to explain myself to them. After I explain the circumstances that I’m not out to extort them for every dime in their bank account, they usually very understanding and we share a good laugh. After all, one of the fundamental principles of the Apheus business philosophy is the sharing of knowledge.

Being a web designer has its advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, you definitely have a feeling of accomplishment in being able to take a blank screen and transform it into an online masterpiece that will be viewed by thousands or hopefully millions of people. On the other hand, you’ll often find yourself becoming overly diagnostic towards with your own work. Web designers are often their own worst critics.

A Quick Rant

I feel like an artist because I am one, it’s just that my paint brush and canvas are are in the digital world. Web design isn’t something that everybody can do (although when you see some of the sites out there on the web, you would think so). A few words of wisdom to the many would-be web designers out there – please don’t.

If someone really wants to work at it and learn how to design, that’s fine. I encourage everyone to learn as much as they can and to keep learning. Just don’t announce to the world that your God’s gift to the internet when you’re still publishing websites with flashing text, bordered frames, and goofy little animated GIFs. I could list several websites that fall into this category, but i won’t since some of those same websites belong to lawyers.

The Website Makeover

I often look at my own websites and ask myself how I can improve their appearance, functionality, load times, navigation, etc. A few weeks ago, I decided to redesign my Apheus.com website – the main portal for my website design business. I guess you could say that I’m a restless designer – I’m never satisfied and new ideas are constantly popping into my head. As a web designer, this obviously comes naturally. At the end of the day, I have to force myself to settle on one design and stick with it.

One of the most popular services I offer is the website makeover. This is where I take an existing website and give it a total makeover from top to bottom. I hate to say this, but if you’ve ever seen one of those makeovers on an afternoon talk show, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. My own websites are not immune – as styles change, I make changes to keep up with the trends (so long as they make sense). Some changes are subtle, but most of the time I’ll just jump in head first and do a total redesign.

The New Apheus Design

The newest Apheus website is an example of a total website makeover. I stepped away from the dark background that I’ve used since almost the beginning and decided to go with a white background in the  main content areas. Since Apheus’ new eco-friendly ApheGreen website hosting service will be launched soon, I decided to go with an more natural look with blue skys and green grass. One of my original concepts even had dirt with grass roots in the footer background. But I opted not to go to that extreme. The turning point was when I thought about adding a worm burrowing its way through the dirt. OK, I won’t lie – I put the worm in there. Thankfully, I was able to reel myself in before I settled on the final design.

The latest incarnation (I’m now on the 9th version) is built on the Concrete5 CMS platform. I will continue to praise Concrete5 for its simplicity and features. I integrated a couple of add-ons from the Concrete5 Marketplace and I’m happy with the results. If you would like your own website built using what I consider to be the best content management system, Apheus has an affordable Concrete5 Design Pack just for you.

I was so confident in my design and my faith in Concrete5 is strong enough that I decided to switch over to the new design just a few hours before I left on vacation without a great deal of testing. So far, so good – I haven’t noticed any errors and my 301 redirects are working just fine. I’m really happy with the new Apheus website and I know that several people have made comments in that regard. Is it time to start working on version 10? Probably not for awhile, but the last version only lasted 7 months, so you never know!

My Next Website Makeover Project

I’ve decided that I need to make the Apheus family of websites more consistent in their designs – all matching the main Apheus website. In trying to form a brand image for the company, I think this is very important. The next website makeover I’m going to tackle is the redesign of this blog. It shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish since WordPress is so nice to work with – maybe not as easy as Concrete5, but I’m sure I’ll manage!

Apheus is proud to announce that all of our website design packages are now on sale. Sale prices starting at just $299! Take advantage of this great deal on a custom website with a FREE domain name and FREE web hosting for one full year. Includes custom HTML, CSS and graphics along with an SEO-ready design!

There’s more to building a website then just slapping some graphics together in an HTML document and saying, “Here ya go!” Believe it or not, there are a lot of web designers out there that do just that. While many are fine graphic artists, they lack the understanding of search engine marketing and how code plays an important part in determining rankings. Building a website that is search engine friendly is extremely vital if you ever expect your website to become visible in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

How to Build a Search Engine Friendly Website

One of the easiest ways to build a search engine friendly (SEF) website is to hire a professional web designer. If that’s not in your budget, then you might want to follow some of these key points:

Include Page Titles

One of the most annoyingly simple mistakes I often see are webpages without titles. Titles are super easy and every page should have one. They should also be descriptive to the content of the page and shouldn’t be used as a means of keyword stuffing (although you should definitely include some keywords). On a static HTML webpage, the page title will be placed between the head tags.

Include Meta Tags

The importance of meta tags has been topic of speculation and disagreement for many years. There are several types of meta tags, but for the purpose of this blog post, I’m only going to discuss two: description and keyword meta tags. Meta tags appear in between the head tags.

The description meta tag is a few lines of descriptive text that helps explain the contents of a particular webpage. Don’t go overboard with the description meta tag – keep it simple and to the point – don’t put the bulk of your content in a meta tag. A couple of sentences should suffice. In my opinion, the description meta tag is the more important of the two. If written well, this is the text that will appear in Google search results (Google reserves the right to change the text that appears in their search results). It should contain a few relevant keywords related to the webpage – but don’t try to stuff keywords in here! If you do, you’ll be penalized.

The keyword meta tag is less valuable than it used to be. Google has said that they completely ignore the text in the keywords meta tag. This is because a lot of people abuse this meta tag to stuff irrelevant keywords into a webpage. Even so, I still use keyword meta tags and use them properly. I list various keywords and key phrases that help describe the content of the page. Keep keywords to a minimum and you should be fine.

Clean HTML Code

Keeping your website’s HTML code clean is very important. A website must be able to be as easily read by a search engine spider as it should human eyes. Many websites now use strictly CSS designs to help improve load times and create a consistent look. Clean code can help make your website search engine friendly by eliminating lots of the garbage normally associated with old design techniques. Search engines can’t read javascript, so making drop-down menus with CSS is the preferred method. W3C compliant code is always good, but isn’t necessarily a requirement. Most browsers will still read a webpage even if the code is broken (although the end results may not be what you had expected). I use the Firefox Web Developer Toolbar Add-on to check most of the websites I design. I’m always looking for three green checks – passing Standards Compliance Mode, No CSS Errors, and No Javascript Errors. Of course, utilizing a program such a Dreamweaver will help eliminate many errors before you ever publish your website. Clean code also helps eliminate cross-browser errors, which are those that only appear when using specific browsers. For example, I test the websites I design in Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, and Google Chrome. I also test my websites using multiple computers with different operating systems. Of course you could also use a service like BrowserShots to perform a similar task.

Search Engine Friendly URL’s

Like title tags, making search engine friendly URL’s is a pretty simple task when designing static webpages. A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the “address” for your webpage on the internet. SEF URL’s should be easily read by both humans and computers. For example, a webpage named page1.html isn’t as descriptive as a one named search-engine-friendly.html. I like to call search engine friendly URL’s by another name – pretty URL’s. Whenever possible, URL’s should be created so that they match the content of the webpage. When using multiple words in a URL, I always prefer to use a dash (-) in between the words. Several years ago, the underscore (_) was a popular way of separating words, but this method has given way to the dash.

When saving documents for use on the internet, especially webpages, avoid using document names that include spaces or include special characters. These special characters get converted into ISO URL encoding strings. So if I were to name an HTML document search engine friendly.html without the dashes, it would appear in the address bar of the browser as search%20engine%20friendly.html. It’s not as pretty as a simple dash and can be harder for people to read. Again, it is very important that the name of the document match the content of the page! If you name a page “computers.htm” and the page talks about car repair, then you’ve missed the boat as far as search engines are concerned.

If you’re using a content management system (CMS) or ecommerce software, it may be a little more difficult to manage your URL’s. However, most dynamic website software now includes functionality to implement search engine friendly URL’s. While this may not come standard with the software, there are usually add-ons or features you can add to improve the readability of your URL’s.

Add ALT Tags to Images

Search engine spiders can’t “read” images in the traditional sense. What our eyes see on the screen isn’t always what a search engine sees. Search engines can’t read text that has been included in an image, so its important to use text whenever you can. But, you have to make your website look good by using images. Where do you draw the line? I can remember when the internet didn’t have images – everything was black and white and was only text. Honestly, those old websites can still teach us something about the importance of text. I love the Web Developer Toolbar Add-on for Firefox. It allows me to disable all of the CSS styles on a page and hide the images. When you do that, you get to basically see the content of a webpage the way a search engine sees it. If a page is made up of all graphics, guess what? The search engine probably isn’t going to see much at all – which could really hurt you.

A good designer can achieve a balance between graphics and text to give your website an optimal appearance. Whenever an image is used on a webpage, it should always include an ALT tag. I prefer to call it a tag, really even though it is an attribute for an element in an HTML document. An ALT tag is alternative text for an element on a page. Every image should include an ALT tag. The ALT tag should accurately describe the image as a short word or phrase and should never be used to stuff keywords onto a page.

While we’re on the subject of images, make sure that your images are named accordingly as well. For example, an image named fish.gif is much more descriptive than an image named gr3.gif. While I’m not quite sure if this has any bearing on SEO or SEF preferences just yet, it is handy to name images appropriately. I would imagine that properly named graphics could only help and can never hurt.

Appropriate Use of Header Tags

Header tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, etc.) are the tags titling important sections on a webpage. Every webpage should include one (and only one) H1 tag. This should be the first header tag on the page and all other header tags should follow below it using a common outline method. For example:

• Header 1
  • Header 2
    • Header 3
    • Header 3
  • Header 2
    • Header 3
    • Header 3
  • Header 2
    • Header 3
    • Header 3
      • Header 4
      • Header 4
    • Header 3

Now, you don’t have to go crazy and include dozens of header tags on a page, the example above just gives you a rough idea of how header tags should be utilized and the appropriate structure they should maintain. A header should be descriptive about the content it is heading. For example, at the top of this section on header tags, I’ve included an H3 tag called Appropriate Use of Header Tags. Include one or two keywords when writing a header tag, but never try to stuff keywords in a header tag.

Good Linking Techniques

One way to really shoot yourself in the foot is to always say “Click Here!” or “Read More” or something along those lines. While sometimes the phrase “click here” can be appropriate, its not very descriptive to search engines. When I’m talking about good linking techniques, what I’m really referring to is the text you use to wrap an href HTML tag around. For example, if I wanted to link to a webpage that talks about affordable website design, then I should make sure that the text at the heart of the link leading to that page reads “affordable website design” or something similar. It doesn’t have to be an exact match, but it should be appropriate and it is much more descriptive than simply saying “click here.”

In addition, every webpage on your website should be linked from at least one static link somewhere on the internet (preferably from your own website). If you design a webpage and nobody knows how to get to the page, then there’s no point in designing the page and putting up on your server – nobody will ever be able to find it! One of the easiest ways of making sure every webpage on your website can be found is to include your pages in a sitemap. The only exception to this rule would be for marketing purposes, such as a specific landing page designed for use with Google AdWords or something along those lines.

Final Thoughts on SEF

While these guidelines for building a search engine friendly website are a start towards search engine optimization, it is by no means a complete guide to SEO. Search engine optimization is a vast and complex subject that could fill volumes of text with various techniques, tools, and tricks. Making something search engine friendly helps build a strong foundation upon which SEO can be performed. Apheus can help build your search engine friendly website, just call us at 1-800-946-3079 and we’ll be more than happy to assist with all of your SEF website design needs.

I recently ran across a problem with the DNS from my ISP. One of my clients moved their main website from one server to another and I waited for the DNS to propagate. And I waited and waited and waited some more. After four days, I was starting to get worried. Generally, the rule of thumb is that it takes a maximum of 48-72 hours for a domain name to become fully propagated across the various domain nameservers (DNS) on the internet. I contacted my ISP and they resolved the issue, but I was still bothered by the wait time and I know other people in the world must have experienced the same issue at one point or another. That’s when I decided to look into this whole DNS issue with my ISP. Let’s be honest – most people don’t care whether or not their using their ISP’s DNS or not. And probably 99.9% of the people out on the internet don’t even know what a domain nameserver is or does. I happen to be in that .1% that does know and care.

I work with a lot of websites and pointing domains from one server to another is a pretty common practice. I know from past experience that after pointing a domain to a new server, it’s often available within four or five hours. Because I’m in the website design and development business, getting an updated DNS is very important to minimize downtime when moving websites. So I started looking into the problem and the solution was much easier than I had anticipated – use a third party DNS! I started looking around and I found that there were two services out there that could really help me out. One was OpenDNS and the other was Google Public DNS. Both services are free, so I decided to try them out and compare them to my ISP.

The first service I tried was OpenDNS. I was a little confused when I first signed up for the OpenDNS Basic, but I quickly found that they offer a huge number of features that could be very useful. OpenDNS Basic has content filtering, phishing protection, botnet protection, stats, logs, shortcuts, and more. With all those features, I was impressed. With OpenDNS, you gain additional protection from problem websites, which is always a good thing. I think they’ve done an excellent job of creating a service that many people can really enjoy having – especially with that zero dollars price tag. The only problem I had is that I thought my computer was slightly slower when “looking up” websites. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but I’ll get to the DNS speed test results later.

My next test was with Google Public DNS. Google apparently launched the service in December 2009, but I hadn’t heard about it until I started looking into it. You don’t have to sign up for anything at Google, you just plug in your numbers and away you go. There are no fancy features like you’ll find with OpenDNS and that may appeal to some people. Again, Google Public DNS doesn’t cost anything, so that is always a pleasing feature. Beyond that, everything is no-frills. The Google DNS seemed to function without any problems, although it seemed to be a little slower than what I was used to.

I decided to test the speed differences between my ISP’s DNS, OpenDNS, and Google Public DNS using a program called namebench and another program called DNS Benchmark. Depending upon the time of day, configuration of the test, and the program used, my ISP generally beat OpenDNS and Google in response times.

Just from experience, I knew that my ISP was slighter faster than either of the other nameserver services. However, since my primary concern is with how often the DNS is updated, I needed to do a little more research. Each nameserver has its own update frequency specified by the person who installed the DNS and the Time to Live or TTL settings. While I don’t know the exact interval my ISP updates their nameservers, I do know from experience that it can sometimes take several days to resolve a proper domain. Again, since I frequently move websites from one server to another, I need quicker access.

OpenDNS seems to resolve their DNS’s rather frequently and they also have a neat tool called CacheCheck that can actually force them to update their DNS before the TTL expires. That is a really neat feature! I couldn’t find any information on how often Google updates their cache, but I’ve seen reports on the internet that they take slightly longer than OpenDNS. From what I can tell, OpenDNS and Google Public DNS refresh their caches far more frequently than my ISP.

So what am I to do? My ISP is definitely faster, and many other testers have discovered the same results. However, I need a DNS that resolves a recently moved website more quickly than my current ISP. Based upon my own DNS performance tests and the features benefits, I’m going with OpenDNS. If I decide later that I don’t like the service, then I always have the option of switching back to my ISP or choosing Google instead. Right now, I think I’ve made the right decision.

Apheus recently joined the site seal revolution by adding the Spam Free service. We are committed to making sure that any email address or other personal information you provide to our company will never be used in spam. Email marketing is a tricky thing, especially when it comes to trust.  Opt-in rates continue to drop because of the fear of spam.  Most marketers will just try to claim their list is free from spam by saying something like, “We hate spam as much as you do and will never share or spam your email address.”

There is, however, a solution.  A way to actually prove your list has a clean track record when it comes to spam called the Spam Free Seal.  Basically it’s a seal that you place on your site that links to a status page with instant proof you don’t send any spam to your list.  Pretty cool.

Apheus recently completed a very simple ecommerce website for a client in Valparaiso, Indiana. The Erie Signal Company builds track detection circuits for model railroads. This is by far the easiest ecommerce website we’ve ever created – currently with just one product! Check out the new Erie Signal website.

There are thousands of great web designers in the world today. Each designer continues to “one up” the next designer with easy flowing web pages, eye-pleasing graphics, and solid programming. Unfortunately, there are also thousands of bad web designers and “wannabe” web designers in the world. They make common mistakes that can ruin a website from a visutal standpoint.

Bad Color Combinations

How many times have you tried to read red text on a blue background? Take a look at the image below:

It’s pretty much impossible to read the text and it hurts the eyes trying! Staying clear of bad color combinations is paramount. A good designer can find different combinations of color to really make your text stand out, and make it easy to read. By making the blue background slightly darker, changing the title to yellow, and the paragraph to white, we can make the same text much more visually appealing:

Bad Linking

Another bad web design practice is bad linking. There are many ways to mess up linking. Almost everyone knows that blue text with an underline is commonly looked at as a link:

Website Design Services

Go ahead, click as many times as you want, it will not take you anywhere! Another bad linking practice is to hide links. A visitor to your website has to see the link in order to click on it.

Also, keep an eye out for links that don’t go anywhere. Every link on your website should go somewhere. If you don’t have the page designed yet, then there shouldn’t be a link. A good designer will not have any 404 page errors. If you’ve redesigned your website, then make sure you put in plenty of URL redirects to minimize these 404 errors. Bad linking can be very confusing for visitors when they are trying to navigate your website. If they can’t find your links, or become frustrated trying to navigate they probably won’t stick around for very long.

Broken Image Files

If a website designer doesn’t properly code your HTML, you may get broken image files that look like this when you view your website in a browser:

Don’t worry, it’s just a graphic of a broken image and not a real broken image (I wouldn’t dare create a real-life broken image!) Broken images are easy to fix, but occur quite often on the internet. Its very unprofessional and can detract from your overall design. When you view your website, you should never see broken images.

Blinking Text

Sometimes, you can use animation or Flash to draw attention to a particular spot on your website. This is OK if its done correctly. Blinking text should almost always be avoided in modern web design, mostly because it is quite annoying. Look at the blinking text example below:

Aliquam risus metus, egestas sed, convallis sodales, gravida ut, lectus. Bad Web Design. Vestibulum et tellus tempor orci porta vehicula. Proin blandit luctus diam. Bad Web Design. Mauris consectetuer, odio non hendrerit lobortis, orci orci bibendum mi, at pretium risus justo at mi. Curabitur tristique. Bad Web Design. Sed tristique ipsum et est. Vestibulum eget mauris et dolor sagittis lobortis. Integer mollis fermentum erat.

Frames

Some web designers rely heavily on frames for navigation, advertising banners, content, etc. Frames are (in one word) bad. They are hard to handle in some browsers, never look quite right, and are another “old technology” that should no longer be used in modern web design. Frames are also bad for SEO and should just be avoided. The first website I designed utilized frames, but thankfully, I’ve moved beyond that! Unfortunately, I still see a lot of websites out on the internet that utilize frames. All I can do is scratch my head and wonder, “why?” CSS is a much better way to go if you want to create blocks of content that don’t move on the screen.

KISS

One basic rule of thumb applies to website design – Keep It Simple Stupid! A good web designer will always try to keep everything looking good, have good code, and will make suggestions that can improve the look, feel, and navigation of your website. An overly complex website can become a monster that is impossible to maintain and will drive visitors away rather than bringing them back.