1. Nice and simple entry pages? No, thanks.

When we speak to clients, we often find that they have a very clear idea of what the homepage is supposed to look like. Usually, the request is to have a “nice and clean” homepage with only the company logo on it and a “please enter” link. Or – another alternative – to have some sort of flash movie playing before the client enters the website.

We will try to discuss on this page why this is not such a good idea.

It’s a waste of time

People might argue that the homepage should be similar to a front door with a company name and a logo on it. However, you are wasting your website visitors’ time. They did not ask for this extra click and any additional click which does not add any value is frowned upon. Some people take it to the extreme and simply ignore websites which have an entry page.

It does not contain any content

People search the web to find information about products, services etc. Your website should therefore contain relevant and good quality content. Some Search Engines rank websites depending on how relevant your website content is when a keyword or a key phrase is entered in a search engine. If your website contains relevant content, it is likely that the search engine will display a link to your website in the search engine results. If your content is very relevant, you will probably rank higher.

An entry page does not contain any content. It only contains your company logo or company name and a “please enter” link – usually without the “please”… Website visitors don’t have time. By arriving at your entry page, they have no chance to find out what you do, what your company offers, what your strengths are. You are missing the opportunity to leave a first good impression.

Search Engines don’t like it

Some people still believe that you need to hide keywords in your web pages in order to rank highly in Search Engines such as Google. This is not the case though. Hidden keywords in meta tags don’t play a big role anymore because the meta tags that contain the keywords were abused by many websites. Search Engines now concentrate on content – on good quality content. So if your homepage does not contain any content – because it either lacks content due to the display of the logo only or it conveys some graphic message in a flash movie – the search engines won’t like your website much. Search Engines cannot read content in flash movies. Search Engines also cannot read messages that are part of graphics – graphic files such as jpgs. All they see is the jpg file and maybe an ALT tag if it has been added.

2. Flash Movies on the homepage? No, thanks.

When companies have their website developed, they often think about themselves, it’s all about the company. Apart from – it’s not. It should be all about your clients. Why do they come to your website? To marvel at some design with flash motion that conveys no message at all other than nice colours and that you can afford to pay a flash designer? Websites with a Skip Intro button are very much frowned upon – especially by people who don’t have much time. If you sell small widgets, all your website visitors want to know is if you have a certain kind of widgets, of a certain size, if they are in stock and how long delivery might be. The website visitor is not interested in some movie that he has to overcome before he can get to where he really wants to be – on the widget information page.

What you shouldn’t forget is the visitors who have visited your website before. With a Flash Intro, you force them to view the movie again. Repeat visitors can get very irritated with this and may decide not to come back to your website again.

3. Company information on the homepage?

When it comes to writing copy for the homepage, the first thing some companies think about is themselves. They come up with some well-structured text about the company history, the number of employees, their health and safety procedures and so on. This kind of information belongs on the “About us” page, not on the homepage. If you add company information on the homepage, the message that comes across is that it’s all about the company rather than all about what you offer.

4. What to put on the homepage?

The homepage is similar to the first page on a CV – it should summarize the best thing you have on offer. If you specilize in widgets, but in particular, medium-sized blue widgets, that’s what goes on the homepage. The homepage should contain information about your most important services, your most important products. You can include news which change on a regular basis, but concentrate on what you do rather than who you are. Try to add quite some content to the homepage – not just one paragraph – “we specialise in blue widgets” – the end. Describe the blue widgets, what material they are made of, what makes them special, what they are used for and so on. Have at least 3-4 paragraphs of information on your homepage.

5. Who reads all the text anyway?

Search Engines. And your website visitors. If your website relies on being found in search engines, then you need to concentrate on website content. Good quality content. The content should be readable but it should also contain keyphrases that are important for your business. A key phrase is a string of words that a person would enter in Google, for example, in order to find a website like yours.

We will provide an example:

Marketing Matters is a Marketing and graphic design agency based in Bathgate, West Lothian who specialise in graphic design, advertising, PR, website design, website maintenance, search engine optimisation, and social networking.

This small sentence summarises what we do and where we do it. If you are a national company, you can re-phrase this:

Marketing Matters is a Scottish Marketing Agency who specialise in graphic and design, designing websites, website maintenance, search engine optimisation and social networking. The keyphrases used in the two examples are as follow:

• Marketing Agency
• West Lothian
• website design
• graphic design
• website maintenance
• website translation
• Scottish web design company

Having content about your employees, about your company history and such like will not give you any decent search engine phrases on your homepage and search engines are unlikely to give you a good ranking.

Read more about How to write text for your homepage…

Yes and no. Search Engine Optimisation is a very complex area of web development and is an ongoing task rather than a one-off deal.

In order to improve your search engine rankings without having to contact a web developer, you can ask other businesses or organisations, which are in a similar business to yours, to place a link on their website which points to your site. This is an online “vote of confidence” and search engines take this seriously.

Try to get listed in business directories, industry directories, link collections and so on and try to get as many links as possible out there that point to your own website. You should also offer to place a link on your website too which points to the website you want to get listed on.

Several features can be controlled for a domain name, such as the IPS TAG and the DNS.

The IPS TAG determines the company you registered your domain name with. I.e. the company you pay money to for buying/renewing your domain name (such as www.123-reg.co.uk).

If you want to change the IPS TAG because you would like a different company to “look after your domain names” (for price reasons for example), you need to contact the company you registered the domain with and ask them to change the TAG to the TAG of your new provider. Some companies will charge a small fee for this change and are reluctant to “let you go” and want reasons for the change. The company you change your domain name to will provide you with their IPS TAG which you need to hand over to the current company, so that they can make the change. The new company might charge a small fee too for transferring a domain name to their business.

The Domain Name Servers (DNS) (usually two) determine to which web hosting company the domain name points. If you have a domain name with www.123-reg.co.uk, and your webhosting is with www.plugsocket.com (for example), the domain name servers would have to be changed to ns1.plugsocket.com and ns2.plugsocket.com. Your domain name needs to “know” where your website files are. By pointing the DNS to the servers of Plugsocket, your website will be displayed.

Some companies provide you with an extensive control panel that allows you to make changes to the Domain Name servers yourself – as often as required – and without any extra fee. Check out www.123-reg.co.uk if you want to buy a new domain name.

Many people think the domain name is the easiest issue of a web design project. You should think about your domain name and consider the following points.

Think Directories…

You probably want to advertise your business online and offline. A typical offline directory is the phone book or the yellow pages. If your company is called “Web Design CreatWeb” for example, you have a slight disadvantage because many directories list their entries by alphabet. Therefore, your entry won’t appear until the person looking for web design company has scrolled down to the letter “W“. Try to find a domain name / business name that starts with a letter that is at the start of the alphabet, this might give you an advantage with alphabetical directories – or simply add “A1-companyname” to the domain name – if the domain name is already taken for example.

Think Competitors…

If you are in the UK, make sure that the domain name you have chosen has not already been used in a very similar way. For example, if you intend to register www.edinburgh-chocolates.co.uk, you should check, if someone has not already registered www.edinburghchocolates.co.uk.

Think Readability…

If you want to register a domain name which consists of 2 or more words, you should register both versions – the words separated by a dash and the words all written together. This will avoid confusion and you make sure that no other business can register almost the same domain name. If your domain name is very long and consists of several words, it’s advisable to use the dash version as the main domain name you use for email addresses and advertising. The reason for this is that the name where the words are separated with dashes is a lot easier to read. Look at the following examples:

• www.creatweb-web-design.co.uk
• www.creatwebwebdesign.co.uk

If you have the first option printed on a car, people driving behind or past you will have a chance to read the name and hopefully remember it. The second option does not allow the brain to “stop” where a word normally ends. It’s awkward and people won’t remember the domain name as easily as the one with the dashes.

Domain names are not expensive! A .co.uk domain is only about £3.50 per year, a .com domain name costs about £10-£12 per year. We can register domain names for you if you wish.

You should also consider registering not only the .co.uk domain name, but also the .com and/or .net domain name. There are many other options available, such as .org, .org.uk, but they are meant for organisations, not for businesses. Registration of foreign domain names can be tricky, since some countries (such as Germany) require the technical contact for the domain name to be resident in Germany.

Think Spelling…

Try to find a short domain name which is easy to spell and easy to remember. This saves your clients having to type a very long domain name and the likelyhood to mis-spell the domain name is decreased too. If you decide to register a domain name which uses spelling which is different to what a client would expect, try to register the correct spelling as well. For example, for CreatWeb, we registered the following two names:

• www.creatweb.co.uk
• www.createweb.co.uk

Some people think that the words used in a domain name are important for search engines. Google or any other search engine have never really confirmed any such thing and if you are looking for a book store, such as Amazon, the domain name www.amazon.com does not contain the word “books” in the domain name at all.

Think Registrars…

Try not to register your domain name with the same company that looks after your web hosting. If you are unhappy with your web hosting support, you can simply get hosting elsewhere and point your domain name to the new host.

When you select a registrar, make sure you keep a note of the login details – username and password for your domain name. Please check if you are allowed to make changes to the Domain Name Server (DNS) settings. A good registrar will give you a comprehensive control panel that allows you to set up web forwarding, email forwarding, domain name locking, and DNS changes for example. There are registrars out there who will charge for simple changes like this. Try to avoid them. In general, moving a domain name from one registrar to another should be straightforward, but it never is. So make sure at the start you chose one that allows you or your web designer to look after your domain name. A good registar is 123-reg for example. They give you access to a comprehensive control panel and their support is pretty good too.

First of all, you need to think hard about what you want to achieve with your website. Do you just want to have one because everybody seems to have one nowadays or have you thought about it for a while and how it can benefit your business?

Ask youself the following questions and try to find an answer for each of them. It really helps you and your web designer if you have defined goals that you want to achieve with your website:

• What you want to achieve with your website?
• What do you expect from your website visitors?
• Do you want them to buy products online?
• Do you want them to phone you and arrange a meeting?
• Do you want them to simply know about your business?
• Do you want them to fill in a contact form, or do you prefer them to phone you?
• Do you want to generate business with your website?
• What do you want to tell your website visitors?
• Do you want to tell them who you are?
• Do you want to tell them what you do?
• Do you want to tell them what you sell?
• Do you want to tell them what you specialise in?
• How do you want your business to come across? Progressive? Laid-back? Professional? Crazy?

Please find below a few examples of how you can answer the questions. This will give the web designer an excellent idea and a great starting point for the design and development of your website.

What do I want to achieve with my website?

I have started a new Marketing Consultancy business and I want to raise awareness about my business in the local area and the services it offers. I am hoping to build a client base and want to encourage website visitors to contact me online by using a contact form or to phone me. Potential clients should find useful information about Marketing Services and reasons why they should make use of my services.

What people will most likely visit my website?

Professional people from small to medium-size organisations who are looking for marketing services because they want to increase their exposure and prefer to work with a local contact they can meet on a face-to-face basis.

What look and feel of my website will these people expect?

My website visitors will expect a professional and progressive look to my website. They will expect a logical navigation and lots of information (and images / examples if possible) about the services I offer. They will not expect playful things like music, movies etc. They want information served quickly.

What colour scheme should I choose?

Have a look at websites that offer colour charts with complementary colours (example with colour charts). This will help you decide on colours you can use for your website. CreatWeb can provide colour charts that can help you finding a suitable colour scheme for your website.

What services does our business / organisation offer?

This is the time when you start thinking about the services your business offers. In our marketing example, you will probably offer things like copy writing, preparation of sales literature, product marketing, advertising and PR. Make a list of your core services. You should be able to fill an A4 page about each of these core services you offer.

Who is behind my business / organisation?

What additional company information would you like to display on your website? It’s always better to say something about your company rather than hiding behind a PO Box or a phone number. This makes your website more personal.

Header – Logo – Strap Line

Think up a strapline for your business, such as “Photography and Art Online”, or “Web Design for Small Businesses”. The strapline summarises your core business activities in a few words.

A website cannot and should not be designed by a web designer without a solid understanding of your business. The more you discuss your business with your web designer, the better idea they get for the design, layout and structure of your website.