Build It and They Will Come

First you have to have a web site, and just like building a house, it is a lot cheaper to build it right in the first place. Hire a pro. Sure your brother-in-law might tinker around with site design, but it takes more time to fix a mistake than to do it right from the beginning. In Internet time having a bad web site will cost you visibility and credibility, sending prospects to competitor sites.

In the world of web sites and search engines, it’s not what you see that counts the most, but what you don’t see. Owning a beautiful web site that can’t be indexed by search engines is like having a huge billboard in the garage. Sure it looks nice, but unless a visitor parks in front of it, they won’t know it exists. The three of the critical components to successful site development are good structure; relevant content and your ability collect information for future use.

The structure of a web page can be looked at in Internet Explorer under “View.” Scroll down to “Source.” Now you are looking at HTML code. This is what matters to search engines. Here the nice flash files and pictures can’t be seen. What matters is the code. The higher your keywords are to the top of the HTML, the better. Clean code, validated XHTML and CSS is better yet.

You’ll need quality content. Search engines and other blogs and sites will link to relevant content. Most important, keep it updated and easy to navigate. If your company wants to contract to government agencies, I suggest your site comply with Section 508. The Rehabilitation Act requires electronic and information technology to be accessible to people with disabilities (United States Federal Government). This is yet another reason to hire a pro.

Know thy visitor. Your site should give you the ability to collect information for future use. You need to know who visited your site, where they came from, and make their next visit better. Cookies anyone? How about offering a white paper download in exchange for a name and email address.

www.DeniseDriggers.com