Thoughts on Effective Website Design

We all get excited when we get visitors to our websites. We pour over the stats and look longingly at those sites that get thousands of hits each day. But does it really matter? If all those visitors pass by without availing themselves of your services then it was pretty much a waste of time.

So if the number of visitors doesn’t matter then what does? I shall reveal all.
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Do you own your website? Are you sure? Have you checked your registration details? Have you got a back up of the website on CD? Do you have access to the server? Do you know who your registrar and host are? Do you know what to do when your host goes out of business and your designer won’t answer your calls?
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I don’t really like paying for things. Actually, that’s not quite true, I’ll pay for things if I need to but I’d rather get it for free (or at least at a discount price).

Some of the best free stuff comes off the internet so rather than pay for some expensive software, why not do it the EWD way: for nothing. Here’s my handy-dandy guide to all the free stuff you can use to build and maintain your website.
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I like being outside in the fresh air. In fact most of my holidays are spend wandering various countries around the world. But there are occasions when I need to communicate with the rest of the world. And a mobile phone or a PDA helps. The problem is, many websites don’t work too well on a mobile device. And with an increase in the number of mobile internet users, that’s a big potential market you can’t really ignore. So here’s a checklist for getting mobile. Read the rest of this post…

There are certain topics and concepts that keep cropping up during discussions about search engine optimisation (SEO). One of these is the use of metatags. Let’s get one thing clear, there is no SEO advantage in the use of metatags – the search engines may index their contents but they won’t help to improve your ranking. So why bother? The answer is simple, to increase the number of visitor to your website. Let me explain. Read the rest of this post…

Without really trying I have managed to achieve a very good ranking for the keywords ‘website navigation guidelines’ and it’s variants. I was quite pleased with my achievement until I carried out some analysis on the site. Despite the great ranking, most of the traffic arrives via a strange mix of search terms. Which has led me to out of my keyword comfort zone and into the unknown world of user behaviour. Read the rest of this post…

An question was asked recently on the Cre8asite forum about some of the Acronyms used relation to search engines. It made me think again about the terminology I use daily and realize that not everybody speaks the same language when it comes to the subject of SEO.

Anyway, have a look at the thread to see what others consider to be the essential terms. One of the links posted was to the excellent glossary written by Aaron Wall at SEO Book. I’ve bookmarked the link and shall refer to it more often I’m sure.

PS, if you don’t already subscribe to Cre8asite I suggest you join sharpish, it is a goldmine of information.

Do you use forms on your website? Are they the only way to get to the content? Even a simple dropdown list of categories will stop the indexing robots in their tracks. Matt Cutts offers some advice on how to unlock your content and allow the spiders to do their business:

Solved: another common site review problem

The actual discussion continues in the Google Webmasters Blog

So, the solution (as always) is to make sure you include text links on your page. Don’t rely on the search engines to interpret your JavaScript dropdowns, forms or even worse, image links.

More advice on Link Building and Navigation in my guide to building an effective website.

I’ve climbed and walked along some pretty treacherous pathways over the years but this is somewhere you really don’t want to be unless you really need to go there:

YouTube – Dangerous Path

Not today thank you…

When I’m not busy doing all the other stuff that fills up my day, I like to play adventure games. I can’t shoot, I’m rubbish at kicking and catching so the adventure game is my thing. A much more sedentary but cerebral activity. It is something you can do at your leisure, picking up where you left off and trying that locked door again in the vain hope it has become unlocked since you last played.

So what is an adventure game? The heart of any good adventure game is the puzzles. Marooned on in a desterted city, following the trail of a murderer, deciphering ancient codes or simply getting out of the room, the adventure game requires the player to think, to solve the puzzle and reveal more clues. And that all there is to it. The methods employed my require manipulating a lock, setting levers, talking to a others or collecting objects but they all lead to the solution of puzzles.

The very earliest adventure games were printed. You read a scenario and chose your next move. This took you to another page in the book and a new scenario. The wrong selection often resulted in you killed in some way or ending up back at rthe beginning.

The advent of computers changed all this. You could still die but you had more options. You could type instruction and the computer would respond, usually with ‘you can’t do this right now’. But ask the right question and you could move on.

Then came Myst. A revelation in adventure games – the first real point and click adventure game. The graphics were astounding, the puzzles mind boggling and the story unique. It set the standard and ever since then the the genre has just developed in complexity.

Some games require long conversation with other characters, some require the collection of endless objects. Other games are just one gigantic puzzle. It is this last type that I enjoy the most. I’m not too fussed about the storyline or the graphics as long as the puzzles are fiendish.

Anyway, if this sort of thing takes you fancy then Gameboomers is probably a good place to begin. If you want to discover mare about the games that I enjoyed then here’s my games site..

Hope you find something to keep you amused.