Looking at the Big Picture- A Website Checklist

We've written about various aspects of Internet marketing, from getting listed with the search engines, to ensuring that your site can sell for you. In this issue and issues in the coming months, I'd like provide you with a checklist of items that can help you put all of these ideas together.

In this Issue: The Design
It all starts here. The design has got to be nice looking for site visitors, but also what I call "Search Engine Friendly." In other words the site must be easily indexed by the search engines so that you can rank as high as possible under your relevant terms. Here are just a few design issues that you will want to evaluate about your site.

1. Color consistency. Are all the pages following the same color scheme? Color adds interest and can even be used to help a visitor orient himself to specific sections of your site, but it should be consistent -- the same shades of colors, in the same general areas. If you've decided that your links are going to be red, they should be red throughout your site. Links can be more than one color with the use of style sheets, but be sure that a site visitor will recognize the navigational area of your site and can more around easily.

2. Consistent typography. Just as you would expect a printed piece to have consistent fonts and type styles, your web site should, too. If you are using Times Roman for headers, the same size, color and font should be used as headers throughout your site. The body copy should all be the same, too. Limit your selection to no more than 3 type styles and/or fonts to keep the site from looking amateurish.

3. Consistent navigation. If you have a left-hand navigational bar, it should be on the left throughout your site. This is true for any navigational bar. Keep it in the same place on all of the pages. It makes it so much easier for visitors to navigate your site when they don't have to keep looking for the navigational menu.

4. Stating the obvious. When someone comes to the first page of your site do they know what you're all about? This may sound silly, but many sites have "splash" pages that are interesting and pretty, but they don't tell you what the site is selling. This lack of information on the first page not only hurts you with site visitors who may quickly click off your site, but it penalizes your site with the search engines, as well. A search engine wants to index your site for content, so make sure that" what you do" is stated clearly and concisely on your home page.

5. Check those title tags! This is an area that most designers seem to neglect. Title tags are viewed only in the very top bar of the browser window - away from the pages themselves. Because of this many designers don't pay much attention to the title tags. Some forget to even put any content there, or call a page "Company's Home Page." Title tags are extremely important to search engines. They all index the title tag and compare the tag to the actual content on the pages. Be sure to include keyword phrases in those title tags and have a different title for each page.

6. Site map. Every site that has dynamic navigation (navigation that is created using JavaScript, Java, or image maps) should have a site map. The site map should contain simple hypertext links to each of the pages within the site. This page is the page that should be submitted to search engines, not your home page.

7. Dynamic objects. These include Flash presentations, multimedia, sound and/or animation. If you are going to have these items at your site, ask yourself these questions:

a.) Is this absolutely necessary to explain or demonstrate my product or service?
b.) Can the viewer see the dynamic object without having to have any special software, downloads or plug-ins?

If the answer to these questions is "no" - then don't do it. Why make your visitors' site experience any more difficult? Dynamic objects are best used when they are demonstrating how a product or service works, don't require any special plug-ins, and the site visitor has the option to not view them.

8. Include those meta tags. There are two meta tags that are important: keywords and description. While meta tags no longer carry the weight they used to with search engines, they can help define your site more clearly. The description meta tags are the only ones that will be seen by Internet searchers. This tag content will come right after your title tag when someone does a search at a search engine. Keep it short, concise, and be sure to include those keyword phrases (it goes without saying this section should not contain typos).

9. How fast can they see it? Download times are not as critical as they have been in the past, but still a 1MB page is going to take a long time to download even on a broadband connection. The general rule of thumb is to limit each page size to no more than 150K including all graphical elements. The smaller the page size, the faster it will download. Optimize your graphics so that they are 10K or smaller each, if possible.

10. Where are the keywords? Content, content, content. Read your copy carefully. Your keyword phrases should appear within the body text, within navigational buttons and hyperlinks, title tags and meta tags. Don't rely solely on the Title tags and Meta tags - your body copy MUST contain your keyword phrases. Optimize each page for a different keyword phrase and its variations, if necessary. Include keyword phrases within the <h1> tags for more emphasis.

That's the basic checklist for design. Next month we'll discuss the basic checklist for site content. It's not only what you say, but how you say it! And, in the following months, we'll get into announcing and marketing your site.

Happy surfing!