Reinventing can create a more professional corporate image

Technology advancement in digital photography allows for better imaging and much clearer pictures.  This will enhance the website quickly and easily to show a more professional look and feel.

Improve loading time?

Absolutely.  Take away long, multiple character code from the webpage and see a very big difference in the consumer experience.  Pages will display products faster and allow your visitors to enjoy the experience.

Easier navigation

Simple changes to how the website flows and presents information can dramatically increase sales conversions.  If a consumer or visitor can find the information quickly and easily, the percentage of conversion will increase.

New information and website content editing

Writing pertinent information about your product or service increases your rank within any search engine dramatically. We all know that Google is the front runner in search and one of the best ways to increase your visibility in Google, is to provide great content about your product or service

Cross-browser and operating system compatibility

A tremendous battle is now before us with the many options of different browsers and operating systems.  We now hear of Mozilla Firefox and Opera as common terms in browser discussions.  Apple and Vista aren’t names that we don’t understand any longer.

Leads creation and/or sales generation improvement

Looking to generate leads for your business?  It’s not a hard process any longer. Java Scripts now allow for snippets of code to generate information and allow web developers that power to deliver information quickly and safely.

Need to take advantage of new business

If your competitors are as successful as you are, then you know that they are keeping up with these latest technologies too.  You don’t want to be the website that is last in the natural search process.

Optimize website to improve rankings in Search Engines and increase traffic

One of the easiest ways to improve your web presence is to reinvent your old website.  With all the new technology available, you will now be in the right space and your website will be complimentary to the search engines read process.  If they understand your website, your traffic will increase and your website will rank well naturally.

3RDesigns offers a unique evaluation of your website to provide you with top level analysis of its structure and development.  We can get under the hood and check the mechanics quickly and effectively to see if you need to reinvent your web presence.

About the Author

3RDesigns is a Jacksonville, Florida based company founded in 1999. 3R Designs, Inc. brings over 15 years of graphic design and business development expertise to serve you on your next project. Within our 10 year company history, we have built websites for clients from all types of industries and specialize in helping small to medium-sized businesses.  We develop a professional web presence that represents your company well in the online market space.

This is a very exhaustive subject, but I will try to define this in understandable terms.

The first thing we need to do is understand how search engines work. Popular search engines like Google or Yahoo have one basic goal with the results they display. To show what they believe are the most relevant websites to the user. These results are based on two different things, popularity of the website and the relevancy of the content.

For example, if someone types in 'Boston Red Sox', ESPN.com will be in the top 2 or 3 results and ahead of MikesBostonRedSoxFanClub.com. The latter site may have more content about the Red Sox than ESPN, but its lack of popularity will always position it behind ESPN.

First lets talk about content.

Here are a few pointers when developing content.

1. Ask yourself is "how would a customer search to find me?" Once you have that answer, that should be one of the main guidelines for the content of your website. If you provide a service, make sure you tie that theme into every page of your website. If you sell products, you will want to apply this same method to each product page or category.

2. Make sure your search engine friendly content is easy to read and understandable. This is where a lot of people new to SEO get in trouble. They fill there pages with so many "search-friendly" words and phrases, when visitors come to their site, they don't understand what they are reading. While its great having visitors to your website, the more important thing is the conversion of the visitors into paying customers.

3. Don't use graphics or images where normal HTML text will suffice. This is a simple one, but I am still amazed how often i see this. Search engines love text, text and more text. Search engines use something called 'spiders' that literally crawl your website looking for information to add to their search results. While pretty graphics with drop shadows may look nice (or not) spiders do not like them as much as text and will pass them on by. There is a method of using ALT tags with images, but for the purposes of this article, stick to text where possible.

4. Hire a professional web designer, or at the very least a consultant, to help you design your website. A web designer who is fluent in designing with SEO in mind, can create you a beautiful website that the search engines love.

So now that we have covered content, lets talk about popularity of your website.

There are 2 factors search engines look at to weigh the popularity of a website: Number of visitors and incoming links. The number of visitors, or traffic, is easy to understand, but what are incoming links. They are sites that link back to your website. Utilizing incoming links, or a link strategy as its called, can get very heavy and detailed. But again for the purposes of this article I will keep this light. The goal with a link strategy is to have as many links coming back to your website as possible. The search engines view these links as a strong sign of popularity. (ie. the more people linking to you, the more people think your site is relevant, which the search engines use as a gauge or popularity)

So there you have it, that is SEO in a very top level nutshell. While popularity holds more weight in the eyes of search engines, without good content, you won't be found by the search engines or anyone else and thus won't be that popular.

So create a good website with the visitor in mind and be sociable with other websites and companies, its the internet, its meant to be a social network.

Are you the methodical-type? Everything nice and in order, you like schedules, strict rules on how long things take and to produce and hardly waivers from those rules.

Are you the Closer-type? When everything hangs on the success of a project, this is when you produce your best stuff. However when the pressure is low, projects are remedial, generating those great ideas become a struggle.

Or are you somewhere in between?

The goal of discovering your personality type is to foster your ideal design environment for your personal projects. If you are the methodical type, don’t try to squeeze in personal projects to your already busy schedule. You will feel rushed and pressured and ultimately hate the project and the results. Treat those projects as you would a normal client. Allow the appropriate time to complete the project. The same holds true for the closer-types. Don’t give yourself forever to complete the project. Pick a day on the calendar that is has to be done, and stick to it. If you need “real” pressure, add something to make it. For example, if you are re-branding your company, schedule a tradeshow within a couple months to display your new brand. I know thats a bit extreme and costly just to force your creative hand, but you get the idea. In either event, knowing who you are and what generates those creative juices will help keep personal projects somewhat more enjoyable!