Site Design - Does it matter all that much?

Your business should have a site that is well designed, easy for users to navigate and that provides all the information they need without too much information.

On the first page of your site, the visitor should know instantly what type of business you operate, and have information on services/products and an indication of price, presented in an easy to follow way.

But does the design really have that much effect?   The simple answer is, no.

Provided your site has the information customers need, and the site is clean and simple, there is no need to go overboard with graphics or items like Flash headers.   One good reason for this is loading time;  the more graphics and "eye candy" on your site, the longer it will take to load. 

Also consider too, that Google announced that page load times are going to be a factor in your page ranking.  View the article here

Your customers will care a lot more about your content and prices than whether your site design makes them feel warm and fuzzy.

Dirty Secrets of SEO

Here is an interesting article we found regarding Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

You can view this New York Times article here

The bottom line is, be wary of those offering "Guaranteed #1 Google ranking", some of whom will charge you thousands of dollars for the service, only to be busted by Google for so called "black hat" SEO practices.

"Content Farms" are also something to be acutely aware of.   A high number of articles, linked to or from your site that are poor quality, irrelevant or just not really that interesting will certainly improve your ranking on search engines, however SEO companies doing this will be detected and dealt with by Google.   If your SEO people tell you about "a lot of quality articles linking to your site to improve ranking" - BEWARE! 

You could find yourself on the wrong end of the search pages!

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