Archive for May, 2010

The Third Question to Ask a Web Designer

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

How do your clients’ sites rank?  This question will probably also cause consternation among many web site developers.  They are much more used to talking about look and feel and will easily show you all the pretty designs and pictures they have created.

But do these pretty faces do work?  Does the designer build sites that look good and work little?  Or are they hard working sites that bring you traffic and convert to business?

Visual beauty and balance and effective operation are important in a website.  But if the factors that optimize a site so that it can be found by a search engine are not present, then you have a site that hardly works for  you.   A site that is built entirely in Flash may be aesthetically appealing, but it does little to help prospects find you on the internet.  Search engines do not “read” any of the content in a Flash module, therefore it is basically a blank space in or on the page.

The way to check how a site ranks is to look at the site and see what the keywords are that it is built around.  If you can’t figure that out, you already have an alert.  It should be obvious what keywords each page of a website is set up for to attract people who are searching.  The words in the heading of the web page are what the search engines first look at.

Take those words, without the actual name of the business, and put them into a search in Bing or Yahoo or Google.  Does the website come up in the first few pages?  When was the last time you searched past three pages when you where looking for something on the internet?

If a designer designs websites that don’t come up on the first few pages of a search for the keywords that the client was looking to attract, is it of much use?  There are over 350 million websites, and many times that in terms of web pages.  You must rank well for the particular words that you want people to find you with.

At Ajalon we built our site to rank in the first page or two.  We can do the same for you.  Give us a call. 707.528.0288

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

The Second Question to Ask a Web Designer

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Where do you rank?  Ask that of most website designers and most of them will ask you, “What do you mean? ”  They are more comfortable showing you what sites they have designed or talking about flash.

But ask them to show you where they rank in Google, Bing or Yahoo.  What are their keywords, what do they rank in searches for those keywords?  Web designers like to tell you what they have done, but would you buy shoes from a person who goes around barefoot?

Has the web designer practiced their craft for themselves?  I know one designer here in Sonoma County who for a long time didn’t even have her own site and then it went up and was a very primitive site merely linking to sites she had created.  Do I want somebody working on my site who doesn’t even take the time to maintain their own?  Would I go to an accountant who did keep her books straight?

Don’t just look at sites the web designer has done, but at their own site.  Does it get page rank for them?

We have had the discussion about a pretty face earlier.  Who would hire a person because they are good looking only?  Well many businesses have put up websites that are nothing more than a pretty face.  They do nothing to help them be found unless somebody is specifically looking for their site by name.

So find out if the web designer knows how to build a site that ranks.  Does their own site rank at the top of a search for their keywords?  If not I would say you should find someone else.

There are a lot of people out their who call themselves web designers but never learned their craft beyond looking pretty.  They use a web design tool or software and leave it at that, not knowing how to do the work of building a site that will get you found and ranking for the services or product that you sell.

The day of just having a web site is past.  I did that.  Then I realized that people really are using the internet to find the services I offer locally.  It is worthwhile, and actually imperative, that your site be findable in a search.

Ajalon can help you get found on the internet locally or globally.  We have done it and know what it takes.  Call us at 707.528.0288.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design


Bad Behavior has blocked 15 access attempts in the last 7 days.