Web Design and SEO Thoughts and IdeasHelp us make this a place for exchanging unbiased thoughts and ideas.

Hi folks,

I’m writing this from my phone so apologies if make a few spelling mistikes…………ah, gotcha! Ok, so that kept me interested for all of 5 seconds!

So, my title, what does it mean? Well, simply put it means there are too many web designers out there designing for their own gratification. Strutting their stuff, showing off their technical brilliance, pluffing their feathers up. (ok, so pluffing isn’t a word, who cares, it sounds like it should be)

I’ve seen more than a few websites where I’ve asked myself the question; “why would you design it that way”? The reason I ask this question is because once again I’m looking at a site that has been over-engineered.

An example: a client has a very small brochure website. It’s doesn’t change much, has a basic set of pages to convey what the company does. It has the usual navigation and that’s about it.

The designer who created this site was someone who wanted to make it so super efficient that he wrote everything in php files. Now that’s not necessarily a crime or justification for going and telling him he’s a donkey’s rear end (apologies to the donkey owners).

Php is a great and wonderful coding method, if it’s done with the right aim in mind.

Take me example, the designer had engineered the site so that it was easy to make a change to something that is standard on every page. The main common element is the navigation menu. Great idea after all, you want to be able to amend it once and update all pages together.

However, this particular web design specialist wasn’t that up on search engine optimization (seo) and therefore made all the meta-tags the same on every page, a big big no no.

This is only a small snippet of the glaring mistakes made by this chap in designing the website. But, to him, it made complete sense in order to reduce the amount of modification for elements that were standard across all pages. Except meta-tags shouldn’t be standard across all pages.

The website designer in question is probably very technically capable. However, if you rely on internet traffic for revenue then this approach could cost you dearly.

We have always been and will continue to remain a rounded approach company. “What does that mean”? Well, it means we need to understand all aspects of your business from how important it is to be found online through searching, how often you plan to update your website content, do you intend to expand your site.

These and many more questions help a designer understand what type of coding, programming and platform to use in order to best fit your needs. This type of investigation will tell them what is ok to build into your site (video intro) and what isn’t (flash movies), again depending on your needs.

An over-engineered site can cost you a lot more than you bargained for when it comes time to modify parts of your site.

Flashy functionality won’t always result in a better customer experience and if you rely on google might do you more harm than good.

If you are thinking of getting a website created and are unsure what might be the best approach for you, drop us an e-mail and we’ll help you. We won’t do a hard sell on you, just give you plain ole fashioned good advice. We might ask you though to plug us to your friends or sing our praises on your facebook profile!

Honestly, I don’t want to keep fixing over-designed websites just because some ego driven designer got the go-ahead from a less than expert customer. What I want to do though is help you prepare the groundwork properly so you get a site that not only looks great but it delivers on your expectations.

Tip of the day: Hire a business consultant and ask them to build you a website and see the difference in the approach and results.

Till next time

Andy H