I. The three general types of websites:
- information only website (online business card / brochure)
- data driven website (merged with database, for example dating service, employment site)
- e-commerce website (selling online with all sales components automated and on-line)
Information only websites can be a single page or hundreds of pages. Primary function is to be a marketing tool or provide a description of an individual / organization / product or services. Most small businesses (not selling online), physicians, and professionals fall into this category. Most charitable and non-profit groups fall into this category as well (As long as they don’t sell directly from the site). It is basically an online business card / brochure for most.
Data Driven website, far more complex than a simple info only site, the data driven site stores information in a database,. Then when asked, it matches the request with the information stored in the database. An example of this would be a dating service, an employment service or one of the sites currently under development by The MultiMedia Factory … “gigtrader.com” which is an online employment / matching service for musicians around the world.
E-commerce websites are those that sell directly online. The entire process is automated throughout the website and no human intervention is necessary. This site is also far more complex than a simple info site because it has a database component, shopping cart component, and merchant gateway which processes the credit card transaction. Processing can be performed either directly within the site or at a remote credit card processing site depending on the credit card merchant.
Each of these three general types can be produced in three ways:
- static (typically produced in html but can be other languages)
- flash (animated / moving)
- static with some flash components
Static. Flash, or Both ?
Static Websites – originally all sites were static – meaning just text and images, no movement or animation. This is most basic and least expensive way to build a site. It can be very effective and the best choice for clients whose audience is either less familiar with the internet or has a very slow connections to the internet
Flash Websites are fully animated sites that often include elements of audio and video. These are visually very appealing. They are in fact like little movies. All elements fade in, slide in or somehow transition. These sites are great for a high tech audience. There are two potential pitfalls to a flash site:
- they are very large (file size) so if you are not on a high speed or broadband connection, it may take too long to download for the audience to wait to view the site so they simply click to another.
- More importantly, flash sites are much harder (though not impossible) to optimize for a search engine. Making them appropriate when most people will entering the domain name directly into their web browser to find them. But if the client is relying on search engine like Google Yahoo or MSN to find out about the site, there may be better alternatives.
A possibility for a high-end client is to build both ( more expensive) but for a high-end product/presentation, a small static site can be built for search engine optimization with a “click here for our flash site” link.
Combination of Static/Flash website is the desired method for most web clients today. It allows for a keyword rich static page that can be search engine optimized with elements including flash animation, audio, and video to keep the site more interesting to the viewer. Flash/Animation components can include headers, logos, videos, audio clips and many other audio / visual possibilities.
II. The Components of a Website
Basically (in its simplest form) a website is a collection of pages not very different from a document produced on a word processor. In fact a simple website can be produced in a word processing programs like Microsoft Word.
A website is made up of the following components:
Text can vary by size, font, bold, italic and other characteristics.
- Complex Graphic Design Elements
These can be produced from scratch for the site or existing graphic elements already used in promotion by your company. They can be photographs, computer generated images, text with shadow, emboss, or 3D effects or any combination.
These will include background color, borders, lines, shadows, etc. (non photographic in nature)
Flash / animation is essentially any number of “mini videos” of either real photographs / videos or moving lines / images / logos or any combination. “Flash” itself is a specific type of animation developed by a company called Macromedia. Many people use terms “flash” and “animated” interchangeably which is typically okay. Basically if it moves while you’re watching it – its animation / flash. Other programs (in addition to Flash) can help create “animated elements” . It is not important which program is used to create these elements as long as in the end, the finished product is compatible with the site and viewer’s web browser.
Forms can be used for a variety of reasons. From simple “contact us” input forms of name & contact info to information requests to detailed information gathering for a data driven site, to input for “join our mailing list” to entering ordering information for a product (sold online through an e-commerce site or if the order is hand processed at the clients place or business.)
Hyper-links are the element most responsible for making a website different from a simple collection of pages. Hyper-links are the connections between pages. Web pages can be linked from menu buttons, text, or images or just about anything on the page. A link usually differs in appearance that regular text or images. With text links, the linking text is usually a different color than the rest of the text. It may be underlined, change color or appearance when you roll over with your mouse, or any combination. An image link may not differ in appearance although most will alter in some way when a mouse rollover occurs. At a very minimum, the arrow icon used as the mouse pointer will change from an arrow to a hand on a rollover of the image. Hyper-links can be used either by clicking or simply rolling over. Hyper-links can open a new window, change an image on the page, make an image larger or smaller, begin an animation, play audio, start a video, download file, etc.
Navigation is the linking structure of the site. Navigation elements (text or images with links) can be menu buttons, menu text, page body text, or image elements within the page. The most common form of navigation is the use of menu buttons. Menus can be as simple as few buttons or words pointing to pages … to multiple levels of drop down sub-menus. Menus / links can open a new page or point to a specific area on a new page or the same page. As an example, multiple menu items can link to different spots on one page. Simplifying the navigation and making it as user friendly as possible is key to successful site.
A server side script is a list of commands written to be carried out at the server level. This means that the action will be done on the server BEFORE it is sent to your browser. HTML is a client side operation meaning the browser interprets the commands and performs the action on your personal computer.
A few words on opening pages …
Pages can be opened a few ways.
- The most common when opening a new page is to open it in the same window – replacing the page you were just viewing.
- Another alternative is to open a new page in a new window while leaving the first page open. This is common when opening or enlarging an image, etc.
- In some cases a new window can open up within an existing page. This is useful when opening a remote site such as a merchant’s page but giving viewer the illusion that all of these pages and elements are within your site.
III. Search Engine Optimization. (SEO)
In its simplest form, search engine optimization is a collection of techniques used to improve a website’s ranking in search engine results. All of these techniques are based around keywords or keyword phrases. Keywords are search terms that search engine users will enter into a search engine (such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Ask.com etc.) in order to find information / businesses to suit their needs. The key to successful optimization is developing the best (most popular) keywords for your site while accounting for the number of existing sites / pages already using that keyword or phrase. This balancing act is the key to successful keyword analysis and is aided by services available to web developers that provide information on nearly all search terms searched within a certain time period (roughly 360 million searches are indexed)
As an example:
A Baltimore cosmetic surgeon who specializes in rhinoplasty (nose jobs) would be most likely lost in a sea of sites and pages for just the keyword “plastic surgeon” … Optimization techniques including keyword analysis among a number of other methods, will help establish the most efficient conduit for web searchers to find the surgeon’s site.
A brief look at the numbers …
- It is estimated that nearly 70% of all people designing and producing websites DO NOT take search engine optimization into account in the design of the site.
- Over 50% of ALL website visits originate from search engines
Between 70% and 80% of all INITIAL website visits originate from search engines.
That’s a lot of missed opportunities.
The combination of many optimization techniques is necessary for a successful SEO strategy including embedding keywords in page text, proper and complete descriptions, titles and other meta tag information, linking campaigns, directory submissions, as well as other systems developed exclusively by The MultiMedia Factory. SEO is as important and many times far more time consuming than the design and production of the website itself.
IV. Website Hosting
A website host is nothing more than a computer (or series of connected computers) running server software. The website is a collection of files, folders, and possibly applications stored on a hard drive and made accessible to the internet. Most often, websites are stored on large commercial web servers (computers accessible to many simultaneous users) .. but a web site can also be hosted on a computer in your home or office with an internet connection (although not recommended). Many companies offer hosting services. The most common of which is what is known as shared hosting. Shared hosting takes advantage of shared servers. Shared servers differ from dedicated servers in the following ways. A dedicated server is a computer that is physically located at an office or hosting company facility that holds only your files and programs. You control the full amount of storage space and bandwidth. Your site(s) is the only site(s) on the computer. Consider it leasing a computer / server that you never actually see, but control via the internet.
Shared hosting is basically what it implies. A hosting company will lease a computer / server to many customers who will share the disc space and bandwidth. The individual customer is still given a specific amount of space and bandwidth they may use, but the actual drives and processors are shared by many users. This is usually the most cost effective hosting available for small businesses.
Disc space is the actual amount of file storage space you are allotted. It is usually measured in Megabytes (MB) (millions of bytes), or gigabytes (GB) (billions of bytes). Bandwidth describes the amount of file transfer from the server to users over a given period of time. (meaning … how many pages on your site can be viewed by people and or how many files from your site can be downloaded in a given period of time)
V. Website Promotion
Website promotion is in some ways similar to optimization, because the process of creating links and registering with directories can fall under both categories. In addition to the benefit of higher search engine ranking of these strategies, you also receive a direct conduit (link) from these sources to your site. Directory submission is another successful promotion technique as well as pay per click campaigns through major search engines. These programs offer “sponsored links” usually at the top and side of the search engine results page. These “sponsored” website links pay a fee each time a search engine user clicks through the link to your site. This fee can range anywhere from $0.01 per click to $25.00 or more (per click). The typical range is usually from $0.10 per click to $6.00 per click depending on the industry, search term, and number of competing sites bidding for the sponsored link.
The MultiMedia Factory can help you with your sponsored link campaigns by managing your search term keywords and the balances in your search engine accounts.
Click here for a Printable PDF Version |
