“Breathing Life Into That Old Web Design”

While the global economy has hurt many businesses, it has caused others to flourish. It could be said that 2009 is the year for web designers; in recent months business owners have trader money for traditional media and the ‘real world’ for that of the internet.

The internet is supposed to provide the ability to reach the world’s largest audience, at a fraction of the price spent to reach a much smaller audience, in the real world.

It all sounds good in theory but what’s really going on behind closed doors?

“Web Designing Gone Terribly Wrong”

Most web designers lack a real understanding of conversion and how it should be used, while most site owners are looking for a total redesign, when all they really need is to tweak their current design.

Going in and tweaking your current design allows you to see what’s working and what’s not. I’ve seen color changes in checkout buttons cause an increase in conversion.

Small tweaks can make big differences.

The problem is that most people do not understand the difference in an expense and an investment.
Your website should be an investment and not an expense, done correctly you should be able to get your money back within a month or two.

“Don’t Make Me Think”

Now days it’s more important than ever before to understand how your content, graphics and call to action are going to work with one another. A site visitor is looking for information and they want it quicker than ever before. If your site is the least bit confusing then they’ll be off to try out the competition.

A site visitor needs to have access to the most important information on your site without having to look for it. And you need to keep in mind that since most people will find your site through the search engines they can be entering the site on any page, so all your pages need to have information about your company on them.

“Content Is Not King”

In the online world there is an overload of information and too much of it can negatively affect your website. Everywhere we look there is more and more information, by the time we reach your website we could be to tired to care what it is you have to say.
It’s important to get to the point and not try and paint me a picture.

Don’t get me wrong, some sites need a total redesign but others just need a few tweaks.

SEO and Conversion

Under normal circumstances, I’d do my best to stay out of debates like the one currently going on over at WWS.

It’s not news that SEO’s have problems rankings sites nor that clients get upset and want their money back.

SEO’s spend years honing their skills, planting links and trying to run the perfect SEO campaign.

But what happens when all they’ve learned isn’t enough?

Should the client take the full hit due to the SEO’s inability to rank their site?

SEO is an industry that must adapt to new challenges faced each day.

As the internet grows the search engines are forced to update and change the way they rank sites. And the SEO has to tweak and make the changes they think will be the most beneficial to the end user and client.

Likewise they should target keywords that are going to convert, it’s all about usability and conversion.

There are no guarantees when it comes to SEO and I guess I can live with that but what really bothered me was this;

SEO is no different than any other type of advertising.. You pay for advertising.. If it converts to sales or not is totally irrelevant to the issue..

I guess I have a problem with that.

Many SEOs feel like their job is nothing more than position.

Conversion is a lot harder to achieve, because the conversion is a function of position, title tag, description, design, text and call to action. Position alone is only one part of a much bigger picture.

If the SEO is not responsible for the conversion of the site then he also has no obligation to target keywords that he feels are going to convert.
However, the problem comes in at the end of the day when the client wants his money back because he did not get the desired affect he was looking for.