Creating a website can be a difficult but rewarding process for your business. It takes time, creativity, and dedication to push out that first website and once it’s done, you can just leave that part of the business behind you, moving onto other goals. Then again, nothing lasts forever.

Even if you design a website for your current goals and vision, it’s always difficult to anticipate the entire future growth and expansion of your business. As your business changes, you can make minor updates and keep the website fresh, but at a certain point, it may need a complete redesign. When is this point?

Some signs that show it’s time for a website redesign include:

Business Growth and/or Change

Businesses change over time. Maybe your business’ goals, visions, mission statement, products, services, and/or size have experienced a shift. As a result, your website should change in order to accommodate the differences within your business. The website should always be a reflection of the current state of your business and should be restructured if necessary to represent it.

Website Look and Feel

If your website hasn’t been updated in a decade, it’s highly possible that the look and feel of the website (as well as technologically) could be out of date. Aesthetics change over time. What may seem hip and modern 10 years ago probably isn’t the case anymore. Some signs of an outdated website include:

• The website is served up in frames (loaded in multiple individual panes within the browser) – Framed websites are not bookmark friendly nor are they search engine friendly.
• Depending on the website purpose, it uses a splash page with a “click to enter” link in order to get to the main website – In most instances, splash pages only hinder users from getting to the real content that they came to your site to see.
• It uses a tiled background that obscures the foreground text – If the text is important, it should be as clear and legible as possible.
• It contains a message that suggests that the website is “best viewed in [insert browser name]” – Most of the time when a message like this is displayed, it is because the website isn’t designed to be cross-browser compatible. Modern browsers still have some incompatibility issues, but modern website design can be made to work in all major browsers with little incompatibility problems.

The majority of the above are signs of an unprofessionally designed website. As such, your business could lose credibility if it appears outdated.

Read the rest of this entry »

The following is a summary of a session at SMX West 2009 on Search Engine Friendly Web Design presented by Shari Thurow, Founder and SEO Director, Omni Marketing Interactive

5 Basic Rules of Web Design

When centered on the user, there are specific rules that form the foundation of successful web design. These are:

1. Easy to Read

The code and text should be written in a way where it is easy to read. It should continue the “scent of information” (contain relevant keywords from acquisition source) so that a user can easily discern that they are in the right place.

2. Easy to Navigate

The web site should be, first and foremost, designed for users and searchers, not for search engines. All elements that appear to be clickable should be and users should have a sense of where they are at when navigating the site.

Read the rest of this entry »