Important websites have all the most important website components

The most important people to build a website for? Your potential customers. There are many design components used to build a good website. Understanding what they are and how they affect your website performance, can help you to decide which design options are most important to you and your company website objectives. We always try to explain technical concepts with easy to understand terms and descriptions. However, the importance of explaining important components and how they can affect website performance, requires that we provide a few more technical explanations on this page. If needed, please follow the high-lighted terms links to read their definitions and explanations.

Most business web sites are designed using either a static html web page or dynamic web page generation. For the purposes of this page, we will concentrate (mostly) on the most common ( html web page ) web page design.

We don't expect our clients to know or understand all the technical aspects of web design and publishing. We do understand, that our clients want to know how their website decisions will affect the profitability of their website investment. Do you already know the importance of a good website name, website privacy, a good service policy and the value of a good hosting service? If you don't already know what a website is, what a web server does and that simply publishing a cheap company website can actually be a costly mistake, let's dive in. Of the basic website components to explain, there is one critical component. So we'll start there.

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What makes a website important?

Text information is the most important website feature

Common words, written on a web page. Free information is what a business web site is for. The detailed explanations that you write on the web page, are all that describe a business to both search engines and your human visitors as well. The words on your logo or other picture graphics are only usable by sighted people, using a graphical browser. They don't help your search engine results at all. Many business website owners falsely believe the myth, that their web site is simply another form of advertising. Their web pages look great, but only have pictures of products rather than a detailed text description of their products or services. This is search engine suicide! It's important to understand how search engines work if you're trying to get a website that's good for business, since good business websites simply help potential customers find information. All of the components of a good web page are important to the quality of a website. However, the most important website, is the website that has answers to important questions. Good websites are where you can always find answers to your important questions.

The advantages of good text descriptions over pictures are:

text loads almost instantly, graphics take extra time to display
search engines can only read text information
text information is simple to edit or update as necessary
you can create simple links to focused or expanded information from within the text information
your visitors are searching for important information, when they visit your website
text is accessible to nearly everyone, which creates a useable website

Databases and dynamic web page components

Dynamically generated web pages rely on a database to assemble each web page on the fly. Since the web page can change information content for each visitor, search engines often have difficulty giving a true page ranking to this type of page. Dynamic websites can have important security issues to overcome. If needed, you can include an inventory database on your website, if you update it frequently.

Accessibility is important

The primary product of the World Wide Web is open source information. Open source means free information for everyone. Many of the people who could benefit from all this free information, are unable to access it, due to physical or mental disabilities. Business websites that make information accessible to nearly everyone , prove that they care about customers needs. A user friendly website can find new customers for your business. Accessible website features are simply good business features to have on any website.

Is a good name important?

An important seo component. Choosing the right name for a business website is one of the most important business decisions a business owner can make. Unfortunately, this is usually where choosing a company name with a .com extension, appears to be obvious. But it's a common mistake. The importance that search engines place on the right domain name can't be overstated. Good SEO starts with a good website name.

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Why are website menus important?

A good menu must be easy to find, simple to understand and follow. Menus are simply an organized collection of hyper links. Although Javascript and flash menus offer design options that are beautiful, they should be avoided. Unless the visitor's web browser supports the script or has the right plug-in already installed, they can't even use the menu! Visitors will quickly leave a web site when they can't find the information that they came for. If your website's main menu does not provide text links to all your information pages, you need to provide a good sitemap and a good menu. Including a site search feature on each web page, makes navigating a website simple. Usability is a critical component to every successful business web site. A user friendly website will help you find new customers.

Links or good text links

Links are what the World Wide Web (WWW) is all about. Having many links is a good thing, few links is a bad thing. Internal links allow visitors to find additional information on your site, that expands on or explains information topics. Outgoing links allow visitors to find important information on other important websites. Links are important.

Pictures are important too

Graphics include all the pictures, backgrounds, borders and other visual presentation effects. Good graphics use can enhance a visitor's experience. Overdo the flash components and you can lose professional credibility, very quickly.

Are meta tags important?

The proper use of meta tags is important to every website. In the early days of the WWW, meta tag abuse reduced the value that search engines place on most of the meta tag components found in proper html. That said, some meta tags are still important to seo. Since meta tags help browsers to display web pages correctly, they help to create a user friendly website. The most important meta tag is the description tag, since it is the summary of each page.

Page titles are very important

W3C calls the page title tag the most important element of a quality web page for some very good reasons. The title of every document should describe what the document information is about. This is an absolutely critical component for every web page on a good business website. About us and who we are, are worthless page titles. SEO is often about writing good page titles, as a first step in improving search results.

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Is color important?

There are 216 web safe colors. Choosing colors that are not on this safe list may cause your web pages to render differently in different web browsers. Internet Explorer is not the only browser that your customers can use. Choosing the right colors for your type of business, will also help you create instant credibility on a website.

Valid (x)HTML page markup

Valid web pages allow every browser to display web pages the way the author intended. Without valid code, your pages may look completely different, or not be readable in some browsers. To design an accessible website, the pages must be written in a valid markup language. As a bonus, search engines are beginning to rank valid websites higher. Your site will not become obsolete, if it remains valid. Quality websites are always valid.

Stylesheets or Cascading Style Sheets

Valid cascading style sheets or CSS, allow designers to add great presentation effects and user functionality, without creating web pages that are too large or contain invalid markup. However, accessible web pages must still be usable without them. Multiple stylesheets allow users to customize the way they experience your site.

Simple contact information

Contact information should be easy to find and must always include your email address. If you have more than one person or department answering the company email, include a directory of the people to contact for specific departments. You have probably had difficulty finding contact information, or even a phone number, on the sites you visit. Very annoying, isn't it? Provide at least a couple of ways to contact you. Remember, website privacy must always be a high priority.

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Why all important websites have the same components

Your business has financial objectives and priorities for getting a website. Search engines have priorities for indexing and ranking a website. All your visitors have similar expectations for visiting a business web site. Unless you know what information customers want, it's very unlikely that you will ever have a successful web site.

As a business owner, the most important reason to get a good website, is to help find new customers for your business. As a potential customer, the most important reason for visiting a website, is to find the answers that solve a problem.

Before making the same mistakes you find on most award winning web sites:

Should you find this important website information useful and wish to link to this web page, simply copy and paste the following link text onto any of your site's pages:

<a href="http://www.seowebsitesdesigners.com/designing_websites/website_design_components.html">Important websites</a>

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A web search to find important web site information?

Please note: Google does not permit direct link searches from non-exclusive business websites and so they are not included on the search engine list. Please search Google directly at www.google.com

Search multiple search engines: yahoo . yahoo.ca . bing . bing.ca . alta vista . ask by pressing each search engine name.