Search Engines - The facts you need to know.

Search Engines - What are they?
Search engines are the means to searching the internet by typing in a search term. There are lots of different search engines, although most people are familiar with the major ones, Google, Yahoo and Bing. Google started in 1996 so is just 15 years old.
The search words or phrases you type into search boxes are known as keywords and key phrases. When you type in a search word or phrase, the search engine returns a results page, known as SERP, and ranks the pages according to relevance.

Search Engines - How do they work?
Search engines use programs (called spiders, robots or crawlers) to search the internet and index pages and websites. The exact way that the search engines ranking is calculated is secret.

Search Engine - How do they rank pages and websites?
The 3 major search engines, Google, Yahoo and Bing, all use links, relevancy of page content and good site design as well as other factors.

A good SEO search engine optimization service should address these factors and more to gain higher ranking in search engine results. See SEO optimisation service from Afford Web Design to help.

SEO Services for Search Engine Success

Most people now research services and purchases online before acting. And this online research is via search engines rather than going direct to web addresses. So it is cruicial that your website is appearing prominently in the natural search engine listings. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the way to tune up your website content to improve visibility to search engine robots and spiders.

Performing well in the search engines is key to online success. Search queries provide users with a list of relevant websites. However, most search queries may provide hundreds or thousands of results and most people using search engines will not go beyond the first page of results. So it is crucial that your website ranks high in a search engine's index, so to be visible and create traffic and business. This results in more visitors and more customers.

SEO search engine optimisation services can help your website perform. Call Afford Web Design for more information.

What type of website is best for your business?

Maybe you already have a website or maybe you are just about to get one. Getting the right sort of website for your business is important to achieve your goals as well as to be cost effective for your needs.

Firstly what services do you require for your business website? The choices are broadly:

• Brochure web design - a static website that is like a brochure for your business, to showcase the benefits of your business, services, products, aims. As well as contact details for enquiries. The whole site would be SEO search engine optimised for best ranking results. You would not plan to update your site regularly, maybe a few times a year. You would probably ask a web professional to complete the updates, taking a few hours work per year.
• Content management systems (CMS) - a dynamic website with the content of some pages changing regularly. These websites are designed to be user friendly to edit, with either particular areas within pages editable or the whole website editable. This may seem like a great idea but if the website has been specially built with SEO search engine optimisation included, you would not want to risk loosing this optimisation or search engine ranking by editing important areas. A business needs to decide whether they have time and man power to edit the website regularly, weekly or monthly.
• E-commerce website design - this is another dynamic website design for retail sales online with CMS facility. Including secure payment portals. SEO can be included in all pages within the website. Editing of products/ services/ prices/ special offers etc through editable regions on pages. Time required to keep the website up to date would vary depending on numbers of products/ services, frequency of adding/ removing products or prices.Time to keep website up to date can vary from a few hours each day to a few hours a month depending on the business. 



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• Flash design - another dynamic website design. But caution needed as some of the features of flash design are not 'seen' by search engine robots and spiders so important SEO information could be lost.

Website designers should advise on type of website best for your individual business needs. They can then use their skills of how web users think and behave to create the best website for your business to ease usability and maximise business profile online. Ask for a free quote and advice from Web Designer Suffolk at Afford Web Design. 

5 Basic Question on Website Design

Can you answer these questions on website design correctly?

The main difference between websites is how they look?  Yes/ NO

Better looking websites always rank higher on searches?  YES/ NO

New web site are always designed to optimise for search engines and seo? YES/ NO

Web designers always help select the best keywords? YES/ NO

Website designers are all good at optimising websites for the search engines and seo? YES/ NO

Afford Web Design includes all these points in its basic website design.

Answers: 1.NO 2.NO 3.NO 4.NO 5.NO

10 Essentials of a Good Website

Good website design doesn't need to be complicated or over flash. It needs to be beautiful and visually attractive, but useabile and complete. Here is a hit list of things we consider essential for a good website.

1. Be Straightforward. Do not confuse or complicate.
2. Don't assume anything of your readers. Have a clear purpose.
3. Be Informative.
4. Easy navigation to information. Provide easy to follow instructions. 
5. Don't make users work to get the information they want. People should not have to try or think hard to find what they want on your website.
6. Stay uncluttered. Keep information direct and easy to follow. 
7. Follow standards for best practices. 
8. Keep things Simple.

A Website is an Essential for Your Business

All businesses big and small, should see a website as an essential part of their marketing, especially now that the internet is so readily accessed on mobile phones. Most people search a product, service or business as basic research before they visit or contact directly.

With a website, you can include the web address on all your promotions, from business cards to flyers, from pamphlets to email replies, so keeping your customers up to date with your current special offers, latest products, and even take orders or bookings online. You can use your website to showcase your products or services online, adding and updating details as needed. You can provide customers with directions and a map to your place of business, making it easier for customers to find you. A website immediately expands your market place from your immediate area to a wider area.

Get your business website and then get your business listed correctly local listings. Google Local is a search engine to find local businesses. Afford Web Design can help with a special offer until the end of 2011. Order a website and we will include a free domain  name, 12 months free website hosting and a free listing on Google local. Increase your business with our affordable website design service. Contact 01449 737352 or fill in the enquiry form on www.Afford-Web-Design.co.uk  .

More Website Traffic with Google UK Local

Short video on getting more website traffic for your business by using Google UK local to drive more traffic to your business. Google UK local called Google Places. Afford Web Design can help you utilize your free listing with Google local to reap the benefits for your local business promotion.


Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Is your website bringing in the business you hoped?

Most businesses expect a new website to instantly generate more business. And many business owners are disappointed when this new business fails to appear. And this misconception is a fault of the web designer and developer not explaining how a website and internet marketing works.
A website on the internet is a bit like an advert that has been created but not published. For a website to work for your business it firstly needs to be search engine optimised, this is sometimes included in all new website builds but not always. Check if your website is seo optimised.

Facebook Page for Business

Social media and Facebook

Facebook has over 500 million users worldwide with 1 in 12 people having a facebook account. And in business, half of the worlds Top 100 websites have links from their websites to facebook. Facebook can be an important part of your business plan.

There are different types of Facebook pages to suit different needs, personal, business or community. And it is important to select the correct type of facebook page for your needs. There are small but important differences between the page styles. For businesses, it is important to customise your facebook business page to reflect your business style, to be part of your business image.

This blog summaries some of the points made in a posting about Facebook pages for business on Afford Web Design, the affordable web designer in Suffolk.

Social media site Facebook and its useage in the World

Social media

Statistics on the social media site Facebook and how wide spread its useage is across the world in a video by Alex Timpe. World useage of facebook is currently 600 million, the most used social media site in the world. Watch the short video for more information. And then understand how important facebook and other social media sites could be to your business and marketing.




The World Is Obsessed With Facebook from Alex Trimpe on Vimeo.

Contact Afford Web Design for more on social media, social media optimisation and business marketing.

18 Web Designer Problems

Recent article highlights 18 web designer problems that all website owners should be aware of. These problems are sometimes apparent to web surfers but not always and may simply appear as an inconvenience. The 18 problems are:

1. Slow Websites. Website surfers expecting to see websites instantly as the speed of servers increases.
2. Navigation back to Home Page is difficult. Every web pageshould display an easily seen link back to the home or index page.
3. Difficult to Read Script.Font and layout of text makes a big differece to ease of reading a web page.
4. Lack of Contact Us Page. A website without a contact us page looks suspiciously like a scam website with no real base. Put your website in its correct location and let people contact you.
5. Fonts that are difficult to read. Why create a web page that is difficult to read with either very small writting font size or very ornate fonts.
6. External links that do not open in a new Window.How often have you found a useful site, then clicked a link and found yourself taken to a less relevant site on the same window, and unable to find the original page?
7. Website not compatible across different Browsers. A web site may look fine in Firefox, but not Internet Explorer. Check that most common browsers serve the page correctly.
8. Address of Webpages All the Same. Do not 'cloak' pagaes so that the URL remains the same although clicking through numerous pages.
9. Web pages designed for large screens. Screen size varies from tiny mobile screens to huge monitors. A website needs to look good on all size screens.
10. Unreadable CAPTCHA. Captcha are always annoying but impossible if they can not be read.
11. Difficult Navigation. Some of the coolest looking websites sometimes forget the basic need to navigate around a site. Navigation is essential for success.
12. Links to '.pdf' files. Pdf files are useful because they can be seen easily by many different computer systems, whether apple, mac or IE. But they can be very frustrating and time consuming.
13. Too Many Ads. Ads are basically very distracting on a web page, so you have to decide do you want people to read your ads or read your page?
14. Poor Design Colour. Colours are crucial to convey a look and feel of website. Badly choosen colours can badly affect web design.
15. No 'Alt' and 'Title' tags for images.  Tafs are very easy to set and key to good seo.
16. Posts are not dated. All new posts and artlcles should be dated for ease of viewing by the surfer.
17. Page says 'Coming soon'. If a website is not ready, it should stay invisible and not be promoted until launched on the www.
18. Poor content. Content is key to good web design. It is all important to search engines, robots and spiders.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6025500 More on any of these issues from Afford Web Design by online form, email or phone.

New Hotel Website Design Launched

The Bay Hotel Port Isaac website is now launched and already receiving enquiries via the bookings form. Designed as a brochure website with several tools added for ease of use for a hotel including the scrolling header on the home page highlighting the look and fabulous location of the hotel in this village of Port Isaac in Cornwall.

The brochure design gives the flexibility needed so that special offers can be highlighted during the year without interfering with the main text. The booking form enables instant viewer interaction. The navigation is easy and non confusing. The photos are high quality and inviting. Special pagaes of the area are included to center the website in its location, including a location map, Port Isaac village page and Portwenn page for Doc Martin fans that are visiting the home of Doc Martin filming.

Plus all pages are optimised, standards compliant and include basic seo and submissions. This is standard for Afford Web Design web sites by the affordable web designer in Suffolk.

The Bay Hotel Port Isaac | Bed and Breakfast in Port Isaac B and B

Just launched a new web design for The Bay Hotel Port Isaac who offer b and b in this lovely village of Port Isaac in Cornwall, Port Isaac bed and breakfast hotel.

Photos are a major part of this web design on the main page to convey the feel of the hotel and its seaside location with seaviews. Using a scrolling slideshow that automatically starts on reaching the web site but with the facility to see any particular slide again at the touch of a button on teh web page. And likewise the rooms page uses photos to convey the fresh, inviting room design and spotless ensuites. Additional pages focus on the local area with a location page, Port Isaac village page and Portwenn Doc Martin page.

Afford Web Design, the web designer in Suffolk used a brochure style website, that could easily be updates via the side boxes with special offers.

Quality of Websites in Search Results should Improve

At the start of 2011, Google said they were going to 'get tough' with web spam causing low quality websites. And last week they penalised JC Penney for using paid links to advertise their website, followed by this week Forbes.com was penalised for selling links.

These activities have focused on clamping down on paid link spam. But many activities are considered spam by Google. So check your websites to make sure you comply.

• Websites made purely to promote AdSense with content made up of scraped content from other sites.
• Websites with cloaking and false redirects. Google 'sees' the non clocked pages and non redirected pages that are not seen by normal web surfers.
• Websites with content keyword stuffed so it makes little sense to the reader. Similarly pages loaded with irrelevant words so they rank for a keyword phrase different from the main topic.
• Websites using hidden text or hidden links, the font colours of these text and links are often the same colour as the background so they are not seen by normal web surfers by they are seen by robots and spiders. 
• Websites that 'ride on the back' of well-known websites by using url domain names similar to the well known site but mispelt. So mispelt searches end up at the scam site rather than the well known site.
• Websites using fully automated, unrelated and centralized link farms to create links to verify location and content. These link farms have been targeted as a 'bad seo' method for several years now, but are still used by many websites and seen as a quick and easy way of generating links although often not cheap.
• Websites that use various methods that try to trick search engines.All of these methods have worked well in the past for many websites and they enabled anyone to quickly get high rankings on Google. However Google can discover them and is 'cracking down' on all these spammy methods. Websites that use these methods will be penalized sooner or later.

A better and long term approach to improving your website internet presence is to use known, ethical and accepted seo search engine optinisation methods. These may take slightly longer but are often cheaper and will stand the test of time for long term website success, web surfer success and search engine improvement.   Ethical seo search engine optimisation can include the following:
• Optimise webpages, web design code such as html and web page content. So that all are error free,compliant to current standards and relevant to your topic.
• Create good, unique content for your website. Stand out from others in your field with fresh, unique web content.
• Create high quality organic links with relevant websites and get high quality links back. This takes time but is worthwhile.

 Non spammy seo takes longer to get results on the search engines but it is long lasting. And your website will be safe and ethical. Our seo search engine optimisation uses ethical SEO methods to help you get high rankings. Afford Web Design for UK SEO Services, we offer a complete seo service with itemised monthly work to promote your website, monthly ranking results at realistic prices.

Questions to Answer before getting a New Website

Be prepared before your new website is designed. You need to decide on various points so you are clear about the sort of website you want, how much you can spend and when you need it.

Check through these first pointers to get off to the best start with your website. We will provide more pointers in Questions to Answer before getting a New Website part2.

1. How much do you want to spend? What is your budget?
You must know what you can spend so you can get the best option website for your money. Ideally this should be mentioned at the beginning of discussions with a web designer, or they may start talking about all sorts of web sites that are out of your budget or conversley, they may not appreciate that you are prepared to pay alot to get exactly the web design you envisage.
There are websites that advertise new web sites for as little as a few hundred pounds. And this may suit your needs. But if a web design is going to be tailored to your business, to highllight your style, approach and image, you will need a more bespoke service. At Afford Web Design, we specialise in tailormade web designs with designers aiming to capture each company needs in each site.
Like many things in life, web design prices can vary from a few hundred pounds to tens of thousands of pounds. And the amount you pay is directly related to the amount you receive. So you need to decide what functions on a web site are necessary for you and what are expensive luxury extras? If you tell a good web designer such as Afford Web Design your budget, they should adapt their service to tailor a design to suit your budget, with the best web design for your budget.

2.When do you want your Website? How long is there to build a design?

Have you got a deadline for your new website, maybe a product launch or a business launch? If so, you need to state this when you first discuss your web site at the very beginning. A good web designer should give you a realistic time scale for web design completion. Remember, for a website to be designed to suit you and your business, you will have to see, comment and approve stages in its design. So a tailored web design can not happen over night. Many of our web designs at Afford Web Design take 10-14 days.

3. Have you got a Logo?
If you have a logo already, this will be key to your business image and therefore key to your business website image.  If you do not have a logo, you may want to get one designed so you can use the logo on letter heads, invoices, business cards and other business needs.

A logo should convey the flavour of your business as well as inform about your business. And a logo can be key to a new website design, so your business image fits together perfectly, in colour, layout and font. A website is part of your business identity and needs to enhance your whole image. Afford Web Design can create tailored logo designs to enhance your business image.

Ask the web designer in Suffolk at Afford Web Design.

20 of the Most Common Web Design Mistakes You should Avoid

I've just read a good article by Ha Cong Tien called 20 Most Common Web Design Mistakes you Should Avoid. I could almost have written this list myself, I agree with so many of the mistakes highlighted in this article. Also check out 18 website designer problems in article. So I have summarised the list of some most common web design mistakes below. Avoid these website mistakes at all costs. Ha Cong Tien's list is in brown along with my comments in black.

1. Website takes too long to load (more than 10 seconds). I think slow web loading is unforgivable now that everything seems to be getting faster and faster. If your web pages takes too long to load people will move on before they see it. So it doesn't matter how great your page looks, if its slow its bad news.
2. Logo is not on top of every page, and is not linked to the home page. I think this is so easy yet forgot by many. A logo in the same place on every page gives your website uniformity and reliability from a users view point. This is so easy to get right but is missed by so many websites.
3. Posts have too many words in a line making it hard to read. Posts have too few words on a line (and many such lines), making it frustrating to read – I mean make it scannable.
4. No “Contact Us” page. I really agree. Why wouldn't a website have a 'Contact Us' page? There is nothing worse than having search for contact details on a web site.
5. Uses fancy fonts unreadable on most PCs (– use clean, common fonts) or font sizes too tiny. Fancy fonts may look great but if the style is not available it will default to a standard font which may not fit in as planned on your web page. There is no excuse for tiny fonts unless you don't want anyone to read what they say on your web pages.
6. External links do not open in new tab / window (– it is a turnoff, trust me). I really agree with this one, being taken away from a site that you found that is really good and not easily being able to return to it, may mean you never return so the site has lost a potential customer. Bad business planning for any website.
7. Plays music upon loading, and I can’t find where to stop it. I dont often come across this problem but like any problems on a website, you should be able to find everything really easily. A website should not pose a challenge to visitors or they will leave.
8. Website shows up fine in Firefox, but is broken in Internet Explorer (cross-browser compatibility). This happens alot and must result is alot of lost traffic to websites. It doesn't take long to check appearance of website across different browsers.
9. The URL remains the same even as I browse through the pages (– avoid cloaking). I really can not see why anyone would want to do this or any other 'trick' that may annoy search engines or Google. Is it worth having your website blacklisted?
10. Webpage is so large for my screen resolution that I have to scroll horizontally as well (– 1024 pixel width plays well). Again I think this is an unforgivable mistake especially as screen are getting smaller and smaller with mobile internet usage. Why make it difficult for a viewer to see and read your website?
11. CAPTCHA is not readable. How the heck do I post comments?! I'm everyone has had this problem with captcha - is it a 0 or a O, is it a 1 or a I? Some are so difficult to read that I move on a leave the website. Thats not what the web designer intended, so why not make things more easy for the viewer?
12. Visited links don’t change color, and I end up on the same page again and again. I'm not so worried about this mistake, its useful to see which links you have visited but not essential.
13. Bad search functionality – no way to find what I need. This is very frustrating. Why create a website that can not be easily navigated?
14. Linking to “.pdf” files without disclosing it (pdf files take a lifetime to load). This is one of my pet hates. I do not understand why anyone uses pdf files on websites, with pdf files to download. Are they trying to make life difficult for their viewers?
15. The webpage is cluttered with too many ads (– suggestion: not more than 3 ads on a page above fold). I think this is right, no more than 3 ads per page. After all is your website an advertising board or is it an informative web site? Affilliate sites full of ads need careful designing to work and avoid being too chaotic.
16. Bad color contrast / matching (white text on light blue background, for example!). With all the colours to choice from why make a web site difficult to read? Colour choices can make or break a web site design and flavour.
17. Skips “Alt” and “Title” tags for images, whilst there’s no description. Lack of knowledge leads to this mistake. I think anyone that knows any seo would agree these tags are important. Just because you can't see what you write in tags, doesn't mean you should leave them empty.
18. Posts are not dated, and no good way to find it out (– users want to know if you post regularly, and how active your site is). Not sure why anyone would leave out dates on posts unless they post so rarely that they want a post in 2006 to seem current in 2011? Be upfront on your website, show people you are current.
19. Page says “Coming soon!” (If it so does, it is better, if that page doesn’t exist.) Another of my pet hates. Why oh why would anyone put 'Coming soon' on a url?
20. Last but not least, useless content. I agree, why have any content if its useless. Content needs to be informative and interesting to read and presented in an easily readable form.

Contact Afford Web Design for help in avoiding these website designer problems and mistakes.