best practice
By following certain standards and methods you can ensure you get the best out of your web site
We strive to achieve best practice in all areas of development and operation. We recruit the best and ensure continued professional development so that we can keep you at the cutting edge of the Internet.
Below we help you make sense of some web terminologies you may or may not have heard about. However we will always provide advice and guidance on best web practice if needed.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) seeks to increase a site’s visibility in search engines and enhance its value to visitors through topical page design, consistent HTML tagging and focusing content on core keywords. Improving a sites ranking by defining more efficient keywords can dramatically improve the number of visitors per month, so understanding the SEO process can be invaluable to a web sites success.
"Google PageRank" relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important." – www.google.com
Content & Navigation
Content is the graphics, video, sound and text that make up your web page, Navigation is how they find it. Some very important content and navigation aspects must be considered in order to create a successful web site:
- Organise Content Based upon the Audience
- Write for the Web - Plain Language
- Have an Effective Homepage
- Use Basic Common Content, Terminology and Placement Such as
- Contact Information found on a “Contact us” page
- Organizational Information found on an “About us” page
- An A-Z of pages found on a "Site Map" page
- Site Policies and Notices found on a "Policy" page
- Maintain and Manage links
- Link Back to Your Homepage easily
And remember - "Content is king" - Jacob Nielsen
Data capture
Data capture is the process of collecting information from users. It is important to remember that you have to earn users personal information and this can be achieved by offering them rewards for completing forms and providing personal information. You must also show how users' information will be processed and handled according to the Data Protection Act and your company's policy to obtain the user's trust and encourage them to provide information.
Compliance
Compliance is making your website and its content accessible to everyone. The specific goals of compliance guidlines are to promote accessibility and by following them will to ensure your site can be viewed on many different platforms, by many different users. The guidlines cover issues from cross browser compatibility (Making sure your site will work on everyones computer) to disability features to improve every user's experience with your website. Compliance standards are monitored by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the first web browser. The consortium's main purpose is the development of web standards.
Usability
Usability is about making your site easy for your customers to find the exact information they need when they need it or a measure for how simple or difficult users find the website to be when they wish to perform their desired action. It is affected by the website’s structure, layout, text formatting and hyperlinks, among others. A website that scores high on usability means higher conversion rates.