Building Your Website (Part One)

 

Building Your Website ~ Site Construction

Over the past year or so, I have talked about the importance of festivals and events having good websites. In my last blog I described a conversation I had with a friend of mine who is a website designer/marketer. Over the next few blogs I am going to expand on what my friend told me. I don’t pretend to be a website expert, but over the past few years, in developing our website, https://ontariovisited.ca/, I have learned a few tricks. Some were by design, but most were by accident! The results, however, have given us a successful website. 

1.    Site Construction: Having a website is easy! With the right tools or the right amount of money anyone can have a website. However, having a website is like owning a car. If you have a poor engine you may or may not get to where you want to go. If you have a great engine, you will get to where you want to go with ease! If you have no engine… while you get the picture! Having a great “engine” is the only way to go, so make sure you find out how to get a great engine! Experienced web designers build websites to attract two types of visitors, human and search engines. Search engines are the most important because they direct humans to websites. Each visitor is looking for different things and so, as I said before to have to appeal to both to succeed. The construction of your website needs a sound foundation that includes all the fundamentals of successful sites, that is well written code. Search engines can and will penalize sites for poorly written code. So, if you are designing your website yourself, check with an expert to make sure your site is constructed properly. There are website evaluators out there who can help you and set you straight if need be. If you don’t want to design your own site, make sure you hire someone who has all the necessary skills to construct you site properly. Remember, a website that doesn’t attract search engines or humans is a site without an “engine”!

(To be continued ~ "Optimization" in Part Two)

What’s in Your Website? (Part Two)

 

I have been thinking a lot lately about my websites. I have three active festival and event sites. I want to know if they are as effective as I want (need) them to be. In talking with a web designer friend, I realized that they all needed to be re-evaluated! I asked him to explain what the key ingredients where for a successful website. He started to answer me in another language, techno speak! I told him to slow down and talk to me in a language I could understand, English! He did and we covered a wide range of topics. Here is a summary of our conversation. In future blogs I will try to explain his ideas more fully and hopefully in “plain” English! (continued)

6.    Web Pages – Each important page (home, about us, products, etc.) should be optimized (keywords, description, highlighting).

7.    Updating – Sites should be frequently updated and the information must be correct and consistent.

8.    Simplicity – Simplicity is best, especially the home page, in web design, page layout and contents.

9.    Website Layout – Sites should be easy to maneuver. Complicated site discourages visitors from surfing through your site’s pages.

10. Contact Information – Make sure that visitors to your site have a way of contacting you. Since the contact is being made via the internet, e-mail contact is a must.

11. Linking – Encouraging another website to link with yours is important. However, the linked sites should have relevancy to you business or site. Linking for the sake of linking is not a good move.

12. Traffic – Finally, the goal of every site should be increased traffic (visitors to your site). How you design and manage your site will determine its popularity and thus traffic.

What’s the Real Solution? (Part One)

 How many times have we heard politicians and special interest groups call for drastic legislation as a “knee-jerk” reaction to a problem? You don’t need a fish net to catch a fly! Unfortunately, many make far reaching demands without worrying about the consequences. And the problem is, once a law is on the books it stays there! Rarely, if ever, is a law, good, bad or outdated taken, off the books! So, poorly thought out laws either create havoc or are just ignored! Most of these groups and politicians are well meaning. They see a problem and want it corrected. That’s fine if it really does solve the problem, but too often the solution goes way beyond the actual problem, thus the net to catch a fly analogy. New laws must be thoroughly thought through and all of the ramification must be considered. Consider the banning of all plastic water bottles. I have heard towns and groups advocating banning them entirely. Why not work jointly with water companies and plastic bottle manufacturers to come up with a safe acceptable solution. Similarly, I have heard some groups want paper coffee cups banned. The same applies here get all the interested parties together and fine a solution.

(Continued in Part Two) 

What’s in Your Website? (Part 1)

I have been thinking a lot lately about my websites. We have a number of active festival and event sites. We want to know if they are as effective as we wanted (needed) them to be. In talking with our web designer friend, we realized that they all needed to be re-evaluated! I asked him to explain what the key ingredients where for a successful website. He started to answer me in another language, techno speak! I told him to slow down and talk to me in a language I could understand, English! He did and we covered a wide range of topics. Here is a summary of our conversation. In future blogs, I will try to explain his ideas more fully and hopefully in “plain” English!

1.    SEO or “Search Engine Optimization” – Simple put, getting search engines to recognize your site. Once a site is recognized it is categorized (keywords) and then listed in importance.

2.    Meta Tags and Keywords – These are words inserted in your website. They attract search engines to your site and its pages.

3.    Meta Description – This is the description that appears in you search engine listing

4.    Use of Keywords in Text – In order to emphasize keywords, they must be used often in the text of the web page

5.    Highlighting Text – Once keywords are chosen and inserted, they must be shown as being important. This is accomplished by highlighting (bold, italicized, underlined) each keyword.

(To be continued in Part 2)