Should I optimise my new website for SEO or is the design more important? This is a question that will raise a lively debate but the company you keep will have a large bearing on the answer.

A graphic designer who specialises in visual design will debate that in a high percentage of cases that the website design is the priority of course. And let’s face it without that visually pleasant to the eye design a browser will navigate away from your site within a matter of seconds or so they lead you to believe. But then that raises an all together different debate of how did they find your site in the first instance?

The basic web design criteria or curve goes along the lines of visual design is storyboarded for client ..website design looks excellent let’s go for it. We need some content ok, Take the text from our existing old site…..website goes live and time passes but no visitors!

And then even more time passes by until eventually perhaps months and sometimes years later the situation is either so critical or the company are having to spend out on adwords that finally a search engine optimisation company gets called in or the sales manager starts to question the lack of inbound enquiries from the web, and before you know it you are investing in a web marketing strategy to try and achieve some search engine results.

Is this really the best way to go? The thousands of website owners that have followed this exact or similar path will certainly argue that it most definitely is not as this hope and pray web development criteria delays any websites success by unacceptable periods of time, and even more frightening  results in thousands in lost profit, turnover and ongoing prospect capture.

The search engines don’t care about what the site looks like but with no attention to SEO so often this initial chance to make the best impact when the site first gets indexed is totally wasted, if all the search engines find is a badly optimised site with little regard paid to any SEM requirements or keyword capture.

With only a little extra investment spent on pre development SEO ,for example keyword research and optimisation gives an worthy return on investment as invariably initial indexing is bound to achieve a far better search engine ranking from the beginning and it has been known for pre-optimised websites to hit a page one result straight away.

To find out more about search engine optimisation visit SEO Services Southampton .

In the cut and thrust, ever competitive market that is web design, there is always a good deal to be had. This is especially the case in the current financial climate as the recession has meant that many people are “tightening their belts” so to speak. The web design service industry has felt the full force of the credit crunch in the same way that many other business sectors have. As a consumer you can turn this to your own advantage by ensuring that as well as having a website designed and built that you also have six months of web promotion thrown in for free.

Now I am not a web designer; I actually run stuttering cure speech courses here in the UK and I also help people who have a low self-esteem to be able to increase self-confidence.

Now there may be a number of you; the readers of this article, that believe that to request a free website promotion service to go with the web design is some what cheeky. I would have to agree with you however it has to be worth a go – we are in a recession after all.

The example of buying a car is some what similar; my dad went through this experience only a few weeks ago. He had read about how badly the car dealers are doing and decided to bag himself a bargain. He knew the car he wanted and stated that he was only willing to pay a certain price, a price which was well below the car dealer’s asking price. He went around a number of car garages and put in his offer, eight of the dealerships turned down his offer but the ninth accepted it.

What I am saying is that when you make these requests a lot of web designers will turn you down but there will be at least one that will accept. It is important to ensure however that the person who accepts to build you a website and is happy to throw in some web promotion for free is capable of producing the goods and isn’t just some fly by night novice.

OK, so you have come round to the idea that you need an internet prescence. You have started to come to terms that the internet is the future of advertising. The old favourites of paper based business directories, newspaper adverts and media advertising may soon be a thing of the past. We all have to move with the times if we are to continue to succeed.

The scary thing for many new webmasters is all of the initial costs of setting up a website. I remember all too well just how expensive it was around ten years ago when I had my first website designed and built. It was based on the subject of speech therapy for stammering and I was investing in this new site at a time when I did not have a great deal of money. I have to say that it has proven to be one of the best investments that I have ever made. The website certainly enabled a lot of people to find out about the stuttering therapy service that I offer.

The initial costs of setting up a website include paying for the design, the domain and the web hosting. Then there are the ongoing costs of web promotion; there is of course no point in having a top notch website if nobody ever visits it.

So how can we ensure that we receive a web design service at an affordable price? Just like it is in other forms of business it is not so much what you know but who you know. It is prudent to ask people that you know if they are aware of any web designers. This way you may be able to secure a deal on “mates rates”.

A second idea is to search for freelance web designers rather than going to a web design agency. Many up and coming web designers start up on their own on a self-employed basis and are normally happy to offer a discount whilst they are building up their portfolio.

When thinking about your business website design, careful attention should be paid to every minute detail to assure that it performs well to serve its goals. Here are five vitally important rules of thumb to observe to make sure that your website performs up to that standard.

1) Don’t even think about using splash pages

Always remember that we attract our site’s visitors for a specific purpose (or set of clear purposes), and we want nothing to stand in the way of achieving that goal as efficiently as possible. A splash page, which you probably have come across at some time, is a landing page that is no more than decoration. Usually, splash pages are meant to be visually attractive. The only meaningful content they have is a phrase such as “click here to enter this site.” Why add the frustration of one additional click between your landing page and the desired outcome on the part of the site visitor? Get those visitors through that virtual door immediately.

2) Avoid excessive banners

Eye tracking studies indicate that, while such banners might distract visitors to a website, modern visitors are accomplished at not noticing the content that the banners contain. Unless your business plan is advertising, the last thing you want to do with your visitors’ time on your site is to direct their attention away from your content (and the action that the content is designed to achieve).

3) Make sure your site navigation is intuitive

Your navigation menu should mimic what your site visitors have used many times before. Make it evident that your links to other pages are just that; they should be like directional sign posts on a highway. If you insist upon an animated, dynamic menu or a multi-level dropdown, also provide a tradition, text-based static menu in one of the traditional menu locations, such as along the left panel of the site. Besides, the static menu will contribute toward your search engine optimization efforts.

4) Provide a clear indication of where the user is

When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will want to make sure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don’t confuse your visitors because confusion means “abandon ship”!

5) Avoid using audio on your site

If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you will want to make sure they’re not annoyed by some sound looping on and on at your website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure they have some control — volume or muting controls would work fine.

Your http://www.99sites.us/>online business will benefit from attention to details such as these.

There are a ton of website owners out there that are new to the web design process that often find the task quite overwhelming. The truth of the situation is, no matter what type of site you are developing, there will always be a lot of work involved and a huge learning curve for newbies. The tips that we have compiled below will be able to guide you through your entire project’s development process.

Many people that have limited resources often do not prepare enough for their project. Problems and issues during the process typically arise when individuals are not geared up for the time it will take and resources required. Newbies to the web development procedures fail to plan accordingly because they often fail to account for many of the inflexible costs that they will inevitably have to incur. There are specific costs such as reoccurring costs and other necessary services that you should consider before hand.

In addition to these fixed costs that you can almost certainly count on running into there might also be other costs related to your specific needs. For instance, most site owners will ultimately run into normal costs for the majority of third party services such as newsletters, mailing lists, security auditing, video encoding, or ecommerce solutions. These things are going to be costs other than the the costs of your sites construction and some of them might be monthly, weekly, or yearly costs.

You should also consider the amount of time you will have to contribute collaborating with others. You will want to be extremely involved during the whole process. To make important choices for your website you will have to communicate with your development company constantly. One of the biggest things that usually slows down the process and holds the team involved up is lack of communication between the the team developing the site.

Before getting started, all of these things will have to be kept in mind in order to function like a flourishing web development company.

If you have ever been on a website where you could listen to some form of music or watch a video then you have undoubtedly visited a site that utilizes a popular form of multimedia interaction known as flash. These types of sites are becoming more and more popular. Website designers and creators are starting to recognize that a more interactive undertone must be used in order to keep website traffic up. However, interactive sites are not the sole ones benefiting from this type of design.

While it was somewhat problematic in the beginning because of broadcast regulations, radio stations have now begun to break free of the legal red tape and are now allowed to stream their broadcast over the Internet at their station’s website. For almost all of these applications a flash plug in is necessary to hear the streaming audio.

Flash website usage has made its way onto television websites as well. These have been a real boom for the networks. Not only can they make many of their television shows available for viewing online, but they also add what is referred to as a bumper commercial to the show. This bumper commercial is separate from the television broadcast and is used to not only cover the expense of posting shows for viewing online but it also helps the network to earn a profit as well.

Online movie rental companies have also benefited from the attractions of web design using flash. One particular company’s website allows members to watch a selected group of movies free of charge. This feature has been the determining factor in many people selecting this online movie rental company instead of the others.

In retrospect, it is very difficult to think of a website that could not benefit from a flash design. No longer is interactive audio and video solely for the MySpace and YouTube’s in this world. The simple truth is that it really does not mater what kind of website it is, the benefits of flash can make any site more interesting and capable of generating increased traffic. As long as traffic remains the driving force of any website, then it is a beneficial thing indeed. If your business relies on the internet, you may want to think about contracting a website design company and get onboard with flash applications.

One might be able to find additional resources by using The Wall Street Journal and/or by searching on AOL.