Website
Recovery - what is involved?
The first stage is to assess the
clients existing website.
Each situation will be different. Some
sites may be recoverable without major change, where the designer
has done a good job, but simply isn't trading any longer. Many
sites will need a rebuild, often in a different format.
If the user name and password for the
web server is still available, the existing website can be directly
downloaded and if it's existing format is OK, simply updated.
If access is not available it will
have to be downloaded from the web. This involves more work because
links have to be reformatted when rebuilding the site. It is also
possible that not all files can be recovered by downloading via
a browser.
The client must also take responsibility
for any copyright issues involved with using the existing
design and content.
The next stage is to prepare a sample
page in a suitable format, for approval prior to rebuilding
the entire site if that is being done. At this point in time consideration
is given to making the site "Search Engine friendly"
and user friendly.
Many thousands of websites were
built (and still are) using frames. The people who make these
sites must be totally unaware that they are useless as far as Search
Engine ranking is concerned. Frames simply don't work. Google
even tells you that frames cause them problems yet people still
use then!
If you have a frames website we
will usually recommend a change of format. However, we judge
each site on it's merit and do not suggest a re-build for the sake
of it.
We do not recover "Flash"
sites. Flash is a superb web building tool but has been misused
by many web designers. A new html site will always be offered to
Flash site owners.
You may have noticed the very simple
design of this website. It
is like that for a reason - the reason being it has one function
- to pass information to customers, quickly and easily. Think
about it - should that not be the function of your website?
The existing website content then
has to be reviewed and updated where required to properly convey
the clients' business information to customers.
As part of the content review, the
main keyword phrases likely to be used by potential customers
must be established. This will allow proper metatags to be
made and good distribution of the keywords throughout the text of
the pages. It will also establish whether additional pages need
to be built specific to particular products / keywords.
Promotion of a website on Search
Engines is, by nature of the way they work highly targeted.
The correct choice of keywords is
vital if successful results are to be achieved.
Domain name
forwarding is another problem that plagues many websites. People
buy domain names and then have them forwarded to another web address
instead of properly set up webspace. Most of these forwarding services
use a blank frameset to "frame" the website that it "appears"
to be on it's own domain. Of cause you then run into the Search
Engines and frames problem and they don't rank highly. In fact some
Search Engines penalized sites using domain forwarding because it
was a tactic used by porn sites.
Worse still,
the site owner may find that an unscrupulous web designer has hosted
his site on free webspace, pointed his domain at it and is charging
for the privilege! Some companies are still using this amateur practice
- avoid them at all costs.
An important function of website
design often overlooked is speed of page loading. Some statistics
suggest you only have about 15 seconds to make an impression on the
viewer. That may be pessimistic and it will certainly vary, but pages
must load quickly or viewers will click away and be unlikely to
return.
Oversized graphics lead to slow
page loading and this is where amateur and DIY web designers
often slip up.
Click
here to continue............
