website design and internet marketing tips

Websites and the internet can seem extremely complex, and on certain levels they are, but the fundamentals are simple. Here are some basic rules for good internet and website marketing, and particularly for creating effective business-to-business websites:

• KISS - "keep it simple, stupid."
• The internet and the website medium are ideally suited to specialised providers, suppliers, companies, etc., so try to specialise and be the best in what you offer within that specialisation on the web.
• Give as much as you can free online from your website - material that can be printed or downloaded, or information that can be read from the web page are all good worthy free things to offer.
• A website should be like a shop - think about it in the same way - ease of access to what you want - make browsing is easy - layout clear and clean - the experience should be warm and welcoming
• Remove obstacles like registrations and password requirements as far as possible - these are barriers to visitors - shops don't have barriers and registration requirements do they?...
• Fancy graphics visual effects please designers but not customers - fancy complicated design puts people off
• Lots of text is good - if it's relevant search engines like lots of text too, but it must be relevant
• Keep information up-to-date - many search engines take account of update frequency, so update your website frequently (ie, weekly at least) even if it's just small changes
• Offer what people are interested in - not what you want to push
• Good websites will be found by most search engines - don't pay for regular submissions services unless you have a very complicated and extensive internet and website strategy
• The big three search engines are Google, Yahoo and MSN. Google's listings are based on Google's very clever ranking algorithms, basic details of which freely available at Google's own website. These three search engines - Google, Yahoo and MSN - therefore account for virtually 95% of all search engine visitors to all websites, so if you concentrate on your listings with anyone, concentrate on these.
• Other sites linking to yours will certainly improve your search engine rankings, so reciprocal links are okay, but building a site that other sites will want to link to is far more beneficial than directing all that effort instead into a reciprocal ink campaign.
• Search engines downgrade or de-list sites that cheat, so don't cheat. If you want to know what constitutes cheating look on the web for the very many highly complicated website marketing and promotion websites. www.deadlock.com is a good one, and they also have lots of really detailed advice far beyond these basic principles when and if you're ready for it.
• Measure your traffic - there are lots of trackers and systems to use - www.extreme-dm.com is a good example of a system that is either free (their 'public' version) or paid-for (multiple pages 'private' version).
  
• If you engage a website designer or agency follow the principles for engaging with any creative agency - develop your specification first (ie., especially all text, spelling and grammar checked, structure and process implications) and then let them get on with it - don't waste a designer's time finalising and correcting these fundamental content and material issues once they've begun the design stage.