February 2006 Archives
February 22, 2006
Designing your website to be search engine friendly - part 5
This is page 5 of a 5 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 Download a print version of this article Conclusion So far I have examined three main techniques - standards complaint code using CSS for presentation, simple navigational structures to aid browsing and spidering, and providing context on every page to assist in retaining users once they have arrived via a search engine. I want to just touch briefly on the arguments against using framesets on...
Designing your website to be search engine friendly - part 4
This is page 4 of a 5 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 Download a print version of this article Providing context on every page The third design approach I want to outline is to always provide your users with context on whatever page they are on. The reasoning behind the importance of this? Search Engines don't always take users to the front door. A well optimised site will have deep content pages that rank well for...
Designing your website to be search engine friendly - part 3
This is page 3 of a 5 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 Download a print version of this article Navigational Structures The second technique to ensuring that your site is well represented in search engines that I would like to examine is to ensure that you build navigational structures that support the ability of search engines to index your site. An example of how to do this embedded in the design of the BBC Four site...
Designing your website to be search engine friendly - part 2
This is page 2 of a 5 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 Download a print version of this article Using standards compliant XHTML/CSS code The first technique I want to outline is using standard compliant code, with CSS to control the display properties of the page. In August of 2004 Microsoft redesigned the home page of their corporate site. It caused quite a stir on the net, as it marked a significant shift by the corporation...
Designing your website to be search engine friendly - part 1
This is page 1 of a 5 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 Download a print version of this article Introduction This article is based on Martin Belam's presentation at the Ark Group's "Search Engine Optimisation" conference in London, October 2004. Design on the web has changed a lot since the mid 1990s. Not only has the language used to create pages expanded, but so has the capability of browsers, and the availability of bandwidth. Consequently pages...
Designing Your Website to be Search Engine Friendly
There is a new article on the currybetdotnet site today, which is based on a presentation I gave at the end of 2004 to a conference on search engine optimisation organised by the Ark Group in London. The main issue I was looking at was ways to design you web site to be friendly to search engines, without compromising either the visual or functional experience for your users. The areas covered include using standards compliant semantic mark-up with CSS for...
February 9, 2006
Gaining Online Advantage: Conclusion - part 13
This is page 13 of a 13 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Download a print version of this article Conclusion Over the course of this three part article I have looked at matching your business needs to your audience needs on the web, global branding, navigation and search, classification and indexing, internationalisation and localisation, the relationship between intranet, extranet and internet, and finally the issue of personalisation. A...
Gaining Online Advantage: Personalisation - part 12
This is page 12 of a 13 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Download a print version of this article Personalisation The last major area that I'd like to talk about is personalisation. Personalisation was quite a buzz-word around the internet a three or four years ago, and people get very excited when they think "Well, if Amazon knows what I've bought, and can make suggestions based on that,...
Gaining Online Advantage: Intranet, Extranet and Internet - part 11
This is page 11 of a 13 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Download a print version of this article Intranet, Extranet and Internet With the increasing amount of dealing with external companies the BBC now also requires application admin tools that previously would have only been for internal use, to be available outside of the BBC's network. An example is this voting tool, which sets up and publishes...
Gaining Online Advantage: Intranet, Extranet and Internet - part 10
This is page 10 of a 13 page article - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Download a print version of this article Intranet, Extranet and Internet In part one of this article I looked at how in order to have a successful web presence you needed to identify both your business needs on the web, and the needs of your customers and audience. I also discussed how identifying your business model,...
Building An Effective Web Presence In A Large Organisation - Part Three
Following the publication of part three today, my article "Building An Effective Web Presence In A Large Organisation" is now complete. It is based on my presentation at the Ark Group's "Gaining Online Advantage" conference held in London in October 2005. The first part dealt with how to identify the business needs and audience needs that should be driving the strategy of your web presence, how to understand the internet business model you are trying to achieve, and touches upon...