• What type of architecture are you going to use for your site?
• How will the navigation put in place for your users affect navigation for the Search Engines?
• What do the search engines want to see and what will they reward vs. penalize?
• Do you already have content that you can use or will you have to have it written?
• What about Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript, and being W3C compliant?

Besides using straight HTML for coding your web site, there are other options that you can use for building your web site. Three of the most popular are Flash, Ajax, and PHP. Like all technologies there may be benefits and drawbacks to implementing them but they are definitely worth looking into.

Flash has become a popular tool in internet marketing and is now widely used across the web, including our own site. However, there can be drawbacks to it, so you need to carefully determine whether or not your site will benefit from its use. One of the benefits of using Flash is the visual appeal of it. You can use it with your navigation (as we do), add interesting visual graphics, and even make a game out of it.

One disadvantage you may discover about using Flash though is that not everyone has the Flash player and not everyone may want to download it. This is where evaluating who your audience is becomes very important. If you are catering to a crowd who is technologically savvy, then you are probably ok. However, if your audience is older and didn't grow up with the internet and personal computers, then you might want to use a more conservative approach in the technologies that you use on your site. Also, keep in mind that pages using Flash may not index well and you may end up losing rankings if you are using Flash on the pages that you want to be indexed.

Ajax is shorthand for Asynchronous Java Script and XML. It is a web development technique for creating interactive web applications. The term Ajax is relatively new but the technologies behind it were developed in the 1990s. Ajax is rapidly gaining popularity in the programming community because it can make the exchange of data behind the scenes faster, thus ensuring that your pages load faster. This is one of the most important components to keeping people on, and coming back to, your site. To learn more about Ajax, read this essay by Jesse James Garrett who came up with the acronym.

PHP is a general purpose scripting language embedded within your HTML code. Along with other uses, it also allows web developers to create dynamic web content to interact with databases. In order to use PHP you need to make sure that your server supports PHP and that it is enabled. Contact your systems administrator if you are not sure. Keep in mind that PHP cannot create web pages; it is mainly used for server-side scripting. PHP.net is a great resource to consult to find out more about PHP and how it can enhance your web site. One advantage to using PHP is that your visitors will not need to download any special applications to access the pages on your site that use PHP. However, one disadvantage to using PHP is that it does require some basic programming skills to implement it into your web site. However, it is not difficult and you do not need to be a programmer to understand it, learn it and ultimately write it. You just need to have available time to sit down and learn it.

Once you have decided what technologies you are and aren't going to use, you have to decide what makes a good page content-wise. You need to establish that you are a subject matter expert and have the content to back it up. Once again, we have an excellent resource to read on web site design principles to follow.

Step 3 - Web Design Implementation

After you have architected the site, you need to decide who is going to build the templates and write the content. Do you have an in-house design/web development team or will you hire an outside firm? What about SEO - can you do your own or will you have to hire this out as well? Remember to follow our Quality Site Criteria guidelines. These are absolutely vital in ensuring that your site has the proper 'curb appeal.'

Adding keywords to your content is an important component for each page that you submit to the search engines for spidering. So where should you add them and how, and how will it affect your design?

It has been shown that pages in which their keywords (and keyword phrases) are listed prominently in the META TITLE and META DESCRIPTION tags consistently rank higher than those that do not. You must also be sure that you use those keywords and phrases throughout the page content. We think that linking pages together using the keywords of the landing page in the anchor text of the sending page is a must. "...use text links within paragraphs when possible, especially when the pages are related. If the topics are not related, then use image links so the search engines do not see the text and get confused."

You must be careful about how many images you use on a page. While images may help the page look pretty, you must remember that some people turn off images so that pages load faster, while others may be using screen readers, voice recognition, or speech synthesizers because they are visually impaired (which can include color blindness and dyslexia, not just low or no vision).

Furthermore, if you have syntax errors in your code or use text in vertical rows instead of columns, you run the risk of ruining your visitor's ability to get through your pages, because the screen readers cannot always properly interpret the information you are trying to get across. The best place for you to visit to find out more information is the government's Section 508 web site.

For a complete description of keywords and how to best implement them throughout your site, please visit Step 6 our Search Engine Optimization overview page.

Step 4 - Website Testing

Testing your site is important. You need to perform some case studies. Get some people (coworkers not involved in working on the web site, family, friends, etc.) who will go through every inch of your site and let you know where they get bogged down, and where they get confused or lost. Use their comments to fix the problems. Then have them go through the site again. After that, get new people to go through the site again to find things that may have been missed the first two times. One especially frustrating problem is broken links. A great tool to use for finding broken links is Xenu's Link Sleuth.

If you have developed a persona, now is the time to conduct usability testing with your persona. You also may need to incorporate some human factor research into this step as well. Find out how people interact with your site. What works for them and what doesn't? Use their suggestions and comments to tweak and improve your site.

Step 5 - Site Maintenance

Once your site has been launched and submitted to the search engines you need to decide, if you haven't already, who will be responsible for updating and maintaining your site. If you used an in-house team, then most likely they will be able to continue with the maintenance of the site. You also need to figure out who's going to keep an eye on your competitors and continue to SEO your site. If you used an outside firm for this, can you afford to continue with them or should you look into taking SEO classes yourself or offering them to your design team?

You are going to need to continue to monitor the search engine rankings and based on the movement of you site, you may need to tune your keyword list. This is where the job of the designer most likely will end and the job of the SEO will begin. However, we will discuss it a bit here.

Tuning your keyword list involves using the search engine that has the fastest indexing service so that you can quickly determine which keywords and phrases are working the best and which are not. Again, make sure that your keywords are in all the META tags (title, description and keywords). It is important to include them in your image ALT tags as well, and try to use them in the opening lines of the page so that the theme of the page is known right from the start. For a full explanation of how to fine tune this process please visit How to Tune Your Keyword List.

In order to really fine tune your keywords and keyword phrases, you may have to fine tune your writing as well. Good writing, if you remember your high school or college composition courses, involves continuous revisions. When you think you are finished and that the writing is good enough, you should put the pages away for a few days, do something else, then come back and look at them again. More than likely you will find a few more things that can be made better. And as always, try to have fresh eyes look at what you've written. Someone who has not seen it before will usually see things that you did not or could not see because of your familiarity with the subject.