Buddy Web Design

I have been a web designer for 8 years now, servicing small and medium business owners with web design services in Pretoria and Cape Town, South Africa .So what is the secret of web design, the Holy Grail of web design?

When referring to the secret of web design I am actually referring to getting your website visible on page 1 of search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing.

Before getting there and expanding on it here is my Facebook status update of this morning:

“It is so simple yet few people get it: "secret of websites": A website is like a book or brochure, electronic and interactive maybe yes, but still like a book. Thought and effort need to go into the pages of your book. If your book is not of the best quality then do not expect quality results. Somewhere someone will get it right. Be that someone. Get it right. If not a good writer then reality says you need to pay a writer. The internet, search engines are extremely logical. They in fact operate with 0 and 1's and formulas much like debits and credits always balancing to a point. Your approach should be of the same mindset. The internet is not a mystery and getting a website will not magically turn you into Bill Gates. It can however increase your sales but it starts with pages which becomes a book. That's the basics. Pass the basics with honors and you will lay the right kind of foundation. The internet still does not have the answer for stupid people. All it does is ignore them.”

Because I have befriended clients or potential clients on Facebook I will sometimes pop in an advert of some sorts. (Without thinking about it I do get business from Facebook without paying for adverts.)

I could have done this better by posting this on my Facebook business page which is linked to my Twitter Account.

As you can see I enjoy blogging and blogging about my area of knowledge, that of small and medium business web design.

Right now however I am doing it in the best way possible by first blogging about it on my website. Careful consideration is given to the title of my page as well as especially the introductory paragraphs. Hopefully this newsletter or blog entry will be indexed by Google. Reality is that there will be many similar articles on the internet with similar or exact titles. Chances are that this page might never be indexed or it will be so far down Google's index that it will never be found by search engines.

I will however share this on Social Media like Facebook and Twitter and sometimes via a direct email to my clients or potential clients. 

The bottom line or secret of web design is thus:

We all want a pretty website but at the end of the day you need to have an informative website to attract website visitors. You need to provide the world wide web with information which no one else have already provided.

I have recently started to revamp a personal website of mine, http://www.peninsulainfo.co.za/wmenu.php which is a directory. I will need to sit down and think hard about what is going to differentiate this directory from the next directory. For one I will be using professional photographs from a client of mine. Below is an example of such a photograph courtesy of www.drumbeatphotography.co.za .

Nature and event photographers have a distinct advantage on Social Media in that people more readily share their work or links which is shared on Facebook.

To properly understand the secret of web design you need to understand the problem we all face:

TIME

Blogging or adding content to your website requires time. If you are good at it it will be shared on Social Media and other people will link to it. I could spend my time perhaps more wisely by visiting new or potential clients or by doing the actual work which I need to do.

Content however is key to any successful web design project. Blogging about web design is extremely difficult and boring so when I get the creative juices for a short article I just can not say no.

Rare sighting of a Snow Egret in Cape Town. Photo also by John Hishin of www.drumbeatphotography.co.za .

One of my recent web design clients , a Cape Town based Birding Safari operator also blogged about this rare visitor to Cape Town and his website was found by people searching the internet on the topic. For him it helps to include a picture and story about a Snowy Egret in Cape Town. For me as a web designer it does not. Chances are slim that I will be found by a potential web design client because of these pictures or mentioning the fact that we had a rare visitor to Cape Town.

One has to stay on your topic and be specific when blogging on your website.

I just included the above pictures because I think they are pretty and at least they were taken in Cape Town.