Creating, Measuring and Maintaining Website Value (Page 1 of 3)

Many of our clients and visitors are business owners, entrepreneurs and corporate executives who need a concise and accurate reference on what is involved in creating and maintaining a valuable Internet Presence. This page covers the basics for engagement and management of web development internally or contracted. You will find topics on creating, maintaining and measuring website value.

Creating Website Value Through Design

Website Value Basics

The days where a company can quickly place a 3 page digital business brochure on the Internet and expect great traffic and returns are long gone. Creating and maintaining a valuable Internet presence has become and is becoming more complex and competitive with every Search Engine update, new technology introduction and with every new competitive page added. It's not even practical to chance risking what should be one of your most valuable marketing and branding media to the inexperienced.

The Search engines rank Websites and their individual pages on over 100 different aspects. The software that accomplishes this feat have extensive proprietary algorithms. Only the basics are expressly publicized on Sites like Google's Webmaster Resources. One of the most important value determinants is how many "IBL's" (inbound links) a Site has. Links coming from other Internet Sites especially highly ranked or other "important" pages weigh in heavily on a Website's placement in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Descriptive terms describing your website in all IBLs called "Anchor Text" are also very important in the SE keyword and keyphrase determination in where and how your Site will be found by search terms.

Title and description tags, key-phrases, verbiage used, frequency and placement of keywords and phrases in the page body are all important in achieving value in design. Providing valuable and unique content is one of the top methods for good Search Engine placement. Good content depth cannot be disregarded.

Which coding languages are used and how they are used play an active roll in value also, including content volume vs code volume. Most designers have built Sites that are not compliant with W3C's (World Wide Web Consortium) recommended standards. Probably 95%-98% of all Sites are designed for forgiving browsers like IE (Internet Explorer), primarily designed to "look pretty" in the most common browser.

Intrinsic value in validated code:

1. The virtual assurance that your Site can be viewed correctly in all browsers. Many surfers are choosing different browsers such as Opera, Firefox, Konqueror, and Safari (Apple) to avoid some of the virus attacks that IE has drawn.
2. Faster more accurate parsing by the search engines and other utility programs.
3. Smaller digital footprints per page. Cleaner code allows pages to load faster utilizing less bandwidth.
4. Provides a good step for usability. Some Site owners have been sued over not providing good usability and accessibility for handicapped visitors. Blind visitors depend on text to speech synthesis. Most governmental agencies require "Usability and Accessibility" in design.
5. W3C compliant code almost mandates the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to some extent, either complete design or accompanying due to the fact that the latest versions of HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language) are headed in the direction of XML (Extensible Markup Language). Most SE algorithms seem to be prioritized for HTML v4.01 which is in effect a transitional language (XHTML) phasing HTML out. Most Sites still use deprecated font classifications which W3C validation disallows. Using CSS allows Sitewide updates saving valuable redesign and modification time.

Built-in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) = More value

High SERPs do not happen by accident. As we have touched on, the knowledge required to create a strong Internet presence increases daily. SE's and their algorithms are after all, just software based on logic. The difficulty rises in that they keep the algorithms proprietary for the most part, because they are competing for a share in an estimated $5billion ad revenue market! The principles at Mountain Eagle Marketing actively participate in leading on-line webmaster forums contributing, learning, comparing theories and participating in group webmaster research and theory testing. This is arduous and time consuming, but allows us a competitive edge for our clients. Good practices allow us to build in channeled logic for the Search Engines and visitors.

Many SEO companies have participated in "black hat" activities that have ended up in "banned sites", lost livelihoods, business closings and law suits. Most of the time those that participated were looking for a shortcut to get around the established order the SE algorithms attempted to provide by executing dubious practices at best. We believe that most SEO can and should be designed into the Site from the beginning. "White Hat" marketing and Promotion" are essential to a valuable web presence and will be discussed below. Knowledge, Experience, and Integrity play key roles in developing and maintaining value.

Before engaging the services of any Internet Promotional Company make sure they have promoted themselves and their clients well. They should have a decent ranking in GOOGLE "PageRank" themselves and their clients should also, PR4 or better in our opinion. You can download the GOOGLE toolbar here to check PR on your Site and competitor's Sites.

We also highly recommend subscribing to the "Yahoo ExpressSubmit Service" for new Sites, more on this in "Promotional Techniques" below.

Next topic on the Page 2:

Maximizing Value - Calculating ROI (Return on Investment)