Recently we had the pleasure of meeting with a well known designer who was in charge of a large web site project for a Fortune 500 corporation. An extremely talented individual, the design and layout of the site was very impressive. Copious amounts of FLASH, animation, JavaScript and some of the best looking JPEGs and GIFs we had ever seen. After looking at his specification it dawned on us that there was very little in the way of text on his pages. In fact in almost every instance the text was embedded in the graphics or being called by a JavaScript. After further questioning regarding the marketing budget for the site we came to the following conclusion: Because of a lack of understanding on how search engines work, this site was doomed to fail in its primary mission, to attract traffic and potential customers.
Why did this happen?
Two factors were involved. The marketing plan and budget for the site were almost entirely dependent on "Search Engine Seeding" to generate traffic. However the way the site had been designed ensured that it would be ranked at the very lowest ranking in all but a few search engines. The designer who was very talented in creating graphics, developing a visual presentation and designing web interfaces felt that the visual beauty of the site would drive traffic to it and that adding words to the HTML pages of the site would create a chaos of confusion within the design of the site. Before we attempt to throw stones at the anyone for not thinking of the marketing and promotion aspects of designing a site we have to understand the dynamics of web site creation and design. (If you are familiar with these basics you may skip reading this part and go directly to the second part of this article ) A Web site typically consists of documents, pictures, graphics and other types of files. A user requests the contents of these files using a browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. Before you can activate your Web site, you need to create and prepare documents for your site. These documents are created using a computer language called Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) that a browser understands. Fortunately, non-programmers can create an HTML document using an HTML editor, such as Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe Golive, Macromedia Dreamweaver, or Netobject's Fusion. Be careful though... The process of using an HTML editor is similar to using a Word processor, meaning you write the information, and then save it to disk. However, unlike a Word processor document whose file name usually ends in .doc, an HTML document file name ends in .html or .htm. Your HTML documents probably will contain references to other sections in the same document, or to a different document. The referencing of other sections in an HTML document is called adding Hyperlinks to your document, a necessary step in preparing your web site. Just as you need to decide where to save a word processor document, you also need to decide the directory structure where to save your HTML documents. The htdocs directory is considered the main or root directory for sites hosted on a UNIX computer. The main directory may be considered as C:\ directory or folder (On a Macintosh), meaning every document is saved from this point. Furthermore, the default or main document should be called index.html or index.htm. This index.html or index.htm page is displayed when a user types the name of your domain, e.g. http://www.yourdomain.com. This is the default page of your site. The final copy of your document must appear on a public web server under your domain or main directory for others to view your web site. This process of saving an HTML document on your ISP's (Internet Service Provider) computer is known as publishing a Web site. An HTML document may be published using a file transfer or an FTP program such as WS FTP from IPSwitch. Additionally, some HTML editors such as Microsoft FrontPage includes an FTP program which may be used to publish a Web site. Using a FTP program, you would upload your site, meaning saving or publishing your documents on your ISP's computer. You will need to provide the FTP program with your domain name or domain IP address, your FTP account, and account password, supplied by your hosting provider. Both the FTP account and password are case sensitive, meaning both upper and lower case letters are important. Thus, they must be entered exactly as supplied by the hosting provider. You will also need to specify the directory where you want to save your documents. It is important to realize that webpage creation programs do not have the same capabilities as desktop publishing programs. In essence, you are creating a digital presentation that must be easily accessible by a variety of browser programs that are running on a range of different computers and monitor sizes. As if that isn't challenging enough, you must also remember that browser programs, such as Netscape and AOL (Who has a special browser), allow the users to define their own parameters for handling fonts, graphics, backgrounds and screen size. So, unless you construct your web pages/website knowingly, the result will be vastly different from your expectation. The way that your webpage text will appear to the visitors to your website is dictated by the font that those visitors have predefined for their browsers. Regardless of the font or point size used when your website was created, all webpage text will appear to the visitor in their specified format. Therefore, if you want to use a particular font in a paragraph heading or caption, then that text can be transformed into a graphic element so that it will retain its' intended appearance. (This is where many web sites go astray when it comes to search engine seeding). Without a doubt, colors associated with your company and/or products are very important to the image your are trying to create. However, you may need to re-evaluate your use of color on your website. Since the number of monitor colors available or set by the users range from 16 colors to millions of colors, the presentation quality of your colors is only as good as the viewers' computers. To avoid any nasty surprises, most web sites are designed using a browser's predefined color palette. That way, you can add plenty of color to your site and be reasonably sure that any possible variations are still acceptable.It is possible to create a patterned background on a webpage, much like the desktop patterns available on your computer. However, like colors, the presentation quality is only as good as the viewers' computers. Backgrounds are usually very distracting and can actually prohibit a visitor from reading your information. Likewise, the use of a black background with reverse text can be very dramatic, but it can adversely affect the presentation of your information. A better idea is to use a white or off white background as a canvas for your colors, graphics and text information. The use of graphic elements (pictures and photographs) on a webpage demands careful attention. One of the most important factors to keep in mind is that the bigger the graphic, the greater the time delay in viewing the page. "Bigger" may be interpreted as: The actual dimensions of the graphic The file size of the graphic. On the Internet, bigger is definitely NOT better!
Another pitfall is the creation of a graphic element in a word processing program with the expectation that it can be transferred onto a webpage. The element must be a true and independent graphic in one of the few formats understandable over the Internet, or it cannot be published at all. The following points on graphics should also be taken into consideration: Current webpage creation programs understand only the following graphic formats: GIF, GIF89, JPEG & PNG. If your graphic elements are in any other format, then they must be converted. Since the resolution of a computer screen is always 72dpi, it is superfluous to publish a graphic at a higher resolution. Lowering the resolution of a graphic also helps reduce the file size which is critical to download time. In general, the more graphic elements there are on a webpage, the longer it will take to download that page.
Remember, the average user (surfer) will wait 2-10 seconds for a page to load. It is impractical to scan a page of information, such as from a catalog, and publish that page as a graphic. It will take far too long to download the page and you risk evoking the wrath of your visitors. A better idea is to select a percentage of items from your catalog and then provide the graphics and text separately for assembly onto a webpage.

I'm done reading this page, take me to Part II of this section! The Details