1. The Web site has got to be found.
2. The Web site has got to be attractive.
3. The Web site has got to deliver.

OK. You look at these wishes, and you think, “How obvious! This is just common sense.”

So how come so many Web sites fail on at least one count—and some on all three? Let’s look at what may not be so obvious.

In the first place, the Web site has got to be found by the people you want to find it. That means designing the whole Web site for those specific people, and calling on SEO and marketing skills to catch their own specific keywords—every time you add text.

In the second place, the Web site has got to be attractive to the same specific people—not to the website owner, not to the website designer, but to the website visitor. You have to deploy the colours and the layout and the design which will engage the visitors you want, and make them want to explore your Web site. If we were all attracted in the same way, we would all be pining for Marilyn Monroe. Personally, I was always more attracted to Jane Russell. (You get the point.)

Finally, the Web site has got to give the people that you want to visit exactly what they are looking for. They came to your Web site because they were looking for something. You can bet every cent you have that they weren’t looking for an advertisement. Advertisements are what people fast forward through when they record TV programmes. So why would they be looking for one on the Web? Just give them what they want—no less, and (this is really important) no more.

So there you have it, and now you know what I mean. Your Web site has got to be found. Your Web site has got to be attractive. Your Web site has got to deliver.

1. It looks great
2. It doesn’t do the job it should be doing

It’s like finding yourself with a really stylish teacup—but the tea leaks out of the bottom of the cup. Or coming upon a breathtakingly elegant bridge—but it sways dangerously when you try to walk across it. You get the idea.

What are the alternatives to designer-centred design?

1. Client-centred design
2. Visitor-centred design

Clients are always asking us to incorporate features which we know are not in their best interests. As far as we can, we should calmly and professionally argue them out of such requests. Or they may ask us to change something which we know will work for them as it is. Ditto.

However, if we can’t persuade them, their site ends up being an example of client-centred design. This is better than designer-centred design, but only just.

The holy grail is visitor-centred design. Everything on such a site makes a visitor’s journey through it easier and more satisfying. And everything is on the site because we have spent a fair bit of time working out who its likely visitors and wanted visitors will be, and what they will want from the site. The client gets a site which works, and the designer gets a site to be proud of.

I have identified the obvious questions we need to ask ourselves again and again in this blog. Including my last post.

There I also said that I had one glaring example of designer-centred website design in expatriate Spain to present to you. It will be named and shamed in my next post.

It follows from my previous advice on alt text.

You shouldn’t only use words that make it easy for your visitors with visual problems to see your image in their mind’s eye. You should also use a word or phrase from your keyword list. Search engines often pay close attention to the alt text that goes with images.

That’s it. Happy New Year!

If there were such a thing, then Google would be risking the very thing that got it where it is. People took to using Google, rather than AltaVista or Excite or whatever, because it found them the sites they were looking for. The whole thrust of Google’s development is to serve searchers rather than site owners.

It relies on a famous algorithm, which, given a search query, puts Web sites in order, from number 1 down. I notice that in the latest version of this algorithm, it is widely supposed to be giving extra weight to domain age. The older a site, the higher a rank it will get.

You’d think this would put the “24-hour” cowboys out of business. But I doubt it. There are always people dreaming of instant success—and other people willing to take their money.

As a site owner, you want visitors. To get visitors, you need people who are searching for sites like yours to find your site first. That means getting properly indexed on search machines (“ranking high for your keywords”). Which in turn means knowing how to handle search engine spiders.

Readers of this blog may have looked at my long article on search engine optimisation, on the main Web Costa Blanca site. You can also check out any earlier posts, by looking at the ‘Search engine optimisation’ category.

Here are two things you can do to catch spiders—before you write a single word of text or create a single graphic.

1. Name your files for spiders. Apart from your index page—and you can give that a different name by adding a rule to your .htaccess file, if you really want to—give all your pages names which spell out their content, using words that visitors might type into search engine boxes. For example: best-cheap-whatnots.html.

2. Write your titles for spiders. Use the same or similar words in your title tags. These appear in the browser’s title bar, at the very top of the display, and most human visitors ignore them. Spiders think they are crucial.

(Incidentally, some people use the same title tag on every page of their site. This may attract visitors to the site—but they may not get to the pages you think are important. There’s a lot to be said for varying title tags to get different visitors to different pages. This is up to you.)

Have fun!

If you’ve already read my article, here are a couple of extras. One caveat, one treat.

People will tell you quite proudly that, on their chosen keywords, their site appears on the first page of Google’s search results—maybe even at number one. The question is: how many people type those particular words into a search box? And how often?

If you type “Michael Scannell” into a search box—with or without the quotation marks—you will find my personal site on the first page of every major search engine, usually at the top. For good SEO reasons: the domain name is michael-scannell.com (with the unhyphenated version parked on it, so you can get to it via either URL); the name appear in the title tag of every page. And so on. So how many people type those words into a search box? Some days, one or two. Some days, none.

My cherished number one place isn’t really that much to brag about. Keywords aren’t really much use to you if you’re the only one using them.

You can find out how many people have used particular sets of words when searching, across the main search engines. This is one tool. Here is another. There are many more.

The treat?

Oh yes, the treat. Bruce Clay’s gorgeous diagram of the relationship between search engines. It takes a while to load if you don’t have broadband, but it’s worth it. Just move your magnifying glass across the loaded diagram to see everything.