WWW
General
Web Design
The Brochure
Information
Navigation
ADVERTISING
Engines
Relevance
Popularity
Links
Links Trade
|
WWW
General
Much has been written about the World Wide Web - WWW.
A search of the web will reveal the various resources and articles
available on the WWW from learning about html, search engines, robots to
web casting. I won't go into these areas in this article.
The information in this article is based on my experiences gained over
the many years of involvement with designing managing maintaining and
advertising architectural services using the world wide web and the
internet.
Most of the sections contained in this article require far more in depth
explanation that I have given in this page.
Web Design
Most architects embarking into the WWW and Internet do so because they
want to 'get on the web', 'because other practices are on the web' or
because they see the web as being a ready made vehicle to gain
advertising for their services not only in their home town or state but
'internationally'. The first time they get involved in thinking about
their web site they become lost in the mountain of information with
which they are confronted, they try speaking to the experts in web
design and usually find that they are even more confused with terms like
ISP, Hosting, Hyperlinks, Java, Cookies, CGI, Scripts to the point where
they either decide to pay the web experts to design and maintain sites
for them or they give up.
Some try and design their own web sites learning html or if they are
computer literate they have heard of things like WebEdit, FileMaker, FrontPage
or other 'off the shelf' software programs available to make
the job easier for them. But that is not the end of the story most who
take on the task themselves try to treat the design of their website in
the same way that they would a brochure with disastrous results.
Most give up after having spent a great deal of money paying the experts
to produce a site which is not what they thought it was going to be and
without getting a single sales lead or project for the great expenditure
they have made. Others just give up making their decision based on
experiences which suggest that it was all a waste of time and money.
The majority soon come to realise that not only does their web site need
design but somebody has to get it hosted and that there is a great deal of work
involved in promoting their 'masterpiece' as well as maintaining it on
an ongoing basis.
Top of Page
The Brochure
Traditionally Architects use brochures as their advertising media to
promote themselves and their work. Web sites designed using a brochure as the basis just don't work on
the web for various reasons.
The most critical of these being the lack content and that they are slow to
load - as a consequence of large image files and mostly they just lack any logic
to the way a visitor finds his or her way around the site.
A visitor comes to the site (if they can find it in the first place)
wait for it to load and after about 20 or 30 seconds they 'press the
STOP BUTTON on their browser' and leave.
If they happen to wait for the site to load they find very little in the
way of what the site is about, no contact details or any assistance for
them to find information on the site or a clear method to navigate their way around
so as to
find any information which might be on the site to assist them.
What they do find is some large photos of projects and words which tell
them about how great the Architect or Practice is and not much more.
Nothing about who or what they have found, what products or services are
provided and no general information which might keep them there.
Top of Page
Information
The singular most important aspect of web sites is to ensure that
there is information provided for visitors once they have found the site
telling them what the site is about and its content so as to ensure that they come
back over and over again.
Both these elements should be as clear and as precise as possible giving
them your message in the simplest and most easily understood form
possible.
If the site provides nothing but pictures and words about what has been
completed by the practice most visitors will not stay and worst of all
they will not come back.
Top of Page
Navigation
Simplicity for visitors to find information about your site and for them
to find their way around your site are critical if you want them to come
back.
Architectural sites are often complex and visitors leave confused
without really understanding them their content or the purpose for which
they where posted.
Top of Page |
ADVERTISING YOUR
SITE
Search Engines
Your web site has been designed you have uploaded it to the host
computer and it looks great.
People need to know that it is out there and that you have some
information product or service that you want to tell them about.
Search Engines are a first stop - posting your URL to the major search
engines will start the ball rolling and get your site some exposure. But
that is not the end of it - you do search on Yahoo, Alta Vista and you
discover that your site is not there. It takes about 4 to 6 weeks for
most first time sites to be reviewed and categorised by the major search
engines - even then there is no guarantee that your site will even rate
in the top 50 to 60 on most search engines.
So your site doesn't rate and it just takes up space on a host computer
and costs you in overheads.
Popularity is the name of the game and getting your site listed and
visited on a regular basis is what is required - marketing your site on
the WWW is what makes it popular.
Don't be misconceived - just by putting your site on the WWW will not
ensure your site is found or that people will be able to find it or that
they will even know about it.
Top of Page
Relevance Content Information
Search Engines rank sites in a number of ways - some use robots to visit
your site and scan its pages looking for Keywords, Title, Description,
Content and Relevance of information in the pages they find.
Others have humans visit and go through and look at your pages and rank
the information as well as categorising your site using all the
information. As well these human 'robots' look at the RELEVANCE of the
information on our site to determine whether your site is worth listing
in their database information.
All that listing means is that once your site is listed it is there in
the database - it doesn't mean that your site will have popularity or be
at the top of the list if somebody searches for 'architect' it just
means it's there in the hope that somebody will one day find it.
Top of Page
Popularity
Your site has been listed by the search engine or human robots and you
still don't get a mention in the top 10 to 30 sites when you do a search
- a common problem.
Your site is new an people need to hear about it and your site so that
they can visit.
Popularity is used to rate a site - a popular site is one that usually
is listed in the first 10 to 30 site on the popular search engines. How
do they do it - in a variety of ways but the best method I know is to
have links - both to other similar theme sites as well as from other
sites to your site.
This is called RECIPROCAL LINKS - marketing and advertising your sites
popularity - the more links the more the major search engines will be
led or misled into thinking that your site is popular and increase its
ranking - the higher your site ends on the list.
Confusing right.
Top of Page
Links
What does linking mean well it means just that your site has a page(s))
set aside specifically dedicated to giving visitors a link to relevant
information on other sites which allows them to find out information
about a subject that they may be searching for.
Guess work - right. How do you determine what they might be looking for.
Architects might have links to suppliers, energy efficiency sites, etc -
sites with similar THEMES but those which are not directly in
competition with them.
To find out the sort of things I'm talking about have a look at my Resources
Page or have a look at my Link
Directory. Each of these provides a bit of insight into the kinds of
things which lead to increasing the popularity of your site as well
as providing relevance.
Top of Page
Trading Links
There are a number of ways that your site can trade links. According to
some research I've read 'trading Links' is better than being listed by
the Search Engines because of the way people find information on the
web. It means that link trading is crucial to the promotion efforts of
any web site.
Websites that do not have an effective link trading strategy will just
miss out on an ever increasing amount of quality traffic
(traffic that comes back again and again to their sites). Link trading
does two important things for you. First it brings qualified traffic in
a short amount of time and secondly it helps to increase your sites link
popularity - and as a consequence increases your popularity ranking in
many search engines.
Top of Page |
Victor Z Yanchenko has been involved with
computer technology since 1969 specifically in the areas of evaluating
CAD based mainframe and PC based systems. In the early 1970's he
assisted in the development of APDesign a PC based third party
application specifically for use by Architects with AutoCAD the worlds
most widely used PC based AEC software. In the early 1990's, apart from
his Architectural responsibilities he designed, managed and maintained
several Web Sites including the Sarlos Yanchenko Collaboratives Web
Site as well as undertaking implementation and integration of Internet
based remote Design and Documentation of various projects for
clients in locations such as Mongolia, Thailand, Malaysia as well as
other Asian and Oceania based projects.
This site was built using some of the knowledge and information in
this article.
|
