You Need Successful Website Architecture

What is Successful Website Architecture?

Many successful professionals have left the corporate world to pursue their entrepreneur spirit and life-long dream of being self-employed by launching an Internet website.  Whether the website serves as an informational portal for which to obtain new sales leads or as an ecommerce site for selling products and services, these entrepreneurs have a common challenge – the creation and maintenance of successful website architecture.  Even more than ever, designing and maintaining successful website architecture is important.  The mistakes that one can accidentally make online can cost income, which most entrepreneurs can not afford.  Can you afford the flow of income generated from your website to slow to a trickle?  The majority of webmasters respond “No”.  This article will attempt to summarize many of the common mistakes and misconceptions as well as make recommendations for creating a successful website.

The Website Design Purpose

We will begin with a discussion of an entrepreneur’s hiatus, whether permanent or temporary, from the corporate world during the website design process.  The investment that occurs during the website design process is not so much in terms of capital, but definitely in terms of time through a careful planning and analysis period.  The best period at which to think about successful website architecture is when you are in the beginning stages of design.  Yes, you can re-design a site, later, after it has been launched but it is easier to make these assessments about your website during the preliminary stages.

Choose a Domain Name to Register.

To begin with, you will need to choose a domain name for your new website.  When choosing a domain name for your new online business, choose a short, easy to remember name; one that does not have a bunch of dashes.  If you consider purchasing an expired domain name, check the history of the domain that you are considering because if it were previously banned for spamming, you could have problems later when trying to get indexed in the Yahoo! directory.  A good place to start your research on a domain is webarchive.com.  It is a great resource for researching old domain names and their past history.

Plan the Hierarchy of Your Website.

The website design process should start with the preliminary hierarchy planning of its navigation.  Start the process by planning the navigation of your site so that it resembles the frame of house.  Think of your visitors’ traveling needs while visiting your website.  This is what you will need to begin the main structure of your home page. For search engine optimization reasons, it is better to use the correct navigation.  Use text navigation, not images.

Use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

It is agreed by most webmasters that search engines can better crawl a website that uses cascading style sheets (CSS).  The task of designing a pure CSS design website may be more time consuming than using regular formatting, but the benefits that you will achieve in terms of search engine rankings is well worth the extra effort.  According to Mardiros.net, the benefits of liquid CSS layouts are numerous.  The process is defined in detail on their Liquid CSS Layouts page. 

With the use of cascading style sheets a webmaster can design attractive text links that are animated, designed with a complimentary color scheme and even with graphical images.  And the positive impact that you will see from a well-designed CSS formatted website is immeasurable.  Some webmasters design their navigational structure by hand, coding in HTML.  But there are many of us that prefer to use software-driven, easy-to-use tools for design.  One example of such a tool is opencube.com.  Opencube.com offers a tool called the “infinite menu” which easily creates css-driven text navigation schemes that are also extremely search engine friendly.  The cost for their “infinite menu” tool is around $100.  With their “infinite menu” product, you can create a navigation menu within minutes, save it, and then export it to HTML format.  The HTML code can be copied, then pasted into a file that you can use as a “server side include” (SSI) for use on many pages on your website.

Save Time with Server Side Includes (SSI).

The beauty of server side includes is that you can “include” them on many pages.  Later when you need to make changes to many of your pages within the website, all you will need to do is change the one include file.  Server side includes allow you to add dynamically generated content to an existing HTML page, without having to edit every single page.  It is a real time saver!

Design a Template First.

The easiest way to design many pages for a new website is to first design a template from which you will add content, save with a different file name, then upload to your web hosting account.  Start with a template that you are happy with.  Think of your web page template as a carbon copy of design techniques that you will use to create the rest of your website.  Your template should have a top navigation menu (with text links), original Meta tags (that you will need to customize for each page of your website) and a textual header that utilizes H1 tags. 

Use H1 Tags for Higher Relevance.

H1 tags are given higher relevance by search engines and are better than graphical headers.  Please refer to our article, Writing for Search Engines, for more information on this topic.

Organization - Keep your Goals in Mind.

When designing your web page template, keep in mind the site architecture goals that you will want to achieve:

• High rankings in search engines with the use of clear, concise and logical website navigation using text links
• Directory structure that is logical.  An example is creating a folder called “sales”, “images” or “contact”. Within these folders you would place all of your files that relate to these topics.  By organizing the website structure in a logical sense, you will more easily be able to maintain your website.  Organization is best.
• Breadcrumbs – when most people think of this, they think of the childhood story-book Hansel and Gretel.  The concept is the same.  Breadcrumbs are hyperlinks that you should place at the top of each page to help the visitor to your website find their way.  If they need to “backup” a section, the breadcrumb navigation will help the visitor find the correct location.  Your well-thought out breadcrumb navigation will also serve another very important purpose.  It will help search engine crawlers find the pages on your website.  This is an extremely important factor in getting your pages indexed in the major search engines.
• The use of “white space” on your web pages is important.  The use of white space is important because the rate at which people read online is growing at an extremely steady rate.  The average Internet visitor searches regularly and usually between 20-300 times per day, which could cause “information overload”.  If your pages use white space effectively, your visitors will not be turned off when they visit your site (and immediately hit the back button).  The following example shows that a web page can use color schemes other than just “white” to achieve this effect. White space allows the visitor to “rest” their eyes after hours or browsing the net.  “White space” does not necessarily mean the color white, but instead gives the visitor’s eyes a chance to rest and adjust to the page – which has a direct correlation to the visitor’s ability to digest the content on the page.

White space in your web pages will help to emphasize the important issues on that page and reduce “information overload”.  Don’t design your site so that it is so out-of-the-ordinary because it could scare away visitors.  Keep it simple.

According to the “Web Authoring Resource Center” located at calpoly.edu, the use of white space “is exciting and can capture your audience. It is important to have a layout that is crisp and attractive.”  Further, the Resource Center states that “having white space on your page helps to differentiate the elements and contents. White space on a page will keep a page from being cluttered and distasteful.”

Plan for Easy Website Accessibility

When deciding how to plan your site’s architecture, think about the accessibility of your site to your visitors.  Lack of Accessibility, such as requirements for the visitor to perform a mouse function before entering your website may cause barriers to search engine crawlers.  Required functions such as “choose a state” or “enter your zip code” to enter the website are not a good idea.  Search engine crawlers don’t have a zip code or a state of preference.  Don’t create these types of barriers to your website. 

Use Alternate Text Commands

When using images on your site, always use alt attributes.  Alt tags for an image are meant to provide accurate and meaningful information that should be displayed when the image is not visible.  For example, if a blind person is using your website they will use what is called a “text reader” to interpret the text and this relies on your use of alt tags. 

 Alt tags are meant to provide meaningful, informative text that should be used as an alternative when an informational image or other graphical object cannot be displayed.  Alt text looks like the following in your code:  <img src="myimage1.jpg" alt="my image">.  If you do not want to specify text, then at least use alt=””.

Why Should I Care?  I Have a Cushy Corporate Job and I Get to Travel Frequently.

Many business travelers are rethinking their careers.  Do I want to travel for my job?  Is it worth the risk?  In the past, business travelers had the option of working in the airport while waiting for their flight; palms could be used to work on the plane. While it is not yet a concrete policy of the airports across the country, many surmise that airport rules and regulations will soon change regarding what travelers can carry-on to planes.  Also, in the past, the wait to check your bags was fast, while getting through the security gates was a process that was painless and like clockwork.  Since 911, however, airport environments have changed.  And, after the arrests of the individuals suspected of planning attacks at the Heathrow airport on August 10, 2006, business travelers are taking notice.  Since many businesspeople are required to travel for their jobs, the difficulties of traveling have led many of those travelers to re-consider their career choices.  One obvious option is to begin an online business.  With a web hosting account located within the United States, the customer support is top-notch and the reliability is of the highest quality.  Web Hosting firms are scrambling to acquire new customers as the environment becomes more and more competitive. 

Take advantage of the opportunity! 

Many web hosting companies offer twenty-four hour technical support which means that you can begin your online business by working at night, after you return home from your full-time corporate job.  Start small; begin your ecommerce business selling items that do not break the bank. As your online business grows, most web hosting companies will accommodate you and provide more and more resources to help your growing business.  It may be worth the time and small investment that you make now.  Turn that hiatus from the corporate world into a full-time and permanent career choice – be self employed!