Frequently Asked Questions...

We have clients world wide and we get asked just about everything about web sites. Here are some of the basic questions and answers that will help you get ready to have a professional web site built.

 

 

 

I want a graphic look, or I don't have much text, is this ok?

Do you want your website to be seen by anyone? Search engines index text, not images. Pages with little text are usually considered unimportant and rank poorly. You want 400-1000 words minimum for each web page that you have us build, and we ask that your copy be web ready - final draft, grammar checked, spell checked, and ready to lay out on a page.

I don't have much text written, can you write text for me?

Not efficiently. First, we are most likely not experts in your business. Second, we charge for this and we would be slower than you would because of having to learn your field. You would end up with inexpertly written, overly expensive, generic copy, and this is not what you want. Bite the bullet and write.

Why should I use/pay for stock photos on my web site?

You should use stock photos because they are well worth the expense. Stock photos are taken by professional photographers and are color and lighting corrected. Ask yourself, am I a professional photographer? If the answer is yes, then go for it. If the answer is no, ask yourself, do I want to pay for a business website that uses amateur photos to put across my message? A stock photo is usually around $5 and can make you thousands of dollars. Also, we get more business from our completed web sites, and we are not interested in our final product looking less than it's best due to poor images.

What if I want to put pictures of myself on my web site?

OK, pictures of yourself. this is touchy to website owners. If you are selling your looks, like a model does, then yes. If you are selling a service then your image is usually irrelevant or can even obstruct the buying process. The homepage or contact page in these situations are usually no-no’s because it inserts your ego into what should be a self-fantasy of the customer. Also, unless you are gorgeous, rich, and successful looking, it makes your site look more ordinary and small. This is why I don’t use our personal photos on GAP Web Design. I let people imagine that our company is bigger and better than it is until they have paid us - and it works. Web sites are a lot like telemarketing – people buy stuff on the phone from people who have nice, articulate voices but would often be shocked if they saw the salespeople. A web site is a carefully crafted illusion to get a potential customer to do what you want. I usually recommend that people use their photos on the about us page if at all.

Why should I use a links page?
Why should I trade links for SEO?
Why should I not link to other web sites from my home page?

Search engines consider each individual web page. When ranking in Google, every web page has a certain amount of Google “juice”. The more juice your page has, the better you rank on Google. If your page is new, less juice. If your page is older than about 1 year, more juice. someone linking to your page from their page gives you some of their juice (a link from another page is considered an indication of your popularity - the more inbound links, the more popular and therefore important your page is). when you link to someone else’s page you give away to that page some of your juice. SO, you learn to become careful who you link to, and you try to get as many people as possible to link to you. The page on your site that usually has the most juice is the homepage (mostly because every page on your site has a HOME link to the home page and feeds it juice) and that is why web site home pages usually score the best on Google. Links from a home page pass on a bigger amount of your juice. So, you REALLY do not want to link out from the home page unless you have to. That is also one reason that people create and use links pages for their outbound links. When you link trade, the other person's page passes juice to your homepage, but the only juice you lose is drained from one un-important page (the links page), and not from any more important pages of your web site.

I want a flash intro or photo intro page, is this a good idea?

No. The home page of a site is the most important page. A Flash / photo intro puts a set of graphics that people frequently skip in it's place. There is usually little indexable text, so now your intro "home" page probably ranks poorly in Google. also, each time you ask a surfer to click to a new page, about 15% of them just leave. So now you have lost 15% of your visitors before you even start to tell them your message. Your core message and contact info should all be on your home page, as if it is the only page that a potential customer will ever see.

 

E-mail: flhardinpeach@aol.com