The brief for the website was to create an online experience which allowed users to easily view hundreds of Australiana photos, and then be able to select and buy those photos using a secure credit card transaction.

One of the interesting features of the website is the home page utilisation of Google Maps which allows users to very quickly see where the website’s photos were taken, and then gives them the ability to drill down to specific photos based on their map location. The website also features a more standard search function allowing users to search by a location list or a keyword list.

When viewing a specific photo the website utilises the jQuery plugin Fancybox to great effect. Fancybox quickly allows users to view a larger version of the image without navigating away from their current page.

The whole website is driven by Spike’s proprietary content management system, The Admin Site, which was customised to Australian Photos’ exact requirements.

Firstly, something which is not common knowledge and often needs to be explained, is that – it is not easy to be a dominant website in Google.

Just because you:

A.      want to appear at the top of Google, for a specific keyword, and

B.      have a website

…does not mean Google will reward you with a position near the top of it’s rankings.

Additionally, just because you have developed a new website and are very happy with it, it doesn’t mean Google will look at your new website and change it’s rankings immediately or at all. You may not see a difference in your ranking for weeks or months.

Google is smart, cautious and a spurned lover.

Ever since search engines first emerged on the internet, there those who were trying to take advantage of them and their rankings. In the early days search engines were cluttered with irrelevant spammy results which took users to websites which would not help them in their search. These websites would be cluttered with porn, advertisements or simply more links to other pages on the internet. This form of search engine trickery was dubbed “Black Hat”.

To read more about what Google does and doesn’t like, and is therefore considered “Black Hat”, click here.

Google’s algorithm (the fancy word for how it sorts out who should be listed where in it’s search results) has been an ever changing piece of logic which is constantly monitoring millions of websites and their billions of links in order to decide who should reign supreme at the top of their searches.

There are many things the algorithm looks at (far too many to mention here, in fact I just read a 600 page book on the topic) but one thing is for sure; Google doesn’t make changes to it’s results based on a whim. A website which pops up over night will almost never receive much attention from Google, and if it did receive attention it would more likely come in the form of a closer look to see if there were “Black Hat” tactics at play.

If you want your website to be a solid performer in Google search results it takes a lot of time and effort, not to mention a quality website with interesting and worthwhile content. Most websites which are successful in Google have been around for a long time, years not months, and have thousands of links from other websites pointing at them, assuring Google that the site has a lot to offer.

Some clients have complained that they aren’t performing well in Google despite having the ‘magic keywords’ on their page(s). What they are referring to is called Meta Keywords and/or Meta Description. These are blocks of code which tell search engines more about your website pages.

Meta Tags used to be quite important to a website’s performance in search engines, however, now they are only a small ingredient (one of dozens) that goes towards a website’s ranking.

So all this information is great, but what do you do next?

If you have loads of cash and the willingness to spend it then you can employ an SEO company who will optimise your website. Now assuming your website already has all of the bits and pieces it should have for search engines, these SEO companies will direct the bulk of their attention to ‘off-site optimisation”. Which in layman’s terms means;  “getting heaps of other websites and blogs to link to you”.

‘Off-site optimisation’ is probably the biggest factor that will have an impact on your performance in Google. Most SEO companies will do a really good job too, however, their services often come with a price tag that amounts to thousands of dollars per year and if after a number of years you decide to no longer employ their services, then you will lose the benefit of the work they had done for you.

This is their business model, and there is nothing wrong with that.

However, if you don’t want to be beholden to an SEO company what I recommend is to spend a lot of time building your content, and adding to it frequently. Get yourself a good content management system which allows you to update your website whenever you choose and start building content that other people want to read.

Many websites which perform well in Google aren’t there because they have employed SEO companies, rather they are there because they have extremely valuable content which inspires their readers to link to them.

So go out and make your website worth visiting. Don’t just make a brochure with your name and address on it. If you want to sit at the top of Google searches then make sure people aren’t disappointed when they click on the link and visit your website.

Spike WebDesign was the only Australian website design studio featured in the world renowned magazine and the team at Spike couldn’t be happier with the recognition.

The article says;

“SPIKE WEBDESIGN (SWD) is a relatively new development agency, formed in late 2007 by Josh Lawrence and Ben Newton. The creation of SWD was driven by a common goal of creating better website experiences for users, both from a visual and functional point of view. Not long after SWD opened its doors for business it launched the first version of The Admin Site, its custom-built CMS. SWD specialises in CMS driven websites that not only controls the website content but also runs a broad range of complex administrative tasks such as running sporting events or automating customer communications. “We are still a relatively young agency and are continually striving to reach great heights, our main motivation is to offer great customer service,” said Newton. “We are constantly hearing horror stories about rogue website designers who are doing terrible things to their clients. In
an unregulated industry we feel it is important to differentiate ourselves from the masses. It seems simple, but good customer service and the willingness to speak to a client will win you jobs.”

The article also highlights some Spike WebDesign’s more recent and varied jobs which display Spike’s which help to display Spike broad skillset.

The two main components that we suggested changing was firstly to implement a complete visual overhaul of the blog and the second change being to migrate the blog over to the more user friendly blogging platform, Wordpress.

The new design that we presented was a totally customised Wordpress template, design by Spike Webdesign, which combined a clean, simple appearance with images of Mark playing basketball. Also, based on Mark’s requests, we included some custom Wordpress widgets including a photo gallery and Google Analytics.

Everyone know the answer to that question, right? Surprisingly, no. In fact, the majority of people I ask this question to don’t know. At best the answer is something like;

“Ummm. .. I have Outlook Express?”

Those who do know nine out of ten times say that a browser is Internet Explorer, rather than Internet Explorer is the browser I use. Terrific branding Microsoft!

For those who don’t know what an internet browser is, it is a piece of software that enables you to “browse” the internet and all the sites and pages it offers. Internet Explorer is a browser, but it is not your only choice, and many would argue that it is not your best option, myself included.

The main browsers available to you (for free) are Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari (Apple’s browser), Chrome (Google’s browser) and Opera. While there are heaps more, these are the main ones. If you are interested in seeing which browsers are the most widely used you go to http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp.

If you followed the above link you will see that there are three versions of IE, or Internet Explorer, listed and soon there will probably be a fourth, Internet Explorer 9. The three versions are listed firstly because nearly 40% of internet users are on IE, so it is an important browser. But the reason the three latest releases are listed for IE, and not the three latest versions of the others, is because IE’s browsers differ so wildly and are often the bain of the web designer’s life.

I won’t take this opportunity to vent about Internet Explorer and their terrible record of being compliant with the rest of the internet, but I will explain why you, as the user and owner of a website, should know and care about the difference between browsers.

Every browser is slightly different in the way it interprets a website and in turn displays the content. I’m sure many of you have called your web design company wanting to know why an image is suddenly a lot higher or why something funky is going on with the text. As a website designer, the first question I ask the client is what browser they are using and what version of the browser is it.

Note: To find out what browser you are using and the version of that browser, in most cases you can go to the “Help” menu, when browsing the internet, and there will be an option entitled “About Internet Explorer” or “About Firefox” etc, depending on the browser you are using.

Browsers are gradually falling in line with one another in terms of how they display content, Internet Explorer included; however there are still often significant differences in display.  You as the client have to then make the decision on whether this is a big problem or not.  If the display error only occurs in Safari or Opera you may choose to let it go because only 6% of internet users may see the glitch. However, if the error occurs in Firefox which serves nearly 50% of internet users then you may want to do something about it.

If you do want to do something what are your options? Well the first and cheapest is to fix the problem in the browser which is displaying the error, but this doesn’t always mean that the error is fixed in the other browsers. So then your option is to get you web design company to produce a style sheet for each browser. A style sheet is a set of rules which determines how your website will look. Having multiple style sheets is your best option here, but will add to the development costs. So again it comes down to a decision at your end. Is the display error a big enough problem to warrant the extra spend?

Browsers can be a right royal pain if you fall fowl of their inconsistencies, but it all comes with the territory of having a website. Hopefully now you will be a little better armed when it comes to knowing your website and the way people view it. Send us an email if you have any questions about your website or the way browsers are displaying it.