It is easy to critique a website design when you first see it and think that with some changes to layout, colours and design that the site would look so much better. But this isn’t enough in today’s changed web design environment where browsers and technologies for viewing websites are changing literally by the day.
There are too mau sites on the market that were developed to display in older browser technologies nd now look dated and do not fit into the modern browsers that we have installed on the latest machines. A browser that is the bane of designers lives is IE6 for which in Cork and Ireland there are hundreds of websites that were designed when this was the dominant browser on the market and since then may have been untouched. In the meantime many of the competition have either had new websites designed or upgraded to meet the new standards. Internet Explorer 6.0 was released in 2001 and since then there have been several revisions to the browser (it is now at version 9.0) and its competing browsers of Firefox and Chrome which didn’t even exist when IE6 was released. More importantly the browser isn’t even supported by Microsoft anymore. YouTube and Google also do not support it so if your website was developed around this time you are in need of an upgrade to it.
The newer browsers provide better security, support newer and more robust JavaScript libraries and if your website. In addition since then CSS (Cascading Style Sheetss) have evolved and even the version of HTM that is currently in use has changed. Many of the late 1990 and early 2Ks were designed using tables exclusively as the power of CSS wasn’t available.
What this means that if your website is untouched since this time then you should think of upgrading it to suite the latest and greatest designs that are available.
Here are some design changes that would be of benefit to your site today.
Move the Tables
Convert tables to CSS and this adds formatting and window flexibility throughout your site. This involves taking each table element and perhaps moving to a grid layout using a standard CSS style sheet and replicating and definitely improving the overall fluid layout of your site. If you resize and move a tables based site on your browser you will quickly see that it isn’t fluid or flexible with the changing window shape.
Dump the Flash on Your Website
You may have flash moving images on your site. In the age of the mobile browser this is a problem. IPhones, iPads do not present flash and this is a growing part of your market. If you cannot lose the Flash images then think of coding a mobile presentation of your site for the above type of user. Now many people who are flash developers will argue their case with me but for a business looking to engage with a customer who si surfing the web quickly for a product they do not have time to look at a flash movie and will quickly bounce out of the website and not bother with your product.
Editable Content
If you cannot edit your own content or have not made any content updates to your site for many months or even years then you are way behind your completion. With the advent of systems that allow your own text on your website most sites get updated very regularly and iof not they use a blog to communicate news and product information.
A blog on your site serves two purposes. It helps to show what is happening with you and your business as you can update it, but also if you use good keywords in this post it helps your ranking. I have used WordPress as a tool for many years and when used well it can be a powerful tool for promoting your business and products. It can be installed easily as an addition to an existing website as the above mentioned blog or if you wish it can be designed to replace the site that you have so that you then have a new design the best displays your business and site in a positive and attractive light.
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