In a Google search for web site design, there are 132,000,000 results returned. Yes that is million. One needs to be very careful, when they are looking to have a website done for them. By a quick look at the results returned, prices range from $99 to thousands of dollars. The options are over whelming. From my experience many people believe that they can put their website up, and within a short time they will have thousands of visits a month. For a small business, I think that it is more important to make sure that you customers are coming to your website, and interacting with your site, they way that you intended for them too.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a big buzz word right now, everyone wants to be number 1 on a search engine. This is not very easy to accomplish, and also could last for a short time, when another site could overtake you. When you are looking to design your site, worry more about will your site do its intended service? First and foremost your site should be designed for your customer, and for the search engine. A well designed site for its consumer base will rank well on a search engine. Once you have a site that is well designed and speaks to your customer, then you can take the next step to fine tune it for the search engines.
I found a great blog from Tom Now on Start Up Nations blog site. 11 Reasons Leave your Web Site, this is a great list of pitfalls to watch out for when you are looking to design your website. This post tells what to keep in mind when you are deciding how to design your website, and he says it much clearer than I ever could.
Thank you and happy surfing