Welcome to Internet Marketing Barcelona!

Web Design rules for best SEO... what to consider when beginning your search for a business presence, or even to refresh/re-build the one you have! (Questions to ask your designer/internet marketer). These questions, or should I say the answers, will help you find out if you are talking to a designer, or an "Internet Marketer".  And above all else...  do not allow them to only produce to satisfy you, there is a searching public out there that will certainly be on the website more than you will ever be!

1.  Will my website be a template?  This is ok as long as there is full control over naming all components like each image that make up the template, page names... etc.  Unless of course you want something completely different than others who may be using the same template!

2.  Will my site navigation (internal links) be images or text links? Of course we hope for text links as it gives yet another opportunity to feed "words" to the search engines that relate to your site content.

3.  Will my site be dynamic or static? (dynamic is database driven, easier for the web designer, static is more work for each individual page) I personally like static as all pages are in full view of the search engines all the time (yes, it is more work and more expense).  If dynamic...  more questions:  Will the site have search engine friendly url's? (addresses for each page).  Next, will my site cache these pages with each update so the search engines find and spyder the changed content?

4.  Will all the images on my site have correct names and not just generic? Examples: will they be image001.jpg, or spacer.gif...  or will they be relevant to the page content like: air_conditioning_filters.jpg and air_conditioning_repair.gif? (more relevant words for the search engines).  And, will you be adding correct "ALT" tags to each image?

5.  Will my page names also be named correctly as above for the same reasons?

6.  Will you be performing in depth keyword research for my meta tags, page names and images names?  (what people online (surfers) are really typing and that way nobody is guessing).

7.  Will you be performing any research into what colors the public likes? (makes them feel at ease when visiting) Or what fonts they prefer?

8.  Will you perform search engine submissions?  Here is the one to watch... if they say yes, then they have no means to allow the search engines to find you rather than your site being pushed at them on a regular basis.  And if your meta tags are correct, they may do one submission, but you will not require monthly or any type of regular submissions. (search engines are even smart enough to find changes on their own once you have been indexed)

9.  Will I have a location to go check and monitor my web site visitor statistics?

10. Will you provide me all research documentation for review? (including keywords, competition, etc...)

11. Will my visitors have interactivity on my web site?  (like newsletters, contact forms with security from spamming bots, forums, FAQ pages... etc...) And will all contacts be at my disposal in a database for future contact?  Will my contact form be secure to give my visitors a sense of security while on my site?

12. Will you be developing a Privacy Policy for my site?  Terms of use?  Legal documentation? and full contact info?  (make sure they do hide your email address within the form procedures other wise the spammers will find your email...  not good)

13. (If you are planning an e-commerce site) Will my store have an affiliate program built in? (this allows others to sign up and send traffic to your store and get a commission if a sale is made... it is called "Viral Marketing")

14. Will you be providing any incoming links? Very Important for your online campaign and the search engines actually rank you accordingly...  Incoming links are like votes, or what word-of-mouth advertising is in the off-line world.

15. Who will own and control my Domain name?  I have seen it many times in the past that when a client wants to move their website to another host, or even give it to another designer or internet marketer, they then find out that the domain name has been placed in their master account all that time and you don't have any control without begging...  Be very careful, stay in control of your own domain.

So many more important rules to follow also!  Hope this helps you with your initial planning stages...  feel free to contact me with any questions. contact me!  

~Craig