Web site design challenges are far and wide, depending on the type of site being built. Here is a quick take on core web site design challenges and how to handle them to build a high quality web site.

SEO Integration

What’s the SEO Strategy and how does it map to the web site design? Bring the SEO geeks/agency into the web site design tent and have them involved early on. Or, your going to spend more money downstream trying to fix the Content and Menus so they are search friendly and deal with other SEO issues.

WordPress Platform

Use WordPress for your platform. Why build a web site in plain old HTML in today’s Web 2.0 world. WordPress has tens of thousands of plug ins that extend its functionality, an equal number of developers familiar with the platform, is very/very SEO friendly, has a built in Content Management System, is Open Source and much more.

Minimalist Design Elements

Great web sites are like a beautiful woman’s dress - the simpler the better, less is more, with minimalist design elements, universal menus at top and bottom, should be able to navigate through the site in 2-3 clicks easily, have integrated calls to action like signing up for Newsletter.

Speaking of women, better design the site with a color scheme that is appealing to the latter. Hello guys, the largest demographic on the web is women and they typically like (ignoring Courtney Love) softer color pallets, minimal in your face calls to action - in short a color and design scheme that is on the feminine side.

Menus First

Layout the menu structure first. Think of Menus as the frame of a web site - once these are mapped out you will have a good sense for how many pages of content you’ll have, how to integrate Social Media elements (when & where), etc. And, don’t forget Keywords in the Menus - these can be important for SEO results.

URL Selection Important

Pick a URL that reflects your core branding and has high trafficked keywords in it. We would refer you to an earlier blog post that will give you much more information about this important process.

Web Site Design Elements

Web developers almost always fall in love with their own work - it just comes with the territory.  Be prepared to reign them in if they get carried away with imagery - you want enough images to break up the text but you don’t want so many that your load times (time it takes the site to be viewed) to be slowed down, as this negates search rankings, especially via Google.

Build A Social Site

Sociables are the little Twitter, Like (Facebooks newest),  Facebook and/or other icons that should be incorporated with your site so that people can easily share the site - this drives incremental viewer and traffic. Don’t forget to include a Twitter plug in for your site if you have an account or other useful plugins that will show your visitors fresh content.

Can’t believe what’s happening to Yahoo - the once storied, shining star of the web. Apparently they’ve retained Goldman Sachs this week to fight off the circling pool of predators, including AOL and a hedge fund or two.

Just think a few years ago Microsoft was prepared to pay $47.5 Billion but Jerry Yang would have none of it and forced the BOD to turn the deal down, insisting Yahoo could survive and grow as an independent portal. Fast forward to today and the market cap of the company is less than half that amount, with a value or $22 Billion.

Carol Bartz has been great at doing a female impression of Scott McNeily at his most brash best - but in the end, machismo posturing hasn’t done much for the company. It’s a hodge podge of properties, sites, email services, directories, services, etc.With no clear branding and no foot print whatsoever in the hottest market, social media, other than Flickr.

Paying $100 Million for Associated Content earlier this summer was not a brilliant stroke by any means. Associated Content had been on the sales block for several years and their content is mostly a collection of search engine optimized “articles” written to generate backlinks and help companies generate better search rankings.

Sad to say - but somebody put a fork in this turkey and put it out of its misery. Calling SteveB - we got a great deal for you!

‘Too many agencies today are “Don Draperish” focused - they think about making and broadcasting messages, whether they are Web, Print, TV, Radio, Billboard-centric.  They aren’t thinking about creating communities around their client’s brands and engaging with the community to build long term relationships.

No lighting bolt of knowledge to announce marketing is shifting from Analog to Digital and even beyond this to Web 2.0 and 3.0. But, still, many agencies we bump into are s in an Analog frame set - targeting consumers with a message that is not relevant and “pushed out” to attract attention (that is quickly waning).

We are morphing to community silos that are driven by the consumer listening to other consumers (Yelp is great example), while simultaneously tuning out marketing messages, regardless of how artfully the latter are crafted.

The purchasing decision is driven by consumers engaging with other consumers - ad agencies need to find a way to stimulate the conversation and then participate directly or on behalf of their clients.

Course Corrections for Agencies:

1. Create viral content that consumers share with each other.
2. Get out of “broadcast” mode and into engagement.
3. Learn the “Pay it Forward” maxim of Social Media Marketing - Communicate something of value, engage and add more value - sales and brand awareness will come.
4. Deploy, broadcast and publish meaningful/informative content (see first bullet) across multiple Social Media Platforms simultaneously (You Tube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, Facebook, SlideShare, etc.) and measure effectiveness.
5. Get Web 3.0 Analytics Savvy: grok more than Clickthrough Traffic, Impressions, et al - this means understanding ReTweets, Likes/Dislikes, Mentions, Followers, Friends, Social Votes, Viral Forwarding, Comment Value, Conversation Flow - must be much more than Google Alerts coupled with Google Analytics reports.
6. Utilize and understand baseline Search Engine Optimization and how it complements Social Media Marketing - there is a lot of overlap and this will increase over time.
7. Think about Google Instant making SEO obsolete in three years - will it happen (?) hard to say, but preparing for it might not be bad idea.
8. Learn how to cross promote content across the Social Web - your clients need help understanding how to leverage content development costs and economies of scale for publishing to drive engagement with their brands.
9. Ignore half of the heat and light around Social Media - there are no social media experts; we are all building this beast as we move forward in time - creativity and paying it forward will seize the day.

Remember the old Arab Proverb: “The dogs bark but the caravan rolls on.” Keep rolling down the road and listen, learn and be creative - works for the rest of us!