Keep it clean. Having a clean site that’s visually appealing and effectively showcases the products is essential. The pages needs as few distractions as possible while providing everything the consumer needs to know about the product. Profligate use of white space is very useful here, as it makes the page look clean and uncluttered, but also adds a modern design elements to the page.

Use colour. I love using colour as a web designer. London has a tendency to be a bit grey at time, so I make sure my sites don’t reflect that. We all know that colours provoke certain feelings and emotions, so using a select palette can increase the effectiveness of the site no end. Avoid using red if you can as it still has the subconscious relationship with danger. Keep the colours light and inoffensive and you can’t go wrong.

Be quick. Keep the code clean, the pages slim and make the site work fast. Part of the ecommerce experience is the speed at which a consumer can get things done. Nobody wants to wait for their gratification, so make the buying process as quick as possible. The pages need to load quickly, the purchase process needs to be streamlined and the site needs to remove as many barriers as possible between the visitor and the confirm order button.

While keeping the pages clean, the design slick, the pages fast and the buying process streamline, you also have to design in opportunities to cross or up-sell. Not only do many clients want the opportunity to increase sales, they want to do it while not being too in your face. Designing a subtle but effective up-sell is a valuable skill indeed. Some notable websites go the “Customers who bought this also bought…” route, which is effective, but there are plenty of other ways of doing it.

Web CMS is the ideal tool for ecommerce, which is why it’s so popular. The ability of the site owner or administrator to quickly and easily update inventory, new products and prices is vital in a fast paced retail business. Custom CMS, like ours, is even better as it can be designed around the particular needs of the business. Not every site will fit every task, we don’t want to be a jack of all trades after all. So using a custom CMS is, I would say, essential in making the site a success.

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There are things coming that look more like certainties each day that passes, but even that’s no guarantee. So there are a few things we predict are going to change the face of web design. London sees a lot of conferences and meetings of minds so is a great place to pick up hints about what’s on the road ahead. Here is what we think.

Shrinking Markets. While the scope of web design is as massive as ever, designers and developers are having to specialise and find a niche to work in. We can’t be jack’s of all trades any more. The technologies involved are too complex and demand too much expertise to just dabble. We are finding that we have to restrict ourselves to a speciality and stick to it. Ours is custom CMS, as you know, and we make sure we stick to what we know. To do something properly, you have to know your world inside and out. There’s no way to be successful by blagging, success is doing it right first time, all the time. We predict the wed development industry as a whole will move into individual specialities.

Internet Explorer. It just won’t go away, but the widely held belief is that IE9 is actually going to be quite good. The nightmares of IE6 will be long past and we can breathe a sigh of relief as web development gets simpler again. The fact that the new browser is going to be modern, support HTML5 and CSS3 is good news for us. If the final product delivers on its promise to make things easier for us, then it will make our job much easier. IE9 might actually work.

The last, and largest change on the horizon is the much closer adherence to web standards. All our sites comply naturally because it’s the way we make them, but so many don’t. Telling a client they can’t have something because it conflicts with those standards is always an interesting conversation, but one we shouldn’t need to have soon. With the variety of web enabled devices, browser choices, smart phones, pads and other products, adherence to these standards is going to be essential. I’m all in favour of this, not just because we do it anyway, but because it will make the internet a much nicer place to be. Sites might work as advertised, won’t be slow, cause errors and will still be viewable on my iPhone as well as my laptop.

Time will tell how right these predictions are, but I wouldn’t be against me.

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So we all need some project management skills in order to make our business a success. Fortunately there are some fairly simple rules to be followed in order to deliver a successful one. As I have said many times before, web design, London web design especially, is very competitive. Therefore, it’s essential that we get everything right, first time, all the time.

The first step in a project is the initiation. This involves meetings to discuss the scope, resources, schedule and budget. This is the foundation from which the entire project is formed. Until we know exactly what’s required, and when, there isn’t much else we can do.

Once we have the outline, we can create the plan. Sometimes we can do this immediately, other times it needs a bit more research in order to properly prepare. The plan is the structure around which the project is managed and can be software based, or old fashioned pen and paper. However you design your plan, you stick to it as much as possible.

Part of the art of project management is foreseeing problems, scope creep and risk. Planning how you would handle potential issues in advance saves time and money in the long run. These can be added to the plan or kept separately as you see fit. Having a contingency plan is something we do for larger projects and is pretty much “if A happens we’ll do B.” It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.

During the working stage of a project, it’s all about the management of people. Making sure your resources are doing what they are supposed to be doing and are able to cope with the tasks they have been set. Most web designers are capable people and will figure out their own solutions so are pretty easy to manage. Many of the issues we come across are either technical, or client driven. Technical problems should be solved by the developers, and the client issues by the project manager.

Once the work is done, the site has been user tested, launched, and signed off by the client it’s time to wrap up and report on the project. Ending on a high note is good for the team, for the client and for you. It means you can begin the next one positively and the client walks away happy, which is the most important thing.

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As a London web designer, I have my own opinion of the IE series. As a creator of custom CMS it didn’t always do me any favours. It has many foibles, problems and interesting problems to solve. While it provided a challenge, it made things awkward sometimes, having to write specific code to work around its limitations.

However, Microsoft have implemented five changes to the upcoming release IE9 that might make things a little easier on us web designers. London is full of creative types, as I have spoken to more than a few of them. Some are exited, most are set to wait and see. All we can say now is that Microsoft are off to a good start.

The first change, and most important for web designers is the support for HTML5 and CSS3. We can’t use them much because not all the browsers support them. While IE still has around 50% of the browser market we can’t do much about it either. Even though the details have yet to be finalized HTML5 and CSS3 are good news. The fact that IE9 will support them is even better news. We had feared that MS would wait until the standards were ratified by W3C before implementing them, but it seems not.

The next change is the fact that MS has a suite of developer tools which we can play with to find bugs and make suggestions. That isn’t to say we’re going to have any input into the final product but it makes us feel wanted. It’s probably just PR, as MS historically has received a lot of criticism for being so secretive about its code and how it builds it applications.

Continuing that theme, the next new benefit is the increased transparency of IE9. Of all the web designers, London ones seem the most vocal. I got tired of hearing complaints about how IE and MS applications were so secretive. The IE9 blog is a pretty good running commentary on how the development of the browser is going, and even has mentions of their setbacks as well as successes.  This openness lets us know where they stand on issues instead of having to guess.

Providing a glimpse of what to expect is a new option too. The IE9 Platform Demo page gives us a chance to see how it works, and how things will work. While still in the early stages, it’s good to see MS working with their users instead of against them.

Lastly, is about performance. Everyone knows the IE series has never been as quick or efficient as the competition. The last couple of incarnations of IE seemed to ignore the performance issue completely. IE9 is different, and looks competitive.

IE9 is still in development, and a way off yet, but Microsoft seems to have learned lessons about how to interact with their users. Even if the browser ends up just as bad as IE6, we all appreciate a little more interaction with the computer software giant.

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Thanks to everyone that voted for us and thanks to all our clients who have made us what we are today!

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That isn’t all you need though, there are several things you can incorporate into a site to improve its on-site SEO immeasurably. First and most obvious is a blog, like the one you’re reading. A blog is a great way of adding SEO to a site while also creating a relationship with clients and readers. Offering good quality, and useful content attracts the search engines, and readers. Offer something truly good and those readers can use social bookmarking to spread the word even further. As long as you can update the blog regularly it’s a win.

Making each page unique is also an excellent way of increasing the SEO possibilities of a site. It’s something that a CMS-based site has a distinct advantage in, as it’s so easy to post new content. The best way of creating a unique page is to fill it with unique content. Google is on a never ending hunt to find original content that isn’t to be found anywhere else on the internet. While this is certainly a challenge, creating original, compelling content is the best way to impress Google, and therefore rate higher in its search results.

Using <meta> description tags is also important. More important than that is using them properly. The contents of this tag is what the surfer sees in the search engine result page. It’s the copy that’s either going to entice them in or send them on their way. Use a different description for each page and fill it with something attractive. You only have 160 characters to draw people in, use them wisely. If the client uses the phone, add the number, if they have offers, include them. Use anything that will attract visitors to the site.

The best way for any website to rank highly for a keyword or phrase is to create a page for each word or phrase with them <title>, <meta> description, <h1>, body copy and URL. While this isn’t a hard and fast rule, it does offer distinct advantages. It isn’t always possible to have an individual page for each topic, word or product, but is ideal if you can. Having a separate page also improves the user experience as a link can take them directly to the page in question rather than having to find it.

SEO is a wide subject that encompasses many disciplines. By knowing as many of them as possible we can incorporate them into web designs wherever we can. The more successful a site is, the happier the client will be.

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