Intuitive Solutions for Website Advantages
It's no secret - from SOHO to MegaCorp -
Intuitive Websites = Intuitive Advantages.
Why? Perhaps because of the straightforward, honest 'form follows function' philosophy that is so integral to an Intuitive Website. That's my opinion at least.
The criteria that define an Intuitive Website also define the Advantages of an Intuitive Website. The most important include:
- Consistent Website Design, Layout, Navigation = a Consistent, Visitor Friendly, easy to use website design developed to intuitively meet visitors expectations.
- Search Engine Friendly Website Accessibility = a website designed to be purposefully Search Engine Friendly and easily Accessible to Search Crawlers, Bots and Spiders.
With a closer look we can easily understand why these intuitive website criteria are so important, learn more about the intuitive website solutions designed to meet these requirements, and discover how they can provide such intuitive website advantages.
Consistent Website Design, Layout, Navigation
Website Visitors Expect Consistency
Nothing can confuse website visitors faster than inconsistency - be it in content, navigation, layout, or design. And nothing will make a visitor abandon a website faster than being confused - not exactly "intuitive" or "visitor friendly".
To answer website visitors needs for visual consistency and familiarity, an Intuitive Websites Design must maintain a consistent 'look and feel' throughout the site.
In brief - every page in the website follows a consistent, defined set of 'design rules' dictating website design items, such as:
- Sitewide Color-schemes
- Font Styles, Types, Sizes
- Web Page Layout
These website design rules can typically be defined using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), though other methods exist.
An Intuitive Website Design must also meet a visitors "Website Navigation Expectations", even though visitors may not even be aware that they have expectations.
Take the obligatory "Home" link, for example.
If you're like most, the first place you look for a link back to a websites Home page is top left-ish. And you may have looked for the word "Home" first as well, rather than an image or icon.
Website visitor behavior like this - done instictively, "Intuitively", without thinking - is not uncommon, and is a typical example of a "Website Navigation Expectation".
As you can see, an Intuitive Website Design is the ideal solution for a "visitor-friendly" website featuring:
- clean, attractive design that maintains a consistent look and feel throughout.
- consistent, uncluttered, sitewide layout that is appropriate to the information a website is presents.
- and clear, easy to use, consistent navigation that meets website visitors expectations.
Search Engine Friendly Accessibility
Search Engines, Spiders and Crawlers Prefer Friendly Websites
Inadvertantly blocking search engines with web page meta tags or robots.txt files are arguably 2 of the most common reasons a website fails to be indexed and appear in SERPs.
Create a Search Engine Friendly website - ok, sounds easy enough... and it can be... sometimes... sort of...
In my opinion, creating these highly coveted, preferred search engine friendly websites could be easy enough - if the definition of what Search Engine Friendly is didn't change so often.
But change is reality, after all. "Search Engine Friendly" can mean different things to any given website at any given time.
And don't forget, recent documentation upholds the logical and widely held belief that the easier it is for search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN to crawl a website - the faster a website can be indexed.
And the faster a website can be indexed by search engines, the sooner a website can be found by searchers.
What's the solution?
First - Keep it Search Simple - stick with proven, tried-and-true, search engine approved techniques:
- Keep the Focus on the Viewers - not the Search Engines
- Make appropriate use of titles, metas, re-directs, 404 errors, etc.
- Use White Hat SEO, Search Engine Approved Optimization (SEAO)
- Use CSS (external whenever possible)
and, for faster Search Engine crawling and Indexing of a website, don't forget:
- Appropriately Submit Valid Sitemap.xml file(s)
- Make Appropriate use of Robots.txt
- Submit Informative RSS Feeds (as applicable)