Graphic Artist is NOT the same as a Web Designer

by Christy Smith

I think it is time we did a good old fashion revisit on the difference between a Graphic Artist and a Website Designer or Website Developer. Last month the team here at Dark Twin, had a great opportunity to visit just such a situation. A very nice lady had her husband who is an incredible designer create her website for her. It was beautiful. It had a great flash intoduction on the main landing page. Each of the pages on her website had great looking banners and graphics. I would love to take the look of her website and turn it into a functioning template for our Joomla - Wordpress web packages. But I think for the time being, I would rather just use it as a great example on what NOT to do when you build a website.

WebSite Pages

In our example - the website that we were looking at were static html pages with a bit of css to make the layout look pretty - not a wrong way to do things, but why would you? Today we have Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal and many more. Each of these open source projects are incredible database driven website packages. They make your website available with so many possibilities and free includes that have 1 static html page, which is timely to create and has to be copied and pasted for every single page that you include on your web site. Once mix up and one of your pages becomes toasts. If you want that page listed on Search Engines, you need to create all of the necessary changes in your header, in your sitemap, and your robots file. Then every time you need to change a page, each of these becomes an issue again.

The alternative:

Find a website developer that can create a "complete" website for your company using one of the great open source projects, such as Joomla, Wordpress or Drupal. Make sure that the developer that you choose has a Team of professionals that can each contribute something to your web site. A Graphic Artist for beauty, an SEO expert for Search Engine Optimization and a web developer who know the both the program that is being installed and the language it was built in. You never know when you will have a need, that the program cannot handle, making sure that your developer knows the language, they can create customizations that fit your needs exactly. When choosing a company to build your web site, make sure they can show you more than one sample of their work, in the program that you wish to use.

Another bad idea is using one of those drag and click companies. For $199.00 and 99.99 per month, you can get a great web site set up for you. What they don't tell you is that you get a website that 1000 other companies already have. So much for creative competition. These sites are never as easy as it seems, and usually do not have the available SEO that they claim to have. Most are using outdated SEO tools that could get you blacklisted from some of the most important search engines.

Your SEO - Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is a vital part of your web site, and by following a few core rules, getting to the top of Google is not as hard as it seems.

Going back to our sample web site that was created in basic html with the Flash intro.

Some of the most incredible pages build will not get you traffic unless you follow a few great rules.

Your pages title - when your title reads untitled page - that is what search engines will see. So unless your website is all about untitled pages. I would make sure you have a website designer that knows how to change this.
Your pages description and core text - Although Google is catching up quickly and can now index many flash intro's - Google reads text, not sound, not images. How does Google decide what your keywords are, well they get it from your description and text.
Oh the beauty of being on the front page of Google for your chosen key word. Having the most beautiful web site in the world is never as much fun as seeing yourself on the front page of Google for your chosen keyword. And getting traffic from Google every day, giving you a higher customer base, is even more incredible.

I guess the best way to summerize this article would be simple.

Find a professional website designer - who has incredible graphic artist in house.
Stay away from drag and click prehosted web companies.
Check out your designers samples. Experience means everything.
Create your web site with SEO in mind from the beginning.
Find a designer that can give you a web site where you are in control of your text, images, and other minor changes so you don't always have to pay someone to make simple changes for you.