The process of choosing the right keywords for your website is essential in search engine optimization. Keywords are the foundation of SEO success.

Keyword selection takes careful planning and research. Piling every possible descriptor together or choosing only one keyword and hoping for the best will not cut it. The best keywords are concise, descriptive phases that match exactly what your business offers and how your customers search for it. Relevant keywords should indicate if your business is local and demonstrates a nice balance of competition and popularity.

Select Your Core Product/Service

1. Define how your target customers will search for your business. (eg Tax Services)
2. Add Modifiers (eg Target Market – Minneapolis, Industry Terms – Tax Preparation, Income Tax Organizer, Tax Relief Act)
3. Research Competition & Traffic – Use the Google Keywords Tool to ensure your keywords follow this formula Highest Click Through Rate, Highest Search Volume, Lowest Competition, Lowest Cost.
4. Commit to 5-6 keywords that hit that “sweet spot” based on the above formula. Review and stay focused on this strategy for 4-6 months.

Make sure you sprinkle your keywords into your page’s copy at a keyword density of 3-7%. Less than 3% and it will not have an impact. More than 7% could be viewed as “keyword stuffing” by the search engines with a negative outcome in page ranking

There are of course some key pillars that one should make sure to implement that seemingly every search engine incorporates. Google for example, doesn’t index websites. They index pages. So making sure that each page on your site is fully optimized for index crawlers and easy search patterns is probably something you should spend an extensive amount of time on. This is what could initially launch your site on the beginning steps of the ladder to a page rank of maybe 4-5. There is a lot more to it, and using this as a guide is both good and bad. It’s good because it shows you how to start making your website and pages more search engine friendly. It’s bad because if you use this as the ultimate SEO guide, you will quickly understand that you will never hit that legendary top spot, or page rank 10. It’s just not extensive enough. So, always approach SEO with the highest regards to the fact that it never gets completely done.

On Page SEO Factors

Quality Content – The key to a successful website is unique and relevant content.
Keywords (Research) – Analyze and choose the appropriate keywords for your web site.
Keywords (Usage) – Does your web site use the words and phrases you want to be found under?
Keywords (Include) – Be sure to include your targeted keywords in the meta data of your web site (title, description, images, etc)
Engagement – Site Analytics – Click Through Rate, Bounce Rate, Time on Page, Time on Site, Total Pages Visited.
Freshness – of Content. Revise and Refresh content often.

Web Site Coding

URL Structure – Is your web site easy for the search engines to read?
Meta Tags – Use the proper description for each page.
Header Tags <H1> – Use relevant and structured headings throughout the web site.
Image Tags <img> – Make use of alt description tags for images.
Title Tags <title> – Use a unique and relevant title for each page.
Site Map – Keep an XML copy of your site map on your server and submit it to the search engines.

Off Page SEO Factors – Social Factors

Facebook – Bing uses Facebook “Likes” as a ranking signal for logged in users. How often are your posts Shared?
Google+ Plus 1’s – Google says it is working on using +1’s as ranking signals.
Twitter – Tweets help Google index content faster. How often are your posts retweeted?
Social Authority – What is your social authority on the web? (Friends, Fans, Followers, Connections)
Blog Regularly – Include unique and relevant content.
Social Forums – Engage in relevant social forums.
Online Directories – Build out and complete profile on online directory sites.

Off Page SEO Factors – Links

Anchor Text Links – Do links pointing to your pages use the appropriate keywords?
Link Relevancy – Create high quality back links directing to your website.
Link Quantity – The more high quality & relevant links pointing to your site the better your pages will rank.
Link Quality – Links from only high quality relevant web sites.

Off Page SEO Factors – Reputation Management

Web Site Reputation – Create high quality back links directing to your web sites.
Review Sites – Google Reviews, City Search and Yelp.
Trust – Trust from users and search engines is imperative for long term success.
Domain Age – How long has your web site been online?
Domain Authority – Strength of your web site.
Page Authority – Strength of your internal pages.

So which devices are consumers buying? Tablets, for one thing.

Tablet sales are expected to exceed 100 million this year.
Tablet sales are expected to exceed 100 million this year. Their sales numbers may top notebooks next year. Smartphones, of course, are also a hot commodity — according to Nielsen, the majority of U.S. mobile subscribers now own smartphones, not feature phones.

Meanwhile, the shift to mobile is happening at an extraordinary speed. Today, 30% of Mashable’s traffic is mobile. By the end of next year, this may exceed 50%.

Web or Apps? How About Both.

For those of us who create websites and services, all this leads to a singular conclusion: A million screens have bloomed, and we need to build for all of them.

Building apps may seem like the obvious solution. There’s no doubt that having mobile apps for the major platforms is better than having no apps at all, and yet how do you build for every app store? Last month, for instance, Mashable was accessed on more than 2,500 different devices. We could certainly build apps to reach a good number of those platforms, but probably not all of them.

When it comes to news sites, there’s even more data suggesting that the mobile web is key. According to the Pew Research Center, 60% of tablet users prefer reading news on the mobile web than via an app. While I think media companies should certainly offer apps, it’s clear that having a great mobile website should be the priority.

Responsive Web Design

The solution, of course, is to make a website that works equally well on every device. Enter responsive web design.

In simple terms, a responsive web design uses “media queries” to figure out what resolution of device it’s being served on. Flexible images and fluid grids then size correctly to fit the screen. If you’re viewing this article on a desktop browser, for example, try making your browser window smaller. The images and content column will shrink, then the sidebar will disappear altogether. On our homepage, you’ll see the layout shrink from three columns, to two columns, to a singular column of content.

The benefits are obvious: You build a website once, and it works seamlessly across thousands of different screens.

2013: A Responsive Year

Given the rapid adoption of tablets and smartphones — and the fact that users currently seem to prefer reading their news on the mobile web rather than in apps — I think it’s inevitable that 2013 will be the year that responsive design takes off.

For publishers, it offers the simplest way to reach readers across multiple devices. For users, it ensures a great experience on every screen.

Now more than ever, we’re designing work meant to be viewed along a gradient of different experiences. Responsive web design offers us a way forward, finally allowing us to “design for the ebb and flow of things.”

Here are 8 link building methods that also double as marketing techniques to empower a site’s overall marketing efforts, conversions and lead/sales generation.

1. Comment Seeding

Blog commenting has been used for years to build links and relationships with target authority link prospects. (Sadly, spammers also use this method to build exact-match anchor text links from dofollow link sources.)

But this method for link acquisition can also yield leads when used to demonstrate expertise.

First, make a list of the authority blogs in your industry – especially sites with huge search share (lots of pages ranking well on search results), solid content and an active community. That’s a good indication that high-value comments will have the capacity to entice readers to visit your site.

Next, join discussions of sites on your list, preferably on posts focusing on evergreen content. Authenticity is the key to stand out in commenting. Add value to the discussion.

The best comments should be valuable enough to almost function as a separate blog post. These kinds of comments attract clicks and can also initiate conversations that help you build relationships.

Tips on comment marketing:

Only leave comments on posts when you can add something useful and relevant.
Use a real name – no keyword stuffing.
Be consistent with your avatar using a service like Gravatar so people more easily remember you.
Focus on recently published posts and evergreen content. This will allow you to continuously absorb traffic from the post for a longer time (especially if these pages rank higher on SERPs for commonly searched long-tail queries/topics).
Always remember that you’re doing this task for branding.

2. Forum Marketing

When I first started blogging, most of my clients found me through my contributions on industry forums. In the same way comment marketing works, you can easily attract people to your website by becoming an authority.

Start by choosing 2 or 3 top forums in your niche, then participate on threads when you can add something of value.

Share useful tips on forums in your industry, especially on highly-trafficked threads or threads ranking for highly-searched industry-related long-tail search queries. The more people take interest in what you have to say, the better your chances of converting them.

Tips on forum marketing:

Be consistent with your avatar to help users remember you.
Don’t over-market. Focus on helping other members.
Don’t spam the signature section. One branded link to your site, landing page, or social networking profile is enough.
Prove yourself as an expert in the field, but don’t be a jerk.
Be as comprehensive as you can when sharing tips (particularly those getting lots of attention from other members).

3. Link Reclamation

Many sites that have been around for a few years have acquired editorial mentions or links to assets (such as offline events, product launches, content marketing campaigns, newsworthy content, etc.). Track and reclaim those natural brand mentions that didn’t result in links.

There are many methods and tools to find these missed marketing opportunities:

Use Google Search to find brand mentions and un-optimized natural links

Search for your brand, product or event name using Google’s Blog search:

When you find brand mentions with no link attribution, contact the owner of the website and ask that they add a link to your site.

Search for links containing the wrong URL version of your site

Use Google image search to find sites that used your logo(s) or original images without proper link attribution. Upload your photo or paste the source page of your photo to search other copies of it over the web.

Use Google Alerts to track future brand mentions
Set up a Google Alert for your brand, representative(s), product and/or event name to be notified via email of mentions on the web.

You can also use this method to improve your link acquisition campaigns – it’s easier to request and acquire links from those who already have you on their radar.

Use Google Webmaster Tools to track broken links
Reclaim incoming links to your broken pages (404 pages). Use Google Webmaster Tools to track crawl errors to your site and to find links from external sources causing those errors.

Check each of your site’s broken pages and see which sites/pages are linking to them. You can then contact these sites to request that they direct to a new page or you can redirect the defunct page to another relevant page of your site.

4. Press Coverage

Getting your business featured by news sites is a great strategy to increase leads. People will trust you more when they see you are being mentioned by reputable sources of information.

Focus on making your site a great content resource/hub for your specific niche. Once you’ve proven expertise in that field, it’s easier to become a news source for reporters/journalists.

Subscribe to editorial contact tools to track journalists who are trying to find sources for their stories. Pitch them when you think your expertise can help them in their story.

5. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging allows you an introduction to readers from other blogs, improves your search rankings through links and empowers you site’s online brand presence.

Sharing your expertise with other authority blogs will not only grow your own site’s readership, it can also improve your site’s ability to convert more visitors as you acquire more readers and leads through new channels related to your industry.

Before starting a guest blogging campaign, develop a list of prospects. Find at least 50 blogs with high traffic, a strong community and a big social following, or niche blogs where your target audience might be. Seed your content (see No. 1) on these top blogs, as their domain’s authority will help your guest post rank higher in search results.

Then create a working list of ideas you can pitch to your blog prospects. Focus on content that will show off your brand’s unique value proposition to increase the likelihood of generating conversions/sales.

Optimize your guest posts for higher rankings and don’t forget to promote those articles via social media.

6. Newsletter Link Acquisition

Links in newsletters, especially newsletters from bloggers with tons of subscribers, can be a boon to marketing efforts.

The first step is always subscribing to the newsletters and observing the type of content they provide.

Next, try some of these approaches:

Send them an email, mentioning that you are subscribed and enjoy their content, and ask what it takes to be featured on their newsletter .
Provide and offer exclusive content for their readers (videos, webinars, podcasts, etc).
Find partners that complement your business and offer a partnership wherein you’ll also feature them on your monthly newsletter.

7. Q & A Links

Q & A sites like Quora and Yahoo Answers are great places to seed useful content, since there are likely many questions in your niche that you can answer with expertise. These pages usually rank well for long-tail search queries, too.

The key to standing out on Q & A sites is to be as comprehensive as you can when contributing your answers. The more people find your answers helpful, the more they’ll vote your answers up (which makes your contribution more visible).

8. Pinterest Marketing

Pinterest has been one of the most powerful traffic and lead generation channels for several industries this year. Studies show this social platform is capable of sending more customers and business transactions to websites than Facebook.

Industries getting the most juice from Pinterest include automotive, food/beverage, travel, lifestyle, fashion/clothing, gadgets, design/architecture, physical products, outdoor and sports gears as well as services like gardening, wedding and event organizers.

Images most likely to go viral on Pinterest include:

Compelling product images
Infographics
Instructional/how-to images
Memes
Typography
A few tips on using Pinterest:

Provide rich and compelling images hosted on your site. Cross promote the pages where your images are hosted through other social networks you are active on.
Build a follower base on Pinterest by promoting your account through your website/blog and other social networking profiles. Follow people in your industry and engage them.
Use descriptive keywords for the image’s title and description so they can easily be found by users searching within Pinterest.

Social media data expert Dan Zarrella — who tracked and analyzed more than 1.3 million posts from the 10,000 most-Liked Facebook pages — has released details about which posts get the most likes, shares and comments on Facebook, from post type and length to the best time of day to add updates.

Photos bring in the highest number of engagement across the board, followed by text and video, according to Zarrella. News links bring in the least numbers of likes, shares and comments.

Meanwhile, posts with a high number of self-referential words such as “I” and “me” get more likes — a tactic that doesn’t work well on Twitter.

SEE ALSO: The Best and Worst Times to Share on Facebook, Twitter 

“Overall, the best strategy for Facebook, as well as all kinds of social media marketing, is to create a lot of interesting content and share it,” Zarrella told Mashable. “On Facebook, visual content does especially well. It’s also important to be passionate, not neutral.”

This means that both positive and negative posts tend to do well with engagement.

Timing is also key. Updates posted later in the day (Eastern Time) bring in more shares and Likes, but they tend to peak around 8 p.m. Shares trickle off around the end of the work day (6 p.m.).

“Publish when others aren’t, such as later in the day and on the weekends,” Zarrella advised.

For example, Facebook posts that go up on Saturdays and Sundays tend to get more Likes than those during the week. Similar to Twitter engagement, Facebook posts do better earlier in the week than later: Thursday is the least active day for Likes.

People also tend to be active throughout the week in the early hours of the day (5 a.m. ET) and during lunchtime (12 p.m. ET).

That strategy worked well. Until it didn’t.

As the audiences for traditional mass-media channels became more fragmented, and people started paying attention to new things, your marketing ROI has fallen drastically.

Even large, established brands like American Express started turning to social media to create media marketing assets that will appreciate in value.

Today, businesses can use social media to reach people on a daily basis.

Anyone can launch a new website, come up with blog content ideas and start building an audience immediately. But it’s hard because of all the noise and competition online.

So if you want to get attention from prospective customers, then you need to set yourself apart from everyone else.

Here are a few ways small businesses can stand out using social media.

1. Have a Voice
One of the most important elements every business needs is a unique voice and personality.

This is especially true online. People want to connect with other people, not nameless, faceless companies.

And large companies still don’t understand this.

At a conference recently one of the panelists was in charge of PR for a large national hospitality company. She was explaining how her Legal department has given her a list of acceptable “social media responses”. She and her team weren’t allowed to deviate from that list. If they wanted to respond to someone’s specific question or concern differently, then they had to run it through the Legal department first.

That is the exact opposite of how social media works.

No potential (or current) customer will feel passionate about a brand that hides behind a list of standard, canned responses. And by the time someone in PR gets an answer from the Legal department and responds to the customer, they probably forgot they asked a question in the first place.

So every small business can be more human, and use speed to your advantage.

2. Stand for Something
Small businesses can set themselves apart from the pack by standing for something.

You need to believe in a cause, a movement, or a way of doing business.

What separates the companies with fans, from companies that compete on price, is that they believe in something bigger than themselves.

Simon Sinek has a great TED talk about how “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”.

Most businesses start by answering “What” you do. Like selling some type of service or producing a specific product.

Other companies talk about “How” they do it, like your unique selling proposition or positioning statement.

But truly successful and popular companies, like Apple, start with “Why” they do it.

They inspire other people because their brand stands for a bigger cause and movement.

Almost every product or service you can sell today is a commodity.

So you need to realize that people don’t buy your “product” or “service”, they’re buying a solution.

Simon’s talk hits this point home and gives you pointers on how your business can create it’s own “Why” statement.

3. Have Enemies
If your business is going to have a personality and stand for something, then there needs to be other examples that you don’t agree with.

These could be other companies, philosophies or ways of doing business.

If you believe in organic food and clean eating, then your enemy is cancer, malnutrition, and fast food companies who are poisoning our youth.

If you believe in white-hat SEO, then your enemy is every company and person that thinks spamming, manipulation and short-cuts are the way to success.

Because you’re not trying to market to everyone.

You’re trying to market to customers that buy into your worldview.

One of the best ways to connect with other people and get them emotionally engaged, is by sharing a common bond and rallying against a common threat.

This gets people to “buy-in” emotionally, and you’ll have a better chance of standing out from everyone else and being sticky in their minds.

And there’s no better tool to do this than social media.

In this article:

PageRank of the linking page.
Total number of links on the linking page.
Industry relevance.
Page relevance.
Anchor-Text.
Dynamic link pages.
JavaScript link pages.
Redirected links.
Framed sites.

PageRank of the linking page
PageRank of the linking page, one of the most important factors, determines how much valuable importance is passed on to your page. The higher the PageRank of the page linking to you, the higher the value you get.

Each link to your Web site is considered a vote. If your neighbour states in public that you are very trustworthy, or that you are his best friend (Google PageRank 2), this is of course a less important vote than when the President of your country says the same (Google PageRank 9).

Number of links on the linking page
The value your web page gets from a linking page is equal to the total PageRank value of that page divided by the total number of outgoing links on that page. Getting a link from a PR4 page that has only 20 outgoing links is much better than getting a link from a PR4 page that has 60 outgoing links.

With the same philosophy, it is better to get a link from a PR2 link page that has only 10 outgoing links than getting a link from a PR4 page that has over 100 outgoing links. It is therefore as important to evaluate the total number of outgoing links on a links page, as it is, to evaluate the PR of the linking page. This is where many people often falter, as they usually insist on getting a link from a high PR page, but if that page has 100 outgoing links, your page would only get 1/100th of that value.

Industry relevance
Search engines give higher importance to links pointing to your site from your own industry segment as opposed to those from unrelated industries. A link on a site about motor sports will do very little good for a restaurant site, however a link in a food services directory will likely have high relevance.

Searching industry relevance pages:
Search for similar pages once you have found a really good page. Look for “similar pages”, “related pages” or “more like this” next to entries in any search engine’s results list. Alternatively use the Page Specific Search on the Google Advanced Search screen.

Page relevance
Most sites offering links have several categories listed on their sites. Try to get a link from a category that closely matches your own industry. For instance, if you have a site related to hotels, then, on your partner site, a tickets site for example, try to identify a resource directory pertaining to hotels, resorts, reservations, vacation packages, travel, tourism, food and beverages, etc.

An algorithm called “Applied Semantics” determines the industry relevance of a page within a site. The Applied Semantics algorithm studies various keywords on a Web page and tries to determine the industry or business segment of each page. Applied Semantics estimates the industry segments that are relevant to a particular page.

Anchor-Text
Anchor Text is the visible hyperlinked text on a Web page. Since anchor text is very important, make sure that your most important keywords appear in the anchor text from the link pointing to your site. It tells search engines what the page is about. Used wisely, it boosts your rankings in search engines, especially in Google.

If you use “click here” as the words people are going to click on, you’re telling people the page is about the subject “click here”. If you use “Part 2″ as the anchor text, your telling the search engines the page is discussing “part 2″.
You wouldn’t want to rank highly for “click here” or “Part 2″.

However, if your site is all about purple widgets, you don’t want only “purple widgets” to be used as the phrase in every link to your site. Over-optimizing like that would create an unnatural pattern.

You can use anchor text in:

External links from other sites.
Internal links on your pages.
Navigation maps.
Links on your main page. A very important spot.
Remember that real live humans will read your links as well as search engines, so the words in your anchor text need to make sense!

Dynamic link pages
You should also watch out for any link pages that are generated dynamically. Chances are that such pages would not get indexed soon enough, which means that a link from such a page would not benefit you. Some dynamic link pages are intentionally generated in such a way so as to prevent them from getting indexed. Some unscrupulous webmasters do this to trick you to prevent any PageRank leaking from their site to yours.
Links from such pages therefore do not give you any benefit.

Javascript link pages
It is also important to identify pages that are generated through Flash or a JavaScript, as Search Engines cannot read Flash pages nor can they read the links embedded within Flash. These are some of the tricks unethical webmasters use. While such a site may claim to have placed a link to your Web page, in effect they are not giving you any benefit.

Redirected links
A link that is first redirected to another page within your partner site before pointing to your site is a redirected link. You should watch out for such links, as search engines do not give weight to redirected links. It is very unlikely that your site would draw any benefit from a redirected link.

Framed sites
Avoid getting links from framed sites as Search Engines cannot read texts within frames.
A link placed on a framed site would not give your site any benefit, as Search Engines would not be able to recognize such a link.

Designing normally requires considering aesthetic, functional, and many other aspects of an object, which usually requires considerable research, thought, modeling, interactive adjustment, and re-design.

It’s the ‘functional and many other aspects’ that are often overlooked as being part of design, but in many cases they are more important than the aesthetic considerations. How a thing looks is important, but if it doesn’t function well it won’t matter how beautiful it is.

What goes into web design?

When it comes to web design what are the other aspects that make for a successful design beside the overall look of the site? Some concerns beyond aesthetics would include:

1. Usability- Perhaps one of the most important considerations for a website is how usable is it. Can people interact with your site without feeling lost? How well does your site allow users to perform their tasks

2. Accessibility – How accessible is your site? Not everyone will view your pages in a modern browser. Some will use screen readers. Others may be viewing your site on a PDA. An accessible design will let your content to be seen over a variety of devices and even give your site a competitive advantage.

3. Development – The code behind your site can help your pages load faster in a browser and help keep people on your site and away from their back button. Lean code can make a site more usable as well as make it easier to maintain.

4. Search engine optimization – For many sites search engine optimization will play a large role in the marketing efforts of the site. From the simple naming of files and folders to the way your navigation is built, site development can help improve a site’s chances of drawing search traffic. A poorly developed site will put up barriers to getting the site crawled and indexed and impede the ability of the site’s pages to rank well.

5. Conversions – It’s no use to have all those people come to your site if they don’t do what you want once they get there. Good web design will consider the best location for your shopping cart buttons. It will consider the ideal shape and size of a button to get a user to click. It will emphasize and de-emphasize various components of your site in an effort to improve how well the site converts visitors into buyers.

6. Information Architecture – If your visitors can’t find what they want when they want it they will not only leave, but they may never again return. The organization of your information can improve navigation on your site and help lead visitors deeper into your site to your sales pages.

How important are looks in web design?

I don’t want to imply that the look of your site isn’t important. First impressions do count in how your site is perceived and can make a difference in whether or not people stay on your site. On the other hand there are some who argue that an ugly site can actually convert better.

With the exception of industries like art, fashion, and perhaps even design, a beautiful site is not really necessary. Desired maybe, but necessary no. For most sites all that’s really needed to is to remain above a certain line of professionalism, a line above which your site is clearly no longer considered amateur. Usually follow a few basic design principles will be enough to give your site that professionalism.

Summary

Much more than the way your site looks goes into the design process. While it’s easy to think of aesthetics as design it’s very far from the truth. Web design includes many other aspects including how well your site functions, how accessible it is to a variety of devices, and how well it converts.

When considering someone to design your site it’s important to look past the obvious ‘wow’ your design can give you and look into how well they can create a site that effectively communicates your message and effectively helps increase your bottom line.

Put another way, focusing on just site design is like having brand-new designer luggage. It may be great looking and could work well, but there’s nothing in it yet that you need for your trip. To be sure, this is not the web designer’s fault. After all, their job is to create a site structure and make sure it’s attractive, intuitive, functional, and easy to navigate. But while design may be where the magic happens, content is where the selling happens. And isn’t that why businesses create web sites in the first place, to help them sell better?

Since most web design firms prefer to concentrate on design (and rightfully so), content’s got to come from somewhere and it’s usually the client or a third party: a marketing communications or advertising agency, or a writer. But wait, it doesn’t stop there. The best web sites are constantly evolving and long after the design is approved and posted, the content needs to be refreshed regularly to maintain interest, value and searchability.

There’s that word “searchability”. Search engine optimization. The Holy Grail of web strategy. All the great design won’t mean a thing if the world can’t find you, and ideally find you before they find your competition. Design really doesn’t have much to do with search, except when a designer makes the mistake of using too many graphics and not enough real text, which can seriously hinder searching. Search has everything to do with the words in a site – both the text visitors read and the keywords behind each page. To achieve and maintain searchability and the highest possible rankings, a web site needs to be “refreshed” early and often. That means posting new content on a regular basis – news and events, product information, industry backgrounders, case studies, employment opportunities. Lots of words that are valuable and searchable so that a web site can achieve its maximum value. Good site design is critical, but content is king.

There’s yet a third component that receives scant attention – site statistics. This is the critical data that any good web hosting company should be able to provide that shows site traffic patterns, entry points, time spent on pages, and other vital information that will help the site owner determine what, where and when to revise both content and design. Operating a site without good stats is like operating a motor vehicle with a tarp thrown over the windshield. Sure you can drive, but sooner or later you’re going to run off the road.

So when the discussion is about web sites, the talk needs to focus equally on design AND content. Site design needs good content to give it value, content needs good site design to give it form and function. Design AND content – without either one, the other is useless.