You never stop learning. New skills, new “truths” about life, new experiences. The list is endless.  Working for myself at DP Web Development this learning thing has gone into overdrive. It’s great! Thought I would list a very small sample.

And at the end a new quote that I try to live by nowadays. Enjoy.

Things I have learnt in the last few months:

No real order.

• Improved my skills in JavaScript and JQuery. This has been very useful, especially JQuery. It saves a lot of time and is amazingly powerful. If you know JQuery you’re in good company. Apart from me such Goliaths as WordPress and Twitter use JQuery. Anyone using Twitter? Follow me @dougpitchers.

• SEO. (Search engine optimisation) If you type in web development Kent in Google you get around 24 million results. DP Web Development comes in at about number 5. Front page! The (only) place to be. I have not paid a penny to get there. If you type in bespoke websites kent I am on the front page. Three times!

• People are inherently lazy. People complain they have to learn something. They have to do this. They have to go out of their way having, to suffer, they complain about having to work at it, and complain that it doesn’t just come easily. WTF? You think you’re unique? Look at Usain Bolt…you think he got up one day and ran 100 metres faster than any human in history? No. He got up every single day for ten years and trained and trained and trained. When was the last time you (or I) did something EVERY SINGLE DAY for ten years? Get unlazy and get ahead.

• People don’t buy your product, they buy you. Being the best web developer in the world is not enough. The ability to know, very quickly, what people want and how I can deliver exactly that is equally, if not more, important. I can do this.  People can see I am genuine, hardworking and honest. I dedicate myself to giving the very best. That is what people want. Personal attention. Before everything else. They want to know that I “get them”. I understand them. Contact me to find out more.

• Enjoy the here and now. I used to constantly plan for the future. I still do. But I have also learnt that it is important to enjoy the present as well. I go for a walk almost every day with my wife and son. We enjoy the lakes nearby and the huge park 5 minutes down the road (Knole park…call me, I’ll show you around). We love this. It gives us time to talk, laugh and enjoy the outdoors. It may only be 30-40 minutes but it is worth taking time out to do what you enjoy. Every day if possible.

Lastly a quote that you may like. I love it. It is from the wonderful Ash Ambridge. (Damn she’s good at sound bites) I think it sums up quite a cool attitude to have.

“Life shouldn’t be a journey to the grave with  the  intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body,  but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, champagne in the  other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming, ‘WOO HOO  what a ride!’”

Right  on!

In today’s world simply having a website is no longer impressive.  Indeed having a bad website is distinctly unimpressive.

You need a high quality website. A website that people will want to visit again and again. Everyone wants a high quality website. DP Web Development can certainly help you with that.

But what makes a high quality website? Below I list the five  main (and by no means all!) criteria to think about when building a website.

• Content is King. Whenever someone comes to a website their primary reason for doing so is to find information.  Your website needs to have this information required for it to be of any use to the user.  Your website could have a million pages all with a single line. This is less than useless. Every single webpage should serve a specific purpose and needs to have well written coherent information that your target audience will find invaluable. They will wonder how they lived their lives without it. The text should be unique. Don’t copy and paste and if you do reference where you got the text from don’t claim it as your own!  To increase credibility check and check and check then check once more spelling: Nothing is worse than a spelling mistake or typo. Don’t rely solely on spellchecker. A website will lose respectability as a whole if there is one spelling mistake on a single page.

• Accessibility and Usability. It doesn’t matter how good websites information is if the user cannot find it. Disorganised pages, too many links, page that go nowhere all hep destroy a website.  Serious thought, best done in the design phase, should be given to how websites information will be displayed. Will it be best to have a simple navigation bar at the top?  Is more needed? How many pages are needed to best display the content? DP Web Development is on hand from day one to help you through the myriad of options available.

• Design. The look matters now. Simplicity is key (usually). Think about the image you want to portray and design accordingly. Animation and fun graphics can work well but can also seem amateurish and unprofessional if not done well.  On the other hand if you are aiming your website squarely at kids this might be exactly what you want. Every image and application on the website should serve a specific purpose. For example every image should enhance a website. Not just placed there top pad it out a bit.  The website is now a huge marketing tool for companies and people will base their opinion on the organisation as a whole on what they see.

• Domain name. It’s important. Two things to consider: is it easy to remember. The company name .com could be fine but double check that innocent words nested to together don’t make another word. For example the company “Who represents” decided a website was need. The obvious name would be www.whorepresents.com/. Do you see the confusion in a name?!  This has been pointed out and a new address is being thought of but this link still works it is worth double checking this pitfall. Generally a shooter URL is better.

• Focus. You can’t please everyone all the time So don’t even try to. You need to be clear on who you target audience e is and cater for them. A detailed website with good information on a niche area (and this can be surprisingly narrow) is almost  always better than a website with a lot of content but none of it detailed. It also runs the risk of being too vague and of no use to anybody.

What do you think makes a good website. comments welcome!