As you may—or may not—have noticed, Google introduced their latest algorithm changes on April 24, 2012, nicknamed the Penguin. Then on May 26^th, Google announced a “data refresh” for the Penguin. The latest algorithm is said to be aimed primarily at web spam and any sites which Google feels are violating its quality guidelines. When the initial Penguin came out Google stated that anyone who had been “hit” by the changes had been penalized, yet many sites which did not appear to be spamming in any way nevertheless suffered serious drops in traffic. Experts feel that the sites which saw a drop in traffic with absolutely no black hat SEO techniques going on were not actually penalized they merely failed to receive the same amount of credit as before since other sites were being penalized. While this doesn’t appear to make too much sense to those who faithfully follow Google’s stated guidelines, it could actually take a bit of time for the dust to settle, allowing you to see where your site stands.

How Do I Know If My Site Was Hit?

According to Google, there is no way to definitely know if your site has been slapped by the Penguin. If you noticed a major drop in traffic soon after the April 24^th, you can figure you were probably hit. In the same vein, if you saw a rise in traffic, then it’s likely you benefitted from the update. However, there is a caveat here: On April 19^th, Google also released an update to the Panda algorithm—while Penguin is targeting spam, Panda simply targets any pages which may not be spam, but are definitely poor quality. Take a hard look at your Google Analytics or any other program you use which analyzes your site’s traffic, looking closely at the dates. You should be able to determine whether you suffered a serious hit, benefitted, or saw relatively little change at all as well as whether the changes came from the Panda or the Penguin.

I Was Hit—Now What?

Since the Penguin was primarily targeting spam, you must remove anything that even hints of spam. Google may have flagged what they consider spam on your site and sent messages—if so, take their recommendations and make the changes immediately. If you’ve received no notices, then take a painstakingly careful look at your entire site. Is there any duplicate content at all? Have you engaged in any sort of low-quality article marketing or blog spam? Do the internal/outbound links on your firm’s pages indicate any type of keyword stuffing? Additionally, take a look at the following areas:

Have you recently launched a very aggressive SEO campaign?
Have you kept your most relevant content properly above the fold?
Is your site slow as molasses in loading?

Any one of these issues can get your site penalized, so you will want to ensure your website is following all the guidelines and not engaging in sort of black hat SEO techniques.

Making SEO Work for You

Google believes that you can use SEO effectively in a positive and constructive manner to make your site more easily crawled and more accessible. Make sure you’ve done your keyword research rather than simply inserting your legal industry jargon here and there. Anything which lends credibility to your site as well as making it more compelling will help you with SEO as well as with social media. If you have cleaned up your site of anything even resembling spam, and consistently publish only high-quality content, there is little to worry about from Google’s latest changes or the ones to come.

The Importance of Your Firm’s Website Logo

The logo you choose for your business may well be one of the most important first impressions you can make on potential clients as it not only tells them you are reliable, but instills a sense of trust. Of course the ability to offer sound, high quality and professional legal services will determine your ultimate success, but your initial presentation is your first opportunity to declare that level of quality and professionalism. Your business logo can go a long way in establishing your overall brand and ideally it should communicate your mission, the services you offer and the principles your company is built upon. The logo gives potential and present clients a quick, visual image of your company, and the best logo is one which allows clients to identify you immediately. On the flip side, a poor quality logo not only will not help your company grow, it can actually do more damage that you imagine. Assume you have spent agonizing hours on your logo and finally have the perfect one for your business. How will you then use it on your legal website to achieve maximum success.

Thinking Outside the Box on Logo Placement

While the standard placement of the logo on websites tends to be the top left area, in some cases it can be wise to avoid the standard conventions and mix it up a bit. True, the upper left is familiar to users, although you will certainly want to include the logo in your header in one way or another. While placing the logo on the upper right is probably the rarest position, if you include sufficient whitespace around the logo so it will clearly stand out, it can nonetheless be effective. Some large websites such as CNN have placed their logo in the center of the page, yet still at the top and still displayed prominently. You might want to consider placing your logo in the sidebar or even in the footer as a visual reinforcement of your brand.

Logo as Strategic Marketing Asset

Your company logo could well be the most important marketing asset your company possesses. It not only creates instant brand recognition, it can also inspire your future clients and create admiration for the superiority of the legal services you provide. Aside from expressing what your company does, your logo tells who you are therefore you should follow a few simple tips in creating the ideal logo. First of all, be aware that the logo that appears to be perfect on your computer screen may not translate so perfectly elsewhere. Remember that logos are typically used in many places besides your website. For this reason, a brightly-hued logo with tons of multi-layers detail might look fabulous on your website however once converted to stationary or the black and white of a fax, it could appear completely different. Very complex logos tend to perform less well in traditional settings than on websites, so keep this in mind.

Specifics to Keep in Mind During Logo Design

Skip the ultra-trendy graphics—trends are trends for a reason and are typically very short-lived. You don’t want your logo to appear dated rather it must stand the test of time. Once you’ve chosen a logo don’t be tempted to change it every time a new idea comes along. Building a brand takes time and effort and you are building up trust in the process. Should you decide to change the logo that your faithful clients are accustomed to seeing you could find it has very negative consequences. Finally, make sure your tag lines and marketing text blend seamlessly with your logo’s graphical elements, that your fonts are simple and easy to read, that the colors fit the “feel” of your company, and that the graphics remain relatively simple. Keep all this in mind and you will create a highly successful logo which works equally well on your website and your more traditional uses as well.

Content Strategy Mistakes to Avoid on Your Legal Website

By now it’s a sure bet that you are well aware of the necessity of publishing only the highest quality content on your legal website. Your content must be interesting, compelling, and must give the reader something of value. When your company engages in content strategy, however, it goes a bit beyond the words on the page and encompasses the challenges all sites face from web pages, mobile apps, print materials and social media. You want to ensure that all your efforts to publish only the highest quality content are paying off for your business as well as to your visitors—the ones you hope will eventually become clients. It’s easy to find your site has gotten bogged down in strategy issues, and although most of these mistakes can be relatively easy to correct, you must make it a priority or your site will take a hit.

Reacting Without Planning

While it can sometimes feel that you are on an endless treadmill where your content is concerned, simply trying your best to keep up with your firms brand campaigns, projects and new services, it’s important that you do more than simply react to all the demands being thrown at you. Of course you also must respond to user requests as well as staying up with and responding appropriately to your competitor’s actions. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, so take a deep breath, sit down with your team, and actually map out a strategy which allows you to plan your content for the future of your firm. You will always be busy—probably excessively busy—but a plan can keep you from getting behind and shifting into reaction mode. Remember to involve all those in your organization who are a part of the content process otherwise tasks will be duplicated and there will be an overall lack of quality control.

Expecting Miracles

Of course the content on your pages is extremely valuable to your firm and to your potential clients however it can be difficult to show that value as a clear return on investment. Of course you—and every other website owner—want a fast, indisputable manner to determine whether the investment in content is worth the effort. Determining your content’s ROI is much more complex, and requires both your time and effort. You must first define exactly what it is you expect your content to achieve then ask yourself whether those goals are being met. What is that particular achievement worth to your firm?

Add in the cost to your firm of creating the content and regular maintenance of the content and calculate the final cost, although it’s unlikely you will come up with an absolute number since evaluating content is a bit subjective. Measuring your content with an analytics program alone will never give you the complete picture of how your content is doing, so think about asking your peers or external content experts to give you an evaluation of your site’s content. Most experts believe that every hour you spend in analysis of your site will save many, many more hours of content creation, delivery and maintenance.

Focusing on Quantity Rather Than Quality

Yes, you should post often, particularly if you have a legal blog. It’s extremely important to keep your content fresh if you want your clients to keep returning for more, however don’t fall into the trap of believing that publishing anything—so long as you publish often—is better than publishing nothing. This is simply not true. First, more content obviously costs more to create, takes more time for maintenance and can actually subject your users to information overload. Scale back and ensure each and every piece of content you publish is first and foremost high-quality information that your users will find highly relevant. Then ask yourself if each particular block of content supports one of your firm’s primary business objectives, if it fills a distinct need of your readers, and if there is a person available to maintain it. The content which survives these rules will, in the end, be much more valuable than content posted simply to post. Plan wisely for every piece of your site’s content, then keep planning—remember why your user is interacting with your site in the first place, and never underestimate the power of your content.

The Importance of Updating Your Navigation after Adding Web Pages

Website navigation encompasses all webpage elements which allow your users to move easily around your site. In today’s busy world, the easier a website is to use the more likely your potential clients are to stay and read your content—and to return. In short, the success of your legal website can actually hinge on the navigation, and many experts feel it is even more important than a great design or exemplary content. If your user is unable to find what they want on your site, then even if what you have to offer is absolutely fabulous, they won’t be able to easily find it and will head to a more user-friendly site. Navigation on your legal webpages should be simple, clear and intuitive to be effective. Further, any time you update your pages, you must also update your navigational tools to reflect those changes. Let’s look at the elements of navigation in order to more fully understand just what great navigation is.

Mapping Your Navigational Tools

Start with a large piece of paper to put together your legal website’s navigation. For legal firms it is likely you will simply have free content rather than a private membership area, so make a large box at the top of your paper labeled “public home page.” You will then draw lines to every page your home page is meant to link to with another box at the end of each line. You will be using this exercise to determine your level one pages such as your home page, the level two pages which are the pages linking form your home page, and level three pages which link form your level two pages or other category pages. Once you have a rough model of your sitemap, sketch out your home page with all the links you want to appear within your webpages. The most important thing to remember when you are outlining your site is that over three-quarters of the people who land on your site will arrive at a page other than your home page. Your visitors must immediately feel comfortable no matter where they arrive within your site, and must be able to quickly find their way around to the area they most need.

Menus Contribution to Navigation

The most critical element of your navigational tools are the menus. Your main menu should either run across the top of your page or down the left-hand column and many websites also add a navigation bar at the page bottom. Your menus and links need to look exactly the same on each and every page within your legal website and must be visually presented in a way which allows your potential clients to have no trouble identifying the most important links.

Other Navigational Tools

Images which contain links, links with your content, floating menus and the use of individual buttons all contribute to your site’s ease of navigation. The individual buttons will be those with words such as “back,” “details,” “previous,” etc. Other elements which will contribute to great navigation will be an “About Us” area which will give an overview of your firm as well as a short bio of each attorney. Your contact form will be short, simple and will inspire trust in your web user, asking for just the right amount of information. Depending on your specialization you will detail your services, having an easy-to-find and use link to each different area. A privacy policy is always a good idea in order to reassure your users you will not use their personal information in any way except to contact them about their current issue or problem. Many legal websites now have a blog which gives your users high-quality, useful information about specific legal problems. You may also add testimonials from existing clients or news items, including press releases.

Taking a Second Look at Your Web Design Strategies

When you have made the decision to have a website designed for your firm—or even if you have an existing site—having a solid strategy for your website design can help you stay on track, ensuring your site tells the story you envision. If you have actually worked with all those involved and have determined a web design strategy that you can easily articulate and write down on paper, then you will have no doubts that everyone is on the same page once you begin implementing that plan. Of course as your site evolves, this web design strategy may change, however you will always need to be able to put that strategy down on paper and have all key players agree to its implementation. Don’t have a clue how to best articulate your design strategy? Below you will find some tips for doing just that. Your design strategy doesn’t have to be a fifty-page dissertation, rather just a couple of well-defined pages.

First and foremost, what is the purpose of your site, or why does it exist. You should be able to write the purpose of your site, or its goal, in three to four succinct sentences. You want every person in your firm to be able not only to remember the goal but to repeat it if necessary, therefore it should be highly strategic, short, and to the point.
Second, put down on your paper a side-by-side analysis of all your problems and their potential solutions. In other words, perhaps your website has had its struggles with redundant content. That’s your problem, so you must now define a workable solution, which could be something as simple as choosing a highly experienced legal web writer who can provide authoritative content, or blocking out the time to write your own content.
Work hard at developing your brand, and consider using your tagline to further that goal. Your tagline is your firm’s opportunity to tie everything together with a phrase your potential clients will find highly memorable. Brainstorming with others in your firm can lead to an exceptional tagline that will help your brand come together and solidify for your readers.
Do you have a clear view of who your firm’s audience is? Consider writing up a “profile” of your average visitor as well as another of the visitors you would like to attract in the future. Use your analytics program to determine where visitors go on your site as well as what they are searching for, and bend your web design to fit these needs and preferences.
Define your tasks then prioritize them. Once you’ve clearly defined your target audience, consider what content and services your site offers them and ask yourself if that content and those services are fully meeting your user’s needs. Whether you are talking about editorial content or instructional content see what the majority of your readers are looking at then add new, fresh content in that area and retire the content that doesn’t appear to be working.

Further Benefits of a Web Design Strategy

A clearly defined web design strategy can provide an historical reference point for your entire site, and supports accountability since all the elements of your design become traceable. A web design strategy ensures everyone involved is on the same page and that your business tactics are a result of strategy rather than a gut reaction. Once you’ve stated your web design strategy, you can essentially quit talking about it, allowing you to get down to the job at hand and prioritize the workload. Your web design strategy can actually tell a compelling story of what your site will accomplish and why it matters, leading you straight into success.

Strategic Placing of Strong Calls to Action on Your Web Pages

Among legal websites, perhaps even more than other types of webpages, a strong call to action can be one of the most important elements of successful lead generation. Because of this, a call to action should be used in every single marketing tactic you employ. If you want to ensure your firm’s website is having the desired results, ask yourself what call to action you are implementing in order to drive user’s behavior. Hopefully your web pages are full of great content, exemplary headlines, prime keywords, excellent design and the kind of easy-to-use navigation which makes your users happy. Even if your pages implement all these elements, without a strong call to action your users will be unable to get to the final “goal.” In other words, you need to ensure you have let your users clearly know what you want them to do.

Laying the Groundwork

Before your user can be convinced to complete a call to action they must fully recognize the need. In other words, a problem must have been presented, and the call to action link will presumably solve that problem. Depending on your firm’s specializations and goals, you may have more than one action you want your visitor’s to take. You may want them to request a free consultation, sign up for your newsletters through e-mail and download a particularly informative whitepaper. If this is the case, prioritize your action calls, and give the most important one both a bigger size and more prominent placement. Further distinguish between your action calls by varying the color. Don’t, however, allow yourself to diminish the importance of the call to action by having too many of them—when people are presented too many choices they tend to leave without choosing any of them.

Design of the Call to Action

Strong calls to action should be located below the contact form and should integrate a strongly-colored link or button to ensure they are easily identifiable. As far as the exact color goes, while some marketers believe a red call to action will significantly increase click-through rates, others believe the color should be determined by your context. In other words, although the color should contrast to the colors around it in order to make it stand out, you nonetheless want it to fit in with the overall color scheme and design of your site. Although the link or button should be large enough to spot easily, you shouldn’t determine the size independently of other factors since it is related to the context on your web pages.

Allow some white space around your call to action in order to avoid it appearing overcrowded and ultimately to attract more attention. The most effective placement for your call to action link will depend on what surrounds it, so test various positions to ensure you’ve located the sweet spot. An unconventional shape can attract your reader’s attention plus you may want to avoid the more traditional square corners lest your visitors view your call to action as an ad or banner and avoid it. Experiment with out of the ordinary shapes for your site’s call to action. Some of the best calls to action will give the visitor a sense of direction through an arrow which points to them and while graphics are important, generally speaking those who are looking for information are searching for text.

Language

You need to use specific language when designing your call to action. Active words such as “call,” “register,” “subscribe,” “click here,” “free whitepaper,” “order now,” “sign up today,” “free download” and “more info here,” all work well in calls to action. Once you realize how important your call to action really is, you will begin to put the necessary thought into it.

What to Do When Your Google Ratings Drop

It’s easy to find yourself in a panicked tailspin when you look at your ranking one day find you’ve taken a Google algorithm update hit and fallen off your treasured first page. It’s equally important not to have a knee-jerk reaction, rather to look at the situation calmly and analytically. First of all find out whether your site has been penalized, and a drop in rankings does not always answer this question. There are ways to determine if your site has suffered a Google penalty; first, compare your rankings to those of your closest competitors to determine whether they too have dropped or if it is only your firm’s site.

Your location can affect your rankings, so have others check your ranking as well. Make sure you stay up with Google’s Panda, Penguin and any other algorithm changes that are implemented. In general, issues that will result in being penalized include keyword stuffing, publishing duplicate content, paid links or questionable links. Not only should you keep up with algorithm updates, you should also keep a log of all changes made to your site. If you keep up with your analytics, your changes and Google’s changes you should be able to get a pretty fair idea of why your ratings have dropped.

Specific Issues to Take a Look At

In some instances a drop in page rank can be directly tied to one or more links to your site which have been removed and which formerly provided a substantial amount of PageRank. Since pages with low or medium-level PageRank tend to get most of their strength from a relatively small number of links, losing even one of them can cause significant impact. Next, ask yourself how “old” your site is. If it is less than six months old, it could have benefitted from Google’s help for new sites so they can be more easily found by users. Unfortunately that assistance generally only lasts about six month, and if you have not engaged in a solid link-building program during that time, you may find that the honeymoon is over and your rankings have taken a hit.

Violating Guidelines

The search engines are punishing offenders more quickly when their guidelines are obviously being violated. Hidden text is one trick that can get you in serious hot water with the search engines, causing your rankings to slide. Never hide any text by making it the same color as the background of your page and never stuff keywords on your page in a way that only search engines will see them. Both are serious no-no’s and you will pay for the violation. Next, ensure you have no “thin” content on your pages. Your goal is always first and foremost to offer exceptionally high-quality content which brings something of value to your readers. In other words it is both informative and compelling, and updated frequently.

Google has also begun penalizing sites which show a high ratio of advertising to content and those which show a significant amount of white space above the fold, meaning users must scroll down to get the most important information. Google’s goal is to enhance the user experience, and if they feel you are not assisting them with that goal your rankings will suffer. Never have multiple domain names which point to the same site—although it makes sense that this tactic would increase your rankings, quite the opposite is true and will trigger the search engine’s methods for filtering duplicate content.

Broken links, problems accessing your site, a site with a slow response, error codes and any form of duplicate content will also lead to a drop in page rankings so take the time to look carefully at your website and change any issue which is causing your site to suffer a drop in rankings.

Should You Avoid Dark Web Design?

While dark website layouts can be quite effective, they should be used with caution, particularly among legal firms. For a law firm—or really for any business—before deciding on a dark website design there are a few considerations. First you will want to have a total understanding of exactly who your ideal user is and what they are looking for when they arrive at your website. You will want to know your targeted user’s age and social level in order to determine what type of website will be most likely to attract them. While knowing your average user’s age may seem like a non-essential piece of information, remember that those users above 50, as a group, tend to prefer lighter backgrounds—not only because they are easier to see, but also because they are likely more used to visiting websites with light backgrounds therefore it feels more familiar to them.

Although some website designers disagree with the theory that dark backgrounds make the text more difficult to read, most users at least have a perception that it is more difficult to read and may not even stick around to find out. Of course readability is also affected by jarring text color, font size, typography and other elements. Should you decide to go with a dark website, all the elements which go into making up your site must work well together to avoid an unnerving experience for your potential clients. In other words it is possible to have an effective legal website based on dark web design, but you run the risk of sending people bouncing off your site before they’ve even had a chance to see what your site is all about. So, should you decide you want a dark website design, there are certain things to keep in mind.

Implement More White Space, Avoid Clutter and Watch Your Typography

When you’ve chosen a dark web design you must ensure there is plenty of white space surrounding each element or you risk having the site look cluttered since dark layouts give the feeling that the elements are closer to one another than they actually are. Readability is also increased when white space is added. Dark backgrounds must work hard to avoid a cluttered look, so if your site has a fair amount of copy, you will want to separate it through the use of sections or subpages. While typography is always important, it is even more so when using a dark background. Increase the size of your fonts and line-height, and use short paragraphs. Avoid any serif fonts because they tend to be less clean and clear, making readability more difficult.

Contrast and Content

Using pure white to contrast with your dark background can be unpleasant for the user—think about how it feels to wake up, walk to your blinds to draw them back and be hit with the brightest sunlight. It is a jarring experience and you don’t want to replicate that experience for your users. Use complementing colors to scale back the contrast of your site and you may be able to make a dark background work well for your firm’s website. A key advantage to using dark backgrounds is that you can emphasize text and image elements in more creative ways than you can with a lighter background. Deciding on a dark background means you must ensure the focus remains on the content rather than on the background itself so the site doesn’t feel “heavy.”

Making the Decision

Dark website design can be authoritative, strong and elegant when used in an appropriate manner however you will likely want to consult with a very experienced web designer prior to deciding to use a dark design. Dark designs tend to elicit a stronger emotional response which makes them great for creative sites, perhaps not so great for the legal field, so proceed with care should you decide on a dark web design.

Implementing the Art of Storytelling on Your Legal Website

You may not think of the content on your website as storytelling in any way, shape or form. After all, legal websites are serious in nature and provide a distinct service, generally to those who find themselves in hot water of some kind, desperately needing the services of an attorney. Even the word, “storytelling,” is more likely to bring up memories of telling scary stories around the campfire, or listening to your grandfather talk about his early life. Storytelling, by its very nature, leaves an impact on those who hear the story. This impact is a direct result of human nature which makes us to relate what we do and who we are to the stories we hear. Storytelling is an interaction with an audience which can sway them to make specific purchases or decisions, and, after all, isn’t that what the goal of your legal website is as well? So, within the context of a legal website, how do you tell a great story, offering a bridge of sorts between you and your audience which clearly differentiates your firm from the competition?

The Components of a Great Story

In the end, storytelling is an art and as such it requires structure, process and thought in order to deliver your intended message to your target audience. If you do any amount of reading, you know that great stories have a specific structure which effectively brings your reader on a journey that has the ability to change or transform. While this sounds extreme for the application, remember that every single decision we make every day involves our emotions. Decision making has a specific format and is relatable by others just like storytelling. Once you’ve determined the structure of your story, you will have to follow some relatively simple steps to ensure the creation and delivery.

Your story must first achieve the goals of your business, and must clearly communicate your highly focused message.
If you don’t have a solid grasp of your targeted audience, then your story cannot possible be effective.
Experiences and moments which are captured within your story will engage the emotions of your readers and give it meaning.
You always want to ignite a reaction among your readers, meaning you have engaged their emotions. You must develop a voice during your storytelling, have a clear opinion and take a position if you want your readers to commit to your story.

Unfortunately, many brands tend to say the same thing as their competitors, particularly in the legal profession. Take a critical look at your site and try to find what sets you apart, what makes your firm unique and special and whether that is clearly communicated to your readers. If not, it’s time for a major overhaul. When users land on your site, they must have an almost immediate sense of what your firm is all about, how you will help them solve their immediate problem, and why they should choose your firm over another.

Since the average user spends from 5-10 seconds determining whether or not they want to remain on a website, your window of opportunity is incredibly small. You must “hook” your user almost immediately with a fabulous web design, compelling headlines which tell your reader there is something of value here, and a uniqueness that is instantaneous to your reader. In short, great stories are literally the backbone and the DNA of your brand, so reconnect and bring them to the surface. An engaging story will literally make the difference between success and failure for your legal website so ensure you are giving your users what they need and want.

Separating Presentation and Content on Your Legal Website

Any time you display information on a webpage, the actual content and presentation are tied together; the information is tied to the visual design and the reader must be able to access the information then interpret it. The ultimate goal of the web is to make the content accessible to every user. Web content is neither tied to a specific operating system, software or even a computer—web content can be accessed on a wide variety of devices even some kitchen appliances can read web documents. The content can be displayed in a dizzying array of sizes, colors and fonts, limited only by the reader’s imagination. The goal of achieving device independence as well as access for all therefore must lie in the separation of presentation and content.

For those who are unclear about what exactly constitutes content and presentation, content refers to the information in your web pages as well as how that information is structured. Structure may appear to be somewhere floating between content and presentation however presentation would be meaningless without structure therefore the structural elements belong more clearly to the content side. Presentation encompasses all the ways the content—and the structure of the content—is presented. Anything which controls how the content appears rather than what it actually says is presentation. The separation of content and presentation may seem like a foreign concept since most of us are accustomed to making the visual choices related to content such as headings, paragraphs, lists, etc.

The Benefits of Separation

By separating the content from the presentation on your website you will ensure your web pages are more widely accessible to your potential clients. In practical terms, however, it can be extremely difficult to maintain the distinction between presentation and content since often we are unable to see the difference between what is being communicated and how it is being communicated. When you realize that even the most poorly formatted document nonetheless has a presentation in the form of layout, fonts, etc., you understand the difficulty in the clear separation.

How to Achieve Separation

The first step in the overall idea of separation is to build structure into web documents through the use of HTML which encodes headings, paragraphs and lists. The document which results from this step is richer in meaning and can be accessed by any web-enabled device in the necessary format. Think of your overall intentions when attempting to separate content from presentation—what is your content goal for your web users, and what do you think potential clients intend to do with that content? Do you think it is what they are searching for, what they need to answer their most pressing questions and problems?

To begin separation, start with plain text—that is, text which is placed in a notepad on Windows. Then use HTML tags which clearly mesh with the meaning of the content. Remember, HTML tags should describe the text placed inside rather than be placed simply to achieve a desired “look.” Double-check to ensure you are not accidentally placing presentation markup when new content is created and learn all the styles available to you. Take a look at your finished product—it should be simple, crisp and clear and you should know exactly what each HTML tag is being used for.

In the end, the separation of presentation and content can stop a simple design tweak from becoming a full-fledged re-design. Isolating content ensures adding and updating will be as simple as possible while design consistency is maintained throughout your sight. While the separation of content and presentation can make you want to throw up your hands in despair—don’t. There is plenty of high-quality help available to make the process as simple as possible.