Why doesn't your site look more interesting?

Bob Treend · Site Admin Joined: 01 Jul 2007 Posts: 80

I got an email the other day from a member... he had a small problem which I got sorted out for him... and he asked me why I didn't make the main web site (the buy, sell, auction part) look better by putting some more graphics, pictures etc. on it. He said he though if looked ok but he had seen other militaria sites which looked better.

I can understand this, I've seen those sites too, and I wish I could make it look 'fancy'. I'd love to let my imagination run wild. I guarantee you that if I did our site would look super cool! But....

There's a catch. I'll give you a brief lesson in web design... if you're interested, read on, if not, go on to next post please. Most web designers are more than able to created a good looking site. However most of them don't have a clue as to how to make a site that is 'search engine friendly'. I mean one that the search engines find and give a high position on the listing... preferably on page one. And, quite often they don't care because the client doesn't even know this type of designing exists. Everything about our site has been designed to attract the search engines. The reason I've done this is obvious... because I want collectors to find it. Not just the old timers who know about everything happening in our hobby, but also those who are on the 'frenges' or new to the hobby.

There are certain things that are killers as far as the search engines go and probably the number one thing is 'graphics'. Actually the search engines don't pay any attention to them, unless there is so much that it makes the page size exceed their limit. Then they ignore the entire page. Take our home page for example. The maximum size allowed by Google (the king of search engines) is 65k. Our home page is 63k right now. If I were to so much as put one more small image on it... wham! I've shot myself in the foot. Google will now ignore it! This applies to other things like 'frames' and animations too.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Every part of our site is designed the way it is for a vilid reason. This is why, after only 6 months, we have a higher web rating than most militaria sites that have been up 5 or 10 years. (you can see the ratings at alexa.com)

We don't need or want any more fancy graphics. The only thing this site needs is you guys.... and for you to use it to buy and sell your militaria.

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