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Classic Rock Web Design
November 21, 2005
We here at the 'wagon, among other things, are devoted to quality web content and quality music. We keep our standards high in both aspects and I was reminded of these two ideals one recent morning when a strange "alignment of stars" if you will took place. As I was starting my day two unique and unrelated events took place, and my brain, badly needing coffee (obviously) took it from there.
What happened? Well, I came across a printout that my wife had accumulated in her pursuit of her Masters degree. Isn't it funny that as I wax eloquently and proudly about her Master's degree in Health Education that I'm eating Nilla wafers and was disappointed that we're out of store bought mini-muffins - but I seriously digress. And as I was selecting some music to listen to first thing in the morning from Yahoo Music I had an inkling to listen to some classic rock, namely Led Zeppelin. But what I found on Yahoo Music was that the only thing available was a karaoke version of their greatest hits. I was disappointed at first but found that I could appreciate the songs for just their music, words weren't really necessary to qualify it as good music. Their just the icing on the cake.
The printout that I came across dealt with web credibility guidelines [http://credibility.stanford.edu/guidelines/index.html]. The guidelines are a very common sense, albeit outdated in "internet years" (internet years are a lot like dog years), approach to website design and content. One of our main jobs is getting traffic to our clients websites, but keeping them there is equally important. Just as traffic can be driven to a site using various methods, commonly referred to in search engine land as Black Hat and White Hat (a reference to the old cowboy movies where the good guy wore the white hat etc.), your sites content can be derived from many different methods. And as important as proper, ethical, white hat techniques are to good long-term sustainable SEO results, so is good quality content that is easy to use important to your website visitors.
So as I was listening to the Led Zeppelin karaoke music, I was in awe of the musical genius that put together the original arrangements. I realized that even though I love Robert Plant's vocals, I equally love just the plain old music by itself. The seamless integration of musical chord's, tempo's, beat's, etc. make Led Zeppelin the classic rock band that it is. That's why I'm still drawn to it, and why I inherently like or dislike certain websites. If they follow the guidelines they are bound to be classic's.
One more comparison and then I promise I'll finish. Led Zeppelin wasn't the most complex or overproduced band in the world, they just rocked. A classic website doesn't have to have the fanciest flash in the world or be filled with all kinds of cool interactive mouse-over's. It needs to be correct, usable, & useful. Pleasing to the eye is nice, but let's remember the phrase "eye candy" and not let it rule the web world and rot out the core of what is good for quality web sites.
So with all that being said, and I apologize in advance for what you're about to read, let your content and SEO be excellent, thus combining for your online.........wait for it.........stairway to heavenly results.
All posts by Brent Sharp
posted by Brent Sharp at November 21, 2005 10:11 AM
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