Does “Web 2.0″ Design Really Matter?
March 7, 2010 by
Filed under web 2.0 design
I work for a law firm with a website that was done a couple years ago in plain html (http://thedefenselawyer.com). We’ve been thinking about what we can do to SEO-wise to improve traffic. Last week we had a meeting with an SEO outfit that says our website needs to be recoded for “web 2.0″, and is the main reason our website is under performing. They also said they wouldn’t SEO a site unless it is recoded to “web 2.0″ standards first. Does this company know what they are talking about?
Nope. They don’t have a clue.
The second they said “Web 2.0 standards”, you should have thanked them for their time and kicked them out.
There is no such thing as “Web 2.0 standards”. “Web 2.0″ is a phrase coined by Tim O’Reilly to describe a shift in the web from static pages to more dynamic pages with social networking and user contributions, such as Wikis, YouTube, MySpace, etc.
While some Web 2.0 concepts were implemented using technologies such as Ajax, “Web 2.0″ is less a technology term and more of a term describing the maturity and evolution of the web in how it is used by people.
Since “Web 2.0″ is not a technology, there are no “standards” to code to.
Here’s the Wikipedia page describing what Web 2.0 is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
Here’s Tim’s article that defined Web 2.0:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
And a second article by Tim to clarify the first:
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/12/web-20-compact.html
nope, they dont.
a website that is web 2.0 would be a social website that people can not only read data (browse your webpages), but also write to it.
In your example as of a law firm, that would be lets say that they can put some comments, have a forum where they can exachange information, etc.
That PLUS the content from users would benefit your search Google score, however, the problem is that you would have to put out lots of advertise, so people go to your website and they can see other people writing on the forum so they would join ask questions, etc, just (because they would feel that the forum is alife) generate content that would get your more clicks and higher search rank.
However, I do not really see you getting more business when you do that, and you would have to put a real money behind software to programm forums, etc (thats probably your SEO friend’s company does and they will be trying to sell it to you!).
If I were you I would get some frelancer designer and use some paid templates, create nice outlooking page, put some advertise in your local area (on google, etc) and that’s all.
Any additional money put into this idea is like advertising your local ice-scream shop with max 25 places to seat in the national television, but if you like burning money or have a budget, it is up to you!
hope this helps somehow. bottom line: I would not listen to that SEO company.
bonus idea for you: instead of spending money for rebuilding your website, paying for SEO and hoping somebody will buy, I would rather get some para-legal part time, find couple online attorney-related forums and make that people sit and try to help people by answering their law-related concerns. If they have more additional questions, they redirect them to your company page or have them call. Remember — people looking for an attorney are usually in some kind of trouble – they care less how fancy and cool is your website — they care if somebody can talk with them, understand their situation and knowledgebly help!
Web design really matters b/c good design is the only way to get traffic to your site & improve your website page rank.
If you are experiencing lower traffic volume its because of the economy that’s all. It is reducing everything, I see on my email daily from social sites saying see what your friends are doing, if I wanted to all I need to do is log in and personally I never use my accounts because this trend will pass so fast. People need to get real and realize there is more to life then this internet.
I don’t see the need for web 2.0 on your website. If you were promoting something music or media like then its useful building applications users would like to use. As a lawyer they should come to you if they need the service so advertising is all you really need.