Imagine IT creates affordable websites for small businesses, mainly in the Somerset and Bristol areas. The design and functionality of a web site is important in making that 'first impression' to a potential customer. Imagine IT specialises in creating visually pleasing web sites that are easy for visitors to navigate and understand.

Web site optimisation falls into three main areas:

• Browser compatibility
• Security compatibility
• Search engine optimisation

Browser compatibility: Web browsers are the pieces of software used to view web sites on computers. The most common browser in the world is Microsoft's Internet Explorer but there are a number of others such as Chrome, Opera and FireFox.

Not all browsers support all the technologies that can be used in the creation of web sites. In order to make web sites work correctly for users of all the common browsers it is important to choose the technologies used with great care. We are acutely aware of this issue and will always aim to deliver a web site that both meets the client's requirements and remains fully functional with all common browsers.

Security: During the last couple of years security has become a major issue with the internet. Microsoft and others have put in place a large number of safeguards to protect the computer users from attacks from computer hackers, viruses and spam. The downside to this is that some technologies that are used by web designers for perfectly legitimate reasons are now able to be switched off or affected by the computer user as they can be exploited for malicious purposes by computer hackers. Amongst these technologies are Javascript and Flash animations. We do feel that this is a great pity as Flash for example can add very rich audio-visual content to a web site. To address this issues we have adopted a policy which is that we will use these technologies if there is a good reason to do so. We will however always try to provide an in-built back up within our designs so that whatever a user does, your web site will remain fully functional in all important aspects. Here's are an example of what we mean:

Q. What could happen if your web site used Javascript buttons for navigation between pages (quite a common situation)?
A. If the computer user turns off Javascript they will not be able to access any part of your web site but the Home page (not much use but many do it yourself site builder packages use this method, we never do).

Search Engine Optimisation: This is a complex issue but to avoid wasting your money please read the following:

1. Anybody who contacts you guaranteeing you first page positioning on Google for a few hundred pounds is not telling the truth. Nobody but Google can make those sort of promises so if you want that sort of guarantee contact Google direct (be warned the cost of this can be very high). The only exception to this might be if your product or service was virtually unique and you weren't competing for business with thousands of others. In this situation, with a carefully written web site, you should get good search engine positioning without paying anything.
2. Getting good search engine positioning takes time, luck and careful web site design. It can take months or years to reach your optimum position in the free rankings.
3. Try to establish links from as many other web sites as possible (known as inward links). Google in particular rates the importance of a web site by how many inward links it has.
4. Having a news page can really help you to make friends with search engines (they love sites that have regular new content)
5. Never try to fool search engines - they are very clever at spotting any attempts to do so. Your ranking can be badly affected and it is even possible to be banned for good from Google if you commit what they consider to be a serious offence. An example of this is people who set up a site that purports to sell one thing when actually they are really trying to sell something totally different.

These are just a few tips but there is quite a lot more to it than that. We will always be happy to discuss in detail the various ways of tackling this issue. We always do our utmost to get you good results with Search Engines by incorporating the most up to date, legitimate practices in the design of your web site.