Affordable Web Site Design This case study is an excellent example of affordable web site design. An affordable, yet effective web site design begins with simplicity.  An easy to navigate site, quick loading, and one that offers useful content can do wonderfully. Many website designers, and site owners alike, are often misled into believing that a site needs to be flashy to attract visits.  Adding elements like music and animated opening pages might be cool for 2-seconds, but most people find that these elements add to their downloading time and are ultimately rather pointless in relation to the content for which they are searching.  In fact, for sites with such elements, the most used options are often the volume control or the "Skip Intro" link. These "entertainment" elements, as we'll call them, are confusing to the search engines and can lower or even prevent search engine rankings.  Not to mention, adding considerably to a website design cost. "If you build it...", as the movie-line goes, "they will come," but only through providing useful content will visitors be able to find you at the search engines. Focusing on your content will play a much more critical role in determining your overall successes, or failures, on-line than fancy design elements. Your website content allows you an opportunity to use the all-important keywords that will ultimately direct visitors to your website.  The rule of thumb is to repeat these keywords 4-6 times per paragraph.  While this might sound impossible, it can be accomplished by limiting the number of keywords used per page.  For example, if "Golf Courses" is an important keyword phrase, along with "Golfers", "Golf Clubs", "Tiger Woods", "PGA", etc., spread the use of these keywords and phrases over a number of different website pages.  The search engines will still find these keywords, provided you offer navigable links, without being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of varied keywords.  Instead they will be able to focus on only those keywords used within a particular web page. Case in point, Michiana Golf was launched in 1999 as an aid to golfers in Southwest Michigan and Northwest Indiana for making the most of their limited golf season.  Southwest Michigan and Northwest Indiana is a remarkable location for golfers as there are MORE THAN 120 golf courses within a 1-1.5 hours drive, offering many golfing opportunities.  But a limited golf season combined with the vast number of golf courses, makes finding these wonderful golfing opportunities a challenge in and of itself.  This was the driving force for starting the Michiana Golf website ... fulfilling an established need. The Michiana Golf website has grown and now serves hundreds of golfers each day ... throughout the year, with such useful content as golf course listings (including directions and weather forecasts), daily golf jokes & tips, golf specials, and more.  And if the weather is too bad to golf outside, you can always play golf on-line at the Michiana Golf website. Providing useful content will be key to the success of your website. On MichianaGolf.com, their daily "PageViews" easily exceed "900" pages served -- of localized golf information.  According to the various search engines, there are hundreds of web pages that link to MichianaGolf.com ... helping these all-important "PageViews" increase. In addition, Michiana Golf has received numerous awards for design with newspaper articles, television and radio coverage for their content. To quote one article ... It's phenomenal to have so many golf courses within a single area and with so many famous people playing them, including Ben Crenshaw, Curtis Strange, Jack Nicklaus, Michael Jordan, Mike Ditka, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Tom Kite, Tom Watson, and many others. The region's prominence in the golf world contrasts with less awareness locally, but the Michiana Golf website is changing that awareness for the better. Lighthouse Colorprint designed Michiana Golf with a very simple, but eye-catching, "Golf Course" background, added easy to navigate text links, and helpful golf content with a community benefit component. Put Lighthouse Colorprint to work for you!  Please contact us for additional information. Website Design  |  Full Color Printing  |  Standard Printing  |  Home Page  |  Contact Us