In 2006, a Canadian research team conducted a study to try and ascertain how short a time it took for human visitors to sum up a webpage. And the results were startling!

1/20th of a second can be a killer

The team began by showing 50 millisecond glimpses (that's 1/20th second) of webpages to the participants, then had them rate the webpages in terms of their aesthetic appeal. Then they let them see the same pages for a much longer periods and had them rate the pages again. Surprisingly, the results were very close. The conclusion is shocking to us as designers (and should also impact anyone with a website as well)...

According to the results in the study, you have 1/20th second before a visitor decides your sites flies or dies in their thinking!

This makes choosing a designer with good design and layout skills so critical. Forget fancy "gadgets" on your site, even quality content doesn't matter at this point. If you site turns off a visitor, then they may not even see your content - they're hitting the back button!

Of course, they will see the page they navigated to, the hand can't move that fast, but

I'm often amazed just how easily the simple, and obvious, things trip us up or cause a disconnect. It's no different with websites. Here are 10 seemingly obvious things that can really stoke the fires of credibility on your website.

1. Easy verification of site information

When you've written articles, invariably there are times, often many times, when you've used a source to help build the content. SO provide your content third party support in the way of citations, references, or links to original content. It's shows YOU have confidence in your material.

2. Be a "real" organization

Ever been to a site trying to find contact info and all you get is a web form? Seems a little shady, right? If I come across this sort of thing, I invariably hit the close button on the window. I figure they can't be very reputable if they have to hide their contact info. So give your phone number, a physical address, perhaps a photo of your offices (exterior), and also include any relevant associations you belong to.

3. Showcase your organization's expertise

If you have experts in your company, or your site contributors are, give their credentials. List any affiliation

Considering how I encourage all my clients to blog, it was with dismay that I looked at my December 2013 last post date! Ouch! I'd plead the 5th, but I'm not sure that covers this. I do have some sort of excuse... really!

At the beginning of January 2014 we moved down to Phoenix, AZ, so most of December was spent packing up, and most of January unpackign what we'd just packed. Except for all the stuff that got stolen... thanks for that whoever you are, I hope my clothes fit...or not!

So we're now settling into a slower paced life in Phoenix than it was in Sacramento. Everyone keeps asking if we like the heat and "You just wait till summer!" We'll see, as we both love the heat.

So that's my excuse for being slack at getting to this. My other part of this little post is something I knew I should do, never got round to myself, but just got done - cleaning up my computer. We all know that, over time, our computers get slower from a build up of all the broken linking, temporary junk, etc, but rarely do we do a good clean up.

I guess I'm getting ahead of myself by assuming you know what keywords, or phrases, actually are. In a nutshell, they're the words or phrases people are using in their searches to find you, or businesses like you. So, for me, that's phrases like "website design", "web site design", "web development".

Often, there's a tendency to want to rank for EVERY keyphrase you can think of or keyphrases that are too vague. Examples of vague keyphrases/words are (again, using myself as an example) design, internet, marketing. Design could be architectural, graphic, boat, aeroplane, automobile!

So here's 5 questions to ask yourself about your keywords & phrases BEFORE you talk to your website designer.

1. How would you describe what you do?
2. In your opinion, what makes your product or service special? What makes you different from your competitors? In other words, what's your USP (Unique Selling Point)?
3. What services or products do you consider similar, but aren't your competitors?
4. Which of your services or products are most profitable for you? Are there any reasons why you would want to push one over another (seasonal, inventory, location, etc)?
5. Pick you top 10 keywords (in your opinion).

Once you've answered these questions you