Naked Essence
Web Designs

Naked Essence Web Designs is a non-profit endeavor which provides web page design services at cost for select endeavors. 

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Web Page Design Philosophy

Low glitz / glamour AND high on content

We want to make it worth the web site visitor's time to visit the site.  High glitz & glamour usually is indicative of low content. It also requires computer resources that not everyone has, so it takes a long time to load glitzy pages. This makes the page less useful in the end.  Our bias is away from gawdy, glitzy and glamorous web designs and instead we work with our clients to provide the highest content on their web pages.   Some artwork may be appropriate, especially as it significantly supports the delivery of the content.  However, decorative trappings for there own sake are avoided. 

We focus on the bare essentials, or the naked essence of the message to be delivered, and attempt to deliver it as effectively as possible.

Broad usability of the site

We strive to make the site usable for the largest cross-section of folks.   We want to make the site accessible by those who are visually impaired.   Our staff has some insight into what makes sites less accessible to folks of certain visual impairments and are somewhat attuned to what might be an impediment to those with impairments other than their own.

Fruitful leads are our goal - comprehensive information is a key

One of the primary purposes of any web site is to provide a large number of fruitful leads for its owner (the client). The more information the client can give the better the client's leads are qualified and the less effort it will take the client to follow up on the leads.  So the staff of Naked Essence Web Designs will be trying to draw out more and more information from the client where they detect information voids.

Utilize the power of the web - links & relationships

We tend to heavily link pages and provide links to external sites.  We find properly executed links to be great aids to effectively navigating pages.  We find the most useful pages are the ones that not only provide meaty content themselves, but are also liberal in providing meaningful pointers to places where more and related information can be found.  Hyperlinks are part of the power of the web, so we strive to use that power effectively so that clients and users benefit.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does it mean to deliver your services "at cost"?

We do not charge for our time.  We only charge for expenses we incur on behalf of the development of the web page for the client.  This sorts of expenses might include things such as: long distance phone charges incurred consulting with the client, postage in returning printed material to the client, special software needed to meet the client's needs for their page, web page hosting and domain name rental fees (if applicable).   Costs for capital investments (e.g., web publishing software, additional disk space) may be amortized over time and across multiple clients.

We aren't out to make a profit.  We are out to help people get exposure and make connections on the web that might not otherwise do it.

What do you mean when you say you provide your services for "select endeavors"?

We aren't out to provide the service for everybody, but instead we are trying to support endeavors to which we feel a connection or for which we share some passion.   We aren't trying to make money, we are trying to support folks who are doing work that we think is important.

What if a client REALLY wants to provide you with some form of remuneration for your services?

If a client feels really strongly about wanting to provide some form of remuneration for our services then we will consider some form of barter or trade arrangement.   We prefer to trade "hours" of service and avoid cash transactions.

How can we make sure my web site gets listed well in searches of the web?

There are a plethora of urban/cyber myths about what it takes to get well-listed by search engines.  My experience has been, and studies have shown, that most people find sites more frequently through links from other, similar web (affinity) sites than they do from search engines.  So, right out the gate you should get from that that you should place your efforts in getting links to your web site from appropriate 'affinity' sites, before spending lots of time (and money) on getting well-listed by search engines.  Toward that end I generally try to get reciprocal links placed in high traffic affinity sites for my clients.  But my clients shouldn't rely solely on me to do this.  For example, many of my clients are breeders of Fell ponies.  You find that I get links to your sites placed at the following web sites (in addition to others): RareSteeds Fell Pony breed resources page, the Rosters of Fell Ponies in North America (where appropriate), Fell Pony Society's member directory, Fell Pony WebRing and The Open Directory Project's appropriate directory. Those clients belonging the the Fell Pony Society of North America should contact FPSNA about getting their web site listed in FPSNA's directories. The same applies to the web sites of other relevant local and regional organizations. 

Once you have exhausted yourself trying to get links to your web site from affinity web sites you can consider improving the degree to which your web site might be listed in web searches.  One thing to keep in mind is that there are generally long lead times in getting a web site into the databases of most search engines so you need to be patient.  Though one can spend money to improve a web site's standing in a search engine, the cost rarely returns much benefit unless you spend LOTS of money, so I don't recommend it.  There are many different search engines that use many different factors for ranking sites against any given search parameter.  In general the more relevant your site is to the material being sought you will be listed higher in a particular search.  Determining the relevance factor can be a bit of mojo to most, but in general I wouldn't recommend worrying about it.  Lots of effort has gone into cheating the relevance determinations, but most search engine 'bots' / 'crawlers' can detect them and will penalize sites who try to do that.  Just focus on providing relevant content for your topic area and you'll do okay in the final analysis.  

Another factor considered by many search engines is how well referenced your site is -- that is, how many sites have links to your site.  So, focusing on getting links from affinity sites will also help improve your standing in many search engines.  

Many search engines construct their source database from constantly crawling the web.  Often this 'dragnet' approach is augmented and focused by directories organized by topic areas.  One of the foremost examples of this is dmoz's open directory project.   The directories maintained by an army of volunteers are directly useful to web surfers.  In addition the directories are used to focus web crawlers for many of the major search engines, most notably Google.  So if you do nothing else make sure your web site is listed in the appropriate areas of the dmoz open directory project.  I am an editor of the section of the ODP dealing with Fell Ponies.  And as mentioned above one of the things I do for my Fell pony-related web site clients is make sure they are listed in the appropriate ODP directory.  

There are other search engines out there.  Many in fact.  And most of them have ways in which you can register your web site with them.  And most have ways you can purchase premium listings for varying degrees of cash.  My experience has been that unless you find the narrow target audience for that search engine to be VERY relevant to and utilized by the audience you are trying to address, that it isn't worth your time and effort to seek out these search engines and list with them.  

Our Work on the Web

The best way to understand the design philosophies articulated above is to view the work that manifests those philosophies.  Here are the web sites that have been developed by Naked Essence Web Designs:

Rare Equine Breeds

Citizen action

Supporting worthwhile endeavors

Just for fun

 

Page last updated: 28 Jun 2008
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