I checked the DNS settings on the server. I did traceroutes from my computer. I went to websites in other parts of the country and did traceroutes. I pinged. I double-checked and triple-checked the nameservers. Everything was exactly right, and I was tearing my hair out trying to figure out why the client couldn’t reach his own site.

Finally, it struck me: The client was searching for the site, using the search box on Yahoo and Comcast.

Once I told him that his site not indexed yet (because it’s brand new), and that he needed to enter the URL directly into the browser’s address bar — voila! Problem solved.

This is one to file away to deal with future “can’t reach my site” issues.

Note to website designers and developers: If you ever have clients who can’t reach their site, check to see if they’re searching for it.

Web sites need to contain good content. It doesn’t matter how many people “ooh” and “aah” over how pretty your site is. If visitors don’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll go elsewhere.

Web sites need to be functional and usable. If your site contains exactly what your visitors are looking for, but they can’t find it because of a random, incomplete, or incoherent navigational structure, they’ll go elsewhere. If visitors find what they’re looking for, but when they fill out your contact form and hit “submit” they get an incomprehensible error message, they’ll go elsewhere.

Web sites need to be spiderable by search engine spiders, so that they can be found. If your site is extremely functional and usable, and contains great content, but your potential clients/customers can’t find you when they search for your product or service, they’ll go elsewhere.

Each of these factors can — and do — have entire books written about them. And there’s much more. In this brief post I’ve barely touched on the essential components of an effective web site. The web site owner shouldn’t need to become an expert in all of these things. But the web site developer should absolutely have more than a passing familiarity with all of the aspects of effective web site development, or should work with people who do.

Every day I see web sites developed by so-called “professionals,” for paying clients, that don’t even come close. I see sites in which every single page is a giant sliced-up graphic exported in toto out of Photoshop. I see sites that use Flash for all internal site navigation. I see sites that use frames and iframes for all or most of the site’s primary content. I see sites that have the same title and description for every single page. I see sites that return a “200 OK” header instead of a “404 Not Found” for non-existent pages. I see sites with plenty of pretty pages but virtually no content. Sometimes I see all of these things in a single site!

Attention, web site owners, and those in need of web sites: Tropical Web Works is not the only web site development firm that can develop an effective, functional site for your business. But please bear these points in mind and ensure that whoever you do hire understands these basic concepts.

Pam is not navigating directly to the web site she wants. She is searching for that web site, even though she knows the exact domain. She searches, and the site appears at the top of the search results, and she clicks the link to go to the site. This happens all the time. I see the results in the logfiles, too — the logfiles show me when someone has conducted a search for a domain and then clicked the domain in the search results to get there. Every time I see it, I shake my head in amazement.

This behavior is probably a symptom of “satisficing,” a term coined to refer to something that may not be ideal, but works sufficiently well for a person that they’re not willing to learn a better way. People are used to using that ubiquitous Google Toolbar for everything, or they perceive “the Internet” as being whatever they can get to through their Yahoo homepage. They are simply not aware of any other method of navigation.

Regardless of why this behavior occurs, it means that web site owners, who go to a lot of time and effort to promote their web sites, need to make darn sure that their site comes up at the #1 spot in a search for their domain.

I just signed on a new client this week, to do a complete redevelopment of an existing web site. The current site is so badly constructed that it does not come up #1 in Google in a search for the domain. It doesn’t even turn up in the first 5 pages of Google in a search for the domain. The site is #1 in MSN and Yahoo — but not in the first 5 pages of Google! This is a site that’s been around for several years — there’s no aging delay or sandbox effect at work here. There aren’t many guarantees in the world of search engines, but I will have this site turning up at #1 in Google in a search for the domain before long.

Another site I’m currently developing, a brand-new site, brand-new domain, registered for the first time 2 months ago and not yet fully indexed in any of the big 3 search engines, turns up #1 in all 3 search engines in a search for the domain. That is as it should be. There is no excuse for anything else.