A Note on Search Optimization
Most websites I am called to look at offer virtually nothing to attract the attention of a search engine - often absolutely nothing. I am forced to wonder about the approach that the designer has taken in putting the website together. And, I can only come to the conclusion that the designer was out for a quick buck and the way to expedite that buck was to do as little work as possible on the website.
Don’t think that the type of website mentioned above is restricted to the ‘computer whizzkid up the road’ website because often - in fact more usually, it’s the ad agencies that are guilty - not the $150 website but the $3000 website.
It’s neither difficult nor time consuming to prep a website so that search engines will take it seriously so why don’t most website designers do it. I think they think that the client will never know, will never look at the source code and that if they complain, there will be a bucketful of excuses that don’t involve the design.
The Pedant
There are flies in the ointment of course. These particular arthropods are those clients that insist on certain content being included - usually on the home page - verbatim. Such content is full of unnecessary adjectives and marketing hype that pollutes most websites and which therefore will only serve to irritate the visitor. Further, such turgid prose will simply add whitenoise to search indexing and minimize the effect of the few decent keyphrases about.
No matter how many times this type of client is told that such inclusion will incrementally compromise the website’s performance, they still insist. Six months down the line they complain about a lack of visitors and that - in the words of one client - their search ranking is ‘lower that a dachsund’s balls’.
I had one client who was an ex-creative director for some ad agency and who didn’t know that word procesing programmes had automatic carriage returns. The result was that the content arrived as dozens of short paragraphs, most of which started in the middle of the sentence left by the paragraph above. I actually put in the content just like that because I thought the client might be trying to be avant-garde. No, he didn’t understand Word.
Further Complications
Some clients, unhappy with their ranking or not wanting to wait, then go off and employ a ‘Search Engine Optimization specialist’ company.
Now, I don’t profess to even half understand SEO but I do know that the websites that I create, given the freedom I need, will do quite well in Google. I have had websites in the UK that have gone to #20 and above in a VERY competitive environment, even to position #5. This takes a little time, usually three months or so to settle down. After that, the competition can be scrutinized in more detail and changes made to the website. I have yet to see any marked result, beyond what I would have expected from the ministrations of an SEO company.
Part of my considered duties to my client is that of getting the website as high as possible in Google. However, once the website goes off to one of these places, I can do no more.