SEO first Web Design second

Posted on 27. Jan, 2010 by Pete Hollier in Search Optimization

A typical scenario: First Contact

An email arrives or the phone rings and a potential client is on the other end. So often the conversation is something like:

1. "I have a web site it has been up for sometime but it is not getting much traffic what can we do"
2. "We have just completed a redesign of our web site and it has been online for 3 or 4 months and it is just not meeting our business objectives"

So the first thing to do here is obviously visit the web site to have a look at what is going on. More often than not my first reaction is "Oh no!". The main reason for this is so often some sort of revisions are necessary adding costs to any project. In addition to this you can be reasonably sure the client thinks their web site is fantastic.

So first up the SEO Consultant is the bearer of bad news, obviously not the best way to start a new business relationship. But what are the choices? There are none, the only way to move forward and ensure clients benefit from a Web Site Performance Program is to be brutally honest about the current state of the web site.

Why is this scenario so common?

When I come across this so often I have to take a good look at things, and ponder the reason why. Now this is nothing new and for some time I just have put this down to poor advice from some of the web designers involved in the projects.

In some cases I have been told by clients that the web developer has completed SEO on the site, which further confuses them on why the site’s performance is so poor. Sometimes there has been some minimal SEO done, some Titles completed and some sort of keyword optimization within the META tags, in other cases there is no evidence of any Search Optimization being completed at all.

I found the answer in the past couple of weeks.

I recently had reason to visit a large sampling of web designer’s web sites, I’m talking about 200 over a period of a week or two and what I found was to say the least, disturbing.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

As with any profession there are always the good, the bad, and the ugly, and web design is no exception. Don’t get me wrong there is without doubt some superb web site design company’s however, considering the sites I visited the number of basic errors and poor design were far higher than the sites which offered great design, information architecture, navigation and myriad of other standard usability issues.

All to often I found some very basic errors which just did not meet the expected standards of today’s savvy Internet users. These include:

• Splash Pages (click here to enter): Splash pages are a so antiquated I was stunned to come across several of these on designer’s web sites
• Flash: I like Flash as much as the next person some of the effects are fantastic, but to be brutally honest when visiting web sites trying to accomplish a task I have much better things to do than watch the percentage download scale. And as for SEO well I think web site owners are becoming aware of the drawbacks Flash have on their Search Engine Viability.
• Navigation: All to often I entered a site only to sit there idle while I determine how to find important pages such as About or Contact. If I cannot find these standard type pages, how am I ever going to easily navigate and find the content which is important to a business if designed by these designers?
• Contact Forms: In most cases the contact forms were requesting to much information and did not provide any indication of a Privacy Statement. Considering in most cases the contact form is a first contact I see no reason why it should be necessary to include addresses and other personal information. A Name, Email and contact phone number is all that is required for an initial inquiry any more, and all to often visitors balk at providing private information.
• Page Clutter: Where to look? With so many options suffering from eye overload did become a problem with so many of these sites. Design in so many cases seemed to over rule Web Usability.

First step: SEO

If your considering implementing a new web site or redesigning an existing site make your first step in the process contacting a Search Optimization Professional. There are so many elements of Search Optimization required to ensure a web site is Search Engine Friendly, that having SEO as a first contact is essential to ensuring the site is developed in a Search Engine Friendly manner from the outset, to avoid additional revision costs at a later date.

The first step of any new or redesign should be consideration to what keywords are relevant to your audience. These form the basis of your content, URL’s and Page Titles among other elements. Of course there are endless other considerations, but Keyword Research and Analysis should be prioritized from the beginning.

A Broad Holistic View

Personally I take a broad view of web site performance. Without doubt a good web designer can make all the difference to the performance of the web site. I do like the term holistic to describe any web site program. Web Design and development requires so many varied elements to work in unison and support each other to create a web site that is usable, findable and meets the goals and objective of the business.

Want to use this content on your web site?

If you would like to use this article on your web site please contact pete@seowizardry.ca for an html version. All I request is you provide Pete Hollier and Seo Wizardry with a reference to this article and provide a link back to www.seowizardry.ca