Tag Archive for web designers

04 Oct 2010
internet marketing • seo • small business

To Web Designers: Listen Up!


The great majority of websites that we get here at Eckweb are sites that have already been built and have already been online.  A great majority of those site owners claim that their web designer told them they know how to market their sites.

I have no way of knowing if this is actually true or not but I do know that the websites, for the most part are in no way optimized or prepared for the search engines.  Some aren’t even ready for the public, but that’s another story!

After speaking and consulting with multiple designers over the years I do believe that there’s a sense of  “it’s not important” – from the designers’ perspective.  Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m writing this post to once again emphasize how important every SEO factor truly is.

It’s Not Just Me Saying This

Here’s an excerpt by Adam Audette at SearchEngineLand.

We can think about SEO ranking elements as signals to a search engine. Each one of them communicates something to the engine, and is considered (or not) and applied to the internal algorithms. When all of these signals are pointing in the same direction, powerful things can happen.

This is especially well illustrated with the problem of duplicate content and canonicalization. There are several ways sites can communicate to the engines which URL is to be treated as the canonical, including:

  • 301 redirects
  • XML sitemaps
  • rel canonical tags
  • Internal linking
  • External linking

Think for a moment about a typical website. It is likely to have many pages linking internally with multiple versions of URLs. The classic home page problem, for example, where sites often link to both mydomain.com and mydomain.com/index.html, is quite common. That doesn’t begin to cover the potential duplication that occurs on the enterprise level with large, complex websites and dynamic content.

This article speaks more about Canonicalization issues but the take home message is the same.  The details of SEO are extremely important when it comes to marketing websites.  If there are 200 different ranking factors that Google takes into consideration, and your competitor has fulfilled 130 of them but your website has only fulfilled 70 of them.  Well, guess who’s going to rank higher?


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28 Mar 2010
internet marketing • seo • small business

Creating Websites That Work


It’s true that many website designers are not SEO webmasters and vice versa.  I never call myself a website designer.  Although I know how to take websites apart and put them back together.  Those skills do not make me a designer.

But, if you’re a website designer, there is no reason why you shouldn’t, or couldn’t create websites for your customers that can eventually be marketed on the Internet.  Not only will your customers reap the rewards of a website that works FOR them, but you will also reap the rewards of referrals from your customers as well as additional work from your customers!  Can’t get more win-win than that!

One of my favourite blogs, SEO Design Solutions came up with 10 tips on how to build a website with SEO in mind…

  1. Start with a theme (meaning your market and the top level keywords).
  2. Use Keyword Research to build that theme into the site navigation, internal links, tags and naming conventions.
  3. Determine what the tipping point is for the top 5 competitors and exceed them using time-released content.
  4. Leverage internal links to select preferred landing pages.
  5. Build a stable base of off page links from trusted sources first, and then ensure a fresh supply of relevant ongoing links.
  6. Build pages properly the first time “optimal” using a pliable CMS system which does all the SEO / heavy lifting by default.
  7. Use keyword research to integrate less competitive keywords (branches of the root phrase) into supporting posts, pages and off page content (then go back to point #3).
  8. Keep site architecture flat and make sure to link to a sitemap for that segment of the site (if you use categories).
  9. Make changes to older / trusted pages – If ranking priorities change, go back and edit and add additional links and content to leverage pages 4 months or older to link to new pages with supporting keywords.
  10. Measure the results and rinse and repeat.

Granted, some of these are the responsibility of the SEO webmaster, but as a designer you should be aware of what will be happening with the website you created.


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14 Sep 2009
internet marketing • seo • small business

Websites Are Not Billboards


For all you web designers and programmers and webmasters out there – how many of your clients work with you during the web building process and then once it’s over, that’s it – you never hear from them again?

Yep, even if they’re “marketing” their websites?

For all you website owners out there who are paying SEO and Internet Marketing firms money to “market” your websites – how often are you sending in changes?  How often are you updating your sites?  When’s the last time you were asked for more information for your site?

If the answer is “no one has asked me” – then your website is not really being marketed.  Oh, they may be submitting it to engines and directories and linking back to it from an article or a blog post – but there’s no new data – no new “juice” for the search engines to be attracted to.

Think about it – search engines are just machines.  Their job is to scan website pages and gather data from these pages.  One of the tidbits of data that they gather is the structure and words of the website page.  Once they have a “scan” of that page, the next time they come back to that page they compare the new “scan” with the old “scan”.  If there are no changes in the scan, guess what, you lose a point or two.  If there are changes in the “scan” you gain a point or two.

Yes, it’s just one out of 100 factors but if the large companies like Coca Cola and Hallmark and Sears and just about any other large company you can think of feels that they need to change their websites often, what makes you think that you can get away without changing yours?

Websites are not billboards.  They are meant to evolve, to grow, to change.  So, if your web designer or webmaster or SEO firm gives you ideas about adding to your website – take them up on it.  It can only work for you!!


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11 Jun 2009
internet marketing • seo

SEO and Website Aesthetics


I make it a point to put on my contract a statement about the fact that the website MAY be altered, aesthetically speaking, in the process of it’s optimization.  I ask the client to initial that they read that statement.

Yet (you know it’s coming!)

I still get phone calls and emails AFTER I’ve worked on the website from the client who informs me that he/she was not aware the look of the site would change and why did I change it and how can we keep the old style and why does it have to be changed and why can’t we keep all 52 photos on one page and why can’t we keep the pages with just one line of text and so on!

So, I thought I would take some time to explain what the reason is for altering the aesthetics of a website in order to get it ready for the search engines.

1) Coding – this is the number one reason many website designs end up being altered, the coding on the initial site is not well suited for the search engines.  I’m talking about Java Script, use of tables, use of <font> tags and inappropriate use of <b> and/or <strong> tags.  I’m talking about websites with tables inside of tables, inside of tables, etc.  All that excess coding is old and cumbersome.  Clean it up for the search engines and you’ll have a better chance of ranking higher in the engines.

2) Architecture – where the website files sit in the website is important.  Websites should be broken down like a department store.  Think about it, when you walk into Macy’s (or any other department store) there are multiple “stores” inside of that store.  There’s the lingerie department, the household goods department, the men’s department, the children’s department, etc.  Websites are the same.

If your website is about your law practice, then you need to divide the website into the multiple departments (services) that you provide.  So, you may have a section about real estate law, another about divorce, another about personal injury.  Then within each of these sections you would have pages about the different services you can provide related to those sections.  Something like follows…

Real Estate Law
a) foreclosures
b) landlord problems / tenant problems
c) evictions

Divorce
a) child custody issues
b) alimony issues
c) men’s rights

Personal Injury
a) motorcycle accidents
b) workplace accidents
c) workers compensation rights

By creating “departments” within your website and then filling the departments with the appropriate information for each department, you’re basically letting the search engines know that your site is not only structured, but it’s organized and provides appropriate data.

3) Usability – too many website owners get stuck in the concept that they must have that specific color blue or that they need 3 columns or that certain text has to be in certain places.  The truth of the matter is, website design is often dictated by the actions of the users.  In other words, if the website has 3 columns and the exit rate from this page is 90% and length of time spent on the page is less than 2 seconds – then something may be wrong with the design of the page.  Why do so many only stay 2 seconds on the page and then leave?  Is the information difficult to read?  Is there no call to action?  Does the information not match with the keyword phrases for the page?  All these issues have to be found out and the only way to do that is to analyze the monthly statistics and make changes and then test the pages.  Repeat this process over and over and eventually, you’ll be able to reduce the exit rates and increase the length of time spent on the page.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is don’t get stuck on the aesthetics of the site.  Beautiful websites are hard to create but really, no matter how beautiful you may think a website is, if it doesn’t bring money in to the business, what’s the point?  You can hire the most beautiful secretary for your company, but if she can’t type or answer the phone, then what’s the point?


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