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As many SEO’s, out there know, trying to optimise existing sites can be a real pain, especially when the client is adamant that the design and layout of the pages remain untouched. Thankfully more and more people these days are including SEO experts in the earlier stages of the website development, process.
Ross Dunn is one of many SEO experts to comment on the massive benefits that can be gained from involving SEO advisors as well as designers and internal business process staff in the early stages of the creating of your site. Dunn’s article on involving an SEO in the design process explains many of the advantages that thinking ahead like this can give you. Scott Clark has also written a great piece about this, which I recommend you read.
All too often in the past, clients of web designers used to rush into getting a web presence, and consequently did not take the time and effort to go through a proper consultation process. Now clients see a web presence as less of a status symbol and more of a genuine opportunity, to open up a whole new sector and target for their market.
Getting the balance of SEO and design, into the structure of the site itself is difficult enough without having to chop and change it in future to meet various ranking and business requirements. This is why having all parties involved in creation of the site meet up at a number of times during its development make more sense than getting in a company to fiddle around with someone elses work (don’t forget some of us designers are proud of our work!).
Lets not forget that poor planning, means you may miss out business opportunities.
Websites have more use than just static advertising and e-commerce; you could use your website as a medium for resource sharing between remote branches/offices, databases, CRM, CMS among many other features. You really do need to make sure that your site specification is all in place before you start moving forward. Your designer and SEO can often help you with this as they know the capabilities of web technology, make sure you take their advice onboard. It doesn’t matter if this changes your plans at this stage, it will prevent problems arising from changing your specification midway through, or worse, after the site is finished and live.
Once you have got all the consultation and specifications sorted you can feel relaxed in the knowledge that once your site is finished it will have all the functions in place, a good SEO framework integrated within a design which you are happy with. The great thing about being prepared like this is that it was all done without having to run around between designer and SEO and you wont have to pay anything extra for corrective work that could have been avoided.
Your SEO is likely to be working with you and your site for a long time so just remember that it is best to keep a good working relationship with them by not making their lives difficult in the early stages of development!
If you’ve been following any kind of tech news this week, you’ll probably be aware that Microsoft have bid $44.6 billion for their internet rivals, Yahoo.
While many analysts feel this is way above the real worth of Yahoo and the shareholders are rubbing their hands with glee, there seems to be one small fact that has been forgotten.
That is: Yahoo own a stake in Google. Despite selling a chunk of their shares in August 2004, as far as I can see Yahoo still owns plenty of stock in Google.
Microsoft buying Yahoo would effectively mean that Bill Gates’ company will own a stake in Google.
How the guys at the Googleplex would feel about this isn’t recorded, but I think we can guess.
I recently found this article which highlighted some of the most common mistakes with SEO projects. While it explains SEO in its more basic forms, it is based in firm princpals which can act as a very useful guide for beginners and more experienced SEOs.
However, it also raises points that affect not only SEO but also general web design. As I have written in a previous post, getting the right balance between Design and SEO is key not only to visitor retention, but also to rankings themselves. Many designers and search engine optimisers overlook the balance between design and search engine optimisation.
It is good to see there are still people out there that advocate keeping sites simple as the way forward!
Isn’t it becoming scary that no matter what you seem to search for on Google these days, Wikipedia is the #1 expert and has all the answers you are looking for?
Search Google for information on Pathology, apparently Wikipedia is more relevant than the Royal College of Pathologists.
Search Google for information on Presidential Elections, Wikipedia is more relevant than official news sites and sites for the Democratic Party & the Republican party.
You’ll find the same for Chicked Fried Steak, Wikipedia can tell you what it is, but Recipe and general interest sites dedicated to it are all somehow judged to be of less relevance. Even if you are searching for information about Cancer, Wikipedia is the #1 result.
While Wikipedia and other Web 2.0 sites can provide a wide variety of information and can draw from a vast knowledge base, the content can often be biased or inaccurate to a varied extent. When you are searching for this information in an academic context, such as in a topical journals or publications, you know what to expect and you formulate your own opinion on that work because you know that it is based on one person or organisation’s work.
However, when Joe Blogs is looking for an answer in Google, nine times out of ten he will take the info provided in the first result as a given. This isn’t a problem if the first result is a reputable and respected site written by knowledgeable professionals. The problem arises when the #1 result is a Wiki page that could have been written by absolutely anyone. Don’t get me wrong, for the most part the information is often generally correct, but there is so much room for error, it is hard to know when to accept or contest what is written without going to a genuinely knowledgeable source (In which case, why is this site not the top listing).
Let’s not forget that dedicated sites also contain more information, better references and, depending on the topic, can also provide a broader spectrum of related information.
So if Wikipedia and the like don’t contain the most relevant, most respectable and most complete information on your search terms, why do Google rank it in the top 3 consistently?
Wikipedia is condered an authority site by Google due to the huge amount of links it has generated both internally and externally. It also had a huge content base which spans many thousands of pages and covers pretty much any topics you can imagine (as well as some you can’t). The authority status given by Google has resulted in unusually large pagerank filtering down to the individual pages giving a false impression of importance.
So while Wikipedia may be a good general source of information, it is not the authority site for the majority of the topics it covers, though this is not reflected by the high rankings its pages receive.
Tanner Christensen has written an interesting article which raises the issue of people taking what is written on the internet for granted.
If Tanner is right, this means that people are taking the first result of their Google search and basing their knowledge on what they read. If that first result is a Wikipedia page written by Joe Bloggs who is no more qualified to write about it than the next random person we have a problem.
Is Google’s ranking of Wikipedia the problem or are the users to blame? Perhaps the Wiki contributers are to blame? Or is there any problem with this at all? What do you think?
John Krycek has written an interesting article highlighting the problems that arise when SEO and Design are not both integrated during the design of a website.
He raises some interesting issues on the individual importance of SEO and Aesthetic Design as well as the pitfalls of failing to address one of these two issues. One of the more important issues he raises is that of knowing exactly what you are designing the site for in the first place.
Recognising exactly what you are designing your site for is often overlooked by many people, especially those who have not got web experience (i.e. company directors etc). Krycek’s article successfully points out how stripping down a site to the bare necessities can often help determine what the site really needs in order to meet its objectives for being.
Rather than getting caught up in flashy designs or unreasable SEO-friendly copy, it pays to think about your target audience and how they will reach your site and react when (or if) they get there. Getting the balance is important, though making sure that the site can actually do what you really need it to is just as paramount in its importance.