Search Engine Optimisation Web Log (BLOG)
Editor: Matt Paines

| This News Blog is dedicated to bringing news, information and innovations targeting the Search Engine Optimisation industry.

Will web designers ever get the message?

Like many of the major SEO's and consultants around the world, we have been pushing the industry to clean up its act. Back in 2000 when the original concept of XSEO was being formulated, one of the goals was to enlighten developers and website owners to the implications of getting the design structure wrong.

In February we participated in the Technology for Marketing Show at Olympia, London, for their "Search Clinic". It saddened us to report that despite all the efforts of individuals, companies and shows, 62% of those that approached us at the show had sites that fell into the trap of being completely inaccessible to search engine crawlers.
This week I've had a couple of conversations with a number of web developers. I was surprised by a couple of them. One said that many of their clients "aren't interested in marketing their sites"; whilst another said that they "gave the client what they asked for". Forgive the rant but I find this totally irresponsible.

Site owners are still making the same errors from 7 years ago, they are not specifying their requirements properly and they are letting web designers get away with it. When specifying the build of a website, the goal should be to make money out of its presence. This applies irrespective to whether it is there for lead generation or direct sales.

Using an analogy, a website is like a bill board nothing more. If you put your bill board down a side street, obscured and insignificant you cannot expect it to draw traffic or response. Of course the answer is to place the same bill board adjacent to a main highway. If you consider the search engines to be the highway, the place where the traffic is, why would any site owner not want to be there?

If your budget will allow, there is always the paid advertising route. Which isn't dependent on how a site is built, however as more organisations come in to the market the prices of Pay Per Click are set to go higher, requiring larger budgets year on year.

This is why long term Internet marketing strategies should always consider the natural search index, the primary means of controlling the long term Internet advertising costs.

When choosing a design agency, is it not just as important where your bill board is sighted. Forgetting SEO for a moment, because being found in search engines is bigger than the traditional understanding of guys in darkened rooms coding all day. It may come as a shock but just as a company's products or services need to be marketed, so do websites. This means they need to have activity around them. They need to be continually striving to generate content of value that sets them apart from the rest of the market; they need press release stories which then need syndicating.

So if marketing a site is one of the most critical elements, avoiding blind alleys has to be a priority - if you are specifying a web build take some time to look at how to implement best practice SEO.

M.P

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