UK Web Site Design and Search Engine Optimisation
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation (or in the case of a practitioner, Search Engine Optimiser). Unfortunately, there are many debates including within the SEO community itself as to actual definition that can be attributed to the term SEO. Let’s try to clear it up a little.
Strictly speaking SEO is concerned with only one thing and that is ranking well within the search engines. That is it. Nothing more.
Don’t let others drag you into a fight over anything further. The only thing that SEO is concerned with is getting to the top of the search engines. It does not care about usability, design, and certainly not conversions. The problem arises with companies that say they provide SEO but then also provide other services such as usability, design, etc.
SEO as a Discipline
In an ideal world, SEO should by rights be regarded more as a discipline than an actual career. Every web designer, usability expert, online marketing professional and anyone that develops or maintains a website should learn at least some degree of SEO. In much the same way that you would expect your developer to know the basics of html, graphic work and usability, they should also know the basics of how to optimise web sites for search engines.
So why does SEO appear to have a cottage industry all to itself? To begin with SEO tends to cross over a lot of borders. Search engine optimisation can focus on navigation and site structure, linking strategies, trusted feeds, pay per click (PPC) campaigns, content writing, online marketing or programming. Traditionally these jobs would be performed separately by the designer, marketer, copywriter or programmer.
However, since these tasks have moved onto the web many of these roles have not evolved quickly enough to cope with the demands of the new medium. This has left room for the SEO who specialises in working on the web to take advantage of the skill sets that the more traditional roles have yet to develop and roll them into one.
Types of SEO
So what sort of areas can search engine optimisers look at to help improve my website. The first place many look is at the code. If the way a website is programmed is not search engine friendly, then there is very little else that can help. Once the code has been examined, then the SEO may decide on several options.
The SEO may suggest methods of rewriting the website code so as to allow the search engines to index the site. Another suggestion might be to have the pages included within the search engines via pay for inclusion or trusted feeds.
Once the website can be indexed by the search engines, the SEO will likely look at the site structure, navigation and content. They may make suggestions as to keywords and how to target them properly within the context of your pages. They might also look at previous site statistics (such as logfiles, conversion rates, etc) to see if there are any further improvements that can be made.
When the SEO has finished with any on-site changes they will typically turn to off-site influences. One form of this can be seen with pay per click campaigns at places like Overture or Google. Basically, you pay a certain amount for each person that goes to your website through an advert that appears on certain search engines results pages. Please be aware that this doesn’t mean that the website will appear within the actual search listings.
It can also mean looking at linking strategies in order to increase the importance of the website through other sites linking back to it. This could be through the use of online directories, reciprocal links, or other various other ways that people have of linking between sites.
Traditional Attitudes
One problem with the traditional methods in which web design is taught is that SEO is ignored or only included as a footnote. Many developers are taught how to create nicely designed page layouts and then move on to more hardcore programming techniques. Then once the developers have learnt enough to be able to create a website, they are told to simply submit the website to the search engines almost as an afterthought.
This mentality is somewhat leftover from the dotcom boom, when people thought that all you had to do was simply build a fantastic website and visitors would flock to it. The problem was that unless you had the money for a traditional advertising campaign nobody could find the website because it was not search engine friendly.
Avoiding Costly Redesigns
In order to avoid costly redesigns, SEO is a skill that needs to be incorporated from the very beginning. As an example, a common problem that many developers don’t recognise is that search engine robots can only follow simple navigation. If the search engine can’t find its way around a website, then it will only index the pages that it can find. This may mean that the search engine will only have the main homepage listed, despite the fact that the website has hundreds of pages of good solid content.
This kind of problem is usually only discovered after a website has been launched, but because it is such a fundamental issue it can be costly to remedy, possibly requiring the whole website to be redesigned. And this type of problem is not limited to the navigation. There are many areas of programming and structure that may affect the way in which search engines can index a website.
A Warning
A short word of warning about search engine optimisation and its practitioners. If you plan on outsourcing your SEO, then find out how the company plans to go about it. There are many spurious tactics that people can use in order to get your website to rank well.
Whether you want to use these tactics or not is down to the level of risk that you are willing to take. Make sure that everything is explained to your satisfaction in advance, including any possible repercussions, so that you can make up your own mind.
The Future of SEO
Until there comes a time when all developers know how to create websites which are search engine friendly and marketers learn how to run trusted feeds and PPC campaigns, there will always be a niche left open for SEO specialists.
Search engine optimisation can (and should!) be learnt, but it requires some time and effort. If you would rather consult a professional, ask around and find out who knows their stuff and can work to your style. Whichever way you choose, the payoff from SEO will be more than worth the cost.