Offering SEO as part of website design/development for a client

[BruceG]

Hello,
As a programmer offering website design and development to prospects and clients, my focus has been on getting a functional site up and running (concentration on design and artwork choices, coding up the HTML, Javascript, ASP, etc.).

But a question that invariably comes up is "Hey, when someone punches 'widgets in Philadelphia' into Google, will my company's website come up?". Admittedly, SEO is an aspect of the website development process where my elevator does not go to the top floor.

What can/should I do as a website programmer to be able to say to a client, "Yes, we do all that SEO stuff ..."

Any advice is much appreciated.

[Nightwalker83]

Hi,

What is SEO? Is it something I may need to learn about as part of my web development/deign career?

[BruceG]

SEO = Search Engine Optimization
(The technique involved in attempting to maximize the number of hits or visitors to one's website, by having the website come up near the top of the list when someone does a Google or Yahoo search. In other words, if I am a company selling widgets in Philadelphia, I would like my site to come up when someone searches for "widgets" or "widget vendors Philadelphia" in Google.)

[NeedSomeAnswers]

Page prominence in a Search Engine as i understand it is decided on mainly;

Meta Data - meta data in the sites pages, which lists search terms which you want your site to be associated with. With new algorithms in place at most of the search companies though you cannot just relay on meta data, and making sure you meta data is really relevant to your site is important.

Inbound links - google in particular (the others probably use something similar i don't know) uses a system of counting inbound links to your web page, so having other sites with links in to your web page will increase your pages ranking.

Text/Images inside pages - The Actual content of the pages themselves will be trawled and indexed by the search engine spiders. So just making sure that the actually text inside your pages actually spells out what the business does can make a difference.

I am sure that there are a number of other things that search engines now look for on top of these factors, Other members will probably expand upon this but they are certainly important.

One other thing to maybe look at is this - Google Sitemaps

[si_the_geek]

Some valid points there, but for clarification:

Meta data - should be relevant to the actual page (but can have some general site info too)

Inbound links - these are rated quite highly, but whether or not they are a good thing depends on the site that links to you (if it is a "link farm" they are a bad thing). If you can persuade a decent site that relates to the topic to link to yours, that is a very good thing.


The biggest things to worry about are things that I hope you do already for the benefit of your users, which is the text on the page (which should relate to the topic and use the keywords, especially at the start of the page), and the validity of the HTML etc (which you can check at http://www.w3schools.com/site/site_validate.asp ).


There are several tricks that people suggest (such as adding a block of hundreds of keywords with the same colour as the background), but you should avoid them like the plague - as soon as a search engine picks up on them the site will be blacklisted (or at least relegated to much further down the search results).

As search engines are constantly evolving, the ways to be listed higher become closer and closer to how a person would rank them - so the biggest concerns are the ones you would have anyway.


In terms of search engine specifics you should set up a Robots.txt file which gives the data they want (such as where to look), and submit to your site to each of the engines in whatever ways they support (for Google you can add a business on the map, as well as adding the site).

[mendhak]

The first thing you need to remember that SEO is an entire industry that has been built upon speculation. It's a set of techniques that self-ordained 'gurus' have come up with after experimenting with search engine results and rankings by modifying their pages. Therefore, you can never meet all of the requirements, you can only cater to a certain set.

If you write a good web page with proper markup and what are considered best practices, then you're already on your way to SEO design. (H1 headers, UL menus, you know the stuff). Pages should not be too heavy, cut down on your viewstate and move it to the bottom of the page (if you're on ASP.NET), and always test your sites with JavaScript disabled so that you know what the search engines are getting; if you use JS for fancy UI features, make sure it degrades gracefully.

[dilettante]

SEO is basically a cheat upon the public, shoving unwanted search hits in their faces by skewing and misrepresenting the actual content.

Things have gotten so out of hand due to SEO artists though that you almost have to play the game yourself to avoid being squeezed out of view. The Web has become nasty, overrun with con artists and pickpockets. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villiany.

[BruceG]

Guys, I appreciate your input. Generally, it has been my view that you do what you can as far as the web pages are concerned (the things you have mentioned, like meta tag keywords, appropriate page content, etc.). But am I correct in thinking the best way a small business owner can get the results they are looking for (i.e. "I want my site to come up near the top of the search results list") is to sign up with Google or Yahoo (or for that matter sites like Verizon Super Pages) for whatever level service their budget affords, and basically treat this as an advertising expense?

[dilettante]

As you suggest it isn't just the users who suffer but also Joe's Web Site trying to get a legitimate position in search rankings. Just paying the Danegeld may be the only shortcut.

[Nightwalker83]

@ BruceG

I don't know if this would be any help but I saw an ad on foxtel here (in Australia) where Yahoo were offering stuff like that for $199.

http://sem.smallbusiness.yahoo.com/s...abr=2022403519

I can't remember if tat was the url mentioned will update this post if otherwise. Yeah, I know you are from the US but since the info is on the web anyone can access it.

[BruceG]

Nightwalker -
This is what I was getting at - i.e. there are certain things that can be done with the web pages themselves, but to really control the positioning of your site, you sign on for paid promotion with Yahoo or Google, treating it like an advertising expense.
Guys, am I correct about this, or am I missing something still?

[Nightwalker83]

There are the so-called "free" advertising schemes which Yahoo and Google do! I used one a few years back to promote a site of mine.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

yes you can pay the search engine for your link to appear at the very top of search's, or down the right-hand side

That is what the "Sponsored Links" are in google for instance.

[mendhak]

Nightwalker -
This is what I was getting at - i.e. there are certain things that can be done with the web pages themselves, but to really control the positioning of your site, you sign on for paid promotion with Yahoo or Google, treating it like an advertising expense.
Guys, am I correct about this, or am I missing something still?

Yes, correct.

[Kasracer]

Just remember there are some practices that will get you black listed from Google and other search engines. Link bombing, for example, will get your site removed.

One of the biggest contributors on where your page shows up in Google Search Results is how many other websites link to yours. So some people thought it'd be a good idea to put links to specific sites everywhere including on spam sites that just link to itself or to other sites under the same control and they all circle link to themselves and your site. If a ton of sites like this put your link it will get you high into Google rankings before promptly being banned. I've even heard stories where companies wanted to run other companies into the ground and prompted their competition on these types of spam sites (which, I believe, can get you into trouble with the law but I'm not sure why / how).

Much of SEO stuff out there is BS. Meta tags... Google ignores most of them for rankings (but will use them for displaying descriptions). A good, clean site structure (usage of H1, H2, etc [b]correctly[/i]), a good amount of non-filler content and some affiliate links do wonders.