So your new web designer is optimizing for search engines, eh?
I titled this blog in honor of Joe Ford, who often is mistaken for a Canadian. To clear things up, Joe is not a Canadian, but he does really like hockey.
Anyhow, I've noticed a recurring theme when talking to some development companies lately, as well as individuals who are either in the process of, or have just recently re-designed their website. Getting that new website live is an exciting thing. Ours is getting ready to go live, too, so trust me when I say I understand the feeling. But, getting the site live may not be the shot in the arm you thought it was going to be.
Why? Well, remember when your designer said they make search engine friendly websites? Turns out, this means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Let me just run down a few variations that I've heard lately:
- The developer provides you with a CMS that allows you to have control over basic SEO properties like meta data. Particularly if they don't actually do some research and input this for you (or tell you what to input) there's really no value in this "SEO". You have been given a shell and you need to create the structure. Nearly all content management systems now allow you to manage basic functions like meta data. Needless to say, unless you, or someone else takes the time to do keyword research and write meta data and page content, your provider has done nothing for you in terms of search engine optimization.
- Your designer runs some form of compliance check or code validation (WC3 for example). These can be helpful to make sure you don't have any gratuitous errors that will upset the search engines, but it's just a precaution, not something that will actively help you rank higher.
- The developer will do sitemap and/or search engine submission. Finally, something that might show some benefits. However, this is pretty rudimentary and doesn't take much to do. Nor will it show any significant results in industries that are even moderately competitive. One nice feature, though, is that doing site map submissions to Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer and MSN's Webmaster Center will provide you a wealth of information as to how well your site is being index, identify potential issues, and even show you some of your rankings (this can be very useful for newer sites to see what terms you are initially having success with that you may not have specifically targeted).
- Directory submission(s). An oldie but still a goodie. If your provider does this, it can certainly show some results. Quality directories like Dmoz and Yahoo have good page rank and can provide strong back links. But once again, it may take a lot of link building to really achieve strong rankings, so don't think a couple basic submissions are going to be a magic bullet. This can, however, provide nice groundwork for ongoing optimization.
So, with this in mind, don't be afraid to ask a few questions to your developer as to just what type of "optimization" they really provide. Most likely, even the companies that are providing components with tangible benefits are onlytaking the first step in what will be an ongoing mission of link building and site optimization.
About Joe Ford
Joe Ford is a Managing Partner at Netvantage Marketing. In addition to overseeing day to day business operations of Netvantage, he directs paid search strategy for over 14 paid search clients. Ford is on the Lansing Chamber Board of Directors, and the Executive Board of the Capital Area IT Council.
Tags: more than meta data, questions to ask about search engine optimization, real seo, search engine submission, seo for a new website, website optimization
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