5 Common SEO Web Design Mistakes

November 16th, 2009 by Frank Piacitelli

Search engine optimization has been a much-discussed topic in web design and development for several years now. Yet, there are some fairly simple design and coding errors that we still see fairly often:

1. Neglecting Page Titles
   Every web page has a title, but it’s often overlooked, as it doesn’t appear on a page’s content area. Rather, it appears at the very top of the browser window. It also appears in Google search results, and it carries significant weight in search ranking. Sometimes the title is left out of a web page’s source code altogether. In these cases, usually the name of the browser (“Mozilla Firefox” for example) is displayed at the top of the browser window. Worse, some web design or development applications will put in a default page title such as “Untitled Document.”  Many websites do include page titles, but use the same title for every page. Of course, this saves a lot of time in building pages, but it’s a big missed opportunity. Every page on a site should have a unique title.
2. Flash-Only Sites, Homepages, or Navigation
   I’m surprised to be writing this, because Flash was the first widespread “easy target” for search engine optimization. But we still see these sites. Flash sites or homepages without HTML versions are nearly invisible to search engines. Navigation built in Flash makes a site harder to crawl than HTML-based navigation. Sure, pay-per-click ads and other promotional tactics can drive traffic to all-Flash sites. But, in general they will do poorly in organic search rankings. Flash is an excellent platform on which to build rich content and applications, but if you’re at all interested in SEO, basic web site architecture should be implemented in HTML.
3. Embedding Type in Images
   Unless coded properly, type in images cannot be read by search engines. Many folks are aware of the importance of coding in ‘alt text’ for images, and that’s great. But for certain images it’s not enough. For example, if your site has important headlines rendered in images (for the sake of visual appearance), and coded as simple images (<img />), you’re missing a big opportunity for search rankings. It’s okay to try to break out of the limitations of lowest-common-demoninator typefaces, as long as you use one of several techniques that allow you to code your headlines properly as headlines (<h1>Headline</h1>, for example). This can be done with CSS and background images, or by rendering headlines as images on-the-fly (Cufon), or by using Flash to replace regular text with Flash type (sIFR). Your friends at Google.com can tell you all about these.
4. Ugly URLs
   Even the web address of your pages, the URL (Unique Resource Locator; sadly, I did not have to look this up) can help with search ranking—if you take care to make it clean and easy to read. If it’s easy for you to read, it’s easy for the search engines, too. Which one of the addresses below is easier to read?
   
5. Using “Click Here” Alone in Hyperlinks
   Links in text to other pages or files should be made up of words and phrases that describe the destination. This is an oft-made mistake, because simply making the words “click here” clickable makes sense from a simple user-experience perspective. It’s fine to use the words “click here,” but make sure you include any descriptive words in the link, too. So, instead of  ”click here to learn about integrated marketing communications,” use “click here to learn about integrated marketing communications.” A bonus: More words make for a larger click-target, incrementally improving ease-of-use for your site.

By taking the extra time and care to plan site design and construction, and by using techniques like these and others, you’ll be able to produce the best balance of rich user experience and natural search visibility.

- Frank Piacitelli

This entry was posted by Frank Piacitelli on Monday, November 16th, 2009 and is filed under Ad business, Copywriting, Design, Development, Flash, Google, Interactive, Interface Design, SEM, SEO, Technology, Typography, User Experience. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.