Comments on: Website Redesign – A Sometimes Essential SEO Tactic

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 03:39:54 +0000

Great post Arnold & couldn’t help laughing when you quoted Adam. Having just walked away from a meeting with a PPC client that has engaged a firm to redesign their site ($17k) but they had no idea (!) about SEO (none.)
I know just enough about SEO to be dangerous…. but to think that “web designers” can get paid to redo a site with 19000 uniques & not have any ideas about SEO is so scary it’s funny!
#bang-head-on-wall !
Mike

By: su kesme aparatları

su kesme aparatları — Mon, 17 May 2010 16:00:49 +0000

I agree. It is pointless being at the top of search engine listings if your website is really poor

By: Doc Martin

Doc Martin — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 04:41:12 +0000

Maciej is right on point. You cant just get them to your site, you have to provide good content, a great offer, etc. to convert them to your desired action.

By: Dave Mruz

Dave Mruz — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 04:38:26 +0000

you must have seo AND a great website.

By: Maciej @ SEO Noobie

Maciej @ SEO Noobie — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 11:14:37 +0000

I agree! All the SEO in the world will not help users convert on your website if it is poorly designed. I speak with many people that feel that they do not need to do anything to their website. SEO is not going to get people moving around on your website and creating actions that could lead to conversions or sales.

By: gaining muscle

gaining muscle — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:33:40 +0000

traffic seems like the hard part, but i think tweaking your copy and offer to convert visitors for your offer or to buy something is definitely the tricky part.

By: sacramento seo services

sacramento seo services — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:24:05 +0000

I couldnt agree more! I have a few websites getting quite a bit of traffic due to my #1 rankings on google for my chosen keywords, but am still trying to monetize it! Ninja SEO skills are great but conversion is necessary to make some cash.

By: ITCwelcomgroup

ITCwelcomgroup — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:17:21 +0000

Yes, website re-designing keeping in mind SEO tactics will be a great benefit in promoting website across major search engines.

By: Web Development Company

Web Development Company — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:52:56 +0000

Great post, while SEO may not be the be all and end all it is a crucial element for web design. If your site isn’t SEO friendly it will be harder for your target audience to find, but if you go over the top and put all your effort into SEO your design comes off looking spammy. It’s all about balance.

By: Maxtec Solutions/Disk station

Maxtec Solutions/Disk station — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:16:24 +0000

Redesigning is actually a minor SEO tactic. Web design primarily attracts’ net surfers’ attention when they click the link of a website.

By: Jonny

Jonny — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 13:30:57 +0000

This is a minefield for clients. Clients aren’t as clued up as we should be, so we really need to do indepth research. Unfortunately this doesn’t happen and many can end up with a great design that is poorly developed for Google.
The other point is that many don’t have the experience to know that a poor design even with all the best SEO in the world will hamper the success of the site.

By: Maine Internet Marketing

Maine Internet Marketing — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:06:50 +0000

I ran into an issue related to this topic a few weeks ago. I met with a real estate agent who wanted his website on the first page of google when people do a local search for real estate agents in his area.

This was fine but his website was horrendous and looked like it was put together buy his secretary back in 1998. Logos and clip art just pasted randomly everywhere, broken links, he even had links to phishing websites in his footer!

To make a long story short I ended up finding out he was getting plenty of traffic and his search engine placement wasn’t all that bad.

He just wasn’t converting those visitors to interested leads…so needless to say I ended up redesigning his website.

By: Anton Stoutjesdijk

Anton Stoutjesdijk — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:43:26 +0000

The challenge remains in the clients ability to scrutinize it’s web design company. Not taking too much advice from blogs and forum and going to search engine in questions – directly to get ‘educated’ is the key, on the other hand, running a business school for your clients is not the objective either. Most engines are quite clear in guidelines for optimal site architecture. Naturally, they’re going to withhold the repercussions of such actions to maintain control, yet it can be quite concerning to read comments from people that have picked up a distored echo of original SE guidelines (yes web designers included), with clients requesting SEO you would think a valuable resource to point them to (apart from yourselves of course) would be to big G or the engine the client has in focus.

By: Pixelsmedia

Pixelsmedia — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:14:39 +0000

You need to be careful about some points like you need ensure that no frames is there on your site, you better try to avoid the flash design which is not seo friendly.You can put a rss feed button and can add a blog or forum in the menu list so that in later time these seo friendly techniques can be introduced any time !

By: Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:58:14 +0000

It is really important to have both these days. If you are delivering a great deal of traffic but the layout of your site is causing people to just leave than what good is all that traffic?

By: Glenna

Glenna — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:44:56 +0000

Getting it right seems like such a balance – some sites seem so plain and some you don’t even know where to look! I’ve been surprised again and again by the apparent popularity of some sites…That would be where testing comes in, I guess?

By: oes tsetnoc

oes tsetnoc — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 07:24:39 +0000

an optimized site doesn’t matter if the user experience is terrible. Any ways for nice post

By: mes abdo

mes abdo — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:06:17 +0000

Extremely well thought out article , Building for humans as well as search engine always hits the note with me, an attractive well thought out design that is build with SEO in mind is going to win over a site with one or the other.

By: Los Angeles SEO

Los Angeles SEO — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:32:57 +0000

What is most difficult to explain to clients is that their aesthetic may not be inline with SEO, i.e. a full flash site. However, as the search engines improve their algo’s for rankings, it is still up to the viewer to make the site and the client a success.

By: Online marketing services

Online marketing services — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:49:38 +0000

The above article written by Arnold is excellent to how to good looking website is base on the keyword of increase the traffic of the result in SEO tactics to developed online marketing services of the company….

By: Denver

Denver — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:20 +0000

Oh, man…. more stuff to do! Great points though… winning the placement game does no good if you lose the viewer to poor content or design. And as Cory (above) notes, readers make credibility decisions based on look and feel. You really only have a few seconds to win the attention of your reader.

By: Cory Grassell

Cory Grassell — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:29:51 +0000

I’ve said it before and continue to say it: You are marketing to humans first, search engines second. While you can optimize a site till you’re blue in the face, it won’t matter if your bounce rates are through the roof. Visitors make aesthetic decisions about your company’s credibility within a few seconds, so an optimized site doesn’t matter if the user experience is terrible. A quality user experience can lead to higher click-through rates and more repeat visitors, which boosts SEO. Also, company’s should remember that refreshing their sites with updated content is an SEO best practice.

By: Dave Davis

Dave Davis — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:25:50 +0000

Scott, that’s an excellent post. Really gets into the nitty gritty of what I think Arnold is trying to say.

Dorothy, you’re dead right. Kind of like a plastic surgery patient asking to make all sorts of modifications that the surgeon doesn’t want to make. It’s hard for us all to do, listen to an “expert” when you “know” what’s best :)

Kieran, you’re right but it’s difficult to avoid making the client feel “upsold to”. Despite cold hard facts and documented analysis, many just don’t want the “bells and whistles”. This is what we are trying to get across to our clients that the “bells and whistles” are not “add ons” but part of the core job.

By: searchbrat

searchbrat — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:25:46 +0000

The best way to sell in a development plan to a client is to present them stats. Using tools like Google Analytics, it’s easy to put together a range of reports to show how much cash is being left on the table by a poor design.
The SEO is bullshit post was interesting, although it has been done 100’s of times in different variations. At the end of the day, SEO is just another part of an all round marketing campaign and needs to be integrated with other vehicles + touch points.
One of the most interesting arguments you can have in the SEO community is are we delivering traffic or conversions. If clients want conversions delivered, they need to accept this may require site development to optimise their sales process etc. There is no point increasing traffic if most of it bounces. In fact this may have a negative impact on their rankings.

By: Web Templates

Web Templates — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:09:42 +0000

It is all about balance, the design needs to appeal to humans but be spiderable and easy for search engines to index.

By: Miguel

Miguel — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:57:11 +0000

Arnold, fantastic post and I could not agree with you more. Unfortunately many people looking for SEO are not prepared to spend on development. Many times what we have tried to do was to generate some ROI with the SEO so the client can save up for usability analysis, design/development, testing ad copy, etc. And sometimes you just can’t convince people that their design is bad.

But usability testing, content testing and a well structured site can provide exponential new business for a site for sure. It is a very good investment. Some people believe in this and some just still don’t get it.

By: Dorothy

Dorothy — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:55:35 +0000

I agree. It is pointless being at the top of search engine listings if your website is really poor. Websites should be designed for robots as well as people and this can easily be achieved without compromising on design. In my experience, a well designed website with relevant content will eventually receive quality organic traffic. However, sometimes a clients wishes regarding the design or content can thwart attempts to fully optimise the site. It would be much easier to achieve if the client wasn’t involved in the decision making process! :)

By: Scott Clark

Scott Clark — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:09:52 +0000

Your singing my tune here – and it doesn’t feel self-serving at all. I’m constantly trying to articulate this exact issue to potential clients … search Google “seo building permits” – I wrote a post on this a while ago you might enjoy.