design

This might seem like a shock to some. I mean, it’s the first impression of a site, right? This is where you win or lose, right? Wrong. It’s time to accept the fact that home pages are not that important. The homepage really serves one purpose: getting people off of the homepage. That’s it. A website is about the content that is inside, not whatever meaningless information you’ve thrown on the homepage.

Sure it will be seen a lot, but rarely is it even the first impression. The trend in search behavior is always to add more terms to a search query. Over time, instead of using one word searches, we started to use four and six - and it’s increasing. What this means, is that searchers (which likely make up the bulk of your traffic) are almost never going to land on your homepage. People are looking for content, and that’s what their searches are going to take them to. Unless the majority of your content lives on your homepage, it’s not THAT important.

There is no single landing page. Every page is a landing page. Every page that can be found in a search, can be a landing page. Don’t spend too much time on your homepage - focus on the interior. It’s where your content lives and it’s where you are going to make your lasting impressions.

I’ve been making a ton of progress (well, relatively) on Lopico lately, but I still have a long way to go. One thing that is pretty much set at this point is the new logo:

Let me know what you think.

Search engine optimization seems to always be done from a backwards-looking perspective. A client comes to an SEM firm and says “what can we do NOW to improve our search rankings?” The problem would be a lot easier to fix if the site had been built with SEO in mind. Yes, SEO starts with design; and if you’re lacking in smart design then you’re coming into the SEO process with at least one strike against you (probably more). The good news for those that start with smart design is that you’re already a few steps ahead. When you get to the heart of it, there are only so many things one can do to separate one site from another in terms of SEO. Search-minded design is a thing that so few sites have, that it really makes a difference after the keyword stuffing and link baiting is finished.

If it’s important why don’t more websites do this?

The problem in my opinion, is that design, development, and services (things like SEO) are usually very separate. In fact, I can only recall ever seeing one or two search marketing firms that also offer design services. Design on the web is different than design in print or anywhere else - design on the web has to be smarter. You start with a logical layout, without tables, user Header tags intelligently, include alt tags, and ensure that your site looks good naked. Naked websites? That’s right, you need to make sure your site makes sense when you look at it without any design elements. For this I like to use the web developer toolbar in firefox. Use the toolbar to disable css and images and you’ll get a much better picture of how Google, Yahoo, and other search engines will see your site. If it makes sense naked, then you’re on your way to better optimization.

That’s easy right? So, why isn’t it done? Because, for the most part, this is not taught to web designers. Web designers are designers, not search optimizers - so they think in terms of design not SEO. They need to become both. From header tags, to microformats, this stuff has to be done at the design level. If you’re designers aren’t doing this, they are hurting your site in the long run.

SEO is easy, if you start with it in mind. It’s not a matter of difficulty it’s a matter of consistency and of site-wide or company-wide efforts.

More on SEO:
JD Amer’s SEO bookmarks on del.icio.us

Since I like my readers - especially the ones that comment - I thought I’d give you a sneak peak at the next version of Lopico. I am speculating getting out of the local reviews game - but that doesn’t mean I can’t play with the css a little before I go. And please, let me know what you think…

This is my first ever post from Safari. And no, I did not get a Mac. (But I still want one.) This is big news: Safari is now available on Windows. Though I’m having quite a few issues with it right now it’s still very cool. Not because it’s a great browser, but because I hate putting out content without knowing what it looks like on a Mac. So far the experience seems to be near identical in terms of rendering to what I’ve experienced with actual Macs… so I’m pretty happy. It certainly can’t replace Firefox, but it’s cool for the design aspect. I’m having big problems with it… I can’t seem to post a link… but it’s still very useful.

I know this post was weak… but I’ve got it to get started again somewhere.

Nothing upsets me more than search engine optimization sites with poorly optimized sites. Today I read a blurb about a recently relaunched search firm’s site, so I clicked through and was disgusted. These people want to optimize your site for search, yet they don’t do basic things like using alt text for images. They want to design your site yet their code has 160 warnings, and they use tables with thick borders. They have a blog that doesn’t have an RSS feed. Worst of all they’re from Akron. Sites like this, more than anything, drive me crazy. Why can’t they all be like SEOmoz? I’ll save the site the embarrassment, but if you want to know the name of it, it’s pretty east to contact me.

On a related note I’m thinking of concentrating my own Search / Web consulting into a more focused effort. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, today’s site viewing just increases my desire to do it. It will be called amehigher - a play on my last name.