9 Common Web Design Mistakes Prevent Google From Indexing Your Site

Web Designers frequently destroy their clients’ chances of ranking well in Google, without even knowing it! Here are three common mistakes that can ruin a client’s chances of ranking well in Google, Yahoo or MSN – simply by preventing the site from being indexed!
Search engines follow regular text links, but web designers like to use these unfriendly search engine navigation methods:

1. JavaScript Menus
Search Engines do not follow links reliably in JavaScript, if at all.

2. Imagemaps
Search Engines cannot see the image, and so cannot classify the relevance or topic of the link. Lesser search engine robots do not even attempt to follow imagemap links.

3. Image Links / Rollover links
These links frequently contain JavaScript, but also are difficuly for search engines to classify.

4. JavaScript popups
Search Engines do not follow JavaScript reliably, and do not seem to like popups at all!

5. “Jump menus”
These pulldown menus are usually submitting a form. If the form target is sent GET requests, there is a chance that the links will be followed in some manner, but again – this isn’t reliable navigation for Search Engines.

6. NOSCRIPT embedded links
We were told that content in NOSCRIPT tags is for those visitors that have JavaScript off. But if you were told this means search engines, you were told wrong! This HTML tags has been abused by spammers early on, and search engines do not reliably follow navigation within these tags.

7. Frames – they’re rarely done in a search friendly manner
More on the “right way” in a later post. Frames are challenging for search engines, and we have recently seen Google penalizing framee-based sites, perhaps due to the usability challenges they can present.

8. Java
Java cannot be executed by search engines. Many early rollover effects relied on Java, but the navigation cannot be read by search engine robots.

9. Flash
Flash navigation cannot be followed by search engines. Splash pages can become a deadend for search engines, and alternatives to Flash navigation should always be given.
So what can you do to be sure that search engines will crawl your site? We’ll have answers in a future post, but a frequent supplement to websites that use the above techniques – meant almost entirely for search engines – is a set of footer links for seach engines to follow.

3 things NOT to do: The importance of titles in SEO

Sometimes webdesigners get low blood sugar, or suffer minor head injuries. The effect? Bad HTML title tags.

Title tags are an important piece of real estate on your page. In properly structured HTML, it’s the first chance for you to tell human prospects and search engine visitors what your page is about. Depending on the search engine, page titles are someytimes shown prominently is results – your page is likely to be passed up if it doesn’t look relevant to the potential visitor’s search. Think about your page title as an advertisement for your website!
Since I’m feeling snarky today, here are three things NOT to do when creating your title tags:

1. “Welcome to our website”
It sounds like a friendly greeting for your human visitors, but it completely ignores the wonderful gift that a title tag can be. A title tag is a chance to tell both human and search engine visitors just how helpful your content is. Use this chance to target keywords that BRING and CONVERT traffic.

2. “Unititled Page”
If your web designer is using Dreamweaver, hope that they are properly caffeinated when they are working on your page. Otherwise, they may forget to change your HTML title tag from the default. Don’t expect quality traffic when you are one of the almost ONE MILLION pages that have “Untitled Page” as their title.

3. “Welcome to Adobe GoLive”
You can probably guess where this default page title came from. Check out the ONE MILLION crappy page titles. Oh, that’s neat: version 6 is out. I think we can see what they DIDN’T improve.

What SHOULD you do in your title tags? Keywords, focused sets of keywords. More on that in a later – and less snarky – posting.

What are Google’s supplemental results and what’s the problem?

Google defines supplemental results as follows:

“A supplemental result is just like a regular web result, except that it’s pulled from our supplemental index. We’re able to place fewer restraints on sites that we crawl for this supplemental index than we do on sites that are crawled for our main index. For example, the number of parameters in a URL might exclude a site from being crawled for inclusion in our main index; however, it could still be crawled and added to our supplemental index.

If you’re a webmaster, please note that the index in which a site is included is completely automated; there’s no way to select or change the index in which a site appears. Please also be assured that the index in which a site is included doesn’t affect its PageRank.”

If your web pages are listed in the supplemental results then it is likely that your web pages could not be parsed correctly by Google’s standard crawler.

The problem with Google’s supplemental results are that they are only supplemental. If your web pages are listed in the supplemental results then they won’t be returned very often for regular search queries.

How to find out if your web pages are in the supplemental results

An easy way to find out how many of your pages are listed in Google’s supplemental results is to search for the following on Google.com:

site:www.domain.com ***

Search for that phrase and then proceed to the last result pages to find the supplemental results. Of course, you have to replace www.domain.com with your own domain name.

How to get out of Google’s supplemental results

Most web sites have pages in Google’s supplemental results. It means that Google had difficulty to index these pages or that Google had other problems with these pages.

1. Make sure that your web pages don’t contain any spam elements and that you don’t use any spam techniques to promote your web site. Using spam techniques to promote your web site is often the reason why a web site doesn’t get good rankings. Better focus on ethical search engine optimization methods.

2. Make it easy for search engines to index your web pages. If possible don’t use web page URLs that contain question marks or the & symbol. Make sure that the HTML code of your web pages offers what search engines need. Use IBP’s Top 10 Optimizer to prepare your web pages.

3. Make these pages easy to find for Google’s web crawler. The more links point to your web pages, the more likely it is that search engine crawlers fill find your web pages. Use ARELIS to get good inbound links to your site.

Most web sites have pages in Google’s supplemental results. The easier you make it Google to index your web pages the more pages of your site will be listed in Google’s normal results.

Reducing page load times

With the ever increasing impatience of internet visitors, it is important that pages load as fast as possible. Here are some quick tips we implement when developing websites to keep the page size to a minimum:

1. CSS and Javascript should be in external files. This way, they are cached after the first page is visited.

2. For large images that cannot be optimized any further, load a placeholder and update it with the full version after the page has loaded.

3. Get faster hosting.

4. Use CSS instead of tables for layout.

5. Be a minimalist. Do you really need a sound on the home page? Are animations really needed to convey your message?

YouTube as marketing channel

Brian Wiener has an interesting post over at AdAge: YouTube as marketing channel.

I agree that the TV Networks should be controlling their content by distributing it themselves:
1. Full Episodes should be available online(with Ads, of course). NBC’s Heroes will probably never be bootlegged on Youtube, because there is no need for it to be.
2. Small clips – 2 minute highlight clips – should be purposefully uploaded everywhere on the web. These previews and teasers are perfect to drive increased traffic and gain exposure.

I also agree that search optimization should be key. Networks should host blogs to encourage as much juicy user-generated content as possible. And by using search friendly link structures throughout their sites, these media empires could rise to the top of search results – right where their audience expects to find them!

Broadband adoption in the U.S.

The United States is behind other nations when it comes to adopting broadband. According to a recent report, the broadband has finally been adopted by more than 50 percent of residences.

Yet, U.S. web surfers have never been less patient: Studies show visitors will not wait more than 4 seconds for an eCommerce page to load. Page load times are vital to your visitor’s experience. We will have an upcoming post with some valuable tips on reducing your page load times. Most do not require a page redesign!

Nofollow tags

Nofollow tags are a fairly recent invention. The history of nofollow goes something like this:

1. Google gives priority to sites with many links.

2. Spammers use blogs and guestbooks to artificially increase their link counts.

3. Somebody proposes that certain places on the web – like blogs and guestbooks – should have a way of devaluing any links that are added.

4. Search engines listened. Well, some of them. Well, Google.

Search Engine Journal did a recent  posting: 13 reasons why nofollow tags suck.  I couldn’t agree more!

Googlebombs have been defused

The phenomenon known as “Googlebombing” has been defused by Google. It used to be that if enough sites linked to a site using certain words, that site would quickly rise in rank for that keyphrase. The result? You could search Google for “miserable failure” and see the White House is number 1, with Micheal Moore only slightly behind. Political viewpoints were being communicated, and we all understood a little more about the “Google Algorithm”.

With a recent change at google, this “Googlebombing” technique is no more. What technique lies ahead? What is Google’s new strategy for ranking? We’ve seen positive results for many of our clients in this last Google update, but it will be interesting to see what techniques will be found with Google’s latest changes!

More coverage on slashdot…

And at Google’s webmaster blog

Optimizing for Google – Were they all lies?

Each of the search engines have their own unique criteria for relevancy. Google is no exception, and is usually the most mystical. In our tests, msn and Yahoo respond very quickly to SEO efforts, but Google take a little more time and finesse. And every once in a while, you see something in Google’s search results that makes no sense.

Over at Intrapromote, Erik noticed recently that a search for 2007 Ford Explorer is yielding some very confusing results. He noticed that one text link was getting a site into Google’s top 10 for this competitive keyword. No giant SEO campaign, no link popularity project, and no compelling, fresh content. Just a single link. Compare the power this link has – this lame site is being ranked above relevant content in yahoo auto’s, about.com and auto magazine. Surely this content is more helpful to potential visitors?!
And so, where is this illustrious link from? The Google DataCenter? Or perhaps Sergey Brin‘s blog? Nope. The link is from a page almost as lame: www.egateway.us/elist.html This link should also have no real weight, either. Erik points out that the egateway page has pretty much nothing but junk links pointing to it.

Didn’t Google tell us this wouldn’t work any more? That fresh, relevant content and popular, themed links are the only way to get to the top of Google? If Matt Cutts were dead, he’d roll over in his grave. Thankfully, he is alive and – hopefully – well. Matt, what the heck is going on here? Please wave your mighty spam wand at the site – Google only wants good sites in their SERPs, right? (But please tell us how to achieve the same result with RELEVANT content before you do!)

I’m interested to see Erik’s analysis, and will keep poking around in these links to see what the secret could be!

Performing Keyword Research

[tag]Keyword research[/tag] should be the beginning of every web page placed on the web. Instead of dumping the same old text from the brochure you created in 1987, rewrite your content from scratch with an eye toward your [tag]best keywords[/tag] and keyphrases! Here are steps to help you in your search for your very own [tag]keyword niches[/tag]:

1. Define your target market(s)

Every [tag]target market[/tag] is going to have their own way of thinking, but you should also be sure to have a unique area of your site for each target market. You might want a section for investors, a page for community members, and another section for prospects.

2. What would they search for on the internet?

Think like your audience. What would they search for? Would they mispell a keyword? Would their terms be more sophisticated than the terms you use to describe yourselff around the office? Maybe they would be less sophisticated.

a. Brainstorm keyword phases
Now look at those phrases and try to think about any possible variations. Are there more descriptive variations needed to really pinpoint the right searchers? Maybe you need to be less specific to increase the potential [tag]traffic[/tag] to your page.

Remember:
Less words in the phrase will help broaden your possible audience.
More words in the phrase will help target the best.

Would you get better prospects with a targeted phrase?

b. Look keyword phases competitors are targeting on their website

What are your competitors targeting? Look at competitors you know about, but also look at who is competing for spots 1-10 in Google. What are they targeting? What niche might they be leaving out?

c. Look at keyword phases competitors are targeting using their [tag]link partners[/tag]

(We have an automated tool we use for this – email us at sales@hyperdogmedia.com for more information!)
3. Existing [tag]keyword phases[/tag] you are being found for

What better way to figure out which keywords are already working in some way?

a. Web hosting visitor log files

If you don’t have decent stats, install [tag]Google Analytics[/tag] ASAP. On most hosts, the free package [tag]awstats[/tag] is available. Also free are webalizer and analog. Any of these will tell you what keywords your site is being found under.

b. [tag]Analytics[/tag] and/or [tag]Paid campaigns[/tag]
Look at existing analytics and paid campaigns. The [tag]keywords[/tag] from your paid campaign can yield very valuable information. Keywords that result in [tag]clicks[/tag] and [tag]convert[/tag] into actual sales are like gold. These “[tag]converting keywords[/tag]” are some of the best you can target.

4. Expand the list

a. Geographic

Especially if you are [tag]targeting local business[/tag], think about where you are. Are you in a certain metropolitan area? What cities are nearby? What smaller communities? Be sure to include local nicknames like “bay area”, “front range”, etc. What county and state are you in? Include any other pertinent information – are you on a major street or thoroughfare?

b. Thesaurus / Ontology
Use a thesaurus to increase possiblities for your list. Do not judge keywords just yet – keep an open mind. You’d be surprised what searchers type in!

The ontology or category in which your person-place-or-thing keywords exist can lead you to new possibilities. For example, a book has to do with publishing, printing, authors, etc. What “has to do with” your [tag]keyword phrases[/tag]?

c. Incorrect spelling:typos, phonetic

Bad spelling and phonetic misunderstandings can also lead you in the direction of new keywords. In a recent conversation, an acquaintance told me he can see that his best prospects always spell a certain keyword incorrectly: It is for a disease that the propects have. Doctors never buy the product directly, but always know how to spell it!

d. Aggregate lists(like AOL’s leaked search data)

Giant [tag]lists of keywords[/tag] can give insight into how visitors query a search engine. AOL released acontroversial amount of searches by their visitors. Third party sites like http://www.aolsearchdatabase.com/ allow you to look through the data. While it isn’t complete, it can yield valuable information about search behavior, and maybe about your keywords!

e. [tag]Google[/tag] Suggest / [tag]Overture[/tag]

[tag]Yahoo[/tag] tells you what keywords visitors searched for a month or two ago. Visit their site at:

http://inventory.overture.com

Google offers some search numbers and keywords with their suggest tool, too:
http://labs.google.com/suggest

f. Survey of automated tools

(We have several automated tools and services we use for keyword research. Contact us at sales@hyperdogmedia.com for more information.)

g. Repeat the process

Did you get several new keywords? Now be sure to add on your geographic and other variations. Did your list just get MUCH bigger? Good!

5. Find the least [tag]competitive terms[/tag]
Of course, it is always best to go after the least competitive keywords. To figure out which keywords have the best ratio of searches to competition, figure out the [tag]KEI[/tag]. We have automated tools that figure this out, but try the manual method for a few of the keywords you think might be real gems:
a. KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index)

KEI = (# of monthly searches) / (# of exact results in Google)

Gather (# of monthly searches) from the overture tool above
(http://inventory.overture.com)

Gather (# of exact results in Google) by searching for the your “keyword phrase” in the titles of possible competitors:

allintitle:”keyword1 keyword2 keyword3″

b. Examine [tag]PPC bids[/tag]

Looking at bids – especially in overture, but also with Google’s AdWords estimator tool – can tell you which keywords are the most competitive. So easy to see, and look – no math required!

This article contains many of the tips we give for [tag]keyword research[/tag]. Have other tips? Leave a comment! We’d love to add your tip to the list!