SEO: Identify the Problems. Get to know the Solutions or let us do it for you!-Part Three
Posted - 10/11/2008Blog views - 68
0 comments posted
Author - Emma Hodkinson
The Problem: Graphics.
A good website should essentially be made up of a mixture of text and graphics. Graphics on a website help to make it look more professional and aesthetically pleasing and if you were to come across a website that had very few or no graphics you would not be alone in thinking that the site was perhaps designed by an amateur.
The text is important from an SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) point of view as this text will contain all the relevant keywords for that particular page, which is essentially what the search engines are looking for when completing their searches. A website with a good blend of both html graphics and text should perform well both for the search engines thus hopefully leading to conversions.
Unfortunately for web designers the major internet browsers display pages in different ways. This means that it is much easier for them to create graphic links rather than use cross-browser text links.
This presents a problem for SEO because for search engines to be able to understand what a link is truly representing they need to find words in plain conventional text. Search engines have no idea if a graphic link relates to a specific web page or even if the link is relevant
Solution: Share the love!
Create an equal blend of both graphics and plain body text if a website must use graphics for navigation it is important to include a set of plain text links somewhere on the page, usually at the bottom.
Problem: Splash Pages.
The first time you visit a site the first page you usually see is the sites home page, however, with some websites you are greeted with an entry page that instructs you to enter the site. These pages are normally decorated with fancy graphics or animations but have very limited readable text content.
These pages are known as splash pages and they are not well liked by the search engines. Some reasons for this are that they often lack readable text content, that is, they do not display any text containing important keywords that the search engines can use to index the site.
They very often only link to the sites home page which tells the search engine spider that it is only that single page that is of any use or relevance. And finally search engines are not keen on redirect links as they want to allow the user to find what they are searching for directly.
Solution: Avoid, Avoid, Avoid!
Splash pages are fine if you are not serious or indeed bothered about being indexed by search engines but if your business needs SEO to work in order for it to succeed you may find that your Search Engine Optimisation company will advise you to avoid splash pages completely.
The Problem: Frames.
A framed site is a site that is made up of numerous sections or frames. Each frame contains information that can be scrolled through separately. These type of sites are usually compiled of several html files that fit together to display a single page.
This often causes some confusion for the search engines as they frequently only index the first html file within the frame. This is not good for your site because if a page is not indexed then it will not show up in search engine results.
Solution: Don’t do it!
If search engines have a hard time indexing sites that are created in frames then it stands to reason that the solution to optimising framed websites would be to not implement them into new website designs. If you already have them in your site then you may have to consider redesigning without frames.
There is also evidence to suggest that frequent web users have become accustomed to framed sites and are actually actively avoiding them as they require scrolling content in separate frames which is considered to be an inconvenience.
