3. You just launched a website design full of stellar JavaScript
navigation, a mind-blowing Java splash page, and fancy imagery
throughout the website.
Last month, you had an average of 10,000 visitors per week, and
now you have only 100. What the heck happened?
Whether the site is for delivering daily news or selling fire
protective clothing, it must perform well in search engines to be
successful. After every redesign, it’s important to perform a site
audit to find design errors that might hurt your website’s
SEO hosting.
4. A highly skilled designer can do brilliant things with a
website’s design, but search engine optimization must be
taken into consideration when shaping a new look. This
doesn’t mean you have to go back to the Stone Age designs
of the ‘90s. Designers should work on a team with
wireframers, developers, and SEO specialists to create a
website formula that will be eye-catching for both viewers and
search engines.
Unfortunately, most Web designers like to ignore SEO when
building sites because they want to express their artistic
abilities. Below is an explanation of commonly made design
mistakes that will ruin your SEO:
5. Using splash pages
Have you ever tried reading a book that sits on the
opposite side of a brick wall? It’s just not going to
work—and asking Google to read a website that
hides behind a splash page is not much different.
Your astonishing, psychedelic Java splash page
may seem like the cool thing to do, but take my
advice and don’t do it. The only thing you will
accomplish with a splash page is to erect a
massive barrier between your website and search
engines.
6.
The reason Java splash pages create a barrier is
that search engines can’t read Java. You’re
basically creating a home page with no content or
navigation. This will cause the home page to be
indexed improperly, stranding the rest of the
website from proper indexation. If you absolutely
must have a splash page, then add plenty of
textual content and global navigation links in the
body of the page. This is still a horrible idea, but
at least it will give search engines something to
read.
7. Building an all-Java site
Ever heard the saying, “It’s like talking to a brick
wall?” If you build an all Java website, search
engines will be talking to a brick wall when trying
to find out more about your website. When I
explained the horrors of a splash page, I
mentioned that it creates a home page with no
content or navigation. Imagine an entire site with
no content, no internal linking, and no real
navigation. Basically, you have a piece of art, not
a website.
8.
On top of being completely SEO hosting
unfriendly, Java sites are annoying to use. Nobody
wants to wait for pages to load. The worst Java
sites are the ones where the applet is only
500×500 pixels—which seems to be a common
trend with these types of sites.
Here are some words of advice if you still think a
Java site is a good idea: If people and search
engines can’t read the tiny, Java-embedded text,
navigation links, and have to wait 30 seconds for
each page to load, then you will end up with a
dead website.
9. Using Frames
Unlike the Nike commercials, just don’t do it.
Any smart designer will agree that frames are
totally 1996. On top of being atrocious visually,
frames will also make it extremely difficult for
search engines to read your website. All that
nicely written content you spent dozens of hours
writing is now buried in the markup by the big,
bad frame monster that wants to hide your content
from Google.
10. Using images improperly
Do not use images as your primary form of
navigation. Google will get caught up admiring
the vibrant colors in the pictures instead of trying
to figure out what they are supposed to mean. I’m
not saying to use pure text links for navigation.
That would be a sin against modern Web design.
11. Forgetting about breadcrumbs
While hiking in the woods, you forgot to leave a
trail of breadcrumbs. Now you are hopelessly lost
and can’t find your way back home. Does this
sound like your website? Breadcrumbs not only
help make the website more user-friendly, but
they also help search engines figure out the
hierarchal navigation structure. They also reduce
the need to overly expand the navigation bar with
unnecessary categories.
12. Using images in place of content in
headers
Going back to the section about using images
properly, don’t replace content with images.
Using cool graphics with text for headers may
look awesome, but it will hurt your SEO hosting.
The purpose of using header text is to emphasize
the importance of keywords in the content to
search engines. If you don’t use proper h1 tags,
you will be depreciating the value of your content.
This brings me to my next point about not using
header text at all.
