Are web designers clueless about SEO? by Rachelle Money, 3 September 2008
This week we look at what our newsletter readers thought of Peter Kent's interview with Rachelle Money. The author of Search Engine Optimization for Dummies caused a split between our readers over his comments that web designers were pretty clueless when it came to SEO.
Wordtracker had a fantastic response from our readers and we thank all of you for sharing your thoughts and comments with us.
Here are some comments from those who supported Peter Kent's assertion that web designers know little about SEO:
Chris TT said virtually all his clients have a tale of woe from about web design companies.
He said: “Most people are only enlightened about SEO once their expensive website has failed to get them traffic and/or business. So, we would vouch for Peter's comment about web designers - though I'm sure there are some out there who get it.”
Chris TT advises that if someone asks for a large chunk of money upfront for SEO, don't pay it.
“Pay a company monthly and expect to see the results improve, if they don't, you've got the wrong company.” Thanks for your words of wisdom Chris TT.
Gail Mills said she paid the price for choosing the wrong web designer and putting her trust in those who said they were experts without doing thorough research on them first. “It unfortunately has been a frustrating learning experience. My mistake was not investing a small amount of money in the Dummies books. So I'm the dummy until I purchase the new SEO book,” she said.
Sam Mooney said problems arise because web designers and clients alike put aesthetics over functionality.
“Web designers are, first and foremost, designers. They're not really that interested in the 'business' of a client's site, they care about the look.
“Combine this with a client who also cares more about the look than about usability - or taking the time to actually define their potential visitors - and you have a situation where it's likely that web sites won't do well on search engines and won't actually reach the people the client wants to reach.”
Marc contributed a comment to the article which summed up his own personal experience in this area.
“I recently evaluated a website that targets a very small market and has zero search engine visibility, even when the meta tagged keywords are searched. All flash and no content on the index page to tie-in with the keywords, the robots.txt has eight errors, every page has the same exact meta tags with no relevancy to page content and that's not all.
“The SEO was done by the web designers, who believe they know what they're doing, but in reality made just about every mistake possible. Perhaps I should send them a copy of Peter's book?”
Karl Moyse threw in his own viewpoint as a designer himself. “LOL at the web designers knowing SEO stuff, as someone with a design background I would question if that is totally the case, but having worked with plenty of designers, especially now in my Online Marketing role, I can only concur that a very large percentage of web designers and developers really haven't got the faintest idea of what a search engine requires! Great article, keep them coming!”
Now, here's some comments left by those who totally disagreed with Peter Kent:
Nic said: “According to the article, Mr. Kent says only 20% of SEO consultants have any credibility. Perhaps it is fair to assume a similar percentage of credible web designers also exist. If not, where does that leave Mr. Kent? According to his website he is a website designer also.”
Rob thought Kent was being too harsh.
“Mr Kent's harsh view about web designers is a complete farce,” he complained.
“I do agree that the majority of web designers (or people who believe that they are a web designer because they can put up a website) don't know the first thing about proper SEO, but many do. Probably the same ratio as stated about SEO professionals.”
Rob said he hadn't found an SEO professional yet, but that both web designers and SEO need to work hand in hand.
Leon too felt Kent had overstepped the mark with his comments. “I've read Peter's book SEO for dummies and found it excellent but having just read the interview, I'm a little annoyed at the intimation that web designers don't know anything about SEO.
He added: “I'm aware of rogue web design companies (even know a few!) charging a fortune for sites and deliberately leaving them 'unfinished' from an seo point of view but we are not all bad!”
Michael Regan joined the discussions by saying; “While I don't like broad generalizations Mr Kent's point on web designers that only say they know about SEO is far too common.
“However, to try and extend that to all web design companies by saying “I have never met a web design company or web design consultant who understands SEO,” may be stretching the point.”
He went on to say: “A good Web Design/SEO/SEM (Search Engine Marketing) company is going to have a person or department dedicated to SEO/SEM. They will work with the designer to create a site that is not only well optimized but looks good. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive. “Unfortunately, this costs more initially. However, the cost of not hiring a good Web Design/SEO/SEM company will be much higher in the long run.”
You'll find a list of all our Newsletter Articles in the Wordtracker Academy.
About Rachelle Money
Rachelle Money is a freelance journalist based in Scotland, UK. She graduated from the Scottish School of Journalism in 2005 where she was awarded an internship with two national publications - The Sunday Herald newspaper and The Big Issue magazine. Rachelle has been working with Wordtracker since August 2007 and is a regular contributor to the newsletter.
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Jim: quality content is essential, yes. But the SEO process requires more than that including with keyword research to build an SEO strategy, optimized site structure and navigation and then promotion to build optimized inbound links.
Just for the record. I did not state that clients didn't need educating. I also didn't state that the structure shouldn't be there.
What I did state is that a lot of clients expect miracles without actually doing any work. SEO companies have people so bamboozled into believing that they have tricks that no one else knows to get them top positioning. All I was stating is that - Without good content - it is near impossible. You don't need to go to college or university to learn to right SEO friendly content. Take a look at the content of any top ten term web page and you will see that the content is usually well written. That's it - anything else is manipulation of the Search Engines. Just read Google guidelines and all the clues are there -
Build sites for the end-user and give them what they are looking for. simple!
Honestly I have to agree with Peter. In my experience most web designers don't have a clue about SEO. It's a shame too since a lot of the basics are right there at your fingertips. Any way, I started out as a web designer and knew nothing about SEO. I too only cared about design. When i got the job i have now it opened my eyes to the world of internet marketing.
I realized right away that this was something I did not learn in college but really should have. I was sad that my friends and I were being taught and trained how to be web designers but never once a lesson on proper SEO. Here we are, excited to go out and start our careers only to find out that we may be hurting more than helping.
I now work for an internet marketing training company and we thought it would be a good idea to go to the local colleges in our area and speak about the importance of marketing your business on the web. I ran into a friend who was now a full time web designer for a local graphics company.
She told me she would love to come to our 5 day advanced SEO class and would I please talk to her boss about covering the cost. I called the owner and was shocked when she told me they didn't need to know any thing about internet marketing nor could they afford to have my friend take off work to learn it.
As I read the comments here and think about my own experiences, I would have to say that it's not just web designers that don't know much about SEO and internet marketing but the majority of the population as a whole doesn't have a clue.
Nikki
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