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.
14 comments
Client often hire my company to redo their websites, so we see the work of a lot of other designers. With very few exceptions, the work we see reflects no knowledge of SEO.
Most designers load a lot of terms in the keywords metatag, but make no attempt at on-page optimization. They make no attempt at link building for their clients, or even advise them about the need.
Maybe Peter Kent is basing his opinions only on the people who have had the bad experiences. The people who have had good experiences with their web designers would not be complaining and looking for others to help, would they?
Not that we as designers/developers/marketers have not seen the messes created by other designers.....but I think there are plenty of designers who are providing basic services to small businesses who are on tight budgets who do adequate jobs. Some of us know how to cover the basics of design and marketing and give these individuals and small businesses a good start within their means.
We try to educate our clients about getting links, contributing to their metatags (as they know their businesses better than we do), writing their copy so that it contains their keyword phrases as well as being readable by their customers, etc. Some clients get it and work very hard. Others don't want to work at it - they still think the Internet is how it was 10-15 years ago - "if I build it they will come" and believe once the site is up visitors will pour in and nothing we do or say will change their thinking.
After 3-6 months go by and they are only getting a trickle to their site, some are disgruntled and seek other help. Others are ready to listen and work. We try to empower our clients to do as much as they can for themselves by creating editable sites where they can update their content and change their page titles and meta tags. They are in control and we don't nickel and dime them to death or wait for a small change.
I agree with Bob's comments, but from the SEO copy side. Clients hire my company for SEO/marketing writing after they've paid a webmaster thousands of dollars for sites that have no SEO value from a design standpoint. I often wish they had found me first so I could lead them to the web design company I turn to for my clients needing a make-over. That company is one of the good ones that realize the other needed tactics like link building, programming, PROPER metatags, etc. etc. It's very frustrating for me as an SEO writer having to tell a web designer how they should do their jobs.
But I agree, too often these designers and programmers are putting up a 'shingle on the web' but they don't understand how SEO is more than just keywords. Again, it's not all webmasters - so no offense to those who DO know their craft. The problem is those 'in the know' really are few and far between as the article suggests.
I still say this is a great article that more businesses should read because maybe they'd take better care in who they hire for their design. And for the web masters who were offended by it, don't get upset. Capitalize on it - show it to clients you're trying to sell to so you can point out how you're different from the posers out there. At least that's my thoughts.
As a web designer I believe that design and optimisation are two sides of the same coin. Both should contribute to the success of the site in terms of initially attracting traffic first (the seo) and holding the attention of visitors (the design).
It's to do with education of the client who knows even less about seo than the average designer and we often have to stand our ground and explain that a flash entry page, however, whizbang just won't be indexed.
When you have found one (it's always useful to have a list handy) show them what a search engine spider will see if and when it does visit and the penny drops that it's content that the search engines feed on.
It is true that many new sites, probably most, are not properly coded or setup with optimisation as an initial requirement and only when failing to attact traffic does the owner start asking why!
Most fail in some of the very basics:-
Company name as title (on all pages) Same description on all pages (or worse none at all) Graphic navigation buttons (no alt or link title tags) Lack of proper heading heirarchy (or not at all) Not using keyword (phrase) effectively
Our philosophy is to build long-term relationships with clients and have always found there's no better testimonial than a successfully performing web site providing real value to their business.
Lets all remember that we are talking about SALES. In our experience the client frequently assigns the IT department instead of Marketing department and then expects RESULTS. The website is a tool to entice the potential client to take action in the SALES process. How do you assign success for action? SEO experts say "keywords"... Web Designers say "page views, user sessions, etc"... the client says "Results" and means SALES! That my friends is the bottom line.
Clients don't understand SEO enough to pay for it until they don't get traffic. But that doesn't mean that it's open season on being stupid. I build websites that are Content Management Systems that are also SE friendly. So the content is completely up to the client. This is how it should be - If I have a client that specializes in medicine, why would he or she want a web designer to write about it? Also, web designers should be aware that they may take liability as a fact checker if someone were to follow the website content and sue for any damages. This alone is not worth writing content for your client.
The fact is that a website will not get the targeted keywords indexed in Google if they are not on the page, unless your are lucky enough like Adobe to have millions of people put "Click Here" on their sites.
I have had clients complain about not coming up for certain terms like "Product Name - Vancouver" and they don't even have their address on the site. This is not the fault of the web designer. The best way to get good rankings in Google is to write good content. It's simple - Google has to read your content to know what the heck your page is about. If you don't include all the necessary words that go along with your keywords, how would Google know what your page is about to rank it more important than some other sites with the same theme?
If your sites about "Oak Trees" , make sure your page contains everything about Oak trees - i.e. branches, limbs, dirt, leaves etc. And guess what? You would probably have a pretty good article on Oak Trees. This can apply to any subject, you just need to sit down and think of everything to do with your targeted keywords.
The technology is there for Google to read your page in an instant and determine what it is about along with tons of other data. If anyone has ever put Google Ad Words on their site, it would be good to note that the identical code is placed on all pages on your site and in our case on dozens of sites. Yet when someone clicks on one of our sites pages the appropriate Google Ad appears within seconds.
What this means is that if Google can read a page and send back the right ad, they can also do the same when a searcher types in a query. In other words they are taking all the content on the page and comparing it to thousands of sites that they have in their database and determine which to present to the end-user and in what order.
So what's the trick? Good content writing. Unless it's MSN then the trick is to not have Google ads on your website.( Even though they won't admit to it.)
Ladies and Gentleman, just how difficult is it to check a designer's portfolio for evidence of SEO competence?
I'd say it takes about five minutes.
There's lots of designers who do understand site and page structure and even more who don't.
Choose one who does.
As an integrated shop - and therefore a somewhat impartial observer - I have to say that there's probably a lot more SEO's out there who have no clue about design than there are web designers with no notion of proper page structure.
I think the problem here stems from the term 'web designer'. The term design elicits the idea of some visual discipline whereas in actual fact there is a whole lot more to it than that.And I disagree with Jim Robinson, it is the web designer's job to educate because that's who people go to first when they want a new website.
If you decided to build a new house, you would go to an architect. The architect would show you how amazing your new house would look, but (hopefully) also expose and identify any structural problems or requirements and recommend that these are carried out professionally and to a high standard.
Then, once the 'design' of your house is acceptable, we progress to the building of the house and making sure the strucutre is sound and everyone involved be they contractors or client knows what they are aiming for.
If you can't do it yourself, at least recommend someone who can.
IMHO any web designer who can only visually design a site may as well stick to print. It's much easier.
I'm a one man band designer, developer, content manager, optimizer, etc and in my view the lack of coordination and understanding between people who specialise in these skills is often extraordinary, whether it's as part of a "web team" in a corporation or in an agency. Personally I think when you have to coordinate skills in this way, you have to have a project manager who gets all of it.
When it comes to designers claiming to have seo skills, or seo consultants claiming to understand design (and there's a LOT of marketing value lost in well-optimised but poorly designed sites), I'd agree with Alec Kinnear - check their portfolios. Go with whoever can demonstrate results according to whatever matters to you the most.
Meanwhile, professional standards are only slowly taking hold in our industry and I suspect some of our collective grief comes from sites built by the CEO's wife's nephew.
Question, why did all or the web designers get to the prospect first? Makes me wonder about the SEO expert's professional ability.
Re: why do all the web designers get to the prospect first?
Because promising a glossy, all singing, all dancing, snazzy visual product is simply easier to sell. Even reading about or coming face to face with the needed language used by SEO experts is pretty scary biscuits to at least us small business owners. We do not have big teams and budgets to work all this out for us.
Also, it all appears to be done backwards. Go to any business start up meeting, marketing seminar, website info session (usually funded free) then the 'experts' talk about what to have on the website not what to put at the back. Or worse if they do talk about it, its five mins at the end because they are not an seo expert.
I never needed a business website for five years. Last year I decided to spend six mortgage payments (well, I agreed three but hey seemingly I have deep pockets and the bill detailed how long it took in the end...mmm) on one. The result...well I am writing here. Its lovely to look at, from a design point of view, plenty pictures on a rainy day.
Fastforward to today I am now discovering and learning the importance of SEO. The result...stripping everything down and starting again. The problem, the designer in my case not interested because they have technically completed the website. Admission: well we met six weeks ago, as yet no change. Realising that generally designers are not in the business of marketing!
Anyway the question, well I think SEO experts need to make the information they know less confusing and find ways to raise their hands and say 'hey, before you spend a fortune on the site learn this it's way more important than you think'. And designers (some, not all) to put their hands and say 'I am not an expert in seo'. If the customer likes the designers art, they will not lose them because of that admission. Get over it!
Rant over...as I am posting this on wordtracker you can guess what I am up. Now to find that SEO expert, over to elance.
Dawn
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
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!
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.