SEO and tableless design

[prof611]

I am basically a web programmer who also does website design, but I really dislike doing SEO. When I design a site, I am careful to tell my client of my lack of desire and expertise in SEO, and most times it doesn't matter to them. However I have one client whose site I redesigned several years ago, and who recently has been having problems getting clients.

She is not even near page 1 for any of her key words. Many of the sites ahead of her are not even in the same business. She has been using Google AdWords for several years, but lately even this has not been enough to get her any business, even though her ad is usually on Page 1.

Yesterday she told me that she hired a local business to do SEO for her site. To make a long story short, it turned out that the SEO "expert" wanted to use Dreamweaver to make modifications. Naturally, I strongly objected, since this would undoubtedly invalidate the code. I went to a good deal of trouble to make sure that this website had valid code, and it presently passes XHTML 1.0 Transitional, CSS, Section 508, and WCAG Priority 1. I checked three websites done by the "expert": the coding was strictly old-school tables, and none of them validated HTML.

My question is: Where can I find a legitimate SEO expert who can do what my client needs without ruining her website? She would naturally prefer someone in the Virgin Islands where we both live, but is willing to deal with anyone anywhere if it will help get her more business.

Professor

[Dubbya]

Firstly, Dreamweaver will not invalidate the code in an of itself as long as the doctype is specified in the code at the top of the page.

As you're coding, DreamWeaver automatically uses the appropriate coding practice according to the doctype specified. For example, in a "XHTML 1.0 Transitional" document, if you type "<br" and ">", DreamWeaver automatically inserts a space and the slash before closing the tag. " />"

What's more, (in code view) as soon as you click "Commands/Apply Source Formatting", it automatically highlights errors to alert you that there are validation problems. Whether or not, having seen the errors highlighted, the user chooses to find the problems and resolve them is another matter.

SEO is about more than just validated CSS or HTML

You need to look at the big picture here. Which is more important? Having a site that passes CSS/HTML validation or having a site that generates revenue? There are thousands upon thousands of sites that generate huge sums of money, enjoy massive amounts of traffic and have never once passed validation.

Although I appreciate where you take pride in a job well done, a few errors are certainly not the end of the world and won't in and of themselves cause the site to suffer in the SERPs. Consider the fact that validated code has not really helped the site rank highly thus far. If the firm that's been hired can substantiate their claims of SEO brilliance and expertise, I'd say let them give it a shot. It's not your money that's being spent.

If you're the designer/developer and feel a certain attachment to the site in question, why not tackle the SEO yourself? You'll find tons of expert assistance and proven techniques around here!

If you're certain the SEO professional lacks the experience or skillset to get this done right, here's a tool you can use to find a qualified local SEO Expert:
Respond Yellow Pages Directory
Search for "SEO" and enter "US Virgin Islands" as the state.

.02

[tara33]

I absolutely agree with Dubbya. We own a web site that reports 39 errors on W3C Markup Validator, but ranks #1 to #10 on so many keywords and phrases, whose competition is in the millions on Google. For me, revenue is clearly more important that proper coding. That said, I prefer the SEO side of web development...whereas you prefer the coding.

[incrediblehelp]

Moved: Services for Sale/Hire

[rp4000]

>She has been using Google AdWords for several years, but lately even this has not been enough to get her any >business, even though her ad is usually on Page 1.

This is an interesting statement. Has her adword traffic deterioated?

Does she get traffic to her site that is not generating business? If so, perhaps her site is not appealing to her target audience.

Or is she not getting traffic in which case perhaps her keywords are incorrect or her ad is not appealing.

[BossWebmaster]

code validation has 0% influence on SEO, or anything else for that matter...

[SemAdvance]

Originally Posted by BossWebmaster

code validation has 0% influence on SEO, or anything else for that matter...

That is quite a bold statement.... albeit incorrect.

The leading cause of robots choking and tripping is the use of poor HTML coding. If a page cannot be crawled then it is not included in the index and if it is not in the index it cannot rank for it's keywords.

And as the html is the foundation it is best that it is validated...you would not want the cement foundation of your home to be sub standard......why would you want or accept poor coding of your business website????

There fore a cleanly coded site is likely to see more pages indexed quicker than a poorly coded site.

Also if all things are equal except the coding a validated site will win over one that is not.

CSS & xhtml sites are known to win in the rankings war for highly competitive search terms.

-----------------------------------
Prof611 I sent you a PMB

The first thing to do would be to save the clients money by having a professional optimize her Adwords campaigns.

95% of my SEM clients have seen a reduction of 25% to 75% of their spend as they often have no clue that Google is robbing them blind via broad match PPC campaigns.

Regards

Clint Dixon

[hyperdog]

It seems SEO would be a troubling investment if she cannot get good customers even by paying for Google Ads. I agree that she should look into that first. She may not be targeting the right keywords, or her site may not be converting visitors. Hopefully the SEO person would look at both of those factors and help bring in revenue.

[BossWebmaster]

I don't believe you. And unless you are secretly a google programmer, there's no way for you to know if that is truly the cause of one web page ranking higher than another. Search ranking is influenced by so many factors.

Lets think about this logically. The internet is old, HTML has evolved significantly since the internet's infancy. What was perfectly written HTML code 15 years ago no longer is, yet the information presented is still valid. The goal of a search engine is to present the searcher with the most informative "answer" to their internet search. It is not in the search engine's best interest to put any weight on code validation whatsoever.

As far as spiders getting hung up on poorly written code, I didn't say it's ok to write poor code, I said it doesn't matter if it's valid.

Yes it matters if you don't have clearly defined hierarchal content, your code is junked up with tons of Java, you don't have any <A> tag links, but it doesn't matter if it's tableless or xhtml compliant.

It doesn't matter at all! It has 0% influence on SEO!

[suzstephens]

I wonder about the marketing and creative strategy that went into creating her site. If she's getting traffic from AdWords and not getting leads, then it seems to me that she may need a newly designed web site rather than SEO. I am often contacted by prospective clients who don't know the difference between SEO and design, so it's quite possible that she contracted for SEO when she really needed a redesign to improve lead conversion.

I agree that neither editing with Dreamweaver or invalid code should be detrimental to SEO. I know plenty of invalid, tables-based sites with page 1 Google SERPs.

[jrdmra]

Valid Code is simply good practice. I agree that it should not be sacrificed and any SEO worth his salt should be able to do his work without breaking the code.

How does any one know if valid code influences or doesnt influence serps? simple you dont.... and dont claim to know because well you dont know and there has been no studies done which prove it. Show me one, you cant...

That said any professional web designer would build his site valid, thats part of what separates the pros from the amateurs.

Dreamweaver absolutely will not break your code. If anything the newest Adobe version CS3 has all the tools you need to make absolutely sure you have valid portable code. It has a validator both HTML/XHTML and CSS built in and supports any doctype you can think of. In addition it puts very clean code when working in design mode.

However you should know how to code because th default code from any wysywig is bloated its just a fact of life. Its up to you to be able to know what properties to use in Design mode to make your code as small as possible.

If that matters to you... However it probobaly has nothing to do with SERPS.

As far as SEO goes if you hire an SEO definately hire one who knows how to code professionally.


Your client needs to take a look at the message her site is sending. It sounds like SEO wont help to me... Doesnt matter how many people come to your site if it has basic marketing problems it wont sell much.

[cz]

prof611

It might help to provide a link to the site in question? Sure would be a lot easier for the experts to zero in on some possible solutions.

I believe that's still allowed. BTW, Good luck!

[John Redfield]

Hello Prof,

First thing: SEO does not require invalid coding practices. You dont have to ruin your code. In fact while some way crappy code doesnt matter, I know that if I were a spider looking for text porridge and came accross a clean site ...

Second: The best advice Ive heard said so far is to put some analysis into all that Adsense traffic that hasnt been helping.

Third: You can't really get any sense as to where your going, and what you need to do to get there without some serious investigation into the competitors (those ahead of you in the SERPs).

Fourth: How are your IBL's? How many and what quality.

Fifth: Let the SEO begin. You can work with the SEO expert she has, or one you find. They can do research on or keywords, title and heading and context, they may see things you may not (for example does that perfect mark-up use a javascript nav? If so, a css nav with keywords will help).

No matter what the changes are the SEO expert finds, no doubt alot has to change. That should mean some design work for you, unless you prefer the SEO expert do it, which you could oversee to make sure its done right.

[iany]

Originally Posted by BossWebmaster

I don't believe you.

That's a pretty arrogant and, frankly unhelpful statement

It doesn't matter at all! It has 0% influence on SEO!

If you are going to swim against the tide of guys who have considerable reputation in making sites rank time after time at least have the professionalism to back it up with evidence.

Sure many legacy sites have good SERPS but it can be no coincidence that when they update their site they tend to go for tableless valid XHTML design.

Ian

[jawn_tech]

Without knowing the site in question, and knowing that even table designs can validate, or that sites that don't validate can even do well -- or not, if the coding is so poor that not even SE's can make sense of it -- one may speculate a huge possibility is that the site isn't converting well because of a design that could use a marketing makeover.

If ads are on page one, and the site is getting traffic but no conversions, then it's a layout / marketing problem on the landing page. Or navigation-friendly issues of the site. Or too many pages that have to be viewed before a customer can check-out. Or a number of marketing fouls so that people just aren't buying. Personally, I would address that before investing in anything else.

[jtracking]

Originally Posted by prof611

To make a long story short, it turned out that the SEO "expert" wanted to use Dreamweaver to make modifications. Naturally, I strongly objected, since this would undoubtedly invalidate the code...

I'll seo your site for you using dreamweaver. You probably fall into the category that used FrontPage years ago as it messed up all you're work. Maybe Dreamweaver did at one point ruin work but it doesn't now. You could however mess it up yourself if you don't know what you're doing or aren't too careful - it happens all the time...

PLUS - some may not want to hear this but I'll say it again...seo and tabeless design doesn't really matter...just do your work the best you can and if you want to make sure W3C validates your code then fine, do what you want but it's much more than validating when it comes to SEO...

[jtracking]

Originally Posted by SemAdvance

The leading cause of robots choking and tripping is the use of poor HTML coding. If a page cannot be crawled then it is not included in the index and if it is not in the index it cannot rank for it's keywords.

The thing is, HTML won't validate (if the doc-type is wrong) with such attributes as align="left" or border="0"...

That won't choke a robot but it does choke the W3C validator and is it really "the leading cause" ?

*curious

[iany]

jtracking is right of course, there is more to SEO than just validating and using tableless design, however, there is no reason not to get a good start.

Using Dreamweaver itself, if done properly (hey how many can?) shouldn't screw up the desin. However, what's the fuss about Dreamweaver any way? It may be good but at the price they charge it should be. Not a big fan myself and looking at all the most creative designs, they don't use this.