SEO or Design

[Webnauts]

Off-topic:

Since splash pages came into discussion, I felt the need to add some additional info about them:

Useless Flash Intro Splash Pages Get a Google Smackdown
Why Google and Your Visitors Hate Flash Splash/Intro Pages - Barry Wise NJ SEO and Marketing Consultant
SEOmoz | How to Convince a Client They Don't Need a Splash Page

[adtastichosting]

Well see its like I said you are just nit picking as far as I can see and I dont think this forum nor this thread is a venue for nitpicking apart your competitor. And you are picking apart a site like ICS and don't even realize that 2 months ago it was his old and horrible website which didn't rank in the top 50 pages for any of the keywords integral to his success like his number one money keyphrase: rent cell phone which now ranks in the top ten on page one since we took it over and began the redesign in addition to dozens of other keywords and phrases important to him. And I say began the redesign because when we finish the work all of the pages will clearly validate. So get off my ass and find someone else to pick on I work with what I have to work with with respect to my clients, their needs and the budget involved and the sites rank well in the search engines on the keywords and phrases that are important to them and thats all that really matters as far as that goes when it comes to their bottom line. Why not lay ou a roadmap to your busines and clients and lets see if we can find anything to nitpick about there or I am sure you are perfect huh?
Oh yeah and I've been trying to get The Art gallerly to get rid of that splash page for a while now but what do I know they're in the 'art" business.

[Narasinha]

Hey, Incrediblehelp! Long time no type!

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Who leads in this project is really a "it depends" answer and whatever works best for everyone.

Yeah, it can be a touchy issue. I think it's a problem in the making to even say that one aspect of the site construction "leads" another in the first place. But what do we mean by "design"? Is this simply the "look and feel" of the site? I think that's what "designers" do. The actual HTML and CSS is not the realm of someone who is a designer and nothing else.

[adtastichosting]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

If everything you claim above are facts, then allow me to say congratulations! And be sure I have no wish or need to ruin someones business or reputation. But I cannot keep myself back when people are praising themselves to heaven showing off stuff that myself and I am sure others too can not see the professionalism claimed.

My apologies if you felt offended, and I think it would be wise that we go back to topic and stick on it.

Well I do appreciate you at least coming out and saying this but it does feel like you are trying to tear me apart. Everything I have said and do say is truthful at least to the best of my ability from where I stand. I don't claim to be perfect (ok maybe it sounds that way but I don't mean it to) but like I keep saying the bottom line whether you like the design of my clients sites or not is whether my clients are happy and satisfied they are getting what they are paying for. And maybe I come off being proud of what I do and how I do it but I built my business from the ground up one customer at a time to over 300 customers today and it wasn't a cakewalk to get here so yes I am proud of what I do and the price I payed to get here.
And maybe my version of seo/sem isn't how you do things but the fact of the matter is I don't have one client that doesnt rank on page one of Google on keywords and phrases that are important to them and its not because of anything blackhat or unethical and to me, thats all that really should matter in this business to you and I as "peers" not how different you or I might be on not seeing eye to eye about a sites development or whatever.

[Narasinha]

Originally Posted by adtastichosting

Oh yeah and I've been trying to get The Art gallerly to get rid of that splash page for a while now but what do I know they're in the 'art" business.

What do you know? You know a lot more than they do about the web business. Contrary to popular thought, the customer is not always right. I treat it this way: If the customer insists on something that I believe is very contrary to their ineterest, I tell them about it, and if they refuse to budge, I tell them "Thank you, but I can no longer work on your project." If they won't allow me to perform my duties to the best of my abilities, I simply can't work with them. I'd rather go without customers like that.

[adtastichosting]

Originally Posted by Narasinha

Keeping up with the evolving standards is difficult at best, but in my opinion, it gives a site an advantage over those that do not comply with the standards. The semantic structure of pages helps the bots (consider them to be users who are both deaf and blind) analyze the content. If we can "spoon-feed" the content to the bots in the best possible way, we can make great strides in the organic search results.

Ok back on topic because this raises an interesting question in light of previous off topic sub-thread Its one thing when we are working with a designer specifically which might not be on the same page as us but what about the main stakeholder, the client.

I mean, what you say about keeping up with evolving standards being difficult at best is true as we know but what about when you have to balance this need with the errant desires of the client which you know are rather off kilt with respect to how it really should be done.

Do you after you have already argue until you ar eblue in the face and the client just doesn't get it jump up and say "I won't put my name on it unless it is done such and such way" and risk losing the money that will feed your family or do you work within the constraints and try to find some sort of balance that may not satisfy those "standards" but will at least move things forward in a good way and retain the client and hopefully pave the way for future development or...?
Of course I think anyone honest here will choose the latter over the former but I'm curious as to how different people might handle this.

[Narasinha]

Originally Posted by adtastichosting

Ok back on topic because this raises an interesting question in light of previous off topic sub-thread Its one thing when we are working with a designer specifically which might not be on the same page as us but what about the main stakeholder, the client.

I mean, what you say about keeping up with evolving standards being difficult at best is true as we know but what about when you have to balance this need with the errant desires of the client which you know are rather off kilt with respect to how it really should be done.

It's a tough line to walk, especially when you're depending on their money to put a roof over your head and food on the table. I try to look at it this way...

Why did they hire you instead of doing it themselves? Because you are a professional at web design, SEO, and SEM. If all they wanted was basically a "yellow pages" ad on the web, they could probably do it themselves on some business marketing site that lets them do that. But they want a lot more than that, so they came to you.

If you wanted a doghouse for your cocker spaniel, you could probably do a pretty good job of it yourself. But what about your new home? Would you build it yourself or hire a contractor? Unless you're much more of a carpenter than I am, you'd hire the job out to the professionals.

Now imagine that you show up at the work site and tell the contractor that you want a particular wall moved two feet to the south. The contractor tells you that moving that wall would probably make the house structurally unsound, and it would not meet the local building codes. You say that you don't care, you're the one paying him, not the other way around, and you want it done the way you want it. What would/should the contractor do? Admittedly, it would be a rather different case if you simply stated that you didn't want the house painted with the "seafoam" color, but instead wanted "electric lime". The contractor might have told you it would cost extra for the new materials, but if that's what you want, that's okay with him.

Always remember that you are the web professional, not your client. If they were, then they'd be doing the job themselves. If they hire you as a professional, then they should respect your knowledge about your craft. If they won't take your professional advice, then it seems to me that they don't have much respect for you as a professional.

[kevsta]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

P.S. Once again: Which keywords you are outranking Bruce and Rand please.

i would still like to know this too, I see those searches a lot and haven't stumbled across your site yet if its the one in your sig.

am not starting on you, genuinely curious as we are in some of those searches in 13 months from site start up.

edit. didnt see that a "back to topic" had been declared, let it go if you dont want to share

[Orion]

Oh.. heck.. I'll start a little ball rolling here..

Lets see where we rank for certain phrases in relationship to Bruce and Rand...

seo design consulting - Google Search

4 below him #10 is my site (searched from Canada) orionsweb.net ... and I haven't touched this site in um like a couple years.. way over due for an update....

[adtastichosting]

lol. once again I hate it when people twist what you say, nowhere did I say I "outrank" them I said I rank on the same page as them and for example do a search on: search engine marketing rates, you'll see Bruce is #1 and #2 out of about 55 million and I am #3. As of right now there are about 9 terms that are reasonably well trafficked and competitive and average about 30 million results in which I rank on the first page of Google right alongside the likes of the Bruce's of the industry. Am I going to list them all here? Hardly, its enough work to keep competitive on that as it is without giving someone a roadmap to try and tear me down any more than as already been going on in this forum here such as people making insinuations about how my clients sites look according to a spider yet not showing the sites they tout on their own testimonial page under the same microscope (for good reason since I peeked). Especially since what is most imortant I would think would be is the client happy, do they rank on page one on the terms and phrases that they want to rank on and are bringing them the business which as far as I am concerned, is really the bottom line and what our business is about.
Am I perfect? No by no means but I have been doing this along time and I'm right in the trenches along with everyone else in this business/industry and runnnig my business as well as I can and rather than trying to find ways to make someone look imperfect we should be peers and find ways to help each other be better and stronger.

[kevsta]

dude, chill-pill time, ..not bothered whether you outrank them or not just hadnt seen your site about, - honest interest not looking to pick holes.

but as Orion started it heres us showing at #2 (here anyway) above some names some might recognise

google "business seo"

[adtastichosting]

Hey no biggie. I'm proud of my business and work too damn hard probably and maybe yeah I take it a little too serious so when someone is slamming me (present company excepted) trying to pick me apart as if I am false or a liar or something I take offense to that surely.

But way to go on that term that's great you show number 2 here as well that one probably gets you some traffic. See there's plenty of room for us all and anything we can do to help each other compete against the big boys and Google is fine by me.

[kevsta]

lol, barely a trickle, and that's other SEOs mainly.

[Orion]

I find in the Design / SEO industry your ranking it self doesn't bring as much traffic as someone recommends you then that company checks out your ranking to see if you're any good.. That then locks in the referral...

Least that's how I've seen it with ourselves and a few others in the industry.

[kevsta]

Originally Posted by Orion

I find in the Design / SEO industry your ranking it self doesn't bring as much traffic as someone recommends you then that company checks out your ranking to see if you're any good.. That then locks in the referral...

Least that's how I've seen it with ourselves and a few others in the industry.

totally. I mainly use the best phrases as client demos once we're already chatting. the kind of leads that (generally) come through the site is all the stuff you dont want anyway.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by adtastichosting

lol. once again I hate it when people twist what you say, nowhere did I say I "outrank" them

Sorry. That was me. I misunderstood, but still... go on reading.

Originally Posted by adtastichosting

I said I rank on the same page as them and for example do a search on: search engine marketing rates, you'll see Bruce is #1 and #2 out of about 55 million and I am #3.

WOW!!!!

1. Do you estimate a term if it is competetive based on the number of search results? No further comments...

2. Keyphrase "search engine marketing rates". Based on Word Tracker, Yahoo Suggest, Google Trends, Google Traffic Estimator, Google Suggest, Google Search-Based Tool, Google Search?q=~+-, AdWords Keyword Tool, Google Insight Search, Quintura, Keywords Discovery that term is not searched at all! What the hell are we talking about here?

Originally Posted by adtastichosting

As of right now there are about 9 terms that are reasonably well trafficked and competitive and average about 30 million results in which I rank on the first page of Google right alongside the likes of the Bruce's of the industry.

Please stop bringing Bruce into this, because:

1. Number of pages do not make the term competetive. Search volume tells if the terms is competetive. Very sad argument buddy.

2. Lets see what Bruce says about SERP: Will Personal Search Turn SEO On Its Ear? | WebProNews Could it be that you are probably entirely out of date?

Originally Posted by adtastichosting

Am I perfect? No by no means but I have been doing this along time and I'm right in the trenches along with everyone else in this business/industry and runnnig my business as well as I can and rather than trying to find ways to make someone look imperfect we should be peers and find ways to help each other be better and stronger.

Well no one here is perfect. But everyone else also behaves as not being perfect or the best. A tip: Go through all your posts in this thread, and you will see what I mean.

Back to topic now?

[janeth]

Originally Posted by adtastichosting

lol. once again I hate it when people twist what you say, nowhere did I say I "outrank" them I said I rank on the same page as them and for example do a search on: search engine marketing rates, you'll see Bruce is #1 and #2 out of about 55 million and I am #3.

Just a couple small notes.

Just because you rank on the same page as someone does not mean that is a keyword they are targeting. I rank for lots of keywords that I’ve never even tried to rank for.

When you make statements like you’ve been in business before Google ever existed and that you are the real deal, able to do what others only talk about. Yet you’re not ranking for the big keywords like search engine optimization, search engine marketing and so on and so on.

You are setting yourself up to be picked on.
Just my two cents.

[Webnauts]

Adtastichosting, me again. I forgot to mention above one of many examples I could show here.

One is here:

I rank #10 out of 127.000.000 pages in Google Int for the term "search engine optimization tool" search engine optimization tool - Google Search

But my keyword analysis research tell me that it is not a searched term. Should I shout hurray? I wouldn't dare in a thread with a bunch of professionals. Oh, and Bruce is just above me.

I rank though #14 for the term "search engine optimization tools" out of 10.500.000 pages search engine optimization tools - Google Search

And according to my keyword analysis research, it is a search term. For that I would now shout out hurray either. Why? Would you for a US search volume of 2850 per month?

Do you see now where I come from? 127.000.000 pages or 10.500.000 pages are better? I just thought bringing up an example for a better understanding.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by janeth

Just because you rank on the same page as someone does not mean that is a keyword they are targeting. I rank for lots of keywords that I’ve never even tried to rank for.

Come on Janeth. I outrank every SEO/SEM and who ever else you want on this planet for the term seo analysis!!! Don't you agree that I rule?

[kevsta]

whereas seo domination is all mine

this one brings in image search traffic by the bucketload, but they're not looking for SEO

[full house]

I may say. . . focus on the content. make sure meta and others are related. Content is the king.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by full house

I may say. . . focus on the content. make sure meta and others are related. Content is the king.

What the hell are you talking about. Are you trying to draw attention with irrelevant or off-topic posts here? Please stop spoiling threads buddy. This is not the first time you do that.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Orion

I find in the Design / SEO industry your ranking it self doesn't bring as much traffic as someone recommends you then that company checks out your ranking to see if you're any good.. That then locks in the referral...

Least that's how I've seen it with ourselves and a few others in the industry.

Originally Posted by kevsta

lol, barely a trickle, and that's other SEOs mainly.

Originally Posted by kevsta

totally. I mainly use the best phrases as client demos once we're already chatting. the kind of leads that (generally) come through the site is all the stuff you dont want anyway.

I hope that I'm misunderstanding. However, it almost sounds like you guys are saying that while you can’t make SEO work for yourselves it is a service that you provide for your clients?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by janeth

I hope that I'm misunderstanding. However, it almost sounds like you guys are saying that while you can’t make SEO work for yourselves it is a service that you provide for your clients?

Oh my gosh! Whats going on here?

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Oh my gosh! Whats going on here?

I might have misunderstood

[kevsta]

Originally Posted by janeth

I hope that I'm misunderstanding. However, it almost sounds like you guys are saying that while you can’t make SEO work for yourselves it is a service that you provide for your clients?

lol, yes you misunderstood, but I can see how you thought that.

I was saying that that particular term isnt an seo customer buying term, very few of the hotly contested seo terms are what most seo customers are typing in.

most customers who found us through the web typed in "rank higher in google" or "business in ibiza" sort of thing

obviously we show up for those sorts of things too.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by kevsta

lol, yes you misunderstood, but I can see how you thought that.

I was saying that that particular term isnt an seo customer buying term, very few of the hotly contested seo terms are what most seo customers are typing in.

most customers who found us through the web typed in "rank higher in google" or "business in ibiza" sort of thing

obviously we show up for those sorts of things too.

Yes, I make lots of money every day targeting those types of terms.

[full house]

Originally Posted by janeth

Yes, I make lots of money every day targeting those types of terms.

cool! How did you do that?please share it to us! Envy!

[janeth]

Originally Posted by full house

cool! How did you do that?please share it to us! Envy!

It would take a bit to explain but I'll see what I can do on another thread.

[kevsta]

lots of money everyday does sound good

[avoir des goûts simples]

working with a designer is really hard especially if you don't tell them why you need minimize the image because it can affect your seo campaign in just a simple mistake.

[MtraX]

I also feel that if you work with a professional web designer they should be on top of the latest HTML / CSS trends. This will allow a great design as well as highly optimised site. If the designer and the web designer (person who will be coding front-end) is not the same person, it's important to get everyone together up front (including the client) to discuss the goals and strategy to reach those goals. This might impose certain technical restrictions on design layouts, but skilled professionals can find innovative ways to get the best of both worlds.

[miketyson]

For good seo good design is also necessary and internal link structure should be good.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by miketyson

For good seo good design is also necessary and internal link structure should be good.

Can you explain us what do you mean exactly?

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Can you explain us what do you mean exactly?

Did you notice the remarkable similarity to the posts of another?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by deepsand

Did you notice the remarkable similarity to the posts of another?

I do and that is what pisses me off all the time. My time is very limited to hang around in forums, but I still do so in my breaks, because it is fun without those "thank you" posts etc, or repeated posts of others from guys trying desperately to draw attention and hoping that members will click on the links in their signatures.

That is why I created in my forums a category called "Search Editors Lounge", which only people I invite or ask me for approval can enter. Such posters have no chance to bother there.

I miss the fun we had the old times here at WPW without all those... you know what...

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

I miss the fun we had the old times here at WPW without all those... you know what...

I think the word you seek is "wannabes."

Here's 2 recent prime examples of "substantive" posts, both by the same party, one whose alias says it all.

http://www.webproworld.com/internet-...tml#post409472

YahooMail killed my years-old accout