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]

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.