SEO and tableless design

[Nick Spence]

I reviewed the site and have a couple of comments:

You could change the domain name. usvirginislandwedding.com is available. The would be one little thing that wouldn't hurt, as most people wishing to have a wedding in the virgin islands would use the word virgin island(s).

You need more incoming links. While Google shows a page rank of 3 (out of 10), Google is only showing two inbound links--and both of those are from the same site. High ranking in Google is supported by inbound links. Note, they need to be good links--ie, links from valuable sites, not from link farms. Get a link from every hotel and caterer on the island, for instance.

Change your home page meta title and meta description so your major search terms come first. The word Simple is probably not searched on very much. The description doesn't even use the words Virgin Island....

Spice up the home page some. You may be having some difficulty converting visitors into prospects. Hire a graphic designer to consult with. I'm not saying the site is ugly--it's not--but it isn't as fancy as some of the competition. Take a look at Welcome to Weddings the Island Way which has the #1 position under virgin island wedding. Photos of happy people would be good.

You really should be in dmoz (ODP - Open Directory Project). Too many engines pull results from there. In fact, there are directory sites out there that pull results from dmoz, and then Google pulls results from them. (Strange, but true.)

So far as valid code goes, I'm not going to get into the argument as to whether it affects ranking. Valid code doesn't hurt, certainly. However, the number one ranked site on Google for virgin island wedding has 27 validation errors.

I know you asked about an SEO specialist, and he would probably have even more to offer. Don't worry about whatever tool he's using--any of them can write valid html if the operator knows how to write valid html. Certainly Dreamweaver and GoLive are two of the best as they both have built-in validation tools these days.

~Nick

[E-Platform]

SEO is a specialty for our company. We have numerous websites that are W3C Validated and most of the rest have less than 5 "errors". This has not proved to be an issue or advantage. I think that having numerous errors could be a problem however of all SEO points Validation is a very low priority item.

Dreamweaver is not an obstacle in achieving validation or successful SEO. We create all of our sites in Dreamweaver and apply SEO as we go. We also use Dreamweaver to edit existing websites when we do SEO initiatives. The problematic application is FrontPage - we won't touch a FrontPage website.

A knowledgable and experienced SEO firm will not have an issue implementing SEO and retaining W3C Validation.

[pauliii]

Viewing your page source like a robot would found very little text at in the top 100 lines. I had to get to line 195 before there were real paragraphs. The metatags were generic . . ."Virgin Islands" . . . How about "Virgin Island Wedding"? How about putting that text near the top of the page? How about making that important text a headline? How about repeating that phrase several times?'

Get a SEO expert involved. Tables are fine for a simple page like the one you designed. Dreamweaver is an over kill for your page. I like the simple appearance. I don't know about your ad keys, but if they are not prominent in your headlines, in the first paragraph, repeated in the alt tags . .. then your google ads will get poor placement and become expensive.

[brucet]

I absolutely agree with Dubbya. Our web site has been slated by web designers on our own forum for allegedly poor coding, but I really don't care. It consistently performs better on Google than the most elegantly coded site of any of our competitors. From a business pov that is far more important.

There may be coding errors that can block spiders - but Dreamweaver certainly isn't going to generate them.

What's more concerning is your client's paucity of traffic from pay-per-click, and the apparent lack of significant competition in the natural listings. Unfortunately, that suggests there's not much business there in the first place.

[Littlemansearch]

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 would be interested to know why you say dreamweaver would invalidate the code as this is the first time I have heard of this?

Littleman Search

Vibes and Vids Home Page mp3 and film

[BossWebmaster]

That's a pretty arrogant and, frankly unhelpful statement



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

Alright Iany!

www.ontopoftheworldcommunities.com ranks #1 for "Florida Retirement Community" in google, that's my baby, do you know how many retirement communities there are in Florida?

www.theranchfitnessspa.com ranks #1 for "ocala fitness center" the site is less than a year old and it dominates the SERPS for the city

my current project: Gainesville Real Estate, Ocala Real Estate, and Sarasota/Venice Real Estate: Florida Homes for Sale from Bosshardt Realty Services, Inc., ranks 7th for "gainesville realty" they haven't even let me optimize their code yet, that's 100% from IBLs.

There's your evidence that it doesn't matter if your code validates. I haven't even touched a validator since I graduated.

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.

BULL CRAP! You're the arrogant one, you have no idea what you're talking about, and no evidence to back it up.

[DrTandem1]

From a question about table-less design to the (now old) debate regarding valid code. There are many homes and businesses that have building code violations. Would you buy one knowingly? While valid code really has nothing to do with SEO, it is important to understand the reasons for adhering to standards.

The main reasons for using invalid code are laziness and ignorance. It's not against the law (in web design) to be either lazy and/or ignorant. Most designs can be made to validate. If it weren't for standards being generally followed, one would need a multitude of browsers to surf the internet.

Taking an example to an extreme, if you design a site that can't be viewed with IE, it may still become number one in the SERPs due to an IBL campaign. Yet, what good is it being number one, if the majority of visitors can't view the site?

By using valid code, you increase the chances that your site will be compatible across a wide range of browsers. Is it important that you don't place a blank alt attribute for a spacer GIF? Not really, but it won't validate. It also won't validate, if you forget to place a descriptive alt attribute for a major image, which is an opportunity to not only increase accessibility, but also to provide more content that can be indexed. However, if you don't bother to validate your page, you may miss the omission.

[BossWebmaster]

If you guys want to all sit around writing web sites in strict xhtml, that's your own choice, I really don't care. It just irks me when some of you try to claim it will make your web sites rank higher.

I know a lot of SEO people use that as a marketing ploy to try and make themselves look better than the next guy, and it is a total lie. In some cases I bet there are people who have gotten contracts to totally rewrite perfectly good web sites that worked on every web browser under the sun in strict xhtml because "it will help them rank higher in search engines".

Whatever, I'll get off my soap box it's really not worth arguing about anymore.

[Nick Spence]

Whithout getting into the discussion as to how validation affects site ranking on Googgle I do note that:

"www.ontopoftheworldcommunities.com ranks #1 for "Florida Retirement Community" in google, that's my baby, do you know how many retirement communities there are in Florida?"

Ranks #4 without the quotes and #3 with them. Very good job!

I also note that it virtually validates, being only two errors on the page which happen to be very minor.

~Nick

[colincartwright]

Can't understand why you are so worried about code compliance. Its just not important. I try to design sites to be W3C compliant, but what a lot of work - customers only want high rankings, and good looking websites so I make sure my sites are designed for SEO first and compliance to standards comes second. Most everyone here agrees - no use having a fully standards compliant and perfect in every respect website if no one sees it.

Much better to get the SEO done and done properly and let the site, mistakes and all, rank on page 1 of google.

I would say probably 95% of websites contaain numerous errors, but what matters is how well they rank in the search engines and that they have information and/or goods relevant to a customer or end users needs and thats all.