Website Visitors V Robots V Search Engines - The Web Design Juggling Act
Roy Strong
When it comes to web design there are two main considerations, how website visitors will view it and how search engine robots will view it, and unfortunately what makes a website fantastic for one may weaken its impact on the other. All singing and dancing graphics and navigation, words or images that move around and lead capture pages may all help grab the attention of those who visit your site but these dynamic web> features are often hated by search engine robots which may struggle to read them the way you intended, and the resulting low position on the search engines may mean that very few people actually get to look at your website in the first place to see the fabulous design that you were so proud about.
Over the years I've found some amazing websites with stunning designs, but a quick look at the source code behind it and it is a complete disaster, with excessive coding that a search engine would hate. Keeping your html or php code as clean and clear as you possibly can is important for getting a high search engine ranking, and try to stay clear oftoo much JavaScript as some browsers as well as search engines can find it very difficult to cope with properly.
Visitors look at a website much the same way they look at an advert or a newspaper page, top left to bottom right, so this line of sight matters on your website page, which is why top and left navigation is the ideal to stick to, especially as right panel navigation can disappear from view altogether on a screen with limited size. However, the right panel is more search engine friendly because it comes after your page content and therefore means your keywords appear higher up in your website code. There are two ways around this problem, first is to put keywords in your navigation button words, the more complicated is to set up your coding in such a way as for the main content to come immediately after the header and titles, and before any navigation. Have a word with your website builder or web design company on how to get this done on your website.
Turning off the images on your browser for a temporary period is a smart way of getting a snapshot of how some search engines will read your page, if there are bits on there that make no sense then you might want to make some changes.
Ultimately, however much you attempt to solve the problem between website visitor and search engine, your web design is likely to always favour one more that the other. If you have a new site, a new business or require a lot on new website visitors for your business then your choice is easy, you have to make your site as search engine friendly as possible. For a business that people already know about, one that will mostly be visits by returning customers who know where to find your site then how it looks to people will be the main concern.
Article by Roy Strong of Strong Marketing Ltd
http://www.strong-marketing.co.uk
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