Back To The Basics

A common issue with some web sites is traffic begins to plateau, leaving you to wonder: “What else can I do to improve the traffic to my site?” The first thing to do is to look under your hood by checking your site’s traffic stats. If you are getting lots of requests from search agents, but not a lot of referrals from them, there could be a problem with the site’s overall design.

One point to keep in mind is some web sites are harder to make visible than others within the search engines. Here are a few examples of common basic design issues which hinder visibility. These bear repeating from time to time because we constantly observe web site owners and designers repeating the same basic mistakes.

Flash content:

Information contained within a Flash presentation is invisible to most search engines because the technology to extract information from Flash is not mature enough yet. Therefore, think of Flash as a empty hole on your page and you get the idea. It may look pretty but rarely does your site any good whatsoever – Visibility-wise.

Frames:

If you see a search result for your site with the following description; “Your browser does not support frames get a new browser”, your site needs help! Frames are hard to index because framed pages combine several pages into one and thus breaks a golden rule for URLs: one document per URL. Search Engine Spiders will usually turn and run, when a framed site is encountered.

Splash Pages:

Even if the site itself has lots of content, a splash page will be a major barrier to most search engines. They sure look great, but most splash pages also do nothing for the site’s visibility because search engine spiders cannot extract the necessary information contained within an image.

If your site falls into one of the above categories or if you are planning a site redesign or building a new site, you want to do all you can to have your site indexed properly. Metamend’s consulting services will provide you with honest feedback and a professional analysis before any changes takes place. Think of it as preventative medicine. Call us before you start. It could save you a lot of time and a ton of frustration.