White hat versus black hat
*************************
SEO techniques can be classified into two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design, and those techniques of which search engines do not approve. The search engines attempt to minimize the effect of the latter, among them spamdexing. Some industry commentators have classified these methods, and the practitioners who employ them, as either white hat SEO, or black hat SEO.[29] White hats tend to produce results that last a long time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites may eventually be banned either temporarily or permanently once the search engines discover what they are doing.[30]
An SEO technique is considered white hat if it conforms to the search engines' guidelines and involves no deception. As the search engine guidelines[17][18][19][31] are not written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note. White hat SEO is not just about following guidelines, but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see. White hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then making that content easily accessible to the spiders, rather than attempting to trick the algorithm from its intended purpose. White hat SEO is in many ways similar to web development that promotes accessibility,[32] although the two are not identical.
Black hat SEO attempts to improve rankings in ways that are disapproved of by the search engines, or involve deception. One black hat technique uses text that is hidden, either as text colored similar to the background, in an invisible div, or positioned off screen. Another method gives a different page depending on whether the page is being requested by a human visitor or a search engine, a technique known as cloaking.
Search engines may penalize sites they discover using black hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether. Such penalties can be applied either automatically by the search engines' algorithms, or by a manual site review. Infamous examples are the February 2006 Google removal of both BMW Germany and Ricoh Germany for use of deceptive practices.[33] and the April 2006 removal of the PPC Agency BigMouthMedia.[34] All three companies, however, quickly apologized, fixed the offending pages, and were restored to Google's list.[35]
Many Web applications employ back-end systems that dynamically modify page content (both visible and meta-data) and are designed to increase page relevance to search engines based upon how past visitors reached the original page. This dynamic search engine optimization and tuning process can be (and has been) abused by criminals in the past. Exploitation of Web applications that dynamically alter themselves can be poisoned[36]
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
HISTORY OF SEO
Webmasters and content providers began optimizing sites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early Web. Initially, all a webmaster needed to do was submit the address of a page, or URL, to the various engines which would send a spider to "crawl" that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed.[1] The process involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine's own server, where a second program, known as an indexer, extracts various information about the page, such as the words it contains and where these are located, as well as any weight for specific words, and all links the page contains, which are then placed into a scheduler for crawling at a later date.
Site owners started to recognize the value of having their sites highly ranked and visible in search engine results, creating an opportunity for both white hat and black hat SEO practitioners. According to industry analyst Danny Sullivan, the phrase search engine optimization probably came into use in 1997.[2]
Early versions of search algorithms relied on webmaster-provided information such as the keyword meta tag, or index files in engines like ALIWEB. Meta tags provide a guide to each page's content. But using meta data to index pages was found to be less than reliable because the webmaster's choice of keywords in the meta tag could potentially be an inaccurate representation of the site's actual content. Inaccurate, incomplete, and inconsistent data in meta tags could and did cause pages to rank for irrelevant searches.[3] Web content providers also manipulated a number of attributes within the HTML source of a page in an attempt to rank well in search engines.[4]
By relying so much on factors such as keyword density which were exclusively within a webmaster's control, early search engines suffered from abuse and ranking manipulation. To provide better results to their users, search engines had to adapt to ensure their results pages showed the most relevant search results, rather than unrelated pages stuffed with numerous keywords by unscrupulous webmasters. Since the success and popularity of a search engine is determined by its ability to produce the most relevant results to any given search, allowing those results to be false would turn users to find other search sources. Search engines responded by developing more complex ranking algorithms, taking into account additional factors that were more difficult for webmasters to manipulate.
Graduate students at Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed "backrub," a search engine that relied on a mathematical algorithm to rate the prominence of web pages. The number calculated by the algorithm, PageRank, is a function of the quantity and strength of inbound links.[5] PageRank estimates the likelihood that a given page will be reached by a web user who randomly surfs the web, and follows links from one page to another. In effect, this means that some links are stronger than others, as a higher PageRank page is more likely to be reached by the random surfer.
Page and Brin founded Google in 1998. Google attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design.[6] Off-page factors (such as PageRank and hyperlink analysis) were considered as well as on-page factors (such as keyword frequency, meta tags[citation needed], headings, links and site structure) to enable Google to avoid the kind of manipulation seen in search engines that only considered on-page factors for their rankings. Although PageRank was more difficult to game, webmasters had already developed link building tools and schemes to influence the Inktomi search engine, and these methods proved similarly applicable to gaming PageRank. Many sites focused on exchanging, buying, and selling links, often on a massive scale. Some of these schemes, or link farms, involved the creation of thousands of sites for the sole purpose of link spamming.[7] In recent years major search engines have begun to rely more heavily on off-web factors such as the age, sex, location, and search history of people conducting searches in order to further refine results.[citation needed]
By 2007, search engines had incorporated a wide range of undisclosed factors in their ranking algorithms to reduce the impact of link manipulation. Google says it ranks sites using more than 200 different signals.[8] The three leading search engines, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Live Search, do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages. Notable SEOs, such as Rand Fishkin, Barry Schwartz, Aaron Wall and Jill Whalen, have studied different approaches to search engine optimization, and have published their opinions in online forums and blogs.[9][10] SEO practitioners may also study patents held by various search engines to gain insight into the algorithms.[11].
Site owners started to recognize the value of having their sites highly ranked and visible in search engine results, creating an opportunity for both white hat and black hat SEO practitioners. According to industry analyst Danny Sullivan, the phrase search engine optimization probably came into use in 1997.[2]
Early versions of search algorithms relied on webmaster-provided information such as the keyword meta tag, or index files in engines like ALIWEB. Meta tags provide a guide to each page's content. But using meta data to index pages was found to be less than reliable because the webmaster's choice of keywords in the meta tag could potentially be an inaccurate representation of the site's actual content. Inaccurate, incomplete, and inconsistent data in meta tags could and did cause pages to rank for irrelevant searches.[3] Web content providers also manipulated a number of attributes within the HTML source of a page in an attempt to rank well in search engines.[4]
By relying so much on factors such as keyword density which were exclusively within a webmaster's control, early search engines suffered from abuse and ranking manipulation. To provide better results to their users, search engines had to adapt to ensure their results pages showed the most relevant search results, rather than unrelated pages stuffed with numerous keywords by unscrupulous webmasters. Since the success and popularity of a search engine is determined by its ability to produce the most relevant results to any given search, allowing those results to be false would turn users to find other search sources. Search engines responded by developing more complex ranking algorithms, taking into account additional factors that were more difficult for webmasters to manipulate.
Graduate students at Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed "backrub," a search engine that relied on a mathematical algorithm to rate the prominence of web pages. The number calculated by the algorithm, PageRank, is a function of the quantity and strength of inbound links.[5] PageRank estimates the likelihood that a given page will be reached by a web user who randomly surfs the web, and follows links from one page to another. In effect, this means that some links are stronger than others, as a higher PageRank page is more likely to be reached by the random surfer.
Page and Brin founded Google in 1998. Google attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design.[6] Off-page factors (such as PageRank and hyperlink analysis) were considered as well as on-page factors (such as keyword frequency, meta tags[citation needed], headings, links and site structure) to enable Google to avoid the kind of manipulation seen in search engines that only considered on-page factors for their rankings. Although PageRank was more difficult to game, webmasters had already developed link building tools and schemes to influence the Inktomi search engine, and these methods proved similarly applicable to gaming PageRank. Many sites focused on exchanging, buying, and selling links, often on a massive scale. Some of these schemes, or link farms, involved the creation of thousands of sites for the sole purpose of link spamming.[7] In recent years major search engines have begun to rely more heavily on off-web factors such as the age, sex, location, and search history of people conducting searches in order to further refine results.[citation needed]
By 2007, search engines had incorporated a wide range of undisclosed factors in their ranking algorithms to reduce the impact of link manipulation. Google says it ranks sites using more than 200 different signals.[8] The three leading search engines, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Live Search, do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages. Notable SEOs, such as Rand Fishkin, Barry Schwartz, Aaron Wall and Jill Whalen, have studied different approaches to search engine optimization, and have published their opinions in online forums and blogs.[9][10] SEO practitioners may also study patents held by various search engines to gain insight into the algorithms.[11].
WHAT IS SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence.
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.
The acronym "SEO" can also refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.
Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or Spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.
The acronym "SEO" can also refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.
Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or Spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.
SEO DEFINATION
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a mechanism to provide the high rank on major search engine and in other word SEO, as a
marketing strategy, can often generate a good return. A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive by organic SEO and may involve the use of paid web advertising on major search engine and top level of website.
The success of your website will not be measured by how good it looks but on how is fast it loads. The success of your website will be measured by: How much money it makes and how many customers are made. Only the first 20 sites will attract visitor. Only those 20 sites have a chance to convert a site visitor into a new customer.
marketing strategy, can often generate a good return. A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive by organic SEO and may involve the use of paid web advertising on major search engine and top level of website.
The success of your website will not be measured by how good it looks but on how is fast it loads. The success of your website will be measured by: How much money it makes and how many customers are made. Only the first 20 sites will attract visitor. Only those 20 sites have a chance to convert a site visitor into a new customer.
WHAT IS SEM
Search Engine Marketing
SEM, Adwords & Pay Per Click services
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) displays ads only to people who are actively looking for a particular product or service. The placement and creative is triggered by the search phrase entered into the search engine and, as a result, click through and conversion rates are very high. Payment is typically on a cost per click basis (CPC).
Use SEM for
Revenue or Lead Generation
Brand Building
Short or Long Term Campaigns
Fill in SEO gaps
Test the Market
SEM, Adwords & Pay Per Click services
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) displays ads only to people who are actively looking for a particular product or service. The placement and creative is triggered by the search phrase entered into the search engine and, as a result, click through and conversion rates are very high. Payment is typically on a cost per click basis (CPC).
Use SEM for
Revenue or Lead Generation
Brand Building
Short or Long Term Campaigns
Fill in SEO gaps
Test the Market
ETHICS IN SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to the process of designing the content of your website in such a manner that it ranks higher in results of leading search engines like google. Various companies offering web design in Sydney also offer SEO services. However quite a few of the SEO in Australia use unethical or spamming methods to rank it higher in search results. These unethical methods are sure to provide immediate and short term results, but in the longer run these methods will prove to be detrimental to your website. Therefore, companies offering services of search engine marketing in Sydney should be differentiated on the basis of the ethical or unethical methods they follow.
The different methods used to optimize websites by companies offering services of SEO in Australia can be categorized into two parts: Black hat and white hat.
As the name suggests, black hat refers to the unethical or spamming methods used by these so called SEO experts in Australia. The websites designed through this method have little or no relevant information in them; rather they create excessive links in the website, thus trying to guide the visitors to the product sale page of the company. This type of search engine marketing in Sydney is very common, and most often it results in the website getting banned from the search engine. One of the ways to recognize an unethical SEO is to keep a lookout for the number and quality of links being created on the website. If you suspect that the links are not relevant, then you should question the practices of that company, and if needed then you should consider changing the company.
On the other hand, white hat method or the organic method of web design in Sydney refers to creating quality content in the website, which is aimed at creating content for people and not for search engines. These high quality SEO in Australia extensively study the ranking methodology followed by various search engines, and design the content in accordance with those methodology. Thus the chances of websites created using the white hat method have no chance of getting banned from search engines. These ethical SEOs generally document the entire process that they have followed in optimizing the page and also provide these documents to their clients when needed.
It is generally not advisable for websites to undertake unethical methods for search engine marketing in Sydney, because even though the short term benefits are easily visible, yet the long term losses for the website far outweighs the long term benefits.
The author is a business writer Visit at www.omweda.com.au to know more about SEO Australia , Search Engine Marketing in Sydney and Web Design Sydney.
The different methods used to optimize websites by companies offering services of SEO in Australia can be categorized into two parts: Black hat and white hat.
As the name suggests, black hat refers to the unethical or spamming methods used by these so called SEO experts in Australia. The websites designed through this method have little or no relevant information in them; rather they create excessive links in the website, thus trying to guide the visitors to the product sale page of the company. This type of search engine marketing in Sydney is very common, and most often it results in the website getting banned from the search engine. One of the ways to recognize an unethical SEO is to keep a lookout for the number and quality of links being created on the website. If you suspect that the links are not relevant, then you should question the practices of that company, and if needed then you should consider changing the company.
On the other hand, white hat method or the organic method of web design in Sydney refers to creating quality content in the website, which is aimed at creating content for people and not for search engines. These high quality SEO in Australia extensively study the ranking methodology followed by various search engines, and design the content in accordance with those methodology. Thus the chances of websites created using the white hat method have no chance of getting banned from search engines. These ethical SEOs generally document the entire process that they have followed in optimizing the page and also provide these documents to their clients when needed.
It is generally not advisable for websites to undertake unethical methods for search engine marketing in Sydney, because even though the short term benefits are easily visible, yet the long term losses for the website far outweighs the long term benefits.
The author is a business writer Visit at www.omweda.com.au to know more about SEO Australia , Search Engine Marketing in Sydney and Web Design Sydney.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
SEO & WEB DESIGNER
As an SEO we get two kinds of sites; those that were designed in the past and where the designer is no longer involved, and the sites where the design is either ongoing or we are working with the web designers from the start. Both of these have their pros and cons as an SEO but there is a clear advantage of one over the other for the client.
First, let's discuss the pros and cons to the SEO. If we are coming in after the design is completed there are more than likely (and by that I mean 99.9% likely) some structural and or major design issues that will need to be addressed. Unless the web designer is skilled in SE-friendly design we are going to have our work cut out for us just dealing with structural issues. On the positive side of this scenario, we're left to just work on the site with no designer taking it personally when we tell them we need to make changes (and that can lead to some issues).
Now let's look at the other scenario. Working with a designer has it's cons which is generally – we're going to have a designer taking it personally when we need changes made to the structure of a site or challenging us when we're arguing that while an all-Flash site is visually appealing, it leaves something to be desired from and SEO standpoint. This conversation generally goes something like this (and all you SEO's out there can sing along):
SEO – Flash cannot be properly read in the same way as HTML and we need to have easily spidered content for the search engines to see.
Designer – Flash can be read by Google.
SEO – But not in the same way. We need multiple pages of optimized content and Flash just isn't going to provide that.
Designer – Well I disagree (probably read in some forum somewhere that a misc. guy had no problem ranking for “bob wyverniuschuck artist” with a Flash site) but even if that's true – it's the conversion that counts and this Flash site is going to convert.
SEO – Yes we understand that conversions are important but so is traffic. If we can't get traffic to the site then a 100% conversion ratio is irrelevant.
Designer – There are other ways to get traffic.
SEO - Yes I understand that but this is what the client has hired us to do and has asked that we work together to build an attractive site that ranks well.
So this is the down side and an extreme example of it (for humor as much as illustration). But there's a big upside and that comes when you have the opportunity to work with web designers who know how important SEO is (as an SEO who knows how important a good design is). Working to balance the two can be a daunting task and having the skills of the SEO matched with the skills of the web designer can be a true blessing. For example, I may have a great idea to make a site more easily navigated by search engines but an ugly solution to implement it whereas the designer may have a more attractive solution in mind if they know the problem and the technical solution.
Such a scenario has recently come about in our dealings with Moonrise Design. Moonrise contacted us in advance of their starting work for a client, had us sit in on conference calls to understand the client's needs and has since had us helping structure the site properly from the ground up. There is no resistance and we don't tell them what to do, we indicate the functions required – provide any technical background as necessary – and they implement it in a way that leaves the site FAR more attractive than if we had had to do it ourselves. Expert designers doing what they do best and understanding that what we do is SEO and the client wants to rank highly. Ah, it's a beautiful thing.
It is this experience and reflecting back on other web designers we've worked smoothly with in the past that inspired me to write this article. The article is more for potential clients of designers than for the designers themselves. So for those looking for a designer – if you want your site to rank highly and/or you'll be hiring an SEO – here's what to look for.
Picking A Web Designer
There are two main considerations that you'll need to make when you're picking your web designer. The first is, can they build an attractive site and the second is can they build a search engine friendly site?
Building an attractive site:
I am probably the last person to ask about what's attractive and what's not. When the Beanstalk site was up for a redesign a couple years ago I hired a professional web design company to build it. I can't create pretty things but I know how to test and I know how to monitor statistics to see if the traffic is behaving as I would hope.
Here's what to look at:
When you're choosing a designer take a look at their portfolio – put some of their designs past people in your target demographic and see what they think. It's also wise to view the sites of the leaders in your industry to see what they're doing (and maybe even who designed their sites). Just because you like something doesn't mean it's effective to your target market.
You also need to know if your designer is skilled at conversion optimization. Have they read such works as Enquiro's eye tracking studies. Have they done their research (or have you) regarding which colors make people act in which ways? These are extremely important issues to be aware of. If you look at the eye tracking studies - the Beanstalk site places our logo, the Hacker Safe logo and main title in the key zones. We also went with green giving a natural (easy on the eyes) feel that implies wealth and is strongly associated with money. When we changed to our current design the effects were immediately detectable in how our visitors behaved visiting more pages for longer periods of time and, most importantly, increasing our communication with us significantly.
If your designer is not aware of these things do not despair, they may be a fine designer indeed and may have this understanding intuitively (though a little research to back up any intuition is always a sound policy). That said, be aware of the information that is out there and ask questions when you're asked to approve designs.
Building a search engine friendly site:
This is crucially important but probably one of the areas we have to address most frequently. I can't possibly get into all the various areas of search engine friendly design so I'll simply list off a couple of the most common issue we encounter and then provide references to other reading.
Enormous amounts of code on the page. For some reason, even some new designs are coming to us as though they were out of 1998 as far as the page code is concerned. All skilled web designers should have a solid grasp of CSS and should be putting all the main formatting into this file(s). Way too often we're getting sites with dozens of font tags, color tags, size tags, etc. etc. etc. This just gives the search engines a lot more to dig through to find what they want – the content. I'm not even going to get into tables as that opens a whole other can of worms. If your site is table-based (your designer or SEO will be able to tell you this if you don't know) there are some basic practices to insure that the code these tables add is minimized. Unfortunately I can't get into the myriad of different situations this can entail and will have to save it for a future article (so be sure to bookmark our SEO blog to keep up-to-date on that and other developments in the industry).
Bad internal links. You want your internal pages to rank. Most sites will generally target the highest priority phrases on the homepage of the site but the internal pages are the ones that will rank for specific products, services and long tail phrases. To maximize the rankability of the internal pages you need them to be easily found by the spiders and you need to associate these pages with the keywords you're targeting. In short, you need to link to them with text and you need that text to include the keywords. This isn't some deep, dark mystery of SEO and has been well documented and commented on but we've seen tons of instances where internal links are image only or worse, an unspiderable script-based navigation system.
First, let's discuss the pros and cons to the SEO. If we are coming in after the design is completed there are more than likely (and by that I mean 99.9% likely) some structural and or major design issues that will need to be addressed. Unless the web designer is skilled in SE-friendly design we are going to have our work cut out for us just dealing with structural issues. On the positive side of this scenario, we're left to just work on the site with no designer taking it personally when we tell them we need to make changes (and that can lead to some issues).
Now let's look at the other scenario. Working with a designer has it's cons which is generally – we're going to have a designer taking it personally when we need changes made to the structure of a site or challenging us when we're arguing that while an all-Flash site is visually appealing, it leaves something to be desired from and SEO standpoint. This conversation generally goes something like this (and all you SEO's out there can sing along):
SEO – Flash cannot be properly read in the same way as HTML and we need to have easily spidered content for the search engines to see.
Designer – Flash can be read by Google.
SEO – But not in the same way. We need multiple pages of optimized content and Flash just isn't going to provide that.
Designer – Well I disagree (probably read in some forum somewhere that a misc. guy had no problem ranking for “bob wyverniuschuck artist” with a Flash site) but even if that's true – it's the conversion that counts and this Flash site is going to convert.
SEO – Yes we understand that conversions are important but so is traffic. If we can't get traffic to the site then a 100% conversion ratio is irrelevant.
Designer – There are other ways to get traffic.
SEO - Yes I understand that but this is what the client has hired us to do and has asked that we work together to build an attractive site that ranks well.
So this is the down side and an extreme example of it (for humor as much as illustration). But there's a big upside and that comes when you have the opportunity to work with web designers who know how important SEO is (as an SEO who knows how important a good design is). Working to balance the two can be a daunting task and having the skills of the SEO matched with the skills of the web designer can be a true blessing. For example, I may have a great idea to make a site more easily navigated by search engines but an ugly solution to implement it whereas the designer may have a more attractive solution in mind if they know the problem and the technical solution.
Such a scenario has recently come about in our dealings with Moonrise Design. Moonrise contacted us in advance of their starting work for a client, had us sit in on conference calls to understand the client's needs and has since had us helping structure the site properly from the ground up. There is no resistance and we don't tell them what to do, we indicate the functions required – provide any technical background as necessary – and they implement it in a way that leaves the site FAR more attractive than if we had had to do it ourselves. Expert designers doing what they do best and understanding that what we do is SEO and the client wants to rank highly. Ah, it's a beautiful thing.
It is this experience and reflecting back on other web designers we've worked smoothly with in the past that inspired me to write this article. The article is more for potential clients of designers than for the designers themselves. So for those looking for a designer – if you want your site to rank highly and/or you'll be hiring an SEO – here's what to look for.
Picking A Web Designer
There are two main considerations that you'll need to make when you're picking your web designer. The first is, can they build an attractive site and the second is can they build a search engine friendly site?
Building an attractive site:
I am probably the last person to ask about what's attractive and what's not. When the Beanstalk site was up for a redesign a couple years ago I hired a professional web design company to build it. I can't create pretty things but I know how to test and I know how to monitor statistics to see if the traffic is behaving as I would hope.
Here's what to look at:
When you're choosing a designer take a look at their portfolio – put some of their designs past people in your target demographic and see what they think. It's also wise to view the sites of the leaders in your industry to see what they're doing (and maybe even who designed their sites). Just because you like something doesn't mean it's effective to your target market.
You also need to know if your designer is skilled at conversion optimization. Have they read such works as Enquiro's eye tracking studies. Have they done their research (or have you) regarding which colors make people act in which ways? These are extremely important issues to be aware of. If you look at the eye tracking studies - the Beanstalk site places our logo, the Hacker Safe logo and main title in the key zones. We also went with green giving a natural (easy on the eyes) feel that implies wealth and is strongly associated with money. When we changed to our current design the effects were immediately detectable in how our visitors behaved visiting more pages for longer periods of time and, most importantly, increasing our communication with us significantly.
If your designer is not aware of these things do not despair, they may be a fine designer indeed and may have this understanding intuitively (though a little research to back up any intuition is always a sound policy). That said, be aware of the information that is out there and ask questions when you're asked to approve designs.
Building a search engine friendly site:
This is crucially important but probably one of the areas we have to address most frequently. I can't possibly get into all the various areas of search engine friendly design so I'll simply list off a couple of the most common issue we encounter and then provide references to other reading.
Enormous amounts of code on the page. For some reason, even some new designs are coming to us as though they were out of 1998 as far as the page code is concerned. All skilled web designers should have a solid grasp of CSS and should be putting all the main formatting into this file(s). Way too often we're getting sites with dozens of font tags, color tags, size tags, etc. etc. etc. This just gives the search engines a lot more to dig through to find what they want – the content. I'm not even going to get into tables as that opens a whole other can of worms. If your site is table-based (your designer or SEO will be able to tell you this if you don't know) there are some basic practices to insure that the code these tables add is minimized. Unfortunately I can't get into the myriad of different situations this can entail and will have to save it for a future article (so be sure to bookmark our SEO blog to keep up-to-date on that and other developments in the industry).
Bad internal links. You want your internal pages to rank. Most sites will generally target the highest priority phrases on the homepage of the site but the internal pages are the ones that will rank for specific products, services and long tail phrases. To maximize the rankability of the internal pages you need them to be easily found by the spiders and you need to associate these pages with the keywords you're targeting. In short, you need to link to them with text and you need that text to include the keywords. This isn't some deep, dark mystery of SEO and has been well documented and commented on but we've seen tons of instances where internal links are image only or worse, an unspiderable script-based navigation system.
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