Optimizing your HTML code

I'm revisiting a few important topics from the web design realm this week. There are a few topics that keep rearing their heads so I can't help but react to the questions.

My previous post regarding design for the iPhone continues to be a hot topic and now we're off to optimizing your HTML Code.

I wrote a post about optimizing your HTML code back in May of 2007 and over 2 years later this continues to be a primary factor in every web design we create. As far as we are concerned, clean HTML code is of paramount importance for a few very good reasons, not the least of which is good will towards your visitors!

Obvious reasons to optimize your HTML:

1. About 9% of adults are still using dial-up for their Internet connections;
2. Google is a busy search engine;
3. Bing is a busy search engine;
4. W3C Validators don't like old code;
5. The online visitor represents a fickle, impatient audience.

You simply must present a fast-loading, correctly coded website to each visitor. A large percentage of page visits will fall into the group of "less than 15 seconds" per page. We're talking about 35-45% of all your page visits will happen in less than 15 seconds.

Optimizing your HTML code:

The key to any optimization is to take a 2-phase approach to your work. The idea is to remove as much HTML code as is possible, leaving a high percentage of content to code.

1. Centralize all formatting in linked style sheets.
2. Centralize all javascript in linked files.
3. Remove tables and use <div> layers for positioning.

This process will take some time but the dividends will pay off in spades. HTML code errors will drop to zero and your pages will load lightening-quick.

Technorati Links:  ♦Digg it   ♦del.icio.us   ♦Facebook

Flash vs. SEO

We've been testing Flash content in the search engines for more than 3 years. There's no surprise here - in our findings Google can read the content (sometimes) but HTML is best in all our tests.

So, the big question remains - how do you get that fancy font to appear in HTML?

You have 2 choices -

1) Place the image on the visible area of the page and tuck the text in a div layer. Either place the div layer under the image or shove it off the page with a -5000 x or z axis placement. If this sounds treacherous, it is. This is an old trick and Google can see right through it. You will be undoubtedly deemed suspicious and your SEO rankings may falter.

2) Word from the Google Webmaster Blog folks suggest using a script that calls Flash to alter the display of the content. This practice displays the same content to visitors and the Googlebot alike. A win-win as far as we're concerned.

From the blog:

"sIFR: Some websites use Flash to force the browser to display headers, pull quotes, or other textual elements in a font that the user may not have installed on their computer. A technique like sIFR still lets non-Flash readers read a page, since the content/navigation is actually in the HTML -- it's just displayed by an embedded Flash object."

We use sIFR on most of our marketing sites. The new First Scribe home page uses sIFR in the top navigation buttons. We present the proper typeface while also enabling optimized text links to the top-level pages.

Technorati Links:  ♦Digg it   ♦del.icio.us   ♦Facebook

Google Crawling Past HTML Forms

Regular readers of our blog will probably attest to the idea that we are big proponents of the Google search engine. Let's face it, we abide by Google's suggested rules of engagements and our efforts result in quality listings for our clients.

It is rare that we speak negatively of the Google "system" outside of rising Pay Per Click costs and a general lack of competition.

We have a new gripe.

Google Is Crawling Past HTML Forms

A recent post to the Google Webmaster Central Blog tells all about how Google is programming their spider to explore content behind HTML forms. The main reason for this work is to "discover new web pages and URLs that we otherwise couldn't find and index..."

They go on to speak about adhering to good Internet citizenry practices such as following noindex, nofollow, and robots.txt directives. They obviously won't get past a login form but they will quickly bypass a GET form pointing to database results.

This is an SEO nightmare.

Optimized Your Post-Form Pages Much?

If you've done your homework, your database site has a navigational flow to the deep content that you want indexed. Your .php and .asp form results are undoubtedly pure user functionality with little care to metatags and headers.

The forms are just a way for your visitors to get right to the goods, right?

Well, now your non-optimized, form-result pages with non-specific metatags (if they exist) are available to the Googlebot.

Don't build pages for Google!

How many times have you heard that statement? Don't build content for Google. Don't optimize content for Google. Yeah, right.

By definition their search engine looks for, and appropriately ranks, relevant content. The only way that content gets relevant is if someone makes it relevant. They're about to climb through some forms and find a wealth of unoptimized, irrelevant trash.

In their own words, "This experiment is part of Google's broader effort to increase its coverage of the web."

Unfortunately this effort will uncover some real garbage. I have a feeling most of that garbage is titled "Search Results".

Technorati Links:  ♦Digg it   ♦del.icio.us   ♦Facebook

SEO Isn't Just Metatags

What do you think of when you hear or read the acronym SEO? Is it good metatags? Rich content and links? Or maybe Pay Per Clicks (PPCs)? Well if you put all those together in your website you would have what I might have said was good SEO.

That was until I joined the First Scribe Team. I knew when I accepted my position with them I would have the opportunity to learn and grow as a web developer but never thought I would see so many new ideas and techniques in the realm of SEO.

While some of it is a "Why didn't I think of that?" type of scenario, there a lot of technical, behind the scenes, ways to improve websites that I didn't know about.

Savvy Visitors

As the Internet matures and users become more sophisticated, sites that used to perform well just don't rank as high as they used to. It is far more than looking pretty and giving users enough information to buy something from you. It doesn't mean anything unless the user can find your site.

Let's be honest here for a moment -- When was the last time you searched for something and you went past the first page of results from your favorite search engine? Once or twice, maybe. If you didn't find what you were looking for on the first page, you probably went back to your search terms and modified them.

SEO Works

I have looked at traffic reports from some sites that this team has taken over and improved from an SEO standpoint. The results are remarkable. I can say I have never seen such a drastic improvement in traffic in such a short period of time. All due to the SEO techniques used here at First Scribe.

Technorati Links:  ♦Digg it   ♦del.icio.us   ♦Facebook

Keyword Research and Design lead to Increased Conversion

In early June Stoney Wolf Productions, which sells videos for sportsmen contacted us for help. They were slipping in the rankings for their keyword terms and showing decreased traffic and a decreased conversion rates across the board.

Our first step in the process was to make the site have more of a structured feel. The past design had quite a bit of text on the home page and the content area had around a dozen different directions available from the home page. The content in the shopping cart area was organized into a few broad categories with too many choices.

Our Approach

First, we re-organized the shopping cart area into more specific categories to make things more intuitive to find. Next we cleaned out the content area of the home page, trimmed the text down and added some nice photographic images to depict a few of the more popular categories. In the end, only 4 categories were show-cased on the home page.

After design came the all important keyword research. The first thing we looked at was the old keyword terms in use. We saw a lot of fishing video, hunting video, etc. but became evident that the last time this site was optimized there was not YouTube and internet videos were not the norm.

In today's searchable content videos are all over the place. We concluded people were coming to the site to see hunting videos, and when they found out it was DVD's they quickly left the site which was hurting our conversions. We researched new terms around DVD's and VHS to get qualified traffic to the site and raise conversion rates. The results surprised even us...

July 2007:
We made our changes the last week of July.

August 2007:
The first full month after the changes have gone live. A 7.1% conversion rate blows the previous conversion rates out of the water.

September 1-20 2007:
About 2/3 of the month as an example. Conversion rate is over 8%

Quality analytics helped us track the conversions on the site allowing us to show the client the immediate results of our work on their site.

Technorati Links:  ♦Digg it   ♦del.icio.us   ♦Facebook

Differing Opinions of SEO

I received a comment on a past blog post today and it really struck me as great feedback. Essentially the comment stated that they like our blog because their opinion(s) of SEO often differ from my opinion(s) here at First Scribe.

Perfect!

SEO is an evolving skill set where you must continue to learn or the competing market will pass you by. There will always be more competition, more finicky visitors and refinements to search algorithms. We don't work for the search engines so we need to look for subtle SEO symptoms and then track the symptom to the source.

I try to dedicate 20% of my time to competitive research but it usually amounts to less than 10%. I will start by saying this - If you find an SEO symptom/trend, you must test it yourself or there's no point in wasting your time. NOBODY is going to tell completely spell out their philosophy. You must read between the lines and try it for yourself.

Here are the sources of my research, in order of preference:

1. SEO forums - The forums tend to be chock full of new SEO staffers who freak out and ask questions every time their rankings slide. These cries for help have turned me on to algorithm changes earlier than any other source.
2. Competitors - I generally don't look at my competitor's websites because SEO firms rarely dedicate their full efforts to their own website. Go to their latest portfolio entries and look for strategy.
3. Blogs - Find an active blog written by someone you feel is credible. You don't need to agree with them, in fact it's better if you disagree but you need to trust that they aren't intentionally disseminating false information.
4. My own websites - The last place I look (for research purposes) is at my own websites. If I'm looking at them for research purposes, I specifically look at the sites with volatile SERP results.

Technorati Links:  ♦Digg it   ♦del.icio.us   ♦Facebook

Changes in Google caching?

We are noticing a significant difference in the amount of time it takes Google to cache and subsequently rank a new page.

Two months ago, 3 to 6 weeks was a fair estimate to cache status with a PageRank of 0/10 in Google. A quality page rank would arrive somewhere on order of 3 months later.

Now we are noticing a cache time of 6 to 10 weeks with a grey PageRank bar and quality rank on order of 4 months later. This is calculated off of existing pages with an exiting Page Rank of 5/10, and a quality text link pointing to relevant content.

Could it be that Google is sending people to the Sandbox for a longer period?

The only good advice is to consistently add quality content to your website. MSN seems to pick it up first and Google will appreciate it later.

Technorati Links:  ♦Digg it   ♦del.icio.us   ♦Facebook