Indexable websites: born to compete (and win) on search engines

Written by Fernando Maciá

Search engine optimization companies are usually called in when a web site does not obtain the expected results. In many cases, aspects of programming or architecture of the website itself prevent the optimization and positioning work from being fully effective. The advice of specialists at the time of web design improves its indexability. It is necessary to pay attention to some points in order to avoid situations in which a posteriori positioning is almost impossible.

Getting a good position in the results of Internet search engines – Google, MSN Search, Yahoo! – is usually one of the priorities of any web site, once the site is finished and published on the Internet. But it is striking that in the conception, design and programming phase -that is, the creation- of a website, this objective is not usually among the priorities of either the website developers or the company that commissions it. As our proverbial saying goes: “We remember Santa Barbara only when it thunders“. In the same way, the website built with the most advanced programming languages, hosted in state-of-the-art servers and adorned with the most refined graphic design and the most striking animation effects often fails to obtain results because it has not taken into account basic aspects such as indexability – to which I will refer to in greater depth in this article – but also usability, user-friendliness, user-friendliness and user experience. accessibility or compatibility from the first moments of its conception and through each and every phase of its development.

In fact, in our work of search engine optimization specialistsWe often meet clients who come to us to improve the positions -sometimes just to be included- where their websites appear when they enter search terms closely related to the activity of their companies. In some cases, the solution may be as simple as instructing the client on how to title each of their pages appropriately. In others, however, the nail-biting solution – withthe website already finished – is much more complex, sometimes almost impossible. And the customer who discovers that a website in which he has had to invest significant resources of effort, time and money has little chance of competing and achieving the results expected of it, feels disappointed.

Search Engine Optimization: Born to Compete

Is an athlete born or made? It is evident that the best athletes are those who, based on a privileged genetic inheritance, apply in a sustained way an adequate training that leads them to develop their natural gifts to the limit. That is why, going back to the initial question, we think that it is much more appropriate to provide consultancy, analysis and advice on search engine positioning from the very moment a web site starts to be developed. On this basis, which ensures perfect indexability, we can then apply much more refined techniques to position our pages in those positions and for those search terms that guarantee the best results.

So if your company is currently developing a web site and you think that in order to achieve your objectives it will be necessary for this web site to conquer first positions in search engines, it would be advisable to review, among others, the following points:

1. Flash: only where and when necessary.

Web sites built exclusively with Flash technology are at a clear disadvantage compared to those using traditional HTML code, from the point of view of search engine positioning. If animations are not essential for your site, reserve Flash for only some areas of your page (sometimes you can get almost the same dynamic effect as if the whole page were in Flash). You can also develop specific microsites within your HTML website for those aspects that can best be communicated using Flash’s interactive and animation capabilities. But make sure that the main structure of the site and each page is still HTML code. This will ensure that search engines will know where and how to index your website. And, by the way, delete at once, if you still have it, the Flash animation of your logo before moving to your home page.

Frames: you will recognize them by their scroll controls.

Fast downloading and simplified navigability were the main reasons for using frames several years ago. Today, its disadvantages far outweigh its advantages. If your website uses frames, you will find that the title is the same for all pages (the one corresponding to the frameset), that the URL address is the same for the entire website (impossible for a user to file a particular page of your website in favorites) and that, sometimes, you will receive visits to internal pages of content that the user will have seen outside its corresponding frame, possibly without navigation menu or identification of your company, etc. Frames hinder the search engine positioning of the different pages of your website.

3. Beware of PHP “minimalists

Lately, we are facing an increasing number of web sites developed under PHP that share deadly sins with the use of frames. The entire website is contained in a single URL. This dynamic page programmatically loads the different contents of the website by passing different variables for each link, but in the eyes of the browser (and, unfortunately, also in the eyes of the search engine) the website consists only of the home page. The fact that the rest of the web content remains invisible to search engines (and that it is impossible for users to reference in favorites) reduces the chances of competing for websites developed in this way. It may be a compliment to the minimalist mindset of programmers, but it does little service to the company and its users.

4. CMS or how to manage content and be liked by search engines.

If your web site is moderately complex, it is very likely that you have a content management system through which non-programmers can add, delete or modify pages on your web site. These content managers are extremely effective in decentralizing the work of updating and maintaining a website, but in many cases they have been designed without taking into account the indexability of the pages generated. If you are going to use a CMS or dynamic page content update system on your website, make sure that the system will allow you to enter a title, description and a different set of keywords for each page. Also make sure that you can add an ALT tag (text that appears instead of an image when browsing without them, or when accessing the page with a special browser for blind people) to each of your images and a TITLE tag to each of your links (this is the text that appears in a small yellow box when we leave the pointer over a link). These points would be the basics, although it would be optimal for the CMS itself to generate appropriate HTML code: proper use of Hx header tags, W3C-validatable code, code that meets accessibility requirements, etc.

5. Internal search engines: do not hide the content of your website.

Many websites specialized in e-commerce, most real estate portals and other websites offering a relatively large number of items have internal search engines: small forms where by entering a series of search criteria we will be able to consult the set of available articles that meet these criteria. This form of navigation, which is extremely efficient from the user’s point of view, makes all the content located behind this type of search engine invisible to the major Internet search engines, since the crawlers that crawl the websites are unable to fill in these forms and reach the results pages. Since many of the potential customers of these websites will enter very concise search terms (“penthouse in Sitges”, “tennis racquets offer”, “Fox Float fork”), it is necessary that each page – in this case, each item card – is properly optimized and positioned. To do this, we must include links from the home page that allow search engines to reach these individual article files. For example, and following the three examples above, including links such as: “Check our penthouse offer”, “Tennis items on offer” or “MTB forks”. These links, in fact, refer to the results page to which they pass search criteria “precooked” by us. These results pages are likely to be pages on which search terms that are very important for our website are repeated several times and which, unlike those generated by users’ genuine searches, are visible to search engines, which can then follow the “More information” link to reach the individual article files.

Webs athletes by genetic selection

These are just a few examples taken from an infinite number of possible scenarios in which the decisions taken at the very moment of the creation and design of the architecture of a website will have a considerable weight on its performance. indexabilityand on the future possibilities of competition in the search engines of the same. To overlook these and other principles in these early stages will require the investment of much more effort and money later on, because it will mean working on a basis that is less prepared and less likely to be optimized. Indexability (as the ability of a website to be properly indexed and achieve optimal rankings for its predetermined search terms), usability, accessibility and compatibility are aspects to be considered within a teamwork that can combine the work of different specialist companies within web development projects.

The need for collaboration between different professionals implies a broader vision in which none of them tries to monopolize the client. It is a collaboration in which everyone has to act as parents interested in transmitting the best genetic inheritance to this athlete that we all want to be our website. And that, with proper training – usability tests, web traffic analysis, customer conversion rate measurement, etc. – it will become an effective website, capable of generating results and meeting objectives. Returning to a slogan sadly repeated this summer – “fires are put out in winter” – we could say that the best positions in search engines are achieved before the website is published on the Internet.