[Pro] SEO and Presentation

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1

I was approached by a guy who wants to increase traffic to his main site (large dentist) by creating smaller sites which publish information relevant to the main site and link through to the main site. Sounds like a good idea to me, and I could use the business.

Except that he uses Wordpress for everything, and pays a coder in Thailand to do the hard work - neither of which I have any problem with. What he wants from me, he says, is to design the appearance of these sites.

Now am I missing something here, or is special design not a requirement of these SEO satellite sites? What is the value of presentation design, if any, when it comes to SEO?

Couldn’t he just take a free, ready-made template and focus on making content to capture searchers then impel them to his main site… wouldn’t good design be counter-productive by capturing traffic instead of directing it?

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2

Hm Ernie - not sure what and how to answer this (in things like these I often tend to fail the theme).

Sure - on the first view design has nothing to do with SEO. But as a visual oriented person I prefer a well designed and harmonic page to each informational but eye-cancer causing one.

So finding a page is the one, but to stay on them more than 3.5 seconds is the other. And if the second is, I’ll usually never visit another of this family - which is one goal of the concept.

But this all sounds like a very personal point of view, just one of the many different browse behavior and therefore probably not that helpful.

Furthermore I tend to say, that the living heart of google semantic probably detects the informal character of this page-cloud and tend to create its own thoughts - (ohhh probably forget the last one … the google, the biggest individual on planet?)

Cheers

Thomas

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3

It’s probably the client not realising that how the sites look is not all that relevant to a satellite site build purely to point to the main site for SEO. I suppose there would be a small proportion of real visitors actually landing on the site in which case yes it makes sense.

One thing… I thought Google was clamping down on doorway pages? BMW get booted out of Google for doing something similar.

David

On 5 Jun 2012, at 03:32, “The Big Erns” email@hidden wrote:

Now am I missing something here, or is special design not a requirement of these SEO satellite sites? What is the value of presentation design, if any, when it comes to SEO?

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4

David - thanks for the link. I think the difference is my guy is counting
on users linking through voluntarily from the doorway sites instead of (the
obviously heinous) automatic redirects. Bots have no choice but to follow
links and compare content, which by my current understanding will elevate
rankings all around and give the client a larger search footprint. As long
as the presentation doesn’t send users away shrieking, it is the content’s
job to compel them to click through.

So visually, all I have to do is make the content noticeable/readable
and not damage retinas… a job literally done by hundreds of free (or nearly
so) templates. sigh

–
Ernie Simpson

On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 6:14 AM, David Owen <email@hidden

wrote:

It’s probably the client not realising that how the sites look is not all
that relevant to a satellite site build purely to point to the main site
for SEO. I suppose there would be a small proportion of real visitors
actually landing on the site in which case yes it makes sense.

One thing… I thought Google was clamping down on doorway pages? BMW get
booted out of Google for doing something similar.

BBC NEWS | Technology | BMW given Google 'death penalty'

David

On 5 Jun 2012, at 03:32, “The Big Erns” email@hidden wrote:

Now am I missing something here, or is special design not a requirement
of these SEO satellite sites? What is the value of presentation design,
if any, when it comes to SEO?

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5

Thanks for your thoughts Thomas – and for not giving up on visual
aesthetics :slight_smile:

I had read an article awhile back that spoke of ongoing efforts to make *
graphical* content searchable… of which the general idea has been rolling
around my head since. Old ad guys like me are used to the valuable
subtextual nonverbal nature of visual content (yes, a picture can be
worth a whole lot of meaningful and searchable words).

It’s a weird topic, I know… it will probably rattle around my head a while
longer. :slight_smile:

–
Ernie Simpson

On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 4:45 AM, Thomas Kimmich email@hidden wrote:

Hm Ernie - not sure what and how to answer this (in things like these I
often tend to fail the theme).

Sure - on the first view design has nothing to do with SEO. But as a
visual oriented person I prefer a well designed and harmonic page to each
informational but eye-cancer causing one.

So finding a page is the one, but to stay on them more than 3.5 seconds is
the other. And if the second is, I’ll usually never visit another of this
family - which is one goal of the concept.

But this all sounds like a very personal point of view, just one of the
many different browse behavior and therefore probably not that helpful.

Furthermore I tend to say, that the living heart of google semantic
probably detects the informal character of this page-cloud and tend to
create its own thoughts - (ohhh probably forget the last one … the
google, the biggest individual on planet?)

Cheers

Thomas

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6

Hey TBE,

I apologize, but my brain hasn’t been firing on all synapses the past few days so I might be missing your point. Are you concerned if you make the satellite sites too nice in appearance then visitors will not be inclined to click through to the main?

Todd
http://xiiro.com

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7

Big picture, I am interested in the value of presentation - something I
might off-handedly call semantic presentation in which the traditional
emotional content of images and style could have value in a way similar to
that of semantic markup.

But, yes, on a smaller scale I am thinking that this guy paying me for
unique doorway design is a waste of his money. Especially as he’s using
Wordpress and cheap labor to build them… I can’t see why he would spend an
ounce of money when a nice template and polished content will do.

And I suppose I’m interested in the going opinions of the value of
presentation in general. No one would say that we should do away with ‘good
design’ but we practically have done that with our obsession on cookies,
ad-tracking, seo and such. Would we tolerate “cancer of the eyeballs”
(lmfao) design if our page rankings or click-thrus or whatever were high
enough?

Besides, I just needed some grown-up talk :wink:

–
Ernie Simpson

On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 2:25 PM, Todd email@hidden wrote:

Hey TBE,

I apologize, but my brain hasn’t been firing on all synapses the past few
days so I might be missing your point. Are you concerned if you make the
satellite sites too nice in appearance then visitors will not be inclined
to click through to the main?

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8

Ah, I get it now. Interesting.

As someone who falls squarely on the presentation side of the fence that’s how I “think” and “see” things … in imagery. Most everything that has ever intrigued, inspired or held my attention is because of presentation. Be it world-class sushi (talk about presentation) or a beautiful website. So I would absolutely say presentation has tremendous value and impact, at least as much as semantic markup. To me, anyway. I think the type of presentation you’re referring to speaks on a higher and, in some ways, more sublime level, and therefore requires a higher-level of emotional/mental processing. It’s easily dismissed or (my new favorite word) undervalued because it’s not as easily quantifiable as ad-tracking etc. It’s tough to do well or effectively.

But I also understand the importance of seo and those things that aren’t readily apparent with regard to web design. Form may follow function but that doesn’t mean presentation has to devolve into “eye cancer”. The designers who are working at the top of their game are those that can seamlessly blend the two. I’ve never been (and I doubt I ever will be) one to obsess over click-thrus and the like though I agree that seems to be of more interest these days than presentation. I guess I’m too artistic for the job.

How’s that for grown-up talk?

; )

Todd

On Jun 5, 2012, at 1:46 PM, Ernie Simpson wrote:

Big picture, I am interested in the value of presentation - something I
might off-handedly call semantic presentation in which the traditional
emotional content of images and style could have value in a way similar to
that of semantic markup.

But, yes, on a smaller scale I am thinking that this guy paying me for
unique doorway design is a waste of his money. Especially as he’s using
Wordpress and cheap labor to build them… I can’t see why he would spend an
ounce of money when a nice template and polished content will do.

And I suppose I’m interested in the going opinions of the value of
presentation in general. No one would say that we should do away with ‘good
design’ but we practically have done that with our obsession on cookies,
ad-tracking, seo and such. Would we tolerate “cancer of the eyeballs”
(lmfao) design if our page rankings or click-thrus or whatever were high
enough?

Besides, I just needed some grown-up talk :wink:

–
Ernie Simpson

On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 2:25 PM, Todd email@hidden wrote:

Hey TBE,

I apologize, but my brain hasn’t been firing on all synapses the past few
days so I might be missing your point. Are you concerned if you make the
satellite sites too nice in appearance then visitors will not be inclined
to click through to the main?

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9

Lol! Who knew the metrics of visual design would be so interesting :slight_smile:

–
Ernie Simpson

On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 3:31 PM, Todd email@hidden wrote:

How’s that for grown-up talk?

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10

I would take this point further, and say that the entire enterprise is a waste of money. The odds that building a self-referential site network will do anything positive are very slight. Google’s last two algorithm changes were specifically pointed at this sort of behavior, identifying it as a deceptive practice that must be punished and made to die. Second, and related to the last point, you can end up banned for life (or the Internet equivalent, which is 18 months or so) from Google results. Since many other search engines tail off of Google’s lead, this is likely to be a blacklist.

Best approach is to build a beautiful (and semantic) site that naturally contains the information (not keywords) that the search requests are relevant to, and invest the effort and money in continuously adding to that content in an intelligent (non-robotic) manner.

Walter

On Jun 5, 2012, at 2:46 PM, Ernie Simpson wrote:

But, yes, on a smaller scale I am thinking that this guy paying me for
unique doorway design is a waste of his money. Especially as he’s using
Wordpress and cheap labor to build them… I can’t see why he would spend an
ounce of money when a nice template and polished content will do.

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11

I love the frankness and laser precision Walter!

The main site re-design was already contracted out some time ago (I haven’t
seen it, but the previous is not worthy of amateur status) at a cost of
US$10,000. However, the design firm does not handle SEO - which my client
has won for a similar sum.

Any thoughts on the appropriate application of SEO? Walter, I take it you
feel it is best handled as a function of best content and design practices?

I am liking this conversation :slight_smile:

–
Ernie Simpson

On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 8:22 AM, Walter Lee Davis email@hidden wrote:

I would take this point further, and say that the entire enterprise is a
waste of money. The odds that building a self-referential site network will
do anything positive are very slight. Google’s last two algorithm changes
were specifically pointed at this sort of behavior, identifying it as a
deceptive practice that must be punished and made to die. Second, and
related to the last point, you can end up banned for life (or the
Internet equivalent, which is 18 months or so) from Google results. Since
many other search engines tail off of Google’s lead, this is likely to be a
blacklist.

Best approach is to build a beautiful (and semantic) site that naturally
contains the information (not keywords) that the search requests are
relevant to, and invest the effort and money in continuously adding to that
content in an intelligent (non-robotic) manner.

Walter

On Jun 5, 2012, at 2:46 PM, Ernie Simpson wrote:

But, yes, on a smaller scale I am thinking that this guy paying me for
unique doorway design is a waste of his money. Especially as he’s using
Wordpress and cheap labor to build them… I can’t see why he would spend
an
ounce of money when a nice template and polished content will do.

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12

SEO, when it is practiced with the intent of “tricking” search engine 'bots to rank your site higher, is a fool’s game. Any technique that can be thought up will be uncovered as such and disallowed, leading to an arms race of Spy vs. Spy proportions.

SEO when it is really content strategy and good Design (capital D, whereby I mean design as intent and structure and content, not just presentation) is a perfectly wholesome and desirable effort.

My Rules of SEO (variously restated) often boil down to something like this:

Be Honest. Set out to present information for humans, and to present it as if you were talking only to the humans. If you take care to present your information so that a blind person can “read” it with a screen reader, you will have completely covered the 'bots.

Be Interesting. If you know a lot about a topic, write thoughtfully about it. Don’t be afraid to go long. If you have lots of related content, link it appropriately so that an overview expands into sub-topics either within that tall page or a collection of other pages.

Be Human. Write in the voice of the person you want to reach. Many over-optimized sites have a staccato, robotic voice to them (no surprise). Write your content as if you were speaking to someone you like.

Be Current. Frequently changed pages are not the goal, additional pages (relevantly linked) will expand your authority on a topic more than a page that’s randomly changed just so it appears to be current.

Be Patient. SEO changes are often marketed as a quick fix. This leads to unfair expectations, and frustration. Two months is not too long to wait to see if something is having the intended effect.

Walter

On Jun 6, 2012, at 9:49 AM, Ernie Simpson wrote:

Any thoughts on the appropriate application of SEO? Walter, I take it you
feel it is best handled as a function of best content and design practices?

I am liking this conversation :slight_smile:

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