The difference between Beautiful and Smart sites

To start with, let me share a fact that when I decided to join classes for learning web design, I was impressed with some sites that were very beautiful and well laid out. They had impressive and beautiful graphics. Now when I am past that period and into site optimization for getting more and more traffic, most of those sites are off my preferred list of sites. There is a gulf of difference between a good looking and well performing site. Each site that looks good may not be performing as good. Logic is simple; for a site to get more first time visitors, it has to get higher rankings and more indexing in search engine results, which may not be able to appreciate the aesthetics layout as humans do. And yes, once you get a visitor, you may be able to make him a loyal and returning visitor because of aesthetics and good content on the site.

If you go through various sites, you would agree that being a good site designer is not necessarily being a good site programmer. May good designers create a site that looks compelling for the visitor, but fail to attract search engines and when the site owner fails to get traffic and gets it analyzed from site optimization point of view, site may require through re-work and even architectural changes. Many programmers while designing a site overlook, vital issues as keywords in URL, check for duplicate content, page hierarchy, compatibility of data base and site design with future needs and traffic. These mistakes can prove very expensive in some cases. Imagine you have been owning a site for some time and have developed few links on search engines over a period of time and God forbid, you have to engineer your site in a way that urls for the pages on your sites change, you will end up losing all existing links and would have to start ab-initio for site link building. Consider the price in terms of time loss.
In fact, most of the time, it is the site promoter who is to be blamed. Talent comes at a price. Quite often a new site promoter fails to appreciate the cost difference as quoted by a raw programmer vs the quote as given by experienced site professional who can get the site optimized so as to get high traffic. These promoters fall in the trap of raw web designers that promise to create a jazzy looking site that is in line with SEO principles. After months of endless waiting you fail to see any organic links for your site. I can feel it how frustrating it would be for the webmaster and mind it; it does take its toll; whether it is on the webmaster’s pocket or spirit or otherwise on webmaster’s motivation levels.
I would discuss some common mistakes committed while drawing site.
Misfit URL
There can be many flaws in URLs. Some programmers fail to get keywords in URLs, so even when the site appears in a search engine results, it fails to convey full meaning to the visitor who is browsing the search engine results. Another common problem in URL is the improper use of session ID, a problem which typically happens in the sites using shopping carts. Session ID’s are meant to keep state and identity across several pages for a particular user’s in a given session. You see a page with a session ID and note the URL. After closing the browser, go to same page again and you would note different URL. Search engine would take both URLs as different and classify the page in duplicate results or take the page as spamming page. First time web designers fail to foresee this problem.
Another problem, which is far more spread is, when you load a page, it loads as say for example, www.b2blounge.com and when from another page, you go to home page, it does to www.b2blounge.com/index.htm. Both these pages are same and have same content but a search engine would consider both as duplicate pages. You would also notice that both these pages would have different PR. This problem is not a tough one but I notice that when I advise site programmer to fix this, he has no clue why I am insisting on fixing this.
Redesigned Site
For many reasons a site may need overhaul after some time. Common reason for a site to be needing overhaul is that most sites are not ‘future proof’. Some sites would have their data base on access and so would not be designed for heavy traffic, or some sites may need redesign as the perception of the business model or associate links may change. While I am all for it, that if such re-design is a necessity, don’t defer it, but try to redesign in such a way that urls or pages in database don’t change, or else you will end up losing all links in the search engine results.
Precautions
Getting more links on search engine is not a child’s play. Browse through the net and you will find more programmers offering services of site optimization than the ones offering to draw a site for you. Best bet it not to hire such web site optimizer after you are frustrated in getting links and higher rankings, but to hire them before you hire a designer to draw a site for you. Both the skill sets are separate and not inter-replaceable. For a site to fare better, it must be designed to catch fancy of humans as well as search engine spiders. Unfortunately most Web designers in general don’t really understand search engine optimization principles, their tall sale oriented claims not withstanding.
It is not that whatever web design you will put up a site, submit it to the search engines and the traffic will magically pour in. Unfortunately it takes more than that to drive search engine traffic to your site, and even more unfortunately most developers don't program with SEO in mind, nor do they educate the client about the process involved in gaining traffic from search engines.
Article Courtesy: Ms Monica, Co-promoter and Head Customer Care at www.b2blounge.com