Another Website in a Box, Just add SEO

You've created a car dealer web site? Now what? Your effort is wasted if no one sees it. The best way to get your site noticed is to make it friendly to both of your audiences? Search engines as well as humans.

Last month I received an email from an Internet Manager in California. He was very upset that my car buying website, LotPro.com appeared above his for the their dealership's name on Google. Prior to sending a reply to him I examined his site. I would now like to share my findings, as I believe they effectively illustrate common pitfalls associated with web design.

My Findings
The first thing that I noticed when I typed his URL into the address bar is that I was immediately redirected to their domain followed by "/en_US/". This being the case, I was amazed that their domain appeared in the Google directory at all. Google does not normally display a domain that contains zero content and simply redirects users to another domain.

To further investigate this anomaly, I performed an external link check for his domain on MSN.com by typing "link:http://www.TheirDomain.com" in the search bar. External links, also know as inbound or incoming links, are simply links from other sites that point to your site. According to MSN Search there are 95 websites that linked to their domain. I also performed a back link check on website, that site only contained 6 inbound links. It seems that even with zero content Google found the domain relevant because of the 95 inbound links.

Once I completed the external link check I decided to analyze the resulting site. On entering the site, I immediately noticed that the store's primary contact information was embedded in a graphic as opposed to plain text. As stated by Google:

"Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images."

The site, along with countless other dealer sites that I have examined, uses frame technology. Frames splits up the visible web page into separate scrolling regions. Each frame's contents come from a different Web page. This can cause navigational problems and is not spider friendly. In fact, as stated by Google:

"Google supports frames to the extent that we can. Frames tend to cause problems with search engines, bookmarks, emailing links and so on, because frames don't fit the conceptual model of the web."

Search spiders prefer that each URL contains unique content. With frames, web surfers are often displayed the same URL regardless of where they click. For example, on the domain mentioned above, regardless of the link you click the same URL is displayed in the address bar.

To display a site without frames you need special "no-frame" tags in its source code, their site did not contain these tags; it displays the same no-frame content on each subsequent sub page. Therefore if a user or spider is unable to view his framed site they will see the same page reload over and over again when they attempt to navigate to another page. The user and/or spider is trapped in an endless loop and neither will be able to access the remainder of the site.

The <title> Tag
Another downfall of frames is that web designers rarely give the framed pages a unique title and description. They assume that the web surfer, and web spiders, will never view the page outside of the frame. Following is a list of their main framed pages and their associated unique titles:

Web Page Page Title
Search New Search Inventory
Search Used Search Inventory
Quick Quote Quick Quote
Chevy Model Lineup None
Custom Trucks None
Commercial Vehicles None
Isuzu Models None
Pre-Qualify Request Financing
Appointment Service Appointment Request
Parts Request Order Parts
Welcome None
Support None
Departments None
Hours & Map Hours & Directions
Contact Us Contact Us
Chevy Commercial None
Isuzu Commercial None

The title of your Web pages is the single most important SEO element. For example, Google states;

"Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate."

In addition to Google, every search engine uses the Web page title in their ranking algorithm. Not only do they use the title in their ranking system, search engines use the title whenever they display your webpage in their search results. The page title is the clickable link that the searcher sees.

My Advice
Often, "Web Site in a Box" designers use complex web design techniques to impress car dealers, but neglect the basics of search engine optimization. If you want to show up on the search engines when people in your area go online and search; you, or the web design company that you hire, must include basic SEO techniques in the design of every web page.

Here are a few of the more important SEO principles you can use to improve your placement:

Don't Use URL Redirects
Before you decide to redirect your top level domain to a sub-page, check the link popularity of your domain. You're much better off keeping all of your content on the top level domain instead of redirecting to a sub-page.

Don't Use Images to Display Contact Information
If you want to show up when people in your area search online for your service, do not place your address in a graphic. Use plain text to display your address and contact information.

Don't Use Frames
"Web Site in a Box" designers use frames because it's an easier way to create a site. Some designers actually believe framed sites make for a better user experience, I do not. I believe most web surfers dislike frames. If your design company insists on the use of frames, convince them to place a link on your home page so that users can navigate your site without the use of frames. This method is much more effective than using the <noframes> tag. You could title the link: "To View This Site Without Frames Click Here". Once the user, or spider, selects this link, they would view your site without frames. In other words, if you do use frames, you should create separate sites, one that is "user friendly" and one that is "spider friendly".

Write Effective, Unique Titles for Every Webpage
To make sure that each of your framed pages is explored by search spiders make sure that each page is accessible via the non-framed site and that each page has a unique title. In addition, use the following rules when writing your web page titles:

* Do not use all capital letters in your title. Start your title with a capital letter, followed by lowercase, or title case letters, because it will be easier to read.
* Use keywords at the beginning of your title.

Even if you provide a non-framed version of your site, your web pages will never show up until you write effective page titles.

Following the suggestions above will not guarantee that your site will attain a top spot on search engine results; however, failure to follow the basics of SEO when designing your site will limit search engine traffic to your site forever, or at least until you redesign the site.