Web Design Effects SEO?
So maybe I already knew this to a certain extent. I know that spiders read your code from top to bottom, so whatever is in your code first is read first. I also know how header tags (like <h1>) effect rankings and can give a better appearance to your overall design.
But what I did not realize was how much our code really could be effecting our rankings.
I was reading an article about Yahoo optimization, and it stated that Yahoo especially is paying attention to the “web standards” and CSS. Say what? What the heck is “web standards” and where the heck have I been??
A little more research on the subject and I realized how very, very behind I am. Here most of my sites still use the same old basic HTML, with a few using CSS (cascading style sheets). Even those sites I use CSS with, I haven’t been using them to their full potential.
This is much overdue, it really is. Had I know it could be effecting my SEO rankings by NOT using them, I wouldn’t have waited so long. Now I’m sure those of you that do use them fully are just shaking your heads at me thinking “and she calls herself a SEO expert! Shame!”. Yeah I do believe I agree with you there. Â :???:
Now I have been using CSS for things like background, font, header tag designs, and link design. Which hey, that’s a pretty darn good start right? But I will confess I still use tables. *GASP!* Little did I know this is a pretty big no-no. Tables are apparently very bad now, and even the search engines (who I thought could care less about design) are favoring sites with a cleaner code using CSS.
So I started with my test page, and ditched my tables. I think it looks pretty good, and a whole lot better to human visitors as well to the spiders. I decided to keep my navigation the same despite the fact some might say it’s better to have your content first and navigation second (on the right side instead of left). I fear if I move my navigation I could mess up my rankings across the board, since the spiders see links further to the top as more important. I could have a small boost from putting content first, but lose a lot more ground if those links in the navigation aren’t seen as important.
Also, I may just be looking for a different test page since over the weekend that page somehow landed on the first page of results in Google. Here I thought that since the page had been up for about 2 months it was pretty settled. Oops! Guess not! I’m now mentally noting how fast new pages on established sites show up on Google.
Although I guess it doesn’t matter, because here I’ve got something to do on the site that makes a difference on ALL search engines. I don’t need to worry that I might be messing up rankings on Google, because it prefers CSS too.
So here I go, off to change 100+ pages completely over to CSS!
Your fellow WAHM in success,
Kara
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