Search Engine Optimisation
Ask 10 SEO Experts A Question And You'll Get 11 Different Answers
Does Search Engine Optimisation change the appearance of a website?
A key aspect of any SEO project is the improvement of the website’s structure and coding, so that search engine spiders can index content fully and frequently. In most cases, making changes to the site’s underlying features will enhance performance without changing its appearance. It is an ideal opportunity, however, to improve elements of design or layout currently impacting on the site’s usability.
A common SEO procedure is to ‘de-frame’ a website which uses framesets to present content to the visitor. Framesets make Search Engine Optimisation virtually impossible, since what is seen as a single page by a visitor in fact comprises the containing frameset and one or more content pages. For effective SEO to take place, framesets should be replaced by a more conventional page structure which uses templates, Server Side Includes and dynamic scripting. This enables easy updating of repeated elements, making it possible to retain the original appearance and functionality while producing individual pages on which SEO can be effectively performed.
Search engine spiders do not ‘see’ websites. They parse HTML code, extracting information on website content while ignoring HTML tags used for the purpose of presentation. This is well-illustrated by websites built using externally referenced Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which separate a page’s HTML mark-up from its styling. A search engine spider will fully index the website’s pages without referencing CSS files, which only control the site’s layout. Replacing table layouts with CSS positioning is an important SEO technique. It makes it easier for spiders to index the resulting cleaner code and it allows content to be presented in a different order in the source code than it is rendered in the browser.
Optillion will sometimes recommend coding or structural changes which will alter the website’s appearance. This is usually because elements like Flash animation or fly out Javascript menus cannot be rendered with an alternative SEO compatible technique. In such cases, the implications of retaining or replacing these features will be discussed in detail with the client before any action is taken.
