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Collection: alexa_web_2009

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Company: Beazer Homes

Search Engine Optimization Mistakes:

1) Use of images in menu items

2) Limited home page content

One important thing to take into account when developing your website is that search engine robots are not as smart as human beings. While you and I are entirely capable of reading menus made of images with text in them, search engine spiders are not. To counteract this, you can add “alt” tags to your images. Text-to-speech readers and search engine robots are capable or reading such tags. This is certainly better than nothing, but in the case of the menu where every item is a link, the value of plain anchor text would be significantly higher than that of an alt tag used as anchor text.

The other issue with this website’s home page is a lack of content. Unless you are a regular user of the website (or happen to be familiar with Beazer Homes) it is hard to quickly find out what it is about. Search engine spiders face the same problem: without any solid content on the website in the form of plain text, they are left guessing as to the purpose of the site and how it should be positioned. Search engine ranking will suffer.

 

What should be done?
The main navigation menu should be remade to utilize plain text and CSS styles. Remember, it doesn’t have to be an image to look nice. A good designer can work magic with CSS, and search engines will like the plain text better too.

The simplest solution to the lack of home page content is to just write more! Adding a short block of text, approximately 250 words or so, could do wonders for search ranking. The content doesn’t even need to be prominent (just don’t try to hide it). If you really want to make sure a user sees the image content first, put the text at the bottom of the page.

 

Comments
This is a fairly common mistake, often made by new designers who are unaware of how search engines index sites. Always keep in mind that if no one can find your website, there won’t be anyone to admire your work. Try to find a good balance between design and search engine optimization.

This site has many Search Engine Optimization catastrophes, and each will be discussed in later issues of VKI Internet Marketing Tips.