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Optimizing a site’s architecture frequently involves tinkering with variables that also affect usability

and the overall user perception of your site. When we encounter such situations, we alert you to why

these certain choices were made. Chapter 5, “Duplicate Content,” highlights a typical problem with

breadcrumbs and presents some potential solutions. Sometimes we find that SEO enhancements run

counter to usability. Likewise, not all designs that are user friendly are search engine friendly. Either

way, a compromise must be struck to satisfy both kinds of visitors — users and search engines.

SEO Cannot Be an Afterthought

One common misconception is that search engine optimization efforts can be made after a web site is

launched. This is frequently incorrect. Whenever possible, a web site can and should be designed to be

search engine friendly as a fundamental concern.

Unfortunately, when a preexisting web site is designed in a way that poses problems for search engines,

search engine optimization can become a much larger task. If a web site has to be redesigned, or partially

redesigned, the migration process frequently necessitates special technical considerations. For example,

old URLs must be

properly

redirected to new ones with similar relevant content.

The majority of this book documents best practices for design from scratch as well as how to mitigate

redesign problems and concerns. The rest is dedicated to discretionary enhancements.

Communicating Architectural Decisions

The aforementioned scenario regarding URL migration is a perfect example of how the technical team

and marketing team must communicate. The programmer must be instructed to add the proper redirects

to the web application. Otherwise existing search rankings may be hopelessly lost forever. Marketers

must know that such measures must be taken in the first place.

In a world where organic rankings contribute to the bottom line, a one-line redirect command in a web

server configuration file may be much more important than one may think. This particular topic, URL

migration, is discussed in Chapter 4.

Architectural Minutiae Can Make or Break You

So you now understand that small mistakes in implementation can be quite insidious. Another common

example would be the use of JavaScript-based navigation, and failing to provide an HTML-based alter-

native. Spiders would be lost, because they, for the most part, do not interpret JavaScript.

The search engine spider is “the third browser.” Many organizations will painstakingly test the effi-

cacy and usability of a design in Internet Explorer and Firefox with dedicated QA teams.

Unfortunately,

many fall short by neglecting to design and test for the spider.

Perhaps this is because you have to design in

the abstract for the spider; we don’t have a Google spider at our disposal after all; and we can’t inter-

view it afterward with regard to what it thought of our “usability.” However, that does not make its

assessment any less important.

The Spider Simulator tool located at

http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/spider-simulator/

shows you the contents of a web page from the perspective of a hypothetical search engine. The tool is

very simplistic, but if you’re new to SEO, using it can be an enlightening experience.

5

Chapter 1: You: Programmer and Search Engine Marketer

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