Welcome to the final 2005 issue of ZooNews, the monthly newsletter from Montreal Web design company Zoonini Web Services.

This month we continue our three-part series on search-engine optimization (SEO) by looking at the second key factor, Web design. (If you missed last month's ZooNews, check out our discussion of the first critical SEO element, Web content.)

Web design is a catch-all term covering the stylistic aspects of a site – ranging from its look-and-feel, including colours and graphics – to more technical facets like the Web site's coding and programming.

Very frequently, business owners come to me or my SEO partner A.C. Riley, bewildered as to why their site is not being found in search engine results. Disturbingly often, these same well-intentioned business owners have just finished paying for an expensive new site and are confused as to why they aren't seeing any returns on their investment.

Just as often, the answer is obvious from our perspective: bad design. We then have the unfortunate task of explaining that many techniques which Web designers once thought (and some still think) are "cool" serve only to thwart the search engines. These include Flash-only navigation, frames-based design, putting important text within graphics, and Javascript-only menus.

While there isn't space here to go into detail on each of these search-engine obstructions, any small-business site that uses one of these techniques is likely doomed to search-engine oblivion. The reason is that such tactics effectively "hide" your site from search engines – exactly the opposite of what you want to happen! If your business is not even being found when someone plugs your company name into Google, your site probably suffers from one of the above afflictions.

Keep in mind that search engines are cold, unfeeling "robots" that cannot "see" any of your Web-site content like most human visitors can. All they can do is "crawl" or "index" the behind-the-scenes part of your site, that is, its code. Your site can be full of stunning graphics, have a great soundtrack, and boast the most cutting-edge design, but if search engines cannot delve into your site and garner crucial keywords from it, then you have invested your hard-earned marketing funds in a very expensive – although perhaps very good-looking – cyber-white elephant.

On the coding side, keywords (see last month's issue) should be incorporated into your site's page titles, heading tags, file names (i.e. www.mydomain/my-service.html), and ALT tags: code used to describe graphics, which otherwise cannot be "read" or "indexed" by search engines. A good "meta description" tag is also helpful for marketing purposes, as it's the short blurb that's displayed when your site is returned in search-engine results. (More about meta tags in GeekSpeak below.)

Sometimes a site may indeed be found in search-engine results, but still isn't drawing in new customers. In other words, people may be finding the site, even visiting it, but no one is buying. Why? Again, the answer is often poor design. The potential customer gets to the site, but can't find anything. The navigation structure is confusing. There is no site map or internal search engine. Contact information is buried. If your site is not structured in an intelligent, intuitive way, you are losing potential business. (See more about site navigation in a recent issue of ZooNews.)

Before ever putting hand to mouse, your Web designer should help you craft a site architecture that is logical and user-friendly. They should then use streamlined, quality coding to create a site that is welcoming to search engines as well as visually appealing. The winning combination of user-friendly and search-engine friendly will go far in helping potential customers find your site.

In January we'll explore the third piece of the SEO puzzle: linking strategies. Stay tuned!

We referred to something above called a meta description tag. This is a piece of Web-site code that lives "behind the scenes" and looks something like:

meta name="description" content="Check out the December issue of ZooNews, in which Zoonini Web Services elaborates on the Web design factors that contribute to a Web site's SEO success or failure."

A related bit of code is the meta keywords tag, and could look something like:

meta name="keywords" content="ZooNews, SEO, Web design SEO tips, good Web design"

Sometimes business owners are confident that great meta description and keyword tags are their ticket to SEO success. While that may have been true in 1996, it's absolutely not the case today. Why the change? Thank the spammers. Back in the late nineties, meta tags were so abused by site owners who stuffed them full of false promises like "Britney Spears pictures" (and even racier treats) that meta tags were eventually phased out by most search engines as a ranking factor. Having a well-composed meta description tag is still a good idea these days for marketing purposes – as described above in Tip for Tat, it's the bit of text that shows up on search engine results pages and may compel a user to visit your site – but it's no longer the crucial SEO factor that it was ten years ago.

Got a technology term you'd like demystified in ZooNews? Send it to questions@zoonini.com.

Our site remake for Ontario granite manufacturer Nelson Granite launched last month. Highlighting the quarry's rich granite colours and textures, the site spotlights their striking products and cutting-edge technology, with snazzy optimized Web copy by A.C. Riley. A News and Specials section tied to a content-management system allows Nelson Granite to easily keep their customers informed by making site updates through a Web browser.

Last month, our client Box of Crayons launched The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun, featuring a vibrant, fun Flash movie produced by our Flash-design partners at Steam Design. The animated piece is based on a whimsical and inspirational set of cards created by coach Michael Bungay Stanier, author of Get Unstuck and Get Going. Not only has the site garnered enthusiastic kudos all over the Web, Michael had several thousand new subscribers sign up for his monthly newsletter within a week of the launch! One blog post goes so far as to call it "viral marketing* at its best," even analyzing why Eight Principles is such an effective example of online marketing.

*Watch for this scary-sounding term in a future GeekSpeak item!

I admit that I get a little thrill every time an unfamiliar name crops up on my newsletter subscriber list. Last month a most intriguing individual signed up for ZooNews – a real-life zoo-keeper at the Barcelona Zoo! While I can't be sure how the Spaniard found us, I have a sneaking suspicion our title "ZooNews" had something to do with it; sometimes search engines can make for fun connections!

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who contributed to the growth of Zoonini Web Services this past year, and for your warm feedback following every issue of ZooNews; I truly appreciate all your encouragement and support.

À la prochaine,

kp
aka Kathryn Presner