So, today, a client of mine, who hired a programming company to develop their web site, and an SEO “specialist” to look it over, before hiring us to market it, came to me and asked me “Why is it that my web site does not come up when I search on my company name at least?”
Ok, well, there could be many reasons. One of which is, the company site is still very new.
However, I decided to look at her web site code for myself out of some curiosity. What I found astounded me.
Among the several things I found were multiple pages with no meta data whatsoever, and a very image-centric design (many images for buttons) with no alt tags for any of them.
So, when I brought this to her attention and explained why it was important, she was also a little astounded. She asked me who should have caught this.
To which I replied. “Well, technically, although your SEO guy should have, you programmer should never have let it happen in the first place”
Her SEO guy said “The programmer should have known to do this”
The programmer said “Your SEO guy is supposed to tell me what to do to optimize your site” (well, ok, but come on now, should he have told you to close the body tag too?)
Frankly, I’m with the SEO guy in the sense that this is basic “what-to-do-when-you-program-a-simple-web-site” knowledge any paid programmer should know. But, I think they both let her down.
My answer when she asked what to do: “Who cares who’s fault it is now, ask who is going to fix it?”
Tags: Marketing, Programming, SEO, Web Development
April 24, 2008 at 2:43 pm
David – I have to chuckle just a little bit at this (and I think I know the client involved.)
It’s very reminiscent of analogous incidents I’ve been involved in, particularly in the context of product/service launches. 90% of the time, the assumptions we make as to whom is responsible for doing what hold true. Roles/responsibilities are clearly defined and/or implicitly understood. But then there’s that other 10%, which invariably rise up to bite you in the butt….and the larger the project, with more people, tasks, and hand-offs involved…well, you get the picture.
This is where a little bit of process can be of help. For the situations akin to the one you described, a simple checklist of the key tasks to be done or issues to be considered can suffice. I don’t think we need the level of detail of closing a body tag, but a category of “SEO Optimization” with a couple of line items underneath such as “Metadata on all appropriate pages”, “Registration with key search engines”, etc. would be sufficient.
I’ve got reams of process documentation material I’ve accumulated and written over the years when I was actively involved in product launch and lifecycle management in large firms. The challenge for us is scaling down these “Big P Process” frameworks down to appropriate sizing and flexibilities for the client firms we currently service.
April 25, 2008 at 7:48 am
Interesting enough, I JUST had this conversation with a client of mine.. as to whether or not web developers should know SEO, and whether or not SEOs should know web development. (As an aside, forgetting to close the body tag is just sloppy – something that could be checked using a validator .)
As someone who began in web development and made the quasi-graceful transition into SEO, I have to tell you that if both hands don’t wash each other, everyone winds up dirty. I’ll give you an example. One client… whenever he added articles to his website, the file name was the date which the article was added to the site – NOT the article title. Logical? Maybe – makes it easy to track. Seo-smart? Not quite.
I want to defend the developer just because he does – essentially – what he (or she) is told, and finds the best way to execute it. Allowances for meta tagging individual pages, unique page names, so on and so forth are things that the SEO should have double checked. It’s also the web developer’s responsibility – once he’s made aware that there’s someone on team to manage the site’s search engine rankability (lol) – to double check his moves and ensure that his plans are in sync with the goals of the SEO.
Having been on both sides of the equation, this just really sounds like two people who didn’t have a clue what the other one was doing, let alone responsible for. It just totally sucks that in the end, it’s cost the client money one way or the other.
Love the topic.
April 25, 2008 at 11:49 am
I agree, these basic practices are the web designer/programmers responsibility. Basic skills such as relevent title tags, descriptions, keywords and alt tags should be incorporated as standard on any website that is been developed from scratch.
April 25, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Thanks for the comments Gregg, Erika, and Thomas! One thing is for sure, I think we now have good procedures going forward!
April 25, 2008 at 7:46 pm
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April 25, 2008 at 7:47 pm
The problem could be solved with clear job descriptions and a good leadership.
What do you think?
April 25, 2008 at 7:58 pm
As a web geek who programs AND does SEO, I’ll tell you that if the web code doesn’t even validate (no closed body tags or alt tags), then the programmer should get canned!
April 25, 2008 at 8:12 pm
If SEO is a requirement –>then it should get captured in the specifications
If its in the specifications –> then it should get tested by PV(Product validation team).
Also
If its in the specifications –> then it should get covered in the design
If its in the design–> then it should get covered in the review
I feel if we follow the process then its easier to find whose responsibility is it
April 25, 2008 at 8:31 pm
YES! Thank you. It seems like Marketing is the last one brought on board, but the first one approached when there is a question. I can not tell you how many clients I deal with in a day that have huge image based sites or / and no basic SEO. For me, that is the first thing my company checks. After all, I say so much…if you cant be found on the web, why do you have a site. And, a website is the basic structure for pull marketing and customer interaction today!
April 25, 2008 at 9:26 pm
I’m agreeing with Erika. BOTH are at fault. It’s actually the fault of the client who hired both of these firms with no clue in the first place. There is plenty of guilt to go around. I find this with most websites I review on a daily basis. The actual and real knowledge that designers and SEO’s have is truly limited. The main reason is the totally bogus and bad information out there on many, many SEO blog type sites and on many websites in general.
I know one commenter above stated the SEO should “register” to search engines. NO they should not. Period. I think the actual registering of search engines went by the wayside in 1999 or so when Infoseek and Excite ceast to exist as search engines.
That’s what I mean by the industry pretty much clueless as a whole. It’s no wonder designers don’t know how to build a se friendly site, and no wonder why site owners have no idea about who to hire to help them.
April 25, 2008 at 9:33 pm
I agree with those of you that said it is in the process and clear job descriptions. However, to Doug, the fact is, it isn’t really the responsibility of the client to understand what to do, or they would not have to hire professionals in my humble opinion.
I feel it is the responsibility of the programmer to make sure proper coding is done. To the limit of including all the proper alt tags and meta tags information. It is the job of the SEO “expert” to hen clearly revise what those tags are.
But, yes. The job descriptions should be well defined by a team leader. Maybe this underscores the issues with having 2 different firms doing a portion of these jobs. I can’t blame the client though.
April 25, 2008 at 10:28 pm
As an SEO person I would have at least asked who is responsible. Even if not how can the SEO person let it go live without them. So I place blame on the SEO. SEO’s should understand the disconnect and be proactive to solve the problem. Plus solving this problem will earn the credit. Perhaps they may even get an ongoing contract.
In my opinion there is nothing worse than going in behind an SEO and having to clean up. But hey that is what we do!