Five Web Design Errors that Lower Search Engine Rankings

A company called me recently with a problem I hear frequently, “We redesigned our Website and now it’s not showing up in Google. Help!”

The problem? The site was built entirely in Flash, which search engine spiders have difficulty “crawling” or reading. (Spiders are the automated robots or “bots” that crawl the Web looking for new and updated Web pages.)

If I were to sum up effective search engine optimization (SEO) in one sentence, it would be, “Build a spider-friendly Website so people can find it in the search engines.”

Building a site that’s spider-friendly is pretty easy, yet many of the Websites I see unintentionally include spider roadblocks – the result being a "no show" in Google, Yahoo!, or MSN. What are the common errors?

1. Page copy is embedded in graphic files
Spiders crawl along your HTML source code looking for text (content).

In order to get your site indexed in the search engines for your particular search phrases, the spider has to find and “read” the page copy (what your site visitors see) in the site’s HTML source code.

Spiders can’t read words embedded in gif or jpeg files.

Hence, if your site’s home page is one large graphic file, you’re blocking the spider from reading the copy your site visitors see. Your site will show up for your company name, but not much else.

To determine if your page copy is readable by spiders, try this trick: Go to Google and do a search using your company name. Click on the “cache” hyperlink that follows the description on your listing. A new page will open – at the top you’ll a box. Click on the line, “This cached page may reference images which are no longer available. Click here for the cached text only.”

If the results don’t show a page of text, then you may have copy embedded in graphic files.

2. Home page is a form
If you require site visitors to choose an item from a drop down menu – for example, they have to choose a country or language – before entering your site, you're effectively stopping spiders cold. Why? Spiders can't manipulate drop down menus.

A good work-around is to include static text links on your page as well. Because spiders can read text links, including them will help the spider find the sub-pages pages of your site.

3. Home page is a "splash page"
Splash pages – those fancy animated intros – are problematic for spiders and for people. According to Shari Thurow, author of Search Engine Visibility, "most splash pages contain a redirect after the Flash animation is complete. All search engines consider redirects to be spam. In fact, most search engines do not include splash pages in their indices because of the lack of content and the redirect."

And, most site visitors don’t like sitting through the music and visuals of Flash intros because they waste time. Instead, they’ll click right back out.

4. No text on the page
Not having text on a Web page is a problem for two reasons: one, the spider has nothing to read and index, and two, your prospects and customers have no idea what you’re offering.

In other words, no text means lower search engine rankings, conversions, and sales. Think about it this way – when was the last time you made a purchasing decision based on lots of white space and “cool” graphics?

A good rule of thumb is to include 100 – 300 words of keyword-rich, text-based copy on each page of your site.

5. Flash
Flash is a technology designers and programmers use to add animation and sound to a Website. As my colleague Chris Jaeger, president of Book More Weddings, says, “Think of Flash as where the Internet meets television. The problem being, most designers forget the Internet isn’t television and go overboard with Flash.”

When used properly, Flash adds excitement and energy to a site. Many people consider static, text-heavy sites “boring,” and with today’s high-speed connections, they expect sites to have a bit of flair to them.

The problem, however, is when an entire site is built using one large Flash file. Spiders can’t read the text embedded in the Flash file – making it difficult for the site to rank well (if at all) in the search engines. And, Flash sites also lack individual pages that can be optimized.

Building a spider-friendly site is crucial to search engine visibility. Ensure your home page and sub-pages have text-based copy, don’t rely only on drop down menus, and limit the use of Flash.

For additional tips and strategies, I recommend you read Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

This article originally appeared on PayPal’s Online Merchant Network.