Why the Development of Your Website Matters

June 17, 2009 // Drew Stauffer

Whenever consumers decide to purchase something new, quality is usually a concern. The expression “they don’t make them like they used to” has never been more true when you look around at many items these days that are mass produced or, due to rigorous production timelines, simply aren’t rewarded the amount of attention they deserve.

With CMS (content management system) frameworks popping up everywhere and blog platforms making it as easy as 1,2,3 for practically anybody to have an online presence, consumers need to be aware that not all website development is the same.

The accessibility of your website and the semantics of the (HTML/XHTML) markup can make or break your search engine exposure.

What is an accessible website?

The accessibility of your website has to do with the way it appears to both the search engines and your users. If you are using older technologies like frames for your website development, then bots or search engine crawlers are not able to index your content at all because they can’t see what’s inside a frame.

Frames aren’t really used too much these days, but their slightly newer counterpart tables are still very rampant on the internet. Tables can be ok, but depending on how complicated your layout becomes, bots can have problems indexing multiple nested tables.

There are a whole assortment of technologies and methods that can inhibit your site’s exposure and it’s important to get involved with a website development firm that knows their way around accessibility.

Accessibility Scenarios

Example 1

Let’s say your company relies on local search engine traffic and you offer coupons online for more incentive. If your address and pertinent company info happens to be in a deeply nested table then that info is going to have a hard time getting indexed.

If I need your services, but have no idea your company exists, then searching for you online becomes incredibly hard because of this outdated development method.

Example 2

Let’s say you just had a brand new site developed with all the latest cutting edge features, super-smooth accordions that gracefully open and close, creating eye candy up the wazoo with AJAX-y goodness.

But, bots and crawlers don’t have javascript enabled so it’s impossible for them to index your content. Your brand new site is now inaccessible.

Example 3

The document outline is a quick indicator of the content structure of your web page. You can find the document outline of any web page with the help of the web developer toolbar for Firefox.

Ideally your document outline should represent a well thought-out outline. The document outline is derived from the markup and structure you use for your website.

Bad HTML markup = bad document outline

The image above shows both the way the site looks to users as well as the document outline used by the search engines. As you can see to a regular user, everything looks fine, but the information given to search engines in the document outline has no value at all.

Good HTML markup = good document outline

This image represents a good outline to both users and search engines. The development of this site is the best that it can be. While the actual content on the page may need updated over time, the structure and code are set for years.

If your document outline is out of whack; or worse, non-existent, then your site is going to have trouble getting good rankings.

Accessible websites that are built with web standards are few and far between these days. More developers are becoming aware of these techniques but it’s the consumers who need to be knowledgeable.

No matter what you pay for your website, wouldn’t you like people to find it on the search engines?

Have you run into other situations where your site has had trouble getting indexed and crawled? Let me know in the comments below.

Technorati Tags: website development, web standards, semantic markup

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Speak your mind

31 responses so far ↓

4 How I Make $300 a Day Online // Jun 18, 2009 at 3:16 am

Hey, great post, very well written. You should post more about this.
5 Web Design // Jun 22, 2009 at 11:41 am

Really Nice Post. Thanks For sharing The Info.
6 Day Spa // Jun 23, 2009 at 7:54 pm

I have registered my URL through Google Apps with ENOM. I am unable to access the my website without the www prefix. How do I go about enabling access without the www.
7 Drew Stauffer // Jun 23, 2009 at 9:07 pm

@ Day Spa,

Looking at your site it looks like you’ve fixed your problem. If by chance your talking about another site…the easiest way to fix you problem is with a mod_rewrite in your .htaccess file.

Email me if you need further explanations.
8 Lacy // Jun 23, 2009 at 11:29 pm

Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say
that I’ve really enjoyed reading your blog posts. Anyway
I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon!
9 Hurtownia Tkanin // Jun 25, 2009 at 11:18 am

If your users can’t reach everything on the website easily they’ll just leave. Nobody wants to navigate through the maze of links just to find something.
10 How I Make $5000 a Month Posting Links on Google // Jun 26, 2009 at 12:15 am

Loved your latest post, by the way.
11 SEO Tutorial Videos // Jun 26, 2009 at 6:46 pm

I am very curious about document outlines now. I haven’t used this technique before when looking at a website and I’m wondering how I can see the document outline for a website. Is there a tool you use or Firefox plugin? Thanks.
12 Seh // Jun 28, 2009 at 3:31 am

You’re right. They will just leave. To stop that problem I’ve started incorporating video on my site as well as posting to video upload sites. You can also create traffic through the search engine with videos. There’s even a site that’ll let you upload videos Free and target keywords to increase your targeted traffic.
13 Drew Stauffer // Jun 29, 2009 at 1:16 pm

@SEO Tutorial Videos

To view the document outline for any web page you will need the web developer toolbar that you’ve mentioned in another comment (also a link in the post).

Click the “Information” tab and scroll down to “View Document Outline” and the outline will be presented to you.
14 SEO Tutorial Videos // Jun 29, 2009 at 5:28 pm

@Drew
Thanks for that info! That is a great way to look at a sites heading structure. Helped me find a page on my website that was missing an H1 tag. I’m definitely going to start using that feature more.
15 Cheap Web Hosting // Jul 1, 2009 at 10:12 pm

Suppose someone has a good idea say great idea to make a new website.He is not a professional but he is sure that the idea will work and that idea is a unique one.The website will be a large scale one like yahoo,google,cricinfo etc.How should he go about developing the site ?
16 data recovery software // Jul 2, 2009 at 7:21 am

It’s really does matter for me..Who are developing my site and it’s secure or not…
17 CE 2006 // Jul 2, 2009 at 7:27 am

Nice Info
18 web design company // Jul 2, 2009 at 8:21 am

Hey really nice post. Thanks for sharing such a valuable information. Thanks
19 Telecommunications Systems // Jul 2, 2009 at 12:39 pm

I agree web developer is extremely good plugin to check coding of websites, i like to use it.
20 SEO Tutorial Videos // Jul 2, 2009 at 3:43 pm

@cheap web hosting, The very first thing I’d do is test the idea using some Google ads. Sure, you may think your idea is a good one, and even unique, but why blow thousands of dollars developing it blindly when you could run some Google ads to test some of your assumptions about the market?
21 Seo83 // Jul 3, 2009 at 6:54 pm

Ya i completely agree with the post. Development of a website matters in both for visitor point of view and search engine point of view..
22 data recovery software // Jul 10, 2009 at 11:07 am

Web development does matters because in the initial stage web development is the first step of any site and after that we can make the campaign for the site
23 content writing India // Jul 14, 2009 at 5:35 am

Great post. Proper development includes lots of phase. Please post more.

Thanks
24 bajki dla dzieci // Jul 15, 2009 at 10:07 am

Nice post. All the beginners and web designers that are not aware of SEO should read this.

Juanita
25 Hitachi Magic Wand Reviews // Jul 16, 2009 at 5:47 am

I love seeing sites designed entirely around flash animations. The eye-candy is nice, yet the functionality and SEO-friendliness is severely lacking.
26 ashley alfred // Jul 24, 2009 at 10:27 am

Your website has to have the correct specifications of HTML & XHTML meaning that it has to be technicall robust. Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site.
27 Restaurant POS // Aug 3, 2009 at 9:07 am

It’s really very helpful content. Thanks for good information & web developer toolbar.
28 Lumineers cost per tooth // Sep 8, 2009 at 2:43 am

I’ve seen some of the worst website mistakes in the past. People desinging exlusively with flash and wondering where the search traffic went.
29 pharmacy // Sep 16, 2009 at 7:06 am

Thanks for good information & web developer toolbar.
31 website developers // Nov 8, 2009 at 9:13 pm

Nice post. We hired company who did our website and we are happy. Better is hire experts if you want to have good results