I was recently contacted by one of my best clients who asked me what I thought of his decision to make a major change to one of his highly ranked pages. His initial concern was that visitor sales conversion ratio was low. At almost one percent, it was just below normal, but I'm always happy when a client wants to improve. Conversion and rankings though, are very different beasts and his concern was overly focused on the former to the total exclusion of the latter.
As his SEO I should have realized that the top rankings of this already optimized page were in danger when his first sentence referred to the existing "Dusty, tired old page, that just isn't getting enough sales." That page had just been optimized for search engines about 6 months previously, and went from page 10 (invisible) or so of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP's) to the top three on the first pages of all three major search engines virtually overnight after a few tweaks to gain traction from a popular movie reference to his product.
The page had been up for several years before the movie release without gaining substantial web sales of that same product, but our optimization six months ago lead to a leap in sales and consistently improving page visits after that theatrical release. But sales plateaued over time and slowly decreased after the movie which had mentioned his product transitioned to DVD sales. Somehow he hadn't forseen that decrease and wanted to continue the level of sales he had enjoyed while the movie mention was fresh.
To achieve the continued sales though, he wanted to completely replace the page text with new material he'd been given by the manufacturer of the product. As is the case with marketing material provided by many companies, keyword density was non-existent with emphasis was on slick new photos, covered with stylized, graphical text. Text with keywords that couldn't be repeated in any page text since they had already been embedded in the image graphics several times.
What to do? I suggested creating an entirely NEW page with the manufacturer provided information linked within his site menu links on each page and from the sitemap. While maintaining the old page for it's top rankings in the search engines we could simply use internal linking to keep the search engines crawling that (old dusty) fully optimized page. That way we would still rank in the top 5 for that page and it's coveted keywords and provide the new conversion focused page to site visitors from the menu links.
For some reason though, the client insisted on using the existing filename for the new content and moving the old content to a NEW filename! Why? Because he wouldn't have to have his programmer change a script which loaded a rotating banner to a select few highly trafficked pages. The programmer costs too much to change a few lines of code for a profitable product page?
This tactic meant that we would completely lose the existing rank on the next visit of the search engine crawlers after the new page was posted. I was convinced that we could gain the rank back, but only over time and with substantial extra work. The cost to the client to get a new page into the top five on SERP's was going to exceed the cost of programming updates of banner rotation scripts. But he insisted we use the new manufacturer provided (image only) content on the old filename. OK, I relent.
The web designer wanted to use the new manufacturer provided page in an iframe and embed the old page text in noframes tags - making it visible to search engines, but not visitors. Silly idea and borderline spam technique that may drop our top five rankings off the charts. I dug my heals in and refused that idea.
The client suggested simply keeping previous metatags and title tag to maintain ranking. Sorry, that simply won't work. If it did, we'd return to the bad old days of simplistic keyword stuffing in those (no longer) magical metatags. I started to wonder ... "Am I here as an SEO only to stop designers from using SE spamming techniques, programmers from having to write new code and clients from doing absurd keyword stuffing in metatags?"
No you actually have to use carefully crafted keyword rich text on the visible page - and NOT embedded in graphics files as text painted across photos with photoshop and illustrator software. Search engines can't read text on images and that image "Alt" text in the HTML is no longer useful in SEO since it has been so badly abused by simplistic optimizers for ranking gains before the search engines began to ignore it in their ranking algorithm.
The new page may initially see sales increases due to the pretty new photos (there is zero text on that new page) but after a long series of email exchanges with this client and a final phone discussion over ranking issues, he proceeded with this change anyway. I normally don't hope for poor rankings on client pages, but since this one runs counter to every fiber of my SEO being, I'm actually looking forward to that torpedo striking and the ranking to sink off the charts and the client to pay attention to his SEO's advice.
The old page is still showing up in cached pages at the search engines, so they haven't yet crawled the new version. I will dutifully point out the sinking of the venerable "SS Search Engine Ranking" ship next week when Googlebot revisits this client site and finds all that text has disappeared from his previously #1 ranked page and suggest to him that he review his WebTrends traffic reports to see that it has settled to the bottom of the ocean.
I guess I better get busy finding a way to rank the previous (old optimized) page on the brand new shiny filename. Won't he be surprised to learn that most of his sales come from that (newly named) "old dusty page" within a few weeks?
Copyright © September 3, 2005
Have you done anything to torpedo and sink your ship "SS Search Engine Rankings" lately? Call me at 562-572-9702 if you need a salvage operation to raise that venerable ship from the bottom of the vast search engine rankings ocean. http://www.seoptimism.com/SEO_Contact.htm Mike Banks Valentine operates the article distribution site http://Publish101.com and a Small Business Ecommerce Tutorial for Web Entreprenuers at http://WebSite101.com
After the latest PR update at Google and MSN's beta... Read More
One of my favorite subjects to teach on at our... Read More
We all know that the search engines can't "see" or... Read More
As with any good web developer, the ability to time... Read More
SEO (search engine optimization) is a booming businees these days.... Read More
Google is quickly changing...With the big buzz of Novembers fall... Read More
I wish to give a few little tips, about optimizing.... Read More
That's right - I dreamt of a World Wide Web... Read More
Keyword optimisation is probably the most important thing that you... Read More
Everyone seems to want the benefits from working at home:... Read More
So you have a site concept developed that you are... Read More
Are you working on getting your web site up onto... Read More
One thing is for sure, you don't want to spend... Read More
In order to get a top 10 google ranking it... Read More
In today scenario when we talk about Search Engine Optimization,... Read More
Content Management Systems and search engine optimization (SEO) used to... Read More
In the Global Internet era the industry presence is undoubtedly... Read More
With Google delivering so much traffic, it is only normal... Read More
Running an online business relies to a greater or lesser... Read More
Anyone would agree that it is much easier to be... Read More
In a recent study looking at the "descriptions" of website... Read More
Sometimes, the search engines act really strange. And this story... Read More
When exploring good keyword choices there are several steps one... Read More
I came across a new website the other day and... Read More
What's the difference?For those who aren't quite clear what the... Read More
Ask any business person who's website is at the top... Read More
Visit Google, Yahoo, MSN or one of the lesser search... Read More
If you're anything like me, you have a favourite search... Read More
I was recently struck by the fact that the top-ranking... Read More
Think about the first thing you ever heard about "marketing... Read More
Automated search engine robots, sometimes called "spiders" or "crawlers", are... Read More
Search engine optimization (SEO) is very important to websites. If... Read More
If you have ever been into a McDonalds you will... Read More
This is part three of the article series and deals... Read More
Is your new site sitting in the infamous Google "sandbox"?... Read More
Before using keywords for your site, it is always better... Read More
Web marketers, do you hear what I hear?"Click-click BOOM"That's the... Read More
Unless you've been living in a cave somewhere, I'm sure... Read More
In my last newsletter I wrote about how your websites... Read More
Search Engines are hard to tame, that's for sure. But... Read More
I hear this all the time. "I can get you... Read More
When people think of search engine optimization, they immediately think... Read More
One of the important factors in ranking high in search... Read More
With apologies for the cheap trick of mentioning Paris Hilton... Read More
In a fluke, I was able to notice something about... Read More
Yahoo has fairly recently updated its guidelines. You can read... Read More
Watching a recent football game, I imagined two very different... Read More
"HLE" is a bit of a joke term, (or possible... Read More
Black Hat SEO: Web Spamming and Linking to Bad NeighborhoodsSo... Read More
You've spent many hours trying to increase your online traffic... Read More
Increasing your web traffic and rank in search engines is... Read More
Finding Targeted Keyword Phrases Your Competitors MissFinding keyword phrases your... Read More
Ranking well under the free listings in the major search... Read More
Getting your website listed in the search engines is relatively... Read More
Three Ways To Index Your Site With Google Sitemaps [Difficult,... Read More
Maggie knows how to find what she wants. She lets... Read More
Previously...In our article on Understanding Google's Algorithm,... Read More
Bringing visitors to your site from the main Search engines... Read More
Yes, it really happens. Now you might find it hard... Read More
Trillions of Billions of content pages make up the wide... Read More
It's interesting how potential clients have preconceived notions about which... Read More
Keyword optimization involves vital keyword selection and placement strategy depends... Read More
In order to design a website that performs well with... Read More
Search engines love content. Graphics may make your site look... Read More
Google Labs is currently testing Google Print, which returns results... Read More
Keywords are indisputably, the single most important element of an... Read More
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) |