I know a number of professionals who do website design/development. They collaborate with clients who have a vision for their site – and once done, both are usually happy with the result.
But is website design SEO design? No.
Does the website developer help you achieve top search engine optimization? Well, that’s just not their gig.
If you make dolls with knock knees, buggy eyes and big noses, when someone searches for your branded name – they will probably find you. But what if they search for ‘weird dolls’ or ‘gross dolls’ or ‘stupid looking dolls’? Will Google index your page well for those phrases?
If your website were a pop music single, would it be a top 40 hit?
Or top 100?
Clik here to view.
courtesy of Billboard Magazine
The Music Producer Is the Key To Success!
For years I have produced music. Countless times a singer / songwriter or a band comes to my studio to record a song – and guess what? The song is NOT optimized!
It always boggles my mind that it is often like this. For a song to be a hit, or to at least be deemed memorable (maybe even listenable), the listener needs to be able to grasp what the songwriter is attempting to express. Even if sung beautifully, it should not just ramble on and be shapeless musically and confusing lyrically. From the first time someone hears the tune on the radio or pops a CD in their car or cranks up their iPod – the song should connect with that listener. The lyrics, the melody, the chords, the musical vibe – it should all make sense. There should be repetition of the chorus, a chorus that beautifully displays the main lyrical idea of the song – and the listener will pick that up on first listen, decide that the song is good, pleasing, exciting, valid as a piece of music, and worth another listen. As Rodney Dangerfield used to say, “It’s a tough crowd!” The person hearing your work gives it one listen and immediately determines if it is good and worth hearing again, or instead frivolous, clumsy, dreadful, haphazard, and in general, a very boring listening experience. There is musical competition out there, and not everyone makes the top 10!
Clik here to view.
courtesy of Billboard Magazine
A Song & Producer / A Website & SEO Specialist
A search engine spider/bot is not a real person, but it is programed to try to make decisions like one. Like someone checking out your song for the first time, it crawls through your wonderful new website and makes decisions based on what it sees there. What is the title? Does it relate to the content like a song title relates to the main chorus lyric? Is there rich, deep, clearly expressed, meaningful content? Does the site layout have a logical hierarchy – like a song’s verse leads easily and logically into the chorus and subsequently the bridge? Like a hit song’s chorus lyric and melody, is there repetition without forced redundancy, repetition of key word phrases that leave no doubt what it is all about? The Google bot will give your site a good initial listen, so to speak, and make a judgment call as to whether it thinks others will dig what is there – whether your newly created website has potential to become a Google hit! If it thinks it does, it will feature it in the pecking order, and your site will rank well in the search engine – hopefully in the top 10, the top 5 – or even #1!
SEO Specialist & Hitmaker
Some simple analogies:
Website Owner = Songwriter
Website Designer/Developer = Recording Engineer
SEO Specialist = Music Producer
The relationship between a songwriter and the recording engineer is the same as that of a client with a website – and the website designer/developer. A recording engineer will set up the mics, get things sounding good and record whatever the singer wants to sing, and the finished product will most likely sound very good. But does the recording engineer/or web developer have the experience and skill to create a hit song or website? Not necessarily. The songwriter really needs a skilled professional producer to optimize their creation so that it is connects the best it can with the targeted audience. Similarly, a website designer, like the recording engineer, can capture what the client wants their site to be, but an SEO specialist is the person needed to turn it all into a hit. Focus it, streamline it when needed, make it logical, make it catchy, make it connect with the end user.
Most engineers are not music producers, and most website designer/developers are not search engine optimization specialists. There are many successful music producers who do not have any technical engineering skills, and there are many successful SEO specialists who do not know how to write code to create a website. That’s why the singer needs an engineer AND a producer, and the person or company creating a website needs both a website developer AND an SEO specialist. Sometimes the engineer and the web developer will tell their client that they can do everything necessary – but they can’t. For a hit song or website, the producer or SEO specialist should completely oversee the project. Neither the web developer or the recording engineer should undertake any step without their approval and input.
You don’t have to believe me – but if you don’t, other websites under the vision of SEO specialists will become Google chart hits – and your website will linger within the fringe segment of wanna be’s and also ran’s at the Tuesday local pub open mic night!