[NickToye]

Any opinions on this topic and if it is as relevant as it was 5 years ago.

Personally I don't think that they are required as much as they were.

[mx]

still useful and should be included, but no substitute for real content and cross-links / back-links.

[pgo]

Not as important anymore because of keyword spammers. I still include them, though.

Most important is <title>, <h1>, clean markup, and good content.

[NickToye]

Thats what I think, shame we are certainly in the minority here. If Microsoft announced that keywords are not as relevant and spacer gifs are about as cool as tweed jackets then maybe things would change but I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

[cam]

i can't see the relationship between a mass change away from table layouts and spacer-gif's to not using keywords just because they're not as relevant.

they're useful meta-data, just as they always have been - search engines simply don't weight them as highly any more due to abuse.

[NickToye]

I was actually linking the two because I know there are many designers who are still putting a lot of stock in what they got told pre-2000 and dont seem to be able to evolve into the new designer

[pgo]

I wasn't saying that you shouldn't use them, but don't rely on them for SEO - or expect any tangible benefits from them. As cam said...^

And I like tweed jackets.

[NickToye]

I know, its why I don't believe that these SEO companies are worth their salt. I mean they charge a lot of money to do what a good designer should be doing anyway.

[Joewebber]

Originally Posted by NickToye

I know, its why I don't believe that these SEO companies are worth their salt. I mean they charge a lot of money to do what a good designer should be doing anyway.

Erm. I think its a little more complex than that

As a designer I certainly wouldn't expect to handle any SEO duties past semantic code, headers etc

[NickToye]

Well can someone enlighten me to what exactly they do. I'm not here to pour scorn on them, but I don't believe that after paying a designer to build you a site that is semantically correct you then need to employ an SEO guy to optimise a site that should already be optimised.

[lyndon]

Onsite SEO is no-longer sufficient to get any decent long term ranking in the SERPS, which is all really a dedicated designer could do. If you want decent rankings for competitive keyword(s) then it can take a lot of time, effort and money.

A good SEO will work with your site for a longer period of time, making small adjustments to keyword density, adding relevant content etc..., utilising and implementing the latest technologies such as G Sitemaps, RSS feeds etc.... Not to mention obtaining (quality, relevant) backlinks with targeted anchor text.

Getting a site into a highly contended position is also not simply enough - for example I used to own a mortgage site, and from redesign it took me 5 weeks, full time, to get it ranked in the top 10 for my target terms (out of about 15 million results), but it was almost as much of a job to keep it there as it was to get it there in the first place - and that's if there is no change to the SE ranking algo, in which case the site may need to be re-optimised to reflect the changes of which neither the webmaster or SEO has any control.

[emil]

EDIT: Lyndon explains it better
-------------------------------------------------------------

correct SEO means looking up the best keywords for your site, copywriting that suits your area of interest, ensuring the right amount of backlinks from relevant sites, and patience.
The designer will provide you with a beautiful visually and code-wise website, but it is not his job to make sure you get to the top position in SERPS.

[NickToye]

Yeah I agree with that. But do you not think it is something that us as designers could offer as a service - more £££. I don't know about you but i'm a little sceptical about plenty of SEO companies, who make big claims, and can't deliver.

For an extra £500 per year to continually monitor and optimise a site. I myself would take the extra cash per client, i'm sure it isn't as difficult as say learning a new programming language. Or possibly even offer a sliding scale payment structure. If the site is listed on the first page, then an extra £500 per year, and this decreases on a sliding scale depending on how far down the listings the site drops.

I'm sure that there are genuine SEO's out there, but I firmly believe that it is open to scams. After all a client probably doesn't realise that keywords and good copy are as important as eachother. I only say this because we have had a client who has thrown us a load of keywords that he wants in his site, but has paid no attention to the fact that we also need good copy. And my boss also doesn't see the need for good copy.

He and the client believe cowboy outfits who claim to guarantee top listings.

[lyndon]

Originally Posted by NickToye

But do you not think it is something that us as designers could offer as a service - more £££.

Agreed, design houses should offer SEO/SEM inhouse, however SEO should be recognised as a seperate discipline. Do your top designers also do the PHP/ASP/.net coding too?? AFAIK these are mostly treated as seperate skills.....

Originally Posted by NickToye

I don't know about you but i'm a little sceptical about plenty of SEO companies, who make big claims, and can't deliver.

Oh yeah, loads of them - I used to get cold called all the time - "We cannot find your site in the SERPS - blah blah blah" or "Type in Miserable Failure in to Google, blah blah"

My standard response is "Whats your URL? Where do you rank?"

Originally Posted by NickToye

For an extra £500 per year to continually monitor and optimise a site. I myself would take the extra cash per client, i'm sure it isn't as difficult as say learning a new programming language. Or possibly even offer a sliding scale payment structure. If the site is listed on the first page, then an extra £500 per year, and this decreases on a sliding scale depending on how far down the listings the site drops.

£500 A month maybe...... But there's no way I'd take on a client for £10 a week.... It really depends on the type of site, target audience, age of site, competition and adsense equivalent costs.

A lot of SEO individuals are more than happy to be paid a smaller basic with a decent bonus structure depending hitting certain criteria.

Unlike programming the goal posts keep changing for each and every search engine on an unspecified timeframe and so do your competition.

Originally Posted by NickToye

After all a client probably doesn't realise that keywords and good copy are as important as eachother. I only say this because we have had a client who has thrown us a load of keywords that he wants in his site, but has paid no attention to the fact that we also need good copy. And my boss also doesn't see the need for good copy.
He and the client believe cowboy outfits who claim to guarantee top listings.

IMHO Clients need as much education about SEO as do most web designers. I would never guarantee a position no matter how easy it appeared to be - at the end of the day NO SEO company has insider information or secret contacts at Google, Yahoo, MSN etc..... And good copy is a requirement, filling a page with keyword heavy shit is a sure fire way to get banned from the search engines for good when a competitor complains (and this happens more often that you might believe)

[NickToye]

Lyndon, it appears we are reading from the same page.

I say £500 per year because I am just starting out as a serious freelance designer and I am wary of over charging.

I also work for a company and I do the php/mysql as well as the xhtml/css, oh and some Photoshop/Illustrator and Flash. My boss does FA apart from kiss arse and name drop, but hey thats the business I suppose. Part of the reason why I wanted to freelance, and I wanted to add SEO as part of my services, but education is somewhat of a crusade for me. Half the clients I used to have thought their website was something that I put in their monitor.

[lyndon]

TBH Nick, most decent SEO's wont actually work with clients - it's simply not worth the hastle, mainly due to the education of customers and the guarantees bandied around by some shadier firms.

One of the best things that you could do is to work with a few of your own sites for a while and see how your fair, you might find that you end up earning more with your own ideas than you would working with a client who wants to know why his/her site has dropped 20 places on Google overnight.

For example, last month I earned around £250 from contact lenses with little or no effort and more importantly no direct customer. SEO effects, when implemented correctly are cumulative and clients will continue to reap the benefits long after they have stopped paying you.

If a client were to ask you for SEO then I would price in accordance with your hourly rate - SEO can be very time intensive and there is no reason to sell yourself short.

[NickToye]

Everyone's telling me not to sell myself short. I have also found it quite shocking that the majority of SEO's that I have been on don't seem to have valid code. And overture has over 350 errors on their site.

Do you think this is linked, should they be valid?

[Tot]

I'm dealing with a company at the moment, that supposedly know their sh*t about SEO (www.gcdm.co.uk). The 'bill bullsh***ers are clueless, even there own website is really badly coded, tables within tables within tables, they even don’t have any 'h' tags or 'p' on there index page.

Sorry about the language, its just so frustrating having to deal with these idiots.

These big blue chip companies take on these companies, yet they don’t even know what they really do!!!!

And they get paid well for doing bugger all.

[NickToye]

Come on then power to the people - science...

Why are we letting these Porsche driving, pimms drinking (no offence!!!) suits steal all our money.

It something that I am certainly thinking of adding to my services.

[Tot]

I'm going to add it my services. Now I know so many companies get away with this bullsh*t.

I currenty use 'web ceo' for my web projects (a free app). Can anyone recommend a better one?