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Feb
13
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Information is so readily available that it is incredibly frustrating when I can’t find something I am looking for online. That doesn’t happen too frequently, but last night was a great example. I was watching an episode of Bravo’s Make Me A Supermodel (MMAS going forward) in which the model-wannabes had to walk for a designer at New York Fashion Week. 
I fell in love with the dress shown here and wanted to know where I could get it. I knew the designers name (FORM), that they were based in New York and that they had been featured on the show. That should be enough to find their website right? Wrong.
I searched numerous combinations of FORM, clothing line, New York, Make Me A Supermodel, clothes and designer to no avail. I did find many blogs mentioning the label being on the show, but none of them linked to the FORM website. Probably because they couldn’t find it either. So I dug through the MMAS website and found that the full name of the label is FORM by Terry Jam, but still no link to their website. First and foremost they should have negotiated a link from Bravo to their site. How many people do you think went to Bravo’s site after they watched the show so they could check out FORM’s clothes and dead ended there?
Searching for “Form by Terry Jam” got me to their websites, jerrytam.com and formnewyork.com. Unfortunately the websites are basically useless on many levels. First, from an optimization standpoint, the sites blew my mind…or just blew. Just about everything they could possibly make an image, they did. Even the bio text is an image. Most of their page titles consist of one word such as “information” or even worse their abbreviations for the collections such as “FWO8INTRO”. FORM is apparently affiliated with scatolaus.com, an entirely Flash site. Maybe they got advice from Scatolaus on how to develop websites so exclusive no one can find them, like LA bars in Swingers.
I could go on for days about all the things wrong with the site from an optimization angle but you get my point. The sites also couldn’t be harder for a consumer to navigate if blind monkeys developed them. In order to find the dress I apparently have to know what collection it’s in. I understand the designer’s need and want to have the collections viewable as a whole. But for usability sake, it would also make sense to tag each item by type (dress, pants, scarf) and color so people find the style of items they are interested in through a simple search. Maybe this will happen when they launch their online store this month (doubtful) “with newest online e commerce site“.
Obviously I found the dress on the site, so why am I still so annoyed (other than the fact I couldn’t buy it)? Because FORM probably paid good money to have those sites made. And they probably have no idea their sites blow or that they are missing out on potential customers. Now, while I believe that anyone that is purchasing a website for their business should do their due diligence and research what they are buying, I also believe that creating a website as carelessly as these ones were is negligent. I’m not saying you have to optimize a site for a client that isn’t paying for it, but you shouldn’t build a site that is just a painting hung in a dark hall of the internet. If even for your own pride and reputation, you should create sites that have a baseline standard for quality and usability (as I have said before). Creating a site that does nothing for your client won’t likely get them to return when it’s time to upgrade. However, if the site you create gives them a taste of what they could get, they may come begging for more.
Dec
21
Should You Always Design With SEO In Mind?
Filed Under Online Marketing, SEO, Video | 2 Comments
And a quickie version for those of you sitting in cubes who can’t watch because you’re pretending your working:
This video is in response to a post by Jill Whalen on Search Engine Land this week following up on a debate in the High Rankings Forum about whether SEO is an extra skill or a prerequisite to being a website designer or developer. A lot of the conversation seems to center around what is best for the client or what the designers responsibility is to educate the client about SEO. I would argue however that the focus of the conversation should be what is best for your business as a web designer or developer. If you are not already offering SEO, you will be in the future. If you already offer SEO services but the client chooses not to invest in SEO at the time you design their site, they probably will invest in it later. If you were good at what you did for your client, they will most likely return to you for their future web services so you should make it easier on yourself when they do want SEO.
When you are designing and coding any new site, you should already be keeping basic principles of conversion, usability and code standards in mind anyway. So if you develop the site properly from the start, whether they are your SEO client or not, if they do become your SEO client you’ll have an easier time doing the optimization. And even if they do go to another company for their SEO services, you will want that company to see that you provided a top notch product to your client or you may quickly get a name for being a poor web designer. Anyway you look at it, keeping SEO in mind when developing websites for clients is a good idea for you and for your business.