Why are Frames Bad

When you start to wonder how come you have such a wonderful website and yet your pages are not getting indexed by the search engine, I suggest the first thing you do is check that your website is not written in frames.

It is very easy to check this and all you need to do is go to the
"View" link at the top of the browser, left click it and click "source". If you only see a few lines of code in the source that use the word "frameset" and you don't see the actual content of your web page, it means that your site is written in Frames.

Frames are bad as they don't enable the search engines to read the content of your web pages nor follow the links from one page to another. The search engines see basically what you see in the view, source mentioned above.

What can you do? Well, I suggest you go back to your programmer and tell him to write your site so it is not in frames.

Another way to check whether your website is written in frames is to look at the URL as you click from one page to another. If all your pages have the same URL it might be that your site is in Frames, though other things could cause this too. Whatever the cause this is really bad for the search engines as they cannot distinguish between, or list the various pages on your website.

Title Tag Optimization

Over the last few days I have been asked by friends to check out websites they have either had designed, or sites by designers they are thinking of employing to design a new website. It never fails to shock me that most web designers here in Israel do not take into consideration SEO and even the simplest thing, title tag optimization, is totally neglected.

I wonder how much money is landing in these so-called web designers pockets, when all they have done is use some design knowledge they have acquired, and decided to go into the web design field. A print designer needs a lot of additional knowledge to become a web designer.

Anyone reading this article who is thinking about designing a website for their company, or has a website and can't understand why the pages are not appearing in the major search engines, should start at looking at the text that appears right at the top of the browser window as you click through your site, or a site that the web design company has already completed.

Don't get me wrong, this is certainly not the only thing that is probably wrong with the website, but it is certainly a start. Another big factor is that the web designer has built your site in Frames - but that is a topic for another blog on another day.

SEO experts and Consultants Israel

Doing a little research on Trellian today made me realize that there are lot of people in Israel looking for SEO experts and consultants. On the one hand this makes me very happy. At long last people in Israel are understanding the advantages of SEO. However, on the other hand it worries me. I hope all those people out there claiming to be experts really are just that.

I have to admit that I haven't found that many around in Israel, but I have found a few who fool clients into thinking they are experts and charge a large monthly fee for doing nothing.

When you start interviewing experts and consultants ask them if they guarantee results. If they do, then start getting suspicious. Well, maybe I have exaggerated slightly here. If your site has no title tags, the code is in frames or Flash then, yes, anyone with a little SEO knowledge will make a difference. However, if the expert guarantees you top 10 results in the top search engines then look for another company.

I have seen people being tricked into this when the experts prove to them that they have top 10 listings for certain phrases. However, if you were to write a page optimized for the phrase "big doors are good for big people" then you too would probably get listed in the top ten when you enter this phrase into the search engines. Think about it...

Website Design

So many newbies make the mistake of diving into designing a website with a web designer. That is fine if the web designer understands about search engine optimization. If he doesn't you will probably be throwing a lot of money down the drain.

Some important things to remember:

1. Do not let your web designer convince you that Flash sites are the most attractive. If there is no alternative to the Flash content the search engines will not be able to read the page content, which in turn means you will not appear in the search engines.

2. Make sure the website is not going to be written in Frames. If this jargon is new to you, a simple way to check is to go to the top of the browser and click view and select source. If you can see all the code and content of the page in the source, then the site is not in Frames. If you can only see some code but none of the content, you should be very concerned