Web Tech

It's Time To Shift Your Web Page Layouts

by
Designing Online, Inc.

"The way search engines display your website listing can be as varied as the number of search engines. Once upon a time, search engines used the page title and description provided within the page's Meta tags, but this is no longer the rule."

The way a search engine may read and then display your website listing, can be as varied as the number of search engines that exist. Once upon a time, we could depend upon a search engine to use the page title and description provided within the Meta tags of our page header, but this can no longer be counted upon.

Generally we do find the page Title being used as provided, but the description is more likely to be taken from the body of your page than from the actual description meta tag you provided. Still, regardless of where the information is derived, it is a good practice to provide meta tags for description and keywords, even if only as a reference for a smaller majority of websites.

When a search engine or site-map generator creates it's own description based upon your body text, the results are often fractured pieces of information that are only partially descriptive of the page...which makes me wonder why some search engines and site-map generators use this method to extract the description in this manner. Often, the results of extracting a web page description in this manner can often provide no definitive meaning at all...or even an inaccurate description of the page, depending upon the layout of your page.

Since the first web page template was created, the overall norm was to place your navigation bar and supporting information on the left-hand side of your web page. Since we tend to read left to right, this seemed to be the best place to place this information. With this form of web site navigation on most pages, it provided easy navigation to visitors since your virtual "Table of Contents" was right where it could be easily utilized.

Now, with many search engines creating their own description of your page, they randomly collect data from your page, starting with information provided most closely to the top of your code, not necessarily the text of your page's primary topic. If you utilize the standard web page layout with a left-hand navigation bar, your description may never include any of the information within the primary area of your body since the search engine may easily obtain most or all of its description from your navigation bar area.

For example, on a home and garden related shopping site we recently worked on, here is the search engine generated description that was provided while this page was using left-hand navigation. The page title is "Outdoor Decor from Decorating Boutique":

Window Treatments Bath Outdoor Apparel Gifts Decorate Your Home at Breakthrough Prices Try these fantastic Art Prints Save up to 70% on h

Here is that same search engine generated page description after moving the left hand navigation bar to the right-hand side of the page.

Metal or Wicker Patio Furniture The Metal and Wicker Patio Furniture in our collection of outdoor decor products will make a wonderful addition to your patio and garden. Can't find it here...our

As you can see, the first description had instances where the navigation words were used sequentially one after another in the description, followed by an advertising blurb for another part of the website. This initial description really does not help describe the actual page and produces a much lower likelihood that somebody would be compelled to click on your link if this description appeared as part of a search engine results.

The second description, where the navigation bar was moved to the right-hand side of the page, has been able to extract information right from the meat of your page and was able to provide a description that more closely and more clearly described the page. This description is more likely to lead to your search results being clicked upon as compared to the previous selection.

The Search Engine Optimization community has long been suggesting that you place your relevant information as close to the top of the page as possible, but most of us overlooked how the use of left-hand navigation was actually eliminating our primary keywords from being selected as part of our search engine generated description.

Depending upon the design of your page, moving you navigation bar to the right-hand side may just include a few simple combinations of copying, cutting and pasting. If this is the case, I would recommend setting aside a few hours and go through every page, moving the nav bar to the right.

If the design of your site uses background images and image layouts that make it necessary to place your nav bar on the left-side, you may be looking at a complete new site design to resolve the problem. This could easily cost you some valuable time and money to redo an entire website, so perhaps you could just focus on a few primary pages, like your home page and specific sales pages.

One possible alternative which will allow you to maintain your left-side nav bar is to replace it with an imported javascript. The search engines will ignore this script, but the nav bar will be visible to anyone with a javascript enables browser....like 98% of all users. To perform this, you must create a javascript file that only includes the information you want to appear in your nav bar area and save it as "left-nav-bar.js" or something similar. Then, where you want your nave bar to appear, simply provide:

<script type="text/javascript" src="your-path-to/left-nav-bar.js"></script>

With this in place, the search engine will ignore this data and go right to your primary data in the heart of your page. Still, the use of javascript in this manner should be considered a "Band-Aid" since search engines may eventually read the javascript more easily in the future and then you are right back to square one. This method will work fine for now, but the best overall choice is to move the nav bar to the right side and be done with it.

If you were to decide to use javascript to replace your nav bar, it will also be necessary to provide your website navigation links at some other point in your page so that search engine spiders could follow the links throughout your website. Placing a html version of your nav bar at the base of your page will work fine.

For more insights on optimizing your web site for search engines, creating better link exchanges or increasing your base of web site traffic, please visit:
- Good Linking Practices that Work
- DOL Home and Garden Resource Directory of Links
- How To Reduce Your Dependency On Google

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