Let's clear the air on meta tags. Yes, some are useful however, Google could care less about META NAME=" keywords" .... It's completely ignored making what used to be a red tag into a dead tag sale. Some other search engines use it but not Google. Sorry to tell you for the 843rd time but you'd be better served getting rid of the flash template you paid $45.00 for and then find someone that knows something about merchandising for your target audience.
So you thought merchandising was just slapping up a poster to highlight a product in a grocery store? Not hardly ;-)
If perception is 90% of the customers’ experience which includes design and navigation, then why compound the problem by using hard-to-navigate or grainy flash-based websites? You’ll spend more money customizing and maintaining flash only to find it doesn’t index with Google the way you’d hope it would. Oh, it gets even better. Most of these templates may not even show up in some browsers or worse, popular tablets and mobile devices.
One more thing; unless you have over 30 product-driven pages - there’s no need for a search button on your site. It’s an indicator of the lack of organization and inexperience of the designer or developer. If your site is that confusing then the customer won’t even use it and they’ll be gone quick as a bunny.
Good House Keeping Seal of Approval – Compliance. It’s Here!
Don’t think for a second that your customers aren't grading you. Google, Bing, and Yahoo are doing it too. We’ve observed the coding practices of the more current websites in operation with high visibility versus poorly constructed websites that have high but rare placement. The age of a site can be a factor however; your competition isn’t long for the web world and will be eventually dispatched due to the lack of best web practices. These types of websites are being targeted by Google for noncompliance and will be eventually delisted, removed or banned altogether. Although most web designs look like flyers stuck under a windshield, Google doesn’t grade how pretty your site looks. They do grade you on relevancy freshness and compliance.
Take www.berkshirehathaway.com for example. I'm fairly certain everyone has heard of Warren Buffet. His website isn't winning a Webby awards anytime soon and I’m sure Mr. Buffet could care less, but it’s also not in compliance. OK; there’s an exception to the rule.
So, unless you think your website falls under that category; hire a professional.
From time to time we’ve noticed Google purges their entire index once again which will leave hundreds of thousands of amateurs on the side of the road wondering what the hell just happened. And of course, the companies paying absurd amounts of money to these so-called professionals will want to know why their traffic has stopped.
Having an SEO specialist prove placement for themselves and their clients is more compelling than a bunch of awards. Wouldn’t you agree? There’s no doubt that the consumer or business owner knows quality when they see it. In our case our competitors know quality when they steal it.