I mentioned one SEO technique as a usability problem a few weeks back (building "filler" content pages for the sole purpose of driving traffic to a web site, regardless of the value of the content itself), and recently raised another issue from our SEO: tweaking the page title to elicit more keyword matches. Essentially, the advice goes that you add your tagline to your page title, on the premise that search engines are more likely to consider that part of your page body (it's a variance of the "pad your keyword metadata tag principle" that no longer works). The problem arises when your tagline, placed at the front of the title, prevents anyone from determining what page they're on, either in Favorites or their Windows toolbar. I raised the issue as a usability concern, but we're rebuilding our site, so I plan to correct the "bug" in the new release coming soon.
So yes, I agree that SEO strategies, followed blindly, can work at cross-purposes with usability. Careful consideration and integration of both should work out well, though, as long as everyone is willing to listen to each other (heaven forbid =]). Bryan http://www.bryanminihan.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark Schraad Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 3:25 PM To: ixda Discuss Subject: [IxDA Discuss] SEO and Usability I'm running into an interesting conversation with more regularity every week. That conversation surrounds the usability compromise that sometimes occurs when optimizing pages, functionality, content organization and linking strategies for search engines. There is theory being preached within my company that if you optimize for search engines, then you are optimizing for the user as well. I disagree. I think they are two separate sets of logic, that may in fact overlap, but are absolutely not in harmony. Until search engines accurately emulate human thought (I have my doubts this will happen very soon) then there will be compromises to the user while optimizing for search. Any thoughts? Mark ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
