The title of this thread is something I get time after time probably 5 or more times a week on the phone. "I really need to get my site ranking on the search engines, but money is tight", is normally how it goes.
Recently I had two cases where they had spent £10,000 & £25,000 respectively for their websites, didn't consider for one minute that it would need marketing and promoting, and the companies who designed their sites didn't even mention it. WORSE STILL is that the sites are poor, totally non search engine friendly etc
Both the cases above were deseprate, had financed to the hilt to get their business on the road, and their sites were bot LOUSY. In both cases the web designers were happy to do exactly what the clients asked them to do regardless of whether it was going to harm their businesses. The result was two egocentric websites that were unbeleivably bad had no proper structure no decent content and no hope of ranking. How do you tell someone who has paid £25,000 for a completely flash site that they are not going to be able to rank for their terms?
I try to be as helpful as possible, but one thing I find is that people are angry at being let down by 'the internet' and their designers, and that anger gets in the way, and is transferred to me with regards payment. All too often I hear the magic words, I have spent xxx on this site so far and got nothing so I am not willing to part with a penny until I see some results blah blah blah.
This isn't a rant, and there IS a point here, and that is that MANY designers are possibly braking the law and leaving themselves open to legal action for recovery of money paid.
The sale of goods act states that goods must be fit for the purpose for which they were intended. If a design company supplies a website that is unspiderable, then I would argue that it is not fit for purpose. Whether it ranks or not is irrelevant, the 'fitness' i would say is sarch engine friendliiness. A clear example of this is a site where the page title and description are sitewide. This WILL harm a site.
So what can we do about this? I work with designers all the time educating them how to make an SEO) friendly site, they then go straight out and offer SEO services on their site
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Finally I will say this. I dealt with a case last year where the site owner was an architect, he was a little eccentric and had paid £100,000 for his website. The site was a 10 page bought in template. I was sceptical but he HAD paid £100k for the site and some 'seo' . The site was worthless.
When businesses start up they get information etc, but they don't get advice on websites. Our business link units in Wales try to do their best, but they believe the best thing to do is to 'save them some cash' and build a site for them. HOW WRONG IS THAT!
EU money is once again puring into the UK for possibly the last time. Hundreds of millions have been wasted by regeneration initiatives, while companies get rich charging the earth for websites that don't CAN'T (in many cases) perform.
On forums like this are decent people working to earn a crust, designers charging sensible rates and providing decent work, designers taking the time to learn about SEO for their clients.
I try to help these clients that have suffered, my wife goes nuts because she says (rightly) that the designers have walked away with thousands, and we are picking up the pieces gratia!
Right or wrong I believe in Karma, but I can't help getting angry at rip off design companies