Is this true?

I have had a web designer send me a mail regarding my site http://www.jesmonddenehotel.co.uk.

Im basically working with some key words and working with links to try and acheive good results, like most of you are!

However he mentioned regarding the design of the site....could any more techy let me know if this is true or not, and do I need a designer to re design my site?

Here is the mail....

Hi,

My first action would be to recode the pages to use more CSS and remove most of the tables. The actual content of the pages is very low down when you look at the source code, which the search engines effectively do.

As some search engines will only read the first X kb of data you could be missed by some of them entirely as the text could be too far down for them to ever index.

The most important engine continues to be google, for them ensure that you have good keywords in the page title that are matched in the main content.

If I were you I'd try to approve the appearance 'cross browser' - for instance some navigation elements don't display correctly in the Firefox browser.

Lastly, try to use appropriate semantic markup - such as make the most important text on a page a H1 heading and style it in your CSS.

Good luck!

If you're interested in me reworking the site as above I charge 250 + VAT for a day.

__________________________________________________ ________

Do I need to revisit my site and redesign.....or not?

any tips from any one would be great....thanks all

Darren

Hi

This is true for the most part - let me clarify.

I think rather than a re design I think he means re code to CSS2 & XHTML standards complaint code and the suggestion about using proper semantics is very valid. In fact this is exactly what I specialise in and have found it to work on several sites - it improves search results as the content is more prominant and less diluted. It also represents a considerable download time and bandwidth improvement.

£250 per day is actualy a bit cheaper than me.

It sounds like the designer is being very honest - but you must question their SEO knowledge.

I hope this was helpful

Trevor Stolber

That my friend, is called a pitch.

Sure it's better to have cleaner code, but not better enough to warrant a redesign, it's all about links links links! - go look at webmasterworld.com - serious code bloat but dominates the serps for almost any term you care to try for webmaster related stuff...

tell him if he wants to pitch for work to stop circling the issue and be a man about it and pitch for the work...!

Nick

well to be honest I would mind having better code, Im sure it cant be that bad....although Id prefer to spend £250 on some links no?

I like tstolber's idea... one time cost and if lean code gets you a little better prominence, less diultion, and less bandwidth used then that is a permanent improvement. With these improvements it might take a few less links to lift you in the rankings. If you spend $250 for links it will be gone next month.

Bottom line IMO - do both, get the new design and buy the links. You are running a serious site aren't you?

of course Egol, I am the owner of a bed and breakfast in London http://www.jesmonddenehotel.co.uk. Its a very competitive market out there to get highly ranked....especially with phrase like "cheap hotel in central london". Most people advised me to use different phrases, however Im gonna stick to my guns and try the best i can, even first page in Google would be excellent work. Im currently in talks with sites that have Pr6, and trying to get links with them sorted out. I have worked on internal linking as much as possible within my own site, and I have also looked at keywords in my site. The only thing left I belive would be to CSS optimize it.....

If you have a look at my site, would you be able to tell me anything Im doing dreadfully wrong? I never knew this SEO stuff was so demanding!!!

Thanks
Darren