Hello Cricket,

The good news is that I’m not just getting traffic, I am getting sales! I hadn’t had any from the site until I began your course and made some changes. I’m on the first page of Google for many of my search terms.

My problem is that the template that was one of the few I could choose from that came with my webhost loads very slowly and will never validate because of errors in its code. I know I’m losing customers because of it.

The question is: if I get a new template that still keeps my left-hand navigation, isn’t flash or frames, will that affect my progress with Google so far?

I want a very plain template, but I’m so afraid that, even if I don’t change the content of my products, titles and descriptions, the change in the template code may affect my standing so far. Will it?
 

Cluny Grey, Arkansas
Cluny Grey Handcrafted Jewelry

Hi Cluny!

You are right to be concerned about which template you choose, but usually not because it may affect your SEO efforts. In most cases, the template you choose will have very little impact in your search engine standings, unless you are doing things like changing a page file name without also using a 301 permanent redirect.

Of course you still want to keep basic search engine optimization techniques in mind when choosing the template. You definitely do not want to suddenly start using methods that might make it difficult for the search engines to see and index all of your content or to follow your navigation links. I can tell by your email that you already know this though.

Quite often, people are surprised to learn that even the templates they purchase may not use valid code. In most cases, code that will not validate does not have much impact on your search engine standing unless the errors are bad enough to keep the search engine bots from seeing all of your content, or fully crawling your pages.

My primary reason for striving to use valid code is to help increase cross browser compatibility. Although not foolproof, validating your pages makes it much more likely that they will be usable for your visitors no matter which browser they are using. Clean code that keeps the design elements separate (external stylesheets) can also help your pages load a bit faster.

Learning the basics of HTML will help make it possible for you to correct errors in the code from a purchased template. Another option is to find a designer that will create a template for you that is valid to begin with. Either way, you will still want to learn the basic so that you can keep those pages valid when you add content or make changes.

I WILL DEFINITELY SEE YOU AT THE TOP!

Ask Cricket Small Business Marketing Consultant and SEO Training Specialist
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