When it comes to web design, there are some amazing designers out there. Most web designers are very creative and have a strong artistic background. The majority of web designers are not familiar with the concepts and implementation of search engine optimization techniques. Even if a web designer has at least some basic knowledge of SEO, the majority do not worry about implementing search engine optimization strategies into their designs.
Whether you are a web designer or someone getting ready to hire a web designer, here are three traits of quality SEO web design:
Usability: As a general rule of thumb, if the design of a web site makes it easy for your human visitors to navigate, it will also be relatively easy for search engine robots to access, crawl and index your web site. Making your site user (and search engine) friendly includes minimizing (or completely eliminating) things such as Flash, Javascript navigation and layouts designed with tables. By designing with usability in mind, you can be sure that your visitors and the search engines will be happy with your web site.
Avoid Being Sneaky: Because web designers are generally very creative people, they like to push the envelope when it comes to designing web sites. Although this mentality can result in some truly amazing web layouts, it can also cause problems if taken too far. When creating a web site layout, it is important to keep the web master guidelines of search engines like Google in mind. Incorporating things like hidden text into your designs is a sure way to get penalized (or de-indexed) by search engines. Onpage SEO is the basis for quality SEO web design. It is vital that properly implement things such as title, meta, H1 and H2 tags, along with internal linking and the other key components of onpage search engine optimization. Taking the time to employ these practices will make a significant difference in where your web site ranks in the search engines.
A. Web Design Parameters For A Successful SEO Campaign
In any successful website four aspects of the game are taken care of and they are development, design, content and SEO. The importance of SEO Web Design If you ask any webmaster about his number one priority, the answer would be surely centered around getting more and more meaningful visitors on his website. When a visitor (potential customer) lands on your website, the probability that he would give you business would depend upon his overall experience while browsing through the website.
Ease of navigation His ultimate decision in relation to your website would depend upon the ease of navigation he encounters while at the helm. Moreover, SEO web design parameters warrant that there is minimal use of animation and flash. That’s because such pages take more time to download, additionally not all people have flash software installed on their PC, implying that you loose a potential customer just because of design overdose on your part.
Use vibrant colors matching your theme, provide classy content and leave the rest to the SEO.
Needless to say, having proper web design is of cardinal importance.
B. How Web Design Can Affect Search Engine Rankings
Uniquely built web sites can create unique issues when being promoted on the search engines. From a basic 3 page brochure site to a corporate site with hundreds of dynamically generated pages, every web site needs to have certain design aspects in order to achieve the full effects of an SEO campaign. Below are a few points to take into consideration when building or updating your web site.
1. Size Matters.
The size of a web site can have a huge impact on search engine rankings. Search engines love content, so if you have only a few pages to your site and your competitors have dozens, it's difficult to see a top page ranking for your site. It will help in broadening the scope of your web site (which search engines like) as well as keep visitors on your site longer, possibly resulting in more sales.
2. Graphics-Based Web Sites.
While web sites that offer the visitor a more esthetically-pleasing experience may seem like the best choice for someone searching for your product, they are the most difficult to optimize. Since search engine robots cannot read text within graphics or animation, what they see may be just a small amount of text. And if we learned anything from point #1, small amounts of content will not result in top rankings. If you really must offer the visitor a graphics-heavy or Flash
* web site, consider creating an HTML-based side of your site that is also available to visitors. This site will be much easier to promote on the search engines and your new found visitors will also have the option to jump over to the nicer looking part of your site.
* Author update - As of July 2008 Google has updated their algorithm to take advantage of Adobe's searchable SWF library, enabling the indexing of Flash content for the first time.
3. Dynamic Web Pages.
If most of your web site is generated by a large database (such as a large book dealer with stock that is changing by the minute) you may find that some of your pages do not get indexed by major search engines. One way to combat this problem is to offer a search engine friendly site map listing all your static pages just to let them know that you do have permanent content on your site. If search engines see links going to and from these dynamic pages within a good internal linking system, this may also lead to the pages getting indexed.
4. Proper Use of HTML.
The more efficiently written web sites usually achieve higher rankings. Our choice for web design software is Adobe Dreamweaver, as it is an industry standard. It also makes using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) a breeze, which can drastically cut down on the amount of text formatting in HTML code. Hand-coding HTML to design sites is also a good method if you are proficient enough.
5. Choosing a Domain Name.
The golden rule to web development of any kind is to keep your visitors in mind above all else - even search engine optimization. When choosing a domain name, one should pick either your business name (if you have a high-profile business name such as Chapters or Coca-Cola) or a brief description of your products. Domain names can always help with search engine optimization, as it is another area of your web site that important keywords can appear. It allows you to keep your existing rankings for your old domain name, while forwarding visitors to your new web site instantly.
6. Using Frames.
Don't use frames. The search engines that are able to index your site through frames will most likely frown upon them. Bookmarking of individual pages within a frame becomes difficult without lengthy scripts being written.
7. Update Your Information.
Web sites that continuously update and grow their web sites usually experience higher rankings than stagnant sites when dealing with an industry that experiences a high rate of growth or change. While the age of a web page is looked at as part of a search engine algorithm, it has no bearing on searches for items recently in the news. Consider creating a section of your site devoted to news within your organization, or have a constantly updated blog.
Many shortfalls of web sites can easily be attributed to designers who just don't keep the user or search engines in mind. Search engine algorithms are quickly improving to try and list the most user-friendly sites higher, given that the content and link popularity are there to back it up. So first and foremost, know your target market and make your web site work for them before focusing on search engine optimization.
Whether you are a web designer or someone getting ready to hire a web designer, here are three traits of quality SEO web design:
Usability: As a general rule of thumb, if the design of a web site makes it easy for your human visitors to navigate, it will also be relatively easy for search engine robots to access, crawl and index your web site. Making your site user (and search engine) friendly includes minimizing (or completely eliminating) things such as Flash, Javascript navigation and layouts designed with tables. By designing with usability in mind, you can be sure that your visitors and the search engines will be happy with your web site.
Avoid Being Sneaky: Because web designers are generally very creative people, they like to push the envelope when it comes to designing web sites. Although this mentality can result in some truly amazing web layouts, it can also cause problems if taken too far. When creating a web site layout, it is important to keep the web master guidelines of search engines like Google in mind. Incorporating things like hidden text into your designs is a sure way to get penalized (or de-indexed) by search engines. Onpage SEO is the basis for quality SEO web design. It is vital that properly implement things such as title, meta, H1 and H2 tags, along with internal linking and the other key components of onpage search engine optimization. Taking the time to employ these practices will make a significant difference in where your web site ranks in the search engines.
A. Web Design Parameters For A Successful SEO Campaign
In any successful website four aspects of the game are taken care of and they are development, design, content and SEO. The importance of SEO Web Design If you ask any webmaster about his number one priority, the answer would be surely centered around getting more and more meaningful visitors on his website. When a visitor (potential customer) lands on your website, the probability that he would give you business would depend upon his overall experience while browsing through the website.
Ease of navigation His ultimate decision in relation to your website would depend upon the ease of navigation he encounters while at the helm. Moreover, SEO web design parameters warrant that there is minimal use of animation and flash. That’s because such pages take more time to download, additionally not all people have flash software installed on their PC, implying that you loose a potential customer just because of design overdose on your part.
Use vibrant colors matching your theme, provide classy content and leave the rest to the SEO.
Needless to say, having proper web design is of cardinal importance.
B. How Web Design Can Affect Search Engine Rankings
Uniquely built web sites can create unique issues when being promoted on the search engines. From a basic 3 page brochure site to a corporate site with hundreds of dynamically generated pages, every web site needs to have certain design aspects in order to achieve the full effects of an SEO campaign. Below are a few points to take into consideration when building or updating your web site.
1. Size Matters.
The size of a web site can have a huge impact on search engine rankings. Search engines love content, so if you have only a few pages to your site and your competitors have dozens, it's difficult to see a top page ranking for your site. It will help in broadening the scope of your web site (which search engines like) as well as keep visitors on your site longer, possibly resulting in more sales.
2. Graphics-Based Web Sites.
While web sites that offer the visitor a more esthetically-pleasing experience may seem like the best choice for someone searching for your product, they are the most difficult to optimize. Since search engine robots cannot read text within graphics or animation, what they see may be just a small amount of text. And if we learned anything from point #1, small amounts of content will not result in top rankings. If you really must offer the visitor a graphics-heavy or Flash
* web site, consider creating an HTML-based side of your site that is also available to visitors. This site will be much easier to promote on the search engines and your new found visitors will also have the option to jump over to the nicer looking part of your site.
* Author update - As of July 2008 Google has updated their algorithm to take advantage of Adobe's searchable SWF library, enabling the indexing of Flash content for the first time.
3. Dynamic Web Pages.
If most of your web site is generated by a large database (such as a large book dealer with stock that is changing by the minute) you may find that some of your pages do not get indexed by major search engines. One way to combat this problem is to offer a search engine friendly site map listing all your static pages just to let them know that you do have permanent content on your site. If search engines see links going to and from these dynamic pages within a good internal linking system, this may also lead to the pages getting indexed.
4. Proper Use of HTML.
The more efficiently written web sites usually achieve higher rankings. Our choice for web design software is Adobe Dreamweaver, as it is an industry standard. It also makes using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) a breeze, which can drastically cut down on the amount of text formatting in HTML code. Hand-coding HTML to design sites is also a good method if you are proficient enough.
5. Choosing a Domain Name.
The golden rule to web development of any kind is to keep your visitors in mind above all else - even search engine optimization. When choosing a domain name, one should pick either your business name (if you have a high-profile business name such as Chapters or Coca-Cola) or a brief description of your products. Domain names can always help with search engine optimization, as it is another area of your web site that important keywords can appear. It allows you to keep your existing rankings for your old domain name, while forwarding visitors to your new web site instantly.
6. Using Frames.
Don't use frames. The search engines that are able to index your site through frames will most likely frown upon them. Bookmarking of individual pages within a frame becomes difficult without lengthy scripts being written.
7. Update Your Information.
Web sites that continuously update and grow their web sites usually experience higher rankings than stagnant sites when dealing with an industry that experiences a high rate of growth or change. While the age of a web page is looked at as part of a search engine algorithm, it has no bearing on searches for items recently in the news. Consider creating a section of your site devoted to news within your organization, or have a constantly updated blog.
Many shortfalls of web sites can easily be attributed to designers who just don't keep the user or search engines in mind. Search engine algorithms are quickly improving to try and list the most user-friendly sites higher, given that the content and link popularity are there to back it up. So first and foremost, know your target market and make your web site work for them before focusing on search engine optimization.
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