Every designer knows that there are two basic qualities of every good website appearance and performance in the search engines. It is critically important for pages to look good to keep visitors on the page. But visitors will never arrive at the site to enjoy that good design without search engine optimization (SEO). Integrating these two fundamentals of effective website design can be complicated, and compromises are sometimes required.
The place web designers start to find the balance between appearance and performance is SEO. If SEO never generates traffic, your beautiful page design can never be appreciated. The basics of SEO include linking between pages, keyword density, meta tags, and proper tagging of images. Each of these factors is something to consider as you begin designing your site.
A successful site has to have enough content to allow for appropriately low keyword density. Unlike the ranking standards of the late 1990s, search algorithms in 2009 penalize sites, and sometimes penalize them very severely, for cramming too many search terms into too little text. Content must long enough to dilute keyword density, but concise enough to hold visitor attention. It is also not possible to make use of every screen shot or image you might happen to have, no matter how attractive and beautiful they are, on every page, or even on every site. The search algorithms have not yet designed means of indexing images. Words, and not images, are what drive SEO. That is the reason every designer has to provide every site multiple pages with text that can be optimized.
The next step is to tag all the images you use on your website with the "alt" in HTML. Each and every image without exception must have this tag. The "alt" tag permits you to tell the web browser which text will pop up when visitors run their mouse over the image. It's also essential to labe every image with an SEO-friendly title. For instance if your site is about swimming with dolphins and you use a picture of dolphins on a page, a name like dolphins.swimming.jpg is far more effective than 477876ACDAW.jpg. Keywords in the tags become keywords for your pages. Just be sure you do not make your pages too keyword-dense with image names, either.
Another key step in search engine optimization is including links between the pages of your site. Visitors appreciate internal navigation. The websites also appreciate internal navigation, because these links are places you can place keywords that identify your pages. For instance, if you have a page called "Dolphins in Belize," you can link to that page from every other page in your site with a link entitled "Dolphins in Belize." This way you not only signal the search engines that you have created a page, but you tell them what the page is about.
Is there an ultimate rule for integrating page design and SEO Yes, and here it is: Keep it simple! Use flash sparingly. Avoid excessive images. Shun complex design. Paying attention to these vital rules will boost your freedom to do SEO. You always want your pages to be beautiful, you just need to do more with less.
Always take care that the search engines do not mistake your content for spam. Beyond keeping within the 7% limit, your respect for your readers and your providing genuinely content will make all the difference in how well your site will perform.
The place web designers start to find the balance between appearance and performance is SEO. If SEO never generates traffic, your beautiful page design can never be appreciated. The basics of SEO include linking between pages, keyword density, meta tags, and proper tagging of images. Each of these factors is something to consider as you begin designing your site.
A successful site has to have enough content to allow for appropriately low keyword density. Unlike the ranking standards of the late 1990s, search algorithms in 2009 penalize sites, and sometimes penalize them very severely, for cramming too many search terms into too little text. Content must long enough to dilute keyword density, but concise enough to hold visitor attention. It is also not possible to make use of every screen shot or image you might happen to have, no matter how attractive and beautiful they are, on every page, or even on every site. The search algorithms have not yet designed means of indexing images. Words, and not images, are what drive SEO. That is the reason every designer has to provide every site multiple pages with text that can be optimized.
The next step is to tag all the images you use on your website with the "alt" in HTML. Each and every image without exception must have this tag. The "alt" tag permits you to tell the web browser which text will pop up when visitors run their mouse over the image. It's also essential to labe every image with an SEO-friendly title. For instance if your site is about swimming with dolphins and you use a picture of dolphins on a page, a name like dolphins.swimming.jpg is far more effective than 477876ACDAW.jpg. Keywords in the tags become keywords for your pages. Just be sure you do not make your pages too keyword-dense with image names, either.
Another key step in search engine optimization is including links between the pages of your site. Visitors appreciate internal navigation. The websites also appreciate internal navigation, because these links are places you can place keywords that identify your pages. For instance, if you have a page called "Dolphins in Belize," you can link to that page from every other page in your site with a link entitled "Dolphins in Belize." This way you not only signal the search engines that you have created a page, but you tell them what the page is about.
Is there an ultimate rule for integrating page design and SEO Yes, and here it is: Keep it simple! Use flash sparingly. Avoid excessive images. Shun complex design. Paying attention to these vital rules will boost your freedom to do SEO. You always want your pages to be beautiful, you just need to do more with less.
Always take care that the search engines do not mistake your content for spam. Beyond keeping within the 7% limit, your respect for your readers and your providing genuinely content will make all the difference in how well your site will perform.
About the Author:
Justin Harrison is a leading Internet Marketing consultant responsible for the Internet Marketing strategies behind some of the biggest online brands including Amazon, BBC, MasterCard and many others.
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