SEO Web Design - What is it?
I've worked with a lot of web design folks over the years, and it seems that a lot of them don't understand the fundamentals of building a search-engine-friendly website (SEO web design techniques).
Or else they have the false notion that an "SEO-friendly" website has to be ugly. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's actually quite simple to design an attractive website that is still easy for search engines to crawl.
In fact, you don't even think of this practice as SEO web design -- you can simply think of it as proper web design. What I mean is this. If you design a website properly, with clean coding, good organization and logical navigation, then you've already created if a search-engine-friendly website.
Here are some more good practices of SEO web design that I apply to my client websites:
1. Whenever possible, use good HTML structure on all pages. This is a must for SEO web design success. Use one H1 header per page, H2 sub-headers as necessary, etc. This will help later on, especially with Yahoo and MSN. Also, valid HTML is easier for search engines to crawl. The closer you can get to 100% validation (using W3C standards) the better.
2. If using JavaScript to create dynamic menus, create an alternate text-based menu for the bottom / footer area. Yahoo and MSN tend to struggle with complex JavaScript menus, so the text menu gives them an alternate path. This SEO web design technique will help the search engines find and crawl as much of the website as possible.
Example: Home | About | Services | Sitemap | Contact | Etc...
3. Be careful with the use of Flash design. In particular, avoid building an entire website within a Flash file. This is the exact opposite of effective SEO web design and will hamper your SEO success. If you are going to use Flash, contain it within its own "box" and let the navigation and content flow around it. Visit the Adobe.com home page for an example of this.
4. Be sure to include Meta elements (title, description and keywords) and title elements within the HTML structure of each page. The title element in particular is important for SEO web design purposes, so it should include descriptive keywords. The actual "keywords" meta element is not as important as it once was, but some search engines still consider the words found within that tag. So it's good SEO web design practice to include them.
5. Avoid the use of graphical text (text rendered as an image) within the body of each page. It's fine to do it for the logo and other graphical areas like that. But I've seen a lot of websites with page headers as graphics (instead of using H1 and H2 tags). This is not good SEO web design practice because it makes the page headers invisible to search engines, and it's a missed opportunity to increase the relevance of pages.
6. Wherever it makes sense to readers, feel free to interlink pages from within the body content of each page. This should be done in moderation and with usability in mind first, but it can help "usher" search engines around while informing them as to the website's theme. Thus, it's a great SEO web design technique. For instance, instead of using a link that says "learn more," I might create one that says: "More about SEO web design." Better for people, and better for search engines.
This article only scratches the surface of SEO web design but I hope it helps you think about design from a more search-engine-friendly perspective.
Or else they have the false notion that an "SEO-friendly" website has to be ugly. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's actually quite simple to design an attractive website that is still easy for search engines to crawl.
In fact, you don't even think of this practice as SEO web design -- you can simply think of it as proper web design. What I mean is this. If you design a website properly, with clean coding, good organization and logical navigation, then you've already created if a search-engine-friendly website.
Here are some more good practices of SEO web design that I apply to my client websites:
Tips on Good SEO Web Design
1. Whenever possible, use good HTML structure on all pages. This is a must for SEO web design success. Use one H1 header per page, H2 sub-headers as necessary, etc. This will help later on, especially with Yahoo and MSN. Also, valid HTML is easier for search engines to crawl. The closer you can get to 100% validation (using W3C standards) the better.
2. If using JavaScript to create dynamic menus, create an alternate text-based menu for the bottom / footer area. Yahoo and MSN tend to struggle with complex JavaScript menus, so the text menu gives them an alternate path. This SEO web design technique will help the search engines find and crawl as much of the website as possible.
Example: Home | About | Services | Sitemap | Contact | Etc...
3. Be careful with the use of Flash design. In particular, avoid building an entire website within a Flash file. This is the exact opposite of effective SEO web design and will hamper your SEO success. If you are going to use Flash, contain it within its own "box" and let the navigation and content flow around it. Visit the Adobe.com home page for an example of this.
4. Be sure to include Meta elements (title, description and keywords) and title elements within the HTML structure of each page. The title element in particular is important for SEO web design purposes, so it should include descriptive keywords. The actual "keywords" meta element is not as important as it once was, but some search engines still consider the words found within that tag. So it's good SEO web design practice to include them.
5. Avoid the use of graphical text (text rendered as an image) within the body of each page. It's fine to do it for the logo and other graphical areas like that. But I've seen a lot of websites with page headers as graphics (instead of using H1 and H2 tags). This is not good SEO web design practice because it makes the page headers invisible to search engines, and it's a missed opportunity to increase the relevance of pages.
6. Wherever it makes sense to readers, feel free to interlink pages from within the body content of each page. This should be done in moderation and with usability in mind first, but it can help "usher" search engines around while informing them as to the website's theme. Thus, it's a great SEO web design technique. For instance, instead of using a link that says "learn more," I might create one that says: "More about SEO web design." Better for people, and better for search engines.
This article only scratches the surface of SEO web design but I hope it helps you think about design from a more search-engine-friendly perspective.
Labels: Search Engine Optimization
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