Web Design and Search Engine Optimization
If you are going to be on the web for the long run, you need to quality things – web design and search engine optimization. If you aren’t careful, the two can end up in conflict.
The joke among many practitioners is which came first – web design or search engine optimization? The answer is neither. Both must be implemented from the get go before even a single page of a site is designed.
First things first. What is search engine optimization? It is simply the manipulation of a number of factors to get your site ranked high in the search results on Google, Yahoo and MSN when a person searches for something. One of the manipulations that has to occur is the site design. Let’s look at an example.
Let’s say you are in an image based industry or niche – architecture, for instance. You want a site that is going to have a strong visual appeal because striking visuals is pretty much why you became an architect. Nobody dreams of designing a concrete box! Regardless, many architects decide to go with a FLASH site that looks sophisticated and moves about in interesting ways.
When it comes to search engine optimization, a flash site is a disaster. Why? The search engines have great difficulty reading them. As a result, it is the rare day when a flash design will be ranked in the top 10 on the search engines. If you do a search for “Los Angeles architect” on Google, you will see no flash sites in the results. If the architect ever hoped to get free traffic from the search engines, it isn’t going to happen.
Search engine optimization does not begin after you have a site built. It goes hand in hand with the building because pages have to be organized a particular way. Don’t make the mistake of timing things incorrectly. Nothing is more aggravating than having to go back and do it again!