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 to start finding the balance between appearance and performance is SEO. If you never generate traffic, your beautiful page design will never be appreciated. The essentials of SEO include keyword density, linking between pages, meta tags, and proper tagging of images. Each of these factors is something to consider as you begin designing your site.
How do you operationalize your keyword density rule Start by injecting keywords into your content as organically as possible. Google, in particular, and other search engines have developed complex algorithms that penalize your pages when keywords are “stuffed” into the text. The keywords you choose must flow with the text, making good grammar and adding meaning to the page.
The next step in integrating web design and SEO is to tag all each image on the site with the “alt” tag in HTML. Every image has to have this tag. The “alt” tag enables to instruct the web browser as to which text will pop up when visitors run their mouse over your image. Every image also requires an SEO-friendly title. For instance if your site is about sunning on the beach in Aruba, and you want to use a photo of a beach on your page, a name like aruba.beach.wow.jpg isfar more effective than an name like 477876arub9wow.jpg. Keywords in your tags become keywords for your pages. Just take care not make your pages too keyword-dense with image names, either.
Another vital step in search engine optimization is linking the various pages of your site. Visitors always appreciate internal navigation. The search engines also appreciate internal navigation, because internal links are places you can insert keywords that identify your pages. For instance, if you have a page called “White Sand Beaches” you can link to that page from every other page in your site with a link entitled “White Sand Beaches.” This way you not only tell all search engines have created a page, but you tell the search engines what the page is about.
The ultimate rule for integrating page design and SEO Keep it simple! Use flash only sparingly. Shun excessive images. Avoid complex design. Paying attention to these important rules will boost your freedom to do SEO. You don’t have to make your website anything other than attractive, 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.
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