SEO Web Design Done the Right Way
01 Oct 2008
Most people believe that all web sites are developed with SEO Web Design. Nothing can be further from the truth. The old saying is, "If you build it they'll come". Unfortunately this doesn't apply to the World Wide Web. A more practical saying is "What good is a web site if nobody can find it". I try to tell people that any web site is fine, if you do a lot of adverting in print and other media, and you include the name of your web site so people can then go to it. What I also tell people, is that most web sites are designed to look and function well for the purpose that they were created for. That is, to have a web site presence on the Internet to direct customers or clients to. For some, that is enough. We believe there is much more to having a web site on the Internet.
SEO Web Design is what we believe is a better saying in today's Internet world. Most web design is created to have very good visual appeal, so the visitor is captured by the website's appearance. This is done so the person will stay, look around, and hopefully read or look further on. This is what every web site owner wants. Unfortunately, statistics show that you've between three to five seconds to get the visitor to stay on your web site. That's about as long as it takes to sneeze.
SEO Web Design has to make staying on your web site happen. Many web sites are not "search engine friendly". The result, your web site ranks low in the search engine results pages (SERP's) and you get few visitors. Few visitors mean fewer leads, sales and profits. We believe that SEO Web Design must start from the time you decide you want to have a site for any purpose. The site design company that you choose, must operate on the principle that web design and SEO go hand in hand. They must be done together from the very beginning. Many web site designers and developers are not really well trained in search engine optimization (SEO). They apply the general principles they've learned, but most of the time this isn't enough. The design and layout must be created to be "search engine friendly" or the web site has limited value.
The designer and SEO specialist must build the web site together. This includes everything from web page layout, to graphics, to content, to meta tags, linking and navigation structure. it's an very difficult and time-consuming process. This is the reason good web site design and search engine optimization is so expensive. If someone tells you that it's easy, that they can do it in a couple of days and it's really cheap, get somebody else.
What you want to find, is a company that designs web sites that are visually appealing, rich in content, well optimized and also "search engine friendly". This will allow them to be easily found by search engines and get high rankings. You must keep in mind that 90% of all visitors come from search engines, and great majority of those from Google, Yahoo, and MSN. To be competitive in any ecommerce, your web site must be found within the first few pages of the search engine results for your keywords. If it's not, it has little value.
Arnie Katz is the author of this article. he's Director of Search Engine Optimization for OptimizeThroughdesign.com, a leading SEO web design and Internet marketing company. he's a prolific writer and also serves as SEO for more then one other Web design and development companies. He can be reached at http://OptimizeThroughDesign.com
