Author’s bio: Jameson Ballinger works as a writer in beautiful Miami, Florida. Jameson has written extensively about SEO, web design and marketing and is currently working with Z Network Groups helping local businesses find a balance between on-site design and internet optimization.
At this point in the game, you probably don’t need Matt Cutts to tell you SEO is all about quality content. Whether you are building a company blog, contributing to industry discussion or building a strategic email marketing campaign, what you say and how you say it is essential.
I find it somewhat ironic that web design and SEO industries seem to constantly be butting heads—especially when they’re both building towards the same end game—the client’s success. Arguably, design is half the battle, and successful SEO is the other half, so why is it that web designers tend to have great sites and poor SEO and SEO sites are optimized yet poorly designed?
The question has been asked before, ‘can web designers also do SEO?’ The answer: some can. The key is coupling great design with SEO architecture, onsite optimization including strategic keyword placement, attention to meta data, content placement and images and utilizing new technologies.
How do you create a harmony between SEO and web design?
A fatal error many companies make is hiring a web design company to update their site with the intention of working with an SEO firm afterwards to help create a quality backlink portfolio. Instead, ask your web design team and SEO service to work together or find a company, to do both.
Start with a checklist; what are your goals, your ‘big win’ scenario, and what do you want to rank for? For example, what market are you targeting? If you’re based in Miami, Florida and do business nationwide but struggle to attract a local market, it’s imperative to include your physical address and contact information on your site—preferably on every page in the footer. Additionally, your meta description should also include your physical location and contact information so when search engine spiders crawl that information you can rank for Florida, Miami, be indexed on Google maps and your contact information will be easy to find for potential clients.
On-Site SEO is something you should insist web designers make a priority. HTML markers, site structure, internal linking and keywords all serve to direct search engine users to the parts of your page they will find most helpful. The end result you want to strive for is finding a harmony between providing great, user friendly design for people and creating search engine friendly navigation.
SEO and web design is not a one and done industry
Frequently, falling just shy of poor design with relatively no consideration to on-site SEO, many businesses hold the mislead belief that once they have a well-designed search engine optimized site, they can carry on with business as usual and continually grow in success. Perhaps this works for a very small handful of sites, but overall, both SEO and web design needs to be ongoing.
Consider first site content; if the content, products, events and/or photos on your site are never changed or updated, users who have visited your site previously won’t continue to return. Your site needs continual updates to both content, coding, photos, graphics and calendar or events.
Find ways to keep your content fresh
You may have noticed industry blogs are constantly growing in popularity (and are a great tool for gaining quality backlinks). However, one reason some blogs fail is they don’t provide regular and quality content. A blog should be updated at least once a week, and not with hastily written, poorly worded content.
Let’s face it, search engines are big fans of fresh content—and so are internet users, and if you’re struggling to produce content for your blog you can invite guests to make contributions. You may want to consider inviting clients to contribute posts. This can increase traffic, grow an engaged audience and build relationships with your clients. Additionally, ask site visitors to ask questions or leave comments.
If you can find the perfect balance between site design and SEO, not only will you successfully appease the powers that be (i.e. Google), but you will be performing a service to the ones that really matter, the people who are using the internet, and that my friends is the big win.
