There are numerous factors that determine how your site will perform in search engines. Unfortunately, good (visual) design is not one of them. Search engines are blind; they don’t see graphics or pictures. They can only read the text on pages. So, when it comes to search engines, your site is only as good as the text on the pages.
Most Web designers (not all) focus their efforts on visual elements, like branding, element proximity or layout. We can all agree that visual experience is very important, but neglecting key search engine ranking factors like coding, navigation and content accessibility can be hazardous. If your site designer doesn’t pay careful attention to the architecture, organization of content and optimization of key page elements you are missing a huge opportunity. The opportunity to take advantage of the channel that will drive the most traffic to your website – search engines.
So what can you do? Simple, when doing a redesign or building a new site, insist your designer is not only a top-notch creative but a familiar with SEO too!
Tags: SEO, website design
Yeah, well, Britton, I still care if it’s pretty.