On the face of it, web design and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) seem to be pulling in opposite directions. In fact, these two essential aspects of website creation are far more compatible than might be assumed, and much of the secret of a successful website lies in making them work harmoniously.
SEO Web Design
The traditional approach is to design a website and then call in SEO experts to optimise it, which is a little like putting a car on the market and then working out how to make the engine run efficiently. Though an expert can do a good enough job in this situation, it’s much better to build the SEO into a site from the very first planning stages.
There too many examples of how this works to cover in a short article, but an important aspect is how the segmentation of the site is handled, and how the links work between the segments.
For instance, if you sell several styles of shirts, each in several colours, the site is segmented both by style and by colour. For the SEO, however, it’s important that the web crawlers used by the search engines explore the segments in the right order — in this case, probably all colours of the most expensive style first, before then moving on to other styles in the same colour.
Coding vs. Content?
A website consists essentially of coding (the programming language the visitor never sees) and content (the text, images, video and animation the visitor does see). It might be assumed that coding has more to do with SEO and content with website design, but in some ways it’s the opposite.
The coding is what makes the website function. That nice piece of animation that attracts the punters is actually a long list of code. The Google web crawlers, on the other hand, like content, and the more new and relevant content you have, the higher you’ll rank — though only if you attach relevant metatags to it, which is an essential part of SEO.
Besides tags, one of the most important aspects of web design to contribute to SEO ranking is simplifying the code. Web crawlers can get lost on a code-heavy page, so the more you can reduce it — for instance, by streamlining the Java or CSS coding at the top of a page — the higher the page will be ranked. All this is far easier to do as part of the design than by correcting it after the site is complete.
What Can SEO Web Design Do for You?
There’s far more that could be said about how website design and SEO overlap, but this should give an idea. Our range of digital marketing services can be tailored to suit your business needs and intertwined with our creative web design services, we can have your business growing and soaring through SEO ranks.
