Save a Headache: Design With SEO in Mind
I have been called into many situations where a company wants to achieve that coveted first page Google ranking only to find that their website is poorly designed or outdated. On top of that, I am told that they have no interest in changing their web presence except for their Meta tags. Ok, no problem, right? No. In fact, search engines do not place nearly as much emphasis on Meta tags as they used to.
If you find a web design firm that has appealing creative work, let them know that you would like your site built with SEO in mind, even if you do not plan on implementing an organic SEO campaign after its initial launch. It will save you money down the road when your budget permits an ongoing organic SEO campaign.
A few tips when building your new web presence:
Design is Important, but its Not Everything
A good design will convey your company as established and credible, but does that design convert visitors to qualified leads? A website is like any investment and should contribute to your bottom line. The days are over when a website was simply an informative credibility statement. Ensure that your messages provide visitors with takeaways that are conducive to producing leads. This can be in the form of an information packet download, presentation or registration for a webinar.
Content is King
Nowadays many sites are built on large scale CMS platforms like Joomla or Drupal. Smaller scale sites can be deployed with a common CMS like Wordpress. At the minimum, I would request that your website be built on the Wordpress platform. Search engines like continuous content updates (relevant content) and those platforms will provide update capabilities for you or your staff.
Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
If you find a killer design firm without an SEO specialty, hire an SEO consultant and a copywriter. The SEO consultant can perform crucial tasks such as keyword research, competitive analysis and architecture design. The copywriter can write keyword rich/compelling content based on input from the SEO consultant. The web design firm can then tie all of the elements together.
The Bottom Line
Ask the right questions of your web design firm up front and you will save yourself a great deal of headache down the road. Don’t be afraid to let the web design firm now that you may have additional consultants providing input on your site architecture. They should embrace it, especially if they are trying to provide you with the best solution to your problem.
August 14th, 2009 at 8:17 PM
We are all finding this out too late, as so many sites are already built. And the search engines keep changing their ranking techniques. Keep it coming and let us know some of the BIG secrets!!
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Jimmy
August 14th, 2009 at 9:34 PM
Is this post based on recent customer work?? It must be frustrating walking into a situation like this.
I think the biggest issue people have is not understanding SEO before sitting down with a web designer. The web guy is so busy “wowing” you with the cool flash intro of fun GUI stuff the customer never thinks (or knows) to ask how crawlable a site is. Or will they (the customer) have the ability to add content themselves on the back end.
I have talked with a lot of designers who only know a little bit more than the average web person. This makes them that much more dangerous because they feel like they are an “expert” then.
You also bring up a great point about conversion. Ask the web developer to get into the numbers behind their sites. Make sure they understand your business and are capable of converting a visitor to a lead to a sale.
@Jimmy – You know he can’t give the milk away for free. You only get a taste!