Good SEO vs Good Design
Paul
Good SEO vs Good Design
Can a well-optimized website also be well designed? Perhaps so. Good text content, consistent keyword usage, and great linking can be a winning combination for a website’s rank in search engines.
Some sites succeed in this balance of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) vs. good Web design, while others fall short. The lack of SEO may be perfectly acceptable for some businesses, depending on what their web marketing goals are, but for most, web traffic is just as high of a priority as the design.
At the other end of the spectrum, some link-heavy sites may have perfect optimization, but if SEO is the sole focus, the design may suffer, including its navigation, usability, and credibility. It does not matter how much traffic a site gets if the site is not designed well enough to serve its intended purpose. If the purpose is to sell products, for example, the design must inspire enough confidence in the visitor to buy; otherwise, the website has failed.
Over-aggressively SEO-focused websites which have overlooked the design have inevitably failed.
Some new website designs reflect the latest in strides to achieve a healthy balance between good SEO and good web design. On the technical side, Seo friendly web sites feature plenty of keyword-based links from the homepage and maintain keyword consistency well on subsequent pages. Keywords are used within titles, meta tags, header tags (H1, H2, H3), and within newer tags like <strong> and <em>. Body text on the homepage also contains keywords, and keyword links within <a href> tags are sprinkled throughout the pages. The site also uses as much CSS as possible to shrink the code-to-text content ratio, a design discipline strongly recommended for all web developers and designers.
On the design side, the web sites must appear to be visually interesting while bordering on being ‘too busy’ from the keyword content. Photos can act as a dominant element for breaking up the text and add something visually interesting that stands out. These elements attempt to embrace the “rule of thirds” design theory, with the element not dead-center in the middle, but slightly offset at the 1/3 of the page to be more pleasing to the eye.
White spaces allow the eyes to ‘breathe’ as a refreshing separation from the page elements. Strong use of color, can make elements appear to ‘pop out’, while the use of a neutral color, like gray, may point toward a professional and corporate nature. Designers should carefully consider such design theories and principles when designing a new site. Design decisions should aim to be aesthetically pleasing, but always purposeful and practical.
The Key to a Good Balance
The key to a successful balance is planning both design and SEO simultaneously- from the ground up. This means that all the keyword phrases should be researched, chosen and integrated into the design in its earliest drafts. If this is not done, a web designer may later be in a dilemma if keywords are to be added that are longer than the design allows, for instance. Such a last minute changes of keywords could also mean changes to the directory structure links across multiple pages, allowing an increased opportunity for error. The best practice is to start with the keywords upfront and try to minimize the changes that occur with those keywords as the web design progresses.
In the competitive marketplace of the Web, both the catching of traffic and the visual presentation of a website is important. Too much emphasis on one and not enough on the other can limit a website’s success, but a healthy blend of good SEO and good design will pave the path for success.
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