Designing for SEO

The reason why Search Engine Optimisation is so hard to master is that it involves so many different elements. You have to find the keywords, you need to be able to write SEO friendly copy, your link strategy has to be top-notch and you need to be able to convert those hard-won visitors into customers. One skill perhaps brings all of this together: SEO Web Site Design.

The SEO Design Problem

Designing a web site to be search engine friendly is easy. The problem is designing one to be search engine and human friendly. SEO is all about Google’s and Yahoo’s computers. Forget all about CSS and graphics. Simply get the right words in the right place supported by the right links and bingo, you will be flying high in the search engines. But it won’t do you any good if everyone who comes to the site immediately hits the Back button. This is why SEO web site design is such a skill. Balancing the need of the Google’s computers against the needs of your human visitors.

An SEO Web Site Design Template

Achieving the balance between these two competing forces is best done with quality content focused on a single subject or keyword. Each and every page needs to have its SEO elements: Keywords in the URL and the HTML Title and Meta tags; articles of 750 words that mention the keywords once in every paragraph; short headings that use the keyword; and incoming links using the keyword as their anchor text. (For other key SEO points, see the SEO Web Design Checklist).

All the carefully crafted SEO needs to be built on genuine content. The 750 word article has to be about the subject, well written and above all, informative. This is the human side of SEO Web Site Design. Google won’t know if the article makes sense but a human will and its humans that are your customers, not Google’s computers.

Chris Tregenza is a writer on SEO and has a range of free SEO articles online.