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One of the most common requests I get from clients is a “search engine friendly” web design. It’s the #1 request mentioned on the job boards too.

Most people have figured out traffic makes or breaks the success of their site. Many think getting free traffic from search engines brings overnight success and profits. But just because you asked for a “seo-friendly” doesn’t mean you’ll get one. First, it isn’t specific enough to get results from your web developer. Second, getting an SEO-friendly design can mean different things. There’s no standard definition.

In fact, if you’ve asked for an “seo-friendly” site from a few designers, you may have gotten a few different suggestions: “I’ll need to redesign your entire site”, “Don’t worry we use standards-compliant code so it’ll be SEO friendly”, or “Once we’re done designing your new the site I can offer SEO services too!”

None of these statements are wrong in and of themselves. But, they are all isolating SEO as if it’s separate from web design—it’s not. To be successful, SEO is a top-down effort.

4 mistakes clients can avoid when asking a web designer to create an SEO-friendly websites:

• Not incorporating SEO in your plan from the start just because you’re not worried about SEO at the moment.
• Creating your website without plan for how to use keywords across your site.
• Repeatedly redesigning your website thinking it’ll directly improve rankings for your keywords
• Focusing all your efforts on optimizing your website, but you don’t have a content plan to bring in more traffic.

posted by Matt DeYoung

Here’s some suggestions on how to avoid these same mistakes…

Put the Complex Requirements of Search Engines, Like Google, Into a Practical Plan.

If you want to do SEO right, your whole site has to be designed around SEO best practices. But search has gotten complicated. Unless you want to read Google’s latest patent filing document, its hard to know what things are consider “best practices”. You have to develop a cohesive strategy. In other words, merge your web design requirements with your SEO goals. You have to take this approach to your project from the beginning to end.

Work Your Plan, Don’t Keep Overhauling Your Website

A lot of clients come to me with a history of having to redo their site over and over. They start out trying to rank highly for a few competitive keywords. Three “experts” later they’re left with a hacked-together site they’re not really happy with. Yes, optimizing your website is important. There could be fixes involved. You may even have to start over. But don’t fly blind.

Have your SEO expert design a plan for both on-page and off-page optimization . Have them explain their exact design, content and traffic-building plan. Have them show you the precise and exact ways SEO should be factored while deploying your SEO plan. If you have to “re-design” your website, make certain you know why. Your redesign plan should include a timeline for ROI (return on investment).

Design Your Entire Site Around Your Core Keyword Goals

As part of your web design process we help you navigate the intricacies of “on-page” search engine optimization—everything that matters SEO-wise about your own website. This way when it comes to your “off-page” marketing (which third-party sites link to you and how) you’ll have a far better chance at ranking highly quickly.

Each segment of your website pages will work towards your keyword goals

Design your website so each visual block helps your keyword goals: header, sidebar navigation, and body. Search engine robots evaluate everything about your page—even the relationship between page elements and your keywords. Even your web designer needs to take your SEO goals into consideration first. Your keywords will influence how your page layouts are formed; how your site is organized; and, how your content templates link together.

SEO-friendly graphics, document design, code, and infrastructure

When it comes to SEO there are very few things that are exempt: How your graphics are formatted matter. How you use HTML code to display the graphics. The way your organize your code. Whether your site is universally accessible. Even down to how you render your typography. There’s a lot of minutia to do SEO right. Make certain you have reviewed your SEO-checklist every time you publish new content. That way you won’t have to worry about overlooking the details every step of the way.

Include A Plan for Syndication - RSS feeds, One-Way Backlinking, and Social Networking

On-page SEO (optimizing your own site) is important. But its worthless without incoming traffic. As part of your project, we’ll advise you on which tools to use to help generate relevant traffic. Your SEO plan should include which syndication services you submit your RSS feeds to. Check that you have English-like, permanent URLs to improve the keyword quality of your backlinks (i.e. in-bound links). Have your SEO expert help you deploy social sharing tools, or page widgets. You might target Digg, Reddit, Twitter, or Facebook.

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