Most companies pour their heart and soul (not to mention buckets of money) into designing their site so that it looks absolutely stunning. But what happens when Search Engine Optimisation comes into play?
Striking the balance between making sure your site is top of the search results whilst maintaining its fantastic design can be difficult. Often, SEO experts and web designers will find themselves at loggerheads, the designer advocating a flashy front page and the SEO expert demanding that all the text be searchable.
What’s More Important?
They both have a point so it’s worth spending a little time figuring out how to make design and SEO work in harmony so that you can benefit from the best of both worlds. One needn’t necessarily suffer at the hands of the other and both specialisms should be given equal importance where possible.
The Complications
Web designers often want to avoid using reams of text on their pages as it can detract from their beautifully simplistic design, whereas an SEO expert will need to use that text to drive people to your page. Having said that, SEO experts also appreciate how important good design is for statistics and as the success of their work is largely reflected in conversions and paying customers, they want maximum impact.
A great SEO expert will focus on the quality of your content, rather than the quantity. Restricting the amount of text will result in fewer search terms being included, fewer visitors to your site and therefore fewer people to admire the beautiful design you have worked so hard on! With all of this in mind, the lesson is to ensure that both your design and your content is all about simplicity but where necessary, the content may have to take over in terms of importance so that the hit rate of the site doesn’t suffer.
The Ideal Team
Ideally, on any web design project, there should be three people working together:
- A designer
- A developer
- An SEO expert
Depending on the size of the project, it may well also be prudent to recruit a copywriter and a project manager to ensure that all aspects of the creation process are covered.
With this ideal team, you can be sure that the end result is going to be stunning, functional and fully searchable. It’s crucial to have these three professionals working together as a team rather than coming into the project at various points so that there is a consistent approach to all crucial aspects of the project.
SEO Specialists
Employing a team of three people for one project may well be beyond the means of many companies, especially those who are starting out in their market. You can look into hiring self-employed professionals on a temporary basis rather than recruiting for all three positions but even this can be extremely costly, not to mention time consuming.
But there is an answer. In recent years, the demand for SEO alongside design has resulted in a new niche being carved in the industry: that of SEO specialists. These professionals understand both sides of the coin and can make it far easier to strike the balance with your website. They are experts in getting your site as many hits as possible without compromising the overall design of your site.
