Search Engine Academy of South Carolina

The questions of the day is… should Web Designers know search engine optimization?

Not all of us can create a professionally designed Web site nor do we expect that all Web designers  completely understand what it takes to do well in the search engines.  Wouldn’t it be nice if these two professional could work together. 

Many times our students will come to us with Web sites that they have spent thousands of dollars on only to discover it was created all in frames, solely reliant on flash, or better yet discover it is a sub domain of someone else’s site all together. 

Search engine optimization and a good solid web design truly are the backbone of every successful Web site on the Internet.  If we can educated Web designers on some of the basic SEO principles and get the SEO’s to consult with designers prior to the development of a site I believe that the two professional can form a great working relationship.

Web designers need to understand some basic SEO principles like:

• Use of keywords in the title tag
• Proper use of meta keyword and description tags
• Internal linking when designing the structure of the Web site
• Only using elements of Flash and not designing the whole site in Flash
• To stay away from Frame sites
• Proper use of CSS and JavaScript files

These are just a few but they all will help a great deal if taken into account when first designing the Web site.  This is the first step in creating a successful site. 

The next step is to get SEO’s to work together with the designer and understand and be open that the visual aspect of a site is as important as a search engine friendly site.  The buying audience is not the search engines they are just the tool to guide a visitor to a site. 

If the site has the basic search engine friendly structure from the start then a SEO’s can start working on building its reputation on the Internet.

Combine the basic SEO principles (which is the science of SEO) with the techniques (which is the art of SEO) and you have a team working together to create an awesome Web site.

Are you a Web Designer or a SEO?  Which ever you are create a business relationship with the other and the two of you working together as one will make a success story for many Web site owners.