WHERE WEB DESIGN AND SEO COLLIDE

 

As many of you know,  my passion is for Search Engine optimization and web design is my secondary interest.  In my mind a beautiful site is worthless if no one finds it.  Many of the most snazzy looking sites are virtually unknown to search engines.  Why you ask.... Simply put, the site is built with technology that the search engines can't read such as Flash or images.

 

I am an editor for DMOZ and Skaffe and spend a lot of time going to sites, reviewing, editing and following the links found on those pages.  This process is very enlightening as to what is out there that you very likely won't ever stumble upon simply because the owner of the site did not realize that search engines can't read their page and thus have no idea where to put their site in the results.

 

Many sites use Photoshop images and even the text is in pictures.  Yes, they are awesome sites but where is the text to help the search engines know what your site is about?  In a picture?  How do they expect a bot to read words in a picture? 

 

There are ways around this problem but the fix entails deep pockets!  Yes you will find sites that are picture laden or full of Flash that actually rank in the search engines.  How???  Money, an SEO expert, tons of links with just the right anchor text etc...  Depending on the competitiveness of your keywords and niche this may be many thousands of dollars! 

 

When I build sites you will notice that most of my sites have as many words as possible, most often 200+ on the front page.  Let me explain my philosophy here.  Magnolia Web Design builds AFFORDABLE web sites and provides AFFORDABLE SEO.  In order to keep both of these things affordable we build sites that use as many words as possible thus reducing the need for as much SEO money and time to achieve the desired results.

 

So because we offer affordable websites, hosting and SEO services, you can expect that there is a reason why we build sites a specific way.  Most of the sites we build are ongoing works in progress, growing and improving all along the way.  The result.... Our clients get a web site that is attractive, functional and professional that incidentally works well in search engines with the least amount of effort.  All of which saves both time and money.

 

We will end this article with a little trivia for you.

 

Graphic Design = Graphically designed site.  Graphic Designers create wonderful works of art.  Prepare to need an SEO to assist with search engines as most of them do not do SEO!

 

Web Development = Site or template improved and developed to the customers desires.  Could be a more graphical or textual site.  Most often includes programming, database and/or ecommerce solutions.

 

Web Design = Exactly what it sounds like.  Designing the structure, look and feel of a site. 

 

Generally SEO enthusiast prefer the Web Development or Design areas of the web arena for the sites they build.  I absolutely love to look at the graphically designed sites but that is not my area of expertise.  Another words, TOTAL website affordability rules at Magnolia Web Group.