SEO Web Design - SEO Friendly Search Engine Optimisation Design Concepts
To stay or not to stay?
Your site's design plays a major in role in the user's decision to either stick around or continue surfing. Graphics, layout, load time, fonts and ease of navigation can all influence the user. To craft a site that retains visitors, make it fast, clean and pleasant .
Aside from attracting and retaining visitors, your site's design is critical for search engine positioning. Directories, such as Yahoo! Will review your site before accepting it. Directory editors look for sites with good design to add to their indices.
Design is also important to DirectHit, currently owned and incorporated into Ask Jeeves and Teoma. DirectHit measures how many people click on your site and how long they stay. If your site is clean, easy to navigate, fast and pleasant , visitors will stay longer and your site will score higher. Search engines such as Lycos, Hotbot and MSN use DirectHit technology.
The Golden Rule of site design - let your visitors do it!
Your visitors should dictate your site's design! Cater to their needs with every part of your site.
You can find out more about your users with a web traffic monitoring service. It will be useful in marketing, advertising, search engine placement and design.
Here are some factors to consider when modifying your site to better meet users' needs. You can gather all the following information using web traffic monitoring.
- Connection speed: - Don't use a fancy Flash intro and heavy graphics if most of your visitors have 28.8 modems. Opt for simpler pages that your visitors will be able to read sooner.
- Browser compatibility: - Although browser technology is improving some problems still exist. Netscape, for example, does not completely support cascading style sheets (CSS). If most of your visitors use this browser, don't use CSS for your site unless you're prepared to create different versions of your site for each browser and the code to detect them. Always check how your pages look in different browsers. Check out AnyBrowser.com for necessary tools.
Avoid common mistakes
- Spell well
Although search engines don't penalize for spelling or syntax errors, someone who finds a spelling mistake on your site may view it as unprofessional. Many people believe such mistakes indicate a lack of cultural authority and credibility. Run a spell check on every page before publishing.
- Don't use "construction" areas
Any editor from a directory such as Yahoo! Or ODP will tell you that a site using "This page is under construction" messages won't be listed. Visitors don't enjoy "construction" areas either. Don't submit to directories until you have your whole site up.
Site design
- Is important to directories, DirectHit and your visitors
- Should cater to your audience
- Should avoid common mistakes
 
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