How to Choose Your SEO Web Designer

Web designing and search engine optimization (SEO) seem to be two very different concepts. Nevertheless, you need to be able to combine both these elements in your business website for two reasons: good design will drive traffic to your site while excellent optimization of your webpages will increase your rank in search engines. All in all, you will benefit through obtaining your desired ROI for your business. There’s much better sales conversion rate.
Where do these things differ?
Certified web designers and SEO specialists see things in different perspective. This could be because of the orientation they have about their own respective roles in website building. Take these, for example:
1. The use of Flash in websites. At an SEO standpoint, the use of Flash in business websites is often discouraged. First of all, it doesn’t really improve your rankings in search engines. As a matter of fact, it can be very detrimental as it becomes a lot harder for crawlers to check on your content and have your webpages indexed. Second, Flash takes sometime to download. Because there are wide choices of websites available, Internet users don’t have to actually wait for your webpage to download.
Meanwhile, for a typical web designer, Google has the ability to read Flash. Hence, you will not only capture the fancy of your Internet visitors, but you can also not worry about not getting indexed at all.
2. Multiple optimized content pages. Though Flash websites can still be indexed in search engines, SEO specialists believe that for you to be able to do that you must be able to compensate this elaborate design with a lot of well-optimized pages. If not, you wouldn’t be able to guarantee any inclusion, as search engine crawlers can only read texts, not Flash, Java, or HTML files.
3. Conversion. Web designers, meanwhile, believe that it doesn’t really matter if you have well-optimized pages or not because what’s actually important in any business website is your conversion rate. You should have the capacity to convert your traffic to regular customers. Because of the beauty of Flash, web designers have an inkling that it will be a great method for easy conversion.
How do you exactly choose a web designer?
Based on the things above, you know that you both need a web designer and an SEO specialist working on your website. However, looking for them is like searching for a needle in a huge pile of haystack. It’s even difficult to search for just one competent person, how much more for two individuals? Yet you should always persevere as the rewards are always long term and something that will truly be beneficial to your business.
Here are some ways on how you can pick the right web designer:
1. Make sure that he is competent to do the job. Keep in mind that a true-blue web designer will get you that far. You are looking for someone who doesn’t only know how to create fabulous designs but also understand why he needs to settle for this layout and not the other one. He must know the essence of SEO and apply these to his own web design.
For example, when it comes to SEO, linking related pages in your website will guarantee excellent search engine rankings. You may also need to add a sitemap to contain all the links in your site and make it convenient for search engine spiders to index your pages.
2. Look for a portfolio to prove their worth. You basically don’t need to work with an experienced web designer for your website. What’s important is that the person is capable to do the job. For him or her to be able to do that, you may want to ask for his/her portfolio. Make sure that you have certain criteria in your mind by now, so you will be able to have something to compare their works with.
3. Make sure that they’re very easy to work with. Communication can sometimes be a headache once you start working with a web designer. Usually, they work in their respective homes, so you have to rely on instant messengers and e-mails. Ensure that they can easily be reached and that they can instantly pick up whatever concept that you may have in mind. After all, it’s still going to be your business website.
4. He can actually maintain your website. The process of online business will always be continuous. Everything doesn’t end with having a business site. You shouldn’t just stop on optimizing your website today. Rules in SEO will change over time, and you must be able to cope with it. One way to do that is to look for a web designer who can maintain your site, so you don’t get lost among the pages of search engines.