Designing for Google

A well-designed website needs to do more than just appeal to its visitors. It also needs to connect with the search engines. Otherwise, even the most well-conceived and perfectly executed website will never be able to attract the attention it deserves because no users will be able to find it.

Different steps can be taken to help make sure a site's design is in sync with proper SEO tactics. For example, while users like sites that feature more dynamic content, designing a site using too much Flash will make it almost invisible to search engines. An effective design alternative is to utilize JavaScript instead of Flash for items such as navigation. JavaScript can provide almost as much as Flash can in terms of what it brings to a site design, offering features like side to side scroll and different navigation rollover pullouts. More importantly, search engines can read JavaScript.

It should be noted that Flash is moving toward a greater degree of search engine friendliness. Newer versions are allowing search engines to do more indexing and translate some of its content. Despite this, Flash is still not at a point where it can be relied on to provide a website with truly optimal search engine readiness.

While the graphic design elements do factor in, it's the site's content that plays the largest part in whether search engines will notice or not notice a site. How the content is written and what keywords and key terms are embedded within the content play key roles in how well a site fares with the search spiders, beyond even the impact that metadata can have. It's important to embed these key terms within the site's title, pages and images. Even site navigational elements can play a part in search engine appeal by being named using stronger, more frequently searched keywords.

If the site is intended to be very high profile and achieve a high level of search engine optimization, there are all sorts of minutiae that can be used to help punch up a site's search engine friendliness. This includes everything down to the sitemap and what naming conventions are utilized. The use of directory listing types of names instead of .php or .asp can also help with a site's SEO efforts.

The degree that the design of a brand's website will need to address search engine friendliness, however, will depend on how easily the brand can be targeted when a potential visitor/customer is searching for it. There's a big difference between searches for "hospitals" and searches for "podiatrists in Louisville." The latter is a far more narrow pool in which to compete than the former, so technically a site competing in that group won't require the same degree of design attention to still fare well in the SERPs.

Most brands, however, don't enjoy this luxury. So to be successful, their sites must be designed for a pair of target audiences: their consumer base and the search engines these consumers will use to find them.

Jeremy Williams is LeapFrog Interactive's Senior Art Director. Jeremy leads a creative team that designs distinct and unique online destinations for LeapFrog's clients. Leapfrog Interactive is a full-service interactive agency located in Louisville, Kentucky.