Are SEO and web design linked?

In the early days of the internet, before search engine algorithms were as complex as they are now, SEO sometimes disregarded the idea of good web design and instead focused on other areas. Keyword stuffing and link-buying could sometimes be all you’d need to achieve early rankings, something much easier and cheaper than taking the time to practice good web design.

This would of course have ignored the fact that certain aspects of web design have a direct impact on search rankings and therefore must be taken into account if you are to have a successful SEO campaign. These are just two of many simple but essential parts of web design that can alter a websites position on a search ranking.

But there are plenty of other things to consider. For example, despite changes to many search engine algorithms in 2008, a website completely dependant on Flash may not be as easily crawled as one written in HTML. While there are ways to make Flash websites more SEO friendly, unless the conscious decision is taken to design a website with SEO in mind you could be penalising yourself unwittingly.

The fact is, a massive factor in successful SEO is getting links to your site. Doing this without a well thought through web design is practically impossible. Even with the best possible content, unless the web design makes it easy for visitors to your site to view that content they are unlikely to want to share it with anybody. And unless your web design has made it easy for people to navigate your site they won’t bother sticking around for long to find out what you have to offer.

Focusing on web design is important generally, because without it any web user will have an awful experience. The human must be the designer’s priority, but without also being concerned with SEO search engines won’t be able to send visitors to the site in the first place.

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