How you design your web site can have a powerful effect on your rankings. All three major search engines – Google, Yahoo and MSN – say that they prefer well-designed sites. But what does “well-designed” mean when it comes to improving your search engine placement?
Our design guidelines summarize the most important factors:
- Design for Users
As with content, search engines encourage you to make your users your main priority. Generally, if a site is designed to be user-friendly, it will probably meet search engine requirements as well.You can find more information on usability and web design on Jakob Nielsen’s site, Useit.com.
- Make Your Site Fast
Both search engine spiders and your visitors prefer pages that load quickly. Avoid using heavy and unnecessary graphics on your web site. If you’re using Flash, consider creating a Flash-free alternative for users who prefer not to wait for it to load. Visit our page on Flash and search engines for more information on optimizing Flash sites. - Make Your Site Readable
Content is king and making it easy to read for your visitors should be a top priority. Usually, dark text against a light background works best. Choose your fonts carefully. Monospaced fonts, for example, are harder to read on screen. For web design, sans serif fonts are usually recommended: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, Verdana, etc. - Validate Your HTML
Search engine spiders don’t like broken HTML, so make sure your site’s code is clean. You can use W3C’s Validator to check your code. - Check Your Spelling
Just like search engines don’t like to see broken HTML, users shun poorly written copy. Before publishing your site, make sure it doesn’t have any spelling errors. - Use ALT tags for Your Images
ALT tags describe your images to users using text browsers and to the search engine spiders. We recommend using ALT tags for all of your important images, especially those that contain text and appear at the top of your web pages. - Perfectly functional
Make sure your site is functional; neither search engines nor visitors want to encounter error messages. All links, registration forms, password-protected sections and cookies should be working properly.
Always remember to design your site for your users. Search engines will follow.