The “Design” Part Of Search Engine Friendly Design

For the past few years, I have been silently listening to and observing other search engine optimization (SEO) professionals speak and write about the topic of search-engine friendly web site design. I’m the one in the back with the black wig, sunglasses, mustache, and trench coat. All joking aside, I am genuinely interested in how other web designers/developers approach this topic. Is their approach different from my approach? Are there design elements that I, perhaps, might have overlooked?

What concerns me is how the term “search engine friendly design” has been twisted to have different meanings, mostly centered around URL structure. Granted, part of having a search engine friendly web site is providing access to keyword-focused content. Nevertheless, whenever I listen to my colleagues address this topic, I notice that the “design” portion of search engine friendly design is notoriously missing. Where is the discussion about allocation of screen real estate, use of graphic images, text formatting, animation, color selection, and other important design decisions? A URL (web address) is not the only part of a web page’s interface.

Access, URL structure, and the interface 

As many SEO professionals already know, the first part of the spidering process is access. A web page’s content is not analyzed until search engines are able to access the content first. The ability for a search engine to access site content is often referred to as crawlability or indexation. Factors that affect a search engine’s ability to crawl a web site include site navigation, cross-linking, information architecture, and URL structure.
A site’s URL structure is crucial for search engine access. Additionally, in search engine results pages (SERPs), keywords in the URL are highlighted to increase user confidence in search results. However, a page’s URL structure is not the only part of the interface. Let’s see how a web page looks with only the URL structure displayed:


Users see a page full of white. They do not see text, graphic images, or colors. When users look at this particular URL structure, they assume that they should be viewing an article about osteoporosis. But they do not see anything except white.

I show this graphic image to illustrate a point. Web site design is composed of many elements. It is not a single element. Likewise, search engine friendly design is not composed of a single element. If a web designer’s only skill is to create crawler-friendly URL structures, then perhaps people should look for another web designer, one whose skills encompass the wide range of design elements.

Information architecture and interface design 

Even if a site’s overall URL structure is crawler-friendly, it does not mean that search engines can easily access content. How pages are linked to each other also impacts search engine visibility. In other words, a site’s information architecture is another crucial component of search engine visibility.
Many SEO professionals and web designers/developers commonly confuse the terms “information architecture” and “interface.” The interface (design and page layout) should not be created until after the information architecture is determined. Some components of information architecture include:

• How content is organized, grouped, and labeled 
• How content is placed in categories
• How individual web pages link to each other     Read more...

Want Better Web Design? Watch Real Users

I’ve been in web development since 1995. For me, and many of you, it’s easy to forget that people don’t have the computer equipment to use the web sites and Internet applications we build. I’ve always found it interesting that TV show web sites are Flash based and loaded with images and video. It’s as if they are built for an elite group of TV watchers and everyone else doesn’t matter.

At a large family gathering, where family and friends of the family came to eat and relax at the shore, someone asked what I do for a living. When it was discovered that I help companies make better websites, I was bombarded with feedback about their experiences. The most outspoken people were over 50 years old. They were smart, not afraid of computers and had up to date computers and Internet connections. They were more likely to have time to browse. Most of them belonged to online communities.

What bothered them were poor user interface issues. They couldn’t find what they wanted without a lot of hassle. Pages were too busy, too long or too boring. Navigation was the area they all agreed on as being the worst. Drop down navigation menus? Hate them. Shopping cart checkout navigation frustrated them. They weren’t so concerned with privacy as much as they just wanted to get in, accomplish their task and get out without resistance.

Experience the user experience

This summer my husband and I packed our 3 kids and 2 dogs into our motor home for a trip to Florida. As Chief Navigator, I relied on my cell phone for directions. When the GPS chose to work, and after figuring out how to use Google maps on my phone, we were able to follow the tiny blue dot and know what direction we going. When I needed to call ahead to one of the campgrounds we booked for a night, in every single case their web site was a user nightmare. Something as obvious as a phone number and address on the homepage was missing from all of them. Their navigation was not designed for mobile devices. Every task took a long time and incredible patience.

As the head webmaster for my town’s Little League baseball web site, I learned a lesson a few years back. I used to upload team game dates and scores in the Excel spreadsheet format that each coach emailed to me to post on the site. However, several parents wrote to say they couldn’t access the spreadsheet or it took too long to download for them. So I began to offer two versions. One is the spreadsheet converted into an html page and the other is the actual spreadsheet. I label each link so they know which one to choose.

User interface design is for everybody

I began to wonder at the wide gap between those who have been using the Internet for the past 15 years and those who are new to it. When I ask a site owner for their site requirements, they typically don’t have any or they are limited in scope. Most will say, “We don’t care about dial-up users”, but I know for a fact they still exist. Most will say they that accessibility is not in the plan or might be in the future. That decision has cost them another part of the population, including someone who has a broken hand they would normally use to guide their mouse.Read more....