What are the important search engine optimization (SEO) factors for website design?

Hi all,

I’ve been designing websites for small businesses for years and have slowly learned that search engine optimization should be done from the beginning (the hard way, unfortunately). Can anyone tell me the most important SEO factors that I should be concerned with when designing a website?

Thanks in advance!

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Matt LeVeque May 11, 2010 (Edited May 11, 2010)

Yes, designing for SEO is critical and should be a standard practice. The key things to consider when designing a site are:

1. Descriptive content
2. Proper use of Title Tags
3. Proper use of H1, H2, H3 headings
4. Proper use of Alt Image and Alt Text tags
5. Internal linking
6. a Sitemap

You should also become familiar with web standards at the World Wide Web Consortium (WC3).

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Chris Faber Nov 30, 2010

As page speed is becoming an increasingly important Google factor, I think the way the page is built deserves consideration. Here are some of the items I would add to the list:

good html semantics (e.g. use headings not a paragraph styled to look like a heading)
use tables for tabular data but not for page layout
avoid inline and embedded styling
externalise javascript
use image sprites

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Jaap Schuddeboom Dec 2, 2010

Links to social media so people come to the website form social media and vice versa

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Gigi Nov 27, 2010

Allowing enough text on a page (if you design for only 50 words per page, you’re doing yourself a disservice)
HTML headlines (not graphics)
Avoid flash, but if you are using flash, include text for those who cannot see flash (and for search engines)
Alt tags on all static graphics and title tags on all static links
Choose a content management system with full SEO capabilities and make sure your design will integrate with the CMS

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What are the important search engine optimization (SEO) factors for website design?