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Design With Search Engines in Mind.

When you have been designing and creating websites as long as I have you see trends and you learn a lot about how companies see value in there website. The bottom line is that most websites that are created only consider how it will be listing in the search engines after the design of the site. This is also how most designers operate. Since design is there job they leave the search engine optimization to others.

The plan for how the website ranks in the search engines MUST be considered from the get go. We have found over the years that not only is keyword research, and search engine optimization needed from the beginning but it is also essential to how the navigation, structure and focus of the customer is developed. You just can't ignore the percentage of people who find websites and how they find them. Development must start with how people find you then create a structure that will show them the way to the information you need.

1. Get a plan. Nothing is done well if it is done without a plan. Websites are no exception. To many times sites are created without any thought to the way it is found on the internet. This gives you a nice site to tell your friends and include on your business card but chances are your site will not be found unless they already know your company.

2. Do your Research. Keywords are the lifeblood of the search engine marketer. Any website that would like tl bring customers to there site need to do their homework when it comes to keywords. Who are the customers you would like to attract? How are they finding you and what words are they using on the internet to search for your product. People don't search for you company name they search to find a solution to a problem.

3. Write powerful content. Most sites I am asked to review for search engine optimization have one thing in common, content that is not well written or there is just not enough. Please search the web for solutions to problems. You are the solution so you need to write about it and make sure it can be found on your site. Be sure to use your keywords in the text.

4. Create Intuative Navigation. How your customer navigates through your website is important. It must be clean and easy to find things but also must be created to almost assume it knows how the person is going to navigat the site. How is this done? You must reasearch how your target customer wants and how to get it to them. The more research you do in the planning stages the more on the mark you will be when a customer navigates your site.

5. Get Help. There is a lot of help out there! Discussion forums, tutorials there is no shortage of people who are willing to help you and answer questions. To really get the most out of your design a professional will be your best bet.

Nielsen Design has been designing our web sites for search engine relevance for years. Feel free to call us for an analysis of your site. We can run reports that will show you how your site ranks on yahoo, google, MSN and other search engines and recommend a stratagy for improvement.