SEO Site Design: What Not to Do

SEO includes a lot of components, such as link building, keywords, traffic and content, but one aspect of SEO tends to be forgotten every now and then. The design of the website is very important to SEO, but it is often times overlooked by website owners, web developers and even SEO professionals. When you are marketing a niche, it is important to include all aspects of SEO on your website, not just link building, traffic and content.

In the video above, we show you what not to do to your website design in relation to SEO. Here are a few key points from the video:

· Heavy flash based websites can have trouble gaining PageRank with Google and ranking with the other search engines. Search engine spiders that visit websites and download the information found cannot navigate through flash, nor can they tell what the flash content is. Heavy flash websites can also provide the user with a bad experience since they take a long time load and if the user doesn't have flash installed, they cannot see the content, videos or other flash components.

· Using a lot of graphics and images can also have the same effect that using a lot of flash will have.

· Using frames is an old technology that was built with slower Internet connections in mind. Frames were used to include a lot of information or pages on one web page so that all the information would load and the user did not have to wait around for multiple websites to load. With higher Internet connection speeds these days, frame based websites are no longer needed and many search engines may find frame based sites deceptive and penalize for it.

· Never use flash, images or graphics in a website's navigation as the search engine spiders will not be able to navigate through the pages. If flash, images or graphics are used, you will need to make sure to have a sitemap set up for the search engines to navigate through.

· Make sure the website's files are very organized and easy to navigate. Also make sure to place folders with important information near the top of the file directory.

· Keep the URL's short and relevant.

· Don't place irrelevant or useless content/text on a website just for the sake of filling up space on the site. Also make sure to not write overly long articles that do not get to the point very easily. Remember that you want to keep the reader/user interested and long, drawn out content will bore users.

Watch the video to find out what else not to do concerning your website's design and structure to make sure that you are optimizing it as best as possible for the search engines.