10 SEO Rules for Designers
Written by Jacob Cass on Monday, June 9, 2008 – 10:00 pm
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a vital component of any website. As a web designer or blogger, it’s important you understand how SEO works. Here are ten easy rules that will immediately improve the SEO on all of your web sites.
This is a guest article written by Joshua Jeffrey’s who describes himself as a “busybody in the local and national design/web world” - you can read more about him on his blog.
Rule Zero: Do Not Cheat. Period.
If you walked into a room full of genius scientists with PHDs, do you think you could outsmart them all? No. Google has hundreds of rooms full of genius scientists with PHDs, and their job is to work 60 hours a week to make sure you can’t fool Google. You can’t outsmart them. Ever. Ignore any advice on trying to cheat the system and focus on making great web sites with great content, and your sites will show up fine in searches.
Rule One: Stick to Your Keywords
Pick a few keywords or phrases that describe your site. Use them, and words related to them, whenever it’s natural to do so. Repeating them uselessly is no good (rule Zero), use them in sentences, headlines, and links.
Rule Two: Content is King
Users don’t search for design, they search for content. If your site doesn’t have content people want, no one will look at it.
Every page on your site should follow the Inverted Pyramid. Each page should lead with a relevant H1 tag with one of your keywords, and the first paragraph of text should be a summary of the rest of the page.
Rule Three: Clean Code is Searchable Code
Build your sites in a text editor, and write clean, human-readable HTML. The HTML should follow the conceptual structure of the page, navigation first, followed by the H1 tag, then the first paragraph, etc. Try to use descriptive tags when possible. Use UL for lists, P for paragraphs, H tags for heads and subheads, and STRONG for bolded text. Don’t overuse Divs.
Your site can still be artistic and cool, that’s what CSS is for.
Rule Four: The Home Page is the Most Important Page
Your home page is the key to your site being found by search engines. It should summarize the rest of the site, and give a clear, compelling reason for a user to look at the other pages in the site.
Rule Five: Links Have Meaning
Search engines pay a lot of attention to the links on your site, and the words used in those links. Never use “click here” or “see more” for a link. The link text should describe where the link will take the user, such as “more examples of CSS web design” or “learn how we can improve your SEO.”
The more relevant the links on a page, the more findable the page becomes. Don’t go overboard, and don’t link to anything irrelevant. If your page is focused on minimalist web design, a link to the Design MeltDown page on minimalism will boost your SEO. A link to a hilarious picture of a cat will not.
Rule Six: Title Tags for the Win
Every page in your site should have a title with the site name and a short description of the page. About 60 letters total. Include a keyword. Remember that the page title is what appears in search results, it should give users a clear reason to click on it.
Your navigation links should have title attributes that match the titles of your pages. This looks like <a title=”name of page” href=”link”>. It’s a small thing, but it will give you a significant SEO improvement.
Rule Seven: Alt Tags Matter
Every image on your site should have an alt tag. Especially images that are relevant to the page. If your page is focused on CSS tricks, labelling a screenshot “example of rounded CSS corners” will improve your page’s findability. Labelling it “screenshot” or “image” will do the opposite.
Rule Eight: Ignore Most Meta Tags
A long time ago meta tags were the secret to SEO. Those days are gone. The only meta tag that really matters now is the description tag. Search engines may use it to provide the text under the link to your page in their results. Make sure it describes the page in a way that explains why a user searching for your content would want to look at your page.
Rule Nine: Have a Site Map
Make sure you have a site map. This is an xml file that describes the structure of your page. Make one, and give it to Google.
Rule Ten: Design for Humans
Search engines are designed to find what humans want. That means the best way to make your site findable is to design it for humans. Your job as a designer is to solve a problem, not make art, prove a point, serve your ego or break a boundry. In this case, your problem is to provide your users with a site that is easy to use and full of what they’re looking for. If you can do that, the search engines will find you.
For further reading I recommend this SEO Guide for Designers.
Have you got any more tips for SEO tips for designers?
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By mae (23 comments) on Jun 9, 2008 | Reply
shouldn’t it be “alt attributes”?
But, yeah I have to agree with all of the points above especially with the meta tags 
By Alex Holt (1 comments) on Jun 9, 2008 | Reply
Nice article Jacob. There is in fact a serious lack of resources for designers who don’t know about SEO out there.
It’s nice to hear someone actually speaking out about hte importance of content. I think there are far to many people out there who think that with “good SEO” you can get good rankings for a web site with nothing on it.
The fact is, if your content isn’t interesting.. you’re unlikely to get rankings, or traffic.. the sooner people discover this, the better
Alex Holts last blog post..Pragmatics vs Validation
By liam (34 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Wow, some helpful tips, appreicate it.
By David Airey (48 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Hi J., long time no ’say hi to’. I hope everything’s going well for you? I liked your recent article about design contests, and the simple solution you offered.
David Aireys last blog post..33 logos in 33 minutes
By Chad Swaney (8 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Great tips, Jeffrey. I am right in the middle of a redesign of my homepage, and these tips are going to help a lot. Honestly, it seems like writing semantic HTML is the solution to 70% of web design problems, from accessibility to SEO to pageload speeds. Why don’t people do it? Arrgh
By LaurenMarie - Creative Curio (85 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
I’m always suspicious of those who say they can guarantee you the first page for your keyword. Thanks for mentioning number 0, Joshua! And thank you for sharing your insights with us
In SEO and in life it seems the best answer is to be pretty transparent and just keep pluggin away slowly but surely.
LaurenMarie - Creative Curios last blog post..Great Art You Just Don’t Want to Miss!
By voipai (1 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Nice work Jacob. You listed every thing straight to the point. Here are some others things to remember:
site usability matters big time
a good and clean layout is essential for site visitors.
Make the site for user not for the search engines.
By Kelly (56 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Joshua,
Nice article, in plain English. SEO gets people all worried, and I appreciate how simply you laid this out.
My favorites are number 2 and 10. If you write well, and write for humans instead of search engines, the rest will really sort itself out.
Regards,
Kelly
Kellys last blog post..Why Aren’t We Making More Money? Your Pain Points Revealed
By Alec Rios (7 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Nice article, Joshua. Great way to start off the guest posts.
Alec Rioss last blog post..Social Media Site: Design Bump
By Brian Yerkes (43 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
One tip I can give that relates heavily to people that blog about design…If you want to see a fast increase in the amount of search engine organic visits to your site, blog about your spin, opinion etc on current events. For example, when American Idol got big, some blogs provided tutorials on how to design the American Idol Logo from scratch.
Things like that, people are searching for those keywords as they are extremely relevant at that time…and they will find your site! Just make sure your posts are interesting!
Brian Yerkess last blog post..Obama versus McCain : Web Design War
By Tracey Grady (15 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Keep your site fresh - keep the (top quality) content coming. A stale site which doesn’t get updated in months is likely to take a tumble. That’s one of the pluses for blogging. Also, Brian’s suggestion is spot-on.
Hope you’re having a great time.
By kristarella (58 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Good article Joshua! I’ve been meaning to look into the concept of meta data recently… I agree that keywords and tags are better found in the content, but maybe a description for the homepage would be good, so I’ve rearranged my title tag a bit and added in a description.
Semantics is where it’s at. Love those h tags!
There’s a cheat sheet from SEOMoz that everyone should own. It’s not exhaustive, but pretty sweet.
kristarellas last blog post..James Squire Brewhouse
By Andris (2 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
thanx for this nice article.
I think it’s important you noticed that links are a big matter of fact. And that not every link is a good link.
it’s always a pleasure to read your articles.
By Steve O (20 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Great list Joshua - all relevant! I get frustrated with the number of people who believe their website should have minimal content and that meta tags alone is good SEO. This list is similar to what I tell them is needed - some even listen!
I agree with LaurenMarie regarding SEO companies that promise first page listing (or worse, number one spot). I’ve seen some poor results from people using bad services, although I’m sure some of these companies do actually provide a good service.
By CssGlance (1 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Anything to add. We think that semantic code and web standards, as you underline, are the right way.
CssGlances last blog post..Leigh Taylor
By Jeremy (8 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Great Post Jacob! These simple, easy to follow articles on SEO are helpful not only to the designer and developer but important for the consumer as well. Your tips coupled with a few of the suggestions in the comments here (like fresh content) are key to really optimizing your site.
Thanks much!
Jeremys last blog post..Transitioning to Full Time Freelancer
By sayohmygod (1 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Rule 8:
Only meta description tag matters?
… and what about meta robots ???
By Olga (10 comments) on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Hi! Tnx for article! I made translation on my russian blog for webmasters
Olgas last blog post..10 SEO
By Cleo Morgause (1 comments) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
Great article!!
The rules are perfectly applicable, not one to designers, but to any one that has a web page.
Can i to traduct for my blog? Portuguese Brazil.
Congratulations.
By Fred Riley (1 comments) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
A sound article, and I pat myself on the back that I implement all the points you mention, though it’s taken many, many years to internalise and apply these rules consistently. Essentially, good website design, by which I mean content structure not ‘cool’ visuals, and clean, standards-compliant code will improve your site in search rankings. As has already been mentioned in other comments, thanks for emphasising content above all - no content, no visitors. Nice tip about the Google site map too. One thing you might add, although it’s not directly in the power of the web admin, is to get as many other sites linking to yours as possible. AFAIK Google’s search algorithm still weights a site on the amount of links that point to it.
By Eric (3 comments) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
Nice and simple list, I like it alot. SEO isn’t all that difficult!
- Eric
Erics last blog post..Top 10 reasons to leave your job (and become self-employed)
By Subash (1 comments) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
I’m craving for stuffs regarding SEO’s. Your article also definitely will help me too. Thanks Jacob.
Subashs last blog post..Freedom of expose to Nepali models and the need of 18+ rated website
By Chris G. (1 comments) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
Great article! I have just a few points.
Rule Three - the html does not have to follow the conceptual flow of the page. Again CSS comes into play here. If you have two columns in your site - one for content and one for auxiliary stuff like navigation and other stuff, you can put your content html before the other stuff and then float the columns for design aesthetics. Position of content in code matters to the engines! Higher = better.
Rule Four - Why do you have multiple pages on your site then? If you are going to focus on your home page then put all of your content on one page. Otherwise, spread the love to all content pages.
Rule Eight - Even though the search engines do not use the keywords meta tag anymore. I utilize this tag for myself. I populate it with the keywords and ideas I am thinking about when I write the content. Then later on when I need to edit the content, I have an on page record of my “focus” words. You won’t get penalized for using the keywords tag so you might as well get something out of using it!
Chris G.s last blog post..Top 10 Rankings in under 2 weeks with 1 link
By Jason (6 comments) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
Nice article, I think you provide some pretty good information to design-focused designers.
I would move page title to rule #1 - because it is the most important thing to any page other than inbound keyword linkage. You’ve got 65 characters or so in your title, so choose your keywords wisely and stick them there.
Also, unless MSN and Yahoo has changed - they still use the keyword meta tag in their equation.
One big Big BIG one is keyword text links within your site. If Google can’t crawl it - it can’t follow it. So fancy flash and javascript navigations aren’t crawled - therefore they aren’t followed.
By Son Nguyen (1 comments) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
Very nice tips and they are very relevant. However, I would suggest one additional thing for designers. Make the design light weight, load fast and compliant with standards.
By Tedel (1 comments) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
Good article, but too basic, don’t you think? Every person who has been in SEO for a while knows this.
By Matt (11 comments) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
@Tedel: That’s why the post’s title says “for designers”.
Re: Rule #6 and title attributes in anchor tags… link text is a far more important ranking factor. Title attributes are more for usability/accessibility.
By Kevin (6 comments) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
There were actually 11 rules. Why wouldn’t you just accurately title the blog “11 SEO Rules for Designers”?
By Immy (1 comments) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
Hey guys, I have my website: http://www.redesignyourbiz.com, that is made in flash. So what are the SEO guidelines for websites made in flash? Or should I make it simple HTML? Any suggestions?
By Ben Whitehouse (3 comments) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
Very good overview of SEO. Unfortunately you really didn’t explain or link to any information of what SEO is. For a broad article about SEO it lacks a pretty critical bit of information (which would probably help your SEO)
Also you mention cheating, but assume we know what cheating entails. I am a designer, how would I know if I’m cheating?
Great points otherwise.
Ben Whitehouses last blog post..St. Paul’s, St. Paul’s
By Christina (1 comments) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
Great tips! Very useful.
Christinas last blog post..Pricing Guideline Resources for Designers
By petnos (6 comments) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
Nowadays i try to solve what is the most important thing for a web site or a blog. And i make a list after getting advices and reading from some experts. And here is a list. We can add more maybe and we can change the order.
1-Functionality
2-Usability
3-Content
4-Design
5-SEO
Here in your post we can easily understand what to do while doing SEO and sure, what not to do.
Day by day i am collecting much things to finish the chain to know what can i do or what should i do while doing a web site. Hope i am clear:) And thanks for this post. Its really useful.
petnoss last blog post..Türkiye - Portekiz
By SEO Pune (1 comments) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
Jacob, great article, you’ve managed to explain most of the important stuff concisely..
By J. Jeffryes (7 comments) on Jun 12, 2008 | Reply
J. Jeffryes here. Glad to see all the positive responses. Even from people that think I’m Jacob.
@David: Hey man! Long time no talk. Thanks for the kind words on my articles.
@Chad: You’re right, writing clean code is the main thing. People don’t do it because doing things “right” is never easy, at least not until you force yourself to make it a habit.
@Brian: Writing about non-design current events can give you a traffic boost, but it will drag down your pagerank over the long term. If you have a design site and you link to current events, Google will decide your site is about current events, not design, and you will stop showing up in results for design.
You also have to consider the quality of incoming traffic. What is the purpose of your site? Do you really want people searching for “American Idol” on your site? If you are selling shoes, you only want visitors that want to buy shoes. If you’re “selling” a desire to subscribe to your site, then you want people that are interested in the whole site, not just some passing fad.
@Tracey: right on. Keep it fresh. If you write in bursts, stockpile posts and set them up to be published later. That’s what Jacob did with this one, I actually wrote it a few weeks ago, so he’d be able to release it while he was on vacation.
@Steve: people always want the easy way out, but there are no magic solutions. Do things right, even when that’s more work, and you’ll come out ahead. Clients may not like that, but they pay us to tell them the truth, not what they wish was the truth.
@Sayohmygod: the meta robots tag can matter, but it’s usually not a huge issue for small sites. Good material for a future article that goes deeper into SEO techniques.
@Fred: all true, inward bound links are key. But that’s still ultimately about content. If your content is great, people will link to it.
@Chris: I think you actually agree with me on Rule 3. The key is to structure your HTML in an inverted pyramid, with the most important content first. That will yeild the best results from the search engines. Of course the CSS can be used to change the visual layout, that’s the whole point. The way the content is structured and ordered in the HTML can be completely different than how it appears when humans look at the page.
Regarding rule four, I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. The home page is the most important page. Summarize the site and explain why someone would want to go deeper into your other pages. Your subpages should contain ever more detailed information. The deeper a user goes into the site hierarchy, the more specific the information should be. That’s good design and good SEO.
@Jason: I believe only Yahoo pays attention to keyword meta tags, and how much attention it pays is under debate. You can use them if you want, but it’s not where you should focus your energy.
@Immy: There are no SEO guidelines for Flash. Google can spider the content of a swf, so try and have relevant static content in your swf. Or use some fancy advanced coding to have a separate hidden HTML site that loads the same content as the Flash site from XML, and redirect search hits on that site to the Flash site. It’s doable, but complex and beyond the scope of a blog comment.
@Ben: if you don’t know what Search Engine Optimization is, then this article isn’t going to be of much help. Maybe I should have also included definitions for “HTML” and “design”?
By alojaweb (1 comments) on Jun 12, 2008 | Reply
a article excellent, thanks.
By Zhu (3 comments) on Jun 12, 2008 | Reply
I’m not into SEO… well, I started a website for fun and pleasure, not to outsmart Google
I love these meaningful “back to basics” advices.
Zhus last blog post..A Nation Under Debt
By Egbsystems (1 comments) on Jun 13, 2008 | Reply
hai
Seo informations is very useful for me.
Egbsystems.com
By web design company (3 comments) on Jun 14, 2008 | Reply
Clearly written, easy to follow guidelines that will improve your websites visibility.
web design companys last blog post..Creative Advertisements
By modemlooper (36 comments) on Jun 14, 2008 | Reply
yeah did they even read it? JACOBS ON VACATION!
Great post heres my thoughts
The H tags :
You can use H1 H2 H3 H4. H1 is reserved for the titles of postings but you can use the others to give a boost to keywords. You can style them via css. When you write posts or text just put the code around it and google will read it as you saying “hey these words mean something”.
Images:
When naming images do not put spaces between the words. Name them like this: just-creative-design.jpg Its better to describe an image more than just name it. People search for images through google and if you can be more specific about the image it will get more hits.
modemloopers last blog post..What Happens When Bloggers Unite?
By Dan (4 comments) on Jun 14, 2008 | Reply
Nice tips. Thanks
By Jack Shipley (1 comments) on Jun 14, 2008 | Reply
Never forget the fundamentals: In sports those who forget the fundamentals lose.
More clients need to understand that shortcuts really don’t exist, except through the minds of talented designers and writers.
While you emphasize content and the programming backdrop to content, as a writer, I’m keenly aware that good design is just as critical, if not for the bots, for the readers.
Jack Shipleys last blog post..Parts are parts
By Calvin (1 comments) on Jun 15, 2008 | Reply
Great Post. True, True and True. extremely valuable information. Thanks.
Calvins last blog post..Scars from a Bad Proposal – 8 Do’s and Don’ts when Choosing a Web Design Company.
By ethan (1 comments) on Jun 15, 2008 | Reply
Great tips.
Somebody said this article is too basic. I thank you for keeping it basic.
By WordPress Guru (1 comments) on Jun 17, 2008 | Reply
Is there a particular reason you are using Just Creative design” for your H1, while the title of this post itself is an H2 ?
WordPress Gurus last blog post..Blogging Mistakes
By kristarella (58 comments) on Jun 17, 2008 | Reply
WordPress Guru,
Jacob is on holidays so maybe he’ll change it when he gets back
Apart from that, I don’t necessarily agree with having H1 for the post titles. The headings should have a semantic hierarchy. I you’ve spent a whole lot of time building up the name of your site, then it makes sense to have the site title up the top, after all, that is the name you’re publishing under and it lends credibility (or not) to the text to come. Then the article title, comes next, as the most important thing on the page under the title.
I’ve been thinking about that for a while, but I’m yet to come up with a good way to articulate it.
kristarellas last blog post..Multiple WordPress Blogs
By Greg-B (1 comments) on Jun 17, 2008 | Reply
Couldn’t agree with you more Jacob. An excellent summary of the key SEO rules.
I think duplicate content is a big no-no too?
By Johan (9 comments) on Jun 19, 2008 | Reply
Hey there!
Nice article.
I’m using PHP-Fusion, as my CMS, and want to make it totally different than anything made by that CMS. (So it’s more like Wordpress = so I can show the world that it is really powerful :p)
This was a nice “tutorial”…
Thanks for that,
- Johan (or just call me John when we write in English :P) aka Josso
Lets see if I’ll follow this blog.
By Sumesh (5 comments) on Jun 22, 2008 | Reply
I would agree with all but the sitemaps suggestion.
Seriously, blogs with proper HTML navigation and archive/category pages do not require an additional sitemap to aid bots (even if category/archives are nofollowed).
Sitemaps might even backfire - occasionally, they can open up new avenues for bots, which you may not want to expose to them.
Sumeshs last blog post..Download Firefox 3 to help Mozilla Firefox set a world record
By kristarella (58 comments) on Jun 22, 2008 | Reply
Sumesh, I think sitemaps are good for preventing duplicated content. Due to the nature of blogs, posts are available on their own page, tag pages, category pages, home page. When they move off the homepage or to the next tag page they’re no longer where Google indexed them to be and potential readers don’t find what they’re looking for. It’s not dependent on how semantic your code is, it’s a nature of the beast.
Of course, that’s more an SEO tip for blogs, not just designers in general.
kristarellas last blog post..Do you want people to correct your mistakes?
By my balls (1 comments) on Jun 28, 2008 | Reply
Bogus Snogus,
I declare shenanigans!
SEO is shit compared to content.
If your content is good, then search engines, the world, other sites will find and love you.
All the SEO in the world won’t help, design for humans as the last rule? Nice choosing, sitemaps don’t do much of anything either.
Why does everyone love google? What the hell is wrong with everyone? Let’s face it google stole everything from yahoo, they just took the 1996 version and made no improvements.
Do you really have to be a PHD scientist to create a page with 3 elements?
Let’s be clear Google employees = Self righteous thieves who pat themselves on the back non stop and declare, we’re not microsoft.
Anyways, I hate self assured people who really think their methods are best, why I hate google and why I hate your post.
By kristarella (58 comments) on Jun 28, 2008 | Reply
Oh yes, it’s easy to wade through the whole internet and find all the good stuff.
SEO isn’t only for Google, I’m sure Yahoo and whatever other search tools you use appreciate sensible site structure.
Since Google doesn’t make operating systems and related software, I’m sure they think very little about how similar they are to Microsoft. Evidently you know very little about the inner workings and their employees. Congratulations on being an ill-informed ignoramus.
By SEO Professional (1 comments) on Jul 7, 2008 | Reply
Great post! You have a great tips. I actually used those tips. Good!
By clon (1 comments) on Jul 12, 2008 | Reply
With my 300+ websites background (wsi web-developer) I totally disagree with the “ignore most meta tags” statement.
Title: My 1st look at the site content.
Keywords: A must for any SEO.
Description: Yes, important for any SEO and even more important for human-based search engines.
Author: Do you really want NOT-TO-TELL the world you are the owner, the author of the site/content?
And many more that you should use.