SEO & Why It Pays To Be A Nerd

Its kind of like clipping your toenails or plucking your eyebrows - making sure your SEO is top notch isn't necessarily a fun thing to do, but its a longterm maintenance must. I am not a code poet by any means, nor am I a Google analytics virgin. I reside somewhere in the middle, doing my own SEO when I remember, or when I notice someone else is getting business that I should have gotten. Either way I realized know a bit more about it than most people so I wanted to just share some perspective on what I have learned the past few days (and years).

As a designer, its a pretty big value add to my skills to know and use this info. Learning how to plan your design for SEO is huge and can mean a huge difference to your clients. Knowing when and where to use large images, flash or other load-time heavy or unsearchable elements can save you a lot of time and headache.

Geographic Tags

Today I perused my various - and by various I mean cascading list of portfolio sites, blog, facebook fan page, Etsy store... and took stock as I added more regionally targeted tags and keywords. I am in Northern Michigan and let me tell you that the freelance market doesn't get much more cutthroat than here. I live outside a Michigan town of about 12,000 people that are all trying to make it work however they can in this economy. It is of utmost importance to have location tags and meta data where you can get it. Because someone else probably does, unwittingly no doubt, and they will get business because of it.

Consistent Names and Information

As I went through as many of my sites as I could remember passwords for... I noticed a major inconsistency. Half of my stuff used "Dani" and the other half, the more professional half used "Danielle." I looked into it, and decided that I need to use Danielle across the board, because my AIGA membership, most of my business registration information (and more) are listed under Danielle. Whoops. So I changed the pertinent ones, and those will start to get crawled and re-cashed by Google tonight. So lesson learned here is that yes its helpful to be available in many places on the internet, but it can be harmful if your information isn't consistent across all communications. Seems like a no-brainer now.

Text, Tagging, Keywords

There are some rules about SEO that aren't meant to be broken. For instance having most of your content as searchable HTML is crucial, tagging things appropriately, and creating a consistent flow of fresh, relevant content. There are certain things that will get you black listed by Google, such as hidden HTML or tags, directing links to yourself and keyword stuffing.

Titleing your site is probably the easiest way to be found. Title it with relevant info. Mine says "Danielle Gudowski | Northern Michigan Graphic Designer." This title gives a lot of pertinent info to Google, or potential customers.

I tag all my projects, web pages, anything I can using the same idea. I use keywords about my skills, the name of my profession, my location and info about the project or topic. This blog tags SEO, Google, graphic design, web design... You get the picture.

I also indexed my site with Google. Its a simple thing to do just in case.

Flash Flash Flash

This seems like almost out dated to talk about, but maybe I have just been making websites a long time. Flash and images aren't great things to have on your website unless you have a way of making the information searchable. They are awesome and I personally think flash does amazing, rich interactive but the name of the game is visibility. And new content.

But I want it all.

I am a graphic designer, which means I want the stuff to be pretty AND functional. I don't want a site that is all hyperlink text. Ugly. I want a beautiful interface with well designed typefaces that doesn't take forever to load or get penalized on Google for having awesome eye-catching visuals. Sometimes it can seem like design may get in the way of SEO. Not true. There are many awesome tools to help you get away from the Craigslist look. (I would like to note here that I know that the founder of Craigslist deliberately designed the site the way it is. It doesn't mean its not ugly. Unless you are suggesting that functionality in its self can be beauty... which would be very wabi-sabi of you...)

Typekit is a website that for a price gives access to code and typefaces that you can substitute with a flick of the ol' code finger. No longer are we bound by the 5 web fonts. (Or are there 7...) There was a way to use code and each individual letter to build custom type, but that just increases load time.

Before finding tools to help you, think about being a good planner, which is really what it means to be a good designer. If you can plan your web site with SEO in mind from the get-go making an optimized site can be a real breeze. I opt for this, but its nice that there are things out there like Typekit.

As mentioned I am no SEO expert, just sharing what I have learned. Please share what you have learned in the comments! Keep webinating.