When working with a web designer, you may luck out. You may find your designer doubles as a brilliant marketing mind – or at least someone with basic knowledge of web marketing. Unfortunately, many developers and designers focus on what they do best (as they should!), so here are a few things to keep an eye out for.
1. Design before usability
If your web designer is focused more on the design looking great instead of your user’s experience, run for the hills! A web designer that wants to give you a great design without being user friendly isn’t the designer you want to work with. The right designer will focus on balancing both usability and design.
2. Images instead of text
This is a design mistake that rarely happens anymore, but still can be an issue. If your designer tells you “it will be easier to make that an image instead of text,” move along. Search engines cannot read images, so you’re missing out on a huge keyword opportunity.
3. No text at all
Worse still are designers that tell you you don’t need any text at all. We see this a lot with photography websites or photo-centric sites. While imagery is certainly the key focus on these sites, it’s still important to incorporate content that search engines can find – and therefore your visitors.
4. One page website
There are new designs that can balance a one page site while making them search engine friendly. However, the “old school” way of creating a one page website won’t give you much search engine bang for your buck.
Often we find that developers and designers don’t stay on top of web marketing – or more specifically, SEO – and we certainly don’t blame them! Staying on top of your craft is a full time job. That’s why it’s important to have your website designed by a firm that is knowledgeable in both marketing and web design.
Just where do you find such a firm? Here, of course!
