written by Dawn Rowlett
Certified Search Engine Positioning Specialist

How Can Web Design Affect Search Engine Optimization & Corresponding Rankings?

• Directory editors will actually review your site and be critical of issues that you might not be.
  
• Search engine spiders can't see what you and I see so they must rely on the specific algorithms set for them. Some of these algorithms are going to depend on design issues in your web site.
  
• When directories or spiders become confused or slowed down because of design issues, your page becomes less relevant.

Your Web Design Should Meet
Search Engine Optimization & Directory Criteria...

• Browser Compatibility
  Make sure that your design is compatible with all browsers 4.0 and above.
  
• Comfort
  Your web design should be comfortable, enjoyable and appealing to the human eye.
  
• Fast Loading
  Slow load time will defer a spider from your site -- not to mention your visitors.
  
• Neatness Counts
  Your pages and your site as a whole should be neat, clean and organized.
  
• Images
  Your images should be optimized for the smallest possible file size while keeping the quality of the image.
  
• Logos
  Your web site design should incorporate your company logo on every page of your web site.
  
• Load Time
  For best results, keep page load time below 12 seconds on a 56k modem.
  
• HTML
  Your HTML code should be clean and clear of any errors.

• Use Cascading Style Sheets
  By using CSS, you are specifying certain factors such as font, color, paragraph style, etc. all in one place of your page instead of throughout your page. By doing this, you will make your content appear to be more prominent throughout your pages and will make it easier and quicker for a search engine spider to get through your pages. Keep in mind that all CSS is not compatible with the Netscape browser.

Things To Avoid When Preparing Your Web Design
With Search Engine Optimization & Directories In Mind...

Splash Intro or Welcome Pages
Your home page will be the most important page of your site and should include quality content.

Completely Flash Designs
A majority of major engines will not index flash sites. Editors may be critical of heavy or slow loading flash.

Flash Features
Flash requires a lot of resources, may cause slow load time and confuse spiders.

Pure Graphical Web Sites
Your web site must contain actual text. Spiders can not read text that appears within an image.

Frames
Most major engines can not read frames. If you must use frames, include important body text within a <no frames> tag.

Animated Graphics
Slows load time and can be annoying to some visitors, editors and spiders.

Heavy graphics
Slows load time.

Low Quality Graphics
Editors and your visitors will be very critical of this.

Sound
Slows load time and can be annoying to visitors and editors.

Dynamic Features
Spiders can not crawl dynamic features such as drop down menu's and shopping carts that are dynamically generated.

Java Script
Spiders can't read JS and it gets in their way. Spiders can become confused by JS and it can make your important text appear to be less relevant. If you must use JS, move it to an external .js file.

Java Script Links
Spiders can not crawl links in Java Script.

Image Maps
Spiders can not crawl the links within image maps.

Spelling Errors
Directory editors and your visitors will be very critical of this.

Broken Links
Spiders and editors will be very critical of this. Check this regularly.

Pop-ups
They will slow load time, confuse spiders and annoy editors and visitors.

HTML Errors
Bad HTML will confuse spiders and cause browser compatibility issues.

When Preparing For High Search Engine Rankings, NEVER:

• Submit an unfinished site.
  
• Submit a site that includes words such as "Under Construction".
  
• Include text on your home page that says something like "report broken links here". Include a phrase such as this on your contact page. Never on your home page.
  
• Include illegal content within your site.
  
• Use hidden text / links, tiny text / links, same color text / links as the background - this is considered spam and you can be banned from major engines and / or directories if you do this.
  
• Use clear or transparent images.

Following the above tips will give your site one more added boost to increasing the accessibility of your pages for better indexing and ranking potential.