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10 SEO Rules for Designers

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10 SEO Rules for Designers

Published 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, its
important you understand how SEO works. Here are ten easy rules that will immediately improve the SEO on all
of your web sites.
You may also be interested in how to get free advertising on google.

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 cant fool Google. You cant 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

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Pick a few keywords or phrases that describe your site. Use them, and words related to them, whenever its
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 dont search for design, they search for content. If your site doesnt 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. Dont overuse Divs.
Your site can still be artistic and cool, thats 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. Dont go overboard, and dont 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
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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>. Its 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 pages
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 theyre 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?
This was a guest article written by Joshua Jeffreys who describes himself as a busybody in the local
and national design/web world you can read more about him on his blog.

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Tags: SEO, Web Design

Posted in: Guest Articles, Web Design 119 Comments

119 Responses to 10 SEO Rules for Designers

1. mae on Jun 9, 2008 said:
shouldnt it be alt attributes?
meta tags

But, yeah I have to agree with all of the points above especially with the

2. Alex Holt on Jun 9, 2008 said:

Nice article Jacob. There is in fact a serious lack of resources for designers who dont know about SEO
out there.
Its 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 isnt interesting.. youre unlikely to get rankings, or traffic.. the sooner people
discover this, the better
Alex Holts last blog post..Pragmatics vs Validation
3. liam on Jun 10, 2008 said:
Wow, some helpful tips, appreicate it.
4. David Airey on Jun 10, 2008 said:
Hi J., long time no say hi to. I hope everythings going well for you? I liked your recent article about
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design contests, and the simple solution you offered.

David Aireys last blog post..33 logos in 33 minutes
5. Chad Swaney on Jun 10, 2008 said:
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 dont people do it? Arrgh
6. LaurenMarie - Creative Curio on Jun 10, 2008 said:
Im 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 Dont Want to Miss!
7. voipai on Jun 10, 2008 said:
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.
8. Kelly on Jun 10, 2008 said:
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 Arent We Making More Money? Your Pain Points Revealed
9. Alec Rios on Jun 10, 2008 said:
Nice article, Joshua. Great way to start off the guest posts.
Alec Rioss last blog post..Social Media Site: Design Bump
10. Brian Yerkes on Jun 10, 2008 said:
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One tip I can give that relates heavily to people that blog about designIf 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 timeand
they will find your site! Just make sure your posts are interesting!
Brian Yerkess last blog post..Obama versus McCain : Web Design War
11. Tracey Grady on Jun 10, 2008 said:
Keep your site fresh keep the (top quality) content coming. A stale site which doesnt get updated in
months is likely to take a tumble. Thats one of the pluses for blogging. Also, Brians suggestion is spoton.
Hope youre having a great time.
12. kristarella on Jun 10, 2008 said:
Good article Joshua! Ive 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 Ive rearranged my title tag a bit and added in a description.
Semantics is where its at. Love those h tags!
Theres a cheat sheet from SEOMoz that everyone should own. Its not exhaustive, but pretty sweet.
kristarellas last blog post..James Squire Brewhouse
13. Andris on Jun 10, 2008 said:
thanx for this nice article.
I think its important you noticed that links are a big matter of fact. And that not every link is a good link.
its always a pleasure to read your articles.
14. Steve O on Jun 10, 2008 said:
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). Ive seen some poor results from people using bad services, although Im sure some of these
companies do actually provide a good service.
15. CssGlance on Jun 10, 2008 said:
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Anything to add. We think that semantic code and web standards, as you underline, are the right way.
CssGlances last blog post..Leigh Taylor
16. Jeremy on Jun 10, 2008 said:
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
17. sayohmygod on Jun 10, 2008 said:
Rule 8:
Only meta description tag matters?
and what about meta robots ???
18. Olga on Jun 10, 2008 said:
Hi! Tnx for article! I made translation on my russian blog for webmasters
Olgas last blog post..10 SEO
19. Cleo Morgause on Jun 11, 2008 said:
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.
20. Fred Riley on Jun 11, 2008 said:
A sound article, and I pat myself on the back that I implement all the points you mention, though its 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 its not directly in the power of the web admin, is to get as many other sites linking to yours as
possible. AFAIK Googles search algorithm still weights a site on the amount of links that point to it.
21. Eric on Jun 11, 2008 said:

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Nice and simple list, I like it alot. SEO isnt all that difficult!
- Eric
Erics last blog post..Top 10 reasons to leave your job (and become self-employed)
22. Subash on Jun 11, 2008 said:
Im craving for stuffs regarding SEOs. 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
23. Chris G. on Jun 11, 2008 said:
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 wont 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
24. Jason on Jun 11, 2008 said:
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. Youve 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 cant crawl it it cant follow it. So
fancy flash and javascript navigations arent crawled therefore they arent followed.
25. Son Nguyen on Jun 11, 2008 said:
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.
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26. Tedel on Jun 11, 2008 said:

Good article, but too basic, dont you think? Every person who has been in SEO for a while knows this.
27. Matt on Jun 11, 2008 said:
@Tedel: Thats why the posts 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.
28. Kevin on Jun 11, 2008 said:
There were actually 11 rules. Why wouldnt you just accurately title the blog 11 SEO Rules for
Designers?
29. Immy on Jun 11, 2008 said:
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?
30. Ben Whitehouse on Jun 11, 2008 said:
Very good overview of SEO. Unfortunately you really didnt 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 Im cheating?
Great points otherwise.
Ben Whitehouses last blog post..St. Pauls, St. Pauls
31. Christina on Jun 11, 2008 said:
Great tips! Very useful.
Christinas last blog post..Pricing Guideline Resources for Designers
32. petnos on Jun 11, 2008 said:
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
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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..Trkiye Portekiz
33. SEO Pune on Jun 11, 2008 said:
Jacob, great article, youve managed to explain most of the important stuff concisely..
34. J. Jeffryes on Jun 12, 2008 said:
J. Jeffryes here. Glad to see all the positive responses. Even from people that think Im Jacob.
@David: Hey man! Long time no talk. Thanks for the kind words on my articles.
@Chad: Youre right, writing clean code is the main thing. People dont 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 youre 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. Thats what Jacob did with this one, I actually wrote it a few weeks ago, so hed 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 thats more work, and youll 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 its 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 thats 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
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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, thats 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, Im not sure what youre 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. Thats 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 its 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. Its doable, but complex and beyond the scope of a blog comment.
@Ben: if you dont know what Search Engine Optimization is, then this article isnt going to be of much
help. Maybe I should have also included definitions for HTML and design?
35. alojaweb on Jun 12, 2008 said:
a article excellent, thanks.
36. Zhu on Jun 12, 2008 said:
Im 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
37. Egbsystems on Jun 13, 2008 said:
hai
Seo informations is very useful for me.
Egbsystems.com
38. web design company on Jun 14, 2008 said:
Clearly written, easy to follow guidelines that will improve your websites visibility.
web design companys last blog post..Creative Advertisements
39. modemlooper on Jun 14, 2008 said:
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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?
40. Dan on Jun 14, 2008 said:
Nice tips. Thanks
41. Jack Shipley on Jun 14, 2008 said:
Never forget the fundamentals: In sports those who forget the fundamentals lose.
More clients need to understand that shortcuts really dont exist, except through the minds of talented
designers and writers.
While you emphasize content and the programming backdrop to content, as a writer, Im 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
42. Calvin on Jun 15, 2008 said:
Great Post. True, True and True. extremely valuable information. Thanks.
Calvins last blog post..Scars from a Bad Proposal 8 Dos and Donts when Choosing a Web Design
Company.
43. ethan on Jun 15, 2008 said:
Great tips.
Somebody said this article is too basic. I thank you for keeping it basic.
44. WordPress Guru on Jun 17, 2008 said:
Is there a particular reason you are using Just Creative design for your H1, while the title of this post itself
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is an H2 ?
WordPress Gurus last blog post..Blogging Mistakes
45. kristarella on Jun 17, 2008 said:
WordPress Guru,
Jacob is on holidays so maybe hell change it when he gets back
Apart from that, I dont necessarily agree with having H1 for the post titles. The headings should have a
semantic hierarchy. I youve 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 youre 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.
Ive been thinking about that for a while, but Im yet to come up with a good way to articulate it.
kristarellas last blog post..Multiple WordPress Blogs
46. Greg-B on Jun 17, 2008 said:
Couldnt agree with you more Jacob. An excellent summary of the key SEO rules.
I think duplicate content is a big no-no too?
47. Johan on Jun 19, 2008 said:
Hey there!
Nice article.
Im using PHP-Fusion, as my CMS, and want to make it totally different than anything made by that
CMS. (So its 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

) aka Josso

Lets see if Ill follow this blog.

48. Sumesh on Jun 22, 2008 said:
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
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want to expose to them.

Sumeshs last blog post..Download Firefox 3 to help Mozilla Firefox set a world record
49. kristarella on Jun 22, 2008 said:
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 theyre no longer where Google indexed them to be and potential readers dont find
what theyre looking for. Its not dependent on how semantic your code is, its a nature of the beast.
Of course, thats more an SEO tip for blogs, not just designers in general.
kristarellas last blog post..Do you want people to correct your mistakes?
50. my balls on Jun 28, 2008 said:
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 wont help, design for humans as the last rule? Nice choosing, sitemaps dont do
much of anything either.
Why does everyone love google? What the hell is wrong with everyone? Lets 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?
Lets be clear Google employees = Self righteous thieves who pat themselves on the back non stop and
declare, were 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.
51. kristarella on Jun 28, 2008 said:
If your content is good, then search engines, the world, other sites will find and love you.
Oh yes, its easy to wade through the whole internet and find all the good stuff.
Why does everyone love google? What the hell is wrong with everyone? Lets 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?
Lets be clear Google employees = Self righteous thieves who pat themselves on the back
non stop and declare, were not microsoft.
SEO isnt only for Google, Im sure Yahoo and whatever other search tools you use appreciate sensible
site structure.
Since Google doesnt make operating systems and related software, Im sure they think very little about
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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.
52. SEO Professional on Jul 7, 2008 said:
Great post! You have a great tips. I actually used those tips. Good!
53. clon on Jul 12, 2008 said:
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.
54. Amanda Evans on Oct 30, 2008 said:
Great article, thanks for sharing. I wasnt aware that most of the meta tags were not being used. Looks
like I need to update my website a little.
55. Jon Davis on Nov 3, 2008 said:
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 cant fool Google.
Highly doubtful. Hard to take the rest of the article seriously after reading this ridiculous comment.
Jon
56. gMoney on Nov 11, 2008 said:
Great article and good tips! A couple to add if youre working on a wordpress platforms, always make
sure that youre filling in the excerpt section of the post, as this is going to get indexed. Also highly
recommended is the all-in-one SEO plugin. A bit misleading, as its truly not an all-in-one, but manages to
get the neophytes pretty close to good.
Good call on the alt and title tags as well. This is something I very often see overlooked, and while it only
takes a moment to fill in, can dramatically improve your serp score.
57. yuuzaa on Dec 17, 2008 said:
thanks for sharing:)
58. The Logo Factory design on Dec 17, 2008 said:
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10 SEO Rules for Designers

Decent article on SEO for designers, though I might not agree with this phrase
Rule Zero: Do Not Cheat. Period [snip] You cant 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.
Almost every company that shows up in top ten design searches (Im very familiar with the logo design
niche) is cheating their pretty little heads off. Some more than others, but most are in flagrant violation of
Googles webmaster guidelines. Whether one wants to follow their examples is up to the individual, but
its a little naive to think that SEO cheating doesnt work. Unfortunately, it does.
59. Linda Lee on Feb 1, 2009 said:
I love what you said! Sometimes I get bored and want to build flashy unusual sites, but the reality is my
clients just want a search engine friendly, SEOed, highly usable and affordable website or blog.
I was trained to use every alt tag, and all the time consuming stuff straight out of the gate.
I am keeping your 10 rules on my desktop to help keep my head in the right place when I am bored..
60. tukang nggame on May 10, 2009 said:
thanks for the great tips and 1 will try the tips above now to get no 1 on google
61. lake chapala on May 24, 2009 said:
Does anybody knows another page to see rules for metatags?
62. Michel on May 28, 2009 said:
I printed the rules, and i put it on the wall, above my bed
63. SEO Singapore on Jul 9, 2009 said:
yes agree, these are all the basic for all web designers should know. And proper naming for images/logo
and link also should take into consideration. Avoid using Flash navi and too much JS driven content.
64. Hartanzah on Jul 11, 2009 said:
wow, great tips. i waiting for your next articles
Thanks
65. Raffi Darrow on Jul 17, 2009 said:
Dont save your text in JPG or GIFs. If your whole web page is sliced images, the search engines cant
read the text to know what your site is about to properly index it. Sounds like a NO BRAINER but still
being done!
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66. Umang on Jul 28, 2009 said:

Thanks. Pretty standard stuff, but always good to see in one place.
67. Mike @ Toronto Web Design and SEO on Aug 4, 2009 said:
haha.funny but quite serious note design for humans! My respect! There are tons of websites that
hard to read because of too-well-optimized text. There must be a golden axxiskinda middle that would
fit both machines brains and those of humans. Thanks for the nice article!
Best regards from Toronto,
Mike / Toronto Web Design & SEO
68. Willem_Alexander on Aug 27, 2009 said:
Hi,
Thanks for sharing this, it could help me some..
Greetz,
69. Sarah on Sep 5, 2009 said:
Rule zero is very important and yet many of us fail to see the importance.
70. Douglas Bonneville on Sep 13, 2009 said:
Repeating them uselessly is no good (rule Zero), use them in sentences, headlines, and links.
Is there a magic fine line between using your keywords in sentences, headlines, and links compared to
repeating them uselessly?
I find that if I dont intentionally mention the key word, I will talk about something and assume the reader
(and Google) are right along with me. But then Ill read it and realize I will say things this and it instead
things like this logo design, etc etc.
71. Jacob Cass on Sep 13, 2009 said:
There is no magic fine line, but you dont want the same keywords constantly repeated in the sentence, as
this is called keyword stuffing and will get you penalised. Its a good idea to use the keyword rather than
it as long as it makes sense for the reader.
Be sure to check out my other SEO resources on my delicious page too.
72. egypt designer on Feb 10, 2010 said:
nice, I like it especially Rule Ten: Design for Humans
73. Increased Website traffic on Feb 11, 2010 said:
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10 SEO Rules for Designers

Nice share. Like your way to describe all of this rule. I understand now. like Rule number ten: Design for
human. not for a robot
74. Brian on Feb 24, 2010 said:
Yes these are all good tips for web designers who need to consider the SEO aspects. You got most of
them nailed. I would just add file names for your images, probably just as important as the alt tag.
75. Josh on May 2, 2010 said:
Great read, these simple steps can lead to a website becoming powerfulwill share.
76. Jerry on May 8, 2010 said:
Very true stuff, something that everyone should take into consideration when developing content for a site.
77. Kodisoft on May 22, 2010 said:
The best SEO Tool is a unique CONTENT..Good CONTANT is a main key for site promotion!
78. bulduktrans on May 29, 2010 said:
Thanks for seo tips. Realy great share. I am translate to german.
79. Strafe Creative - Graphic Design on Jun 4, 2010 said:
Cheers for this, although I knew most of this its still great to see my thoughts confirmed. Ill definitely be
looking through your other posts.
80. Online marketing Calgary on Jul 28, 2010 said:
Jacob, what a great way to look at it! Covering all major things in a very simple way. Thanks a bunch, ill
definitely pass on to some of my designer-friends!
81. montreal graphic design company on Sep 4, 2010 said:
really a excellent article but you didnt mention about relevancy and keyword density
82. Vijay Mishra on Oct 21, 2010 said:
Thank you So much for knowledge
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