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E-Market: Design for Success

Search engine-friendly design can make it easier for your ideal customers to find you

Note: This article originally appeared in the Yahoo! Small Business newsletter, Insights. A wide variety of other informative articles is available in Yahoo!'s Small Business resources page.

Knowing your audience is especially important when it comes to web design. It can make a big difference in drawing customers to your site.

"You have to design with search engines in mind," says a New York-based freelance web designer. "It's important for any web site owner to lay out their site in a way that makes it more search engine-friendly."

Your web site has two types of audiences-humans and search engine "bots" or "spiders" that scan the web for the keywords and phrases users are searching. Fortunately for designers, both are looking for the same thing!

Your Pages Need a Uniform
Most web site owners think that the majority of their visitors come through the homepage. This isn't true. Web sites have multiple "front doors," and the homepage is just one of them. While visitors who are already familiar with your site usually will enter through the homepage, the keywords you select can bring people in through multiple routes.

Once you have your keywords in place, lay out your site with sections for each generic keyword or phrase and single web pages that correspond to each specific keyword. That way, when your customers search for each generic keyword, your category pages will show up in their results; when they do a search for the specific keywords, your product page will show up. For example, if your site sells men's clothing, one of your generic keyword phrases might be "pants," and your specific keyword could be "Levi's." When a customer does a search with the term "pants," he will pull up a page that lists the different brands and styles of trousers you sell. If he searches for "Levi's" he will pull up your Levi's product page.

"You've got to design your site with the text areas that contain your keywords higher up on the page," says the web designer. "That makes it easier for the crawlers to find what they're looking for."

Template Can Increase Visibility to Search Engines
Consistency is another design strategy. The more pages your site has, the more important it is to have a uniform layout. Keeping the navigation, layout and content consistent will make it easier for spiders to navigate, making the site more visible to a wider audience.

Most web designers agree that having a consistent header and left-side navigation in place is the best way to increase the site's visibility. The header should contain the company logo and some navigation on the top, such as a link to the homepage and other text links to other pages on the site. The left-side navigation should also include some text links to increase the likelihood that spiders will find your site. "It's easier for crawlers to navigate your site if the layout is consistent," according to the web designer we spoke to.

It's important to keep in mind a few specific issues when designing your site for search engine placement. Spiders follow links and read HTML code for each page-they don't look through anything except your site's text. They aren't able to follow links in image maps or Javascript, nor can they read the text embedded in graphics or other images, including Flash pieces. If your site's navigation is programmed solely within these applications, it will remain invisible to search engines.

Most sites, however, would look too plain and lack customer appeal without these graphic tools in place. To incorporate them while making your site more search engine-friendly, include a link on your home page to a site map. A site map is a simple page that has text links to every navigable part of your site. Search engines will then be able to find the text links within your site and help give you the ranking you need to bring more customers through the door.