Every web designer knows that there are two essential qualities in every good websiteappearance and how it performs in the search engines. There is no doubt it is critically important for pages to look good so they keep visitors on the page. But visitors will never arrive at the site to appreciate even the best design without search engine optimization (SEO). Integrating these fundamentals of effective website design can be complex, and compromises are almost always required.

The place web designers start to find the balance between appearance and performance is SEO. If SEO never generates traffic, your beautiful page design can never be appreciated. The basics of SEO include linking between pages, keyword density, meta tags, and proper tagging of images. Each of these factors is something to consider as you begin designing your site.

A successful site has to have enough content to allow for appropriately low keyword density. Unlike the ranking standards of the late 1990s, search algorithms in 2009 penalize sites, and sometimes penalize them very severely, for cramming too many search terms into too little text. Content must long enough to dilute keyword density, but concise enough to hold visitor attention. It is also not possible to make use of every screen shot or image you might happen to have, no matter how attractive and beautiful they are, on every page, or even on every site. The search algorithms have not yet designed means of indexing images. Words, and not images, are what drive SEO. That is the reason every designer has to provide every site multiple pages with text that can be optimized.

The next step in integrating web design and SEO is to tag all each image on the site with the “alt” tag in HTML. Every image has to have this tag. The “alt” tag enables to instruct the web browser as to which text will pop up when visitors run their mouse over your image. Every image also requires an SEO-friendly title. For instance if your site is about sunning on the beach in Aruba, and you want to use a photo of a beach on your page, a name like aruba.beach.wow.jpg isfar more effective than an name like 477876arub9wow.jpg. Keywords in your tags become keywords for your pages. Just take care not make your pages too keyword-dense with image names, either.

Another vital step in search engine optimization is linking the various pages of your site. Visitors always appreciate internal navigation. The search engines also appreciate internal navigation, because internal links are places you can insert keywords that identify your pages. For instance, if you have a page called “White Sand Beaches” you can link to that page from every other page in your site with a link entitled “White Sand Beaches.” This way you not only tell all search engines have created a page, but you tell the search engines what the page is about.

Is there an ultimate rule for integrating page design and SEO Yes, and here it is: Keep it simple! Use flash sparingly. Avoid excessive images. Shun complex design. Paying attention to these vital rules will boost your freedom to do SEO. You always want your pages to be beautiful, you just need to do more with less.

Always take care that the search engines do not mistake your content for spam. Beyond keeping within the 7% limit, your respect for your readers and your providing genuinely content will make all the difference in how well your site will perform.

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