PDA

View Full Version : Are design and content more important than SEO score?



Harold Mansfield
01-21-2016, 01:39 PM
To me this is an age old battle. Is it more important to follow every SEO rule on every single page, or design for people and accept that not every page can follow every rule?

Personally, I'll let some pages go if it means a better user experience, or it's going to screw up the layout. I won't cram 300 words on the home page if the design doesn't support it, or it makes no sense to do so. To me the entire site works together and it is possible to do well in the SERP's if you're doing all of the other stuff. One page is not going to be so detrimental that it makes or breaks your entire marketing strategy.

Other people believe that Google has to be pleased on every page like some ancient Volcano God, regardless of user experience and design.
Sometimes you can do both. But if you can't, which do you choose?

Google first? Or do your marketing, branding, design, and people come first?

vangogh
01-21-2016, 04:40 PM
Content and design are always more important to me than SEO. What's the point of getting someone to your site if the site itself offers no value. The irony is that's exactly what Google wants you to do.

If you focus on building the best site you can then real people will tell others. They'll share links to your site, which still outweighs everything else search engines use to rank websites. That doesn't mean you should ignore SEO completely, but you should ignore all the tricks to get your pages ranked. Good SEO practices aren't counter to good usability practices. You don't have to sacrifice SEO to create a great site filled with content people want to consume. You only have to sacrifice the side of SEO that exists specifically to manipulate search engines and for the most part doesn't work anymore.

I've spent a lot of time over the years learning how search engines work and how they rank web pages. I use the information when I'm making decisions about the websites I build and the content I create for them. For example I've learned that page titles are important for SEO. If there's a specific phrase you want a page to rank for, it makes sense to use the phrase in the page title and you probably want the phrase as close to the start of the page title as possible. I'll use that information to write page titles and I'll try to come up with a title that includes the phrase, ideally close to the start. However, if I come up with what I think is a great title that will make people interested enough to click through to the content, I'll always choose that title even if the phrase isn't at the front or even in the title at all.

I use what I've learned about SEO to make decisions about my sites and content, but I never choose SEO at the expense of real people.

krymson
01-22-2016, 02:34 PM
Content and design is what I think of... What's the big content saying now in the SEO world? "Write for Humans". I think what google really cares about is not what the content says per se but how it solves the searcher's intent.

For instance, if someone is searching "How to steam lobster", the number one result might be "How to steam shell fish" and that content might not ever mention lobster, but it solves the searcher's intent.

I guess the way I look at it is, if I build my site for search engines, it's only going to be good for search engines... search engines don't pay me, real people do, so build it for real people and more people will come.

What I'm trying to focus on more now with my new website redesign im going to be starting is attracting and engaging visitors rather than casing and convincing them to go visit my site, I'm going to let others do that for me by that attraction and engagement. I'm actually REALLY excited about this new design and I'll post it for review once I'm done but it's about a month or so out, I have other things I need to take care of first.

BBlake
02-11-2016, 01:38 PM
Google wants its users to have great experience. So a lot of the Rules Of SEO are shaped by users' browsing habits. Like when someone hits your page, they quickly scan the header text, the first sentence or so and maybe some image captions. If it's not immediately congruent with their search query, they leave. That's why Google weighs front-loaded keywords in title, headers, etc. That's only one example. Google is geared toward people first (for the most part).

But, nah, you don't need sweat it on every page. Just landing pages that are targeting your keywords.

BizAdvisor
02-12-2016, 01:30 PM
Are design and content more important than SEO score?

In my opinion, SEO is simply a byproduct of the others. Kinda like saying, is business more important than profit?

KristineS
02-12-2016, 05:39 PM
Design and content first - always.

The hard truth is that the SEO rules are always changing based on what Google thinks developers have learned how to game, and also based on the changing online and social media landscape. SEO should always be top of mind and considered, but design and content will be what draws people to a site and keeps them there.

dewalds86
02-15-2016, 03:56 AM
SEO's will always figure out ways to game the system.

Harold Mansfield
02-15-2016, 12:21 PM
SEO's will always figure out ways to game the system.
And it's funny. It's funny that there's always going to be SEO's that think they can outsmart the best mathematicians and engineers in the world, instead of just following the clear instructions that they give you.

It takes just as much work to do it wrong, as to do it right.

anilverma
02-16-2016, 02:37 AM
From my experience in order of priority.
Your offline network way more important than your design and content which is more important than your SEO. You need not be Page Rank 6 or 7 website in order to take your business to next level. Even a PR 1 would be fine if you have enough target audience (doesn't matter if it comes from offline or online)

dojo
02-16-2016, 11:50 AM
SEO is content and design.

They are not separate, they should all be thought of together.

Design exists bases on the content (and not vice-versa) and SEO means making everything work well and following some optimization rules.

Create content for your prospects, design a responsive fast-loading website (it's important for SEO as well) and stop counting keywords like in the old days :D

Brian Davis
04-05-2016, 11:46 AM
You will have nothing to promote without content and design and vice versa content and design without proper SEO optimization won't bring the expected profit. So we must try to keep everything perfect!

turboguy
04-05-2016, 12:39 PM
My thoughts on this question would be: Is it better to have 10,000 visitors a day and no one buys the goods and services or 20 a day that converts 18 of them to customers. The object is to promote and sell whatever your wanting to promote and sell. Of course if no one can find you that too is a problem but the odds are if you have a site that is well designed, presents your case well and makes a compelling reason for people to buy that as long as the basics of SEO are followed people will find you.

When I have done my sites I did pay attention to what I felt would rank me ok but paid a lot more attention to giving my visitors the information to make an informed decision in a compelling way, to portray us as a company that is easy to do business with and to make contacting us easy. It seems to have worked for us.

Daniel160
04-12-2016, 03:17 AM
There is no site out there can follow every SEO rule on each single page and no one would knows rules of Google completely. But for SEO, of course design and content are very important. a mobile-friendly design will beat a non-design site without no doubts, good quality content will bring you more traffics and keep your visitors there, If you are focusing on how to build your site " beautiful " as your own mind but overmiss the rules, I believe your site is hard to rank well.

Natalie
05-15-2016, 08:15 PM
Hi Harold. I definitely recommend designing for the user in mind first, with SEO as a consideration only. Ultimately, it’s the online experience that people will remember. The content should read well and resonate, not just be stuffed with keywords. Even if you succeed in driving traffic to your site, if the design, content and overall user experience is second-rate, you won’t convert – and coming from someone who strongly thinks that SEO shouldn’t be your only marketing strategy, I think conversion is what matters most.

nealrm
05-16-2016, 09:32 AM
Which is more important, SEO or content. And the answer is ....... it depends. The biggest factor is how important is Google in getting people to your site. First, I'm going to limit the topic to comparing sites with good content and excellent SEO vs sites with excellent content and good SEO. I think it is a given that sites with either poor content or poor SEO are not ideal. So if your site depends on Google in a large part for traffic and you are competing against many other sites that do the same, SEO is very important. It maybe even more important that excellent content. However, if you site relies more on other sources for traffic, content would be more important.

Think of the website for a major university. SEO really is a minor consideration if the main search phrase used to find that site is [state name] State University or University of [state name]. That site is going to come up no matter what. So you can forgo a lot of SEO to make for a better user experience.

However, if you are joe plumber and you want your site to get traffic in a major city, you SEO needs to be near 100% perfect. You need to be at the top of that list of several hundred other sites, or it's just not worth being there. Your content can be a very simple, this is who I am, this is how I can help and this is how to contact me.


Other people believe that Google has to be pleased on every page like some ancient Volcano God,
So do you like it would help if i stopped by Google headquarters and places a fifth of liquor at the door. That's what they do in Hawaii.

jespong
05-21-2016, 10:16 AM
In some cases, I see that the content is very important, helps to rank low competitive KWs very quickly and easily. 3 months ago, I built a niche site with low competitive (800-1000 searches/month and great copy writing content, yeah without links building, all of them spot to page#2 and bring me around 80$ per month, it;s not bad. Content is king

CoolHandCol
05-27-2016, 09:59 AM
You can also argue that what's the point of having a fantastic looking website if no-one can find it? They both have to be done together

YoannKehl.
09-19-2016, 03:43 AM
Content is really important for optimizing your website. When I had to make a website for my business the specialists told me: Make strong content, we will do the rest. Of course I followed their advice but it wasn't enough. If you want to get better positions in Google you need good seo. At first you can do it on your own. You can use Social networks to promote your website. They have user friendly advertising platforms so it will be easy for you to manage your pages and advertisings. To be honest I also don't understand much of seo but I found good sources of information on the Internet. You can read the beginners guide to search engine optimizations of moz.com. Also you can follow the blog of hubspot.com. Once you do all this and your website runs well you have to maintain it - with new content, with audit, like website code security testing, html seo analysis, rating and link building (source: webexperti.com). If you aren't able to do this than you can ask for help your friends or even specialists in this area.

sahib1989
09-09-2017, 06:42 AM
I would say all three components are interlinked with each other and you cannot achieve a good SEO ranking unless your website has good design and content. It is not a choose one or the other type of situation. It is necessary to focus on both.

BenHeath
09-21-2017, 10:13 AM
SEO and Design/Content are two sides of the same coin. The Design/Content should be taken into consideration when doing the SEO and vice versa.

Good SEO but bad Content will generate traffic in the short term, but the bad content will damage your brand and make you look unprofessional. The damage can be undone with better content in the future but it will take a lot of hard work to redeem yourself. The worse the content, the harder it is.

Good Content and Bad SEO means that your content may never be found in the first place. Sure, you can fix the SEO at a later date, but at the rate things are evolving, the content may well be outdated, and you'll look like you're not getting with the times.

So I think the question is, would you rather do damage to your brand and have to work extra hard in future, or risk people not seeing it until the content is irrelevant?

The correct answer is, "don't put yourself in a situation where you have to make this choice". Do both and save yourself a lot of hassle.

techdis7
09-26-2017, 12:37 AM
In my opinion, user experience comes first which is what optimization means and SEO does that too. They just go hand in hand.

Smith's daughter
10-18-2017, 04:01 AM
In my opinion, user experience comes first which is what optimization means and SEO does that too. They just go hand in hand.

Yes i agree as well. They do need to go hand in hand. You bring out a good point.

jeffscott
06-20-2018, 02:16 AM
Content is more important to design when it comes to SEO because this aspect really affects your site's performance in the web in which the search engine ranks you in the position.

jordanmcclure
12-19-2018, 12:50 AM
Both design and content are integral part of SEO. If your website design and content on website is good then your SEO score automatically will be good.

Harold Mansfield
12-19-2018, 09:39 AM
Both design and content are integral part of SEO. If your website design and content on website is good then your SEO score automatically will be good.
Well...not automatically. They are important elements of your overall web presence which all works together. They are both important, but your website alone can't do it all. Everything you do online contributes.