What do you do if SEO best practices clash with website design?

When SEO best practices clash with website design, it's crucial to strike a balance between the two. Prioritize user experience while ensuring search engine visibility. Optimize content and meta tags without compromising design integrity. Employ responsive design, clean code, and fast loading times. Collaborate with designers and SEO experts to find solutions that meet both sets of requirements. Flexibility and compromise are key in resolving conflicts between SEO and design goals.

When SEO best practices and website design seem at odds, it's time for a creative summit between the SEO and design teams. Imagine this scenario as a thrilling crossover episode where both teams unite to brainstorm innovative solutions that marry functionality with aesthetics. Through this collaboration, identify common goals and compromises, such as integrating SEO-friendly navigation that also enhances the user interface or crafting engaging, keyword-rich copy that flows seamlessly within the design. By viewing these challenges as opportunities for innovation rather than obstacles, you create a website that not only looks stunning but also ranks high, exemplifying the harmony between SEO and design.

Talk with the design / dev team about striking a balance between having Search Engine viability while including a fresh and unique design. See if you can collaborate with them and discuss priorities. Is our current goal to achieve more business through leads? Or is it to increase brand visibility? Once you have answers to those questions, you can begin working together on a design that features SEO while not sacrificing UX.

Identify what's most important for your website. Is it driving conversions or ranking high for specific keywords? This will guide which SEO best practices you can adapt to fit the design. Good SEO & UX often go hand in hand. A website that users find easy to navigate and engaging is more likely to keep them on the site longer and encourage them to return, which are all positive SEO signals. There's often room for compromise. For instance, you might have a visually stunning hero image, but you can still optimize it by compressing the file size and adding relevant alt text. Communication between designers and SEO specialists is essential. By understanding each other's goals, they can find creative solutions that satisfy both sides.

This is a tale as old as time, but truthfully SEO and UX should go hand-in-hand. The Google algorithm has progressed enough to where UX is just as (if not more!) important as best practices for SEO, however you define them. There are a multitude of ways to ensure a great user experience without sacrificing for SEO, OR reducing the features on your product(s).

Adopting progressive enhancement strategies can harmonize design and SEO. Start with a basic, SEO-friendly structure that ensures your content is accessible and navigable for search engines. Then, layer on advanced design features that enhance the user experience without hindering search engine access. This method ensures that your site remains both beautiful and discoverable.

This is where the difference comes into play. If the user experience is the top priority (sales funnel), best practices for SEO might have to take second chair. Being able to identify which takes the first seat is ideal for the success of the UX and the SEO. Neither will fail, in reality, your plans just get adjusted. In the rare case that technical SEO wins over the design or UX of a website, a meeting has to be scheduled to do some long hard discussing about the priorities.

Expandable content modules like accordions are my go-to feature to get enough content on to the page to fully optimise it. The amount of text required is determined by the competitors' pages and it's not unusual for it to be much more than the web designers want. However, accordions can tuck the content away neatly - into different categories if necessary - and satisfy the design needs and the SEO requirements. Do not be persuaded to minimise the amount of content - after all, what use is a well designed page if it doesn't attract traffic and convert those visitors to customers? In fact, it is not a well-designed page if it doesn't increase revenue for a business - no matter how good it looks!

Utilizing visual content like infographics can satisfy both SEO and design by presenting information in a visually appealing and digestible format. Infographics are shareable and can attract backlinks, boosting SEO, while also fitting into sleek, modern website designs without overwhelming the user with text.

Implementing AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) can improve mobile responsiveness and page speed, crucial SEO factors, without compromising the website's visual appeal. AMP versions can load instantly, offering a streamlined user experience on mobile devices while ensuring your site remains competitive in mobile search results.

The beauty of technical SEO is that it lives behind the scenes in most situations. This allows adjustments to be made without changing the front facing part of any website. Being able to identify the gains that technical SEO can bring a website is key to prioritizing what should be done vs what could hurt the overall design or UX of a website or app. Technical SEO, when done correctly, can really boost the overall success of a website in regards to organic traffic conversions. For this reason, it should be a high priority wherever possible.

When SEO best practices clash with website design, take a collaborative approach. Communicate openly with the design team to understand their goals. Educate them on SEO's importance and its impact on visibility. Work together to find solutions that balance SEO requirements and design aesthetics. Hold regular meetings to brainstorm ideas and address conflicts upfront. By fostering collaboration, you can integrate SEO seamlessly into website design without sacrificing visual appeal or user experience.

Having a collaborative approach is extremely beneficial to the website as certain SEO issues can be avoided when the website is being designed. Issues like contrast or readability with regard to spacing. SEO concerns the UX (user experience) of the website too, so if the design negatively impacts that, the SEO Specialist can put a stop to it before the website goes live. Ensuring that there's a balance that's achieved with regard to web design and SEO is imperative for the success of the website.

Create a shared vision document that outlines both the SEO goals and design aspirations for the website. This document serves as a reference point for both teams, ensuring that every decision made contributes towards a common goal, fostering a sense of unity and purpose in blending SEO with design.

I think this is an important part of any business to have a collaborative approach from the go. Many organisations and stakeholders are now realising the importance of SEO and design. Both sides want the same thing, a good customer experience. So, companies must have effective ways of working and checklists that ensure that the teams work in tandem.

Often undervalued and ignored, testing is your best bet when you're in a fix. Striking a balance between SEO and website design is no joke. While a lot of experts suggest letting SEO take precedence, it does not always work out. Always test your strategies, and make your decisions based on data. Data-driven decisions are the best and most rewarding decisions as you know you're implementing something that has generated results and will do so in the future as well.

Bring together the SEO, design, and development teams at the start of the project. Open communication ensures all parties understand the project's goals and constraints. Help the design team understand the importance of SEO for the site's visibility and success. Highlight how SEO can complement design to enhance user experience and site performance.

There will ALWAYS be clashes when it comes to SEO and marketing in general. Not only does an SEO wear many hats from technical to content produce but the another huge in talked about skill is that of understanding that as a business we all need to work together. Sometimes UX takes priority and we compromise, sometimes SEO takes priority and UX compromises, businesses fail when teams work in a silo. Learning when to compromise and when it’s essential to communicate that your KPI’s can’t be met if you do compromise elevates you to a next level marketer