Why is it important to think about SEO when designing your website?

It is important to think about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) when you are designing your website. SEO is vital if you want your site to be found on the search engines such as Google. When planning out your website, think about how you are going to display the information. Although it is good to have pictures to break up the text, any words on a picture can to be read by the search engines which is why it is important to use alt tags to tell the search engines what is in the picture.

Ideally you want a lot of pages on your website as the more pages you have the more chances you have of getting found for different phrases. Some people create several pages for one product or for different areas but you need to ensure you get the balance right and that you always think about the end user. There is no point in having a user friendly site that cannot be found but there is also no point in having a site that is found easily but no one can navigate round it. If in doubt, ask someone who has not been involved in the design of the site to use it and get their feedback.