Does Your Homepage Design Look Like a Poster!
Does your homepage design look like a poster for your business? More graphic design than substance? We can help! IX Brand SEO Services Company is a search engine optimization and online reputation management consulting company based in Sugar Land, TX, on the outskirts of Houston. We help small businesses get better Google rankings, develop great online customer reviews, and drive more customer traffic through the Web. Call 713-234-6346 for more information or use the Contact form to send an email.
I’ve talked with several potential clients this week about creating a blog and about website design in general, and I’m hearing a common misconception about homepage design. Many people see the homepage as something like a poster, which is on display on the Web. The poster doesn’t have much text because people aren’t inclined to read much text. A poster also relies on lots of images to make a visual impact with the viewer. A poster doesn’t have to be discovered by a search engine though, and a poster doesn’t need to appear high in search engine rankings. Your website homepage design, looking like a poster, won’t be search engine optimized!
My example of a poster is an announcement of the SPOT Trot this weekend, benefiting homeless pets in Wharton County through the Stray Pet Outreach Team (SPOT). This is a very worthy cause well worth supporting!
This is an effective poster, but it’s also an example of a bad website design. With very little text, the poster doesn’t give the search engines much to work with. If the search engines don’t have much to use in evaluating your website, it’s not likely that your website will do well in search engine results. If you don’t do well in search results, it’s not likely that your website will attract many visitors to admire your graphics and images or read your text.
I see so many websites that are designed to match a marketing poster or print media theme and these sites are frequently the ones that perform most poorly in search results. In other words, some of the best looking websites will perform poorly because of poor SEO, and very few Internet visitors will have the opportunity to admire the great graphic designs on those sites.
Some other business owners will tell me that they want to have a great looking homepage with very little text and lots of images and then put the text on the other pages of the website. I have to tell these folks that they can’t require Google to direct Internet visitors to the homepage. Google and the other search engines will send Internet searchers to the most relevant pages on the Web, even if those pages are not the homepage. If your homepage is bare of text and your other website pages are full of keyword rich text, then very few people will ever see your homepage.
So when you’re working with your web developer to design your homepage and your website, focus a little less on the graphics and a little more on the keyword rich text and your website will look great and do well in search results too. If you have a question about search engine optimization (SEO) related to your website, please give me a call at 713-234-6346 or send me an email using the contact form.
What’s your idea of a great homepage design?
