No, I don’t think so. Let me qualify that. Most really good website designers probably can’t do SEO well.
I’ll tell you why I feel this way. Really good graphic web designers are great at design. That’s their passion and what they love. Really good designers are continually honing their craft. This leaves little room for the time and energy that really good SEO requires. Search Engine Optimization requires skills, knowledge and experience. It can be only achieved if SEO consultant spends a lot of time on research, learning and practicing.
You Could Say the Same About SEOs.
When you optimize a website, you spend a lot of your time analyzing things that have nothing to do with graphic design. In fact, a fair chunk of the work you perform will not even be on the site itself.
Proper search engine optimization involves structural work on the site, yes. But to be effective, the SEO strategy must also address a continual production of content and building of relationships and activities that will result in high-quality links pointing to your site. That’s why I think a good designer really can’t provide a complete, effective SEO services. (Nor can a copywriter, in my opinion, but that’s another post.)
Now, I know there are plenty of web designers out there who have learned tons about SEO and can optimize their way around a site. And probably a fair share of SEO consultants who can throw up a design, too. But from what I’ve seen, we tend to focus most on what we do best…which means the other discipline suffers.
Where Does That Leave the SEO Client?
If you think your site has been optimized because your designer said they did it, you should know that it’s probably not done very well.
SEO is not something that can just be thrown in with another service, not if you expect it to do anything for you. Like any business marketing tactic, it should meet your business goals. Which means you need to start with an idea of what you want it to accomplish. (Who do you want to attract to your site?) And after goals review, perform research and planning to find the best strategy to achieve it. (What search terms are they using to find businesses like yours? Where do they hang out online? What other sites are they visiting? And so on.) Real SEO probably hasn’t happened if you haven’t had input on those sorts of questions to begin with.
Are There Exceptions to the Rule?
I’ve worked with a few advertising agencies, some that have traditionally focused more on print materials. As the designers gained more web skills, I would hear them say that all the sites they built were optimized for the searches engines. Behind the scenes, this meant adding keywords to the meta tags (the same for every page) and submitting the site manually to a few search engines.
Too Many Graphic Designers Still Think That’s All it Takes.
Fast forward to the SEO Company I worked with the last 6 years. We brought on board a really talented graphic designer. She came from an ad agency background and even had a 4-year degree in graphic design. She had taught herself web design and could translate her skills to the online medium beautifully. But she had little idea of all the things that went into SEO. (It was the same picture when I joined. I knew the content side of things fairly well, but other important chunks of the picture were missing.)
Now that designer still builds exquisite websites. And she uses search engine friendly methods naturally. But does that mean she’s suited to oversee content production and link building, too? Probably not.
At least two-thirds of the complete SEO picture would go wasted if it were all left up to the web designer.
I think SEO needs to happen in a team, with a proper leader. Because it’s such a specialized, important discipline, it’s most effective when you have someone in charge of the process, helping formulate web strategy and directing execution. This ensures the web designer, SEO copywriter and all functions come together to meet your goals efficiently.
Agree? Disagree? Let’s hear it.
