As the principal of a small agency which specializes in interactive, we’ve designed and built dozens of web sites for a variety of clients. These days, clients are obviously interested in getting as much out of the money they’re spending on interactive advertising as possible and SEO is a particular concern. With that end in mind, over the next few entries, I’m going to be touching on critical issues agencies and clients need to think about, as they sit down together to discuss web site design and interactive search strategies….

First, Some Thoughts about SEO

We have designed countless web sites. At the beginning of our process with clients, it is customary for us to have a discussion about how important searchability is. Many clients don’t understand that web sites are not necessarily designed with organic search in mind and that there are no “best practices” for web site creation which all designers adhere to. The reason for this is that preparing a site for SEO costs considerable extra time and money. These days, clients are especially cost conscious and we are constantly finding ourselves cutting one or several thousand dollars out of web budgets which formerly would have been more robust. Trying to pad these already skinny budgets with (sometimes) several thousand dollars worth of SEO services, then, is not feasible. Our practice now is to try and have a discussion upfront with our clients about how important, ultimately, organic searchability is and — if it’s a particular concern of theirs — we work with them to implent and additional package of SEO “Pre Flight” services. In my next entry, I’ll discuss, precisely, what these services comprise…