7 Cutting Edge Web Design Trends (that Can Actually Improve SEO)

Syndicated From: SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/0RSqER2kBQw/7-cutting-edge-web-design-trends

Posted by randfish

As the worlds of web design and SEO merge ever closer, we’ve been seeing design-specific elements produce a positive impact on SEO for the sites that employ them. It’s terrific news for SEOs who love design and are capable of and passionate about making it part of their repertoire. It’s also great for designers who find that as they evolved from Flash designs to machine-readable CSS and separated markup from content, they’ve earned more links and more organic search love.

In this post, I’ll walk through examples of those design practices in use and describe how they can help improve your opportunity for organic search rankings and traffic.

#1 – Designing that Elicits & Conveys Emotion

A phenomenal article from Aarron Walter of Mailchimp on ThinkVitamin – Emotional Interface Design: The Gateway to Passionate Users – deeply explores the trend of designers using their talents to imprint emotion on users. Personally, I love this practice, and professionally, I see it as incredibly valuable for SEO, too.

Rather than simply providing a user with information, these sites attempt to convey a sense of the companies, products and services they represent in a tangible way.

For McMiller’s Sweets, below, the website expresses the brand’s humor, whimsy and obsession with their product. I only wish I could buy online – there’d be a few boxes headed for the SEOmoz offices right now.

Box.net, an enterprise-focused software company, aims to achieve an air of simplicity and a feeling of the ease that comes from using a basic, consumer application but targeted at a business audience. Their redesign has me convinced – it’s light and airy, it’s up in the clouds (perhaps a double-meaning since they host in “the cloud”) and it even calls out the “sexiness” of the application.

When users are emotionally invested in the websites they visit, they’re more likely to:

• Link
• Share
• Contribute Content
• Participate
• Remain Loyal
• Invest in the Experience
• Browse more Pages

All of these have either first or second-order impacts on SEO in a positive way.

#2 – The Scroll-Triggered Call-to-Action

Sometimes, you don’t want to overwhelm content with calls-to-action… At least, not until you’re fairly certain your visitor has finished reading. That’s where the brilliance of the scroll-triggered call-to-action comes in.

Browse any article on the New York Times website and you’ll see this behavior in action, driving you to read the next article in the series only after you’ve reached the bottom of the current piece:

It’s great for boosting page views, but also drives more awareness of those pieces, improving links and driving up visibility for previously less-well-publicized works. My guess is that clicks are quite high.

In the next example, the OKCupid Blog leverages precisely the same tactic:

This use case might be even more brilliant. After wrapping up a remarkable article about what statistics tell us not to do in online dating, my first instinct is to share the piece with some single friends. OKCupid’s flawlessly timed, dropdown overlay synchs with this internal compulsion and makes it easy to tweet, like, stumble or buzz away.

Scrolling + triggers = more browsing, more awareness and more sharing (and I think the potential applications for SEO are far greater in quantity than just what’s been shared above).

#3 – User Badges

If your users are passionate about your site and their experience or participation, why not make it easy to share?

For years, sites have been offering users the virtual incentives of points, badges and status to encourage greater participation. Andrew Follet from Concept Feedback authored a brilliant piece analyzing this precise behavior and exposing some terrific examples.

We’ve noticed an interesting behavior as it relates to user badges as well, and it’s spurred me to whiteboard the following chart numerous times for those who have online communities considering SEO:

The lesson? Make great communities, encourage participation and reward your users with badges that will make their sites look good. It’s the online equivalent of giving out high quality, well designed t-shirts – fans won’t just wear them to bed; they’ll actually show off your brand.

#4 – The Animated HTML Multiheader

I wrote about the multiheader a long time ago, and the evolution of design has made them tremendously more compelling and useful since then. Case-in-point, Unbounce, who has 5 different messages/features on their homepage all accessible to engines and all part of a single multiheader. I’ve screencaptured them elegantly “swooshing” in and out of the headline position:

The advantage is two-fold – more content on the homepage that’s accessible to search engines (thanks to clever CSS/HTML usage) and everyone who links to any one version is concentrating the link juice singularly on the home page. In some cases, that could cause problems, but in others, it’s a great opportunity to leverage design to focus the links you acquire where you need them most.

BTW – Speaking of Unbounce, If you have yet to read Oli Gardner’s 12-Step Landing Page Rehab Program, you’re seriously missing out.

#5 – Sexy, Embeddable Infographics

Infographic linkbait is certainly all the rage these days, and I think it’s a well-justified trend. The brilliant part is that you benefit by producing the infographic and other bloggers benefit by sharing it and attracting views, attention and links of their own. So long as the embed works seemlessly and the infographic is compelling, you’re off to the link acquisition races.

Some examples I enjoyed came from Smashing Magazine, who put together this piece on programming (and the how-to behind it’s creation):

And this smart contribution from Visual Economics:

As with badges, the “beauty rule” applies – the sexier your infographic (and the most interesting/useful/compelling the content), the higher adoption will be.

#6 – Designing Around Illustration (with CSS)

It used to be that I’d see a website built around illustrations and artistry and shake my head in sadness, knowing that the beauty of the UI was unlikely to be experienced by anyone except those coming via type-in. Today, with the amazing progress of CSS, sites like Carbon Made can have their design cake and eat their SEO, too.

Google’s “text only” cache shows every word you can see in the screenshot – we’ve come a long way indeed. And, darn it if that design doesn’t make me want to just climb a mountain and jump off a cliff into an octopus-filled lake below… errr.. make an online portfolio (yeah, that’s the one!)

For another look, check out Ruby on Rails developers, Pioneers:

Pretty, accessible and indexable, what more could an SEO ask?

#7 – Creative Content Formats Unleashed

Sometimes, you visit a site that stands out from everything else you’ve seen on the web in the past. Historically, many of those sites have also been tragically obscured from search engines. Nowadays, a new breed is emerging, showing off massive creativity, brilliance in design innovation and a compelling combination of link-worthiness and search-accessibility.

A few of my favorite recent stumbles into this realm include:

Above: Grain and Gram Gentleman’s Journal

Above: Sanctuary T Shop (who knew a small e-commerce shop could be this pretty?)

Above: Heart Directed (a great place to find more remarkable creative formats, though lacking the machine readable content to be an SEO example itself)

p.s. If design inspires you, I’d recommend checking out Drawar and Six Revisions list of 10 Fresh Galleries for Inspiration

Do you like this post? Yes No

Read other posts by this Author: randfish

SEO Tips to Double Rankings, Traffic and Conversion

Syndicated From: SiteProNews http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2010/jul/7.html

How to double your conversions by increasing your website’s semantic array of keywords.

Read other posts by this Author: SiteProNews

Prioritize and Summarize – Final Step of the 8-Step SEO Strategy

Syndicated From: SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/CYGpb6-ETvc/prioritize-and-summarize-final-step-of-the-8step-seo-strategy

Posted by laura

This post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

My friends, you’ve made it. You’ve sat through over 10,000 words I’ve shoveled into these  SEO Strategy posts (so far), and for that you deserve a serenade.  This serenade calls for a nice glass of wine (preferably a good Tokaji to go with the music) and a comfortable seat while we wrap up our journey together. Got your wine? Ok, now let the exceptionally gifted Sandor Lakatos send some beautiful Hungarian gypsy music through your speakers and let’s begin the end. (PS – If you really like this music I suggest this album)

There are two things you can potentially do here to wrap this up.  The first, prioritization, is optional. The second, summarizing the document in an overview, is pretty important. If you’re not into prioritizing all this stuff you’ve put together then just go right to the Overview section and skip the Prioritize one. Here we go.

PRIORITIZE

Well, hello go-getter. Glad to see you’re ready to do some prioritizations. There are two ways I’ve done this before, and at this point I don’t need to tell you again that however you want to go about this is up to you.  Create this document in the manner that seems best for you.

a) Prioritization Summary

After you’ve created your magnum opus of specific recommendations in Step 6 that will make the next big internet sensation out of your client’s product, you may want to take all of those recommendations and wrap them up in a nice (short) summary that says, “this is the most important thing you can do, and these things are very important also”.  Let them know where they can start and what they cannot ignore if they want to see results.  This is different than the overview which we’ll look at later, that will summarize the entire document in a much more broad manner.  This is specific to the recommendations that you’ve listed. You and I know that the more of the recommendations they follow (especially the high-impact ones) the better off they’ll be, but you and I also know that the chances of the client implementing 100% are usually not so great, so make sure you let them know what’s the most important.

b) Prioritize by Item

This is more time- and labor-intensive, but I’ve found it has really helped for teams who have a lot on their plate. Prioritizing each task that you’ve given your client in Step 6 can help them place your recommendations in their queue along with the 1,000 other things they’re working on, without having a doubt as to what will potentially make the most impact. Without specific prioritizations they might just implement whatever is easiest, and then call you in 4 months when there hasn’t been any change in results.

For example, the template I’ve built has prioritizations to choose from built in, so that I can stick these in wherever necessary. If I have several recommendations under a category (like Specific Content to Build), then each recommendation within that section will get a prioritization.

Feeling even more ambitious? (Might be the sugar in the Tokaji – go with it!)  Note which team each recommendation should be owned by.  For example, recommendations for external linking might be relevant to Design, Web Dev, and/or Biz Dev.  Specific terminology recommendations might be relevant to Writers/Editorial. I’ve learned the more you give them the more they’ll get done, and the better it will look for you – both in presentation and when they start seeing results.

SUMMARIZE IN AN OVERVIEW

This is it. This is the big shiny bow on this custom handmade contribution of your unmatched talent and innate inner wisdom that you’re lovingly bestowing upon your client. The crescendo, if you will.

The overview is for the beginning of the document.  Rather than just jumping right into demographics and recommendations, give the client a short summary of the purpose of this document and what they’ll find in it. Here are some of the things you might consider putting in this one or two paragraph overview (I don’t suggest it be much longer than that):

• Summarize why this document has been commissioned – what is the goal they are trying to attain
• Recap the issue(s) the client is having now (the reason they’re seeking your help)
• Explain the potential outcome the client can attain after implementing
• Explain the originality of this document – that it is a custom set of recommendations created specifically to meet the clients individual visibility needs (or something like that). And that it is not a best practices document.

This, by the way, follows the typical steps to persuasion (shown here in my words):

1. Show how awesome life would be if everything was perfect and nothing needed help
2. Show the reality – here is a problem & here’s how its hurting you
3. Let them know you have the solution for them
4. Let them know the solution is attainable if they take action
5. Give them the tools to take that action (this is really the rest of the document)

By the time they’re done reading your overview they’ll be salivating for what’s in this SEO Strategy document.

And with that we come to a close of the 8-Step SEO Strategy. Thanks for taking this journey with me and I hope some of the info in these 8 steps has given you insights and ideas to make you worth gobs of money. 

So go forth and conquer dearest SEOs, and don’t forget who led you on the path to multi-million-dollar SEO fame when you get rich off of this stuff.  You can find me here (very soon).

Xo, Laura

Do you like this post? Yes No

Read other posts by this Author: laura

Are You New To SEO And Unsure Of Where To Begin?

Syndicated From: SEO Consult - Certified Search Engine Optimisation Agency http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seoconsult/~3/QmMg8K-eZ0A/are-you-new-to-seo-and-unsure-of-where-to-begin.html

Search engine optimisation can be extremely overwhelming if you are new to the subject and are trying to learn about it for the benefit of your business. There is a massive amount of information to learn and understand and this information has to be applied practically too. A large number of business owners just beginning [...]

Related posts:

1. How To Select The Wrong SEO Firm If you are hoping to run a productive and…
2. First Steps On The Path To SEO Success Increasingly business owners are aware of the benefits of…
3. Three Reasons Why You Need a Basic Understanding of SEO Luckily for those new and interested in search engine…

Read other posts by this Author: Peter

Smith and W-Smith help with East of England initiative

James Warmington-Smith, Andrew Bentinck (Flynet CEO), Danny Smith

The East of England is in the vanguard of a new initiative aimed at bringing the power of business dashboard software to the average SME. Cambridgeshire web applications specialist, Flynet has secured proof of concept funding from the East of England Development Agency (EEDA), allowing the firm to look into the possibility of tailoring software that usually costs several thousands of pounds to the smaller company.

Ordinarily the preserve of big business, dashboards are a graphical representation – in the form of gauges, dials or graphs – of the performance of a company relative to its main priorities or targets.

Danny Smith of Smith and WSmith, the Suffolk-based web marketing company helping to promote the trial, explained the proposition: “The introduction of dashboards has revolutionised the way companies use and access their data; data becomes an attention directing tool to improve current and future performance, rather than just a past reflection to be analysed and agonised over.

“Dashboards condense information down to the minimum statistics a business requires reaching its targets, its ‘key performance indicators (KPIs).’ Small business owners can then access the data required, immediately, to make quick well reasoned decisions without needing to search through, and analyse, mountains of data.”….READ MORE HERE

The Canonical Link Attribute

Recently launched and supported by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft is the new Canonical link attribute – a method of reducing duplicate content. Watch the video to see how Matt Cutts (Google Web Search Quality) explains this new SEO feature.

Steps to a Killer Website

Delight your Visitors

Are you the kind of website owner that wants to give your website visitors a fantastic experience every time they come to your website? Do you want your customers to take action? Yes.  Then you need to make sure you meet your visitors expectations, firstly, your website design, (the look and feel), needs to be appealing to  keep your visitor.  The second key aspect covers the technical side, (the speed and resilience) and lastly there are certain marketing and sales “must haves”, (to satisfy each and every visitor and keep them coming back).

Heres what you do…

Web Design

• Use standard web conventions, don’t use unique and outrageous formats that noone’s ever seen or understands.
• Update your site content, make it interesting, compulsive and readable! Secondly, keep your content fresh with regular updating, this will not only keep your visitors returning, it will also keep the search engines coming back, ergo, more visits, more money!
• Website navigation,  keep it simple, clean and consistent, avoid javascript as its not visible by search engines. Make it easy for your visitors to find what they are looking for.
• Clear links and buttons, keep them consistent, easily understood, and regulary check they are working!
• Offer a search facility, have a sitemap – again, making it easy for your website visitor to browse and find.
  Tell your visitors how you can help them – don’t just ramble on about yourself, your offices and your staff.
• Grammar, punctuation & fonts, double check your spelling, grammar and fonts, keep them consistent throughout the site and make the fonts big enough to read or let your visitors listen!
• Include good, relevant text on each and every page, make sure you have text as a back up for images, this is called alternative text or “alt text”,  great for visitors and the search engines.

Technical

• Make sure your website loads quickly, on the web people are not patient, more than a couple of seconds and they will hit the back button! So not too many pictures or videos.
• Make it easily see-able on every browser, such as internet explorer, firefox, safari, opera etc.
• Ensure all the functions work, make sure all pages are consistent.
• Check your buttons, links and navigation are all working, there is nothing more frustrating than finding broken links, they really do chip away at your credibility.
• Ensure you have enough bandwidth to cope with the number of visitors you expect.
• Make sure you have some form of validation for your forms,  you don’t want the worlds craziest hackers sending you every nasty virus under the sun.
• Avoid gimmicks such as pop ups, moving boxes, loud music or animations and videos that take an age to load or run.
• Avoid frames, they are “old hat”.

C. Marketing

• Make your website sticky – add interesting content, give them freebies, don’t let them press the back button.
• Have a reason for each and every page to be there, give your visitor a “call for action”.
• Build your brand.
• Include terms and conditions, legal stuff, a sitemap and “about us” page.
• Give your visitors emotion, interest, make them smile, laugh or cry.
• Make it easy and obvious for your website visitor to contact you, include telephone contact, email contact, a real location address, build an email list, use all the tools.
• Convert your customers, measure everything, (Google analytics or web trends), especially your sales and marketing successes.

If you follow these items to the letter and you’ll be well on your way to having a killer website and delighting all who visit.