Ebits.ie

Posts Tagged ‘graphic design’

We all like pretty things. We like to see things that are visually pleasing. This is true for websites. However it is the downfall of many websites. They spend too much time and money on making their site look pretty with graphics and flash animations and forget about the search engine optimisation of their site.

You see when you are indexed by the major search engines, they “read” the text on your page. So if you have a really cool, flashy flash movie on your page, guess what the search engines as of yet can not read the content of it.

Another thing many designers do is create text objects as graphics. This may be for menu or navigation items. Guess what? Search engines can’t read the text of these graphical items. One way around this is to do the following. Save your graphic with a descriptive name, for example business_consulting_image.jpg then use the ALT tag to describe the image.

The ALT tag is alternative text that can be read if the browser does not show the picture or if a visually impaired person is using a device or software called a screen reader. A screen reader will read the ALT tag out to the visually impaired person. Think about this it makes sense. The person will then know what the picture is about.  Regardless of search engine optimisation this is a good practice to get into.

Using CSS or cascading style sheets you can make very attractive and interesting designs and not have to over rely on graphics.

Also think with the search engine in mind, then design around this.  Remember search engines love content so give it to them and they will give you the rankings you deserve!