Why You Should Never Trust Your Web Designer With Your SEO

There are a few things that are certain. Death, taxes, and the fact that web designers just don’t get search engines (actually, a select few do). These days a lot of folks build websites that are cool, colorful, and Web 2.0ish, but not optimized for search engines. Leaving SEO to your web designer is like asking an astronomer to do a surgery on you. There is a good chance it’s not going to work.

Web designers are good at finding the right contract of colors for your site or designing attractive layout for your sites. But what they are not good at is how to design a site that is search-engine friendly. A lot of people go rentacoder.com and and post a project asking for someone who can design a site that is good looking and search engine friendly. The truth is a whole lot of designers don’t know what you mean by that. Unfortunately, many designers are not willing to accept they don’t know something. So they design your site, and then ask you for a few thousands more to make your site search engine friendly.

Web designers are not stupid. They know SEO is a hot topic these days, and they can’t afford to acknowledge their lack of knowledge in that area. In addition, a few designers actually think they know SEO when in fact they have no idea what they are talking about. You can’t fault web designers here. You need to be as specific as you can be with these guys, and even then expect your site to be less than optimized. But it’s better to know the facts beforehand than putting your complete trust in someone who will probably not provide you with what you are looking for. When it comes to SEO, most web designers do not get it. That’s just a fact of life.