Web design is part of the development project and you need to ensure that you have a nice looking website that will work in many situation. It is important to avoid working with web designers who don’t have a clue about what SEO is really about. You need to ask them these questions, so you can be sure that you are working with the right individuals. First of all, you should ask what code they use. If web designers appear to be somewhat non-technical, they won’t know much about the code. It is a good thing if web designers have significant proficiency in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It is also a good thing if web designers know how to work with server-side codes, although they don’t need to be as technical as the actual programmers.
Another basic question to ask is whether the web designer has good knowledge with various SEO details. As an example, they should know how to ensure that the navigation of the website will work well for bots. Without proper navigation elements, it is possible that some of the webpages will stay hidden. You should be wary of web designers who offer you to submit your website to the search engine. It is something that you can easily do on your own. The person may seek to get money from you using all different possible ways. Also, you should avoid web designers who charge you for creating XML sitemaps and robots.txt. The former can be created using a number of tools for free. As an example, WordPress allows you to create a sitemap by using a plugin. On the other hand, robots.txt is already present in our server and its default setting already works well for many situations.
You should also ask the web designer about the type of standards that they follow. If the designer is experienced and skilled, they should be able to answer this quickly and without problem. The W3C already provides us with the best practices that we can follow on the Internet. They provide is with various recommendations and standards that we can follow, such as how HTML and CSS codes should be formatted. Without standards, designers will create a jumble of code that can end up slowing and confusing search engine bots. By following the standards and by having full compliance, the load time of your page can be reduced significantly. Your page will also look great for users and the speed of your webpage will be more than acceptable.
You should also know about the price structure used for SEO. As an example, the web designer could provide you with a flat fee or hourly pay. When you are working with a designer for the first time, you may agree with the flat fee and after you are confident with the reliability of the designer, then you could choose the hourly rate. In general, flat fee can be used during a big development project, while hourly fee can be used for maintenance and small tasks that can be completed in a short period of time. By asking the above questions, you should be able to prevent working with typical scammers in the SEO industry.
