SEO vs. Design - Round 3: O3 Steps Toe-to-Toe with SEER Interactive

If you’re looking for an ethical and successful SEO company, there is no better place than SEER Interactive. They treat their customers with respect and demand results from themselves. Go ahead… go to Google… type in “Philadelphia SEO Company”… see how awesome they are. So, when SEER approached us to be their Philadelphia web design firm and web developers for their new site, we jumped at the opportunity.

The challenge, however, was that this was no ordinary redesign. While we’re frequently asked to account for SEO campaigns when we design a new site, SEER’s needs presented an entirely new set of challenges. But, given our driving desire to never compromise on design and always deliver on an appropriate solution, we rolled up our sleeves, put our heads together and outlined a strategy for success.

The first major challenge we faced was to account for copious amounts of SEO content on the home page (i.e. Philadelphia internet marketing). In order to maintain their current page one status on search engines, SEER required a large block of copy consisting of key phrases and terms for which they are ranked. By itself, this wasn’t such a huge deal… but this was only one piece of the puzzle. They also required featured clients, a newsletter sign up, recent blog posts, a call-out to Wil Reynold’s YouTube page and a laundry list of other client links and SEO verbiage. That’s a pretty big puzzle.

The major issue we faced was not only getting all this material on the home page, but having the major items appear above the fold. As we did with our home page overhaul, we implemented a balance of Javascript and CSS on the large block of copy to create a “slide” effect that moves the copy left to right (1). This also allowed the major secondary items to move up on the page and above the fold (2).

Which brings us to the blog. Anyone who follows SEER’s blog knows how informative and insightful the SEER staff can be. It is critical to SEER’s SEO success. So it was important that we give it both prominence and personality… and made sure the 4 step upgrade to a new Wordpress platform was seamless. We integrated it into the homepage (3) and SEER’s idea to use baby pictures for the authors was priceless (4).

Finally, since SEER uses their site as an SEO hub for clients, we also had to work in a solution for their “client news”. While we were given a “hey man, just leave a big space for us at the bottom”, our egos and design sensibility refused to comply. So we created a secondary slider (5) with multiple slide states that also integrated with the Wordpress blog module. This gave SEER the ability to add their news items without detracting from the elegance of the design.

While designing for SEO is a challenging process, we’ve welcomed it with open arms. As we’re waiting to see if and how our hard work pays off, we’re hopeful the new design and development methods we’ve implemented will prove successful. We’ve already seen a drastic improvement in our own rankings, and we’re excited to see how SEER’s site handles the overhaul. But… so far so good. If you have further questions about designing for SEO… or are interested in an assessment of your design, click here to contact us. Remember: there’s always a successful way to create a balance between function and form… your site does not need to look terrible just because you have SEO needs. It just takes a little work.