Website design without SEO is pointless. In fact, targeted keyword research should be done before anything else. After that is when strategic design and copywriting decisions are made.

Usually this step is tedious and more involved than website owners want to deal with, so they jump into the design phase because it’s more fun… until they either have no traffic, or traffic that fails to convert… because there is no alignment with purpose.

Invariably the next seemingly logical step in this desperate downward spiral is to buy pay-per-click traffic for specific keywords. Of course, since the content of the landing pages was never optimized for specific targeted terms, the conversion rate is virtually nil because the content doesn’t match the pay-per-click keywords. Again, no alignment… and huge credit card bills.

Usually, at this point, you will find little square indentations in the website owners’ foreheads… the result of repeatedly banging their heads on their desks.

Please don’t let this be you.

Internet success is not a myth… but it’s just not quite that simple. If you have already experienced this, consider it a character-building exercise and a very valuable lesson.

If you haven’t gotten that far, then count your blessings. It’s a lot less expensive to do it right the first time than it is to do it all over again after you’ve already paid for it once before.

A good SEO consultant charges a handsome hourly rate, but if you consider the cost of doing it all wrong, and the time it wastes much less the emotional toll, the price you pay for good solid SEO web design advice is an investment that yields dividends in more ways than one.