Web Usability and SEO Friendliness Part 2

Okay here goes, the second installment!

Design Site Pages W/Visual "Roadmaps":

a. Include points of high contrast to attract the attention.
b. Use different font sizes (i.e. larger fonts for headings).
c. Underlined or highlighted links.
d. White space - surround text, images and clickable links w/white space.
e. Use images for color contrast.
f. Use captions on Images.
g. Use motion (Use flash or video, but not too much).

Be Consistent:

a. Alignment - Use alignment to separate different information from different source areas (i.e. Headers separated w/larger font and white space).
b. Navigation - That is, same nav on each page.
c. Same visual anchors on each page.
d. Same use of white space on each page.
e. Same use of headers and small text "chunks" - easy for visitors to spot and read.
f. DON'T mix with too many font styles. Starting a site design or re-design project for your company's website can be overwhelming with all the details you must decide on and consider. In doing so, the issue of SEO and web usability is quickly forgotten or placed low on the priority list. Whether an e-commerce or business-to-business lead generating site, it is critical to the long-term performance of the site to implement not only the SEO factors in a site design, but to consider all elements of website usability in the equation.