Have you ever tried to do SEO for a client with a terribly designed website? It can be a disheartening waste of skills and resources. What often happens is that even if a site ranks well, customers fail to see an increase in conversions. You feel like you’re just throwing yourself against a wall.

[Tip for SEO entrepreneurs and firms: web design companies make great SEO referral partners. Send them your clients with terrible websites and they can send your their clients with new websites that need SEO. Everyone wins]

It’s fine when the site arrives to you without good title tags, permalinks, etc. because that’s the SEO’s job to fix. It’s not good, however, when the graphic design is unappealing and navigation is dismal. Sometimes, to accomplish the end goal of helping a client be successful, a little web design consulting may be necessary.

Take this for example. I’ve worked with clients who have homepages that aren’t very engaging. Visitors tend to have a high bounce rate when they don’t find some significant call to action on the first page. Conversion can go through the roof by changing a button from this:

to this:

It’s a simple fix, but it can significantly boost the effectiveness of your SEO efforts. IMHO, improving a website will improve your ability to show your clients the results they’re looking for.

Make sure you get your ducks in a row. Whatever that means.