Updates for the week ending on December 13, 2024

I know a lot of people will be starting a new website next year. Never fear: I’ve updated my website design guidelines for you!

I am not a web designer. In fact, I’m pretty poor at design.

Any design you like about this website is thanks to someone else.

However, I work with web designers (and developers) as they build websites.

The problem: even the best web designers or developers can build websites that Google doesn’t like.

It’s not their fault. They have a different goal than I do. For them, the website has to “work.” While I (obviously) want a website to work, too, as the SEO consultant here my job is to make sure it works for Google.

That’s why I’ve written out my website design guidelines– and recently updated them.

This is a document with a long history. Over my many years of working in SEO, I keep adding things to this document. Sure, Google has changed their suggested best practices for websites, now and then- but it hasn’t really changed that much over the years. The real changes on this document come from designers or developers who do things I never thought anyone would try. Sometimes a developer, for instance, wants to do something cool and new that they just read about (and who can blame them). Unfortunately, sometimes this can be a bad idea to Google.

So, if you’re going to build a new website this year, be sure to get a copy of these guidelines and give them to your designer and developer before they begin.