Whats more important - The Web Design or the SEO?

Hi All,

What is more important to you?

- the website design

or

- the SEO process

and which causes you the most pain?

For me its a 75% / 25% split beween the design and the SEO but the SEO causes me the most pain

Thanks for tuning in.

David Webb

SEO is more important.
And website content/functionality is even more important.

I'd say both are as important. Your SEO keeps the site alive and healthy, but a good design makes for a rewarding online experience.

It's about getting the right balance. Too much SEO that lacks design? Well, I'm sure your traffic will be sky high, but so will the bounce rate

And it goes the same for the other way. Great design that just lacks common SEO? Well, you see where I'm going

I absolutely agree. Good SEO will bring people to your site, but who would stay if your site has nothing to offer. It like retail, no matter how good your advertising, once they get to the store, you better have the product they are there for.

You cannot really say one is more important than the other, they do not work without each other like people have already said, they can both exist without the other, but for a proper functioning site, both need to be present

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My view, made crude:

• Content > Usability > SEO > Pretty graphics

In other words, these are my priorities (greatest importance first):

• Make great content
• Ensure people can use your website easily
• Ensure people can find your content easily (SEO)
• Worry about how it all looks

In reality, of course, development of these elements often occurs not sequentially but in parallel.

This might not be the same for all websites though.

Say you have a web design website, or your a graphic designer, if your website doesn't look good, due to the nature of your site people might be scared off.

I agree with your list up to a point, but i think that it's all relative depending on the type of site.

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I agree. It's not a universal law, just my crude prejudice.

Obviously it's biased towards content-providing websites. For a web design site, it might be:

SEO > Pretty graphics > Usability > Content

Yeh, what you said counts for most websites, but there are always exceptions, just to make things awkward

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