I know this is an old thread but the information here is still great. I just have to add that maybe you "Tess & Hamid" need to write a book. Just a thought

Originally Posted by Tess

I would say that YES, SEO *should* be part of the deal - if you're paying someone to create a website for you it should come standard. That doesn't mean your developer has to be an SEO guru, but they should have a good understanding of how search engines read and interact with websites. There are certain site-based things a web builder will do for your site while they are building it that can help increase your search rankings for keywords relative to the industry including (but certainly not limited to) - image alt tags - (placing a bit of text 'behind' an image so that search engines have something to read - they can't 'see' your images so that is essentially wasted space in terms of SEO, description and keyword meta tags - these are arguably less important these days, but are still worth doing corectly, well-written page title tags - preferrably *different* for each page and relative to that page's content/message (this is a science in and of itself and is something a good developer can help you with), good navigation - (again, this is really about *users* but is also helpful for search engine spiders trying to index all of your pages, no sense in making it hard for either one to get around your site ), and of course your content - the more original and fresh it is the better - being able to easily update your page content can be important so consider how you will manage this once the site is complete (will you need to pay the developer to make changes, can you update on your own, will you have a content management system to allow for this? etc.) Some developers offer content editing or will even write your content for you - though I always ask a client to write their own content, however it may turn out, it's so important that the 'voice' of the website be genuine, unique, and truly reflect the business/person/product being displayed - and then edit for/with them toward better SEO, but *first* for user comprehension/getting the message across in the best way possible. The most important aspect of your site should always be user-end, a search engine may index your site higher if you've got great keywords, etc. but they're not going to hire you Keeping the user in mind first and foremost and *then* layering in SEO aspects will ultimately be better for your business all the way around. For a detailed article on all of the above and then some click here.

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