SEO Tips for the Graphic Design, Web Design Pro

One thing I've noticed lately is the number of beautifully designed web sites that lack basic search engine best practices. These site are designed from photoshop, fireworks or any other host of quick "slice and dice and ftp" design tools. I too use these tools to create my initial design concepts, but once the creative work is done, it's time to "think like a robot". If a someone were to read from your html line for line (html tags excluded) would they be able to tell who you are, where you are from or what your site is about?

Here are some helpful design tips:

1. Keep images to a minimum. (no more than 100kb total per page @ 72dpi)
   
2. Make sure you use html text copy and html links as often as possible.
3. If you must use images for button navigation, include descriptive ALT tags.
4. Use Flash and Gif animation hand in hand with HTML text, never rely on Google, MSN or Yahoo to spider your Flash designs. (this may come as a shock to flash intro designers)
   

Flex 2 Beta Review

Macromedia has opened it's new product, Flex 2, for a free beta download from labs. Labs is a step in the right direction to fostering adoption. What I found most interesting about their new product is how easy it was to get up and running with flex builder in a matter of minutes. Most of the components in Flex 2 were easy to create both in code view and design view. I felt as though the design environment could use a few tweaks... overall, a leap forward in rich internet apps! One small downside to Flex is the heavy price tag... upwards of 10k. Due to the cost, most smaller companies will not buy into this technology until there is a true return on their investment.