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Great web design requires more than great aesthetics. After all, unless users can find your site, who will be able to admire its beauty? Web designers should consider SEO, or search engine optimization, when building sites.

Many designers rely too heavily on images or animations—both of which can make your site load too slow for impatient users and can’t be read by search-engine crawlers. Images should always have alt tags and descriptive names. Even better is image-replacement. CSS lets you have “real” text on a page that displays as an image instead of plain text, but is read by crawlers and screen readers the same way as regular text.

Check your site stats with a variety of website analyzers to see where you’re doing well and where you can improve. Simple things like submitting your site to directories like Technorati and ZoomInfo can help increase your site’s search engine ranking. Directories that specialize in what your site is about are especially good for improving your site’s rank in the search engines.

Some link directories specializing in design:
Web Designers Directory
Web Developers Directory
Web Masters Directory
Web Design Directory
Design Directory