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Can a SEO consultant be successful without also being a website designer?
In my area it seems that every website designer claims to be an SEO expert. Are SEO consultants successful without being a site designer? Are site designers successful with SEO?
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3 Answers
Colin,
There are people who are both and depending on the circumstances you can be one without the other. I started my consulting business as an SEO consultant and I quickly found myself being a WordPress website designer. WordPress and strong web design was the means to my organic SEO end. Now I actually really love WordPress and all the possibilities it offers to my small business clients.
I've tried to optimize client's websites that are outside my control and I'll admit it is painful. There are so many unknowns to deal with each day. And honestly, most companies who need SEO, need good web design too. It is also true the other way around.
Christopher makes some good comments and you do need to be cautious. As much as I love my industry and the great people within it, there are a number of people who makes claims and have no basis to support those claims.
Rebecca
What I've been told by clients over the last decade is that most web designers turn a blind-eye to the entire search engine optimization process. They build a site and walk away, leaving the client wondering, "What went wrong?"
On Elance I rank in the Top 10% of SEO Experts worldwide, so I do not feel that I speak for most freelance agencies, but I know firsthand that one can certainly be a designer first-and-foremost and then back that creative aptitude with applied technical expertise. I would also not hesitate to say this is outside the norm.
Conclusively, an SEO consultant can definitely be an expert at optimizing with only the most basic of design experience since most optimization techniques are performed behind the scenes, so it should have minimal impact on a site's visual flair. A site designer, if knowledgeable in SEO/SEM best-practices, could also be an excellent search engine optimization consultant although I think it is a rarer find.
I know SEO folks who do web design and also know copywriters who are excellent SEO folks; and they don't know web coding. It depends I think on the person doing the work.
However, I believe that it's helpful when someone can change the code a bit, too.
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