What's better - SEO friendly or good-looking?

easy. register it on website directory then just do 3 ways linking to increase backlinks and alexa

 

Both are equally important but I would say your primary focus should be content first. However, people SEE before they READ anything so it doesn't matter if your site is SEO friendly and your bounce rate is high. You should definitely focus on design in preparation for traffic once your site is "Search Engine Optimized".

 

both can be done together ,you need not to add any extra fancy graphics to make your site good looking u can do it by just using good colors and Typography,and then you can concentrate more on SEO as that is very important to reach to ur target audience.

 

Well, that's my problem! I could add great lookin graphics and menus but that could be bad for SEO! I think I will concentrate more on SEO and show people my portfolio to prove them I know what I'm doing. I will also concentrate on AdSense CTR since I don't want to make money just by freelancing.

 

You need both. without SEO people don't know you exist. Without a nice looking site people will leave. You can use your keywords in alt tags with your images to give yourself better SEO, as well as heading tags. Having both is not hard.

Julie

 

100 bucks - both are inevitable for professionalism..

 

it is not mutually exclusive. stick SEO stuff at the bottom of the page where most users won't see it. you still can use meta tags, alts for images - won't hurt the looks, would it?

 

I agree with others opinion. Why choose if you can have both.
I believe that a good seo specialist can still optimized well your rankings even having the most complex design.
Good luck buddy!

 

Website with good design makes people more impressive and cache. Designing itself seems that there is not limit for it and i feel do SEO partially, so that it can have two shades.

 

blend of both....But i feel at all need to choose any one though will be rarest scenario now...one should go with better UI which will keep user's interest....if they like your website they are gonna discuss it, which will do link building and thus will help in seo. You can also do aggressive marketing with it.
Lot of users with high bounce rate never helps, it may yield more revenue in the beginning but in long run will harm you..as there are less chances of getting back users who bounced back earlier

 

By far the most important of the two is SEO. SEO is what will bring in visitors and potential customers. The website may not be a work of art, but that won't do much harm if the SEO is good. But I would improve the site later as traffic builds.

 

Both are important. But good design is more important in my mind

 

If your site is in the first three places on Google - design is secondary.
If your design is brilliant and you are placed on page 23 - design is irrelevant.

 

hi,

if you want your site to be on top of search engines its better to concentrate on SEO.

 

I think SEO friendly must be because if your site is not SEO friendly then very difficult to popular it but looking is also impotant.
So make a mix version and manage both thinks equally.

 

Well i think both can be balanced without any problems!! You can change to flash for nice graphics after you website has USEFUL incoming regular traffic until then use CSS and javascript to do your best on graphics

cheers

 

Is it to much to ask for both?

Use valid CSS and there will be no problem to get high ranking with lots of relevant links. Read a starters book about CSS and you will be able to do top noch designs in no time.

Cheers,

 

The good thing about doing an SEO optimized design, is once you get a couple internet marketers to buy one of your themes, they'll tell their list that you're a good place to get them(you should make an affiliate program and pay people who refer ppl to you)...you'll get a ton more business that way

 

Hello !
I guess both are important. And its not a big job i guess to have the both features. A SEO friendly site and a high graphic site can be maintained both at the same time. Try doing CSS styles. That is helpfull and the popular way.

Best of LUCK

 

These properties don't exclude each other, so create website with both.