Website re-design is sometimes necessary if you want your website to be found in the search engines. Generally web designers build websites to look good and please their clients. However what the client wants and want the search engines want are two very different things.

For a site to perform in the search engines or be ‘crawler friendly’ it has to be built with the search engines in mind, as well as your potential visitors. It is best built with the best programming languages such as xhtml and php and be CSS driven. The site needs to be built is such away that the search engine robots can find each page easily and so can any visitors.  Keyword research needs to be done before the design process so the sites architecture and navigation can be based around your keywords.

Search engines are text analysis programs that can only read text.  They cannot read JavaScript links and menus and cannot interpret graphics and Flash.  This doesn’t mean you cannot use Flash or JavaScript it just means you have to use some other form of html links in the main navigation on every page.  When using images there needs to be Alt tags which allow you to name your image giving the search engines an understanding of what image it is. 

There are known places on a webpage that the eye is attracted too, like the top left and right of the page. You should always have your phone number on the top right and any call to action buttons on the left. This site is a good demonstration of this.