Redesigning our agency site. A blank slate, any suggestions...?

[SimpsonGareth]

I'm an SEO at a Web Design Agency and we are just about to start work on a new site. We have a complete blank slate to work with and the designers / developers will honor any requests I make.

I'm not asking you guys to do my job for me, I've been doing a lot of research and I have a large feature set ready. However I am interested in what you guys would go for in this situation. What cool new SEO features can we use? Any examples of websites that you like?

The creatives are very keen on HTML5, parallex scrolling and very minimalist design. I need to make sure we can achieve these things whilst also have a super optimised site.

Any suggestions / examples?

Thanks

[Carla_Dawson]

We just redesigned our site.

We just did a Parallax Site with onsite optimization. It also has CSS3, and responsive design. It is still in Beta. It is also Wordpress and it has Yoast

http://www.posicionamientowebenbuscadores.com/

This article is in spanish but I will be posting it in Youmoz in English very soon. The graphics help

http://www.posicionamientowebenbuscadores.com/blog/seo-parallax/

It is not optimized for IE (Internet Explorer). You must use Chrome or Firefox to see it. You will be redirected to our old site if you use Explorer

Thanks

Carla

PS. I forgot to mention that it has some schemas too.

[matbennett]

Beat them with a stick. It's the only kind thing to do

I'll admit that I just find those pages annoying anyway. The Smokeybones one in particular I just wouldn't bother with. Any page that needs instructions is a fail in my book.

The blue leaf one is better (although IMHO falls apart a bit after the home page). However neither are really built with much regards to SEO beyond the title tags.

Something that has worked well for us in the past when dealing with those with a strong creative agenda is to specify minimum standards - particularly with regards to page structure. Literally give them a CSS free example page to work from. Could be a route to go down and will give you a chance to minimise the difference impact of change if the site currently does well.

[SimpsonGareth]

Hi Mat,

Not dull at all, thank you! Yes that is the struggle I face. The designers want something similar to this:

http://www.smokeybones.com/

http://www.blue-leaf.co.uk/

I'm thinking we can have a long scrolling page like this for the homepage but have a more traditional layout with inner pages.

We get most of our leads from organic search so we can't afford to lose out on SEO in favour of design.

Any more input from Mat or anyone else is very welcome

[matbennett]

I'd be careful with parallax scrolling to be honest. I know that designers love it as it gives them a chance to play with something new that they can show off. However it really doesn't lend itself to the best structure for SEO or even (in many cases) the best user experience. Like most things, it can be done if done well, but it's something to be aware of.

I'm not entirely sure that there are many cool new SEO features. The principals of solid, sustainable SEO haven't changed that much in the 16 years I've been involved (although the shortcuts have!).

Microdata & semantic markup is one area that could be described as an SEO feature, but the uses of that would be limited on most agency style sites.

If I were looking at redesigning (which I really should be!), I'd lean more towards video as well - with the appropriate microdata and video sitemap - in fact optimising for all types of universal results.

If you are including blog style content then I'd also have real focus on the social sharing angle. Look at how best to maximise that for all that it can bring.

Dull answers I am afraid.