Reduced cross talk between adjacent read and write circuits in a disk drive suspension interconnect results from interposing a ground trace conductor between the circuits and generally for the full length thereof and grounding the ground trace conductor suitably through a further metal layer on the opposite side of the insulative layer that supports the interconnect read and write circuits. The ground trace conductor or other metal strip located like ground trace conductor is used to define a precise locus for optical alignment of the electrical interconnect relative to the suspension flexure better than the insulative layer through more accurate etching of the metal strip. The first metal layer and the insulative layer may be made by an additive process.