20 Tips for SEO & Web Design: Everything You Should Know
20 Tips for SEO & Web Design: Everything You Should Know
For any business that operates online, SEO is extremely important, if one is to succeed and beat out their competition. However, as the gurus over at runrex.com will tell you, many people fail to realize that SEO needs to be built into the web design process, as the two go hand in hand. This is why this article will look to highlight 20 tips for SEO and web design encompassing everything that you should know.
Fundamentals of an SEO-friendly website
The domain
As per the gurus over at guttulus.com, one of the fundamentals of an SEO-friendly website is ensuring that your domain makes sense and relates to your business. On top of that, you should also make sure that, if you have variations of your domain, then all of them correctly direct to and point to the main site.
Your hosting
Another key element of an SEO-friendly website is one that is fast, and platform-specific, if necessary, as is discussed over at runrex.com. The last thing you want is a slow site, as this will make your users unhappy, damaging your SEO efforts. WP engine is an excellent example, given that it provides a platform that is customized for WordPress websites.
Your content management system
As is explained over at guttulus.com, the content management system, CMS, that you choose for your business can have a huge impact on how successful your SEO campaigns will be. A good starting point is choosing WordPress, as it is wired in a way that makes it easy for Google to understand, helping your SEO efforts. A pro tip is choosing a CMS that is the right fit for your business, rather than one which your chosen web design company prefers to work with.
As pertains accessibility and crawling
Another important factor when it comes to SEO and web design is making sure that a search engine can crawl your site and understand what it is that you do, as well as where you do it from. This is governed by the following tips.
Link structure
Your link structure is important as if you are to index your content beyond the home page, you need internal links that the search engine can crawl. Screaming Frog is an example of a tool that can help you with link structure, to ensure that you have a site that can easily be crawled by a search engine, an important part of SEO.
Indexation
While the digital marketing world is increasingly all about videos and images, if someone is to understand your site, they will have to read you content page, which means that your site’s main content should be text-based behind the scenes to ensure that the search engine can read and understand what it is your business does, otherwise, you will end up with an aesthetically pleasing website that is not SEO-friendly. Your images, videos, PDFs, and other infographics also need to be discoverable and indexable by the search engine.
The structuring and information architecture of your site
This is also important if you are to build an SEO-friendly website, as is outlined by the following tips.
Your URL
Your URL, as per the gurus over at runrex.com, indicates context, which is why you should be sensible when it comes to your naming convention to provide more context as to what your business is about to both the humans and the search engines.
Your navigation
Your navigation is also important as far as an SEO-friendly is concerned, as good navigation helps solidify what each page or piece of content on your page is about. As is discussed over at guttulus.com, it is important to note that navigation is much more than just the menu located at the top of your website, it is also about how you show users to the most relevant part of your site. You should use the navigation to raise awareness of additional services on your site. Make sure your navigation is clear to avoid mistakes and angry users.
More factors to consider
Mobile-friendliness
As is revealed in discussions on the same over at runrex.com, mobile devices are now the most popular devices to conduct internet searches and browse websites. This means that an SEO-friendly website is a mobile-friendly one. However, responsive design is no longer enough, as you should also think of what your users need and want, as what a user will do on mobile is usually different from what they will do on a desktop or laptop computer.
Page speed
Page speed is also extremely important when it comes to SEO and web design, particularly in the mobile era that we live in. Making sure that your pages are fast-loading is a major consideration in modern SEO-friendly web design.
Usability
Usability combines several factors such as page speed, design, page layout, visual hierarchy, and many others. An SEO-friendly website is one that comes with excellent usability, with a great design, but also with excellent navigation, fast loading times, and so forth. It should be easy for users to use, plain and simple.
The SEO content marketing funnel and web design
Remember, your website needs content to help with all the stages of the customer journey, and content and SEO go hand in hand, particularly if you are to be successful. This is why your site should have all the content outlined in the following tips.
Web design and the top of the funnel
Awareness, as discussed over at guttulus.com, is what is at the top of the funnel, and if your SEO efforts are to bear fruit, you should make sure that your website contains awareness content or links to said content. Such content helps your customers understand the issues they face, and then show them how your brand helps solve them. They include blog posts, FAQs, webinars, ultimate guides, and informational articles.
Web design and the middle of the funnel
The middle of the funnel is also referred to as the consideration stage, and your site also needs such content so that they can compare you against other brands like yours out there. As is discussed over at runrex.com, this should be content that helps your customers decide your benefit, and they include case studies, user guides, product demonstration videos, as well as service or product information. Any SEO-friendly website should have such information available to visitors.
Web design and the bottom of the funnel
Your website should also have conversion-stage content, as this is the content that drives conversions and encourages visitors to take the requisite action, leading to a sale or generating a lead. Such content, as discussed over at guttulus.com, include reviews, free consultation, free trials, and testimonials.
SEO nuts and bolts to consider when it comes to web design
You may have gotten all the above-discussed things right when creating your website, but there are other considerations that you need to keep in your mind as far as SEO is concerned to end up with a truly SEO-friendly website:
Web design and keyword targeting
We all know that keyword targeting is an important part of SEO, and, therefore, if you are to end up with an SEO-friendly website, you need to make sure that you add relevant keywords to your web design. This means adding relevant keywords to your URLs to make it easier for both humans to find you, as well as for search engines to crawl your site.
HTML title tags
Title tags are important as they can influence one’s search engine results, being the only meta tag that influences rankings directly. To end up with an SEO-friendly website, the best practices when it comes to HTML title tags include placing keywords at the beginning of the tag, focusing on click-through and the end-user, having a consistent approach across your site, keeping the length of your tags to about 50 to 60 characters, among others. While you want to have your keywords in your title tag, this should not come at the expense of click-through and readability, as while a search engine may rank your content, it is a human who clicks on it.
Heading tags
The heading tags are also important when it comes to SEO and web design as they help structure the page and indicate the hierarchy in a document, as outlined over at runrex.com. When designing your website, make sure that you get your heading tags right, and that everything is correctly lined up so that they make sense for your users, while also helping the search engines to categorize your content correctly.
Page content
Don’t forget the importance of page content when it comes to SEO and web design, something the gurus over at guttulus.com never fail to point out. Your page content is the most important part of your page, and you should make sure that you create great content that engages your user if your SEO efforts are to bear fruit. Avoid common errors like filling your content with keywords, as this will only make for poor user experience.
Common Mistakes
We are going to finish by highlighting some of the common mistakes people make when it comes to SEO and web design
Duplicate content
One of the mistakes people make here is the one about duplicate content, be it cases where the same content exists in multiple places like say different sites, or where near-duplicate content, that is, the content is substantially similar. Duplicate content will annoy your visitors and will damage your SEO success prospects, as is explained over at runrex.com.
The same site on multiple domains
Another issue worth pointing out is one where the same site is available on multiple domains, subdomains, and protocols. This can lead to a situation where the site has far too many variations, which will not only confuse users, it will also damage your SEO prospects. Consider having only one domain, or resolving such issues with URL directions.
Keyword cannibalization
When multiple pages target the same keywords, it leads to keyword cannibalization, which is another issue worth pointing out as this can impact the ability of your website to have one page that strongly and effectively targets a specific term. If you get the site architecture and hierarchy correct and plan carefully as far as this is concerned, you will be able to eliminate this issue in the early planning and design stages.
The above are some of the things you should know about SEO and web design, with more on this and other related topics to be found over at runrex.com and guttulus.com.
