Design with SEO in Mind
SEO Essentials – Part 2 of 5
Does your website design affect online ranking?
The best approach to creating a SEO-friendly website begins at the design stage. Developing an SEO strategy early on in the design process, careful consideration of the site structure and infrastructure, content, images and overall user experience will give you the best advantage.
Search and Design
Have you ever wondered what is it exactly that search engine bots do? They index, catalog, categorize and rank content by assessing a website’s structure from top to bottom. Think about it this way, the better the search engine understands your content the more relevant they determine it to be. And the more relevant the better when it comes to search engine optimization.
The way the pages are set up and the way the content is broken down affects the site’s rankings and quality score. Designing and developing an SEO-friendly website requires careful planning and a structured approach in order to create interactions that will clearly and honestly communicate the essence, point-of-view and values of your business or organization.
What’s in a name?
The technical structure of a site’s URL also plays a role in SEO. Search-friendly URLs are descriptive and memorable, giving some idea what the content is about. Opting for a more organized URL structure will help you to have the greatest impact. You’ll want to carefully consider the name and choose a user-friendly URL that will contribute positively to SEO.
Mobile Minded
More than half of all internet usage happens on mobile devices, so it is not surprising that search engines are looking a lot harder at the mobile version of a website. Google has rolled out mobile first indexing, which will consider the mobile version of your website the “real” version—even if someone searches from a desktop computer—making it even more important to maintain an up-to-date responsive website design.
Code and Load
There are various methods and techniques that experienced web designers use to assess and eliminate problems while ensuring the technical quality of your site. Search engines call it a “bounce” when someone clicks on a page and then leaves it quickly or returns to the search engine. If many people do this, it shows search engines that your site doesn’t seem to live up to expectations. The website design plays a major role in SEO because slow pages lead to higher bounce rates, loss of traffic and ultimately customer trust. Code and content analysis, optimizing script and loading times all play a role in SEO.
Security!
At the top of everyone’s mind is security. One of the latest additions to Google’s algorithm for SEO rankings, is the inclusion of SSL certificates. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) are small data files that are installed on your web server allowing for a secure connection from the web server to the browser. The SSL certificate creates a safer and more secure online experience for users.
Contact us to help you implement your SEO program. We can take your website to the next level and create something new and exciting that will provide relevant content, build authority and deliver an enhanced visitor experience.
Check back next week for Part 3 in this series, where we’ll focus on the keys to on-page SEO.
SEO Metrics You Should Know
In the last year, more than 51% of all website traffic worldwide was generated through mobile phones.
In this series, we will explore the following SEO topics:
- Part 1: Keep the Engines Running — SEO and why do you need it
- Part 2: Design with SEO in Mind — Considerations when designing and developing your website
- Part 3: Key Optimization Indicators — How to best format your webpages for users and search engines
- Part 4: Creating the User Experience — What makes your website unique, valuable or engaging
- Part 5: Building the Trust Factor — How to get your website to rank higher on Google