Attractive and professional websites are essential for businesses today. They are replacing traditional brick-and-mortar stores in a world where most people are searching for products and services primarily online. That’s why it’s necessary to pay close attention to website design. But, relying solely on looks will help a business less. A website must also be optimized for search engines to improve its online visibility. And this is where search engine optimization is a requirement today. However, SEO is not something you should add later on; it should be integrated into the web designing process. Whether just creating a new or rebuilding your old website, SEO-friendly web design is a strategy to follow. Failing to understand this properly will only slow you down in accomplishing your business goals.
SEO-Friendly Web Design Guidelines
A website is the center of most of a business’s marketing efforts. It may look nice and shiny, but even the most beautiful design will only bring results with proper optimization. Even worse, spending additional time optimizing it later on will only lead to extra time and costs. So, before you start a new web design project, take advice from a trusted web design company and carefully evaluate your options. Have thorough consideration on how to create a website that is both search engine and user-friendly.
To help you create a quality website, here are some SEO-friendly web design guidelines that web designers and developers follow closely:
- Wrap your ideas around the content
- Make a visually appealing website
- Create a proper website structure
- Prioritize mobile optimization
- Provide a good user experience
- Last but not least, be sure all code and images are optimized.
Wrap your ideas around the content.
Since SEO should be an integral part of the design, you have to plan it with content in mind early on. Quality content is, without exception, crucial if you want a website to be valid for visitors. It has to be relevant, easy to digest, and, above all, helpful. However, from an SEO standpoint, the content is fertile soil for seeding various SEO techniques. With keywords and links as central, the strategic implementation within will help you rank well on search engines. First, they help establish connections and guide visitors throughout your website. Second, search engines use them as reference points when evaluating the quality and relevance of given material.
For example, fresh and up-to-date blog posts, listings on other relevant websites, and many more. They provide helpful information while allowing you to use different SEO strategies for better ranking results. Of course, nothing can change overnight because it will take some time to see the first results of your SEO efforts. But, like many things in business, it’s a worthy and reliable long-term investment. Also, while brainstorming about the content and design ideas, don’t forget to consider the right content management system (CMS). WordPress is a great choice (our favorite) for most situations. Not that it’s the only one, but it works well with search engines. It is design-friendly enough that you can easily adjust, add, and make future changes when necessary.
Could you make a visually appealing website?
Once you decide on the core content of your website, it’s time to create a visually appealing layout. This is where most beginners make crucial mistakes. Remember that you are building a website primarily for your visitors, not just yourself. In most cases, a website is there as a digital tool to boost your marketing efforts. That’s why the problems it should aim to solve are your users’ problems. However, it has to have a practical yet beautiful design to improve and provide a good user experience (UX). While creativity can go in different directions, it should stay within professional boundaries for a business website. Nothing too overwhelming, flashy, or over-styled would help. It’s better to remain professional and contemplate a unified and straightforward design. Something that will reflect your brand image and help you stay memorable.
Could you create a proper website structure?
You want to ensure visitors are clear once they land on your pages. A properly structured website should be easy to explore using clear and concise navigation. It should be easy to find when someone is looking for specific information (about a product, for example). Besides the search option, your internal linking structure can help a lot. It will hurt the website’s usability if it’s not intuitive and seamless. This is why it’s crucial to consider several design templates before picking one that only looks good. It also has to “feel” good. In the case of an inspirational block, you can always look at what your competitors are doing. Check their internal and external links, the navigation bars, and the overall feel they provide. Here are some elements worth exploring while examining other successful websites:
- Domain name
- URL structure
- Sitemaps
- Navigation menus and sidebars
- Header and footer elements
- Content structure (formatting, headings, number of page links, etc.)
- others
Finally, you need to ensure that search engines can crawl and index your website and all its pages. This will help them understand what the website is about and classify you better on search engine result pages.
Prioritize mobile optimization
Smartphones and other mobile devices are the most popular means of browsing the internet today. This is the age of portable devices, and businesses should seriously consider it in web design. While responsive website design has been widely used for a long time, the mobile-first approach is becoming a necessity. So, I’d like you to start planning your website layout with mobile devices in mind first. This is not only because it will be easier to optimize it this way but also because Google considers this one of the ranking factors. When evaluating your website, Google will examine the mobile version.
Provide a good user experience.
We already mentioned that navigation and structure help with the user experience. But that is not the only thing that affects it. Everything from mobile-friendliness to loading speed to additional functionality also affects UX. You have to place yourself in their shoes to design a great website that users will love visiting. In essence, it’s necessary to research what they expect, need, and what makes them engaged. Even a simple, awkward combination of colors can seriously affect and even repel a part of your potential audience.
On the other hand, remember that people today have little patience. They want information fast and won’t waste time waiting for your website to load slowly. Creating a website for your business has to be technically optimized and load and function without problems. In other words, everyone will expect a high level of performance without exceptions.
SEO-friendly web design should be a priority to keep visitors engaged and search engines satisfied. With a beautiful design and a performing website, you will have no trouble retaining visitors. The SEO part of the designing process will help you rank higher and drive more traffic. And with good traffic and engagement, you will send signals to search engines you are valuable. As a result, you will win even better rankings, and the magic circle is complete.
