In a lot of different ways,
website design has gotten a whole lot easier over the past decade. With the introduction of highly optimized, fluent, user-friendly services like Squarespace or WordPress, the actual act of building a website is no longer a complex and obscure task that can only be taken on by trained professionals. And it’s not just that basic sites can be made, you can make fully professional websites that are highly presentable with ease.
However, the other side of this is that the world that websites exist in, the state of the internet in the current age, is so much more complicated, so much more specific in what it takes to make a success out of your website, that you have to work a lot harder in areas that you didn’t have to previously. One new area of concern is
SEO or search engine optimization. Websites can’t exist in isolation; they have to work within a framework.
That framework is called a search engine, like
Google, for example. In order to have a successful site on Google, you need to do certain things to your site to make it appealing to the search engine. This is what SEO is all about and it’s what we’re going to be looking at. So, without further ado, let’s look at 7 tips for using SEO to
improve your website design.
Optimize Your Flow
Website flow refers to the ease with which a user, or more pertinently for SEO, a search engine bot, can navigate your site. “A search engines start to get to grips with your website they usually do so through a process called ‘crawling’.
Crawling is where a bot is sent to all the different pages on your site to gather information which can be assessed and used to decide how to rank your site and when to direct users towards your site as they search”, explains Steve Birkin, digital marketer at
UKTopWriters and
Revieweal. Crawling is a good thing for your site, but it can be held up, particularly through
poor graphic design and site flow. Furthermore, using un-optimized Java elements on your site will similarly trip up search engine bugs trying to get to know your site.
Design Your URLs For Simplicity And Memorability
URLs are often a bit of an afterthought as you go about constructing the more interesting elements to your website. Whatever software you use to design the website, it will often automatically generate the URLs for your individual pages as you design, but you have to be vigilant about this. When you are getting ready to go live, you want to talk a look at all of the URLs for every nook and cranny of your site. If you find URLs that are complex and not memorable, then you need to change them. Long, complicated URLs can be detrimental to
SEO performance.
Attend To Your Meta-Descriptions
Meta-descriptions don’t directly affect your
SEO performance. But ignoring them will do you know favors. “Think about it like this: your meta-descriptions are an advertisement opportunity for your page within the search engine framework. So, although your ranking won’t change directly, it will certainly affect how many visitors you receive, which, in turn affects your ranking”, explains Daniel Leung, SEO Manager at
BestAustralianWriters and
BestBritishEssays. We all know what they look like, but their impact is easy to underestimate. In fact, they play a major role in dictating how a search engine user decides to take the next step in their search for whatever they are looking for. Pay attention to it with care.
Keep Content Fresh
There’s nothing like letting your page go stale to let your search engine know that you aren’t interested in maintaining your ranking. Search engines reward sites that are active, which can be a state that has many different indicators. In general, the best way to stay on top of this element is to keep your content fresh. Running a blog or a built-in
social media element will mean that fresh content is always cycling through your site, keeping things relevant and keeping your
SEO game elevated.
Don’t Overdo Keywords
Once upon a time, keywords were absolutely the undisputed route towards impressing
search engines. Match the content on your site to what you think people will be searching in the Google search bar and job done! Well, that certainly isn’t the case anymore, and for good reason. Keyword abuse is a boring and meaningless metric to judge website success by and search engines are smart enough to ensure that anyone loading their page with meaningless keywords, will get punished for it. Keep your keywords focused and relevant to avoid doing any damage to your site’s reputation.
Fractured Site Structure
The shape of your website, particularly if you are using a
consumer website builder, is hidden from view. This is a ‘streamlined’ approach but also one which can lead to a lot of problems. For example, you can have a page on your website that can’t be accessed via a URL but only through a site search. Or, you might have a page that can’t be accessed through the site but only via a URL, or two pages with the same name. Any of these issue can be detrimental to how your site functions.
Mobile Is A Must Have
Mobile searches make up a frighteningly large percentage of all google searches. Make sure that you have a mobile version that is more than adequate and helps boost your SEO by catering with ease to those visitors who use mobile to make their searches.
Conclusion
Overall,
SEO is a vital and deceptively complex issue. You can feel like you’re getting a handle on things and then all of a sudden you uncover a deeper layer to the whole issue that makes life even more complex. Clarity and integrity are the basic principals you need to adopt. With these, you can’t go too far astray.
lot of different ways,
website design has gotten a whole lot easier over the past decade. With the introduction of highly optimized, fluent, user-friendly services like Squarespace or WordPress, the actual act of building a website is no longer a complex and obscure task that can only be taken on by trained professionals. And it’s not just that basic sites can be made, you can make fully professional websites that are highly presentable with ease.
However, the other side of this is that the world that websites exist in, the state of the internet in the current age, is so much more complicated, so much more specific in what it takes to make a success out of your website, that you have to work a lot harder in areas that you didn’t have to previously. One new area of concern is
SEO or search engine optimization. Websites can’t exist in isolation; they have to work within a framework.
That framework is called a search engine, like
Google, for example. In order to have a successful site on Google, you need to do certain things to your site to make it appealing to the search engine. This is what SEO is all about and it’s what we’re going to be looking at. So, without further ado, let’s look at 7 tips for using SEO to
improve your website design.
Optimize Your Flow
Website flow refers to the ease with which a user, or more pertinently for SEO, a search engine bot, can navigate your site. “A search engines start to get to grips with your website they usually do so through a process called ‘crawling’.
Crawling is where a bot is sent to all the different pages on your site to gather information which can be assessed and used to decide how to rank your site and when to direct users towards your site as they search”, explains Steve Birkin, digital marketer at
UKTopWriters and
Revieweal. Crawling is a good thing for your site, but it can be held up, particularly through
poor graphic design and site flow. Furthermore, using un-optimized Java elements on your site will similarly trip up search engine bugs trying to get to know your site.