Your website is what introduces your brand to your audiences. However, to carry out that quintessential function, it should first be discovered from among the zillion other websites, including those of your competitors. The only thing that can help you accomplish this is an efficient SEO friendly website design.
What is SEO friendly website design?
Quite simply, it means creating websites that are designed in a way that makes them search engine-friendly. Search engines can then access and crawl each page easily, interpret the content effectively and index it in their database.
Why is SEO friendly website design important?
Because you want more traffic – also, more relevant traffic to your website. Also, you want your website to rank well on Google and other search engines.
When you develop your website, always keep your users in mind. But remember, keeping the search engines in mind is equally important – they are what will eventually unite you with your users.
How to design an SEO friendly website
Here are certain tips and tricks that help will help:
1. Be clever about keyword placement
You already know that keywords are exceedingly important for SEO and that every single page on your website should have a unique one. Making a keyword work, however, involves using it judiciously not just in your content, but in other places too. These include:
· Title tag
· Meta description
· Subheadings
· Content
· Images (file name and alt tag)
· URL
· Link anchor text
· Breadcrumb trails
· Footer links
If you need help finding the right keyword for your pages, you can use keyword research tools to plan your website.
2. Use an SEO friendly URL
As aforementioned, you need to think about your user as well as the search engines. Keeping this in mind, ensure that your URL is easily interpreted by both.
Let’s explain this with examples:
Bad URLs:
https://digitalcreate.com/service.aspx?ID=11526&IT=5f7d3d
This does not let the search engine – or the user know what the page is all about.
https://digitalcreate.com/services/website-designing/template/ocean-blue/official
This URL is too long, with too many sub-categories.
Good URLs:
https://digitalcreate.com/services/website-designing
This one has a good length, outlines the website name, the relevant category and the keyword for the page in question, all of which can be well interpreted.
https://digitalcreate.com/blog/optimizing-your-website-for-seo
If you want to separate words in your URL, SEO best practices propose using hyphens. The hyphens signal the breaks between words to the search engine and the user, making it easier to understand.
3. Make your website responsive
Your website will only work for you if it offers a great user experience to your website visitors on desktops, laptops, tabs, and smartphones. Choose a platform that supports this – like content management systems with responsive themes or static HTML files with responsive design. WordPress is a hugely popular content management system, giving you the freedom to create just about anything, from an eCommerce store, a static website, a blog and more. It is also one of the best platforms for SEO, especially when combined with a responsive theme and the Yoast SEO plugin.
4. Use a text-based navigation structure
The Google Webmaster Guidelines suggest creating a website with a clear and logical hierarchy and link structure. Every page should be accessible from at least one static text link. Don’t forget to create these simple text links in the footer of your website’s main pages as well. We say text-based because you want the search engines to be able to read it as well as your users. Also, use SEO-friendly technology when creating drop-downs for your website. CSS is best recommended, unlike JavaScript and Flash-based menu systems.
Create an XML sitemap to help Google understand your site’s structure when it is crawling it. For user experience, ensure that your links don’t need to travel three levels deep. Which means, don’t make your users travel from your homepage to the category page, to the subcategory page and the next subcategory before they arrive where they want.
5. Block pages you don’t want indexed
Your website usually has a few pages that you don’t want search engines to index. This could be because they add no value to the website content or you could be using those pages to test your designs. These are the pages that should not be exposed to web robots. You may run into issues like duplicate content, or a dilution of your real content. These may then result in an unfavorable situation with ranking.
To prevent the certain pages you want unindexed, you could use a robots.text file or password protect the area of your website that is undergoing testing.
As you see, creating an SEO friendly website is not as difficult as you may think. Keeping these few tips in mind, you can build a website that fulfills its objectives and helps grow your business.
At Them You & Me, we speak friendly digital and assist in the digital transformation of businesses. If you have any questions about SEO friendly website design or would like our assistance with your digital marketing strategies, do give us a call.
To know more about what we do and the services we offer, please visit our website.
*Please consider our content as recommendations and not concepts to apply as is, without questioning it. Every business is unique, so find the solution and strategy that works especially for you. You may keep what you need and disregard what you don’t.
