Search engine Optimization is essential for all web-based businesses. However, not many of them realise that the SEO process starts when they first begin designing their website. Your website is the centre of all your digital campaigns. The principal source for the traffic on your site is organic.
Knowing all this, still many marketers think that the process of SEO doesn’t start until the designing process is over. The reality is much different than the above statement. In this post, I will debunk this misconception and will guide you to adopt the right web designing and development process.
Let’s have a look at how SEO is an integral part of the web design or redesign process. This guide will help you in creating a mean and lean SEO enhanced website for your business.
Let’s get you started,
A Common Scenario
Marketers and webmasters think that creating a site is the principal step. Working on SEO afterwards will heal up the process and then generate results.
One thing you need to understand that SEO is not a bandage which you can put on your cracked website to hide all your flaws. It is a process, a fundamental process where you treat the imperfections not cover them. To attain success in organic search, paid search, and inbound marketing process, you must fuel your website with effective SEO techniques. To make the correct approach, you must begin your SEO process when you start designing or redesigning your site.
Web Design Practices For Better SEO Results
Let’s see what are the best web design practices that will help you in ranking your website well on search engines.
The Navigation Bar
While designing your site, you seek to guide your visitor on your site. For that purpose, you must add a navigation bar which will showcase where your visitor is on your site. You don’t want to confuse your visitor with a complex structure of the site.
You must pay attention when designing the navigation of your site. It is easy to get everything wrong here. That is the main reason most of the websites lack precision in this.
The most common misunderstanding while concerning the website navigation is when people compare it with the menu bar. It is not a fact. A navigation bar is much more than that. It can be a tool for your to guide your visitor to increase your website’s conversion rate.
The first requirement of better navigation is making things predictable. Better navigation mustn’t let the viewer contemplate where will he go when clicking a specific link. Make all your valuable content discoverable and easy to navigate when designing a site.
Optimized Images
Images are the visual feast for a visitor. It gives meaning to the content on your site. However, using too many pictures can lead to slow your site which has a very adverse effect on your site’s SEO rankings. Avoid employing dense pictures on your site. Compress the images and optimise them for faster web experience. A high-speed UI is always great for viewers, and when you delight your viewers, Google rewards you with better SEO rankings.
A Responsive Web Design
How will a responsive web design enhance your SEO rankings? You might wonder at this point, but it is all simple to understand. Google announced mobile page speed as one of the primary ranking factors. So, if your website doesn’t load fast in mobile devices, you will lose your SEO rankings.
This update will be valid from June 2018, so you can issue a website redesign for your website and make it responsive to gain better views and rankings as well.
The Javascript Conundrum
As a web designer, when you are designing a website, you must know best practices in terms of SEO. Javascript is never considered to be good for your SEO rankings. Do not use JS to design the entire layout of your website. JS does not work well for mobile devices.
Making your website simple for the search engine is also crucial. Javascript is hard to read and understand for a search engine bot. That leads the bot not to crawl your site entirely. It will surge your SEO rankings.
The Visual Hierarchy
When the designing of your website starts, you must be familiar the visual hierarchy. It is the anatomy of the pages. In addition to that, it is the placement of images, Call to actions and the content. The principal focus of the visual hierarchy is to separate the generic elements from the important one.
The general guideline for that will be,
- Make use of the top quarter of your website to inform the user about your principal product or service.
- You must have a clear head with your company name on it.
- Always keep the navigation bar within reach of your user.
Follow these basic rules and design your website in an SEO-friendly way.
Winding It Up
Let’s see what we learn from the post,
- A Common Scenario
- One thing you need to understand that SEO is not a bandage which you can put on your cracked website to hide all your flaws. It is a process, a fundamental process where you treat the imperfections not cover them.
- Web Design Practices For Better SEO Results
- The Navigation Bar
- While designing your site, you seek to guide your visitor on your site. For that purpose, you must add a navigation bar which will showcase where your visitor is on your site. You don’t want to confuse your visitor with a complex structure of the site.
- Optimized Images
- Images are the visual feast for a visitor. It gives meaning to the content on your site. However, using too many pictures can lead to slow your site which has a very adverse effect on your site’s SEO rankings.
- A Responsive Web Design
- Google announced mobile page speed as one of the primary ranking factors. So, if your website doesn’t load fast in mobile devices, you will lose your SEO rankings.
- The Javascript Conundrum
- As a web designer, when you are designing a website, you must know best practices in terms of SEO. Javascript is never considered to be good for your SEO rankings. Do not use JS to design the entire layout of your website.
- The Visual Hierarchy
- When the designing of your website starts, you must be familiar the visual hierarchy. It is the anatomy of the pages. In addition to that, it is the placement of images, Call to actions and the content. The principal focus of the visual hierarchy is to separate the generic elements from the important one.
I hope that you like the post. Let me know your thoughts via comments. Till then, have a nice day ahead.
Author Bio
Morris Edwards is Web developer & Marketing strategist at Awebstar, A websign & development company in singapore. They have built over 400+ Professional & ecommerce websites for their worldwide clients.
