If you work in web design or development, you’ve probably seen it before. You’ve probably been asked to create a website before a client even thinks about their search engine optimization. Building a site without giving SEO any thought first is one sure-fire way to guarantee that the website will have to be redesigned or completely remade in the not-so-distant future. In general, it’s wise to think of SEO at every point of the web design process. SEO should be considered in several ways, from a broad perspective, from a technical angle and in the context of a site’s finished design.
Broad Perspective
Before you hire a designer, you should consider consulting an SEO agency. Whether you work with a third-party or you do it alone, you need to think about your SEO on a broad basis. This is necessary to ensure your SEO and your finished website will resonate with your target audience.
To begin, you need to determine how you’ll communicate your mission statement in the digital world. You also need to identify your target audience and break it down into segments you will likely attract with different keywords and content formats. Finally, you’ll need to identify your direct and indirect competitors and figure out how you can incorporate SEO into your web design to rank better than they do in search engine results pages.
Technical Angle
Before you launch a website design, you need to consider your search engine optimization in the context of the technical side of your site. You can start with the things that will impact the success of your SEO once your site is live.
With Google having announced that the use of HTTPS is now a ranking factor for its search results, the first decision you’ll need to make is simple – use SSL in your design. You should also establish canonical versions of our URLs to prevent search engines from being able to access the same content using several URLs, something which can undercut your SEO pretty quickly when your sight is operational.
Site speed is one more thing you’ll have to think about. Speed is another factor Google looks at to rank results in SERPs. You need to ensure your web pages will load as quickly as possible so that your site supports your SEO seamlessly.
Web Design
With many aspects of your web design influencing SEO, it’s vital that you give your design a lot of thought. In today’s mobile-first world, using a responsive design is an absolute must if you want your finished site to rank well in SERPs and drive organic traffic to your website, which are the goals of SEO.
In addition to using a responsive design, you may want to adopt a content-first approach to your site. You need to determine how you plan to present content on your site and then design around your chosen formats.
By choosing the formats you’ll share content in, your designer can create a user interface that provides a satisfactory experience instead of one that will frustrate your visitors. User experience is yet another ranking factor for search engines, so identifying the formats you’ll use to present content early on is more important than you may think for the success of your SEO.
Contact Our SEO Company
If you want to work with an SEO company that understands the intimate relationship between SEO and web design, you’ve found the partner you’re looking for in our SEO company. We offer an array of SEO services that are included in each of the digital marketing plans we offer to small and mid-size businesses competing in a variety of industries.
To learn more about the SEO, web design and digital marketing services we provide, get in touch with My Creative Mark today.
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