By now, most businesses know that search engine optimization (SEO) is a crucial element of Web-based marketing – if not the major element – and it revolves around the development of an effective keyword strategy and proper SEO.
This may sound odd coming from a company best known for web design, hosting, and support so let’s be clear – while web design should not be overlooked as a key tool for building brand identity and value, it can no longer be considered isolated from the rest of your marketing efforts. Web design, in addition to creating a unique brand identity and look, is a key component for creating traffic and conversions.
Web design impact
Research has shown that web design elements often play a bigger and more powerful role than content for building user trust. A recent study revealed that 94 percent of respondents to a survey said that it was the design elements that turned them off to a website and its owner, while only 6 percent of respondents cited specific content as the reason for their mistrust.
What design elements – or lack thereof – turned off site visitors? Here’s what they said:
- Absence of a simple and user-friendly layout
- Pop-up ads and distractions
- Difficult-to-read text
- Ho-hum, unimpressive design
- Slow page and content loading
Does any of this remind you of your current website? If so, here are six important tips for designing to improve your website’s SEO:
- Responsive design
There’s no denying mobile’s impact on web surfing, researching, and buying. Responsive Web design automatically tailored to the shape of any screen size automatically goes a long way in meeting and even exceeding visitor expectations. If you’re not taking mobile into consideration, your website is virtually doomed to failure.
- Optimizing images
Graphics play an important role in page loading time, as well as the look and feel of a site and holding visitor interest.
Here are some tips for optimizing images:
- Rename the filename of your image including specific keywords
- Use all useful aspects of HTML for inserting an image on the page
- Create an image caption
- Use an appropriate format for images
- Prioritize text
Content, in many ways, is still king and text still enjoys a commanding role in search rankings. As a result, your design should prioritize text whenever possible. The goal should be including or displaying relevant text on every page.
Some further text optimization tips:
- Each page should have a SEO title with 50-60 characters and a meta description of 150-160 characters. Both SEO title and meta description should be unique and should include the main keyword phrases of the page.
- Instead of including important information in images offer it in text. Remember,the Google crawler does not recognize text displayed as part of images.
- Always include relevant keywords in your URLs.
- Optimize title tags with keywords
Including keywords or a variation of a set of keywords in the title tags is important for getting the attention of the search engine crawler. The title tag makes the very first impression on both visitors and search engines using the targeted keywords.
- Give priority to text-based navigation
As we’ve already mentioned, search engine crawlers give priority to text information more than anything else. That means all the navigation buttons and menu sections on your website should be text-based so visitors can use them easily and the search engine crawlers can discover them quickly.
- Enable visitors to redirect easily
When redesigning or creating a website, make it easy for visitors to redirect to new website pages. When you delete the older page, visitors will receive a 404 error meaning the page no longer exists. If you had a good search rank with the old page you lose all its hard-earned traffic and search engine ranking benefits. Don’t forget to provide a redirect for each redesigned Web page. Using 301 redirects is helpful for telling search engine crawlers that the old page URL has become the new page URL. This will ensure keeping the traffic and SEO value intact for your newly refurbished Web page.
In WordPress, using a simple plugin called Redirection can help you do this easily. Remember to test the redirect by setting the website up on Google Search Console. This will help you keep track of crawler errors and find out if links on the website generate a Not Found error.
Finally, you should let the users know about the creation of the new Web page version and take them to the newly redesigned page. While explaining the reason for the redirect, you can offer links to other appropriate pages.
SEO is a powerful tool. It’s up to you to wield it wisely and successfully, using these six important tips. Your visitors – and business — will thank you for it.
