As brands and businesses compete for ranking,
SEO becomes an increasingly important part of site development, from design to
sound architecture. As for web designers, the work is no longer confined to
creating an appealing interface but one that is optimised for search engines.
HigherVisibility writer and SEW
contributor, Amanda Disilvestro writes about the SEO
elements that should be considered by web designers. She further adds that
knowing the basic knowledge in SEO will help in designing websites that not
only look great but work effectively. This is specifically important to the
overall user experience and the overall performance of websites in terms of
SEO.
Site Structure - We are
referring to the hierarchy or layers of pages and subpages in the website. The
homepage is the main page and should be able to convey what the site is all
about in a nutshell. Further details should be neatly organised in the subpages
and further subpages as necessary. To make sure Google can crawl all your
pages, ideally limit your subpages to three or four subpages.
Site Navigation - Aside from having well-organised pages and subpages, each
page should be conveniently findable. A site menu that is visible on top or
sidebars will encourage visitors to explore related content within your site.
Make sure that all pages are linked properly to their category pages. An
“orphaned page” will be difficult to find. If a page can’t be found by
following links, search engines will not know the page exists.
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| Image by Antoine Lefeuvre licensed under (CC BY-SA 2.0) |
URL Structure - URLs are important aspects of SEO, so it is best to follow these best
practices when choosing the URL to use for your pages.
Site Speed - This is the rate that your page is loading
per second. The faster your page loads, the better user experience you are
providing your visitors and the longer they will be comfortable in navigating
your site. Not only that, site speed has always been a major ranking factor.
With mobile domination in web search, speed becomes a more important element as
ever. You can tell how your site is doing in terms of speed and what you can do
to improve it with Google’s PageSpeed Insight.
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| Image by Linux Screenshot under Creative Commons License (CC BY 2.0) |
Titles, Headers and Meta Descriptions - These are important
on-page SEO elements.
- Add unique title tags to your pages
- Have at least one keyword in each of your page titles that relate to their content
- Include keywords in header tags, specially <h1> tag
- Meta Descriptions are free advertising spaces right on SERP. Take time to create meta descriptions that are catchy and will encourage searchers to follow your link. When it increases your click-thru rate (CTR), it affects your effectiveness or authority on your business niche.
Image
Optimisation - Optimise
images so that search engines can recognise them. This also makes your page
findable through your images. Here are a few things you can do:
Use of Flash - Search engines are unable to see or process
Structured Data provides valuable information to searchers. This added value can boost traffic and indirectly influence site ranking.
There’s more to an Attractive Site Interface than fancy design.
Conclusion
flash content, so they do not have an impact as far as SEO is concerned. It is
not advisable to use Flash on important parts of your site such as the
navigation bar or in the main text of pages.
Structured Data provides valuable information to searchers. This added value can boost traffic and indirectly influence site ranking.
There’s more to an Attractive Site Interface than fancy design.
Attractive and easy-to-use web design
will help keep bounce rates down. A web design that conforms to your
brand identity will likewise boost your brand’s image.
Conclusion
User experience is an important aspect of SEO, and there’s no way
for site optimisation standards to go but up. To remain competitive, it is
imperative for web designers to know the SEO basics that will add value to web
design.
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