Search engine optimization (SEO), often associated with change and fluidity, continues to mutate at a frenetic pace. The SEO techniques that were once considered best practices are now things of the past.
Search rankings have an important role in determining the popularity of your business. Only if your website has visitors will you be able to increase your sales and get a high marketing return on investment (ROI). Thankfully, there are many effective tactics that can lead to higher visibility and increased search friendliness.
SEO is an essential part of your online presence. Using the right SEO techniques can increase the ranking and visibility of your website. If your business is somewhere near the top of the search results, then more users will click on your page and see what your product or service is all about.
So, how can you make your Web design SEO-friendly to position yourself higher on search result pages?
Here are some of the best SEO techniques for Web design that will maximize the impact of your website.
1. SEO-Friendly URL
You need to make sure that the URL of your site is SEO-friendly. Only use keywords that are relevant to your business and relate to it in some way. Avoid using long URLs, and if possible separate terms using hyphens. The URL should give people an idea about your business.
2. Optimized Images
To get a better rank in the search results, optimize your images along with the text on your website. Avoid using large images on your website. Keep the image size from 30 to 100 KB with a resolution of 72 dpi.
Large images make your site load slower. When you are creating an alt image text, make sure that you use keywords in graphics, header images, logo images, and buttons on each page.
3. Responsive Web Design
Designing for multiple devices, aka responsive design, is what Google recommends. This type of design allows your website to perform optimally on multiple devices. From an SEO perspective, a responsive website has a single URL for both the mobile and the main site, which means that you will have to drive links to a single URL instead of two. This is an easy way to increase your external backlink count.
4. Quick Navigation
When you design your website, make sure the navigation is not difficult. Let users experience an easier navigation when they land on your website so that they can easily find what they are looking for. Place the navigation bar either at the top or along the left margin of the page.
5. Be Careful With JavaScripts
When you are designing your website, make sure that you do not use JavaScripts for your entire site design. Search engines crawl through websites to index them, thus excessive use of JavaScripts will cause crawling issues.
Another disadvantage is that JavaScripts do not work smoothly on mobile devices. You need to make sure the website is simple and easy to read for both users and search engines.
6. Fast Page Load Time
Page load time is an important aspect from a website visitor’s perspective. Consumers are busy and do not like waiting for a page to load. Mobile users on an average only wait for five seconds for the page to load, whereas desktop users wait only for three seconds for the page to load.
To reduce the page load time, make sure you are minimizing Javascripts, enabling compression, using small images, and browser caching.
7. Creating Sitemaps
Sitemaps have always been a part of best Web design practices. But, since the time when search engines first adopted sitemaps, they have become even more important. A sitemap, along with offering easy navigation and better search engine visibility benefits, informs the crawlers immediately about any change on your website so that the page is indexed faster. From an SEO point of view, we suggest you to do away with a conventional sitemap and create an XML sitemap.
Read this Google Webmaster Help article on how to manage your sitemap.
8. Relevant Keywords
Definitely, using the right keywords is important, but do not overuse them. This will make your page spammy. You can use the Google Keyword Planner to find out what your customers are looking for.
9. Anatomy of Page – The Visual Hierarchy
To fully capitalize on the assets discussed above, it is important for you to understand the page structure. The correct positioning of text, images, and call to actions on the page is important not just from an SEO perspective but for user engagement level as well. A large number of people visiting your website and staying on it just because it is neat and interactive will definitely going to get you into Google’s good book.
A good visual hierarchy will help you in separating out important elements from the less important ones.
Here are our recommendations:
- Have a clear head identifying your company’s name
- Use the top quarter to communicate your key products/services/features
- An image slider helps in making the page more lively
- Place the navigation bar at a place where users can easily locate
10. Social Media Integration
We all know the power of social media networks and how high they rank in search engine results. While designing your website, you can add social media buttons for your accounts on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Conclusion
A Web page designed in a way that doesn’t not confuse or overwhelm the visitor will be beneficial for you and the users. Keeping the end users in mind and blending the best Web design practices with SEO is a win-win.
MEWS is a full service web development Internet marketing company and technology integrator founded in 2003, by leading industry consultants with previous technology experience.MEWS is an Internet services and solutions company with interests in website development – Mobile applications– domain name registrations - web hosting.