SEO is an extremely precious financial tool because it can aid in achieving business growth and influence in the global space. Whether the site is trying to sell something worthwhile, bridge the gap between ideas, bring awareness to a cause, or make a difference, it needs to be easily found. An individual who is able to achieve this via better rankings will bolster their image as well as credibility with big groups that already hold significance. This could be anything from a Pepsi seeking to sell a product, to an independent artist seeking to make a statement. In addition, consumers will be more likely to trust a site that appears on the first or second page of a search engine result. SEO service can put the site in the limelight by having its appear commonly in a variety of different searches. This too will also cross over to more casual internet users. A strong tool using SEO is to create a link bait. This essentially is making the site linkable and easily accessible to all search engine users. By doing this, the site will be able to generate more traffic and basically be put in a better position to attain the goals.
When it comes to the success of a website, the higher it ranks in the results of a search engine, the better. This practice is not just for business websites, but applies to any individual who has something to endorse, a cause to introduce, or a message to be heard. While search engine rankings are vital, one must ask what the essential to a good ranking in fact is. Mention SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Many times when information is discussed on this topic, it is full of jargon and in phrases that a majority of web users may not understand. While this may put off some people, in reality SEO is not that complicated concept. The basic goal is to improve the amount of traffic to a website from search engines via organic results. Deep down, it really is that simple.
Understanding SEO
SEO, a common term used in digital marketing and web design, stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” This is the process used to increase a website’s visibility within a search engine’s results, effectively increasing traffic to said website. Now, the average person would probably not even bother to think about why certain websites come up when they search for something, and often times the results are greatly varied. What people do not realize is that the order in which they appear, and the sites that do can be the result of search engine optimization. Search Engine Optimization targets specific kinds of searches such as image, video or academic search, and gives the website the upper hand in becoming more search engine friendly. There are various ways to go about doing this, such as editing content, adding specific keywords and doing things to the website itself. But first, to understand the effectiveness and scope of SEO in website design, we should take a look at the statistics for search engine usage and how patterns of traffic on the internet can lead a targeted audience to a website.
Importance of SEO for Website Design
SEO consists of two main steps: on-page optimization and off-page optimization. On-page optimization is the process of fine-tuning the content on your website. This includes various things such as the use of key phrases, keywords, and internal links. Off-page optimization is the process of creating links to your website from other websites. Links are like a vote for your website, and the more votes you have, the higher your site will rank on search engines. An effective web design will incorporate on-page optimization and off-page optimization from the very beginning. This is because it is much more difficult to fine-tune an existing website in order to increase link popularity; it’s easier to do so from the start.
Search engine optimization is a very important part of website design. With SEO in mind, a website designer can create an effective and attractive website layout that is also user-friendly. Today, a website also needs to cater to the needs of the particular customer as well as the search engines. This means that SEO web page design should appeal to a human audience as well as search engines. This is because a person is more likely to become a customer if they like what they see on a website. A search engine’s job is to take the information that a person inputs into it and locate the most relevant websites using that information. So, the better your website ranks in a search engine, the more likely it is that a potential customer will visit your site. The main idea behind SEO website design is to attract consumers to your site, and the best way to do that is by ranking high in search engines.
Planning Your Website Design
If you have a brand new website, or a website that has not yet been indexed, consider using a blog platform such as WordPress, or a CMS with blogging capabilities. A blog is a great way to add new content to a website, making it more appealing to both users and search engines. If you’re implementing a blog, try to incorporate it into your site. For example, [Link] is far more effective than using an offsite blog. The idea is to provide an easy way for users to access new content, while ensuring that new pages are easily accessible and closely related to other content on your site.
Once you’ve identified your keywords, the next step is to determine the best way to structure your website. This is an important step that is often overlooked. A website that has a well-planned structure and clear information architecture is much easier for search engines to understand. If your site is easy to understand, there is a better chance that your keywords can be more effectively targeted.
Once you’ve decided to build a website with SEO in mind, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work. If you haven’t yet decided on the most important keywords for your site, it’s crucial to first research and identify the best keywords to target. This will help in guiding your website’s structure and content. Keep in mind that your website should be built around more than one keyword or phrase. Using keyword stemming to identify related keywords can be helpful – but be careful not to “keyword stuff” and end up with a website that is too generic. It is better to have a site that is focused on a few related keywords, than to have a site that targets many keywords in a non-specific manner.
Researching Relevant Keywords
Know your market. Knowing your target audience and understanding their behavior is very crucial in the keyword researching process. In the most basic sense, think like the customer. What keyword would you use to find your website? Ask your friends and family of different age groups what they would type into Google if they were looking for a website like yours. The more you understand how your audience is likely to find you, the more relevant keywords you can come up with, and the better chances you have of making your website easier for them to find.
Search for keywords and phrases. When you are creating a website, you need to make sure you have keyword relevancy on every page. Keywords are the words and phrases that internet users type into the search box of a search engine, such as Google, to find what they are looking for. Do you want to spend your time researching keywords one by one? The answer is no. At Scenario, we have a useful tool that can make your job easier. Our Keyword Research Tool automatically suggests keyword and phrase variations to research. You are then given information which will tell you if a particular keyword is worth pursuing, or if you are better off scrapping it for another. Information such as daily search volume, the amount of results, and the KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) which is a numerical value to determine the general worth of the keyword. This information can take out the stress of guesswork for you, automating and speeding up the keyword research process so you can use your time more efficiently.
Structuring Your Website
Structuring a website in an SEO-friendly manner goes a long way in increasing the site’s search engine rankings, and doesn’t take a lot of extra effort. However, the use of SEO knowledge when planning and programming a site can take a lot of trial and error. Don’t be afraid to revisit the drawing board if it doesn’t work first time.
The final programming stage will often involve the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to dictate the site design. This is a crucial phase of web development to get right, so the corresponding guide on CSS web design has been included.
An important aspect of structuring the site is the naming conventions of the pages. The page filename and the page URL should include the words used in the META keywords tag. This will increase the relevance of the page to the search engines. Using hyphens (-) in the filenames and underscores (_) in the URLs will improve the page keyword density. This will also be useful for human visitors, as the filenames and URLs will be easier to read.
Care should be taken to use the main/index page as a sort of ‘table of contents’ or ‘portal’ to the subsidiary pages. Try to avoid making one of the subsidiary pages the main page, as this will weaken the importance of the main/index page. Deep linking is the linking of subsidiary pages to each other, bypassing the main/index page. This should be avoided. The aim here is to increase the importance of the main/index page.
When the structure of the site is still at the planning stage, making a sitemap is very effective. A sitemap will guide visitors and the search engine crawlers, and help them find information in the shortest time. An ideal sitemap should have, at the very least, 2 levels – a main/index page, and subsidiary pages that are linked from the main/index page.
Optimizing Page Load Speed
The first thing to do is to limit the number of HTTP requests made by the browser to the server. This is done by reducing the number of elements on each page: this means that a smaller number of images and fewer scripts and style sheets. Reducing the amount of elements on the page, in turn, will reduce the number of times a page has to load and will also reduce the amount of white space that appears when a page is loading. Measures that should be taken include:
There are many steps that you can take to increase the page load speed of your website. Here are a few important ones:
The page load speed for websites should be a top priority when designing and is instrumental in the website’s ability to rank well. This is due to the way that Google’s algorithm is designed: it places an emphasis on user experience, and an instant, user-initiated page response is key to a good experience. A corollary to this is that for mobile devices, the load times can often be slower, so it is especially important to have a fast-loading mobile site.
On-Page SEO Optimization
This is without a doubt the most important aspect of on-page optimization. The best way to improve your rankings is to provide unique content that engages the user. When someone is engaged, they are more likely to stay on your website and absorb more content. When someone is looking for something on the internet, they are looking for a solution to a problem. The best way to engage someone is to provide a solution. If the material on your website is well written, informative, and solving a problem, your chances of engaging the visitors are very high. Writing the content might be a tough task, however, this will not go unnoticed. This is exactly what Google wants, Google craves for good quality content. If you have content that offers an answer to a question or problem and provides it in a clear and informative manner, you’ve won down with Google.
Creating Unique and Engaging Content
Beyond design and URL structure, a major factor in website optimization is the creation of good, unique content. One of the most effective strategies to achieve this is through creating a company or site blog. This will add an extra indexed page on your website that is constantly updated with new content. Many blog posts can also rank for specific keywords and bring in a new stream of traffic to your website. This can also help to create a sense of community and keep consumers engaged in the company’s products or services. Many content strategy campaigns are based around creating a dialog with customers and using their feedback to influence activity on the website. Another simple way to create fresh content is to revisit an existing web page and think of ways to improve the information. For example, you may change an outdated or inaccurate description of a product, add a testimonial from a satisfied customer, or display a promotional offer. Revisiting an existing web page to write a new update may take only a few hours and return big gains in the long run. With a little effort, you can achieve a higher return on investment from improved website traffic and customer loyalty.
Optimizing Meta Tags and Headers
In the realm of SEO, meta tags and headers are often underused and misunderstood. Meta tags that are written with relevant content are still very useful today and headers are an easy way to tell search engines what your content is focused on. A single h1 header is recommended for your web page, with multiple h2 and h3 headers. This can also be an excellent use of headers for defining a clear structure for your page content. This can be useful to visitors and can create a higher keyword density. When creating meta tags, it is important that you create something to draw visitors in. This will often show up in search engine results and can be the main thing that causes the user to click on your content. Using the following meta tags can have different effects on your SEO: <meta name=”description” content=”Description of a page” /> This tag is a way to give a brief description of the page content. The most often used meta tag, the description tag is important in gaining user click-through from SERPs. <meta name=”robots” content=”index, follow” /> This tag tells search engine spiders to index the page and follow links on the page. This is the default spider behavior; you don’t need to include this tag since it’s the default.
Utilizing Proper URL Structure
WordPress and an SEO plugin such as All in One SEO will allow you to configure URL structure for your posts. By default, WordPress uses web URLs which have question marks and lots of numbers in them. However, WordPress offers you the ability to create a custom URL structure for your permalinks and archives. This can improve the aesthetics, usability, and forward-compatibility of your links. A typical WordPress URL might look like this: [Link]
In the first example, the page is unlikely to rank very well for the search term “tennis elbow causes” because it is several clicks away from the homepage and the keywords are not included in the static URL. In the second case, the page will rank much higher due to the hierarchical structure of the URL and the inclusion of the target keyword within the page.
Let’s consider the following example: Without proper URL structure: [Link] With proper URL structure: [Link]
Proper URL structure is an often overlooked aspect of SEO. One of the best ways to increase the accessibility of your website to the search engines is to apply proper hierarchical URL structures to your web-pages. By placing the most specific, relevant keywords close to the domain, in the folder names, you can pass weight to the page names and further to the specific pages. This makes the information on those pages more likely to be indexed and ranked for the specific, relevant keywords.
Implementing Internal Linking Strategy
An internal linking strategy is an important part of on-page SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Just like having quality web content and optimizing meta tags, having a good internal linking strategy can greatly impact the search engine rankings of a website. As the website owner, you have complete control over the internal links, so it can be a powerful tool if you know how to use it. Internal links can increase a page’s visibility and PageRank through anchor text relevant to the landing page. This is a safe and viable way to increase a page’s rank, given that the outbound link is relevant to the overall theme of the site. It is important not to spam internal links, and by doing so, that could result in a downgrade in its search results. An effective strategy is to spread the links throughout the site and maintain a high relevance between the linking page and landing page. This increases the likelihood that the linked page will appear in a search engine’s results. Certain templates that are heavy in flash media and other content might impede a page’s access by search engine bots. By using textual links at the bottom of the page, this can allow those pages to be indexed. This tactic is also useful for site visitors and can increase page views.
Off-Page SEO Strategies
4.1. Building High-Quality Backlinks
Search engines realize this and are likely to give more weight to a backlink from an authority site. Often this is in the form of a better ‘Page Rank’ for the web page hosting the link. It’s common for an article on an authority site to be linked to from many other areas on the internet. If that article then links to your website, the search engine will assign a portion of the authority site’s Page Rank to the web page hosting the link. This is all very positive stuff for your site and there isn’t a direct action that you had to do, other than get a backlink from the relevant site.
Instead, what really makes a difference is the ranking of the backlink source. An authority website (a university, a recognized news agency, industry sites etc.) is an entity that is highly trusted by its users as well as search engines. It’s trusted because it is an upstanding organization with a long history of providing reliable information on a particular subject. A link therefore, from an authority site in your industry, is really a vote of confidence for the content on your site.
When it comes to backlinks, it’s a known fact that quantity and quality both matter. It’s a universally accepted truth in search engine optimization that websites looking to climb the search engine results pages must focus on building quality backlinks. The reason is just as simple and logical as the premise: a search engine’s aim is to provide its users with the best and most relevant information to match their search query. If the search engine is to be believed, the best ‘result’ is one which is useful and relevant to the user. Building hundreds of backlinks from irrelevant, off-topic or ‘spammy’ websites will not fulfill that criteria.
Leveraging Social Media for SEO
Facebook fan pages and Twitter are also a great way to directly connect with your community and clientele. Building relationships with your web audience is a key factor in getting them to return to your site. Features such as the Facebook “like” button can help users become more involved in your site and can serve as a way to measure how many users are connecting with your company. If users are satisfied with your site, this can be reflected through social media in the form of user testimonials which we will cover a bit later. All of this translates into repeat visitors and higher traffic. But how does this maintain SEO for the site? As traffic increases, your website becomes more popular. And as your site is mentioned or linked on social media, this increases its search result rank.
The Facebook search feature, although not as widely used as Google’s, is utilized by a large portion of people looking for products, services, or information. And as this population continues to grow, it has been predicted that the number of people using the Facebook search feature will increase. Similar to the practice of SEO, you want your Facebook fan page to be the result when people search for a related topic. You can accomplish this by maintaining activity on your fan page that is related to your company and that engages fans. Whenever a user interacts with your page, this activity will show up in his friends’ news feeds, providing free publicity for your company. This increased visibility will ultimately drive more traffic to your Facebook fan page and your website. In other words, the more active your fan page is, the easier it will be to find.
You may be thinking, “I know how to use Facebook, what do you mean use social media to help my website?” Now it’s very easy to understand how operating a successful fan page with an active community can drive great traffic. But it’s still a bit unclear how your fan page activity also affects the SEO of your website.
Encouraging User Reviews and Testimonials
The biggest challenge in gaining user reviews and testimonials is encouraging them to be posted in places where they can provide the most benefit. Review sites and social media are ideal, but often the unsatisfied customer is more likely to be sharing their thoughts. An easy way to make a happy customer voice their opinion is to provide a simple means of leaving feedback. This could be in the form of a feedback form that can be emailed or even something as simple as changing your Twitter background to include a call to action.
One way to gain user reviews is to politely ask for them. After a customer has made a purchase, send a follow-up email thanking them for their purchase and kindly ask them to review the product that they have purchased. Offering an incentive, such as entry into a prize draw or a discount on their next purchase, may also encourage the customer to take a few minutes to provide feedback.
User reviews and testimonials are a great way to build your off-page SEO campaign. Whether good or bad, user reviews are a means of gaining feedback that can be used to improve your product or service. However, it is the positive reviews that you will want to put to use. A positive testimonial can add credibility to your website, and in turn, your product. When a customer is satisfied with your product, there is a tendency for the customer to share their experience. A user may send an email, but it is much more valuable to have them post their thoughts on a review site.