SEO Essentials For Web Designers
Let’s talk about the connection between design and promotion, optimization as part of the development process, and factors in ranking sites by search engines. We will also discuss some common mistakes.
What is SEO-friendly and responsive design, and how to build an effective website? What is SEO web design, and what are the features of its development? The best tips are especially for you.
Why Does a Site Need a Proper Design?
First, good SEO website design does not imply only shadows and pretty colors. It is primarily practical — a user quickly finds the information he needs. He does not have to strain for this as on the mathematics test. It allows getting feedback from the consumer and identify points of growth. Acquiring backlinks is also important to tell users more about your business. So choose dofollow backlinks and buy here.
What to Check First
Depending on the initial data of the project, most often, an individual approach is used, forming their strategy of designing SEO promotion.
There is a base of specific elements and technical indicators of the site, which should be paid attention to during its design. That is, by implementing certain things, the designer can do something helpful in ranking the site by search engines.
Structure
How is all the information about the company and services/products distributed across the pages of the site? Is it convenient to navigate in sections to determine where exactly is hiding what the user came to the site for?
In developing, the site’s structure should determine the level of pages nesting under their importance concerning each other.
Separately, we should pay attention to the technical implementation of the nesting formation. Ideally, the URL addresses of pages should thoroughly follow the hierarchy of the navigation chain. But unfortunately, that is when all site’s internal pages have the same level of nesting — not the best option.
Navigation
The fundamental element of navigation is a menu. It visually reflects the site’s structure and helps users move quickly between sections. Therefore, it should be accessible from all pages and contain links to all major sections.
In addition to the menu, navigation can include such elements as “bread crumbs,” filters and sorting products, blocks of links to similar materials or products, etc. Anything that helps the user quickly get the information they need.
Content
Content is the foundation of search engine promotion; determining the optimal amount and variation on landing pages is difficult. Getting your site pages up to speed requires the analysis discussed above. In addition, use automatic software for backlinks.
Headers
To begin with, the headings on the pages should be. There are a lot of rules:
1. One H1 main headline per page. With the main phrase or word describing the essence.
2. You need to respect the hierarchy of headings. For example, never place H1 below header H2.
3. Titles apply to content. Cross-cutting elements of the site should be designed through CSS styles but not through H-headings.
4. You also need to think about graphics and images, to make your pages more interesting for potential clients, use https://photoretouchingservices.net to make photos creative and original.
5. In general, regarding page layout, these same rules are provided in the laws of typography. But experience shows that, for some reason, the technical implementation stage is not always possible.
Page Architecture
We are talking about the compositional arrangement of the main elements of each page. Depending on the objectives, it is necessary to determine the priority of each component and set the accents.
Page Load Speed
This technical indicator is increasingly vital for search engines and directly affects the site’s position. Therefore, it is already possible to call it an independent ranking factor.
The main principle: you need to implement the visual and functional elements of the site so that they have as little as possible load. For the user, it is crucial for the site’s first impression, and a long load can significantly undermine it — optimal page load time — is no more than two seconds.
Mobile/Adaptive Version of the Site
After Google 2018 introduced mobile-first indexing, which gives preference to the mobile version of the site, the question of the feasibility of an adaptive version of it fell away by itself. This innovation did not emerge from anywhere. Search engines did not impose it out of anything to do. Two years ago, 50% of the audience in some countries used the Internet via cell phones. Thus, the site should be equally good at solving the problems of desktop and mobile users, i.e., all of the above-implemented items with a focus on users of different devices.
What Else is Related to SEO and Design
Search algorithms are improving due to machine learning. So now, the site should not only be relevant to search queries — it must match the User Experience and UX. That is, rely on the user experience to be understandable and valuable to him. User experience is many metrics, their complexity, which affect the length of a click, the speed of scrolling, and other parameters of user interaction with the site. To make these metrics positive, you need to design sites that are comfortable for the user.
Often so, SEO for web developers is lined up linearly, and the home page is positioned as the first stage. Internal pages initiate a significant part of organic traffic. SEO allows you to consider the real scenarios of user interaction with the site, positively affecting the behavioral performance of the project. It will have a favorable effect on its further promotion.
A UX expert is rarely involved in the redesign of a website. In such a situation, a competent SEO expert is probably the only expert who can help you design an effective website. He owns the data on competitors’ real solutions because the sites at the top, of the highest quality, meet the user’s needs. So, today SEO is more about UX, i.e., how to make a website attractive for users and build its information architecture rather than just about the proper tags.
Conclusion
The use of design is an effective marketing tool. However, its design should be based on the needs of the user and the requirements of the primary traffic source — search engines. Collaboration between designers and SEO specialists should be complementary at each stage of development from the beginning.