As we’re moving further into the digital age, it’s becoming increasingly impossible to separate web design from search engine optimization. Even the most stunning business websites can be useless if they aren’t optimized, as customers using Google or Bing will never be able to find them via search results. If you’re ready to take on web design with SEO in mind, here are three things you should pay attention to:
First, it’s important to understand just how search engines rank your site. They regularly crawl websites, looking for text that is relevant to the individual search results. In other words, everything a search engine does is web-based. Does that mean your visually-based website is out of luck? Not on the slightest. As detailed in this blog post, using web fonts allow the text on your graphics to still be crawled, meaning its relevancy will be known to Google.
A popular SEO strategy used to be to create many "thin" pages that didn’t include a lot of content, simply so that each page could be optimized for a singular keyword. Google caught on to this, and began penalizing websites with lots of pages that didn’t have much to say. Now, the best way to optimize your website for SEO is to keep it lean, making sure you only add pages to the site that actually add unique value to your overall message. The simple rule: Your site should only have as many pages as absolutely necessary.
Blogging remains crucial for SEO. Every time you post a new blog, Google and Bing see it as another opportunity to crawl your site and check for its relevancy. Blogging also allows you to focus in on specific keywords and build links by posting new and relevant content that others will be happy to link to. In other words, you should plan your web design around the idea that your blog will be a central part of the site.
Of course, these are just a few of the many things to keep in mind when designing your website with SEO in mind! Contact us to get more tips and let us help you get your website ranked on Google.