If you are planning to build or design a website, it is essential that you understand Search Engine Optimization as well and understand the basic rules of SEO friendly web design and development. This helps you create a website that is SEO friendly and absolutely enjoys a higher ranking on search engines, leading to increased traffic. Let's take a look at some of these rules.
1. Clean code
It is important for the code used in the development of your website to be well structured, making it easier for search engines to read its contents. Clean, well-written code also reduces the loading time of the website. Take this into account when designing the website and incorporate it in even the smallest details like font size, color, and style, etc.
2. Do not overuse JavaScript
Many website designers tend to use JavaScript for the design of the entire site. While JavaScript as a programming tool can provide you with a feature-rich website, it can at times create crawling issues with search engines that find it hard to read the content on your site. Many SEO and internet marketing solutions also recommend designers use JavaScript sparingly as it does not work well on mobile devices.
3. Avoid Flash Elements
Like JavaScript, too many flash elements on a site can cause it to load very slowly, so driving away organic traffic. Search engines also find it hard to rank websites that have too many flash elements in them as flash is often devalued or ignored by these engines, contributing nothing to your site's SEO. Therefore, avoid using flash on your website. If you have to use it, use it sparingly.
4. Make the link structure easily navigable
One of the many SEO friendly web design and development secrets involves creating a website with an easily navigable link structure. A streamlined structure will not only make it easier for search engines to read and rank you, but it will also increase the user-friendliness of your site, thereby attracting more organic traffic.
5. Create User-Friendly URL
The URL structure of a website plays a very important role in determining its rank on search engines. The URL of a site should be SEO friendly, in the sense it should be structured in such a way that search engines (and people) know what the page / site is about by scanning the URL. Avoid adding too many categories within a URL and separate words using hyphens. Make sure the keywords used in the URL are those found through the website as well. On top of this, create a URL that is easily readable in order to make it easier for users to remember it the next time they want to visit your site.
6. Create a catchy Page Title
The page title is one of the most important components of a website and tend to be the first thing to stick around in the user's memory long after he / she has visited your site. Here, it is vital that you choose a page title that is not only catchy and memorable but also simple and easily relatable to the contents on your site. Do not confuse the page title with the headings. While there may be multiple headings within a page, there can only be one page title for each website.
7. Use a content management system (CMS)
A lot of website designers are using content management systems to manage and promote their content better. As one among the many SEO and Internet marketing solutions provided by experts in the field, a content management system can be an asset to your website and help you reach out to thousands if not millions via your content. When choosing a content management system for your site, ensure you choose an SEO friendly one like WordPress for best results.
8. Avoid keyword stuffing
Relevant and interesting content is what draws organic traffic to a website, not keywords. You will need to ensure that the content of your website is unique, creative and relatable. Make use of keyword optimization techniques to insert keywords at strategic locations where they work best. Mediocre or poor content with keywords simply stuffed into it will not work.
9. Stay away from Duplicate Content
Search engines can be very harsh on websites that have duplicate content. Duplicate content is one of those SEO issues that can lead to your website rankings being penalized by Google. As such, another essential SEO friendly web design and development rule is to ensure that your website does not contain any form of duplicate content whatsoever.
10. Optimize the website design for Images
In addition to relevant content, the use of relevant images in your website content can make the content more interesting. However, you can not add just any image on your website. The images you choose to upload onto the site need to be optimized in such a way that they are easily identified by search engines. Use small images with good resolution and relevant image names as well as keywords in order to make them more SEO friendly.
11. Make the website more mobile friendly
With almost every other individual owning a mobile phone and using the same to browse the internet, it is essential for websites to feature a mobile-friendly design. This translates to a website that can easily open on computer screens as well as mobile phones without any loss of content. Here, follow one of the most advocated SEO and Internet marketing solutions provided by experts and optimize your website design for both desktop and mobile use.
12. Integrate your website with social media
Social media integration has become the number one way to drive more organic traffic to your website. Promoting your website and its contents on social media sites can help you connect with your target audience better. Better yet, it can help the common audience find you easily, so paving the way for more website hits and a higher ranking on Google's search engine.
13. Make use of a redirect feature
Most website designers tend to ignore this step when creating a website. An essential part of SEO friendly web design and development involves redirecting users from within your site as well as users outside your site to relevant pages. 301 Redirect is one such feature that allows you to redirect approximately 90% of the content of a page to the URL.
14. Set up Google Analytics
How do you know how to improve it if you can not measure it first? What we are referring to here is the amount of traffic generated by your website; a parameter that is hard to measure unless you have Google Analytics to help you out. Setting up Google analytics on your website will help you find out how much traffic it is generating based on which you can choose to make improvements to the existing site design and make it more user-friendly.
