How To Design An SEO Friendly Website That Ranks Well
Search engine optimization revolves around a series of strategies that help websites improve their ranking within search engines. In turn, this leads to better visibility, an increase in the amount of traffic, higher credibility and, of course, revenue.
With all the information flying around these days, SEO might seem like an abstract term to you. However, it doesn’t have to be. If you need an SEO guide, you’re in the right spot. Let’s take a look at how to design an SEO friendly website that ranks well.
Keywords, Keywords Everywhere
What are keywords?
It’s Saturday morning and you’re heading towards a new market place to buy some fresh vegetables. Simple right? Once you get there, however; everything turns out to be chaotic. There are different market stalls everywhere: clothing, car pieces, toys.
You’re disoriented and don’t know where to start looking. But then you see it, a big sign saying ‘Fresh Vegetables’. Think of keywords in a similar manner.
Why are keywords useful?
Keywords are essential for an SEO friendly website because they let customers find you. Now, just as in the example above, proper keywords need to be relevant both to you and your clients. The secret lies in knowing your audience. What are they searching for? What can you offer them?
The answer to these questions will generate valuable keyword. Once placed on your page, they will help the right customers find you.
How to find the right keywords?
A great tool that you can use is the Google Adwords Keyword Planner. Although it has some limitations, it is free for everyone to use. So go ahead and check it out!
Where to place keywords?
It’s recommended to include your keywords in your page title and description. Also, make sure to add them in your header and several subheaders, as well as in the body content at least four times.
Should SEO also be used for images?
Definitely! Optimizing your images will help boost your rank. Ideally, ALT tags should describe your photographs in 2 or 3 words. Also, if you’re uploading an image showing the Buckingham Palace, it’s better to name it London.jpg rather then image3.jpg.
Make Your Links Look Friendly
Do URLs influence SEO indexing?
The short answer is yes. These crawlable structures show more than the address of your website. They help search engines determine what your page is about. URLs act as signals for your content.
Remember how you always prefer getting a sample of perfume before buying a whole bottle of it? Well, web crawlers see link structures in a similar way. Keep in mind that, if humans can’t read or understand your URL, neither will search engines.
How do SEO friendly URLs look like?
A good URL must contain a variation of your keyword phrase. Meaningful keywords are definitely better than symbols or numbers but don’t go overboard. Stuffing will make your links look spammy and they will be less attractive for readers.
Other mistakes to avoid?
- Don’t use capital letters
- Use hyphens instead of underscores
- Replace any special characters
- Avoid unreadable link structures
Build Your Castle On A Strong Backlink Foundation
Why are links important when it comes to SEO?
Just like spiders crawl on elaborate webs, search engines follow links, both internal and external. By using bots, Google travels throughout your webpage in order to understand the relationship between different pages and posts, added experts from SEO agency Newcastle. Linking also allows search engines to create a hierarchical view of your blog based on value.
Internal link building?
Yes, please. Link building is essential because every single one has its own value. Each link may not represent much by itself. However, an added value will make search engines rank you higher.
In order to understand how link building can help your SEO endeavors, imagine the following situation. Let’s say you’ve got page A which, in itself, values 5$. If you start linking other pages, like B – 7$ and C – 4$, A’s value will grow because you’ll have: 5$ + 7$ + 4$ = 16$. That’s better compared to just 7$, isn’t it?
Search engines will use this knowledge to determine your place in the SERPs.
How about external link building?
Strengthening your off-page backlink profile is a great way to make search engines love you. You can do this through sponsored posts. Find webpages that offer the possibility of guest posting and reach out to the owners.
By publishing content on high authority pages, you’ll not only increase the amount of traffic but also your ranking. Why? Because Google will consider you to be trustworthy and that’s exactly what you want to achieve.
Don’t Forget About Social Media
Why social media?
Although the relationship between SEO and social media is still not very well understood, there is no doubt that community platforms matter a lot. Integrating social media into your website makes your content shareable.
That in itself says it all. Sharing equals exposure, and exposure generates traffic, page views, followers. There’s a variety of channels you can use, starting with Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and even LinkedIn. Of course, the list goes on.
Remember That Looks Do Matter
What to do?
Invest efforts into your website’s design. Analyze how it looks like on multiple browsers, make it mobile friendly, and check if it loads properly. There is nothing more annoying than having to wait for images to load. If your site encounters such technical difficulties, your SEO index will certainly not be very high.
Also, don’t forget about the layout. Make sure to sprinkle some pretty images throughout your content, or even better: videos. People love videos!
Final Thoughts
There’s a joke going on that you’ve probably heard before, saying that a dead body is best hidden in the second page of search results. While funny, this small piece of amusement sums up the importance of SEO pretty well.
There’s no better way of increasing your brand exposure than having a search engine optimized website that ranks well.
So, are you ready to roll up your sleeves and start designing in an SEO friendly way?
