Website design and SEO are intrinsically linked

As SEO specialists we want to help our clients to understand that SEO plays an important part in the web design and development process.

Website design and organic search performance are intrinsically linked and this can become problematic for companies with isolated teams, where design and marketing don’t work closely together, or in cases where marketing is only brought onto a project after a site has already been launched. Sites designed without SEO in mind can cause ranking issues down the line.

At our web agency, we design and develop websites that are built with SEO best practices in mind to create a website that is search engine friendly – SEO Friendly Website.

Search Engine Optimization falls into two main categories:

On-page SEO –web architecture, semantics, content and the way the site is coded.
Off-page SEO (also called “off-site SEO”) – refers to actions taken outside of your own website to impact your rankings within search engine results pages (SERPs).

It is important to start working on On-page SEO during the website design process.

There are many different technical aspects of a webpage that can be optimized with on-page SEO, and they include:

Title tags
Headings
URL structure
Alt text for images
Site speed
Internal links
Meta descriptions
Responsiveness

Important SEO aspects to consider during the website design process

1. Keywords research and planning

Keyword research impacts every other SEO task that you perform, including finding content topics, on-page SEO and promotion. Keywords are one of the main elements of SEO.

The content on your web pages is vital for SEO success. During the process of building your site, strategic and meaningful placement of keywords will help you get a better ranking for your web pages in search results.

This is why developing a list of keywords is one of the first and most important steps in any search engine optimization initiative.

2. Website Architecture

Integrating SEO into website design is critical as the site map, wireframes and overall structure is laid out to boost your SEO success. The keywords in menus, links, title text and any other text on the website will significantly impact whether or not search engines find you when a potential customer types in their query for your product or service.

This is why SEO is important from the very beginning; site architecture is the framework for your entire website and if you have to go in and change it later, it can cost a lot of extra time, money and customers who went elsewhere because Google didn’t find you the first time.

3. URL Structure

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. URLs are the locations or addresses for individual pieces of content (pages) on the web. URL naming and format can impact click-through rates. Not only do searchers use them to make decisions about which web pages to click on, but URLs are also used by search engines in evaluating and ranking pages. (read more on Moz)

If you didn’t think through your URL structure during the website design process you will have to reorganize and rename some if not all of your pages that can cost a lot of extra time, money.

summary

SEO and website design go hand in hand. Competition research, keyword research, a well-structured website, it’s load speed, navigation, the number of web pages are all important aspects to consider during the website design and redesign process. Sites designed without SEO in mind can cause ranking issues down the line.