Experts analyze the relationship between website design and SEO from these 4 dimensions!
SEO (search engine optimization) and effective website design go hand in hand. Good website design is about creating a website that attracts your target audience and gets them to take some kind of action. However, if the website does not follow current SEO best practices, its ranking will suffer, resulting in a lower number of visitors who actually engage with the website.
Conversely, if the focus is on SEO and how to please the search engine spiders, then the website may rank highly and receive a lot of search engine traffic, but if the design is not satisfactory, that is not the same. In order to succeed in today's digital environment, it is necessary to focus on website design and SEO.
1. But doesn't SEO kill the creativity of web designers?
In the past five years, a huge demand for "optimized design" has been accepted by web designers. Before this, designers mainly focused on the user's experience, not the "robot" experience.
Nowadays, designers not only have to make a website look attractive, but also make sure that the call to action must meet the requirements of the website page "fold", the website must load quickly, breadcrumb trails must be used, clear and concise navigation options must be used, CSS must be used, JavaScript files must be kept to a minimum... It is a daunting task.
Some designers may wonder, will all these new SEO rules harm the freedom to create websites?
For a "clean" website design, it can help a website load quickly and be easily crawled by search engine spiders. So, in reality, creativity and optimization need to be able to "flourish" together at the same time.
2. Put it all together
There are a few core elements that support every SEO strategy and website design project:
1. Keyword Analysis
When starting a business website project, a thorough keyword analysis must be carried out. In order to do this, the web designer must closely and deeply understand the client's target audience and define how the demographic structure within the audience fits into the larger target market that the business is trying to reach. Then, the website should be properly keyword/long-tail keyword optimized.
2. Content Hierarchy
For a business, it is not enough to create good content, they must also strategically plan the location of the content.
Effective planning means placing related content into virtual containers, making the content hierarchy clear at a glance through creative design and internal links. In addition, an optimized website is a website that is friendly to both users and search engine spiders.
3. Think from the user's perspective
Generally speaking, the more pages or articles your website has, the more chances your target users have to find you. When they land on these specific pages, you need to make sure you can help them find you easily.
So you have to think from the user's perspective, let users know immediately and clearly where they are on the page they are visiting, and help users switch from page to page with as few clicks as possible.
3. Why is SEO strategy so important?
Having the right website structure and information architecture will ultimately help businesses provide an engaging user experience while reducing the need for new growth every time. However, unless your brand is well-known, it is usually search engines that are responsible for most of the traffic your website receives. SEO strategies have the power to tap into important customer data and tap into new potential revenue streams.
For website owners who are trying to do SEO, there are a few areas that often become troublesome. Now, I will provide SEO tips for website owners to get higher ranking pages.
1. URL Structure
Most websites create URLs that contain a lot of random characters, such as question marks, without keywords or any valuable content. When the URL contains SEO keywords or phrases, the page will rank higher in the search engines. Therefore, it is very important to have keywords in the URL.
2. The Title of the Page
One of the most important factors in search engine ranking is the page title. However, many websites do not change their page titles. In the Qinglime website building platform, you can do this by using the SEO Title Tag plugin, which easily allows you to create titles for your posts and pages.
3. Duplicate Content
No search engine likes to see duplicate content. Duplicate content is a major problem for some websites, as category pages and calendar/date pages often cause search engines to find the same content on multiple pages.
For website owners, there are several ways to overcome the duplicate content problem. One way to do this is to use a robot.txt file, which is used to instruct search engines which pages should be ignored, leaving only the main pages to be indexed.
4. Meta tags
When designing a traditional static website, you can enter meta tags (descriptions) for each page. Although these tags are not as influential on search engine rankings as they once were, it doesn't hurt to have them on your pages.
However, most website building platforms do not give users the option to add meta tags when writing articles. For Qingning website building platform users, the Add Meta Tags plugin will allow you to enter meta tags for any page.
4. What are the responsibilities of web designers in SEO?
SEO is an ongoing process, and it cannot be achieved by designing a website in a specific way. Of course, web designers should put in considerable effort to help clients build an optimized site, but what are the responsibilities of web designers in SEO, and what are the responsibilities of clients?
As a business owner, the optimization of your website is more important to you than it is to the designer (which is not to say that the designer doesn't care, but the designer's attention is usually focused on the visual and functional aspects of the website). You know your client/prospect better than the designer, so you should have more constructive input on your goals.
Some clients may not know much about SEO and target keywords, so the ideal situation is to have the client work collaboratively with you on this issue.
In my experience, one of the easiest ways to get the client involved is to simply explain that the words and phrases used on the website (titles, copy, etc.) have a direct impact on the site's ranking.
I will often ask the client to give me a list of words and phrases they think potential visitors might use in their searches. This is especially important when designing websites in industries I am not very familiar with.
Of course, some research may be required. Should the client take on the responsibility of keyword research, or should the designer take on that responsibility?
My experience is that this research is usually more effective if the client is involved, but this is not always possible. Designers should be knowledgeable enough to advise the client and should be willing to help, but ultimately it is best to involve the client as much as possible. In fact, if the client cares about SEO, the involvement process will achieve a more reasonable expectation.
It may also be the designer's responsibility to set realistic expectations.
I have had potential clients come to me and say, “I was told by an SEO expert that I could get my site ranked #1 or #2 just by inserting competitive keywords into the pages of my website.”
In this case, I would obviously point out, “SEO requires ongoing work that is not usually accomplished by creating a website in a certain way.”
I often recommend clients to add a blog to their website to get more content and improve their chances of ranking.
Conclusion
Although this is just a brief summary, these are the most important SEO topics that website owners and designers will face. By understanding this knowledge, you can better create websites that are friendly to both users and search engines.
This article is designed by Yiyou Xiaobian and originally authorized to be published on Yiyou website. Unauthorized reproduction will be investigated.
