Search Engine Optimization Website Design: Create A Site That Ranks

Whether you’re a freelancer or running a business and want to increase your client base, your website must be on the first page of Google’s search engine results page. It’s an uphill battle, no doubt, but not impossible. If you want your website to rank high on Google’s search results, you’ve no alternative but to incorporate search engine optimization or SEO in your website design.?

Search engine optimization website design is the process of implementing strategies to boost your site’s rankings in search engine results, resulting in increased organic traffic and improved user experience and engagement. Increased traffic and user experience are critical for your website to succeed if you’re planning to increase your leads and revenue.?

In this article, we’ll explore various aspects of search engine optimization website design when building a website that boosts traffic and generates leads.?

What is search engine optimization website design??

SEO or search engine optimization website design involves designing and developing SEO-friendly websites. These websites incorporate the best and most proven SEO practices, such as faster loading time, easier navigation, a mobile-friendly or responsive experience, and descriptive URLs.?

By implementing search engine optimization website design, search engines can understand the content of your website and rank it in their SERPs. SEO website design also improves the visibility of your site, allowing your target audience to find it easily.?

These SEO practices make a website user-friendly. A user-friendly website is more likely to have visitors revisit the site to sign up for your email list or newsletter and buy your products or services. Furthermore, Google prefers to rank websites higher in search results that offer excellent user experience.?

Search engine optimization website design is tremendously important for your company as it shows your website to potential clients. SEO website design also enhances brand awareness, grows website traffic, increases leads, and improves conversions, generating more revenue for your business.?

10 key Factors to Search Engine Optimization Website Design

Now that you know what SEO or search engine optimization website design is and why it is important, let’s dive into the details that make a website SEO and user-friendly.?

1. Make sure search engines index your content?

Let’s get to the basics of SEO website design. If your content isn’t indexed by the search engines, it won’t rank in SERPs. Therefore, indexing the content of your website is the most essential step in search engine optimization website design. If you’re unsure whether your content is indexed or not, check Google Search Console.?

2. Implement schema markup

Another critical, yet not visible aspect of SEO website design is schema markup. Schema markup is code added to your site to give search engines detailed information about the page content. Schema code also lets visitors know about your article’s writer, business hours, location, and more. It’s an effective way to help Google understand your site’s content.?

3. Stay away from Flash

Websites with Flash look cool, but they don’t fare well with search engines. One of the main reasons for this is that Flash websites are not easy to optimize, affecting the site’s ranking in SERPs. Therefore, ask your web designer to stay away from Flash.?

4. Ensure mobile-friendliness

Did you know a whopping 54% of all website traffic originates from mobile devices? This means creating a mobile version of your website is as important as making one for desktops. Sometimes, we also think about creating the mobile version of your website first if you think it’s important for your business. That said, your website should be responsive, meaning your site will displayed properly on devices with different screen sizes. A mobile-friendly website is also good for SEO and Google, as Google prefers to rank websites higher in its SERPs, which are mobile-friendly and responsive.?

5. Easy navigation

Navigation is not only a crucial element of search engine optimization website design but for any website design. If your visitors can’t find and have to spend a lot of time on what they’re looking for, they will frustrated and abandon your website. Google does not rank websites high if the bounce rate exceeds the usual rates.

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6. Proper website structure

This element complements the navigation of your website and improves it a notch.? An intuitive website structure, also known as website architecture, provides visitors with the best navigation experience and makes it easier for search engines to find and understand your pages more effectively. To ensure your site has a proper website structure, organize content into distinct categories or content buckets. This approach involves sub-categorizing more specific content under broader general categories.

7. Improve readability

Speaking of mobile-friendliness, another important component of search engine optimization website design is to ensure the readability of your website across multiple devices. Your website’s content, whether web copies or articles, should be concise and broken down into short paragraphs. Include headings and meta tags wherever possible and plenty of white space. Make sure the content is free from intrusive pop-ups, and use an appropriate font size that makes the content easier to read and skim for readers, whether they’re on a desktop or smartphone.?

8. Quality content

Content is king and we can’t help but agree with it more, especially regarding search engine optimization website design. Google’s algorithms are designed to recommend visitors to the pages that offer the best information or helpful content to satisfy their search intent. This is where Google’s infamous content guidelines called ‘EEAT’ come into play, which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Use descriptive titles in your content and keep it organized using sub headers. Though EEAT is not a ranking factor per se, if your content adheres to these guidelines, your website has a better chance of being ranked higher.?

9. Include Internal links

Internal links connect pages of your website to other pages of your site that provide relevant and valuable content. These links help users and search engines find your content, which is vital for search engine optimization website design.?

10. Optimize your images

We discussed content and internal links, but if the images on your website aren’t optimized, your website’s ranking may be affected. For instance, if the image sizes are too large, it will take time to load on mobile devices or won’t even load at all, resulting in slower page loading time and poor user experience.?

Use high-quality images, but make sure you compress them. Also, consider the file format of your images. Typically, developers use the JPEG and PNG formats, but there is a better alternative, the WebP format, which can reduce file sizes by up to 34%. As search engines can ‘see’ your image, use proper keywords in your file names and alt tags that describe the image.?

There are plenty of elements to search engine optimization website design to make your website more attractive to search engines. We hope some of the elements we discussed here have shed some light on the subject.?

Suppose you’re planning to design an SEO-friendly website or improve the SEO of your existing website, Starlit Devs boasts an incredible team of designers, developers, and SEO experts who will help you craft a site that is functional and visually captivating.?

Want to know more about Starlit Devs ??

Get in touch with us today!?