SEO Checklist Items for Website Design & Development

SEO Checklist Items for Website Design & Development

In the digital world search engine optimization has become a critical tool for digital marketing. It is no longer an option to be slack & not promote your website. Today, it is integral & a given for SEO or “organic search” to be included in digital marketing plans.In order to top the ranking charts, there are a few important aspects of SEO that one should consider whether developing a new website or promoting an established one.Voice Search is vital in today’s search marketing scenario. As we proceed through the 21st century, consumers using voice as an input of medium for search assistance is widely growing. It is essential to capitalize on this opportunity now rather than wait for it to mature as a marketing channel. It is no doubt going to one day shape among the primary sources of lead generation. Voice searches need to be nurtured along the consumer journey. So put in place an optmized voice strategy to seize this golden opportunity.Lay emphasis on snippets.Snippets as we know are highlighted search results showcased by search engines on their SERPs. Due to their visual attractiveness, they manage to get more CTRs. As compared to the traditional crawling, such techniques are more efficient. When a certain code in a particular format is scripted in a certain way, search engines are able to display `rich snippets’. Get the structured data right.The main task of master search engine Google these days is to deliver the most relevant results based on artificial understanding of the content. It all began with Hummingbird six years back and with the introduction of RankBrain in 2015, it has taken large leaps ever since. In the absence of this, technologies like voice search and featured snippets may not be implementable.This directly goes to indicate that the more the search engine is aware about the data, the better its capacity to drive relevant sourced traffic to the website. With structured data in place, the quality of leads one can generate rises.Check whether page speed is a hindrance.Even as 5G nears in, page speed still needs to be kept under radar. The benchmark set by Google for loading of any page is three seconds. It has been observed that the possibility of conversion goes downhill with mounting loading time. The bounce rate of any given website is directly proportional to its page loading time.One needs to consider the hosting server speed, the code residing under the hood and whether content has been optimized for speed where it is most crucial.Supercharge exposure with AMP. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) act as a catalyst to mediocre mobile loading times and are also the front runners for Google’s SERPs as we speak. Agencies who manage to get a foothold in Google’s AMP carousel are able to witness advancement in ranking due to higher SERP exposure. As visitors are aware of the quicker response as they click on results featuring the AMP logo. Transforming the web pages to AMP requires a certain skillset and it gets easier when using WordPress. In order to make the most out of AMP, one has to publish newsworthy content, and with the advent of data journalism and consumers being the brand advocates in the democratic social media world, it makes it only more imperative for corporate brands to implement this strategy. Each should make an attempt to create unique, insightful content that can make it to the headlines and reserve a spot in such alluring carousels.Ensure site is `mobile first` prepared. Now that mobile first indexing has come into effect it has become a mandate for websites to be responsive. Although this does not have any direct impact on the pages performance in SERPs, there could be some indication of some motion in display. It is not advisable to have separate m-dot mobile pages from that of a responsive variant of the same page. This would only make the web crawlers more confused. Although as mobile first indexing is acted upon a page-by-page basis, there is the option of having a blend of m-dot as well as responsive pages across the site. Ensure that both structured data and metadata exist on both the variants of each page.It is recommended to switch over to a complete responsive design before going in for mobile-first indexing. Whatever be the mobile optimization strategy, it is essential to make sure that all the web elements are geared up for mobile first indexing. One is supposed to ‘earn’ links and not insert them. Gone are the days when artificial link building was the sought after SEO strategy. Though links are still considered one of the most critical ranking factors. One needs to earn links & authority. This is attained through sites which carry relevant quality topical content commanding authority who are keen to share, link and promote whatever is created by our website www.interactivedigital.co.in The enabler for this is refreshing valuable content which is in connect with the audience needs. Data journalism is going to play a major role in link earning. One has to build a factual story from insights gathered from one’s own unique data which is refreshing enough for the audience. The thumb rule for link acquisition is quality & not quantity. Fire up brand mentions.Brand mentions find a place in Google’s algorithm in more ways than one. It depicts the brand’s existence, the number of mentions showcases popularity, whereas the sources of these mentions confirms to the expertise of the brand in that particular arena. Although these mentions are not comparable to high-quality back links, it is expected of a big brand to witness a huge volume of mentions from pertinent & authoritative sources especially if the brand features high up in the rankings. With the expansion of social media, mentions are much easier to acquire than backlinks. As the vast collection of brand mentions boosts reputation, these hold the potent for link building and also fork out direct business value to a certain extent. If these mentions are done by the right people at appropriate junctures during apt times, these can also maximise your rankings. Automation of maximum SEO tasks.The best SEO strategy encompasses automation of tasks that are possible in order to direct the remaining scarce resources on tasks that cannot be. Its usually the repetitive, routine, formulaic tasks that can be managed by algorithms. These include (but are not limited to) link audits, keyword research, identifying relevant websites and all types of reports. Once handed over to automation, these tasks can be carried out in one go. On the other hand, it takes multiple hours per week and more number of people to execute it manually. One should set the sight on competing priorities and urgencies to evaluate. Even though the basics of SEO continue to be the same, the technologies and optimisation methodologies for search marketing are evidently distinct with the passage of time. Hence it is critical to adapt to these changes at a speed enough to to compete at the top levels of result pages.