Have you exhausted every other optimization technique there is but still failed to get your desired results?Well do not give up just yet because there is one other thing that you need to focus on: website design.You may think that Web designing and SEO are largely different, but they actually complement each other. The former has to abide by the rules of the latter to produce an effective website.
Image Credit:blog.websiteboston.com
Website Design Tips for SEO
1. Create meta descriptions
This is a short summary or description of the content that most search engines show. Its main purpose is to give crawlers and Internet users an idea of what the page is all about—and that’s all it does. It is not a search engine ranking factor (as what many believe). It cannot help your site’s rank higher in SERP. That is a myth debunked and disproved several times before.
Meta-description rules…
There are no rules.
Search engines in general do not have hard and fast rules regarding meta-description. This means that you can be lengthy or concise with your description. You can use as many characters as you want. But for brevity’s sake limit it to not more than two sentences or 170 characters (including spaces). And as much as possible, insert some keywords in it to attract search spiders and to make the search easier for users.
Tip: If you are writing meta-description for Google, remember that the search engine recently limits SERP snippets based on the actual pixel width of the description, regardless of the number of characters used. And as to how much this pixel width limit is, it is hard to tell for sure right now. What some are doing is experimenting until they get the right formula.
2. Use creative title Tags
These basically describe an online document and have a lot of SEO power, especially for contributing traffic and keyword relevance to a Web page.
These appear at the top of the browser window and in search results pages. Normally, these have 70 characters including spaces and should include relevant keywords. Other terms such as “the”, “while”, “is”, “we”, “can”, etc. have no relevant contribution at all.
3. Add Alt tags
These are HTML tags that describe pictures in a document or webpage. These descriptions are for search spiders. Since they cannot codify images, they have to rely on alt tags to find out what the picture is about.
If you want the best results for page traffic, each image should have a distinct and keyword relevant tags and filename.
4. Add snippets
In programming, these are small regions or texts below the title that appear in search engine results pages. These could come from the meta-descriptions or the contents of the page itself.
These are also aimed at attracting Internet users to check out the website by providing them glimpses or samples of what the document is about.
5. Include robots.txt
These are instructions that web designers use to instruct search engine “bots” regarding their access to your website. Before crawling a site, search engine spiders double check for robots.txt files, which may restrict them from accessing certain pages.
This basically gives Web designers the freedom to prevent a search engine from indexing pages they don’t to be indexed.
6. Incorporate Navigation
Simply put, this refers to the way that Web designers organize pages to help visitors move from one webpage to another.
This is achieved through a group of links—texts, images, flash, java—that make up the website navigation menu or bar. In most domains, this is placed horizontally below the page banner although some sites also place this vertically on the left section of the page.
7. Arrange ads and gadgets accordingly
To encourage readers to stay and return to your site, you have to give them an interactive experience on your domain.
To do this, you need to present a page that is not crowded or stuffed with texts, images, and ads. Social media gadgets, ads from affiliates, and images in documents should look neat and organised. Otherwise, viewers will find the site tacky, making them want to leave immediately.
8. Include images and videos
If there is one thing that keeps the interest of viewers, other than compelling articles, are pictures and videos. Not only are these visually appealing but they also get the message across in just a manner of seconds.
So post images and videos on your site. You can even embed videos from your YouTube account to also increase your visibility in social media channels.
9. Add compelling content
A major contributor to your SEO efforts is your content. How creative and original are your articles? Do readers find them useful and shareable to social media? Is it relevant to your business? Will it help promote your brand?
And when I speak of content, this does not only refer to written articles but also images, videos, and even podcasts.
10. Emphasis appeal
Lastly, consider the overall impact of your website. Try to see it from an outside perspective. Is it attractive, interesting, or intriguing? Does it look neat or do the ads and banners distract readers?
Even the color scheme, font, and page background have a significant impact on the appeal of your domain.
Final Thoughts
You will never run out of SEO techniques because there will always be updates from search engines. Such changes mean that you have to constantly evolve in order to keep up with a rapidly expanding online community.
Author Bio:
Emma Tomlinson is the Head of Retail at Smart Traffic, a UK-based company providing pay per results SEO services to its clients.
Excellent and amazing post! This is very useful information for all website designers and surely I will try to follow your tips. Thanks for such a nice information.
Thanks, Edwin, I’m glad you find my article useful.
Hi Emma,
You are so right on it.
I spend more time on the search for good keywords, make a perfect title, right H2-H3, etc., good images with alt tags, a good and selling description, etc. than time to write the article itself. Without the right SEO, the article is worthless, no one finds it.
Hello, Marbella, thanks for appreciating my post. And you are right in saying that a great-written article is worthless without the boost of other SEO strategies.