How to create a web design according to SEO guidelines?

Search engine optimization is significant for any business that operates online as it is the only way to raise brand awareness and attract targeted traffic. Website development consists of several critical stages. One of these steps is devoted to website design. However, many online merchants do not realize that search engine optimization needs to be built into web design process. That is why they forced to make their web design optimization after the fact when they observe a decline in positions and traffic flow.

Your website places in the center of your digital marketing world and generates public opinion about your brand. That is why you need to be sure it is attractive and well crafted as well as easy-to-use and parse. It is an ordinary situation when website owners do not think in advance about SEO and remember about it after having a website designed. This kind of sites with poorly optimized web design is often sadly lacking on the SEO and digital marketing front. These websites may be bright and attractive, but without particular optimization, they won’t be seen on SERP.  

Through this short guideline, you will learn how to integrate search engine optimization into your site design to get the highest rank on Google. We will show what do you need to consider to have a site that is built for search marketing purposes and provide the perfect user experience.

Ways to integrate SEO into web design

There are some significant factors you need to incorporate into your website design to improve user experience with your site and enable search bots index your site and show it on search results page for an appropriate user’s query.  

• URL structure

Your URL should determine your content topic to give a notion for both your site visitors and Google bots whether your content is relevant to their query or not. Your URLs should be static and descriptive and contain relevant and high-volume search terms. I advise you to avoid non-descriptive and bulk URLs as they cannot bring any value to your SEO efforts.

When implementing long and multi-word URLs, it is reasonable to use dashes rather than underscores. Moreover, SEO specialists advise avoiding using irrelevant terms and ID numbers in URLs.

• Website navigation

Your site navigation should be simple, efficient and easy-to-use to make sure your website visitors receive the best user experience. As a rule, websites place their navigation menu across the top of the web page or at the left side of your page. However, some online merchants place their menu elsewhere not keeping in mind website users. Professional webmasters make different eye-tracking and usability studies before making a decision where to put a menu or pop-up and only then include it in a website design.

Flash design elements, as well as dropdowns, should be used with care as they can potentially be more difficult for users and search engine crawlers to navigate and parse your site. Text links should make the menu items manageable and do not overwhelm website visitors with unnecessary options.