Website designers love building beautiful, elegant websites using the latest design trends. They often like to keep things as simple as possible and take a minimalist approach to design. SEO marketers, on the other hand, will want to ensure that best practice SEO (search engine optimisation) strategies are applied in the web-build and this generally involves more content. So what is the right approach? As with most things in life, it\u2019s all about striking the right balance when it comes to SEO website design.<\/p>\n
The Importance of Good Content For Website SEO<\/h3>\n
Good website design and effective digital marketing aren\u2019t mutually incompatible. Building an uncluttered, great looking website is just the first step in building your online visibility. However, getting too sparse with your content can harm how well your website ranks in Google\u2019s search results. And what use is a stunning website if no-one can actually find it or equally as bad, a user arriving at your website and not being able to find the information they were looking for? It is possible to balance elegance with search engine friendly requirements using SEO website design principles.<\/p>\n
One of the key things to remember is that while a visually appealing, creative website might initially catch a visitor\u2019s eye, people are usually there to get their questions (search query) answered and find some useful information. And when it comes to search engines, text is still the most easily comprehended element of a webpage. In fact, anything that is not text or produced in non-html code is ignored<\/u> by search engine programs or spiders. So if your website uses a lot of Flash animation, graphics or JavaScript you are unlikely to rank well in Google\u2019s search results.<\/p>\n
An excerpt from Google\u2019s Webmaster Guidelines<\/a> helps crystalise the requirements:<\/p>\n \u201cTry to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn\u2019t recognize text contained in images. If you must use images for textual content, consider using the ALT attribute to include a few words of descriptive text.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the fundamental principles of good marketing is to understand your target audience and this applies with SEO website design. One of the ways in which you can strike a good balance between website design and content is to put yourself in your target customer\u2019s shoes and ask yourself what you would most want to know when visiting each of your webpages. And then make sure you\u2019ve included that information and it\u2019s easy to find. This includes using language and terms that your potential customers will understand and avoiding \u2018industry jargon\u2019.<\/p>\n When we talk about website content this includes everything from text, images, animations, and graphics. These all play a part in informing and engaging visitors through the customer journey to hopefully taking action and becoming a customer. When you\u2019re considering what content needs to be included on your website it\u2019s worth thinking about each phase of the customer journey. You shouldn\u2019t assume that your website visitor is already familiar with your brand or what you do. It\u2019s worth doing some \u2018keyword research\u2019 as part of your SEO website design process to find out what terms are most frequently used relating to the content on your webpages.<\/p>\n It all comes down to user experience and web design needs to work in tandem with SEO techniques to ensure users find what they are looking for. Good design will boost your search rankings, but bad design will damage them. Search engine bots have become very smart at mimicking human users. If your website is difficult to use or you can\u2019t easily find information relevant to the original search query the human user and (search engine bot) will leave your website. Search engines pick up on the fact that people are \u2018bouncing\u2019 out of your website and drop your rankings accordingly. Put simply the goal in good SEO website design is to remove the barriers to engagement and reduce the opportunities for people to bounce straight off your website.<\/p>\n Top tips that help you strike the right balance between great design and search engine friendliness:<\/p>\n Google is constantly updating its algorithm to ensure that it delivers the highest quality results for its users. It has become so smart in understanding the intent behind a user\u2019s Google search and even better at matching the query with the most relevant webpages. When designing or redesigning your website it\u2019s always important to understand what Google is looking for. While they are largely very secretive about their algorithm to prevent websites from \u2018gaming\u2019 the system, they have taken the very unusual step of forewarning website owners of an upcoming very significant update.<\/p>\n The Google Page Experience update is due to launch this month and will significantly influence how a website ranks in Google\u2019s search results. As well as a website needing to be mobile-friendly and offer safe and secure browsing, this new update will include factors such as a website\u2019s loading speed, useability and functionality. It also takes into account whether a website uses intrusive pop ups<\/a> that obscures the content on the page or makes reading or navigating difficult for the user.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve covered the basics of what search engine optimisation<\/a> is in a previous blog, along with how to improve your SEO ranking on Google<\/a>.<\/p>\n To help you achieve the right balance in your SEO website design and content, it is always worth getting the advice of a digital marketing expert<\/a>. SEO-focused web design is the key to building your online brand awareness<\/a>, visibility and credibility. Applying these tactics will ensure you have a website that not only looks great but ranks well and builds your bottom line.<\/p>\nGet The Balance Right Between Great Design and SEO<\/h3>\n
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