SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and effective website design go hand in hand. Good website design is about creating a website that appeals to the target audience and gets them to take some kind of action. However, if the website does not follow current SEO best practices, its ranking will suffer, which will result in a smaller number of visitors who actually engage with the website.

Conversely, if the focus is on SEO and how to please search engine spiders, then the website may rank highly and get a lot of search engine traffic, but if the design is very unsatisfactory, it is not the same. In order to succeed in today's digital environment, the focus must be on website design and SEO.

I. But, doesn't SEO kill the creativity of web designers?

In the past five years, the huge demand for "optimized design" has been embraced by web designers. Before this, designers mainly focused on the user's experience, not the "robot" experience.

Nowadays, designers not only have to make the website look attractive, but also ensure that Call to Action must meet the requirements of the website page "folding". The website must load quickly. Breadcrumb paths must be used. Clear and clear navigation options must be used. CSS must be used. JavaScript files must be kept to a minimum. This is a difficult task.

Some designers may be wondering, will all these new SEO rules compromise the freedom to create a website?

For "clean" website design, it can help a website load quickly and be easily crawled by search engine spiders. So, in reality, creativity and optimization need to be able to "flourish" together at the same time.

II. Putting It All Together

There are some core elements that support every SEO strategy and website design project:

1. Keyword Analysis

When launching a business website project, a thorough keyword analysis must be carried out. In order to do this, web designers must have a close in-depth understanding of the client's target audience and define how the demographics within that audience fit into the larger target market that the business is trying to reach. Then, the website should be properly optimized for keywords/long-tail keywords.

2. Content Hierarchy

For a business, creating good content is not enough, they must also strategically plan the location of the content.

Effective planning means putting relevant content in virtual containers, making the content hierarchy clear at a glance through creative design and internal links. And, an optimized website is one that is friendly to both users and search engine spiders.

3. Think from the user's perspective

Usually, the more pages or articles your website has, the more chances your target users have of finding you. When they land on these specific pages, you need to make sure you can help them find you easily.

So you have to think from the user's point of view, to give users an immediate and clear idea of the current location of the page they are making a visit to, and to help users transition from page to page with as few clicks as possible.

III. Why is SEO strategy so important?

Having the right website structure and information architecture will ultimately help businesses provide an engaging user experience while reducing the need for each new growth. But unless your brand is well known, it is usually the search engines that are responsible for the majority of the traffic a website receives. SEO strategies have the ability to tap into important customer data and tap into new potential revenue streams.

There are places that are often troublesome for website owners who are trying to do SEO. Now, I will provide SEO advice to website owners to get higher ranking pages.

1. URL Structure

Most websites create URLs that contain a lot of random characters like question marks, no keywords or any valuable content. When the URL of a search engine contains keywords or phrases for SEO, the page will rank higher in the search engines. Therefore, it is very important to have keywords in the URL.

2. Title of a Page

One of the most important factors in search engine ranking is the page title. Many websites do not change their web page title though. In the lime build website platform, you can do this by using the SEO title tag plugin, which makes it easy for you to create titles for your articles and pages.

3. Duplicate content

No search engine likes to see duplicate content. Duplicate content is a major problem for some websites, as category pages and calendar/date pages often cause search engines to find the same content on multiple pages.

For website owners, there are several ways to overcome the duplicate content problem. One of these ways is to use a robot.txt file, which is used to guide search engines which pages should be ignored, leaving only the main page to index.

4. Meta tags

When designing a traditional static website, you can enter meta tags (descriptions) for each page. Although these tags don't have as much influence on search engine rankings as they used to, it doesn't hurt to have them on your pages.

However, most build website platforms don't give users the option to add meta tags when writing articles. For, lime build website platform, users, adding meta tags plugin will allow you to enter meta tags for any page.

IV. What are the responsibilities of a web designer in SEO?

SEO is an ongoing process, and it can't be achieved by designing a website in a specific way. Of course, a web designer should put considerable effort into helping clients build an optimized site, but what are the responsibilities of a web designer when it comes to SEO, and what are the responsibilities of the client?

As a business owner, the optimization of your website is more important to you than the designer (this is not to say that the designer doesn't care, but the designer's attention is usually focused on the visual and functional aspects of the website). You know your clients/prospects better than the designer, so you should have more constructive input on your goals.

Maybe some clients may not know much about SEO and target keywords, then the ideal situation is to have the client and you work collaboratively on this issue.

In my experience, one of the easiest ways to get clients involved is to simply explain that the words and phrases used on a website (title, copy, etc.) can have a direct impact on site rankings.

I will usually ask clients to give me a list of words and phrases that they think potential visitors might use in their search. This is especially important when designing a website in an industry I am less familiar with.

Of course, some research may need to be done. Should the client take responsibility for the keyword research, or should the designer be in charge?

My experience is that the research is often more effective if the client is involved, but it is not always possible. Designers should be knowledgeable enough to advise clients and should be willing to help, but in the end it's still best to keep the client as involved as possible. In fact, if the client cares about SEO, the engagement process meets a much more reasonable expectation.

It may also be the designer's responsibility to set realistic expectations.

I've had a few potential clients come to me and say: "I've been told by SEO experts that just inserting a competitively popular keyword on a website page can get my website ranked first or second".

In this case, I would obviously point out that "SEO requires ongoing work that can't usually be done by creating a website in a certain way."

I often advise clients to add a blog to their website to get more content and improve the chances of ranking.

Conclusion

Although this is just a short summary, these are the most important SEO topics that website owners and designers will face. By knowing this knowledge, you can better create a website that is friendly to both users and search engines.

This article is designed by Yiyou editor. It was originally authorized to publish Yiyou website. Without authorization, it must be reprinted.