You’ve likely heard that your website is your most important digital asset. However, it doesn’t matter how beautiful your website is if your target audience can’t find you! Today, more than ever, hiring a web design and development service that includes SEO in every stage of website design is imperative.
Studies show that 67% of the buyer’s journey is digital. In 2022 58% of surveyed consumers reported finding new products through internet searches, and 57% said the same about social media platforms.
From discovery to delight, your target audience is willing to learn about your company, products, and services online. Let SEO web design work for you.
Key Take Aways
- Nearly 60% of consumers found new products and services online in 2022.
- SEO talks to your users and search engines.
- User experience is an important part of web design.
What is SEO Web Design?
SEO web design is a key factor in ensuring your website isn’t just visually appealing but, more importantly, easily accessible and visible to potential customers. For years Google content guidelines have focused on E-A-T. Recently, the guidelines have added an “E” for “experience.” As consumers prioritize user experience, so should your website!
Why is SEO in Web Design Important?
It’s important for businesses to design websites with SEO best practices in mind if they are to get the most out of their investment. Search engine optimization (SEO) is integral in helping companies drive high-quality organic traffic to their website. Not only does it guide people to find your site, but it also makes sure your website is optimized for users and search engines like Google.
For example, if you sell beaded jewelry, you want to ensure the keywords “beaded jewelry” and “beaded jewelry for sale” are in the following locations:
- Page title
- Page meta description
- Page headers
- Blog content
Benefits of SEO Design Strategy
When it comes to web design and SEO, the relationship between the two is often seen as overlapping. While both SEO strategy and web design focus on improving user experience, there are distinct differences in approach.
Web designers typically focus on websites that look good and function properly for the user, from creating attractive designs to ensuring that pages load quickly and reliably on all devices. Meanwhile, SEOs concentrate more on optimizing websites for search engine ranking, so their strategy consists of researching keywords, improving site structure and architecture, and content optimization techniques, which all share the same ultimate goal of visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). By combining both disciplines into one complete package, businesses can ensure their website meets all the requirements for success.
How to Ensure a Search Engine-Friendly Website
A website with SEO incorporated will provide a beautiful design with an intuitive structure. The headers will include relevant keywords for your target audience that increase organic search results.
Site Structure and Information Architecture – Your menu should make sense to your customers. Don’t rely on your instinct. You know your company’s internal lingo. Additionally, since you will be involved in planning your website, you’ll know where your resources are housed. This doesn’t mean that a new site visitor will find or understand your content as quickly as you do. When people visiting your site for the first time find the information they want, you have an intuitive structure.
Mobile-Friendly and Responsive Design – Your website should be easy to navigate on any size screen.
Usability – Know your buyer persona. Do they prefer to complete purchases online? Make sure you have that option available. Does your target audience like to ask questions of a live person? Ensure your contact information is correct and easy to find.
Web Design Optimized for Conversions – Use clear headers and navigation features such as buttons that tell customers where to click and why.
Site Speed Design – Page load times are a key element of web design. The faster the page loads, the better.
Optimize Images – Image searches are a category on Google. Your original images should enhance your online presence as much as written content.
Don’t Forget to Optimize Your Content
Your website SEO strategy doesn’t end with your core pages. As you add images of your products, include descriptions that include semantically related keywords. Add customer reviews, videos, and blog posts that offer informational content. In the beaded jewelry example from above, a blog post on how to care for your products would be a great place to start. Use relevant keywords and on-page SEO best practices to round out an SEO strategy throughout the website.
Choose a Full-Service Digital Marketing Agency
A full-service digital marketing agency that specializes in SEO should be able to provide you with case studies that show previous work where SEO is an intentional layer of foundational work of web development. In addition, you should expect that the content development and web development teams will work hand in hand to help you achieve your business objectives and deliver a custom website.
Here are a few questions to ask future web design and development service teams:
- What is your strategy for improving ranking in search results?
- What types of SEO optimization efforts do you offer?
- Does your web designer have back-end developers they work with directly?
- How do you balance website aesthetics and load time?
Visibility is Vital, and So Are Your Business Goals
SEO is constantly changing. Most experts estimate that Google changes its search algorithm around 500 to 600 times yearly. That means your web design and development services must know the latest industry shifts regarding SEO and web dev.
In addition to ensuring your website is beautiful and incorporates SEO on every page, it’s also vital that your website accurately represents your products and services. They must also design a responsive website that will rank in mobile search. A great development team will listen to your business goals and the vision of your ideal customer and will present a digital marketing strategy to connect with both.
When you receive a presentation, it should be apparent that the company clearly understands your competitors’ website designs and the core keywords for your company.
As digital marketing experts, you should be able to trust your team to do their job designing the best website for your company in the same way you would expect them to trust you if they hired you.
Consider the total agency when you’re ready to hire a web designer. Don’t be afraid to ask the above questions and ask for case studies. A great agency will have the information you’re looking for and be happy to talk to you about its past success and vision for your success.
FAQs
Do web designers know SEO?
It’s best not to assume web designers are experts in SEO. The strategies overlay. However, web design and SEO are very different areas of digital marketing.
How do I know if my website is SEO-friendly?
Using a tool such as Ahrefs or the Detailed SEO Plugin lets you quickly see if some SEO strategies are present. To gather a complete understanding of your website SEO, complete an SEO audit.
What type of design should a website have to be SEO-friendly?
The actual design of your website will not ensure it is SEO-friendly. That’s why it’s best to work with a web designer who partners with an SEO expert.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally written on June 16, 2022, and has been updated with fresh content.
