Is SEO part of the web design process?

Your website is the bread and butter of your marketing assets. In most cases, it’s the main, home hub that every channel will drive traffic back to, so having it optimised from the offset is bound to give you a head start against your competitors.

SEO is more than just inputting keywords and writing blog posts. A common assumption of recent search engine optimisation efforts is that it’s too focused on content. But, the real secret to SEO can be in regard to your website’s health, the smaller technicalities that can make all the difference. If you can implement SEO straight off the bat in the web design process you could be onto a winner.

So often SEO is an afterthought, much like other channels like social media, paid advertising and email. But it shouldn’t be. A huge part of SEO is based around both your websites functionalities and technical aspects and we’re here to explain why you should consider SEO as an integral part of the web design process.

Site Structure
Your website’s site structure is exactly what it says on the tin, it is essentially how your users get around and navigate through your website. For the best possible result for both your customers and search engines, having a clear site structure that allows prospects to find exactly what they're looking for with ease will be a point to you in terms of SEO.

It is all in the design and navigation of the website that will determine how quickly a user can find the information they are looking for. By a general rule, it shouldn’t take more than 4 clicks from your homepage for your user to get to their end destination.

User Experience
When designing websites, the user should always come first. Are you giving your users exactly what they need? Is the content making them stay on site, proceed to the checkout or fill in a lead-generation form? By creating a website with the user in mind, it will help them achieve both their and your goals quickly and more efficiently.

By creating clear headings, having an easy navigational structure and particularly a quick responding site your users are more likely to stay and continue their journey. Google likes to see users find their answers to their search queries and if your website can’t provide that in a quick and easy manner, it’s down the rankings you go.

URLs
Getting your URLs right in the first instance will save time later if you want to change their structure and/or redirect them to another page. Your URL should be another indicator to the user of exactly what that page is about which in turn, helps Google and other search engines index it properly.

A bad (over exaggerated) example of a URL would be;

www.example.com/pr0fessionald0ggr00merz

Or

www.example.com/30doWR0dx45

Instead, to keep things simple and straightforward, name your URL around exactly what’s on the page. Use hyphens to separate words and try to keep them as short and concise as possible.

www.example.com/professional-dog-grooming

Mobile Friendly & Responsive
Finally, optimising your website so that it is mobile friendly is becoming more and more important in this modern age as being responsive across a range of phones/tablets/desktops becomes a dealbreaker for search engines. Responsive websites are now highly favoured by the likes of Google as this allows users to utilise a website no matter the device they’re accessing it from.

Are you now considering making SEO one of the elements you incorporate into your web design? Or perhaps you are quite happy with your current website but want to know more about how SEO and our other digital marketing services can bring more traffic to your website? It’s not too late to take advantage of these tactics, all you’ve got to do is start today!