Learning everything you need to know about SEO web design just to cover the basics of your website’s structure takes time and a lot of dedication. Designing a site that’s SEO-friendly is not an easy feat, which is why there are digital marketing agencies that offer those services and have entire departments dedicated to this task alone.
Even some seasoned web developers aren’t familiar with SEO good practices and build sites that may look awesome but are extremely difficult to modify.
This is more of an informative guide destined for users who are looking to hire another team to develop their website. This is not a technical guide for web developers who wish to know more about theme editing, theme building, code, or any of the intricate stuff that sits on the backend. Instead, we wish to offer a few pointers on the things everyone should keep an eye out for, especially people who are paying for those services so that their website is as SEO-friendly as possible.
So, why are we putting up this article? Well, when we offer the best website SEO services Orange County has available, we know it is just the beginning of a long conversation where we have to analyze what’s good from our perspective and what fits with the client’s vision. Creating an SEO-friendly website should be the result of a long discussion where the marketing agency determines what makes the client unique and strives to accommodate their vision, but also where the client understands what is achievable, what isn’t, and what the pros and cons are of the various routes they’re considering.
Please remember that what you might think looks great may not be the most efficient when it comes to SEO. If you don’t mind that, it’s fine.
Let’s get started.
What Are Some Technical Aspects That Determine if My Website Is SEO-Friendly or Not?
Even before we start developing a site, there are a few things we need to get in order to have an online presence. There are only two ways in which online users will reach your site:
- Either they already know you and enter your website address.
- They use a search engine, such as Google or Bing, to find suitable options according to their search parameters.
An SEO-friendly website will help search engine crawling algorithms identify it as an ideal match for the users’ search parameters. In so doing, you ensure your website shows up on the top of the search results, making it more likely that users will interact with you first. Here are a few things you should take into consideration to make your website SEO-friendly.
Choosing Your Domain For Good SEO Web Design
Your domain is basically your name online. This may or may not match your business’s name, and even though we generally recommend it does, some people might consider using a bit of a shortcut to appear more attractive to search engines.
In general, though, please use your business name as your domain whenever possible. Something you can take advantage of is that knowing all this beforehand, you can name your business, including your target city’s name. For instance, if you are a dentist who primarily offers dental health services in a specific area, you might want to name your dental practice as “(city name) + dental” and use that same name as your domain.
The reason why you shouldn’t rush this process is that it won’t look good if you constantly seek to change your domain; besides, including a local keyword (don’t worry; we’ll talk more about keywords later) will also help you for Local SEO strategies that make your business much more attractive to specific communities in your vicinity.
As always, though, the choice is yours.
Web Hosting For The Best SEO Web Design
The most pressing concern for business owners who are expanding to the digital space is saving as much money as possible and ensuring great ROIs, which leads to a couple of questions about web hosting: should I rent or buy? What is domain leasing? Will I be the owner of what goes online?
So, what is web hosting, and how can it affect my website’s SEO? You can follow the link for a more in-depth discussion of the matter, but we will emphasize this: whenever possible, avoid deals or service packages where you are not the owner of your online content or where you are only renting a domain along with your web hosting access.
Our philosophy at Search Business Group is that our clients should be entitled to own the content and digital assets they hire us to create. We think that alone should position us as the best marketing agency Orange County has available, but we digress.
Unfortunately, many marketing agencies have predatory business practices that leave business owners completely unprotected and at a grave disadvantage when it comes to future growth plans. Furthermore, not owning your domain or access to web hosting leaves you completely dependent on others, not to mention that it makes you vulnerable to losing access entirely and wasting all the time and dedication you put into developing a website.
Leasing a domain and owning access is always better.
Ultimately, your web host is of crucial importance because it’s what helps keep your site up at all times, and you don’t want to have downtime that makes you lose appointments, prevents people from buying your products, and impacts your credibility negatively.
UI/UX Design
One of the many (and we really mean many) factors that will determine if your website is SEO-friendly or not is UI/UX design. Search engines will crawl your site searching for indicators that users will have an easy time navigating and identifying important pieces of information.
UI stands for User Interface, which is a very fancy way of describing everything the user sees and interacts with. SEO-friendly UI design takes into consideration your choice of color palette, the fonts you use, buttons, media, and the overall aesthetic appeal of your website. The idea is to develop something that stands out but won’t oversaturate the space with too many elements that make a user go dizzy.
UX is a short way of saying User Experience. This is a more tech-heavy part, and it deals with the design of how everything in your site interacts with the user and vice-versa. User experience is critical in SEO because it will determine if the information is easily accessible, how well-organized everything is, and how much thought you’ve put into making things easy to reach rather than just posting resources wildly without any goal in mind.
In today’s world, we would highly recommend you approach your site’s design with a “less is more” type of mindset. There are two reasons why we suggest this:
- Google and other search engines constantly update its algorithm, so the fewer things you have to tweak after an update rolls out, the better.
- Usually, your website won’t take as long to load when it has fewer elements on each page. This will help you score better on UX and other ranking parameters.
Make sure you read more about why is UI/UX design important for web services by following this link.
Make Sure You Get High-Quality Website SEO Services in Orange County
There is a lot we have yet to cover, and we’ll continue to update this guide with more information and tips for business owners. In the meantime, you can get in touch with us to learn more about the solutions we offer in web design to Orange County business owners and entrepreneurs all over the US.
Next time you have a conversation about designing a website, you’ll know what to keep in mind and how to stand the test of time. Trust us, thinking about SEO when designing your website is worth it, even if it means delaying the launch a little bit.
When you start comparing the traffic you generate organically versus how much you have to spend on online ads, you’ll be glad to have invested a little more time in the SEO web design process.
Please get in touch with us to learn more about our creative process and the solutions we can provide.
