14 March 2021
Web Design
Your website looking the part is only a fraction of the hurdle you need to overcome to create a successful website that attracts high amounts of organic traffic. This article will cover all the design elements you will need to consider when designing a Google-friendly and SEO-optimised website.
For business owners looking for more hits, conversions, and sales on their websites, investing in an SEO web design package is one of the best ways to improve your Google rankings. The easier it is for Google’s algorithm to trawl the website to determine its nature, the better placed it will be in Google’s index.
Ultimately, Google’s algorithm’s job is to put the most appropriate content in front of users browsing the web and using keywords to find the information, product, or service they are looking for. Content is a big part of an effective SEO strategy, but SEO-optimised content is just one ingredient in the SEO recipe. For any chance at ranking on the first page of Google search results, an SEO-friendly website is a necessity. Out of the billions of people taking to Google every day, only 5% of those take their search past the first page of results.
How to Create a Google-Friendly Website
To stand a chance at raking on the first page of Google, on-page optimisation and off-page optimisation must be part of the process of creating an SEO-friendly website.
On-Page SEO Web Design Optimisation
SEO-Optimised Content - Most website owners know the importance of keyword research, using the right keywords at the right frequency and creating adequate content. However, how that SEO-optimised content is formatted and arranged is just as crucial when appeasing Google’s algorithm. Furthermore, when drafting website content, consider the inbound links you can earn by creating engaging, meaningful and informative content.
Meta Tags & Headers - To create an SEO-friendly website, the correct use of meta description tags, image alt tags, header tags and title tags is essential. Once all the content is arranged with all of the above considered, the URL structures must be optimized. Some of the best ways to optimise URL structures include keeping URLs short and simple, using hyphens to separate words, removing unnecessary numbers, and ensuring that keywords are included in URLs.
Simplified URL Structures - The internal link structure should also be a priority during web design. Effective and simple internal link structures will not only improve navigation for visitors to the website, but also for the search algorithms which trawl and index pages to rank them and align websites with user expectations.
Multimedia Content – Always supplement your SEO-friendly content with other forms of media, such as images, videos, and informational graphics. To make the content easier to read for web users and Google’s algorithms alike, consider breaking up some of your text into bullet point lists. Not only will this make your website look more attractive, but there is a chance that web users may find your website through the videos or images that appear in Google Images or Google Video.
Create a Responsive Mobile-Friendly Website – If your website is visually striking and true to your brand but takes an eternity load and has lagging issues for mobile and web users, you are running the risk of them abandoning your web page for a more responsive website. This is often easier said than done, and it is one of the main reasons investing in an affordable web design package is recommended. Additionally, every time a visitor bounces from your website early without exploring it first, this information will be fed back to Google.
Off-Page SEO Optimisation
Off-Page SEO optimisation is less of a web design strategy and more of a marketing strategy, which amplifies the status of your website. Primarily, Off-page SEO optimisation is achieved through earning inbound links to your websites from other respected websites and getting social media users to mention your platform. Social media mentions and inbound links, depending on their quality, can increase a website’s authority, which will then increase Google rankings and website traffic.
Other forms of off-page SEO that you will want to consider to improve Google’s rankings and indexing include scoping out the competition to see how you can beat their SEO strategy and only using keyword-rich anchor text for any inbound links.
As with on-page SEO strategies, there are plenty of off-page SEO web design strategies that are considered ‘Black Hat’ by Google’s algorithms. Black Hat is a term used to describe SEO techniques that are frowned upon by Google’s algorithms. Not only will using Black Hat strategies in the hope of improving your rankings lead to a demotion in them but trying to deceive algorithms with cheap tricks can also lead to penalties and being banned outright by Google and other search engines. Some Black Hat techniques that should be avoided at all costs include buying and selling links, link farming, and hiding links on your website.
Why SEO Friendly website Design Should Be Left to Professionals
This article has provided a brief outline of what it takes to improve a webpage’s SEO. However, correctly implementing all the on-page and off-page web design factors required to hit the first page in Google’s rankings will take a phenomenal learning curve for all beginner web designers.
By investing in an affordable web design package that includes on-page SEO and looking into effective off-page SEO, you will be making a major investment in your marketing in the process. A high-quality and SEO-friendly website can be just as effective as a major ad campaign for your business. As you won’t just be reaching your target audience, who may or may not require your products or services. You will be reaching web users actively keying words into Google to find your products or services.
If you would like more information on our web design services in Gold Coast and Australia-wide, get in touch with us today, and we will help you achieve your online digital marketing goals.
