Everyone in the SEO community can tell you what makes for a good, well-optimized website. It comes down to the powerful combination of quality, unique content, suitable web design, ample SEO efforts, and, of course, loads and loads of marketing. It is easy to see, therefore, that web design and optimization go hand in hand and are the two major players in the war for better rankings. Apart from crafting killer site designs, web designers should be well aware of the focal points of proper SEO so they can truly create sites that add to rather than mess with a given online marketing strategy. Web designers out there, this blog is for you. Here is what we, at 411 Locals, have to share.
Let’s Begin with Site Structure
The goal with your site structure is to make it as easy to navigate as possible for both experienced and inexperienced website visitors. Your visitors should be able to seamlessly experience your site’s navigation and get around its pages with the utmost ease.
As a rule of thumb, side pages shouldn’t be deeper than 4 clicks from the homepage. If people have to click through more than that, they will probably lose interest and leave your site altogether. By sticking to the 4-click rule, you will also boost your site’s SEO as search engines will easily find and crawl your content.
Responsive, Mobile-Friendly Designs
You already know the increasing amount of traffic coming from mobile devices. Having a responsive site design means it will automatically adjust to the pixel-width of the screen the visitor is using. This will equate and enhance user experience across every device. Less effort for your audience to adjust their screen, equals, more time for them to spend on your website and what you are offering.
A Big Little Thing Called Image Optimization
Web designers are usually the ones in charge of deciding the aesthetic appeal of a website. Aside from the typography, patterns, geometric shapes, the use of colors, symmetry, and all that, they also choose which images make it to the website. Image optimization is about a lot more than higher page speed it is about better SEO as well. You should aim to decrease file size at all costs, and you can do that either through a plugin or script. You can find more tips and tricks on image optimization here.
If you wish to have both an enticing, easy to navigate website that is well-optimized at the same time, our SEO company can help. After all, we have been helping small and medium size businesses for over a decade now!
Stay tuned for our next topic!