When it comes to SEO most people only think of “keyword” strategies. While keyword strategies are very important, those efforts won’t matter if your website design and User Experience (UX) is lacking.
Your SEO should not be to blame if your website is poorly designed. It doesn’t matter how much effort you invest in keywords, you will have difficulty converting users to paying customers if your website isn’t SEO optimized.
Here are five major tips to optimize your website for SEO:
- Good design & clear navigation
- Mobile friendly
- Secure encryption (HTTPS)
- Quality content
- Key-word rich URLs & links
Good Design & Navigation
You only have five seconds to convince a user to stay on your site. If users aren’t impressed with the design or they have difficulty finding information, they will leave and never return. This sound harsh, but it is the honest truth.
Mobile Friendly
If your website is not mobile friendly then you are getting penalized by search engines. With 20-30% of your website traffic coming from a mobile device, you need to provide your customers an optimal mobile experience through a mobile-friendly website.
Your clients will thank you and search engines will rank you higher.
Not sure if your website is mobile friendly? Use Google’s free Mobile-Friendly Test to see how your site is performing.
Secure Encryption
HTTPS in simple terms is an encryption method to keep personal information safe as it is transferred back and forth between you and the website. This added layer of security is very important in our digital world.
Thankfully, Google values security and is “working to make the Internet safer more broadly.” One way Google is influencing broad internet security is by giving HTTPS website a boost in search results. Read Google’s full statement on HTTPS as a ranking signal.
What does this mean to you? If you implement HTTPS you can get a search rank boost on your site. Talk about a win-win scenario; you get higher rankings and your users get a safer web experience.
Quality Content
Writing quality content for your website is difficult but necessary for strong search rankings. Out of frustration or avoidance, many small businesses try to replace good copywriting with fancy images, videos, or flash graphics.
While these graphic elements can enhance your website visually, they cannot replace the value of plain text in regards to SEO. Search engines can’t read images, video, or flash the same way they read plain text.
If you want to rank high in search engines, take the time to write quality copy for every page of your website.
Need help with your website copywriting? Checkout our WordPress ProPhoto Templates with pre-written website copy and a fill-in-the-blank website writing worksheet. Write all the copy for your website in as quick as 1 hour! Talk about a time-saving, life-saving solution to your website writing woes.
Keyword-Rich URLs & Links
Use descriptive, keyword-rich URLs to help search engines properly index your site. Instead of using the generic “www.yoursite.com/shop” you may use “www.yoursite.com/craft-shop.” The extra use of the word “craft” will help search engines associate what type of shop you offer.
The same is true for links on your website. Instead of highlighting a link to say “click here” tell your users and search engines what the link is. For example, instead of “click here” you might say “view our awesome cake services.”
The main point
Before you can reach the stars, you need to make sure your foundation is solid. That foundation is your website.
Before you spend time and money on any SEO strategy, make sure your website is designed professionally to accommodate search engine criteria.
This is a small list of items you can implement to improve your website optimization, but there is a very long list of technicalities that a quality web designer will help you through.
Need some help? When you work with Mark Branding Boutique, we take care of your SEO for you. Our website design services and ProPhoto Template Designs include responsive mobile friendly design, HTTPS setup and installation, and SEO formatting strategies.
