Website owners can utilize these SEO-friendly website design tips to make sure that the search engines can easily read and index your new or redesigned website. Most professional website designers are already familiar with these concepts, the goal of this post is to help website owners understand the long reaching Internet marketing aspects of your website design. And key design concepts to understand before undertaking a new website design. A well thought out, SEO-friendly website design can continue to bring website traffic organically for years with a little SEO attention.
Many of the questions that your website designer will probably ask you before beginning the website design are similar questions that the search engines are looking for answers to when they review your website for search engine indexing.
Questions like: Are you a local, regional, national, or international business? Do you have products or services (or both)? Are you selling something online? How can your prospects, customers, or patients buy or order products or services? These are the same questions that the search engines will be trying to figure out as they read and index your website.
Note: Search Engine Optimization, SEO, is typically an ongoing internet marketing endeavor. The tips in this list will help make sure your initial design starts off for optimal visibility.
8 Essential SEO-Friendly Website Design Tips
1) Choose an SEO-Friendly Domain
Purchase a domain that is easy to remember and easy to see. Some domains with 4 & 5 words strung together are impossible to read or remember. Domains should be easy for people who know your business, and they should be easy for the search engines to tell what your business is. A fundamental security setting for your domain is the SSL is the “secure sockets layer” (https://) that provides security for your website. Read more on “Does your website need SSL?” https://www.kateraffertyseo.com/website-need-ssl/
www vs no www (World Wide Web prefix) When setting up a brand new website the company owner/manager can request the use of www versus non-www on the primary domain. If a website is being redesigned, it is highly recommended that you continue to use the setting that was implemented on the older website. Following are the roles of the website owner, the developer, and the hosting company have with the www setting.
- The Owner typically decides whether they prefer www or non-www for branding.
- The Website Developer asks the owner for access to their domain DNS provider (or provides the exact A/CNAME values for the owner to paste in).
- The Website Developer sets up the Hosting Environment routes the traffic, while the developer configures the 301 redirect to enforce the chosen structure – www or non-www.
Domain Tip: Do you have multiple domain? Do you have a different domain for your email than for your website? Your website should clearly identify which domains are yours. Often there is little use for multiple domains outside of blocking competitors from purchasing a domain that could direct people away for your business.
2) Build Consistent Website Branding
In the SEO world, your website is often the center of your internet branding, your digital footprint. Consider your logo, branding colors, and any other branding elements in your website design and extend them to other Internet properties. Don’t forget a branded browser icon, your favicon – this gives visibility to your site’s brand and the icon may appear in search results, browser tabs, and elsewhere on the web. If you hire a graphic designer ask for variations of your logo to be made in sizes that are appropriate for your website and social media (you’ll need a square-shaped profile logo and some kind of landscape/rectangle shape cover photo or banner design. If you can’t afford a professional, there are sites such as canva.com where you can design a logo and the size requirements for varying social media channels.
SEO Branding Tips:
- Your logo on your website should be named appropriately (ex: Kate-rafferty-seo-logo.png) with descriptive ALT text containing your company name and the word ‘logo’. And a link to the home page so that anyone can get back to the home page by clicking on the logo.
- A simplified version of your logo should exist for the favicon. If it is sized for 512 × 512 px PNG, but should look good for a 16×16 px.
- Featured Images for every web pages & blog posts are major drivers to improve click-through rates. Avoid stock photography and consider branded images or stock with a consistent brand overlay. (WordPress website
3) Create SEO-Friendly Website Navigation
The most basic website should have 4-5 web pages with navigation buttons and hyperlinks to move around the website. Many business owners and website designers opt for a 1-page website design with no navigation. In terms of SEO it is easier for the search engines to drive web traffic to a contact page, a service page, etc. than to render deeper content lower on the page – on the search results. Single-page website tend to perform badly for organic search.
Make sure it is easy for website visitors to navigate around your website. Practically all business websites should have:
- Home
- About page
- Product, Service, Shop, or Practice page
- Contact page
You have 5 seconds to catch someone’s attention, if your navigation gets too busy, flowery, or creative, you could be losing people. Test your mobile menu out. And include footer menus to make it easy for your readers.
Tip: Test your navigation on a computer, pad, and mobile. Ask someone not familiar either your website to find something on your about page, your contact page, and other pages to see how well a new person can navigation your site (on different devices).
4) Optimize Your Home Page for SEO
Before delving into the design of your home page please remember … people do NOT read your website like a book. Even though the home page is the first page of your website, often website visitors will NOT even come to your website via the home page, they could “land” on any page of your website.
Please do not use your home page to talk about you, about your company. The home page should be used to address your prospect’s pain, i.e. why they need your products or services. Reserve all the stuff about how great you are for the About page.
The home page should quickly link to key information about your business (usually your main navigation).
5) Optimize Your About Page
The ABOUT page should be about the company. Show that you are a legitimate business, note if you have an LLC, INC, or sister company. It’s useful to let people know if you are a local brick-and-mortar business, a global ebusiness, or other type of business. Briefly identify your service area, if your service area is broad, link to a Service Area page. If you have a management team or departments, highlight them here and provide links for more details. Create a stand-alone page for the owner(s)/founder(s) and link to them. Show even more about what your company is about by including a mission statement. Do you have a Giving Back initiative, a green initiative, or an ethos – if yes, begin the conversation here a link for more information. If you have a testimonial or review page and don’t have room in your main menu – make sure to include a link here.
6) Use Testimonials and Reviews
The Testimonials Page… people will not value a testimonial on your website as much as one on a third-party site like Yelp, Google Reviews, or Facebook Reviews. However, there is value to having a single page where you highlight a few testimonials for key products/services or for common problems. Consider creating sub-titles that highlight the problem or savings. Also consider including some case studies. And link to the 3rd party review websites – it might help you get additional testimonials.
7) Optimize Your Contact Page for Local SEO
The Contact page is much more than the means to connect with you. Your business will have a better chance of appearing in searches for your area if your customers can see your location. This page should identify the best way to communicate with your business – phone, email, online forms, stop in at an address, or book an appointment. If you have a physical location, include a map to help make you look legitimate. If you don’t have an office open to the public, do whatever you can to provide information that shows you a business doing business on the Internet. Google Maps relies on a contact page for verification.
8) Clearly Define Your Products or Services
Often the most common mistake I find when meeting a new SEO client, is that in a 5-second look at your website, it is unclear as to what your business is. If you sell products, have a Products page or a Shop. If you sell services, have a Services page or promote a Book-an-Appointment. Make it super easy to see that your website is a business and not just an information site or a blog.
(H2) Essential SEO Tips for a Website Redesign
The tips above for creating an SEO-friendly website apply to both brand-new websites and website redesigns. However, if you are planning to redesign an existing website, there is one important SEO recommendation to keep in mind: preserve your existing website URLs whenever possible. Ideally, work with an SEO specialist during the redesign, but even if you are working only with a website designer, make sure this issue is addressed. Do not assume that your website designer will automatically account for SEO.
It pains me when a new client tells me they used to get a lot of website traffic and business, but after redesigning their website, they are starting from ground zero. It doesn’t have to happen. The most important SEO step during a website redesign is to keep the URLs of existing pages the same whenever possible.
For example: The URL www.xyz.com/about should remain www.xyz.com/about after the redesign.
The colors can change, the design can change, and the content on the About page can be updated. However, keeping the same URL helps preserve the connection between the existing page and its history in search engines. This is especially important for pages that have already earned search visibility, backlinks, or traffic. If a URL absolutely needs to change, make sure the old URL is properly redirected to the new URL rather than simply deleting the old page.
Summary of SEO-Friendly Website Redesign Tips
- Preserve important URLs
- Use 301 redirects when URLs change
- Preserve or improve valuable content
- Check indexing after launch
Read more on “How to Maintain SEO During a Website Redesign”
As an SEO specialist, I do NOT design websites, but I often work with web developers when converting to a redesigned website. Contact to discuss an SEO plan before your website design to ensure SEO-Friendly Website Design or redesign.