Search Engine optimization aka SEO are a set of search engine standards that are imposed on web designers to optimize the search process of the webpage by the search engine. The standards are followed to provide the best User Experience.
SEO is equally important as efficient web designing, search engines don’t rank the websites is the search list on the basis of Web design, although users like to spend more time on modern and trendy sites but the traffic is directed to the site on the basis of the SEO standards followed. The search engines don’t prioritize sites in the search listing on the basis of looks of the site. What matters most is how easily people land on the site and how relevant the site is to it’s domain.
SEO does not only mean that the content’s quality should be high, the portrayal of the content, flow in the content and the sequential information structure are also the key factors for developing an optimized website.
The ranking of a website in SERPs (Search Engine result Pages) is directly dependant to the SEO friendly nature of the site.
Search engines follow their own methodology to interpret content and crawl the web for websites relevant to the information being searched, a web page does not look same to users and search engines.
Here are some tips for SEO friendly web site design :
- Design should be responsive in nature : The websites should be visible on devices of all sizes, especially small wireless mobile devices, there functionality should also be up to the mark on all sized devices. According to google, responsive made sites are best.
- The pages should be easily crawlable and indexed : A website should have a good looking and trendy design but what matters the most for increasing visitor traffic on the site is that the links should be easily discoverable on the website eg navigations, menus etc. The pages should be sequenced also and the content should be arranged so hat it appears meaningful to the search engines.
- Logical URl Structure : The URl structure can be made Search Engine friendly, the URl should show the sequencing of the webpage and the name should be catchy and in sync with the cuase of the website.
- Webpage should load fast : The number of users and data traffic decreases if the site takes too much time to load. Google has started showing labels in it’s search engine ranking page for sites that are slow to load for responsive access cases. These labels effect the data traffic drasatically.
- Don’t use horizontal scroll : Vertical Scroll is more user friendly for both normal and responsive websites.
- Awareness : The owner of the site and the designing team should be well aware with the Webmaster guidelines layed down by Google, various useful tips can be inferred for better user experience.
- Don’t use too much pop-ups : Some users get annoyed because of the use of out of context images that serve no useful purpose and make the loading of the site slow, instead of these blurring images more focus should be put on the content of the webpages, the content should be interactive and engaging that compells people to comment and share their views.
- Avoid Shortcuts : Downloading SEO plugins does not complete the task of making a website SEO friendly complete, attentive planning, smart designing and accurate coding also act as the accounting factors.
- Integration with Social Media : The social media activities are higly infuential for Search Engine Ranking of websites, the links of all social media pages should be there in the website footer and the process of sharing posts, pages and products should be easy and convenient for everyone.
- Make a cross browser site : The website should be tested on all majorly used browsers such as Google Chorome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Some Companies hold a vast experience in making SEO friendly websites, their worked websites hold high ranks in the SERP’s of browsers. They have a long list of happy and satisfied customers.
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The author is an experienced digital media professional having experience of more than 25 years in leadership roles at several leading internet and media companies in India.