There are seven major steps to successful SEO web design. And for the sake of time, we’re jumping right into ’em. Buckle up. Here we go!
1). Ensure Your Site Is Developed Using Responsive Design
This is by far priority number one. Responsive web design will make sure all visitors (no matter what device they are using ipad or smart phone) can easily navigate your website and read your content. Since un-responsive design will scare off mobile website visitors (and search engines use visitor behavior to factor into rankings) this automatically increases your chances to both rank well and convert web traffic.
2). Choose Your Primary & Secondary Keywords
Believe it or not great seo web design starts with keyword research and keyword planning. Ask yourself, which keywords do I want to rank for.
3). Group Your Keywords by 2 or 3
Once you have your primary keywords noted, group them into groups of two or three.
4). Map Your Keywords to Specific Pages
Take these small groups of keywords and assign them to a specific page of your new site. You will need one specific page per group of related keywords.
5). Designate Money Keywords to the Homepage
Since your homepage is most susceptible to receiving natural inbound links, your best 2-3 keywords should be assigned to the homepage.
6). Draft Title Tags, Meta Descriptions, & URL Structure
Go ahead and draft the keyword title tags, meta descriptions, and keyword URL structure for each page of your site.
7). Draft Supporting Content Per Target URL
Write up the content that will support each page of your site. Aim to use the keywords assigned to that page of your site within your content two or three times.
8). Determine Your SEO Silo Strategy
Figure out how you want to link interior pages of your site together. You should embed at least one link within the content of each interior page and link to another interior page. Use a reverse silo if you are in a competitive online industry to build link juice from your blog posts to your interior pages all the way to your homepage.
9). Leverage Anchor Text Within Your Silo
Within the links you build from interior pages don’t forget to optimize for anchor text according to the page you are linking to. Outreach Mama has written a great piece on anchor text optimization.
10). Pick & Optimize Supporting Images
Each page of your website should have a supporting image for pleasing aesthetics. Before uploading photos, first optimize the file name of the photo to include keywords relating to the page it will land on. (Another reason why you have to keyword map early in your SEO strategy) Additionally optimize the image with a proper alt tag including keywords.
11). Set Longtail-Keyword Rich Blogging Categories
Web designers always miss this one but not SEO web designers. Go ahead and optimize blog categories according to longtail keywords. That way each blog post written and filed to a category “refreshes” the content associated with the long tail blog category. Google likes seeing this and you’re blog category pages will end up ranking naturally in SERPs if done correctly.
12). Generate An XML Sitemap
The format for your sitemap should be XML. Distribute this sitemap to Google and Bing Webmaster.
13). Implement Rich Snippet Markup
Addresses, customer reviews, products, events, and more can be marked with a standard format that Google prefers to read in order to provide “rich snippet” search results. This helps dramatically with your click thru rate in organic search results.
14). Apply Google Authorship
Make your website stand out in search results with a photo snippet by setting up Google authorship.
Bonus Steps To a Completely SEO Friendly Site & A Better Quality of Life
1). Use WordPress & Only WordPress
-You can win or lose the entire battle by choosing WordPress 1st and choosing the best fitting theme second. Don’t get knocked out of the NCAA tournament in the 1st round by choosing Joomla or allowing some web designer to sell you on fancy HTML. Play good defense, choose WordPress, hit your freethrows, don’t turn over the ball, and use this advice to hit some clutch three pointers and you may find yourself dancing in the final four or shall we say the top 4 organic results of Google. Of course you’ll need some great link building & possibly niche focused advertising to win the championship. If you need help that’s what we’re here for.
Have any questions about great SEO web design? Lets hear ’em below! Which tip of the 14 posted above was most helpful or insightful to you?