Designing a SEO-Friendly Website

Gone are the days when you just had to create a pretty looking functional website and your work was done. In present times, these things don’t draw in people to your site. You have to ensure that your client’s website is SEO friendly and gives them the much needed online presence.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization improves a website’s visibility on search engines through organic or unpaid search results. It is used as a successful marketing tool as well.

There are many things you could do to improve your website’s SEO and its visibility. It is an efficient way to ensure that the hard work you have put in pays off. The following points would be helpful in making a website SEO friendly:

1.      Use The Right Keywords – In an SEO campaign, keywords are the most important thing. If you use the wrong keyword, you would never be found by the market you hope to reach. Keep the business objectives in your mind and your website’s reach when you sit down to design the website.

Keywords should be important and not overused. Sit down and make a list of such words relevant to your website and put them in a keyword research tool. This tool will help you finalize the final list of keywords that are targeted. Go for not more than 3 to 4 keywords per page and launch it.

2.      Place The Keywords Properly – Simply using the right keywords doesn’t ensure maximum visibility on search engines. You have to place them properly and make sure you don’t overdo it. The following places are ideal –

• Title;
• Keywords and description (meta);
• Slogan of your website;
• Bullet points;
• Internal and footer links; and
• URLs

3.      Ensure that Navigation Is Friendly For Search Engines – The structure of your website should be such that search engines can easily follow it and navigate through it. The biggest and the most common problem is image based URLs. Always ensure that your links are text based. Also, try to avoid JavaScript which is known to cause issues because it is difficult for search engines to understand. Same goes for advanced languages that can’t be accessed on a mobile device.

4.      SEO friendly Filenames And URLs – If your URL has the keyword, then it would boost your website visibility further and make search engines list them immediately. This is why it’s important that you are careful with the URL you use. For example –

• Not Friendly URL – http://www.xyz.com/products/item1?=123456
• Friendly URL – http://www.xyz.com/home/accessories/belts

Also, you should always be careful when you name the images. It is better to use descriptive names instead of codes and numbers.

It is noticed that people don’t take notice of images while they design an SEO friendly website. You should not commit that mistake.

SEO is an important tool that you should use to your benefit. It is an important support that a good product or service needs. Visit createasite.net to find more about how to create a great website.

Author – this article is written by Brenda Lyttle