The main role of a business website is to inform potential customers about the availability of various products and/or services and the client benefits accruable in the event that you opt to transact business with that particular company. This sort of marketing cannot be successful without the incorporation of SEO right from the start; it is imperative to have a SEO-friendly website design to ensure that your business website will eventually rise and reside in the higher echelons of search engine results. What elements should therefore be incorporated for the realization of a SEO-friendly website design?
Effective keyword research is the first of these and a proper understanding of what a business’ objectives are is necessary so as to get it right. Of course, knowing what the business objectives are will help to clarify several integral issues. A website designer will become aware of a business’ target market and area and thus be able to simulate the path that online visitors will use to reach the website. The designer will also be in a position to create effective sitemaps (the most recommended options are XML, ROR, URL List and HTML). This will no doubt help in the creation of effective contents rich in specific keywords and which will be used to target the business’ potential customers once the website is in operation.
The website must also be designed in a manner that will ensure search engine-friendly navigation i.e. a navigation protocol that is easily comprehensible for the search engines. For this aspect of on-page SEO there is need for a top-notch internal linking structure and the implementation of text-based links and buttons is a sure way of achieving superb accessibility. Opting for a flash-based navigation system is unadvisable for two main reasons. First, search engines cannot read text on images, and second, mobile devices (which are increasingly being used currently) are generally non-supportive of flash elements. Proper link labeling is also important as both the visitors and search engines need to be accurately directed to relevant pages.
Ensuring speedy website load times is another aspect that greatly accentuates SEO-friendliness. Website design must therefore ensure that elements which can hinder speedy load time are eliminated. With regards to CSS files, it is advisable to strategically place all the code and get rid of all irrelevant code, as well as to sparsely use JavaScript. Loading time will also be enhanced with the incorporation of proper image and file size.
Having done proper keyword research the next requirement will be to ensure that the identified keywords are placed in strategic positions within the website’s user-friendly contents. The most effective positions include the title tag, Meta description and keywords, navigation, website slogans, H1, H2 and H3 tags, breadcrumb trails, bullet points, alt text, the core website copy, internal and footer links, file/folder names, URLs, etc. Nevertheless, it is important to ensure that keyword density is agreeable with Google’s stipulations for user-friendly contents.
The integration of social media is an essential aspect of SEO-friendly website design. Placing various social media icons prominently on the site will let visitors know of the business’ availability on the indicated social networks. From the search engine perspective, daily use of Twitter can greatly augment keyword placement and accelerate the Google cache rate i.e. the frequency at which Google will visit the website to check for updates.