Not only does logical use of these elements make a site look better, but they can also impact conversion rate potential, which is a big +1 for SEO. The foundation to any online business is its website. Ensure the elements of your company's web design are cohesive and conversion-effective by absorbing our infographic below. Cheers.
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SEO Web Design Tips for Creating SEO Friendly Web Design!
SEO and Web Design go hand in hand. What's the point of having a Website if nobody can find it?! You can use our SEO Web Design Tips to help your Website get found on Google and other major search engines. Among the SEO Friendly Web Design topics that we'll discuss is SEO Copywriting, Link Building strategies, maximizing Social Media outlets for SEO benefits, properly structuring and optimizing Website content to be relevant and to rank highly in the search results, and anymore SEO Web Design Tips that we can think of! Professional SEO and web design teams know which design elements that can hinder SEO performance, such as Flash and code-heavy pages. They also know the elements that can enhance the SEO potential of a website. Below we outline three perspectives that define successful SEO and website design teams.Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Infographic: Elements of an Effective Web Design
The elements that contribute to an effective web design, although subjective in nature, have been tried and tested, repeatedly. Whether for an ecommerce website or a local business website, the best practices of web design center on a consistent layout with cohesive typography, color schemes, and overall usability.
Not only does logical use of these elements make a site look better, but they can also impact conversion rate potential, which is a big +1 for SEO. The foundation to any online business is its website. Ensure the elements of your company's web design are cohesive and conversion-effective by absorbing our infographic below. Cheers.
Not only does logical use of these elements make a site look better, but they can also impact conversion rate potential, which is a big +1 for SEO. The foundation to any online business is its website. Ensure the elements of your company's web design are cohesive and conversion-effective by absorbing our infographic below. Cheers.
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Tuesday, September 25, 2012
SEO Copywriting Tips: Evolving Strategies on Old Tasks
There are a lot of theories and popularized beliefs out there on search engine optimization. SEO has become more and more of a delicate balancing act in finding the most effective way to rank.
Below I will briefly detail successful strategies dedicated to the ever-almighty task of ranking high on search engines.
However, before I begin, it’s wise to touch on a few factors which need to be ironed-out in order for these strategies to work properly.
Accessibility - Search engines need to be able to see your code or your page can’t be ranked.
Experience - A well interfaced website creating no barriers or problems for users is essential to gaining a following.
Content - Great content intrigues readers which creates shares and links. Google recognizes this and rewards you.
Marketing - As always, without promoting your content, it’s hard to get the word out.
When your keywords are in the title, people will often use them in the anchor text to link to you. This allows Google to determine that a page is about a particular subject. Generally, keeping titles under 72 characters is preferred so it can be fully visible in results.
Accessibility - Search engines need to be able to see your code or your page can’t be ranked.
Experience - A well interfaced website creating no barriers or problems for users is essential to gaining a following.
Content - Great content intrigues readers which creates shares and links. Google recognizes this and rewards you.
Marketing - As always, without promoting your content, it’s hard to get the word out.
1. Page Title
The first thing you need to know before you get started is what keywords you’re targeting. Even if you plan to optimize later, it’s helpful to know your keywords. You can start by inserting them into the page title. From an organizational standpoint, people want to see what they searched for looking right back at them in the results.When your keywords are in the title, people will often use them in the anchor text to link to you. This allows Google to determine that a page is about a particular subject. Generally, keeping titles under 72 characters is preferred so it can be fully visible in results.
2. Meta Descriptions
The presentation of your content to search engines is still an integral part of SEO copywriting. It’s undecided if meta descriptions influence rank at all, but it really doesn’t matter. The meta description serves as a clincher to bring the traffic to your site through that last click. A successful meta description will summarize your page and convince the searcher that your content will satisfy what they’re searching for. Meta Descriptions should be under 165 characters so their full description is visible.3. Content
Don’t let cobwebs form on your sites. The clearest function you need to provide is compelling and regularly updated content. The content needs to be direct. Internet readers will hardly reach for anything less in this age of instant gratification. Of course, that’s not to say that content should be brief. Providing content of a substantial length (in the 300-500 word range) will have a much easier time ranking than considerably shorter content. Other strategies such as bolding your keywords and including your keywords in subheadings may or may not produce results. If you’re going to do that, do it because it makes sense to do it and not because you’re looking for another way to achieve results.Keyword Frequency
As one of the main building blocks of on-page SEO, keyword frequency undoubtedly impacts ranking. In the old days, it was all about jamming keywords into the content. However, these days a delicate ratio of keyword density is vital in balancing between the fine lines of excellent repetition of keywords and falling guilty of spam-like content. According to many experts, a keyword density greater than 5.5% could cause Google to penalize you. So make sure to measure your frequency against the overall length of your content if you’re having doubts. So in short, don’t be archaic and numbingly repeat keyword phrases thinking you’ll be the bread and butter of Google, likely the opposite will occur.Page Links
When optimizing a web page, it’s absolutely necessary to be connected with other pages and content. Search engines value websites that are well indexed and deemed to be valuable to a great number of other webpages. Brian Clark of Copyblogger offers a few guidelines for page linking:- Link to relevant content early in the body copy
- Link to relevant pages every 120 words of content
- Link to relevant interior pages of your site or other sites
- Link with naturally relevant anchor text
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Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Key Ingredients for SEO Web Design
As SEO web design tips noted in the previous post about what to look for in a search engine friendly CMS system, proper HTML structure has a great impact on overall performance of an organic SEO strategy. We're going to take that notion one step further in this SEO web design tips blog by highlighting some of the key ingredients that go into creating an SEO friendly web design.
SEO Friendly Website Development
Proper HTML language markup when developing a web design that must rank well in the search engines is the first step in ensuring SEO web design success. This best practice of SEO friendly web development can make a significant impact on the overall performance of your SEO campaign. Companies that specialize in SEO web friendly web design and development utilize SEO-friendly CSS techniques instead of regular HTML tags when creating fonts, colors and other universal website design styles. Doing this CSS technique keeps the HTML markup on a web page clean and concise for the search engine spiders. It also keeps the ratio of keyword-optimized text higher than that of websites that do not utilize CSS to style their web pages. Another critical SEO friendly web design technique that developers use is integrating the keyword-rich copy that is crawlable by search engine spiders as high up in the HTML markup as possible to ensure maximum SEO benefits. This makes the search engine spider's job easier and can lead to higher rankings in the organic search results.SEO Friendly Content Management Systems
It's commonplace in the website design industry to develop websites on content management system (CMS) platforms. From a best SEO web design tips standpoint, not all CMS systems were built equally for search engine optimization benefits. Search engine friendly CMS systems such as Wordpress CMS or Exponent CMS gives website developers an edge over the competition because both of these CMS platforms have key features for SEO friendly web design such as customization of Meta Titles, Descriptions and Keywords tags. Both of these content management systems structure their HTML markup in an SEO-friendly fashion with clear, concise markup and usage of CSS style sheets.SEO-Friendly Website Graphic Design
Certain graphical aspects of a website design can be further optimized for greater organic SEO value, with optimized images and videos leading the way. This blog post gives great tips on how to properly optimize images for the search engines. Optimized images can help build keyword relevancy of a web page and help boost rankings. SEO Friendly web design also focuses on website conversion rate optimization. This practice centers on analyzing how website visitors behave on a website and optimize the website for ease of use and calls to action in order to increase the likelihood of conversions. This is a basic fundamental of website optimization and SEO friendly web design.
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Saturday, June 23, 2012
What to Look for in a Search Engine Friendly CMS
If
you have decided to dabble in the world of online business, the first
consideration will obviously be a good website that is search engine friendly. Today, most designers
are turning to Content Management Systems (CMS) to build their
websites due to the ease of ongoing content maintenance for the
website.
In
fact, with some simple content management systems and free blogging
platforms, pretty much anyone who knows how to surf the Internet can
set up a simple website on their own these days.
However, making the
choice
between the myriad of CMS options available can be difficult if you
don't know what to look for in a CMS – especially if ranking high
in the search results is one of your primary business objectives.
The emphasis here is on SEO because it is the backbone of any online
business so it's imperative that you build your website on a Search
Engine Friendly Content Management System.
With
this in mind, here are a few SEO Web Design Tips that you should look
for when you're trying to find an SEO friendly CMS for your website design.
Ease of Customization of the CMS
Any
CMS you choose should be user-friendly in terms of allowing you to
customize several of the features. A website should be unique and
hence, the CMS should allow for customized URLs created with your own
keywords for easy search engine indexing and ranking. CMS platforms
like Wordpress – although Wordpress requires a third-party plugin
to maximize SEO value – or Exponent CMS give you complete control
over highly important Meta data for SEO including:
- Page title tags – which should be unique with an emphasis on keywords and phrase
- Meta Descriptions tag
- Meta Keywords tag
A
search engine friendly content management system should provide
customizable access to all three of these vital on-site SEO tags. Without
being able to personalize these Meta tags, the search engines won't
be able to get the full story of your website's pages and you won't
get the search rankings you're trying to achieve. An SEO friendly CMS
should allow the link anchor text to be alerted to suit your unique
needs any
time.
The
top two SEO plugins for Wordpress that our company uses for SEO in Atlanta are the Yoast SEO plugin and the All-in-one SEO pack.
Functionality of the Search Engine Friendly CMS
The
way a CMS functions will determine the success of your website. For a
start, avoid any system, which will generate duplicate content, as
this will lead to penalties from search engines and lower ranking. In
addition, it is important to use a CMS that allows easy updating of
both content text and images.
Additionally,
search for a search engine friendly CMS that gives you access to make
permanent 301 redirects of any URLs for the purpose of SEO and
avoiding alarms of duplicate content or losing search engine rankings
if a URL has changed. More importantly, the content management system
must have easy access to all pages for manual editing because search
engines are always attracted to updated content.
To recap these SEO Web Design tips to get the most out of your Internet marketing strategy, consider all of these factors until it becomes clear what the best search engine friendly CMS is for your business. The website you set up can either make or break your company and the more you invest in your research and planning of your SEO, the better the site – and your organic SEO rankings - will turn out to be. To learn more, contact our Search Engine Friendly Web Design Company today!
To recap these SEO Web Design tips to get the most out of your Internet marketing strategy, consider all of these factors until it becomes clear what the best search engine friendly CMS is for your business. The website you set up can either make or break your company and the more you invest in your research and planning of your SEO, the better the site – and your organic SEO rankings - will turn out to be. To learn more, contact our Search Engine Friendly Web Design Company today!
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Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Free Local SEO Webinar May 31st 3pm Eastern
It's SEO Web Design Tips' pleasure to put in a plug for our friends at OIC Group, Inc., who are presenting an incredibly valuable Local SEO Webinar tomorrow Thursday May 31st at 3pm Eastern time.
This free webinar will highlight the importance of search engine optimization for local businesses, and will showcase many actionable takeaway points that attendees can employ on their own websites.
Tomorrow's local SEO webinar will offer a wealth of insights for attendees in various industries and professions on how to get more traffic to your website. Local SEO Company OIC Group is pulling back the curtains on many "secrets" of the trade, from techniques to optimize your website to ways on how to increase your Google Places ranking.
After years of immersion, research, and testing, the SEO team at OIC Group has become an industry leader in local SEO and local Internet marketing. In tomorrow's webinar, specialists of the company plan to share a number of powerful SEO techniques and specific processes. Attendees can learn several ways to do some SEO of their own, such as:
- Proper Google Places SEO strategies
- Tips on how to keyword optimize a website
- How and where to build quality links for SEO
- Where to further promote your local business on the web
There have been a lot of recent changes taking place in online search. In an effort to provide more relevant, better quality search results, Google has been focusing more on the local orientation of its users. That is, Google is showing localized search results (commonly Google Places) based on the IP addresses of users' locations.
These shifts have not only impacted Google's search landscape, but have leveled the playing field. No longer is Google search solely for big-business brands with powerful websites and large local SEO marketing budgets. Now, local businesses can take advantage of an effective advertising and marketing platform that offers a highly targeted way to connect with in-market consumers.
To learn actionable tips and strategies that center on local search engine optimization, Google Places SEO, and other Internet marketing channels for local businesses, sign up for OIC Group’s webinar. The webinar is set for tomorrow (Thursday) at 2:00PM CST (3:00PM EST). To sign up for the webinar, click here.
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Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Simple Tips on SEO for Web Designers
Time has disapproved this approach and web design has become integrated as an important part of optimizing your site for the search engines. If you are setting up a website or upgrading the one you have, there are a few basics on SEO web design that will come in handy. These tips on SEO for web designers are critical to ensure a client’s website is quickly indexed and ranks well in the search engines.
Page User Friendliness to Search Spiders
There is a misconception that web design is all about nice looking graphics with appealing drop down menus and Flash elements but this is not so. SEO experts know that though Flash might give you a fascinating looking page, Flash is almost completely non-SEO friendly to the search engines for indexation. Any site being optimized for search engines must use proper HTML structure with a focus on best practices for on-site SEO for easy indexing and search rankings. Some devices such as iPhone cannot view Flash pages again exacerbating the situation. One of the best SEO web design tips we can give you is to, Just say no to Flash.
JavaScript also poses the same conundrum. It is unreadable by search spiders and if it is absolutely necessary to create a section using it, ensure you have a HTML link of that page elsewhere on the site. Another inhibiting factor is the use of frames, which are popular with some web designers. Search spiders will overlook them and your page will not be indexed.
Use but Do Not Abuse Keywords
Everyone understands the importance of keywords and phrases that people are searching for and how to get more traffic, but most web designers still abuse them. SEO keywords should appear at important points such as URL, title and header tags, and throughout the web content, but must not be overused and be used only relevantly.
Page Redirects to Avoid Duplicate Content
Canonicalization is the process of ensuring that resources on your page have the same URL. 301 redirects are essential to secure link authority and improve page ranking. In addition, this helps to avoid signals of duplicate content, which would be penalized by search engines. This process applies for the home page and any consequent page with duplicate URL.
Web design isn't just about the graphics anymore. It's about proper HTML structure, usage of SEO keywords and SEO-friendly technologies that aid search engine spiders to easily access the information they need in order to rank a website high in the search results.
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Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Why Your Web Design Company Must Respect SEO
Now more than ever, most website design companies are adding SEO to their web design packages that they offer. The problem is that many of these self-proclaimed SEO and web design firms fail to fully understand the nature of search engine optimization, and how certain SEO elements apply to a website's back-end.
It is absolutely critical that your web design company knows the basics of SEO while putting together a website. Respecting the ever-so important SEO-friendly website elements of a site is imperative during the web design process. In this post, we discuss the specific aspects that web design companies need to be aware of when building sites with SEO in mind.
Designing and developing a well-optimized website must take into consideration the overall architecture, content structure, and back-end code of a site, or HTML. This includes aspects of both the on-page and off-page content and how it is presented on each page of the website.
The off-page SEO aspects of a webpage are the page's title and meta description. These critical content components should be presented as early as possible in HTML code of each page. The page title defines that page (and typically always includes a keyword phrase for SEO), so early reference of these elements is very important. The on-page elements of a webpage need to focus on quality, keyword optimized content that other-wise "SEO-friendly." In essence, SEO-friendly on-page content is that which can be crawled and indexed by search engine spiders. On-page content elements of the like include:
Many website design companies built their sites around a content management system (CMS). The coding structure behind each CMS' website is different, and many are much more SEO-friendly than others. Here are some SEO considerations to keep in mind for website content management systems:
It is absolutely critical that your web design company knows the basics of SEO while putting together a website. Respecting the ever-so important SEO-friendly website elements of a site is imperative during the web design process. In this post, we discuss the specific aspects that web design companies need to be aware of when building sites with SEO in mind.
Aspects of SEO to Consider for Web Design
The off-page SEO aspects of a webpage are the page's title and meta description. These critical content components should be presented as early as possible in HTML code of each page. The page title defines that page (and typically always includes a keyword phrase for SEO), so early reference of these elements is very important. The on-page elements of a webpage need to focus on quality, keyword optimized content that other-wise "SEO-friendly." In essence, SEO-friendly on-page content is that which can be crawled and indexed by search engine spiders. On-page content elements of the like include:
- text or copy on the page that can be parsed, or highlighted
- relevant images (including a keyword optimized "Alt" tag in each image)
- links (preferably keyword optimized cross-links between relevant pages of the site)
- quality videos (which can be labeled and keyword optimized prior to uploading)
Choose Your CMS Carefully
- CMS platforms that make use of code-cumbersome nestled tables can hinder SEO performance. Find a CMS that uses CSS style sheets which is much better for search engine crawling and indexing.
- Always choose a CMS that will allow you custom write an optimized page title and meta description for each page.
- Avoid content management systems that auto-generate static URLs. Pick a platform that enables you to write a dynamic, keyword friendly URL for each page.
- Some CMS platforms will enable you to perform internal linking (or cross-linking) with ease. This will help make the SEO process more efficient for deep sites with many pages.
- Only the most highly SEO-friendly CMS platforms automatically create a XML sitemap. This feature goes above and beyond and is something to look out for.
Smartly Select a Website Design Company
If you are hiring a web design company for both website design and local SEO company services, don't hesitate to ask them highly detailed, technical questions about their processes. If they fail to comply, then they are not the right firm for you. In short, there are far too many web design companies that promote search engine optimization, and yet failed perform SEO effectively. We hope this read has enlightened you and equipped your arsenal with some solid questions in selecting a SEO and website design company you can trust.
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