SEO is a must thing for web design, it’s not like that if you can’t afford it you won’t do it.
In modern web design industry, you must know the facts of search engines and how to adopt them in your web design skills.
There are some very basic rules you need to follow while doing site design for a new company.
Here I have gathered some of them, come let’s discuss on these.
Via: Utterweb
01. Optimize Your Images
It is obvious that you would use images for banner, logo, slider, icons, post image etc. You have to remember that High-Quality graphics with bigger size tends to load slower.
In a world where you have only 15 to 20 seconds to grab the attention of a visitor, this is a very important thing. You must optimize your site to load faster.
Off course, you will use high-quality images, but you can optimize them by reducing the dimension and removing unnecessary metadata embedded in the image file.
If you are using WordPress there are several options to reduce the size of the image without decreasing the visual quality. Here are some of the plugins you can use on your WordPress site.
- Smush Image Compression and Optimization
- EWWW Image Optimizer
- ShortPixel Image Optimizer
- Compress JPEG & PNG images
- Kraken.io Image Optimizer
These are the five best plugins used by the users of WordPress.
Personally, I would recommend you to use a web-based interface like tinypng.com to compress your images. You can also use the PhotoShop and GIMP software to compress your images before you upload them.
On another note, using Jetpack in your site improves the loading speed of the images as it caches them in the cloud.
02. Internal Linking Matters
Wherever possible you must do internal linking in your post or page to keep the visitors engaged.
Like, when you are writing about a topic and you know there is another page in your site that has some resources about a term or sentence, do link them on that sentence/word.
This helps the search engines to crawl more easily and the readers get related information more quickly.
For a business site, you can link to the resource page, about and contact page from your content. In the blog section where it is necessary link to your services page too.
Putting your menu in a visible place and in a nice manner also fall in this category.
03. Labeling Images and Captions
If you are aware of the recent search engine updates, you must know that search engine arranges your images via their alter tags and descriptions.
Do a Google image search and you will see that image name comes first and then the alternative text and description comes in act. So, when you upload image, name it accordingly and not just by some gibberish letter or number.
To help the readers and visitors give the proper description of the image with source whenever necessary.
04. Site’s Meta Description and Title
The Meta tag is no longer considered by Goggle and other search engines, but I have seen many sites are still using relevant keywords as meta tags.
The thing you mostly need to concentrate on is giving a nice title for your site and meaningful meta description.
You have to be creative in here. Your Title must not exceed the 60 characters limit for the title and 160 characters for description. Otherwise, it will cut off in the Goggle search result.
Search for anything on Google and see, some of the sites have full headline shown and some of them are not. Same goes for description.
Moz has a good explanation on this, how your title and description should be: https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag
If you are using the Yoast SEO plugin then you can do it easily. Yoast will suggest you a lot of things that we skip normally.
Giving wrong title or no title at all is like keeping your store close on a carnival.
05. Keeping the Layout Simple
Personally, I like simply designed website. There will not be too many sliders, animated doorways or jQuery gimmicks.
Always remember the content and the organization your site represents. Not all sites are made for gaming. Gaming websites use animation and flashy landing page. But, when you are creating your own personal blog skip those things and keep your foot on the ground. Make it as simple as you can.
Sometimes there are client requirements to give too many elements on the front page, in this case, let them know this will be bad. Several times when I assess a site or do consultancy, clients do not like my feedback :). Just because I try to put simplicity on their front page.
The easier the layout of your site is, the better the conversion will be.
06. Minimize Pop Ups, Web Frames, and Queries
I do not like pop-up ads. Even when a famous blogger asks to subscribe their mailing list in a pop-up, I feel annoyed. Everytime a site gives me pop-up I keep away from it.
It’s been officially seen that pop-up advertisement or web frames that open a new window are not good for your site’s reputation. Instead of pop-up use call to action after your post or page end.
Occasionally when you are giving away any offer or promo code for a short time, you can do a popup.
It’s been seen that several famous bloggers using pop-up now. Although they mostly use it to enrich their mailing list, but I feel comfortable when it is in the sidebar. Not just flash on my face when I am from Google search. It wastes my time.
Same goes for redirection. Try to avoid redirection if you can. Some landing page tactics are implemented to redirect to a new offer than to the original content. This also hampers your reputation. These are not recommended for a site that represents an organization.
Pop-ups, scripts, too many queries also increase the site loading time. It shows that you are not professional on your web design.
Hint: Have you noticed the Google, MSN, Yahoo, Facebook etc. site’s design. How simple they are and what color they are using most?
07. No Advertisement Above the Fold
This sure is a contradictory thing. If you earn revenue from advertisement then you must put some of the above the fold. Above the fold is the best place for good conversion ratio.
Although designers do not like this placement. Some sites put the advertisement in the header, mostly small banner and link chain. some put it in the sidebar.
Whatever you do, this is not recommended to put advertisement above the fold. Try to minimize the number of advertisement on the front page too.
Now, what do you think? What is your opinion while you design a website for your client? let me know in the comment.
I am a Blogger and Online Marketer. I started blogging in 2006 and since then I self taught myself "how to earn a decent income from online profession".
Currently, I am working as a freelance Web Designer and Marketing Consultant.
You can contact me for a schedule. Send me an e-mail at: [email protected]
Images eat up the most for the total website size. Apart from the usual compression methods, I suggest to cut the image/resize it down to the usable formats for the web. Because now days every photo is more than 2-4 megabytes when taken from the camera, instead of uploading it raw, one should resize it first and then compress it for the web.
Another thing I should add is to focus more for the mobile users. Use a mobile responsive template in the first place and them optimize the design around it.
Yes Tamal. Agree with you. Mobile optimization is a must thing now. Although I want to refer it as flexibility of site’s design that can adopt any screen size.