The easiest time to optimise your website for SEO is during the initial build phase. Getting it right from the start will give you a foundation to build on in the future. This means using a website designer in Auckland who understands SEO, but what are the things you should be aware of to ensure the job gets done properly? Are there things you can do?
The Website Should be Responsive
The starting point is your website should be responsive. This means using a design that automatically adapts – or responds – to a visitor’s device. In other words, ensuring your website looks great on phones and tablets as well as computers and laptops.
Google is very focused on making the internet mobile-friendly, so this should be at the top of your website designer’s SEO checklist.
One other point you should be aware of is that there are other ways of creating a mobile-friendly version of your website. Making the website responsive is the recommended approach, however, as well as being Google’s preferred option.
Think About SEO When Writing Content
Google uses keywords to connect website pages with people searching. Therefore, you should think about keywords when writing the content of your website pages. Specifically, you should include keywords in the content.
Of course, your primary audience is the people visiting your website, so don’t use too many keywords (which looks spammy) and don’t use keywords in a way that makes sentences sound strange.
Optimise Page Titles, Use Heading Tags, and Write Unique Meta Descriptions
The page title is one of the most important SEO elements of your page. Google uses them to understand the content on the page, plus they appear on search results pages. You should have a unique page title for each page, plus you should include the page’s main keyword in the title.
You should also use heading tags on your pages as Google looks for them. These are often referred to as H1, H2, etc headers. Ideally, include the main keyword of the page in the H1 tag.
Each page on your website should also have a unique meta description. You will have seen many meta descriptions as they appear on all Google search results pages. They are the two lines that appear on a search result below the page title. Again, include the main keyword of the page in the meta description.
Page Loading Speed is Crucial
Google has always been obsessed with speed – it still shows you at the top of a search results page how long it took to do the search. This focus on speed applies to your website too. In other words, if you want to optimise your chances of appearing high on search results pages, you should ensure your website designer makes your website as fast as possible.
The Design Should be User-Friendly
User-friendly designs are important for SEO too. This means ensuring your website is free from clutter while also making menus easy to use and content easy to find. The more user-friendly your website is, the more Google will like it.
Remember, designing a website is not just about making it look great – if this is the primary objective of your website designer you should be concerned. Instead, your website should deliver on your business objectives which, in most cases, means helping you get sales and leads. To do this, you need to get SEO right from the start.
