Incorporating SEO in web design is all about bringing search engine optimization\u2014the practice of improving a website to increase its rankings in search engine results\u2014into the website designing and building process. Which helps increase traffic and improve the user experience.<\/p>\n
And\u00a0organic ranking factors<\/a>\u00a0like mobile-readiness and site speed are directly influenced by website design.<\/p>\n Google\u2019s own\u00a0SEO starter guide<\/a>\u00a0even mentions that involving an SEO expert when launching or redesigning a website design can help ensure the result is \u201csearch engine-friendly from the bottom up.\u201d<\/p>\n Be especially mindful if you\u2019re working with external teams. To make sure any web design and SEO services you use are compatible with each other.<\/p>\n Consider these factors when you\u2019re building a website so it\u2019s ready to rank.<\/p>\n Google takes a\u00a0mobile-first approach<\/a>\u00a0to crawling, indexing, and ranking pages.<\/p>\n This lines up with mobile becoming the\u00a0primary source of search engine visits<\/a>. It\u2019s now estimated to be responsible for over 60% of all searches, as Statista\u2019s data shows:<\/p>\n So, it\u2019s important to apply\u00a0mobile SEO best practices<\/a>. There are three ways to\u00a0design a mobile-friendly site<\/a>:<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what responsive design looks like across different device types:<\/p>\n Content formatting is also important to consider because of mobile devices\u2019 smaller screen sizes.<\/p>\n Mobile-friendly content should:<\/p>\n Proper content formatting on mobile ensures that pages are legible and easy to navigate, even on the smallest mobile screens.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an example of a skimmable format on mobile:<\/p>\n Use Google\u2019s proprietary\u00a0Mobile-Friendly Test<\/a>\u00a0to check how well your pages perform from a mobile perspective.<\/p>\n Fast page load times prime a website for SEO success.<\/p>\n Page speed<\/a>\u00a0is a\u00a0confirmed Google ranking factor<\/a>\u00a0that also influences a page\u2019s bounce rate.<\/p>\n The takeaway?<\/p>\n Shorter load times mean fewer people will bounce from your site without visiting another page.<\/p>\n And web design has an enormous impact on site speed. Because the size of the code dictates how pages load.<\/p>\n There are a range of methods to improve site speed, but the most important include:<\/p>\n There are several ways to measure site speed, but Google\u2019s tools are a safe bet.<\/p>\n You can use Google\u2019s\u00a0PageSpeed Insights<\/a>\u00a0tool to get information on the\u00a0Core Web Vitals<\/a>\u00a0(specific metrics that indicate the user experience quality) for any URL.<\/p>\n The tool shares these findings in a report:<\/p>\n You\u2019ll also get specific insights into how to improve page speed. Plus estimates of how the suggestions will impact load time.<\/p>\n Semrush\u2019s\u00a0Site Audit<\/a>\u00a0tool offers an even more extensive look at site performance metrics.<\/p>\n Go to the Site Audit tool, enter your website URL, and click \u201cStart Audit<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n You\u2019ll then see \u201cSite Audit Settings\u201d in the window that appears.<\/p>\n Next, select how many pages you want crawled and choose the crawl source. And click \u201cStart Site Audit.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n When the audit is done, you\u2019ll get an overview of your website\u2019s performance. And recommendations on how to fix issues related to site speed when you click \u201cSite<\/strong>\u00a0Performance<\/strong>\u201d or \u201cCore Web Vitals<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n Find and Fix Speed Issues<\/p>\n with the Site Audit Tool<\/p>\n<\/div>\n An intuitive website structure (also called\u00a0website architecture<\/a>) gives visitors the best navigation experience. And helps search engines find and better understand your pages.<\/p>\n Best practices for SEO-friendly web design involve creating content buckets that groups pages together. So more specific categories are nested under more general categories.<\/p>\n Like this:<\/p>\n In practice, this lets you create a URL structure that\u2019s intuitive to navigate.<\/p>\n For example, on a website filled with content about different dog breeds, a section of the URL structure might look like this:<\/p>\n Each step down in the site structure dives into a more detailed subcategory of the topic you started with.<\/p>\n This type of intuitive web design will:<\/p>\n Just like the website structure,\u00a0internal linking<\/a>\u00a0helps search engines understand your site structure and aids in user navigation.<\/p>\n There are two types of internal links to consider: navigational and contextual.<\/p>\n Navigational links<\/strong>\u00a0are present site-wide and include links that are in the website header, footer, and navigation bar.<\/p>\n Contextual links<\/strong>\u00a0are found in the main body content of a page to direct users to related content. And they\u2019re usually placed using relevant\u00a0anchor text<\/a>\u00a0that helps users understand what they\u2019re about to click on.<\/p>\n Like this:<\/p>\n There are a few important considerations to keep in mind regarding internal links when designing a website:<\/p>\n Topic clusters can be especially helpful. They\u2019re groups of content that center around a main topic. Using them on your website gives users plenty of related content to explore, keeping them on your site for longer.<\/p>\n The below image illustrates topic clustering using a central\u00a0pillar page<\/strong>\u00a0that covers the main topic. And other pieces that are related (and linked) to it:<\/p>\n You can use Semrush\u2019s\u00a0Site Audit<\/a>\u00a0feature or a similar tool to get an overview of your internal linking performance.<\/p>\n Run an audit using the same method outlined in the section about website speed.<\/p>\n Then, click \u201cView<\/strong>\u00a0Details<\/strong>\u201d on the \u201cInternal Linking\u201d report to get information on:<\/p>\n An SEO-friendly website has to be designed in a way that makes it easy for Google to find and understand it. This is what\u00a0indexability and crawlability<\/a>\u00a0are all about.<\/p>\n Crawlability<\/strong>\u00a0refers to how well a web crawler can access pages across a website. And Google will only crawl so many pages before it reaches its limit for your site.<\/p>\n Poor internal linking and redirect loops can stop crawlers from accessing all your content.<\/p>\n Indexability<\/strong>\u00a0refers to Google\u2019s ability to understand and index content.<\/p>\n Duplicate content without a specified canonical (or \u201cmain\u201d) page designated can cause indexability issues, for instance.<\/p>\n Crawlability and indexability work together to serve search results intended to be the most useful for users.<\/p>\n The most important things to do to improve a website\u2019s crawlability and indexability are:<\/p>\n The image below illustrates what an XML sitemap looks like. It shows how the website is split into categories.<\/p>\n SEO-friendly page design ensures both search engines and visitors have a good experience.<\/p>\n Here are some basic rules to make sure your pages deliver a positive experience:<\/p>\n The following video discusses Google\u2019s expectations when it comes to page experience signals:<\/p>\n Prioritizing\u00a0above-the-fold<\/a>\u00a0content is also important for good website design. Because it offers users value as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n This typically involves making sure there\u2019s relevant, valuable information displayed immediately. Users shouldn\u2019t have to scroll to see what\u2019s most important.<\/p>\n Good above-the-fold content makes it clear what the page is about, offers users navigation options, and has few distractions that could take them away from the page.<\/p>\n Like this:<\/p>\n Search engines don\u2019t consider accessibility a direct ranking factor that they bake into their search ranking algorithms.<\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n Because it\u2019s hard to tie it to concrete metrics.<\/p>\n But accessibility does affect a known ranking factor: user experience.<\/p>\n So, it\u2019s important to consider accessibility when creating an SEO-friendly website.<\/p>\n Google has its own\u00a0accessibility guidelines<\/a>, which include:<\/p>\n You can run basic accessibility tests on your website using the\u00a0Google Lighthouse<\/a>\u00a0browser extension. It\u2019ll tell you where your site falls short, guiding you on achieving maximum accessibility.<\/p>\n Schema markup<\/a>\u00a0is a structured data language that describes elements on your website in a way that search engines understand.<\/p>\n Search engines can use schema to pull useful information from webpages directly onto search engine results pages (SERPs). And give searchers better results.<\/p>\n Implementing schema also offers the opportunity to gain\u00a0rich results<\/a>\u2014search results that include added visual or interactive elements.<\/p>\n Google is able to use that structured data to display things like FAQs, how-to sections, and reviews.<\/p>\n For example, the image below shows a search result with the corresponding reviews:<\/p>\n Implementing schema on your website is relatively simple, especially when handled as part of the design process.<\/p>\n Use Google\u2019s\u00a0Structured Data Markup Helper<\/a>\u00a0to generate schema.<\/p>\n After you select your data type and enter your URL, the tool will load your page and allow you to mark it up.<\/p>\n It looks like this:<\/p>\n Once you\u2019re done, click \u201cCREATE<\/strong>\u00a0HTML<\/strong>\u201d to receive the code you\u2019ll add to your website.<\/p>\n And you can use the\u00a0Rich Results Test<\/a>\u00a0tool to make sure your Schema is applied properly and can feed into rich results on live SERPs.<\/p>\n Enter the URL or code to see whether there are any errors you need to fix.<\/p>\n Optimizing images for SEO<\/a>\u00a0during the website design stage means you can gain additional traffic from image searches.<\/p>\n9 Factors to Ensure SEO-Friendly Web Design<\/h2>\n
1. Mobile-First Design<\/h3>\n
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2. Website Speed<\/h3>\n
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3. Website Structure<\/h3>\n
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4. Navigation and Internal Links<\/h3>\n
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5. Indexability and Crawlability<\/h3>\n
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6. Page Design and Usability<\/h3>\n
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7. Accessibility<\/h3>\n
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8. Schema Markup<\/h3>\n
9. Images<\/h3>\n