SEO Web Design Strategies

Web Design Strategies to Improve Your SEO

When considering SEO strategies, site design is often left behind after an initial content push. However, the way visitors interact with your site can potentially have negative effects on your SEO going forward.
 
Search engines track the experience visitors have on your site, specifically if they engage with your content by clicking onto other pages, or if they hit the back button because they weren’t satisfied. Below, I’ve come up with a list of things that are required for a site structure and design that will keep visitors on your page, and will help improve your SERP rankings overall.

 

The Hierarchy of Your Site

 
In general (unless you have a massive amount of content), any page on your site should be accessible through no more than three clicks. For example, if a visitor wants to access a specific blog, they would click from your home page to the blog page in your site menu, then the category page, and finally their desired blog. The more clicks, the more likely a visitor will navigate to a different site to find the content they’re looking for.
 
When you’re working on improving the navigation of your site, be wary not to have every single page of your site directly accessible through every other page. This ruins the user experience with content overload. Only include links to content that is relevant to that particular page to keep visitors clicking through to other pages on your site. Leverage your site menu to allow visitors to access other types of content.
 

Utilize Internal Links

 
Links are currently one of the top factors in a page’s SEO rank. Although links from other domains are incredibly important (check out this guide on where to start with external link building), you should also embrace internal links.
 
Internal links are largely built through a good site-hierarchy (as covered in the last section), but you shouldn’t forget about the power of your social platforms.
 
Your site and social channels should have links to one another, no matter what. On top of this, make sure you’re sharing any new content on your channels. The further your posts reach, the more likely your posts will be shared to other audiences, creating more opportunity for new external links to your site.
 

Don’t Forget Your SEO Titles

 
Although SEO titles and descriptions aren’t as important as they once were, they still largely contribute to your page’s click-through-rate (CTR).
 
If a user clicks on your link, the SEO title and description set expectations for what’s on the page. If the content isn’t what they’re expecting, the visitor will likely click back to the results page. On the flip side, if your title or description isn’t exciting or ‘attention-grabbing’, a visitor will likely ignore your page and click on someone else’s.
 
Looking for more tips on getting your site up to par? Check out our website best practices white paper, or sign up for our newsletter for the latest industry updates each month.
 

Web Design Strategies to Improve Your SEO