The Role of Web Design in Search Engine Visibility

Search engine optimization for uniquely designed websites might provide distinct challenges. Whether it’s a simple 3-page brochure site or a corporate site with hundreds of dynamically generated pages, design elements must be present for an SEO strategy to succeed. Here are some considerations to remember while you create or revamp your website.

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Size is Critical.

A website’s file size can significantly affect search engine results. If your competitors’ sites contain dozens of pages and yours only has a handful, you probably won’t rank as highly as they do in search results. If you’re having trouble presenting multiple pages of information about your company or its items, offering free resources to site visitors is something to consider. It will increase your site’s breadth, which search engines enjoy, and keep people on your site for longer, which could lead to more purchases.

Internet pages that rely heavily on visual elements, secondly.

Web pages that provide a more aesthetically pleasing experience for the visitor might seem like the best option for someone looking for your goods, but they are the most challenging to optimize. Due to the inability of search engine robots to decipher text contained behind visuals or animation, only a fraction of your actual text may be visible to them. And if we’ve learned anything from item one, the minimal content output does not lead to high ranks. If your site must feature elaborate visuals or Flash* animations, you should also provide an HTML-based version of the site accessible to visitors. You may direct your newly acquired traffic to the more aesthetically pleasing section of your site, and it will be a lot simpler to promote on search engines.

As of July 2008, thanks to a change to their algorithm, Google can now index Flash material using Adobe’s searchable SWF library.

Thirdly, websites with updatable content.

Some pages may not get indexed by major search engines if most of your site is created by a vast database (like a large book dealer with stock that changes by the minute). The URLs of these pages can be exceedingly lengthy, with seemingly random amounts of digits and letters interspersed with question marks, pound signs, dollar signs, and percent signs. Search engines have difficulty making these pages current and relevant for users, as the database generates them on-the-fly.

Providing a search engine-friendly site map that lists all your static pages is one way to counteract this issue and let the search engines know that you have permanent material on your site. A good internal linking structure that includes links to and from these dynamic sites may further increase the likelihood of them being indexed by search engines. If you cannot provide as much static content as your competitors but still want to outrank them, you should launch an aggressive link campaign.

Make Sense of HTML 4.

There is a wide variety of low-quality web design programs available. Most word processors contain an HTML export feature that simplifies preparing web-ready documents for FTP upload. However, search engine robots often see numerous lines of irrelevant formatting code, not the actual content. Websites with better writing tend to rank higher in search results. Adobe Dreamweaver is the program we’ve settled on for web design because it’s the gold standard. It also simplifies the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) process, which can significantly reduce the amount of HTML code devoted to text formatting. You can also construct websites by hand-coding HTML if you’re proficient enough.

It should come as no surprise that sites with excessive links, excessive use of bold or italic text, or incorrect use of heading, alt, or comment tags tend to perform poorly in search engine results.

5. Selecting a Website Address.

Always prioritize the needs of your site’s users over those of search engines when making changes to your site. Choose your company’s name (if it is well-known, like Chapters or Coca-Cola) or a short description of your goods or services. Since domain names are another place where keywords might occur, they can be used to improve a website’s SEO. Avoid cumbersome domains like http://www.number-one-best-rare-used-books-on-earth.com since it’s difficult to print, and people won’t remember it.

You should avoid losing search engine rankings because you changed your domain name. The 301 redirect is a simple method that is now supported by the majority of search engines. You can preserve your previous domain’s search engine rankings while having visitors automatically redirected to your new site.

Frames, number six.

Leave out the frames. Unfortunately, not all search engines work with websites that use frames because they are so dated. You might expect disapproval from the search engines that index your site through structures if you use them. Boundaries aren’t necessary if PHP includes or Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) can perform the same thing. There is a chance that users who don’t have browsers that support frames will be unable to view your site. Bookmarking certain content sections within a frame is tedious and requires complex scripting.

Seven, Be Sure to Refresh Your Data.

Not only can out-of-date information reflect negatively on your company when viewed by a visitor, but it may also prevent you from achieving high search engine rankings by failing to address recent developments in your industry. When dealing with a rapidly evolving field, search engines tend to give more weight to dynamic websites that are constantly being updated and expanded rather than static ones. Web page age is factored into search engine algorithms, although it does not influence queries for current events. You may have a regularly updated blog or a part of your site dedicated to company news.

Designers who don’t prioritize the site visitor or search engine optimization are to blame for many websites’ shortcomings. As long as relevant material and high link popularity exist, search engines are rapidly evolving to prioritize user-friendly results in search results. Before worrying about search engine optimization, learning about and catering to your site’s specific audience is crucial. They will come if you (correctly) create them.

John Metzler has worked in the search engine marketing field since 2001, rising to the level of executive thanks to his expertise in organic SEO. He started the Toronto-based business FreshPromo and frequently contributed to its SEO blog.

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