Everything You Need to Know About Website Design and SEO: 2018

If you have your own business or are managing a business, then you have likely heard of SEO (search engine optimisation). As everything is online now, having a strong online presence is absolutely essential to the survival of any company. SEO is the way to ensure your website will receive enough traffic to keep those sales or conversions flowing. However, most people don’t know that SEO starts with web design. Follow this guide for all you need to know about the relationship between SEO and website design.

Google search engine displayed on a laptop screen at SEO company.

An Introduction to SEO in Web Design

One of the most typical phone calls that SEO agencies receive is from businesses who have just had a brand new website made and who are looking for price lists for SEO. This conversation can be difficult as a lot of business owners have hired someone to build them a website but the person is not qualified or trained in SEO. This means that the SEO agency needs to change various parts of the design before they can start on other aspects such as link building. Basically, hiring a web designer with zero SEO skills then hiring an SEO agency later will result in double the work being done and two bills. How to avoid this? Hire a company that does website design and SEO so that your site is delivered in tip-top condition, all ready to start your SEO campaign as soon as it goes live.

Mobile Optimisation

Today, everybody uses a mobile or tablet to browse online. This means that you must have a mobile optimised site, otherwise, your customers will take one look at your Ill proportioned website on their tiny screen and bounce. Who wants to buy from a business that hasn’t bothered to have their website optimised for mobile? It can come across as extremely unprofessional. Optimising a website for mobile is one of the main parts of SEO.

SEO marketer with long blonde hair sitting at desk typing on computer.

Website Structure and Navigation

Another thing that businesses are unaware of is the importance of your website’s structure. This refers to the way the pages are laid out to the user and how they are connected to each other. A standard navigation example for a website is to have four options on the main menu:

Home
About
Services
Contact

It is important that your users are able to find their way around your site with ease, otherwise, they will likely avoid interaction with it. Website structure is also important as it lets search engines understand your pages in terms of categories and subcategories. Your URL structure also plays a pivotal role in SEO.