The relationship between website design and SEO is analyzed by experts from these four dimensions!

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and effective website design go hand in hand. Good website design is about creating a website that attracts the target audience and encourages them to take some action. However, if the website does not follow current SEO best practices, its ranking will be affected, resulting in a lower number of visitors who truly participate in the website.

On the contrary, if the focus is on search engine optimization and how to please search engine spiders, the website may rank high and receive a large amount of search engine traffic, but if the design is unsatisfactory, it is different. In order to succeed in today's digital environment, the focus must be on website design and search engine optimization.

1、 But won't SEO stifle the creativity of web designers?

In the past five years, the huge demand for "optimized design" has been accepted by web designers. Prior to this, designers primarily focused on user experience rather than the experience of "robots".

Nowadays, designers not only need to make websites look attractive, but also ensure that behavioral calls meet the requirements of website page "folding", website loading speed must be fast, breadcrumb paths must be used, clear navigation choices must be made, CSS must be used, and JavaScript files must be kept to a minimum... This is a daunting task.

Some designers may wonder if all these new SEO rules will harm the freedom to create websites?

For a "clean" website design, it can help a website load quickly and be easily crawled by search engine spiders. Therefore, in reality, creativity and optimization need to thrive together.

2、 Combine them together

There are some core elements that support every SEO strategy and website design project:

1. Keyword analysis

When launching a commercial website project, a thorough keyword analysis must be conducted. To achieve this, web designers must have a close and in-depth understanding of the client's target audience, and define how the demographic structure of the audience fits into the larger target market that the enterprise is trying to reach. Then, the website should be optimized for appropriate keywords/long tail keywords.

2. Content hierarchy structure

For a company, creating good content is not enough, they must also strategically plan the location of the content.

An effective plan means putting relevant content into a virtual container, making the content hierarchy clear at a glance through creative design and internal links. Moreover, an optimized website is user-friendly for both users and search engine spiders.

3. Think from the user's perspective

Usually, the more pages or articles your website has, the more chances your target users will find you. When they land on these specific pages, you need to ensure that you can help them easily find you.

So you must think from the user's perspective, to immediately and clearly let them know the current location of the page they are visiting, and help them transition from one page to another with as few clicks as possible.

3、 Why is SEO strategy so important?

Having a suitable website structure and information architecture will ultimately help businesses provide an engaging user experience while reducing the need for every new growth. However, unless your brand is well-known, search engines are usually responsible for the majority of traffic received by the website. SEO strategies have the ability to utilize important customer data and explore new potential revenue streams.

For website owners who are trying to perform search engine optimization, there are often some areas that can be troublesome. Now, I will provide search engine optimization advice to website owners to achieve higher ranking pages.

1. URL structure

Most website created URLs contain many random characters, such as question marks, without keywords or any valuable content. When the URL of a search engine contains SEO keywords or phrases, the page will rank higher in the search engine. Therefore, setting keywords in URLs is very important.

2. Page Title

One of the most important factors in search engine ranking is page title. However, many websites have not changed their webpage titles. In the Qingning website building platform, you can easily create titles for your articles and pages by using the SEO title tag plugin.

3. Repetitive content

No search engine likes to see duplicate content. Duplicate content is a major issue for some websites, as category pages and calendar/date pages often cause search engines to find the same content on multiple pages.

There are several ways for website owners to overcome the problem of duplicate content. One method is to use a robot.exe file to guide search engines on which pages should be ignored, leaving only the main pages to be indexed.

4. Meta tags

When designing a traditional static website, you can input meta tags (descriptions) for each page. Although the influence of these tags on search engine rankings is not as significant as before, having them on your page does not bring any harm.

However, most website building platforms do not provide users with the option to add meta tags when writing articles. For users of the Qingning website platform, adding a meta tag plugin will allow you to input meta tags for any page.

4、 What are the responsibilities of a web designer in SEO?

Search engine optimization is a continuous process that cannot be achieved by designing a website in a specific way. Of course, web designers should put in considerable effort to help clients build an optimized website, but what are the responsibilities of web designers in SEO and what are the responsibilities of clients?

As a business owner, optimizing your website is more important to you than a designer (this is not to say that designers don't care, but their attention is usually focused on the visual and functional aspects of the website). You know your clients/potential clients better than a designer, so you should have more constructive feedback on your goals.

Perhaps some clients may not be familiar with SEO and target keywords, so the ideal situation is to have them work together with you on this issue.

Based on my experience, one of the simplest ways to involve clients is to simply explain that the words and phrases used on a website (such as titles, copy, etc.) have a direct impact on website ranking.

I usually ask clients to provide me with a list of words and phrases they believe potential visitors may use in their search. This is particularly important when designing websites in industries that I am not familiar with.

Of course, some research may be needed. Should clients take responsibility for keyword research, or should designers be responsible?

My experience is that if clients are involved, this research is usually more effective, but this is not always possible. Designers should have sufficient knowledge to provide advice to clients and be willing to offer assistance, but ultimately it is best to involve clients as much as possible. In fact, if customers are concerned about SEO, the participation process will meet a more reasonable expectation.

Setting realistic expectations may also be the responsibility of designers.

I have some potential clients who have come to me saying, 'I was told by SEO experts that simply inserting popular keywords on website pages can make my website rank first or second.'.

In this situation, I would clearly point out that "search engine optimization requires continuous work, and this kind of work usually cannot be accomplished by creating a website in some way

I often advise clients to add a blog on their website to gain more content and improve their chances of ranking.

Conclusion

Although this is just a brief summary, these are the most important SEO topics that website owners and designers will face. By understanding this knowledge, you can better create websites that are user-friendly and search engine friendly.

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