SEO Best Practices

To best explain the evolution of websites, web site design, and SEO, I will divide this article into three phases-

Phase I- The Bygone era of website design and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

In the 90s when the internet started to get popular in terms of businesses starting to have a presence on the internet; I remember, it still took a lot of convincing for many businesses, especially small business owners to consider having an online presence. Back then, having an online presence was mostly like displaying a brochure online.  Many of these online businesses would put up their brochures online. That’s it. From the design perspective, businesses would not want to spend much on designing. Sometimes the whole page would be a huge image, sometimes just a few lines of text with contact numbers and an email id. Only a few businesses would perhaps have a full fledged website. As far as Search engine optimization goes, the maximum that Search Engine Optimizers (SEO was coming into being then and there weren’t really that many people doing SEO) could do was to provide titles, descriptions, and keyword Meta tags, and suggest the sites to search engines and search directories. The part that I liked back then is the ease with which web sites could rank with a relevant keyword; understandable since there were hardly that many sites competing, and SEO was even rarer!

Here, I will draw an analogy with constructing a home or building. We need a house, we do not have a house …so what do we do?

We construct a basic, very functional house; it serves the purpose, but is not really visually appealing. It’s just that; a house with rooms and walls to serve a purpose. I guess there wasn’t time or the need to mull over the finer aspects like making it attractive, it has to be constructed, and so be it.

Phase II- The evolving era of website designing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

With the availabilty of better tools, and more service providers coming into the field, the internet got a big boost, a new era of web designers were born, they design really beautiful web sites, with frames, with animations, flash, etc. But are these sites user friendly? Can people get to these sites? Do these sites download fast? Are they accessible?
From the SEO perspective, many search engines could not index such websites, because of heavy applications and images, websites took ages to download. That took away the patience of the visitors as well. We created beautiful websites but not many could find them! Finally when they did, they could not find everything on the site!

Again, if we draw an analogy with constructing a building, we construct beautiful home, spend huge amount of money to make it look beautiful, but are these homes safe, practical, and functional too?

Phase III -The new generation of web sites, website designers, and Search Engine Optimizers

We have a new generation of web designers who are familiar with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) nuances, they design keeping in mind various factors so that the end result is a perfect balance beauty and functionality. Striking this cord of course is not easy, one has to test and test and test constantly.

The point that is evident today is that we will see designers, developers, and Search Engine Optimizers work together. Today, almost everyone who has access to the internet has either shopped online, has downloaded eBooks, bought tickets, and much more. Websites are getting better and better, search engines results are very relevant these days.

And again, drawing an anology with constructing buildings; we have multi storied complexes that are functional and yet are not bad looking. A good amount of time is spent on planning and ensuring that there is a perfect marriage of beauty and functionality. The buildings are modern, eco friendly, and user friendly. Interesting!

Designing will continue to evolve and so will SEO, but they have to go hand in hand in order to provide the best to the end users. In summary, website designing has evolved into a creative science, creating website’s that are user friendly, good looking, and SEO friendly too!

For more on SEO and Website design, you can also check out this article on SEO and best practices for Website Designing that I wrote some time back.

Some of the important design elements that the a website designer might consider while and before designing a web site -

1. The layout – The most important decision is presenting information in such a way such that the visitors do not get lost. A website that only focuses on looking good, might be ignoring the user- friendly aspects. The right combination of beauty and brains is what will finally clicks with the visitors. Without intimidating and by focussing upon a user’s experience, a website can not only attract, but retain visitors.

2. Images – The number of images being used in the website purely depends upon the nature of business. If it is a products specific website, images of products are a must. The important thing to keep in mind is image optimization. Images need to be optimized so that they are visually appealing and download fast.You might consider using alt texts, since it indicates the nature of image. Sometimes images take long to download, it helps to have an alt text describing what the image is about.If the website is service specific, just a few images for design purposes can be used. The best judge of how many images to use and where, is the website designer, but the SEO . An SEO specialist need to ensure that the site has the right balance of images and texts. Too much of text will make it unnecessarily verbose and sometimes boring and too much of images without enough text might not be enough to persuade a visitor to take the required action. It has to be the right combination to attract and retain visitors.

3. The Content – This depends on the website. If it is selling products, then the products should have the images and should contain product specifications. In this case there is not much of a need to write but there should be enough call to action words, testimonials to serve as persuasive elements. When a website is all about services rendered, there is usually quite a bit to write about. The need to write is more since one has to talk about the services, and convince the visitors to try out the services. Very long texts need to be avoided. There can be visual relief provided, or these texts can be placed in separate sections.

4. The Navigation Buttons – Another important feature of Web design is taking a decision on the navigation buttons. Very often we have websites that have the navigation in images. It certainly looks good but from the SEO perspective the search engines should be able to access the links in the navigation buttons.If the links are not accessible to the engines, all the pages of the website will not be able to get indexed. There are various ways of providing an alternative navigation panel.One of the alternatives is to provide textual links as well. That way you are ensured that the search engines can access all the links and so do your visitors (in case the images do not download properly)

5. Sections that are Updated often – This is another important aspect of web designing. Frequently updated sections can be highlighted more. A designer can create a section on the home page reflecting fresh content from the frequently updated sections. Visitors like to see new things and so do the search engines.

6. Home page- Designing for the home page is perhaps the most thought about, not only does it work as a doorway, it needs to be able to guide visitors to where they want to go. The designing elements of the home page are therefore very crucial. If a home page needs to be designed in flash, make sure you provide a static version of the home page for visitors who do not have flash installed.The idea is to reach maximuim visitors.

7. Region specific – If your business is spread all across world and you have retailers taking care of the sales of your products, you might want to consider optimizing your website design for regional visitors. Providing a search box will help the visitor quickly find a retailer near his/ her area. If your website offers area specific discounts, special offers and any other customozed features…they can be customized when designing for regional specific target market.

These tips will definitely help you be a step ahead of your competition in attracting and retaining visitors to your website.