Search Engine Optimization – SEO

Gone are the days you could develop a website, upload it to the world and bang watch the dollars come in. With so many websites offering either similar services or products differentiating your brand from the competition is difficult but is the key to a return on your investment and seeing your brand grow. Designing and developing an engaging website that users love is great but without users it will end up like one of those ghost cities you see in china.

Combining a great website design and a strategic SEO strategy nowadays go hand in hand.

The whole process might seem challenging to get your head around but your on the right track if you follow our web design search engine optimization tips.

Videos and SEO

Google has changed the SEO algorithm quite a few times over the years mostly to weed out the black hat techniques used in the industry. One thing Google has always favoured and packs a big punch when it comes to SEO is video. Embedding and importantly creating your videos for your website will see big boosts in your website SERPS (search engine results page). This is a staple in Googles SEO algorithm and will likely not change going into the future.  The key to using videos for SEO is the background work setting up tags and keywords for your video. Google bots can not detect content in video so you need to optimize your video tags, image and image description. A video transcript will help your SEO.

Image Alt Tags and SEO

Quite often web developers overlook or forget about these image descriptions.  Use the image names and alt tags to maximise your SEO it all adds up.

When uploading an image don’t just use the standard filename “image_58561546kjhu.jpg” use a a filename that has a description of the image “ibiza-dj-party-bar.jpg” and then fill in the alt tag details “ibiza dj party bar”. When people are searching images through google search your image if named correctly will come up in google search results. Naming images gives your website a leg up in SEO and is definable worth the small effort.

Courtesy of Distancetomars

Infographics and SEO

If teachers used infographics when i was at school i would have definitely learnt a lot more. Infographics are a great way to engage people to explain something that can be seen as boring. Rather than explain in a short paragraph use images associated with text to get your points across. Infographics are more likely to be shared or liked and also other people may use your infographic and you’ll get the backlink love boosting your domain authority in-turn boosting your SEO.

Page Layout and SEO

Page layout is one of the major keys to SEO. You need to make sure you use the correct tags on all your contextual text. Headers, subheaders and paragraph text are all crucial to Google. This will determine how Google identifies what you are saying and where they rank you. Make sure you have individual title tag, never repeat the name of a page over multiple pages. Google looks negatively upon duplicated content. You can use your business name or key word in all title tags but don’t make them identical ie “Flowers – Flower Delivery Kew” or “Contact Us – Flower Delivery Kew”.  A page title is among the most important part of a page layout when it comes to SEO. Another huge SEO driver for positive SEO ranks is the header tags. h1 should have all the keywords in a phrase you are trying to secure through Google search. Subheading h2, h3 should have more information on what you are saying and should include your relative keywords integrated in your information delivery. Lastly the paragraph or p, this should include the body of what you are saying. The p tag should have keywords but be careful you don’t keyword stuff your p tags. Googles algorithm will pick this up.

Mobile Optimization and SEO

All websites nowadays should be mobile optimized. Records amount of people are now using their mobile to view the web. Website development and mobile responsiveness are now the peas and carrots of the internet and Google will show you immediate SEO results if you have your website mobile optimized.

SEO & Some other tips

• If you redesign your website 301 redirect your old pages to your new pages. This will keep the value and work you have put into that link.
• Avoid developing in flash. Google can not search flash based websites
• Use html5 for new website development if possible. Google loves these code based websites.

Designing and developing a great looking website is paramount. Just make sure you don’t devalue your great website by not adhering to airMY’s SEO practices stated above. If you stick to airMY’s SEO practices you can ensure Googles algorithm updates will not negatively impact the SEO work you have been doing.