Seventy percent of small business owners don’t consider an SEO strategy when building their online presence.
Digital marketing efforts are often delayed until their site goes live. Many believe that Google will rank them high if their website reflects their brand. And that customers will flock to their digital doors within days.
Unfortunately, a good-looking website that disregards search engine optimization is doomed to fail.
This article asks if it’s possible to have the best of both worlds.
Is all-encompassing SEO website design viable? If so, what should small business sites do to rank high on Google?
Read on to discover the main factors affecting SEO.
Learn why an effective website means more than pretty colors. Then see how to implement an effective digital marketing SEO strategy while still promoting your brand.
Why Is an Effective SEO Strategy Difficult?
There is a common misconception regarding websites that ‘if you build it they will come’.
Small business owners believe their new site will automatically receive new traffic from Google. After all, 93% of all website activities begin with a search.
Yet they forget that competition is fierce.
A website with beautiful photography and fancy features may look great but does Google agree? A competing website that checks all of the search engine’s boxes will see higher traffic. The site may not have the same eloquence but users visit it because it ranks on Google Search.
What then are the reasons why Google prefers one website over another?
Factors That Affect Google Rankings
Google is the world’s largest search engine, holding 91% of the total market share.
Ignoring Google Search is akin to burning the phone book several decades back. A website must appear within the first few result pages. Or face the real prospect of never attracting a single visitor.
Google became the de-facto search engine because it ranks on quality.
It wants its users to have a positive experience when visiting sites in its listings. The ranking algorithm constantly evolves to reflect this. But what are the main factors that affect a website’s position?
Ranking Factors
According to Google’s own guidelines, sites that offer a quality experience have these things in common:
- Mobile-friendly design
- Optimized content that relates to keyword searches
- Fully functional links and features
- Safe, secure, and accessible for all users
- Correct information that informs and educates
There are many more attributes but these form the basis of an excellent user experience (UX).
Competent website designers aim to achieve all of these goals. They do this by building on three core SEO principles: on-site, off-site, and technical SEO.
Website Design and Search Engine Optimization
Building websites with Google rankings in mind means adhering to the three types of SEO. The search engine will rank the site higher if each produces the best UX possible.
On-Site SEO
On-site or on-page SEO relates to techniques implemented on a website, especially content.
Writing SEO-friendly copy is key to many sites’ success. That means creating text visitors enjoy reading that relates to their search.
Researching keywords or search phrases forms the foundation of this process.
By knowing what people search for, a business owner can write text to match demand. That doesn’t mean pasting a keyword again and again throughout the page. Google considers this spam and will penalize the page as such.
Creating interesting and engaging content that’s written for humans sees the best results. A recent survey found that 82% of visitors liked reading relevant content from brands they admired.
E-A-T Principle
Google employs the E-A-T principle: Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
Failing to deliver these results in slipping down the results pages. Users want useful content to consume and not waste their time on spam.
Other on-site factors include:
- Keyword-friendly page titles and URLs
- Image alt and title tags
- Relative internal and external links
The most productive websites combine all of these factors on every page to draw new traffic.
Off-Site SEO
Off-site or external SEO factors rely on issues outside of the website’s control.
Link-building digital marketing strategies help Google decide what sites hold authority. Its web crawlers find these links on other sites. If they’re deemed trustworthy, Google then shares that ‘rub’ with the linked page.
Yet building backlinks takes time and effort.
Finding the right sites to link from requires dedicated research. Choosing the wrong site will adversely affect intended results.
The SEO experts at VujaDay Creative understand how vital this process is.
We help our clients reach out to only the most effective websites for backlinks. And we help build the right SEO strategy with a set budget in mind.
Our social media marketing service also affects off-site SEO to attract the largest audience.
Technical SEO
This type of SEO concentrates on the technical and behind-the-scenes issues like:
- Keyword-friendly domain name
- Handling 404 and redirect issues
- Ensuring all links work correctly
- Adding canonical tags and schema content
Responsive design means building a site that works well on all platforms.
That’s especially important for SEO as Google now uses a mobile-first approach. Sites that work well on a mobile device rank higher than those that don’t.
Digital Marketing and Core Web Vitals
One final aspect to consider for SEO website design is Google’s Core Web Vitals.
This initiative scores a web page’s quality by measuring:
- First Input Delay (FID)
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
These signals relate to how quickly a site opens and works on a user’s screen. The slower the site loads and settles the worse its ranking.
VujaDay Creative Digital Agency ensures Core Web Vitals get considered when building all of our clients’ websites. The result sees more inbound traffic that will convert over time.
Professional Philadelphia SEO Website Design
At the heart of every effective SEO website design is a positive customer experience. Your online presence must offer an effective way for visitors to consume content in a logical and engaging way.
To encourage that engagement they need to first find your website. Including the SEO techniques discussed above benefits both your ranking and ability to retain users.
However, finding the balance between good website design and SEO requires knowledge and skill. Thankfully VujaDay is here to help.
VujaDay Creative Digital Agency provides professional SEO website design services within Philadelphia.
Online promotion has never been more important so let our team of experts guide your digital marketing strategy. We build beautiful sites to suit your budget and they rank high on Google Search.
Get in touch to discover how VujaDay can better promote your brand online today.
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