Why Web Design and SEO Need to Go Hand in Hand
Web Design and SEO Need to Go Hand in Hand!
Why is it important for your SEO & web design efforts to complement each other?
SEO was once considered a bag of tricks that webmasters used to increase their websites’ rankings, and included tactics like keyword stuffing and link buying. But SEO, or search engine optimization, has evolved since those days. Google and other major search engines have become significantly better at detecting spam and are now capable of evaluating websites in greater depth. Search engines consider everything from the usability of your website to its architecture when evaluating your website to determine its rankings.
Mistakes during the web design and development process can hurt your website’s search engine rankings or even cause them to disappear from search engine results altogether. That’s why your SEO efforts need to start when you are building your website – they should never be an afterthought. One of the cornerstones of great rankings is high-quality web design and development.
Don’t Let Minor SEO Issues Become Major Headaches Down the Line
If you’re building a new website or redesigning your existing one, it’s crucial to have an SEO expert involved. An SEO professional can provide feedback throughout the web design and development process to ensure that your site is built with ranking factors in mind. Some websites look amazing but are disastrous when it comes to SEO. When building a site with SEO in mind, you have to pay attention to details like the following:
- Site maps
- Server settings
- URL structures
- Domain authority
- Dynamic content
- Content organization
- Search engine crawl-ability
- Navigation
- Internal linking
- Broken links
- 301 redirects
- Anchor text
- Coding
- Whether links open in new windows
Fixing details like these can be time-consuming after your website is already built, so it’s best to consider SEO best practices when embarking on the web design and development process to avoid problems altogether. One common mistake is that clients work with an SEO firm and a web design and development firm separately. If there isn’t good communication between these two firms, issues can arise.
For example, your SEO firm may talk to your web development firm through you, which can break down communications and make things take a lot longer than they need to. Furthermore, your web development company may not give your SEO firm complete access to the backend of your site to edit or add additional code, upload photos and content, etc., which can limit your SEO firm’s ability to fully optimize your website. This could lead to delays and frustrations, ultimately hurting your business.
Work with a Web Design Company That Also Does SEO
The best solution to building a user-friendly, visually-appealing website that is also search engine-friendly is to work with a company that can both build your website and optimize it. There are many SEO companies that offer web design, but they usually offer website templates and don’t do custom web design and development.
On the other hand, there are also custom web design and development companies that offer incomplete SEO services. Nevertheless, it is certainly possible to find a qualified company that handles both SEO and web design/development under one roof. When looking for a company that can build your website and optimize it properly for search engines, ask the following questions:
- Do you do custom web design or do you use templates?
- Do you have designers and developers in-house?
- Do you have SEO staff?
- What SEO services do you offer?
- What SEO best practices do you follow?
When it comes to SEO and web design/development, you can’t have one without the other. You need the sound advice and guidance of an SEO professional while building your website and the full support and input of a skilled web developer while optimizing it.
Learn more about efelle creative’s custom web design and SEO services
If you want to build a website that not only looks great but also ranks well, work with a company that is well versed in both SEO and web design/development. efelle creative is a web design and SEO firm in Seattle that offers a comprehensive suite of marketing, SEO, and web design/development services. Please call 206.384.4909 or fill out our online contact form to schedule a free consultation.