How to make SEO work for your website design?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial to all businesses that are online. But many people tend to forget that SEO is not like a band-aid that can be plastered on a site that is already existing. It should be built into the process of web designing. But what exactly is SEO? It is a digital marketing strategy that mainly focuses on a website’s presence in the search results of Google and similar search engines.
 
It goes without saying that in the present day, search performance and website design go hand in hand. This means those sites which are designed without SEO, face ranking issues.
 
Below mentioned are ways in which you can ensure that SEO will work for your website design.

1. Usability factors to worry about

When you use a search engine, what do you expect as a user? Don’t you wish for getting the best possible search results? Yes, for many customers this is one of the driving points that make them repeatedly use the search engine. The equation is pretty simple, an increase in the number of users can lead to an increase in the number of advertisers and advertisements, eventually leading to high profits.  
 
Basically, search engines reward those sites that have been known to offer a satisfactory user experience. Would you like to see a site in the first of the search results only to realize that the page is difficult to use? Poor usability can not only lead to a bad user experience but also hampers the overall ranking of your site on search engines.
 
However, when a user gets a satisfactory experience, the site is bound to get a huge number of social shares. As a result, such sites get rewarded by search engines. That said, usability is no longer restricted to desktops. Nowadays, mobile usability plays an equally important role in the overall user experience. Aspiring entrepreneurs who are concerned about developing their business to new heights, therefore, must also focus on the mobile-friendliness of their sites for gaining organic search visibility.

2. Focus on Content discoverability

Assume that you have been getting ready for several hours for a party. You have put on your best dress and ensured that you look your absolute best. However, despite all your efforts, you are not being complemented by a single person at the party. It could possibly mean that in the huge crowd, you have probably gone unnoticed. Of course, this could be disheartening.
 
This can happen for your websites and your business as well. How do you ask? Content should be discoverable in order to be indexed and crawled by search engines. We all know that search engines are like the vast stretch of the blue oceans that offer only a limited discovery of content. Therefore, the links to your website should not only be correct but also should not be broken or buried for your content to be discoverable. 
 
From the SEO perspective, your goal should be to create a site architecture that can help pages to be crawled and indexed easily. For that, you need to arrange your most vital content high up in the architecture. It can include product categories or top-level services, which should also align directly with your prioritized keyword themes. From there, you can create service and individual product pages.

3. High-quality content can save the day!

How do search engines know what your website is about? It is the content that helps search engines to understand this. It is true that many websites were stuffed with unnecessary keywords to achieve rankings, however, in the present day, with the emergence of modern SEO, quality of content takes the center place. 
 
But high-quality content is not just created in a jiffy. It needs time and strategic planning before the design or redesign phase. Most importantly, while developing a page, consider thinking about its purpose. Do users need to know about this topic? If, yes, then what is it that the users should specifically learn about this topic? How to effectively convey messages to users using the content of the website? Remember that using these answers as your key points to construct a website design that can accommodate the content high quality. 

4. Consider a well-planned redesign

One of the most crucial times to consider SEO is during a website redesign. Why, you ask? Assume that you have already built a sandcastle. Now you after toiling for about an hour, you decide that your castle needs more modification. However, you are not sure whether the changes you are planning to incorporate in the castle’s design would look good or not. Not to forget that there is an added risk of your sandcastle being destroyed in the process of redesigning. 
 
Likewise, website design can be quite risky if done without SEO experts. It might put the company’s hard work and SEO value spent years building, at risk. Though many a company blindly embark on the journey of a website redesign, they fail to assess the underlying threats to their organic traffic.  
 
That said, it is imperative that before a redesign, you get a proper view of your current website. Check for the pages that are outdated. Can these pages be redirected in your new site architecture? Which pages in your site have a high ranking for your target keywords? When you redesign a site, remember that you cannot settle for anything less than what you have already created. Therefore, high-value content should be maintained. 
 
In a nutshell, many companies do not understand the importance of SEO and website design to grow their business. Therefore, it is necessary for entrepreneurs to be aware of the ways design can impact SEO rankings. This can provide your website with opportunities to rank for the themes and key terms that align with your business goals.