Using the best SEO practices while designing a website certainly increases its probability of getting more visitors from search engines. To help you design such a high- traffic website, the post will cover the SEO and Website Design Strategies that work in the best way while designing a website.

1.   Search engine friendly navigation

Navigation only has an impact on the user experience but also on ranking in search engine. If search engines can read the navigation menu clearly, they rank the inner pages at higher position. A simple tip is to avoid using Flash to create the navigation menu. Additionally, follow the tips below:

·       Adding unique descriptions to each category.

·       Using hierarchies to define categories and subcategories.

·       Using relevant names for categories.

2.   Make all relevant and unique content crawlable

A normal website has a lot of content. Search engines crawl this content to rank a website. Blocking search engine bots from crawling any unique, relevant content on the website is a mistake and will limit the visitors on your website So, it is advisable to allow search engines to crawl only unique and relevant content on the website.

While designing, ensure that the coding (if used) doesn’t block the search engine bots from crawling the relevant content.

3.   Use proper permalink structures

The URL/permalink structure/formation also matters a lot. Usually, it is the web designer who determines the structure. While designing a website three attributes are utilized effectively to select the permalink structure of posts and pages:

·       Keyword relevant

Every URL should be keyword relevant. If possible, include the keyword in the URL itself.

·       Readable

The URL should be readable. Instead of using all the words in the keyword one after another, put a hyphen in between so that it’s readable. That increases the URL recall, thereby increasing the chances of returning visitors.

·       Predictable

URLs should be predictable. For example: If one URL is domain.com/service-1/, all the other URLs should follow a similar approach.

During designing, if URLs are formed using this structure, the return visitors increase dramatically.

4.   Redundant pages need to be blocked

If pages contain redundant or duplicate content, block them from crawling during the web-design stage itself. It ensures that only the unique content is crawled which increases the probability of ranking.

5.   Use image alt texts always

Along with flash elements, search engines find it difficult to categorize and index the images. The best way to rank higher is to use alt text for every image uploaded to the website. It helps you gain traffic using the images as well.

6.   Use heading tags appropriately

Search engines do consider various heading tags like h1, h2, h3, and so on. When such tags are used while publishing content at the design stage, it becomes easy for search engines to rank and understand the content better.

Therefore, always use such tags.

Conclusion

The above tips help you amalgamate web design with SEO so that the website is designed ranks better and gains traffic from search engines and various sources. Not utilizing these principles will hamper the growth of the website. That is why SEO and web design are referred to as the perfect marriage.