What exactly is a search engine friendly design? This question must have crossed your mind when you own a website. You would want people to visit your website, but how do you get one that will work perfectly with search engines so that you can (finally) attract enormous traffic.
To fully understand search engine friendly design, you have to understand the basics of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). To grasp the full benefits of SEM and SEO, there are guidelines that need to be adhered to.
Let’s delve into the basic elements of SEM and SEO.
- Indexable Content
You may target your user with the content that you put on your website. However, search engines might not recognize this. First, your content has to be in HTML format to be ranked well in search engine listings. For a visually appealing content that will score advantage with search engines, advanced methods such as java plug-ins, supplement flash, Alt texts for images, and crawlable links.
- Crawlable Links
There are several reasons as to why pages are unreachable such as requiring form submissions from visitors before granting access, using JavaScript or Flash plugins, links being blocked by Meta robots, among others. Crawlable links provide search engines an access to relevant contents on various pages. This important aspect is often missed by website owners. Failure to provide proper links means their content will not be available for search engines.
- Keyword Usage and Targeting
Search engines mainly operate based on keywords from storing to retrieval of information. This is a crucial aspect in SEO and SEM, and, in effect, also in search engine friendly design and development. Therefore, suitable keywords or phrases must be carefully selected so that the website will have a good ranking on search engines. Keywords must be made specific in order for a website to get an advantage in search results. Part of the process is to ensure keyword dominance, not keyword abuse. The latter will not work well with search engines that your website might be tagged as spam.
- On-page Optimization
The use of keywords in different locations will have a good bearing in search engine rankings. The clever way to do it is to put the keyword in the title tag and in the first parts of your content. When you apply the keywords in strategic locations like this, you do not need to over-stuff your content at all.
- Title Tags
Just like a movie or a song, the title defines the entirety of its content. The same applies to the title tags on your website or web page so it is needless to say that this has to be picked wisely. The length of the title tag has to be considered. Most importantly, it has to contain the keyword or phrase. To create an emotional impact and ensure high readability, branding may also be inserted in the title phrase.
- Meta Tags
When it comes to search engine friendly design, the use of meta tags index/noindex, follow/nofollow and noarchive is critical. Because they stand as a proxy for information about the website, these tags basically give a description of its content. Meta tags must be used correctly so that your content will be attractive to search engines.
- URL Structures
Did you know that the use of hyphens to separate words on your URL is better than using underscores? Now you do. The structure of the URL must be all of the following: short, contain keywords, employ empathy, and static. This final element in SEM and SEO is equally important as ones mentioned before.
Reading through all this, creating a search engine friendly design may have sounded overwhelming. However, you just need to keep in mind that, in general, you just need to create appealing content for search engines. And by appealing, it goes beyond font, background, and images or illustrations used.
Thinking Baboon can do this for you. Our team of specialists with years of experience in SEM and SEO will make sure that your website and its contents will captivate the search engines as we apply all of these basic elements. Our ultimate goal is to put your website on the top search results in different search engines. This approach guarantees more website visits, and eventually more revenue for your business.
Contact us now and let’s talk about how we can improve your website!
