SEO and Design: Striking the Perfect Balance

www.webmarketinggroup.co.uk SEO AND DESIGN: STRIKING THE PERFECT BALANCE The panda algorithm update means Google understands that visitors judge your site purely on its look and feel before reading content and assessing its quality. Bounce rates are a clear indication of this. This means sites should be designed both beautifully and functionally in order to be aesthetically pleasing, increase time spent on site and ultimately to be effective. 1- THE 1-CLICK CONCEPT 2 - TELL A STORY All content should be accessible from above the Your homepage should tell a story and make sense from top to bottom, answering the big questions your key visitors will have when landing on your site: WMG COTACTVS fold along with the most important messages about your brand. And ideally, everything should be 1 click away. TIP: Include your most important calls to action here to increase INTELLIGENT GROWTH STRATEGIES • WHO YOU ARE • WHAT YOU DO response! • WHO YOU DO IT FOR • HOW TO GET IN TOUCH KOUR DIGAL ONI "63% OF FORTUNE 500 COMPANIES HAVE CONTENT ABOVE THE FOLD." "LOAD TIME: 40% OF PEOPLE WILL ABANDON A WEBPAGE IF IT TAKES MORE THAN 3 SECONDS TO LOAD." 2 WELCOME TO WMG 3 - LINK TO YOUR BEST CONTENT FROM YOUR HOMEPAGE XX WE CONSULT WE CREAT WE DELIVER 4 - IMAGES VS. CONTENT: STRIKE A BALANCE Make it easy for visitors to find the very best content from the home page without navigating through all your pages to find what they want (or what you want them to see). Use imagery to support content, not to replace content. Content is still king in the eyes of Google, so it's vital to balance the two. Alt tags should be used on all images to allow Google to interpret the content of the image and improve your site's visibility in image search. LATEST WORK 3 mork group MAK CROUP APASK ANGUA TOO CONTRE 5 - KEYWORDS COUNT Ensure keywords are still present. While there is no longer such a focus on density, mentioning your target keywords somewhere in your content is important. TIP: Don't trust stats on how many keywords to include per 100 words - just make sure your WHAT'S HOT CERATOAL SED. LOCASED ATSIN STORE LONGORM CONTENT. 6 - CLEAR CALL TO ACTION Let your visitors know how to get in touch quickly and easily. Implementing a clear contact form on each page allows them to get in touch whenever they want during their browsing. Make it even easier by adding a floating contact form which follows the user whenever they scroll. WHO WE WORK WITH content is natural. safestore Regatta H.SAMUEL alpari 1 - ENCOURAGE COMMENTS TALK TO US YOUULM RUAROOR CAMPACKS 6 Whilst it might be hard to keep up, try to enable visitors comments on your content, for instance on your blog posts. This creates a community feel along with real-time updates which are vital to SEO. Use Askimet or other software to help moderate comments and 8 - CRAWLABLE LINK STRUCTURE OUR AORESS OUR DARS 00000 Having a site map available and a crawlable link structure enables Google to make sense of your site. 10 prevent spam. 9 - CASE STUDIES, TESTIMONIALS & USER GENERATED CONTENT 10 - SOCIAL & SHARING 83% of consumers say it would be important to read user-generated content before making a decision. If you're an ecommerce site, customer ratings and reviews are fundamental. For B2B, testimonials, case studies and comments are all valuable. People should be able to share your content whenever they like, wherever they are on your site, and they should be able to navigate to your own social networks quickly and easily. Sharing and social is now vital to your SEO success. "SHARING ACCOUNTS FOR 10% OF ALL TRAFFIC!" THE DON'Ts ....... • Don't use too many images and not enough text. Where you can, include free text on images, and only use images to back up the text. Don't use content duplicated from other sources. • Too many categories for people to choose from can be overwhelming. The user journey should be clear and simple. (Check your bounce rate to see if you have this problem!) • Never use hidden content. Avoid excessive use of internal links. ....... • Don't use keyword stuffing to rank. MOBILE FIRST & RESPONSIVE DESIGN WMG INTELLIGENT GROWTH STRATEGIES 48% of users say if they arrive on a business site which isn't working well on mobile, they take it as a sign of a business which doesn't care. wNG NTELLCENI Google's recommendation is to design for multiple devices. This allows for the very best user experience. STRATEGES wWO The other benefit is that you don't take your visitors to a mobile subdomain such as m.yourdomain.co.uk. You don't need to create copy for this mobile site and your site remains user friendly on any device. STRATEGIES 48% • Write your content and design your site mobile first. You should be able to scale up from there far easier than scaling down. TIPS & TOOLS • Use Google's Cache to see what your site looks like to Google; type: cache:[the website URL]" into Google, and then click text only version. • Title Tags: should be no longer than 70 characters including spaces Your most important keywords should be at the start of the title tag. You should make reference to your brand in your title tag. • Install the Mozbar plugin which displays metrics for your site and those of others (so you compare to your competitors). • Use social tools like Simply Measured and HootSuite to measure your social presence and performance. Ensure you research your platform carefully and make sure that the CMS is easy to use, and that it actively aims to achieve SEO best practice. • Use Google Page Speed Checker to ensure your load time is 3 seconds or less. SOURCES WMG http://www.brafton.com/news/site-content-layout-plays-a-big-role-in-bounce-rate-and-seo-stats http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/compelling-stats-website-design-optimization-list www.webmarketinggroup.co.uk