When you read or hear people talk about website optimization, you’re more likely to hear them talk about content and links. It’s no surprise considering that Google itself has said that content and links are two of the three most important ranking factors (Rankbrain being the third).
However, while these three may well gain more attention, you’re also likely to hear that there are “over 200 factors” that influence a site’s ability to rank on SERPs (search results pages). These can range from title tags to preparing for Google’s mobile first. You might even hear someone tap into integrated marketing campaigns where headwords or social media marketers work alongside the SEO team to deliver results.
Teams working together generally show more progress.
In the last decade, website optimization has come out of the shadows and into one of the top solutions in digital agencies. It was just a matter of time while Google tried to take over the world! Either way, global domination aside, means that search results have become an increasingly competitive arena, requiring a specialist SEO agency to use all the tools available to them.
SEO is about conversions
While having a high ranking for your keywords is great, it’s not the main factor for a successful campaign. For agencies and teams at home, if ranking high doesn’t result in the ultimate business goal being achieved, then you could argue that the campaign was not successful. If you subscribe to this theory (like us), then addressing issues within your website design is a critical factor for any SEO campaign.
This subject is a little more complex. There are a number of factors that must be taken into account when creating a responsive site and individual pages that have high conversion rates, including UX/UI, image usage, site speed, and content usage. The point is, without analyzing site pages and user flow across your site, you run the risk of not capitalizing on organic search traffic.
Regardless, investing in conversion rate optimization isn’t specific to organic search traffic. If buyer personas have been accurately identified, changing the design of your pages will help convert traffic from multiple sources. Especially if your teams are talking to each other as part of an integrated marketing strategy!
Home Optimization
A recent study showed that in-house SEO agency and team’s valued technical optimization both as the most influential factor for campaigns. Don’t worry, content and link building were also featured! The point is, if both site designers and developers don’t have a clear vision of the optimization that will be implemented on the site, you run the real risk of having to go back and redo parts of the site to include them.
A classic example of this was played by Drew Hendricks for Forbes.com. A few years ago, parallax sites were “the bug”, but they were SEO junk. The lack of clearer site structures and individual page URLs to target specific search terms with highly targeted content meant that performing optimization on a parallax site was notoriously difficult. Difficult but not impossible, but difficult nonetheless.
Usage and User Data
Google keeps its cards close when it comes to the exact metrics they take into account when ranking sites. They give some of the key information, but not all. However, there is a school of thought in the SEO world that user and usage data is used by Google in its ranking algorithm, although some might argue that Google would only take into account data directly related to SERPs, such as CTR.
If you believe Google takes user and usage data heavily or does so only to a limited extent, it’s still worth addressing as part of your SEO and therefore your Website Design Company. In the same vein as producing conversions, you don’t want to see high bounce rates or low site stays as part of the analytics for your site.
If you’re redesigning your site, you can use Google Analytics data from your previous site to highlight issues to avoid on the new site, or if it’s a new site, make sure the right amount of thought has been given to the experiment. User (especially above the fold).
Don’t wait to make changes!
If you’re creating a new website or revamping your current website, it’s much easier to take some of the details from this article into your design process rather than looking to cover them further in the future. You have a great reason to work, allowing designers and marketers to work together to develop a website that not only looks great, but also delivers your broader marketing strategy.
There will have to be compromises. There always is. Designers and SEOs often bump heads when it comes to the amount of content, heavy images or videos that can slow down loading speeds and call buttons for actions that can have an effect on the site’s true aesthetics. If you can manage these commitments, you’ll avoid a beautiful site that receives less organic traffic because of its inability to rank or a site that ranks well but fails to convert its traffic.
Implementing changes to a site after it’s been designed not only costs more time and money, but it will also deliver a poorer quality product than if these considerations had been part of the strategy from the start!