Note: This is a guest post and I want to thank the author of this article , Mr.Edward for giving such a splendid article to be published on this blog.
Many people do not realize but the web designing choices can have a big effect on the SEO of a website. If you have a website, you should not commit the same mistake. To help you avoid that mistake here is a look at how web designing can affect Your SEO.
- Proper navigational structure
A proper navigational structure makes it easy for the search engines bots a.k.a web crawlers to index a website. It is also important for the visitors as it makes it easy for them to access the information in a quick manner.
Try to incorporate your logo on the top left side of all your web pages and link it to your home page. Also make an html and XML sitemap with a link on the top of your home page. Use text navigational links instead of the image links as the search engine spiders never read text in images. Avoid image maps and avoid query string in URls for a dynamic website.
- No Flash/java script
If you have flash/java script based pages included in your website, visitors with disabled java script or no Flash plug-ins, cannot browse your website.
Also the search engine spiders are not able to read the text written by using JavaScript. They also do not follow any JavaScript links. Also the web crawlers are not able to read the flash content as well as follow the flash links. So it make sense to avoid flash and Java Script in your web design.
- A keyword rich internal URL
If your website design includes a keyword rich internal URL, it will help your website to gain a higher search engine visibility. Using a keyword rich internal URL means that a keyword will be used in both the domain as well as file names.
- Alt tag in image
You should add descriptive Alt tags for the image files on your website. Try to give a description of the image instead of filling it with keywords. In case the image contains some important information, describe the image by using the attribute. You may use a title attribute if the image serves as a hyperlink to a particular page.
Using the Alt tag will help in increasing the keyword density score of your webpage because it helps the search engines to identify the image easily. Also placing keywords inside the Alt tags, will optimize the images for a Google or Yahoo! image search.
- No special symbols in url
If you have any special symbols in your website’s URL, you should remove it immediately. They usually make it very difficult for your visitors to remember your website. Also the use of special symbols poses a problem to the web crawlers to go through your websites
Even if you have to use a special symbol, than try and use underscores. They are acceptable by the search engines.
- Use Meta tags
Use Meta tags like Title Tags, Description Tags and Keyword Tags. Title tags are related to the title of your page so use some key phrases in the title. In your description tag, make it a point to add an excellent description copy with relevant keywords. This will be used by the search engines to include your website in their search results. The keyword tags should only include the important keywords appearing on your website.
- Update the content regularly
Make sure that you update your website’s content on regular intervals. This will add dynamism to the website and will help it to earn good rankings with the search engines.
Edward Kung , is owner of Seedin, a Vancouver Web Design Company, Which Provide SEO optimized web design services worldwide.
