How to Integrate SEO Best Practices into Your Web Design Process

SEO (search engine optimization) should be a primary consideration when planning a new web design project.

By incorporating SEO principles from the outset, you’ll ensure that your site is well-placed to rank higher in search results, attract more organic traffic, and support your digital marketing objectives for the long term.

In this post, we’ll break down six key practices to help you seamlessly integrate SEO requirements into your web design process, ensuring your site is both user-friendly and optimized for search engines.

6 Best Practices for SEO-Friendly Web Design

Here are six tips to help you design a website with SEO at its core.

1. Lead with Mobile

Since 2017, mobile devices have accounted for around half of all global website traffic.

And in 2023, Google finalized the rollout of its mobile first index. This means the search engine primarily looks at the mobile version of a website to determine where it should rank.

In other words, if your site doesn’t function well on mobile, it will hurt your SEO performance.

So, what are the main elements of mobile-friendly web design?

The key consideration is to ensure that your site is fully responsive. That is, your site should automatically adjust to the user’s screen size and device type.

You should make it easy for users to read text and tap buttons without zooming and navigate your site without excessive scrolling. You can also improve legibility on smaller screens by formatting your content with shorter paragraphs separated by plenty of white space.

Also, keep in mind that character limits for meta tags are shorter on mobile than on desktop. For this reason, it’s best to keep page titles and meta descriptions within 60 and 120 characters, respectively.

2. Build for Speed

Site speed plays a decisive role in creating a positive user experience.

Slow-loading pages can easily frustrate users and lead them to abandon your site altogether. Meanwhile, faster-loading sites tend to benefit from lower bounce rates and higher levels of engagement and conversions.

Since page speed enhances the user experience, Google takes it into consideration when deciding where a page should rank. All else being equal, faster load times translate into higher search rankings.

Ideally, each page should load within 2.5 seconds.

Here are some of the main levers you can pull to improve site speed:

• Reduce image size: Compress images to reduce file size without compromising quality. Using the WebP file format is typically the most effective way to do this.
• Minify code: Reduce unnecessary characters, spaces, and comments in your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. This helps them load more quickly.
• Use browser caching: Caching allows returning visitors to store key resources on their devices so they don’t have to re-download them every time they visit.
• Limit redirects: Every redirect creates an additional HTTP request. So, reducing their number speeds up your site.
• Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN distributes your website’s content across multiple servers located in various regions. This reduces the distance between the server and the user, allowing for faster content delivery.

Further reading: 5 Reasons Your Website Is Slow and How to Fix It

3. Opt for a “Flat” Site Structure

A flat website architecture means that all important pages on your site are no more than a few clicks away from the homepage.

Structuring your site this way reduces the number of pages users (and search engines) have to navigate to find the content they want.

It also improves the distribution of link equity throughout your site. Link equity (or “page authority”) is the ranking power passed from one page to another through links. Pages closer to the homepage typically receive more link equity, which can help boost their rankings in the search results.

To create a flat site structure, try to limit the number of categories and subcategories you use to organize your site’s pages. Ideally, users should be able to reach all important pages within three clicks or less.

4. Facilitate Navigation

In addition to using a flat site structure, you can make it easier for users and search engines to discover important content by creating a clear and intuitive navigation system.

This involves grouping related pages under logical categories and using concise, descriptive labels in your primary navigation menu. Just make sure you don’t overwhelm users with too many options. Prioritize the most critical sections of your site and consider using dropdown menus for secondary pages.

You can also implement breadcrumb trails so users can see their current location within your site’s hierarchy and instantly navigate back to higher-level pages. Moreover, you can use footer navigation to give users easy access to important (yet less frequently used) pages, such as contact information, privacy policies, or terms of service.

Finally, be sure to use contextual internal links throughout your site. This involves linking to related pages within the body text of your content, which guides users to additional resources they might find useful.

Internal links also help your SEO efforts by passing link equity from one page to the next and helping search engines understand how different pages relate to one another.

5. Ensure Crawlability and Indexability

Before Google can display your site in its search results, it first needs to crawl and index your pages.

Crawling is the process by which Google’s bots navigate your site to discover new or updated content. Google then stores (“indexes”) information about that content in a database, which allows it to retrieve and display relevant pages when users search for related keywords.

For this reason, if your site is difficult to crawl or your pages aren’t properly indexed, they won’t appear in search results.

Besides having a well-structured and internally linked site, here are some other ways to maximize crawlability and indexability:

• Submit an XML sitemap: An XML sitemap is a roadmap search engines can use to discover and prioritize your site’s most important pages. You can submit it directly to Google Search Console.
• Review your robots.txt file: A robots.txt file tells search engines which parts of your site to crawl or ignore. Make sure you aren’t accidentally blocking critical pages from being crawled.
• Avoid the “noindex” tag on important pages: The noindex tag tells search engines not to include a page in their index, meaning it won’t appear in search results. Ensure that this tag isn’t mistakenly applied to pages you want to rank.
• Fix crawl errors: Regularly audit your site using tools like Google Search Console to identify crawl errors, such as broken links, slow-loading pages, or blocked resources. Address these errors promptly to ensure that search engines can access all your important content.

Further reading: Technical SEO: Why is It Important?

6. Implement Structured Data

Structured data (or schema markup) is a piece of code that helps search engines better understand what your content is about.

By adding structured data to your site, you can increase the chances of your search results appearing as rich snippets. These are enhanced results that display additional information—such as star ratings, product prices, event dates, or FAQs—directly in the search results.

Rich snippets make your search listings more appealing to search users, which can help increase your click-through rates.

You can use tools like Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to easily create and add the code to your site. And you can then verify it’s working correctly by using Google’s Rich Results Test.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to designing a new site, don’t let SEO be an afterthought.

If you build your site with SEO in mind from the very beginning, you’ll create a solid foundation for better search rankings, more organic traffic, and an excellent user experience.

By following the tips outlined above, you’ll be well on your way to creating an SEO-friendly website that’s optimized for both users and search engines.

And finally, if you’re looking for an award winning agency with over 15 years working across web design and SEO projects, please don’t hesitate to reach out to HigherVisibility today.