Search, Social and Design – How to Club them 

Slowly designers have woke up to the reality that there is no way to ignore SEO, at least the basics of it and it sounds really great for all website owners who were so far struggling to make the designers see the marketing side of thing. Design that flouts basic SEO principles are no longer going to make a cut in the online industry as almost every client is willing to go an extra mile to increase the visibility of their websites and they even do not mind having some rough around the edges for that. However, if you are still ignoring the basics of SEO while designing, let me introduce you to the world of reality where you will find fewer takers of your non-optimized templates.

But wait, it is not just integrating the basics of SEO, you need to make your website social media friendly as well. Wondering how that could be done, here it goes:

SEO Basics to be Included:

Yah, ignoring the basics of SEO is now being treated as a blasphemy. It can make the website miserable in search engines’ eyes (do they have any? I am not sure). So, unless you do not wish to kill the online presence of a website, you need to follow the basics:

1. Do Not use JavaScript in the Navigation:

Use of JavaScript in the navigation can create a wonderful user experience but the same is not true with the search engine bots. Search engine bots still struggle to index JavaScript and so, it makes sense not to use them in the main navigation unless you do not mind making the website completely invisible from search engines.

2. Flash Intro:

Yah this looks nice to have an interactive flash intro at the beginning but this may create trouble for search engines especially when you forget to add an “Enter” button in HTML. Though Googlebot has become smarter to index flash, the same does not hold true for other search engine bot. It can create trouble for less sophisticated bots while riding past the barrier crafted by the flash intro.

3. Large Background:

Again large background really makes a website look nice, but it is at the same time makes a website load slowly. So, it backs to square zero again.  Try small images and use gradients rather than large images to make your website load fast, really fast.

4.  Use Texts Rather Than Images:

There is no point in presenting information in images as they could easily be done by using simple texts. Moreover, search engines are still not that much powerful to extract text from images, so better stick to text while presenting information.

5. Internal Linking:

Designers are much in the habit of using some common phrases like – Click here, while internal linking. These stop words do not add much value to the visibility of the website and that means, you need to take extra care to use logical key phrases while interlinking website.

Make it Social Media Friendly:

Search world has already had a rude shock with the launch of Google Search Plus World. With Search Plus Your World, your website’s social presence is going to play a major role in determining the fate and future in the SERP. So, you are left with no choice but to make your website social media friendly and believe me it is not that much tough. All you need to do is have some great social media buttons placed prominently in the above the fold section of the website and there you go.

It will relieve the visitors from taking extra pain to copy the URL and share it with their friends. Just a single click and your website will be there in the middle of all the bustling activities from nowhere. You can add great Google + button against each blog or service page. This will prompt visitors click on them, if they feel like doing it. The more Google +, the better it will be for your website’s online presence.

Since Google is giving more attention to social media and trying to gather valuable users’ data from it to make its search result more accurate, you need to make your website adopt all forms of social media activities like Google + or facebook badge and your website will have the best of the both worlds.

Compelling Design:

You can play around creativity but do not go overboard while doing so. Try to make things simple and try to thing like a general user rather like a search engine bot all the time. Think and innovate what should be done to make the stay of a general visitor more enjoyable and exciting. Since Google gives more value to websites with low bounce rate, you need to design a template to make it users friendly rather than only search engine friendly. Search engines are quite capable of taking care of themselves and so, it is better of you if you start taking care of your visitors.

Give attention to visitors as are hard to come by these days.