Building a SEO friendly website is a crucial factor in determining the performance of a website. A search engine friendly design benefits both users and search engines. A SEO friendly website will have a balance between user and technology-centered design with the priority given more to user-friendliness.
Search engines ultimately ranks websites that offer good content and provide the best user experience. The biggest mistake everyone makes is ignoring SEO during the initial website design process. Once you finish building your website which is not friendly in terms of SEO, then you will have to lose your users and face traffic loss in the long run. Below is the outline that helps in building SEO friendly website.
Domain Registration
Let’s start with the basic. When you decide a domain name, choose a short name. The best choice is to use your company name. Though some use keywords in their domain name with the intention of ranking high in search results, these may only result in high ranking in the initial stages but in the long run, your business will get less click throughs as it is not user friendly. Also ensure that you don’t use hyphenated URLs as it is not taken well by search engines.
Website Planning, Development and Roll Out
Developing your website in a mobile friendly way is a very crucial step in SEO ranking. Since most of the customers are now shifting to mobile devices, having a mobile responsive site has become a necessity. Make sure you don’t lose your customers!
From the very start of the website development, SEO must be taken into consideration. The most important thing to focus is the URL structure and Architecture of the website. Try keeping keywords in the URL to achieve the desired result in the SERPs. But ensure you don’t over SEO your website.
Site structure do matter a lot. A well streamlined and organized website with consistent layout and design invites more users which increases click through rates and ultimately results in higher position in the SERPs.
The next important thing to keep in mind while website planning and development is Content. The most commonly faced issue is either duplicate content or very less content. Using properly optimized unique content for your target audience helps you rank for the corresponding search terms and aids in increasing inbound links when performing off page techniques.
Do proper research on keywords related to your business or niche. This will help you to properly set your structure, page navigation, etc.
Properly optimized title tags and images helps in keyword ranking and increased website click through rates. Once the development phase is over and the website roll out process is done, submit your business in the main directories and local listings as this will help search engines recognize you as a reputable site.
GDPR and it’s importance in SEO
General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR as it is commonly known, is a new set of rules rolled out on May 25th 2018 that gives EU citizens more control over their personal data. The main aim is to protect the privacy of the users and to ensure that the data collected on behalf of the users is managed ethically with proper encryption. Another important fact is that user has the right to control the use of their sensitive information and even have the right to have their information erased. If your website use any contact, sign up or email registration forms, ensure you ask the user’s consent prior to collecting their data. With the introduction of GDPR, it is required that you put ‘We use Cookies’ notice on your website. Also, make sure you rephrase your terms of use and privacy policy statements with all the information.
Till now, there hasn’t been an indication from Google for making GDPR a ranking factor. But we cannot opt out the possibility of making GDPR compliance a necessary ranking factor in the coming years, as they have made in the case of HTTPS. Chances are there that you may see GDPR compliance affecting how you appear on search in the near future.
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