Design your site keeping SEO in mind, so that when search engine spiders crawl over your site they’ll not only look at your flashy images or scripts, but also your text content, navigation structure, site speed, heading tags, etc.
Below are some points you should keep in mind while designing your site.
1. Domain
If you are thinking that you can buy a domain with your keyword name so that search engines can position your site higher in serps, think again. Search engines doesn’t list the site on serp based on their domain name keyword but with the relevancy of that keyword which matches higher with those sites who are producing unique, relevant & accessible content.
2. URL Formation
Also, keep in mind that your URL should not start like this:
http://www.xyz.com/?_pageid14=1
But something like
http://www.xyz.com/product/diamonds-rings.htm
So that users can also understand which page they are visiting.
3. Use of Flash
I know you love birds flying, water flowing, balls jumping, blinking lights & more on your site so that users can visit your site & congratulate you on those flashy things. Do you want that visitor to see your flash and leave? No, nobody wants that if you are really serious about doing some business. Search engines can’t read flash & they are still fighting with the issue. They are in a process to redevelop their bots into flash-reading-mechanic-horses that we can see in future only. I’m not telling that you should not make your site without flash but use it as little as necessary.
4. Alternative Text on Images
Who doesn’t like images? In fact, “a picture can say thousand words.” Yes, I know that search engines bots don’t know what images are, but you can add Alt text in your images which can be readable indexable on SERP’s or Google Images, which can bring traffic to your site.
5. Heading Tags
I don’t know how much Google & other search engines take in account the heading tags factor, but there are around 200 – 1000 factors Google and others search engines consider while ranking your site. Heading or Header Tags consists of H1, H2, and H3 to H6 which is the last tag. Try to include your most important keyword in the H1 tag and others into H2 or H3. Don’t go beyond that.
6.Navigation Structure
Make your site easily navigable through other links within your site. Keep it simple, clean, and direct. I came across many sites in which their navigation lacked proper methods in being distinguished.
7. Pop-ups
I hate those sites which includes hidden pop-ups and jump in my face when I visit. Please, don’t include all these in your site. Your visitors will back off within a seconds.
8. Content
Do not indulge in any illegal activity like copying content from others and blatantly pasting it in your site. Google has come across this unethical way of copying content, and one can file a case against you for such incidents. Write your own content relating to your business if you can’t hire a content writer who can write it for you.
9. Sitemap Page
I saw thousands of sites who still don’t have sitemap pages. Sitemaps don’t help in ranking your site, but suppose you have hundreds of products or services, and your visitors don’t find them on your site. Your sitemap page can be helpful for them because you’ve listed all your products or services in that page. That can also be helpful for bots to index those pages which they didn’t find on your site.
10. Site Speed
In 2010, only Google introduced this factor of Site Speed to rank your site high on SERP’s. Big G is considering how much time your site takes in loading, which is a good move because if you site is in flash then don’t expect your site to land in higher positions. Design your site with less script and don’t use heavy images. You can view your site speed in Webmaster Tools. You can also use Pingdom, which checks each and every page of your site.
Those are my views on designing a site while keeping SEO in mind. What other things you consider while designing your site? Please share in comments if I missed something.