Unfortunately, we often meet with potential clients who had a bad experience with a web designer. They may have a beautiful website, yes, but they haven’t seen any search traction in months or even years! It’s so disappointing when a business owner invests in a new website and it doesn’t show up in search engines. Sometimes, it can take more to fix the SEO issues than it costs to build the website!
That’s why we developed a unique website design process to ensure every website we create is beautiful AND optimized for search. And guess what? You’re getting a sneak peek into that process in this article! Lucky you 😉
Psst… you can get our website redesign SEO checklist here!
Step-by-Step Breakdown of Our Website Design Process
Because our SEO web design is unique, let me break it down for you. We truly care about our clients and want to make sure they’re happy with their website from an aesthetics perspective as well as an SEO standpoint.
1. Research and Strategy
Before we dive into the pretty features of a website, we focus on the strategy. Yes, your website needs a strategy, just like any other part of your business!
We start with keyword research. We select the keywords that best fit each page of your website. This is a foundational step because it guides our thinking around design, navigation, and content structure. Search insights also help shape the user experience. Google cares A LOT about user experience. It will rank you higher in search results the more you provide users with a good experience. Let’s make that a goal from the beginning!
2. SEO-Driven Architecture Planning
Along the same lines, we start to design the architecture of the website from an SEO perspective. Structuring a website for search engines and users is crucial because it ensures the site is discoverable by search engines and provides a seamless experience for visitors. Noticing a theme here? User experience is everything!
SEO-friendly architecture is integrated into the design, which is why it’s one of the first steps in our website design process. These are some of the things we plan:
- Internal linking
- Logical URL structure
- Clear navigation
- Strategy for header tags
- Mobile responsiveness
- Page speed optimization
- Image optimization
All of this ties into your SEO web design. Your website will be strategically designed to make it easy for search engines to crawl, index, and rank your website, while also providing a positive user experience.
3. Content Strategy
Next, we plan your website content, or the copy throughout your website. This is how your audience will learn more about your business and the services you provide. The keywords we determined in the beginning will influence the content structure, navigation, and design layout. Keywords are included in:
- Headlines
- Navigation menus
- CTAs (Calls to Action)
- Body copy
- URLs
Keywords are included in many elements of the overall website design process. SEO elements such as keyword-rich headings, metadata, alt text for images, and internal links are integrated directly into the design process. The content and design work together to boost your website’s visibility in search engines.
We include the main pages of your website: Home, about, services, contact, and blog. It’s your job to determine the other types of content you want on your website, such as:
- Blog articles
- Case studies
- Landing pages
- Testimonials
- Videos
4. Mobile Optimization
We ensure every website we build is optimized for mobile. Since Google announced mobile-first indexing (meaning it primarily considers the mobile version of a website for ranking and indexing), it’s more important than ever to make sure the mobile version of your website is optimized.
What does that look like?
- Fast load time
- Responsive design (text and images adapting to different screen sizes)
- Mobile-friendly navigation
- Touch-friendly design
- Readable text on smaller screens
Mobile optimization isn’t just a design consideration – it’s a crucial part of your overall digital strategy.
5. Testing
Once our website design process is complete, we test every part of the website to ensure it’s functioning properly. These are some of the standard things we test before we push your website live!
- Mobile optimization on multiple devices
- Make sure every button goes to the right page
- Check how the website looks in different browsers
- Form completions
- Load time
- 404 handling
The Benefits of a Holistic SEO Web Design Process
By looking at the entire website from a user experience standpoint, we create a website that meets your aesthetic expectations and performs well on search engines. These are some of the benefits you’ll see after working with us.
- Enhanced user experience
- Higher search engine rankings
- Your website is a 24/7 lead generator
- Reliable security features
- Smooth third-party integrations
- Reader-friendly content
- Greater ROI
Your website should work for you and you can make sure that happens by starting a new website with SEO in mind.
“You’re doing your work in a way that I cannot say enough good things about my experience working with you. About 90% of my inquiries coming through my website convert into sales and I think it’s because the clients have already decided I’m the right contractor for them based on what you built. I don’t know anything about indexing, but I’m getting more and more inquiries, so I assume the work you’ve done is making me more visible as time goes on. And, overall, it’s just a really great website, built with exceptional customer service.”
Ben Jones
Why Our SEO Web Design Approach Sets Us Apart
We find that SEO is often not part of a website build, the bare minimum is added, or it’s part of a post-launch effort. This leaves people with brand new sites that have horrible SEO and the owner ends up making constant fixes (which is no fun!)
It’s essential to build websites with SEO from the start. We put a TON of work into making sure every SEO box is checked before publishing your new website. Our website design process gives you long-term results and sustainable SEO growth.
Check out our SEO web design package and contact us to schedule a free discovery call! You’ll be one step closer to a website that works for you 24/7.
