Google uses over 200 factors to rank your website in search listings.

While it remains tight-lipped on the finer details of these variables, our expertise allows us to use the factors we do know to optimise your website.

SEO and great web design go hand in hand.

Optimising your SEO and web design creates a great user experience for your visitors.

It’s a win win.

Need a quick recap on what SEO stands for? Check out our beginner’s guide.

Read on to discover 6 ways to optimise your SEO and web design.

From colour to font style and size, each element of design on your site impacts your visitor’s user experience. User-friendly design must strike a balance between style and practicality; design and layout should be easy to use with a simple, consistent layout that maintains brand guidelines.

If you can engage your visitor enough to keep them on your site, you will find an increase in sales and a lower bounce rate (the percentage of people who navigate away from your site after viewing the first page).

The longer visitors stay on your site, the higher Google will rate its quality.

Google Analytics is useful in getting the data you need to continuously assess and refine your web layout.

• Break up copy into bitesize chunks
• Bullet points are great for this
• Include exciting visuals, image or video (but remember to optimise for load speed!)
• Ensure your site is mobile-friendly and responsive to all screen sizes
• Include Call To Actions (CTAs)
• Maintain a consistent, logical layout
• Make your contact info stand out

That’s a shocking statistic when you consider the effectiveness of backlinks on your site rankings.

As our SEO copywriting intern Rebecca once put it,

• Create shareable content, for example, a blog or news article
• Create profiles for your business on local or industry directories
• Publish an online press release
• Network with businesses and consumers; get involved in industry events and online campaigns.

Pages and images that take a long time to load are one of the biggest factors that contribute to visitors leaving a site. Search engines like Google use this data to determine where to rank your site. It looks at the loading speed of your site in comparison to other factors such as:

• The number of visitors to your site
• How many pages your visitors view per session
• Your bounce rate

• Optimise images
• Use a fast web host (we host each website we design individually for speed and security)
• Remove plugins you don’t use
• Evaluate your site speed with Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
• Remove pages you don’t need
• Clear the cache

Your mobile website is a huge part of your online presence. It’s easy to overlook but the majority of your traffic will come from mobile device. Mobile users expect a user-friendly design that loads quickly; information must be immediately accessible as your users are often ‘on the go’.

Smartphones are also a vital part of life for many:

• Ensure your site design is responsive to mobile and tablet screen sizes
• Make it speedy – mobile load times are more important than desktop load times
• Don’t use pop ups
• Design for a ‘fat finger’ to avoid accidental clicks
• Optimise content for local search – people are more likely to use their mobiles on-the-go
• Design a mobile app

Good quality content acts as a trust signal to potential customers. Your website content should establish your brand values and provide valuable information about your services or products. In addition, it must engage, maintain your visitor’s attention and drive them to other pages on your site.

Quality content will lower your bounce rate and increase your conversion rate.

• Grammar and spelling should be spot-on
• Break up long chunks of text
• Use a variety of headings and subheadings
• Keep it concise
• Be consistent – determine your brand voice and stick to it
• Create shareable content. Blogs and articles are a great way to drive traffic to your site
• Share your expertise
• Ensure every line of copy adds value to your page

This is sad. Especially when you’ve poured time, effort and money into a great website. How can you be sure your site (and services) get the recognition they deserve?

The answer? Keywords.

A keyword is a search term your users type into a search engine to find your services and products. Google uses keywords to rank your website; it wants to make sure that it displays the most relevant web pages for each search term.

For example, our website is number 1 in Google rankings for keywords like ‘SEO Leeds’ and ‘SEO company Leeds’.

• Use software such as Ahrefs to conduct your keyword research
• Use keywords to target specific products and locations
• Include your keywords in headings and image tags
• Your work should read naturally, no keyword stuffing! Google doesn’t like it and your readers won’t either
• Engage your audience with valuable content to drive visitors to your site

We are a leading SEO Agency Leeds. Want a hand with your Google rankings? Contact us today!