There are various methods that can be utilized to draw traffic to your website. You can use pay-per-click, advertise on forums, ezines and social network sites. However, the most effective and least expensive way to bring targeted visitors to your web site is through the search engines. In order to accomplish this, you must design your website properly. This is known as optimizing your website for the search engines.
Whether you are designing your site yourself, or having someone else do it for you, be sure that either you or they understand what is involved. It’s not incredibly difficult, it just requires knowledge of the subject. Below, are some basic tips for properly designing your website for the search engines.
1. Place Keywords in the Right Places: After you have done your research and uncovered the best keywords to target, you need to place them in the right spots. The right places include in your meta, H1 and title tags. You also want to use your targeted keywords in the headlines, throughout the copy and at the bottom of the page. But you must find the right balance. Too much is overkill and you will be penalized.
2. Use Similar Keywords: Having the same keyword appear over and over in your text is a red flag for the search engines, especially if similar words don’t also appear. For example if your website is about red robins and that is the keyword that you are attempting to be ranked for, then it would only be natural that words in the same “family” would appear like bird, blue jay, birds, etc. ( In an other post we talk about the ideal keyword content balance for your website pages )
3. Attractive Design: It is important to note and for you to understand, that you are not building a site just for the search engines, but also for human readers. You want your copy to flow nicely and for it to make sense. If your website is ranked well but doesn’t convert visitors, high rankings do you no good. You have probably visited a poorly created website that was ranked well, but that you would never consider spending money at because it was badly designed, had poor copy and was not created with the end user, (the consumer) in mind.
Designing and creating a website that is optimized properly for both the search engines and people is a fine art. It requires balance, knowledge and an understanding of what the search engines and consumers want. If you are planning on building your own site, make sure that you do your homework and learn about optimization and copywriting. If you don’t have the time or the unction to do so, consider working with a company that is well versed on both topics. It will save you loads of time, frustration and wasted effort.
If you need professional assistance consider either our website design services - for new websites - or get a a website makeover , in that case refer to our website redesign package when you call .