When designing your blog, it’s always a good idea to think about what is aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly to your audience. What we don’t always pay attention to is how much Google and other search engines like our websites. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an internet marketing strategy that increases our websites’ visibility in search engine results. If you’re not familiar with this yet, check out our favorite SEO Basics Mini Series from Ali of Dapper Fox Design!
Usually, when I think of making my website SEO friendly, I mainly consider the setup of my blog posts. Do I have an effective title? Have I chosen a focus keyword, meta description, etc.? However, I recently started thinking about how I could make the actual design of my blog increase my SEO. Below are five easy ways you can make your blog design work for you, and increase your site’s visibility across all search engines.
1. Make sure your website is mobile responsive
I know you’ve probably heard this again and again… is it getting old yet? The main reason mobile friendliness is important for your site is that Google ranks responsive websites higher. If your site isn’t optimized for mobile and tablet views, you might be missing out on a lot of potential readers. When hiring a developer or shopping for themes, make mobile responsiveness a very high priority!
2. Put your best content above the fold
When you place valuable content above the fold of your website (generally, the area people see before they scroll down), you create a more positive user experience for your audience. Placing your best links, sidebar elements, posts, etc. before the fold encourages people to keep browsing your content. When visitors remain on your site for a long time, search engines recognize this and see that your site is worth placing higher in their search rankings.
3. Optimize all images in your blog design
If you have a lot of images in your blog design (think – logo, sidebar images, stock photos), always add alt tags and title tags to them! These tags are used to help search engines read your images and display them in image search results.
4. Use less JavaScript and more HTML/CSS
This one is for those of you who code your own designs. JavaScript allows you to add some fun, fancy effects to your website. Unfortunately, Google has a hard time reading JS, so while you can definitely still implement it into your site, try to limit your usage. Opt for good old fashion HTML and CSS! You’d be surprised how much you can do with it.
5. Pay attention to the speed of your website
Something that can strongly affect your SEO is the speed of your site. If it’s on the slower side, you’ll notice it, your readers will notice it, and unfortunately search engines will notice too. Use the Google Developers tool PageSpeed Insights to see how fast your website is loading. If it’s on the slower side, Google will give you a bunch of recommendations to speed it up. Super helpful!
There are so many other ways to boost your SEO, but I thought I’d stop at 5 points today. Would you be interested in seeing more SEO-related posts in the future?
Jackie (York Avenue) says
I love learning about SEO, so yes, definitely! I’m bookmarking this to send to the person I’m working with on backend issues. Thanks for this post!
Sara says
I had never thought about most of this! Except for the mobile-friendly part, that I really have to work on in my page… But great tips!
edesign says
HI, Thanks for sharing your informative and amazing post, I hope everyone will be benefited if they read all of your post. Please write more for us as we learn more.
thanks again,
Take Care.
Trisa Taro says
Another great post! SEO can be a bit overwhelming, especially because there are so many different variables. It’s helpful to see a short pointed list like this that’s easy to tackle first before moving on to more intensive aspects. Thanks for sharing!
Lexie says
These are all great tips, especially alt tags on photos!
Wahyu says
Hi Jenifer, I am an old school conservative and orthodox SEO rule follower, so I think for me, the most essential for SEO is a quality back link and strong keyword which have relevance with our website content, so I think I disagree with your post, but anyway this is a good post, so tank’s.
Jennifer says
Totally agree with you about the back link and strong keyword. This post was about blog design elements specifically, so I didn’t mention either of those. :) Thanks for reading!
Kassandra says
Hey! I was just wondering if you use Genesis Framework for the design of this site?
Jennifer says
Yes, we do! :)
Kate says
So helpful! Thanks for sharing :)
VioletDaffodils
xx
Caribephoto says
Thanks for sharing!