Of the development requests we receive, most express an interest in improving their web presence and site ranking. I am writing this blog post since experience has shown that most people don’t understand what is required for a website’s ranking improvement. If the competition is high in your industry your website will need 3 things – a professional and engaging design, ample keyword rich copy, and SEO optimization. Once these are provided for the site ranking improvement will happen quickly.
Top Website Ranking – the Big 3
The Design: When looking at the design one needs to initially assess it from a continuity perspective. In short, do all the aspects work with each-other? A good layout needs to have a unified sense of order and completeness. To achieve this sense of completeness look at how colors work together, the typography used, the use of images/graphics, interactivity, and the layout dimensions.
Specifically …
For colors assess if the they work together and with the logo, and that they convey the appropriate visual message about the type of business/organization. When I say “work together” I am referring to the science of color harmonies. There are a lot of approaches here that work such as the use of complementary colors (opposites on the color wheel), analogous (adjacent on the color wheel), triadic (3 complements), split-complementary, tetradic (rectangle), square, colors selected from a natural setting image used in the header, and hue variations of a primary color.
When there is a logo it is a good idea to sample the color values (for example your logo may be burgundy, black, white, and grey) and then use these values in the design. In most cases 2 of the logo colors will brought in as primary colors, and the others are accents. For example, a dark primary color is often chosen for the background (dark colors frame a page well), a dark complimentary color for the navigation and footer bar, an accent color for a divider bar, dark accent color for a heading color font, etc. Since white and black are neutral colors they can always be employed.
For the typography it is important to assess if the text copy can be easily read per its size (heading tags, body copy, navigation, footer, sidebar, etc), line height, character spacing, character color, consistency in use across pages, and the font choice employed. If Cufon or Web-Fonts are used, or if different fonts are used for content such as one font for headings, one for the body copy, and one for the navigation, it is important to ensure that they all work well together. Type can play a big role in influencing how a page is vowed, be it professional, elegant, fun, kiddish, etc. Most importantly, there needs to be enough visual contrast (dark text on light background, or light text on dark background) to ensure readability.
For images and graphical accents it is important to ensure that they are effective inclusions by way of engagement, are optimized and sized properly, and work to improve the visual aspect of the layout. I trust that most will agree that images are one of the major definers on whether a visitor will like your website initially. The effective use of a slideshow can play a major part of engagement on the home page; images should always be added to individual pages as well, be it by single inclusions or as small galleries or slideshows. Remember that images tell the story, so need to be chosen carefully. Graphical accents are all of those image and css styling aspects that are used to improve the look of the common page elements such as headers, navigation, sidebars, buttons, etc. These include gradients, beveling, drop-shadow, watermarks, image frames, etc.
Interactivity consists of those bits of JavaScript and jQuery, Flash, and other forms of animation that allow those nifty visual effects on a page. A good page will include a variety of these effects, yet presented in subtle ways. Some good options include scrolling testimonials, drop-down menu systems, rollover buttons, Lightbox/prettyphoto image and/or video galleries, header slideshows, toggle panels with expandable regions, toggle panes for headers or footers, tabular systems, etc. When used effectively interactive elements will provide that added professional touch that makes a page an interactive fun experience.
For the layout it is important to assess if there is the appropriate underlying structure in place to ensure visual balance. What I mean by balance here is that columns are of equal width, and employ consistent layout conventions such as the amount of space (margin/padding) between layout elements. For example, a common layout choice will include the logo at top-left with the navigation adjacent at the right. Below this is a full-width header slideshow. Next there is a couple paragraphs of welcome text with an image at the adjacent right. Below this is a 3 or 4-columnar layout with a image at the beginning of each column followed by a short description with a “read more” link. Below the columns will be a footer with additional information, which is followed by a sub-footer that has the copyright notice, etc. The interior pages will generally consist of a common page layout … logo at top-left, adjacent navigation at right, page title at left, followed by a two columnar layout. Here we have the a large content area at left, and a narrow column at right for additional information, contact info, links, testimonials, etc. With each of these aspects there are a lot of choices that one can make, and what works best for a particular business is generally defined by the type (and amount) of content to be added.
Keyword Copy:
I often stress to clients that while an attractive visual design is important, the design itself won’t get you traffic, and most importantly “keep” site visitors. First and foremost there needs to be enough keyword rich text content on the pages that refers to the products/services that your business provides; the “keywords” are those words that a visitor will likely type in at a search engine to learn about your type of business. Note where I wrote “learn” … I reference this since most people will quickly scan a page and decide if they want to browse more fully. There have been many times where I have visited a website and upon a quick scan I had no idea of the services they offered? My reaction, move on to the next website … time is valuable and few will waste it guessing at what the company is about.
What many don’t realize is that “How and Where” the text content is presented is as important as what is being said. I’ve often noted that the keyword placement on the home page are of primary importance from an SEO standpoint since this is the page that you want your visitors to view first, and it will be indexed more often than other pages (ascribed more value). First and foremost, always include a welcome statement on the home page wherein you provide an overview of the services you offer. In addition, ensure that some of the keyword text is located near the top of the page, and that keywords are used in navigation and heading titles. From a design perspective it can sometimes be challenging to place enough text near the top of a page without sacrificing the design – for example, if you have a large header slideshow you don’t want to place much, if any, text above it. One option is to use a jQuery slideshow that does allow you to embed indexable text within the slideshow. In other cases one might choose to have a small slideshow at the header with text adjacent to it.
The placement of the text is another important consideration that needs to be considered. Studies have shown that few people will read large blocks of text which is why newspapers and magazines (and most professional websites) utilize the columnar format, images within text blocks, and “read more” links for the full-story. When effective text leaders are used it helps people to quickly scan a page, and prevents the visual over-crowding effect. Beyond a columnar layout noted above, the use of footers and sidebars can be very effective as well to include important text without crowding the pages.
SEO Optimization:
A major part of SEO optimization is ensuring that the aforementioned are done well. When the keywords are added to the page in the proper density ration, and placed in strategic locations this will definitely help ensure the necessary keyword indexing. Beyond this one needs to ensure that the “heading” tags are used (H1, H2, H3, etc), not just a defined font size. Heading tags tell the search engines that the words are a title and therefore important since they summarize what is to follow.
In addition, those important keywords need to be in the page names, page titles, and page descriptions. If you have an existing site, where possible rename a page to ensure that it best defines what the page is about. Be as specific as possible while still keeping the name relatively short. For example, if you make custom wood chairs and you have this on a page titled “products.html’ or “services.html” rename this to “custom-wood-chairs.html”. For page titles keep the titles short, and unique. Many businesses will have a title such as “Our Company Name – We have the best widgets around, check us out”. Since a title should be kept to 8 words or less, instead try something like “Sacramento Widget Company – leading widget manufacturer”. The important thing is to define those keywords to target and include them, and ensure that your primary sales city/region is noted. If someone already knows your business name they know how to find you and most people will search for a product/service in their location. Finally the page description is the next most important place for those keywords. Here you will include 2 to 3 unique sentences that provide a short yet keyword rich overview of what your business offers. My suggestion is to look at the source code of your top ranked competitor websites to get an idea of what they’ve done first, and then create something unique that clearly identifies your services, and region of sales.
Next, be sure that you have links on your primary pages that link to other pages. This is known as “inbound” linking, and is a great way to ensure a more complete indexing of your content. Create an XML sitemap, and submit to the primary search engines. And utilize Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools (Google and Bing), and check out the Yahoo small business portal as well. And if you’re not using social media, or at least a blog, definitely consider it. Remember that websites with changeable content are indexed more frequently, will have more inbound links, and serve as a resource to potential clients when done correctly, which in turn ensures more new and repeat visitors.
I’ve talked a lot about the principles of effective SEO, so my suggestion is to read some of my other SEO related posts to learn all that is needed. Just ensure that your navigation is indexable (always use text links, not graphical), and be sure to include “ALT” and “TITLE” tags for images and links. The alt tags is the ADA compliant requirement that provides the mouse-over description for an image, and the title tag provides the ADA required mouse-over description for a link.
In Summation:
Achieving a top ranking in the search engines isn’t rocket science, but yes, it is work. As I’ve noted above, a good design will convey an immediate impression about the type of business this website is for, and most importantly, a good design just “feels right” which tells that part of our brains which likes order that the page can be trusted. A website that is well constructed lets visitors know that you take your business seriously. Once the pages have an ample amount of good text content and are optimized effectively (do your research on the keywords for your business type) you will see an improvement. If you’re thinking, well, I have, but I’m still ranked poorly? My suggestion is to contact me and I’ll provide you a free assessment. Even if you’re a designer of many years sometimes it’s a good idea to step back and let another professional assess what is in place, and where improvements can be made. To date, over 90% of my clients come up on the first page of Google for related keyword queries. Most achieve this ranking within a couple of months after we’ve redeveloped their website.
As my mother always said, the proof is in the pudding!
