Web designing has evolved to include more than just creating the look and feel of a website during the design process. Web designers now need to design their client’s website keeping SEO in mind, as the designing process also includes the writing of the front end code. This article will cover best actionable SEO Tips for website designers should follow while designing websites. SEO has also evolved since it first gained prominence so that now some tips are out dated or simply irrelevant to today’s process. These tips are 2012 relevant.
1. Title Tags and Meta Tags
It is no longer necessary to place your main keyword directly into the title tag at all times. The preferred option is to use Lateral Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords or a variation of your main target keyword in the title or description tags. Variations for the main keyword “How to make money online” could be:
* “Learning how to make money online.”
* “Tips on how to make money online”
When it is done like this, it will appear more natural to search engines, and reduces the risk of being penalized for keyword stuffing or over-optimization. Some web sites are still using the main keyword in the title/description tags but it is best to avoid taking such a risk.
Title tags and meta tags are the sales windows for the web site when they appear on search results pages. Page titles and meta tags that are carefully crafted will improve the click through rate from Internet users and boost your site visits.
2. Lateral Semantic Indexing (LSI) Keywords
The use of LSI keywords plays a major role in on page SEO ranking. There are LSI tools that will help you find the appropriate variations to your main target keyword. LSI keywords actually relate search terms to the original keywords entered by the user. You may have done a search yourself and noticed that the search engine aids your search by offering a variety of related suggestions while you type in the keywords. That’s because the LSI keywords are directly related to the keyword that is entered.
By making use of these keywords in titles, your descriptions and throughout the body of the content on the page, search engines will find the website much faster and easier. This results in better SEO ranking. Keyword or keyphrases found in your URL indicates to search engines that this is what the web site or web page is about.
3. Keyword Density
The optimum range of 2-4% for keyword density is no longer applicable. The most effective range that now exists is 0.5-1%. It is important that web designers pay attention to keyword density as too much or too little will not benefit the client’s SEO ranking on search engines. As a matter of fact it will only hurt it.
4. Use One Keyphrase Per Page
Keyphrases create the focus of a web page. A keyphrase should be used to sum up each web page using just about five words. A best practice is to choose your keyphrase before you write the page content as this will help you to naturally write around the keyphrase you want the page to rank for.
As web designing and SEO techniques continue to go through various changes, web designers must educate themselves on best practices relevant to the time and process. This will help them to better serve their client by delivering web sites that help them meet their goals.
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