WordPress Tips

SEO is important, and it should be a part of the overall web development process. Let’s take a look at the various phases.

SEO During the Proposal Phase

If you’re a web developer, when you consult with a prospect about their needs, they will typically focus on web design and functionality. You will hear something like this:

“I need my website to sell my products, grow my online presence, and get new customers.”

What that means is this: they want their website to be found on Google and convert visitors into paying customers. You know the website must be optimized for SEO in order to accomplish this task. This adds to the overall cost, timeline, and process flow. You must map out the details as you draft the proposal.

Discussing these details with the client can be tricky. Still, you need to establish the right expectations and justify the proposal’s costs and scope. However, most clients don’t understand the finer details of SEO. Most likely, they understand keywords but not caching, mobile-design, and security.

If you are the client, you want results rather than explanations and technicalities. Still, you will help your business if you take a few moments to understand the elements of SEO beyond keywords.

You will need to ask your web developer about conversion-driven landing pages, graphic design, emailing, content writing, social media, and advertisement campaigns. You want to ensure the developer can tell you clearly what the steps involve, and they should do that in language you understand. If they brush off your inquiries with phrases like, “We’ll handle all the technical stuff, you just need to focus on your business,” this may be a red flag.

Still, you don’t need extensive technical explanations. However, you do need to know the benefits of the various elements of SEO.

For example:

• Responsive web design that looks great on all devices.
• Web pages that load in three seconds or less for optimal visitor experiences.
• Tightened up security to keep all your business data as well as your visitors’ data private.
• Content that’s easy for humans to read and even easier for Google bots to understand.
• Custom-built user pathways that turn visitors into customers in no time.

The developer’s goal should be to persuade you to use their SEO web design services including ongoing maintenance and support. They need to clearly convey the benefits without getting them wrapped up in the technicalities of SEO.

SEO During the Setup and Planning Phase

During the early phases of an approved project, your developer should have SEO in mind at all times.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

Reviewing Your Design Assets

Your web developer should ask for all your design assets, logins and copy before a project gets underway. While this is primarily to prevent scope creep, it can also come in handy for SEO.

Let’s say your logos and other image assets are really low quality or look outdated. The earlier your developer has these assets in hand, the sooner they can tell you they won’t work with the website design.

If visitors don’t like the look of your website, they will abandon it. Your bounce rates will damage the site’s ranking. Your web developer should communicate this so you can achieve your objectives.

Work Closely with the Copywriter

Even when a professional copywriter is creating the content for your website, if you’re not working closely with them from the start, there could be problems.

Web design agencies often debate the merits of content-first website development vs. design-first. The truth is, they should be created together. If you don’t, you put the whole project at risk.

For starters, a writer and designer working in isolation are bound to come up with different ways to handle style and layout. But if you establish guidelines from the get-go (which you can easily do with wireframes), you can avoid any disjoint in how the copy and design are created.

Let NOYO Web Development show you how we can design and create a highly functional, beautiful website that is optimized for SEO. Our initial consultation is free of charge, so why wait? Contact us today!