It’s a lot easier to SEO a site as it’s being built than it is once completed. It’s kind of like house building versus house renovation in this way. Older houses have a lot going for them, but renovating them to be used in a different way is a complex process. Designing something from scratch to suit a specific purpose means that you don’t have to work around old fireplaces in the wrong place, and don’t have to worry about walls falling down halfway through the process.

If your website is established, there’s not much you can do. If your site has yet to be launched, you’re in luck. Search engine optimisation should play a role right from the initial planning stage of new site development.

It’s easy to choose a platform for your site that can discourage search engine spiders. Web designers do not necessarily know which technologies are search engine friendly, and it’s a good idea to talk to an SEO consultant even at this stage. The technology you choose for your site will have a deep, ongoing impact on how you SEO far into the future.

Structure is the next most important thing about your site that will affect its optimisation. Many businesses with established sites are astounded at how much their structure impedes clean indexing for the search engines. A strong structure with straightforward paths will not only assist search engine spiders, but help you down the track when you make use of your internal links. Note that your keywords and content strategy should be taken into account when designing your site’s architecture.

A complex design with images all over the place is going to look pretty, but will make your SEO that much harder. A lot of search engine optimisation is about conveying your message in as efficient a way as possible. This means using a lot more white space than most web designers are used to.

It may seem surprising to see a SEO technique come into play before any part of the site even exists, but your choice of keywords should be taken into account when designing your site’s architecture. Keyword research also gives you a lot of incidental information on the behaviour of your target users, which can only aid the design of your site.

Content is such an invaluable part of SEO that you need to plan for it from the very start. Many sites trip up because they underestimate the amount of content they will need over time. Fresh content needs room. Your site’s structure should take future content into account.

The design of your site can affect the difficulty of attracting inbound links, which are essential to boosting your ranking down the track. Future plans for social media campaigns, comments sections and possible blog interaction all need to be taken into account in the design stages of your website.

Taking SEO into account from the very start will save you a lot of time as your site grows. These are just some of the things to take into consideration and you can talk to SEO Consult about how best to proceed.

Get Involved