The layout of your pages plays a surprisingly important part in your SEO. Your page design can put blocks in the way of your SEO company, can trip up the search engines when they come to call, and can annoy users to the point that they turn around and leave.

Many aspects of your design can get in the way of your SEO. Surprisingly, it’s the relatively small element of layout that can have the biggest effect. Not only does the layout of your page affect how the search engines read your pages, it can determine how hard your SEO consultant will need to work to optimise your site. As you might guess, this means that a badly laid-out page can add time and money to a search engine optimisation campaign.

It is best to deal with design problems in the early stages of your site’s construction, if you can. The absolute best-case-scenario is to contact an SEO expert while your site is being designed, and you can talk to us about this kind of consultation at SEO Consult. It’s rare that companies think of SEO at such an early stage. Luckily, your page layout is one of the easiest things to alter when you approach optimisation. To make things even easier, you can pay attention to possible optimisation points when laying out your pages.

These things are important to keep in mind when designing the layout of your pages:

*Top to bottom, left to right. Culture is a predictable thing, and sometimes this comes in handy. The SEO world deduced early on that search engines read the source code of a web page top to bottom, left to right, just like you would read a book.

*Important information first. The natural layout for a page might seem to be to have the business name across the top, a navigation bar just below, and content following. However, this isn’t going to do your SEO plan any good. As the search engines are looking for keywords at the top of your pages, you need to find ways to include them as high up in the page as possible. This might be in placing a motto at the top of your page, or a short blurb just underneath your business name. An SEO consultant can assist with ideas.

*Optimal keyword placement. It’s possible to provide room for your keywords even when you don’t know what they are yet. By paying attention to the ‘top to bottom’ rule, you can leave spaces in your pages for keyword placement. Allowing room for a motto or blurb will enable your search engine optimisation consultant to place keywords in an optimal position. Being open to keywords in your navigation will give them further areas for keyword placement. It’s important to consider the position of your navigation on your pages, as site navigation plays a big part in SEO as well. A bar to the left of the page is the generally recommended position.

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