Website Design and SEO: How Design Impacts Your Search Rankings
Imagine you’re searching for a product or service online, and you click on a website that takes forever to load, has a cluttered layout, and is not the easiest to navigate. Frustrating, right?
Such experiences not only drive you away but also leave a lasting impact on your perception of the brand. This scenario underscores the critical role of website design in determining user experiences and, ultimately, search engine rankings.
A well-crafted website is a powerful tool that can influence your SEO traffic and enhance conversion rates. As the online gateway to your business, your website’s design should seamlessly align with your business goals, product offerings, and service structure to create an immersive and meaningful experience for visitors.
The Intersection of Design and Search Engine Rankings
The realm of website design is not confined merely to aesthetics and visual appeal. It’s intricately linked to your website’s performance and its ability to drive success.
A staggering 75% of a company’s credibility can hinge on its website design, underscoring the critical role it plays in shaping user perception and building trust. The significance of website design’s impact on user engagement cannot be overstated. And a site’s ability to engage users is an important SEO ranking factor.
Another factor that influences search engine rankings is speed. Research shows that 40% of users are liable to abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load. Impressions are formed quickly in the digital realm, with visitors taking less than 50 milliseconds to decide if a website resonates with them.
When millions of websites are vying for attention, a site’s optimization for search determines how high it shows up in the results. SEO is what sets the best apart from the rest and web design plays a critically important role here.
Understanding the Basics of SEO
SEO is the backbone of online success, determining how easily your website is discovered by users searching for relevant content. Increased visibility translates to higher organic traffic, which is crucial for attracting potential customers and driving conversions.
Defining SEO and its Significance
SEO includes a set of smart methods to improve your website’s position in search engine results. When keywords related to your business are searched, you want your site to show up among the top results. This brings more traffic to your website which means more chances for business growth. SEO is not only about driving traffic but also about attracting the right kind of traffic—users who are actively seeking the products or services your business offers.
Explaining Key Elements of SEO
Several essential elements contribute to effective SEO, including keywords, backlinks, and user experience.
- Including keywords in your website’s content helps search engines figure out what your pages are about.
- Backlinks, or inbound links, are links from other websites that point to yours. High-quality backlinks from trustworthy sources tell search engines that your content is useful and reliable.
- User experience encompasses multiple aspects of your website’s design, functionality, and ease of use, all of which impact how visitors interact with your site, how long they stay, and whether or not they come back.
We’ll discuss other important elements of SEO later in the article.
The Role of Website Design in Optimization
Website design plays a significant role in optimizing for these key SEO ranking factors. An intelligently designed website facilitates smooth navigation, making it easier to explore and understand your content. Properly organized menus, clear calls-to-action, and intuitive layouts enhance user experience, leading to longer session lengths and lower bounce rates. An aesthetically pleasing and responsive design also enhances user engagement, encouraging visitors to explore more pages and interact with your content, all of which contribute to improved SEO performance.
The Connection Between Website Design and SEO
Beyond being visually appealing, your website’s design directly influences its search engine ranking and user engagement. Businesses can unlock the true potential of their online presence and stand out in the competitive digital landscape by harmonizing design principles with SEO strategies.
Responsive Design and Mobile Optimization
Responsive design and mobile optimization are no longer merely design alternatives. They have become essential for optimizing SEO effectiveness due to the explosive growth in mobile device usage.
A responsively designed website changes depending on the size of screen it’s viewed on, ensuring it’s easy to use on all devices. Search engines favor websites that work well on mobile and rank them higher in mobile searches to give users the best experience possible. Adopting responsive design makes your website easy to use, regardless of device. This results in stronger user engagement, longer website visits, and fewer single-page visits (bounces).
Website Speed and Its SEO Impact
A website’s page load speed greatly affects its usability. Sites that are slow to load frustrate users, making them more likely to leave. Research shows pages that take five seconds to load have a 90% higher bounce (exit) rate than those taking only one second. Search engines recognize this and incorporate page speed as a ranking factor, knowing that faster sites lead to better user experiences.
User-Friendly Navigation and Intuitive Site Structure
User experience and SEO are closely intertwined. A well-designed navigation menu guides users through your website, helping them find the information they need swiftly and effortlessly. This not only enhances user experience but also aids search engine crawlers in indexing your content effectively. A clear and logical site structure organizes your content optimally, making it effortless for users to navigate and search engines to understand the hierarchy and relationships between different pages. As a result, user-friendly navigation and intuitive site structure contribute to lower bounce rates, longer dwell times, and improved SEO rankings.
Site Architecture and URL Structure for Crawlers
The architecture of your website and the way its URLs are constructed both have a substantial impact on how search engine crawlers navigate and index your content. A well-organized site architecture ensures that every page is accessible within a few clicks, preventing important pages from being buried deep within the site.
Descriptive, keyword-rich, user-friendly URLs help search engines and users understand the topic of the page. Clean URL structures not only improve click-through rates but also facilitate better crawling and indexing by search engines. You enhance the visibility of your content and improve your SEO rankings by creating a site architecture and URL structure that are conducive to easy exploration.
Website Design’s Role in Content and SEO
The synergy between content and design is evident in the way website layout, typography, and multimedia elements enhance content readability and user engagement.
Elevating SEO with High-Quality Relevant Content
The best websites are built around high-quality, relevant content that provides value to visitors. Search engines are becoming increasingly adept at discerning sites that contain valuable information from those that do not. Websites that provide insightful and well-researched content are rewarded with higher rankings. Content that answers common questions, offers solutions, and presents authoritative insights establishes a website’s credibility and fosters trust among visitors.
Enhancing Readability and Engagement Through Design
Website design plays a crucial role in guiding users through content, ensuring that the information is engaging. Thoughtful design choices such as clear typography, appropriate font sizes, and well-structured layouts enhance content’s readability. When website design incorporates visually appealing, easy to read content, users tend to linger and explore further.
Crafting SEO-Friendly Content with Proper Formatting and Meta Tags
Proper formatting and the strategic use of meta tags are signals for search engine crawlers, helping them navigate and understand the content’s relevance. Headings and subheadings not only improve readability for users but also provide a hierarchical structure that search engines can interpret. Carefully crafted meta tags offer brief overviews of the content, impacting how many people click on your website from search results.
Multimedia Elements Enhancing SEO Impact through Visuals
Multimedia elements such as images, videos, and infographics are not only attention-grabbing but also contribute significantly to SEO. Properly optimized images with descriptive alt text can be indexed by search engines, enhancing the content’s relevance. Videos increase user engagement, leading to longer visits, while infographics provide concise information in a visually appealing format and are excellent for generating external links.
The Essence of Technical SEO in Website Design
Technical SEO forms the backbone of a website’s search engine performance – a technical SEO audit often uncovers hidden problems preventing your website from loading quickly or indexing the right pages. Let’s explore the key facets of technical SEO and how they synergize with the art of website design to shape a site’s digital footprint.
Unveiling the Significance of Technical SEO and Its Link to Website Design
Technical SEO involves improving a website’s technical aspects to make it more visible to search engines. This intricate process plays a pivotal role in determining how search engines perceive and rank a site. The connection between technical SEO and website design is paramount, as design choices directly influence how search engine crawlers interact with the site’s underlying structure.
The Power of Proper HTML Coding and Pristine Website Structure
Proper HTML coding and a well-structured website layout are the building blocks of technical SEO. Structured HTML helps search engine crawlers easily grasp and organize a site’s content. A clutter-free website structure not only aids search engines in navigating the site but also enhances user experience by providing an organized and intuitive layout.
Unmasking the Role of Meta Tags, Alt Attributes, and Schema Markup in SEO
Meta tags, alt attributes, and schema markup are the unsung heroes of technical SEO. Meta tags provide succinct descriptions of a page’s content, helping search engines understand its context. Alt attributes enrich images with descriptive text, improving accessibility and aiding search engines in comprehending visual content. Schema markup, a form of structured data, adds an extra layer of context to certain content elements, enabling search engines to better categorize it and to display rich snippets in search results.
Illuminating the Significance of XML Sitemaps, Robots.txt, and Canonical Tags
XML sitemaps act as guides for search engines, directing them to essential pages on a website. They ensure that no valuable content goes unnoticed during the crawling process. Robots.txt files set rules for what parts of a site search engines should or shouldn’t explore. Canonical tags show search engines the preferred version of repeated content, preventing confusion.
Elevating User Experience for Enhanced SEO
User experience is pivotal for SEO success. Effective website design offers intuitive navigation, engaging content, and distinct calls to action, driving user engagement.
Unveiling the Synergy Between User Experience and SEO Rankings
Search engines emphasize providing users with valuable, relevant, and user-friendly content. As a result, a positive user experience is important in determining how high a website shows up in search results. Search engines look at bounce rate, time spent on the site, and click-through rates to see if users are satisfied and interested.
The Role of Website Design in Crafting a Seamless User Experience
Website design directs visitors through a digital journey that aligns with their needs and expectations. A well-designed website offers intuitive navigation, easy-to-digest content, and lucid calls to action. Effective website design practices enable businesses to direct users toward their intended objectives, whether those objectives entail making purchases, subscribing to newsletters, or accessing informative resources.
Spotlighting the Importance of Easy Navigation, Intuitive Layouts, and Clear Calls-to-Action
Easy navigation is the compass that guides users through a website, allowing them to explore content effortlessly. Intuitive layouts ensure that visitors can locate desired information without frustration, enhancing engagement and reducing bounce rates. Direct calls-to-action act as signposts, encouraging users to take desired actions like requesting a quote, contacting the company, or completing a transaction. These design elements collectively contribute to a seamless and satisfying user experience.
Recognizing the Nexus Between Mobile-Friendliness, Page Load Speed, and User Experience
Websites that are responsive and adaptable to various screen sizes provide an optimal browsing experience, satisfying users and search engines alike. Page load speed is equally critical, as pages that take a long time to load can make users frustrated and more likely to leave quickly. Since search engines prioritize delivering swift and relevant results, fast-loading pages receive a boost in rankings, further emphasizing the importance of mobile-friendliness and speed optimization.
SEO-Optimized Website Design Best Practices
Discover the art of harmonizing design and SEO for exceptional digital impact. Start by doing smart keyword research, then naturally use these important words in your website’s content, headings, and descriptions.
Navigating the Path to SEO Excellence with Actionable Design Tips
When it comes to optimizing website design for SEO rankings, a strategic approach can yield remarkable results. Begin by conducting keyword research. Integrate these keywords naturally into your content, headers, and meta descriptions to enhance search engine visibility. Furthermore, leverage descriptive alt text for images to make your content accessible and indexable for search engines.
Enhancing User Experience and SEO with Responsive Design and Mobile Optimization
As more people use mobile devices to browse websites, a responsive design makes sure your site looks good on all screen sizes. This improves how users feel and helps your site rank better on search engines. Businesses can reach more people and meet search engines’ mobile-first rules by focusing on mobile optimization.
The Need for Optimal Website Speed to Accelerate Performance
Your website’s speed and performance affect how users feel and how well it ranks on search engines. Pages that load slowly can make users leave and hurt your website’s search ranking by causing higher bounce rates. To enhance website speed, employ strategies such as optimizing image sizes, using browser caching, and minimizing server response time. A faster website provides a better user experience and earns favor with search engines, ultimately enhancing your search rankings.
Guiding Users and Search Engines through Navigational Ease and Structural Clarity
Intuitive navigation and a clear site structure are user-friendly and crucial for search engine crawlers to index your website effectively. Arrange your content logically, incorporating descriptive headings to lead visitors through your site’s offerings. Integrate breadcrumbs for hierarchical navigation, allowing users to comprehend page relationships. A well-structured site ensures a seamless experience for users and facilitates search engine crawlability.
Elevating Quality and Relevance with Content
Create valuable and relevant content that meets users’ needs and answers questions. Naturally include keywords, avoiding excessive usage. Consider producing in-depth, long-form content that thoroughly explores subjects, showcasing expertise and credibility. Employ proper formatting, bullet points, and subheadings to enhance content readability, thereby boosting user engagement and search rankings.
The Power of Clean Code and Technical SEO Optimization
Beneath the surface of a visually appealing website lies the foundation of clean code and technical SEO optimization. Streamlined code enhances website performance, leading to faster load times and improved user experience. Use schema markup to give search engines organized information, making important details stand out in search results. Also, make sure to do proper canonicalization, improve XML sitemaps, and use robots.txt well to help search engine crawlers understand your site better.
FAQs about Website Design’s Impact on Search Rankings
1. How does website design influence SEO rankings?
Website design plays an important role in SEO rankings. Search engines assess a website’s design to determine its user-friendliness, accessibility, and overall quality. Factors such as site structure, navigation, mobile-friendliness, and page loading speed are key components of design that impact how search engines perceive your website. A website that’s well-designed, easy to navigate, and that works on different devices can result in better user experiences, longer visit durations, and reduced bounce rates—all of which contribute positively to your SEO rankings.
2. Why is responsive design important for SEO?
Making your website responsive – so it looks good on all screens and devices – is crucial for SEO. With the surge in mobile device usage, search engines prioritize websites that offer optimal experiences across all platforms. Search engines consider mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor, which means that a responsive design can directly impact your search rankings. A responsive design improves user experience and aligns with search engines’ preferences, potentially leading to higher rankings and better visibility in search results.
3. What role does user experience play in SEO?
How users feel when using a website is a key part of SEO rankings. Search engines aim to deliver the most relevant and valuable results to users’ queries. Websites that provide seamless, engaging, and satisfying experiences tend to rank higher because they meet the needs and preferences of users. When people enjoy using a website because it’s easy to navigate, has a specific call to action, loads quickly, and has interesting content, they tend to stay longer, leave less often, and interact more. All of this helps boost SEO rankings.
Elevate Your SEO Game with Expert Web Design from Globe Runner
When it comes to achieving remarkable SEO rankings, your website’s design plays a pivotal role. The intricacies of web design extend beyond aesthetics, influencing factors such as user experience, technical optimization, and content visibility.
Partnering with the professional web designers at Globe Runner can catapult your website’s performance in search engine rankings. Our expert team understands the nuanced connection between design and SEO, ensuring that your website looks appealing and functions seamlessly to meet search engine algorithms’ demands. It’s about crafting an online platform that resonates with your brand, engages users, and ranks high on search engine result pages.
Globe Runner’s web design experts are adept at translating your business objectives into a visually appealing and strategically optimized website. We empower your website to capture user attention, foster engagement, and ultimately drive conversions by aligning design elements with SEO best practices.
Our web design and SEO expertise converge to create websites that excel in both aesthetics and functionality. Contact Globe Runner today to unlock your website’s true potential.
EFFECTIVE WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR WEBSITE IN 15 MINUTES
You know the feeling. You really want to get in shape, but getting started is just. so. hard. However, every day you put it off is another step further away from your end goal. In all reality, a little bit of time each day and a lot of discipline can be truly transformational.
The same can be said of your site’s SEO. You don’t need to be an SEO expert to help your website perform like it’s optimized by one. In fact, you really only need about 15 minutes of daily maintenance to keep your site performing at full tilt.
Don’t believe us? Below are some high-impact SEO changes that can increase your website traffic in about 15 minutes a day.
Start with a Website Audit
When was the last time you evaluated your website’s SEO? If it’s been more than a year (or worse, never) time to crack the whip.
There are free online tools that can give you a general idea of what you’re up against. However, hiring a digital marketing agency to perform a SEO audit for you is bar-none one of the best investments you can make for your business.
If auditing yourself, here are four areas you’ll want to pay close attention to:
- Your meta tags and meta descriptions
- The keywords you rank for
- The content on each page
- Your site speed
Quickly Optimize your Site
Ok, so you know where to put your focus. Let’s get down to brass tacks so you can improve your Google ranking and grow your brand.
First, read over your meta descriptions and titles. These are what the search engines use to determine what the content on your site is about. It’s also what users will read before deciding whether to click on your site or not. Remember that your meta’s should be keyword-driven, no more than 160 characters, and grammatically perfect.
Next, make a list of the keywords you’re currently ranking for. Beside it, make a list of the keywords you’d like to rank for. Make sure any new content you’re generating on your site aligns with each of these words and phrases.
Which brings us to step 3, your site’s content. Typically, the more copy you have on each page, the better the search engines will be able to crawl and recommend your site in searches. We tell our clients to come up with about 300 well-written words per page, even the ones that don’t seem like they need a lot of explaining. Bonus points if the content is organized by sub-headings!
Not a wordsmith? This is a time it really pays to hire a copywriter. The more polished your content the more effective your website will be.
Finally, there’s the matter of your site speed – specifically, the speed of your mobile site. You can test your website for free at Think With Google. However, desktop speeds aren’t altogether unimportant. If you want to check both in one go, try the Google Developer site for Page Speed Insights. After it scores your site, it’ll also furnish concrete ways you can improve your SEO and load time.
Remember that just like exercising, small adjustments in your daily routine can accumulate to big, lucrative changes down the line. Apply this logic to your site’s SEO and you’ll be staring down a first-page ranking faster than you can say “Globe Runner.”
And of course, if you want to simply leave it in our capable hands – just say the word!
SPRING CLEAN YOUR WEBSITE IN 5 STEPS
What do you immediately think of when you hear the word “Spring”? Flowers? Thunderstorms? Cleaning? If you’re like us, it’s the latter.
We find Spring to be the perfect time to get our digital ducks in a row. We’re no Marie Kondo, but we’re all about helping clients put their most polished, organized foot forward, too. That often starts with a site audit and subsequent cleanup.
Make sure your website is in full bloom. These five simple steps will showcase the best your site has to offer this season…and beyond.
1. Start with the home front (page).
The most logical place to start is at the beginning. In this case, it’s your website’s homepage. As the most visited page on your site, its ability to make or break your brand cannot be overstated.
Done right, your homepage is an effective sales tool that can help grow your business by leaps and bounds. And when you only have about 15 seconds to get it right, it pays to pay attention.
The single most prevalent layout we see is a scrolling homepage – and for good reason. It gives visitors the opportunity to learn more about your brand without having to click around. It’s also an ideal design for your mobile site. The receptivity among browsers proves that scrolling layouts are simple, easy, and aesthetically pleasing.
2. Update your copy.
Whether you’re switching to a scrolling site or updating one, you’ll want to give your copy a refresher. It’s an effective way to increase your SEO and improve your search ranking. Plus, a lot can happen in a year. Make sure you’re adding any new press you’ve gotten or awards you’ve been given.
3. Upload video content.
Interactive content can be a nice brain break for site visitors. Many sites accomplish this by incorporating video content like GIFs into their landing pages.
Some estimates suggest doing so can increase your conversion rates by 80% or more! Whether you’re showing off products or people on your team, this kind of visual content is captivating and a nice change of pace from the wall of words they’re confronted with on most other sites.
Just make sure to loop video clips to about 5 seconds. It’ll cut back on your load time while helping them appear longer than they really are.
4. Check your links.
Broken links are just plain unprofessional. But if your web host changes its code often (cough, cough WordPress) then the links and content you currently have could stop working without warning.
The best way to catch, and fix, broken or outdated links is to do an annual check.
5. Revisit your titles and tags.
Algorithm changes. They impact us all, but they don’t have to become a source of worry.
No matter which flavor of the week the search engines are prioritizing, some content is a necessary evergreen that may require a bit of pruning.
At a minimum, you should use this Spring to revisit and refresh your:
- Title tags
- Meta keywords
- H-tags
Though browsers may remain wholly unaware, this labor of love is what ultimately marries their search queries with your brand.
As a Dallas digital marketing agency, we’ll take any opportunity to organize our online presence and suggest you do the same this spring.
Need a hand cleaning up? Let us help your site shine.
5 ASPECTS OF SUCCESSFUL WEB DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS
Building a new website can be a complicated process, requiring a lot of decisions based on a technical and creative process that many know very little about. While getting the web to shine light to billions of people across the planet in exactly the way that promotes your brand, platform, and business sounds daunting and overwhelming… it isn’t if you are doing it right. There is a certain energy to the teams that build successful web sites and applications, and if you are able to recognize it and harness it – you will create a quality result every time.
Aspect 1 – A Team
While no doubt, great websites have been built by one guy in his basement doing everything in a weekend with an IV of Red Bull and loud music, they typically don’t have long term success. The first aspect of building a great website is the recognition that it is the creation of a team and not of a single individual. The process is simply too large to be done well by a single individual in a reasonable time frame.
There are typically three to four groups involved in a building out a great website.
- The Customer – this is the person who has the most information about the website to be built because it is ultimately their creation. The website the customer wants is largely only obtained by communication with the customer. The customer often knows what the website should “feel” like before a single bit of design or work has been done. While this is the single most important piece of the process of building a website, very little attention is given to it and it is often overlooked. The best teams work to get the customers feeling in line with the technical, creative, and business aspects of the process.
- Design Team – this group is responsible for building the non-functional, initial diagrams of what the website will specifically look like. The best visual designers are those that can also do some of the technical work required, but are more idea driven than implementation driven. These guys spend a lot of time on the web and know what is going to be visually appealing and functional to the user of today.
- Technical Team – this is the group that typically exists in the dark catacombs of some cave with nothing but wires coming out, just kidding. The technical team is responsible for taking the feeling and vision of the customer and designer, and parsing it out into great technical detail so that it can be delivered to millions of people world wide. The technical team is concerned with ensuring the vision and design of the team is honed with what the real world can actually provide.
- Business Team (for eCommerce Sites) – while not always a separate group, the business team is concerned with aspects of how a site integrates, enhances, and encourages revenue-generation. This team is focused on the specifics of the eCommerce experience, such as order processing and fulfillment, analytics and marketing of the site to generate users, and how the site functions as the first-line customer service tool for the business.
Aspect 2 – A Goal
The customer doesn’t typically build a new website on a whim. Time must be taken by the customer to reason and analyze what their goals ultimately are. Do you want a better user experience? Are you looking to drive more traffic to your site? Are you simply tired of dealing with your current website? Do you want to enhance your eCommerce conversion? All great websites start with clear goals.
When I meet with a potential client that cannot communicate this in a very specific and well thought out plan, I will not take the job. The customer has to play the role of knowing what the customer wants. If the customer doesn’t know, than a professional engagement where they pay me to persuade them to believe that what I tell them is what they want… well its always been a bit strange to encounter this kind of proposal. But it does happen and it’s kind of scary when it does.
It is the customer’s job to the team to ensure every single member is informed of the goal at the very beginning. The customer needs to meet every person in the project and communicate this goal to them and simply ask, “How are you going to help me meet this goal?” If the designer can’t answer that question – its time for a new designer. If the technical team didn’t respond with questions about specific numbers or server technology to be used– time for a new technical team. If the business team didn’t respond with a question about conversion %, bounce rates, and what marketing outlets have and have not been explored…. Time for new business team.
Each member of the team needs to feel like they are playing their part in the successful team. Some guidelines for gaguing how your team is meeting this aspect
- Are they asking questions and proposing ideas? Are they actively engaging in the creative and technical process?
- Are they prompt in their communication with you? Are they proactive in their communication?
- Do they perform? Do they do what they say they are going to do? Are they proactive about keeping the whole team informed of anything that affects the process?
- What is their tone in the interaction with you? The tone is, in my experience, most indicative of the eventual result of the team.
Aspect 3 –Visual Design and a Functional Design
When the site is built, the designer should include a writeup on the various ways their drawing should function as a user interacts with it. Anything that moves on the site should be specified. Anything that needs to be computed, such as how a form should perform once it is submitted, should be specified. How should your blog look when its paged? If you want a sliding banner you have to say that. If you want a menu to fade in slowly, you got to say that.
Successful web design teams design what a site looks like and what it acts like.
Particular focus must be on providing the design to the variety of different web browsers that can be used. If you have analytics on the browser distribution of your current site, you need to make sure your team knows this so they can build the site to maximize effect on your specific traffic distribution. But this leads us to an even more important aspect of successful web sites…
Aspect 3.5 – Mobile Focused Team, Responsive Design
Almost every website I’ve seen analytics for in the last 2 years has undergone a very drastic and dramatic shift in the demographics of the browser used to view the site. Mobile devices are the primary way people are going to view your site in the period you have developed it to exist for. A successful team is going to be aware of this and will be bringing every single component of the design back to what it looks like. Many teams have started doing mobile first designs, largely amplified by the semantics of some of the more popular CSS frameworks like Bootstrap 3 and Framework. Some teams split it out into two endeavors or two sites… but all successful web sites are focusing on and enhancing how the site is being displayed on phones.
Sadly, I have not seen this in the eCommerce sector to the degree I think it needs to be done. Many people are still providing large hard to click tables of products to mobile devices – often to mask the fact their search and taxonomy are not relevant to interested customers. This is one of the clearest paths to eCommerce growth to me is maximizing the conversion of 50% of the traffic through simplification and optimization of the mobile experience.
A mobile user is going to spend less time on your site as well. That needs to be acknowledged, and the design needs to recognize the limitation so that it can capitalize on what the user sees. If a user has to hunt to figure out how to contact you, or has to zoom in to hit the next button on your product page and zoom in again to see the photos on it or read the text of the product names, your website will fail to capitalize on the opportunity with a majority of its traffic in the next 5 years.
Maximize the limited time you have with mobile users by greatly limiting the content that is presented to them– while at the same time not prohibiting their access to more detailed inquires. A regular user should be able to have a regular experience – which we can achieve through the use of site cookies – but a first timer needs to enticed into learning about your company or making a purchase by not overwhelming them with finger actions or text.
Aspect 4 – An Issue (Bug) Tracking System (preferably with integrated source control)
This is, in my opinion, the fatal pitfall many teams make… once development begins, the silence gap happens… and grows until the Customer appears disinterested to the developer and the developer unskilled to the Customer. A silence gap in the development process lends itself to many sub-optimal products. The way this is mitigated is through the DILIGENT use of an issue tracking system. All team members should be recording their plan for the next two weeks of work out to the issue tracking system, and regularly commenting on their progress. This allows every member to survey what’s going on… This reminds every team member that they are part of team that relies on them, so that gaps in communication are not possible.
While no web site is ever finished as they are living breathing things that are displayed on technologies that rapidly change….. for the initial build it is important that every member of the team is monitoring and engaging with the issue tracking system. If the visual designer has a quick question for the Customer, they can use the issue tracking system to record that. If it takes more than an hour or two to get a response, they can follow up with a quick phone call – and record the answer to their question in the task so the whole team is aware of the evolution of the creative process.
If you bundle your issue tracking system with your source control you really unlock the key of building a great web site. Great teams use a source control system they are actively committing to. Great teams watch the progress of every other team member’s commits to the source control and actively engage with them based on that. The source control is the component of the development process that allows the team to congeal into a unit that builds the great website. But it has to be wielded properly to do that.
I encourage developers to use the microcommit – commiting small amounts of work on a regular basis. This gives insight into what the developer is doing without interrupting their creative process. It also keeps the developer honest with themselves with what they have accomplished and what they are working towards. In short, it makes them better developers. Every development process has a narrative, and the developer tells that narrative through the commits of the source control.
Add to that the ability to track deployments and version releases and even drive the deployment of the site to a cluster of severs directly from your command line – with little effort – and the technical advantages of diligent source control use becomes crystal clear. This is an aspect of all great technical teams.
Aspect 5 – Testing, Sign Off, and Testing Some More
When a developer gives you a URL to visit to look at the site, that’s telling the team they should begin testing it and tracking issues in the issue tracking system. Remember the developer is in an intensely detailed creative process, so you don’t want to overwhelm them with the obvious or with egocentric urgency. But if you do see something wrong with the site that maybe you want to changed or added, or maybe you’re seeing that it doesn’t look good at all on your browser, log a ticket so they are aware.
All team members should be testing as soon as they can. Even if that’s just one page, the developer needs to hand that off to them as soon as they can. The sooner the developer engages testing in the development process, the less time they have to build something that is fundamentally flawed because it was built on something that was discovered in testing.
When all team members are actively engaged in honing the site, through this stage of the process is when the real magic of successful web sites begins to shine. This can be an immensely fun process where each team member gets to play the role of both painter and art critic simultaneously. When great teams work together closely to build a great product…. That energy has a lasting effect. I’ve seen people come back to companies after many years citing the experience of the time they built the website as one of the “coolest” things they did.
Even after its tested and tested (in IE 8,9,10,11 FF, Chrome, Safari my iPhone, iPad, Android, and a some guys archane Blackberry for some reason, and one guys Wii) and all tickets are resolved and the site is live and generating thousands of dollars of revenue a day…. TESTING IS NEVER OVER. Every member of the team should test the site from time to time and, if they see an issue, log a ticket. Web sites shine their light 24 hours a day, and only those who are diligently verifying the quality and accuracy of the light they shine…. Shine bright.
If you combine these 5 aspects into your web development process, it will create something great for your company for the next several years, serving as a platform for both revenue generation and brand recognition, and acting as a reminder to your team of what they can accomplish when they work together on a creative task.
Now speaking of testing, I have some bugs to fix on this web site. Take care.
HOW TO: FIND ALL THE POSTS BY A GOOGLE AUTHORSHIP VERIFIED AUTHOR; WITH ANALYTICS
Writers often write for more than one blog or website. Good writers are in demand, so they will tend to write for several different publications. When it comes to Google Authorship, those writers who have adopted Google Authorship and accepted it as the norm now will often verify their authorship on multiple websites. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to see just how good that author is? Wouldn’t it be great to see what other blog posts or articles they’ve written? Well, now you can search Google and find all of the articles that a verified Google Authorship author has penned. And, combine that with certain analytics, you can see how great their articles really are.
When an author verifies their Google Authorship, they must list the websites that they contribute to or write for in their Google Plus profile. If you were to go to my Google+ profile, you would see a list of websites where I have verified my authorship. I personally list a lot of sites, especially sites that I own, as well as my blog and the company blogs where I have written and write. But what if you wanted to see a list of articles or blog posts that I’ve written and verified my authorship? Let’s use myself as an example and I’ll show you exactly how to do that.
First, you have to find one of the articles or blog posts that I’ve written. That’s generally not very difficult, just find somewhere in the Google search results were my Google Authorship photo snippet appears, like below:
Next, you’ll need to click on the link where it says “By Bill Hartzer”, as shown below:
You are then taken to another Google search results page, where you have more posts that I have written. In the search box at the top, remove everything (the text) except for the author’s name. I have scratched out what you need to remove, in red, below:
Notice that the author’s name is in Blue in the search field. Once you remove the text and leave the author’s name, you can search again. Below, you will see the result of that:
As you can see, even though I searched originally for a post that appeared on the Globe Runner blog, you now see a search result that includes all of the posts where I have verified Google Authorship. And most likely, the “best” search result (the most appropriate one) will be the first one. And the better posts will most likely rank better in the Google search results.
So, what if we were to add in some analytics to these search results? What if we turned on a Firefox add-on that shows some stats and analytics about each of these posts? Well, let’s do just that. Here’s a screen capture of my posts and articles where I’ve verified Google Authorship and have the SEO Quake Firefox plug-in installed:
Now, we can see the posts where I am the verified author and you can see just well I write, how my posts tend to get links, and you can even see other data like PageRank, number of links to the post, and other interesting analytics.
Bill Hartzer is Globe Runner’s Senior SEO Strategist. Follow him on Google Plus.
GLOBERUNNERSEO LAUNCHES NEW INTERNATIONAL DRUPAL COMMERCE WEBSITE FOR BLUELINE
How do you promote the use of traditional paper notebooks and planners in today’s digital age? One of our clients approached us with the need to deliver “pen and paper” product in a global digital store.
Blueline Incorporated has thousands of printed products – receipt books, accounting supplies, calendars, and notebooks with unique audiences in Canada, the United States and Mexico. After months of development, GlobeRunnerSEO has launched our most site ambitious to-date.
This project needed a proven Content Management System (CMS) with a commerce solution which could handle multiple currencies, multiple prices for each product depending on the country, and multilingual capabilities.
Since the client also has other branded websites with different product offerings, we needed to import the product catalogs from a single source to all of their brands (www.blueline.com, www.rediform.com, and www.brownline.com).
To achieve this, we used the Drupal 7 CMS (drupal.org) along with over 100 additional modules. Our team optimistically says “there’s a module for that – or there will be soon”. We relied heavily on Drupal Commerce, along with Multicurrency, UPS Shipping, and Feeds to import the products. We used the Internationalization modules to provide language translations to the site and also made every product and image translatable. The Omega theme framework was used as the backbone of the user interface.
To satisfy complex tax calculations, we used AvaTax, an integration provided by www.drupalsalestax.com . Where contributed modules did not satisfy our requirements we built custom modules to fit the business needs and preferences of our client.
GlobeRunnerSEO is primarily a internet marketing company. Obviously, we used a structure and numerous modules to optimize each product for best search results.
In addition to modules, the site required complex configuration to provide GeoIP look-up to ensure Canadian visitors see Canadian products and US visitors see US products. Coupons, Promotional Campaigns, Tax calculations, and product availability conditions all require use of Drupal’s powerful Rules framework.
The primary site launched in April 2012 after 5 months of development. After launch additional changes continued until July. At first, we used Drupal’s Multisite feature – allowing numerous sites to use the same codebase. However, in order to add unique SSL certificates to all three sites, the sites were branched out to three separate servers. And since our developers build sites on their local machines, and also have a staging and production server for each site, at times we had nine variants of the application. Additionally, since the client was adding content and customers were purchasing items, we created a workflow to protect live data while adding new elements. For this, we turned to the best practices of using Drupal Features, Drush, and GIT version control.
Our themes were designed by Alex Fox, our in-house graphic designer. Chris Lee worked on the site planning and built custom modules. Bobby Dean was the lead developer and themer. The project was managed by Sean Freebairn. Customer relationship was led by Hector Hernandez. This project challenged our team on many levels and also helped us learn many new things. We are proud to be a part of the Drupal Association and look forward to using knowledge gained for our future clients.
Blueline Inc knows that paper products are here to stay. And because of this new series of websites by GloberunnerSEO, they can depend on their digital Drupal platforms for years to come.
ULTIMATE GUIDE TO HIGH CONVERTING LANDING PAGES
A common problem we have here at Globe Runner SEO is optimizing one page landing pages. Our team did some research and decided to compile some information on how to achieve the best converting landing page. Here are some of our findings:
Anatomy of a Landing Page
We discovered this gem recently. If you haven’t seen this you must review this image. These guys at formstack break down the perfect landing page.
Must Read List for Landing Page Conversion:
We also found some great resources for information about converting landing pages. We compiled a short list (more to be added) of some great blog articles related to this subject.
- Landing Page Best Practices
- Search Engine Land: How To Create High-Converting Landing Pages
- Landing Page examples
Using Belcher Button:
One idea that we’ve discovered, recently among our team, is the idea of the Belcher button. The belcher button is a marketer’s dream design of a button. It producing insane conversion rates. We found an excellent video that breaks it down:
- Vidler video on Belcher Button
Examples of great one page landing pages
- PageMako
- Dropbox
WHY THE WORDPRESS “EXEC-PHP” PLUGIN IS A FORM OF BAD PRACTICE
It alarms me that often wordpress users will still use the exec-php plugin. It made sense when WordPress was fairly primitive and lacked functionality in terms of it’s templating system. Today, WordPress is fully enhanced enough that it should supersede the use of the exec-php plugin. Today, it should be avoided at all costs. WordPress is sophisticated enough now that you should not need to use such a plugin. It poses various number of risks.
The plugin itself allows you to execute php commands.
Utilizing such a plugin is typically bad practice:
- Causes PHP to be stored in the database
- Creates a developer-dependant workflow. Thus, it requires a developer to maintain it; not an end user.
- Difficult to debug php errors.
- Poses increased problems for scalability
- Introduces performance problems. A database is called to retrieve the php code and then another php command must be executed.
- Poses many security risks. If someone knew your wordpress password they could essentially turn your wordpress site / blog into malware.
Ways around utilizing the plugin would be just good planning, executing best practices of web development and taking the time to develop more robust solutions. Exec-php should be only used as a last resort for stop-gap ephemeral solutions.
TOP RESPONSIVE WEBSITES PT. 1
Ever since Ethan Mercotte published his seminal article coining the term, “Responsive Web Design”, the trend has near reached its tipping point. Today, client expectations are growing and more and more websites have evolved to respond to the context of the media device.
Thus it only makes sense for us to highlight some of the top responsive web sites on the internet now:
Sasquatch Festival – http://sasquatchfestival.com/
Stephen Caver – http://www.stephencaver.com/
Clear Air Challenge: http://clearairchallenge.com/
Stijlroyal – http://stijlroyal.com
Four Kitchens – https://www.fourkitchens.com/
Looking for more? Here’s Laundry list of Sites featuring responsive designs: