A strong and successful digital marketing strategy sees web development and SEO aligned to maximise business reach, website conversions and return on investment.
Though many businesses rely on their SEO team to ensure that web development and SEO align, aligning web development and SEO is essentially a collaboration.
Working cohesively, SEO experts provide the information that web development teams need to ensure that a website is well-designed, easy to use and favoured by Google.
Here at MaxWeb Solutions, we know just how important it is to ensure that web development and SEO strategies are aligned. As a result, we are sharing our best practices to align web development and SEO here.
What Does SEO Stand For?
SEO stands for search engine optimisation. Defined as the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of the traffic earned through organic search results, SEO has evolved rapidly since the birth of the internet over 20 years ago.
What Is Web Development?
Web development is defined as the building and maintenance of websites. Though web development requires professional expertise and is usually completed by web design agencies such as our own, many individuals attempt to design their own websites to reduce outgoings. This is particularly true when considering small businesses and start-ups.
Web development, like SEO, is fundamental in this day and age. Without a website, many businesses and organisations fail to acquire and retain customers. As a result, it is almost impossible to achieve a return on investment.
Our Best Practices To Align Web Development and SEO
Carried out by our web development and SEO teams, our best practices to align web development and SEO are as followed.
1. Increase Page Speed
The time it takes a web page to load determines how likely a user is to stay on a page. Page speed also affects Google search rankings and SEO performance.
Websites and pages that load quickly are favoured, not just by customers but by search engines too. Meanwhile, pages that take longer to load have a higher abandonment and bounce rate, which ultimately impacts Google search ranking, conversions and customer acquisition.
Typically, Google advises that pages should take under two seconds to load. If web pages take longer to load, web development teams will need to review how page speed can be increased. In some instances, compressing images is a suitable solution.
2. Enhance The User Experience
Web development and SEO should essentially make it easier for customers and internet users to access the information they need when they need it. With this in mind, increasing user experience can help align web development and SEO goals and ensure that both are successful.
Though increasing user experience may seem somewhat difficult, several things can be done within a short period.
Including subheadings, images, H1 tags, H2 tags and calls to actions in content writing, for example, all increase user experience. Not only does this simple solution make content easier to read, but it reduces bounce rates and increases the time a user spends on a website.
3. Fix Broken Links
Broken web links impact the quality of web development and hinder a business’s SEO capabilities. As a result, detecting and fixing any broken links as and when they arise is vital.
In addition to ensuring that broken links are repaired to guarantee that SEO content can be accessed easily, fixing broken website links ensures that websites are not penalised by Google.
Unfortunately, websites that are penalised by Google find that their SEO rankings decrease, making it harder for them to reach their target customer.
4. Provide Quality Meta Descriptions
Another best practice to align web development and SEO includes providing quality meta descriptions.
Positioned underneath the title page in search results, meta descriptions offer insight into the content that can be expected on each page. Not only does this influence click-through rates, but it determines how well a web page and website ranks in search engine results pages.
5. Develop A Mobile-Friendly Site
With up to 60% of all online searches conducted via a mobile device, Google favours mobile-friendly websites. This means that sites developed to cater to mobile users will rank higher than sites that are not.
To ensure that websites are optimised for mobile use, web development teams need to create a site that is easy to use and navigate on all mobile devices. Mobile-friendly sites must also be responsive, and all content should be accessible.
Though creating a mobile-friendly site takes a considerable amount of time, the benefits of doing so include improved user experience, increased website speed, and greater user engagement, all of which are vital if web development and SEO efforts are to align.
Web Development and SEO Go Hand-In-Hand
Though many business owners believe that they can employ standalone web development and SEO strategies, web development and SEO go hand-in-hand.
As noted above, web development and SEO ensure that organisations and businesses worldwide provide their target audience with the information they need at the touch of a button.
An aligned web development and SEO strategy additionally improves search engine results, drives quality traffic to websites and improves site usability while promoting brand awareness.
Monitoring Web Development and SEO
Upon implementing our best practices to align web development and SEO, performance must be monitored to review the success of the practices taken advantage of. With this in mind, conducting weekly, fortnightly, and monthly web development and SEO reviews is recommended.
Within web development and SEO reviews, inspecting key performance indicators such as search rankings, search visibility, link clicks, click-through rate, bounce rate, average session duration, and page loading times ensure that progress can be tracked.
Contact Us Today
While our tried and tested best practices to align web development and SEO will be sure to assist you, here at MaxWeb Solutions, we know that it can be somewhat difficult to implement a successful web development and SEO strategy without experience.
If you are hoping to align your web development and SEO to take advantage of the benefits of doing so, we can assist you.
Whether you require SEO in Chester, SEO in Wirral, web design in Chester, web design in Wirral or further afield, our team of web development and SEO experts are ready to help you.
To take advantage of our support, call us on 0151 652 4777 or email info@maxwebsolutions.co.uk.
Sources
https://blog.openclassrooms.com/en/2018/03/28/web-development-definition/
https://moz.com/learn/seo/page-speed
https://neilpatel.com/blog/google-pagespeed-insights/
Posted on Friday, July 30th, 2021 in Web Development.
