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SEO Best Practices for Web Design Shannon Richardson & Lisa McClure 6S Marketing
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Seo Best Practices for Web Design

Sep 01, 2014

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Page 1: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

SEO Best Practices for Web Design

Shannon Richardson & Lisa McClure6S Marketing

Page 2: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

Abou

t 6S M

arke

ting

Skilled, dedicated and industry-savvy team of 25 employees

Online marketing and social media marketing for 10 years

Worked with 400+ clients

BC’s Top Ten company to work for in 2010 (BC Business Magazine)

Page 3: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

About LisaLisa has six years of experience in the Internet Marketing industry specializing in SEO and analytics. She has over three years of agency experience working in all aspects of online marketing and project management. She has worked with clients including HSBC and The United Way. Lisa has a BA in Journalism from Curtin University in Australia. Lisa works at 6S Marketing as an account manager.

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About ShannonShannon has eight years of experience in web design and development. After arguing with internet marketing professionals for most of those eight years she decided to see what life was like on the other side of the fence. She has been working as an internet marketing/social media specialist for three years now and knows first-hand that designers and internet marketing professionals can get along. Shannon works at 6S Marketing as an account manager.

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What is SEO?• Definition: Search engine optimization (SEO) is the

process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results

- Wikipedia

Page 6: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

Overview• Site Organization and Structure – the building blocks

• Flash – the good, the bad and the ugly

• Usability and Conversion Optimization – how to get a site to not only get traffic but make $$

• Images vs. Content – how to make sure everyone gets along

• All Things Technical – site speed, CSS, code structure and much, much more

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/regi_a

Site organizationand structure

Page 8: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

Keywords• Basis of site structure needs to be built around keywords.

This includes domain name, navigation items, folder names, file names, image names, etc.

• Work with the site’s SEO to create the best structure that meets usability requirements and keyword-specific landing pages

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URLs• SEO is all about the URLs

• Consistency is key

• Use absolute links throughout the site

• Include keywords in the URLs strategically

• Think about the WHOLE URL for each landing page, not just the domain name

Page 10: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

URLs• Always put URLs in lowercase with words separated by

hyphens

• Try to keep the number of words per folder/file to 3 or less

• Avoid dynamic URLs whenever possible

• Don’t include extraneous folders where not necessary

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Site Structure

Example of good site structuringwww.bcfamilylaw.ca/family-law/spousal-support/

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Site Structure

Example of bad site structuringwww.bodylogix.com/node/1013

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Site Structure

Example of bad site structuringwww.mec.ca/Products/product_main.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=1408474395847401&ref=icon

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Domains• Age matters

• Target the site to geographic markets

• Hosting

Page 15: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

Subdomains• When do you use them?

• How do you make sure they are indexed?

• How do you integrate them with Analytics?

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Subdomains

Example of a blog as a subdomainblog.ariadental.com

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Subdomains

Example of ecommerce/shopping as a subdomainshop.nhl.com

Page 18: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

Subdomains

Example of location as a subdomaincanada.forever21.com

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Landing Pages• What types of landing pages are there?

• How do different types of landing pages affect SEO?

• Landing pages should be created to match organic keywords referring traffic to the site

• Create prominent messaging and/or CTAs on individual URLs that match the keyword or landing page topic

• Should it be a part of the site’s navigation or separate?

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Landing Pages

livelinks.com

Page 21: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

Landing Pages

Bcfamilylaw.ca/calculators

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Flash: The Good• User experience

• Can include SWF objects to help search engines see some of the Flash content

• How does this fit in with SEO?

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Flash: The Bad• Can’t view Flash elements on most mobile devices

• Users need to keep Flash up-to-date for it to work properly

Page 24: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

Flash: The Ugly• Search engines can’t see information in Flash

• Slow load time

• Need strong supporting arguments to include any type of Flash on a site

Page 25: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

Flash Alternatives• HTML5, other scripting options

• Video

• Social Media feeds

Page 26: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

Flash

Good use of Flash:

Small Flash element at bottom right of page

hsbc.ca

Page 27: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

Flash

Bad use of Flash:

Majority of homepage content is Flash

sonoraresort.com

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Flash

Ugly use of Flash:

Entire Flash homepage

Gotmilk.com

Page 29: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

http://www.flickr.com/photos/regi_a

Usability and conversion optimization

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How usability and conversions relate to SEO

• Goal of SEO is to gain ranking to increase qualified traffic to the site and gain conversions / leads

• Bounce rates affect SEO

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Usability• Don’t assume that visitors will enter the site from the

homepage

• Conduct usability testing where possible

Page 32: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

Conversions• Define what the conversion points will be on the site

• Set up measureable goals for these conversions on the site if possible

• Ensure that the CTAs for these conversions are prominent on every page of the site

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Conversions

Example of a good CTAwestland-insurance.com

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Conversions

Example of a bad CTAblanchemacdonald.com

Page 35: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

http://www.flickr.com/photos/regi_a

Images vs. Content

Page 36: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

Images vs. Content• Where not to use images

– Navigation– Headers

• Structure– Alt tags / image file naming / etc

Page 37: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

http://www.flickr.com/photos/regi_a

All Things Technical

Page 38: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

Clean Code• Always use the most up-to-date web standards

• Keep all formatting, scripting, etc code out of the page

• Use W3C tools and information regularly

Page 39: Seo Best Practices for Web Design

Order Matters• Keep text content to the top

• Keep title and meta tags to the top

• Move scripts to the bottom

• Use CSS to bridge the gap

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Site Speed• Every page should load as fast as possible

• Use the Google Page Speed tool http://pagespeed.googlelabs.com/

• What items help improve site speed?

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301 Redirects• Redirects should be implemented when:

– Changing domain name or merging domains– Changing URL names

• Must be a 301 redirect– Not mirroring, not using any other 3xx redirect status code

• Implement 301 redirects with the .htaccess file

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Questions?

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[email protected]@6smarketing.com@6S_Marketing