If you skip SEO design when developing a website or online store, it has no chance of getting into the top search engines. Well, as you already understand, SEO and web development are closely connected. What kind of SEO services and what needs to be done in advance in order to receive targeted visitors from search in the future.
SEO design is one of the first stages in website development, within which the foundation is laid for website promotion through search engines.
This stage is mandatory for online stores, catalog sites, marketplaces, message boards, media sites, corporate sites and information portals. Not needed for proprietary web services and intranets.
Why do you need SEO design?
SEO design is needed to make the site easier to index and get higher positions in the search.
At this stage, we form the semantic core, draw up recommendations on the structure and content of the site, write down the technical requirements for proper development in accordance with the requirements of search engines.
This does not guarantee that Google will show your site in the top 10 in the first month. But you will have all the tools to quickly reach good positions in the search results, compared to sites that are designed without taking into account the requirements of search engines.
What we do at the stage of SEO-design.
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Works with the semantic core.
We collect and analyze semantics on the topic of the future site. At this stage, we think over what requests are needed for separate pages in the site structure.
We carry out basic clustering of requests by page and group the collected semantics to estimate demand.
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Development of recommendations for the structure.
We analyze the structure of the sites of competitors from the TOP-10 and identify their strengths. Based on the analytics, we draw up recommendations for the structure of the client’s site.
We draw up the structure of the future site based on the collected semantics and analysis of competitors. We draw up the structure in the form of a mind map to demonstrate the nesting levels of the pages of the future site.
Here’s an example of an SEO website structure for a food delivery service. Please note that the structure is designed so that each menu item can be filtered in several ways. In this case, the nesting of the directory does not exceed three levels, not counting the main one.
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Recommendations for the implementation of the necessary blocks on the site.
Based on the analysis of competitors, we draw up recommendations for layout and the necessary content blocks on the main page, in product cards, categories, etc.
Here is one of the tools. The screenshot below shows an example of the analysis of commercial factors and building blocks on competitors’ sites.
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Commercial considerations
When ranking, search engines divide sites into informational and commercial. In response to requests with a clear desire to buy a product or order a service (“buy a vacuum cleaner” or “wash windows price”), commercial pages are displayed. And their ranking is influenced by “commercial factors”.
Based on these factors, search engines evaluate how much you can trust the company that owns the site.
There are a lot of such factors and for different types of sites they may differ. Below are a few basic factors common to sites of any subject.
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Recommendations for site linking
Search engines consider the page with more links to be more important. We are compiling a list of options for how you can arrange linking within the site and increase the importance of pages for search engines.
In addition, linking tells users what other products might suit them. As a result, a person lingers on the site, views more pages and is more likely to buy.
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Guidelines for composing meta tags for pages
For sites and online stores with a large number of pages, we are working on a specific template for product cards, categories, filters, etc.
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Recommendations for regionality
Promotion based on region-specific queries is much more efficient and cheaper. Especially if you have a physical representative office or partners in different regions.
When ranking, the site will notice higher positions in the desired region.
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SEO technical guidelines
- Guidelines for URL compilation: Important pages should have a CNC address and not contain get parameters.
- Setting up a 404 page
- 301 redirects
- xml and robots.txt files
- Layout of headings h1-h6
- Https protocol
- Bread crumbs
- Page nesting level
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Recommendations for moving a site to another CMS
The item is relevant for those who order a website redesign or you have decided to redesign the website by adding new functionality.
Then we prescribe step-by-step recommendations on how to transfer the site to another CMS with minimal loss of traffic through the search.
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Result
We do this work in parallel with the design of the interface and before we develop the design and program the functionality.
The technical writer relies on guidance when describing the terms of reference for developers.
But you should also remember that SEO design does not guarantee getting into the top 10 immediately after the release of the site, but it creates all the necessary tools to make it possible in principle.
