If you’re looking for high rankings and traffic from search engines like Google, then it is important that you understand SEO and other factors can either help or hinder your ranking on Google.
In this article I will discuss different elements you should consider when choosing a SEO friendly template/theme.
A Fast Loading Site is a Good Site
You have gone through a lot of time and effort to set up the perfect website packed full of features, rollover menus and JavaScript buttons. But have you taken the time to check your page loading times?
I have found that page loading times are one of the most frequent SEO web design features that webmasters overlook and are an important element in any website and it is one of the factors that Google uses to judge the quality of your site.
If your site does not load fast,visitors will just leave or click out without ever getting to your page and seeing what you have to offer.
To avoid that happening I would steer clear of flashy features such as javascript, rollover buttons and menus as these elements will slow down your website.
In my experience many visitors appreciate a clean, fast loading site. So what other SEO web design aspects should I be aware of?
My advice is when designing your site to remember the following key rules –
1. Make sure your site theme (template) is consistent throughout the site.
If you use different themes on your pages Google spiders will become confused. To avoid this happening use a consistent theme or template throughout the entire site. If you use a WordPress theme then this is not a problem, because by default your theme will be consistent throughout the site.
2. Make sure your site code is clean and tidy.
A messy code can prevent search engines from fully indexing your page and ranking your page for specific keywords. If you need to check your code then this can be done with the W3C code validator.
3. Website structure:
Make sure your pages aren’t buried too deep within your website structure. For example, you ideally want your pages to be like this: www.somethingpage.com/something and not a complex page like this one www.somethingpage.com/category/adsense/somethingpage As a general rule I have found the deeper buried the page, the less priority Google will give it.
4. Website appearance.
It is important you spend time making sure your site as visually appealing and attention grabbing as possible for your visitors.
For example choose a template/theme that fits with your niche and make it visually appealing to your visitors. If you can add relevant pictures and content and make the site easy to navigate. In many cases, visitors leave within the first few seconds of visiting a website unless their attention is gained so make every effort to try and retain them on your site for as a long as possible.
5. Avoid Google Indexing Duplicate Pages.
You would be surprised how often blogs get penalized for not adding the ‘no index’ to archives and Blog categories.
Always remember that when you write a blog post it will get listed under the appropriate category it relates too and will also be placed in the ‘archives’ section.
This often means that Google will index the homepage, archives and the category resulting in you being penalized for duplicate content. So don’t forget to add the ‘noindex’ attribute to those archives and categories. It is very easy to do, but many blog owners often over-look this aspect because it is so small.
Plugins like “All in One SEO Plugin” and “Platinum SEO” can help prevent this problem occurring.
In conclusion, my advice is to take on board and follow these 5 key elements that I have detailed and to use this knowledge to make your theme or template SEO friendly and improve your rankings with Google.
