It’s the common web design process for most organizations. You design, develop and launch a new and improved website that will add to your company’s bottom line.
It’s usually after this create and launch process that companies then start trying to answer the questions “How do we get more targeted traffic?” “Where are the leads from our website?” and “How do we appear higher in Google and Bing’s search results?”.
Many companies turn to search engine optimization and marketing as an afterthought or a phase two of their online improvement and that’s a mistake.
Search From The Start
At Spyder Trap, we’ve found that putting search last is often the wrong approach to a successful website. In almost every web design project we take on, developing traffic, interaction and leads or sales from Google or Bing is a must.
To make that happen, we deeply integrate search engine optimization, analysis and research into the project from the start.
Research To Make Informed Decisions
Looking at search upfront and during the design and development phases plays a big part in understanding many valuable pieces that factor into your website’s success. Performing keyword research, competitive research and other search analysis provides data, information and insight that you need to make big decisions.
Here are 10 benefits to having search integrated at the start of your web design process:
- Gauge the interest in your service or product offering
- Define your keyword targets
- Insight into the type of content you should cover, what is valuable to a user
- Insight into needed website features like e-commerce, blogs, forms, etc.
- Insight into information architecture (navigation, sections and pages)
- Design and usability, especially call to action features
- Creating user goals and conversions/engagement to build around
- Ensure needed technical and SEO friendly code practices are met
- Ensure proper content management systems are used (search friendly ones!)
- Understanding who you are competing with in search results for traffic
Search, design and development all excel when the three work together in the planning and production phases. Building a website and then setting out to optimize it for search can cause rework in both the design and the development of the site.
Nobody wants to take steps backwards in time and budget when they can be easily avoided.
When the opportunity arises to design or redesign your website, make sure you give search it’s fair shake in the project upfront. Without it, you’re missing a key ingredient in your long term online success.