If you’re a startup or you’re in the middle of a website redesign, you know how exciting it can be to dream up how your ideal website should look with all the bells and whistles your budget can allow (and then some). A website redesign or refresh is exciting and much thought goes into the look, navigation, e-commerce, calls to action and SEO.
However, and unfortunately, SEO is typically an after-thought because it’s not considered to be as “sexy” as other features. Well, I’m here to tell you that not only is SEO sexy, it’s mandatory in order for your target audience to find you online and should absolutely be part of your design budget.
It doesn’t surprise me, but it never ceases to disappoint me, how many websites are created or refreshed with SEO as an afterthought or given no thought at all. In essence, no matter how beautiful or compelling your website is, if it’s not optimized for search, you’ve wasted your time and budget. Why?
Your website design doesn’t help if your customers can’t find you.
SEO for Brands: How Search Engines Work
Search engines, like Google, value fresh, authoritative, non-duplicate content. Why? Because they want to ensure that people who use their service (a search engine) obtain exactly or as close to exactly what they are looking for as possible. Since 93% of online activities begin with a search engine, it only makes business sense that ensuring your site is ready and waiting for your target audiences to find you is a top priority.
So, what can you do? Well, first, you need to know what’s included in your web design package. In today’s video, I discuss why SEO is so important and absolutely necessary for your website.
Also, below are some questions you can ask your web design team or SEO expert to ensure that your site is actually being optimized and you’re not just getting the brush off.
7 Questions to Ask about SEO for Your Website
Note: If your web designer or SEO consultant doesn’t know how to answer these questions or you feel they’re evading them all together, take that as a red-flag and find someone else to help with the SEO-side of your website.
- How do you conduct your keyword research?
- Which keywords do you suggest for our website and why do you think these are the right fit for us?
- What keywords are our competitors implementing within their websites?
- How will you communicate which keywords have been incorporated within my site?
- Will you update title and meta tags?
- Will you include backlinks (inbound links)?
- How many pages will you optimize?
Unfortunately, I’ve had many conversations with clients about their lack of SEO despite having newly designed or redesigned websites. Don’t let this happen to you. There are an abundance of resources online explaining SEO in more detail. If you’d like a further consultation on this topic, you can always contact us as well. We can design an SEO package tailored to your target audience whether your site is being redesigned or you just want to optimize it for search.
Do you know if your website is optimized for search? Are you in the middle of a site redesign? Share your experience or even your site in the comments below and we’ll check it out.
