When you plan out how to make a website, there’s one very, very important step that is simply part of the process when results matter to you. This step, search engine optimization, a.k.a. SEO, usually happens right alongside the rest of the website creation process.
Quality SEO Is A Holistic Approach.
Professional website designers and developers know that SEO isn’t just about tweaking a few words of content after the website has been launched. At first light, some first-timers might perceive this to be the case. But effective SEO takes place little by little at each step in the “how to make a website” process: SEO is part of planning, it is part of domain name s, it is part of good quality hosting, it is part of design, it is part of web development, and it is part of web content.
In other words, optimizing for performance and for the search engines really needs to take place constantly in each individual step of the new website process.
How Do You Do SEO?
Unfortunately, there isn’t a one size fits all approach to SEO. It’s very complex—and when it comes down to it, it is really about giving the search engines exactly what they want to share with their own visitors: excellent quality content, presented in a well-organized and easy to understand way.
In web design, SEO comes into play when setting up a great organization structure to the site. Easy to use, intuitive navigation is just one specific example that happens to be relevant here.
In web development, the SEO process has a lot to do with writing clean, standards-compliant code. It’s about putting the right elements of the site in the right place. Developing for speed and performance is also becoming increasingly important in this area of focus.
With web content, SEO mostly means having the best possible content—unique, authoritative, and completely original—that is available anywhere on the web for your specific topic. If it sounds daunting, it is. But when it comes down to it, this is how you get the best results. SEO also factors into choosing page titles and headlines.
What Not To Do When Optimizing A Website…
Way too many people fall for the notion that SEO is just about one little area—again, tweaking a couple of words. Others fall for online scammers that promise the world when it comes to results. The tell tale signs of an SEO scam usually involve lots of secret, proprietary formulas that apparently only the SEO company knows about. Truth is, there is no magic or secret to good SEO—the search engines actually publish public manuals that spell out exactly what they’re looking for.
When planning the exact steps of how to make a website, be sure to include plans for SEO each step of the way…or if you just don’t want the trouble and hassle that comes with the do-it-yourself approach, at least be sure to work with professionals that understand the ins and outs of optimization and how important they are.