Summary Are you a small business owner? If yes and want to get higher visibility in search engine (like Google and Bing) result pages than there are some features, which you suppose to know while planning a website design that will not affect your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. This is probably the biggest task many website owners have to grapple with. Listed below are the seven useful SEO perspectives that you need to keep in mind before designing a website. Selection of Hosting and Domain Name It is very important to consider the nature of your business and website while selecting hosting and domain. Ask yourself below questions: What kind of website are you building? How big or small, can the web traffic volume go? Does the hosting company offer scalable solutions? What backup, security, and extra features are they offered? Do you have a technical support in-house or you need reliable and responsive support from your hosting provider? Have you done any research about the hosting company’s performance and reviews on social media and third-party websites? You should check the Terms and conditions to make sure you’re ok with it and the renewal costs before signup to avoid any unpleasant surprise. For Domain Name: To be memorable and to become widespread on the internet, a domain name needs to be accurately reflect your brand’s voice. In addition, to get a better visibility in search engine results you need to incorporate a mixture of simple spelling and brand identity in the domain name. Also, check out for below points Register yourself as the owner of the domain name Include a location or your primary keyword in the domain name Remember to renew your domain name registration Do not purchase a domain without checking into its past Content Management System A Content Management System (CMS) is a computer application that helps users to manage and organize text, movies, pictures, links, and many other types of data. It’s designed to support the management of the content of Web pages. The process of selecting a CMS will usually take a bit longer, and be tougher than expected. Outlined here is a process to help and guide you towards selecting the best-fit CMS for you. You will need to be able to answer this question: What do you really need your website to do? Know what is Important and what is Not? Know what you want to get out of a CMS? Once you make a choice, plan how you will utilize CMS features daily, weekly, or monthly that surely will assist you to get the most out of the CMS. Take professional help is never a bad idea. Find one that can, not only help you find the right tools, but also have experience with designing the strategy to achieve success. Your CMS and CRM Salesforce systems need to work together. A CMS without CRM may result in loss of data. You will have a difficult time putting the information you have gathered to work. Core Functionality Check for creating, deleting, editing, and organizing pages. Always test the system for usability. The Editor The interface through which content is added and removed. It can also use to mark up headings, lists, links, and other components. Moreover, it can able to handle external assets like images and downloadable files. User Interaction CMS must provide User interaction functionality or allow a third party plug-in to provide it. If you want to host a community on your website, then you will require functionality such as chat, forums, comments, and ratings. Check for what tools exist for communicating with customers. Can you send email newsletters? What about news feeds and RSS? Roles and Permissions You will need to put more control over who can edit what at the time when the number of content suppliers on your website increases. In addition, you need to set permissions whether users can edit certain pages or perhaps entire sections of the website. Multiple Website Support A CMS must have this feature. With the expansion of the mobile Web, you’ll wish to create a separate website for mobile devices. Therefore, there’s a flexibility to run multiple websites is vital. Check for and to consider of features is an important part while selecting a CMS. It’s also important to consider issues like licensing, support, accessibility, security, training and much more. User-Friendly Navigation It is now obvious factor that a visitor may leave and never come back to your website if it’s confusing and difficult to navigate. Conduct an in-depth website review, by becoming a new visitor of your own website. This will surely help to increase the efficiency and appeal of your website’s navigation. One way to improve a visitor’s ability to navigate to your website easily is to add breadcrumb navigation and an HTML sitemap in the footer section. Responsive Websites Statistics of the past two to three years indicate that the usage of mobile devices to conduct online searches has increased significantly. Approx. 95% of mobile device users prefer to search for local products and services on their own devices. Reach effectively to this growing population; you need to be sure that your websites are accessible from the devices like desktop, laptop, mobile phone, tablet, etc. Effective Color Scheme It is a fact that a website color scheme affects conversions. Therefore choosing the right color scheme is essential to your website’s success. You should plan and choose a color scheme from the beginning and should be consistent with the usage of your design. Your layout and other design choices need to develop in concert with your color scheme. A color scheme is additionally used to attract attention, group related elements, convey meaning, and generally enhance the beauty of your website. Furthermore, you need to ensure readability, cohesiveness, and beauty within the final product. Short Loading Times A slow loading speed of a website is a worse factor for visitors while looking for information online. Due to this issue, visitors can turn away completely. To overcome this issue, run a free website speed test at Google page speed insight and check out the suggestions to decrease the loading time. A periodically evaluate your website’s loading time will help to increase customer retention and provide a positive user experience. Moreover, short loading times of a website give customers the information they want when they want it. Perfectly Capture the Essence of the Brand Branding is very important to all businesses, both large and small. However, to generate a brand awareness amongst the target audience is one of the critical purposes of a website. Make sure that the website is all about the brand it wants to promote is using the brand’s logo prominently on the website with clearly visible on all pages. It is important that visitors should come to identify a website with the brand from on-site elements that includes images, color scheme, typography, etc. Think about using the same logo on the business card, packaging, and print advertising materials. Social Media Integration Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn and other such social media platforms can help provide businesses with opportunities in real time. To leverage the power and to maximize your online exposure on social media channels it is must for you to integrate them on your website. The below list of points, you need to keep in mind while integrating social media: Best SEO practices suggest that the social media buttons need to display on the top, bottom or along the side of your homepage. Create them as simple as possible for readers to share with others You may need to create the buttons or integrate links in a way that when a visitor clicks on them it’ll open in a new window and user don’t exit your web page. It is important that you maintain your presence on social media channels by regularly posting updates Customer Testimonials Customer testimonials are a form of word-of-mouth marketing. It plays a major role in gaining new customers if you do in a correct way. Customer testimonials can also use to promote your business. You can demonstrate your company’s skills, products, and commitment to customers by featuring customer testimonials on your website. If you already have loyal customers, reach out them and ask for on-site reviews. If they’re willing to provide a testimonial, take advantage of it. The more genuine and detailed testimonials your company receives, there are more chances of gaining new customers. Comprehensive HTML Sitemap From SEO Perspective an HTML sitemap is often mentioned as being useful. HTML Sitemap is valuable for human visitors, as it allows them to find any page on your website quickly. It also represents a very efficient way to distribute your link juice among the pages of your website. Ideally, all the pages of your website are linked to the HTML sitemap and the HTML sitemap linking back to them. One way to accomplish this is to put a link to the HTML sitemap in the footer section of your website. Conclusion Now it’s your time to share feedback and let us know which method do you use for your site. Feel free to do comment if you have any question regarding implementation. Cheers 🙂