SEO Tips: What to Consider Before Your Redesign

A nonprofit contacted me about helping them with SEO on their redesign, and I thought how wise they were to consider SEO before they start designing the site. With that in mind, I thought I’d put together a list of a few SEO-related items to consider before, and during, your site redesign.

• Use Clean Code: Be sure to use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to reduce redundancy of code on your website. With CSS, you can easily indicate your color preferences of H tags or regular text without having to code each block of text in the HTML code. Using clean code also means placing your content at the top of the HTML code as opposed to placing it under a graphic or flash file. A designer or coder should understand this. =-)
• Do Your Keyword Research: Using a tool such as the Google Keyword Research Tool, figure out your target keywords. If possible, you want to select low competition and high traffic phrases.
• Write for People and Search Engines: You want crisp, clean copy that speaks to your audience and keeps Googlebot happy. Use your target key phrases in a natural way in the first paragraph and headlines and as links, when possible, to other pages on your site.
• Think Usability: Usability and SEO go hand in hand. Both Googlebot and humans need to navigate your site. I’ve found it useful to write potential website sections on index cards or post-its and place them on a wall. Subsections can go underneath. The index cards allow you to move the potential sections around to see where they best fit. In addition, use a site map. Google Webmaster Tools provides you with a handy XML sitemap you can place on your site.

Tagged as: google xml site map, keyword research, seo copywriting, seo keywords, seo tips, seo writing, usability issues, website redesign and seo