The simplest web design tip you can practice is to have a professional developer build your site for you. In some cases though, you just don’t have the money to pay a web designer. The same is true for hiring and SEO specialist. No worries, because the following practices, tools and techniques make designing and developing your blog SEO-friendly, without being a pain in the neck, and they are rather easy to implement as well.
Use WordPress
There is a reason WordPress is the most popular blogging platform in the world. It is simple, there are thousands upon thousands of easy drag-and-drop templates and widgets that can accomplish whatever you want to do in a snap, and if you do hire a web designer, you can bet they are going to be familiar with the WordPress platform. If you are just getting started with your blog or website, consider using the WordPress blogging platform.
Using Alt Text for Images
Alt text will appear when an image on your blog does not display properly. Alt text is also used by screen reading software to help blind web surfers understand what your image is about. Since search engines crawl your images in a way that is very similar to how screen reading software works, adding relevant and explanatory text to your images is a must for good SEO.
Respect Your Headings
Anything you apply an H1 tag to is going to get mad respect from the search engines. Your headings are generally the largest words on your webpage, and search engines understand that as a sign that they are important. Having different target keywords and relevant phrases in your headings is a smart and simple SEO move, and it lets search engines know exactly what your webpages and blog posts are about.
Consider an Exact Match Domain
If you are blogging about essential oils and aromatherapy, does “Susie’sHealthandWellnessSite.com” really tell the search engines or your audience what you are all about? A better SEO choice would be “BestAromatherapyandEssentialOils.com”, considering of course whether or not that would be available.
Having an exact match domain is not as important as it used to be in the eyes of the search engines, but it is still a factor search engines like Google use to understand what your blog is about.
Make Your Content Relevant… and Long
If your blog focuses on weight loss tips for brand-new moms that just had a baby, writing a post about a recent fishing trip would confuse the search engines … and your visitors. Focus on one topic on your blog, and then make posts and deliver content that is relevant to that topic.
The old “400 words of content is plenty” rule does not apply any longer. Study after study shows that your blog posts and webpages should deliver more than 1,200 words of content, and more than 2,000 words if possible, if you want to please Big G and the other search engines. Just remember that you don’t want to add filler. Make your content useful, solve problems, answer questions and help people.
Include Internal Links
Google has said repeatedly that each one of your webpages or blog posts should link to “at least one other static text link” on your site. This means including a keyword or phrase on one webpage that includes a clickable link to another page of your site that is about that same topic or phrase.
Include Smart Title Tags
Title tags are targeted keywords that you place in the title of each page on your blog. Like an exact match domain name and headings, including words that tell the search engine what each webpage is about improve your ability to be found by the target audience you are looking for.
