Is SEO important in web design?

The digital landscape has changed rapidly over the past decade with social media becoming an influential factor in companies’ marketing efforts. So Is SEO important in web design in 2023? In this article, I will argue that yes, it is a crucial element for any business that wants to be successful online.

What is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimisation, is a process used by companies to increase their website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). By improving your website’s SEO for keywords that relate to your business, you can increase your website’s chances of appearing on page 1 of Google, Bing, Yahoo!, DuckDuckGo and other search engines. Basically, if you are not on page 1, most people searching for a business like yours will not find you. So it goes without saying that search engine optimisation is incredibly important.

The benefits of optimising your site

And if you’re still not convinced, here are some of the main benefits:

• Increased website traffic: As I’ve already explained, search engine optimisation can help you gain more site visitors. The higher you appear in the search results, the more people will ultimately end up on your site and your chances of turning web surfers into paying customers will increase. It’s a no-brainer, right?
• Enhanced brand awareness: SEO can help you build brand awareness and credibility. When your website appears prominently in the SERPs, it tells potential customers that your company is reputable and established. Of course, it helps to have strong branding to match, but SEO alone can ensure that people become familiar with your brand in general.
• Increased sales: It goes without saying that the higher your search engine rankings, the more visitors you will get and the higher your chances of gaining sales over time. Whether you run a product-based company, a service-based company or both, sales are the most important factor in the survival of your business, and search engine optimisation can be a very powerful driver of sales when done correctly.

So now you’re aware of how important SEO is to your business. The downside is that SEO can seem overwhelmingly complicated to the unitiated! Ironically, Google is a good place to start if you want to do some research into doing your own SEO, plus there are plenty of professionals on the web who will devise a strategy tailored to your business – for a fee, of course.

Some SEO tips

If you do decide to do it yourself in the first instance, here are some of the basics that will help you:

• Create high-quality, relevant content that your target audience will genuinely find helpful. Google (by far the most popular search engine) is switched on to SEO and will reward sites that offer quality content.
• Ensure that you’ve included relevant keywords throughout your website content.
• Make sure you’ve covered all bases of your on-site SEO – that means adding title tags, meta descriptions and alt tags for your images.
• Build high-quality backlinks to your website from other websites, preferably ones that are relevant to your industry.
• Keep your website up-to-date with fresh content.

I hope that this article helps you in optimising your website for Google and the other search engines. If you have any queries or would like me to take a look at your site’s SEO performance, don’t hesitate to get in touch.