Website Design and Development Based on Testing, Not Guessing
We frequently have customers come to us after building a brand new website that kills their SEO and drops their leads so low they have to lay people off.
I can’t share all the names of these companies,
but here are just a few examples:
- Printing company paid $600k each for two websites that had no SEO or mobile strategy. They came to us at the very end of their 100 years in business and it was too late. DOA.
- Manufacturer paying about a million a year in Google ads launched a new website costing $130k and that took 15 months. SEO plummeted and leads dropped dangerously low. We got it back within months.
- Law firm website built by FindLaw is full of duplicate content and usability issues. We rebuild and refocus the content topics and they go from targeting everyone with no leads to targeting a niche and making millions.
- Manufacturer paying us for SEO launches new website from a fancy-pants design company. We save the SEO, but conversions drop from 249 to about 100 leads a month! Fixing it as we speak.
- Bookkeeping company rebrands at the advice of a veteran branding expert. SEO dropped off the face of the planet and no one can figure out what they do. We dropped the “splash” page and corrected SEO redirects, sending SEO backup. Sadly, the theme of the new site and new domain are causing issues for building topical authority and clarity.
- A bank in New Hampshire launches a new website and the marketing agency insists that the redirects are done right but they are not. Customers are finding them in Google, but most links go to an error page.
- Web development company in NYC calls us in so they can smooth over a dating website design client about to pay $100k for a website that only asked if they know SEO at the last minute. They did not, but we saved the day.
- Data recovery company who got screwed by a big New Hampshire ad agency who claimed to know SEO. After the site launched, he disappeared from Google. The agency called us and we fixed it and the client dropped the impending lawsuit.
How we can help you avoid these common web design problems and generate revenue
McDougall Interactive has been a digital marketing agency for over two decades.
We started selling websites, and then our founder started building them with hand-coded HTML in the 1990s.
We have hundreds of web design and optimization projects under our belt. We have been brought in by dozens of ad agencies and development shops and others to guide them as they build a website, so they do not screw up the ability for it to generate leads or search rankings.
Our experts build websites with a focus on both user experience and SEO to ensure we attract both human attention and search engine attention.
Now, let’s look under the covers at some of the deep issues that fluffy agencies miss.
SEO-Friendly and Winning Web Design
If you have worked with a web designer in the past, you may think that your web design is SEO-friendly. But, are you sure?
Your site may look great, but looks aren’t only what counts when your goal is to be properly appreciated by the search engines and found by the people who want what you’ve got.
When it comes to SEO-friendly and high converting web design, there is so much to consider beyond a designer’s flashy portfolio. We totally understand it can be even a bit depressing because of the long list of requirements, but it’s worth the effort to do it right the first time.
Our team of digital marketing experts has the knowledge and experience to create an optimized site architecture, visuals that not only look good but are SEO compliant, and a map of content development that covers your bases where keywords, and more importantly topics, are concerned.
Wondering what goes into SEO-friendly web design that converts leads to customers?
Here’s just a sample of what we optimize and look for!
- Short URLs, which rank better and are more memorable, shareable, and link worthy
- Keywords used sparingly in URLs that are part of a detailed SEO strategy
- Optimized navigation and sub nav, including “bread crumbs”
- Targeted content to match key phrase and topical authority concepts
- Pillar and cluster pages, not just short and sweet content that everyone thinks people want but doesn’t rank well
- No duplicate content
- No thin, weak content
- High-quality user experience to decrease bounce rate
- Healthy text-to-HTML ratio
- Add multimedia, like video and podcasts, to increase the number of pages visited and time on site
- Clear calls to action not just addressing the bottom of the funnel (purchase stage) where only 5% of visitors are
- Fast load time as per Google’s mobile tool and GTmetrix, etc.
- Clean, valid code, ADA compliant code
- Scripts in external files
- Proper use of H1 and H2 tags for structuring concepts
- Limited HTML file size
- Optimized Images
- Alt text for images
- Internal text links instead of image links
- No frames or flash
- Limit rotating graphics that make people anxious and are hard to read
- Proper site redirect architecture with 301 redirects
- No hidden text and other potentially deceptive (“black hat”) practices
- No splash pages that “welcome you” to the site and destroy rankings
- No query strings in URLs where possible
- Use of robots.txt to disallow /tags, etc.
- Avoid CMS and shopping cart coding that hurts SEO
Click here if you are feeling like you might need an SEO tech audit and set of quick fixes
Search-Friendly Site Architecture Lays the Proper Foundation for Success
Site file names and categories within your website should coincide with keyword concepts so key topics are always obvious and locatable.
A well thought out architecture allows for future expansion as you add more products or services, more resources like articles or infographics, and more in depth information.
A Typical Sitemap
- Home
- About
- Products (all products simply listed on this page)
- Services (all services simply listed on this page)
- Contact
A Search Engine Friendly Sitemap
- Home
- About
- Widgets
- Red Widgets
- Blue Widgets
- Green Widgets
- Widget Services
- Widget Service A
- Widget Service B
- Widget Service C
- Contact
Topic Clusters vs. Silo Site Structure
Modern SEO architecture uses topic clusters versus silo / folder structure. By making broad pages about a topic and then internlinking it to all the secondary content, you prove to Google that you are an authority on that subject.
Blog Design and Development That is Always Optimized
Businesses without blogs are becoming increasingly rare these days. You likely know that.
But do you know that just because your developer set up a blog for you doesn’t mean it has about two dozen fine tuning elements to make it effective?
I am not going to give away our entire workflow, but here are a few things to consider. Some of these are the “developer’s responsibility” but the average developer is not a blogger, so they would not know these are needed!
- The ideal folder structure is /blog
- Start a blog on a new domain if you have a huge amount of content on one topic
- Add social share icons
- Add email and RSS sign up options
- Add calls to action like an Ebook bribe to subscribe
- Add categories
- Un-index Tags
- Add keywords in the headings
- Make headings kick ass
- Keep URLs short
- Add alt tags to blog images
- Pick a focused keyword for Yoast plugin on WordPress
- Link to other bloggers and ask for a link back
- Tie blog posts into topic clusters
- Identify the author of each post
McDougall Interactive makes the blogging UX better, creates editorial calendars and can take your blogging to the next level by ensuring it positions you as an expert and drives sales.
We can work with your developers or ours, but ideally from the pre-planning stage
You might be wondering: Can I come to you guys after I get my site into dev mode and or after it is launched?
Sure, but it will likely make your hair white and take years off your life.
Handling site architecture and content scalability issues should really come first.
Unless you like ripping up your foundation and or losing money for fun. I don’t mean to be snarky, but it’s true. And the bigger the agency you hire, sometimes the more likely you will have a problem.
I call this the big agency upside down cake.
Many big agencies hire lots of people fast. Too many junior staff can’t handle these things.
Smaller agencies that specialize in technical content architecture (TCA) specifically help keep your cake up right, so it gets cooked properly and you can eat it too!
What to do next, if you want that fresh bakery smell after a web redesign, not the smell of burnt rubber
Check out our
Work Samples Page | Web Design Portfolio | Case Studies
Or contact us at 978-750-8000 or fill out our FREE strategy session form for initial insights before you make get a big boo boo.
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