How to Create a SEO Friendly Business Website for 2014

For most companies, the business website has evolved as the prime source of leads. Even brands that don’t invest much in digital marketing get most queries through their websites. Driving traffic – the right kind of traffic – to your website can help you increase visibility of your product or services.

Following the right design and SEO rules can help convert more of the visitors. As Jeff Eisenberg said, “It’s much easier to double your business by doubling your conversation than by doubling your traffic.” So, whether you are running a large enterprise or a small business, these questions are important to you:

How do I make sure that my website gets enough relevant traffic?
How to ensure that the website converts more visitors?
How to guarantee that my digital presence expands?

In 2014, past SEO success means nothing. The world of technology is changing at a blistering pace, and online search continues to evolve and change. Business are running fast to just to stand still. At this juncture, how do you continue to grow?

The first step is to take care of the basics: make certain that your website design and SEO are aligned with technological advances and search realities of 2014. How? Let’s take a look at the seven things that you need to focus on to build a SEO-friendly website in 2014.

More than Mobile-friendly Website

Your business can longer make do with a website that ‘works on mobile also.’ You need a website that blossoms on mobiles, website that is optimized for mobiles. Let’s forget about mobile content consumption stats. Take me as an example: I bought my first smartphone just a year ago. I found the idea of reading the small mobile screen a little weird. Now I spend at least two hours reading or writing on my mobile. What will I see if I open your website on my mobile browser? Will it hook me, or will I bounce off like a pinball?

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Improve Site Performance

At a time when all the world is accessing your website over mobiles, you need to speed up the site. Mobile Internet in many parts of US, and all over the world, is rather shaky. You need a website that loads fast and works well on mobile – even for users that have slow connections. Investing in a revamp or website redesigning will be the best money you spend, if your current website takes too long to load. You bleed mobile visitors with every extra second your website takes in loading.

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Consider Responsive Web Design

It is evident that most businesses need a website the works well on mobiles. One option is to create a separate mobile website, or in some cases, an app. Responsive web design is the simplest solution: a single website that works on all devices. Considering the increasing diversity of devices, this seems to be the best approach. Also, Google likes RWD too.

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Target Mobile Keywords

A lot of people are using voice inputs to search. So, instead of typing “website design company” they are more likely to speak “give me a list of some good web design companies, Siri.” Google’s Hummingbird algorithm tries to get optimum results for such conversational queries.

The context of the voice searches matters a great deal, and this feature will have a big impact on search. It may be a smart idea to integrate the most obvious conversational queries in your content. In short, cover all possible types of keyword queries, without stuffing keywords.

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Create Awesome Content

Content is the bedrock of digital marketing in 2014. Not only do you need to have good content on your website, but you must also try and create compelling and useful content for your users. Don’t just stick to articles or blogs: pictures sketches, videos and other forms of content also work quite well. Having a blog attached to your website is a must if you are trying to get more traffic through SEO. It can work like magic.

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Smart Interlinking, Solid Navigation

Getting links from high authority sites works, and interlinking too has its benefits. Even if you forget about the search engines, you need to find a way to make navigating your website easier for users – especially those that are accessing it over mobile. So, invest time and effort in creating a sold navigation structure, and use interlinking to gently guide visitors to the conversion goal.

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Focus on Local Search

People often use the Internet to find local businesses or stores. The simple act of optimizing your page for a specific location will increase your local visibility dramatically. So, focus on finding local search terms, consider targeting local users through search engine or social media ads, and use local data for reaching the right audience through emails too. Even non-local business with operations in several locations must optimize pages on the basis of locations to get the most out of local search.

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Bottom Line

You will notice these pointers are a mixture of standard SEO advice interspersed with website design idea. Why? Because user experience, website quality and digital marketing are not separate anymore. In 2014, what works for the users, works for Google (mostly). Get these basics right, and you have a solid foundation from which you can launch your business website to the Google stratosphere!