Let’s Talk About SEO
One of the first things we hear as Web Designers is… “What about SEO?” So we wanted to share some of our thoughts on SEO.
Good SEO ALONE IS NOT A STRATEGY. So many clients are rightly concerned about SEO when we talk Wordpress vs Squarespace, but good SEO alone is not a strategy. It's not a magical setting and SEO should serve your business strategy, not be the entire strategy
GOOGLE WANTS happy SEARCHERS, NOT GOOD SEO-ers. For 90% of websites, good content is a good SEO strategy. Creating compelling content that is up to date, relevant, easy to navigate, and well designed leads to lower bounce rates, better engagement & more traffic. Most importantly, it equals more happy customers!
NOT ALL web TRAFFIC IS THE SAME. All of the web traffic in the world from people who aren't your ideal clients is NOT valuable. Haphazard Keywording, Ad Targeting or "Clickbait" Titles that doesn't drive people to your specific service/offer or content goal is a waste of time & $$$. Ask the thousands of creators who have a following but can't convert that into sales.
What ABOUT GOING VIRAL?Generating a spike in traffic to a page that is slow, hard to navigate, and/or doesn't drive users to the action you want (i.e. buy, subscribe, sign-up, listen, etc...) is not an effective strategy. Massive page traffic with no desired action taken = no value. Keywords or "good SEO" will not solve bad page design or wrong offer.
WHY YOUR website PLATFORM MATTERS.
An "optimized" website that you find:
Hard to update your content
Back-end is confusing & overly technical
You're always fighting plug-in updates
You're always hiring a "web person" to fix it
Which leads you to just avoid it, in the end, is bad for your SEO. A good website inspires you to create & makes it easier, not more mysterious to update your content. Usability matters!
So where do we go from here… Here are some best practices and SEO steps we can take.
DON’T get CAUGHT UP CHASING FADS, hacks, or the one thing you don't know how to do well. Your core offer is your best way forward.
Don't FEEL LIKE THERE IS A MAGIC SEO STRATEGY that you're not doing. An informative, creative content strategy with clear design features & call to action will beat SEO only tactics every time
BE CLEAR ABOUT YOUR goals and translate those visually on the page. No technical trickery needed
BUILD & design A WEBSITE THAT IS EASY TO USE, EASY TO UPDATE, & makes you feel inspired (not overwhelmed) when you're logged in.
The lesson with SEO is simple, for most users choosing a good platform like Squarespace or Shopify and focusing on your content and offers with SEO best practices is the best route for your business to succeed.
Many of our clients are used to WordPress or "have heard" that WordPress is "better for SEO," which is not really true. Unless you're highly skilled in SEO & web design and you can devote your time or a full-time employee to design and SEO.
But for those of us who aren't full-time SEO / Designers and who have other roles in our businesses, WordPress can be time-consuming and overly complicated while not driving additional revenue to compensate for the time spent. We tell our clients that if you are at the stage of asking which is better for SEO, then WordPress is not the right route. In many cases, especially for perfectionists, is it very likely the opposite, that WordPress can be detrimental to your business strategy. We see so many businesses that are struggling with WordPress and hiring people to update what they could update on their own using a modern web platform.
