{"id":1874,"date":"2019-03-20T13:54:30","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T18:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dry-number.flywheelsites.com\/?p=1874"},"modified":"2023-09-21T16:38:19","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T21:38:19","slug":"things-every-design-dev-should-know-about-seo-digital-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/things-every-design-dev-should-know-about-seo-digital-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Things Every Creative Should Know About SEO &#8211; A Design \/ Dev&#8217;s Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When I first joined Digital Strike as a designer and developer (should I say the <em>only<\/em> designer and <em>only<\/em> developer), I was pretty stoked to learn a new way of thinking about websites.<\/p>\n<p>Working in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/blog\/vertical-specific-agency\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">vertical-specific creative agency<\/a>, I got bored with designing the same websites over and over for different clients. I was tired of designing websites just to design them, or just because a website had hit its \u201ctwo-year\u201d mark\u2014both of which meant a new website regardless of how it was performing (and I\u2019m not sure we were truly even tracking that properly).<\/p>\n<p>It just didn\u2019t <em>feel<\/em> right. I was hungry for data. Hungry to design websites that I <em>knew<\/em> would have the best chance at ranking and generating revenue for clients.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I was hungry to design with a purpose.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Then I found Digital Strike.<\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"giphy-embed\" src=\"https:\/\/giphy.com\/embed\/nXxOjZrbnbRxS\" width=\"356\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Here, we focus on using data through third-party tools to guide strategy. Over and over again, we\u2019ve seen new opportunities come to us because their brand new website\u2014that they paid $15,000 or more for, mind you!\u2014wasn&#8217;t built to drive organic search traffic and, ultimately, sales.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>Side note: If you\u2019re currently redesigning a website and an SEO expert is not involved in that process, please, please, <strong>please<\/strong> stop and get one involved like, yesterday.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I knew I couldn\u2019t be the only creative that felt this way, so I thought, why not spread my new-found knowledge with the world in a blog post? I mean, that\u2019s what people do, right?<\/p>\n<p><em>Anywho&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Here are a few things I\u2019ve learned as a solo designer and developer in a data-driven marketing agency.<\/p>\n<h2>1. Design doesn\u2019t matter as much as you think it does.<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Stop wasting time with the over-the-top animations and funky UX techniques.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ouch. I know. That\u2019s a tough pill to swallow. It\u2019s hard for me to remember at times.<\/p>\n<p>But it&#8217;s the truth. As a designer, I know how tempting it can be to want to recreate websites on awwwards.com and get caught up in the out-of-this-world scroll effects or crazy transitions.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s important to know when to draw the line between wanting to do a technique because it\u2019s \u201ccool\u201d and doing it because you think it will drive leads or push the needle forward.<\/p>\n<p>Take Craigslist for example. Ugly AF.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1875 alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/craigslist.jpg\" alt=\"Craigslist Screenshot\" width=\"800\" height=\"643\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/craigslist.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/craigslist-300x241.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/craigslist-768x617.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/craigslist-296x238.jpg 296w, https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/craigslist-30x24.jpg 30w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But guess what? It works. With <strong>60 million users<\/strong> and an average of <strong>50 billion page views per month,<\/strong> they would be dumb to do a redesign. It follows web standards, it\u2019s easy to navigate, and it contains content that users are looking for.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to Google\u2019s push for a mobile-first experience, many of these animations aren\u2019t favored on mobile devices anyway, and often times don\u2019t even work, which could undo everything you are trying to help solve by doing a redesign.<\/p>\n<p><b>At the end of the day, if the design decisions you are making will not directly impact the desired goal(s) of the website, abort mission.<\/b><\/p>\n<h2>2. A new website isn&#8217;t always the answer.<\/h2>\n<p>While it\u2019s true that websites should be given another look every two years or so to make sure they are up to date with design trends (which, in my opinion, aren\u2019t always good, by the way) and technology standards, there are a few key things to consider before jumping ship into a full blown \u201cwebsite redesign.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">1. You\u2019re undergoing major company changes.<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Maybe your name is changing, maybe you\u2019re merging with another company, maybe you just want to rebrand. Either way, your current website goals are likely not in line with your new company goals, in which a redesign may be your best option.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">2. Performance is steadily declining.<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">If leads have slowed down (or maybe never started), and you&#8217;ve tried everything you can think of\u00a0(e.g., new content, tweaking layouts based on heatmap findings, fixing technical errors, etc.) to generate traffic to the website to no avail, it may be time to rethink your website. Be sure to pull in an SEO expert in the beginning of the process to help steer you in the right direction.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">3. Your site relies on old technology and isn\u2019t up to standards.<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">In case you haven\u2019t heard, Google is now penalizing websites that are not mobile friendly. Trust me when I say, you don\u2019t want to get on Google\u2019s bad side. :).<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">P.S., \u201cmobile-friendly\u201d does not just mean \u201cresponsive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Luckily for you, there\u2019s a <a href=\"https:\/\/search.google.com\/test\/mobile-friendly\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">handy dandy tool<\/a> that allows you to see your website in the eyes of Google.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Does one or more of the above apply to your company? If so, maybe it&#8217;s time to consider a redesign. Otherwise, it might not be necessary.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>3. Make sure an SEO expert is involved from the very beginning.<\/h2>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Knowing&#8221; SEO and <em>knowing<\/em> SEO are not the same thing.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>SEO is an arbitrary concept to most clients, agencies included. Because of that, it\u2019s easy to think that you have a pretty good understanding of SEO.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, you may be able to spout off some big buzzwords, and maybe you\u2019ve updated a title tag before. But the reality is that SEO goes SO. MUCH. DEEPER.<\/p>\n<p>There are things that people without a deep understanding of SEO just don\u2019t think about or even know to think about. (I sure didn\u2019t). That&#8217;s why we have a full team of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/top-st-louis-seo-company\/\">SEO experts in St. Louis<\/a> and in multiple states that know a lot of things that most people don&#8217;t know. Here are a few things of them:<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">1. Absolute URLS are better than relative URLs.<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Developers may argue that \u201cbest practice\u201d for URLs is to use relative URLs. (e.g. \u201c\/services\/seo\u201d vs \u201chttp:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/services\/seo\u201d) When I first heard this, I was ready to argue my point about why relative URLs are better from a development perspective. But I learned that while it may be easier, Google doesn\u2019t prefer it. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/moz.com\/blog\/relative-vs-absolute-urls-whiteboard-friday&amp;sa=D&amp;ust=1553099078288000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFcQtho_s9ayOWZylKmSKnelqvo-Q\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Here&#8217;s<\/a> a good read from Moz if you want to dive a little further.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">2. Understand how to configure Yoast.<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">I believe Yoast is a must-have for any website hoping to rank in Google. But if you don\u2019t know how to correctly use it, you may as well not even have it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">For example, are you just using the default for title tags? Are you correctly no-indexing pages that don\u2019t matter, like thank you pages? (Speaking of, do you even have thank you pages set up for every form?)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">And if you ARE using Yoast (good for you), don\u2019t get too caught up in getting all those dots green, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/blog\/why-you-shouldnt-always-trust-seo-plugins\/\">here\u2019s why.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">3. Learn the difference between mobile-first and responsive design.<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">As I mentioned earlier, they\u2019re not the same.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">&#8220;Responsive&#8221; design insinuates a desktop-first approach where you then scale down for mobile and decide what to keep \/ eliminate for the mobile experience.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">&#8220;Mobile-first&#8221; design truly begins with designing for mobile first, and then adapting that design to Desktop. It forces you to pay attention to what REALLY matters.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">I&#8217;ll be the first to admit this is a hard mindset to get used to. I still struggle with it. But it\u2019s 2019 now, and there\u2019s no avoiding it. Google&#8217;s rules.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">4. There\u2019s a whole host of miscellaneous technical issues to pay attention to.<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">You may have redirecting issues, such as not setting up http to https correctly resulting in double versions of your website, using 301 Redirects wrong, forgetting to select \u201callow search engines to crawl the site\u201d in WordPress settings, or forgetting to put analytics on the website. 9 times out of 10, most people aren\u2019t even aware these issues exist, but they play a bigger role than you may think when it comes to being friends with Google.<\/p>\n<h2>The Takeaway<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Design is the icing on the cake.<\/strong> Without good site architecture, compelling content, and a solid SEO strategy, design will simply exist rather than push the needle forward. Don&#8217;t spend too much time on animations. They&#8217;re not great for mobile experiences anyways (which Google doesn&#8217;t take lightly).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Understand when it REALLY makes sense to get a new website.<\/strong> There are a lot of things to try before jumping into a brand new website. If you&#8217;re going into it without a solid SEO strategy, while you may have the best intentions, you will likely do more harm than good.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Get a technical SEO expert involved from the beginning.<\/strong> Nobody likes hearing the $15k they just spent redoing their website was a waste because SEO was not taken into consideration.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>Want to know more about combining design, development, and badass strategy? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/contact\/\">Contact us today.<\/a> Our team would love to meet you to walk through what we do and why we do it.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our designer and developer, Kristina, walks through what she wishes everyone knew about combining dev, design, and SEO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1876,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalstrike.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}