Solia Media Logo 2021

Web Designers perform a few different functions.  The actual design and deployment of a website are related to SEO.  At Solia, we generally do both functions, but they are not the same.  Web design responds to the following client need:

Create a visually appealing and easily navigable website that contains the information the client wants to convey to visitors, with a nice style, which can be viewed by whoever navigates to its URL, and keep it secure and updated.

Solia’s design fee includes primarily design (usually a one-time flat fee).  Depending on the support plan chosen, a basic annual fee covers basic maintenance and support that includes website hosting, simple text edits, website security updates, and program upgrades.

Search Engine Optimization is all about GETTING FOUND. So, SEO responds to a related, but distinct, objective:

Develop and post content, and place the client’s information on a variety of other sites which link to the client so that the client site will more likely be found by people who may search for the goods or services the client provides.

Another designer nicely described the relationship between design and SEO as follows:

“There is an important relationship between web design and search engine optimization. SEO services are responsible for improving the search engine rankings of a website to bring more internet traffic to the website. Whereas a good looking web design grabs the attention of the visitors and keeps them on the webpage to check the content and navigate through different pages. In other words, SEO is concerned with the marketing and advertisement of the website letting internet users know about the presence of an online website and driving them to visit the web pages while web design is responsible for attracting the users once they arrive on the website.”

Thus, SEO is the ongoing process of adding content and evaluating performance and getting incoming links (among other things). SEO is a very important process for many if not most everyone that has a web presence. If the client requests SEO, Solia will provide a separate SEO quote based on the client’s budget and needs. Optimizing the website itself for SEO purposes is referred to as “on-page” SEO. Enhancing rankings by ad campaigns or increasing the number of incoming links are external to the website itself, and are often called “off-page SEO.”

Hence, on-page SEO work means editing the content of one’s own website to improve search rankings. That could include (as just a few examples):

  1. Using Alt Tags for images
  2. Taking care with page titles and headings
  3. Carefully constructing the actual content of the articles and posts to use the words that would help in searching. For example, a Solia post might say “we handle real estate photography.” Better construction of a post would be “We at Solia provide top quality real estate photography of interiors and exteriors of homes and businesses, plus FAA certified aerial (“drone”) videography in Rockdale County, Newton  County, and Conyers.”
  4. Creating a directory that draws people to your site who are looking for related services.

Off-page SEO is designed to draw traffic due to external links. As an example, an owner would like to be placed on directories, have a YouTube or Facebook page that has a link to the website (and also have feeds on the site itself), have partner ministries place articles on their own sites about Restoration Storehouse with links. (Generally, reciprocity is given).

We have a basic plan for a fixed fee which enhances the site for SEO at the outset. We also have options that involve ongoing SEO work that cost more because they are ongoing processes. SEO work typically involves the following key elements, among others:

  • Keyword and phrase analysis – working to ensure that site content, keywords, and metadata are more likely to have your site indexed in a way that helps you get found.
  • Backlinks – the more sites that link to your site, the higher your rank will be as a general matter. We have identified strategies for placing our clients on more sites that will link back to the client site.
  • Social Media – Social media integration is another key element of a good SEO strategy.
  • Image tags – site images should be high quality and they also should contain text descriptions so that they can be crawled by search engines.
  • Content editing – the more your site content changes, the higher your ranking generally is going to be.
  • Monitoring via site analytics – We can monitor the visitor data by geography, search terms used to find the site, visitor behavior once on the site and other factors. This helps in making adjustments.

 

Category: Educate Me About Websites