Redesigning our agency site. A blank slate, any suggestions...?
-
I'm an SEO at a Web Design Agency and we are just about to start work on a new site. We have a complete blank slate to work with and the designers / developers will honor any requests I make.
I'm not asking you guys to do my job for me, I've been doing a lot of research and I have a large feature set ready. However I am interested in what you guys would go for in this situation. What cool new SEO features can we use? Any examples of websites that you like?
The creatives are very keen on HTML5, parallex scrolling and very minimalist design. I need to make sure we can achieve these things whilst also have a super optimised site.
Any suggestions / examples?
Thanks
-
We just redesigned our site.
We just did a Parallax Site with onsite optimization. It also has CSS3, and responsive design. It is still in Beta. It is also Wordpress and it has Yoast
http://www.posicionamientowebenbuscadores.com/
This article is in spanish but I will be posting it in Youmoz in English very soon. The graphics help
http://www.posicionamientowebenbuscadores.com/blog/seo-parallax/
It is not optimized for IE (Internet Explorer). You must use Chrome or Firefox to see it. You will be redirected to our old site if you use Explorer
Thanks
Carla
PS. I forgot to mention that it has some schemas too.
-
Beat them with a stick. It's the only kind thing to do
I'll admit that I just find those pages annoying anyway. The Smokeybones one in particular I just wouldn't bother with. Any page that needs instructions is a fail in my book.
The blue leaf one is better (although IMHO falls apart a bit after the home page). However neither are really built with much regards to SEO beyond the title tags.
Something that has worked well for us in the past when dealing with those with a strong creative agenda is to specify minimum standards - particularly with regards to page structure. Literally give them a CSS free example page to work from. Could be a route to go down and will give you a chance to minimise the difference impact of change if the site currently does well.
-
Hi Mat,
Not dull at all, thank you! Yes that is the struggle I face. The designers want something similar to this:
I'm thinking we can have a long scrolling page like this for the homepage but have a more traditional layout with inner pages.
We get most of our leads from organic search so we can't afford to lose out on SEO in favour of design.
Any more input from Mat or anyone else is very welcome
-
I'd be careful with parallax scrolling to be honest. I know that designers love it as it gives them a chance to play with something new that they can show off. However it really doesn't lend itself to the best structure for SEO or even (in many cases) the best user experience. Like most things, it can be done if done well, but it's something to be aware of.
I'm not entirely sure that there are many cool new SEO features. The principals of solid, sustainable SEO haven't changed that much in the 16 years I've been involved (although the shortcuts have!).
Microdata & semantic markup is one area that could be described as an SEO feature, but the uses of that would be limited on most agency style sites.
If I were looking at redesigning (which I really should be!), I'd lean more towards video as well - with the appropriate microdata and video sitemap - in fact optimising for all types of universal results.
If you are including blog style content then I'd also have real focus on the social sharing angle. Look at how best to maximise that for all that it can bring.
Dull answers I am afraid.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
700+ Genuine likes in 4 Days on a new Site - Does it risk Google Spam?
Hi my site www.dealwithautism.com is a brand new site - only 2 months old and since Autism is a fairly competitive niche, id do not get more than 30 impression and 4-5 clicks for my 40+ pages on Google. However, recently I have become very active in the social platforms, so over the last week I am getting 200+ pageviews just from Facebook and Twitter, that not bad., I have recently created a post 21 apps for Autism https://www.dealwithautism.com/top-apps-for-autism/ Suddenly this post is generating a lot of interest and in the last 4 days I have received as many as 700+ likes (purely editorially) and it is growing in terms of 100s per day. How I acquired them? Well, firstly I believe it is a very good post. Secondly, I selected one of the Apps in the list as 5 star and editor's choice! Then twitted and Fb mentioned to that company on Twitter and Facebook. They returned the favour by re-tweeting and since they have tens of thousands of followers, my page immediately got traction. My question is this: Do I need to worry about Google turning a suspicious eye on me for being a new site getting too many social signals in too short time? Should I pull out the Like buttons for a while from my site to slow things down?? I am new to web development and not fully sure how Google would recognize social spam.
Social Media | | DealWithAutism1 -
Site Structure Advice
Two years ago we were not doing very well so we employed a consultant from the USA who drilled right down into our site and advised us on many things which would improve our website. We worked with this lady for 18 months. One of the main changes that we made was to change how our url looked. For example instead of the following usrls: www.change.com/catergory/subcatergory/product.html we changed to: www.change.com/1234 the 1234 being the product With all of the advice this lady gave us which included content, keyword research, social media, back links. In the last year we have seen our keywords indexed in Semrush for the UK rise from 200 to 1,000 as of today. Our sales are well up and I am very pleased. We at the time of employing this lady started another site in a slightly different field but stopped working on it to make sure our main site would get the attention it deserved. We now have time to work on our new site which has had work done to it. The problem I have is that I asked our web developers to change the structure so that the urls would look the same as our exisiting site www.newsite.com/5678 for products. (it does not have to be a number we could have the name of a product) They have informed me that this is anti SEO which is hard for me to understand as we have done so well with our current site. Can anyone advise as to which is the best route to go down? Thank you in advance.
Social Media | | Palmbourne0 -
Social media signals from Facebook comment plugin on your site?
If you are using the Facebook social plugin on your site like ThinkGeek does for comments: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/ed6b/ Are there any positive social signals from people leaving comments that could impact the SEO of the page? I searched the text of some comments in quotations in Google and it appears that the first few comments are indexed but most are not.
Social Media | | ProjectLabs1 -
Pintrest links not showing on Open Site Explorer
Hi, sorry for the 'simple' question, but I have one client who has a Pintrest link which shows up on the Open site Explorer (Page Authority 60, Domain Authority 100) and a second client who also uses Pintrest but their link doesn't show up on Open Site Explorer. I didn't set either of the clients' Pintrest pages up myself, but I can't see why the 2nd client's page isn't showing up in Open site explorer:- http://pinterest.com/unilifestudents/photoshoot-park-house/
Social Media | | bendyman
as it looks to me like it points to the main site http://unilife.co.uk as it should do. What am I misunderstanding here? thanks, Ben0 -
I have started a games site how i start its marketing and Seo?
hi, i have to made a game site , what you will suggest me where can i start its seo, like social media , submit link here or what i will do for it?
Social Media | | Mubashirshafi0 -
Legitimate Social Exchange groups or sites?
I know, I know, why am I even asking, but I have to it's just in my nature. Are there any legitimate Social Exchange groups or sites where we can exchanges shares, +1's & retweets, ect.
Social Media | | KristopherWho0 -
Should I no follow the embed code for youtube videos on my site?
Since it is not an internal page, would it make sense to nofollow links to my youtube videos throughout my site? Thanks for the help William
Social Media | | whorneff3100