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
-
Main Site Social Media SEO impact on different product specific site
Hi, Few months ago I have created a minisite for a particular product category for the online store Giftcampaign.es with a different domain name. The idea was to focus this minisite on selling personalized usb memories and to have a different design, functionality and content that the main one (the site is http://www.usbpersonalizado.es). What I have done here is to link on my site the Social Markers of Facebook and LinkedIn of the parent site GiftCampaign.es, as we are not planning to open and maintain an account for those social networks, and we are already maintaining the ones for the parent site. I would like to know if the SEO Positioning of my minisite can benefit from the links of the Social Networks of the parent site or whether it makes not really an impact in SEO positioning unless I create and maintain new social network accounts for the different minisites that I create with different domain names. I look forward for your response. Best regards, Oriol .
Social Media | | oriolbandalux0 -
Links to Social Media Sites
I am in the process of updating my website where all the URLs of my individual blog pages are changing. I have, in the past, done a lot of link sharing on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter of my individual blog posts, but now on the new site my links will be different. Therefore, when I launch the new site anyone clicking on my previous tweets or facebook shares will get a broken link. Is there a tool I can use that identifies all the links on social media sites? Opensite Explorer doesn't show these - unless I am missing something? Any tips on how to overcome this would be very useful. thanks
Social Media | | goodge0 -
Adult dating site. How can I get people to share content on facebook or google plus..
I am working on http://www.top-10-dating-reviews.com an adult dating review website. I want to build a presence on social networks so have set up twitter, google plus, and a facebook page. As I understand it retweets, like, shares etc... Play a significant part in seo. Therefore I want to get as many shares etc as possible. My initial idea was to create a fan page on facebook and pay to promote it on facebook gaining likes on the fan page. Will likes on the fan page impact the main site? I would imagine not? However I can see how someone visiting the main site and liking a post would have a positive effect on rankings. The problem I've come into is facebook won't run the ads as the page is adult so they won't accept paid ads. If I add a post to the facebook page how can I get it in front of people to share or like it? Equally how can I get google plus shares? I'm new to social and am unsure of how I should proceed? Especially as facebook considers the page adult. Finally how important is social. I've read it can get short term wins and optimised posts can appear at the top of search results but don't stay there long. Link building is still the long term strategy?
Social Media | | SamCUK0 -
How to Start a Social Networking Site
I am thinking about starting a niche social networking site. My question is how big of a team would I need, how much up front costs would I incur and what specific coding languages would my team need to be well versed in? I'm thinking HTML, CSS, php, MySQL but are there any other languages needed for this type of endeavor ?
Social Media | | bronxpad0 -
Social channels, tools sites for promoting a blog or article
Hello, I would like to promote blogs, articles etc. Can you give me some tips, advice on how to promote these? I guess everyone starts with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. After that, Reddit, StumbleUpon. Any other good ways (penguin proof) to promote a blog, article etc? Any tools you use: SocialOomph or something similar? Thanks! 🙂
Social Media | | ThomasH0 -
Who to aim an on-site blog at?
I've recently joined a web-development and social media company as their SEO; with an onsite blog which we're trying to resurrect. Previously, the blog has been aimed mainly at either clients ('Why is a website important for your business' etc. - I know, I know) or web developers (quick tutorials on css techniques, for example). The owner of the business recently approached me about the blog posts I'd been writing and said they were too technical and aimed at the wrong people. I'm always open to constructive criticism, but I want to know who a web development, social media and SEO company's blog should be aimed at. I was perhaps assuming knowledge of SEO and web techniques that not his previous readers may not have. However, I don't really think the blog had any significant number of readers before. My argument is to aim it at those in the industry of SEO and social media, as this will garner more links and position ourselves as an authority (people learning from our blog, arguing and contributing their opinion on something). Whereas a blog aimed at clients, while it may attract some search traffic, is less likely to be linked to because they're clients who don't know about linking to content on the web.
Social Media | | SEOboarder0 -
Is it ok to have 'Authors' that write content for multiple sites even if in the same industry?
Hi all, I have a client that has 2 websites (different brands) in the same industry. I have encouraged them to become authors when writing content for each respective website and hook up their Google+ profile to the posts. Is this detrimental for SEO if they are writing for both sites? Or is it in fact a positive thing? Looking forward to your thoughts on this!! Thanks, Elias
Social Media | | A_Q0 -
Top 20 social bookmarking sites
2011, what are the best social bookmarking sites to use for getting backlinks and what are your strategies?
Social Media | | echo10