SEO Workshop: The Dance of Branding and SEO

Our team hears a lot about the conflict clients have between staying true to your brand and making good SEO choices on your site. So, here I am today with a new SEO Workshop! We know that we may make some changes to your site that you aren’t too crazy about, but there is often a good reason as to why the change was made. So, for today’s SEO workshop, I’m going to be identifying some of the places branding and SEO are at odds.

Hopefully, this quick crash course will help better explain how these things help SEO, and what to do if you don’t like something we’ve done to your site. Let’s get started with one of the biggest concerns we get…

Heading Headaches: What’s the Deal with H1’s, H2’s, and H3’s?

One of the best ways to help improve SEO is by properly including those big bold headings on each of your pages. H1’s and H2’s, and H3’s each have different specific uses on your page.

Any given page going for that SEO boost should have:

• H1’s: Your title for the page (just one H1 is enough for most pages)
• H2’s: Use these for your main points
• H3’s: Your subheadings for sub-points, like when you have a bulleted list with a word or few sentences, like what I’m typing right now!

These help your page in three big ways. The first is that you’re doing what’s best in terms of accessibility for things like screen readers! These make the page easier to scan, which is also what makes the headings so important for Google. By including these, you are also helping boost your SEO by including keywords you want to rank for when possible, while still helping Google better understand what the page is about. The third and final way is that these headings can be edited. If you don’t like the particular vibe they’re giving off on your page, it’s possible to change it! However, we probably don’t have access to do so.

This may be something you bring up to your website designer, and if you ever see a change made on your page that you don’t like, just let your SEO specialist know! We can explain if something is there for a good reason, such as a heading. Our team is always happy to change things to your liking, but we want to ensure you are making an informed decision. We can help give you the information you need so that your designer can make changes to the font/color/etc.

Text, Design, and Space

Something else that comes up is the issue of text. Although we usually go for around 500-1000 words on a page depending on the area, having a lot of text may not be true to what you’re going for, and that’s fine! So, what do you do if a ton of text doesn’t go with your brand?

The first option is to have more space between sections of text. The less busy the page looks, the better. You can space out the words more, or add in a photo to help space out your text, this dog is helping me do!

 A good principle to follow is making the page as “scannable” as possible. Let’s be honest, not everybody is going to read through an entire page. Turning short summaries of your main content into engaging sub-headings makes it easy for those who might be just scrolling through the page to understand what services you offer, leading to a better chance of them reading more of the page.

The next option is including a “read more” button. Having one under your content helps hide all the text unless they click on it. Having these also allows you to link to other pages of your site if given a proper link, but this is another setting you’ll likely have to talk to your website designer about.

The third option is having less content, but also having more blog posts! Since having less content to work with on service pages can make optimization harder, writing posts that are longer and more specific can really help to balance out your SEO and design needs.

Photos

Having some photos that go with your brand is important. However, we also know that having three photos on every page may not be the layout you want your site. The reason photos can be at odds with the design is because of the optimization we do on them.

We generally suggest three so that the proper alt text and title can be included. This helps not only screen readers, but also lets us include more keywords! However, we understand that this may not be what you’re going for when it comes to design. If so, then we will happily make any changes you might want. We always make sure you are making an informed decision knowing that it may result in a slight disadvantage in SEO performance.

Internal Links

It’s important to have pages link back to your homepage with good anchor text. This also goes for linking to as many key pages of your site as possible. Our team often groups them up towards the bottom of the page. However, there are other ways to add in internal links throughout your page if you so wish! There are multiple alternatives to this, so talk to your SEO specialist about what they might be!

Takeaways from this SEO Workshop

When new clients arrive on your site, you want them to feel comfortable and familiar with your brand. We want to get you ranking well, and covert your ideal clients once they decide you can provide support. To do so, we want to help your get the right balance in the dance of SEO, and design. If you think we’re stepping on your toes, feel free to let us know! We are always happy to follow your lead, and inform you of the why behind our decisions.

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