Here’s one of my hot SEO tips to drive new organic traffic to your client’s website and nail your on-page optimization process. Start nailing your SEO strategy and beating your client’s expectations.

First, I should probably introduce myself. I’m Becca Luna, a web designer, and educator teaching creatives how to build a successful brand. While this article is aimed at web designers building beautiful sites for clients, just about anyone can use this SEO strategy to increase their organic traffic.

So, you’ve created your client’s dream website. The one with that ‘drop-dead,’ ‘scroll-stopping,’ ‘makes-everyone-instantly-want-to-buy’ look. But have you got the backend to match? Being a good web designer doesn’t mean having the ability to only craft a site that draws eyes; it means having the brains to deliver a platform that achieves goals. 

These days, your dream clients aren’t just looking for websites that look good. They’re looking for ones that make them money. And with over half of website traffic coming from organic search, this is the blueprint you need to nail your SEO skills as a web designer and embed a soundproof organic traffic strategy into every stunning website you create. 

If you want to learn more, check out our blog. Or, even better, you can listen to our podcast.

What is SEO strategy?

First, we’ll start with the basics. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of organizing and outlining a website to make it more likely to appear in search results. Having an SEO strategy implements best practices to make your site more enjoyable for users and more digestible for search engines to earn more organic traffic. 

SEO is an ever-evolving art form. The algorithm gets an update at least once a month, meaning you need to stay updated with the evolving trends to continue your growth. However, no matter what changes are made to Google’s search results, there are always a few guidelines that always work.

If SEO is something you lack knowledge on, you might benefit from listening to our podcast. We talk about organic marketing strategies, case studies of successful designers, and how we’ve built our business. You can listen below.

The Importance of Brand Photo + BTS of my Upcoming Shoot in NYC – Wealthy Web Designer

Join us this week as we sit down with Lo, our creative director, for an insightful discussion on the importance of brand photography for your business. And we will give you a sneak peek behind the scenes of our recent shoot in NYC (and we spill all the secrets and details of the shoot). Tune in for exclusive insights and behind-the-lens stories you won't want to miss!    P.S. If you have not booked a brand shoot yet, this will inspire you to get started!   Become a Wealthy Web Designer for 25% off | Use code: WWDPODCAST Start for FREE → Creative Career Course Get social with Becca Luna & Willow Kai: IG: FOLLOW BECCA LUNA ON INSTAGRAM FOLLOW WILLOW KAI ON INSTAGRAM   TIKTOK: FOLLOW BECCA LUNA ON TIKTOK FOLLOW WILLOW KAI ON TIKTOK Youtube: SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on iTunes, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave a review on iTunes. Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode!

1. The Importance of Brand Photo + BTS of my Upcoming Shoot in NYC 41:58
2. Real Story: My Student Quit Her Job and Makes $10k a Month as a Web Designer 29:41
3. Real Story: Navigating Motherhood While Scaling to $15k Months With Web Design 45:01
4. How To Go Viral On Social Media 38:15
5. Becca Luna Courses: Are they worth it? 24:35

Key SEO Terms You Need To Know

It’s easy to get intimidated by the tech jargon that goes along with SEO. To keep things easy, here is a breakdown of the most common terms you’ll encounter when dealing with SEO.

Our Bulletproof SEO Strategy

Here’s your step-by-step guide to nailing every element of your client’s on-page SEO as a web designer. These are the principles that I keep in mind when designing for my clients and when building my own websites.

If you want to learn more about SEO, you can find some of my content marketing tips right here.

Step 1: Optimize Your Title Tags 

One of the best (and most simple) ways to optimize your site for SEO is with title tags. Title tags are comprised of two parts:

A Title Tag – the title tag is the site title that appears as a blue clickable link

You can optimize your title and meta description by:

1. Incorporate primary target keywords your audience is likely to search—such as ‘Showit website designer.’ Hot tip: free SEO tools like SEMRush and Ubersuggest can help you find the right words to target
2. Ensure your title tag is between 55 and 70 characters
3. Write the page content to be clear and succinctly conveyed
4. Create clickable intrigue with an informative and engaging title
5. View the title tag as the sales hook to draw in dream clients

Step 2: Optimize Your Meta Descriptions

To optimize your meta descriptions, you can:

1. Reiterate your primary target keywords
2. Keep your description between 155 and 160 characters (especially for mobile viewers)
3. Be as descriptive as possible about the page content—without going over the viewable limit
4. Use active language and strong verbs to excite, engage and call your audience to action (e.g. grow, expand, empower)

But what about the content on your page? Next, it’s time to optimize what your users read without compromising on quality or readability. 

Optimizing your meta descriptions won’t help if you don’t have a marketing strategy in mind. Here’s what I recommend.

Step 3: Refine Your Content

As a designer, aesthetics may be your thing—but copy drives design—which means it’s your responsibility to ensure it’s not turning away dream clients OR search engines. Across every page, run through your copy to ensure you’re not breaking any of these must-follow SEO strategy rules: 

1. Avoid a wall of text, regardless, using a maximum of two to three sentences per paragraph.
2. Use headers to organize your content (from H2 to H4)
3. Include internal links (page-to-page) and backlinks (website-to-website) to establish page authority. Hot tip: This could be adding a call-to-action and linking to a specific service page in your latest blog post
4. Leverage anchor text (the copy for your link) by using targeted keywords to describe your links. For example, hyperlink, “click here for the best SEO strategy for designers,” rather than, “click here.” 
5. Make your content skimmable with bullet points, tables, and graphics

And speaking of visual content…

Step 4: Showcase Your Images

Images are another great way to optimize a site for SEO. And a lot of people overlook them. There’s plenty of metadata in images that can be hidden away in the backend. This is the kind of content that takes literally seconds but can revolutionize your site’s organic ranking. 

Here are the top three tips I have:

1. Compress images using a tool that keeps the file size down and the load time fast. Hot tip: TinyPNG is the perfect compressing tool for reducing image size without compromising quality when your client delivers a huge folder of assets
2. Optimize and organize image file names using keywords and this formula: BRAND_IMAGE-DESCRIPTION.png
3. Set alternative text to ensure your stunning site is accessible to everyone while complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Add a short written description of your image (this is called ALT text) in the event it can’t be viewed (while supporting your ranking in places like Google Images)

Step 5: Create an Experience

Most of all, think of the most important person in the design equation. Not you, not your client, but their audience. The more time their audience spends on their site, the more useful and engaging a search engine will view it—meaning more organic traffic—meaning more money!

To ensure the best experience for your client’s audience, it’s important to:

1. Simplify navigation and avoid choice overload with functional and clear menus
2. Prioritize mobile viewing (Showit is perfect for this, since smartphone viewing accounting for 54.8% of website traffic globally). Learn more about what I think about Showit here.
3. Avoid invasive pop-ups and banners that are annoying or prevent the audience from engaging. Instead, opt for subtle, time-bound, easy-to-exit sales tactics
4. Hide any pages or elements you don’t want visible (such as online store categories or password-protected pages). You can do this by indexing your site with Google Search Console. Hot tip: Remember, Google indexes websites by their mobile version, so don’t hide key elements such as images while you’re indexing. 
5. Create legible content that utilizes readable colors, contrast, and font size.
6. Establish an additional, free, valuable content bank that appeases your client’s needs, answers their questions, and contributes to your industry. Hot tip: This doesn’t just have to be a blog. Depending on your industry, it could be an inspiration board, directory, or cross-posted podcast library. 

Our entire goal as web designers is to create an experience for viewers. If you want to learn how you can do this too in a free masterclass, then you came to the right place. You can unlock the secrets to conversion-happy web design with the Design Better, Not Basic Masterclass.