Designing and developing fence company websites that not only look great and generate leads, but also perform well in Google search is what we do. It’s not easy — there is a science to it. The majority of fence companies don’t fully understand how SEO and website design are related. It’s understandable, as the topic is complicated.
The technical tasks that the web design team execute are far different than what the search engine optimization team works on, but both go hand-in-hand — if they do not gel together it’s very hard to run an effective online marketing campaign to generate local fence installation leads.
How SEO and Web Design Are Related
Design and SEO work together to push fence company websites to the top of Google’s search results and convert visitors into leads can then be turned into paying customers. Search engine optimization focuses on getting the website discovered on Google while web design focuses on the aesthetics — but the goal is the same: excellent user experience.
When a website gives its target visitors what they want it performs as desired. Google rewards websites that provide exceptional user value and the user converts when they receive what they are looking for.
Our team of fence company marketing experts understands the balance between technical functionality and an appealing user experience.
Healthy SEO and Design Balance is Key
Great SEO will not make up for a poor user experience, and a visually appealing design will not make up for poor search engine optimization. So, what is more important, SEO or fence company website design?
The answer is neither. A healthy balance between the two is key. You need a solid SEO strategy in place to achieve organic visibility, which leads to visitors. The design and user experience is what keeps them on the website once they arrive on it. The longer they stay on the website, the greater the chance is that they convert into a lead or better yet, a customer.
Here are a few important things to keep in mind when it comes to SEO for a fencing company and website design for a fence company.
KISS: Keep it Simple, Stupid
A fence company website that acts as a lead generating machine doesn’t necessarily have to be fancy. In fact, a simplistic design and layout will convert at a much higher rate than an over the top website that features a lot of extra bells and whistles.
The last thing you want to do is distract a potential customer from completing the conversion goal — picking up the phone or submitting a quote request. Many web designers will focus on creating an outrageous design with fancy fonts and animated graphics, but all this does is distract the visitor.
A clean design that is pleasant while also presenting the content in an easy to digest format — from layout to font style and size — works the best. Simple designs also require less coding. Websites that are light and don’t have clunky code load much faster, which takes us to the next point — speed optimization.
Build with Speed & Performance in Mind
As mentioned, the SEO and fence company web design need to work hand-in-hand in order to deliver the results we are after. Website speed and load time plays a big role in Google’s algorithm. It comes back to user experience. Google wants to give its users the best possible options related to their search queries.
If a website loads quickly and has no technical issues, it’s going to be favored over a website that takes several seconds longer to load its homepage and has some broken page URLs in its sitemap.
Coding a website that is simple, as mentioned above, limits unnecessary code and scripts that will use up more resources on the server. If your fence company web design looks great, but takes four seconds to load you are going to see many consumers click-back and find another option.
Nobody wants to wait for a slow website to load. At the very least a website should load fully in under two seconds. Anything longer than that is poorly optimized.
Maintain a Mobile-First Approach
When it comes to fencing SEO Google has made it very clear that they consider mobile-usability before a website’s desktop appearance when it comes to their algorithm. Years ago it was important to have a website optimized for mobile, but the desktop version carried more weight in terms of ranking.
That is not the case now. The majority of users are searching for answers and businesses from the palm of their hand. It’s important that the fencing website design is created specifically with mobile viewing in mind.
From a menu that is easily navigated with one hand/finger, to a font that is large enough to easily read and buttons, forms and calls-to-action spaced out and sized perfectly for mobile accessibility — it all must be taken into account.
Will there be some customers that search for a local fencing company on a home PC or laptop? Of course, but understand that the majority are going to be coming from a handheld device.
Optimize for One Keyword Per Web Page
When mapping out a new fencing web design project, it’s important to know what the main target keywords will be to kick off the search engine optimization effort. All inner pages of the fencing website should target one keyword.
When the SEO team and web design team are under the same roof it allows them to work together. This type of strategy and planning allows for a strong foundational base for faster and long-term search engine optimization results.
When the SEO and design isn’t on the same page from the foundational stage it can result in more time required to get everything aligned. Ultimately this costs more than just time — it’s more costly as well.
Onsite Optimization: Focus on the Small Details
Fencing website SEO consists of two parts — offsite, which we will highlight next, and onsite optimization. Aften also referred to as onpage optimization, this includes things like the page and post titles, the written content, the media such as images and video, URL structures, navigational hierarchy, etc.
There are a lot of little small details that make up onsite optimization, and while they may seem minuscule, in the grad scheme of things all of these little things add up and contribute to something much larger.
You could have a great website design that is technically sound and your offsite link building could be perfect, but if your onsite optimization is lacking you aren’t going to rank. When we do competition research we often uncover weaknesses in their onsite optimization that we are able to take advantage of and make up serious ground.
There is nothing top secret about onsite optimization. Can it be tedious? Yes, especially if the fencing website has a lot of pages, but there is no excuse other than pure laziness to have anything less than perfect onsite optimization across all pages of a website.
Offsite Optimization: Link Building
One of the most important (and difficult) parts of a fence company SEO campaign is link building. Links are essentially signals of trust — an online ‘vouch’ — from one site to your website.
Links are one of the most influential signals that tells Google’s algorithm that your fence website is trusted, popular and a good source of information relevant to the content found on it. So, it’s important that we build links that are trustworthy and relevant.
A single link from a popular backyard landscaping blog is more valuable than 20 links from random websites that have nothing to do with fences. A website that is built professionally and has eye appeal is much easier to build links for. First impressions are everything — whether it’s potential fencer customers or bloggers and website owners we are pitching as part of a link building outreach campaign.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, search engine optimization and web design both need to be on the same page. You need to make sure you hire a fence company marketing agency that understands both aspects inside and out.
We understand how to build websites that convert leads and we also know how to rank those websites at the top of Google, helping your fancy company attract highly targeted leads that turn into customers. If you would like to learn how we can help grow your business online, contact us today for a complimentary consultation.
