SEO-Friendly Web Design UK

Why SEO starts at the design stage

Most search problems we're asked to fix were baked in when the site was designed. A single services page that lists ten services can't rank for any of them. A slider of stock photos above the fold slows the page and pushes your headline off the screen. A JavaScript menu that search engines struggle to follow hides half your pages. None of these are fixed by adding keywords later.

Search engines also need to reach and read every page. That means real links in plain HTML, content that loads without waiting for scripts, and no important text locked inside images. Getting these right in the first build costs nothing extra; fixing them afterwards often means rebuilding templates.

So we plan for search before we draw anything. We look at what your customers actually type, group those searches into topics, and give each topic a page. That page list becomes the sitemap, and the sitemap shapes the design.

Site structure and on-page basics

• A page per service with its own URL, such as /boiler-servicing/ rather than /services/#boilers.
• Short, readable URLs in lowercase with hyphens.
• One H1 per page that matches the search intent, with H2s and H3s in logical order.
• Unique title tags of roughly 50 to 60 characters and meta descriptions that make people want to click.
• Internal links between related services, so both visitors and search engines can find everything within a few clicks.
• Descriptive alt text on meaningful images, which also helps accessibility.
• Content written for people: answering the questions customers ask, with prices, areas covered and how the job works. Our website copywriting covers this.

Technical SEO we handle in the build

Speed is part of search. Google's web.dev guidance defines good Core Web Vitals as a Largest Contentful Paint of 2.5 seconds or less, Interaction to Next Paint of 200 milliseconds or less and Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less, at the 75th percentile of real visits. We hit those by serving WebP or AVIF images at the right size, setting width and height on images so nothing jumps, loading only the CSS and JavaScript a page needs, and choosing decent hosting.

We also add an XML sitemap, a sensible robots.txt, canonical tags to avoid duplicate content, HTTPS with a single preferred domain, and server-rendered HTML so content doesn't depend on JavaScript to appear. If you sell abroad, see multilingual website design for hreflang.

Structured data with schema.org

Structured data is code that tells search engines and AI assistants exactly what a page is about: your business name, address, opening hours, services and prices. We add it as JSON-LD and choose types that match the page, typically Organization or LocalBusiness on the home page, Service on service pages, BreadcrumbList across the site, and Product with Offer on shop pages.

Markup doesn't guarantee a special listing, and Google decides which rich results it shows, but it removes guesswork. We validate every template in Google's Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator before launch.

Protecting rankings when you replace a site

The quickest way to lose search traffic is a redesign that changes every URL with no redirects. Before launch we crawl your existing site, export the URLs that get traffic or links, and map each one to its new home with a permanent 301 redirect. After launch we submit the new sitemap, watch Search Console for errors and fix anything that slips through.

What's included, and ongoing SEO

Starter websites from £250 + VAT include basic SEO foundations, Google Business Profile setup, Analytics and Search Console. Business websites from £500 + VAT add pages written to rank, full schema markup, local SEO groundwork and Core Web Vitals optimisation. A well-built site gives you the best starting point, but rankings in competitive markets also need ongoing content and links. For a monthly programme, our sister company offers ongoing SEO. See pricing.

What you get

• Keyword and page mapping before the sitemap is final
• Unique title tags, meta descriptions and H1s for every page
• Schema.org structured data validated in Google's Rich Results Test
• XML sitemap, robots.txt and canonical tags
• Image compression, WebP or AVIF, lazy loading and explicit dimensions
• 301 redirect map from your old URLs
• Search Console, GA4 and Google Business Profile connected

Prices and how it works

Websites from £250 + VAT, business websites from £500 + VAT and ecommerce from £750 + VAT. Small changes are £45 an hour + VAT. You get a fixed quote before we start.

1. Free chat

   Tell us about your business, who your customers are and what the website needs to do. No charge, no obligation.

2. Fixed quote

   You get a fixed price and a clear list of what is included, in writing, before anything starts.

3. Design

   We plan the pages and design the site around your customers, then share it for your comments.

4. Build and test

   We build it mobile-first, write or polish the copy, set up SEO foundations and test it on real phones.

5. Launch and hand over

   We launch, connect analytics and Search Console, and show you how to update it. You own it all.

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