Search Engine Optimization is more than keywords, meta descriptions, and search engines. Website design goes hand in hand with SEO as much as content marketing and determines what your SEO efforts will yield.
The Importance of Website Design for SEO
SEO mainly deals with recognizing websites on search engines and ranking, while the design is how it looks. If your business is new, then you are probably aware of the importance of website design for SEO. If your business already does online marketing for clients, then you are probably aware of how important it is to have a premium level website design for your business. The first impression you make with potential or current customers is key to maintaining their interest in your products and services. If your website looks outdated, lacks credibility through poor content quality, or shows no attention to detail to provide a pleasant user experience without proper formatting and resources, they will most likely move onto another site they feel is more deserving of their time and attention.
An SEO company will ensure that the right kind of audience visits your website. In contrast, web design services will create a meaningful and engaging experience for the visitor. It may seem they are different aspects of an online presence. But they are parts of the same journey.
A visually appealing website helps strengthen your position in the industry. Impactful web design is based on a good copy because the first impression makes all the difference. People decide whether they like a website or not based on their instinct. Good website design builds trust in your products and services among your audience. The website must be easier to navigate through, even if it’s simple.
5 Ways Website Design Complements SEO
Mobile-Friendly Website
Making your website mobile-friendly is one of the major aspects of an online marketing. You’re doing something very right if you’re catering to your customers on the mobile medium. Google is the most common search engine, and it considers mobile friendliness as a ranking factor since 2105. Smartphones have substituted desktops up to a major extent, and mobile traffic is increasing with each passing day. More than half the traffic comes from mobiles, and if you’re not tapping into that, you’re missing out on a massive audience.
On the other hand, if your website has a high bounce rate on mobiles and tablets, your ranking on Google will tumble. Mobile traffic will become more critical in the coming times. Ensure a great user experience on mobile devices because if not, the efforts of your SEO company will be of no use. If, however, it appeals to the visitors, your conversion rates will increase. Therefore, get the best web design services to improve your website’s SEO.
Straightforward Design
Content takes up most of the time and effort when working on SEO. Nonetheless, content presentation and its impact depend on the design of the website. If your design layout is poor, the content won’t serve its purpose. Instead of adding tons of content with needles hyperlinks placed haphazardly, go with short and sweet content with relevant hyperlinks to improve the audience’s experience. Think about it; what is the point if they don’t get the information they are looking for?
You must have had experiences with cluttered websites that aren’t easy to read because of their structure. It could be the use of the wrong set of colors. On the other hand, the size of the text may be too small or too big presented in a font that’s hard to read. Hard-to-read websites are unlikely to visitors’ interest. The design must be pleasing, and it should make everything easy to read.
Website Speed
Is your website running slow? In case you haven’t considered it, it could be your website design. SEO results are based on website speed, and successful ones always have decent load times. Chances are, your website is slow, and bounce rate is high if your SEO ranking is not great.
Optimize the images, eliminate excessive plugins, and allow browser caching to speed up your site to improve ranking. Your website may be loading on time as per your judgment, but you should know that a website that doesn’t load in two seconds is likely to lose user interest. More than half the users leave if it takes your site more than three seconds. People browsing on the go expect even faster load times, so make sure that time is under two seconds on mobile platforms.
Moreover, page/site speed is also important to search engines based on which pages are indexed. If they are not indexed, they won’t show up on search results at all.
Sitemap
Search engines automatically fetch web pages, and website design can help. A well-structured sitemap helps them “crawl” your website easily and guides through all the pages and content on it. This way, the important pages are ranked higher. It is crucial for your website if it’s new or doesn’t have many external links.
Other than that, sitemaps make it easier for users to navigate through websites without going through random pages before finding the right one. Finally, sitemaps contain essential metadata on web pages that increases their chances of ranking high.
User Trust
Gaining users’ trust is a significant part of running a business and getting a website to rank higher. However, there’s no way to measure how much they rust your website. It can be difficult to change the users’ minds once they form an opinion. When we browse a website, we unknowingly compare them to the websites that offer a great experience. We want a website that’s easy to navigate, visually pleasing, and, more importantly, give them what they’re there for. You must be offering just the products or services they want, but your website has to be able to convey that. Therefore, make sure your web design is flawless.
