Web design is generally thought of only as graphic design, or the way your website looks. But your website is so much more. A good web design incorporates aesthetics as well as marketing strategies. The way your site looks and the way your site is built will both have an impact on your SEO ranking. Understanding how the concepts can affect your SEO is crucial to the success of your site. Here’s how web design affects SEO.
Your Design Impacts Humans And Bots
Every site owner understands the simple truth that the better your design, the better your rankings. But not all site owners know what goes into making a design good or effective. To make your web design good, you need to consider two factors.
Humans
When designing your website, consider how it will impact the human experience. What does a consumer see when they’re on your site? If your layout is confusing, or if your site is broken, users are going to leave your site in search of something better. Design your site with the user in mind. The easier it is to navigate, the longer the user will stay.
Bots
To decide your SEO ranking, search engine bots will crawl your site and emulate user (human) experience. If your site has slow load times, text that is difficult to read, or other issues, the bots will pick up on that and it will greatly affect your rankings. Embracing best practices will help keep both humans and bots happy in their experience.
Good Aesthetics Increase Time On Your Site
Another way that web design affects SEO can be seen in your aesthetics. How your site looks will determine how well it ranks. Poor web design can cause a 38% loss in site users. While content is important and needs to be top-quality, how you present that content can be equally important.
Take into account your formatting as well as other details like color. These considerations will help you design a website that is visually appealing, user friendly, and inviting. This, in turn, will lead to more users choosing your site over a competitor. More users lead to more sales.
It’s worth noting that this plays a role in your SEO as search engines like Google can see how much time people are spending on your site. Websites with a high bounce rate perform poorly, whereas those where the user is likely to stick around will rank higher in search results.
Engine Crawlers Index Your Site
For search engines to access your site’s data, it must be indexed. Engine crawlers go through your site to access and organize information that can later be presented during search results. If your site is difficult to navigate or has major problems with the design, it can impact a crawler’s ability to index.
How To Choose An SEO Friendly Design
Thankfully, some simple tips can help you choose an SEO friendly design and improve your overall rankings. Here’s how you can improve!
Make Navigation Simple
Your website is counterproductive if it isn’t easy to navigate for the user. The quicker a user can find what they’re looking for, the better. Focus on making your site layout simple. Simplifying URLs, clearly labeling pages, and making your site straightforward are great ways to boost the way design affects SEO.
Limit Flash And JavaScript
Flash and JavaScript are both programming languages that engine crawlers have a hard time reading. While they can be effective and certainly have their place, try to limit their use where possible. The easier it is for crawlers to identify critical information, the better.
Focus On Readability
One of the biggest mistakes web designers can make is producing content that is difficult to read. Small font size, weird colored texts and backgrounds, and unusual formats are all ways to destroy your rankings. You may think an odd color is “fun,” but if it limits readability, choose something else.
Optimize Your Images
Be sure you or your web designer takes the time to optimize all images on your site. Minimizing image files will reduce loading times and help increase your overall site speed. Also, be sure to add meta descriptions for all your images to ensure engine bots can read and index your images as well as your text.
Increase Your Site Speed
One of the best ways to boost your SEO via web design is to speed up your site. You can have the best site in the world, but if it’s too slow people won’t use it.
We Can Help!
Effect Web Agency partners with businesses to help them achieve the maximum results from their digital marketing efforts. Contact Effect for your free web consultation.
