How Web Design Affects SEO

Modern businesses are heavily affected by search engine rankings. Climbing to the top of these rankings can help to make your business’s website more visible online. This encourages an increase in web traffic and expanding your client base.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a technique that is used to help increase the ranking of your website. SEO includes the use of keywords relating to highly relevant search queries and optimised content. It also involves good web design.

Website design has a huge impact on your business. As your virtual storefront, your website provides the first impression that potential clients get of your business. You only get one first impression, so make it a good one.

This article will look at what web design and SEO are, and how good web design can affect SEO. Take a look now to learn more.

What Is Website Design And What Does It Include?

Web design is the process of creating and building a website. Web design usually refers to the parts of the website that can be seen, but it can involve all aspects of web development.

Website design includes everything from the layout and colours you use to the font type and size to the navigation on your site. Good web design ensures that your website is easy to use and is attractive to your customers.

A quality website is reflective of the high standards that your business operates to and can build a sense of trust between your clients and your company. Web design is integral to the success of your business. So investing in a good website design service is always in your best interest.

What Is Website Design And What Does It Include?

Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is essentially improving your website to help it climb search engine rankings. It is used to increase the visibility of your site which helps to draw in customers.

Search engine optimisation includes the use of keywords relating to search queries, optimisation of meta titles and descriptions, the use of relevant imagery, and good site maintenance.

Good SEO helps you to improve your organic ranking which can be better for your business than paid ads. Investing in SEO services from a specialist could help you to improve your business’s growth.

How Does Web Design Affect SEO?

Website design affects SEO in a few different ways. Below we have summarized these ways for you to peruse.

Navigation

We’ve touched on how navigation can affect your site and the customers that engage with your content briefly, but this aspect of web design actually has a huge impact on SEO.

Easy navigation is essential to a good user experience. If a customer logs onto your page and cannot find what they’re looking for, they’re much more likely to log off the site and find another where the information is more easily accessed.

Streamlining your navigation and ensuring that your customers can find their way through your site, with easy links to important pages, is essential for keeping customers on your site. The bounce rate – the rate at which users log back off your site without taking any action – has a huge impact on SEO.

Improving your website navigation can help to reduce your bounce rate which in turn improves your Google search ranking.

Great ways to improve navigation include a simple main menu with easy to understand headers and a search bar that is easily used and accessed.

Page Not Found

Ensuring that all of your pages and links work correctly can enhance the usability of your site. Anyone logging onto your site is going to jump back off if they find that the pages they need don’t exist.

While ensuring links are working correctly falls under website maintenance too, it is essential in the designing stages to create working links to pages that are filled with quality content.

Loading Speed

There’s nothing worse than a slow website! And slower loading websites are more likely to be lower in the Google rankings. To reduce your loading speed you could try using small image sizes, compressing files, and upgrading your website hosting services.

Images

Quality content includes highly relevant imagery. Websites that use quality, optimised content that includes imagery can climb the search engine rankings easily. However it is important not to overload your website with images.

It is also important to use keyword-rich alt texts on images you use on your website. This is because, while search engines do not recognise images, the alt text can help your site to be indexed for certain words. The alt text will also load if the image doesn’t.

Reading Experience

When building a website, you want to ensure you’re building a site that is readable and full of high-quality content. Make sure that all of the content is relevant to your site and increases the value of each page.

You should also consider everything from the typography to the layout to the background colour to ensure it is easily read by everyone. Never sacrifice good readability for a cool looking theme!

The more readable your site, the more your website will improve in the search engine rankings. It decreases your bounce rate and increases the engagement of visitors to the site. Readability is key to a visible website.

Mobile Adaptability

Many, many people now view websites on their phones, tablets, and other smaller screens. This means that your site needs to transfer well to these screens too. When building your website, ensure that the layout and navigation don’t become garbled if it moves to a smaller screen.

It is important that your site is accessible to all as it will help people to stay logged onto your site and engaged. Remember that the longer someone stays on your site, the more likely they are to take action, and the better your site will perform in organic search rankings.

Final Thoughts

The way you design and build your website has a direct effect on your SEO strategy. You need to create your site with SEO in mind. Consider the usability, readability, and accessibility of your site when you design it to ensure that you’re getting potential clients onto your site and keeping them there.