There is no doubt that the modern world cares about the outer look of the things and the digital sphere can’t simply ignore this fact. Well-designed websites attract more visitors than poorly designed ones. Is it a question of mere aesthetics or something else?
Undeniably, the visitors also pay much attention to the convenience of a website and the ability to find the information they need quickly and easily. It means that your website should be both visually and functionally appealing. That is why great web design implies much more than just aesthetics.
What is more, it should be complemented with other aspects. One of them is SEO optimization. SEO has a significant impact on your online presence. It makes it easier for potential customers and partners to find you across the enormous number of similar products. Including SEO awareness into your draft design plan is a must today. Even if the service you provide is identical to that of thousands of companies, it’s still possible to bring it to the top, using the right and elaborated policy. In other words, making both web design and SEO go hand-to-hand is the right way to succeed.
Contemporary website designers have more technologies available for creating better designs. For the last few years, search engine algorithms have adapted new practices and become stricter on what it takes for a website to gain a high ranking on search. There are some groups of factors that are applied by Google.
Factors for high ranking in search
Page-level factors
This group refers to page loading speed, type of content presented on the page, and keywords density.
Site-level factors
This category points to the fact that the overall content of the site should be informative and logically structured. It also considers the magnitude of the content update. Having a sitemap will be a benefit. All this may contribute to the high site’s usability and lead to a good reputation and positive reviews, which is also a factor.
User interaction factors
This ranking includes direct traffic and the amount of repeated traffic, dwell time duration, pages visited by users per session, and even the number of comments. The most crucial factor in this group is the mobile-friendliness of the site.
SEO is best done along with web design
That is why there are some points to exercise while combining website design practice with search engine optimization:
Content
It goes without saying that the content of your website is a significant part of the issue. Content should be informative, useful, and relevant. Readable and comprehensive information attracts customers. Thus choose the information thoroughly, use keywords, but do not exceed their number.
Image optimization
An important thing is the optimization of all on-site images, as large files slow down the overall load speed. As a matter of fact, low speed worsens user experience and increases your bounce rate. To help search engines see your images and put them into context, use descriptive file names instead of conventional “IMG_253.jpg”.
Another useful point is alt tags. Add optimized alt tags to each image. Such descriptions help search engines determine what is being depicted. What is more, adding keywords to the description will increase the possibility of top ranking. Remember that it’s better to avoid stock images as the content should be unique and authentic to rank high.
Design
The first thing that catches the user’s eye is website design. Poor design urges visitors to leave the website immediately and try another one with a more pleasant look. This increases the bounce rate and consequently reduces the SEO rating. That is why design matters. A good design allows the users to visit your website without any trouble and to find what they need. That way, it’s more likely that they will be converted.
Also, your web design needs to be easy to read. Try to avoid tiny fonts, pale colors that blend in a strange amalgam. Use the color palette properly and implement one style for all pages to create a balanced picture. Appropriate website design will definitely appeal to a big number of visitors and bring you to the top search ranks.
Navigation
Straightforward navigation lowers the chances that your visitors will get confused and leave your site. Therefore it’s reasonable to sort out the information employing content blocks in order to increase the site’s usability. Try to avoid complex layouts, but do not simplify it to be boring. Clean up your navigation, simplify URLs, and cancel duplications to make it easier and quicker for search engine crawlers to get to the point without any barriers and troubles. Easy-to-use navigation makes users stay on the site for a long period and that is the right way to increase dwell time.
It’s also reasonable to provide the users with a sitemap. A new visitor can refer to it for help getting around the website. What is more, a well-put site architecture helps searching engines to organize your content and improve its visibility. Moreover, sitemaps can help search engines to indicate what web pages are most important to your site.
Mobile-friendliness
Google made mobile-friendliness a ranking factor in 2015. What is more, mobile internet usage rates have outperformed desktop usage in 2016. It means that more than half of all web traffic is coming from mobile devices. Contemporary websites should be accessible to various types of devices. It leads to a better position not only on rankings but also within the users’ medium.
It’s better to use a responsive design, because the fundamental point of responsive design is that it automatically adjusts to the format used by the customers, regardless of what device they use – be it a smartphone, a tablet, or a laptop.
Final summary
Finally, if your website is inconvenient and hard to browse, the structure is complex and the content is incomprehensive and not readable, there is a high chance that it will be rejected by a considerable number of visitors. They will leave having a negative impression of your company. This will undoubtedly lower your SEO rank. A well-designed website, on the contrary, boosts SEO. Therefore web design has an enormous impact on SEO.
Photos courtesy of depositphotos.com
