3 Ways Web Design Affects SEO Rankings
Most people might think that web design is just a simple combination of graphic design and programming. But the truth is that so much more goes into it. If you want to optimize your website, you also need to hire a marketer involved with the entire process.
Many companies make the mistake of creating their development and marketing teams in silos. That can be dangerous since you’re missing out on many opportunities in the development phase. Web design is not just aesthetics; it’s a combination of different aspects of your online presence.
Your website is where users and potential customers go when they want to learn more about your brand. It’s also your gateway to boosting your search engine results page (SERPs) ranking. Web design can significantly impact your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) rankings, which is why you should know how to optimize it. Begin with creating a web design that is attractive to both humans and search engine crawlers.
How to Optimize Web Design for Effective SEO Efforts
Don’t get us wrong: aesthetics and quality content do matter in a website. However, those are not the only essential factors. You also need to focus on SEO best practices, and how your web design can affect SEO. for that, you need to consider these three things:
1. SEO and Human Experience
A good web design improves your SEO ranking, while a poor design does the exact opposite. It’s necessary to remember that search engine bots mimic human user experience, so if your web design isn’t user-friendly, it’s also bad for search engine bots.
The two always go hand-in-hand in SEO. If you have a poorly designed website, then your human customers will leave. Search engines pick up the timeframes of how long or short users spent on your site. That means that if users leave your site after just a few seconds, that will sink your rankings.
To prevent that, avoid hard-to-read text, outdated site design, and a slow load time. Doing these three only creates barriers between users and your site because they can’t properly engage with it. So, only use good web design practices that are both human and search engine friendly.
2. Visuals and Time on Site
Web design is a way to engage and build the trust of your users. Studies have shown that users will leave a site if they don’t like the design. That means you should always format your quality content with visually pleasing methods to keep users on-site longer. The latter improves both your conversions and your SEO.
3. Crawlers Indexing Your Site
While it’s widely understood that a good web design prioritizes human users, it must also balance the needs of search engine crawlers. Only use crawler-friendly web design practices, such as formatting URLs, content, and images, allowing crawlers to index them more quickly. In turn, that should improve your rankings.
Conclusion
Aside from welcoming users, your web design should also incorporate the best industry practices to help it rank at the top of search engine results pages. In addition, a good web design should not only consider human user experience but also search engine crawlers for better SEO optimization.
United Software Technologies is a custom software development company in Ohio with multiple services. We offer website development, custom software development, mobile software development, web hosting, e-commerce, and web design services.
In short, we focus on producing innovative software solutions for industries and brands of all sizes. If you are in need of web development and other services, we’re perfect for you! Let us help you optimize your site today.
