If you are an online business owner, you should be well aware that website promotion is an ongoing task and it is impossible to reach the top ranking overnight. However, you can significantly increase your website’s SEO performance and success by paying double attention to its design and making it SEO-friendly. So, how SEO and web design are interconnected, and how to make your website SEO-friendlier with the help of the design? Let’s find the answers together.
What’s The Main Problem with SEO-Friendly Website Design
At a first glance, the concept of SEO website design makes no sense. Usually, SEO and web design are perceived independently from each other, and for the major part of web projects, it becomes the main obstacle to successful promotion. What’s more, the researchers also agree that web designers rarely take SEO considerations into account when creating design solutions, thereby depriving the future website of the opportunity to be better promoted by Google.
But get us right – we aren’t about blaming the designers. Usually, they are mostly guided by modern design trends and users’ expectations, while these practices are also right to some extent. However, there are no more or less important factors in web development – trends, user expectations, visual aesthetics, and SEO requirements are equally important for creating the user-friendliest website that will be appreciated by users and search engines.
How to Make Your Web Design Work for SEO
So, what makes an SEO-friendly design, and how your website design can help you with boosting your SEO performance? Discover some of the tips and best practices below.
Check Your Page Downloading Speed
The first thing to get started with is to check your website loading speed and make sure it doesn’t exceed 3 seconds. How website speed and design are interconnected? The matter is that if your website is heavily overloaded with visuals, the page will download slowly, affecting the user experience and the bounce rate.
The latter is one of the most important user behavior factors that directly influence your SEO performance. The higher the bounce rate (the indicator that shows how many users abandoned the page before it is fully downloaded), the fewer chances of promoting your website to the top.
Prioritize Mobile Experience
In addition to speedy websites, Google highly appreciates mobile-optimized ones. The amount of mobile traffic grows steadily so you can’t ignore the mobile users’ expectations anymore. There are two solutions to the issue – you can either develop a mobile version of your website or bet on the responsive design. The second option is more affordable and easier to implement, and as a result, you get a website that automatically adjusts the UI depending on the browser, device and screen size it is accessed from.
Follow Modern Web Design Trends
Following modern web design trends is also important for your SEO performance. At a glance, there is also no visible connection between SEO and design trends, however, it lies on the surface. Try on the user’s shoes and decide whether you will interact with a website that looks outdated. Indeed, websites with outdated designs don’t inspire trust and credibility, and that’s why they also usually have a high bounce rate, even if the page downloading speed is fast.
However, don’t follow the trends for the sake of trends. Your website design should still be balanced and visually attractive but more on this in the next section.
Strive for Visual Aesthetics
Your website design is directly responsible for making the first impression that is always visual. Indeed, the user decides on the future interaction (or website abandonment) in a few seconds, so you will have only one chance to make the first impression right. To follow these recommendations, it is enough to attract attention with a single catchy picture. This is especially important for online stores, portfolios of photographers and other goods and services with a visual component. To create high-quality visual content, images are usually processed in Photoshop – photo retouching services are used, or the services of professional photographers.
That’s why you have to strive for visual aesthetics, keeping the psychology of color in mind, the specifics of the business and the industry-accepted UI/UX standards.
Ensure Effortless Usability
Your website usability is another important factor on the verge of web design and SEO. The matter is that websites with poor usability can’t ensure long dwelling time – the users just abandon them being unable to find the necessary information or perform the target action. At the same time, user dwelling time is another important behavior factor for SEO.
So, make sure that the users are able to get to the necessary sections effortlessly, all CTA bottoms are working well, the website has no bugs and design issues, and the content is structured clearly and logically.
Examples of Websites with SEO-Friendly Designs
Let’s proceed with taking a look at the websites that managed to combine the best web design practices with SEO friendliness.
HubSpot
HubSpot is famous for the top-value content they create, and this is one of the greatest practices to follow for the best SEO performance possible. From the design perspective, pay attention to the way of content delivery and presentation. Despite having multiple content blocks on the home page, they all are easy to perceive, mainly because of the white space and clear structure.
HotJar
HotJar is a website behavior analytics solution and their website is also worth attention in the framework of our discussion. They also leverage a lot of white space, and use the same-style graphics plus engaging animations to keep the users on the main page.
The Design Is Important – But Not the Only Factor for Website SEO Performance
Having a great design solution at the heart of your website is essential for great SEO results. However, there are some more things to pay attention to for skyrocketing your SEO performance. Let’s take a quick look.
- SEO-optimized content. Delivering great content that is optimized according to the best SEO practices is essential for making your website better discovered on Google and delivering value to the users, which, in turn, will show positive behavior factors when interacting with your content.
- High-quality do-follow backlinks. The presence of high-quality do-follow backlinks is one of the ever-green Google ranking factors. There are different link building strategies to try. Guest posting is the battle-proven one, so consider getting valuable backlinks with the help of this tactic.
- Local SEO optimization. If you have a local business, making your website optimized for local queries is one more task you have to deal with. To become better findable according to geo-specific queries, consider adding location-based keywords to your content but do it as organically as possible.
Conclusion
Website design and SEO are directly interconnected. While the design isn’t the only factor that influences your SEO performance, having a well-designed website is essential for successfully promoting your project on Google. Follow the tips we have shared in this article for robust SEO performance and great user behavior patterns.
FAQ
1. Why is the design of a website important?
The website’s design is important because it makes the first impression which is always visual. At this very moment, the users decide whether to interact with the website further, while the bounce rate is one of the most important behavior factors for SEO.
2. How web design affects SEO?
Web design affects SEO directly. It influences the bounce rate and page dwelling time, which are essential behavior factors for SEO.
3. How to design an SEO-friendly website?
To design an SEO-friendly website, you have to follow modern web design trends, write clean code, and pay attention to technical SEO optimization. Having a well-developed mobile version is also essential for an SEO-friendly website.
4. Why is SEO important for small businesses?
SEO is especially important for small businesses since organic search discoverability is an opportunity to generate qualified leads at no additional cost. SEO optimization also works great for brand discoverability, recognition and awareness.
5. What are the main website design mistakes to avoid?
Indeed, there are a lot of pitfalls you have to avoid with your website design. It should never be obtrusive, while the UI should be intuitive and clear. Having a mobile version is also a must for successful SEO promotion. The website design should follow a single style and reveal the brand identity as well.
6. What are the best SEO practices to follow in 2023?
The best SEO practices to follow in 2023 are to create top-notch and SEO-optimized content, plus build a backlinks pool. The latter is especially important for strengthening your content credibility in the opinion of search engines and making your website better discoverable in organic search.
7. What are the viable ways to improve SEO performance?
Get started by revising technical SEO requirements and making sure your website is compliant with them. Next, revise the content, and optimize it with keywords. Also, pay attention to the design following the tips we have shared in this article.
8. What does the best-performing SEO website look like?
The best-performing website is the one that comes with awesome and well-thought-out design, delivers valuable content, has a clear code and is optimized technically.
