4 Ways Website Design Affects SEO
QUICK! What was the last thing you Googled? Cookie recipes? Movie releases? What was the name of that guy who sang about having a “Bad Day” fifteen years ago??
If you’re anything like us, remembering the last thing you Googled is nearly impossible, given all the things we Google on a daily basis. In fact, the average person conducts roughly four Google searches every day, accounting for more than 2 trillion Google searches every year!
Cookies, movies, one hit wonders – you name it, you’ve probably Googled it. The real question is whether or not you even made it past the first page of search results after typing in that last letter into the search bar and pressing the Enter key?
If you’re a business owner, failing to make that sacred first page of any Google searches relevant to your products or services can significantly impact your leads and sales potential. That’s where a little thing called Search Engine Optimization comes in handy, a digital marketing tactic that works toward appeasing the algorithms that dictate which websites pop up on any given Google search.
If you’re familiar with the wonders of digital marketing, you’re probably aware of the importance SEO has upon your search engine result rankings, as well as overall online presence. But there’s more to successful SEO than performing target keyword research, posting and sharing engaging content, or effective link building.
In fact, one of the biggest factors of determining the quality of any SEO strategy is website design. The way your website looks, performs, and is organized has a huge impact on SEO rankings.
If you’re trying to ensure that your website is ranking as high as it should be, here are four ways website design affects the success of your SEO ranking.
1. Navigation
Poor navigational structure on a website is more than frustrating; it will actively affect your SEO rankings as well. If visitors to your website are having significant trouble accessing your menu bars, reading your text, or finding essential information, such navigational issues will be flagged by search engine crawlers that assess your website’s functionality. The less functional or organized your website is, the less it will rank in regards to SEO.
Inefficient navigation has tremendous impacts on various digital marketing metrics that impact SEO, such as session times, page views, bounce rates, engagement, rates, and lead conversion rates.
Some navigational tips to keep in mind when designing your website can include:
- Installing menu bars that are easy to read, easy to navigate through, and easy to click
- Keeping web page layout consistent throughout all your website’s pages
- Breaking up large blocks of text to ensure visual clarity for the reader
- Adding a search bar to each web page so reader can look for things specifically if they can’t immediately find them
- Using consistent colors and text that are strictly related or applicable to your company’s brand
2. Performance
How your website performs is another essential factor that can dictate your SEO rankings. For starters, it’s essential that your website needs a mobile-friendly design, especially when you consider the fact that more than 54% of all website traffic comes from mobile devices.
Other areas of website performance that impact SEO rankings include:
- Responsive design for all devices (smartphones, laptops, tablets, etc.)
- Loading speeds
- Conversion optimization (contact forms, call-to-action buttons, etc.)
- Custom brand identity and images
- Secure, high-quality website hosting
The better your website performs in all of these areas of performance, the higher it will rank with SEO.
3. Custom Imagery
Sure, incorporating stock photography into your website design is always a quick and easy solution to fleshing out the visuals of your web pages. Unfortunately, solely using stock photos or images that are irrelevant with your brand also have a negative effect on your website’s SEO ranking.
Custom photography or videos do wonders for increasing your SEO scores with search engine crawlers, as it adds more credibility and authenticity to your website. Low quality or pixelated images will also only work toward damaging your SEO rankings, as will using excessive imagery in place of text.
You should also keep in mind that compressed images will rarely impact loading speeds of your web pages, which, as previously mentioned, will reduce your SEO rankings as well.
4. Readability
Last, but certainly not least, the overall reading experience of your visitors is a significant influence on your website’s SEO ranking. From how you choose to layout your text to the colors and graphics that accompany or surround all words, your website needs to be designed in a way that’s easy to read, while maintaining some visual integrity.
For website visitors, the more satisfying a reader experience they have, the more they’re going to stay on your web pages, click around, or engage with your website, all of which have an impact on your SEO rankings.
Some essential readability tips to consider when designing your website are:
- Keep background colors as light as possible
- Always consider larger font sizes or smaller ones
- Don’t get too cute when it comes to choosing fonts; keep them legible and easy to read
- Spread out content evenly and elegantly, with headings, subheadings, or bullet points occasionally breaking up blocks of text
- Imagery should compliment or break up blocks of text, never combine or complicate them
- Shorter sentences and white spaces only work to promote readability
Professional Web Design Services From Triton Commerce
A beautiful website does more for your brand than make it look good; it does wonders for increasing your rankings on relevant search engine results! At Triton Commerce, we offer professional web design services to businesses of all industries to ensure their website visitors have the ultimate user experience.
Contact us today to get started on improving your website and boosting your SEO rankings!