Does Design of Your Website Affect the SEO: Know the Right Answer

In this competitive era, it has become important for businesses to own their online presence and also be active on the internet to let their potential users find them. Therefore, the requirement for efficient Search Engine Optimization (SEO) rises as it helps in standing tall among the possible competitors and also provides you a higher position in the search engine rankings when your potential customers are searching for your services.

Most Basic Block of Online Identity: Own a Website!

Websites are the most basic block for businesses looking to own their identity online. According to reports, over 4.33 Billion people were active on the internet until July 2019. Therefore, the internet provides us with an excellent global platform to reach the global masses out there. Therefore, most of the businesses looking to reach maximum audiences out there opt to own a website that promotes their business services and also helps them mark their own name in the list of businesses around the world. 

How Much Does Website Design Weigh?

Are potential audiences being directed to you from search engines directly? That’s awesome! However, when it comes to developing a website, the first-ever concern to cross the minds of any business owner must be the design of it. As your customers are being directed to your website from any search engine or any other source, all they are looking for is the answer to their query. Therefore, it is important for you to not only provide them with the right answers but also, you should present it in a way that delights their eyes and convinces them to return there again.

Therefore, the keynotes to remember here are:

Choose an excellent theme for your website.
Ensure the design of your website delights the eyes.
Make sure to use “simple but useful” design approach.
Ensure the flow of content is accurate to provide sufficient information to viewers.

Search Engine Optimization: A Bird’s-Eye View

Search engine optimization is an essential part of internet marketing. It basically helps your website rank higher for a specific keyword or phrase that your potential customer enters when looking for services similar to yours. And according to research, 50.1% of the traffic of website traffic still comes from the organic search. (source)

Therefore, it implies the requirement for implementing good SEO strategies that can lead your way to ranking higher in the search engine results and also it helps in increasing the traffic to your website and ensures the relevant traffic is visiting it by following the appropriate keyword phrase. As SEO ensures maximum traffic reaches your website, the website design plays a major role in gaining the attention of viewers. 

How is SEO and Website Design Interconnected?

As search engines verify and analyze every website on different aspects before deciding their positions on the result pages, website design is taken into consideration. According to reports, Google holds 76.06% of market share in the search engine market and hence it becomes vital for website owners to lift their website position up in the widely used search engine Google. 

And as Google keeps on changing its search engine algorithm, it becomes necessary for you to update your strategies accordingly. However, Google considers the code and the standards followed by your website as one of the important criteria when ranking a website in pages. Therefore, the design of your website is required to be done in a way that enhances the user experience provided and also which satisfies all the criteria set by Google.

The same goes for the content on apps that should be optimized for SEO. This can be achieved by mobile app development company that specializes in the SEO activities. Here are some essential aspects to remember when designing your website to ensure it keeps the SEO intact and helps you rank higher in search engines.

Website Speed

The speed at which a particular page load decides whether a user stays on the page or not. As in the fast-paced world, every user demands the website to provide the essential content in lesser time, the page loading speed is subject to be higher as it is one of the important aspect kept in consideration when Google is ranking a website.

According to reports, 47% of website viewers aspect a website to load in less than 2 seconds. Also, taking up more time than required for loading a page disappoints the viewer and results in lower lead conversion. Therefore, website speed is required to be maintained as per the standards to ensure the best results are obtained.

And as website design plays a vital role in affecting the website speed, it is required to be done in a way that brings out positive effects only. Having said that, here are some tips to follow to improve your website speed by choosing the right design:

1. Avoid using too much media and large-sized files as it lags your website behind and takes up much more time to load.
2. Reduce the use of flash plugins as it affects the page loading speed.
3. Do check your website’s loading speed continuously to ensure there are no lags!

To Pop Up or Not to?

Pop-ups are one of the best ways to keep the users engaged and updated about the information you want to provide extensively to them. For example, you can ask a user to sign up or log in with displaying a popup when they visit your website. However, there has to be a limit to keeping the popups. As the excessive use of it leads to degrade in user experience and also many may find it annoying!! Therefore, it is advisable for you to ensure the popups are included but in a limit to avoid annoying your customers.

Focus on Layout

If your users are viewing your website and searching through for retrieving required information, it is important that you provide them with the excellent layout to follow and it improves the user experience also. Hence, the layout is required to be designed accordingly to ensure it doesn’t generate a negative impact on your SEO strategies. Some pro tips to sharpen your website layout are mentioned below:

1. Aim to create excellent visual hierarchy. i.e., give importance to the vital elements and make sure they are arranged and highlighted correctly on the website.
2. Headline Must Make Sense. ( Prefer using the target keyword in it)
3. Try to cover important content before the average fold hits.

(Average Fold- Average fold is the line until which the user can see the website without scrolling down.)

1. Do not put many call to action phrases at the top.
2. Stick to aesthetic but clearly beautiful and informative design.
3. Do not forget to follow common standards. Different (rather call it- Weird!) is not always beautiful, but the standard will work its best!
4. Be extra careful when changing the background color on the same page. As it can either produce the best results or your viewer might stop scrolling down more!
5. Try something else than rotating sliders! They take up very much load time and also distracts viewers from the actual point.
6. Prefer keeping your content exposed. As most of the users on your website are scanning for the content, using tabs and hiding content might cost you lower lead generation.

Ensure Your Website is Responsive

The Internet is accessible on many devices now. Also, smartphones have done great progress in the technical market and the number of smartphone users is increasing rapidly. According to Statista, the number of smartphone users has achieved a great peak of 3 Billion and is increasing by leaps and jumps. Therefore, it is required for you to make your website fit every screen and resolutions well in case your users are viewing it from different devices. Hence, adding responsiveness to your website helps it fit in and also adds up a point in your account when Google is analyzing your website for ranking in the search engine result pages (SERP). 

Content Quality Matters the Most

As the users are looking for helpful information on your website, the content you place and the way you place it matters. Including relevant content on your website is necessary to add up the ranking keywords and to let Google know the objective behind the page you have created. Also, the content quality must be preserved in order to impress your users by providing information according to their needs. Here are a few points to remember when adding content in your website’s pages:

1. Always aim to provide on-the-point content. Do not play with the length of content. Short is better if all necessary information is contained in it.
2. Do not forget to highlight the keynotes from your webpage’s content. If users are looking for a specific answer, it makes it easier to find and also improves the user experience.
3. Work hard on content quality. As generating and including better content can earn backlinks for you, as the viewers finding your content helpful might mention your page in their content elsewhere. This significantly improves your SEO.
4. Again, ensure the headings you use for the content are meaningful and directive to let the reader understand and find their required information easily.
5. Be Clear. Avoid using words that may lead to confusion or even avoid using jargons if possible. It might make you look smart, but it certainly makes your viewer feel dumb. Therefore, just try to keep it simple and clear enough to let your readers understand what you are trying to convey.

Navigation

Structuring out your website is important. As your visitor might want to navigate the website to find more information, the path you provide to them is important and your website should be designed accordingly. Intuitive navigation helps the users find their required information easily and improves the user experience you provide to them through your website. It also affects your search engine rankings as Google checks to ensure your website is fit to provide excellent user experience and ranks your website accordingly.

Therefore, navigation also plays a vital role in improving SEO and also being one of the crucial parts of website design, it is required to be done efficiently. A continuous flow of the website helps your user efficiently navigate the website and also causes the user to stay on the website for a longer period of time.

Heading Tags

Let’s move to technical. Heading tags (H1, H2, H3) are included in the website are created to differentiate sections and helps the users to understand the content flow and make information retrieval easier. Also, these heading tags are considered by Google to remember and understand what the inner content is all about and hence it is required of you to include appropriate heading tags and make it easier for Google to understand your website content and improve SEO with including appropriate and catchy headings that impress your users as well.

How Much Does CMS Help?

CMS (Content Management System) is proven very much useful when you are not belonging from a technical background. It helps you gain control over the website of yours by helping you manage every section of the website with drag and drop features and eliminates the requirement for coding. For example, you can use plugins to integrate necessary functionalities on your website rather than requiring to hire developers who can code and add it to your website for you. The plugins offered for CMSs are free also to provide you a pocket-friendly way. Some of the popular CMS’s are WordPress, Wix, Joomla, Magento, Drupal and many.

According to reports, WordPress holds 61.1% of the market share, which indicates that many of the websites prefer using WordPress as their CMS. And it is followed by Joomla and Drupal accordingly. And also, it has been noted only 43.7% of websites do not use CMS, while the majority prefers using CMS one way or another and the list has Microsoft on it also!! (source)

Conclusion

It has been established very well that website design performs a major role while ranking your website higher in the results and affects the SEO also. Therefore, keeping all the necessary criteria in mind, you should be able to craft an excellent design that helps your business and website reach the highest position in the market where the competition is becoming brutal. In order to ensure your users are provided with the best, you must focus on improving the design according to their requirements and the latest market trends to generate leads and earn profits and popularity.