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Access to online platforms like Wix and WordPress can make designing a website seem easy. But what these platforms don’t help you do is optimize your website design for search engines such as Google. A seamless web design goes far beyond just aesthetics. Google prefers websites that are user-friendly over websites that are pretty. So, how exactly does web design affect SEO?
What is SEO & why is it important?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is aimed at increasing the visibility of your website on search engines, such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo!, with the goal of increasing organic users. The end result is an improvement in the quality and quantity of the traffic your website organically gets.
How Does SEO Work?
When you google a question, let’s say “How to Write a Blog Post,” a list will come up with links to websites answering that question. SEO is how Google decides which websites should be ranked first on the results page. Search engines crawl your website and insert what they see into an algorithm to determine how well it relates to the search. Web design that compliments good SEO will help you get ranked on the first page of the search engine result page (SERP).
This is why SEO is so important, even for small businesses. You want to make sure that your website is equipped with everything Google uses to understand what it’s seeing.
5 Questions to Ask When Designing a Website for SEO
1. Does your homepage tell your brand’s story?
When users travel to your site, they don’t want to have to spend time searching for what they’re looking for. That said, it’s important to spend time creating the design and feel of your website. Especially the homepage since this is the first thing users will see. The best designs are simple, user-friendly, and free of flashy animations. Navigation around your site should be intuitive with the goal of keeping users on the page. Search engines like seeing visitors spending time on your site. If you’re having trouble knowing where to start, ask yourself these 8 simple questions.
2. Is your website consistent?
As a business, you most likely have a distinct brand you are trying to convey. The design of your website needs to reflect this. By keeping your branding universal across your entire site, you make your brand easy to identify, develop familiarity, and boost your credibility. Keep the entire website within the same color palette, font sizes, verbiage tone, style of pictures, etc.
3. Have you optimized your content?
Your SEO ranking is influenced directly by the content on your website. Most search engines read the text to figure out exactly how much of an expert you are in your particular field. The content on your website should be written with the use of keywords, LSI keywords, and readability in mind. Your main keywords should have high search volume and low competition. SEO friendly content can be hard to properly complete on your own. So, it may be best to hire an SEO specialist.
4. Are you using internal links?
Internal links help both your customers and search engines navigate from page to page. While internal links are important for users, they are more important for Google. Google uses these internal links to determine how the content on your site is related. It also helps Google know which pages are most important. For instance, your home page should have the most backlinks giving it the greatest link value. The more links leading to a page, the more value that page has in Google’s eyes.
5. Did you do your research?
Research is vital for success. What are other company’s doing that you can do better? When creating a website you want to look at your closest competitors, as well as ones that may indirectly solve your customer’s problem. How are they painting their brand? What kind of verbiage do they use? How is their website laid out? What kind’s of pictures are they using? There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Take what is already working for someone else and do it better. But be careful not to directly copy other businesses or their content. Again, Google doesn’t like that.
SEO Considerations When Building a Website
If your website design is poor, it’s going to negatively affect your SEO. If the copy on your website doesn’t use the right keywords, isn’t written correctly, or has poor readability, it’s going to negatively affect your SEO. When it comes to your web presence, don’t cut corners. The best way to optimize your website for search engines is to hire a professional to do it.
Charley Grey is a web design agency that designs, develops, and manages high-performing websites that get ranked on Google – all for one low, monthly cost. Why should you use a managed website agency? The answer is simple. We’ll keep you up-to-date on SEO, offer full support around the clock, and save you time by doing our jobs so that you can get back to doing yours. Let’s talk about it over coffee, on us. Call (317) 659-1982.