Most users believe that website design and SEO have little to no overlap and have little to no influence on one another.
Yes, they are two distinct things that you cannot imagine going together. The primary goal of web design is for the page to be visually appealing, whereas SEO’s primary goal is for your page to appear on search engines. So, how can they benefit from one another?
Most people are unaware of the impact that web design has on their content and how it is presented.
When working on the design of your website, there are a few things to keep in mind. Some minor details that you may have overlooked can have a significant impact on the SEO aspect.
Everything will become much clearer for you if you dive into Google’s guidelines on what they consider to be a higher rank.
Everyone wants organic traffic to their website and for visitors to stay with their content. Website design and SEO are two little gems that will help you get there.
Let’s dig deeper into this subject.
What is the relationship between SEO and website design?
As previously stated, web design aims to make the page visually appealing, whereas SEO aids in page ranking.
Your visitors will have a positive experience thanks to your web design. They’ll get their fill of eye candy. They will most likely return if they browse the page and find it easy to use (due to the design). And everyone wants their visitors to have a good time on their website.
You may have the product that your customer is looking for, but if your design is poor and navigating your page is difficult, they will most likely leave empty-handed. They want something simple, easy, and clean that can give them what they want quickly.
SEO is in charge of getting your website to appear higher on search engine result pages. The higher the position, the more visitors will come to the site. Keywords are revolutionary!
Why don’t they succeed if they don’t work together?
What is the point of having a great design on your page if you won’t appear on the result page?
When your SEO game is on point and someone visits your site and notices the clean design, they will most likely return for more information.
Because web design and SEO are intertwined, the people who work on them when creating your website should collaborate as well.
Don’t make the stupid mistake of hiring SEO expert after your web designer has completed their work. These two skills are so dissimilar that it is unlikely that anyone can do both equally well. It is preferable to hire an agency that has a design and SEO team because they frequently collaborate.
You will, of course, collaborate closely with the design team to lay the groundwork and chart the course of action.
Designers typically use HTML and CSS, but some use Flash, which is difficult to optimise. Your website will struggle to rank if it is not optimised. So, make sure to instruct your designer to use HTML or CSS. Your SEO will be grateful.
Mobile-Friendly Website Design
As more people use mobile devices to access the internet, you should consider this when designing your website. Your website should be mobile-friendly because not only will it provide a better experience for your visitors, but it will also help you rank higher because Google uses mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor.
The best way to accomplish this is through responsive design, which means that your site is well-suited for all devices and runs smoothly on desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones. It does require a few HTML and CSS code changes, as well as some WordPress development, but given that your traffic is coming from a variety of sources (especially mobile), it’s well worth the effort. If you have a separate mobile site, you will have duplicate content issues. That is why responsive design is preferable because it eliminates this issue.
Nowadays, devices come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Screens on smartphones, tablets, and laptops all differ. That is why you need a responsive design. Nobody enjoys zooming in and out on a website; it’s inconvenient.
Images
There is much more to it than simply uploading a photo related to the topic. All websites contain images by definition. It’s a big no-no to have just a paragraph without a picture. In any context, people appreciate visual representation. And, guess what, you also need to optimise your images.
When saving photos to your computer, give them appropriate names. Because you will upload it to your site and image search is popular, give it a name that is related to the image and topic.
Someone will look for a picture of a cup of coffee, navigate to the images tab, find your image, and visit your website. That’s how you get a visitor who might stay. Names like img9284487 will not get you there.
High-quality photos are wonderful, but your designer should remember to reduce their size. It will slow down your page if it takes up a lot of space. The bounce rate from your site will then increase, resulting in poor rankings. Because you can edit your blog images online, you can easily avoid this with a few simple steps.
ALT tags are something else that is related to your images. When your visitors hover their mouse over an image, these little gems will help them see the description. These descriptions will also assist search engines like Google in determining what is in the photo.
URL
Each page on your website should have its own URL that describes the content. They must be separated by hyphens, and you should most likely include some relevant keywords.
It’s also worth noting that you should shorten your URLs as much as possible, especially for articles. “How-to-Do-Your-Images-Justice,” for example, can be shortened to “Do-Your-Images-Justice.”
Descriptive words, like photos, will help search engines understand your page. Your website will not benefit from random numbers and letters.
JavaScript and Flash are both traps.
Although JavaScript and Flash provide some exceptional design possibilities, they also pose a threat to your rankings. Because search engines cannot read or rank this type of content, incorporating it is something to avoid at all costs.
Making interesting designs with them is still encouraged, but mixing them with important content should be avoided because you will lose the ability to rank it.
Website Performance
The speed of your website is important for ranking higher on search engines because Google will not recommend you if your site takes a long time to load.
A slow-loading page causes your visitors to leave quickly without intending to return.
You might be surprised to learn that if your site takes more than three seconds to load, nearly half of your visitors will leave. This includes not only desktop visitors, but also mobile users. Mobile users, in particular, do not have time to wait. As a result, make certain that you select the fastest WordPress hosting for your pages and content. As a result, ensure that your page is hosted on a reliable server.
Your web design influences your speed. You can speed up your site by removing outdated plugins, optimising your images, and so on.
Plugins can help your site be the best of the best, or they can be your worst nightmare. Outdated plugins can cause your site to load slowly. However, if you update them and your site goes haywire, you will require assistance. The update cannot be reversed. WP Reset is a tool for saving your page. It allows you to return to a time when everything was fine with a single click. It’s your own personal time machine.
Making Sitemaps
Extensible Markup Language (or XML for short) sitemaps serve the primary purpose of displaying a list of URLs that search engines can easily read, making indexing your content much easier. In terms of design, creating a sitemap will vastly improve your navigation, which is, of course, a critical component for users in order to simplify the process of finding specific sections on your website. The easier it is to access your content, the more likely they will stay and read it rather than clicking away if it is too cluttered and disorganised.
The beauty of sitemaps is that search engines will be able to recognise the most important content on your site much more easily, allowing even larger sites to have precise crawlers on all of your website’s individual pages.
Conclusion
Yes, website design and SEO are two distinct skills, but they complement one another more than you might think.
This combination is the most effective way to attract and retain visitors to your website. Taking care of both will undoubtedly be a game changer for your website.
With creative web design solutions, Aiwa Digital has been assisting businesses in creating a strong digital footprint in a competitive marketplace. Our web design and development team provides a variety of services to assist your company in capitalising on the enormous potential of the digital landscape.