Is your web designer experienced with getting your website search engine ready? There was a time when the effects of design on search result rankings were minimal, but in the competitive landscape of today, search engines like Google are putting a lot more weight on your business site’s design when they determine where your site shows up in the search results.
How Web Design Affects Your SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) means optimizing your web site for what search engines want to see. This is also an oversimplification, since you need to consider that ultimately, what search engines want is for their users to keep using their search engine. So, when site owners are looking at optimizing their websites for search traffic, they are looking at both what search engines judge to be best, but also what users will like the most.
One key point that search engines judge whether a website is great for their users is by whether the visitor stays on the website. Ultimately, this is what a business owner wants as well. There should be an increase in traffic from sources like search engine results, and then for visitors to explore the website and learn about products or services offered.
When a visitor clicks back to the search result page within only a few seconds of opening a website, this is known as a “bounce”. Every website sees visitors bounce sometimes, but the goal is to keep the bounce rate low. A high bounce rate suggests that visitors are finding a problem with your website.
This is often a problem with the design.
Did the website load too slowly? With so many results back on the search page, few people will wait more than two seconds for a page to load.
Was the design off putting? If the colors on the page were a turnoff or the navigation was too confusing, most visitors will go to find another website. This may seem like harsh judgement, but with so many websites available now, most visitors will look for one that suits their needs. Often, customers don’t trust a business with a website that just doesn’t look great to them.
Is the site readable? It needs to be easy to make out the words on the page both on mobile devices and computers.
Did the design load smoothly on their mobile device? This is an area where many businesses today are turning to web designers for help. If you want to see an increase in traffic from search engines like Google, then you’ll need to have a website that loads great on mobile. Each year, the number of people browsing online on their phone increases. It is where many people make their purchasing decisions. If a site is difficult to load on mobile, both users and search engines will discount it as not worth their time.
Why Business Owners Need SEO Friendly Sites From The Start?
What happens with a website that has an SEO friendly design? Every time a site owner creates a new piece of content, that content is scanned by the search engines and judged for keywords. When the content is relevant, the search engine will drive traffic to the new content.
For business owners, this means they can grow and increase their traffic over time. They have a well-laid foundation to grow their search engine traffic and keep building their online presence.
What happens when a website has a design that doesn’t work for search engines? Every time they create a new piece of content, the search engines first see that the design is poor. No one enjoys coming to this website. Even if the content is relevant with keywords, the search engine will rank the page lower because users find the site design to be an obstacle.
No matter how much work is done on content creation, a website with a poor design will always struggle to rank in the search engines and get that traffic.
Business owners want to have a website that shows up in the search results when customers look directly for them. With a well-designed website, they can also build traffic from new potential customers that are searching for something new. By establishing a strong web design with a designer that understands SEO, business owners give themselves an edge for the future of all their online efforts.
Author bio:
Bryy Herrera is the founder of Herrera SEO & Digital Marketing. His local Memphis SEO Agency was born in Tennessee. Bryy helps small local business owners expand their leads and revenue with expert level SEO and marketing strategies. He enjoys taking on new clients and watching them prosper and achieve their dreams.