Does Web Design Impact SEO?
Various factors in the web’s complicated ecosystem affect a brand’s online visibility and success. For instance, search engine optimization (SEO) and web design go hand in hand since user experience has become a significant element in search engine rankings.
As a result, your site’s aesthetics and how visitors engage with it directly impact its position in search engine result pages (SERPs).
Are you searching for a web designer that’ll build or redesign your site with your users and search engine algorithms in mind? WebFX employs a dedicated team of professionals whose sole focus is maximizing your website’s performance in SERPs by implementing the best SEO practices.
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Here’s a preview of what this post will cover:
- Does web design impact SEO?
- 3 primary ways web design affects SEO
- How to create a web design that supports your SEO
- Maximize the effectiveness of your web design for SEO
Does web design impact SEO?
The simple answer is yes! Web design does impact SEO since the two are closely interconnected. It all comes down to user experience and whether your site is user-friendly and favorable to search engine crawlers.
The key web design factors that impact SEO include:
- Core web vitals
- Mobile-first web design
- Website conversion elements
Continue reading to learn more specifics about these elements.
3 primary ways web design affects SEO
1. Core Web Vitals – 2021 Google Page Experience updates
To gauge how a website performs regarding user satisfaction, Google uses a set of indicators called “Core Web Vitals.”
These metrics include:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): The LCP relates to loading time. It measures the time it takes for a page to load from a real user’s perspective. Simply put, it’s the amount of time it takes for most of the content to load after a user clicks a page link.
- First Input Delay (FID): The FID correlates with responsiveness. It tracks how quickly the browser responds to the user’s initial encounter. The responsiveness of the page improves with how quickly the browser responds.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CSL): The CLS is associated with visual steadiness. It examines the loading process for ‘stable’ content to learn the mechanism through which it’s shown on your screen. It monitors how frequently and how much data jiggles while loading.
Google prefers that your site’s navigation and user experience be simple and intuitive. The quality of your Core Web Vital score and your SEO results depends on your web design. A website’s difficulty passing Core Web Vitals is directly proportional to its design and operational complexity.
Pro Tip: It might be best to hire a professional web developer to integrate these elements in a Google-friendly manner by compressing media files, reducing the use of third-party scripts, etc. This way, you can be sure that your website meets Google’s Core Web Vitals.
2. Mobile-first web design
With mobile devices accounting for more than 58% of the world’s website traffic, Google’s algorithm prioritizes indexing a site’s mobile version using mobile-first indexing. Then it saves the results for subsequent use in rankings. If your site is not mobile-friendly, it’s worth noting that web design is already hindering your SEO efforts.
Pro Tip: Always design your site with mobile users in mind from the start instead of trying to fit it within the confines of a desktop screen.
3. Website’s conversion elements
Your website’s conversion elements have a significant impact on your SEO standing and digital marketing strategy. We’ve already established that Google places high value on user experience. Adding these features to your website can improve the user experience and increase your conversion rate.
When you guide your website’s visitors to what they are looking to spend money on, you stand a better chance of converting them into paying customers.
Pro Tip: It’s always best to ensure that the web design includes helpful conversion elements such as phone numbers and click-to-call buttons, brand differentiators, add-to-cart buttons, sticky web forms, and above-the-fold forms.
How to create a web design that supports your SEO
Earlier, I promised to give you the five significant aspects you need to consider to ensure that your site is helping your SEO efforts.
Take a look at the following tips on designing your site to impact your SEO performance positively:
- Build your website on a responsive framework
- Design simple navigation
- Prioritize readability and focus on visuals
- Limit 404 page not found errors
- Get your site up to top speed
1. Build your website on a responsive framework
One of the best web design and SEO practices is designing a site that “responds” to the user’s device. The site must have the ability to adapt its layout and design to the user’s screen size and browser’s screen resolution.
You can use Google’s mobile-friendly testing tool to see if your site is up to snuff in terms of Google’s mobile-friendly standards.
2. Design simple navigation
Your site’s navigation shouldn’t force users to resort to a treasure hunt to get what they want. Regarding SEO, the more URLs they filter through before reaching content that matches their search intent, the worse your ranking position will be.
It’s best to make URLs less complicated, making them easier to type and remember. I would also recommend removing duplicate URLs and restricting the number of categories on the site.
3. Prioritize readability and focus on visuals
In addition to visual elements like colors, fonts, and style, web design includes written words and visuals. Search engines consider relevant and helpful content on your site a vote of confidence.
Your website’s layout should make text easy to read. So, you might need to avoid using small, unreadable fonts, dull colors that merge, and other distracting layout components.
4. Limit 404 page not found errors
When a user receives a 404 not found message and immediately leaves your site to return to the search results page, this action hinders SEO since it tells Google that your site isn’t offering value for a particular keyword query, and Google responds by dropping your ranking position.
5. Get your site up to top speed
The sad truth is that conversion rates will plummet if your website is sluggish. There is a 7% drop in conversion rate for every 100 milliseconds it takes the page to load. Designing a fast website is essential to keeping visitors engaged and improving your SEO performance.
Maximize the effectiveness of your web design for SEO
Looking for guidance on how to revamp your site with Google-friendly optimization techniques in mind?
We’ve built over 1020 SEO-friendly websites, which serves as evidence of our expertise. Check out our web design and SEO service page to learn more, and contact us with questions.