Website design is a crucial element of the representation and, eventually, growth of your business. Many business owners put a lot of thought into their website design, and they’re right to do so.
Your website is where you get your leads from, so a poorly designed page can influence the number of your potential customers. While you may think that design decisions are subjective and they naturally won’t appeal to everybody, there are certain principles you should follow to increase the SEO ranking and, subsequently, the number of your customers.
For example, to ensure that your website runs smoothly and will positively affect its visitors, you should choose a reliable hosting plan and provider, like Joomla VPS hosting.
Besides the smooth website performance, other factors can support your SEO ranking. Let’s see what those are.
How does the SEO work in relation to websites?
Search engine optimization involves making your website rank at its maximum organic capacity on search platforms like Google. The higher the ranking – the more visible your website is – the higher the traffic is – the more potential customers you get.
Among things like analyzing keywords and content to give the user the information they’re looking for, search engines measure how users engage with the website. Therefore, user experience is a significant component of SEO. Search engines also analyze metrics like click-through rate (the number of clicks on the page or website link), bounce rate (how fast users leave the page or website), conversion rate (how many users answer the “call-to-action”), and many other metrics parameters.
If you do everything right on the technical side of SEO and marketing, and your user experience proves to be confusing or not satisfying enough, you still won’t get the results you hope for.
It makes sense: the search engines navigate users to your website and on the web, your website is your end product, so it has to fulfill the user’s needs.
Research shows that customers are ready to pay more for a good user experience, so why not create one?
How to build a website to increase SEO ranking?
There are design practices that can increase the SEO ranking of your website. If a user feels satisfied with their experience on the website, SEO metrics will reflect this.
So, here are some common design decisions that can positively affect your SEO ranking:
Balanced visuals
We get that everybody wants to stand out among the competition. Once this becomes the backbone of your design decisions (instead of providing a smooth dive into your brand personality), it can result in visual overcompensation.
Things like too much graphic content, too many colors, effects or ads can make a user confused, instead of engaged. Plus, placing too many elements on a webpage can impact the loading speed, with further user frustration included.
Make sure that the visual aspect of your website is balanced and not overbearing. The bottom line is your website design may be revolutionarily pretty, but it has to be functional.
High page loading speed
We all visited websites that take forever to load, and we all can remember how annoying that is. Thus, page loading speed directly influences the user experience and the SEO ranking.
Besides, page loading speed is one of the crucial aspects of Google ranking.
First, ensure that your hosting provider offers the necessary capacity for your website to run smoothly. Second, ensure you use responsive design practices, meaning your website performance is equally good across different devices. The competitive online landscape demands constant attention to page loading speed, leading businesses to invest in cutting-edge tools for monitoring website performance and ensuring seamless navigation.
Using responsive web design
If you only make a desktop version of your website and don’t put a lot of thought into optimizing it for other devices, be ready for the SEO ranking to drop.
Google uses the mobile version of the website first to optimize the ranking. It’s not surprising, since more than half of website visits are launched through smartphones nowadays. Therefore, if you didn’t put out a mobile version or alternatives, you have already negatively affected the SEO performance of your website.
Since Google uses a mobile-first approach, consider mimicking it: design a mobile version first and then recreate a desktop design. Everybody is on their phones these days, so consider prioritizing a mobile version of your website.
Avoiding intrusive pop-ups or ads
Pop-ups or ads serve the marketing purpose. However, they can be designed differently: some pop-ups or ads will increase the number of your leads, and others will get your website a Google Penalty.
Regarding UX, when a user feels pressured or overwhelmed, they might get straight-up annoyed and leave the website. To avoid this, make sure your ads are as targeted as possible; meaning don’t place hundreds of them everywhere whenever you get a chance; spread them out if you need to. Also, don’t display a pop-up or ad right when the user enters the website; wait some time after entry to do that.
Simplifying navigation
Navigation is a vital element of your website. It allows a user to complete different user journeys intended by a UX designer.
Unless you know for certain that the user will find a way across your website, don’t hide any navigation elements. Also, don’t pressure users to take extra actions like additional scrolls or clicks if it can be avoided. All of it can result in user frustration, which will inevitably affect your SEO rating.
The easier the website is to navigate and the more navigation solutions it has, the better. Make sure you offer users the necessary guidance across your website.
Conclusion
The impact of web design on SEO ranking is profound. So it’s essential to remember the dependence of SEO ranking on your website design when working on each separately.
Remember the mentioned pointers while designing or redesigning your website, and you will see higher rankings soon.
