Did you know that Google cares about the design of your company’s website? When you hear the term “website design,” SEO is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. For most people, when they hear the phrase, they think of aesthetics and visuals. However, your website’s design does have a vital role to play in Search Engine Optimization. Let’s take a closer look at how design can affect your rankings on search engine sites like Google.
What is Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization is performed on your website to improve your site’s likelihood of showing up on search engines for relevant search terms. Proper SEO gives your website higher chances of getting clicked and viewed. Many SEO factors can impact search rankings, but website design truly affects the optimization of getting your website to be a reliable source for the subject being searched.
Why Does Website Design Matter?
The design of your website can impact how well your website ranks on sites like Google. A few elements that can significantly affect search engine optimization consist of readability, speed, mobile responsiveness, and efficient user experience. We’ve broken down how each one of these elements can impact your website rankings below.
Readability
Although it may seem obvious, you need to have a site that is easy to read and navigate. If the content is cluttered, it can negatively impact SEO. We recommend staying away from tiny fonts, dull colors that don’t complement one another, and colors that are hard to read. The harder it is for users to find the information they are looking for, or the more difficult a webpage is to read, the more likely they will exit the site. You want your website to look aesthetically pleasing while having engaging content that relates to the search.
As a general rule, your brand guidelines document should catch any of the color or aesthetic issues that’ll appear on your site. Let’s take a second to check if your branding affects the readability of your site. Do your colors compliment each other, or are they too bright or too harsh? What about your font families? If you need to rework your brand, check out our Brand Architecture article for guidance!
Speed
Speed impacts a search engine optimization metric, called the bounce rate. This is the number of times that someone visits a webpage and immediately leaves. In order to rank highly in search results, you’ll want to keep your bounce rate as low as possible.
High speed is an element that users demand and search engine crawlers look out for. If your site runs slowly, a user is more likely to exit it right away. Slower-running sites are normally ranked lower on search engines because they can be frustrating to use and may never load. One way to ensure that your site runs efficiently is to remove clutter from your site’s code, and only load what is needed.
Mobile Responsiveness
Websites are no longer just for desktops. All businesses should know how their site looks and is used on a mobile device or a tablet. The more responsive a site is the better experience that a user will have. Search engines look at how long an individual is on a site, so if your site can’t respond on a mobile device, your bounce rate will increase, which in turn may cause search engines like Google to lower your site’s rankings.
A key point here is to test it out and use a website builder that allows you to see how a user views your site on a mobile device. Platforms like Elementor have a unique feature that allows you to view a webpage from a desktop, tablet, and mobile device perspective. Most builders also give users the ability to update aspects of your site to be different within each perspective. By ensuring that your website is mobile friendly, you are able to boost your SEO rating.
Efficient User Experience
User experience is vital for search engine optimization. The easier your website is to navigate, the better it will perform in search rankings. The reason for this is that people visit your site to find something. If the visitor can’t find what they’re looking for quickly, they’ll likely leave.
To help people navigate a page efficiently, you’ll want to use design elements such as clear and concise headlines, visible call-to-action buttons, and proper spacing around elements. Remember, the goal for every page of your website should be to match search intent. You may have the answer to their question, but if it’s buried on a hard-to-navigate webpage, it’s not useful to anyone.
How can we help?
When designing a website, it is crucial to not just focus on the aesthetics. A well thought out web design takes both the user and the search engine crawlers into consideration.
At Fable Heart Media, we take website design seriously. We would love the opportunity to check how your website’s doing on search engines, help with decluttering any code, and simplifying your design to make your site faster, more readable, and responsive on mobile devices!
