How web design affects your SEO?

7 min readJul 26, 2021

Web design practices are also important in today’s SEO world. The user experience has evolved into a critical ranking element for search engines. As a result, the look and feel of your website, as well as how users interact with it, have a direct impact on its search engine rankings.

A well-designed website is the first step for any online business, and SEO is a critical component in expanding your business and reaching your target audience. To successfully enhance traffic and increase website traffic, proper approaches are required. Though beautiful design impresses users, there are specific ways in which a website’s design influences SEO success.

We’ll go through a few web design practices that can have a direct impact on a site’s SEO performance in this blog post and also the tips to improve it.

Navigation Structure of the Website

The average page load time, bounce rate, engagement rate, and conversion rate are all affected by the navigation structure of your website. These elements contribute to greater revenue and earnings as well as improved search ranks in search engine results pages.

If consumers can’t find what they’re looking for on your website or don’t know where to go next, you’ll lose them and lose a lot of money.

Also Read: How to make use of WordPress with React?

Here are a few tips to create a good navigation structure:

Keep the primary menu as minimal as possible. To avoid misunderstanding, keep the menu to a bare minimum.
In the primary menu, avoid using complicated or technical jargon. Instead, utilize terms that are recognizable to you.
On all web pages, make sure the main menu is visible and easily accessible. If necessary, make it sticky at the top of the page.
The menu must be as accessible as possible on smaller mobile devices.
Add a search bar to your website so that visitors can quickly discover the page they’re looking for.
Make sure each web page’s URLs are clear, simple, and descriptive. By looking at the URL of a web page, the ordinary user should be able to accurately guess where he is going.
It’s just as vital to include descriptive anchor text for internal links on your website as it is for URLs.

It’s a balancing act to create a well-designed and innovative navigation menu that also supports a website’s SEO strategy. To develop something user-friendly and intuitive, you may have to compromise part of your creative vision.

404 Page:

If a person finds a 404 error page, it is safe to assume that he will leave your website. The ‘404’ error appears when a user reaches a dead end due to a broken link or a website that no longer exists.

You can, however, turn it into a user-friendly page that encourages users to stay on your website with a little ingenuity and strategy. Here are some suggestions for making your 404 pages work for you and your SEO strategy:

Use a unique design rather than a generic one. Create an engaging and attention-getting 404 page by using your imagination.
Make it clear that the user has clicked on the erroneous link or that the page does not exist.
Add a search box to your 404 pages to provide visitors another option for finding specific information.
On the 404 pages, include the most important web pages and encourage visitors to visit them.

Although it is ideal to have no dead links on your website, it is hard to eliminate the risk of a 404 error. The 404 pages can be triggered by a website user manually typing the erroneous URL, for instance.

As a result, you must prepare for it by designing a one-of-a-kind but useful 404 web page. This will allow you to retain your visitors on your website longer, reducing bounce rates and improving on-page time. These good signals will aid your search engine results in the future.

Also Read: How to revamp HTML website to WordPress Manually or Automated

Website Loading Speed:

The speed with which your website loads is a significant component in search engine rankings. The design of your website can have a significant impact on how quickly your pages load.

Check the loading speed of your website with our free tool. In an ideal world, your website should load in less than one second.

So, how to improve the loading speed of the website, here are some tips:

Reduce the size of your CSS and JS files.
Use compressed images (see the next paragraph for more on images!)
If at all possible, use a CDN.
Reduce HTTP requests as much as possible.
Redirects should be used as seldom as possible.
Make use of a caching service.
Improve your web hosting service.

Images, Image Size, and Alt text:

Almost every website makes use of images.

Images that are relevant and appealing can boost your website’s average on-page time and engagement rate. Using a lot of images, on the other hand, may cause your website to load slowly, which is a major issue. A slow-loading website is bad for search engine rankings, as we just mentioned. What if your images don’t show up at all? What will the users see in that case?

Few tips to follow when using images:

Include important keywords in the image titles.
Make sure each image you use has meaningful and keyword-rich alt text. Because search engines can’t read images, they rely on alt text to decipher and index the images for specific keywords. When an image fails to load, the alt text is also used.
Compressed images are essential for reducing server load and increasing site load speed.

Pop-ups:

Pop-ups appear on many websites as soon as a search engine visitor lands on the page. For two reasons, this is a bad practice:

The first is You’ve lost your credibility. While you’re displaying advertising and pop-ups, that user is browsing for information, and the second one, if the visitor sees the pop-up right away, they may become frustrated and leave your website. This provides a signal to Google that your website’s position on the search engine results page may be unsatisfactory to users. If your page isn’t a perfect match for that term, as this negative signal suggests, Google will likely demote it in the SERPs.

Pop-ups should be used as little as possible. Consider utilizing an exit-intent pop-up that only appears when the user is ready to leave the website to promote an event or a free lead magnet.

Reading Experience:

It is, without a doubt, the most important aspect of your website design, since it will have a big impact on the effectiveness of your SEO approach.

Users of the internet are looking for information. They search the internet and other websites for information and answers to their questions. Your website should be designed to deliver those answers in the most straightforward and user-friendly manner possible.

A good reading experience may result in more time spent on the page, a reduced bounce rate, and a higher rate of engagement. All of these elements (and more) add up to improved search engine rankings.

So, how to improve the reading experience, here are the tips:

Dark background colors should be avoided. Maintain a white and clean appearance.
Allow for plenty of white space.
Make use of huge fonts.
Make use of a more readable typeface. A sans serif typeface is preferred by many people.
Make use of headings, subheadings, bullet points, and so on to organize your information.
To make it easy for your viewers to assimilate your content, use shorter sentences and paragraphs.

Non- Responsive Website:

SEO is directly influenced by responsive website design. A responsive website appears nice on a variety of platforms, including desktops, smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. It adjusts to the screen size of the device automatically, providing a better user experience. When you have to zoom in and navigate through a non-responsive website, it is quite inconvenient.

Nowadays, the majority of consumers conduct their searches on their mobile devices, therefore having a responsive design that adheres to mobile-friendly standards is essential. It improves the readability of website information and enhances the client experience. Aside from that, a non-responsive website reduces the likelihood of a website appearing in search results. If the web design is poor, this has an impact on the website’s SEO.

Not Secure Website:

The absence of an SSL certificate on a website can have a negative influence on SEO rankings, so it’s critical to secure your site with an SSL certificate. If not, the site will be flagged as insecure, decreasing its SEO ranks.

Many of you may believe that an SSL certificate is an expensive investment, yet there are a variety of low-cost SSL certificate providers available online. Depending on the number of domains, you can choose the best certificate for your company. It is advised that you use a wildcard SSL certificate if your website has several subdomains.

Conclusion:

Web design and SEO have always been two distinct parts of an internet business. The distinctions, however, have become considerably muddled in recent years.

A well-designed website provides a better user experience, which is becoming increasingly important in search engine optimization. It’s essential to remember that these two elements are now closely linked, and they both play a critical part in keeping your website at the top. The best kind of websites is the ones that provide a good user experience. To know more, click on the link.