Making Your Website Design Work For Your SEO Marketing

Intro

Marketing and design go hand in hand - that's a given. But when it comes to your website, what should you focus on more: the aesthetics or the SEO? You must balance the two to make your website design work for your SEO marketing.

(Image source: Unsplash)

Marketing your website can seem like a daunting task—particularly when it comes to ensuring that your website design and SEO work hand-in-hand. This article will discuss tips on designing a website with SEO in mind so that you can rank well in search engines and gain new clients from the very beginning.

The Importance of Website Design for SEO

Studies by WebFX shows that 89% of consumers shop on competitors' website after a poor user experience. Therefore, the design of your website is a critical factor in your SEO marketing, so don't overlook the design.

The primary purpose of both SEO and web design is to provide users best experience of using a website. However, many designers focus on aesthetic elements of the website; they should not forget who needs a beautiful website that nobody will see. A user-friendly site that is not only great on the eyes but also ranks high on search engines.

10 SEO Factors in Web Design

Numerous factors influence SEO in web design, such as mobile-friendliness, website speed, sitemaps, readability, image file names, alt tags, website navigation, URL structure, metadata, and indexable content. Let's discuss all these factors in detail below.

Navigation

One of the most critical factors in website design for SEO marketing is the ease of navigation. Your website should be easy to use and navigate, with clear labels and instructions. Don't make your users search for what they need – put it right at their fingertips!

(Image source: alfacharlie.co)

You can also improve ease of use by using images, videos, and infographics on your website. This will help keep users interested in what you have to say. In turn, they'll be more likely to stick around and explore your website further.

Your website navigation should be easy to use and understand, with clear labels for each link. Don't use complicated menus or excessive scrolling bars.

Clear and concise language

When writing for your website, use clear and concise language. Don't use jargon or complex language that users won't understand. Keep your sentences to the point and use easy-to-read fonts and colors.

Following the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid) is always a good idea. Your website should be easy to understand for users – make it easy! Use clear, concise language, and keep your website layout simple and organized.

Following the KISS principle will also help improve your website's SEO marketing. When potential clients can easily find what they're looking for, they're more likely to stay on your website longer. This increases the chance they'll explore your site further and may even convert into customers.

Using clear language on your website makes it easier for users to understand and navigate. This will help your SEO marketing efforts in the long run!

Mobile-friendliness

These days more people than ever use their smartphones to access the internet, so you need to optimize your website for mobile viewing from the very beginning. Not only will this ensure that your website looks good on smaller screens, but it will also help your ranking in Google search results. 74% of people are more likely to return to a mobile-friendly site, due to recent research.

(Image source: etsy.com)

Mobile-friendliness is one of the main ranking factors for Google, so if your website is not optimized for smartphones, you may lose out on traffic and business. To optimize your website for mobile devices, you must ensure that all your content is readable on small screens and that all your links are easy to click. You may also want to consider using a responsive design for your website.

To see if your website is optimized for smartphones, you can use the Google Mobile-Friendly Test. This tool will test your website and show you how it ranks in mobile-friendliness.

Designers should always keep mobile-friendliness in mind when creating a website. One way to do this is to use a responsive design. This will ensure that your website looks good on all devices, regardless of screen size.

If you don't feel like using responsive design, you need at least to make your website mobile-friendly to ensure that all your content is readable on small screens. This includes using a font size that is easy to read and limiting the amount of text on each page.

Website speed

Website speed is another vital factor for SEO. People are impatient – they don't want to wait for a page to load. So optimize your website for fast loading times, using compressed images and caching plugins.

You can do a few things as a designer to improve website speed.

1. Use compressed images. This will reduce the file size of your photos without sacrificing quality.
2. Use caching plugins. These plugins temporarily store your website's data, so it can be accessed faster the next time someone visits your site.
3. Well-organized and easy-to-read content. This will minimize the amount of data that needs to be loaded on each page.

Website speed is essential for SEO, so designers need to keep it in mind when creating a website.

Sitemaps

A sitemap helps Google and other search engines index your pages more quickly and accurately. Ensure your sitemap is up-to-date and includes all your latest pages and posts.

You also need to create a robot.txt file to tell search engines which pages on your website should not be indexed. This can be helpful if you have pages that are not yet ready for public viewing or don't want certain pages to appear in search engine results. Again, this is extremely useful for websites with many different pages.

To create a robot.txt file, you can use the online tool Robots.txt Generator. Just enter the address of your website, and the tool will generate a robot.txt file for you.

Sitemaps and robot.txt files are important tools for SEO marketing. Make sure your website has both files, and keep them up-to-date!

Readability

Make sure your website content is easy to read and understand. Use short sentences and straightforward language, and avoid jargon and technical terms.

(Image source: chrisboddy.com)

There are a few ways to improve the readability of your website design:

• Use short sentences and clear language
• Employ easy-to-read fonts and colors
• Avoid jargon and complex terms
• Use bold serif or sans serif fonts for headlines and titles.

Best practices say that using bold serif or sans serif fonts in your titles improves your website readability and navigation. However, when it comes to handwritten calligraphy fonts, they are good only as an accent or logo because they decrease readability.

Image file names, Alt tags, & URL structure

Ensure you use only high-quality, sharp images, whether these are stock photos or your own custom images. They should look good on any device and in any browser. However, remember to use compressing plugins that help reduce image size and load web pages faster without sacrificing image quality.

When you upload images to your website, use descriptive file names rather than generic ones like "image1.jpg". So that when you upload a photo, it's better to describe the image when you create a file name, for example, "red-lipstick-cosmetics.jpg." This will help improve your SEO ranking for those images.

Alt tags are used to describe pictures for people who can't see them – for example, if the picture doesn't load or if someone is using a screen reader. Besides, many people use Google images to find information or products they want, so optimizing alt tags can also increase your organic website traffic. Use keywords in your alt tags to help improve your SEO ranking for those images.

Besides, keep your URL structure simple, short, and straightforward, using keywords where possible. For example, John Mueller from Google recommends keeping your URLs under 1000 characters.

Metadata

To optimize your website metadata, you must ensure that all your information is accurate and up-to-date. This includes the title, keywords, and description for each page.

Metadata is information about your website that isn't visible to the average user – such as the date it was last updated or the author's name. Ensure this information is included in your web pages so that search engines can index them appropriately.

You can use a web audit tool that shows how well your website performs and finds problems or errors that need to be fixed. It also can help you optimize your website for better SEO. You can also use it for tracking your website ranking over time.

If you use a content management system (CMS), plugins are often available to help you optimize your metadata. For example, Yoast SEO is a popular WordPress plugin that lets you control your website's metadata. This plugin allows you to adjust your title, meta description, and other essential elements influencing on-page SEO.

Indexable content

Make sure all of your website's content is indexable by search engines. This means including keywords in your titles, descriptions, and alt tags and using proper formatting.

Ensure that all of the content on your website is indexable by search engines – including blog posts, articles, product descriptions, etc. Use keywords throughout your content to improve its ranking on search results pages.

Moreover, check all your captions, web copy, and blog posts for plagiarism. Plagiarism is a serious issue that can harm your SEO. Once Google discovers plagiarised content on your site, you'll get a penalty immediately; your ranking will decrease, and it can hurt your business in many ways.

If you have any pages or posts that you don't want to be indexed, you can use the robots.txt file to block them from crawling.

Conclusion

If you're looking to give your website an SEO boost, good web design is essential. Optimizing for factors like mobile-friendliness, website speed, sitemaps, readability, and more makes it easier for Google and other search engines to crawl and index your content. And don't forget about metadata!

Making sure your title tags, meta descriptions, and other data are well written can also help improve your site's ranking. So what are you waiting for? Start optimizing your website now using these best practices for SEO web design.