The best websites are designed with search engines and users in mind, which means your website should balance beauty and function for optimum user-friendly experience.
To build an effective business website that is SEO friendly, your aim should be to design a spectacular website that draws traffic and leads to conversion.
There have been various debates in the online community over which feature is more essential between web design or SEO functions, as people believe you can’t optimize SEO functions and create a website that converts at the same time.
Which should I make my priority, SEO or website design?
A good web designer will create a beautiful front end for your website because he understands this conveys trust, authority and lets the visitor know that you put time, effort and money into your design. What this translates to is that the site visitor will understand that you care about customer service and creating a user-friendly site.
Ideally, the web designer should design the site in a natural way that leads visitors through the buying cycle to the action you want them to take. However, web designers in a bid to create excellence use complicated and highly unorganized codes that a search engine spider finds hard to detect. This leads to lower rankings, reduced traffic and a beautiful website no one is using.
Conversely, search engine crawlers are known to overlook web design, so the code used for website should be easily indexed, crawled and readable by search engine bots. This creates a balance where you rank higher with SEO rich keywords that drive traffic to your conversion-optimized website to generate sales.
The Art of Mac Malware: Designer SecretsA preferred method is to design a website that is mobile user-responsive as these sites receive higher rankings from Google. You can verify if your site is mobile friendly with the Google mobile friendliness test.
A recent study revealed that most consumers access retails websites on both mobile devices and PCs so it’s’ important to Google that visitors from both devices enjoy a consistent experience.
Common errors made by web designers that affect SEO
- Missing H1 Tags on the Homepage
An essential SEO element is an H1 tag, but designers often remove it because the page is filled up. The H1 tag is a primary element search engine bots search for when determining the purpose of a website. Creating a site with this tag and using target keywords ensures your site ranks higher.
- Large media files and images
Beautiful pictures enhance the aesthetic appeal of your website, but you must consider the size of the media files you post on your website. Large images affect speed, which affects your search engine rankings as Google either rewards or punishes sites that load quickly or slowly. Google Page speed Test identifies images that are too large on your web page and this can help you make the required adjustments.
- Annoying popups
No one likes intrusive popups that detract from user-experience on your site. Google has also warned sites against this practice, so rethink your popup strategy if you notice a reduction in organic traffic.
Top 5 Mobile Apps for Your Successful IT Business- Text in images
Ideally, you should include a text layer over the image, not into an image. This is a common mistake, which prevents search engine crawlers from reading the text in the image. Additionally, it isn’t mobile friendly because the text shrinks on a mobile device leading to bad user experience.
4 tips to boost your marketing efforts through SEO and web design
- Regular update
The goal at Google is to consistently remain useful to customers; as a result, updated websites with fresh content are prioritized over stagnant websites. “Create a section that feature your core products and ensure you regularly update your latest innovation or news”, “A blog is an important marketing tool, so outsource to a third party skilled in creating relevant content for visitors in your niche. This provides an opportunity for you to include keywords search engines understand”.
Why Entrepreneurs Divorce Their Logos And Why It’s A Bad Idea- Make it mobile
We’ve talked about the importance of creating a website that is mobile friendly. Great optimization includes choosing a responsive web design as the cornerstone of your site. Benefits of a responsive web design includes:
- Enhanced site usability.
- Faster page speed.
- Lower bounce rate.
- Fewer duplicate content.
- Increased social sharing.
- Design layout
Your web design is the first impression people have of your brand. It should follow the latest web design trends and include features such as video backgrounds, UI interactive design and multigrid Layout.
- Optimize URLs
A great opportunity to optimize SEO is with the domain name you choose. You can change your current domain name and replace it with a search-friendly name that satisfies customers looking for your products or services in your niche. Another great idea is to include geo-location information in your URL to enhance location-based searches.
Conclusion
The design and layout you choose for your website influences the ability of potential customers to find you in a sea of related sites. Always conduct regular checks to ensure your website design doesn’t have a negative effect on your marketing efforts.
Also make sure to always stay informed about the latest changes to Google search algorithms if you want a website that consistently attracts traffic that leads to conversion.
