SEO affects your copy while web design focuses on the visuals.
You could be forgiven for believing that the above sentence is true, given the number of articles and guides out there that focus solely on how to incorporate keywords into your strategy in order to take your SEO to the next level.
However, SEO is about so much more than just the words on the page and how they connect with users’ search terms and results.
In fact, for the past few years, SEO has focussed as much on the user experience as it has on the copy, ranking sites that boast a seamless experience highly and penalising those that offer a stunted or difficult experience.
To help guide business owners on how to incorporate SEO into their web design, we spoke to our own inhouse design team who shared their tips on matching SEO with design.
Which Elements of Web Design Impact SEO?
In short, anything to do with the user experience or user journey on your website. If, when Google and other search engines crawl your site, they cannot match every element on your page in terms of relevance, or they cannot understand the point of every page on your site, they will not rank your site highly.
A big part of this relies on great copy and compelling headings – but it also requires a design which makes sense, is easy to navigate, and offers accessibility to all manner of users.
Some of the most important things to consider when trying to appease SEO within your web design include:
- Mobile responsiveness
- Page load speeds
- The number of images on each page and how quickly they load
- Structure and the way users navigate your site
- Page design
- Accessibility
Let’s take a closer look at some of the Mitchell & Stones’ design team recommendations…
Tips to Incorporate SEO into Your Website Design
1. Make Sure That Your Site Can be Visited by Anyone
That means not only ensuring that the site is responsive on different devices, but also that it can be effectively used by those who struggle to read white words on a coloured background, by those with visual impairments, and by those who don’t want to have to watch multiple videos.
Just as it’s advised to always add captions to every video you use in marketing, so too does your site need to make sense and offer value to all users regardless of their preferences and needs. Some quick changes to make include using high contrast colours and checking how easy the font is to read.
2. Think Like Google (and your Audience!)
SEO is about considering what users will be searching for, and what Google will be looking for to determine if your website answers their question or meets their needs.
As such, when it comes to web design you need to make sure that every page of your website is geared towards being deemed as readable and valuable to both integral audiences. Proper headings will be trawled and picked up by Google, as will keywords, while the standard of the copy around those headings and keywords matter to your audience.
3. Consider Your Website Structure
A big part of your web design lies in the backend structure and how users make their way from page to page. This also needs to make sense from an SEO perspective, so that Google can acknowledge how you help support the user’s journey through easy-to-use buttons and menus.
And while we’re on the topic of buttons and menus…
4. Page Load Speed and Button Responsiveness
A huge part of the user experience and therefore your SEO ranking lies in how responsive your website is to action, and how quick pages are to load.
When you put too many visuals on your webpage, it takes longer to load. This can also be affected by HTTP requests and by content blocks which use the incorrect format. There’s a reason why most businesses choose to engage the services of web designers when building a site – and this is a big part of that reason. A professional designer will know how to manage the size and weight on each page so that it loads quickly and reduces your bounce rate.
The Role of SEO in Business Success
The aforementioned tips are just some of the things that you can and should be doing to ensure that your site meets high SEO standards.
But why does this matter?
In short, good SEO means a good ranking, and this means that your site is discoverable by your audience. Users who search for terms relating to your industry, your products, or your business will be directed to the pages that Google thinks will meet their needs – and SEO is how you ensure that the pages Google recommends belong to you.
Web design is more than just a pretty homepage. It requires strategy and planning – which is where we can help. Get in touch with our team to discuss the first steps in improving or even rebuilding your website with SEO in mind.
If you are looking for a website design agency in Southampton, Mitchell & Stones can guide you through the process from start to finish
