Not everyone is aware that web design actually affects a website’s SEO performance. It can either help or hinder your search engine rankings, depending on how well it’s designed.
The following article discusses some ways in which web design affects your SEO rankings. Note that a lot of it has to do with user experience, something a reputable company that offers web design Sydney should know and understand fully.
Consistency is key
It’s important to have everything be consistent so that you do not confuse the crawlers and algorithms running Google’s search engine. If there are multiple different styles on one page or inconsistent images, this confuses the bots and they will need to sort out what belongs where, which takes up their time and slows them down from crawling more of your content.
This is why consistency between pages within websites as well as across sites matters when trying to improve rankings for certain keywords. In addition, web designers should create compelling banners with good use of colour schemes because these impact how users engage with your website overall.
Easy navigation
Another important aspect of web design that impacts SEO is how easy it is for people to find what they’re looking for on your website. Navigation should be simple and easy to understand so that people don’t get lost while browsing; otherwise, they’ll give up and go somewhere else.
Moreover, using clear labels for different sections of your website can help guide users where you want them to go. It’s also important to make sure all of your links work properly so that people don’t click on a broken link expecting something else to happen.
Loading speed of the website
It’s important to remember that all of this information is stored on servers. These are computers that hold the files and server-side programming for your website. When you visit a page, it has to be loaded up through one of these servers in order for it to appear on your screen. Otherwise, you’ll just see an error message.
The amount of time needed to load pages depends largely upon how fast or slow the server itself runs. However, web designers can also make choices during their work process (that don’t take much extra effort) like using smaller images with less graphics as well as not including unnecessary plugins.
As mentioned earlier, having too many visual elements slows down sites because there will be more data for the browser to load. This is why Google’s algorithms take loading speed into account when ranking pages.
Mobile-friendliness
Nowadays, a lot of people are using their mobile devices to browse the internet. In fact, many people now access websites exclusively through their phones or tablets. Because of this, it’s important that your website be designed in a way that looks good and functions correctly on smaller screens.
If you ignore mobile design, not only will you lose potential customers who are using handheld devices but your website could suffer in terms of SEO rankings as well. This is because Google has started penalising websites that aren’t mobile-friendly by lowering their search engine results placement.
Pop-ups!
Many websites have begun using pop-ups that appear over the main screen after a certain amount of time has passed (e.g., 30 seconds). These are meant to distract users into clicking on something before continuing onto whatever it was that brought them there in the first place.
It’s common for these ads to take up half of someone’s computer screen so that they’ll become frustrated enough to click quickly just so it will go away. In fact, some people have even reported that these pop-ups make them feel as though they’re being spied on by the website!
On top of this, many websites now use a ‘pop under’ variant where a new window opens up behind whatever they were doing before and then disappears without their knowledge. These are meant to be used in conjunction with something else—like an ad—but can become highly annoying if not handled responsibly.
In addition, you should avoid using pop-ups for things unrelated to your content, such as advertisements or email lists because these will only turn away visitors from engaging with what matters most: your website’s message/content/information.
Pop-up messages can also take up valuable screen space, which reduces the likelihood of people viewing more than one or two pages on your site.
SEO is an important part of any website. By following the tips mentioned above, you can make sure that your site’s design helps rather than hurts your SEO efforts!
Also read How Web Design Affects Your SEO Rankings
