Your website needs to be visible. Good web design alone isn’t enough, whether you’re selling products, showcasing a portfolio, or starting a blog. While offline marketing helps bring attention to your brand, search engine optimisation (SEO) is one of the best and most cost-effective ways to attract new visitors to your site.
It’s time to improve your website’s ranking in style. In this article, we will show you how to design your website with effective SEO techniques that are easy to implement and maintain. Combining web design with SEO tools will create a visually appealing site and increase your chances of appearing at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs).
Why is SEO important when designing a website?
We all want our site to be where people go when they have questions and “Google It.” SEO brings visitors to your site, and sound design keeps them there. SEO and web design help your brand leave a memorable impression on visitors.
Focusing on SEO while designing your website has several long-term benefits:
- Increases traffic to your website
- Improves your site’s performance
- Aligns with user experience best practices
- Boosts brand awareness and authority
How do you improve your web design with SEO?
Knowing how to create a website that balances design and SEO gives your brand an advantage. Many effective SEO practices also enhance your website’s content, providing a better experience for visitors.
Integrating SEO into your website design creates a strong foundation that search engines can recognise when you publish new content. SEO should be part of your website design process and can be updated as needed.
Here are vital steps to balance your website design with SEO:
1. Create high-quality user content
Search engines are looking for high-quality, relevant content that really helps users. Gone are the days when stuffing your content with keywords worked. Google’s guidelines have evolved to be more user-focused and sophisticated.
Even though it’s not an exact science, there are general Quality Evaluator Guidelines that human quality raters use to check content. This helps shape the algorithm, which is constantly getting tweaked to show the most relevant results in search engine results pages (SERP).
Focusing on producing high-quality content—think eye-catching visuals, helpful information, and strong brand messaging—is crucial for making your website engaging.
Google's E-E-A-T guidelines
One way to do this is by following Google’s E-E-A-T Guidelines, which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These guidelines are crucial, especially when crafting longer pieces like blogs or articles, as they help showcase your expertise in a specific area.
Create clear brand messaging
Search engines notice attractive branding on your website, which helps you gain new followers and customers. Focus on your logo design, colours, fonts, and messaging.
In a competitive market, audiences look for a unique experience. Whether you want to increase conversions or gain more social shares, your website is a powerful tool to tell your brand’s story. Strong and consistent messaging can keep visitors engaged and encourage them to return. This shows search engines that your webpage is valuable to users and deserves a higher ranking in search results.
Make user-first content
To meet Google’s quality standards, your website content must be relevant to your visitors. This applies to both the type of content you create and your chosen topics. Also, 89% of consumers want to see more videos from brands. Videos let you share your message in a visually appealing and easy-to-understand way.
Whether you are making short videos, blog posts, or other content, focus on helping visitors achieve their goals. Follow Google’s advice to provide “more original, helpful content.” This means planning the topics you will cover, how you will communicate, and the format you will use. To keep your content relevant, stay updated on industry trends and fill in any gaps that users may be experiencing.
2. Leverage social proof on your website
Did you know that a whopping 88% of consumers trust user reviews just as much as they do personal recommendations? That’s the power of social proof! By showcasing your customers’ positive experiences, you can create a buzz around your brand and its offerings. This strategy builds lasting relationships, garners a loyal following, and drives more profound engagement with your audience.
When it comes to trust in marketing, Google pays attention to brands that are gaining influence and building a vibrant social network. While social proof doesn’t directly boost your SEO, a robust social media presence can enhance your visibility in search results over time. By integrating social proof on your website, you can attract more visitors and improve conversion rates, positively influencing your SEO efforts.
Much of this social proofing happens on social media, where brands partner with micro and macro influencers to generate sponsored content and user-generated posts.
However, your website design can be a powerful tool for establishing credibility on its own. Here are some practical ways to highlight your brand’s authority:
- Testimonials and reviews: Showcase feedback from satisfied customers about your products or services.
- Case studies: Share success stories of your clients to demonstrate your expertise.
- Trust badges and verification certificates: Display credentials that establish your reliability.
- Infographics: Use stats to highlight community engagement, like the number of users.
- User-generated content: Highlight creative contributions from your customers.
Awards and ratings: Show off review scores and accolades that enhance credibility.
3. Ensure readability of your website content
Readability is key! It ensures that your website’s text is accessible and legible for everyone, regardless of visual abilities. While selecting the right fonts is a crucial part of web design, it also influences your site’s aesthetic appeal, branding, and user experience and can subtly affect your SEO.
There’s no one-size-fits-all rule for typography that satisfies search engines, but following sound design principles for excellent user experience can naturally enhance your organic reach. Better readability leads to improved engagement, resulting in higher click-through rates and longer time spent on the page. These are positive signals that Google recognises.
To create a user-friendly website with appealing fonts, consider these simple yet effective guidelines:
- Size: Keep body text no smaller than 16 pixels for optimal visibility.
Choose simple fonts: Opt for fonts that feature straightforward patterns and shapes. - Embrace micro white space: Add space around smaller text to enhance legibility.
- Mind the contrast: Ensure a clear difference between the text colour and the background.
- Limit your fonts: Use a few well-chosen fonts across your site, avoiding multiple typefaces in the same block of text unless they’re decorative.
- Space is essential: Avoid cramped text by allowing ample space between letters, words, and lines.
- Skim reader-friendly layout: Design your content to cater to those who prefer to skim rather than read every word.
By prioritising readability, you improve user experience and strengthen your brand’s online presence.
4. Organise your headers
When search engines like Google read your web pages, they rely on a clear structure to understand what you’re saying. Search engines appreciate a well-organised article just like readers do.
Headers help break up your webpage and make navigating easier for visitors. They’re not just for looks; they play a significant role in user experience and SEO. You’ve got header tags, including titles, headings, and subheadings, all visible to readers and built into your site’s code.
If your page has a lot of content, using headers creates more entry points for people to jump right to what interests them. For instance, if you’re skimming this article and want to know about using header tags, you can easily find that section because of the headers:
Use headers to create a hierarchy within the content.
<H1> How website design affects SEO
<H2> How do you improve your web design with SEO?
<H3> Create high-quality user content
So, using headers not only helps folks find what they need more quickly but also makes it easier for search engines to understand your content. To make things flow better and keep your site SEO-friendly, keep these header tips in mind:
- Make sure your H1 reflects what the page is about, and stick to one H1 heading per page.
- Pick a strong title, and remember to include your main keywords.
- Your H1 is your title, while H2s and H3s are for the subheadings.
5. Correctly fill website's metadata
Metadata is a description added to your site’s pages summarising their information. Although visitors can’t see it, metadata is part of the code that helps Google understand your content and show it to users. When you follow best practices, using metadata can improve your site’s chances of appearing in relevant search results.
Metadata may not be visible on your website, but it does appear on Google’s search results. It helps inform potential visitors about what your page is about and is crucial for making your site stand out from others.
To improve your site’s metadata, fill in the necessary details in your content management system (CMS). Keep in mind that Google might replace your metadata with auto-generated text to better meet users’ needs.
Title tags
Title tags are headlines on search engine results pages (SERPs) that link to your website. Make your title tag catchy and use relevant phrases/keywords that clearly describe the page’s content.
Meta descriptions
Meta descriptions are short texts, usually up to 160 characters, that give visitors more information about your brand and website. These descriptions should be accurate and appealing to encourage clicks, so include calls to action (CTAs) where appropriate.
Alt text
Alt text is a description added to images on your website. Whether your images are decorative, product-related, or part of a portfolio, always include alt text when you upload new media. This text should give enough context for people using screen readers to understand the image’s purpose.
Structured data
Structured data helps improve the relationship between web design and SEO. Adding structured data to some on-page elements of your website helps search engines better understand your content. You can create schema markup for FAQs, image collections, reviews, and “How to” sections.
6. Incorporate internal linking
Internal linking connects your website’s pages to each other. This is important for your site’s structure and helps users find their needs. Good internal linking guides visitors as they browse your site.
Users can discover related content through internal links when they land on a page. These links help search engines see what your pages are about and how they connect to each other. Internal links also show Google which pages are the most important since pages with more links are seen as more significant.
Here are some ways to improve your internal linking for a better user experience and SEO:
- Ensure every page on your site has at least one internal link.
- Be strategic about linking within long articles. Use links to provide more information on specific topics mentioned in your blog posts.
- Keep the number of clicks between pages low. Users should reach important pages in no more than three clicks.
- Use explicit anchor texts. This helps readers and search engines know what to expect on the linked page.
- Make internal linking visually appealing. Use buttons, images, and animations to engage users and enhance your site’s design.
7. Create a clear website layout
One of the most important aspects where user behaviour and SEO align is your site’s information structure. Information structure means organising, labelling, and arranging your website’s content so that users can easily navigate it. This includes:
- Content layout on each webpage
- Navigation menus
- Categories and subcategories
- Tags or descriptive labels
- User flow on the site
- Creating a sitemap
A clear and organised information structure helps users find what they need quickly. It also assists search engines like Google in understanding and categorising your content. If your site has confusing or hidden content, users may struggle to find what they need, and search engines might have trouble indexing your site.
To create an effective information structure that benefits both users and SEO, consider these steps:
- Conduct user research to see how your site can meet the needs of different users.
- List your pages, including the homepage, categories, and subcategories, ensuring each serves a clear purpose.
- Create wireframes to ensure a consistent layout and visual hierarchy.
- Build easy website navigation using menus and internal links so users are just a few clicks away from essential pages.
- For deeper categories (like subcategories on eCommerce sites), add inner menus or breadcrumbs to aid navigation.
- Test your site with real users before publishing to find the best structure.
- Create an XML sitemap to tell search engines about your content and how it is organised.
8. Make sure your site's pages are indexed
Getting your site indexed by Google is super important for SEO and web design because it helps people find your website. When your site gets indexed, search engines crawl it and check the content, adding it to their database of web pages.
This means more traffic, better visibility, and a higher ranking in search results. If your site isn’t indexed, it won’t show up in search results at all. So, it’s crucial when launching new websites, adding new pages, or making significant design changes.
And even if Google crawls your site, it doesn’t guarantee that everything will be indexed. Several different factors come into play.
To make sure your site gets indexed smoothly, here are some tips:
- Submit your sitemap and URLs directly to Google Search Console to enhance your website’s visibility.
- Install a sitemap so Google can crawl and index your pages more efficiently.
- Stick to a content calendar because Google loves it when you publish content regularly.
- Link all your web pages to each other.
- Build solid backlinks to your pages to show search engines your site has E-E-A-T (that’s, experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness).
- Keep your site structure clear and navigation easy for search engines to follow.
9. Make your website mobile responsive
Also, remember to make your site mobile-friendly! In 2022, nearly 59% of global web traffic came from mobile devices, so not having a design that works well on smaller screens could mean you lose out on a ton of visitors.
Focusing on mobile users while designing means they’ll have a better experience, which could help your ranking. Google even started using mobile-first indexing back in 2016.
If your mobile site loads fast and is easy to navigate, users will likely stick around and check out your content. Google considers mobile design an SEO factor since it can affect bounce rates, page speed, and how long people stay on your site.
Here are some ways to ace your mobile design:
- Go for responsive or adaptive design to ensure your website loads faster on mobile devices.
- Consider a mobile-first approach where you organise content with small screens in mind from the start.
- Rethink mobile navigation; a hamburger menu usually works better than traditional menu styles.
10. Optimise your website for performance
Website performance is about how quickly a site’s pages load and appear in a user’s browser across all devices. This really affects how interactive and user-friendly your site feels. Search engines like Google always want to provide a great user experience, so if your site is slow or unresponsive, it could lead to lost visitors, low engagement, and poor conversions.
For example, fast-loading sites usually attract more users. Studies show that about 42% of people will abandon a website if it doesn’t work well.
When search engines notice that visitors are leaving your site without finding what they need, it can hurt your rankings. Users tend to like faster-loading web pages, and if they are slow, they’ll probably just go somewhere else.
When designing your site, it’s crucial to think about performance by improving page speed and other Core Web Vitals. Here are some tips to help enhance the user experience while also boosting your SEO:
- Optimise your images and media without sacrificing quality. Make sure to use the right formats and set image dimensions to cut down on load times. An image resizer tool can help a lot with this.
- Pick a web hosting provider known for fast loading times and high uptime.
- Enable browser caching, so you can store frequently accessed resources locally on the user’s device. This reduces server requests and speeds things up.
- Keep an eye on your site’s performance with tools like Google PageSpeed Insights.
11. Follow web accessibility guidelines
You might be surprised to learn that about 1 billion people around the world—15% of the global population—struggle to access a lot of what’s online because of disabilities. Web accessibility is all about making sure all kinds of users can navigate your website easily.
Features like good colour contrast, easy-to-read text, alt text for images, captions, and audio descriptions not only help those who need accessibility but also make the site better for everyone. Plus, Google likes sites that focus on usability.
Improving your site’s accessibility goes hand-in-hand with boosting your SEO. Many of the accessibility features you add will also enhance your site’s performance in Google search rankings.
Here are some tips for designing a more accessible website:
- Use clear and descriptive headings to help users with assistive tech, like screen readers, navigate your content.
- Add relevant alt text to your images so visitors who can’t see them still get the message.
- Make sure your colour choices have enough contrast to be readable for people with visual impairments. A good rule of thumb is to aim for a 4.5:1 contrast ratio between text and background colours.
Conclusion
Historically, web design and SEO were viewed as distinct components of online business strategy. However, this perspective has evolved as the connection between the two has become increasingly evident. A well-designed website enhances user experience and significantly influences search engine optimisation (SEO) outcomes. Understanding the interplay between these two elements is essential, as both contribute critically to maintaining your website’s visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Remember, a successful website is a harmonious blend of aesthetics and functionality. By prioritising user experience, optimising search engines, and staying up-to-date with the latest web design trends, you can create a website that drives traffic, generates leads, and ultimately contributes to your business’s bottom line. Schedule a free consultation with us if you want to design a website that generates leads.
