How Your Web Design Can Have an SEO Impact

To create search engine results, Google’s crawler bots scan over your website’s pages. When they do, they get some indication of the structure and format of each one. While the design of a page isn’t necessarily a direct ranking factor, the way you build pages can impact your SEO performance. Here are three of the biggest web design metrics you should focus on in 2024.

Web Design Indicates Intent

Since the beginning, and especially in the last few years, Google’s mission has been to predict and fulfill the intent of its users. By doing that, it can serve quality content while avoiding cynical tactics that appeal to its algorithms but not living, breathing people. The trick is to appeal to both, which is where web design intent becomes important.

The focus on intent creates different standards for your pages. For example, Google’s E-E-A-T and helpful content updates mean that reviews and tutorials need to bring some extra experience to the table, to rank better. If it’s just a search for an online casino, then iGaming sites will appear instead. Crawlers know the difference between walls of text and the segmented, game-filled homepage of the Paddy Power Bingo site. As a web designer, you should get into the habit of asking yourself why users are arriving at your page. Many web designers do this for their website as a whole, but doing this for the individual pages will help if your site has different types of pages. If an e-commerce section is attached to your blog, it should adopt conventional e-commerce templates and on-page assets. It doesn’t just make sense for users, it makes sense for the crawlers too, and can help those pages rank for queries that show buyer intent.

Mobile Web Design is Important

Today, mobile is arguably the most important type of SEO. This is because over half of all online searches are done by smartphones and other handheld devices, which are only getting more accessible and sophisticated with time. This means websites can benefit from the growth of mobile search by catering to audiences who prefer to swipe instead of click.

Desktop websites tend to look squashed, cramped, and unappealing when crammed into the small screen of the average smartphone. This can increase the website’s bounce rate, which has SEO consequences. Google’s mobile-friendly update also tags queries with a mobile search signal, and sites that pass a mobile-friendly crawl will rank better than those that don’t.

To solve this, you should have two builds of your site’s pages. The primary domain is your desktop site, then use an “m.” subdomain that translates your pages into a vertical-oriented, scrollable format.

Your Image Names Matter

If you manage a website, you already know that using title tags and making your site navigable is important. However, an often overlooked part of on-page SEO is image optimization. Conventional wisdom states that you should reduce the file size and load it ASAP to keep viewers interested. The modern internet is a deluge of visual content, so you should go even further by renaming image filenames and making use of alt tags.

Many web designers fall into the trap of naming their images after utility. For example, calling a header image “splash-page-header.jpg”. While this is fit for purpose, it doesn’t give Google valuable insight into what the image is and what’s going on. Just like text-based content, Google can identify and draw valuable SEO connections between keywords when they’re found in image filenames. Keep image names short and simple, with three to five keywords that name objects and describe actions happening in the image.

Then you should add alt tags. These are included in your HTML code, where you can enter a descriptive sentence. This further helps crawlers determine what is happening in your pages. They also serve a human-friendly use – the descriptive sentence will appear if the image fails to load for whatever reason. You can find an alt tag guide from HubSpot, a site for SEO experts.