If you’re running a website, it’s important to make sure that you’re taking your SEO into account when designing it. Many people think of SEO as only being important for businesses trying to get ranked higher in search engine results pages, but the truth is that it’s vital for any site that wants to be successful. In this post, we’ll go over some of the reasons why SEO is so important, as well as tips for optimizing your website design. Keep reading to learn more!
Optimize For Mobile
The very first thing that you are going to want to do if you are designing a website with SEO in mind is create a website that is optimized for mobile usage. Why is this so important? Because in 2018, Google released something called the Mobile-First Index. What does this mean?
This means that if you have a mobile version of your website, Google will first index and rank the mobile version of your website and then display that in the search results as opposed to a desktop version of the website. The reason this is happening is that in the US, 57% of online traffic actually comes from mobile devices, and worldwide, the statistic is 52%.
Keyword Research and Content
The next thing that you are going to want to do if you are trying to optimize your website for SEO is to perform as much keyword research as possible, mind the quality of the links built, and create entertaining content, whether you do this by yourself, or with the help of digital marketing companies. While you might not think that this has anything to do with website design, you are slightly mistaken. The content that is hosted on your website plays as much of an important role in website design as the font that you are using to display it.
The reason that you should do keyword research is that you need to find out what your audience is searching for, not only so that you can be the person to provide them with that content, but because Google will deem your site to be relevant if you do.
Sticky Website
One of the most important things that you should keep in mind when designing a website is to make it as sticky as possible. If you are unsure of what this means, a sticky website is a website that has been designed to keep the user sticking around.
From a design perspective, there are many ways that you can achieve this. One of the easiest ways to do this is to have a static navigation menu. Essentially, basically what this means is a menu that scrolls down with the visitor, so that they have access to the entire site without needing to scroll back up to the top. Another way to do this is by suggesting related content that the user seems interested in at the bottom of the article or on the left- and right-hand sides of the page.
Ensure Usability
As mentioned above, you need to optimize your website for mobile usage, but in general, a great way to improve your ranking within the search results using the design is by ensuring the usability of the site as a whole.
One feature of a site that many users would use quite often is a search function, so this should be easily visible. More than this, you need to ensure that the font is not too small so that it cannot be seen, or that it is not too big so that visitors are forced to scroll unnecessarily.
Why Does Website Design Matter?
All in all, the design of a website matters greatly because what you are trying to do is lower the bounce rate and increase the time that users spend on your website. Unfortunately, relying solely on content is not the greatest strategy to achieve this.
More than this, if you have a well-designed website, you can curate more leads and more importantly, increase the number of conversions. In addition to this, it will just leave a good impression on anyone who visits the website and will increase your authority.