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4 Ways Website Design Affects SEO

does website design affect SEO

When designing a website, there are two major factors that will affect its performance: how the website functions for SEO, and how well the website uses design elements to convert visitors. In many cases, these two factors are at odds with one another, as what might look really great and grab a user’s attention could be detrimental for SEO. For this reason, it is vital to pick the right website developer to handle your new website project. A developer with the right experience and information can recommend website designs that will work for both users and SEO in order to get you the most out of your digital presence.

The team at FirstPage Marketing has been implementing performance-based website design for over a decade, and we know exactly what strategies to employ in order to make a website function well for search engines as well as SEO.

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How Can Website Design Affect SEO?

A website’s design is foundational to how well it works on SEO. The word “design” covers a pretty wide range of how a website is built, and can often refer to the website’s navigation, layout, graphic elements, and features (including videos, images, carousels, animations, etc). Four of the top ways that SEO can be affected by a website’s design include:

1.     Loading Speed

When deciding what design elements to incorporate into a website, it is important to look at how every decision will influence page loading speed. Speed is one of the biggest considerations that search engines take into account when determining rankings for websites, so any design element that slows down a website will also negatively affect its SEO. Many of the design elements that give a website user a more premium experience will also slow a website down, so it is important to choose features wisely. Examples could include videos, high-quality images, animations, and lots of colours.

How can you make your website faster?

2.     Visitor Experience

Most of the top influencing factors of a website’s SEO rankings come from how users interact with a website once they get to it. If a user engages well with the pages, moves through content, and clicks on links, it shows search engines that the website met the needs of the user’s search query. If a user bounces away from a website quickly, it shows that the website’s quality was not up to the user’s expectation. For this reason, it is vital to design a website that grabs users’ attention quickly and keeps them engaged.

Find out more about why user experience is important.

3.     Clean Navigation

Designing a clear, clean website navigation allows users to move effortlessly between pages, which aids in improving engagement scores for a website. It also makes it easier for search engine crawlers to inspect a website quickly and determine its relevance to search queries.

Learn more about how to improve your website’s navigation.

4.     Content Layout

The design and layout of a website’s content will make a big difference in how well it performs on SEO. In order to show up for searches, a website needs relevant content that a search engine can find easily. How content is laid out, where it is positioned on a page, and how headings are organized can greatly affect a website’s SEO.

Learn how to build trust and authority with website content.

If you want to find out more about website SEO and how you can make your website’s design work well with search engines, the experts at FirstPage Marketing would love to help. Our team of design experts are always ready to take on a challenge when it comes to website design and strategy.


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