When it comes to creating a website, a common dilemma a lot of people have is whether to focus on building an excellent design and user experience or focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to improve their ranking.
The problem with having an intuitive and compelling web design is that it can negatively impact your site’s search engine ranking. And search engine ranking is an important indicator of whether your website is performing well.
On the other hand, existing sites that have great SEO might need to reconsider their efforts when it comes to web design. Why? Because even making the smallest changes during a site redesign can hurt your SEO.
In this post, we are going to talk about the six ways how poor web design can ruin your SEO efforts.
1. It can affect conversions
Nobody is going to stay on your site if your website design is poorly executed. More often than not, they will hit the back button and poof! You willl never see them again.
As Randall Zaitz puts it, “Good web design can help increase your conversion rate and engagement with your content, funneling leads down your marketing funnel towards a sale.”
It should appear professional, has excellent navigation, and should function well not only to help drive leads and sales for your business but also boost your rankings on search results.
That said, a site that is poorly designed will significantly affect your conversions.
2. It can affect your brand’s reputation
A poorly design site can destroy your brand’s reputation.
When a site looks bad, your business appears shady and should not be trusted. Site vistors will hardly have any faith to trust your business.
Keep in mind that first impressions online are critical if you want your business to succeed. Not to mention that you only have about 50 milliseconds to make a strong first impression.
If they have encountered negative experiences on your site, like complicated navigation and poor loading times, then they will lose that trust altogether. They are going to think, “this site looks like spam and untrustworthy.”
Over time, this is going to hurt your rankings in search engines, since there are less site traffic and high bounce rates. You can avoid that from happening by following these effective web design tips.
Remember: An outstanding web design can influence how site visitors will perceive your business.
3. Visitors will not trust your site
Users browse through the website to look for the information that they need. Perhaps, they want to know about the latest news or updates, or a particular product or service that you are offering.
According to BlogHer, 81% of US online consumers trust information and advice found on blogs. They consume content in order to make an informed decision on whether or not to have a transaction with you.
Not to mention, your content should help a reader solve his or her problem. That’s how you provide value to potential customers.
That’s why to keep them coming, you must craft high-quality content that offers value to your audience. If they have come across a poorly written content that gives them very little value, then what is the point of staying?
Do not ruin your SEO efforts that got them on your website in the first place. Make sure that you are only publishing high-quality content.
4. It can affect your site’s dwell time
What is a site dwell time?
According to Duane Forrester, “dwell time is the length of time a person spends looking at a webpage after they’ve clicked a link on a SERP page, but before clicking back to the SERP results.”
Longer dwell times are better for your business. The more time a user spends on the page, the more time they will likely read and understand your content. It simply shows that your content strategy is working and appealing to your target audience.
When you improve your site’s dwell time, you can improve your organic search rankings as well.
5. It can affect your site’s ranking
As we mentioned earlier, giving your site a facelift to improve your marketing efforts is essential, but it can significantly impact your site’s visibility on search engines as well.
Some website designers assume that SEO is merely a bunch of keywords, but it is actually more than that. What Google prefers is a user-friendly site, making it convenient for users and search engines to navigate more easily.
SEO and design should go hand in hand to make your business more competitive, by effectively improving your search rankings.
Always keep in mind that bad design will not help your search engine optimization efforts.
6. Increases your site’s bounce rate
When your site has a high bounce rate, it is a clear indication that users are not likely finding what they are looking for.
There are a lot of reasons that cause a high bounce rate on your site. This includes low-quality web design, a complicated navigation menu, poorly formatted and irrelevant content, and a slow site loading speed.
Because your bounce rates are heavily correlated with your site’s relevancy, search engines have heavily factored it in search algorithms. That’s why you should take the necessary steps to make sure that you have a low bounce rate on your site.
Final Thoughts
Placing a lot of focus on improving your SEO efforts is great. But you should also give your site design the same amount of attention so that you are more close to achieving the goals that you have set for your site.
In the same way, you should also treat SEO as a vital component of your web design. A web designer can create the best visually appealing site out there, but all those efforts are useless if no one can find the site.
About the Author: Kenneth Sytian is the CEO of Sytian Productions, one of the leading web designer Philippines company. He has been designing websites and developing web apps for more than a decade. He is considered one of the top influencers in web design and development.
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