Why You Need SEO During Website Design & Development!
Did you know that the average click-through rate (CTR) for the first result of a Google search is over 25%? From there, the average CTR falls to about 15% for the second and 11% for the third. The tenth result has an average CTR of 2.5%, with most users never even making it to the second page of search results.
As you can see, ranking highly in search results is important if you want people to find your website. There are plenty of ways to create an SEO-friendly website that will increase your position in search results.
The implementation of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategies should be done during the web design & development phases of your project. This will help your website rank more favourably right out of the gate, and help potential customers find your business with ease.
Keep reading to learn how web design and SEO can work together to improve your website’s ranking! Using SEO Web Design, you can skyrocket your results online and get seen by more of your target audience in a shorter amount of time!
Web Design & SEO: How to Optimise Your Website for Top Rankings!
Having a great website designed and developed for your business is one thing, but for your brand to become more profitable, it must be optimised properly so that it appears in your target user’s search results whenever they conduct searches using your primary keywords.
If a website fails to appear on the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs), it is widely regarded as non-existent among online users. Because of this, you need to ensure your site ranks highly for specific keywords so that search engines like Google, can place it higher than competitors whose keywords are similar. In web design, SEO plays a critical role and involves several key factors.
If you want to guarantee the best outcome and get your business to rank in the top search results, then it is imperative to learn about the vital duo of web design and Search Engine Optimisation to get the most desirable results. Specifically, web design and SEO refers to designing and developing websites that follow best practices for SEO.
Your business will gain more traffic, leads, and revenue when your website is designed with Search Engine Optimisation in mind. Find out how to build an optimised and SEO-friendly website that masters key SEO web design principles!
Discover the Value of Search Engine Optimisation For Your Website!
There is a strong correlation between web design and SEO, and more and more web designers are choosing to incorporate SEO into their website designs. It is important for business owners to be aware of how important SEO is in web design and the value it adds to the design process.
Businesses and website owners need to understand the importance and value of SEO in web design. Applying successful optimisation tactics plays a significant role in how successful the final website design is. Taking SEO into account during the design process is imperative for business owners.
Get the Results You Want with SEO Website Design!
SEO-friendly web designs are likely to attract more organic traffic and broaden your reach. If your website is not search engine-friendly, major search engines will have difficulty locating your content, no matter how appealing and engaging it may be.
The search engines cannot find and rank your website content if it is not readily accessible. Content, navigation, linking strategy, site structure, performance and technology are all aspects of integrating SEO appropriately in your web design.
So What is SEO Web Design?
SEO is a set of practices designed to help pages rank higher in search engine results and drive more traffic to your website, whilst web design is the process of creating websites. This encompasses everything from webpage layout to graphic design.
The term ‘SEO web design’ refers to the process of designing websites that are optimised for search engines. The goal is to implement SEO best practices whilst also creating a user-friendly website featuring a responsive mobile-friendly design, fast load times, easy-to-use navigation, robust site structure and unique & engaging content.
By practising SEO web design, businesses make it easier for search engines to understand and rank that particular website in search results, which can lead to increases in rankings and traffic. We know that having an online presence is essential in this day & age. However for your business to succeed, your website must also rank favourably in search engine results when users search for keywords that are related to your business, products or services. This is why having an SEO-friendly website is vital to rank well in Google and other search engines.
SEO encompasses a wide range of criteria and is crucial to a successful website design. Wondering why SEO is important in the web design and development phase? Keep reading to find out why it’s crucial to build this into your next web project!
The Importance & Benefits of Incorporating SEO into Your Website Design
Web design and SEO might seem like two distinct practices, but when used simultaneously, they can have a huge impact on your business!
Whilst it might seem like SEO and website design & web development are totally separate fields and each of them perform different tasks, given that web design pertains to visual aspects, and SEO affects how a site gets discovered, they can certainly co-exist to produce you the best results!.
Together, the two can have a tremendous impact on your company’s bottom line. That’s why, if you’re thinking about having a site designed or redesigned, it’s vital to know why website design and SEO are both important — and what that means for your site.
If you skip SEO web design and do them separately, you’ll often cost your business time, money, and rankings. It’s definitely a smarter strategy to incorporate SEO and web design together because you can build a foundation for your future digital marketing strategy via your website and its subsequent design and scalable features. Some of the top benefits of SEO web design include:
Gain More Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is any traffic from search engine results that are not paid for. As we mentioned before, the top search results have the highest average CTR. Implementing effective SEO Web Design will help you rank higher in search results, increasing your chances of more organic traffic and ranking on the first page for your desired keywords.
Drive More Conversions & Increased High-Intent Traffic
When someone is searching on Google, it’s because they are seeking specific information. If your page shows up at the top of the results with the answer they’re looking for, they will likely click through to your page.
While they may not convert right away, they are now aware of your business and can come back in the future if they have more questions. Brand awareness can give you an edge over your competitors and help convert potential customers.
This type of traffic, known as high-intent traffic, is valuable for your business. Optimising your website during the design phase will help increase this type of traffic. At the end of the day, having an SEO-friendly web design ensures that it’s optimised for maximum conversions and online exposure.
When your site begins attracting high-quality traffic, SEO web design will ensure that the user can take the desired action without any issues, such as making a phone call or submitting a form.
Improve Your User Experience
Your website needs to be SEO-optimised to rank high in search results, but it also needs to be user-friendly. Google’s algorithm factors in several metrics related to user experience or UX. It’s important that your website works well and is easy to navigate, providing a seamless experience for your end user.
By designing your website with SEO best practices in mind, such as responsiveness, easy navigation, fast speed & clear content, it’s easy to improve the user experience without much extra effort and also convert visitors into leads.
Ensure Your Website is SEO-Friendly
Web design and SEO really go hand in hand. If you have a website that’s visually appealing but isn’t optimised for search engines, search engines won’t be able to access your content.
This will, in turn, mean it’s visible in the SERPs. Making your website’s design compatible with SEO revolves around several aspects, including content, links, navigation, and technology.
Get the most of your marketing budget!
Search Engine Optimisation is an extremely cost-effective way to reach your target audience and generate more qualified leads. However, it’s important to note that SEO is a long-term strategy and might take some time before you start seeing results. Once it starts taking effect, however, you will see a considerable boost in organic traffic, local customer visibility and ROI.
On the other hand, paid advertising or PPC can be great for short-term results but can be costly and stop generating results once you stop this form of ads. That’s precisely why SEO is a go-to strategy for most businesses since the results are longer lasting and cost far less than other marketing channels.
Keep Your Target Audiences Informed with Relevant Content
Optimising your site’s SEO during the design phase of your website means that your results will start showing up much sooner, bringing more visitors to your site from the get-go.
It’s important to be aware that your web page content is vital for SEO success. During the process of creating and developing your site, your chosen web designer needs to be informed about what your business provides so that they can create your desired website design with SEO in mind.
Content is essential in Search Engine Optimisation and involves the strategic and meaningful placement of keywords throughout it, in order to help you get a higher ranking in the search results. Pursuing content creation during the design phase is recommended so that all the page elements can be incorporated, as well as any SEO components.
For quality content and link building to yield the best results, web design needs to cater for SEO. It’s a critical aspect & will end up attracting more users for the business once the site is live.
Optimising for Web Design and SEO
Now that you understand the value of SEO web design, it’s time to implement a strategy. Most people think that SEO only pertains to keywords and links, but there are many more factors that Google uses to rank websites.
The Importance of Having an SEO-Friendly Website
The iOnline web design team can control several of these factors, including its overall design, look and feel. Below are some of the top items that affect your search rankings!
1. Mobile-Friendliness
Mobile internet traffic has increased over the past several years, with 54.4% of website traffic coming from mobile devices in 2021. With mobile-first indexing being introduced in 2017, Google was prompted to start boosting mobile-friendly and responsive sites in the search results.
Having a responsive and high-performing website improves your SEO and gives users a good experience on both computers and mobile devices. Without a mobile-friendly website design, you could accidentally alienate many of your users and a high bounce rate due to not loading properly on a phone or tablet can potentially lead to penalties & drops in rankings.
2. Easy-to-read Design
If you’ve been working on improving your SEO, content is likely something that you have spent time working on. Some people might not realise what a huge impact the design of a website can have on your content, or at least the presentation of it.
However, poor web design can make it impossible for users to read what they came to your website to do. Like websites that aren’t mobile-friendly, sites that are difficult to read on any device or desktop are quickly going to turn people away.
Experienced web designers like those at iOnline, understand how to create amazing & easy-to-digest websites so your target users take in your content. Things like white space, line length, and other additional elements such as images & videos, can all affect how people pay attention to your site. Also, remember to consider people with disabilities by implementing an inclusive and accessible web design format.
3. Website Speed
Website speed is another aspect that was recently added to Google’s algorithm. If your website has a slow load time, users will leave your site. This will give you a high bounce rate, leading to suffering search rankings.
Your website speed also impacts Google’s ability to crawl it. If your website loads slowly, Google won’t be able to index as many pages and if your pages aren’t indexed, they won’t rank at all in search results.
Website speed is considered one of the crucial aspects of technical SEO. Page speed is not only important to users, but it’s also important to search engines like Google. The speed of your website affects its ability to crawl so ensuring your website’s security through “HTTPS” encryption is vital.
4. Sitemaps
A sitemap is a file that shows the structure of your web pages. Google uses this to crawl all your pages so they can be indexed. All websites should have a sitemap, but they are especially useful for sites with a lot of different pages.
In addition to their benefit to search engines, sitemaps also aid in user navigation and contain important metadata about your web pages to give them a better chance of ranking highly.
5. Navigation
Easy navigation within your website is important because it improves user experience. Users will be more likely to convert if it’s easy to find what they’re looking for. Also, easy navigation will help keep users on your site which can lower your bounce rate.
6. URL Structure
Each page on your site should have a URL that describes the content of the page. This will help search engines understand the purpose of each page. Words in the URL slug should be divided by hyphens and can include relevant keywords.
Image File Names
Image file names might seem inconsequential, but they can have a huge impact on your website’s optimization. Be sure to include keywords and descriptors in your file name so Google will know what is in the image.
7. Alt Text for Images
In addition to descriptive file names, your images also need to have alt text. This will help Google understand what is in the image. Your alt text should be a complete sentence and describe exactly what is in the image.
So Which Is More Important: Website Design or Search Engine Optimisation?
Whilst many site owners think that great web design can outweigh bad SEO, or vice versa, they want to know which is more important. However, the answer is neither! Put simply, an effective SEO strategy is what gets you found online and draws users to your site, and having an impeccable and engaging web design is what keeps them there.
Having a beautiful website is essentially useless if nobody actually sees it. On the other hand, having a site that ranks at the top of the search engine results won’t help if your poor design makes your visitors leave (which will hurt your rankings as well).
Ultimately, the goal of both web design and SEO is to provide a great user experience. So while web designers focus more on the aesthetic components of a site and SEOs focus more on the aspects that help it rank well in search engines, the desired result is the same: A site that gives visitors what they want and helps your business succeed!
In order to provide your visitors with the information they need to become customers, your site needs to be both functional and visually appealing — two qualities that an experienced website designer should be able to achieve. It also needs to be easy for potential customers to find, which is the responsibility of an SEO & digital marketing team. Here at iOnline, we offer the best of both worlds, with our range of customisable SEO and Website Retainer options to maximise your results!
Why Incorporating Web Design & SEO into Your Online Marketing Strategy is a MUST!
Web design and SEO require different skill sets, so these jobs are often done by more than one person. If you’re hesitant to hire more full-time staff to complete these tasks, hiring a full service digital marketing and advertising agency like iOnline is a fantastic and cost-effective solution!
We also have a range of cost-effective packages to choose from that incorporate both the costs of your new website design and a complete digital marketing & SEO strategy executed over a 12-month period. This allows you to enjoy success from the beginning and start your online journey with your best foot forward!
With many technological advancements happening to date, SEO professionals and web designers have a variety of options to ensure that the site’s design is SEO-friendly. Designing your website with the end-user and target audience in mind, will help you rank far better and attract more visitors in the long term!
Ensure your new website’s success with SEO Web Design!
Whilst the relationship between web design and SEO is a complex one, we hope this blog has made it a little clearer to understand! If you have any questions about how your site can effectively combine the two, or if you are considering starting a new website design or redesign project, iOnline can help!
Our SEO web design company’s talented team of website designers, web developers, digital marketing professionals and search engine optimisation experts are more than happy to assist you in creating a site that is both functional and visually appealing to generate you real results!
Rank Higher by Combining the Power of SEO & Web Design with iOnline
Overall, web design is best done in partnership with SEO, and improving your website’s design doesn’t have to be difficult. Keep these pointers in mind when designing your website, and you could soon start seeing the higher rankings that have been eluding you!
iOnline offers a wide range of digital marketing services, including web design, SEO, lead generation, Google & Facebook Ads management and website, software & application development solutions. We have several SEO web design packages to choose from to suit your budget and business goals.
Whether you’re just starting up or you’ve been in business for years, we have the right package for you. Get in touch to get your free custom proposal today! Give us a call at 07 5515 0451 or email us at hello@ionline.com.au to learn more about our SEO packages and website design services!
