A beautiful website no longer stands out among the competition. Your website needs to do more than look good to attract your audience – it needs to perform well on search engines. The integration of web design and SEO is the foundation of our website services, but unfortunately, that’s not the norm in the industry.
We often hear new leads complaining about their lack of visibility and website traffic. And that’s due to poor optimization from their website designer. We strongly believe you need to hire a web designer with SEO knowledge to have a successful website.
This blog will explore why you should invest in a web designer with SEO expertise to ensure your online success.
The Relationship Between Web Design and SEO
Web design and SEO are interconnected and work together to achieve the best online visibility possible. It all comes down to the user experience. A positive user experience, driven by effective web design, leads to:
- Higher engagement
- Lower bounce rates
- More time spent on your website
All of these factors positively impact your SEO. Search engines want to serve the best results to their users. If you have the best results, you’ll be shown more often in search results. But how do you earn credibility and tell Google what your pages are about? SEO!
A web designer’s job is to create a visually appealing website AND make it SEO-friendly. Your web designer needs to know SEO – there is no other option in this competitive space.
Key SEO Factors in Web Design
So what SEO factors should a web designer consider while designing a website?
Responsive Design
Mobile traffic surpasses desktop, which means search engines are starting to prioritize mobile optimization. While a web designer might design the website on a desktop, mobile optimization and responsive design are critical to ensure the site functions well on any device.
Optimized Site Structure
A clear site structure helps users and search engines easily navigate your website. They can find relevant content without issues, which makes users stay on your website longer. People don’t have any patience – they will exit your website so fast if they can’t find what they need quickly. A clear navigation menu and search functionality will improve user experience and ranking potential.
On-Page Elements
Header tags are another important aspect of web design and SEO. They aren’t just used for design purposes; search engines read page content hierarchically. Headers give cues about the most important content on the page. Web designers should use keyword-focused header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to structure the content.
Web designers also need to consider keyword placement on each page. Keywords should be included naturally throughout the page, but there is also a strategy for placing keywords. These are the places keywords should be placed:
- Metadata
- Page title
- Headers
- Body copy
- Image alt text
Internal Linking
Internal linking helps users find new pages on your website related to the content they’re currently reading. Effective internal linking improves the crawlability of your site and helps search engines understand the relationship between pages. This can increase the ranking potential of linked pages.
Your web designer needs to know SEO because everything works together.
Common SEO Mistakes in Web Design
I’ve had discovery calls where leads say they paid for a beautiful website but it isn’t performing. It’s usually because their web designer didn’t consider SEO and made these common mistakes.
Unoptimized Images
Large images can slow down your website speed, which is a big user experience issue. A slow website frustrates users and leads to higher bounce rates, negatively impacting your SEO. Web designers need to compress images before uploading them to the website to avoid this problem. My favorite tool for this is Tinify.
Poor URL Structure
Did you know your URL can impact your SEO? URLs that are too long, don’t have dashes in between words (search engines read this as spaces), or lack keywords can confuse search engines and users. Clean and simple URLs are the way to go!
Ignored Meta Tags
This would be a big oversight by a web designer. Meta tags (SEO title and meta description) are what appear in search results. Each page should have a unique, descriptive SEO title and meta description with keywords.
The Benefits of a Web Designer with SEO Knowledge
There are many benefits of hiring a web designer with SEO knowledge!
Higher Search Engine Rankings
It takes time for search engines to discover, trust, and consistently show your website in search results. A web designer with SEO expertise can incorporate best practices into the design process from the start, which gives you better search engine rankings faster.
Improved User Experience
A professional web designer understands that a good user experience is everything. It keeps visitors on the website longer and improves SEO metrics. A web designer with SEO knowledge will design an intuitive, easy-to-navigate site to guide users to the information they need quickly.
Cost and Time Efficiency
By considering SEO during the design phase, potential issues that could hurt your rankings are addressed upfront. You don’t need to spend time or money fixing problems later. The designer will also be up-to-date with the future of SEO and search, which reduces the need for constant changes as search algorithms evolve.
Stronger Metrics and Reporting
A web designer with SEO understanding will set up analytics and reporting tools to track key SEO metrics. You’ll have everything you need to see how well the site is performing and where you can make improvements.
SEO-Friendly Web Design at Woods Marcom
A pretty website is great to look at but doesn’t attract your audience. I know SEO isn’t sexy, but it’s how your website will be found by your target audience. It’s critical in any effective website design.
We build every website from an SEO perspective to give our clients the best chance of ranking on search engines quickly. If you’re ready to have a beautiful, optimized website, connect with us! You can also contact us for an SEO audit to see how your current website is performing and get recommendations to improve. Send us a message today to get started!
