Why web design and SEO go hand-in-hand

Developing a website for your business is a great way to reach potential customers looking for your products or services. But just having a website often isn't enough. To attract visitors and convert them into customers, your site needs to be both well-designed and optimised for search engines.

This is where web design and SEO (search engine optimisation) come together. A beautifully designed website without proper SEO might look great, but what's the point if no one can find it?

Conversely, a site that ranks well but has poor design will struggle to engage visitors and convert them into customers. Here’s why a well-designed website and a good SEO strategy should always go hand-in-hand.

1. User experience affects SEO

Google and other search engines prioritise user experience (UX) when ranking websites. If your site is difficult to navigate, slow to load or isn’t mobile-friendly, users will likely leave quickly, which can hurt how your website ranks in search engines.

Effective web design ensures that your site is easy to use, aesthetically pleasing and fast – keeping customers engaged and can help improve your SEO.

Key elements of good user experience:

• Easy-to-navigate menus
• Clear, readable fonts and text sizes
• Fast loading speeds
• Mobile responsiveness

Easy-to-navigate menus
A well-organised menu structure helps to guide visitors through your site, giving you a much better chance at driving conversions. By carefully considering your site's architecture and employing practical design principles, menus can be both visually appealing and intuitive.

Here are some practical tips to help you achieve this:

• Use concise and descriptive menu text to accurately reflect the content for each menu item.
• Group related items together and arrange them in a hierarchical structure that makes sense to your audience.
• Avoid overwhelming your users with too many options. Use submenus, dropdown menus or a mega menu for more complex navigation structures.

Clear, readable fonts and text sizes
Well-chosen fonts and appropriate text sizes will significantly enhance the user experience, improve the readability of your content and contribute to overall website accessibility. By carefully selecting fonts and typography that complement your brand and adhere to best practices, you can have a visually appealing website that is easy for your customers to read.

Here are some practical tips about fonts and typography:

• Choose fonts that are easy to read on both screens and print. Sans-serif fonts like Arial, Helvetica or Roboto are often good choices for body text.
• Use a consistent font size that is easily legible across a range of devices. A standard guideline for body text is to use 16px and larger sizes for headings.
• Ensure adequate line spacing (leading) to prevent text from appearing cramped and difficult to read.
• Ensure there is contrast between text and background colour to improve readability, especially for users with visual impairments.
• Use a font weight that is neither too light nor too bold to balance readability and visual appeal.
• Align text consistently, typically left-aligned for body text and centred for headings.

2. Mobile-friendliness is a ranking factor

With more people using smartphones to browse the web, Google has shifted to a "mobile-first" indexing approach. This means that Google primarily uses the mobile version of your site for ranking and indexing, so if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, there’s a good chance it will be buried several pages deep in search results.

A well-designed, mobile-friendly website is crucial for good SEO. If your site doesn’t work well on mobile devices, you’re missing out on a huge chunk of potential traffic.

3. Site speed matters

Website loading speed is another crucial factor that affects both user experience and SEO. No one likes a slow website, and search engines are no different. Slow-loading pages lead to higher bounce rates (users leaving your site without exploring further), which can signal to search engines that your site is not providing a good experience.

A well-optimised, fast-loading site can lead to better search rankings.

Tips for improving site speed:

• Compress images to reduce file size without compromising quality
• Minimise the use of heavy scripts and plugins
• Use a reliable hosting provider

4. Design for easy crawling and indexing

Search engines use bots (or "spiders") to crawl websites and index their content. If your website design makes navigating difficult for these bots, it can hurt your SEO.

An SEO-friendly design ensures that your content is well-structured, making it easy for search engines to understand what your site is about.

Web design tips for better crawling:

• Use a clear hierarchy with headers (H1, H2, H3) to organise content
• Create a logical, easy-to-follow site structure
• Ensure all pages are linked properly

5. Content placement and readability

Content is a significant part of any SEO strategy, but where and how it’s placed on your site matters. A cluttered, poorly designed site can make content hard to read, driving visitors away. On the other hand, a well-designed layout can make your content more accessible, engaging and easier to scan, which can help with SEO.

Proper use of headings, bullet points and images can make content more user-friendly and appealing to search engines. It’s worth remembering that people typically will scan your webpage to get an understanding of what the page is about. Once they’ve scanned the headlines, bullet points and elements on the page that stand out, they will then make the decision to continue reading the rest of the content on the page if it meets their needs.

6. The importance of internal links

Internal linking — linking to other pages on your website — helps both users and search engines navigate your site. A well-thought-out design should make it easy to include internal links that guide users to relevant content.

This not only improves the user experience but also helps search engines understand the structure of your site, which can improve your SEO.

7. Optimised images for better SEO

Images can enhance the visual appeal of your website, but they can also help with SEO if optimised correctly. Including relevant alt text (a description of the image) helps search engines understand what the image is about.

This can also improve your site’s accessibility, as screen readers use alt text to describe images to visually impaired users. It will also help your images show up in Google image searches.

Tips for image optimisation:

• Use descriptive, keyword-rich file names
• Add alt text to all images
• Compress images to improve loading times

8. Responsive design improves bounce rate

Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing just one page. A high bounce rate means people aren’t engaging with your website, which can negatively affect your SEO.

Responsive web design ensures that your site looks good and functions well across all devices, reducing bounce rate and increasing the chances that visitors will engage with your content.

9. Local SEO and web design

For businesses that rely on local customers, local SEO is crucial. An effective web design can make it easier to integrate local SEO elements, such as including a Google Maps component, contact details and location-specific keywords or pages.

This helps local customers find your business when searching for relevant services. Remember that people tend to search for services based on their problem or the area they’re in.

For example, if someone is looking for a pest control company, they’re likely to search for something like “pest control for cockroaches” (problem-based search query) or “pest control Redcliffe” (geographic-based search query).

Conclusion

In today’s competitive digital landscape, web design and SEO should not be treated as separate entities. They work together to create a seamless user experience while helping your website rank higher in search results.

A well-designed site attracts visitors, but effective SEO ensures that those visitors can find you in the first place.

By combining good web design practices with solid SEO, you can create a website that looks great, drives traffic and converts visitors into customers.

If you're ready to improve your website’s design and SEO, contact us today to find out how we can help!