SEO and Web Design: What’s the Connection?

seo and web design

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a ranking system used by search engines to determine where and why a site ranks. But when you think of SEO, your mind might gravitate toward linking, keywords, and more.

While those are aspects of SEO, for sure, you’ll want to turn your attention toward web design, which now plays a greater role than ever in a site’s ranking.

So what can you do to improve your site? And what’s the connection between the two, anyway?

Keep reading to learn why SEO and web design are the peanut butter and chocolate of the marketing world!

How Are SEO and Web Design Related?

At the risk of oversimplification, both SEO and web design rely on the premise that consumers should always have the best possible experience, whether it’s searching for a query or browsing a website. So, in short, they’re tied together by the end-user.

After all, the web crawlers search engines use to rank websites are coded to emulate the end-user. Therefore, you’ll need to focus on creating a great design if you hope to get ahead.

seo and web design

Creating an SEO-Friendly Site

Now that we understand a bit more about the correlation between web design and SEO, let’s talk about some practical measures you can take to better your website, and thus, your search ranking.

Though there’s plenty to consider, we’ve listed the top three design features below. Make sure to keep reading!

Scannability

A report from the Nielson Norman Group found that people tend to read 25% or less of a page’s text.

While some of this comes down to shortening attention spans, a lot of it has to do with the structure of your text. To keep your readers interested, you’ll want to break up your ideas into small, easy to read paragraphs.

While it goes against what you learned in school, shorter paragraphs are easier on the eyes, so you’ll keep readers’ attention.

Short, scannable content is easier for crawlers to read, too, and thus increases the likelihood of a higher search ranking.

Keyword Usage

The structure of your content is only the beginning. You’ll need to choose your words carefully, as well.

Specifically, this means using popular keywords in your headers and throughout your content.

If you don’t have the time to research high-ranking keywords, or you’d rather leave it up to the experts, there’s no shame in outsourcing. Some marketing firms will do your research for you, so you can always rest assured your keywords will generate the most traffic.

Mobile-First Design

The majority of all web browsing now occurs on a mobile device. To account for this shift, search engines penalize sites with poor mobile experiences. If your website doesn’t load well on a mobile browser, you can expect to slip in the search rankings.

Your site now needs to load quickly, no matter the platform, and all content on the desktop site should be present on the mobile version.

Generate More Traffic Through Web Design

As you can see, the connection between SEO and web design is stronger than you might’ve initially suspected.

Web design is all about creating a fantastic user experience. Since UX is a primary ranking factor, it stands to reason that you’ll benefit from spending a little extra time creating an intuitive, mobile-friendly, and scannable website.
canadian pharmacy https://gaetzpharmacy.com no prescription

Looking for more marketing tips? We’ve got plenty! Spend some time looking through the rest of our blog for more great content!