How Web Design Affects SEO and How to Deal With It

Can SEO and Web Design be two individual entities? Why should a developer always keep in touch with the marketer, they have two different jobs anyway, right? No.

In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the aspects two completely different worlds share. But most importantly, explain how they cannot possibly work one without the other.

First things first. What is Web Design and what does SEO mean?

Web Design – is the process through which the interface and user experience a website provides is created. Web Design is just another name we use to gather the process of designing a website, coding a website and finally serving it to the end user.

SEO – means Search Engine Optimisation. It is the process of optimising a website so that it can be indexed by Google and served in Google search results.

So how does Web Design affects SEO?

Those two processes we have mentioned before consist in the job of two different professions. Hence, the web design process is created by a developer only (or a developer and a designer), while SEO is usually done by the Marketing Team.

Either way, the two parts should always talk and collaborate with each other. Therefore, here are 5 reasons why:

1.User Experience

There is an important aspect that must be matched in both worlds: the user experience. In order to have a profitable company or just a constant online presence you must take care of the end user.

This can be summed up in different ways: pages that are easy to find, funnels, clear text, representative pictures, branding and suggestive colours.

Here comes the SEO expert, who through trial and error, or beta testing, has determined the ups and downs of a mobile website.

Here is a clear example of an intentionally bad created user interface by Bagaar : https://userinyerface.com/index.html

That interface creates a bad user experience. You cannot find the right buttons, there are no intentions of keeping you on the site and the colours are…well, you see!

How exactly does this bad user interface and experience affects your SEO? Google still serves you the website in search results, people do access the link.

The answer is simple: High Bounce Rate. The nightmare of ever SEO expert is having an increase in the bounce rate. It’s like having a customer come right in your restaurant, but before sitting down at the table he/she decides to leave because they didn’t like the environment.

If the bounce rate is high, there is no way Google will still serve your website high in search results because it will consider it as not being useful to the users.

2. Funnels

Funnels are an interesting aspect of SEO and it cannot be done without the complicity of the developer. What are those? Funnels are called like that because they share the same purpose as the real life funnels – they gather everything around them and put it in one single place.

This is an extremely important matter when it comes to conversion rates. The concepts are simple:

You want all the users that enter your website to be sent to a checkout with your product in their online shopping cart.

Of course, there is no way on Earth you can achieve that, even if you give that product for free, however, funnels are ways to gather the users on one page so you can maximise conversions.

If the funnels are done correctly (i.e. you can have a “Go to our Store” button on every page on the website), consequently you will significantly reduce the bounce rate too!

It’s a true win win situations. Doesn’t your developer and marketer have a meeting yet?

3. Analytics

There is simply no way to guess the behaviour of every user that comes across your website. Hence, there are platforms such as Google Analytics or Facebook Pixel that enable you to see the behaviour of your users on the website.

You can see the pages that have the most traffic, the demographics and so on. You can find out more on this subject by following our previous article here. Therefore, if the SEO expert notices that people are not using the website as you want them to, then that meeting with the developer should really happen fast!

4. Dedicated Mobile Websites

Mobile phones are definitely an extremely important part of our everyday activities. People search tons of thing online and maybe your website is one of those things.

Now, imagine yourself surfing the web and encounter a website that looks nice, is responsive but loads in more than 4 seconds. You’ll leave to another one in a blink. Therefore, why should you serve such website to your users and potential customers?

A dedicated mobile website should be a part of your business web development and SEO. Google decided that there is a need for a platform that can serve users content faster than lightning. It is called AMP – accelerated mobile pages. But this is not the only solution you have. There are also Mobile Templates (which run on classic HTML, Java Scrips and CSS) or even Dedicated Mobile Themes.

We have prepared six articles that will help you make up your mind about dedicated mobile websites, how to set up an HTML website and many more tips! Here is a list of them.

Conclusion

If you still haven’t set up the meeting between your developer and marketer you should go and do that now! Communication and collaboration is the key of every successful business, as well as working with valuable tools.

While here make sure you drop an eye into our online portfolio here. Who knows, maybe you will find the exact mobile website template you’ve been looking for!