SEO is an important aspect of any website, but the website’s design can often make a great SEO campaign fall apart. If you don’t design your website with certain SEO policies in mind, it might not perform as well as you want and fail to rank. 

Achieving an SEO-focused web design is always challenging, but there are ways to make it easier for your website’s design to work effectively with SEO. Search engines like Google consider numerous design elements when ranking websites, making it essential to optimize your website’s design to achieve higher search engine rankings. 

Here I’ll explore ten ways your website’s design affects your SEO.

10 Ways Your Website’s Design Affects Your SEO

1. Readability 

If your website is more of a blog then expect your visitors to also be readers. So it’s important to ensure that the text on your blog is easy to read. According to Daily Blog Tips, most people want optimized content that can be easily understood, and from the search engine’s perspective, it also needs to be readable. If a visitor has difficulty reading your website’s content or they will likely bounce off your website and you’ll start seeing a higher than average bounce rate which ultimately affects your SEO.

2. URL Structure

Your website’s URL structure can have a huge impact on your SEO. The structure of your page is important because it sets the foundation for where your page should rank. It is important to ensure your site’s URL structure reflects the page’s primary purpose, so there is no confusion with its content. If you don’t plan for this, it could confuse search engines and your visitors. When you have a URL structure in mind, favor keywords that reflect what your website is about over keywords that are too general.

3. Page Titles

The page title is very important for SEO, so much so that most search engines require it for ranking. It is important to create a page title that accurately reflects the content contained on the page. The title must also be keyword rich, so it will appear in search results. If someone searches for a term within your page title, you want them to find your website at the top of their search results.

4. Site Speed

A site’s speed affects its SEO. Search engines consider your website’s speed when ranking it, so if it is slow and confusing for visitors, it might not rank as well as expected. If you have a fast-loading website, people are less likely to leave in search of another page. If you plan on selling a product or providing some kind of service to visitors, they will be more likely to engage with your site due to its speed.

5. Mobile-Friendly Design

Search engines are making it easier for mobile users to access your website. If you have a website that is not mobile-friendly, most people will not be able to find it, and your SEO will suffer. The best way to ensure your website is accessible to everyone is by having a mobile-friendly design. One mistake I’ve seen website owners do is forgetting to rescale their website logo when viewed on your mobile phone. Scaling the logo as well as other images is critical so your website is easier to navigate.

6. Navigation

Navigation is important for SEO, but it does need to be done correctly. Too many navigation options and rules can confuse search engines and your website visitors. You want to keep everything straight, so the navigation options are easy to use. When people visit your website, they want it to be simple and easy to navigate. If they are confused by your navigation options, they might leave in search of another site that is easier to use.

7. Crawling & accessibility

Your website’s accessibility is important for SEO, so it should be set up correctly. If you don’t configure your site to be accessible to the web crawlers, it might not rank as well. Your website should effectively crawl all the pages of your website and make sure those pages are search engine friendly. 

8. Use of Multimedia

Using multimedia, such as images and videos, is one of the best ways to improve your SEO. Many people ignore using multimedia on their websites, but it can have an impact. When you have videos available, it enhances your website’s ability to rank in search results. Multimedia content can also provide alternative opportunities for incorporating keywords into your website, such as image file names.

9. Use of Keywords

Keywords are a fundamental element of SEO and should be incorporated into your website’s design. Whether your trying to rank on Google or Amazon or any other major website, using keywords in your meta tags, title, headings, and content can help search engines understand the topic of your website and improve your chances of ranking for those keywords.

10. Alt Tags 

Alt tags are also important to SEO. If your website’s images do not have alt tags, this could affect your SEO. Alt tags allow search engines to index the content of images and rank them appropriately within their search results.

Website design is critical to the success of your SEO efforts. Creating an SEO-friendly website will allow you to rank higher in search engines and increase visitor traffic, which is important for your business. You can successfully optimize your website’s design by incorporating the ten tips discussed in this article. These tips will help you achieve better search engine rankings and increase traffic to your website.