How Designers and Programmers Can Improve SEO Together
We live in an era where people rarely make purchase decisions without doing at least a quick Google search. And with much of today’s business taking place on the internet, you might feel like the success or failure of your business is at the mercy of the almighty algorithm. However, there are ways to please the gods and acquire the favour of search engine robots. And the answer is precisely SEO.
SEO is not only about posting relevant and original content that fulfils all the criteria to score you a good mark. That is merely one component in a complex mechanism that includes everything from using keywords and backlinks to designing an engaging website. For all of these parts to work together, programmers and designers need to work together as well.
If your website is not producing satisfactory results, the problem may lie in a discrepancy between your design and your SEO efforts. Here is why you should tackle this issue and how it will help you!
Why is SEO-friendly web design important?
You might be wondering what exactly happens if web design and SEO fail to cooperate. In short, one might render the efforts of the other ineffective.
Designers may simply not be familiar with the rapidly changing rules of the SEO world. However, it does not matter that your website has a unique and modern design if no one sees it because it loads slow and gets buried on the second page of Google results. At the same time, your investments in SEO will be in vain if the design is unsatisfactory and turns away your visitors. A high bounce rate will destroy the ranking you worked so hard on, and you’ll be back at square one.
Directing both your programmers and designers towards the same goal can, on the other hand, create a solid SEO framework into the very foundations of your web page.
Mobile-friendliness is key
According to a 2016 report, mobile phones and tablets already accounted for more than half of all web traffic at that time. Today, mobiles alone make up more than 54% of it. In these circumstances, it is no wonder that mobile-friendliness is now also a deciding factor when it comes to search engine rankings. Its importance in web design reached new heights and it’s something you must deal with in one way or another. In the past, creating a separate mobile site was an acceptable practice. However, this is one of those web design trends that will not be around for much longer. Coding and maintaining two separate sites is impractical. It can also mess with your SEO in case it is detected as duplicate content. Implementing a responsive design to cater to your mobile audience is a much better solution.
A responsive design is able to adapt to various screen sizes to create the most optimal experience. But while such a site works equally well on desktop and mobile, the designers’ approach still plays an important role. Designers tend to focus on desktop design primarily, but the above statistics clearly show that we live in a mobile-first world. Placing a bigger emphasis on the mobile version can facilitate optimization, too.
Improving readability
Making sure you present your content in an easily readable way is crucial for engaging your visitors. However, there is more to readability than simply choosing a suitable font. As already mentioned, effective SEO involves publishing plenty of content. If your web design fails to take this into consideration and does not allocate enough space for future content, you might have an issue later on. SEO-friendly web design should be flexible; it should look great both when there is just a short “About” text on the page and when you publish thousand-word blog posts.
In addition, developers need to consider the appropriate text size for readability on different devices. If a user has to zoom in, the experience is already ruined, but the overly large text looks intrusive on desktop screens. Much of this also comes down to having a good, responsive design.
Besides the font size, how you break up the text on the page also affects readability. Nothing will turn away visitors faster than a large chunk of text. No one has the attention span for massive paragraphs. Make your content more reader-friendly by making paragraphs more bite-sized and implementing different formatting for added interest.
Better engagement
If you truly want to achieve a good ranking, bringing people to your page is not enough. You also need to keep them there. While every business has its own approach, a reputable SEO company from Sydney emphasizes that climbing higher on the results page should not be the only goal. It won’t bring lasting results in itself. If you fail to live up to expectations, you will fall back down soon enough. Instead, you should focus on boosting the user experience and making sure people spend more quality time on your website.
There are many ways to engage your visitors, and a great design is the first step. This includes the aforementioned readability as well as the soon-to-be-mentioned intuitive navigation, too. What appears in front of your visitors as they open your page will determine their first impression of your brand, but how they interact with your site will follow close behind. Making sure both the visuals and the content are high-quality is paramount.
Organized structure and clear navigation
As we just mentioned, keeping your visitors on your site is crucial. Poor web design decisions can easily drive them away. It’s important that your website architecture is organized and intuitive for the best user experience. Keep readability in mind and remember that less is more.
The navigation needs to be simple and clear in order to cater to the needs of both your human visitors and Google’s crawlers. Organize categories well so that customers can find what they are looking for with ease. This will boost their satisfaction. A search bar is also necessary in case they cannot find their product of choice; it should be in a visible spot to prevent frustration.
Note that certain navigation menus can simply go against your SEO efforts. This is yet another reason why designers and programmers need to be on the same page when creating a website. Menus such as mega menus may not only be bad for SEO but can also cause issues on mobile. Hamburger menus and accordion menus can also be problematic. Making sure that information such as this is communicated from the beginning will save time and resources for both parties involved.
Boosted speed
Download speed is undeniably one of the most important factors developers and designers should be mindful of. Ignoring your website speed is one of the biggest SEO mistakes you could make. Today’s users are anything but patient, and a slow-loading website stands no chance in this fast-paced scroll culture. A hefty design might not be worth the lost traffic, but you also need to display quality to convince your visitors about your authority.
Designers might need to make a few compromises regarding design elements so as not to bloat the page too much. For instance, large images at the top of the page can hinder loading, especially if the pictures are not optimized fully. GIFs and other kinds of animations also slow down the page. If saying goodbye to your slider can make your page faster, it’s a sacrifice worth making.
Even if loading is not possible immediately, developers should make sure this does not destroy the user experience. Eliminating shifting or utilizing blurry placeholders to minimize the damage a few seconds of delayed loading causes can be an acceptable compromise.
Grabbing every chance to rank
Designers and programmers working together is the only way to make the most of every chance you have to rank. Designers may not pay particular attention to image file names as they upload them. This is a huge untapped potential. Properly naming images can boost your chances of appearing in image searches, driving more traffic to your site.
Similarly, you should not neglect alt texts either. Alt texts give you the chance to describe each of your photos, which gives extra material to Google crawlers. It helps them identify what the picture is about, once again, making it possible for the picture to show up in searches. In addition, alt text also boosts user experience. Not only is it indispensable for making your page accessible to visually impaired visitors, but it also gives some information to visitors who disable image files from loading.
Finally, making sure that each of your website links is fully descriptive is yet another valuable step. It is not only a positive SEO practice, but similarly to alt texts, it’s also important for accessibility. Your visitors may also prefer knowing exactly where each link will take them.
A successful collaboration of your designers and programmers will result in a website that is not only attractive and user-friendly but also fulfils SEO criteria. With boosted speed, better organization, and a high level of optimization, your rank will improve, but so will your users’ experience.