Putting All the Cogs in Place: How Proper Custom Web Design and SEO Work Together

Do you know the power that web site design has on your business?

If people come across a poorly designed site, about 38% of them will leave without thinking twice about it. They’re also unlikely to return. That’s potential business lost.

Your site’s design also impacts SEO. You know how important it is to rank high in search engines.  About 75% of searchers don’t go past the first page of results. Your site’s design could cost you more business than you realize.

Read on to discover how custom web design can help your site’s SEO.

What Determines Search Results?

Let’s look at how search results are determined. Google uses over 200 factors to determine search results. With so many factors, how can you tell which ones to focus on to improve search results?

There are some things that you can control with SEO and other things that you really can’t. Let’s break down these factors into two categories: onsite SEO and offsite SEO.

Onsite SEO is pretty much in your control. It’s everything about your site’s structure and design that can be used as a ranking factor. For example, Google takes security pretty seriously and in 2014 the company announced that using https instead of http would be a ranking signal.

Offsite SEO is everything that isn’t part of your website’s design, but does have an impact on SEO. In this case, directory listings like Google My Business and backlinks are considered offsite SEO.

It’s not very common to have a web designer who is well-versed in both SEO and web design. Usually, you’ll find people who are experts in one or the other.

What the best web designers know is that they’re really creating a website for two audiences: search engines and users.

When you have a custom web design done by someone who understands good web design and SEO, you can be sure that they will set up your website for both your site’s visitors and for search engines.

That will result in more business and traffic for you.

How Does Custom Web Design Impact SEO?

You have a basic understanding as to how custom web design can impact your site’s SEO. What are the main factors of your site’s design can impact SEO? Let’s take a look.

A Better User Experience

You know that good custom web design is for users and search engines. What do users look for in a website?

They want something that’s easy to use, easy to navigate, and has a clean design. That means there’s not so much information that the site’s design is clutters and busy.

How does that impact SEO? One ranking factor in SEO is called dwell time. That’s what happens after a searcher clicks on a result to go to a web page. If they see that the site design is poor, they’re likely to turn back to the search engine for a better result.

When that happens, Google takes notice because its job is to provide the best search results for users. If someone clicks through to your site and then immediately goes back to the search engine for better results, that will have a negative impact on your search rankings.

Overall Site Performance

Site speed is another onsite ranking factor that will help you rank higher in search engines. People will also leave your site if it takes more than a few seconds to load.

A custom web design will ensure that your site will load quickly, even if it has a lot of images.

Responsive Site Design

Did you know that mobile devices are driving more than half of the world’s internet traffic? It is and search engines have responded by prioritizing mobile versions of websites in indexing search results.

It’s critical for users and for search engines to have a responsive website design. That means that your site’s look will respond to the user’s device, whether that’s a desktop computer, phone, or tablet.

Architecture and Structure of the Site

There’s a lot that has to happen behind the scenes of your website to make sure that search engines can find it. Technically speaking, your site needs to be set up in a way that makes it easy for search engines to figure out what your site is about.

That starts with the page structure of the site. You’ve probably come across a web page that looks like this: www.domain.com/news/post=1234

That doesn’t tell a search engine much. On the other hand, a page that has www.domain.com/news/best-website-designs will tell search engines what your content is about.

They’ll also make sure that your site’s categories are focused on content and that there aren’t too many of them.

Understand the Value of Good Content on the Page

A web designer that understands SEO also knows that good content is best for users and search engines. They’ll be able to tell what keywords are best to use for your site’s pages.

They’ll also make sure that your meta descriptions are filled in properly. What’s a meta description? It’s the few sentences in a search result that tells you what a page is about. It essentially tells users and search engines what the content is about.

Once a search engine understands what the content on a page is about, it will appear in search results for queries related to the content.

Custom Web Design Matter for Users and Search Engines

When you’re building a website you have to design it for search engines and your site’s users. You need to make sure that it’s technically sound, user-friendly, and built for performance. All while looking great on any device.

If you miss the mark, you’re going to lose business. That’s why you want to invest in custom web design with a developer who knows what good design is and what it takes to rank high in search engines.

That will benefit your business and make your site’s visitors more likely to stay and buy from you.

Are you ready to get started? Request a quote for your custom web project today.