5 Tips to Maximize Web Design and Improve Your SEO Ranking

Search engines are more likely to rank a website highly when it has a great web design that appeals to both humans and search engine crawlers. Web design is crucial to a search engine’s ability to read, understand and index the content of your site.

A good website design with the proper hierarchy of content and effective navigation will make it easier for search engines to crawl your site and it will be able to return more relevant results to users searching on search engines.

We’ve listed the top tips to utilise web design to impact your search engine ranking.

1) Limit Use of JavaScript and Flash

Users must have JavaScript enabled for your site to work properly so that search engines can access it. If you are using JavaScript for only certain parts of your site, make sure that you validate your website to make sure that search engine crawlers will be able to reach all parts of your site, especially the ones that you have enabled JavaScript on.

Flash is not search-engine friendly. Flash is not easy for search engine crawlers to read and understand, and Flash can also cause problems for users having certain browsers or operating systems. Try to keep your use of Flash to a minimum. If you do use Flash, then make sure to tell users that they will need to install Flash player to access the site.

2) Make Navigation Easy

Maintain a logical structure for your site’s content, menus and navigation so that visitors can easily and intuitively find pages on your site. This will assist search engines in finding your website and users in navigating your site.

Do not hide your site’s navigation from users, even on your homepage. Do not use a drop-down menu or tool-tips to display your navigation because search engines cannot see those. Use text-based navigation that is visible to users as well as search engine crawlers.

Less is more when it comes to navigation. Keep your menu and links to only the most important pages. Try to limit your menus to 3-5 main links. Links to the same page (internal links) will tell search engines that the page is important, but it can also confuse users. Keep your site’s navigation simple, clear and easy to understand.

3) Use Responsive Design

Responsive web design puts your site in a format that fits any screen size. Mobile search engine traffic will increase dramatically in the future, and you will want your site to be mobile-friendly so that you can reach more users who are searching on their smartphones and tablets.

Make sure that any internal links open in a new window so that users can easily return to the page they were on before visiting the link.

4) Put Quality Images and Visuals

Images are a very important factor for search engine ranking. If possible, you will want to include an image with your post title, description and the first couple of sentences of your post. When you write a post, be sure to naturally include an image in the first few paragraphs, if possible.

Visual content will make your site more appealing to users and search engine crawlers. Include images in your posts as well as on your web pages.

5) Make Sure Your Site Loads Fast

Make your site as fast-loading as possible so that users will not get annoyed and leave your site. Avoid large graphics and use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) or smaller graphics that are compressed so that your site loads faster.

If you are running WordPress, you can use a plugin called WP Super Cache to cache your site’s pages and posts. This will speed up your site and ensure that pages load faster for users.

Conclusion

Good web design is crucial to ranking well in search engines. If you follow some of the above tips, you will be able to create a website that is both visually appealing and SEO-friendly.

Create a website that best represents your brand with the help of Apex Designs. We provide an affordable web design that will boost your SEO rankings in just a short span of time. Consult with us today to get started on building your online presence.