Search engine optimisation (SEO) does not just revolve around targeting the right keywords and generating quality backlinks, and although these elements are necessary for crafting an effective digital marketing strategy, they often overshadow the importance of a site’s WordPress web design and its role in SERP positioning. Let’s explore the Top 3 Ways Website Design Impacts SEO For Your Business.
Nope, that was not a typo – Wordpress web design plays a major role in your small business SEO.
Here’s how Your Website’s Design Impacts Your Small Business SEO.
Top 3 Ways Website Design Impacts SEO For Your Business
- User Experience And SEO
- Improve SEO Through Design Elements
- The Right Content Management System (CMS) Makes Life Easier
Top 3 Ways Website Design Impacts SEO For Your Business
1. User Experience And SEO
Apart from SEO and visual attractiveness, a website’s design affects the user experience (UX), which impacts things like branding, conversion rates and even overall traffic numbers.
And as far as ranking websites, Google prefers websites that provide a quality user experience over ones that neglect it and focus only on content and link building.
Google has learned not to rely too heavily on keywords and backlinks and social media signals, which can be manipulated with the right tools and know-how, but instead, they’re placing more emphasis on UX indicators, such as:
- Bounce Rate – High bounce rates are an indication that your website is not providing the user with enough value, and so Google will reflect this fact in their rankings. Arriving on a website and then clicking the back button, closing the tab, and not interacting with the site affect bounce rate.
- Time Spent On Site – If your website’s bounce rate is low, then the next step to providing a better UX involves focusing on factors that increase the amount of time visitors spend on your website. The longer they stay on site and continue clicking on more pages, the better your site’s UX will be.
Bounce rates and time spent on site can be improved with a more efficient WordPress web design that complements your brand and appeals to your target audience.
2. Improve SEO Through Design Elements
Is your web design modern with a clear-cut layout and easy-to-find navigation? More importantly, is your WordPress web design providing visitors with concrete value?
There are four aspects to your WordPress web design that you should focus on to provide your audience with a better user experience.
- Make it extremely easy for visitors to take the first steps into your sales funnel.
- Clutter and chaos can easily translate to information overload, and with it, a high bounce rate. Keep a web design clean, and minimal, and eliminate anything that distracts from the overall goal.
- Guide visitors in the right direction. Make it easy for people to find your products, blog posts, tutorials, contact information and call to action. If you make them look for information that should be easy to find, then they’ll quickly turn and click away in frustration.
- Watch how visitors interact with your Worpress design. What’s the first thing they click on? Is your design drawing their eyes to the left side or right side? Watching your visitors is an excellent way to understand their habits and help improve their experience.
3. The Right Content Management System (CMS) Makes Life Easier
Content management systems (CMS) like WordPress make it easy to tweak the underlying coded elements of your website that Google looks for when crawling a website.
Having a WordPress web design can vastly improve your small business SEO by allowing anyone with zero technical skills the ability to optimise:
- Title tags to create a more clickable title and insert important keywords.
- Heading tags to make content more visually appealing, easier to digest and insert important keywords.
- Meta descriptions that describe pages more effectively and entice visitors to click on your web page in the search engines. While meta descriptions do not directly impact SEO, they definitely play a role in click-through rates (CTR.)
These on-page SEO elements are easily managed with a simple CMS like WordPress. If you aren’t using a CMS and rely on someone with HTML knowledge to make every small change to your website, then you might as well be on a sinking ship in the middle of a storm across the Atlantic ocean.
Being able to easily add, delete and modify content, images, videos and call to action’s puts you in complete control which in the end can have a dramatic impact on your small business SEO.
Having a WordPress web design optimised for mobile users and consistently updating your site with fresh quality content can’t hurt either. Not sure how much your WordPress web design is affecting your small business’s SEO? Need to push your UX elements in the right direction?
Feel free to contact us today for more information on how web design affects your SEO, and how we can help.
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Further Information
Pixel Fish Hosting, Support & Maintenance
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SEO Keyword Research
The Vital Role of Mobile Website Design
An Introduction to Website Design for Small Business
Why your business needs to embrace Mobile Responsive Website Design
How to Start a Successful Blog to Boost Your Business Website
The evolution of the web designer from hired gun to trusted partner
