A website is the first point of contact for over 40% of all customers. It can make or break your startup. When we talk about a “startup”, we mean any business that has been in operation for less than five years and is still trying to establish itself as a recognizable brand name. Whether you’re creating a website from scratch, or updating an existing site, there are certain design elements that will increase your success rate on search engines such as Google and Bing
When you think of search engine optimization (SEO), keywords, meta descriptions and search engines might be the first things that come to mind. You might know how content marketing strategy can help your SEO efforts, but website design is probably not something you see as a vital component of your SEO strategy. However, the truth is that website design can make or break the SEO for your business.
Why Website Design is Important for SEO?
Being found in search engine results is one part of the battle. Once you’ve drawn visitors to your website, it’s your site design that helps create a clear and engaging experience. If the visitor doesn’t understand what you offer or how they can take action, they’ll leave and never return.
A good website design will help you establish yourself as an authority. It presents the content in the right way for your target audience, so great website design relies on a great copy. That’s because first impression matter. People make split-second opinions based on what they see, and these unconscious impressions influence their future interactions with you for a long time.
But a good website design can do so much more than convince your website visitors that you’re trustworthy. A simple but professional design makes for a user-friendly and easy to navigate website.
Relevant, high-quality content not only convinces your audience to revisit or recommend a site, but it also generates links from authoritative websites. Many new businesses focus too much on adding trendy effects such as sliders and parallax backgrounds when these elements often only distract the reader and hurt conversion rates.
So, what else can you do to improve your SEO with website design?
Optimize for Mobile Experience
Mobile traffic has grown significantly in the last few years. Today, mobile devices account for almost half of all web traffic worldwide. By 2022, this number is expected to increase to 60%. Websites that don’t offer a great user experience for mobile users are not catering to the majority of user devices that visit their website.
A website designed for a great mobile experience can also increase conversion rates by optimizing the navigation, copy and the user’s conversion path.
Mobile traffic has become so prevalent that one of the largest search engines, Google’s ranking algorithm, judges site design and performance on mobile devices first. It uses a new set of metrics called Core Web Vitals to determine how well a website performs on mobile devices .
Core Web Vitals are indicators that help determine whether or not a site is providing a great mobile experience. They are a subset of factors that influence Google’s evaluation of a page’s user experience. Because Google prioritizes providing users with great mobile experiences, it will be incorporating Core Web Vitals into their ranking algorithm this year.
The takeaway? Your website’s mobile design can improve your SEO directly and indirectly — so allocate resources to ensure a great mobile experience.
Ineffective Call to Action (CTAs)
Your SEO efforts can place your page in front of the audience that’s most likely to convert, but they are only one step in the customer journey. Once visitors land on the page, you want them to have an accurate idea of what action to take next, whether it’s signing up for a webinar or downloading a freebie. And your visitors can’t do any of that without clicking at least one button.
Any website page is only as strong as its call to action (CTA), so it’s important to understand what makes an effective CTA.
Flint McGlaughlin from MECLABS Institute says that a call to action communicates the right message to the right people at the right time. In order for your website copy to be effective, your website design can play a huge role in conducting attention.
Don’t go crazy with your CTAs. Using garish or cheap effects can hurt your conversion rates because it crushes your credibility. Good web design uses fonts, colors and visuals that are tailored to the content and audience, enhancing the visitors’ experience and encouraging them to take action.
Avoid Over Doing
Startups and small business sites often have simple structure, which makes the website easier to build. Small businesses often overthink their architecture when building their websites. This can lead to a decrease in SEO visibility. Instead of making your URLs overly complicated, think about keeping them simple: for example, domain.com/service-we-offer/.
This is also important for blogs. Avoid using categories or tags in the URL and consider not using the /blog/ as part of the URL: for example, instead of domain.com/blog/blog-title use domain.com/blog-title/.
Keeping your URL short and simple will make it easier for users to remember. Also, because of the way search engines work, a URL with less characters may have a higher click-through rate (CTR) than one with more characters.
Never Stop Enhancing
Website design goes beyond aesthetics. It encompasses all aspects of a site, including structure and usability, so it has a huge impact on your website’s SEO success.
Don’t think your website design is set in stone. You can always improve on it. Track how well your site performs and make changes if necessary. Updating your website design to match its content will increase the chances of converting visitors into customers.
Conclusion:
When it comes to startups, the website is one of the most important aspects. A strong website design can help a startup stand out from its competitors and drive traffic to their business.
If you want to learn more about how AI Advertisment can help you with your startup’s digital marketing strategy, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us today.