6 Ways the Design of Your Website Can Boost Your SEO

With so many businesses trying to reach the very top of relevant search engine results pages (SERPs), taking steps to boost your website’s SEO is an important part of owning a company. And your website’s design can actually have a huge impact on its ability to climb the SERPs.

So, in this article, we’re going to look at 6 ways your website’s design can help boost your search engine optimization. Read on to learn more.

Incorporating social proof will show search engines you’re trustworthy

When deciding how to rank your website, search engines like Google will assess your E-A-T — this stands for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. This is because they only want to send their users to knowledgeable websites that are sharing accurate information.

There are a number of ways you can boost your E-A-T rating, but one of the easiest and most effective is to incorporate social proof into your website’s design. This could include customer reviews and testimonials, any relevant awards or qualifications, and even media mentions that show well-known publishers are fans of yours.

The best way to display social proof on your website will depend on the type of business you run. So, let’s take a look at some of the different ways companies are already doing this effectively to give you some inspiration.

For instance, A Gift Personalized is an ecommerce store that sells custom gifts for any occasion. And, on their website, they display a whole host of positive customer reviews that have been left for them.

They do this with a carousel that shows a combination of star ratings and written reviews. This is a particularly great approach for a product-based business — and especially one that offers customization options — because anyone in a hurry can simply look at the star ratings and know that this is a great place to buy from. But, also, if someone wants to know more about the company’s delivery record or the quality of their customization craftsmanship, they can read into the longer written reviews for more context.

If you have an ecommerce store, going down this route will be great for boosting your SEO and making more sales, as it will help you earn the trust of both search engines and new customers.

On the other hand, Leave The Key Homebuyers is a service-based business, but they still take a similar approach with star ratings and written reviews. However, their testimonials tend to be longer and they also provide video reviews to give prospective clients even more information about what it’s like to work with the company.

The short but informative videos feature previous customers talking about their experience with the company. When selling your house, you’ll want more information and reassurance than you would when buying a small gift, so this all-rounder approach works very well for this specific company. If you have a service-based business, there’s probably a lot of questions or concerns your target customers tend to have that could be laid to rest with some reassuring testimonials and video reviews, so taking a leaf out of this company’s book and providing as much social proof as possible is a great idea. It will show search engines you’re trustworthy, which will boost your SEO. Then, when people land on your site, they’ll feel more comfortable about spending their money with you.

Finally, depending on the type of business you run, it might be worth highlighting what kinds of awards you’ve received, what kinds of qualifications you have, or even which organizations you’re a member of. This, again, will signal to both search engines and prospective customers that you can be trusted.

For instance, Charbonnet Law Firm, LLC helps people to fight the likes of personal injury and traffic accident legal cases. And, on their website’s homepage, they highlight some of the industry awards they’ve received, as well as some of the associations they’re a part of.

This shows that their company is incredibly competent and has gained recognition from notable institutions. It also helps build confidence in their brand and tells future clients that they are an authority in their industry. This can also help to boost their SEO as it shows search engines that the company is renowned for its great work.

Using engaging imagery will increase visitors’ dwell time

You want to encourage people to spend as much time as possible on your website. This is because search engines pay attention to dwell time so, if someone bounces straight off your site, this will signal to Google that there is a problem. This means you need to make your site as engaging as possible.

Visuals are one of the most effective tools for this, so you’ll want to create highly engaging visual content. You could decide to use infographics to display data and information or provide photos that show your staff and what your business is all about.

You can also create diagrams or illustrations that explain your services and offerings in an easily digestible way. Alternatively, you could entertain your website visitors with videos that offer product demonstrations, tell your brand’s story, or show behind the scenes of your business.

Not using engaging imagery is a common web design mistake that can increase your bounce rate and affect your SEO. So, to help you avoid this, here’s some inspiration from a brand that always uses engaging visuals on their web pages.

Calendly is an appointment scheduling software and, on their homepage, they have a great example of engaging imagery that can keep visitors engaged to increase their dwell time.

They have created a video that introduces the brand and explains all the benefits of its tool. It’s highly engaging and shows just how people can use the tool to set up meetings with ease. It’s the sort of visual content that can really grab and retain the attention of new visitors, and that’s good for improving a site’s SEO.

What you can learn from this example is how to use high-quality and professional videos to capture the interest of your website visitors. This can improve your bounce rate and have a positive effect on your search engine optimization efforts.

Properly formatting your content will help search engines understand it

You want to make it as easy as possible for search engines to understand and rank your content. This means it’s important that you format it properly.

One thing you should be doing is making sure that you use effective headings and subheadings when writing your content. They’re important for giving your content structure, and will also help to provide search engines with more context about your writing. Also, including relevant keywords in your headings can be great for improving your search engine rankings. To further elevate your content creation process, consider leveraging the capabilities of AI essay writers. These advanced tools can assist in ensuring your writing aligns with pertinent keywords, further enhancing your search engine visibility. By harnessing the power of AI, you can craft content that not only resonates with your audience but also commands attention from search engines.

You should also try to limit each paragraph to 4-5 lines when writing. Not only does this improve its readability but, if people only see continuous blocks of text while reading, they might get tired or discouraged and leave your website. So, try to use shorter sentences and bullet points or numbered lists to keep things interesting.

An SEO-friendly navigation will help search engines crawl your site

One thing to keep in mind when designing a website is the navigation. You need to make sure it’s SEO-friendly, as this can help search engines to crawl your site properly.

Make sure you regularly check your site’s analytics to get an idea of which pages your visitors find the most important, then think about which sites you really want to highlight to search engines. Once you have your list, create a navigation that makes your most important pages the easiest to find.

It’s also important that you ensure you always include relevant internal links in your website copy. This will give search engines more information about which pages are closely related, and what people can find on a specific page. If you would like more information about this, Slickplan has a great guide to creating an SEO-friendly website that’s easy to navigate.

Having a responsive site will improve the user experience

It’s vital that you design your website for mobile, as well as desktop. If you can’t guarantee this, search engines will be hesitant to rank your site well.

Google has also recently enabled its Mobile-First Index, which means sites with a mobile-friendly version are typically ranked before sites without one. So it’s become more important than ever to have a responsive site design.

To make your site responsive, you (or your developers) will have to understand the aspects of your website that will be affected. For one, you’ll need to know how to optimize your images so they appear the same way on desktops and mobile phones. You’ll also want to make sure your fonts are legible enough to be seen on mobile devices. Sometimes, fonts can be visible on desktops but turn out to be quite tiny on mobile. To get a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of responsive web design, check out Joomdev’s guide.

Optimizing your images can give you more ranking opportunities

A lot of website owners neglect to optimize their images, but it can have a huge impact on your SEO. To get started, you should create and add descriptive alternative text and file names to them. Also, compressing your images is a great way to ensure they load quickly and do not affect your page’s load speed.

Taking these steps will help to boost your search engine rankings, as Google will find it easier to understand what is displayed on each of your web pages. Plus, if your site loads quickly, this will provide a positive user experience and, again, get you in Google’s good books. So, the next time you’re thinking about what you can do to optimize your site further, consider whether you’re currently getting the most out of your images or if they could be working harder for you.

Summary

Improving your website’s design is one of the most effective ways to boost your search engine ranks, so make sure you take these steps to climb the SERPS.

By including social proof on your site, using engaging imagery, and properly formatting your content, you’ll be able to get started on creating and maintaining a site design that can boost your search engine rankings and get you closer to your target audience. And, if you need any help with building responsive and quality web pages, you can use Joomdev’s page builder to get access to various features, layouts, and elements.