Over 50% of all website traffic comes from an organic online search. With search engine optimization (SEO), you can reach consumers as they search for your offerings. However, your website design and development could hurt your rankings.
Here are five essential SEO website design tips you can use to improve your rankings in 2023. With these tips, you can rank ahead of competitors to reach new customers.
Read on to improve your website development and design today!
1. Make Sure It's Responsive
Google now uses mobile-first indexing before determining a site's rankings on search engine result pages (SERPs). Run your site through Google's Mobile-Friendly Test to determine if it's optimized for mobile devices. If not, you could frustrate mobile users.
Responsive website design will ensure your site works on all devices.
Make sure it's easy for visitors to navigate between pages. If you have an eCommerce site, make sure the checkout process is easy on all devices, too.
2. Increase Load Times
Improving the load times on your website can further improve the user experience. In fact, nearly 40% of people will stop engaging with a slow site. Conversions can drop by 20% for every extra second of load time, too.
Poor user experiences drive 50% of users to choose competing businesses as well. If your site is slow, you could frustrate customers. They'll remember their bad experience (and some might even tell their friends, hurting your reputation further).
Run your website through Google's PageSpeed Insights to determine what's causing a lag, such as your:
- Traffic volume
- Web hosting
- Coding/scripts
- Plugins
- File sizes
You can appeal to Google's Core Web Vitals to improve your site load times. Otherwise, visitors might begin leaving your site without exploring other pages. Your bounce rate will increase, which can hurt your search engine rankings.
3. Improve Readability
If visitors can't read your website copy, they might leave, hurting your digital marketing strategy as a whole.
Improve the readability on your site by using headings, and subheadings to organize ideas. Write using shorter sentences and paragraphs, too.
Use negative space on your site to give your content room to breathe.
4. Use Site Maps
A site map will help Google understand your content, making it easier for Google to crawl and index your pages. Add a site map to your website to ensure your pages are eligible to rank on SERPs.
5. Optimize Images
Consumers can also use Google Images to find the content they're searching for. Optimize your images for searches by adding the target keyword to the file name and alt text.
Image alt text will give Google a better idea of what's in the image.
Appearing for more visual searches will optimize your opportunities to reach customers online.
Rank Up: Use These SEO Website Design Tips Today
Don't miss the chance to improve your organic rankings in 2023. Instead, start applying these SEO website design tips. With these tips, you can improve the user experience on your website, potentially boosting your rankings.
You don't have to develop your digital marketing strategy for the year alone. We can help.
Explore our latest marketing tools and resources today to start strategizing.