Web design is the bane of many businesses’ existence. Having a good website in the modern era is crucial if you want to keep your company afloat, and it’s been that way for a long time at this point. Do you remember a little video rental place called Blockbuster?
For those of us that are a little too young to remember video rental places, let us explain. Back in the day, before streaming services like Netflix dominated the entertainment landscape, people would go to their local Blockbuster to rent movies and video games. It was a really big deal at the time.
But Blockbuster didn’t have a good website. In fact, their website was pretty bad. And when Netflix came along with a better website and a better selection of movies, people started ditching Blockbuster in droves. Eventually, Blockbuster all but went out of business.
Today this once giant chain has been cut down to a single location in Bend, Oregon in the current day, and the locals keep it running out of a sense of nostalgia for the past more than for convenience’s sake.
The moral of the story is that having a good website is essential if you want to stay relevant in the modern world. And one of the most important aspects of a good website is its design. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for web design Dallas or web design Los Angeles, you need to make sure your website is designed well if you want it to be successful.
But what does “well-designed” mean when it comes to web design? That’s where structured web design comes in, and we would like to take this opportunity to cover what exactly that means.
The Importance of SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization for those that don’t know the acronym, is the process of making sure your website appears as high up on search engine results pages as possible. It’s a crucial part of web design, and it’s something that you need to take into consideration if you want your website to be successful.
There are a few reasons why SEO is so important:
- It allows people to find your website more easily when they’re searching for keywords related to your business:
- If your website is optimized for the right keywords, it will appear higher up on search engine results pages when people are searching for those keywords.
- It gives you an advantage over your competition:
- If you’re ranking higher than your competitors for relevant keywords, then you’re going to get more traffic than them. And if you’re getting more traffic than them, that means you’re likely making more sales than them as well.
- It helps build trust and credibility:
- People are more likely to trust a website that appears high up on search engine results pages. And if they trust your website, they’re more likely to do business with you.
- It can help you rank for other keywords:
- If you’re ranking high for one keyword, that means you’re likely to rank high for other related keywords as well.
- It can help you attract new customers:
- If you’re getting more traffic from SEO, that means you’re likely to get more leads and customers as well.
In the age of information, if your company isn’t doing SEO, there’s a good chance that it’s not going to be around for very long. SEO is just that important, and if you’re not taking it into consideration when you’re designing your website, then you’re doing yourself a huge disservice.
Fortunately, there are a lot of resources out there that can help you with SEO. There are plenty of books and articles on the subject, as well as courses that you can take. And if you want to hire someone to do it for you, there are plenty of agencies out there that specialize in SEO.
But even if you don’t hire anyone, as long as you make an effort to learn about SEO and incorporate it into your web design process, your website will be better off for it.
There are a lot of things that you have to take into consideration to make sure that you’re doing your SEO correctly, and the algorithms are constantly changing. So it’s important to stay up-to-date on the latest trends and changes. But as long as you keep your SEO in mind while you’re designing your website, you should be fine.
How Web Design Impacts SEO
Before we get into this section, we just wanted to be clear that everything in this article is watered down. There are books that are hundreds of pages long written on this particular topic because it is so important, involved, and difficult.
We are going to do our best to give you the highlights without overwhelming you, but we do want to make sure you understand that this is far from being a master class.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s take a look at some web design choices that can impact your SEO:
- Your website’s title:
- The title of your website is one of the first things that people will see when they find your site, so you want to make sure it’s keyword rich and accurately reflects what your website is about.
- Your website’s URL:
- Your URL should be short, easy to remember, and contain keywords that are relevant to your business.
- Your website’s navigation:
- Your navigation should be easy to use and understand. People should be able to find what they’re looking for on your site quickly and easily.
- Your website’s content:
- Your content needs to be well-written, informative, and keyword rich. You also need to make sure you’re regularly publishing new content so that people have a reason to keep coming back to your site.
- Your website’s design:
- Your design should be user-friendly and responsive. It also needs to load quickly so that people don’t get frustrated and leave before they even get a chance to see what you have to offer.
- Your website’s meta text:
- Your meta text is the text that appears when your website comes up on a search engine results page. It should be keyword rich and accurately reflect what your website is about.
- The ease of navigation on your website:
- If people can’t find what they’re looking for on your site quickly and easily, they’re likely to get frustrated and leave. So it’s important to make sure your navigation is easy to understand and use. This is also important because the algorithms that check your website to determine its position in the search results can see your site map, and can put you lower if it’s bad.
The design of your website can have a big impact on your SEO, so it’s important to choose a design that is going to work well for both. A lot of times people will choose a design that they think looks good without taking into consideration how it will impact their SEO, and then they’re left with a website that doesn’t perform as well as it could.
Many people completely ignore this aspect, but if you were to hire an SEO consultant, they would be the first to tell you that your website’s title is one of the most important aspects of your entire site. It’s what people see when they find your site, and it needs to accurately reflect what your website is about while also being full of keywords.
In fact, it’s not uncommon for companies to hire an SEO consultant and for said consultant to immediately recommend rebuilding the company’s website from the ground up. That’s how important website design is when it comes to SEO.
Hiring an SEO consultant may be a good idea, but it could also be useful just to bring in a web designer from the start. Web designers are familiar with the ins and outs of SEO, so they can help you build a website that is designed in a way that will be conducive to good SEO.
Regardless of how you decide to go about it, making sure that your website appears high in the search results is crucial if you want your business to be successful.
The lower your website appears in the rankings, the less traffic you’re going to get, and that means fewer customers and sales. So if you’re not taking web design into consideration when you’re thinking about your SEO, you need to start doing so.
Getting Your Company With the Times
The times are always changing. Technology gets better and better every single day, and what was once new and innovative quickly becomes old and outdated. This is especially true in the world of web design.
What was once considered to be good web design may now be seen as dated or even bad design. And if you’re not keeping up with the latest trends, your website is going to suffer for it.
That’s why it’s so important to make sure you’re always staying up-to-date on the latest trends in web design. This way, you can make sure your website is always looking its best and performing at its highest level possible.
