9 Simple and Effective Website Design Tips to Improve Page Speed

A slow website will damage your ranking in search results and directly impact your bottom line. Nearly 40% of people will abandon your website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. They won’t check out your products and services and they’ll click back to Google and go to your competitors.

In this post, we’ll cover 9 actionable website design tips you can implement to improve page speed and reduce loading times.

1.  Check Your Website Speed

The first thing you should do is check your website speed. And as Magicdust, a website design Sydney agency, reminds us, website speed is an SEO factor so you should strive to have a faster website speed than your competitors in the search results.

You can use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to perform a speed check of your website quickly. Enter your URL, and the tool will perform an audit and give your website a rating out of 100. The tool also provides recommendations on how you can improve page speed.

It’s essential to regularly monitor your website speed to identify and correct any issues before they impact website performance. Using this tool you can immediately measure the impact of any improvements.

2.  Enable Browser Caching

Making your website as fast as possible for first-time visitors is crucial. But between 40-60% of your website visitors will be returning users. People that have already viwebsited your website before.

You can quickly speed up your website for returning visitors by enabling caching. When a user first visits your website, elements of the web page are stored in a cache on the user’s hard drive. When the user visits the page a second time, the browser can load the web design elements without downloading them from the server.

3.  Compress and Reduce Image Sizes

Images are usually the largest files on a web page and have a significant impact on page speed. One of the most critical website design optimization tips is to reduce image file size.

A study into image compression showed that reducing image file sizes from 22MB to 300KB resulted in a 70% reduction in the time users need to wait before interacting with a page.

You can reduce file sizes by cropping images to the size of the space on your page where you want them to appear. If you’re going to place the image in a 570px wide space, crop the image to that width.

4.  Choose the Right Hosting

Most business owners choose a shared hosting plan when they first launch their website. Shared hosting is the most affordable option, but it means that you will share a server with multiple websites. That’s not usually a problem when your new website isn’t getting much traffic, but it can become an issue when your website or other websites on the same server experience a spike in traffic.

If you’re starting to drive a lot of traffic to your website and noticing a dip in performance, you should consider upgrading to VPS hosting or dedicated hosting. With VPS hosting, a portion of the server is dedicated to your website, while dedicated hosting means you are the only website stored on the server.

5.  Minify JavaScript and CSS

If you’re unfamiliar with the website design terms cascading style sheets (CSS) and JavaScript (JS), these are standard files used by lots of websites. CSS is used to set the presentation and styling of a web page, while JS is used to set the functionality and interactivity.

Minification is the process of eliminating unnecessary code and reducing the size of CSS and JS files. The cleaner and smaller your CSS and JS files, the faster your web page will load.

6.  Use Lazy Loading

You can make your website faster to use by prioritizing the loading of above-the-fold content. When a visitor lands on your website, the top of the web page will load faster and be usable before the rest of the page. The visitor doesn’t need to wait for the entire page to load before accessing your content.

7.  Delete Unnecessary Plugins

Plugins can increase functionality, add web design elements, and improve the performance of your website, but they can also cause issues.

The more plugins you have, the more HTTP requests your website will generate and the slower your page speed will be. Too many plugins can bring your website speed down to a crawl.

Deactivate and delete any plugins that are not essential. Even if you only use a few plugins, you should regularly evaluate if they are necessary. You may find that you have multiple smaller plugins that serve one purpose that a single multifunctional plugin can replace.

8.  Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Page speed is impacted by the location of your server in relation to your website visitor. The greater the distance between the visitor and your server, the further the data needs to travel, and the longer your web design elements will take to load.

A CDN helps to reduce the distance by caching your website files across multiple strategically located servers. The user can access your cached web design files rather than having to wait for the data to be transmitted from your main hosting server.

Using a CDN comes with additional expense, but it can be an easy way to improve page speed for websites with a large audience.

9.  Simple and Clean Web Pages

Less is often more when it comes to website design.

One of the most effective ways to improve page speed is to reduce the number of web design elements on each page. When you add images, graphics, and animation, you increase the size and loading time of the web page.

Every element of the page should serve a purpose.

Keeping your pages simple will also help make your message clear and increase your website’s usability. Users can quickly find what they are looking for, navigate your website, and click on your CTAs.

Conclusion

Improving your page speed can be a challenge, but it’s a vital part of website design that will directly impact your ranking in search results and the number of leads and sales you generate from your website.

Use PageSpeed Insights to test your website, and make your way through the above web design tips to improve your loading times. When your website speed is up to scratch, you’ll see an uplift in conversions and search ranking.

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5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs a Responsive Website

A responsive website for a business can help in assisting all the users who are searching for the products and services that your business offers. If a prospect finds your web pages unresponsive, then you will fall short of your business objective. Your business website must be interactive and optimized. Here are five (5) reasons why your business websites need to be responsive.

1. Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is the first step in building a foundation for your business that will convert a user into a customer. You offer a chance to expose the prospect to the goal and objectives of your business with a strong introduction to what your services are all about. This can assist you to generate an impact utilizing a compelling tagline and testimonials by feeding them a clear explanation of how your business may benefit them.

2. Successful Online Prospecting

Every company requires a prospect, someone who can be targeted as the company’s next customer. Prospecting is one of the most difficult tasks in sales marketing, and you must have a strong online presence throughout this period. A responsive website may help you establish credibility and acquire trust from your visitors. This is why creating an ideal customer’s website is a must. Create content, apply optimization and consider a user-friendly navigation interface when choosing an ideal web hosting site that has the tools and marketing features that will fit your business like WordPress and Wix.

3. Generate Sales

Users want to navigate a site with fast speed, just as most people like the word instant. In sales, it does not happen overnight but a responsive web page can work it out for you. Optimize your website, it is one of the most powerful digital marketing strategies to generate sales. Website optimization includes analysis of website data, off and on-page optimization, speeding up pages, achieving quality backlinks from high domain rating sites, and using relevant keywords to create rich content. The main goal of these strategies is to make it easier for your prospect to find your site easily. It boosts the volume and quality of the traffic to your site that matches their most relevant searches on the internet.

4. Reach a wider audience

When it comes to geography, having an excellent website does not restrict your potential to reach a larger audience. By providing relevant and rich content on your site that will entice your target audience to read more on your page, you establish a reputation and credibility. An excellent piece of content can encourage others to share it on social media, which can help you reach out to more people.

Including some compelling images and videos may also promote your site to attract users which will help your business website grow. Choose engaging content to put on your homepage which will help you boost your conversion rate. Bring some entertainment to your homepage but keep it professional and relevant.

5. Save Time and Money

If you are new in the business, you must exert most of your effort creating plans and devoting your efforts to things that will help you to increase your profits. Promoting brand awareness will definitely consume your time and resources if you are not maximizing the purpose of your website. It takes time to provide information to your consumers using either traditional or modern marketing strategies. Give a general overview of your company, list your services, including your contacts so they can reach you out easily. On a website, you can only create your content and designs just once to introduce your business to your prospect and through this, you may save a lot of time, energy, and money by using your own website.

Conclusion

These are just a few of the advantages of having a responsive website for your organization. Remember that your website is like your front door; if you want to attract more people, make it more engaging since this will help you establish credibility for your business. Create an ideal website so that your prospects believe in the authenticity of your products and services. The objective of your website is to raise brand recognition, prospect leads, generate sales, and foster positive relationships between the company and its consumers.

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How SSL Certificates Impact Website Rankings

There might be an instance wherein you encountered the message- ‘your connection to the site is not fully secure’ while browsing websites. You would also possibly notice that some URLs start with http:/ while others start with https://. As the owner of your website, you’ll want to ensure that you implement this feature to outrank your competition in search engines. The easiest thing you can do to boost your website’s ranking is by having an SSL certificate.

SSL certificates are designed to help users feel secure while using the internet. As internet security and user privacy have become a daunting concern, huge internet companies like Google have been pushing the initiative to encourage the adoption of SSL certificates on all websites. 

What is SSL 

SSL or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate acts as a website’s security blanket by protecting the information of users and visitors. It secures data as it is being transferred from a server to a browser. This fixed nuts and bolts reassures you that what you can see or access is kept privately intact.

In other words, an SSL certificate works as an electronic password that is intended to protect user’s credentials once they visit and do business on your website. 

An SSL certificate is issued by a Certificate Authority that authenticates the website’s identity. It contains the certificate holder’s name, expiration date, serial number, and a copy of the certificate holder’s public key. The certificate enables your users to have data security from hackers and maintain their confidentiality.

For example, if a hacker tries to force their way into your website to get confidential information, the hacker won’t be able to access it because of strong encryption from the SSL certificate. On the other hand, an HTTP site without an SSL certificate, is non-encrypted and is more prone to attacks. 

Benefits of SSL 

• Improved Security

A study done by the University of Maryland reports that a cyber-attack occurs for every 39 seconds and 43% of those attacks are aimed at small businesses. Clearly, there is a reason why Google is gently pushing for HTTPS and penalising HTTP sites. Because it helps facilitate a safer, more secure internet. 

Security should be a priority and for a giant internet authority like Google, it’s appropriate to encourage website owners to strengthen their website’s security. 

• Updated Browser Labels

Since the SSL certificate is found within the browsers, there are instances that the browsers will warn a visitor that the page they wanted to look at is not encrypted or is not using HTTP. Browsers like Chrome, Mozilla, Safari and Opera are marking sites without SSL certificates (HTTPs). 

When a site doesn’t have an SSL certificate, the “Not Secure” warning will be displayed by Google all over your site to discourage users not to go further on your website. It also means that Google will ostracise your website from your competitors, which will definitely affect your search rankings. 

• Increased Conversion Rates

Users trust secure websites more. GlobalSign reported in 2016 that 84% of users immediately abandon a purchase if the data was transmitted to an insecure connection. With all the data breaches that have been happening, they feel confident when a transaction safely takes place. Your potential customers do not want to compromise their private information such as IDs, bank details or card details on a website that doesn’t have proper security measures to store their data. 

And as the traffic on your website decreases, it will result in fewer conversions which thus affect your bottom line. Having a trusted SSL certificate would let your customers know that their safety is important to you. 

• Increased Customer Confidence

Lastly, a layer of security on your website can show that your website is trustworthy. As customers see that padlock icon and the “secure” label in their browser, it gives them confidence about your website. In the long run, earning customers’ trust means attracting more loyal customers. SSL certificate is a social proof you will provide to your customers for your organic long-term growth. 

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How To Optimize Your Site For Google’s Update

Google is always updating their algorithm which makes many web masters nervous. The good news is that there is nothing to be nervous about and that the update is finally here.

If you still haven’t optimized your page to improve page experience metrics, you might notice that they are enjoying a boost in their ranking that you’re missing out on.

For this article we will tackle what you can do to help you prepare for Google’s Page Experience update so you can prioritize key areas right away.

Work On Loading Speed

Google’s CWVs (content web vitals) is largest contentful paint (LCP) refers to the largest and most important piece of content on a webpage. The metric determines how quickly your page renders its most important content, so users can see it.

Fortunately, there are easy ways to optimize your website for LCP. For example, you can optimize your server since slow servers can be responsible for sluggish websites. Other web page elements that can slow down loading speed include images, videos, and block-level elements with text features.

To fix these issues you need to compress images and text files, cache certain assets and pre-load some elements.

Work On Interactivity

The time it takes for users to be able to interact with an element they’ve clicked, such as a link or button is called first input delay (FID), the second CWV.

Your FID should be shorter than 100 milliseconds according to Google. We have all been to websites that seem to take forever to load after you’ve clicked a button to go to a new page or edit a shopping cart. This is not good for users. So why does this happen?

This is usually because the browser is busy doing other tasks like analyzing a hefty JavaScript file. Just like meeting somebody new, first experiences matter which is why interactions on a web page is important.

If users know that your webpage is slow to load from the start, then there is a big chance that they will abandon it and never come back.

A strong first impression such as a fast loading website goes a long way in terms of user interaction and increasing engagements. This is why FID is an important metric.

To fix this you can use tools like PageSpeed Insights to see how you’re doing and what you can improve.

Work On Layout Shift

Cumulative layout shift (CLS) is the third CWV. This is a measure of how your page content moves as the page loads.

Most of us have experience with this problem. We’ve all been to pages where it’s loading but you find something interesting. You click it but find that it has been pushed down as another element has loaded in its place.

As a result, you have clicked on something that you don’t want like an order or a subscribe button. This makes for bad user experience and this is why CLS is important enough to be considered as an important factor of page experience.

You need a CLS score of 0.1 to “pass” Google’s test. A higher score means that your web pages are likely to shift a bit. A score of 0.25 is considered by Google as poor.

Problems in CLS are usually found on mobile. This is because Google prioritizes mobile devices but also because mobile devices have smaller screens and weaker processors.

Fixing it depends on the cause of the problem. If it is a browser problem (i.e. doesn’t know how to space images and videos without dimensions) then you can lock this down by adding specific dimensions to your images and videos.

If the problem is flashes of unstyled text, you will need to preload your fonts. This will tell the browser to load text as a primary element. This will prevent font changes that cause cumulative layout shifts.

Other Page Experience Elements

Aside from Core Web Vitals, other elements to think of are:

Mobile usability – Google will now judge every site by their mobile-friendliness. This is especially true when it comes to small text sizes and the use of Flash media which mobile devices don’t usually support.

Page Experience – is a breakdown of how your site is performing for the page experience update

Site security – don’t just ensure that your visitors have a good website experience. Never neglect site security. Users and Google need to know their data is secure with you on your site.

Wrap-Up

Google’s page experience update is here so you better get moving. There’s a lot to think about when it comes to page experience but at the end of the day it’s all about giving visitors a good experience when they visit your website.

If you still haven’t checked out your CWV, you will want to do so as soon as possible. But don’t panic because you won’t be algorithmically penalized if not all your CWVs are in line.

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The Impact of Social Media to SEO

SEO and social media are two essential components of any effective online marketing campaign. However, there’s been some confusion that SEO and social media are separate entities, each operating in their own world with distinct marketing results. 

It may be unclear if social media has a direct impact on search engine algorithms, but it’s a mistake to assume that they don’t influence each other. The reality is that aligning your SEO and social media efforts will only serve to maximize your brand exposure. They may be two different marketing strategies but their goals certainly overlap. Social media impacts SEO to create the best opportunities to help your organic search efforts and provide relevance for your audience. 

In this blog, you’ll learn how you can leverage social media to improve your SEO efforts. Your business should be thinking about optimizing your own social media pages to help guarantee success. 

• Social media increases search visibility 

Social media pages help drive organic visitors to your website and blog content. One of the greatest social media benefits is the potential to gather all of your quality content and promote it on diverse channels. 

A strong social media presence can give your content a platform to encourage discussions. By promoting your content on social platforms, it can gain greater visibility and reach a lot of new people who may share it further. Make sure you are connected with the right people as they can disseminate content to a large audience. 

Social sharing broadens and enhances your inbound link potential. Tools like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Twitter are some of the most effective channels to push SEO content. Inbound links from social media shares may not be as impactful as high-quality backlinks but they can still improve your bounce and engagement rates. 

• Social media efforts can lead to quality backlinks. 

While ranking algorithms on backlinks has evolved over the years, the number of quality backlinks a website still plays an integral role for search engines. Consequently, link building is a widely-used technique among marketers. A social media page that has been read and shared a thousand times on social media can be a solid ground for backlinking practices. 

The logic here is fairly simple. Your social media presence and backlink profile will add to the trust factors that influence your online brand authority from Google and Bing. Social media marketing helps foster engagement and stay connected with their target audience. Engaging content means more shares, resulting in more opportunities for people to find and link to your content. 

High-quality backlinks that circulate in social media can determine where you appear in search engines like Google. Social media increases the likelihood of earning more external websites to link to your content. The more reputable and authoritative websites that are linking to your content, the more it improves your SEO. 

• Social media helps build brand awareness 

Another way that social media can contribute to your SEO efforts is by improving your brand awareness. When consumers recognize your brand, they’re more likely to do business with you. 

Social media is another channel for your target audience to recognize you. Regularly generating new content which addresses your audience’s needs will help build trust with your site visitors. 

Additionally,an increased brand awareness on your social platforms could mean more branded organic search traffic coming to your site or your other social pages. An effective technique is to collaborate with influencers to encourage them to interact back and build a relevant following. Influencers usually have massive followings which can be a huge benefit on increasing the word-of-mouth to your business. 

Keeping an eye on trending topics and adding to the conversation can also be a part of your social media strategy. You can also post shareable content like survey results and statistics to promote social media engagement. Just make sure to keep regular tracking of your social media analytics to ensure your efforts have a positive impact on your website’s performance. 

• Social media can provide quality following 

Social media is a great place to build a quality following. Your social media activity will have a greater impact on your SEO if its directed at the right people 

Quality followers are your target audience who can find your content appropriate, share your content and will spend longer time engaging with your website. 

Whatever platform you are using (Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, etc.), make sure you are connected with the right people. You can invest in tools like Buzzsumo to help you find influencers about certain topics that are of relevant importance to your content. Share articles, join groups, take part in discussions and leave comments to directly interact with your followers rather than just posting a one-way dialogue. This might compel them to share your social media posts with their network, which isn’t just beneficial to your SEO but to your organic traffic as well. 

• Social media can boost your local SEO 

Competing against larger businesses on a national scale can be a daunting task but focusing on local SEO can help get your business in front of nearby consumers. 

Local SEO is a digital marketing strategy that focuses on optimizing your website so that you can rank higher in local search results. Meanwhile, social media can be a powerful tool to engage with your local community. It sends local-specific signals to search engines like Google. 

If your business has a physical location or serves specific areas, be sure to get your business name, location, contact information and working hours featured across your social platforms. Most social platforms have this in their profile boxes where you can include this information. Your information is more likely to populate in the results of users looking for nearby local businesses once you have this information on social platforms. Try searching for “[Your City] + [Your product/ service]” and see if your company comes up. Getting listed on that search results page is the best thing you can do to gain more qualified leads. 

You can also use social media to show your involvement with the events in your community or interact with local brands using your social media channels. 

Conclusion 

Social media might not have a direct impact with SEO. However, neglecting it can be a huge mistake. For your digital marketing efforts to succeed, you need to integrate your social media and SEO efforts. Understanding how they work together and applying these insights to your campaign can yield better results for your business. 

If you need help getting started about how to improve your business’ social media engagement and maximize the positive impact of your social media efforts, our experienced team at Creativ Digital is available to help advise you. Contact us and let’s have a conversation about achieving your online goals today.

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6 Influential Ways Web Development Impacts Your Marketing Strategy

Web design is at the heart of marketing strategy. Your website is the first interaction with your business for most customers looking to find out more about your products and services, check your opening hours, or make a purchase.

Your website design directly impacts how potential customers perceive your business and make purchasing decisions. If your website doesn’t look good, is hard to use, or fails to inspire trust, you’ll struggle to get positive ROI from your marketing initiatives.

Here are 6 ways that web development influences your marketing strategy and why it is integral to the long-term success of your business.

1.  The First Impression

It takes less than 1/10th of a second for a visitor to form an impression of your website and decide whether to stick around or bounce. It’s not your content, your products, or your pricing that influences this vital first impression. For over 90% of people, first impressions of a website are related to web design.

If your website design looks unattractive, outdated, or confusing, potential customers will have a negative first impression of your business. They won’t engage with your content, view your products and services, or click on your CTAs. They’ll go back to Google and find one of your competitors.

For paid traffic, your website landing pages influence your cost-per-click and conversion rates. Even if you have a well-targeted PPC or paid social campaign, customers will turn away and won’t engage with your business if your website makes a bad first impression.

2.  Website Design Is the Backbone of the Sales Funnel

A sales funnel is a visualization of the buyer’s journey at your business. It maps out the different stages your customers go through on the path to purchase and helps you identify opportunities to attract prospects and guide them towards a sale.

You can use a variety of marketing tactics to attract and nurture prospects through your sales funnel, including:

• Pay-per-click
• Search engine optimization
• Paid social
• Sponsored content
• Email marketing

The goal of all of these marketing activities is to drive traffic to your website. A well-designed website is vital for converting visitors and making the most of the traffic you generate. If your website development is poor, your marketing spend will be wasted.

3.  Your Website Inspires Trust

As emphasised by Magicdust, a web developer Sydney wide, if your potential customers don’t trust you, they won’t buy your products and services. Establishing trust is key to marketing and sales performance and one of the best ways to establish trust is through your website design.

When a potential customer is close to making a purchase or deciding between two companies, they seek advice and recommendations from people who have already purchased the product or service. They seek social proof to validate their purchasing decision.

You can implement social proof in your website design by displaying customer reviews, testimonials, and user ratings on your sales and product pages. On average, adding testimonials to a sales page will increase conversions by over 30%.

Ask satisfied customers for testimonials, and use authentic images of the customer if possible. You can also boost customer trust by displaying your star ratings and reviews from Google, social media, and review aggregators like TrustPilot.

4.  Build Your Brand Identity

Your website design is the most critical aspect of your online brand identity. If you’re in a competitive market, other businesses will sell similar products and services at an equal or lower price point. Without solid branding to differentiate your company, consumer purchasing decisions typically come down to cost, and the lowest-priced product wins.

A strong brand identity makes your business memorable and different from your competitors. It influences how your customers perceive your brand and your products.

Web design is a powerful tool to help you stand out from your competitors and build your brand identity. Your logo, images, and other design elements are an opportunity to set your company apart and showcase your unique selling proposition (USP).

For example, businesses that sell high-end products often incorporate a black color scheme that connotes power and sophistication. If your USP is eco-friendly and sustainable products and services, light green and white color schemes connote simplicity, nature, and cleanliness.

5.  Search Engine Optimization

Web development has a significant impact on SEO. Your design choices influence how Google and other search engines crawl and index your website. If you want to rank high in search results and drive more organic traffic to your website, your website needs to be SEO optimized.

Web development influences SEO in several ways, including:

Mobile-Friendliness

If your website design isn’t responsive or optimized for mobile users, you could be ignoring the needs of over 50% of your visitors. When your visitors bounce due to poor mobile experience, it sends a negative signal back to Google, and you could drop down the rankings.

Content Readability

Poor web development choices can make it difficult for your visitors to read your content and explore your website. A stylish font might look good, but if it makes it difficult to read your content, it could cause your visitors to bounce and damage your SEO.

Website Speed

Slow loading pages cause visitors to bounce before they engage with your website. If you’re struggling to rank high in search results, it could be because your website speed is too slow. For the vast majority of website speed problems, a web development issue will be the cause.

6.  Enhances Customer Experience

Customer experience is the sum total of all the interactions that a customer has with your business throughout the buyer’s journey. It covers every touchpoint, from PPC ads and content to product packaging and customer service.

Focusing on your customers’ needs throughout the buyer’s journey can significantly impact your bottom line. Companies that prioritize customer experience are on average 60% more profitable than companies that don’t.

Web development plays a vital role in customer experience. When your website navigation is intuitive and makes it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for, it makes a positive contribution to the experience of buying from your company.

A user-friendly website design makes it easy for people to find the information they need. According to a report by KO Marketing, when people land on a business website, 86% want to find information about products and services, and 64% want to see contact information. If your website is challenging to use, visitors will get frustrated, and customer experience will suffer.

Conclusion

Website design is integral to marketing strategy. Your website is where you send your paid and organic traffic. If it fails to make a good impression, inspire trust, or generate conversions, your marketing activities will be wasted.

If you’re not getting the results you think your marketing campaigns deserve, web design could be the issue holding you back. Taking time to make your website user-friendly and conversion-focused will help you maximize marketing ROI and fuel the growth of your business.

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How Web Design & SEO Come Together

Designing websites is g getting easier as time goes by. Nowadays anybody who knows their way around a computer can get a website up and running in a relatively short amount of time.

Sure, getting a website online is easy but having visitors go to your website is another matter. After all, what’s the purpose of having a very beautiful website if you have no visitors?

This is where SEO comes in. Search Engine Optimization brings traffic to your website and can increase your search engine results page (SERP) ranking so that more people can discover your website.

Here are elements where SEO and web design need to collaborate.

Mobile Friendliness

Nowadays, everybody is glued to their phone. All designers know that websites need to be mobile-friendly because browsing, communication and shopping are usually done using mobile phones.

Having a responsive website is very important not only for web design but for SEO as well. Since more and more people are using their phones to stay connected, search engine giants like Google have been ranking websites based on responsiveness since 2015.

According to research, more than half of traffic comes from mobile devices. This means that half of your audience is using their mobile phones or tablets to access your website. Without a mobile friendly website, you could be losing out on 50% of your audience – that’s massive!

Since mobile users can’t access your website properly, you will encounter a high bounce rate which sends bad signals to Google causing your ranking to plummet.

Reader-Friendly Design

We all know how important SEO is to a website. In fact, many website owners devote a lot of time making sure that their sites rank high.

However, some owners do not realize that the design of a website impacts its content. For example, poor design can make it hard for visitors to read what they came to your website for.

Some examples of poor content design include big blocks of texts, hyperlinks without a clear purpose or poor contrast between text and background.

You worked so hard to bring traffic to your website and all of this is wasted because if visitors can’t get information they need then what’s the point of going there?

Make sure that your text is readable. Plain black on white might be boring but it has worked well since the 1990’s. Choose a text and font that is also easy to read. Don’t forget about white space as well as making sure that paragraphs are short for easy reading.

Website Speed  

Web Design Practices

Is your website loading speed slow? Chances are it’s a problem with your web design. Website speed is one of the components of SEO and is a big problem with many websites.

Ideally your website should load within 3 seconds. At the 4 second mark, guests will start abandoning it. This wait time is even shorter with mobile users.

If you’re not ranking well, it could be because of slow loading speed which leads to high bounce rates. Designers need to remember that website speed is a ranking signal so you need to devote time to learning how to make it load faster. Optimizing images, eliminating unnecessary plugins, and allowing browser caching are some good ways to speed up loading.

Loading speed is not only important to users but to Google as well. If your page speed causes Google to crawl fewer pages then only these pages will be indexed. When this happens, it will be impossible for these pages to rank at all.

Site Maps

Speaking of crawling, a sitemap is a crucial element to if you want Google to be smarter about how they crawl your website.

Your site map is like a guide of all the pages and content you have for search engines. It tells search engines what pages are important in your website.

This is very important especially if you have a large website with multiple pages as well as new websites with don’t have external links yet.

Aside from search engines, site maps are also very helpful to users in terms of navigation. A new user can refer to your site map in order to learn how to get around your website.

Sitemaps also contain important metadata and give them a better chance of ranking high.

Gain User’s Trust

Unlike other factors that impact SEO, trust is harder to measure. However, gaining trust is one of the best ways to make your website rank higher.

Over the years we have gotten used to visiting websites that are not only beautiful but also offer good experiences.  We all want something that is clean, easy to navigate and is quick to give the information we want. We think that these websites are trustworthy.

When a website looks outdated or is hard to navigate, we are left with a bad impression and don’t want to come back.

A bad looking website will make visitors think that your business or organization does not put effort into their work.

Conclusion

Keeping these design and SEO elements together can make your website rank high in Google and other search engines. Improving design and SEO is not very difficult so putting in the effort will soon result in better rankings.

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