That’s all well and good, you might say to yourself, but what does the design of my site have to do with my search rankings?
What you might not realize is that search engines like Google care about providing as much value as possible to web users. In fact, that’s really their number one priority.
In the old days, SEO principles could be applied to trick search engines into doling out more favorable rankings than deserved. But now, Google’s gotten a lot better at understanding what web visitors want. And as a result, Google doesn’t like to reward websites that fail to provide a superior experience.
In other words, it won’t matter how much you optimize a new website if that site isn’t easy to navigate or access on all devices. Your SEO efforts will only get you so far in this scenario. Without a good user experience, you’ll struggle to compete.
Remember, this isn’t mere speculation. Google has released a number of algorithm updates that have shown us how much value is placed on user experience. In Summer 2021, Google’s Page Experience update highlighted the importance of UX in web design. Additional updates, like mobile-first indexing and other user experience ranking signals, have long-since confirmed Google’s commitment to providing web searchers with the most valuable results on the web.
Ultimately, it doesn’t just come down to having great content optimized for search by a Professional SEO company. You also need to have a website that’s easy and pleasant to use. Without that, visitors won’t care how insightful your content is. You have to remove those initial accessibility barriers in order for your content to be appreciated by both customers and search engines.
Fix Your Site to Fix Your Rankings
It’s clear that there are a number of common website design issues that can have an adverse effect on your site rankings. Fixing these issues can help you make the SEO progress you’re looking for.
That being said, good web design isn’t all you’ll need to rank on the first page of search results. You’ll also need to create high-quality content on a consistent basis, improve your domain authority, and ensure your web pages are optimized properly. But by fixing (or even avoiding) these aforementioned mistakes, you’ll set yourself up for SERP success.
