How does website design affect its promotion?
Website design plays a key role in promotion. It directly affects user behavior, the perception of the site by search engines and the bounce rate. However, site owners and developers do not always understand that the site is evaluated not only by users, but also by search engines. Therefore, web design is highlighted as a separate area and includes not only graphic design, but also technical aspects. Let's look at the site from two points of view: from users and search engines.
Design for the user
The first impression of a website is made up of general visual characteristics: combination of colors, font and quality of images. Typically, the user takes from 2 to 5 seconds to evaluate. During this time, he either decides to stay or leaves, which leads to an increase in the bounce rate and a decrease in behavioral factors. Remember that a beautiful and well-designed design helps create the impression of a company as successful and reliable.
If the site's appearance is attractive, the visitor will stay but continue to evaluate it carefully. He will pay attention to the following points:
- The size, or “weight,” of the page. It is important that the site loads quickly, even with a weak Internet connection. If the graphics slow down loading, the user will not wait for the page to open and will go to competitors.
- General design style. The site should not look like a collection of elements copied from various sources. The design of all elements, from tables to illustrations and fonts, should be uniform.
- Scalable design. The site must be displayed correctly on different devices and screen resolutions. If images or interface elements are distorted, this is a sign that the design needs to be improved.
- Matching the visitor's purpose. Depending on what the user wants to see, the site should quickly and conveniently provide the necessary information. For example, high-quality product images are important for online stores, and high loading speed is important for news sites.
When a site meets these requirements, the likelihood that the user will remain on the resource increases, and with it the chance of converting into a buyer.
Design for search engine
For search engines, the appearance of a site is not as important as its code. Search robots evaluate a page through program code, and not through visual elements. While the work of the designer and programmer is often separate, it is important that the designer and developer work closely together. This is the only way to avoid problems when visual elements conceived by the designer complicate or slow down the operation of the site.
What is important for search engines in website design:
- Page code size. Search robots can only “process” a limited number of characters. A page that weighs more than 200 KB may not be indexed well. The optimal page size is about 80 KB.
- Code cleanliness. Using unnecessarily cumbersome scripts or CSS can increase the weight of the page and make it difficult to promote. Programmers should minimize the use of complex JavaScript or multiple style sheets.
- Lack of frames. Frames are deprecated and are not recommended for modern websites. Web design technologies allow you to create beautiful and functional pages without using them.
- Using Flash. Search engines cannot extract information from Flash objects, which makes promotion difficult. In addition, many users refuse to install Flash players, which makes such pages inaccessible.
- Placement of text and keywords. Search engines evaluate pages based on the placement of keywords. The closer they are to the top of the page, the higher the chance that they will be taken into account.
Basic mistakes in website design development
By following all design recommendations, you can significantly increase the chances of successful promotion. However, there are several common mistakes that can ruin all your efforts to create a quality website.
- Poorly readable text. This may be due to the font being too small or the colors being chosen poorly, making the information difficult to understand. This leads to higher bounce rates and may also result in penalties from search engines if the text color is too similar to the background.
- Excessive animation. Animation on a website can slow down its loading, which will negatively affect the user experience. Animation in menus and other navigation elements should be as simple as possible and not overload the page.
- Overload with graphic elements. A beautiful website is not always a resource overloaded with graphics. The more images, the longer the page takes to load, which can turn off users, especially with a slow Internet connection.
- Masking tags using CSS. Sometimes developers try to hide keyword text using CSS styles. This can lead to search robots not seeing important data, which will complicate website promotion.
Although some SEO specialists prefer to focus on promotion and ignore the appearance of the site, it is important to strike a balance between design and functionality. With the right approach, you can create not only an attractive, but also a well-indexed resource that will be convenient for users and effective for search engines. If you have questions about website promotion, do not hesitate to contact the SEO studio "SEO COMPUTER" by email info@seo.computer.
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