This document discusses how website design impacts SEO. It notes that design is 50% of the SEO battle and that a good design can lower bounce rates by speeding up page loads, improve navigation to avoid confusion, and increase page views and time on site through compelling content and easy navigation. A good design using techniques like optimized images, limiting heavy widgets, and using infographics can positively impact key metrics like bounce rates, page views, and time on site to improve the user experience and search engine rankings.

1. How Your Website Design Effects Your SEO
virginiaseo.org /blog/website-design-effects-seo/
Adys Lynn Dill
Design Is 50% Of The Battle
In the Moz Blog, Cyrus Shepard mentions in part of his 25 step SEO Master Blueprint that Design is 50% of the Battle. This is
only too true and we have seen many well designed sites fail due to a lack of certain SEO elements, and vice versa. Let’s
expand on the three ways in which a website or blog can ensure that all aspects of the site are up to par (including the design).
A company c an have important information or relevant products for the visitor but if the design fails them, masked in clutter or
heavy loading images then they are lost at the door and the rest is null.
A Good Design Can
lower bounce rate:
B
Is the time spent on a site and it reflects how effectively your brand
resonates with your visitors. A high bounce rate is when your visitors
leave after one page.
P
Let’s say your visitor views the home page and it is taking too long to load (the majority will leave after 3 seconds), they will more
than likely press the back button and go to the next ranked website listed. Let’s face it, with the vast information available on the
web and the need for instant access to it, a slow loading page is not worth the visitor’s time if they can simply find it somewhere
else. A few factors that impact page loading time are: heavy bearing widgets, third party content and large size images.
N
If the navigation is not clear, confusing, or leads to dead ends the visitor will without hesitation end site navigation and return to
the previous search results, especially if the Information they are searching for is not even there- How frustration would that be?
Have you ever gone into a site only to discover that it is not even on the topic you were looking for?
S
How can you decrease the load time you ask?
You can start by making sure your image sizes are as small as they can be without altering quality.
1. Optimize your JPEGs by using JPEG Mini
2. Optimize your PNGS by using TinyPNG
3. Scale your graphics using a graphics program such as GIMP or Adobe Photoshop.
4. Use thumbnails in blog posts versus full images, and then link the thumbnails to the full sized image.
To limit widget weight: The more the widget does, the heavier it is. For example, a twitter widget that displays feed will be
low bearing versus a widget that searches keywords and displays people tweeting a hashtag. Another example of a heavy
bearing widget is one that pulls a Pinterest board into widget, every time the page load, it will load 15 thumbnails from
Pinterest, scripts and iframe’s included.
A Good Design Can

2. increase page views:
C
O I
If you design your blog well and cleverly use images it can increase your
traffic, user experience and increase visitor’s retention. A well written
blog with accompanying images will spread like wildfire through
Pinterest, Facebook, twitter, etc. because the visitor can share the
information throughout their social media profiles successfully, and
accompanying images enhance the value of the link. When flipping
through Craigslist looking for that new bike, are you more or less likely to contact a seller if they have a picture attached to their
post?
I
U
E
A captivating or useful blog can satisfy a visitors’ need, isn’t that the point anyway? The ”visual communication explores the
idea that a visual message accompanying text has a greater power to inform, educate, or persuade a person or audience”
(Wikipedia).
I
V
Retention
Info graphics are great. They display complex data in an easy to read manner. Our brains can dissect and retain images better
than long paragraphs. Would you rather read numbers in a paragraph form or a cute little bird with a percentage data written on
the body?
A Good Design Can
Increase time on site:
A Site that is easily navigable will allow your visitor’s ease of information
received and therefore more time spent. With smarter designs, easy
navigation and interesting content will invite the visitor to continue to
explore different features and services your website offers because they
now trust and believe in your brand. A web designer can introduce
supplemental formats such as multimedia to graphically illustrate points.
…Wrapping up
All of the above factors are commonly overlooked areas of web design which can have a great impact on your websites
effectiveness. By paying close attention to page speed, image size, and navigational structure a web designer can ensure the
website will receive positive marks by Google. This will increase retention rates among your audience, lower bounce rates, and
certainly improve the user experience.
If you would like to discuss some of these options, goals, or problems about your own site we can offer you a site audit which will
diagnose all of these items. Feel free to drop us a line to discuss!
Sources:
Moz Blog
Inc.com
WebsiteMagazine.com
Wikipedia
About
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3. Adys Lynn Dill
SEO Consultant at Virginia SEO
Adys Lynn Dillis a mother of one and really enjoys spending time with her family. Besides taking care of her
husband (the other baby), she spends her time doing graphic design as a part of the family business. The Dill
Design is a local web design company in Virginia, and they specialize in small business websites. Lynn also
participates heavily with Virginia SEO, and is head of social media marketing, and a key member of the content generation
team. Lynn enjoys social media so much that she is on it more than a normal person should be some days.
Latest posts by Adys Lynn Dill (see all)
How Your Website Design Effects Your SEO - February 24, 2014
Small Business SEO – Does Your Business Need SEO? - December 7, 2013
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