Websites might rank low in search engines because of their build and design.
It is important to note that the design is often the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a website and the first thing that will impact a site visitor’s opinion of your business. So even if it’s just a website for vegan catering in Toronto, it would still be best to invest in web development services. Even if web design per page costs can accumulate, it’s well worth the investment.
Some mistakes can happen at any point in making a website. Here are 10 of the most common web design mistakes that could hurt your SEO and rankings, along with tips on avoiding them.
- Poor site navigation
Navigation is one of the most crucial elements in web design but is often overlooked.
There are still website designs that need to consider users who primarily use phones when browsing the internet. Many users are also still getting used to navigating a responsive website on a mobile device, so it’s important to design your website so that it’s easy to use on mobile, tablet, and desktop devices.
The best navigation makes it easy for users to get around without having to guess a lot. Your navigation menu should be easy to use and consider how people usually use your site.
- Content that is difficult to view on other devices
Nothing will annoy your customers more than not being able to see your content on their phones. People expect everything to be accessible in the age of mobile-first.
Another thing you should do is have your links open in a new tab when clicked. This way, your website will remain open.
- Too many resources
One of the most expensive mistakes a web designer can make is to try to load fewer resources from outside the site. These can make a responsive design hard to use and slow down how fast the page loads. Web pages that take a long time to load can lose customers.
Remember that responsive design is all about making things simple and flexible. This could often mean giving up optional resources for a more simplified approach. You’ll have to work a little harder to ensure that the resources your customers use most are easy to find, but this step will pay off in the long run.
- Weak website security
Not having an SSL certificate on your site is a red flag for both visitors and search engines. If you’ve tried to go to a website that isn’t “https” yet, Google may have warned you before you went there, or you may have seen the words “Not Secure” in the URL bar.
Most companies that host websites will give you a free SSL certificate, which you should at least put on your site.
- There isn’t enough good content
On your website, it’s best to have at least 300 words per page, and the more you can say about your topic, the better. In addition to written content, you might want to add videos or images with text to break up the text and get the user involved. Videos can also help lower the bounce rate as a bonus!
- CTAs that are not clear
You won’t get as many conversions if you don’t have a clear CTA. You can also ask people to sign up for your email list or offer live chat in the sidebar of pages and posts.
Remember to set up your CTA actions as goals in Google Analytics so you can see how and when people are taking action. You can use the data from Google Analytics or buy heat mapping and user tracking tools to learn more about how people use your website and why (or why not) they convert.
- Not enough H1s or metadata
Ensure all your pages and posts have a single H1 and SEO-important metadata. You can crawl your site with Screaming Frog, which you can get for free, and it will tell you which pages need to include these things. We use Yoast to add metadata because we want the page titles and descriptions to include our focus keywords.
It’s important to give each website page a focus keyword and use it naturally in the H1, metadata, and content.
- Publishing repetitive content
You should only publish original, unique content. When you know something already exists, it can be hard to develop something new, but putting content from another website on yours will hurt your SEO.
- Pop-ups
We’ve all been on a website and found what we were looking for, only to have a pop-up appear and disrupt our reading right away.
Showing a pop-up that covers the main content right after the user clicks on a page from the search results or while looking at the page can be detrimental to your campaign.
Avoid pop-ups at all costs.
Proper SEO web design is a must for any business that wants to attract customers from all connected devices and help your organic search efforts. It’s a good idea to work with a web development company in Toronto that can help you with everything from website redesign to building a brand-new website.
TechnologyHQ is a platform about business insights, tech, 4IR, digital transformation, AI, Blockchain, Cybersecurity, and social media for businesses.
We manage social media groups with more than 200,000 members with almost 100% engagement.
