Peanut Butter and Jelly.
Jasmine and Aladdin.
SEO and...Web Design?
It’s true! Without both SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and high-quality website design, your target audience might not be able to find you, engage with you, or use your product/services.
When making sure your consumers can find and navigate your website, multiple factors need to be considered. According to Taylor & Francis Online, it takes the average person 50 milliseconds to decide if they want to stay on your website.
Since 70% of link search users click on organic results, it’s important to make sure your audience is staying on your website once they can find it.
So let’s dive into why SEO and Web Design are the new peanut butter and jelly...
Do You Really Need Both?
Good design is almost a no-brainer. But did you know bad design can hurt your SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages)?
Search engine bots mimic the human user experience, so what's bad for human users is also bad for search engines.
If you have a poorly designed website that's hard to use or takes too long to load, your consumers are going to leave. When search engines pick up on your high bounce rate, they drop your rankings in the search engine results accordingly.
But that’s assuming your target audience can even find your website.
Using target keywords your consumers are searching for and making your website crawlable for search engines to scan, an SEO professional can get your website ranking within just a few months.
So...What is Bounce Rate?
Bounce rate describes the rate at which consumers leave your website without visiting a second page. A good bounce rate is between 26 to 40%, with rates between 41 to 55% to be average. Anything from 56 to 70% is higher than average and considered “undesirable” to search engine bots.
If your website isn’t aesthetically pleasing or easy to navigate according to your target audience, your bounce rate and search rankings can be hurt.
Admit it...you laughed a little, didn’t you?
But Avinash Kaushik has a point!
You can use bounce rate to measure if you’re living up to your consumer’s expectations. Now, visitors bouncing from your website probably aren’t puking before they leave, despite what Avinash Kaushik says. Even so, you want them to engage with your site.
So let’s get into three ways SEO and Web Design go hand-in-hand…
Mobile Friendliness
In 2015, Google made how mobile-friendly a website is one of the factors for SERPs.
Just think about - how many times have you opened a website on your phone and left once you realized how difficult it was to navigate? Images taking too long to load. Navigation and menu bars that are hard to find or click on. Difficult formatting. Or even a laborious check-out system.
With 55% of internet users using their mobile phones to purchase products online, you’re going to want to make sure your website can handle that type of audience.
This is why SEO is important. When you work with a professional agency with employees who know how to make your website mobile-friendly, your risk of a high bounce rate and lower SERPs drastically decreases.
An easy way to check your website’s mobile-friendliness is by using Google’s mobile-friendly test here.
Gaining Your Users’ Trust
Unlike some other SEO factors, you really can’t measure how much consumers trust your business or your website. However, gaining trust is still a huge part of getting your website rankings higher.
As stated earlier in this blog, most consumers decide to stay or leave a website in less than 50 milliseconds...that’s .05 seconds.
If a website looks outdated, cluttered, or is too difficult to use, most people will be left with a bad impression. Even if your product or service might be exactly what they’re looking for, your website won’t convey this, and therefore they won’t stay around long enough to find out.
In fact, 57% of internet users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed website. So not only are you losing the trust of your consumers, but you’re losing the trust of their friends and family as well.
Is User Experience Important?
This brings us to our last reason why SEO and website design are important - the user experience.
SEO in Web Design is important; you want to ensure your website is easy to use once your audience finds it. If you have broken links, slow loading times, or other usability issues - they’re going to leave.
One of the best ways to ensure your users have a good experience is by including a live chat feature on your website.
With 88% of online consumers saying they are unlikely to return to a site after a bad experience, having a live chat feature can drastically improve their experience.
Having a chat feature not only enables you to connect with your consumers directly but can increase your revenue by 20%.
Which increases how long people spend on your website.
Which search engine bots notice.
Which increases your SERPs.
It’s all connected!
If You’re Ready to Take Your Website to The Next Level…
Consider speaking to one of our sales representatives about setting up a free consultation to see what Zoek can do for you. We offer discounted SEO and Web Design Bundles, add-on features such as live chat, booking features, and more.
You can read more reviews here at Trustpilot, or if you need a little more time to decide, feel free to subscribe to our blog, social media, or email newsletter where we post small business advice, information about marketing trends; and more!
Kellyann Doyle is a Content Marketing Writer at Zoek, an SEO, Web Design, and Digital Marketing Agency that assists small and medium-sized businesses with their online footprint. She earned her Bachelor's Degree in 2013 from the University of Houston with a Major in Communications and a Minor in Marketing, and has been working in the Digital Marketing world ever since. When not working, you can find Kellyann trying new recipes, enjoying a good nap, or watching Friends for the 500th time.