What has design got to do with SEO? How do search engines treat design, layout and colour? We examine the impact of design on search engine optimisation and website conversion optimisation.
SEO is often perceived as a ‘bolt on‘– an extra service which may be implemented alongside the development of a website. As such, many search engine optimisation teams are brought in after the website design is complete and signed off. This is a missed opportunity for better rankings and conversions, as search engines begin to pay more and more attention the way you present your website.
We examine some ways in which design can impact your SEO campaign, and look at important factors that you should take into consideration.
Identifying page sections
Generally speaking, web pages tend to be structured from the same basic building blocks – e.g., many have headers, sidebars, footers and navigational blocks. Also, designs tend to meet certain conventions – logos and branding are often presented at the top of the page, with navigation either above or aside the main content.
When a page designed in such a way so that the purpose and nature of these ‘blocks’ is obvious to users due to their presentation and positioning, it may be assumed that search engines are ‘intelligent’ enough to make this intuitive leap too.
If a search engine can understand that a coloured area containing a dozen links, which is positioned consistently on each page, is in fact a navigational hub, they may then use that information to affect the ranking of that page. It makes sense that, given the importance of content and links for SEO, that search engines need to be able to recognise and assign value based on positioning and presentation.
We know this to be the case, and in fact Microsoft has published information pertaining to the mechanisms behind their processes in this area. The trimmed down version is simple – how your page is laid out is an important factor, and search engines will weight and assign value to your content, links and page elements depending on where they are, and to an extent, how they look.
Place Important Content Above The Fold
‘The Fold’ is the point at which the bottom of a page is cut off by the size of your monitor. Though monitor sizes differ, it’s generally accepted that a minimum screen resolution of 1024x768 pixels is a reasonable expectation, and that it isn’t necessary to assume that search engines will penalise websites for not providing above-the-fold content for users with very outdated screens.
In order to ensure that all valuable content is above the fold for users with this screen resolution, core design, content and SEO elements should fit into a region of 999x550 pixels.
This is perhaps one of the most important aspects for SEO in terms of design. Search engines place much greater emphasis on content, links and images that are ‘above the fold’, and thus more readily accessible to visitors. We know that images in particular are particular affected by this, and that having images towards the top of the page improves performance compared with when they are lower down, or hidden below the fold.
Every Page Is A Landing Page
Convention dictates that a website has a hierarchical, pyramid structure. Historically this was a useful approach – visitors arrive at a homepage and ‘drill down’ to find relevant content. However, the rapid evolution in the way that users search for and find information on the internet has lead to the need to design websites from a much more ‘lateral’ perspective. On an optimised website, many visitors never see your homepage, and in fact land on ‘deep’ pages which may be more optimised for their search query, such as a PPC landing page, or pages targeting long-tail organic terms.
As such, it’s not enough to design a ’straight down’ navigational structure – every page is a landing page where visitors may arrive, who must rely on lateral navigation, calls-to-action and breadcrumb trails if they’re to convert.
Create A Logical Document Flow
Modern design and development techniques allow us to separate web page code from its presentation. The practical benefit of this is that where historically the content structure and layout of a webpage was strongly limited by the way it was constructed, contemporary methods allow us to manage content and presentation independently.
However, it’s still important to recognise that there’s a fundamental difference between conventional content, and ‘web’ content. Whereas print and conventional content may be fairly ambiguous in its structure, it’s important that for SEO content has a structured, targeted layout.
In essence, each page should aim to target and be an authority for a single term – a keyphrase – and the information on the page should be split into sections, hierarchical headings and sub-headings – much like chapters in a book, where pages will generally tend to home anywhere from 150 to 500 words. In addition to structuring this data, the design should accomodate that some pages will tend to be shorter (as information flows vertically, rather than horizontally as is conventional with print, except for rare exceptions) than others, and some will often ‘break’ longer designs, requiring a much more vertically fluid structure.
The Role Of The Logo
Your logo is an important part of your online presence, SEO and campaign strategy. But how should it be used in a design in order to maximise visits and conversions? Firstly, it is important that your logo exists as an image within your page code – often a logo is part of a design, but doesn’t actually exist as a separate entity. This is a vital technique, as many sites and services that scrape your website will reference and use your logo if they find it readily available.
Also of interest, a quiet revolution is taking place attempting to filter out the use of ‘home’ links in navigations, and placing more emphasis on use of the logo in place of it as a primary ‘return home‘ navigational element. This ties in with the evolution of lateral site design, though your primary audience should be considered before implementing this practice, as older users may still rely on sites prioritising primarily hierarchical navigational structures.
Accessibility
Though not a direct component of organic SEO (though certainly not competing, and most definitely closely related), its worth thinking about accessibility optimisation as part of design, and SEO design. Though we’re fairly certain that accessibility issues aren’t a significant ranking factor, it’s best practice to cater for as wide an audience as possible, and as the evolution of the semantic web continues, we may expect more emphasis to be placed on needing to provide the kinds of well-structured website architecture required in order to rank well. After all, search engines aim to provide the best possible results for searches – if they can calculate and determine that one result provides a more accessible experience than another similar result, we may assume that they may favour the more accessible page.
Some accessibility points to consider, which may feasibly be algorithmically determined, and thus impact rankings:
- Links and elements with functionality are designed and behave consistently
- Focal points are well balanced, and eye tracking tests show that visitors are drawn to important content (tool at feng-gui.com)
- Colour contrast ratios don’t cause problems for users with visual impairments or limitations (tools at checkmycolours.com and We Are Colorblind)
- Typography is clear and easily read (white space, line heights, font, letter spacing etc – tool at Type Tester)
- The site displays well with images and/or background images/colours disabled
- Text is accessible and the site/layout is usable when significantly resized by the user
- Links make sense out of context, e.g., no ‘click here’ type links
- The design accommodates for colour-blind users, and doesn’t rely on colour-based instructions or references
Websites Change
It’s important to remember that content, targetting, goals, visitor profiles and marketing strategies change. While it’s impractical to attempt to design for any eventuality, there are simple tennets to remember, such as that navigation schemas should be designed in extensible ways, so that secondary and lateral navigation may be integrated into a design without a complete redesign. Bear in mind that content will change and evolve, and that the better the design can accomodate this flexibly, then the more robust and valuable the product. As we’ve explored above, search engines repsond to well design user experiences, and long-term ranking success depends on a strong, well designed platform that can adapt and accomodate the inevitable changes, growth and evolution that occurs throughout the lifespan of a website.
Summary
Design is a hugely important aspect of SEO. The impact of good, SEO-friendly design will only increase as search engines become more intelligent, and the line between design, development, usability and accessibility continues to blur. This is great news for the user, but means that website owners, desigenrs and developers will have to increasingly take responsibility for engaging with, and ensuring that their users find that their needs are met efficiently and accessibly.
Why not contact us for a free review to make sure that your website meets your users needs, and that your site design is working to improve your visibility, search rankings and conversions?
