5 Web Design Practices That SEO Professionals Hate

Everyone knows there’s much more to SEO than what you can find in Google Analytics. It’s also important to keep an eye on the design of your website because that can make or break your site’s usability and performance. According to recent research by Box UK, it was found that many businesses lost around 10% in revenue due to website performance issues in 2022.

Poor website design can lead to lost web traffic, impacting SEO. Hence, there are many web design practices that SEO professionals hate. Here’s a list of some of them.

The Connection Between Web Design and SEO

If you’re new to SEO, it can be hard to grasp how web design relates to your website’s search engine ranking. Web design and SEO are inseparable. They work together like peanut butter and jelly.

If you want your site to rank well on Google, it must look aesthetic and provide users with a positive experience when they visit your page or click through from another site link. According to a recent Adobe report, 59% of users prefer a nicely designed website over a simple one.

If not done correctly, poor aesthetics could hurt your rankings because Google considers whether people enjoy visiting your page before deciding where it should appear in their results pages. Hence, you must hire a web design firm to help you design your website.

It is best to opt for an agency that can offer services around other IT requirements, such as cybersecurity, app development, staffing, etc. This will ensure you don’t have to hire multiple vendors for different IT requirements. You can find many such services at https://www.is-t.net/design. Such companies can become a one-stop solution for all your IT needs.

Web Design Practices That SEO Professionals Hate

SEO professionals will hate any web design tactic that harms customer experience and reduces SEO scores. Here are some of the tactics that SEO pros may dislike.

Using Flash

You may be thinking, “But Flash is so popular.” Flash is indeed a widely used web design tool. But when it comes to SEO, it can be a real pain in the neck.

Here are some reasons why:

• Pages that use Flash load slowly and are not very user-friendly. Slow loading times can negatively impact your site’s ranking on Google search results pages (SERPs).
• Flash content is not searchable by Google or other search engines. Therefore, it won’t appear in SERPs unless you manually submit the page with meta tags and additional information about what’s on it.

This makes it harder for people looking for your content or products because they won’t find them through traditional searches as quickly as non-Flash websites or apps instead of those created using this programming language technology platform.

Too Many Fonts

The text’s design, style, boldness, etc., all fall under Typography. It means the style and appearance of text. According to data, more than 90% of online data is in text form, so it is essential to pay attention to typography.

Too many fonts can be distracting and hard to read. You want your users to focus on the content, not how many different styles of font you’ve used. Fonts also affect the user experience, especially regarding speed and readability. The more fonts you use, the slower your website will load, meaning people are less likely to stick around long enough for you to convert them into paying customers.

Many websites use too many different fonts in one place because they think this will make their website look more “artistic” or “unique.” But they don’t realize that when people see too many different kinds of typography on a page at once, their eyes become overwhelmed by all those different styles and start ignoring them altogether.

Poor Navigation on the Website

A website’s navigation is a crucial part of the user experience. It should be intuitive, consistent, and easy to use. If you’re designing a website for clients who aren’t web savvy or have little time, you should ensure that their navigation is easy enough for them to find what they’re looking for without your help.

This means making sure all links are clearly labeled and giving them descriptive names, so people know what kind of content will be on those pages without having visited them yet. This can be done by using words like “Home” or “About Us” instead of just leaving everything blank, a common practice among SEO professionals who want Google bots but not actual users.

Image Sizes

Image sizes are another area where SEO professionals have to be careful. If you’re using images on your website, ensure they are not too big and don’t take up too much space. You can do this by compressing the images to reduce their file size and improve page load speeds.

When it comes to image format, JPEGs are better than PNGs because they’re smaller in size but still retain quality when compressed. The screen resolution of the website and images can also impact SEO. Most successful sites prefer a screen resolution of 1920*1080 pixels. Data shows that around 9.3% of websites use this resolution.

While your screen resolution might depend on your website’s design, it is best to stick to 1920*1080 pixels. Hence, if you go above or beyond and it impacts customer experience, and thus SEO, SEO professionals will hate it.

Image Sliders That Slow Down Pages

Sliders can be a great way to showcase images and content, but they’re not always the best option for your website. For example, if you have a slider on your homepage that takes up half of the page and only displays one image at a time, it’s probably slowing down your site, and no one wants that.

Sliders are also distracting. They take away from other essential elements on your page, such as text or calls-to-action (CTAs). And if someone clicks on one of those images in the slider, it might not lead them to where they want because there’s no transparent navigation system built into sliders. 

They’re also hard to navigate since users can’t access all of them at once without clicking through each slide individually, which is time-consuming.

Conclusion

We hope the tips we’ve shared today will help you make smarter decisions regarding web design. Remember that having a good designer is only one part of the equation. It’s also important for them to understand how their work will impact your site’s SEO. If they don’t know how search engines work or don’t seem like they care about what makes them tick, then maybe it’s time for a change.