If the design of your website influences your conversion rate its impact on your SEO is also to be taken into account when developing your SEO strategy. The design of your website contributes to the success of your business.
Your interface must first be functional and easy to use to keep your visitors on your site and drive them to conversion. Many of you know all this. But what many forget is that design also impacts SEO. Visitors who stay on a site for a long time and a low bounce rate are positive signs for Google. Keywords or backlinks are not the only elements influencing your natural referencing....
Let's look at your website design and take a closer look at the mistakes you shouldn't make to boost your SEO and conversions.
Unreadable content
The content is the basis of your natural referencing. Google's E-A-T criteria now require reliable content from an expert source that demonstrates authority in the field. Despite all your efforts to produce high quality content, if it is unreadable you will get little commitment from your visitors. The presentation is very important, so avoid it:
- Writing fonts that are difficult to read
- Long paragraphs and long sentences
- Paragraphs written entirely in bold or italic
- Colours that reduce the readability of your text
Unfortunately, Numara Software made this first mistake. Their texts were difficult to read. When they decided to change their writing font from 10 pt to 13 pt they saw their conversions increase by 133%.
Wrong choice of colour
Colours are full of meaning: they say a lot about your company and even influence Internet users. If you notice that one of your CTAs is having trouble converting, try changing its color. For example, the CareLogger application has changed the green color of a button to red. This simple change has increased conversions by 34%.
Excessive use of CSS and JavaScript
You can add features to your site by using scripts and add-ons to differentiate yourself from your competitors. But go about it sparingly. By integrating too many CSS and JS elements you will significantly increase the loading time of your site's pages. And you know how patient Internet users are these days.... You will lose a lot of opportunity to convert your visitors and negatively impact your SEO.
Excessive use of images
To capture the attention of Internet users and make it easier to read a long text, it is a good idea to add images. But be careful not to overdo it. Your images make your page heavier and have an impact on its loading time. Moreover, web pages with many graphics are never the best referenced ones, as Google penalizes slow loading.
Also pay attention to the format of your images, make the right choice between a JPG and a PNG. And if the GIF adds animation, and sometimes a touch of humour to your content, it still remains a large file.
Non-customized images
To illustrate your website or blog articles you are tempted to use royalty-free images from online bookstores. This choice is quite understandable because it saves you time in the production of your content. But have you noticed that some of these images are used across dozens or even hundreds of sites? Internet users are now so exposed to these "stock" images that they end up ignoring them.
By customizing your illustrations you will make them more relevant to the topic covered in your web page and increase your conversions by 161%.
Contact details not found
Contact details are essential to your website so that your visitors can contact you. Your address, phone number or at least your email must be easily accessible to help develop a sense of trust among your visitors and even improve your ranking in search results.
Poor handling of pages 404
404 error pages are harmful to the user experience and your conversions. They make your visitors frustrated that they cannot access the desired or searched page. To prevent Internet users from leaving immediately, it is advisable to make some improvements to pages 404.
Make them attractive by playing with humour, for example, and insert a call to action or a link to your site's home page.
An infinite inappropriate scroll
Infinite scroll is found on one page sites and social networks. This type of navigation is adapted to provide so-called "paragraph" information where the Internet user does not necessarily wait for the end. You therefore understand that it is not necessarily wise to set up an infinite scroll on your website.
In addition to drowning your visitors in the mass of information, this navigation is heavy and slows down the loading of your site. In terms of SEO, you will also have difficulty positioning yourself on different keywords. Prefer a site structured in several pages: it will be easier to manage and you can develop a real SEO strategy.
Intrusive pop-ups
The use of pop-ups is a matter of debate: some find them disturbing when visiting a site, others see them as a real opportunity to increase conversions. Internet users have a hard time with advertisements that are obvious to them, disrupting their reading.
Avoid pop-ups that take up space on the screen and prefer more discreet boxes, linked to the content of the page being viewed.
Web elements replaced by images
Images, when used correctly, can optimize your page. On the other hand, avoid at all costs replacing web design elements (e. g. a button) or text content with an image. If you use this medium as a primary form of navigation, search engines will have great difficulty understanding its meaning. Your SEO will necessarily take a hit....
This list of mistakes not to be made is not exhaustive. Other practices are of course to be avoided, but by starting with these first tips, you can easily improve your conversion rate and SEO.