How To Avoid Costly Web Design Mistakes That Damage Your SEO
If your website isn’t attracting many visitors or ranks so low on search engines it doesn’t appear in the first couple of pages, you probably have a design flaw that needs to be fixed. Not only will one of these mistakes cost you customers, but it also damages all your work at making your site’s SEO ability high as well. Here are the top web design mistakes to avoid.
1. Non-Responsive Website
Does your website only look good on desktop computers? If so, the 275 million smartphone users in the U.S. aren’t able to properly view your pages on their preferred device. Making the necessary changes to upgrade to a responsive website will ensure your pages look great on a desktop, tablet or smartphone screen.
2. Slow Page Loads
Those that surf the web do so at a fast pace. They will give your page under five seconds to load and exit out if it takes longer. To speed up your load time, check the size of your images and media files. If they are too large, resize or compress them to speed up their load time. If your site is built in WordPress, make sure you use a fast loading theme, such as Astra, OceanWP or Hello Elementor.
3. No H1 Tags
Did you know search engines look for H1 tags first? That means if your pages don’t have any, they are being skipped over. Make sure you tell all your users what your site is about with H1 text that is front and center on your homepage. That will please both your visitors and the search engines.
4. Uninteresting Content
The old advertising adage “content is king” is especially true with digital content. With so much information on the web, users won’t stay on a page that isn’t interesting. Always make sure you publish helpful articles or blogs that educate, entertain or inform your visitors. Ensure it is free of any spelling and grammar errors and contains the right keywords to attract search engines.
5. Unorganized Website
Users and Google’s web crawlers will flee your site if the homepage is unorganized and overloaded with too much information and images. Both will stay on your page if they clearly understand where information is located through a visible navigation menu and internal links. Having white space around your text blocks and images creates a clean look that is attractive to the eye of web users.
Taking steps to correct these web design flaws will help attract more users to your website and increase your SEO so your page ranks high in internet searches.