Your capabilities in driving traffic to websites determine the website performance that also depends on website design. When you can create a synergy between the website design and SEO, you stand to make the best gains in online marketing. Just by creating beautiful websites, you will not be able to attract as much traffic as you want. While there would be some traffic reaching the site organically, to make it gain traction you have to optimize the website features. How well you can optimize the website would again depend on its design, layout and the functionalities it can support. Thus, the website design has a direct relation to your optimization efforts and influences the traffic that flows to it. No matter how nicely you design the website, for gaining high visibility it has to rank well in search results for which proper optimization is required.

If you want search engines to give preference to your website over others, you have to do SEO correctly. It would make your site stand out from the crowd and viewers would take an interest in it. The result is that the site would attract high traffic that generates more leads and improves the prospects of conversion that helps to earn more revenue. All this can happen only when you make a good beginning in your online venture by creating a well-designed website that is friendly to search engines. Making the web design friendly to search engines is not much difficult if you follow the tips given in this article.

Provide an interface for the social media in the design

Be clear in your objectives about using the website so that you can include the appropriate elements in the web design.  The first and foremost requirement for creating a good site is to satisfy both users and search engines for which you have to give importance to the social media, as both like it. The social media has immense powers in influencing search engines and creating extensive outreach.

To take advantage of the social media in your SEO endeavors, the design of the website must have elements of the social media integrated into it. The integration is easy as you can include the social media icons also known as social media buttons in the web design. It would create a link to your social media profiles and encourage visitors to visit your social media pages. Conversely, those who visit your social media profile first would be able to connect to your website, too.

Look into the aspect of image optimization

The experts at PrimalDragon SEO Company advise that you should choose a suitable CMS that allows proper optimization of images, which is as much important as optimizing text content.  Optimized images increase the attraction of the website to search engines because the photos occupy less space and speed up the page opening time. Providing suitable Alt text in the description of images is a measure in optimization that helps both search engines and users to understand the message underlying it. Since the speed of websites is a parameter that Google considers for ranking, it becomes necessary to optimize websites for better speed. Moreover, speedy sites are what users like. Therefore, the web design that facilitates image optimization should be your choice. Besides optimizing images, consider its relevance to the page and content because it should not be just a decorative element.

Make the website design accessible

By making the website easily accessible to viewers, the web design gains extensive publicity. Ensure that the site is easily accessible by search engines and users alike so that it gains high visibility that pushes up search rankings.  The website should be accessible from all kinds of browsers without any exception for which you have to select a dependable web hosting service. This would help to widen the reach of the website and lead to more traffic, more leads and more conversions. The web design has an important role to ensure the accessibility of the site by including elements that are conducive for viewing on all types of browsers and devices. For the ease of accessing the site from mobile devices, you have to adopt a responsive design that displays sites pleasingly on all sizes of small screens without compromising on the functionalities.

Use Flash elements with discretion

The fundamental purpose of any web design is to create attractive websites that keep visitors engaged for the long duration.  For achieving it, the design must exclude the use of too many flash elements that can distract viewers. If viewers got distracted and disturbed, it would make them quit the website early that would increase the bounce rate, which does not augur well for search rankings. Google considers bounce rate as a negative signal that brings down search rankings. It does not mean that you cannot use flash elements in your web design. When it comes to using flash elements, consider first whether you need it at all and if it is an absolute necessity, use it judiciously without crossing the line.

Restrict the use of JavaScript

Too much of anything is always bad in anything you do, and web design is no exception. Some designers might like to use JavaScript throughout the website, which goes against the tenets of the best practices in web design. JavaScript is not conducive to search engines bots, and it can hinder the crawling of websites that is so essential for indexing pages to appear in search results. If you are using too much JavaScript, you are affecting the crawlability of search engine bots and digging your own grave. When indexing is not proper, web pages would never feature in the search results.  Moreover, the performance of JavaScript on mobile devices is far from satisfactory, and this could affect user experience, and users would distance themselves from the website.

The above measures in web design create the perfect balance that makes websites equally appealing and attractive to search engines as well as users, which is the goal of any web designer.

About the author: Kelly Grace is the CEO of a leading web design company. She is a mentor to PrimalDragon, an SEO company that serves clients in Miami.  Kelly has seen the evolution of web design from its early days and is an authority in the field today. She is also a visiting lecturer in a management school where she teaches marketing.