Web Design Mistakes That Should Avoid For Better SEO

There is no doubt that the best websites are made in a way which can please the users as well as the search engines. Such websites maintain a perfect balance between two elements- functionality and aesthetic. So, if you are planning to get a website designed, you must make sure the right methods are followed. In fact, it is more important to know about the mistakes that you need to avoid. So, let us check out some of the most common mistakes that can ruin the SEO of your website.

Mistake #1: Not using H1 tags

There are many website developers who do not use H1 tags, particularly on the home page. No matter how good your website looks; no matter how informative and interesting its contents are; no matter how smooth it feels; if its home page does not has H1 tags, it will not be noticed by anybody, because the search engines won’t pick it. Without any doubt, H1 tags are one of the most essential SEO elements, and hence, you must ensure that your website designer and developers do not forget about the same.

As a matter of fact, when a search engine crawls through a website, H1 tag is among the first things it notices. This is done in order to figure out the purpose or niche of the website. So, when your website has the H1 tag, it becomes quite possible that the website will get better ranking in the SERPs.

If you want to explain the importance of H1 tags to your website designers and developers, you should introduce them to a test, and it is called the ‘five-second test’. In this test, if an online user can easily figure out the niche of the website simply by staring at it for 5 seconds, it means the user experience of the website is good enough. So, this is the reason why H1 tag is so crucial.

Mistake #2: Large size photos and media files

Yes, there is no doubt that beautiful photos make your website look more stunning. However, you have to be very careful with the size of the photos and media files you want to use. Incorporating large photos and long videos can negatively affect the loading time of your website. As a result, your website will get lower rank in the SERPs.

So, how to figure out if your website have large size contents? And, in case it has, how to fix the same? Well, there are certain tools available using which you can quickly scan your website. The results will help you figure out the photos and videos on your website which are considered too large by Google. You can optimize the web pages to a significant extent by shrinking the photos’ size by 70 percent.

Mistake #3: Popups

Lately, Google made it very clear that use of popups will prove to be detrimental for the ranking of your website. Google takes user experience very seriously, particularly on the mobile devices. So, if you add a popup (even an informative one) then it will surely prove to be bad for user experience; because the user will not be able to access the main content easily. Hence, it can affect the SEO of your website in a negative manner. Therefore, stay away from unwanted popups.

Mistake #4: Text in photos

It is quite surprising to see that it is one of the most widely committed mistakes. Rather than incorporating a layer of text over a photo, a lot of website designed simply paste text into a photo. But, why this method is considered as so bad? Well, it is important to mention that unlike people, Google cannot read the text pasted on an image. So, your effort of pasting the text on the image will plainly go in vain.

Another reason why text in images is not considered a good practice because the design becomes quite responsive in nature. Hence, when the website is viewed on a mobile device, the text as well as the button will not look large enough. As a result, it will only lead to poor user experience.

Mistake #5: Infinite scroll

This technique of website design is quite a popular one; but it can do damage to the SEO of your website, particularly when done in an incorrect way. In this technique, a lot of content is loaded to the web page, and hence the pagination needs to be done very precisely here. Otherwise, the search engines will not be finding it easy to crawl through your web pages.

For example, suppose you have incorporated the technique of infinite scrolling on your blog site, which has 100 pages. Now, if you show just 10 latest posts on the same, in such a case the search engine crawler will see only those 10 posts, and the rest 90 will get ignored. However, there are few methods using which you can make this technique search engine friendly.

Mistake #6: Lack of content

Without any doubt, product and services web pages are the most crucial ones for any website. If you can get higher ranking for these web pages, you will surely get more business. But, when your content is thin, you will not see good results. Here are some common mistakes you should avoid-

• No product or service pages- When you do not equip your website with these pages, you are certainly robbing yourself of a chance to get ranked in an organic way, by targeting the right keywords.
• Having just one page for products/services- Some website owners prefer showcasing their entire range of products or services on just one web page. But, this is very bad for your website’s SEO, because this format leads to a lot of confusion for your customers. In addition, it also gets difficult for the search engines to rank each page according to its SEO elements.
• Lack of text- When your product or service web pages do not have meaty content in them then the users find it somewhat difficult to know what exactly you are offering. Hence, it is vital to spend some time on creating the contents of these pages. When you include descriptive content which provides a clear idea of the product/service, the visitors will show more interest in buying the same. Plus, these web pages will get higher rank too.

So, those were the major mistakes you need to avoid. The best SEO agency always pays attention to such aspects, and hence they are able to deliver good results for your website. Therefore, keep them in mind and achieve better results.