SEO is more than just clicks and impressions, especially after Google’s algorithm updates throughout 2022 and 2023. Increasingly, Google has been focusing on the way content is presented as part of its mission to satisfy user search intentions. This means web designers can follow certain best practices to achieve better SEO success. We discuss some of these below.
Presenting Helpful Content
Being unveiled in August of 2022 and upgraded in September of 2023, Google’s Helpful Content Updates have tried to bring algorithmic expectations in line with those of viewers. As part of these revisions, its machine-learning algorithm scrutinizes how content arrives to viewers. For example, someone looking for a news article wants text-based results, while tutorials may be easier to consume in video format.
This means that UX designers should follow page layouts that are in keeping with viewer demand. If a site offers varied content, like video-sharing or iGaming, a site design featured sub-windows has become predominant. Since iGaming sites offer hundreds of different slot games, the home page of Paddy Power Bingo is split up to present each one to viewers, like a form of digital window shopping. This means that the page is light on text, too, so Google algorithms won’t recommend iGaming sites in response to irrelevant searches. As such, it satisfies UX and SEO guidelines, which wouldn’t be the case if an iGaming homepage featured paragraphs of text with no images.
Make Your Design Consistent
After assessing how a website should look, based on what kind of content you’re offering, it’s important to keep it consistent. From a brand-building perspective, consistency is key to creating a recognizable presence online. This means using the same fonts, color scheme, and other design elements across the whole business, from the site to social media pages and email headers. E-commerce sites have this down to a science, with providers like Shopify offering tutorials.
However, web designers should also make a site experience consistent across devices. More than ever, the way we access our favorite websites is divided between desktop, mobile, and laptop/tablet devices. Smartphones dominate search traffic, so having a mobile-friendly site layout is paramount. It isn’t possible to squeeze some site designs into a mobile phone screen. In those cases, it’s better to get a subdomain that handles mobile requests and uses relevant on-page SEO tactics.
URLs in search: With Mobile-first indexing, we index the mobile version. When we recognize separate mobile URLs, we will show the mobile URL to mobile users and the desktop URL to desktop users – the indexed content will be the mobile version in both cases.
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) <
Providing Social Proof
Along with search intention and relevance, security is also an important part of Google’s algorithm. It’s bad business to suggest sites that aren’t reliable, after all. So, a quick but sometimes overlooked requirement for fledgling business sites is social proof.
In the context of web design and marketing, social proof means showing that your site is legitimate and others have done business with you in the past. To solve the first part, you should have a Contact Us section with an email, number, and even a physical address for where the business is registered, if applicable. Similarly, getting TLS security (explained here by Cloudflare) and any industry-specific certificates helps.
For the second, testimonials or a review section are best as they show others have had a good experience with you. It’s the same principle as checking out Amazon reviews for a product – the better and more reviewed a seller is, the more likely they’ll close out a sale. Providing a bit of information to put users at rest and show you’re the real deal can go a long way when designing your site.
Featured Photo by picjumbo.com: https://www.pexels.com
