How Web Design and SEO Work Together to Drive E-commerce
Are you planning to make a website for your e-commerce platform or revamp your old one? Whichever situation applies to you, you must have realized how many potential customers an eye-catching and optimized website can bring. But in the process, you have to deal with two crucial elements that can make or break your success—web design and search engine optimization (SEO).
Some entrepreneurs think that one is more important than the other, prompting them to spend more time and money on one aspect only. But in reality, they work side by side to attract new visitors and bring out the best results you want to achieve in your business. In this article, you will learn how website design and SEO matter in driving traffic to your ecommerce business, eventually leading to its success.
How SEO works with web design to improve e-commerce outcomes
In the world, Google is the most commonly used search engine. To help sort out the information found on the web, Google uses search algorithms that go through all the web pages, looking for the most relevant ones that the user needs. But this process will not be easy without setting guidelines that will serve as the standards in evaluating whether the webpage is suitable and user-friendly.
Therefore, the algorithm factors how fast the webpage loads, how accessible it is to multiple kinds of devices, and how it appears correctly even in various browsers. If Google’s Search algorithm detects that your ecommerce site meets all the necessary criteria, it can rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP). The more visibility your page gets, the more potential customers you can acquire.
Additionally, your SEO ranking will be greatly affected if you just launched a new website or changed the domain name without setting up a 301 redirect. It informs the search engines that the content was permanently transferred to a new page, redirecting the visitors to the new one. Without setting up this one, the SEO ranking in your previous website will be gone, and your old customers or visitors might not find your new site anymore. So, ensure that you accomplish this before opening your new e-commerce platform.
How web design affects SEO
As an entrepreneur, you might prioritize SEO over website design because the former brings more viewers to your page. But not all of them will eventually purchase your products if they do not like what they saw and experienced on your website. It means that your SEO-friendly website will be counterproductive if it does not make the viewers stay on your site, browse your products, and make a purchase.
Yes, following the best SEO practices is crucial to keep a high rank in the SERPs. But several factors can drive the customers out of your website instead of going in. These factors include poor design, slow load times, and hard-to-read texts. According to statistics, 38% of users will eventually leave a website if it does not appeal to them visually. If your potential customers leave your site and move to a different one because of these factors, it can badly hurt your ranking and ecommerce business. So, ensure that your web designer knows the correct site architecture and values user experience by implementing an excellent user interface design.
The benefits of a well-designed and SEO-optimized website for e-commerce businesses
One of the benefits of a well-designed and SEO-optimized website is getting more brand visibility. As mentioned above, the more visible your website and products are to the search engines, the more potential customers you can gain. Because most internet users choose the top search engine results, you can use this opportunity to optimize your website to become more visible to them. In this way, you can also boost your brand awareness and increase exposure, just like one of the benefits of blogging.
Another benefit you can enjoy is an increase in sales. A good SEO ranking will make your page more visible, but a good website design and user experience will make them stay and purchase. With a great user experience, you can engage more potential customers to browse your website and check out more products. If they find it easy to navigate or load your site, they can stay longer, buy the items they like, and even share your product page with other people.
Tips for optimizing your website for e-commerce
Choosing to design your website for your e-commerce business will not be easy, but your efforts will be worth it if you work on things correctly. This situation is similar to constructing a product listing for Amazon search engine optimization. If you have decided to create a new website or improve the existing one, check out the tips discussed below to learn more about optimizing your website to be e-commerce ready.
1. Use reliable technologies for building your website
Web designers have various options in coding parts of your website. They commonly use HTML and CSS, which are easier to optimize. It would be best to avoid Flash and similar coding technologies because they are difficult to optimize, affecting your ranking in SERPs.
2. Prioritize the website’s mobile-friendliness
Nowadays, most internet users and shoppers use their mobile devices to look for information, products, and services instead of their laptops or computers. So, if they see that your website is not mobile-friendly, they can look for another one that is more accessible to them. This is why the Google search algorithm already factors mobile-friendliness in SEO ranking. So, ensure that your website runs on mobile devices using responsive web design (RWD).
3. Check the website’s readability and loading speed
Besides web design, you should also check how readable your website content is. Viewers and potential customers still read the content they see on your website, whether article or product description, especially before making a purchase. So, choose the right font type, color, and size to ensure that your content is easy to read, no matter what device they use.
Moreover, consider optimizing your website so that the pages load fast. Because Google also considers this factor, you must work well with your web designer to ensure that all content, from texts to images, will load quickly on the users’ end. Otherwise, you will lose your SEO ranking in Google.
4. Pay attention to the uploaded images
Images are essential to website design and e-commerce, Amazon FBA seller or not. Because customers cannot physically see your products, they rely on uploaded images to check out whether they will purchase or not. As much as you want the photos to have high-definition quality, consider that this can slow the loading speed of your site, affecting your SEO ranking, too. In addition, incorporate the keywords in the image file name to be considered by search engines.
5. Ensure that users will experience smooth navigation of your website
Part of your ecommerce site’s accessibility to all kinds of users is its navigation. If they find it easy to navigate your website, they are more likely to visit other pages, return to your shop, and make more purchases. So, ensure that the top and side navigation menus and dropdown menus work well all the time. Also, check the arrangements of the links under each navigation bar button to avoid confusion among the viewers.
6. Require your web designer and SEO expert to work together
If you intend to hire two different professionals for both website design and SEO, it would be best to require them to work together. In this way, they will know how to work on their respective tasks while considering the other person’s concerns and demands. Otherwise, your efforts will be counterproductive. Also, you will end up sacrificing one factor or making another one, which is time-consuming and expensive.
Final Thoughts
Web design and search engine optimization are essential if you want to succeed in your e-commerce business. It may take a lot of time and effort to make things work. But with the right tools, methods, and people, you can create a well-designed and SEO-optimized website that can help boost your sales. If you need professional help regarding these tasks, it would be best to reach out to reputable companies that can provide web design and SEO services.
