6 Common Web Design Mistakes That Hurt SEO
When you decide to open a website to showcase your products, then top of the list on the things to consider are functionality and search engine optimization. Customers don’t like searching through the haystack to find your website and once they are inside, locating the helpful information in a few clicks makes your website rate high.
All these start at the point when you are designing a website, so you need to go through the algorithm and interface of your website to makes sure these 6 mistakes are not responsible for the poor performance of your website.
1. Excluding the H1 Tags, more so on the Home Page
The H1 is an HTML tag that indicates the heading of a website. It is usually the first thing a user sees when they open your website. The H1 tag is usually the heading of a post and it has the largest font.
When users search for a word that is related to your website using a search engine, your H1 tag comes up. Therefore imagine if the H1 tag is missing from your website.
Therefore make sure your developer starts with the H1 tag.
2. Large Images and media files
Just as many large videos and pictures can slow your PC or your smart phone, large files also slow down your website as it requires more time to load the website information from the servers.
Tools that can help you gauge if your images and videos are too large for your website include Screaming Frog and Google PageSpeeds Insight Test.
3. Pop-ups
Pop-ups are annoying when a customer wants to get quick information about a good and log out. Nobody is pleased when they have to waste time clicking away pop-ups instead of doing what they intended.
4. Text In Images
This is a common mistake, with designers putting text inside the image instead of over the image. If you intend that your image should feature in the images section of the search engine, then too bad for you because a search engine cannot see the text on the image.
Additionally, the image will appear really small in a mobile phone or tablet and that’s user experience out through the roof.
5. Infinite Scroll
This is really an important feature and you need to get it right. Your website should allow loading of more content as the user scrolls down. If you don’t set up the websites pagination the right way, your website gets stuck when the user reaches the bottom of the screen.
6. Too Little or Shallow Content
Don’t overload your webpage with a lot of needless information. On the other side, you risk losing traffic if service and product pages are missing from your website.
Try to make sure that the content is spread well among multiple pages so that the search engine knows what each page is talking about and therefore is able to rank them accordingly.
Describe your products and services robustly so that visitors get as much information.
In conclusion, make sure the H1 tag is there, the files are the right size, and your content is robust. There is no need for a beautiful website when it can’t be found or it wastes visitors time because the information you intended to relay is just not there.
