Why good design makes you rank better in search engines
Posted On October 16th, 2009 Author Kyle Racki Filed Under Design, Marketing 9
Many business owners think of graphic design as just eye-candy. They’ll use terms like, ‘I need you (the designer) to pretty it up.’ Or, ‘I’ve got the basic layout done, I just need you to make it look good.’
Of course we know that true graphic design is about communication, and to be a good designer, you need to be a good problem solver. Even more true with the web, design is about looking great, for sure, but also being usable, accessible, converting users, etc. But sometimes we forget about how good web design can influence search engines.
You may say that I’m mad. That google bots can’t possibly crawl my web page and tell whether or not it looks good. Indeed, some of the ugliest websites can rank #1 for a particular topic. In fact, my latest search on Google for good web design brought up this page as #1 in the organic results. Hardly eye-candy. (Funny enough, the author is Robin Williams)
However, I’m going to show you a prime example of how good design can affect search engine results. There is a web marketing agency in the US called Viget Labs who does great work, and have 4 teams, or “labs” that corner every area of the web, design, marketing, user-experience/strategy and development. Each of these labs have their own blog off of the main company website with an entirely different look and feel.
Company Website
User Experience Blog
Development Blog
Marketing Blog
Design Blog
Many of us in the web design world were impressed when Viget came out with their 4 sub brands, and even more so when we saw the quality of the content for the most part, and the consistency with which each blog was updated.
However, despite the fact that all the micro-sites are well designed, have the same quality of content, and the same team coding them and optimizing them for search engines, which one ranks better when searching for the term “Viget” in Google, other than the company site? The design blog. Why? The design blog simply has a more impressive design. Sure, the other blogs look great, but the design blog, with it’s water-colour background (which has since become a web design trend) has a certain mood and feel that the others can’t compete with. And when all of the other design blogs and ‘best-of’ lists came out, most of them included the Viget design blog over the others. And of course, the more quality in-bound links a website has, the higher it’s search-engine ranking will climb.
In short, create something that people enjoy using, because of it’s great content and design, and most likely, users will stay on the site, come back to it, link to it and search for it. Good design really has a complete impact on the entire strategy of your website.
And it looks pretty.
What people are saying
on October 19th, 2009, Kevin Springer said...
Well Kyle,
another excellent blog post as always, but this one in particular hits home with me. I know of several web marketing companies that are very ‘back end heavy’, leading with the science and tossing the importance of design aside. And one particular local firm that comes to mind self proclaims themselves as ‘owners of the interactive marketing space’, I must say when I Google - Halifax Web Design - they are no where to be found, or at least I did not go beyond the first 4 pages as most users do not even go to the 2nd page.
Combining good strategy with well thought out creative usability has been a winner for us, the proof is in the results.
Cheers,
Kevin
on October 19th, 2009, Matthew Carleton said...
Very good point! I think that there is a movement towards this train of thought,but there is still a long way to go. However it’s exciting to think that someday clients will see value in the aesthetics of their site and understand how important it is.
on October 20th, 2009, Ricky Ferris said...
Design is not only how things looks, good design begins before a color palette or font family are chosen. Designing starts with understanding the client, and the need you are hired to full fill. Then you can start working site architecture, designing how the information is organized and laid out so the customer can intuitively find what they came to find. Aiding in this is blocking, designing how information is laid out on a page by page basis, again, improving the user experience. With all these pieces in place, you can begin picking colors palettes, fonts and build the ‘eye candy’.
My point…oh, i guess I should get to that..Is that good design is not just what makes a site look good, but is how easy it is to use, how perspective customers find what they are looking for, creating longer page views, high traffic resulting in higher ranking with google. so, Kyle, I guess I do agree with you, as long as we agree on the definition of good web design!
on October 20th, 2009, Kyle said...
I do agree. I guess in this post, my point is that even the eye candy can affect more than just people liking the design - it can also increase search results.
on October 31st, 2009, matt said...
And who doesn’t love a good bit of eye candy?
on December 10th, 2009, garden said...
Of course good design is very important for any website.Good post buddy.
on January 11th, 2010, Peter Sickles said...
Well, Kevin… let’s be clear here… Google doesn’t know or care what your website looks like. What it does care about is that the people who land on it actually use it, or “convert” in some manner. The means to get them to convert are many, but it starts with good, smart design that allows people to quickly and easily identify and accomplish their desired tasks.
Google tracks and measures this. So, without belaboring the point… it isn’t that a site is pretty, it’s that it facilitates usability. Sometimes a pretty site can help accomplish that, and sometimes it just gets in the way. But design is always a key factor in a website’s success on the web… pretty or not.
on January 11th, 2010, Kyle Racki said...
Hey Peter,
A site that is not only usable, but also aesthetically and designed for ‘flow’, has a higher chance of ranking highly than a site that is merely easy-to-use.
Google may not care about aesthetics, but users do. A good user-experience results in users returning, and most importantly, linking to your website - and Google certainly cares about that.
on April 18th, 2011, Solar Panels said...
Nice post found i really interesting keep it up keep continuing