Web design and SEO aren’t as mutually exclusive as you might think. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that one cannot exist (or at least achieve success) without the other.
Let me explain.
Say you write top-notch, information-packed, beautifully prosed content, but it’s published on a website that looks straight out of 2003. I bet you anyone who clicks would be itching to press back even before the entire content finishes loading.
Conversely, you can own the holy grail of website designs, but if no one can find it on Google, what’s even the point? SEO puts your website on the map, so it’s a non-negotiable in today’s business landscape.
The point is: web design and SEO are interrelated and interdependent.
It’s essential to strike a perfect balance between the two aspects. And that’s what we’ll cover today. Stay tuned to explore 7 essential design-focused strategies that help your website climb the rankings and look good doing so!
What is SEO Web Design?
SEO web design is the culmination of search engine optimization and web design, which involves developing an SEO-friendly website that isn’t a sight for sore eyes.
Specifically, when you engage in SEO web design, you build a website that not only looks great but is also structured to perform well in search engine rankings.
These websites blend high-quality content and visual appeal with technical SEO aspects, including:
- Fast load times
- Mobile responsiveness
- Clean navigation
- Crawlable content
All in all, SEO web design creates a user-friendly experience that’s easy for both people and search engines to understand.
How Does Web Design Impact SEO (and Vice Versa)?
We’ve touched on the interdependent relationship between web design and SEO. But how exactly do these marketing facets specifically interact with one another? Keep reading.
Page speed is a ranking factor
Page speed is a ranking signal in modern-day SEO for both mobile and desktop.
Many factors contribute to a slow website, like using a heavy theme, unoptimized images, unnecessary CSS and JavaScript, or bloated animations.
With Google’s focus on user experience, maintaining a slow website will only frustrate users, leading to dismal sitewide user behavior signals:
- High bounce rate
- Lower dwell time
- Low click-through rates
These signals tell Google that a website was not built with users in mind. Often, Google penalizes slow websites with weaker search engine rankings and, by extension, reduced traffic.
Web design boosts user experience
A clutter-free layout, intuitive navigation, and mobile responsiveness all make users feel comfortable about interacting with your content. But beyond the functionality (UX), the aesthetic appeal (UI) is also a huge factor for user experience.
Let’s face it. First impressions last. And if your web design doesn’t leave a good taste at first glance, users won’t even bother checking it out, regardless of how intuitive it is.
Factors like spacing, color contrast, and button placement can guide users and improve conversion signals. Once users are glued to your site, a great UX is what keeps them engaged. Both UI and UX combined tell Google your site is worth ranking.
SEO web design must be integrated into the design workflow
One of the biggest mistakes committed by first-time site owners is designing the website first and then optimizing it for SEO later. This leads to missed opportunities, wasted time and effort, and rework.
Integrating SEO from the very beginning ensures every part of the site—from navigation and page structure to image handling and metadata—is built with search visibility in mind.
In that case, designers and SEOs should not be on separate ends of business operations but must collaborate from the get-go.
For instance, SEOs perform the keyword research and create the optimized copy that designers shall implement. SEOs may also provide guidance on image optimization and link structure planning, aspects that are often overlooked in web design.
Conversely, designers can implement responsive layouts and performance-focused code that serve Core Web Vitals—something that can be tricky for SEOs to manage in rigid CMS setups.
The convergence of SEOs and designers would be far more beneficial than if they worked individually.
So, what aspects of web design could be optimized further to elevate SEO? Let’s explore 7 below:
7 Web Design Aspects to Optimize for Improved SEO Performance
1. Mobile-responsiveness
According to AIOSEO, 6 out of 10 of all website traffic comes from mobile devices. This number shot up to about 72.6% in 2025 as internet users primarily rely on their mobile devices to access the web.
Source: AIOSEO
That said, mobile-responsiveness is no longer optional but an essential part of SEO. But everybody knows that at this point.
Google prioritizes mobile-first indexing, meaning it uses your website’s mobile version to determine rankings. So, why include mobile-responsiveness on the list? Many site owners haven’t gotten this aspect down to a T.
Here are additional aspects of mobile-responsiveness you can improve for better SEO performance:
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) on mobile: Unexpected layout shifts, like buttons moving when fonts begin to load or ads start popping in. This could be disruptive to users as it can cause mistaps that take users away from their intended destinations.
Source: Bruce Clay
- Intrusive mobile interstitials: Some pop-up ads are tolerable, but others are just straight garbage and annoying. For instance, interstitials with unreadable, small, or fake close buttons make those interstitials hard to close.
- Text readability: A website design may “technically” be mobile-friendly, but if font sizes are too small or use weak color contrast, users will still zoom or squint to read them.
2. Page speed and Core Web Vitals
Be honest, how long would you wait before clicking back if a website doesn’t load quickly?
If you don’t like slow-loading sites, chances are, your audiences share that same sentiment.
Fast-loading websites are a non-negotiable, especially in today’s business landscape. Everybody wants things fast, and if your site can’t deliver, they’ll exit without regret. Unfortunately, this can cause your bounce rate to balloon, indirectly pulling your website’s rankings in the process.
Since page speed is a ranking factor, website speed optimization is a non-negotiable.
Here is the announcement from Google in 2018 when they expressed the decision to make page speed an official ranking factor for mobile, 8 years after making the same announcement for desktop searches:
Source: Chrome for Developers
So, how can you optimize your page speed? Consider using Page Speed Insights, where Google lists actionable tips to improve site speed.
Moreover, you can use lazy loading, clean up your code, consider investing in content delivery networks, or upgrade to a dedicated hosting service for a snappier website.
3. Sitewide navigation and menu structure
Your website’s navigation isn’t just for users, but it’s also a roadmap for search engines.
A clean, intuitive menu structure helps visitors find what they need quickly while allowing search engines to crawl and index your content more effectively. This seems like elementary concepts, but many still overlook this aspect.
Here are some actionable ways to optimize your menu structure for better sitewide navigation:
- Keep top-level navigation within 5-7 links: Too many links can dilute the link juice or authority passed from your homepage. Plus, it looks cluttered, which can confuse users.
Just take a look at Costco’s website, where they have one main menu up above, another navigation bar just below the search bar, and a hamburger menu at the far left. Talk about cluttered.
- Use static HTML whenever possible: Menus built with plain HTML load instantly with the page, making them faster and easier for search engine bots to crawl. Meanwhile, JavaScript menus may require some scripts to load, making them prettier at face value but more impractical.
- Add breadcrumbs: Breadcrumbs make it easier for users to know where they are on your website. This makes navigation easier, which may boost user experience.
4. Content hierarchy
A clear content hierarchy is essential for users and search engines to understand what’s important on a page.
Structuring your content with proper heading tags, like <h1> for titles and <h2> to <h4> for subtopics, creates a logical flow and improves readability.
One good technique to avoid visual fatigue is to break down long sections into bullet points or add section dividers to make scanning easier. You can also add more white space between paragraphs to make the content visually more appealing and readable.
Think of your page like an outline; each section should support the one above it. Clean hierarchy builds a better UX and stronger on-page SEO.
5. URL slugs
URL slugs are small but mighty elements of a SEO-friendly website design. A slug is the part of the URL that comes after your domain that gives the identity of the page users are on.
For the best URL slugs, keep them concise yet descriptive, incorporating relevant keywords about the page. Avoid using long strings of numbers, irrelevant words, or auto-generated gibberish.
For instance, use “/web-design-seo-tips” instead of “/blog?id=1234”. To keep slugs evergreen, don’t include dates or numbers (for listicles) as this may change when you update the content in the future.
6. Internal linking
Internal linking goes beyond navigation buttons.
They also include contextual links, or the ones found in the body of your content. Internal links help users navigate and search engines find thematically related content to their current page. In addition, internal links pass link juice from the source to the targeted page.
But there is more to internal links than meets the eye.
You can’t just add an internal link indiscriminately. Context matters. For this, AI-powered internal linking tools, such as LinkStorm, shine best.
LinkStorm uses semantic analysis and machine learning to identify contextually relevant internal linking opportunities across your website, as shown in the screenshot below:
Moreover, the anchor text also matters for giving context to users and search engines about the destination of the link, especially for cases when you use nofollow links.
Remember the law of diminishing returns in economics? While internal linking matters, avoid overloading the page with too many links, as this can ruin the user experience.
Look at this example:
Source: Word Agents
Too much internal linking can cause visual fatigue and information overload. For best results, choose only the best contextual links to embed on a page. When done right, this boosts user experience while strengthening your website’s SEO.
7. Visual content optimization
Images, videos, infographics—all great, but if they aren’t optimized, they can have a double-edged effect on your SEO performance.
For one, they can slow your website down if the files are too large. Secondly, if they don’t have proper or descriptive alt text, you won’t maximize their use for SEO purposes.
So, what are a few ways to optimize visual content for SEO? Try the following:
- Compress the images to reduce file size without sacrificing quality: Free online tools like TinyPNG are useful for compressing images.
- Use appropriate formats: WebP is ideal for regular images, as they have smaller file sizes with comparable quality. Meanwhile, for transparent images, use PNG.
- Add descriptive, keyword-rich alt texts: For better image visibility, add alt texts that describe the image being shown. Make sure to integrate your primary keyword into the alt text for better SEO reinforcement.
- Optimize videos: Host them externally so they don’t add additional load to your website. Or, you can also lazy load them to avoid performance issues.
- Don’t add graphics for the heck of it: Avoid stock images as much as possible. Only include images that are relevant to the content. Take a look at the graphics used on this page, all images support the messaging of the article.
Remember that visual content is meant to support your message while keeping the entire page lightweight.
Ready to Build A UX-focused, SEO-Friendly Website?
In the early days of SEO, it was all about keywords. Even websites with tacky designs ranked as long as they checked the keyword box.
But not anymore.
Web design is more important than ever. Your content, no matter how good it reads, won’t get a second look if your interface is poorly designed.
By weaving SEO into your web design from the ground up, you ensure every element delivers an experience that users love. Together, all of this results in better SEO performance, which leads to better visibility, traffic, engagement, and conversions.
So, ready to build a UX-focused, SEO-friendly site?
Our team at Votre Site Pro is composed of SEO-trained web development experts who can help you achieve a website built to rank. Book a call with us, and we’ll make your experience worthwhile.
