When you check out a business online, what do you notice first? The website design is the first thing that speaks to us about the brand.

Say, a prominent brand like H&M suddenly changed its website colors, typography, logo, and layout. Would you feel the same way about the brand like you do now?

It is easy to say “Yes,” but think about a site that has recently undergone a significant overhaul. Maybe you loved to spend time on the site browsing the product, reading the blogs, and commenting on them too. Now that the layout has changed and the navigation is different, it feels like an alien space.

The website of an organization is a significant part of its identity. Think of it as the recognizable face of your business that can directly interact with your target consumers. 

Well-designed websites assume higher ranks as compared to the sites with complex navigation or scattered elements. Simpler navigation and design are ideal for search engine friendliness. Google search engine bots will always be able to access your pages, content, and information. That makes it much easier for the search engine to rank your site for relevant search terms.

Does website design influence your site traffic?

Business sites and eCommerce sites require organic traffic. Research shows that the traffic that comes directly from the Google SERP is much easier to convert as compared to the traffic from paid ads or sponsored placements. Your website design can directly influence your site SEO before you even realize it!

High organic traffic, high dwell time, and impressive conversion rates create a positive feedback loop. These factors strengthen the ranking signal with further boosts the ranking and visibility of a website.

How does your site design influence your visitors?

Your website design influences more than you apparently notice. It will determine how fast or slow your site loads. The loading time is inversely proportional to the number of value-adding visitors. 

That means – over 64% of your visitors will leave if your website takes longer than 4 seconds to load. Any site that manages to finish loading in the first 3 seconds manages to hold on to the organic traffic for conversion. With a high bounce rate, you may have to say goodbye to most of your contributing visitors.

Smartphone users don’t have the time to wait around, especially when hundreds of businesses based out of Toronto are offering similar products.

How do some sites rank higher than more prominent company sites?

Google only cares about companies that care about its customers. Therefore, it is not unusual to see some of the not-so-well-known companies from Toronto line up at the top of a SERP if they have impressive website designs. Finally, smaller businesses and startups can one-up the corporate giants of Toronto, Canada.

With easy-to-afford, but highly diverse website designs, even you can impress your target customers without blowing through your entire business capital. You should target offering your customers a satisfying navigation experience. Their experience will reflect in the average session per user, average dwell time, number of pages they visited from the initial page, number of links they clicked in the sidebars, or internal links they visited.

How will your site’s design influence your UX?

The user experience (UX) will contribute to the SEO of a website. Working with a dedicated Toronto SEO team can get your site the smoothness, simplicity, and sophistication it deserves. Hiring a new team of designers and SEO experts can seem like a costly decision for any business. If you are second-guessing your choice, here’s what you should remind yourself – 

• Investing in UX will cut down conversion costs

• The length of the buying cycle will shorten as your UX improves 

• You will acquire and retain more customers due to enhanced experience

• The positive reviews of your satisfied customers will attract more buyers

• It will increase your sales, cross-sells and upsells. 

• You will gain more leads as you improve your UX

• If you engage in affiliate ad revenues, you can be sure to receive more affiliate clicks

Your website is the heart of your business. Let SEO become the pulse of your website design!

Why can’t you afford a bad website design right now?

More than 44% of your visitors will always warn their friends and family about a bad experience. More than 79% will never revisit the same website. That is in addition to the average 45-50% that already bounce off your website. More than 80% of mobile users check reviews before buying a product or a service from a business site.

A single bad review can cost your site more than 70% of the business. That is what saving a few bucks or going with a pre-designed, free website design template can do for your site. More than 90% of the ready-to-use templates use cookie-cutter coding and designs. 

Why should you consider SEO website design in 2019?

SEO website design is not a new concept. It gives SEO the credibility it deserves while keeping the aesthetics of design in mind. A high ranking website is never ugly or cluttered. That is the primary reason brutalist design never made a comeback in 2017. 

We have left the days of clumsy fonts, shocking neon banners, and cluttered webpages far behind. We are already living in a mobile-first era, where our target customers have an indomitable hunger for simplicity and speed.

Who are we kidding? We love fast-loading sites too. Every extra second we have to spend on DoorDash, or Foodora exponentially increases our “hanger.” So, it wouldn’t hurt for us to step back and take another look at how fast or slow our own sites are.  

Our website speed, layout, and design will influence more than the customer’s aesthetics. It will inspire the first impression and his or her decision to extend the stay. For a high dwell time and conversion rate, you should consider spending a few extra bucks on SEO website design instead of going with the ready-to-use templates you can find across the web.