As web developers we are constantly adapting to the always changing web standards set by the big tech companies and the behaviours of web users themselves. Modern web standards are geared towards creating websites that provide great user experiences and are easily read by web crawlers.
It’s All About The User Experience
Creating a great user experience on your website relies on a combination of design and content.
Design
A lot happens during the design process for a website. Picking the right colours, creating a layout, and choosing images, just to name a few things, are all very important factors for a well designed website. Creating a great user experience, however, takes more than a great looking website.
Keeping the average web user in mind when designing a website can go a long way. We always ask ourselves simple questions like “Does it feel natural?”, “Would everyone understand what it means?”, “Is it conventional?”. Asking ourselves questions like these keep us thinking about what an average user will understand and how they will react. We find this especially helpful when designing a new feature to keep the experience natural and conventional.
What do we mean when we say keep it natural? Basically, designing a website with a layout and styling that matches widely used website conventions. This includes everything from responsive layouts to recognizable icons and imagery that users understand. Following modern web conventions contributes to a great user experience. If a user has to figure out how to use your website they may not even pay attention to your content!
Content
A website’s content should be clear and concise while also engaging user. Presenting the main topic or feature of your website clearly will make it easier for users to navigate and ensure they stay on your website longer.
Focusing each of your pages on one main topic is the best way to keep content clear and concise. This may make more pages but that is a good thing for SEO! More pages, with their own unique content, laid out in a logical page hierarchy is exactly what humans need to navigate your website. It is also especially important for web crawlers to understand what your website is about.
Robots Matter Too
We can’t forget the robots! Search engines such as Google and Bing use web crawlers to scour websites for information. Website code needs to be structured properly to make your content easily accessible to these web crawlers.
Proper Website and Page Structure
A logical website and page structure makes it very easy for web crawlers to read your website, understand the main topic, and categorize the content for search engines. Web crawlers are very intelligent but they are still just programs and don’t see or read like humans.
Conclusion
Great design with engaging and interesting content ranks your website higher on search engines, allowing more users to find your site. Relevant and quality content will keep users engaged help convert more users to customers!