Announcing 10 Web Design Mistakes That Will Hurt Rankings In 2016

May 5, 2016 —

According to Joevren Curmi of Curmi Marketing, there are several errors which can cause ranking to be less than Page One. The tips which are provided are easy to implement and can be used as a checklist for those developing or revising a website to improve the rankings. Optimization of the website is commonly understood to be more than just plugging in a few keywords or keyword phrases. The overall design of the site must be considered in order to boost the rankings. Some of the most common downward drags on rankings with the current search engine algorithms are presented in the comprehensive post offered by Curmi Marketing

Repeating content on various internal pages can hurt rankings. The designer may have sites where there are substantial blocks of content either across domains or within domains which are matching or are similar. Some examples of duplication are discussion forums, pages targeted at mobile devices, store items linked with multiple distinct URLs, or printer-only versions of web pages. A rel=canonical link in the web page tells the search engines the preferred version to index among duplicate pages on the web. It is supported by several search engines, including Yahoo!, Bing, and Google.

Failing to install the right plug-ins reduces the effectiveness of the reader's experience with the website. WordPress plug-ins are varied and numerous. Some of the plug-ins are suitable for particular purposes. At a minimum, the following plug-ins should be incorporated into the website design. Google XML Site maps will generate an XML site map so that search engines are better able to index the website. Contact Form 7 manages websites where there are multiple contact forms. For those websites which participate in direct sales, Woo Commerce is a powerful plug-in that permits business site owners to sell directly to visitors. All in One SEO Pack is the most downloaded WordPress plug-in with nearly thirty million downloads to date. This tool helps to optimize the website for search engines. WP Super Cache is a plug-in which generates static HTML files from dynamic pages. Jetpack is a free plug-in which improves the ability to capture traffic. It speeds up images and provides statistics about visitors. Akismet checks comment to prevent the appearance of spam.

Content must be in HTML format for ease of management and the ability to be standardized. The search engine robots must be able to gain access easily to the content pages of the website. HTML or Hyper Text Markup Language is the language used to create documents on the World Wide Web. It defines the layout and structure of a document through a standard set of tags and attributes.

Failure to optimize the website for mobile devices is another way to lose out on opportunities to enhance the rankings. Optimizing mobile sites is more than just attempting to recreate the desktop experience on a mobile device. Several issues with mobile sites will limit the user's experience with the site and cause a failure to achieve positive rankings. Mobile browsing requires immediacy. Long paragraphs of content are more likely to be abandoned by the user, rather than read. Mobile sites need to provide the message with short memorable headlines and a single text paragraph. Too many Calls-to-Action can be confusing to a mobile user. Using forms is another area where users can become confused, particularly if the forms are lengthy. Using responsive mobile sites are critical.

Poor navigation within a website will render the site unusable to search engine spiders and human visitors as well. Ensure that there are no dead links or links which interfere with navigation around the site lest the visitors get lost, and the search engine spider is unable to follow the logical map of the site.

Not including images in the content misses out on an opportunity to add visual interest to the website. Adding images and making good use of alt tags is helpful to enhance the strength of keyword phrases, as well as making the images searchable by the robots. The images should relate to the content and the topic of the website for maximum effectiveness.

A poor website speed means that users will be less likely to wait for the page to load. The attention span of most users is limited. It has been estimated as a matter of seconds before the users give up and move on to another site.

Failing to optimize the internal pages URLs permalinks can cause the search engines to miss out on internal pages. Each internal link must be obvious to the search engine spiders, or the efforts to place keywords throughout the site will be wasted. Permalinks are the permanent URLs to individual posts, categories, and other postings.

Missing call-to-action (CTA) may lead to a failure of the browser to become a customer. A sticky call-to-action makes the reader more invested in the website and is more likely to result in a conversion. A call to action should be eye-catching and should make it clear what action is being requested.

Picking too many colors can create several problems with the user's experience on the website. Two or three colors are enough to make the site visually appealing. Too many colors make the site appear cluttered and confusing. The color palette has a significant impact on visitors' enjoyment of the site.

Joevren Curmi is the founder of Curmi Marketing, a passionate team of web designers and SEO
specialists. He has been doing SEO professionally since 2011, helping local businesses improve their online presence.

Contact Info:
Name: Joevren Curmi
Email: Send Email
Organization: Curmi Marketing
Address: 7, Manjetta No1 Matthew Pulis Street, Il-G?ira GZR1671, Malta
Phone: +356 79268605
Website: http://www.curmimarketing.com/

Release ID: 111761