Ugly websites are bad for SEO (here’s why)
How can anyone expect their website or content to rank on search engines if it’s ugly?
Ugly websites are bad for SEO for a number of reasons, but generally speaking, unattractive websites are bad for SEO because they negatively impact the users experience.
TLDR: Bad user experience = Bad SEO metrics.
SEO Metrics Impacted by Ugly Websites
It’s no secret that if people enjoy interacting with a website, they will spend more time on the website, they will click more things, potentially make a purchase or “convert”, etc.
Ugly websites make these types of positive interactions difficult for users, nearly forcing users to leave in the hopes of finding a website that makes it easier for them to accomplish their search intent.
Poor User Experience + Trust
Ugly websites often lead to a poor user experience.
If a site looks outdated, cluttered, or unprofessional, visitors are likely to leave quickly. This is the opposite of what we want for SEO. As the internet get’s more competitive, and users more accustomed to premium online experiences, keeping a website up-to-par with consumer standards is an absolute must.
Having a positive user experience also builds trust between the website and the user. A well-designed and functioning website shows the user that you actually care about their experience, and you want them to have a great experience with your brand online.
High Bounce Rate
Another noteworthy SEO metric impacted by an ugly website is the bounce rate. This is the percentage of users that leave your website after landing on a specific page. Meaning, they didn’t care to click into anything else beyond the page that they landed on.
In some instances, such as a blog post, higher bounce rates are to be expected. However, if users are landing on your home page, and deciding to leave without exploring further it’s probably worth evaluating why they’re doing so.
A large part of this is making sure your home page does it’s best to visually and intuitively communicate what your website or brand is about. We like to use the home page as a navigational “command center” of sorts. It’s a place where the user can quickly and easily grasp what the website is about, and what it has to offer, with easy ways to click into where the user wants to go.
Low Time-Spent-On-Page
Some people call this “dwell time”, but it’s essentially the amount of time a user spends on your website after clicking into it from search engines.
This is an important metric used by search engines to determine if the website content is engaging or useful to the reader. It’s likely that if the user is spending more time on one website compared to others, they are likely finding the information they need.
Longer time on page = usually better content. Which is great for SEO.
Ugly websites typically have lower dwell times compared to more thoughtful and beautiful websites. By making it difficult for users to find the information they need, or by simply making the experience less than desirable, users tend to quickly exit the ugly website to continue their search elsewhere.
Trust + Credibility
If you landed on a website that looks like it was made in 1995, would you trust it?
Professionally speaking as an SEO, ugly websites are difficult for users to trust. Especially if the other websites within your niche or industry are more modern, beautiful, etc. It’s hard to expect users to land on something that visually looks like it wasn’t built with modern internet safety in mind. Even if it was, ugly websites do nothing to reinforce trust with users.
Mobile Incompatibility
It’s no secret that mobile website users have been on the rise ever since the advent of the modern smartphone. Search engines are aware of this trend, and have placed greater emphasis on websites catering to mobile users. It’s paramount in SEO that your website be mobile-friendly.
In some cases, websites are designed from the ground up with mobile users in mind.
Ugly websites tend to think of mobile users as an afterthought, often retracting much of their contents for mobile users, or simply forgetting to optimize their website for mobile entirely.
Website features such as AMP for blog posts are just one of the many ways websites can adjust their websites to better cater to mobile users. Google has even come out with mobile-first Indexing, which means they will examine the mobile-version of your website specifically for mobile searches!
Avoid Creating an Ugly Website
Look at your website with fresh and honest eyes, and evaluate your website's design. If you feel that your bias might be stronger than you’d like to admit, get friends and family to give you their honest opinions.
Compare with the Competition
Better yet, just pull up your website’s top ranking competitors and compare you website to theirs.
We often do this before designing a new website for clients. We take their top local and national competition and place all the websites side by side to evaluate everything: the layout, aesthetic, page content, etc.
Look at their menu navigation and page content. What content and pages do they have, and in what order?
Put Yourself in the Users Shoes
If you knew nothing about your website’s niche, business, brand, etc. What would you want to see?
It’s a simply question that website owners often overlook. When it comes to SEO, Google has always told the world to create content that you think your customers might search, it’s an extremely intuitive process.
For example, if you clicked into a service page you might want to see:
Overview of the service
Testimonials
Certifications
Breakdown of the Service
Images and Video of the Service
Team Members who Provide the Service
Answers to relevant FAQs
CTA (call-to-action)
With these things in mind, does your website page have the content your users would ideally like to see on it? It’s a simple question, but even just in our example reference there’s 8 unique sections that will each require media and text to make them complete.
Be The Best Result
Now that you’re in the habit of placing yourself in your users shoes, you’ll need to consider if there is anywhere else you can improve. After all, how can you rank #1 on search engines if you aren’t the best result?
If you want to rank #1, you need to honestly be the best result.
This goes beyond just the contents of your website page, we’re talking technical SEO, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO. We can’t forget that other SEO metrics need to reinforce your websites SEO efforts.
Don’t forget things like getting traffic to your website from social media, email, and having people searching for your website directly on Google are still important.
