Web design is a craft to which often only the aesthetic part is attributed. If a website looks pretty and its design is in tune with the times, it is considered successful in the eyes of most people. What many people don’t know – web design is more. Web design is more important. Web design is also a serious basis for your success in the Google rankings.
This results in the major problem that website operators spend valuable resources that are only invested in the visual appearance of the implementation, although they miss the perfect opportunity to create a website with a focus on outstanding optimization at the same time. What we want to say: Why you can entrust your web design to an SEO agency and how you can show with a certification that the site delivers what it promises.
Modern web design
When the word modern web design is mentioned, the first thing that comes to mind is beautiful minimalist designs that reflect the corporate brand and appeal to the target group. But most of the action actually takes place behind the scenes. Things that are not noticed by normal users because they happen simultaneously and naturally. Partly a process that website operators are also subject to.
In this respect, userexperience ( UX) is a prominent term that is indispensable in good design. Elements are positioned attractively, there are no annoying pop-ups and navigation is intuitive.
But there is potential for more – much more. Something that companies unconsciously do without because they don’t realize the relevance and importance of it; yet these things are an indispensable part of the modern age.
The website on all end devices
Or better known as responsive design. This means that the site adapts to the different screens that are available today. Back then, a website was designed with a focus on desktop, but that was several years ago and smartphones have since become the forerunners of Internet use. Almost everyone has one and just as many use it for surfing the Internet. That’s why it was clear to Google relatively quickly: mobile first.
This means that the search engine no longer favors websites on the desktop, but instead focuses on mobile devices. If you want to keep up in the rankings, you have to implement responsive design and should tackle AMP pages.
If your website does not work on devices such as tablets or smartphones, this means that you will lose places on the search results page ranking and also miss out on an incredible amount of potential customers who can be easily reached via devices such as smartphones.
The balance between look and technology
A very wide-ranging title that can nevertheless be limited to the most important practices and can be applied universally.
Take pictures, for example. Pictures are without question a wonderful thing. They are quick to understand, communicate easily with users and often say more than a thousand words. If you have to choose between a beautiful graphic or a long paragraph of text, both of which make the same point, the graphic will always be preferable.
Nevertheless, there are some factors that make a graphic ideal and go beyond the visual appearance. On the one hand, resolution is a major problem that causes further problems like a domino. The misconception here is: the bigger, the better.
A high resolution is not a bad thing, but an image that is already comfortable at 800 pixels wide and still looks good at 80% quality will be the best solution in web design matters. A very high-resolution image will undoubtedly look even better, but it will take a long time for your website to load. For your visitors, this means that the affected pages sometimes take several seconds before they are fully loaded.
Annoying for everyone involved. Because your potential Clientele will probably switch to the faster loading page of the competition; meanwhile, Google will also negatively evaluate a too high loading time, coupled with a high bounce rate of visitors, and classify your website as less relevant; you will be happier with a lack of visitors. Competition and a poorly ranking and visited page.
The same – to stay with the example of images and graphics – applies to the labeling. It is one thing if the images are nicely embedded on the website, but quite another if the ALT tags remain unlabeled and the image file has not been properly labeled beforehand.
ALT tags are incredibly important for the Google search bot. When it crawls your page, it needs an indication of what your images actually look like, because it cannot perceive them visually and is bound to the description. The more detailed it is, the better.
So you see – beauty is only half the battle and certainly not the only thing that counts for the term design, although it can be mistakenly understood as such.
An SEO agency manages the balancing act
That is why it is a recommended investment to hire an SEO agency you trust. Agencies that offer an all-round service will also keep the SEO aspect in mind in their web design and then include and implement it accordingly. A good agency will also advise you extensively on the extent to which the visual design is compatible with the technical design and be able to understand the background to this.
Certified web design with the Cert-EU
How good the implemented web design is – or is not – can be found out through certification. The Cert-EU checks completed web design according to strict guidelines and criteria, so that only the best of the best achieve the high levels and corresponding certification.
This external certification company will certify you for a total of one year if your website is successful. A new check is then necessary to ensure the continued quality of your website. In a year’s time, a website can perform completely differently without maintenance than it did at the start of certification. Hence the deadline and the need for recertification after one year.
The levels range from bronze to silver to gold and are marked accordingly.
If you have been successfully certified, you will receive an entry with the respective certification level on the international certification server. You will also be provided with a seal that you can place on your website or similar. You can also receive an optional entry in the Cert-EU customer area.
The importance of certification
It’s a bit fancier than a trophy and actually a great added value for your customers. In our opinion, search engine optimization should also be a certified matter – especially in the area of web design. A site can look good visually and everyone may recognize that at first or second glance, but the work behind the scenes can hardly be seen. Rather, it is a black box that processes everything and only reveals the result at the end. You can tell whether this has been optimally implemented by the ranking, but rarely by the work that has taken place.
That’s not a bad thing at all! After all, you have asked a company or agency to do this. But this is precisely where the problem lies – was the work worthwhile and was it carried out correctly? This is where certification comes into play. As an external company, Cert-EU will objectively analyze your website according to the relevant criteria. Criteria that the company understands because it specializes in the certification of websites in this form.
You will be informed quite objectively whether the site has done any work and to what extent. If you have achieved Gold certification, then you can be sure that you have made the right choice when choosing your SEO agency.
You also symbolize this to your customers. The seal says about you that you invest a lot of effort and resources to ensure that your visitors have an experience on your website that aims to be as user-friendly as possible and to give the best possible feeling. You increase your customers’ trust in you and can benefit from the presentation via the Cert-EU at the same time. Especially as re-certification encourages you to regularly look after and maintain your website.
After all, who would want to lose such a powerful seal once they have achieved it through hard work? The great thing is that you can contact the SEO agency you trust without obligation, with whom you have already achieved your goal and maintain it or even improve it if necessary.
