3 Major Website Holdups to Improve

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It’s no secret that the most important aspect of your site and its success is the quality of the content within the pages that contain it. But, with all of the focus fixated on the content creation, there are relevant technical facets that are seriously lacking in receiving the attention that they rightfully deserve. What good is filling your site with valuable content if you are setting your site up in such a way that your viewership will rarely see it?

Quality Content on Your Main Site

With sites like Wix and SquareSpace revolutionizing the market for website development, it means that there are a lot of new “developers” out there who are able to build sites that look better than they function. It seems that one of the biggest factors holding many sites back is the lack of strong content on the main site.

Without content in the directory of your website, Google and the other guys simply won’t acknowledge it. Any links that are found on subdomains will not be connected back to the main site in the same manner as it would if it was found in the main page directory.

Utilizing Internal Links

Possibly the most important way to tweak your site so that search engines have a chance to find it, would be learning how to take advantage of internal links. Internal links, or lack thereof, are one of the most common website holdups that site owners run into.

Filling your content with internal links allows for you manipulate the flow of traffic and move equity between the sections of your site. Not only that, but it will allow for search engines to spider your content more efficiently.

Maximizing Your Crawl Efficiency

This website holdup and how much of a bearing it has on you may depend on the size of your site. For example, the more pages that you have, the lesser your crawl efficiency. But, for what reason? Well, Google basically will only crawl a select amount of pages on your site. Once that page limit is reached, Google will move on to the next and crawl your site again at a later date.

Broken links will also destroy your crawl efficiency and will therefore leave you in limbo as to the true efficiency of your site. What I mean by this is, if Google crawls your site and hits a broken link, your page could possible redirect and max out the number of pages Google will crawl on your site.

Why AI Won’t Replace Web Designers

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Web design is a relatively new job. When websites first came into existence, there was no need for designers — sites were made up of pages containing just text. As Internet speeds began to increase, it was possible to make pages more complex, first by adding images, then videos and other rich content.

Read: 3 Decades of Evolution of Web Design

Google also contributed to the change — if site owners want their content to be seen, they need to optimize it.

Web designers now have to possess a wide range of skills, from coding to SEO, but the profession remains a creative pursuit. Designers are creating sites for users as well as search engines. It is the unique ideas that allow pages to stand out and our grab attention.

The End of Web Design as a Career?

Are days numbered for web designers? There is a fear that many more professions will disappear over the next decade or so due to artificial intelligence (AI).

It is true that AI has already taken the place of a web designer at some small businesses. A number of online services now exist to allow anyone to create a website. These work by asking users questions about their businesses and utilizing an algorithm to create layout, design, and even basic content. The result: a professional-looking website.

Read: Decision Time: Web Designer vs. Website Builder

The key here is professional-looking. Whereas many small businesses are opting for AI-generated websites to save money, it is negligible how much they are saving in reality.

For instance, many services limit how much a user can edit a site. Customizations are often restricted to a few features, such as color and minor aspects of layout. Plus, even when services do allow users to change code, the final result still lacks originality and inspiration — it is missing a human touch. When you need to add the need for frequent updates and fresh content to keep both users and search engines happy, you’re back to square one: you need a web designer and other creatives.

How AI Will Benefit Web Designers

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Far from being problematic for web designers, AI could actually enrich capabilities. By relying on AI for mundane tasks, designers can focus their efforts on creative activities. A design requires careful thought and planning, but at least some parts of implementation can already be handled by AI. In fact, as AI continues to improve, time spent building a site may be reduced from months to mere minutes.

Furthermore, although AI has no understanding of art, it can generate the beginnings of an idea that a designer can use as inspiration. When such ideas are based around a large amount of data, AI can provide important insights that help the site become more successful.

The Takeaway

Whereas AI may result in a few more sites being created without a web designer, this should not be a source of worry for creatives. Large and medium companies, as well as many small businesses, understand the value of human input and will continue to seek the services of a web designer for their sites. AI, far from replacing web designers, will allow designers to do their jobs better.