Why White Space Is Important for SEO-friendly Web Design

Importance of white space in SEO friendly web design is often ignored. IT is common to see websites that are jarringly filled with a lot f text, images and advertisements with no room on the screen. Web designers often try to accommodate as much information, content and media as they possibly can, which leads to a situation where in visitors are easily distracted, bored and annoyed.

Cluttered websites turn off people

Visitors do not like to see a website that is cluttered and filled with textual and media content. At the same time, cluttered websites may not even be good for SEO. Search engines usually rank websites that are minimalist and simple higher than the ones that are cluttered and shabby. With this in mind, the importance of white space is only highlighted. When web designers take to a new project, they should bear in mind that less is more.

White space is minimalist, simple and attractive

White space leads to a simple and minimalist design that encourages people to read and view the webpage without getting distracted. This act alone is enough for people to stay on a website for a longer time. Also, search engines place a lot of importance on formatting, subheads, bullets and design of the webpage. If a webpage is cluttered, it does not rank very highly in search results. Those websites that are designed with a lot of white space in mind usually rank well on search engines.

There are many reasons why white space is crucial in designing a website that is SEO friendly.

1. White space allows web crawlers to pick the most important keywords and meta-tags.

2. White space helps visitors to stay on the webpage for a longer time and not get distracted.

3. White space creates an appropriate platform for social sharing.

4. When people like what they see, they spread word around.

5. White space also makes a webpage more visually appealing, which leads to a greater click rate.

In order to design a white space-rich website that is more SEO friendly, web designers can use this checklist:

1. Ensure that a website is not cluttered with unnecessary information

2. Reduce the number of peripheral information.

3. Keep paragraphs short.

4. Use headers and subheads appropriately.

5. Do not stuff a webpage with images, advertisements and unnecessary navigation bars.

Apart from these tactics, it is also important to make sure that other basic SEO protocols are followed. Any reputed web designing company worth its salt will know that white space is not merely aesthetically appealing but it is a crucial factor for augmented SEO. The better white space is integrated into a website, the more highly will a website be ranked on search engines. Certainly, white space integration is a crucial aspect of SEO friendly web design. At the end of the day, a website must be content rich but must not be cluttered, it must be aesthetically appealing but not Spartan and finally, it should be accessible to search engines.

Mary Yohanan is a typography specialist and a consultant at a web designing company. She has written several articles and white papers about web designing best practices.