Does a Minimalist Website Design Work For You?
Modern minimalist websites make it easy for people to glance through your site and find what they need without wading through paragraphs of text. They are inherently aesthetically pleasing and may be the best design for mobile devices. But is there an SEO cost when having a minimalist website?
What is a Minimalist Website?
A minimalist website has less than 700 words on the homepage with many successful ones have less than 200! Content is used sparingly, including images, graphics and videos creating a striking look.
Benefits of of Minimalist Website
Modern Appearance - Websites with less words, well-curated images, custom infographics, or strategically defined white spaces look more modern than those with monotonous text.
Mobile Friendly - It is more difficult to read mountains of text on a mobile device so a cleaner site will cause less frustration.
Faster Load Time - With reduced content, miminalist websites tend to load much faster reducing viewers’ wait time and increasing overall SEO ranking.
Navigation - Nested navigation is cumbersome at best. A minimalist site requires you to truly define what is the most important information.
Indexable Content - Google and other search engines will be able to crawl simple sites more efficiently.
What About SEO?
The usual rule is that every page needs at least 200 words per page in order to keep search engines happy. There are ways to get around this without cluttering up your site. But, even more importantly, your website should have the following elements to ensure that it keeps up with search engine algorithms:
All device responsiveness (especially mobile)
Website load and processing speed
Sitemaps are clean and submitted correctly and content is indexable
Website readability is clear and easy to navigate
All images have files name and alt tags
URL structure is clean and names fall within normal lengths
Metadata is carefully researched so the right keywords are embedded appropriately
How Do I Still Fit in the Content I Need?
Contrary to thought, a minimalist website is actually more difficult to build than a traditional maximalist site. Rather than listing everything that comes to mind, the content must be honed down several levels to ensure that the exact words or images are sending the right message quickly. Every word, image or graphic has a purpose.
A good web designer will have an arsenal of content layouts in mind when designing your site. The website may make more use of:
accordion-type content instead of never-ending paragraphs
carousels for images instead of pages of mosaic style images
tabbed sections or popup text where needed
infographics that tell more of a story than several paragraphs of text
strategically placed white space
The Bottom Line
Previously thinking is that more content is better for SEO ranking. Luckily, you can have either a maximalist or minimalist approach. A modern, minimalist design can still have the same or even better results if it is built with SEO in mind.
For this reason, templates cannot compete with custom sites because they are relying on content assumptions that may just not be there. It is imperative that the website has good site architecture and that each piece is built from the ground up to ensure all parts are taking full advantage of SEO.
Already have a website but ready to make it look more modern? Please reach out to Charlotte’s Web Designs, LLC and set up a free consultation.
