How Important is Graphic Design in the World of SEO

It’s incredible how many people start their days with a search engine. Whether they’re searching for a definition, recipe, news, brands, products, or something else, search engines are the go-to for finding information.

So, it’s no wonder Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a top priority for marketers. But, as necessary as written content is to a successful SEO strategy, visual content is also critical and, by extension, graphic design.

Let’s go into the details of the relationship between graphic design and SEO and provide tips for taking full advantage of this relationship. But first, let’s acknowledge graphic design’s impact on its own.

Graphic Design Is an Integral Part of Marketing

Although businesses are built through online networking and relationship building, you need something to help you capture people’s attention and fuel those genuine connections. Graphic design can give you that something.

For example, a captivating logo and brand colors can suck anyone into a business, or vice versa — a boring or confusing logo can turn away some potential customers. Graphic designers can be responsible for both. Likewise, the infographics that accompany blog posts, website page layouts, marketing materials, and other visual concepts are the product of a great graphic designer.

Where Does It Fit In With SEO?

Although graphic design is great for marketing generally, what’s its impact on SEO specifically?

The whole point of SEO is for your content and site to show up as high as possible in search engine results, driving organic traffic to your business and, hopefully, conversions.

While SEO specialists work on that aspect, graphic designers work on creating a visual experience that entices readers to keep scrolling, and in some cases, drives them further in the conversion funnel.

To simplify the relationship between SEO and graphic design, the latter helps you build user-friendly unique content, while the former makes sure that people see it.

In addition, the simple act of making your content user-friendly will inevitably make you more favorable in most search engines’ eyes, including Google’s. Recent updates have shown that Google is favoring high-quality content, and anyone with a basic understanding of fundamental graphic design can tell you that visuals are a major aspect of high-quality content.

How To Standout With Graphic Design In SEO Campaigns

If you truly want to grow your business and strengthen your online presence, you must tap into the connection between graphic design and SEO. Create visual design concepts that support your SEO campaigns, and an influx of organic traffic will follow.

Here’s how to ensure graphic design is at the crux of your SEO campaigns.

Loop graphic designers in at the beginning

SEO and graphic design are often treated as two separate entities in marketing. However, making these teams or individuals work together from the beginning will ensure your graphic design concepts pair well with your SEO campaigns.

In addition, having these teams work together will allow them to learn about each other’s roles and how they work together.

Ensure a graphic designer is a part of every SEO campaign from conception to realization. As you reveal the details of your campaign, your graphic designer can offer visual content ideas that will reinforce the SEO goals and content.

Then, they can work on the visual content ideas that resonate. And with the help of the SEO team, they can tweak those visuals that lead to better SEO results.

A cohesive workflow between the SEO and graphic design teams is key.

Incorporate alt text and captions as much as possible

Yes, visual content is a significant part of graphic design. But that doesn’t mean text isn’t involved at all. In fact, graphic design typically combines text, images, and other visuals to bring a piece to life.

Graphic design can hold up SEO campaigns better when it uses written content well. For example, if you create a caption for every image, you can place keywords and phrases in them. Alt text is an excellent place for keywords and phrases too.

Use the text in infographics, videos, images, and other visual content as a bridge to your SEO campaign.

Test your content before it goes live  

All of us want to believe everything we create is gold. But in reality, a lot of the content, visuals, and campaigns you produce won’t resonate with your target audience as you hoped they would.

Spending a ton of time on an SEO campaign and its visual content, putting it out to your audience, and not getting any engagement is what you don’t want as a marketer. You can avoid this by testing your content and campaigns before they go live.

Get feedback from your teams. But most importantly, get feedback from your target audience. They’ll be able to give you feedback on:

1. The keywords and phrases you’re using

2. The quality of your visuals

3. Whether your visuals align with your content

4. Whether your visuals make them want to stay on the page

5. Where your content lands on search engine page results
   

If you get this kind of feedback before your campaigns go live, you can make adjustments that glue your graphic design and SEO together.

Conclusion

There’s a real connection between graphic design and SEO. Each impacts the results you get from the other. Leverage the relationship sufficiently, and consistent organic traffic, a solid user experience, more conversions, and a stronger brand will follow.