SEO vs. Beautiful Design: How We Stopped Choosing and Started Winning
For many, website redesigns have been treated as a tradeoff between aesthetics and performance. Designers push for visual impact, while SEO specialists focus on structure, speed, and relevance. Teams commonly prioritize design early and address SEO last, but it is far more effective to design both simultaneously before launch. After working with local service businesses and high-performing national brands, I’ve found that the most successful websites are built when design and SEO are integrated intentionally. They work together as two hands of the same body, constantly communicating and helping each other.
Why Focusing Only on Design Can Hurt Rankings
A visually impressive website that isn’t built around search intent often fails to attract the right audience. During redesigns, high-performing pages are sometimes removed or combined because they appear redundant from a design standpoint. Content gets shortened, internal links are removed, heading hierarchies change based on style instead of structure, and heavy visual elements impact performance. The website may look modern, but organic traffic drops and visibility declines. The issue isn’t the design quality, it’s that it wasn’t guided by SEO strategy.
Why Focusing Only on SEO Can Hurt Engagement
Websites built with a strictly technical approach may rank and load well but often fail to convert. Even when keyword intent is satisfied and performance scores are high, they may lack visual clarity and engagement. Users skim, bounce quickly, and rarely take action. Calls to action blend in, layouts feel generic, and brand impact is lost. Ranking without engagement doesn’t create permanent growth. A well-optimized site without compelling design is functional but forgettable, especially when users encounter one that does both well.
Combine Both SEO and Design to Get In Front of and Engage Your Users
Websites that consistently generate leads and long-term growth are built with both user behavior and search intent guiding structural and visual decisions from the start. This means defining information architecture and heading hierarchy before visual design, making layout decisions based on conversion and behavioral insights, and treating performance as a core part of the design strategy. This is especially true if the website is already live and you have real analytics and data to inform any changes you make.
How to Build Your Website With Both Design and SEO in Mind
SEO Research
For new builds, begin with keyword research before opening any design platform. This reveals which pages you need, how URLs should be structured, what internal linking structures should look like, and what each page should focus on.
Content Documents & Wireframes
Once SEO is planned, you can develop content documents outlining messaging and supporting elements, then map this content into wireframes for each page type (one wire frame for a service page, blog page, home page, etc.). This helps solidify a sense of brand throughout the website, align future designs with established messaging, and it helps give design a structure to work with.
Design Execution
Now that content has been finalized and wireframes are finalized, you can now create the designs for each page type. At this stage, visual elements should enhance clarity and support the message. If an animation or image doesn’t add value, it’s unnecessary. The primary asset of every page is the content. If design obstructs it, it has to be refined. Calls to action should be seamlessly integrated yet impossible to miss. The primary goal should always be to create quality content that satisfies the user’s intent, but where design shines is to take those satisfied users and guide them to their next steps.
Final Thought
When design and SEO are treated as complementary rather than competing, you create a website that ranks, engages, and drives revenue. A site that looks impressive but isn’t found can’t deliver results, and a site that ranks but doesn’t engage won’t convert. Strong performance happens when visual and technical strategies are developed together from the beginning. The goal is not to choose between them, but to build with both in mind so the website reaches the right audience and drives meaningful action.
By Devin Pfromm – Founder of Spirra Digital, a Grand Rapids–based web design, SEO, and Webflow agency helping businesses turn websites into high-converting growth assets through strategic design and technical optimization (spirradigital.com)
