If you’re looking for animation’s place in the world of SEO friendly animation then you’ve come to the right place! Knowledge of SEO for artists and animators is an awesome pool of expertise to tap into when it comes to implementing and using animation on the web. If you are looking for your own projects, or designing for others, an acknowledgement of SEO considerations can only be to your benefit. Without further ado, let’s dive into some of these benefits and the key considerations when animation and search engine optimisation are explored together.

The greatest effect that animations will have on your website’s SEO is the benefit it will bring to your user’s experience. When navigating and using your website it’s a welcome sight to see interactive, exciting and friendly features. To give an initial summary, animations will give your users the following benefits:

Nowadays, you’ll find that users love friendly and interactive elements on a page, and an animation (if used correctly) could certainly draw in more attention to a page when it’s first loaded up.

As we know, rich media such as video and GIF are rapidly sought after content types across the internet, and websites are not spared when it comes to these kinds of user demands. Additional animations and moving elements can provide more of an engaging environment that could add to a shopping experience or search for information.

When considering SEO and animations, you have to remember that search engines like Google primarily want to serve the user content and websites that answer and assist their search query. However, they do also want to provide their users with friendly and engaging content that they will click-through and freely interact with.

Animations are great tools for this as they can provide a dynamic and friendly element to your website that may encourage users to stick around and interact with your landing page.

Many high-ranking websites use tracking code to show search engines like Google and Bing how useful their information is through metrics like time on page and the number of pages per session.

If you’re providing and implementing animations that easily assist in improving your metrics you’ll be actively showing search engines like Google just how good your page is and how much users like being there.

There are PLENTY of other factors that come into play when affecting rankings, but if you can use animation files and designs to ensure positive metrics then by all means do so. 

FACT: 87% of video marketers reported that video gives them a positive ROI – Source Hubspot

One thing to remember about search engines is that they generally map and understand the structure of your website through crawl bots (machines, not humans). Whilst file names and element types may indicate the presence of an animation you have to remember that it will not be ‘enjoyed’ by a crawl bot in the same way as a user.

A crawl bot will follow the link of your ‘Submit’ button but it won’t acknowledge the on-click or on-hover animation in the same way a user would. It’s certainly fair to say animations won’t hugely benefit an initial crawl.

However, search engines may begin to notice your animations if factors such as your site speed or page CLS start to spike in the wrong direction. It’s never a good idea to clog a page with elements that present a heavy and slow load time.

Search engines just don’t like it as long wait times will put off the user and lead to them navigating away to somewhere else. You could have the best content and the prettiest animation in the world but you won’t gain favour from Google if the load time on your page starts to exceed 2 to 3 seconds.

The same consideration goes to monitoring your CLS (which you can do with Google’s handy Page Speed check feature) where Google detects how much the content of the page visually adjusts during the user experience.

“Search engines don’t like long load times”

Whilst most animations are unlikely to cause a hugely drastic effect on a page’s visible structure (as in, the animation will more than likely be an interactive element based on user action) if Google detects a considerable shift in content layout it could be deemed a less than desirable experience for the user. 

In general, the most accessible and easy to access content is generally easily loaded and instantly digestible. Whilst the animations can help interactivity and engagement if moving elements and changes the look of a page it could be deemed untrustworthy or not a clear experience for the user.

Slow pages are even less desirable, especially on users on mobile devices (and even worse not connected to Wi-Fi). Pumping a page with slow-loading huge animations are just not for user experience and will send a bad signal to search engines.

Search engines crawl hundreds of thousands of pages a day and if your page is deemed slow, misleading or not worth a user’s time, then you can be sure your page will be discounted from top ranking positions pretty quickly. There are of course many other factors to help with search engine rankings, but page speed and web vitals are ones to take seriously and account for when designing and animating your pages on the web. Not only do you want to make it load quickly, but you want it to load quickly on all kinds of devices.

So, we’re pretty clear that we can’t just start pushing animations into every page and button we can find. As with many elements of website building, there is a finesse and an art to placing different parts of what builds up a page. It’s all a balancing act when it comes to the pay-off of each feature.

“Search engines crawl hundreds of thousands of pages a day”

If you can create and implement animations that provide the user an interactive and engaging experience without harming page speed, web vitals or load speed.

A great solution to page speed and animation troubles are Lottie Files. These slick and tidy animations are designed to be small, compact and friendly. We recently created a Lottie Files Guide which is ready to read on our blog – I think they are a great solution to any SEO or page speed concerns.

Using Animation in SEO Friendly Content

Before we end, let’s cover another one of the most commonly found animations available on the web – in the form of information videos. One of the primary uses of search engines (aside from shopping) is to find out information. Users want to understand concepts, find out how things work and have explanations laid out for them in clear, concise and bitesize chunks.

Some companies and websites offer various schemes, programmes or perform processes that, when written out in full, just aren’t worth explaining. Imagine fully explaining your website’s cashback guarantee and having to make the 500 words it takes to explain it look pretty.

Yes, it’s great textual content for crawl bots to absorb, but it’s not necessarily going to lock in a casual reader. Therefore, to get the best of both worlds, why not implement a handy animated video alongside your wall of search-engine-friendly text?

A clear and concise animated explainer video could clearly explain your unique and bespoke ordering system (for example) in a fun and friendly way, with the text below to back it up and finesse the fine points. If the video is longer than 30 seconds, that’s a great way to keep users on your page and engaged with your content.

Whilst the long text is essential for search engines (who don’t view videos like we do), the animation alongside it can help to enhance the page metrics and make the content appear even more valuable.

Can Animation Help with SEO? Our Conclusion

Yes. Animations can certainly help improve SEO. They must be used correctly and properly implemented to ensure a perfect balance between usability for the user and not affecting site metrics. When choosing whether or not to implement animations, you need to make sure you weigh up the pros and cons of your animation choices.

“Implement with care and exercise simplicity”

I’m certain that descendents of the Microsoft Powerpoint era can certainly remember the joys of discovering all the ways you could animate things with headers flying across the screen and slide transitions. I’m also sure that your IT teachers said that just because you can use these animations it doesn’t mean that you have to. This can be said for optimising animations for SEO. Implement with care and exercise simplicity and I’m sure that you’ll see your website and web pages providing an enhanced page experience, which (hopefully) can lead to higher rankings and organic traffic.

I hope you have enjoyed this article on SEO friendly animation. Take a look at the Intro to Lottie files article. And if you are entering the world of freelancing, you will find useful articles such as Remote vs Onsite working, and Must know showreel tips to win employment for artists and animators everywhere.

Check out my article on The Role of Animation in Marketing Your Brand