The idea that link building and keywords are the only two factors in SEO is one that novice marketers frequently hold. SEO goes well beyond these, even if they are important components of your approach.
The user experience parameters are the most crucial ones that Google takes into account when ranking your website.
Here is how UX design and SEO relate to one another and how to effectively incorporate them.
User Experience is the foundation of SEO
Google has advanced significantly over the past few years with the goal of continually bettering the user experience.
The search engine made various improvements to the SERPs and strict algorithm revisions in order to separate the wheat from the chaff and give users high-quality, reliable, and pertinent results. RankBrain is the ideal illustration of how significant UX is to Google.
Even if you own a local business, you must have a local SEO strategy that incorporates user experience if you want to attract new visitors to your website.
RankBrain’s Effect on Your Rankings
RankBrain is one of the most significant ranking components. Focusing on data that reflect user behavior, such as bounce rate, organic CTR, pages per session, and dwell time, Rank Brain tells Google whether users are having a good time using your website.
Your website is a user-friendly resource if a user can easily navigate between pages, click on your links, spend a significant amount of time on your pages, and return to your site.
On the other side, Google will be informed that your site is either poorly optimized or irrelevant to your users if a person leaves your site without taking any further action, immediately returns to the search results after landing on a page, and never returns again.
Making users happy is the basis of both UX and SEO
RankBrain is only one of many instances demonstrating how UX and SEO have common objectives. You surely recall that one of the most popular strategies for ranking highly in the past was to target and optimize for exact-match keywords.
Today, you need to put yourself in the shoes of the searchers to appear in front of them and rank highly in the SERPs. In other words, you must comprehend their purpose to buy and examine their search patterns.
One such instance is voice search optimization, which, according to the New York-based SEO firm Four Dots, has become a crucial component of your SEO strategy. Google wants to give users the knowledge they need to solve their problems and find answers to their inquiries.
You must therefore optimize your content for more conversational, question-based long-tail keywords if you want to appear in voice search results.
The design of your website comes next. The goal of SEO is to increase your visibility and help you rank well on Google. However, UX is there to enable visitors to your website locate the information they need more quickly, show off your professionalism, and increase brand recognition.
Best Practices for Implementing SEO and UX Design
The aforementioned examples unmistakably demonstrate that improving your SEO efforts without taking user experience into account is impossible.
However, starting from scratch and without making your site search engine-friendly is also a grave error. These two elements of your website should be incorporated from the beginning because they go hand in hand. Here are some crucial actions you need to take as a result of that.
Increase the speed of page load
Page speed has long been one of Google’s most important ranking factors, but with the most recent Speed Update, it has gained even more significance. Did you know, for instance, that a 1-second delay in website load time results in an 11 percent decrease in page views?
Second, slow page loads degrade both the user experience as a whole and your conversion rates. Nearly half of your visitors will quit your website if it doesn’t load in 2 seconds or less. Naturally, this would also have an impact on your retention rates.
There are now a few techniques to increase the speed of your website, including:
- Choosing a trustworthy hosting plan
- Utilizing browser caching
- Selecting high-quality images but reducing their size by trimming and compressing them
- Doing away with auto-play multimedia formats
- Using lazy loading
- Purchasing a content delivery network
Simplify the architecture of your website
The way your website’s pages are organized is known as its site architecture. From the perspective of SEO, a well-designed website will make it simple for Google to find and index your pages while ensuring that link authority is consistently moved from high- to low-authority pages.
Your site’s layout affects visitors because the majority of them use the navigation menu to discover the appropriate page. For this reason, you must make your website’s navigation clearer, write informative menu labels, include compelling CTAs, and make sure that no more than four clicks separate any page from the homepage.
Invest in a responsive website
The importance of mobile site optimization has never been greater due to the increase in mobile consumers. Not having a responsive site will affect your ranks with Google’s introduction of mobile-first indexing (yes, Google is now indexing your mobile version of the site ahead of the desktop one).
Your current objective is to optimize your website for both desktop and mobile searches. Start by focusing your attention, increasing the font size and content readability, getting rid of intrusive pop-up windows, removing pointless fields from forms, and making CTA buttons and links simple to tap on.
UX Design Affects Visitors’ Perceptions of You
The initial point of contact between you and your target market is your website. It functions as your internet ID and communicates to visitors how trustworthy and knowledgeable you are. Due to this, you must leverage your UX design to increase their awareness and foster a sense of trust.
Make your brand relatable to your target audience by, for instance, developing a culture page and utilizing the power of narrative. To establish your credibility as a company, you should also include employee images, client reviews, and testimonials.
Make sure that our design is consistent above all else. Make sure that everything, from colours and fonts to visual content on your website, adheres to the style guide you create.
Putting SEO and UX design into practice might seem difficult right now, but it’s essential for improving rankings and creating a strong brand. A user-centric, holistic approach to your online presence can help you maintain user satisfaction, foster meaningful connections, and, as a result, communicate to Google that you are an important online resource.
