Getting users to your website is only half the battle.
What kind of experience are they having when they get there? Can users find what they need with ease?
We’ve all felt the frustration of trying to navigate a poorly designed website – from waiting on slow-loading pages to clicking through unorganized content.
When you have to dig deep to accomplish the simplest of tasks, it starts to feel counterproductive.
Information on a website should be clearly presented and easily accessible. Otherwise, users will quickly exit once they realize they can’t find what they’re searching for.
And what good is attracting lots of web traffic if you can’t get people to stick around, much less convert?
Why implement a search engine optimization strategy only to drop the ball when it comes to user experience?
It’s important for your site to have the best of both worlds: Content that’s digestible for search engines and a web design that’s intuitive and user-friendly.
The key to successful websites is striking the right balance between UX and SEO and learning to leverage their combined power.
In our latest ebook, “UX & SEO: Enhancing Online Discoverability And User Experience With A Combined Approach,” Loren Baker, founder of Search Engine Journal, details how these two concepts go hand-in-hand.
“If you want your content to outrank tough competitors, you need the power of UX and SEO together,” Baker writes.
“They are so tightly intertwined that there isn’t a point at which one ends and the other begins. You need a UX mindset to do SEO well and to optimize content so it can be discovered in relevant search results.”
The UX Factor: How User Experience Impacts Search Engines
Taking the user-first approach is an effective way to strengthen your search marketing strategy.
Search engine optimization is no longer just about using the right keywords and schema markup.
If users have a subpar experience on your website, why would search engines continue sending people there?
Google has shifted focus to usability with updates like Core Web Vitals, which measure how a page actually appears to a user.
With user intent as the primary driving force, search engines are making it a priority to deliver searchers the best possible experience.
Google’s main goal is to get the best resource in front of the most relevant audience, which means high-quality, original content that consistently ranks higher.
“Every fulfilled search is good UX at work; it’s a result that meets the searcher’s expectations and specific needs at that moment,” says Baker in our new UX & SEO ebook.
Leveraging The Combined Power Of UX & SEO
Both user-experience design and search engine optimization are critical to a website’s performance and profitability.
SEO works to attract more users, while UX factors determine whether they convert.
Focusing on one and not the other could ultimately compromise your site’s growth and conversion rates.
If all your emphasis is on appealing to search engines, with no regard to UX, you risk leaving users unsatisfied with your site experience.
Conversely, if your audience is the sole focus of your web strategy, you could be ignoring other important elements that impact search rankings.
At the end of the day, it’s about balance.
Once you find that happy medium between the two, your site will be rewarded by search engines and users alike.
For more information about the combined approach to UX and SEO, our new ebook has everything you need to know.
Inside, you’ll learn:
- How UX and SEO work together, and why should you consider both in your web development and digital marketing strategies.
- How UX factors into Google’s updates and what you should be tracking.
- What to check for when evaluating your site’s UX and auditing accessibility.
- UX best practices and myths about user behavior data.
Ready to upgrade your web presence and boost results? In this quick reference guide, you’ll find Search Engine Journal’s top resources on UX and SEO.
Grab your copy and discover more!
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Author: Ben Steele
