Linking User Experience to SEO Success

Categorized in: SEO

On the surface, it may look as if SEO and thinking about user experience (UX) are two different pursuits. SEO is designed to attract organic traffic from the search engines, while the user experience side of things ensure that visitors have a good experience while they are on your website. The truth is that while the purposes are slightly different, the two are actually very much intertwined, and they work well together. Here’s a look at how the two related to one another, and how you can use that information to improve your digital marketing results as a whole:

Understanding the Relationship Between SEO and UX

There was a time when SEO was a lot simpler. In the early days, all we had to do was a few, simple things, such as analyze keywords and attract good backlinks, in order to find success. These days, the world of SEO is much different and more complex, and old strategies that used to work, such as optimizing pages with keywords and looking for good backlinks, can even have a negative effect and result in penalties.

The focus for SEO is off the actual tasks and onto the website itself. Websites that are composed with the big picture in mind, which is to make the user happy. What this means will depends on the user and the nature of your website, but some of their goals when visiting your website could be

Finding the answer to a question they have.
Gathering information for a problem they are trying to solve.
Looking for a product or service that will fulfill a need.

Because the focus is off the actual “pursuit: of SEO, the focus is now on the user. And that’s where UX comes in. When they arrive on your website, users want to have a good experience. The practices of UX will help fulfill this.

UX Practices that Directly Impact SEO

That being said, there is still some SEO items to consider. There are still some things that we need to consider. We can think of these as items that pertain to both SEO and UX.

Site Speed

A slow website leads to a poor user experience. Think about the last time you encountered a slow website. What happened? Chances are pretty good you left the website pretty fast in search of another site that would meet your needs, one that would load faster.

Search engines know that a good site speed leads to a good user experience, and a poor site speed leads to a bad user experience. That’s why site speed tends to impact SEO.

Mobile Friendliness

These days, much of our website traffic comes from mobile devices. The percentage of mobile vs desktop depends on the industry and the audience, but it’s clear that mobile is important. If your website isn’t mobile friendly, it leads to a bad user experience. If it’s mobile friendly, it’s a good experience. Whether your website is mobile friendly or not also impacts SEO.

Navigation

Your navigation is also a pursuit that can be enhanced with UX, and consequently, it can also impact SEO. If the site is well-organized and easy to navigate, users will find what they need. Search engines know that this is a good thing, and they tend to reward websites with better search presence when the site is organized well.

As you can see, UX and SEO relate to one another. You need both to get excellent results, not only for your SEO campaigns, but for your digital marketing as a whole.