Here’s how UX design and SEO are related and how to integrate them strategically.
Some SEO and marketers believe that search engine optimization is all about keywords and link building.
While these are key aspects of your strategy, SEO goes way beyond that. Google considers multiple factors when ranking your site and user experience elements are the most important among them. The link between SEO and UX design is very real!
SEO is all about user experience – UX design
With the aim of constantly improving its users’ experience, Google has evolved rapidly over the past few years. The goal of search engine is to provide Internet users with high quality, reliable and relevant results , the search engine has made many changes to the SEPR and introduced strict updates to the algorithms.
RankBrain is a perfect example of the importance of UX Design for website rankings in results.
The Impact of RankBrain on Your Rankings
RankBrain is the third most important ranking factor . Focused on behavioral metrics, such as site bounce rate, organic CTR , pages per session, and time spent on your website, Rankbrain tells Google whether visitors enjoy browsing your site. The fact that a user moves effortlessly from page to page , clicks on your links, spends a significant amount of time on your pages, and returns to your site indicates that your site is a user-friendly resource.
On the other hand, if a user leaves your site without taking any further action, returns to the search results right after landing on a page, and never returns again. This tells Google that your site is either poorly optimized or of no interest to your users. Now, this data is used to rank the pages of your website.
UX is about making users happy, just like SEO
RankBrain is just one of many examples proving that UX design and SEO have common goals. You may remember that targeting and optimizing for exact match keywords was one of the most common ways to rank in the past.
Today, to be well ranked in the SERPs, you have to put yourself in the place of Internet users and provide relevant answers to visitors to your site. In other words, you need to understand their purchasing intentions and analyze how they search.
Voice search optimization has become an essential aspect of your SEO strategy. Google’s objective is to answer Internet users’ questions, sometimes without leaving the search engine. Therefore, to appear in voice search results, you need to optimize your content for more conversational, question-based, and long-tail keywords.
The next step is designing your website. The goal of SEO is to help you rank higher in the SERP on Google and become more visible. But, when a user lands on your site, UX is there to find the answers to their questions more quickly, highlight your professionalism and strengthen your brand awareness.
Implementation of SEO and UX design: Best practices
The examples mentioned above clearly show that it is not possible to strengthen your SEO efforts without considering user experience. On the other hand, designing your site from scratch and not optimizing it for search engines is also a huge mistake. These two aspects of your site go hand in hand and should be integrated from the start. This is precisely why here are some essential steps you need to take.
Improve page loading time
Although it has always been one of Google’s most important ranking signals, page speed has become even more important with the latest speed update.
And the statistics confirm it to me. For example, did you know that a delay of just one second in loading a page reduces the number of page views by 11%?
Second, poor page load times also hurt your conversion rates and overall user experience . If your site doesn’t load in 2 seconds or less, almost half of your visitors will leave. So it’s no surprise that it also affects your retention rates.
Now there are a few ways to improve your website speed, including:
- Choosing a Reliable Hosting Plan
- Choose high-quality images, but reduce their size by compressing them
- Exploit browser caching
- Eliminate autoplaying media formats
- Use DNS
- Use lazy load – progressive loading
Simplify your website architecture
Your site architecture is how the pages on your site are arranged. From an SEO perspective, good website architecture means that Google will be able to find and index your pages easily , while link juice will flow seamlessly from high and low authority pages.
Your site architecture influences your visitors, as most of them use the navigation menu to find the right page.
This is why you need to simplify the navigation on your site, write explicit menu labels, add catchy CTAs, ensure that your pages are no more than 4 clicks away from the home page.
Invest in the mobile responsiveness of your website
With the growing number of mobile users, optimizing your site for mobile has never been more important. After Google introduced mobile indexing (yes, Google now indexes your mobile version of the site instead of the desktop version), not having a responsive site would hurt your rankings.
Now your goal is to make your site enjoyable to use for all visitors , whether they’re on their desktop or mobile.
To get started, you can:
- Optimize the readability of the text : it must be large enough to read, without extending beyond the display window
- Eliminate annoying popups : we will avoid intrusive popups that interrupt the user’s navigation
- Simplify forms : Reduce the number of fields in forms and use mobile-friendly input fields to make entry easier.
- CTA Button and Link : Make your call-to-action (CTA) buttons visually distinct and large enough for easy interaction.
- Proper spacing : Ensure sufficient spacing between interactive elements to avoid accidental click or touch errors.
- Rearrange the navigation menu : Use a mobile-friendly navigation menu, like the hamburger icon, to save space and improve navigation.
Bad SEO ruins user satisfaction
Abusive SEO practices can ruin your website. For example, creating promotional and off-topic blog posts or adding lots of irrelevant links to your homepage or content can drive people away.
Here are some SEO things you should keep in mind when designing a user-friendly site:
- Choose a domain name that is short, memorable and reflects your brand image.
- Write longer content (over 1000 words), very informative and very engaging, that answers your readers’ questions.
- Add internal links to get the link juice flowing from page to page, but make sure they’re added naturally.
- Make your content readable by adding headings and breaking the text into smaller chunks.
- Optimize your meta tags , including page titles, meta descriptions, titles or image alt tags to make them very informative.
UX design influences how visitors perceive you
Your site is the first link between you and your target audience. It’s like your online handle that tells your visitors how trustworthy and authoritative you are. This is precisely why you need to use your UX design to gain their trust and awareness .
For example, create a cultural page and use the power of storytelling to evoke emotions in your target audience and make your brand identifiable. You should also display photos of your staff, as well as share customer reviews and testimonials to show that you are a legitimate brand. Above all, make sure our design is consistent.
Create a style guide and make sure everything from colors and fonts to the visual content of your site is used consistently.
Conclusion
Implementing SEO and UX design together is important to improve rankings and build a strong brand .
Such a holistic, user-centric approach to your online presence will help you delight users, nurture strong relationships, and therefore tell Google that you are a valuable online resource. These are just some initial steps you should take.
