Why combining SEO & UX is a winning formula for website performance
The best SEO strategy is an encompassing approach because SEO has several 'players' that must work together.
Simply optimising page titles is not enough.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) focuses on helping websites rank well in search rankings, whilst user experience (UX) concentrates on how users interact with a site. UX is all about users, whilst Google and Bing's algorithms are all that matters for SEO… or is it?
It would help if website managers worked on all components like site speed, great content, and user experience (UX). This article focuses on the areas where SEO and UX combine.
Why? Because both are imperative to pay attention to if building or running a website.
Marketers and web admins battle SEO vs UX when building or running a website. The two cannot possibly work together toward the same goal. Or can they?
Marketers, business owners, UX designers, and web admins often view SEO and UX as competing disciplines. However, they have more similarities than initially thought.
What is SEO?
SEO is a collection of strategies for scaling how a page ranks in search engines for relevant search terms, known as keywords.
Search engine optimisation seeks to improve the quantity and quality of traffic from a website through organic search results. Since 93% of online experiences start with a search engine, and 75% of users do not click past the first page of search results, optimisation is critical to helping visitors discover your site.
What is UX?
UX aims to boost the user experience. People often discuss UX in terms of design; however, it can also apply to the customer's entire experience with a company, including its site, products and services, customer satisfaction and staff.
Concerning websites, great UX keeps visitors on a site for longer, provides a more enjoyable experience, and increases conversions.
We are used to seeing quality content that gives context, cite sources, or provides additional links. Helpful content is more than this and should have the following components:
SEO vs UX
Google and other search engines like Bing and Yandex use complex algorithms to rank websites in search results. These algorithms contain more than 300 ranking factors.
SEO involves optimising your site for these algorithms.
You optimise pages so search engines can crawl them and rank them for relevant keywords. Because SEO deals with optimising your website for algorithms, some people believe it is incompatible with optimising your site for human visitors.
However, this belief is based on an outdated notion of SEO.
SEO does consider search engine algorithms, and marketers will make changes to a site for SEO purposes that they would not make otherwise. As time passes, though, what is good for search engine optimisation and what is good for UX are becoming increasingly similar.
How SEO and UX work together
Looking at the essential elements on a page that influence SEO, you will find a close affinity between SEO and user experience (UX). Below, we will discuss a few of these components.
Page titles and headings
Understanding how to use the heading tags on your site is essential. Why? Because they benefit search engine optimisation and your visitors. An optimised page title and a related, visible <h1> element instruct Google what the page is about.
External links
External links are great for SEO because they tell Google you respect your sources. External links increase the likelihood that your references will link back to you in their content.
However, external links provide a way to access background information for your users. They also offer credibility because external links demonstrate to visitors that you have done your research.
Internal links
An internal link is any hyperlink leading to the page or resource on the same website. Internal Links establish the website’s hierarchy and help users and search engine crawlers navigate and discover new pages.
Internal links are ideal for enticing your readers to remain longer on your website as they provide additional background context that can give insight into the article's topic. Internal linking is important because it allows users to navigate from one website page to another. Imagine how difficult it would be for users to explore different pages on your website without a menu or text links. (See site structure below).
Helpful content
If you provide helpful content, people want to link to you, and visitors want to read what you say.
Plus, they are more likely to stay on your site.
That is great because these incoming links and time-on-page are things Google will notice.
Google could even consider your content as the primary source of information on a specific topic.
So focus on creating that helpful content as per Google's guidelines. For instance, you can add images and videos to your posts and pages, making both Google and your users happy.
Site structure
If your post or page has not fully answered the user's question, pointing them to another page on your site is excellent. Otherwise, you will not prevent visitors from clicking back to the search result pages (known as 'bounce').
A high bounce rate can negatively influence a site's ability to rank in search engines. It indicates to Google that this content is irrelevant to a visitor's search inquiry, nor does it answer their search intent.
Preventing a high bounce rate ensures your site structure is reflected accurately on your page, in other words: site navigation.
Wherever users are on your website, they can navigate to another part of the site without struggling to search for what they want.
Visitors must know there is more to explore on your site. So, how do you achieve this? Partly by creating (and maintaining!) an optimised menu and ensuring a website has a good site structure. You can show your structure using breadcrumbs and consider adding related posts and products to pages.
And there's another benefit to having an excellent, hierarchical site structure: it will help search engine crawlers efficiently crawl your pages. When users spend a long time on your website, it tells Google they found it helpful.
Site speed
You might already be familiar with site speed. Still, it is good to address the topic again because it heavily influences your SEO and UX. How? First, visitors do not like waiting for your content to load. 47% of online shoppers expect web pages to load in 2 seconds or less; 40% of online shoppers abandon websites that take more than 3 seconds to load. Improving page speed increases the user experience by getting people the content they want faster.
Google also considers page speed when determining page rankings, so increasing the site speed at which a website load improves both your UX and SEO.
Second, Google only wants to spend time on your site to crawl it. That is why it is crucial to optimise your site speed. Try different techniques, such as lazy loading images. You can also defer the parsing of JS and CSS files where possible. That way, you ensure a page will show something soon.
Mobile experience
Nowadays, having an excellent mobile experience is extremely important. Luckily, the same rules that apply to your website also apply to its mobile version. It should be fast, well-designed, and have easy-to-use navigation. After all, you want users and search engines to quickly find what they seek.
So think hard about the mobile version of your homepage! Does it cover the main areas of your website? Does it also invite your visitors (and any search engine) to explore the rest of your website? Even button sizes could influence a user's experience.
You can always ask Google's opinion on your mobile website via their mobile-friendliness test or read our post on how to improve the mobile version of your site.
UX and SEO best practices
So, how can you improve your UX and SEO and ensure they work together? Check out these UX and SEO best practices.
Integrate your UX and SEO strategies
Sometimes, two teams work on UX and SEO in a siloed approach. When creating a new page or website, it is essential to consider UX and SEO together. Maximise communication between your UX and SEO teams and consider both throughout the design process.
Conduct an SEO UX audit
If you already have a website, consider conducting an SEO UX audit. A UX analysis uncovers data about how visitors interact with your site, revealing opportunities for improvement. An SEO audit analyses your site's SEO performance, helping you improve in this area.
Perform ongoing testing
Continuously testing a site is crucial for increasing its performance over time. One tactic is to split tests and determine which changes lead to the most significant UX and CRO improvements. Split testing involves creating two web page versions and showing each to different users.
You can then analyse the performance of the two versions to see which performs best. After seeing the results, you will keep the best-performing page. To test a site's SEO, marketers can change certain pages and witness if the updates improve the rankings of a website.
SEO and UX go hand in hand
Although people sometimes think about SEO vs UX, it is vital to incorporate them both when creating helpful content for a website and ensure they work together. Both UX and SEO are critical for a successful website. SEO brings people to a website, whilst UX keeps them on your site longer and increases conversions.
Whilst SEO and UX are two disciplines, users should be central to a business's SEO and UX strategies. With this in mind, many changes to improve UX will also improve SEO and vice versa.
One point to always consider - write for humans and not for search engines; that's how to combine SEO and UX on your websites.
