Where years ago you could rank your website entirely basis backlinks and keywords, these days, user engagement components such as time on site, bounce rate, and page visited have all become extremely crucial ranking factors.
Google identifies real human behavior to determine quality websites worthy of being ranked on the top.
In turn, UX design and usability too have become a fundamental components for SEO.
Not just does a website need basic on-page SEO but even simple UX design considerations can go really a long way for supporting engagement & thus rankings.
To assist shed a little light on where to exactly prioritize your effort, listed below are 5 crucial practices on how one can leverage UX design & usability variables for supporting the website’s SEO performance.
1. Simplify your website’s navigation
One of the most common conflicts visible between SEO and UX design is that the former mostly encourages a vigorous website architecture that mostly lends to complicated navigations.
The more web pages the better it is? It is not very true.
Debunking the earlier SEO practices of forming granular pages concentrated on tight-knit keyword groupings, an in-depth study by Ahrefs supports the recent new SEO practices of ranking only one webpage having related keywords.
In reference to this, having 1 user-friendly and content-rich webpage can be an extremely strong asset for SEO over several distinct search queries.
Here, we will go through in-depth details as to how to harness the search data, which would help in developing an informed website architecture.
Here, we will even emphasize having a concentrated site that provides simplified navigation. It particularly holds correct for mobile users.
Lastly, you would want your end-users to simply navigate your website with simplicity and ease.
Having a complicated navigation structure, while debatably be SEO friendly but can impact the experience of the user, which may make them leave the website faster.
In place of relying on the traditional SEO model for making all pages accessible to the search engines, give a thought on how to make the pages accessible for the users.
Mostly, a stripped navigation with reduced pages indicates SEO-friendly navigation.
2. Use UX design to attain SEO friendly layout
There are several cases where layout design & how the formatted content can hamper SEO.
A simple reason is aesthetics such as having perfectly sized headers & the correct amount of text can sometimes come in the midst of SEO.
However, UX design can find a good match with the on-page SEO & layout formatting.
It can have an ideal friendship that can assist support both in concern to usability and yielding of organic traffic, which actually complements the success of one another.
Listed below are some of the principles of using UX design for supporting an SEO friendly page layout:
Ensure that the content is simple to digest:
While the word count and copy are crucial for SEO, ensure to avoid text-heavy webpages that give a feeling of reading some technical manual.
Simple to absorb blocks of the copy, organized with imagery and headers, can assist with usability at the same time can still retain SEO.
Moreover, take benefit of the number lists and the bullet as such elements can assist in promoting featured snippets across Google.
Benefit from headers & informs:
The thumb rule of SEO is that every page must have one header tag that states what the page is regarding where you include the page’s keyword target.
A supportive idea must be added to header 2 & 3 tags.
Infuse videos and images wherever possible:
Visual media does not just engage users but such elements can also be optimized for SEO purposes.
An excellent practice is to add relevant video/image within every content block, which is defined by the tag of header 2.
Use the CTA liberally:
When it is about CRO/conversion rate optimization and keeping the users on the website for longer, usage of call to action/CTA is a must.
You can make it very simple similar to the in-copy link or alluring button link or learn more. Here the major goal is to facilitate users’ journey on the website that can help satisfy the best interest and also action you require them to incorporate.
Involve element that can link to the related content:
A very common strategy that supports both SEO and usability is dedicating page layout’s aspect that provides links to the related content.
Similar to CTAs, such callout links assist at keeping the users on the website for longer when cross-linking the relevant content.
3. Harness the search data to the information website
Now let us get back to the point regarding simplicity & optimization of pages basis larger themes vs granular keywords.
Long gone are those days of structuring thousands of SEO-based landing pages for concise queries.
In place, it is crucial to factor in a declutter approach, which concentrates on quality more than quantity.
We all are aware that keyword research & search data are crucial for SEO.
But it is how the info is used that makes all relevant differences. One such instance can of a keyword data – eCommerce SEO .
This keyword has searches of about 2,300 each month globally. If we decide on optimizing a specific page with an eCommerce SEO keyword, then it is crucial to consider their variations & long tail that they would have as part of the keyword targeting tactic.
For any SEO agency, the keyword – eCommerce SEO services can be a primary keyword.
However, in place of creating distinct pages for variations concerning keywords like ‘SEO for eCommerce or ‘eCommerce SEO company, we would like to include such keywords on the same webpage.
The question may arise as to how all such SEO info includes UX design? The next instance that links on latter eCommerce circumstances is
4. Optimize for the website load speed
One such most appealing, powerful yet frequently missed tool for UX reasons is the Gtmetrix. This is even an asset for the SEO toolbox.
Gtmetrix caters to crucial technical information regarding the website’s performance such as load speed. It enables the UX designers & technical SEO alike to uproot actionable knowledge such as HTML, minifying, CSS & JavaScript and also optimizing images, caching & redirects.
Website speed is a crucial ranking signal because Google’s overarching agenda has been for long-serving users with excellent possible experiences.
Moreover, in turn, Google even rewards fast-loading sites in both Google ads and searches.
Additionally to Gtmetrix, various other tools that should be explored for test & ameliorating your website performance and speed are Webs.Dev and Google page speed insights.
Both are extremely handy site optimization tools that cater to actionable analysis & total guidance across numerous components.
Recommendations such tools provide can differ between simple image compression and altering how servers communicate with the requests.
Note that UX designers can provide ways as to how a website can perform better for both users and SEO.
5. Make sure mobile responsiveness
Mobile responsive design has turned out to be mandatory for SEO and usability. It is because more than 50% of all the traffic gets driven by mobile search.
Thus, websites that lack mobile responsive features can end up compromising the experience of over half the visitors.
By now, you should be knowing that most savvy UX designers
genuinely prioritize mobile responsive designs for all projects that they are engaged with. But if the site is unresponsive in mobile, you may see that the metric of user engagement is nonperforming.
Bottom line
Despite huge clashes between the design and marketing teams, a clear site goal clubbed with cohesive project management agenda can assist hugely in forming harmony between SEO strategy and UX UI design.
Sanjay Dey