User experience has become part and parcel of your SEO. Google stated that it will definitely be one of the main SEO ranking factors for 2015 and the years to come. As the leading search engine has been updating its ranking factors recently, classic SEO is not enough anymore. You could ask what is the link between UX and SEO? Well, what is the main purpose of having a website? Attracting visitors and converting them into customers. To do so, you need something else than just a well coded website. It is about creating a whole atmosphere and experience that will drive people to where you want by piquing their interests, translate their needs and concerns and thus convert them.
UX is simply about how your visitors will perceive your website. If it is good, they will come back. If not, do not need to tell you…
Ian Lurie from the Portent blog had a great thought about UX and SEO. He:
learned in the end that SEO & UX must work together in order for a site to be successful:
- the myths about SEO & UX are false – it’s not impossible to coexist, and neither hinders the other
- poor UX will lead to poor SEO. Plain and simple, and the reverse is also true
- SEO should live within and be a part of the user experience.
UX is all about converting visitors into consumers thanks to a great experience on a website or with a product. Its role is to:
As on-page SEO (meta, keywords, images, etc) is something you should be already aware now, you should focus on your user experience to optimize your website. SEO and UX can be a winning couple if well organized:
Buttons or links with call-to-action should be designed not just for UX but should link to content and page elements optimized for SEO.
Create personas for each online activity your visitors are going to have on your website. In fact, you can forget the old schema about demographics, personality or gender except if it is an essential part of your website.
In the same way, user paths should respond to your personas in order to optimize your visitors’ need.
This strategy is really interesting for creating different experiences for each users visiting your websites with different queries and thus different keywords. The more personalized your website will be, the more engaged your visitors will be.
While Google has been rewarded links and keywords for its quality score, UX is now also taking into account when talking about quality websites. It refers to:
UX can help your website to be more :
To sum up, UX is an essential part of your SEO tasks. You should also work for your visitors and not only for the search engines guidelines. The more attracting and optimized for users you website will be, the more traffic and returning visits you will gain. That is definitely not a loss of time!
