• By michelle
• In SEO, Uncategorized

Why a Good User Experience Is Key for SEO

The effects of your site’s user experience (UX) can either make or break how well your brand performs online.

We’re excited to have Jacob Smart, creative content writer for the digital marketing agency Aumcore, guest post for us today.  

In this article, Jacob shares the key components of a successful UX and how to maximize your business’s potential through a guided user journey that intuitively leads consumers to your desired call to action while also providing benefits for your SEO strategy.

It’s no surprise that when the topic of “good SEO practices” comes to discussion that the layout of a website is often brought up. People enjoy good experiences when browsing the web. What users don’t want is to feel that the content they are looking at is low quality or difficult to find.

Google has made it their mission to eliminate poorly made sites and enhance how a person interacts with the web. Google’s core algorithms are constantly improving the way search detects and ranks websites. Because of this, user experience is not only crucial for the user journey, but also for search engine optimization (SEO).

Let’s explore why it’s immensely important for your business’s website to be optimized for UX and how to ensure your site is being found by Google’s search algorithms.

User Experience vs. User Interface

Arguably, the two biggest terms used when examining a website’s value are how well the user interface is designed and the user experience is arranged.

The two terms are excellently defined by usertesting.com:

“At the most basic level, the user interface (UI) is the series of screens, pages and visual elements – like buttons and icons – that you use to interact with a device. User experience (UX), on the other hand, is the internal experience that a person has as they interact with every aspect of a company’s products and services.”

Your website is the strongest medium your business has for interacting with potential consumers on the web. Since this is the case, don’t you want every first impression to be a lasting one?

According to a study performed by Adobe…

“With only 15 minutes to consume content, 66% would prefer to view something beautifully designed vs. simple and plain.”

The study also goes on to say that if the content on a page is unattractive, 38% of consumers will stop engaging with it.

There’s a lot of pressure on web designers and a lot of focus on improving content so that a brand can gain a broader audience within its industry. Website development by no means is an easy task. More likely than not, the abilities to carry out these jobs aren’t accessible in house. It’s smart to invest in an SEO agency that has proven skills in user experience design services. This way, you can ensure your business’s demands are met through improved search ranking and an intuitive user experience.

What Do Search Engines Think?

Search engine portals take the way a website is constructed very seriously. The style that Google’s bots crawl and calculate through web content is done in a way that is “human like.” The algorithms that rank how relevant a website is are similar to the way a regular user would think.

Google Panda, one of Google’s most significant search algorithms, has changed the way websites show up on search results. The function of this algorithm is to reward high-quality sites by presenting them higher in ranking on search results and to dismiss poorly made sites. A poorly made website has a few very pronounced characteristics to it:

• Thin content: pages that are limited in value
• Duplicated content: content within or across certain page domains that completely matches or is considerably similar

For the user journey, the best practice to follow when creating a website is to do so with the intent of catering to the needs of someone viewing it. If your content is presented in a friendly and helpful way to consumers, Google will notice and reward your page with higher search rankings.

How Does Your Business Improve?

Fortunately, because Google’s algorithms try their hardest to act like actual humans, constructing your site’s layout in a way that’s easy to navigate through and fun to explore is extremely beneficial for your brand from both a user and search perspective. The biggest idea to revolve your business’s web design around is a simple question:

What makes your website good?

According to Moz, the best websites have these traits in common:

“Easy to use, navigate and understand. Provide direct, actionable information relevant to the query. Professionally designed and accessible to modern browsers. Deliver high quality, legitimate, credible content.”

User experience is key for the user journey and SEO. So it is important to produce content that’s both intriguing and engaging while optimizing UX for both user and search advantages.  

Remember that if you frame your website to appease your audience, you’ll not only reap consumer benefits, but Google will also reward your business by ranking your pages higher in search results. The higher your brand ranks organically through search engines, the more traffic you receive and business leads you get. Make your online presence a success with a strategically mapped UX for your business success.

Author ~ Jacob Smart