Combining UX Design and SEO to Make Users Happier
Online marketing encompasses many aspects, from creative to persuasive to technical. To achieve your marketing goals, you must master numerous skills (or play to your strengths and hire for the rest).
As experienced digital marketing professionals, we understand that search engine optimization (SEO) should be an integral part of your website development process rather than an afterthought. However, this isn't consistently done.
Here's a quick explanation of why combining user experience (UX) design with SEO, along with five ways SEO and UX design can work together to improve your startup application development projects.
A successful application development project starts with UX Design and SEO
Back in the day, SEO was relatively simple. Adding keywords to your website can rank it number one in search engines. The world would be a better place if it were that easy today! In today's search engine result pages (SERPs), Google and other search engines take into account more than 200 factors in determining which pages rank well on their SERPs).
UX elements have been incorporated into SEO best practices. How simple is your site to navigate? Do you have quality content that makes your visitors engaged? Do you have a mobile-friendly, secure, and quick website?
Google agrees, as their guidelines strongly advise putting users first, rather than search engines.
How Do UX Design and SEO Interact?
Here are five strategies for combining SEO and UX design to improve your website's visibility in organic search results and on-site conversions.
Keyword density
With the right keywords, Google can rank your content based on its relevance to the searches you're doing online. This makes your keywords a bridge between you and your users and later determines the value of the user experience you provide. Aligning your content with the keywords used by your target audience necessitates research and careful planning.
A common mistake in applying keywords is to "stuff" the content with the target keyword phrase as much as possible. This is not the best approach (and hasn't been done for a long time). Keyword abuse is a bad SEO practice that every digital marketer should avoid. It's a bad UX and Google doesn't reward it anymore.
It's important to use target keyword phrases strategically, keeping in mind SEO best practices on the page.
Increasing Page Load Time
Page load time has become increasingly important as one of Google's most important ranking factors in recent years.
For example, did you know that a one-second delay in page loading reduces website traffic by 11%? Also, short page load times can compromise sales metrics and the overall user experience. If the website does not load within 2 seconds, 47% of visitors will abandon the website. Of course, this also affects the bounce rate.
Metrics for Website Visitors to Aid UX
Understanding website analytics is central to SEO, and it also provides insights into the design process.
To gain a thorough understanding, Google Analytics metrics such as audience demographics, popular page content, page-to-page navigation, average time spent on the page, how quickly a website loads, and how far a user scrolls down a page must be evaluated.
This information is essential for designers because it helps them create the design, format, and layout of a website. To summarize, SEO can assist in determining the type of experience users require, and UX designers can carry it out.
Website architecture
The architecture and layout of your website are critical components of the user experience. Visitors will become frustrated and leave your website if you don't provide clear navigation to help them find the information they're looking for. Consider the following points to avoid this:
- All of your web pages should have easy and obvious access to your home page.
- Categories should be plainly labeled, with subcategories following consistently. All of these should be accessible from the main menu.
- A search box must be prominently displayed because users may not be aware of the category in which a specific product/service/information is found.
Understanding Your Prospects' Search Intent
You won't be able to optimize your website content for organic discovery unless you understand your target audience's search intent. And you won't be able to boost conversion rates if prospects can't find your website, or if they can't find what they're looking for once they do.
It all comes down to creating an efficient SEO marketing strategy. You can design your website accordingly once you understand why people are searching for your products and services and what they are looking for.
Last Thoughts
Better SEO results in better UX design, and vice versa. Organic search optimization can drive traffic to your site, but without an intuitive and productive user experience, those visitors will leave quickly. As a result, UX provides engagement factors that are supported by search engine algorithms that can improve or harm your search rankings.
SEO and user experience (UX) are two critical components of content marketing. When combined, however, they become more powerful than the sum of their parts. The combination can improve your website's ranking while also providing an exceptional user experience.