SEO is constantly evolving, and today search engines are looking for much more than simply link building and relevant keywords when deciding how your website will be ranked. While these tactics are helpful and considered important, effective SEO relies heavily on what the User Experience (UX) offers.
When a website lacks the functionality and capabilities a user is expecting, the bounce rate of that site is bound to skyrocket as a result, diminishing your traffic and ultimately negatively impacting your conversion rates.
What Determines Effective UX?
User Experience Design or UX involves analyzing ways in which your website can be visually and functionally improved, to enhance a user’s experience and overall satisfaction. It usually correlates to processes in which make your website more accessible, usable, and pleasurable to interact with.
Studies reveal that close to 80% of buyers will leave a website almost immediately if they are disappointed with what they find, leaving your site for a competitor’s. As mentioned, your rankings are greatly affected by your bounce rate and Google does take these numbers into account when determining where you rank. The more positive the user’s experience is when visiting your website, the higher probability they will remain on your site, revisit, purchase, recommend the website to their friends and family, and build trust within your company.
Factors Needed for Great User Experience and Search Engine Optimization
We highly suggest you take into consideration the following when looking at UX and SEO:
Mobile-friendliness
Because over 60% of all web traffic is driven by mobile search, mobile-responsive design is simply essential for modern web development. If your website isn’t mobile-responsive , you could be missing out on over half of your audience right away. User engagement will inevitably go down and your website will perform poorly. Be sure to make fonts larger, buttons easy to tap, and consider adding a click to call feature for added convenience.
Page load time
Nobody likes waiting for a slow website to load; in fact the annoyance can sometimes be enough to cause visitors to leave your website before it can even be accessed. If your audience exits the site before the page loads, this will still negatively affect your bounce rate. There are many reasons that could cause a slow load speed, and only a few of them are within your control. For example, you cannot do anything about a user that has a bad internet connection, but you can verify that your website is optimized to load as quickly as possible. In an effort to help with this, it is smart to minimize file sizes, optimize photos, and combine various CSS/JavaScript files so that your website is making fewer server (HTTP) requests.
Navigation
Navigation should be simple and seamless for users. Nobody wants to spend unnecessary time clicking through pages that aren’t relevant to what they are looking for. Your URL structure is an extremely important aspect of your user experience. Your site’s structure is important for users yes, but it’s also crucial for search engines too, so they can easily crawl your site. Remember that an easy URL structure with clear navigation ensures your users know exactly where they are on your website. Keep your URL structure clean and avoid a long list of options in your site’s navigation to avoid confusion.
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It’s critical to design your website for those that are blind or visually impaired designing websites for blind and visually impaired people, making your website user friendly means making it accessible for ALL people. And there are simple ways you can ensure accessibility which also go hand-in-hand with improving your SEO.For instance, by writing clear, readable and detailed descriptions for your images in the alt-text field, you’ll be helping search engines to index your content accurately and improve the experience for people using screen readers.
NetGain is pleased to offer a complimentary strategy session with every web design project. We have developed hundreds of websites and have gained valuable insight into the most effective structure and layout, keeping in mind both SEO and UX best practices. Let’s get started on your web project together!