SEO and UX: The perfect combination to optimize your online messages
At IM+C, as a Media and Creative Agency, we care a lot about the message, and we also care a lot about the end user: that person who receives the message we want to convey.
The concepts of SEO and user experience sometimes seem very distant. But the truth is that these two disciplines are closely related and must go hand in hand in order to achieve a proper web optimization, which is essential in ensuring excellent positioning of your brand or online business.
Can you see how important it is to work on both SEO and user experience on your website?
What is SEO?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of improving the visibility of a website in the organic results of different search engines.
What is User Experience (UX)?
The user experience (UX) is everything that a person observes when interacting with a product or service at the time of purchase or when browsing a website, app or system.
SEO and UX can have a direct impact on each other when it comes to the moment a user discovers your product. Both disciplines go hand in hand since a bad user experience leads to a bad web optimization and a bad web optimization leads to bad user experience.
The Rankbrain algorithm
Google launched its Rankbrain algorithm in 2015, in order to improve the user’s search experience by trying to identify what the user is looking for in Google.
This algorithm is closely related to the user experience since it understands user behavior metrics as a bounce rate (if a user enters a website and leaves immediately without interacting with the rest of the pages), it knows the time spent, the CTR… And if these SEO and UX metrics are good, Rankbrain will reward us.
Why is it important to take care of SEO+UX when creating communication campaigns?
Many factors come into play for a good communication campaign however the message itself is one of the most important. But who is it aimed at? The end user. One person. With the SEO we can detect which keywords are the most important for our business and the UX part comes in from the moment the campaign message reaches a user whether through sight, sound or any other means.
SEO and UX Best Practices
Keyword search
The current keyword search differs the old one in that it is no longer enough to just search for keywords with a high volume of searches, since Google has changed its search algorithms which now try to satisfy the user’s search intention.
Keyword searches help us to find businesses and words in our market to attract future clients, and also help to go deeper into the market in which our company is located. Here the creativity of the titles and descriptions that we will use in the blog articles or web pages that will later appear in the Google results plays a very important role.
Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are used within a website to improve/enable users to navigate without getting lost. An example:
Breadcrumbs have numerous advantages:
- Improve the user experience
- Reduce the bounce rate
- Encourages SEO (UX and internal linking)
- They help to improve visibility in SERPs
Navigation architecture
The navigation architecture refers to the organization and structuring of the content so that the user can navigate easily. Creating usable content structures is fundamental for a correct web positioning.
In addition, having a correct navigation architecture is not only fundamental for the user experience, but it helps to transmit popularity and authority and improves the understanding of the web by the bots.
Loading speed
The loading speed is still one of the fundamental factors for a correct SEO positioning. A high loading time causes the user to leave immediately and therefore increases the bounce rate and decreases conversion rates.
Content optimization
Its function is to direct each content to a search intention while taking into account the importance of correct content hierarchy for the user.
Don’t write for robots, write for people.
It also uses synonyms and keywords related to the main keywords so that Google can evaluate our content. It’s important to take care of the internal and external linkage and always try to think about the user: if a link is going to be useful, add it!
Unnecessary elements
Some elements such as pop-ups, videos or surveys can have a negative impact on the bounce rate. Without a clear relationship between the bounce rate of a page and its impact on Google’s positioning of the page, there is no doubt that if something causes the user to leave the website it means that there was no positive user experience. In addition, these elements can increase the loading time of the web.
In short, it is quite clear that SEO and UX go hand in hand and that when creating and optimizing a website and communicating the benefits of a brand on the net, we must take into account both disciplines if we want to achieve satisfactory results. At IM+C we highlight two concepts; the message and the user who receives it.
