In the SEO field, one of the evolutions that stand to be the most significant one is growth of the SEO professionals to real marketers. It is a fact that helping a business for doing better job at attracting, reaching and converting the target audience is more significant than the search engine rankings. But this growth is not confined to some professionals only as the search engines have also witnessed growth.
However, some of the pros of SEO managed to stay well ahead of search engines long before rolling out of any new algorithm. So, how they were able to breeze easily through essential algorithm updates like Penguin, Panda, Hummingbird etc.
Infographic on essential factors to make user experience and SEO work together:
Let us have a look at some of the essential factors:
User Experience Is Decisive For SEO:
UX optimization is the full field that demands certain expertise level. It is not important for the SEO professional to be an experienced UX expert. However, the basic understanding of UX principles of website is important. UX optimization is all about focusing on visitor. Each and every practice in marketing sphere must be visitor oriented. Some of the highly advanced operations of data mining are there with search engines. They are not jut helpful in relevant search but are also enabling data collection to better understand the behavior of user. Algorithms are tweaked from this data for providing users with more of their desired information and less of what is not required by them.
Also Read: Seo And Site Structure- Steps To Make Site Structure That Is Seo Friendly[Infographic]
All it means is that when demands of searchers are best met by websites then their chances of landing on search results first page are better. In this way, anything that is done for search engines is in fact done for searchers.
The judicious SEO professionals go beyond and above the demands of Bing and Google and keep searching for ways in which the overall user experience could be enhanced. In case after coming to your site, if a user bounce back to the search results due to any one of the 10 wrong things of the site, this factor is also considered by search engines in ranking the website. It is therefore the job of SEO professional to determine reasons behind this behavior and find out ways in which the overall experience of visitor could be enhanced.
Best Practices Of UX/ SEO:
Before getting into UX/SEO best practices that are semi-universal, it is important to remember that not all ‘best practices’ can deliver desired results for your visitors or for your industry. Some factors that can do wonders for a site can prove to be ruinous to you.
Keyword Research:
Keyword research stands at the initial point in almost all the online marketing since it has impact on everything from site messaging to web design to site content to navigation etc. Keyword research might not be the most important practice for website but it has certain relevance for most of the other important practices focused on search engine results. Once you are aware of the practice of keyword research, some other important points must also be considered so as to find keywords that are significant for your overall efforts of marketing.
Language Of Searcher:
We are able to get really valuable insight about significance of our services or products for users with the help of keywords. In many cases, language used by businesses is native to the people who belong to the industry. But most of the searchers are not part of this industry and are therefore not aware of the official words used for indicating any particular service or product.
With the help of keyword research, it becomes easy to find the words used by searchers for finding their desired solutions. Your content could also be informed later with the help of this valuable information.
Intent Of searcher:
The meaning of all phrases or keywords is not always what we think. For instance, the search term ‘website audit’ can refer to a person as search for someone who can carry out the audit while for the other person, this might be the search for website audit tips. This intent often becomes clear with the help of phrases that are long tail but the assumptions should be made carefully. The main intent always is to offer the searchers with something that they are looking for.
Attract The Click:
Optimization is not just aimed to rankings but it is also about getting clicks to the site from searchers. All that said, the higher your position on page, the better are your chances to attract click. But what is the point of standing similar when you can become superior in the search results. There are possibilities of attracting more clicks for your site even when the ranking of competitor is higher than you. For this purpose, it is important to ascertain that attention of visitors is captured by your search listings with the use of attractive language so that your result can attract their click rather than the others. The CTR could be poor due to the use of bland language in search results.
Also Read: How To Get On First Page Of Google? Tips By Leading Digital Marketing Company In India
Title Tags:
In search results, this is typically the clickable link. It is important to make wise use of title tag since the space that you get is very limited. Make sure that search compatible language is used while providing relevant, additional information that has more chances of attracting attention of searcher while they are scanning the results.
Breadcrumbs / URLs:
Title tag is followed by page URL or breadcrumb offering the searcher with additional signal about result relevance. If you do not use value adding breadcrumb or URL then this might lead to ignorance for your site as a feasible option.
Meta Descriptions:
In search results, the thing that follows URL is meta description. Here, you get some additional space for expanding and reinforcing on the message of title tag that can help catch attention of user. This field provides option between 30-300 characters with optimal 150 characters for information that is most relevant. Do keep in mind of writing something that the searchers find attractive and valuable and that can help them to click to the site. Make sure to use their language for addressing their needs.
Note: Avoid spending too much time on this field since these tags are rewritten by Google more often in search results.
Maintain The Aroma:
It is fantastic that you have attracted user to click through your site but the job is still half done and not completed since much more is still left to be done. Do not forget that visitors stay in hurry every time. Not much time is invested by them for finding whether their needs could be fulfilled by the page they have landed on.
The fact is, if the desired thing is not found by searchers in few seconds after landing on the page and more chances are there that they will leave the site. For this reason, it is important to make sure that your page has everything confirming with demands of the users. This is known as maintaining the aroma. Your search results had something that made the visitors click to your site and this was the aroma that has resulted in the beginning of the search from their side.
Now it is important that you maintain this aroma by confirming that the information they are looking for is there on your page. This help keeping them engaged with the site till they are able to find the resolution. Make sure of maintaining the aroma all through their journey since loss of aroma results in loss of visitor.
Site ID:
Site ID is the very first thing noticed by visitors once they arrive on a page. Make sure of having an obvious logo that is free from surrounding clutter. This is also helpful in case when some association is provided by your logo with the demands of your visitor.
Header Tags:
In addition to logo, the header at page content’s top is also noticed by visitors so as to make sure that they will get the relevant information for which they have arrived on the page. A message similar to title of page must be provided by heading tag as well.
No limitations are there in this case except that something visually making sense for page. You can make its use for reinforcing the message. Additional heading could also be used for dividing the long content. The content is often scanned by visitors for getting particular solutions and answers and heading tags can serve helpful in this purpose.
Also Read: Rank Higher In Google With These Top Seo Tools
Navigation:
Scanning the navigation is another helpful signal for visitors so that they can confirm of being on right site. This serves as a nice option for displaying visitor with your full value.
Whether you offer just one service or many, make sure of not to hide them under a menu link of services. Make their use for proudly displaying in the navigation or make their groups into appropriate headings.
This way, you need to help the visitors so that just by looking at the navigation, they are able to recognize what exactly you are offering.
Content Optimization:
This is where demands of searchers are completed to the fullest. It is not just the aroma but you get chance of offering complete meal here. Your content should be able to fulfill demands of the visitors.
The focus of your content must be on single need and you can make use of links for directing the visitors to more needed information. A principle goal must be there behind each of the content page and of the link used for directing the user should be for accomplishing this goal.
Call To Action:
There is significance of navigation but incorporation of other call to actions is also important for goals of the page. Make sure of starting explicitly in the call to action as what will the visitor receive upon click. While one primary goal might be there behind each page, conversion might not be intended by every single visitor. Offering some secondary goals can also serve useful with the help of call to action so that the visitor is kept engaged on site.
Be Quick:
Optimization has speed as one of its most crucial factor. If your pages load slowly, regardless of the platform on which search is performed, there are chances that your exposure will be limited to searchers by search engines especially for the slow connections. This means that you need to have lightning fast site since site visitors and searchers are impatient. They prefer to bounce back for a new search instead of waiting for your results.
Image Compression:
A whole lot of bandwidth is taken by large images but image quality could not be compromised for speed with the advent of screens having HD resolutions. Instead of this, make sure that best format is used for saving the images on the basis of what offers your image with best quality. You can then make use of the compression tools for decreasing size of image without compromising with its quality.
Efficient Code:
With frequent improvements in technology, things nowadays are possible with just some code lines instead of the previous time that demands huge pile of code. This is good for web and in case you are not able to keep up, it means that your speed is decreasing. A clean and lean code will help you to keep speed of your site at par.
Fast Servers:
In the speed issues of your site, there is a critical role of your web host as well. You are likely to have slow speed in case of shared server space so it is better to go for dedicated server. This is especially important for businesses having much traffic. You can discuss with your web host for speeding the site at affordable cost since different options are provided by different hosts.
Keep Testing Always:
A room for betterment is always there. It is not important that one change that offered benefits now will not be able to perform better at later stage. Testing of everything is important and it is okay to be unsuccessful. Even a test with poor results should be taken as a learning experience so find what you should avoid.
However, the fact that such practices are not often followed by most of the sites and therefore getting measurable results from one best practice takes much time. If this is the case with your site as well then begin with the best practices now and keep focus on making additional changes and variations later.