<aside> 📖 En el glosario: SEO

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<aside> 💡 UX

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Unlike a decade ago when you could rank a site purely based on keywords and backlinks, nowadays, user engagement variables like bounce rate, time on site, and pages visited have all become critical ranking factors.

Google recognizes real human behavior when it comes to determining quality sites worthy of top search rankings. In turn, usability and UX design have become integral components to SEO. Not only does a site require fundamental on-page SEO, but simple UX design considerations can go a long way in supporting engagement, and therefore, rankings.

To help shed light on where to prioritize your efforts, below we highlight five practices on how to effectively leverage UX design and usability variables to support your site’s SEO performance.

1. Simplify Your Site’s Navigation

One common conflict between UX design and SEO is that the latter often encourages robust site architectures that often lend to complex navigations. The more pages the better, right? Not so much.

Debunking previous SEO practices of creating very granular pages focused on tight-knit keyword groupings, a study by Ahrefs supports new SEO best practices in ranking just one page for many related keywords. In essence, having one very content-rich and user-friendly page can be a powerful asset for SEO across many different search queries.

Below we go into more detail about how to harness search data to inform site architecture (based on the point above); however the point here emphasizes having a very focused website that offers a simplified navigation. This especially holds true for mobile users.

Ultimately, you want users to navigate your site with ease. Complicated navigation structures, although debatably more SEO-friendly, can disrupt a user’s experience, thereby causing them to leave sooner. Instead of traditional SEO thinking of making all pages accessible to search engines, thinking about how accessible pages are to users.

Oftentimes, a stripped-back navigation with less pages is an SEO-friendly navigation.

2. Utilize UX Design to SEO-friendly Layouts

There are countless cases in which layout design and how content is formatted can disrupt SEO. The simple reason is that aesthetics, like having the perfectly sized headers and right amount of text, can get in the way of SEO.

But what if UX design could find a happy marriage with on-page SEO and layout formatting? This would be the ideal companionship that would help support both usability and generating organic traffic, which as we now know, complement each other’s success.

Here are a few principles in utilizing UX design to support SEO-friendly page layouts:

• Make content easy to digest – while copy and word count is important for SEO, avoid text-heavy pages that make it feel like you’re reading a technical manual. Easy to absorb blocks of copy, organized with headers and imagery, can help with usability while still retaining SEO. Also, take advantage of bullet and number lists, as these elements can help promote featured snippets in Google.
• Leverage headers and in many forms – as an SEO rule of thumb, each page should have one Header 1 tag that defines what the page is about (and ultimately includes the page’s primary keyword target). Supportive ideas should be organized with Header 2 and Header 3 tags. Use these liberally.
• Infuse images and videos wherever possible – visual media is not only engaging for users, but these elements can be optimized for SEO. A good practice is to include a relevant image or video within each block of content (typically defined by Header 2 tags).
• Use CTAs liberally – when it comes to conversion rate optimization (CRO) and keep users on your site longer, the use of calls-to-action are a must. These can be as simple as an in-copy link or an alluring button link to “learn more.” The goal is facilitating the users journey on your site that satisfies their best interest as well as the action you want them to take.
• Include elements that link to related content – a common strategy that also supports both usability and SEO is dedicating an aspect of a page layout (typically near the end) that offers links to related content. Like CTAs, these callout links help keep users on your site longer all while cross-linking relevant content, which are both good practices for SEO.

<aside> 💡 Evergreen

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