Do you know what SEO is and what it does? Simply put, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps boost the quantity and quality of search engine traffic to a website or web page, supporting them to be at the top of Google searches for a specific term, better known as a keyword.
Google uses several intricate algorithms to determine what content is displayed and in what order in search results.
Among many, UX is one element in determining if your SEO will improve, decline, or stagnate. UX refers to the user’s experience with a website. Several UX factors can negatively or positively influence SEO, which you can leverage for your benefit in targeting the audience.
Here are 20 of them that influence your SEO:
1. Linking Strategy
Linking is a component that improves the user experience and benefits SEO. Since clicking on links is a fundamental approach to exploration in the online world, strategizing different types of links—internal, external, and backlinks—through a UX approach can immensely influence SEO.
A website receiving a lot of backlinks, internal and external links indicates to Google that it consists of valuable and relevant content. It establishes link equity and data structure, enabling users to move easily to different sites and pages while Google bots index and rank them.
If you have just set up your website and don’t know an iota of linking strategy, then you can go for professional link-building companies, like Link Building HQ. They provide customized services, quick turnaround times, and outreach for high-quality backlinks. All in all, a proper linking strategy can raise the bar for SEO.
2. Graphics and Visual Design
Your website’s aesthetic attractiveness has a measurable impact on how users perceive you. It’s a failure if a client browses your website and the visuals don’t line up, or the site is complex to navigate.
Visual stimulation provided by graphics draws visitors to your website and encourages them to stay longer, which raises your site’s Google ranking and lowers your bounce rate.
Potential customers value appropriate color schemes, simple compositions, and intriguing visual content. It’s also necessary to ensure that all pages adhere to a consistent design layout and style to help viewers easily navigate between pages without becoming confused.
3. Information Architecture (IA)
Information Architecture (IA) frequently refers to the organization of the website and the way the pages are grouped or nested. It is about classifying and arranging the complex data that make up a website and explaining the relationships between the various pieces of content on the website.
User-friendly information architecture helps users navigate a website more effectively, keeps them on it longer, raises the relevance of the main content, elevates its ranking, and influences SEO.
4. Mobile Responsiveness and Usability
The use of smartphones for internet access has increased, and most users now browse the web via their mobile devices.
In this case, if a website is not mobile-responsive, it will be difficult for users to view and navigate on smaller screens. You could lose half or even more of your audience, leading to a higher bounce rate and poor usability.
Your website will rank lower in search results, negatively impacting SEO. To be concise, a responsive website that functions equally well on all devices, operating systems, and browsers is the only one that can win the race.
5. Content Strategy
A more specialized portion of the user experience is content. If providing audiences with engaging content is a website’s primary goal, then content-first design is the way to create the best user experience. When we design with guidelines, we give the content the spotlight it deserves.
Effective UX design elevates the delivery and interaction of a site’s content. Such interactive content can consist of videos, infographics, gamification, and more, rather than just the written word. These elements help the audience to stay engaged and enable you to understand their preferences. It can be a fantastic marketing tool and make sustaining website traffic easier, helping SEO strategies.
6. ALT Text
An ALT text is a UX factor—a brief description of what an image depicts. The original intent of adding alt text was to improve the web browsing experience for those visually impaired. It made it simpler for them to understand what an image represents when the screen reader reads back the text excerpt. It is still applicable to date.
Without alt attributes, a visually impaired user won’t know what the image means, and also, it would be the same for people with slow internet as the picture won’t open. They will not know what it is, making the user experience significantly worse for them. It can affect how well your web pages rank and your SEO strategies will not work in a meaningful way.
7. Site Navigation
Site navigation is a group of user interface elements that aid site users in locating content and functionality. It can be a link, text, buttons, or menus to simplify the experience of navigation between pages.
Organized site navigation can assist customers in locating details they were unaware they needed, such as a pricing structure, an email registration form, or contact details.
On the other hand, confusing website navigation with haphazard links, complex descriptions, and crowded options can make it more difficult for users to navigate. It can reduce the prospect of a user staying on the page, negatively influencing the SEO.
8. Text Formatting
The purpose of text formatting is to make it easier for readers to find what they’re looking for in a sea of information influencing SEO. It aids in establishing the text’s hierarchy and makes it easier for readers to understand what is primary and secondary.
Even if the text is good, people don’t read entire pages; they skim it and concentrate on its most alluring elements. You can format text on web pages using HTML tags or CSS styles.
9. Breadcrumbs Design and Navigation
Breadcrumb navigation indicates the position of a user within a website, which also provides links back to each previous page the user has gone to. Websites use breadcrumbs that reflect the site’s hierarchy based on location or category. From the perspective of UX design, breadcrumbs need to satisfy several requirements to be practical and helpful. Except for the current page, every step in the navigation path should be clickable.
If it contains keywords, labels should correspond to page names.
You can use ellipses to reduce long labels so that the breadcrumbs remain readable, while middle-step labels should collapse to make it simpler to fit a lengthy breadcrumb trail into a single row.
10. Chatbot Customer Support
Chatbot customer support assists users. The goal behind employing chatbots for SEO is to automate manual tasks so that a large workforce is not required to handle consumer interactions and inquiries.
The proper implementation and use of chatbots can help boost website rankings and user engagement. Chatbots assist with the required action. As a result, they encourage visitors to stay on the page longer, increasing the time duration as visitors interact with the chatbot for long periods.
11. CTA Buttons
Call-to-action icons (CTAs) are very prominent, and using them is necessary to make your website rank on top; opting for them will influence SEO, sales, and overall revenue.
Even though you might think they are superfluous, they increase the probability that individuals would buy something. Another thing about good CTAs is that they are always placed carefully and not dispersed aimlessly across the website, giving it an organized look. It can provide the user with a better experience of your site.
12. Language Switcher
A language switcher can be a feather in your UX hat for boosting SEO. With the aid of a language selector, you can reach a broad target market and cater to various language speakers within the same country or worldwide.
Users can easily read content in their native language and engage and interact with the website. It will help them understand the site’s purpose without using Google Translator. It can also benefit the SEO as such websites would be able to draw more traffic to them and increase stay time.
13. Social Media Share Buttons
Social media share buttons are a modern necessity in the SEO world. There are significant SEO benefits, such as sharing website content, which increases relevant website traffic. The trickle-down effect widens as these shares are re-shared by online users.
Social media share buttons encourage website visitors to promote your content with other people exposing you to those who may not have previously known about you or your offerings.
14. iFrames
An iFrame or inline frame loads another HTML page inside the current one-a different webpage is inserted into the parent page.
Many ad platforms employ iframes to display advertisements on web pages since they offer more leeway than an inline script.
Any HTML document can be quickly and easily embedded, including YouTube videos, 3D viewers, Google Maps, and social media widgets. These elements can go a long way in improving your website’s ranking.
15. Bounce Rate
The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your website without taking a significant action or clicking on a link or product. Given how heavily Google’s search ranking algorithm weighs bounce rates, having a high bounce rate can be problematic.
A high bounce rate indicates that your website is not providing what visitors want or might have broken links. You can improve your bounce rate by making it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for on your website. Here, UX design entails organizing website components such as graphics, navigation, and content that offer a positive user experience and solutions to the problems users/visitors are looking for.
16. Font Size
Your website’s font size isn’t a ranking criterion in itself. However, it plays a significant role in the website’s usability. Your users can become irritated by a font size that is too small or large, which can adversely affect your SEO. They will need to zoom in to read content with smaller fonts, and they will need to scroll down a long way to read information with larger fonts.
Additionally, given that Google now prioritizes mobile devices when indexing online websites, you must ensure that your text is legible on mobile screens. On mobile devices, your body text should have a default font size of 16px or higher. That is the ideal size for pages with a lot of text and interactions.
17. Website Loading Time
The less the loading time of your website or page, the more satisfied visitors are with your site. It is one of the UI/UX elements that influence SEO.
Regarding the user experience, pages with a longer load time often have higher bounce rates. Such instances contribute negatively toward in-place or planned SEO strategies.
18. URL Structure
You can use a logical URL structure to enhance the SEO. A positive user experience is highly dependent on your URL structure, which provides directions to users regarding their location on your website.
The beginning of the URL tells you what kind of information you are accessing, and forward slashes denote directory tiers. An intelligently designed URL gives both users and search engines a clear indication of the topic of the final page.
SEO-friendly URLs are short, easy to read, and contain keyword phrases that describe the subject matter on a web page.
19. Menus and Categorization
The primary purpose of menus, which make up most of any website’s header, is to direct users to the correct webpage. Your menu design can be streamlined with a drop-down menu for a category that contains multiple pages.
Subcategories can make it easier for users to find what they’re looking for. Contrarily, a disorganized menu structure, and complicated headers confuse website visitors and shorten their time on the page leading to dissatisfied visitors and negatively impacting SEO as the bounce rate increases.
20. Website Architecture
The hierarchical organization of your website’s pages is its architecture. It explains how you organize and link the content on your site. The perfect website structure helps search engines distinguish between pages and directs users to the data they need. These hierarchical signals act as directional markers for site visitors and assist search engines in figuring out what is on your website.
It helps locate, index, and display your content on search results pages (SERPs), playing a role in SEO.
Conclusion
Each of the aforementioned UX elements influences SEO planning and strategies. So, it is important to consider them while building or maintaining a website. Hope you enjoyed the article and learned valuable things today.