SEO and UX: A Brief Overview

In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that SEO is a ranking system which is constantly evolving, and that every business is trying to get it right as the benefits it brings are enormous. What was once a practice that involved using a never-ending amount of links, or making a dedicated keyword page, now involves a long list of factors to be taken into account – one of which is user experience. The UX of a website involves not only how it looks, but also how easy it is to navigate, whether it works on multiple devices, inclusivity, quality of content, and many, many other things. So, before our team trip to BrightonSEO later this week, we thought we would take a look at how some of these factors go hand-in-hand with improving your SEO rankings.

Importance of Navigation

One of the most important elements in UX is site navigation – can your user easily get from one place to another, depending on what they’re looking for? This is the underpinning to any UX design, but also now, to SEO – the structure of your site is also the roadmap for search engines too.

Not only this, but a website built from good navigation practices can also lead to sitelinks appearing in the search results. These not only allow for streamlined navigation, but also take up more room on the results page, meaning less room for competitors!

Mobile-Friendliness 

Another shared factor in UX design and SEO is how your site performs on other devices, most importantly on your mobile phone. A 2020 study found that the majority of internet traffic now comes from mobiles rather than desktops, which explains the importance of a good mobile-version of your website when it comes to both SEO and UX.

A bad mobile experience will not only deter users from browsing your website, but has also been confirmed to affect your performance in SEO rankings.

Inclusive Practices

One last factor that is both important to UX design and SEO optimisation is the implementation of inclusive design thinking. These are practices that not only make a website more user-friendly for a greater number of people, but can also positively impact your SEO rankings. 

One example is the use of image descriptors in order for those who are visually impaired, or incorporating captions on all videos that are uploaded to the website for those who are hard of hearing. These not only provide more people with the means to use your website, but also give the search engine more information to be added to the ranking factors. 

Of course, there are endless ways in which UX design and SEO optimization work together toward a shared goal of successful website architecture and performance. These are just a few ways in which you can not only target your user, but also the search engine. We as a team are looking forward to attending BrightonSEO later this week in order to learn even more about how the two principles can complement each other in their objectives, and to be able to implement these practices in our future projects. Specifically, a session by Ammar Badr, Grecia Garcia Garcia, and Jake Gauntley focuses on how you can find the perfect balance between UX and SEO in order to achieve marketing, business and website objectives. Finally, if you or your company are also going to be at BrightonSEO, let us know – we’d love to hear from you!