Many business owners have heard about SEO and think that it is the most important thing about their website’s performance. In reality, and especially after May 2021 Core Web Vitals update from Google, User Experience is just as important.

UX and SEO

When trying to figure out how to improve your ranking on Google, you should always turn to both UX and SEO. It is important to understand that User Experience is broader than just a design thing: it is the whole science of making your website comfortable and easy to stay at. SEO, in its turn, is also not just a whole lot of keywords crammed into one sentence. The most important drivers of good SEO are technical, on- and off-page optimization. What is crucial to understand here is that you have to implement both good UX & SEO practices to come out on top.

Mobile-Friendliness

One of the factors that impact your website's ranking the most is how mobile-friendly it is. After all, more than 50% of all web traffic comes from smartphones. There is a lot of cool data you can check out at the link above. As you can see, it is crucial to have a mobile-optimized website. Moreover, some may argue that the current trends suggest that you should build your whole online presence around smartphones first. Google has made it clear that your first priority is mobile optimization, as it is indexed and ranks you based on how well your site runs on smartphones.

Easy Navigation

Good UX is defined by providently designed navigation. It’s hard enough to lure people onto your website and you don’t want to lose them just because you couldn’t find what they were looking for, right? Easy navigation is the factor that surely will increase conversions and positive ranking on Google. Be sure to categorize everything into as less links as possible, but never sacrifice intuitiveness for this sake – everything should be two clicks away from the user.

Backlinks

Google has an all-seeing eye on the web, and when someone leaves a link to your website, it’s basically a recommendation. It means that it might be worth visiting and may actually be good. There are three main factors that define the quality of backlink:

1. They Come From Authoritative Sources. Is there a difference between LinkedIn and some random guy’s website? Yes, there is, and Google clearly feels the same way. 2. They Include Target Keyword in Anchor Text. Anchor text is a visible part of a link. Here’s an example – Movadex Design Studio. The text part that you see is the anchor. I made sure to include the keyword “design”. Don’t go nuts on this, however, because Google has its ways to prevent people from abusing this trick. 3. The Website is Content-Related to You. Google will put a lot more weight into the backlink from a website that is topically related to your website.

Page Speed

We have all been in the situation. You are looking for something important and clicked one of the first links on Google, but the page never seems to load (or so you think?). In reality, we have just grown too impatient. Do you remember the days of 3G, when we had to wait for every page to load? With these days long gone, we become more and more demanding. Even a second-long delay may make us leave and look for some other business. There are a lot of things you can do to ensure that your website is up to the high standards:

1. Use High-Quality Images with Modern File Formats, Compression, and Cropping 2. Use Lazy Loading 3. Choose a Reliable Hosting Provider 4. Use Latest Code Practices, Don’t Install Too Many Plugins 5. Do Not Overuse Auto-Play Content

Good SEO Practices

Poor UX hurts your SEO, and SEO will be sure to strike back if not taken good care of. Let’s explore some good practices you may use to increase your SEO:

1. Write Informative, Non-Promotional, and Engaging Content 2. Be Sure to Make your Content Readable by Splitting it Into Chunks 3. Add Internal Links 4. Optimize Your Meta Tags

Good UX Practices

To finish today’s discussion off, let’s explore some of the good UX practices to improve your user satisfaction:

1. Don’t Overload Pages With Content 2. Let the User Know Where They Are 3. Pay Special Attention to Intuitiveness 4. Make Purpose of Every Element Perfectly Clear 5. Avoid Too Many Pop-Ups 6. Think Through The Story You Are Telling

Summary

We have explored the both UX and SEO worlds, but what is the one most important thing that we discovered? Both User Experience and Search Engine Optimization are equally important and bring a lot to the table. What you have to do is strive to find the perfect balance between the two, never giving one less attention.