UX and SEO: Why User Experience (UX) is Essential for SEO Success

Businesses don't have to sacrifice UX for SEO. Let's talk about creating delightful experiences for users and the next-gen search market to build sustainable businesses.

SEO and User Experience might be the two most influential topics that go hand in hand for a successful digital presence. With the increase in AI and competition in the search and browser market, SEO alone is not enough for the long-term sustainable success of a business.

Most traditional SEO agencies who have been in business for years and even decades don't invest resources in UX or even talk about it, they might help businesses grow their traffic in the short term but it is not organic, and other factors like bounce rate increases can hurt your business authority in a long run.

This article explores the amalgamation of SEO and User experience in today's digital world and how businesses can achieve higher search ranking without compromising user satisfaction. This article can also be helpful for business owners who work with SEO agencies to ask better questions and look for the right KPIs and not just rely on traffic data.

Is it worth investing in UX and SEO?

According to a trends report by Forrester back in 2016, Every $1 invested in UX brings a return of $100, ROI of about 9900%. Returns for SEO investment from various sources vary anywhere between 200-400%. The impact of UX is much greater as it focuses on engagement and trustworthiness of the traffic which is driven by the SEO efforts but the SEO is driving that traffic to your website so they have to work together. 
Let's explore few more case studies where UX was proven crucial

• Staples case study by HFI: How staples boost repeat customers by 67% & 45% reductions in drop-off rates.

• Anthropologie by UX Magazine: 24% increase in conversion rate with checkout experience by UX redesign.

Why you should focus on user experience

Focusing on user experience for small and medium businesses should be the top priority. When businesses focus on user needs, it creates a better brand impression. Not only does that turn your site visitors into customers but it also makes them your business advocate and they spread the word in their community if their customer journey is better than expected. Nowadays the focus of SEO from search engines are much more on the customer journey and experience. There is a cognitive bias called the peak-end rule in human psychology study. It states that humans remember the peak points of their journey and the end of it. So, if you are running an e-commerce store, just a beautiful-looking website might not be enough for a lasting impression, you have to keep the whole journey in mind. From subscribing to an email newsletter or interacting with your social media to easily find the product on your website to getting the delivery notification and receiving the product, it all matters for building a sustainable business.

How can SEO help to deliver a top-notch customer journey?

From SEO's perspective, small or medium businesses must match users' search intent. For example, if someone is looking for the 'best Italian pasta' on Google. They are not trying to navigate to a specific page or looking to buy a specific product yet. They are doing their research before buying a product, which means the keyword has commercial intent and SEO can use this knowledge to adjust the content to target keywords better. Understanding search intent can help businesses have an effective content strategy, create better relevant content, and most important of all rank higher in search results. The four types of search intent are 1. Navigational Intent, 2. Informational Intent, 3. Commercial Intent, 4. Transactional Intent.
More details on them in a later article.

Tips to improve UX while improving SEO

1. Map your content to the search intent

Be thoughtful about the content you are putting out on your landing pages. If you are writing a blog and it's informational, make sure it delivers what searchers are looking for. If you are writing a product description for a product you sell on your website, make sure you describe all the elements of that product so the visitors do not wonder about the specification when they are ready to buy. Measuring the success of that content also allows businesses to test the ROI and effectiveness of the strategy. Double down on things that work and pull resources on ones that don't.

2. Focus on the whole customer journey not just a part of it

In this era of search, just focusing on ranking on Google and SEO is not enough. It might get you tons of traffic but businesses should not consider that as a valid KPI to run a business, the conversion and sales are all that matter to sustain. Focusing on the customer journey and delivering a delightful experience for the visitors can turn them into loyal customers and advocates for your business. For example, if you are running an e-commerce business, make sure customers' journey from finding your product on Pinterest to finding key information on the product page to being transparent about the delivery dates and shipping, to getting clear transaction emails with the tracking numbers are clear and concise.

3. Show expertise in your area of business

Expertise builds trust so be ready to learn as much as you can about your business if you haven't already. Information is so readily available on the internet nowadays that we should not miss the opportunity to learn something new even if that's for 10 minutes every day. Study your competitors, notice their good and bad, and create opportunities to make your business unique and better in that area where your competitors are not as great. Provide excellent customer service within that uniqueness and wow your customers. Customers and Google want to know what gives you and your website the credibility to answer their questions and what uniqueness and expertise you have shared with the world.

4. Diversify Your Content

Today's websites feature a variety of content types to cater to diverse user preferences. While this benefits your audience, it's essential to strike a balance for SEO. For instance, relying solely on videos without supporting content can hinder your Google rankings. Prioritize user experience by providing transcripts for videos, podcasts for audio content, and alt text for images. Not only does this improve accessibility, but it also meets Google's requirements, boosting your site's visibility. This applies to almost every type of media content on your website as accessible websites rank higher on Google and it's good for the users too.

Why is UX in SEO more important now than ever?

With the changing landscape in search engines and the implementation of LLMs (Large Language Models), the role of SEO alone going forward is blurry. Providing uniqueness to a customer for a business is more important than ever to stand out in the crowd and build a reliable brand. Pivoting to focus on the customer journey not only allows a business to build a brand reputation but also to run a sustainable business with whatever has to come for the internet. Providing a top-notch user experience to your business visitors gives the businesses to learn and grow within their niche, understanding the user needs also gives business owners to understand their business more clearly. Search traffic could only bring visitors to your website but turning them to customers and loyal customers is up to the business to figure out with more resources on UX. The goal here is for business owners and teams to ask the right questions to your SEO agency about the important KPIs that add value to a sustainable business and invest more efforts in UX and creating delightful customer journeys, after all, they all have to work synchronously.

Original article by Becky Simms  posted on Search Engine Land.