When it comes to the SEO ranking of your website, the last thing people talk about is the user experience (UX). After all, ranking is all about objective metrics, and indexing is done by the crawlers, right? Well, not exactly. From the perspective of SEO optimization, you have two target audiences – bots and humans.

Technical SEO (on-site optimization) will handle the bots (for the most part). What you’re left with is approaching your human audience in just the right way. The best way to do this is through a functional and intuitive user interface (UI) and an overall positive UX.

Here’s How Doing These Things Right Can Improve Your Website’s SEO

1. Simple Site Navigation

The reason why simple navigation is important is that it’s intuitive, which means that it’s effective in getting people where they want to go. Why is this so important? Well, if the site visitor ends up on the wrong page, they will just backtrack or leave the site entirely. This means that your bounce rate jumps and your page visit duration drops. Both of these are ranking factors.

To appeal to bots, as well, site architecture needs to be done right and it’s best if this can be done simultaneously with navigation structuring. This is also the right time to focus on meta tags.

Overall, site navigation will also affect the general impression of your brand. It is a simple method to display your efficiency.

2. Better Loading Speed

Another thing you need to focus on is the loading speed of the page. There are not a lot of factors that will affect the UX as heavily as the loading speed. In fact, this is one of the key indicators when it comes to your bottom line.

For instance, if your page fails to load within 4 seconds, about 25% of all your audience will leave. This could increase bounce rate drastically and draw attention to your site in a bad way. The first idea that Google’s algorithm will have is that there’s something fraudulent (even black-hat-related) going on, which makes people leave in droves upon arrival.

Keep in mind that it gets even worse. First of all, in 2021, people no longer care if they’re using mobile or desktop devices. In the past, they might have been more tolerant towards it taking longer for a page to load on a mobile device. Now, this is no longer the case. Also, even those who wait patiently for the page to load will probably be annoyed and might leave or fail to return later on. In other words, your traffic will drop.

Now, the design of your website will greatly affect the loading time. The complexity of your interface, the number of HTTP requests, pages containing audio and video files, etc. are just some of the things to pay attention to.

3. SEO-friendly Layout

Making your content and UI layout SEO-friendly will work to everyone’s advantage. First of all, you need to make sure that your pages are not text-friendly. In theory, the longer it takes them to read the more they’ll stay but in practice, things are quite the opposite. They see a huge chunk of text and they leave, it’s that simple. By breaking up text you’ll be making it easier to digest and make it more appealing.

Keep in mind that infusing images needs to be done organically, naturally, and regularly. First of all, you need to check if the images are properly optimized (format, size, mobilevisibility, resolution, etc.). Second, you need to make sure that the image gives the context to the text that it’s next to. Again, you might want to avoid pushing it too hard. One link per h2/h3 heading is more than enough.

Speaking of which, you should always use headers. The more the merrier. The general rule is that you should never have more than 300 words without a header. Still, you might want to break this even further. Using h4, h5, and even h6 might be a good idea. This way, you’re not just helping users, you’re also helping bots read the text.
Most importantly, when using links, make sure that all the external links have the right domain authority (DA). Also, try to avoid forcing internal links.

4. Prioritize Mobile Responsiveness

The majority of people access your website via mobile devices. Sure, as a brand, it might be much easier to just develop an app, however, like a blog or official website, you must accommodate even those who want a mobile approach. It is essential that you think of users on all screen sizes (mobile, tablets, etc.).

The best way to proceed with this is to look for tips on how to make your design mobile-friendly, as well as to do a lot of mobile testing. Whenever you introduce a design element, what you want is to check out what it would look like on your target device.

Simple background, functional animations, and touch ID are just three items that are pretty high on your list of priorities.

5. Understanding Your Audience

Despite popular belief, UX is the critical ranking factor. Your audience will come to your site for a reason. To understand how and why you need to know who your target audience is. By providing them with the information, product, or entertainment in the simplest, most direct way possible, you’re providing them with the value that they were looking for.

Making their objective hard to obtain will make them look for an easier path someplace else. The number of repeat visits is also a ranking factor, which makes this a bit of a problem. By understanding your audience, you can turn this around and lower the bounce rate at the same time.

The best way to get there is to regularly test and analyze the performance of your website and focus on the vital KPIs.

In Conclusion

In the end, understanding that no SEO ranking exists outside of the broader context is what really matters. Sure, bots are looking for a specific KPI but these KPIs aren’t determined randomly. The objective of every search engine is to give people the answers they’re looking for in the simplest manner possible. The better your UI and UX are, the easier it will be for you to qualify, regardless of the algorithm changes and updates.

According to experts behind a renowned SEO company from Sydney, a complex navigation structure will cause frustration in website visitors. By not being able to find what they’re looking for or not being able to return to the exact page they want, they are likely to leave and not come back. Remember that the number of repeat visits also affects the way you’re ranked.