5 Ways SEO Can Improve User Experience

Investing time and money into top-quality SEO seems like a good idea for any website. The fact is that, as useful as SEO is, it’s only effective when done properly.

Many companies create content and a website to rank high in search engine results pages (SERPs) but they focus too much on SEO. The practicality and user experience fall by the wayside.

There’s no need to sacrifice UX for SEO, or vice versa. There are many ways to use SEO to improve user experience, and here’s 5 of them.

 

Focus on Creating Quality Content

You’ve likely created a consistent stream of content for your website. Consistency is key for a website, as regular content shows search engines your website is open for business.

Content must also be suitable so that it can rank highly against the competition. However, you also need to focus on quality to entice visitors to your website.

Anyone could write something and fill it with keywords. Anyone could write lots of posts filled with lots of keywords to keep their website up to date.

It takes a mix of quality, trustworthiness, and reliability to stand out from the crowd. Use SEO to improve customer experience and build brand loyalty by creating content that meets the needs of readers.

 

SEO Improves Website Navigation

You’ve likely promoted all your key products and services across your website.

You might have put up your contact details and mission statement on there too. You might have even embedded Shopify or highlighted reviews, all of which are filled with SEO techniques.

However, you must also consider the functionality of your website. You must think about how easy it is to navigate, for the sake of your customers and also your SEO score.

People only spend time on websites that are easy to navigate and use. Make it easy for customers to go from Point A to Point B. Think about the credibility of your website design.

Is the information properly organised and accessible? Are all the links correct? What security encryption do you have? How smoothly does your website flow?

Improving website navigation to improve SEO also leads to a better user experience for visitors.

 

The Credibility of Internal and External Links

Link-building is part of the overall SEO experience. You might believe that including a link to another website could divert traffic to one of your competitors. This can happen, but it only happens when you don’t follow proper SEO procedures.

Careful website link building strengthens the credibility of a website, which also improves customer experience.

Creating internal and external links across your website increases website credibility.

Having quality links also makes content more accessible, boosting your search engine ranking and creating a stepping-stone in the decision-making process. This can make the difference between a visitor and a lead/sale.

 

Improve Website Loading Times

Filling your website with plenty of content, links, and quality images no doubt has an impact on website loading times. When websites take too long to load, it drastically impairs user experience.

Everyone gets frustrated waiting for websites to load. The longer it takes, the less likely someone is to sit through it.

A slow website also destroys your SEO score as you will undoubtedly have a higher bounce-back score, meaning people leave your website before it even loads. You’ll have to work even harder to improve your credibility with search engines.

Finding a middle-ground and focusing on optimisation is key. Focus on improving and optimising your website code to improve loading speeds.

A website audit can help with this. These audits identify pages that load particularly slowly and highlight potential changes to correct the issue. People don’t want to deal with websites that load slowly.

Most people click off of a website that takes more than a second to load. The faster you can get your website to load, the better your SEO score and the more visitors you’ll get.

 

Gathering Customer Reviews

Having customer reviews on your website helps you rank higher for local searches, but it also improves customer experience and the overall buying journey.

These reviews highlight genuine user experiences from other real customers. What’s the first thing you do when shopping for something online? You check the reviews. Your customers are the same.

The first thing to do is to collect customer reviews. Consider sending customers follow-up emails or messages asking them for reviews, complete with links to your page on Google My Business or Facebook.

Not only do reviews give potential customers a better look at what products and services you offer, but it also improves search engine ranking. Of course, the journey doesn’t end with simply collecting user reviews.

These reviews should be displayed and highlighted on your website. Google values user-generated content such as reviews.

If customers are unsure whether or not they should try you, the social proof reviews offer could be the example they need to seal the deal.

 

Search Engine Optimisation Services

While SEO can feel overwhelming for the uninitiated – and even for some experts– there’s no denying how vital it is. You need high-quality SEO to stand out and draw the attention of potential visitors.

With a few simple but effective steps, you’ll soon be harnessing the power of SEO for your website.

Not only does SEO encourage more people to visit your website, but it also makes the website itself more accessible and usable for those people. A way to help people to keep clicking on your website is to avoid using duplicate meta descriptions.

Take advantage of SEO by utilising the five ways SEO improves the user experience listed above – the majority of the changes listed can be handled by your SEO provider but if they are more technical, it may be worth engaging with a web development agency to work alongside them.

If you need any help with SEO or improving your search engine ranking, customer experience, or online sales, then consider hiring an experienced SEO company.