If you have been keeping up with recent trends in SEO, then by now, you would have realized that there is more to SEO than building links and using endless keywords. Although, those two are very important parts of your SEO strategy, however, that’s not all. The days of ranking just for keywords are gone. There are a lot of factors that Google puts into consideration when ranking a website. An important part of those factors today is the user experience with your site.
The cover in the last few years is aimed at improving the user experience of searchers. Google wants to ensure that they only provide trustworthy, relevant, and high-quality results to users that search on this engine. This has informed the different changes carried out to Google’s SERPs and the introduction of strict algorithms and factors used to rank websites on Google.
Since Google is prioritizing user experience as an important factor for ranking websites, it is important to understand how integrating an excellent user experience on your website will help your SEO ranking. Few things you have to pay attention to, so as to increase the user experience on your website are:
Website Speed
This is 2020, and this is really basic. Time is of the essence in this generation and the faster your website loads, the better for you. Website speed is without a doubt very important for the user experience. Users are more likely to spend more time on your website perusing it and doing a lot of useful stuff on it if it loads very fast. They only want to click on the next possible link because they know it takes a few seconds to get what they want, and this even drives more traffic to your site. Now compare this to having to wait a whole 60 seconds for your site to load! I, personally, would not wait that long. This leads to a high bounces rate on your website. It does not encourage the user to check your site some other time.
A slow website is very detrimental to you. One effective way to ensure you do not make enough sales as an e-commerce store is a slow website. It often discourages sales.
This just proves how important your website speed is to your users and for you as well. Google also uses this as an important factor for ranking websites. It has, therefore, become an important part of recent SEO strategy.
If you are planning to increase your website speed, here are a few ways;
- Go for a hosting plan that is reliable.
- Make sure your images are high quality, but crop and compress them to lower the size.
- Do not use an auto-play media format
- Use lazy loading
- Take advantage of browser caching.
Optimize Your Website Mobile Experience
It is no longer news that most website users use their mobile devices. So, it is very crucial that you optimize your website such that it works well with a mobile device. Firstly because, it is the common means of accessing the internet today, and it goes a long way to determine user experience on your website. Secondly, because it is another factor that Google considers when ranking websites.
When it comes to website mobile experience, there are a number of components that are crucial to your user experience. Very importantly, it is the structure of your site and ease of navigation. Having a good and easy-to-navigate website structure makes it easy for your users to go through your site, and search engines can also be run through very easily as well.
There are many users who will not come into the site through the site’s homepage. This is why it must be easy to navigate around your site, irrespective of what page the search engine or searcher comes through.
Navigation makes it easy for your users to find what they want from your site easily. It boosts your user experience and also affects your SEO. Build your website to have main navigation other helpful stuff like footer links, sidebars, breadcrumbs, etc. to help people move around your site easily.
Simplicity
You can also create a good user experience on your website by ensuring that user interaction on your site is very simple. Your website is definitely allowed to have different functionalities and features but even at that, interaction have to be simple on your site. Your users will be able to do more on your website with very simple features. The Google bots that also come to read the contents on your website would also find it easy and this will help you rank better.
One of the things that you can do to increase the simplicity of your website is to reduce clutter, especially if it is assessed with a small screen. This will make it easy for users to click and follow links on your site. It will also ensure that Google do not mistake your site as being hard to use.
You should also make the font size of your content comfortable enough to help with reading the contents on your site. There should also be enough contrast between your background and foreground colors.
If you have critical content on your website, it will be of a very wise thought to place these contents high on your website. It will give your website users, and the bots checking your site, a quicker understanding of what to do with your site, and what the site is about.
If there is anything that can massively reduce your website’s simplicity, it is an error! The truth is, no user wants to come across any error on your site. I know you do not want them to as well. But errors can be sometimes inevitable. So, it is important that you know how to quickly fix and deal with these errors. This is a good way to ensure that your users have a good experience on your website. Concerning technical SEO too, Google might just take its time to go through your website, and I am sure you do not want the bots to be picking out errors. This will definitely reduce your SEO ranking.
Duplicate Content
Having duplicated content or different pages with the same or similar content can be confusing for your users. But not only your users are confused by this, but even google can also get confused too. This will determine the perception of Google bot about your website. This difficulty reduces your user experience, and also reduces your SEO ranking.
Conclusion
Technical SEO ranking and user experience on your website are two things that you cannot and should not separate. With Google prioritizing the experience of your user to rank your page, you know that you have to do all you can to ensure that your visitors get the right content that they search for on your page. In doing this, they shouldn’t encounter any difficulty in navigating your website.