By Mauricio Antunez
SEO and UX are two concepts that are sometimes perceived as opposites, but in reality, they are complementary. Do you know what each means? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is optimizing your website to appear in the top search engine results. On the other hand, UX stands for User Experience, which is the experience a user has when browsing your website.
Both aspects are fundamental to your online business success. SEO helps you attract more visitors to your site by making your information easily discoverable by those who need it, that is, it improves findability. However, if the UX is poor, those visitors will leave soon and won’t return. On the other hand, UX helps you retain and build loyalty with visitors, but if SEO is poor, no one will find your site in the first place. Therefore, it’s essential to combine both aspects to create an attractive, functional, and user-friendly website.
SEO is part of findability in User Experience and means that information can be easily located by the person who needs it.
Here are some tips to achieve this:
- Know your target audience: Research what they’re looking for, what they need, and what they like. To learn more about this, check out the post on User Personas. Design your site thinking about them, not you. Create quality, relevant, and useful content that responds to their interests. Use clear, simple, and approachable language, avoiding jargon, spelling errors, and long, complex sentences.
- Optimize loading speed: No one wants to wait a long time for a page to load. If your site is slow, you’ll lose visitors and search engine rankings. Optimize image size and quality, code, and external resources. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to measure and improve your site’s speed.
- Design mobile-first: Make sure your site adapts to the size and type of screen of each device. Since more and more people browse the internet through their mobile phones or tablets, it’s essential to have a flexible design that adjusts to different resolutions. Use tools like Google Mobile-Friendly Test or Responsive Design Checker to check and improve your site’s adaptability.
- Facilitate navigation: Create a logical structure with categories, subcategories, and tags that help users find what they’re looking for. Use a clear and visible menu with internal and external links that facilitate navigation through your site. Incorporate an efficient internal search that offers relevant results. Use tools like Google Analytics or Hotjar to analyze user behavior and detect possible problems or improvements.
- Create an attractive design: Perhaps this is the most subjective point of all since there’s no accounting for taste. However, some general best practices that should be in a good design include using harmonious and contrasting colors, readable fonts, and white space to avoid overwhelming the view (unless the design is intentionally saturated).
As you can see, SEO and UX are two key elements for your website’s success. Give these two areas the importance they deserve and work on them together to offer visitors an enriching and pleasant experience.
Thank you for reading this far. If you want to discuss this topic further, comment on LinkedIn.