What is UX design?
Prior to 2020, SEO and UX were at a crossroads. For many web developers their main focus was on creating web pages that showcased their ability to create stunning designs based around the user experience. Often, the SEO portion of the website would be an afterthought with many just placing some good content and meta tags on the website right before it launches to hopefully capture some searchers on Google. This led to frustrated SEO’s who desperately wanted to be involved in the design process from the get-go and often led to a standoff with many developers who did not want their beautiful designs to be hacked apart by a non design oriented marketing person. As an SEO myself who joined the web development staff in my company to bridge this gap, I completely understand the frustrations on both sides. I was absolutely determined to make it my goal to sit with developers and understand their processes from their perspective while offering SEO related suggestions when needed. As an SEO I felt that it was in everyone’s best interest for me not to overtake the project with my opinions but to ask meaningful questions, learn how the developers did their job, and offer recommendations to support the project not hinder the creative process nor what the client requested.
Key tensions that arose between SEO’s & Web Developers:
Page consolidation vs. page segmentation:
While devs may prefer having less pages that allows the user to navigate through the website quickly and in a straightforward manner, breaking up the website content by topic, and having it span across multiple pages in a non-spammy way, is an ideal way to capture a wide variety of searches. For example, if you own a home renovation business and want to showcase work you have performed on kitchens, basements, living rooms and/or bathrooms, instead of having all of those services listen on say, a services page, you would break that service page up into multiple pages by category to capture someone who may be searching for a repairman to update an out of date bathroom.
Dropdown navigation structure vs. simplistic navigation:
Related to the point above, breaking up your service pages into categories or even sub categories will capture the attention of someone who may be casually browsing your website but may find a specific page relevant to their needs. In order to keep everything organized, a menu dropdown is key for easy navigation to different pages. Including links in your sidebar and throughout the content can help lead your users through the buying cycle to *hopefully* convert in an organic way that will encourage trust in your brand.
While devs may prefer less pages and a simple navigation, as you can see in the image below, a user searching for water damage cleanup can find that service right away as the subnav items are arranged neatly under the main service. This works wonders for SEO.
Relevant keywords in text, metadata and links:
Building on both points above, when there are more service pages set up on a site naturally, you want to build out more content to attract users to those pages. When someone is searching for a phrase such as “bathroom repair near me” likely they are at the beginning of their decision making process. They know that they have an issue: their toilet overflowed and they need to replace both their floor and the problem toilet. Also, they may be investigating whether it would be more cost efficient to hire someone or to complete the project themselves. The content and keywords used on your bathroom repair service page can potentially capture their interest and answer questions they may or may not know they have.
Content that is readable to humans and Google:
In many cases, web developers focusing on UX would prefer less text and more visuals to make the website more clean, visually appealing and to get the user to the information they need quickly. However, SEO tends to be a bit more comprehensive when it comes to content. The UX side is perfect when users are actively finding your business and utilizing your services however it may not be great when you want to build a client base and attract more users to your site. This is why quality content that is first readable and relevant to a user becomes very important. Second, it must walk that delicate line of capturing key search words that Google can correlate to phrases users type into the search engine. We need UX when a user gets to the website but we need SEO to first attract those users organically.
Rand gives a more in-depth look at this topic here.
So, how will UX & SEO converge moving forward into 2021?
Covid-19 hit us all very hard in 2020 and forced a lot of companies to rethink their online strategy. Businesses who once depended on their brick and mortar shops were suddenly looking into e-commerce extensions to allow customers the ability to reserve products for curbside pickup or have items shipped directly to them. It is of upmost importance to have your website working for a user so they can land on the correct page and convert easily and without hassle. This is without question what Google will be shifting the focus to in 2021 with the introduction of Core Web Vitals & Page Experience which will fully launch in May.
This new algorithm focuses mainly on UX design which brings SEO together with web development as site functionality, speed, safe browsing, and mobile friendliness will converge even more closely with on page content, accessibility features, website/page structure and SEO to product a seamless browsing environment for users.
According to Google, “The page experience signal measures aspects of how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page. Optimizing for these factors makes the web more delightful for users across all web browsers and surfaces, and helps sites evolve towards user expectations on mobile. We believe this will contribute to business success on the web as users grow more engaged and can transact with less friction.“
To summarize, bringing users to the website and giving them the information they need while making their experience enjoyable will not only keep them engaged, but will also lead them to browse for a longer period of time. In addition, because so much commerce is done online, having a website that provides a great experience will lead to trust in your brand quality and keep users coming back for future interactions.
An example of what Google does not want to see.
Can Web Developers & SEO’s get along?
The answer to this is yes, yes they can. With the emergence of the new Google ranking factors the digital industry is beginning to shift to a focus on UX design. This is a relatively new career path based on combining User Experience and SEO along with the marketing principles that have shaped the digital industry thus far :
- A/B testing
- Competitive analysis’
- Business psychology (analyzing buyer personas)
- Market research
- Geographic targeting
The job of a UX designer is to bridge the gap between SEO’s and Web Developers to help create a website that is built with the end user in mind. Everyone works on the same team.
Okay, but what does a UX Designer do and how is it different?
UX Design starts off with a lot of research. Many large and small companies with long lists of clients can greatly benefit from the insights that UX designers can provide because we enjoy digging into the nitty gritty of how users find the website, and engage with it. The process includes, but is not limited to this list:
- Conducting user research – This involves scoping out the project (whether it be a website or mobile app) by figuring out the needs of your users and how we can help solve those needs.
- Identifying User Personas – Another way of looking at this is targeting your product towards demographics. Figuring out where your user is located, their age range, their likes and dislikes can help influence how they will interact with the end product.
- Outlining the Information Architecture – This is where we start outlining the structure of the website or app based on the information we have gathered about the user. We want to create a seamless experience from the homepage through the conversion by eliminating as much drop-off as possible.
- Creating user flows and wireframes – Maps the user’s journey through your website and app through loose visuals. This is where we plan what content is highlighted on the homepage and what service pages are needed to plan the user journey.
- Prototyping and user testing – Utilizing a variety of online tools such as User Testing we can create a scaled down version of the website before handing over the project to developers to ensure that everything flows seamlessly. We can also test out multiple feature variations via A/B testing features
- Visual design – The fun part! This is where we can work with web developers to pick out color schemes, icons, and typography to tie the entire design together.
This was a lot, but I think I get it now.
If you’ve read this far, I truly appreciate you, and you will be rewarded. To summarize, finally, The digital marketing world is ever evolving and one can never truly understand all of the intricacies involved. It took hours upon hours of research to fully grasp all of the minutia involved in fully understanding user experience, and I hope it helps explain a little bit more about what I do and why I love UX Design so much. If you have more questions, never hesitate to reach out!