Spring Hill webmasters often overlook or dismiss a very critical element of search engine optimization (SEO): user-friendliness. In fact, many misguided attempts at search engine optimization actually result in the creation of a site that’s “optimized” at the expense of user-friendliness, resulting in an interface that is actually difficult or awkward to use. But why is user-friendliness important? Well, that’s precisely what we’ll explore in today’s article.
How is User Experience Related to Search Engine Optimization?
Spring Hill webmasters quite frequently find themselves sacrificing user experience for attempts at search engine optimization, but this outdated approach falls far outside SEO “best practices,” with some practices falling into the realm of “black hat SEO.”
User experience is important for a few reasons. When it comes down to it, search engines are built for people. Many of the practices and attributes that are considered “good SEO” or “bad SEO” are directly related to user habits and tendencies. There are very few elements of SEO – such as XML sitemaps and Meta tagging – that are related almost exclusively for search engine spiders, which are the bots that “crawl” websites, committing the contents of your website to memory (better known as the search engine’s index.)
So when it comes down to it, if you deliver a positive user experience, then you’re apt to perform well in the search engines. Here are a few examples;
Interlink. the pages on your website and users will navigate your site with greater ease, visiting more pages per visit and spending more time on-site – both of which are key search engine ranking factors.
Write. naturally and integrate keyword phrases naturally and you’ll be more likely to rank for the key search terms, while also delivering engaging, reader-friendly content.
Craft. strong rich snippets and you’ll have descriptive and compelling blurbs that appear in the search engine results, while also improving your ranking and increasing the likelihood of attracting visitors who are actually seeking the information, products or services that you’re offering.
If your site is hard to navigate, with repetitive or unnatural key wording in content that offers little value, you’ll see a high bounce rate (a very brief visit to your website is considered a “bounce”) – another key ranking factor that search engines consider.