High search rankings that can be earned through positioning do not guarantee a return on your SEO investment. To increase the chance of income from SEO, it is worth supplementing it with two other elements that are directly related to it – User Experience and conversion optimization. What are they, how do they differ, how do they affect SEO and how to combine them to think about high positions in organic search results?
What is SEO and what is its purpose?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the optimization of a website in terms of the requirements of search engine and user algorithms, the main goal of which is to achieve high positions for key phrases related to the offer. As a result, the user, after entering the keyword, sees your website in high search results, e.g. in top3. Leading positions in search results do not mean, however, that the user will become your real customer. To achieve this goal, positioning should be supplemented with UX (User Experience) and CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization), i.e. optimization of the conversion rate.
What is UX and what is its purpose?
UX (User Experience) are activities aimed at keeping the user’s attention on the website and providing them with the best possible experience in the process of interacting with your website. If you don’t take care of UX in SEO, you may limit your conversion potential. Thanks to User Experience, you allow users to get to know your website, service and products better, thus making it easier for them to use the offer (conversion).
What is conversion optimization and what is its purpose?
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a series of changes and implementations on a website or in a store aimed at encouraging the user to perform a specific, desired action, for example:
– finalizing the transaction,
– adding a product to the basket,
– registration for a training / event,
– subscription to the newsletter,
– e-book download.
By optimizing conversions, you can increase the percentage of users who perform a certain activity. In fact, SEO without CRO (conversion optimization) does not have to bring a return on investment, so it is worth making sure that it is included in the positioning service.
What’s the difference between UX, SEO and CRO?
UX, SEO and CRO are the three necessary elements of the online customer acquisition process, which combined with each other allow you to generate a return on investment in online marketing. What is the difference between UX, positioning and CRO, i.e. conversion optimization?
– SEO is the art of building website traffic,
– UX is the art of user involvement on the website,
– CRO is the art of transforming user-generated traffic into real customers and encouraging users to take certain actions.
User Experience (UX) and SEO – how do they influence each other?
Since the positioning and visibility in search results or website traffic do not guarantee a return on investment, you should also be interested in other elements of the online marketing strategy, including User Experience. With it, you will make your website easier to find, more useful, valuable and user-friendly.
How does UX affect SEO and can it improve SEO?
UX and SEO are two complementary elements of the online customer acquisition strategy. How?
– User Experience can improve positioning results – thanks to UX in SEO, users have a better experience of contact with the website and stay there longer; it is a signal for Google’s algorithms that the website is valuable to visitors – perhaps thanks to this, your website will gain better visibility in SERPs.
– UX in SEO helps users find the information they are interested in – a properly designed User Experience on the website allows users to find the content they need, regardless of whether they end up on the home page or on the product page of your website.
– User Experience in positioning increases the chances of conversion – if your website is properly designed in terms of user experience, it can make more people decide to convert on your website.
– UX Can Transform Repeat Customer Visitors – For many businesses, the challenge is getting the customer to buy again from the site. If a user remembers a positive experience with your website or store, they may quickly decide to convert again if you contact them after the purchase.
What influences UX and SEO results at the same time?
There are several elements that have a positive impact on both SEO and User Experience. These are:
– intuitive navigation on the site – it affects how users navigate your site (impact on UX) and how Google robots index it (impact on SEO); navigation should be designed in such a way that the user can easily and quickly move from one subpage to another;
– page speed – if your site loads slowly, you risk a potential loss of customers (UX) and a drop in position in search results, because page speed and loading time are one of the ranking factors (impact on SEO). Take care of the loading time, thanks to which you will make more users stay on your site for a longer time;
– adapting the website to mobile devices – this is another ranking factor that affects SEO and positioning results; However, it is also important from the point of view of User Experience, because on a website not adapted to browsing on mobile, the user will not be able to see the offer or pay for purchases, which means that he has a negative experience with the website or store.
How to check the UX quality on your website? Relevant indicators
To check the UX quality of your website, you need to analyze the following indicators:
– the time spent on the website – the longer it is, the better – you can assume that you have taken care of User Experience and that you are providing users with a good experience on the website or in the store;
– the number of page views visited during one session – as a rule, it is good if the user visits many pages on your website however, if it is associated with a low conversion rate, perhaps the UX is not suitable and it is difficult for the user to find the information they are looking for, l and convert;
– bounce rate – if it’s high, you probably need to take care of the UX on your website because users leave it without any interaction; however, this is not always the case – on the contact page of the doctor’s office, the high rate does not have to be a cause for concern – the user found the number and left the site without further browsing;
– Conversion Rate – A low conversion rate may make it worthwhile to work on your site’s user experience;
– abandoned carts – this is the number of users who added the product to the cart, but did not complete the transaction; may mean that you should improve the purchasing process (shorten it, provide more forms of payment or shipping, lower delivery costs).
How to combine UX and SEO?
After analyzing the above-mentioned indicators, you came to the conclusion that the UX on your website needs improvement? Check what you can do to achieve the intended goal and make User Experience and positioning complement each other. Why is it worth it? Because UX and SEO are a perfect combination – by themselves they give you a chance to improve your search engine marketing results, but together they make an even better website for Google users and robots. How to combine UX and positioning to be successful?
– Create a website design that meets the requirements of SEO and users – take care of the optimization of page titles, category names and products.
– Make site navigation intuitive (e.g. by adding internal links, building a menu on the side or at the top of the page, adding a breadcrumb menu so that the user knows where on the site they are).
– Include call to action (CTA) on your website – they will help you keep your audience engaged and possibly extend their time spent on the website, which improves SEO results,
– Remember to optimize descriptions of alternative images – thanks to this, search engine robots will be able to find out what is in the graphics (they are not able to read photos and images on their own).
– Create high-quality content – Content is King – This term is forever living and useful content can improve your organic search rankings. Moreover, they influence the engagement of visitors to your site and build a positive experience for potential customers. This makes content perfectly compatible with both UX and positioning.
– Take care of the content of the headers – they should inform the user what the subpage / fragment of the content is about.
– Improve site speed and loading time (e.g. by compressing images, shortening HTML and JavaScript code)
– Create a responsive version of your website so that your customers can view it on mobile devices and make payments for selected products in the same way.
Transparent navigation and structure of the website may also contribute to the appearance of additional links in the search results. In this way, you gain more space in the organic results, thus limiting the share of competition in the SERPs.
Chrome UX Report – A set of tips for UX optimization
A special report has been made available in the Google developer tool, the purpose of which was to examine the user experience. It contains tips on optimizing the page loading speed (it is to be expanded with other indicators in the future). The report shows that in UX optimization in positioning it is worth focusing on such elements of page speed as:
– First Paint, the time when the browser downloads the page content,
– First Contentful Paint – the time when the browser downloads the first text, image or other page element,
– DOMContentLoaded – time needed for the full loading of the html code and scripts creating the page.
– Onload – time needed to fully load all elements on the page and its dependent elements.
– Largest Contentful Paint – time needed to load the largest element on the page.
– Cumulative Layout Shift – measures the visual stability of the website, i.e. the frequency of unexpected changes to the website experienced by users.
– Time to First Byte – time from sending the user’s query to sending the first byte of data received by the client’s browser.
Conversion optimization (CRO) and UX – mutual relations
According to Neil Patel, ensuring a high-quality user experience is the first step to optimizing your conversion rate. Both conversion optimization and UX optimization have the same goal – to make certain actions as easy as possible for the user.
How does UX affect CRO?
What is the relationship between conversion optimization and UX? While User Experience optimization is aimed at facilitating the use of the website and navigating it, CRO facilitates the process of implementing the desired activities (sales, transaction finalization).
A common goal (income maximization) makes good or poor User Experience on the website a positive or negative impact on the conversion rate. How does UX affect CRO?
– A page that is unreadable may lead to a user opting out of a purchase.
– A complicated landing page, with a lot of information, can distract the user and discourage conversion.
– A website that works slowly (has a low UX) reduces the number of visitors and conversions, while affecting SEO (shorter time spent by the user on the site may reduce visibility in the search engine).
– A site with a complex structure may reduce the number of conversions because the user is unable to find the button or information they need.
– Too many CTAs can confuse the user with a drop in conversions.
– A complicated and extensive contact form may prevent the user from completing it completely, and you will lose the chance to convert and acquire a customer.
How to improve your conversion rate through UX?
UX optimization can positively affect your conversion rate. What should you do to improve it?
– Take care of your landing page – If your landing page (for example, your listing) has too much content, the quality of the user experience may degrade as potential customers won’t feel like reading the content thoroughly; you can avoid this problem by choosing to embed a video on your website that presents the same information in a more consistent form.
– Improve page speed – page speed and loading time affect not only SEO and UX, but also the conversion rate; if the page loads too slowly (more than 3 seconds), the impatient user will probably give up not only from viewing your website, but even more so from making a purchase (conversion).
– Improve the readability of your site – if your page is unreadable, the user will not know how to convert and will likely opt out of it by choosing a competitor’s site. Therefore, if you want to improve your conversion rate through UX optimization.
Conversion optimization and SEO
Conversion optimization is an indispensable element of SEO. While positioning attracts users to the website or store, builds visibility, traffic, it does not guarantee sales results. Therefore, to encourage users to take the desired actions, you need to optimize your conversion rate. Without it, you might not be able to achieve ROI on Search Engine Marketing.
Conversion optimization in positioning – benefits
CRO, or Conversion Rate Optimization, brings a number of benefits to your positioning strategy.
– Thanks to conversion optimization, you can check and understand better the needs of customers, as well as find the message that suits them. In this way, you will get the right customers who will affect your income and your position in the industry.
– Optimization of the conversion rate (CRO) allows you to better use your resources in positioning. Perhaps thanks to it you will be able to increase your income (sales value) without attracting new customers.
– If your customers convert in your store, they trust you. This, in turn, can positively affect your positions in search results.
What to do to improve the effects of positioning by optimizing conversions?
Do you want to improve the SEO effects of your website or store? Conversion Optimization (CRO) can help. How to use it to increase your SEO income?
– Create content that converts – when writing content for a website or store, remember not only about Google algorithms, but also users, and then you will also take care of the positioning effects. The content should contain key phrases, but placed naturally. Also use long tail phrases – they’re useful for both SEO and conversions as they capture the user’s intent.
– Use images and graphics on your website – nothing discourages the user from acting more than continuous text. Placing images on the page keeps you engaged (improve UX, readability and reduce bounce rate). By separating the content with graphic elements, you also have a positive impact on SEO, as long as you optimize the alt text and the description of the graphic.
Remember that you should constantly monitor the effects of conversion optimization. To do this, compare your best pages with those where visitors leave your site the most (exit pages). Check if the exit pages are missing any elements that appear on the best subpages.
Conversion and UX optimization in positioning – summary
SEO, UX and CRO are not separate services, but integral elements of internet marketing and positioning. On their own, they may not bring results in the form of increased sales, but together they not only give higher positions in the search engine, but also more traffic and conversions (i.e. return on investment). Therefore, when looking for an agency offering positioning services, find out whether the price includes User Experience and conversion optimization. Combining these activities as part of one service means that you can count on an increase in income.