If you’ve followed all of the conventional wisdom regarding SEO, and your site still isn’t generating the kind of traffic you think it should, the missing piece could be the user experience you are providing. User experience, or UX, is a critical component to SEO success, and its significance is rapidly increasing. Simply put, if search engines think that your site doesn’t deliver a quality UX, then the quality of your content won’t save you. Good content and good UX is the new formula for SEO success.

What exactly is UX?

For SEO purposes, UX refers to the quality of the interaction that people have with your site. If customers visit your site and find it easy to navigate and informative, then you have delivered a good UX. On the other hand, if customers can’t find what they need or are frustrated as they try to find their way around your site, then the UX is poor. This will impact your SEO, even if you’ve optimized your content to meet other SEO criteria. UX is heavily rooted in design, mapping, and accessibility.

What does UX mean for my SEO?

Keep in mind that search engines want to deliver their own quality UXs, and they can’t do that if the results they return for organic searches don’t send people to quality sites. As the capabilities of machine learning have increased, so too have search engine’s abilities to prioritize UX in their algorithms. Search engines will continue to incorporate UX into their results as their abilities to do so increase. As a result, sites must pay attention to UX as a facet of their broader SEO strategies.

How can I improve UX on my site?

Paying attention to site design trends is important, but you can address many user experience issues through design. For instance, linear design, which organizes information based on the assumption that users start exploring sites via the home page, could cripple UX, since fewer than half of web users actually land on a site’s home page. You should instead adapt your site design to provide a strong UX at every possible entry point.

Don’t let the changing landscape of SEO leave your business behind. At Pennington Creative, our content marketing team knows what it takes to make your company achieve search engine success and reach your customers. Our industry-specific onsite services are the key to making your site work for you. Contact our Tucson team today to start building a personalized strategy for your business.

About the Author

Heather McDonald

Digital Marketing Specialist, Copywriting