Starting an e-commerce business is no easy task. Proper knowledge of your target audience is vital to communicate effectively with consumers.
Likewise, knowing how to conduct marketing should also be emphasized. Today, there are plenty of strategies to promote your products and services. Leveraging user experience (UX) for search engine optimization (SEO) is one step to take in this matter.
If you want information on how to leverage UX for SEO, this article is for you. But before delving into that topic, it’s essential to know what UX and SEO are and how they promote your online business by attracting site visitors. Read on to learn about them.
What Are UX And SEO?
UX is about user interactions related to the product or service. It involves the internal experience customers undergo when navigating your application or website. It combines elements of psychology, technology, design, research, and business to achieve an ideal experience for users of a site or app.
UX differs from user interface (UI) for one reason. Specifically, UI involves the site’s visual elements, such as buttons and icons. To focus on UX more than the site’s UI, refer to Peter Morville’s UX honeycomb. This honeycomb involves various factors that all come together to improve UX. These factors are:
- Accessible
- Findable
- Useful
- Credible
- Usable
- Valuable
- Desirable
Now that you have learned what UX is, it’s time to learn more about SEO. Simply put, SEO is about improving a site to make it more visible on search engines when users search for:
- Services a business offers
- Products that a business sells
- Information on topics that a business is an expert in
SEO is composed of three components: on-page, off-page, and technical SEO. If you want more information on the last component of SEO, you can watch this video:
Site visibility obtained from implementing SEO practices is crucial, as it will determine whether your users will find and click on your e-commerce site. When your e-commerce site is visible on search engine results pages (SERPs), you can attract more site visitors. These visitors may likely buy your products over time.
If you want to get more acquainted with SEO, the new SEO glossary created by Matt Jackson can help. This glossary will help you understand common SEO jargon used in the industry.
Why Is UX Crucial For SEO?
There are many reasons why you should consider UX for SEO. One reason is that some search engines have conducted algorithm updates focused on UX. For instance, a search engine released a ranking factor that identifies whether a site is user-friendly and easily navigable by site visitors.
When a site passes this ranking factor, the search engine will likely rank it higher, as it will be considered relevant and trustworthy. This helps with marketing your e-commerce products by improving site visibility in SERPs.
How To Leverage UX For SEO
Below are steps to apply if you want to leverage UX for SEO. Read on to learn them all.
1. Increase Page Loading Speed
Page loading speed is how quickly the content loads on a page. People often misunderstand it as site speed, which refers to the page speed for a sample of a site’s page views. In reality, page speed consists of the following factors:
- Page Load Time: The time needed for a specific page to display the content.
- Time To First Byte: The duration required for your browser to obtain the first byte of information from the web server.
If you want to improve your e-commerce site’s page loading speed, consider the following methods:
- Compress files to reduce the size of larger Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and JavaScript files
- Use a Content Distribution Network (CDN) to access site copies stored at various data centers located in different geographical areas
- Implement browser caching to prevent the browser from reloading the entire page when visitors return to your site
Ultimately, your page loading speed contributes to site visitors’ overall experience. Matt Jackson recommends you focus on improving your page experience as much as possible to lower your bounce rate, as this will help Google to understand that you have a quality website, and they will actively reward that in search results.
2. Improve Site Navigation
Enhancing site navigation is essential for improving your site’s UX and SEO. Site navigation consists of user interface components that help users find content and features, such as site copies, links, menus, text, and buttons.
To improve your site’s navigation, follow these steps:
- Make links noticeable
- Add a footer
- Avoid hidden menus
- Add buttons or icons for links
- Use distinct designs for desktop and mobile platforms
- Properly order links
- Reduce main menu options
Applying these steps will ensure users can navigate your site with ease, contributing to a positive UX. In addition to these steps, regularly test and analyze your site’s navigation to identify any areas for improvement.
User testing and analytics tools can provide valuable insights into how users are interacting with your site, including where they’re clicking, how long they’re staying on certain pages, and where they’re dropping off.
3. Create Proper Site Architecture
Website architecture involves organizing, structuring, and interlinking content on your site. The ideal site architecture also facilitates user navigation, thus enhancing a site’s UX. Furthermore, it’s crucial for SEO for several reasons:
- It enables search engines to find and index each site’s pages
- It allows site visitors to access the content they’re seeking
- It distributes authority across your web pages through internal links
- To enhance your site architecture, consider these tips:
- Optimize your Uniform Resource Locator (URL): URLs play a crucial role in conveying the hierarchical structure of your website to both search engines and users, enabling them to identify the location of each page and its relationship with others. When creating a URL, follow these steps:
- Make them descriptive
- Limit URLs to 130 characters or fewer
- Avoid using numbers when possible
- Separate words with hyphens
Other tips include using topic clusters and developing an internal linking strategy.
- Generate a site map. A sitemap lists all crawlable pages on your site. It plays a vital role in your site’s architecture, presenting the architecture in a format that both humans and search engines can read and crawl. Consider using both HTML and eXtensible Markup Language (XML) sitemaps.
Applying these tips will lead to better site architecture, helping increase conversions by allowing users to quickly find your products and lead-generated content online.
4. Create A Site That Considers User Intent
User intent, or search intent, refers to an online user’s goal when entering a search term into the search bar. Recognizing this, determine what the user is looking for and create e-commerce content that satisfies their needs. This consideration will improve your site or content’s UX.
To have an e-commerce site or content that focuses on user intent, apply the steps below:
- Examine the most relevant articles
- Examine the search engine’s question box
- Identify your target audience
- Assess consumer behavior
- Use an analytics tool
In the end, you can ensure that you’ll avoid intent mismatch through these steps.
5. Generate A Responsive Website
Today, there are continuous advancements in technological devices. Therefore, more screen sizes and resolutions are available that you must consider when creating a site. For instance, a growing number of users are now using mobile devices.
Because of the above reason, you must consider Responsive Web Design (RWD). RWD is a web development practice that considers dynamic changes to the site’s appearance based on the screen size and orientation of the device used to access the site.
To create a responsive web design, consider the following practices:
- Begin with a fluid grid
- Layout suitable responsive breakpoints
- Focus on modification
- Use pre-designed layouts and designs to save time and effort
- Consider touchscreens
- Define typography
- Examine the site’s responsiveness on actual devices
Overall, consider these tips for creating RWD. This ensures users and search engines see your site as offering the right UX. It also allows you to outperform competitors and reduce costs and maintenance.
Wrapping Up
Marketing your products is one of the tasks of running an e-commerce business. There are plenty of ways to achieve such an end. One way is to promote your business by providing a positive UX through your site.
UX is about the experience users undergo when interacting and navigating through your products on your site. It plays a role in improving SEO and how your site will rank in SERPs. For one, it’s crucial for meeting the user-engagement metrics set by search engines.
When your site has met these metrics through UX, your e-commerce site’s pages will likely get noticed on various search engines. This helps in marketing your products to online users.
You can take various steps to enhance your site’s UX for SEO. Those steps include employing a faster page loading speed, improving site navigation, implementing proper site architecture, considering user intent, and creating a responsive site. Refer to them over time to help with your e-commerce SEO and UX, allowing better marketing.
