Did you know that a search engine is the starting point for 93% of internet experiences? That is why, in today’s world, search engine optimization (SEO) reigns supreme. A successful SEO strategy is dependent on a number of elements, the majority of which are linked to your website’s written content.Most digital marketers understand the necessity of updating material on a regular basis, defining keywords for each page of your website, employing metadata, and using alt tags to describe visual and video media. However, much fewer people are aware of the crucial link between excellent UX design and SEO.

In this blog post, I’ll show you how crucial a good user experience is for your search rankings, as well as provide some design suggestions that will help you avoid typical SEO mistakes and enhance the amount of engaged visitors to your site.

1. The importance of speed

We all know that in today’s fast-paced world, where people’s attention spans are shortening, it’s critical not to keep your consumers waiting. Few things irritate users more than pages that take an excruciatingly long time to load.

According to Google’s recent research, if a page takes longer than three seconds to load, 53% of mobile users abandon it.

It is worthwhile to work on minimising the time it takes for your site to load and the speed of your pages, as this will help to reduce your bounce rate. Here are a few basic design tweaks you may make to help with page load times:

• Reduce the number of redirects you use, as this adds to your visitor’s waiting time.
• JavaScript that is rendering-blocking should be removed.
• Remove photos that aren’t needed and compress those that are.
• Make your code more streamlined.
• Make sure you execute efficiency testing on your site on a regular basis.

2. Effective site navigation

You could have the best content in the world and the most solutions to your users’ problems, but if visitors to your site don’t know where to go for it, you won’t be able to convert them. Navigation design is an important component of the user experience, and the goal is to make it as natural and intuitive as possible. Keep in mind that, according to Google, the higher up in your website’s taxonomy a page is, the more important it is.

Here are some taxonomic pointers for you:

• Make it as small as you can.
  This makes your site’s content easier for Google to read, and consumers benefit because they don’t have to dig as far to obtain the information they need. The less clicks you have from the homepage, the better.
• Dropdowns should only be used on larger, more complicated websites.

Dropdowns are useful from a user experience standpoint when your offer is complex or you need to keep a large number of pages on your site. Dropdowns, on the other hand, are difficult to understand from the standpoint of a search engine, and any dropdown coding errors result in an immediate loss of indexation.

• To make crawling easier for search engines, use navigation bars.

Unlike dropdown menus, navigation bars are simple to crawl and index for search engines. Users can quickly identify key connections, and the word limit requires you to be especially clear with your messaging as a content designer.

3. Responsive Design

Google said in 2018 that it would give mobile versions of websites a lot more attention. As a result, it’s critical to make sure your site works across all platforms and interfaces. This has a significant impact on your optimization in two key ways:

Avoid duplicate material: Google penalises businesses for duplicate content, so if you have two different versions of your site, your rankings are likely to suffer. This can be avoided with responsive design.

Improved bounce rate: Mobile usage is believed to improve your site’s bounce rate, which is one of Google’s major indicators for determining site likeability.

4. Clear Calls To Action

A clear call to action is critical in achieving consumer conversion, as any marketer knows. And in this situation, we’re talking about more than simply your phrasing; we’re also talking about good design.

Make sure your call to action is clearly visible and clickable. Interactive content keeps your users interested and, as a result, increases the amount of time they spend on your website.

User data collection: Use whitepapers, newsletters, and feedback forms to collect as much information as possible on your website’s visitors. This is critical information that will come in handy as you continue to enhance your website, and it can also be utilised for email or direct mail campaigns in the future.

Your bounce rate and, as a result, your SEO rankings are closely tied to the level of engagement your users have, so make sure you work hard to improve this.

In summary – aim for simplicity

When it comes to SEO, simplicity is crucial. Aim for a natural and intuitive user experience, which includes a basic homepage, a clear taxonomy, and a modest depth of navigation. All of these characteristics will aid in the indexing of your sites by Google. User testing should be done as often as possible so that you can see what works and what doesn’t.We hope you found the preceding suggestions helpful and that putting them into practise has a noticeable influence on your site traffic.