[Hot] SEO 101: What is User Experience (UX)?
This week Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land reported a seemingly mundane fact: Google is now sending notices to webmasters with verified Google Search Console properties about "really slow pages that take too long to load."
Yes, a casual observer of search might view this report as mundane. After all, Google has noted before, as it does in these new notices, that "speed is a ranking factor for both desktop and mobile results."
For an SEO professional, though, news of this sort is never mundane. At the very least, this report reveals an ever-increasing emphasis on page speed--an emphasis that has evolved at least since Google's recent Speed Update.
In announcing this update, which applied "speed" as a ranking factor to mobile searches, Google wrote: "People want to...find answers to their questions as fast as possible."
More important, however, is what the emphasis on speed reveals about Google's evolving algorithms. Page speed, we know, is a fundamental element of user experience (UX), which many in the SEO world have cited as the emerging ranking factor.
So what is UX? And what does it have to do with SEO?
What is User Experience (UX)?
Simply put, UX measures a browser's experience of your website. Google has placed increasing emphasis on user experience since the introduction of RankBrain, Google's new machine learning system, which uses artificial intelligence to measure "user intent."
Google's algorithm seems to be moving away from the old standards of ranking, notably links and keywords, to this new measure, which attempts to discern user satisfaction by following certain metrics, including organic CTR, pages per session, bounce rate, dwell time, as Search Engine Journal notes in its article about UX.
Essentially, these metrics attempt to answer several questions about a browser's experience of a website:
Read: "How to Analyze Three Key Website Data Points to Improve SEO"
All of these elements, which can be improved by design, development, and content teams, signal a quality UX. Imagine a browser excitedly clicking on your site, exploring several pages, moving from one page to the next with ease, before completing an action on your site.
This is what Google is looking for--and what you should provide, if you want to satisfy Google and your browsers. This is the new search paradigm.
UX and SEO
For some reason, many SEO publications make an arbitrary distinction between UX and SEO, as if the two defined entirely different disciplines. For example, Search Engine journal makes the distinction, even though it admits the two share a common goal:
"Both share the goal of helping users to complete their tasks by providing them with relevant information. SEO will lead a person to the content they need, and the UX answers their queries once a user ends up on the webpage."
In reality, what this quote is describing involves an interplay of many different disciplines, including SEO, content marketing, and on-site optimization, all of which another firm might simply call "online marketing" or "digital marketing."
The distinctions not withstanding, a simple view of the relationship between the two is that SEO leads a visitor to your site and UX keeps them there.
Optimize User Experience With Stepman's SEO!
To build an effective, fully-optimized website, you need a web design and development company that understands both UX and SEO.
Stepman's SEO is the rare company that offers a host of SEO and online marketing professionals to optimize your website.
Contact Stepman's SEO today to learn how you can improve your website's performance: 215-900-9398.
Yes, a casual observer of search might view this report as mundane. After all, Google has noted before, as it does in these new notices, that "speed is a ranking factor for both desktop and mobile results."
For an SEO professional, though, news of this sort is never mundane. At the very least, this report reveals an ever-increasing emphasis on page speed--an emphasis that has evolved at least since Google's recent Speed Update.
In announcing this update, which applied "speed" as a ranking factor to mobile searches, Google wrote: "People want to...find answers to their questions as fast as possible."
More important, however, is what the emphasis on speed reveals about Google's evolving algorithms. Page speed, we know, is a fundamental element of user experience (UX), which many in the SEO world have cited as the emerging ranking factor.
So what is UX? And what does it have to do with SEO?
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| You shouldn't need a ridiculous stock photo to understand the importance of UX. But what is UX--and what does it have to do with SEO? |
What is User Experience (UX)?
Simply put, UX measures a browser's experience of your website. Google has placed increasing emphasis on user experience since the introduction of RankBrain, Google's new machine learning system, which uses artificial intelligence to measure "user intent."
Google's algorithm seems to be moving away from the old standards of ranking, notably links and keywords, to this new measure, which attempts to discern user satisfaction by following certain metrics, including organic CTR, pages per session, bounce rate, dwell time, as Search Engine Journal notes in its article about UX.
Essentially, these metrics attempt to answer several questions about a browser's experience of a website:
Did the browser click your link from the SERP?
A website's organic CTR (click through rate) is a good initial measure of whether a search result satisfies a browser's query.
Did the browser click on multiple pages?
More pages per session means more engaged browsers.
Did the browser click on one page and "bounce" away?
When a browser "bounces" away from your site after only one click, you will have a higher bounce rate, a sign that your content, or some other aspect of the "experience" is not satisfying browsers.
Did the browser spend a significant amount of time on your site?
A browser's dwell time, the total time spent on the site, from the first click before returning to the SERP, can be a sign that a browser is satisfied with a website's content or experience.
Read: "How to Analyze Three Key Website Data Points to Improve SEO"
All of these elements, which can be improved by design, development, and content teams, signal a quality UX. Imagine a browser excitedly clicking on your site, exploring several pages, moving from one page to the next with ease, before completing an action on your site.
This is what Google is looking for--and what you should provide, if you want to satisfy Google and your browsers. This is the new search paradigm.
UX and SEO
For some reason, many SEO publications make an arbitrary distinction between UX and SEO, as if the two defined entirely different disciplines. For example, Search Engine journal makes the distinction, even though it admits the two share a common goal:
"Both share the goal of helping users to complete their tasks by providing them with relevant information. SEO will lead a person to the content they need, and the UX answers their queries once a user ends up on the webpage."
In reality, what this quote is describing involves an interplay of many different disciplines, including SEO, content marketing, and on-site optimization, all of which another firm might simply call "online marketing" or "digital marketing."
The distinctions not withstanding, a simple view of the relationship between the two is that SEO leads a visitor to your site and UX keeps them there.
Optimize User Experience With Stepman's SEO!
To build an effective, fully-optimized website, you need a web design and development company that understands both UX and SEO.
Stepman's SEO is the rare company that offers a host of SEO and online marketing professionals to optimize your website.
Contact Stepman's SEO today to learn how you can improve your website's performance: 215-900-9398.