• Introduction
• Bounce Rates and Dwell Time
• Mobile Optimization
• Page Speed and SEO
• Content Accessibility
• Clear Navigation and Internal Linking
• Structured Data Markup
• Practical Tips for Optimizing UX for SEO
• Conclusion

User experience and search engine optimization are often treated as separate elements of web development. There’s a reason why we get our SEO team involved in the early stages of designing a new website. UX without SEO isn’t just peanut butter without jelly – it’s more like peanut butter and jelly without the bread.

Let’s explore some reasons why UX and SEO are both necessary ingredients to a healthy and effective web design.

Bounce Rates and Dwell Time

High bounce rates are typically seen as a negative signal by search engines. 

Dwell time, on the other hand, is the length of time a visitor spends on your website. A longer dwell time is often associated with a better user experience.

How UX Can Make Bounce Rates Better and Increase Dwell Time

A well-designed, user-friendly website with relevant and engaging content tends to have lower bounce rates and longer dwell times. When users find what they’re looking for easily and enjoy their visit, they are more likely to stay on the site. 

This positive engagement signals to search engines that your website is a valuable resource, potentially improving your SEO rankings.

Mobile Optimization

In the age of smartphones and tablets, mobile optimization is no longer optional. 

Google, in particular, places a strong emphasis on mobile-friendly websites. This emphasis is reflected in its mobile-first indexing approach, where the mobile version of a site is considered the primary one for ranking and indexing.

How UX Improves Mobile Experiences

A mobile-friendly, responsive design ensures that your website adapts seamlessly to various screen sizes. When users can easily navigate and read your content on their mobile devices, it contributes to a positive UX. 

Google rewards mobile-optimized sites with better rankings in mobile search results, making mobile UX a critical element of SEO.

Page Speed and SEO

Page speed is a critical factor in both UX and SEO. Slow-loading websites frustrate users and can lead to higher bounce rates. Additionally, Google has explicitly stated that page speed is a ranking factor in its algorithm.

Why UX Matters for Page Speed and SEO

A well-designed website includes practices for optimizing page speed. This might involve compressing images, reducing unnecessary code, leveraging browser caching, and more. 

Faster-loading pages provide a smoother and more satisfying user experience, encouraging users to stay longer and explore more. Faster sites almost always perform better in search engine rankings.

Content Accessibility

Inclusive web design is not only a matter of ethics but also impacts SEO. Part of creating an accessible website is ensuring that your content is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. 

This includes factors like using appropriate font sizes, color contrasts, and providing alt text for images. 

Why UX Matters for Accessibility 

An accessible web design is user-centric by nature. It ensures that all users, regardless of their abilities, can access and understand your content. This positively impacts UX by making your site more user-friendly. 

Furthermore, accessibility improvements are often seen positively by search engines, potentially leading to better SEO rankings.

Clear Navigation and Internal Linking

Navigation and internal linking are fundamental aspects of both UX and SEO. 

Clear navigation ensures that users can easily find the information they seek, while strategic internal linking guides users to related content on your site.

How UX Helps with Navigation

User-friendly navigation and logical internal linking structures contribute to an intuitive and seamless user experience. Users can explore your site effortlessly, and this positive interaction is noted by search engines. 

When users can find what they need with ease, it reduces bounce rates and improves SEO rankings.

Structured Data Markup

Structured data markup is a technical aspect of web design that involves adding specific code to your web pages to help search engines understand the content better. This structured data can enable search engines to display rich snippets in search results, providing users with more context about your content.

How UX Can Aid Structure

Structured data markup enhances the visibility and understandability of your content in search results. Rich snippets, which often include ratings, prices, and other details, can make your listings more attractive to users. 

This can lead to higher click-through rates (CTR) and improved SEO performance.

Practical Tips for Optimizing UX for SEO

Now that we’ve explored the various ways in which UX influences SEO, let’s get into some practical tips to enhance user experience and, consequently, improve search engine rankings:

Tip 1: Prioritize Mobile Optimization

•   Ensure your website is responsive and mobile-friendly.

•   Test your site’s mobile experience regularly to guarantee that it remains user-friendly.

Tip 2: Optimize Page Speed

•   Regularly audit and optimize your website for faster page loading.

•   Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to identify and resolve performance issues.

Tip 3: Focus on Accessibility

•   Use proper color contrast and provide alt text for images to enhance accessibility.

•   Consider adopting accessibility guidelines such as WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).

Tip 4: Streamline Navigation

•   Create a clear and intuitive navigation menu.

•   Ensure that users can easily find their way to the most important content on your site.

Tip 5: Utilize Structured Data

•   Implement structured data markup to provide search engines with more information about your content.

•   Monitor your rich snippets in search results and refine them as needed.

Tip 6: A/B Testing

•   Conduct A/B tests to identify design changes that positively impact both UX and SEO.

•   Continuously refine your website based on user feedback and performance data.

Tip 7: Quality Content

•   Always prioritize high-quality, informative, and engaging content.

•   Content is at the heart of both UX and SEO success.

Conclusion

The worlds of web design, UX, and SEO are dynamic. one, The balance between user experience and search engine optimization plays a crucial role in determining the success of a website. 

The two are inextricably linked, and making your site more user-friendly often results in better SEO performance.

By reducing bounce rates, improving mobile optimization, increasing page speed, ensuring content accessibility, creating clear navigation, and implementing structured data markup, you can enhance your website’s UX and SEO simultaneously. 

By consistently testing and optimizing your site based on user feedback and performance data, you can further refine the user experience and positively impact SEO rankings.

Interested in having a conversation with an agency fully equipped to help you navigate updating your UX with confidence? Contact us to schedule a consultation.

Key Takeaways

• Unified Approach: User experience (UX) and search engine optimization (SEO) should be integrated from the early stages of web development for maximum effectiveness.
• Bounce Rates and Dwell Time: Enhancing UX can lead to lower bounce rates and longer dwell times, signaling to search engines the value and relevance of a website.
• Mobile Optimization Priority: In today’s digital landscape, having a mobile-optimized website is crucial for SEO, especially with Google’s mobile-first indexing.
• Page Speed’s Dual Impact: Fast-loading websites contribute to a better user experience and are favored by search engines, making page speed optimization a key factor for both UX and SEO.
• Accessibility Enhances SEO: Creating an accessible website not only adheres to ethical standards but also positively influences SEO.
• Navigation and Linking: Clear and user-friendly navigation and internal linking improve the user experience, encouraging longer visits and potentially boosting SEO rankings.
• Structured Data’s Role: Implementing structured data markup helps search engines understand website content better, potentially leading to improved search rankings and visibility.
• Practical Optimization Tips: Regular actions such as prioritizing mobile optimization, focusing on accessibility, streamlining navigation, and utilizing structured data are essential for enhancing both UX and SEO.
• Content is King: High-quality, engaging content remains central to both UX and SEO success, underscoring the importance of content in web design strategies.
• Continuous Improvement: Regular testing and refinement based on user feedback and performance data are crucial for maintaining and improving the balance between UX and SEO.

The post The Impact of User Experience on SEO appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

You should always examine whether downloading another social media app will improve your quality of life. But if you’re already using Google Chrome and want to improve your efficiency with scaling your results in SEO, there are so many extensions that actually can make life a little easier.

Why Use Google Chrome?

From cars to soft drinks, to operating systems, it’s all a matter of preference. You don’t have to love using Google Chrome as your desktop browser of choice, but most of us rely on it regularly for ease of use, speed, and integration with other Google services. And if you wear multiple hats working in SEO and PPC, some services only work with Google Chrome.

Another reason we like to use Chrome is the ever-expanding list of extensions available on the browser. Like little apps that integrate with Chrome, extensions can save time and make life working on SEO that much better. Search engine optimization has multiple facets to consider with regards to content optimization, design issues, and content distribution. Another great bonus to using Google Chrome is its availability across all platforms — even mobile! Most extensions that work on your PC will work on your Mac, too.

For those of you sticking to your guns with other browsers, fear not! Many of these tools are not specific to Google Chrome. Given the choice, some of these extensions are absolute must-haves. We asked some of our very own SEO experts to weigh in with their favorites, too.

The 11 Best SEO Chrome Extensions (Hand Picked By The Team At DOM)

1. Grammarly

This one comes to us from SEO expert and DOM star Jonathan Bentz, and we couldn’t agree more. Wait, no, we can agree more! Grammarly is great because it won’t try to change your voice (like Microsoft Word’s grammar suggestions often do), it just makes sure you’re using the correct forms of verbs, and your, commas, are, in the right, place (Grammarly hates misplaced commas).

2. MozBar

Moz is without a doubt one of the industry leaders in search marketing, so it’s no surprise that they have one of the most popular extensions for Google Chrome. This tool packs in a whole ton of features, but the best part about this helpful tool is the ability to look at specific pages and scan on-page elements to easily locate meta titles and descriptions, as well as instances of H1 tags.

3. BuiltWith Technology Profiler

Part of SEO is evaluating technical issues and challenges that may directly impact ranking in search engines, but also to hopefully improve user experience as well. BuiltWith will analyze what technology a site is built on to help designers and developers decide what technology they themselves will want to implement. Often times, this will come in handy during initial site evaluations and strategies for site redesigns.

4. Link Checker

SEO expert and DOM hero Steph Mahnken loves Link Checker, and with good reason — it does exactly what it says on the label: it checks links. There aren’t many more frustrating things for a visitor to your website than links that don’t go anywhere. This extension saves you the time and effort of clicking through every single link on a page to make sure they go where they’re supposed to.

5. The Great Suspender

Here’s another recommendation from Jonathan Bentz, an extension that helps you manage all those open tabs! If you’re like us, you always have a bunch more tabs open than you need at the current moment. You’ll need them eventually, just not now, so you want to keep them open. But Chrome doesn’t know which ones you’ll need when, so it keeps them all chugging along even when you have no plans to go back to that SEMRush tab until this afternoon. The Great Suspender will suspend tabs you haven’t used in a while so that memory can be put to better use refreshing Facebook every five minutes.

6. Ubersuggest

DOM Digital Marketing Coordinator Michael DelloRusso gives his vote to this extension, which lives right next to your Google results and gives you all the relevant SEO data you need in order to make the best decisions. You can get an immediate glimpse of everything from search volume to keyword suggestions. This comes from SEO legend Neil Patel, so you know you’re getting something valuable.

7. Spark Content Optimizer

This suggestion comes from DOM Digital Marketing Account Manager Dana Schumacher, who counts it as one of her favorites. Spark Content Optimizer is a free extension that gives you on-the-fly site tech audits and backlinks information, two incredibly important aspects of any SEO strategy.

8. ColorZilla

Although more of an extension for a designer, ColorZilla can still be useful. When creating new content or new pages, it’s always important to ensure that colors are consistent with respect to branding. If it doesn’t look right, it’s better to be safe than sorry and make sure the colors are correct.

9. Buffer

Social media management tools come in all shapes and sizes. Buffer is definitely one of the top tools to consider, but it should be noted that other similar services have their own extensions available for Chrome with nearly identical functionality. When it comes to promotion and distribution of content, scheduling posts through tools like Buffer can certainly help. Not only can you share your own content, but any page that might be relevant or useful to followers can also be shared directly to your platforms by using this extension.

PRO TIP: If you’re always questioning the best hashtags to be using with your different platforms, the RiteTag extension can be integrated with Buffer to help you pick the right ones.

10. Note Anywhere

If you’re actively engaged in improving SEO and design, you’re more than likely visiting different pages multiple times in just a single day. While there are tons of extensions like Note Anywhere, we suggest trying out a couple to find one that works for you. This extension is easy to use to leave yourself notes when you’re visiting pages over and over. With timestamping, this extension can help you understand progress or simply jog your memory.

11. Email Finder – AeroLeads

AeroLeads is a data mining tool that lets you find email addresses of decision-makers and phone numbers of businesses from its database. This lead generation tool can also work well to assist you in your link building efforts, since you can extract real-time contact information from any leads and prospects, including organizational details and contact data.

While you can use it for free, to truly unlock its potential you need to use the premium version. Pricing starts at $49 per month.

Don’t Shy Away from Experimenting with the Best SEO Chrome Extensions

Are these extensions going to make you an SEO superstar and make you rank number 1 in Google for every keyword that you want?

Probably not.

But if you’re committed and willing to put in the work, these extensions can really help.

As always, DOM is here to help you through every step of your SEO journey — just get in touch!

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as a Google Partner Agency before you reach out.

The post Our 11 Favorite Google Chrome Extensions for SEO (Updated July 2020) appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.