Getting into Page 1 of Google is not easy. You need to understand each and every aspect of SEO to figure out what works and what’s not. Once you are aware of the factors that Google algorithm considers while ranking a website, it will become much easier for you to dominate the search results.
User experience is one such ranking factor which should be perfected in order to achieve higher rankings and organic leads for your business.
SEO is one of the best ways to market your business on Google. User Experience is an important aspect of SEO which should not be ignored because it directly impacts the rankings.
Google promotes sites in the search results that offer a better user experience. Let’s understand what is user experience and how we can use it to boost our SEO efforts.
What is UX?
UX stands for user experience. It is the process of enhancing the user satisfaction by creating relevant and meaningful experience to users. It reflects the attitude and emotions of people about a product, service or a business in general.
How To Improve UX?
Here are the top 4 ways to improve UX:
1- Keep An Eye On The Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is a measure of the percentage of people who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page. If the bounce rate of a website is on the higher side then it represents user dissatisfaction. High bounce rate indicates that people are unable to find a solution to their needs on your website.
You can check the overall bounce rate of your website under the Audience Overview report in Google Analytics.
Here are some ways through which you can improve the bounce rate of your site:
● Make sure the content on your site is based on the exact intent of the user. You should not confuse the user by offering too many solutions on a single page. Each page on your site must offer a single solution.
● Improve the loading time of your site because people hate to visit a site that is too slow to load.
● Avoid pop ups because it distracts the users.
● Remain true to your audience and attract the right visitors.
● Make sure your site is mobile friendly.
● Include a single and clear call to action on each page and keep a clean and effortless navigation.
2- Have a Big Search Bar
A search bar on your website is extremely important from customer point of view because it lets the users find exactly what they want.
Depending on the niche of your business, you can have a number of products, pages, links on your site but you can’t expect people to visit each one of them in order to find the product of their choice. An easier and better way is to offer a search bar where people can enter the product of their choice and navigate directly to the page which they desire.
Mercato, the online grocery delivery store does this perfectly on its website. It displays a big search bar right on top of the screen that always remain visible. Users can enter the product they are looking to order and press enter. They are navigated to the product page of their choice.
3- Leverage The Power of Chatbots
Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence is another great way to improve the user experience.
Having a chatbot on your site can help the user in the following ways:
● It assists the users 24x7 and has a positive impact on customer satisfaction.
● Customer engagement is increased.
● It can effectively respond to a person and help in generating leads.
● It provides instant customer support and provides data for better analysis of the customer needs.
The Insomnobot from Casper is a great example of a chatbot that drastically improves the user engagement on the website. This bot chats with the people at night when they just can’t sleep. Befriending a chatbot helps the users and the mattress selling company, Casper benefits by increasing its customer base. A win-win situation for all.
4- Get Rid of 404s
404 is an error message that is displayed by the browser when an internet address can’t be found.
404 errors can degrade the user experience and force the user to dump your website. You can find all the 404 pages on your site by going to the All Pages menu located under the Site Content menu in Google Analytics.
Here, you can apply a filter in order to see a list of 404 pages:
Once you are able to identify 404 errors, you can 301 redirect them to correct URLs or create a custom page that redirects the users by default to this page.
Final Thoughts
If you want to succeed in SEO then you definitely need to take care of user experience. Google has laid so much emphasis on UX that you can’t ignore the benefits of offering the best experience to your customers. Use the strategies discussed in this article to boost your SEO, generate leads and most importantly convert them for profits.