How Great UX Can Help You in Nailing Your Organic Marketing Game
Google is the go-to source for almost everything and everyone. As per an estimation by Hubspot, Google processes approximately 5.6 billion searches per day. That’s a huge number! The question is, how does google process these searches.
Let us assume that I have searched for “The Best Fast Food Restaurant near me”. There might be plenty of Fast Food Restaurants near my location.
- So what does a restaurant owner or restaurant’s marketing team supposed to do to get highlighted in the Top 10 Search Results?
- How does Google decide what to put on top and what not?
- What elements influence Search Engines like Google to list down the best restaurants?
There are well-calculated smart algorithms for displaying search results on Google. The Algorithm comprehends several factors while displaying search results.
- Google’s latest Algorithm, Page Experience considers overall page user experience(UX).
- Along with excellent content, a user-centric page experience is going to play a vital role from now onwards.
- This latest update will roll out completely by August end 2021.
So what is this latest update in a nutshell? This update involves previous factors like Core Web Vitals and Content, but in addition, what plays an important role here is the overall User Interface and User Experience(UX). That means, if you want to get your web pages to hold top rank on search results, you must focus on User Experience. While users land on your page, what do they feel about your products/services, what actions do they take on your page, how much time do they spend on the pages; everything depends on the Design.
“Design is not about ‘how it looks’ but about ‘how it works’.”
– Steve Jobs
Gone are the days when businesses created websites to display business information and contact details. Be it services or products, businesses are optimizing the usage of websites to boost online sales. To do so, having an excellent and smartly designed UX can now help you rank your business website or online store better; that too organically!
Stuffing keywords in your content is no more sufficient to outrank your competitors. It is high time businesses understand that Digital Marketing is closely associated with User Experience. As per a report, more than 40% of your company’s revenue can be generated from Organic Traffic. To enrich Organic SEO activities, companies must understand that offering an excellent user experience is equally crucial.
Did you know that 74% of visitors are likely to come back to your website if they have a good mobile user experience? Also, if your website requires more than 3 seconds to load, there are higher chances that users will turn to other websites. Since these statistics have already proven how vital UX is, Google’s latest Algorithm update speaks louder about the importance of optimized UX.
It involves the following primary factors-
- Core Web Vitals- Core Web Vitals uses user-centered metrics to offer scores to your web pages on the basis of load time, interactivity, & visual stability.
- Mobile Usability- A website must perform excellently on all devices including mobiles and deliver a seamless experience on each platform.
- Safe Browsing- Google has always prioritized security concerns. Make sure your website doesn’t have security glitches and is served over HTTPS for secured transactions.
- Ad Experience- Though ad displays generate great profits, the best practice is not to use ad techniques that are interrupting a good user experience.
Let’s discuss the integration of Google algorithm and UX in-depth to help you rank better as well as convert visitors into customers.
How UX Design Influences Your SEO Plans:
Let’s check out how a well-structured UX can help you boost your ranking and help your SEO team generate more leads in less time.
1. Users Love Quick Responses:
Did you know Website Conversion Rates drop by an average of 4.42% for every extra second of load time?
Users tend to retain longer and get converted if the overall user experience is responsive in a super quick way.
Google’s standardized metrics help website developers and marketers understand how users experience the website and analyze the progress of SEO. We have explained the three vital metrics called Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, & Cumulative Layout Shift in detail below.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)-
Largest Contentful Paint measures the time a website takes to show the user the largest content on the screen which can be a Hero image or carousel of photos. Google recommends that the largest content should load within 2.5 seconds. As per research in 2020, 47% of websites had an LCP score of greater than 2.5 seconds. To improve LCP, optimizing the media is crucial.
First Input Delay (FID)-
You can add various interactive elements to the page to engage users more. Even if users are interacting with the web pages, is your page able to respond quickly? This is exactly what FID captures.
FID is nothing but the time required for your site to respond to the user’s interactive actions. Let’s take an example here- You land on an e-commerce website to search for tennis shoes. When you click on the search button, the time required to list down the 1st page of tennis shoe products is the FID. It is recommended to have an FID of less than 100 milliseconds. Maintaining the standard FID is crucial for a website’s better performance.
Cumulative Layout Shift-
Shifting of web page elements while the page is still downloading is called Cumulative Layout Shift. Let us break it down in an easy manner with an example. Have you ever noticed that the content, images, and even ads change their positions while the page is loading? Have you ever accidentally clicked on an ad while you were trying to click on some button but due to a sudden layout change on the page, the ad appeared at the place of the button? This is called Cumulative Layout Shift. It is recommended to maintain low CLS for a delightful user experience. An excellent-performing website should maintain a CLS of less than 0.1.
The above image of tribed.me, a Digital Business Card platform indicates its excellent performance with 0.028 CLS, 0.9 seconds speed index, etc.
2. An UX Design That Is Relatable:
Attracting quality traffic through organic campaigns like blogs and social media or ads requires connectivity between audience and brand. Similarly, every UX design has to be relatable and generate a sense of connectivity. Any user landing on your page is going to expect something from it and that is where a perfectly designed & connecting UX design plays a vital role.
For instance, an online store of a leading premium food brand selling authentic mangoes here has a strategically designed user experience where not only users get a feel of landing on a Mango Online Store but also get a clear path to order the mangoes right away.
3. Highlight What’s Important:
A good UX must allow users to quickly take action that leads to the ultimate business goal. Be it fetching user’s information or motivating them to purchase your product/service, the basic requirement here is to put the spotlight right on the vital element. It can be a Subscribe button, a Buy Now button, or a Download button.
For instance, the following image of a web page of an e-commerce website shows how strategically the vital elements of the page have been highlighted and are easy to access.
Another important aspect to consider while highlighting important elements is to make sure no other elements are affecting the highlighted content.
Let’s take an example here. Imagine you are reading a nice article or going through some product description on an e-commerce site and suddenly an ad pops up and blocks the whole screen. That’s certainly not a great Ad Experience.
If your web page displays ads, make sure the Ad Experience is up to the mark and not causing any sort of interruption or distraction to the visitors while accessing the content.
4. Optimized for Mobile access:
As per a report, 4.66 Billion people were active mobile internet users in October 2020. This stat is enough to estimate how widely people are using mobile devices to browse or to order anything online. Right from Uber to Amazon, every giant has been optimizing its mobile accessibility. In Digital Marketing, Google pays special attention to mobile-friendly websites and boosts their ranking.
The above example of a High-Performance Vehicle Simulation Software Company offers equal experiences on websites as well as mobile devices.
5. Safe Browsing:
Along with great experience, it is equally important to consider the safety of user’s data. Every website interacts with users in one way or another. This data can be the user’s details, transaction information, or browsing history; and needs to be protected.
Make sure you shift from HTTP to HTTPS where S stands for Security. Websites served over HTTPS offer Encryption where user’s activity cannot be tracked, prevent files with Data Integrity, and Authentication protect against attacks.
6. Actionable UX:
Give them an easy route to reach the destination i.e. encourage them to take an action that will benefit users and your business as well. A systematic UX design with apt options, clear message, and unexcelled ease can improve your ranking as well as allow users to retain longer. Check out the following example.
Everything vital has been kept handy in this mobile app. The user gets to book the carpet cleaning appointment right away, can easily access important information such as the cleaning process, and also can select from different packages. This well-strategized UX design by PugMarker allows users to take actions in mere seconds. Here users are able to reach their destination with minimum clicks. In a nutshell, design a UX where the path is easy, smooth, and requires minimal clicks.
7. Keep it Interactive:
People love to interact online! Be it with other people or with websites/web apps. It is therefore very crucial to understand what they would like to answer, what should be asked, how it should be showcased in a way to get maximum answers, and much more. Interacting is not always about filling in forms; businesses can do something creative that will not only get the conversation to the expected destination but also leave a good impression on users. One amazing example of this is MangoMania by Devgad Mango.
The game encourages users to buy mangoes in a unique way with a good discount. Who doesn’t like to play a small interesting game to earn some discount points? That’s simple, crisp, unique, & creative!
Conclusion:
Though each UX factor explained above contributes to a better ranking, few factors are still on top along with great UX. The important one is Content. A site with great content is still potential to win the SEO race.
So if you are wondering why your website is not getting a good place on the 1st page of Google despite regular content sharing and traditional SEO practices, exceptional UX is what might be missing.