In designing and building a relevant and effective website, SEO and UX Design are two factors to consider. The user experience (UX) has an impact on the natural referencing (SEO), hence the need to combine them to benefit from a successful site. The combination of SEO and UX is possible and is even a reality since it has led to the creation of the SXO concept. However, several parameters must be taken into account for this combination to work. Here are some principles to adopt.
CREATE A WEBSITE WITH A GOOD DESIGN
One of the most important points in the development of a good SXO strategy applies to the care taken when creating a website: UI Design and graphic design. The design of the site must be carefully thought out in order to quickly capture the attention of visitors. From the appearance of your site, you can stand out from your competitors. Work must be done so that you benefit from a modern design and especially responsive because the display on mobile is a criterion taken into account by Google to rank the site. Thus, you will increase the retention of Internet users on your site, which will result in increasing the volume of pages visited. It is now accepted that the time spent on the site or on a page or the number of pages viewed are criteria for ranking in the results of the search page.
STRUCTURE YOUR SITE WELL TO GUARANTEE A SMOOTH NAVIGATION
One of the consequences of UX being compatible with SEO is the perfect structuring of the site. And this has the advantage of guaranteeing a fluid navigation. When a user visits a site, he always has a specific need that must be satisfied. It is therefore important to structure the landing page well so that the information the visitor is looking for is easy to access. This requires the consideration of different graphical aspects and the need to make choices both in terms of UX and SEO. For example, it is good to define menu entries in order to promote a fluid navigation. Also, the structure should not neglect the headings, the filling of meta tags of pages and ALT attributes of images etc.. It is also interesting to plan relevant call-to-actions that will push the user to act. A well-structured website has a positive effect on the user experience and generates a satisfactory bounce rate.
CONDUCT A KEYWORD STUDY TO CREATE QUALITY CONTENT
In the SXO strategy, special efforts must be made in natural referencing. To this end, it is necessary to conduct a keyword study to create quality content. The goal is to find the precise expressions on which you will position yourself. If the keywords you have selected are well inserted in your pages, you can do netlinking, a process that consists of creating external hyperlinks redirecting to your site. You will inevitably benefit from this since your pages will be well positioned on search engines and your visitors will benefit from a pleasant and simplified user experience.
OPTIMIZE SITE SPEED
The performance of your site will be considerably affected if the loading speed of your site leaves something to be desired. Nowadays, Internet users have no time to waste and want to access the content they are looking for quickly. If your site takes forever to load, it is clear that your potential visitors will go elsewhere. Some work is therefore necessary to optimize its loading speed. One of the best ways to do this is to remove any element that could make your landing pages heavy. This will help you limit the bounce rate. There are very useful tools to identify the disruptive elements of your site. This is the case of Google’s online PageSpeed Insight tool which is ideal for targeting problems that may limit the loading speed of your pages. Note that the weight of images is very often at fault. If your site hosts too many images, which are also too heavy, its loading will obviously be slowed down. Thanks to compression tools, you can reduce their weight.
OPTIMIZE THE MOBILE VERSION OF YOUR SITE
Today, it is a mistake to limit the combination of UX and SEO to desktop browsing. Your strategy can and should take into account the use of the Internet on mobile devices. This is a requirement since Internet users use more a smartphone or a tablet to do their research. You must therefore think about the mobile version of your site and especially what to do to optimize it. The exploitation of mobile devices is desirable in order to improve the UX. To do so, it is necessary to propose content that will adapt to the mobile version. It is especially important to fluidify and lighten this content, without however relegating the appearance to the background.
EXPLOIT SOCIAL NETWORKS
Another good idea in the implementation of a successful SXO strategy is the use of social networks. By doing so, you increase your chances of reaching consumers and building a good relationship with them. Social networks have the advantage of increasing traffic. Since the signals they emit are taken into account by search engines, it is very important to give them a special place in your SEO process. The main recommendation is to make sure that your social network account redirects users to the homepage of your website. If you offer products or services, it would be good to ensure that redirects are made to your offer.
MONITOR PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPIS)
A lot of effort goes into developing an excellent SXO strategy. If you want to be able to intervene quickly when something is not working, you need to monitor performance indicators. Numerical data about the functioning of your site should be sought. This can be done using tools such as Google Analytics or Google Search Console, but also ranking analysis tools. You can use them to analyze different dimensions related to the way users interact on your site. For example, you can look at loading times, which pages users visit the most, bounce rate and conversion rate. By monitoring your site’s metrics, you’ll be fully aware of what users are doing and what actions you can take to ensure their full satisfaction.
