Search engines endeavor to develop their performance level by delivering excellent results. Search engines also hold an archetype of the kinds of websites and web pages which best meet their searchers needs. The best sites share many common characteristics. They are simple to use, understand and navigate; they offer valuable information related to the query; and they deliver better quality, authentic content.

With the purpose of interpreting and ranking content for overall end-user value, search engines depend on the meta-information about the way readers interact with the various sites in the database, as well as the theoretical quality of the content itself. Thus, user experience and content quality have a large impact on your SEO attempts.

Enlarging Your SEO Thinking

Your thinking should transcend title tags and keyword research, and you should consider every element of every page on your domain from the point of view and interests of your prospective users.

You should know what your customers are looking to get from your website. What are the products they’re interested in buying, or the services they are in need of? You can also do a survey of your loyal users to get a real feedback.

These questions will help you to mold your business better and build customer trust, as well.

Impact of User Experience on SEO Rankings

Search engines can take into consideration any number of variables, involving links, keywords, and website structure. Search engines, through evaluating user engagement, machine learning, linking patterns, and other factors, discern a significant number of insights about a particular website.

User experience has a significant influence on a site’s rankings. Evidence of good user experience (low bounce rate, greater time spent on page, etc.) offers a clear advantage to the relative popularity of a website which is then analyzed by search engines as an indicator of a higher quality standard.

When user experience implemented thoughtfully, this your site visitors will appreciate it. Their satisfaction will thereby translate to shares on social media, bookmarking, inbound link-building,  and more return visits. These points all contribute to higher rankings.

Quality Content Signals

  • Machine Learning: Google integrated machine learning algorithms to emulate and predict human responses. When those algorithms were able to accurately identify lower quality websites, the algorithms were unleashed throughout the millions of websites across the internet. It was a seismic move which ultimately reordered over 25 percent of Google’s search results.
  • Engagement Metrics: When a search engine delivers a page of results, it can assess the success of its rank order by tracking a user’s interaction path through those results. If a user clicks on the first link, and then returns to try out the second or third link, it indicates that the first result likely didn’t get the job done. In this way, as more and more users engage with different web links placed on the search engine results pages, search engines have the capacity to judge the relative qualities of their results.
  • Linking Patterns: In the 1990s, it was understood that high-quality websites and their information received more backlinks than their lower-quality peers. In today’s time, link analysis algorithms have progressed hugely, but the size and authority of a site’s link network is still a major factor for rank order.

Creating Effective Content for SEO Success

The best practices for SEO always recommend building up amazing content. Valuable, attractive content is essential to SEO. All the searches queried on search engines approach with a core intention: to search, find, learn, gain know-how, understand, solve, fix, treat, or buy.

The search engine then ranks web pages in the results to answer those purposes most directly or efficiently. Those sites that offer content that meet the requirements of searchers are more likely to get top rankings.

Search Intent Enrichment

  • Navigational Searches: to source a particular URL, or visit a pre-decided destination. These searches are executed with a purpose of navigating to a definite website straight away. In few cases, users may not be aware of a precise URL, and the search engine tries to find a URL of best fit.
  • Transactional Searches: to connect with a local business, complete a task, or make an online purchase. These searches do not include wire transfer or credit card transactions. Transactional queries, rather, might include opening a Gmail account, signing up for a free trial account at Cook’s Illustrated, or discovering the best local Mexican cuisine.  
  • Informational Searches: to research for information or data, or get quick answers to a particular question. These searches include a wide variation of possible interrogative needs, from searching local weather to acquiring maps or directions or asking academic questions. The general understanding is that these searches are non-transactional and non-commercial-oriented in nature. Accurate information is the key target.

How you produce content to meet these intentions depends on you. High-quality writings, innovation, insertion of images and multimedia, and use of demonstrative examples can assist in creating content which meet a user’s needs.

You’ll know you will have done your job properly when satisfied users share or link to your content, and when their user experience has been a positive one.

I Hope you have developed a better understanding of why user experience and the quality of your content have such a huge impact on SEO! Hence, be sure to follow the above points on your own website to help it rank higher on search engines. This will also help you to gain more recognition, visibility, and traffic flow and to increase your sales.

About the Author:

Neil Helson is the marketing manager at Blurbpoint Media, SEO and digital marketing company. Neil is passionate in helping small businesses and startups grow online.

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