UX, or user experience, is more than just making a website look pretty. It is about enhancing the way in which users interact with a website to make the experience more streamlined, easier and more more memorable to users, which is also important for conversions.
SEO, or search engine optimisation, is the practice of improving a website through various methods to rank better on search engines, hence bringing in more website traffic and clicks.
One of the methods of achieving SEO is improving UX. Here are some ways in which the two are interrelated:
-
Responsive sizing and mobile friendly web pages - ensuring that websites fit nicely to different screen sizes is used by search engines in their ranking algorithms
-
UX copywriting - guides the user in an intuitive way on how to achieve an intended outcome
-
Good UX keeps users on the site for longer - this increases dwell time, pages per session and other metrics used by search engine ranking algorithms
-
Page load time, page speed and other such efficiency metrics also help with higher search engine ranking - this is achieved through UX which reduces the number of components in a page, hence less components need to be downloaded from the servers
-
Simplifying site navigation - Hick’s Law says that more time is needed to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices, so by simplifying the choices, users can go through more pages of the site
-
Aesthetic-Usability Effect - this effect says that users who perceive designs as more aesthetic, are more intuitive than less aesthetic designs; again this brings in more web traffic and user retention, which is favoured by search engine ranking algorithms