{"id":3652,"date":"2019-11-12T14:54:45","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T14:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.qualaroo.com\/?p=3652"},"modified":"2024-05-29T19:32:13","modified_gmt":"2024-05-29T19:32:13","slug":"the-ultimate-guide-to-seo-for-ux-designers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web-staging.qualaroo.com\/blog\/the-ultimate-guide-to-seo-for-ux-designers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ultimate Guide to SEO for UX Designers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post was written and contributed by Ryo Chiba<\/a> of Topic<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you know that UX designers have secret search engine optimization (SEO) superpowers? It\u2019s true! Unfortunately, most designers don\u2019t even know they have them, much less how to use them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This guide will teach you how to make the most of your UX skills to improve a site\u2019s SEO. We\u2019ll cover the basics of how search engines work, explain how UX and SEO are tied together, and share 5 concrete tactics for leveraging UX to improve a site\u2019s SEO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>How does UX affect SEO?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

User experience is all about creating a user-centric experience and optimizing how users interact with a site while avoiding confusion. Good UX enables users to easily find the information they are looking for. When users find what they are looking for quickly, they are more likely to keep reading and engaging with content. This improves user engagement metrics that Google\u2019s algorithm uses in ranking websites. That\u2019s why when you focus on creating a good UX, you\u2019ll see improvements in search rankings and traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To understand how important UX is to SEO, let\u2019s look at the most important factors that Google considers when choosing which links to show on the first page. Below are the results of an SEMrush study<\/a> that analyzed 600,000+ keywords to determine the importance of various ranking factors:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image\"\/<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The factors highlighted in blue (time on site, pages per session, and bounce rate) are directly tied to a user\u2019s experience on a page.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With UX-related factors in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place, the relationship between the two is clear. To understand why, let\u2019s get a high-level understanding of how search engines work and where these ranking factors come from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>What UX Designers Need to Know about SEO  <\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

* For the purposes of this guide I will be using \u201csearch engine\u201d and \u201cGoogle\u201d interchangeably with the understanding that there are many search engines in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s start by putting yourself in a search engine\u2019s shoes. As a search engine like Google, your goal is to deliver the information a searcher is looking for. The searcher\u2019s goal is called \u201csearch intent\u201d in SEO parlance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image2\"\/<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

If a searcher is looking for \u201chow to fix a toaster<\/em>\u201d, you would want to deliver the most comprehensive guide to fixing toasters. If instead, the search is for \u201cshowtimes near me<\/em>\u201d, that might be a list of movie times for local theaters. In another case, the searcher could ask, \u201chow tall is Obama?<\/em>\u201d and you would want to deliver a single definitive answer (6\u20191\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of these are different search intents<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge for search engines is matching the vast library of content on the web with these search intents. To do this, they load and keep a copy of nearly every page of every website through a process called \u201ccrawling\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then each page is evaluated based on different criteria, or ranking signals<\/strong> to figure out which content has the highest likelihood of satisfying the searcher\u2019s intent. These signals surface high-quality content and the very-best pages show up at the top of the search results. Google created a video to help make this process easier to understand:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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