“User experience is like a joke; if you have to explain it, it’s a bad one” This commonly traded adage cuts to the heart of the matter. Good user experience (UX design) and user interface (UI design) should glide by undetected, seamlessly guiding the consumer toward a goal – whether it’s dwell time, repeat visits, or a sale.
At the end of the day, that’s what all hard-working website owners want. If your website is investing in the latest SEO tactics, you’re probably trying to attract as many visitors as possible. However, no matter how many eyeballs you can bring to the party, no one’s going to stay on your website unless it has a fluid design.
While plugging certain keywords into the copy on your home page and getting backlinks are important for search engine optimization, too many business owners drop the ball when it comes to web design.
No matter how skilled you are when it comes to SEO keyword research, meta descriptions and title tags, Google will only reward your efforts if people are actually spending quality time on your website. Google’s Page Experience Update makes this fact crystal clear.
The search company wants to keep its users happy by directing them to well-thought-out websites with relevant content. Think of them like a hotel manager; they want to satisfy their guests, creating repeat customers who book long stays. They don’t want a party of room-hopping, perpetually dissatisfied guests.
A good SEO consultant understands that. While UX/UI design may play a relatively minor role when you consider your SEO campaign as a whole, you still need to make sure you’re making your users feel welcome online by designing an attractive, easy-to-use website.
That means having a mobile version of your site, keeping your content organized and skimmable, adding visual media, and creating a straightforward menu or navigation system.
Not sure where to start? In this article, we take a look at all the ways UX design/UI design can affect your website’s search rankings.
Measuring Dwell Time
Long before the internet, brick and mortar stores realized a glaring truth: They didn’t just need foot traffic; they needed to keep people in the store. Keeping people shopping for longer led to higher sales, better opportunities for customer engagement, and a higher chance of drumming up loyalty by demonstrating value. They achieved this through improved wayfinding, traffic flow, attractive design features, interactive displays, and more.
Well… things didn’t change with the internet. They just adapted.
Now, we call this principle “dwell time,” referring to the amount of time a person spends on your website.
Beyond improving your ability to turn a sale, this dwell time affects your website’s search rankings. Dwell time can often get lumped in with some other important metrics like the bounce rate, the number of users that immediately click off your website after landing on a page, and the average duration of all user sessions.
As SEO expert Neil Patel writes, having a bounce rate of less than 40% will help you make the right impression on Google’s algorithm. This shows Google that over half of the people that visit your website are finding something of value, so Google will be more inclined to give your website a boost in its search rankings. (Curious about how your website fares? You can access all of this information using Google Analytics or your web host’s analytics data.)
So, how do you increase dwell time? Roughly the same way we’ve always kept customers around – engagement, value-adding, and encouragement. You can increase your dwell time by highlighting some of your most popular products on your homepage, writing valuable SEO content, embedding a video, or by using some high-quality imagery.
It’s also important to have a strong or call to action that encourages your users to follow through on their visit and dive deeper into the content on your site.
What does healthy dwell time look like? Generally, it’s best to shoot for a dwell time of about 2 minutes, but these rates will vary widely based on the services, content, and products your website provides.
Return Visitors
Google is also interested in measuring how many users are willing to return to your website.
Again, head over to your Google Analytics page (find the link above!). This time, check out the “Audience Overview” section and you’ll see how many new and returning visitors your site attracts over a certain period.
This is often considered the holy grail of website performance metrics. After all, if people are willing to come back to your website, you’re clearly doing something that people like. Of course, you need to focus on attracting new customers, but watching these metrics closely will give you valuable insight into what people think of your website.If it’s slow to load (a ranking factor in Google Core Web Vitals) or hard to navigate (another common UX/UI issue), you can bet most of your visitors won’t be back for a second helping.
If you run more of a content-publishing website, the majority of your visitors will probably be paying or returning customers looking to get their daily dose of news. However, if you run an ecommerce website, only a fraction of your visitors will be returning.
To offer a reference point, HubSpot tells us that around 15% of your users should be returning. Even if many of these visitors aren’t buying anything, you’ll be making the right impression on Google by showing them that your website has something of value.
You can encourage more people to return to your website by getting in the habit of updating your content on a regular basis. This is also one of Google’s ranking factors, so make sure that your website always has something new to offer, whether it’s a new product, a special discount, or a rich library of user-generated content.
Other UI and UX design for SEO improvements that clearly impact return visitation include:
- Responsive Design: Ensures optimal viewing on all devices, enhancing user experience across desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
- Fast Loading Speed: Reduces bounce rate with quick load times, keeping users engaged and improving overall satisfaction. Read more about SEO site speed optimization at our link.
- Intuitive Navigation: Simplifies the user journey with clear menus and logical layout, making it easy for users to find what they need.
- Clear Calls-to-Action: Guides users with prominent buttons and links, encouraging engagement and conversion.
- Accessible Design: Ensures usability for all, including disabled users, making the website inclusive and compliant with accessibility standards.
Using Website Analytics
Now that you know which website analytics to pay attention to, it’s time to start using this information to your advantage.
If you’re unimpressed with your website’s current search rankings, try reorganizing the content on your website until your performance metrics improve. You can try experimenting with different layouts and organizational features and see how these changes affect your metrics.
You might get more traffic, a lower bounce rate, or more return visitors by adding a snappy video that clearly explains the products and services you offer, creating a poll or a questionnaire, or by simplifying the structure of your site.
According to a new study by Backlinko, adding just one image to a web page can dramatically improve its search rankings. But don’t overwhelm your users with images and other visual content. There is no evidence to support that adding more than one image to a web page will increase traffic or search rankings. It’s all about finding the right balance between your content, visual media, and the products and services you want to sell.
Remember to use Google Analytics and all your website performance data in conjunction with your SEO campaign.Keep focusing on all those SEO tactics, but remember to update your website’s content regularly, use a familiar website layout, speed up your wordpress site, and feature a compelling call to action. If need be, partner with a reputable UI UX designer to determine areas for improvement. Start looking at your website in its entirety and your users will be impressed every time. It’ll be like telling a solid joke to a roomful of laughs – effortless, engaging, and leaving them wanting more.
