The Alignment of SEO and Usability Thanh Nguyen Director, User Experience, BusinessOnline @bolteamu 2/8/2010 Ray Comstock Director, SEO, BusinessOnline @seocatfish
Oct 22, 2014
The Alignment of SEO and Usability
Thanh NguyenDirector, User Experience, BusinessOnline@bolteamu
2/8/2010
Ray ComstockDirector, SEO, BusinessOnline@seocatfish
Agenda
• Current state of SEO and Usability
• Top Usability + SEO Alignments
• Q & A
Thanh Nguyen
Education• Degree in Cognitive Science Specializing in
Human Computer Interaction
• Computer Science Degree
• HFI Certified – Featured C.U.A of the Month for April
Clients• Watkins, Zodiac, RailEurope, American Red
Cross, Sybase, Workday, PlayStation, ISBN, American Council on Exercise, Masco
Director, User
Experience
Ray Comstock
Experience• 13 Years of SEO Experience
• Blog Syndicated by WebProNews.com
• Writer for SearchEngineWatch.com
• Speaker at OMS, SES, Pubcon
Clients• Cisco, Sybase, Workday, Watkins,
Emerson, Masco, Lithium
Director, SEO
Current State of SEO and Usability
Mr. Client
“You say we need less text on the homepage and to use bullets.
Our SEO firm says we need more text on the homepage.
Who do we believe? How do we find the compromise between the two?”
Our Answer:
“If your SEO team is telling you to compromise Usability for the Search Engines…
your SEO team needs to be replaced.”
just kidding
sorta…
Real Answer
• Off page factors are becoming more crucial
– Social media
– Web 2.0
• Spiders follow user behaviors
– Semantic latent indexing
• Good SEO seldom compromises usability
Discovery
Keyword Research
User(screaming in horror at the
usability on your website)
Spider
(pretend it’s a search
engine)
SEO – Focusing on the
most important
keywords from a user
perspective drives the
most revenue from
search rankings
UX – Using keywordsthat resonate with your audience improves conversion, comprehension and is more likely to resonate with those users who are scanning copy
On-page
Page Titles
User(screaming in horror at the
usability on your website)
Spider
(pretend it’s a search
engine)
SEO
– Single most important on-page element because keywords that appear in these fields are thought to be good indicators of overall content relevance
UX
– When users have
windows open, need to
know which is which
– Especially important for
accessibility
Headings (H1, H2, etc.)
User(screaming in horror at the
usability on your website)
Spider
(pretend it’s a search
engine)
SEO
– Second most important
on-page criteria
– More weight
– Used to summarize
blocks of content
UX– Break up information into
meaningful chunks of information
– Speed scanning
– Searching and scanning behavior is exponential, not linear
Put Most Important Content
Above The Fold
User(screaming in horror at the
usability on your website)
Spider
(pretend it’s a search
engine)
SEO
– Some spiders have an
indexing limitation
– Text at top of page
given more weight
UX– Inverted pyramid writing style
– Conclusion first, then 1st supporting topic, 2nd supporting topic
– Users scan from top to bottom
– Increase chances of being scanned by user
Images Have Keyword Focused,
Descriptive Alt Tags
User(screaming in horror at the
usability on your website)
Spider
(pretend it’s a search
engine)
SEO
– Allows the search
engine to understand
what keyword phrases
the link is relevant for
UX– Allows users without
image viewing capability to understand what content the link points to
Provide Updated / New Content
User(screaming in horror at the
usability on your website)
Spider
(pretend it’s a search
engine)
SEO
– Provides new opportunities to target new keywords
– Extra page of internal links to boost internal link popularity
– Crawlers come back more often
UX
– Users have a reason to
come back to website
– Open up more
communication
channels with users
Sitewide
Make All PDF’s Available in
HTML Format
User(screaming in horror at the
usability on your website)
Spider
(pretend it’s a search
engine)
SEO
– More pages on your website
– Spiders currently cannot parse all content within PDF’s
– Losing link popularity
UX
– Users have a reason to
come back to website
– Open up more
communication
channels with users
Site Navigation Not Built With
Java Script or Flash
User(screaming in horror at the
usability on your website)
Spider
(pretend it’s a search
engine)
SEO
– Ensures that link metrics can be assigned correctly to each page of the Web site and that all pages on the Web site will be indexed
UX
– Ensures that people who do not have these technologies enabled in their browser will still be able to navigate the site and understand what the navigation is communicating
Off-page
Embed Keywords Into Links
User(screaming in horror at the
usability on your website)
Spider
(pretend it’s a search
engine)
SEO
– Increases internal link
relevancy
UX
– No need to read contextual information above or below link to obtain meaning
– Good for accessibility
Keyword Focused Breadcrumb
Navigation
User(screaming in horror at the
usability on your website)
Spider
(pretend it’s a search
engine)
SEO
– Automatically creates
keyword focused
internal link to each
page on Web site
UX
– Users see hierarchy
of information
– Serves as orienting
tool
HTML Sitemap
User(screaming in horror at the
usability on your website)
Spider
(pretend it’s a search
engine)
SEO
– HTML Sitemaps
normalize the flow of
Page Rank through the
site and establish
additional link relevance
UX
– HTML Sitemaps allow
users an additional
navigation system which
some users prefer
Related Products Links
User(screaming in horror at the
usability on your website)
Spider
(pretend it’s a search
engine)
SEO
– Establishing additional
cross links at the
product level augments
SEO performance for
those pages
UX
– Improves conversion rates and up-sell potential by helping customers understand purchasing options
Social Media
Link to Social Media Profiles on
All Pages
User(screaming in horror at the
usability on your website)
Spider
(pretend it’s a search
engine)
SEO
- Increases the likelihood
that these sites will rank
for brand related terms
(reputation
management)
UX
- Allows users to find
social media profiles
easily regardless of
first entry page
Keyword Focused Tag
Navigation
User(screaming in horror at the
usability on your website)
Spider
(pretend it’s a search
engine)
SEO
- Keyword focused
navigation tags
establish additional
keyword focused
internal linking
UX
- Keyword focused tags provide additional navigation that is centered around the words that are most likely to resonate with users
Questions?
Thank You
Thanh NguyenDirector, User Experience, [email protected]@bolteamuhttp://www.linkedin.com/pub/thanh-nguyen/3/bab/443
Ray ComstockDirector, SEO, [email protected]@seocatfishwww.linkedin.com/in/profile
Don’t Forget to Sign Up for Our
Complimentary SEO and Usability Labs
www.businessOL.com/labs