When looking to improve your website’s search engine optimization (SEO), one of the first things you probably think of is how to optimize your pages technically – fixing crawling errors, improving page speed, adding metadata, etc. However, while this is crucial, there is another element that can greatly impact rankings: user behavior.
The actions that visitors take (or don’t take) on your site send signals to search engines about the quality of your pages. Visit company website to understand some basic psychology behind how users interact online can give valuable insights into improving user experience in order to boost SEO.
User Engagement Metrics – A Core Ranking Factor
In recent years, user engagement has emerged as one of the most important ranking factors for Google and other search engines. Metrics like bounce rate, session duration, pages per session directly measure how engaging your content is. Google has access to very sophisticated data on how real users interact with pages in their search results. Even without reading the content on a page, engagement signals allow Google to infer the quality, relevance and usefulness of that content based solely on user actions.
As a quick check, visit your company website and view your Google Analytics dashboard. How does your site score on key engagement metrics? Do you see opportunities there to better retain and engage visitors? Making improvements to the user experience can lead to a nice SEO boost.
Friction Points & User Psychology
Understanding some basic psychological principles around user behavior can help identify “friction points” on your site where engagement may drop off:
- Difficult navigation –If users struggle to find information or complete actions, they may simply leave your site rather than continue searching around. This directly lowers pages per session while increasing bounce rate. Ensure your site architecture and menus make key pages easily discoverable.
- Page load delays – Even brief delays when loading or rendering pages leads users to lose focus or interest. Keep page loads fast and smooth to maintain visitor attention.
- Weak value proposition – Users need to quickly understand what unique value your content offers them. Without clear benefit statements, they may disengage assuming the content is not relevant to their needs.
- Lack of visual appeal – While visual design alone won’t replace quality content, an unattractive or hard-to-read layout can be an immediate turnoff causing high bounce rates.
- Too many distractions – Whether it’s busy advertisements or disruptive popups, too many distracting elements compete for user attention resulting in frustration and loss of engagement.
Responsive Web Design to Match User Context
One major way user psychology comes into play is the variety of contexts and devices people may use when interacting with your site. The ideal experience on a large desktop monitor may be entirely different than what keeps engagement high on mobile devices.
Responsive web design is now a must for aligning with user context. Flexible, responsive page layouts create the smooth, easy interactions people expect when switching devices. At minimum, ensure a mobile optimized version of key pages if a fully responsive site is not yet in place. This prevents frustrating pinches/zooms and accidental clicks that derail visits.
Study user analytics to discover the contexts your audience visits from. Optimize layout and navigation for each context to offer the ideal experience. There is no universal ideal design – different groups of users have different needs depending on their device and use case context.
Ongoing User Testing
While analytics provide macro level data on user actions site-wide, targeted user testing is invaluable to gather more granular insights around specific pages and user journeys. Studying user behavior and psychology should be an integral part of any holistic SEO strategy. Since rankings now heavily factor in engagement and experience signals, UX optimizations can drive significant organic traffic gains over time (not to mention increased conversion rates!). Maintain a user-centric perspective to consistently identify and resolve pain points.
