Semalt: Search Experience Optimization (SXO)
Simply put, SEO and UX combine the goal to increase conversion through the company's website. This goal is pursued through various actions that, taken independently, have limited effectiveness. In SEO, the further fate of users on the website is often overlooked, and in UX the problem of acquiring them is overlooked. It is crucial to plan activities to acquire potential customers and lead them through the purchase path to conversion.
Looking at SEO through the prism of UX and UX through the prism of SEO allows you to see the importance and impact of individual actions on user behaviour. The sum of activities improving the experience of website users (at the stage of its search and browsing) to increase conversions is called SXO, i.e. Search Experience Optimization. It is worth knowing what these activities consist of and how to integrate them with the company's marketing strategy.
So let's start by detailing each of these points in the following lines!
Searching and exploring opportunities
When starting a search in the Google search engine, the user will pay attention to the results in the highest positions and the most eye-catching.
When adjusting the appearance and content of the result for our website in the search results, we should take care of these:
- title - a tag that is one of the most important ranking factors. The user will see it not only in the search results but also in the browser tab. It should briefly inform, with about 70 characters and contain a password, about the content or topic of a given subpage.
- description - meta tag, which officially has had no influence on positions since 2009, but is of great importance for the level of CTR from search results. It should be concise and about 150-160 characters above, the content of which is not visible in the list of search results. When creating this short description, it is worth remembering the language of benefits and the call to action. Despite the lack of influence on the position, you must not forget about keywords that will be bolded if they match the searched phrase.
- structured data marking - marking elements on the page for better understanding by Google robots also allows you to obtain search results enriched with additional data. Extensive results attract the attention of users, even from lower positions, so it is worth matching appropriate solutions from the available gallery of search engine functions.
- Well-optimized search results for a page mean a higher CTR for subpages. As a result, we can gain more users potentially able to convert with the current state of visibility and better positions over time.
It is also worth taking care of the appropriate development of materials that can be found on the website. In order to reach a user considering a purchase and analyzing how to make a choice, we must have content on the company website that helps with this. It is worth taking care of comprehensive information on the parameters of the offer that can be selected, how the purchase of specific models or the selection of service will solve the problem or answer the user's need.
Review and selection of the offer
The user coming to our website brings with him/her expectations built at the search stage. The company website should respond to them and provide information encouraging him/her to make a purchasing decision. The key will be:
Information about the parameters and scope
Complete information about the parameters and scope of the offer on each type of subpage. Remember about key and supplementary phrases, however, category or product descriptions are not only for robots. It is in them that we can indicate the advantages of our offer, present the parameters and recommend a choice.
Information and constantly developed information base
Up-to-date information and constantly developed information base, e.g. advice. By building the image of an expert with professionally and exhaustively developed materials that help in choosing an offer, and explaining the way of using products or the process of service implementation, we win over the competition not only with price. In addition, we build added value, expand the possibilities of finding the company on the Internet and improve the quality of the website in the assessment of indexing robots.
Well-planned service structure
The correct structure indicates the dependencies between subpages and helps to interpret the page not only for indexing robots but also makes it easier for users to navigate the site.
Solutions facilitating the search for the offer
Well-thought-out solutions facilitate the search for the offer (boxes with links to subpages embedded in the structure, links from the content to related subpages or links from subpages of offers to subpages grouping them). How quickly you can find an offer and proceed to purchase it is important and translates into the number of conversions and the efficiency of indexing the page on Google by search engine robots.
Optimized functionalities supporting offers narrowed
optimized functionalities supporting offers narrowed down according to user preferences (filtering, sorting, internal search engine). Each solution supporting the selection process will also contribute to an increase in conversion. However, you also need to consider users at the search level. By properly blocking internal copies of content or subpages without added value, we do not clutter the search results and direct users to valuable subpages.
Page 404
By hitting the 404 error page, the user should have a clear picture of what happened and what he/she can do next. The page should be in the layout of the website and contain a message about the situation and hints for further actions (suggested subpages, the ability to use the search engine or contact).
Broken links
After a broken link, neither the user nor the search engine robot will reach important parts of our website. It is worth keeping internal links up-to-date.
Conversion
In the context of SXO, CRO, i.e. conversion rate optimisation, is often placed alongside SEO and UX. If there are no sales, if there are no adverts on the following sub-pages or if there are no "clicks" on the partner's site, the company will not gain anything. It is worth remembering and taking care of things like:
Match the sentences for which the subpage is optimized
Correct matching of the phrases for which the subpage is optimized to the content on it. The more precise the query, the more important it is to match the subpage to it. No one wants to land on the home page or the "shoes" category looking for "red high-heel leather pumps."
Matching subpages optimized for specific queries
corresponding to sub-pages optimized for specific queries according to the users' intentions. What is important is not only the specific phrases that we will find when performing a keyword search, but also the intention behind them. It is worth remembering that when searching for an apartment in Paris, the user will not always be satisfied with the result in the developer's area.
So, it is important to do keyword research with an adequate SEO tool in order not to miss the target for your promotion. The Dedicated SEO Dashboard is a very intuitive and easy-to-use tool. With this tool, you will have access to relevant information about each keyword, its seasonality or basic information about competing websites that have already used such keywords.
Information from the title and description in the content
Confirmation of information from the title and description in the content of subpages. It is worth highlighting the content that confirms the promises from the search results and use the call to action to encourage and indicate further steps.
Adaptation to mobile devices
In fact, we often buy using the desktop version of the website, but more and more often we search on mobile devices. If the website will not be high in mobile search results and after going through, it will be inconvenient to use, the user will probably not return to it on the desktop version and will not convert.
On the way to the destination
Designing solutions that favour website positioning and support website usability to increase conversions is not possible without verifying the effectiveness of these solutions. It is worth systematically analyzing key parameters such as the:
- number of page views and CTR from those views (Google Search Console). The title and description effectiveness analysis will help you evaluate their optimization and identify solutions that need improvement.
- number of users on the website and their flow on subsequent subpages (Google Analytics). Verification of the bounce rate and abandonment of the conversion path will indicate places that require deeper analysis.
A/B analysis of subpages or analysis of heat maps and user behaviour will be helpful in planning changes to the initial assumptions, especially on subpages in the conversion path.
High rankings without conversions do not sell as well as a fully usable page without traffic. We will achieve success by simultaneously taking care of Search Engine Optimization and User Experience.