UX or SEO: Why you shouldn’t choose!
As a UX designer, I naturally advocate for the importance of user experience, emphasizing that a website designed without considering the user is pointless and ineffective. However, did you know that without SEO, you risk missing out on your clients?
Today, I welcome Alexia, an SEO consultant and web content writer, to the blog. We frequently collaborate to create websites that genuinely help you find clients. In this jointly written article, we’ll explain why UX and SEO are inseparable if you still have any doubts…
What is a website without UX but with SEO worth?…
- Technical: A fast site that Google can see and rank in its results.
- Content: Texts optimized according to web writing basics, with one keyword per page, a title (the title that appears in search results), an H1 (the main title), and H2, H3 (subheadings of your pages or articles).
- Popularity: Links from other sites to your pages. This is already a significant task, especially when you don’t know where to start. However, SEO alone, aside from boosting your ego like getting likes on your Instagram posts, is useless. Sure, your pages are visited, but you’re not running a charity: the goal of your business is to sell your services or products (that’s the very essence of a business!). If your visitors don’t stay on your site, don’t contact you, and don’t buy from you, all the effort you put into SEO will be in vain. Keep in mind that beyond mastering SEO methodology, the most important thing for you and for Google is the user. Google’s objective is to provide the best answer to the user’s search query. Your goal is to convert this visitor into a lead and then a customer when they land on your site, whether they enter through the front door (your homepage) or side doors (other pages and blog articles). Without considering the user experience, SEO is useless because your visitor leaves as quickly as they arrived… With UX considerations, SEO makes sense: it attracts visitors to your site, and UX takes over to make them stay and explore all your products and services. One cannot function without the other, and Tiffany will also explain why UX without SEO is not the solution either…
What is a user-centric website without SEO worth?
Spoiler alert: Not much either! Before diving into the design of your website, you should ask yourself these questions:
- What is the objective of my site?
- What is my value proposition?
Who is my target user? What are their needs? Expectations? Concerns?
Answering these questions will allow you to:
- Structure the navigation of your site,
- Implement internal linking,
- Structure the information on each page,
- Design your site in line with your visual identity.
The goal of user-centered design is to speak to your target user, offer them a solution to their problem, and meet their needs. With this method, navigation is simple, intuitive, and fast. Your users easily find answers to their questions. They buy your products, use your services, and fill your order book 💪. Well done! But before they can arrive on your site, they need to find you! To do this, you need to rank for the keywords they use to find answers to their questions and needs, leading them to your site! If your target users can’t find you, they won’t use your services, and all the research and design work will be useless. Google shows results it considers relevant to users. It bases this, among other things, on the content of your site and the coherence between your keywords and the terms used by your visitors… By attracting your target user, you can convert them into a lead and then a customer, generating business. QED. Having a simple and intuitive site with a trendy design without an SEO strategy is counterproductive because your target user won’t find you. Combining SEO and UX, on the other hand, allows you to attract and guide your user through your site while answering their questions. This way, you can convert your visitor into a customer 🤓.
How does this work in practice?
When I work on designing a website, I always start with a sitemap workshop. Through this workshop, we (the client, Alexia, and I) identify the various menus, submenus, and internal linking between pages. But be careful: the keywords must appeal to both search engines and your users 🤯 (don’t worry, it will be fine 😂). Alexia lays the foundation for the site’s SEO strategy by integrating keywords directly into the navigation. I ensure that the words used will resonate with users and give a good overview of what they will find on the page.
Let’s take an example. A few months ago, I worked on restructuring the sitemap of an e-commerce site. There were many categories in the menu. We streamlined it by keeping only the most relevant words. The SEO expert, the communications manager, the CEO of the company, and I worked together to optimize this navigation while considering business objectives. Interested in this type of comprehensive service?
Discover my complete offer for design/redesign and let’s discuss it!