You can’t work on boosting SEO without prioritizing user experience on your website. It might seem difficult to figure out what people are thinking when they visit your site. Fortunately, with the data that’s available for website owners today, it’s much easier to gauge user experience. While it’s important to monitor user experience signals to understand how users react to your site, this can be a new concept that many people don’t fully understand, such as the user experience signals they should be paying attention to.
Understanding the importance of user experience and UX signals that can help you create a better experience on your website are vital to helping it succeed.
Why is User Experience Important?
Google’s algorithm is largely focused on providing the best search results to users. There are many websites that only focus on adding keywords or even trying black hat SEO techniques to try and manipulate Google into ranking them highly. However, this won’t get them very far with the way Google’s algorithm has changed over the years. With a user-focused algorithm, you can’t afford to not work on providing the best online experience to users if you want to improve the way your pages rank. If Google can pick up on users having an unpleasant experience every time they visit your site, it’s unlikely that they will recommend you.
UX Signals to Watch
Click-Through Rate
While you might think that user experience begins once users arrive on your website, your click-through rate is actually an important UX signal. Your website’s click-through rate (CTR) refers to the percentage of people who click on your website when it shows up in their SERPs. While the position you earn in the SERPs can have a significant impact on how many people click on your website, how well you present your website through your meta title and description can also affect this.
Not only is CTR an important UX signal to pay attention to, but it’s also important to help monitor how much traffic you’re driving to your site. A higher CTR will mean more traffic coming in. This sends a good signal to Google that your result has something that interests users and could be a good match for what they’re searching for.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of users who leave your website without taking any sort of action first. This doesn’t have to mean a big action like buying something but could be as simple as not clicking any link. Users stay on only one page and then leave.
When you have a high bounce rate, it means that you have a lot of users who visit one page on your website and are done. Of course, in some cases, a user could have only been looking for a simple answer and got it right away. Users could get all they needed just from one page of your website, which could mean they got what they wanted easily. However, a high bounce rate could be a bad thing and indicate a poor user experience. This could mean that users visit your site and can tell that for whatever reason, they aren’t interested enough in your business to go any further.
Dwell Time
We’ve all visited a website before and immediately turned back around. Maybe it took just a second too long to load, looked unprofessional, or obviously didn’t have the content you needed. In other cases, we get a web page filled with interesting and engaging content that keeps us there. Dwell time is similar to bounce rate but tells you how long users spend on the page they clicked on on their SERPs before leaving.
The more time a user spends on your page before leaving, the more valuable you can assume it was to them. The opposite is true when you have a very short dwell time. A poor dwell time can be used as a signal that users aren’t getting what they wanted. Some users might back out after only seconds, and if many are doing this, it can be a bad sign for Google.
Session Duration
While dwell time gives you an idea as to how long users stay on just one of your pages, session duration tells you how long they spend on your website as a whole. This considers users who went through multiple pages on your website and adds up the total amount of time they were there for.
While dwell time is important, you can’t overlook how long a session is. You want people to go through multiple pages on your website and find value on more than one page. Like dwell time, longer session durations show that users found something on your website worth staying for. This is a good sign that your website meets their needs and can help boost your SEO if Google believes you’re a good result for users.
Let a Digital Marketing Agency Enhance Your Website’s UX
On top of everything else you have to do to market your business, worrying about UX signals can seem like an overwhelming amount to do. However, this isn’t something you need to get into on your own. The easiest way of doing this is to have a digital marketing agency do it for you. At ENX2 Marketing, we’ll help ensure that your website provides users with a great experience that leaves them with a good impression of your brand. We’ll keep track of everything happening on your website for you.
Want to learn more? Contact us today!