Effective Web Design Usability Tricks that Enhance SEO

Effective Web Design Usability Tricks that Enhance SEO

Make your site easier on users and easier on search engines at the same time.

Too often, a web design gets pushed aside by his big brother, SEO tactics. It’s not little web design’s fault. It’s just that no one will ever see him if his big brother isn’t there to point him out. Interestingly, SEO itself is a usability tool. It allows search engine users to find relevant content. This is helpful. Some say differently – that usability only comes into play once a user reaches the site. That type of thinking needs to go.

SEO and usability can and should be integrated. If SEO brings searchers to sites that don’t provide what they want, the optimization has failed. Use these design tactics to offer users the experience they want while letting SEO do its job.

Video

Sometimes, nothing else will do. A grabbing video needs to be on your website. But videos only offer a few opportunities for SEO. The same is true of images, but they are usually accompanied by relevant text the search engines like.

You can still use videos to present information the way your visitors want it without losing SEO value. Simply include a transcript of the video below the video itself.

Tabs above the Fold

There’s a strong temptation to put SEO-relevant text above the fold on the front page of your site, since search engines will attribute high relevancy to it. But if that’s not what users want to see when they arrive, it needs to be presented differently. Go ahead and give users what they want and use tables to include the text that you want Google to notice.

Product Information

Another important usability trick related to e-commerce has to do with product information. The words you use to describe your product and what it does can help Google recognize the product is relevant to a customer’s search. Take the time to create text-rich product descriptions, laid out in bite sided pieces for easy digestion by visitors. Shoppers appreciate the extra information and you’ll appreciate the increased traffic.

Relevant Keywords

I’m sure you know better than to stuff keywords these days. Awkward sentences manipulated to fit keywords turn users off. But you can also stop worrying about using the exact keyword phrases you want to rank for. Google gets it now.

The search engine knows that a “sheet” could be a piece of paper or a bed covering. It can see connections between words and concepts. Google understands synonyms as well. So focus less on your keywords and more on your content. Keywords only belong where they fit naturally in key locations, such as headings, page titles and image descriptions.

Let efelle show you more web design usability tricks that enhance user experience while bringing in more web traffic.

Efelle media’s web design experts have been integrating SEO and usability for more than 10 years. By now, they’ve got it down. Call 866-394-7520 or use our online contact form for a free consultation.