Introduction.
Many SEO specialists forget that the convenience of user interaction with a website can affect the SEO performance of a resource: traffic, bounce rate, conversions, and so on. That is why it is very important to pay attention to website usability. In this article, you will learn what is important when working with usability, what an SEO specialist can analyze and recommend to improve the convenience of user interaction with the site.
You can watch the presentation here.
What is website usability?
Website usability is an aggregate factor for determining the convenience of user interaction with the site and its structural elements, it is a non-numerical indicator.
Nevertheless, this factor can directly affect the numerical indicators that SEO specialists strive to improve in their work.
When should you conduct the analysis?
Usability analysis should be carried out:
- At the beginning of work with the site at the stage of technical audit. When the project is just coming to you at the stage of technical audit it is important to assess the convenience of users in interacting with the site: check the presence of important structural elements of pages, go to the final stage of the sales funnel, check the presence of important non-commercial pages on the site (privacy policy, rules for using content on the site, etc.), check feedback forms, orders, and so on.
- When redesigning/moving a website. When moving or redesigning a current website, it is important to review the lost functionality for its further implementation, give recommendations on the redesign of structural elements, their location independently by an SEO specialist or with the involvement of a UX designer.
- In case of a decrease in conversions/traffic. Suppose the site has seen a decrease in the dynamics of targeted actions. In that case, it is also important to pay attention to the convenience of user interaction with the site, because this can be a key factor in the decline in site performance (Example: a drop in conversions because the shopping cart does not work correctly).
- When expanding the structure of the current site. When creating new pages, it is important to analyze the presence of special structural elements of these pages (conversion blocks, tables, video/photo elements, online constructors) among competitors in order to give recommendations for their implementation when creating new atypical landing pages.
- Periodically, depending on the dynamics of the project. It is important to conduct Usability analysis once every six months/year, as new interesting solutions can always appear on the market, the implementation of which can directly affect the dynamics of the project.
Stages of the analysis
1 Stage - analyze user paths and points of customer interaction with the site. It is done independently by an SEO specialist or with the involvement of a UX designer.
2 Stage - get feedback from the client and the sales team. It is important to receive such feedback because it can help you find out about some suggestions that can be implemented with the help of additional functionality on the site to increase user loyalty.
Stage 3 - Analyze competitors. It is important to rely not only on competitors from your city and country, but also on sites in the same niche abroad to find new ideas that you can use to improve your site.
4 Stage - create a technical task for improvements. It is important to draw up a technical task for a programmer/designer to develop and apply the necessary functionality/improve the current one.
Checklist for checking Usability
What is important to check during a Usability analysis:
- Navigation:
- Structure - features of nesting of site pages, categorization, its convenient visualization for the user, the number of clicks to go to a certain page of the site by the user (ideally, no more than three clicks)
- Breadcrumbs. It is important that they are visually displayed on the site, as well as marked with Breadcrumblist micro-markup.
- The path to purchase - it is important to analyze the entire path that the user takes before making the final targeted action on the site.
- Product selection - it is important to analyze the possibility of changing the characteristics, price calculator, the possibility of choosing related products, the availability of description, delivery information, etc.
- Search - analyze the correctness of the internal search on the site (transliteration, search by product index, etc.).
- Content:
- Content quality - uniqueness and completeness of the material, absence of grammatical, punctuation and other errors
- Product presentation - description, characteristics, reviews
- Contacts - full contact information, map of how to get to the physical point, feedback form
- Interface:
- Design - visual attractiveness of the site, correct animation, absence of low-quality images
- Loading speed on both mobile devices and desktops for different types of pages
- Page 404 - the quality of the content of this page, so that it has navigation elements and does not scare users away
- Absence of broken links
- Adaptive version of the site - it is important to check the usability of the site from different types of mobile devices
How does improving Usability affect SEO?
Improving this indicator will provide a number of significant benefits:
- Increases conversions. Completing all the steps of the sales funnel can significantly increase the number of successful conversions on your website
- Increase the average session time. Due to the convenience and intuitiveness of interaction with the site, users interact with the site longer, and the number of pages per session also increases.
- Increases the loyalty of resource users. If it is convenient for the user to read information or place an order on your website, it can lead to repeated orders from one customer and their return to the resource
Additional pages required for different types of websites
It's important to pay attention to the presence of additional pages on your website and their correct filling, as this can significantly affect user loyalty and trust in your site. First of all, it is important to check your direct competitors and identify which pages are not created on your site and give recommendations on how to create them.
- For information websites:
- Contacts/Support with feedback form
- About us
- Privacy policy
- Terms of offer
- User agreement
- Advertising on the portal (if the resource provides such services)
- Pages of the application for news placement (if the resource provides such services)
- Rules for the use of materials
- For websites that provide services:
- Contact Us
- Price list page
- Portfolio
- Testimonials
- FAQ page
- About us
- Blog
- Terms of use of the site
- Policy
- User agreement
- For E-commerce projects:
- Contacts
- About us
- Price list page
- FAQ page
- Terms of delivery and payment
- Terms of return
- Warranty
- Credit (if applicable)
- Blog
- User agreement
- Privacy policy
Conclusions.
Usability analysis and improvement is a very important stage of website improvement that should not be ignored, as it can directly affect SEO results. An SEO specialist should look at business promotion as a whole, understand the client's pain, and give recommendations on how to improve the usability of the site, as the result of his work depends on it.
