SEO versis UX -is there a conflict?
UX versis SEO, today many articles tells about a conflict and that the two don't fit together. There are many articles today about tensions and conflicts between them. The reason: search engine optimization is done for algorithms. User Experience are focusing on people and their emotions/experiences. There's an idea that you have to sacrifice one of them in favour of the other. There is some truth in this, but I think SEO and UX have to cooperate and live side by side. What if your site ranks high and you get a lot of visitors, that leave immediately because of a bad User Experience or that they just don't get how to use your site?
I think UX and SEO are both important to attract and keep users and also for creating a great value for your users.
If visitors can't find your website -there will be no User Experience. SEO and UX go hand in hand and in many cases they are wonderful complements to each other.
Is it possible that UX can help your rankings and how?
I guess a part of the answer is simple -if users find your site and the User Experience is bad, they will leave.
One aspect is that if you only optimize your site for GOOGLE algorithms your site might "look" like spam, you can miss a lot of users that way. Sitemaps and a clear navigation are examples of Great User Experience that also affect SEO. Further aspects are great and high quality content, GOOGLE ranking are measuring how long a user stays and on what pages. Here it's possible for you to use analytics to improve your content and also the experience on your site.
SEO and UX both have an important role for users and what they experience. Search Engine Optimization is built on content quality and how the site ranks in searches. User Experience on the other hand is built on if the users really find quality in the user results.
Work with both and the tensions between them
I recommend you that you work with both SEO and UX when you are planning and designing your website.
SEO today is kind of universal and everyone focus on it, more or less. UX are now of growing interest and people begin to understand its potential not only for attracting users but also for getting users to stay and also to come back.
You can read more about how to create great UX and also on The interaction design foundation (great explanation about UX).
I will now bring you back to the beginning of this article. More precise to the ideas that SEO and UX are in collision. As I wrote about here, a lot of aspects in SEO is affected by UX, look at this video to find out more about how to handle the tensions that you might bump into. Because there are tensions between UX and SEO and compromises are necessary in some cases.
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Original article can be found on The Usability Spot