What is User Experience?
User experience describes how a person feels when they interact with a site. It is a method of evaluating how satisfied users are with a site.
A product with a good user experience is user-friendly, responsive, fast, accessible, and visually appealing. It has an intuitive user interface, consistent design, and constantly provides feedback to the user.
Generally, you want your users to have a positive user experience with your product, as it would lead to increased engagement, conversions, and customer satisfaction. A negative user experience, on the other hand, will cause your users to reduce the usage of your product or cause them to dump it altogether.
User experience itself may be aesthetic or functional. An aesthetic user experience focuses on improving the site’s visual appeal. In contrast, the functional user experience focuses on enhancing the site’s performance and making it easier to use.
A visually appealing color scheme and consistent font styles are examples of aesthetic user experience. A functional user experience, on the other hand, involves using responsive design, fast-loading pages, and intuitive navigation.
Why User Experience is Important for SEO
User experience is a crucial aspect of hakukoneoptimointi (SEO). A poor user experience may prevent a visitor from accessing the content on the site, even if the content is helpful. So, user experience and SEO go hand in hand.
A site needs to have a great user experience to rank on Google. Google uses multiple metrics, systems, and signals to evaluate the user experience of visitors to the site. One such is the page experience metric, which is a ranking factor.
The page experience includes the Core Web Vitals, which Google uses to measure a webpage’s load time, responsiveness, and stability. Page experience also evaluates the HTTP protocol usage (HTTP tai HTTPS), presence of popups, and mobile-friendliness of the webpage.
A great user experience minimizes user frustration, reduces bounce rates, and encourages users to spend more time on the site. It also ensures that the content on a site is easily accessible and navigable, leading to higher conversions, better rankings, and increased organic traffic.
Some User Experience Metrics and Signals
Most user experience metrics, signals, and systems are components of technical SEO, though some, like creating great content, are a part of on-page SEO. However, the specific ones used vary depending on the search engine. Some common ones include:
- Core Web Vitals
- Page load speed
- Mobile-friendliness
- Helpful content
- Easy navigation
- Intrusive interstitials
- Distracting ads
1 Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that Google uses to measure the loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability of a webpage. It contains three metrics, including the Suurin sisältöä sisältävä maali (LCP), Vuorovaikutus seuraavaan maaliin (INP), and Kumulatiivinen ulkoasun muutos (CLS).
2 Page Load Speed
Page load speed refers to the time it takes for a webpage to display its content to the user. There is no single metric used to measure the page load speed, and search engines may use multiple metrics and signals to evaluate it.
The Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and First Contentful Paint (FCP) are two of the metrics used to analyze the page load speed.
3 Mobile-Friendliness
Mobile-friendliness indicates how well a website is optimized for viewing on mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. Google prioritizes mobile-friendly sites in its search rankings, meaning poor mobile optimization can negatively impact visibility.
4 Helpful Content
Helpful content refers to valuable, informative, and relevant information that meets the needs of its users. This content directly addresses the visitor’s search query, which is helpful for establishing trust and authority and encouraging visitors to engage more deeply with the site.
5 Easy Navigation
Easy navigation refers to how straightforward and intuitive it is for visitors to navigate a site and find the details they need. Effective navigation improves user satisfaction and helps search engines better crawl ja indeksi the content on the site.
6 Intrusive Interstitials
Intrusive interstitials are pop-up ads or overlays that take over a considerable portion of the viewport. These interstitials prevent visitors from accessing the rest of the content, particularly on mobile devices.
7 Distracting Ads
Distracting ads refer to disruptive and overly aggressive or poorly positioned ads on a page. Ads that occupy a considerable portion of the area above the fold fall into this category. Such ads can detract from the overall usability of a site, leading to frustration and diminished engagement.