SEO and User Experience

Over the past year, I’ve attended a few web design & development conferences to meet new people and learn new things from some of the leading experts in the industry. During the networking time of these visits, I always seem to end up in a conversation about search engine optimisation and what it means for the web industry. The audience/market of these conferences is small business owners, sole traders and freelancers. These guys all read blogs and go on Twitter, listening to what their peers are saying and taking it for gospel truth. Unfortunately, one of these topics is the negativity surrounding the search engine optimisation trade.

I always say the same thing: legitimate search engine optimisation is giving the user what they want and need. In other words, white hat search engine optimisation IS a kind of user experience optimisation at the same time as being a method of influencing rankings in the SERPs.

Why SEO goes hand-in-hand with UX optimisation

Something I swear by is Google’s goal: to provide a completely accurate index with what the user needs and wants! The advice a good SEO will give will not only benefit company, but also benefit the users. Below are a few tasks we suggest:

1. Keyword-relevant title tags, headings and content without cannibalisation.
2. A URL structure which makes sense (for example, yourdomain/products/product-name/ rather than yourdomain/product?=1234).
3. A website structure which makes sense (with the correct children, sub-children etc).
4. A semantic and accessible website structure.

These above tasks are written and appear to be only directed at the internal optimisation of your website, which is only half true. We do all of the above because they’re things we know Google likes, but why does Google like these things? Because they’re good for the user!

I’ll re-write the above list with the user in mind, rather than the search engine:

1. Title tags, headings and content containing information relevant to the user (who is presumably looking for this product).
2. An easy-to-remember and descriptive URL. yourdomain/products/product-name/ is easier to remember and more descriptive to the user than a query string!
3. A website which is easy-to-navigate. Great breadcrumbs and navigation in sections which make sense.
4. A website accessible to all. Un-restrictive even to those less-abled then us.

Each point in the latter list is identical to the former, just written in a different tone and targeting a different sort of person. So, the term “SEO” can refer to two different kinds of people: those who are passionate and want to provide a good service to their client and their user or alternatively those who are using grey/black hat techniques to earn as much money as possible and giving their clients a poor service.

SEO isn’t evil, the people doing it are

The reputation of SEOs is entirely unfair. Legitimate, white-hat SEO is completely above board and a great service. The feedback from all of our clients is excellent and the results have been long-lasting. Unfortunately, those few who sell snake oil are tarnishing a genuine and interesting trade.

My part in the world of SEO isn’t as somebody who does it, but someone who stands in the sidelines, studies and strategises. Working in the sidelines of a cutting-edge company isn’t an opportunity to miss, so being passionate about both search engine optimisation and website design is a complete must. There’s one thing I’ll always stand by: good search engine optimisation is good for the user, not just the search engines.