Why is it important to improve the Usability of the site and how does it affect the SEO promotion of the project?

Many SEO specialists forget that the ease of user interaction with the site can affect the SEO indicators of the resource: traffic, bounce rate, conversions, and so on. That is why it is very important to pay attention to the usability of the site. In this article, you will learn what is important when working with usability, what an SEO specialist can analyze and recommend to improve the ease of user interaction with the site.

What is Site Usability?

Usability of the site is a collective factor for determining the ease of user interaction with the site, its structural elements, are a non-numerical indicator.

Nevertheless, this factor can directly affect the numerical indicators that SEO specialists strive to improve in their work.

When should the analysis be carried out?

Usability analysis should be carried out:

1. At the beginning of work with the site at the stage of the technical audit. When the project first comes to you at the stage of the technical audit, it is important to assess the convenience of users in interacting with the site: check the presence of important structural elements of the 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.
2. When redesigning/moving the site. When moving or redesigning the current site, 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.
3. In case of a decrease in conversions/traffic. If a decrease in the dynamics of targeted actions is noticed on the site, then it is also important to pay attention to the convenience of user interaction with the site, because this can become a key factor in the drop in site indicators ( Example: drop in conversions because the shopping cart is not working correctly).
4. While expanding the structure of the current site. When creating new pages, it is important to analyze competitors’ presence of special structural elements on these pages (conversion blocks, tables, video/photo elements, online constructors) to give recommendations to implement them when creating new atypical landing pages.
5. Periodically, depending on the dynamics of the project. It is important to conduct a Usability analysis once every six months/year because new interesting solutions can always appear on the market, the implementation of which can directly affect the dynamics of the project.

Stages of analysis

Stage 1 – analyze user paths and customer interaction points with the site. It is done independently by an seo sacramento specialist, or with the involvement of a UX designer.

Stage 2  – get feedback from the client and the sales department. It is important to receive such feedback, because it can help to learn about some offers 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 with which you can improve the site.

Stage 4  – draw up technical specifications for improvements. It is important to draw up technical specifications for the programmer/designer for the development and application of the necessary functionality/improvement of the current one.

Usability Checklist

What is important to check during Usability analysis:

• Navigation
• Structure – peculiarities of the nesting of site pages, categorization, its convenient visualization for the user, the number of clicks for the user to go to a certain page of the site (ideally – no more than three clicks)
• Bread crumbs. They must be visually displayed on the site, and also marked up using the Breadcrumblist micro-markup.
• The path to purchase – it is important to analyze the entire journey that the user takes until the final target action is taken on the site.
• Choosing a product – it is important to analyze the possibility of changing the characteristics, the price calculator, the possibility of choosing related products, the availability of a description, delivery information, etc.
• Search – analyze the correctness of internal search on the site (transliteration, search by product index, etc.).
• Information
• The quality of the content is the uniqueness and completeness of the material, the absence of grammatical, punctuation and other errors
• Presentation of the product — description, characteristics, reviews
• Contacts – complete contact information, map of how to get to the physical point, feedback form
• Interface
• Design – the visual appeal of the site, the correct execution of animations, the absence of low-quality images
• Load speed on both mobile and desktop for different types of pages
• Page 404 – the quality of the content of this page, so that it has navigation elements, does not scare away users
• No 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?

Improvements in this indicator will provide several significant advantages:

• Increases conversions. Completing all the steps of the sales funnel can significantly increase the number of successful conversions on the site
• Increases average session time. Based on the convenience and intuitiveness of interacting with the site, users interact with the site longer, and the number of pages per session also increases.

Increases the loyalty of users of the resource. If the user finds it convenient to read information or place an order on your site, this can lead to repeat orders from the same customer and his return to the resource

Additional pages that are required for different types of sites

It is important to pay attention to the presence of additional pages on the site and their correct filling, as this can significantly affect the loyalty and trust of users to the site. First of all, it is important to check your direct competitors and find out which pages are not created on your site and make recommendations for their creation.

For informational sites:

• Contacts/Support service with a feedback form
• About us
• Privacy Policy
• Rules of the offer
• User Agreement
• Advertising on the portal (if the resource provides such services)
• Application pages for posting news (if the resource provides such services)
• Rules of use of materials

For sites that provide services:

• Contacts
• Price page
• Portfolio
• Reviews
• Question/answer page
• About us
• Blog
• Terms of use of the site
• Policy
• User Agreement
• For E-commerce projects:
• Contacts
• About us
• Price page
• FAQ page
• Terms of delivery and payment
• Return conditions
• Guarantee
• Credit (if applicable)
• Blog
• User Agreement
• Privacy Policy

Conclusions

Usability analysis and refinement is a very important stage of site improvement, which is important not to be ignored, because it can directly affect SEO results. An SEO specialist must look at the promotion of the business as a whole, understand the client’s pain and give recommendations for improving the site’s usability, because the result of his work depends on it.