Building An Amazing Website Experience That Satisfies Google and Your Users

Everyone knows that being found online is critical to the success of your business and the best way to get found online is to use SEO services to your advantage. But have you encountered the delicate intersection of search engine optimization versus customer experience yet? While Google uses certain customer satisfaction signals to assign authority to your website, that doesn’t always mean that those things truly equate to a positive customer experience for your unique customers and type of business.

In some cases, it’s irrefutable that what Google determines as effective for customers is also what delights your customers. One simple example of this is site speed. The time it takes your site to load each page is a crucial factor that Google uses to rank your website. It is also very important to your customers. No one wants to deal with slow loading pages, just look at how high the bounce rate is on sites that load slowly!

But what about the times when something is great to optimize your site – it makes it easier to index your pages or gives the perception of authority – but it’s not the most beneficial way of serving your customers This can be tricky because there are rarely compromises. In some cases, your SEO team and your web design team can find a solution that works for everyone, but sometimes you’ll have to sacrifice one for the other. In our opinion, though SEO is so important, customer experience trumps all.

If customers come to your site and get what they need, the number of positive signals that are communicated back to Google will outweigh any missed search engine optimization opportunities. And at the end of the day, the whole goal of your website is to help your customers find what they need so they can do business with you so that should always be at the forefront of your decision making.

Let’s dive into this a bit more…Here are some of the top-ranking factors that Google collects from your website:

• Tagging

• Keyword Usage

• Content Length & Helpfulness

• Page Load Speed

• Consistent Publishing Of Quality Content

• Mobile Optimization

• Site Usability

• Backlinks

• Click Through Rate

• Bounce Rate

• Time Spent On Site

• Localization

• Social Media Presence

*A full list of Google ranking factors can be found here from Backlink.io.

While we recognize the importance of optimizing each of these areas to ensure your site ranks well, there will inevitably be times when these will not work well together. Here are a few examples.

1. Keyword Usage – At times, the keywords you want to be found for will not be the actual services you offer. This is true for a Marketing Agency since that is how most people will search for us, but our specific services range from Web Development to Design, SEO and Social Media Management. In these cases, it can be challenging to work your keywords into your page headers. The same can also be true for localized keywords such as Marketing Agency Calgary. It can often be awkward to include the city you are in within headers and copy.

2. Content Length – This is a common concern among copywriters and SEO experts. The desire for longer content to give more for Google to index will always be there, but quite often, it can become overkill for customers when what they need only require a short description and a follow up action. Rather than focus on word count too much, this one can be easily mitigated by testing to ensure your customers are getting what they need and that your content gives them the best experience possible. All of those positive signals will outweigh the opportunity missed with shorter content.

3. Site Usability – It’s obvious that an easy to use site will make customers happy and help your search rankings, but at times, site structures can become cumbersome to include all of the URL’s and pages your SEO team wants to index. And once you start increasing click depth or creating unnecessary pages, both your users and Google will be less than satisfied. The solution to this one is finding creative solutions that always put the perspective of the customer first and often means finding another route to optimize for a specific keyword or criteria.

When you set out to build an amazing website that satisfies both Google and your customers, we highly recommend having your SEO, Web Development and Content teams working closely together to strategize how each will work together to achieve the goals of their department to ultimately provide the best experience possible to your customers. The Digital Monk Marketing team has a proven process to incorporate all factors into the planning of your website so you can deliver a winning experience to your customers and rank high in SERPs. Contact us to learn more!