5 Usability Principles that Make Visitors Stick and Boost Your Website SEO

The main motive behind the implementation of the SEO is to drive website traffic and to provide an excellent user experience. User experience can be enhanced by optimizing the content to make it more memorable. Optimization of the website content focussing on increasing the conversion rate and boost the organic search results. Both of which are important parameters of SEO. For the best results, hire reliable web design services.

There is an important intersection between SEO and user retention that gives rise to important usability principles to guided website designing processes.

Inter-relationship between SEO and User Retention

The main features of content marketing are that the better the website content, the more will be client engagement on the website and the search engines will improve its ranking in the organic results page. The visibility of the website can be increased by using the most searched keyword, shooting up clicks, and views. The search engines receive true feedback from the real-time data and genuine users to calculate the ranking of that particular webpage on the search result page.

The website owner should be determined to make the website as a conversion funnel, making sure that whenever a prospective viewer comes to visit the page, the visitor receives all the information associated with the searched keyword. The website content should be engaging enough so that once a user falls into the funnel, it reaches to the core and calls for action. The more the user-friendliness of the webpage, the more is the chance of call-for-action for the webpage.

Usability Principle for SEO

The marketers usually associate SEO with lead generation and customer acquisition. However, user-friendliness and convenient navigation drives customer engagement and retention. It is important to get enough information about the behavior of the visitor. The searched keywords linking to the webpage must be clearly demonstrated so that the user processes the information. It is important to dig inside the analytical data of the website to understand the audience’s behavior and actions.

The user data obtained from different web analytical sources helps the website owner to understand the mindset of the target audience. The pages visited, most recommended pages, most frequently visited pages, and bookmarked websites can determine the online behavior of the user. There are several usability factors that a webpage owner must keep in mind while designing the content of the page. These principle factors help the website to reach a higher ranking in the organic search results pages of the search engine. The five usability principles of SEO are as follows:

#1. User Experience

The website should be user-friendly and convenient to browse. There should be enough free space for the content ratio that viewers will be comfortable going through the page. The webpage should have color coordination symbolizing the industry it represents or themed as per the content. The content should be informative and should serve the purpose of the visitors. There should be a clear navigation menu to help the visitor browse through different sections of the webpage. Hire professional web design services.

It is important to cut down the categories of the navigation bar and make it more crisp and easy for the user. Web-users want the loading time of the webpage to be very less, even while browsing through the mobile. If the loading time of a page is too slow, then the visitor might get distracted on some other webpage. There should be enough knowledge about the products and services offered linked with the searched keyword. There should be a continuity of the campaigns on the website so that the client stays subscribed to the channel.

#2. User Engagement

The primary aim of SEO is to attract traffic to the website as well as retaining the traffic to spend some time on the webpage and browse through different offerings. Content marketing is a unique way of driving user experience. The website owner should concentrate on content and website design. For the creation of engaging content, it is necessary to focus on content creation with exquisite website designing. The strategies to make engaging content is to keep the layout and content simple. There should enough space to maintain the hierarchy of the website, making the content and information easy to read and follow. The colors should be selected based on the usability and utilization of the content.

For the generation of leads, driving traffic, conversion of prospects into sales, and other important reasons behind SEO, the content changes accordingly. The headline or the main slogan of the website should be catchy. It is believed that viewers stick to the website when there is an innovative catchline present there. It is essential to align the website data with the content strategy of the SEO. it is required to serve better pages to the visitors and elevate upwards the search engine page results.

#3. Visual Customization

When the website design and visual layout are customized to make the webpage more symmetrical and perfectly aligned. The important webpage elements like advertisements, special attractions, news, infographic, and photographs. It is necessary to draw attention to the webpage by incorporating them for highlighting key messages. The white empty spaces are equally important to make the user perfectly navigate through the website and eyes should be coordinated in guidance with the highlighted information.

The representation of useful information throughout the webpage creates interesting visual customization in the eyes of the visitor. However, it should be kept in mind to make the website more SEO friendly with very high loading speed. Improving the content is the next option if a website owner does not want to recreate the entire content. However, modifications can be done with the incorporation of visuals or designs. There should enough building pages link to high-value pages so that the traffic gets more clicks and paved its way forward to the search results ranking.

#4. Webpage Layout

The webpage layout should be similar to F-pattern. It is a simple pattern to follow by the visitors and the eye-scanning process becomes easier through this layout. It is been observed that readers first read the first horizontal line of the website, followed by another line horizontally below. However, after two horizontal lines, the user’s eyes scan the webpage with the vertical line forming F-pattern. Therefore, it is suggested to design the webpage content in this pattern so that it grabs the attention of the user.

The webpage owner must display the content as an authority of the brand and demonstrate the information, services, or products offering to the community and create strong emotional attachments with the visitor. This is the on-site modification for the webpage layout important in SEO. The off-site modification of the webpage should be considered for building valuable relationships with other clients in the industry.

#5. Call-to-action (CTA)

The objectives behind the website design should not be forgotten, it is to be kept in mind that every website should engage the traffic and ensure click to action. The call-to-action or click-to-action feature on the webpage creates clear business objectives by aligning it with the main agenda of the webpage. The headline should clearly specify that the website is appropriate for them and they can offer the information they were looking for. The potential customers understand that the site is not for them.

It is a simple concept i.e., to fulfill the requirements of the visitors and they will stick around. The SEO keywords should be selected such that the visitors find the most suitable organic result for that keyword. The important pieces of information stated on the website should also align with the keywords.

Metrics to Drive Usability Principles

There are three metrics in SEO that determines the application of the above stated five usability principles. It will analyze or evaluate the audience retention over the webpage:

#1. Time on Page

The amount of time a user spends on the webpage before leaving the page to browse another site is known as time on page. The user can navigate to any other webpage or SERP or any bookmarked website. The total time a user spends on the site is time on page and it includes clicks and in-site navigation.

#2. Dwell Time

When a user types a keyword in the search engine, the application shows the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). The time taken by a visitor to click on one of the search results and return back to the SERP is known as Dwell Time. The calculation is based on the total time spent on browsing a webpage opened by the search results page.

#3. Bounce Rate

The bounce rate measures the detractors from the webpage. When a visitor views the webpage only one and then closes the webpage, then it is a bounce. The time spent in browning the webpage without any clicks or navigation can be high or low, but it does not influence the bounce rate.

Usability is a critical aspect of user retention and driving traffic to the website. The above five principles of enhancing usability will ensure that the webpage gets recognized for its content and offerings for the community.

About the Author!

Ritu Sharma is the Content Manager at SEO Company PageTraffic, one of Asia’s most award-winning & recognized Digital Search Marketing agency. She has been the spear head of many successful Content Marketing Campaigns for PageTraffic where she also blogs SEO related topics.