The Undeniable Overlap Between UX and SEO

Today’s Myth: “You must balance your website’s UX and SEO strategy”

Last weekend, I went online with the hope of understanding the relationship between SEO and UX a little better.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking – I have a very exciting life...

I started on Google, ended up on Linkedin looking at Google SEO Gurus, then back to Google.

I noticed that many articles described optimising a website for SEO and UX as a kind of “balancing” act. UX Magazine, for example, talks about “Finding a Balance Between UX and SEO”, whilst Search Engine Journal names their blog “UX & SEO: Strike a Balance”.?

Given that a “balance” suggests that these two things are pushing against each other, this seemed a very odd way to frame the connection between SEO and UX.

Personally, I was under the impression that there were more similarities than differences between the two, but I was also willing to accept that I am no expert!

Luckily for me, my colleagues are used to me pestering them for their knowledge. And that’s exactly what I did first thing Monday morning. This time it was our SEO Guru Connor Peterhans that were on the receiving end of my interrogation.

For the rest of the article, I will attempt to relay how they helped me understand the relationship between SEO and UX. Sorry if I butcher this, guys ???

Put simply, “good” UX is not something you have to sacrifice for “good” SEO! Recent improvements in the big G’s (Google) search algorithm now mean that practices that please users, will also please search engine crawlers.

It is no longer a matter of having to cater to one or the other.

Page speed (2010 update) and mobile friendliness (2015 update) are long-standing Google ranking factors that were early signs of the importance of UX within SEO. Fast-forward to 2022 and most of the major algorithm updates have prioritised user experience. For instance:

• Helpful Content update (August): Google now focuses on rewarding “people-first” content and devalues content written for search engines. It will prioritise content that is actually helpful to users in SERPs. Although – as with most algorithm updates – I have no clue how they will go about doing that and my pleas to Matt Cutts (would have tagged him but only found fake profiles) have gone unanswered.
• Product Review update (September): this aims to reward high-quality product review pages that share in-depth research i.e. informative product review pages that have been designed with users in mind.?

So, if the big G is clearly prioritising UX moving forwards, surely online marketers need to follow suit.

That’s not to say I want the UX and SEO departments to merge into one! Rather, this blatant overlap between SEO and UX best practices (which will only get stronger) must simply be recognised and accounted for.

Who’s to say that a user-friendly site and an SEO-friendly site will almost entirely be dictated by the same criteria in the near future?

Cater to your users; you will also please the Big G.

Are there any marketing myths that you want me to debunk? Please feel free to comment or message me about a problem you are facing/have faced as a business owner or a marketer, so I can tackle it in a future newsletter.