SEO Best Practices 2017: User Behaviour

In This Blog Post By Our Resident SEO Expert. We Examine The Importance Of User Experience And Behaviour In SEO.

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August 24, 2017
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Jordan Chammings
SEO is as much a moving target today as it’s ever been. Search engines are continually improving the way they find and rank relevant content and in the process, affect the positions of millions of websites for better or worse.

Why do accurate search results matter?

It may sound like an obvious question with a simple answer but it’s often forgotten that Google, Bing and other search engines exist purely to give answers to people’s questions. If the results are poor, made up of spam pages and irrelevant content, users will soon move on to another search provider. It’s why Google has a huge dominance in search; they’ve consistently been able to provide the most accurate results, and because of that they’re a multi-billion-dollar goliath and a synonym for online search. Just look at the work we did for a health insurance company promoting the best health insurance.

Content Creation for SEO

SEO has long prioritised the best unique content, and a typical work flow for a new website page would look something like:

“Do keyword research, add original writing and imagery = see positions in Google increase for some terms.”

Whilst this method works to an extent it does miss out arguably the most important part of the equation - the user.

User Focussed SEO: The User Is Everything

We, the users, are the centre of the online universe. There’s nothing more important to web designers, SEOs, business owners, local community leaders or Google for that matter. Whilst it may seem like Google’s empire is built on the back of corporate advertisers, in reality it’s propped up by our on-going loyalty to their search tool. Without us there is nothing. No reason to advertise, no reason to optimise, simply put - the user is everything.

How users affect your positions in Google

Whilst Google doesn’t share exactly how its algorithm ranks website we do know that providing relevant and engaging content to users is their highest priority. So how does Google determine your position when you and everyone else are pumping out original content? User behaviour.

User Behaviour and SEO

How people behave and interact with your website will affect its position in search results. Have few traffic sources and a high bounce rate? Don’t expect to get anywhere soon. Poorly designed site which isn’t optimised for mobile? Again, good luck with that. Diverse digital marketing, varied traffic sources and excellent engagement? Now we’re talking!

SEO as part of a diverse digital strategy

SEO is hugely valuable to businesses looking to reach those who are actively seeking their products and services, but too often it’s done in isolation. To be effective today you need a diverse digital marketing strategy, continuous website monitoring and improvements to improve user engagement, structured and effective social media campaigns and a varied source of traffic.

How to improve your positions in Google in 2017

Do:

• Build a diverse digital marketing plan

• Improve user engagement

• Monitor user behaviour on pages

• Improve the website design and user flow

Don't

• Focus on SEO in isolation

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