Nobody says SEO is easy. For most marketers, SEO is all about going through the rigorous process of finding the perfect set of keywords that you can rank to keep your visitors longer on the website. However, many other factors contribute to the website SEO. Although significant keyword optimization is a single factor, all other factors contribute equally.
Search engine algorithms not only rate the keyword relevancy in the content and the meta tags, but it also evaluates your website based on the inbound and outbound links, page views, broken links, bounce rate, and the dwell time.
Let’s explore a little further on how website usability contributes to a significant ranking factor. According to an SEO company in Irvine, the following factors play a critical role in defining website usability.
Accessibility
Accessibility or availability is the central aspect of website usability. If your users are trying to access your site, and if it is not accessible due to any reason, then it becomes worthless. Your visitor won’t only be frustrated, but they will never give a second try and head to the next available website to get what they are looking for. The following are the basics of accessibility or availability.
- Make sure the server uptime is maximum. Invest in a good hosting that you can depend on.
- Double-check all the broken links and the dead links and remove them, if any.
- Your website must be mobile-friendly, and it should work even with slow connections.
Clarity
Whether it is customer journey or visitor retention, the core of usability is clarity. Anything that confuses or distracts your customers will push them away, and they will forget why they visited your website altogether. In short, an exceptional user-experience is essential to ensure visitor retention and enhance the usability of your website, as it is one of the significant contributing factors to your website ranking.
- Great clarity is achieved through the simplicity of its design and the familiarity of the target audience – it means anything you publish on your website should address the needs of your targeted audience.
- Consistency- Give your audience a great experience consistently. Don’t try to get cute.
- Guidance- don’t expect your visitors to explore the website themselves, but show them how to use it easily.
Learnability
Make sure your website is easy to navigate. Your visitors should not face any trouble while exploring your site. If they spend most of their time exploring how to use your websites, they will be spending less time finding what they need the most i.e., the product or service you are offering. Plus, if they fail to find what they are interested in quickly, they will navigate back and will never come back again. Sad yeah?
Always make intuitive designs that are easy to explore through. Please keep it simple and add visuals that can help them remember your site forever.
Credibility
Every single day a new service provider pops up on social media or search engines promising to provide you the best services or product. Given this, it is pretty hard to find whom to trust. It makes it hard for people to find credible brands or service providers. If you lack credibility, then the website and the content you have on it becomes worthless. One of the great ways to increase reliability is to add your About Us page on the site. You can also add your phone number, customer reviews, and the physical address. It will strengthen your credibility and reputation.
Relevancy
Lately, one of the significant aspects that most of the brands lack is relevancy. Pay closer attention to what exactly your target audience is looking for and then create content and design the website accordingly. Clarity and learnability are not enough to develop long run results. A great way to ensure relevancy is to meet your target audience in person and ask questions. Once you get all the answers, then tailor your content creation and design your website accordingly.
Test, test, and test over again to ensure the usability of the website according to the SEO company in Irvine. Remember, nothing happens overnights, and you have to put effort, do the research, and adopt an iterative approach of constant testing.