SEO may focus on getting more traffic to your site, but its ultimate goal is to encourage users to spend quality time with your business. SEO doesn’t end when a user clicks on your link in the search engine results pages. It needs to convince them to stay and look around.

There is a surprising amount of search engine optimisation work that involves pleasing your site’s users. This is because a high bounce rate and low popularity can be just as detrimental to your ranking as bad on-page SEO. In order for the results of your initial optimisation to stick, your whole site needs to appeal as much to users as it does to the search engines.

Careful planning and use of your title tag and meta description tags can improve your chances of drawing traffic from the search engine results pages. Once a user enters your site, the real work begins. Are they put off? Are their questions answered immediately? You can save your business a lot of trouble by spending a few minutes in your site users’ shoes.

Take a few moments to find your site through the search pages and click on the link. The very first thing you will notice after clicking is the download time. Minimising download times should be part of a general SEO plan. Cleaning up code and minimising the size of assets like images and videos can mean the difference between a user landing on your site or turning away.

The next thing the user will come to is the site design. Design elements on a page will be a big part of any SEO plan. Particularly if the search has directed your user to the home page, the design should provide enough space to let your key concepts stand out. This really should be a rule for all landing pages. A crowded page may make your user uncomfortable and result in their turning around.

The next aspect of the page to strike the user will be your text, unless the site features some particularly distracting images. A user’s eye will naturally interpret catchy images before text. If the page does feature images, they need to convey the concept of the site just as clearly as words. For example, a marketing site might use an image of a team of climbers mounting a rock face as its main image, as it signifies strength, teamwork and success over hardship.

The title of the page should contain the page’s main keywords. These will reassure the user that they have come to the right site for their needs. The title should also convey a unique message, to convince the user that the site can answer their problems more effectively than any other.

Finally, the page should set out clear paths for the user to take. These can be set out in sidebar navigation, header navigation, footer navigation and in hypertext throughout the content. It’s good to anchor a few main links in the text on the page, so that the other keywords for the site jump out at the user as they scan.

Talk to our experts at SEO Consult about holistic site optimisation.

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