Many companies believe that a choice must be made between usability and website SEO, with many people believing that one element has to be sacrificed for the sake of the other. Needless to say the goals of website SEO and usability are polarised, but that doesn’t mean they have to be mutually exclusive. With keen eye for functionality an experienced website developer will bring to the table, it is simple to produce a website that satisfies customers and search engines alike.
In days gone by pages produced for the purpose of website SEO were filled with text that contained a high density of keywords which often made the copy a little disjointed. Website SEO has changed drastically over the years, and now, with the assistance of a professional SEO copywriter it is possible to merge keywords with punchy text that attracts rather than deters your customer base.
So what elements should you consider when balancing usability with website SEO?
- Title tags and headings – this is one of the most important factors to get right to strike the perfect balance between SEO and usability. The title tag plays an integral part in website SEO, but it is also the first thing a user is going to see, so it has to be readable and explain accurately what the page will do. A good title tag should focus on only one to two keywords, and still make sense to readers. Every page of your website should have a different title tag.
- Usability testing – this plays an integral part in determining the user experience and how simple it is to navigate your site. Any findings which illustrate the poor usability of your site should be addressed immediately, even above website SEO considerations. If the usability of your site falls below the mark, the amount of traffic SEO helps you to attract will be for irrelevant, as poor usability will quickly lead visitors to look elsewhere.
- Keyword use – keywords should be used in the right places in the meta data as well as throughout the body copy of your page. However, don’t be tempted to indulge in keyword spamming as this not only effects usability, it is also likely to be detrimentally to website SEO as the search engines will regard the page as ‘spam’, which will hinder your rankings for the targeted keywords. Anything around 3% is the sort of keyword density you should be looking to achieve.
This is only a brief insight into the intricate balancing act between website SEO and usability, with many other factors also playing a part. For further information about usability and website SEO, please call the experienced website developers here at Designer Websites on 0845 272 6813.
