SEO and User Experience are often thought of as being at odds with one another. But in reality, especially with the recent developments of 2010, they have never been more intertwined. We will explain why, and give you some cutting edge tactics that will help you optimize your online presence from a SEO and Usability perspective at the same time.

1. The Alignment of
SEO and Usability
2/8/2010
Thanh Nguyen
Director, User Experience, BusinessOnline
@bolteamu
Ray Comstock
Director, SEO, BusinessOnline
@seocatfish

2. Agenda
• Current state of SEO and Usability
• Top Usability + SEO Alignments
• Q&A

3. Thanh Nguyen
Director, User
Experience
Education
• Degree in Cognitive Science Specializing in
Human Computer Interaction
• Computer Science Degree
• HFI Certified – Featured C.U.A of the Month for
April
Clients
• Watkins, Zodiac, RailEurope, American Red
Cross, Sybase, Workday, PlayStation, ISBN,
American Council on Exercise, Masco

4. Ray Comstock
Director, SEO
Experience
• 13 Years of SEO Experience
• Blog Syndicated by WebProNews.com
• Writer for SearchEngineWatch.com
• Speaker at OMS, SES, Pubcon
Clients
• Cisco, Sybase, Workday, Watkins,
Emerson, Masco, Lithium

5. Current State of SEO and
Usability

6. “You say we need less text
on the homepage and to use
bullets.
Our SEO firm says we need
more text on the homepage.
Who do we believe? How do
we find the compromise
between the two?”
Mr. Client

7. Our Answer:
“If your SEO team is telling you to
compromise Usability for the Search
Engines…
your SEO team needs to
be replaced.”
just kidding
sorta…

8. Real Answer
• Off page factors are becoming more crucial
– Social media
– Web 2.0
• Spiders follow user behaviors
– Semantic latent indexing
• Good SEO seldom compromises usability

9. Discovery

10. Keyword Research
SEO – Focusing on the UX – Using keywords
that resonate with your
most important audience improves
keywords from a user conversion,
perspective drives the comprehension and is
most revenue from more likely to resonate
with those users who
search rankings are scanning copy
Spider User
(screaming in horror at the
(pretend it’s a search
usability on your website)
engine)

11. On-page

12. Page Titles
SEO UX
– Single most important
on-page element – When users have
because keywords that windows open, need to
appear in these fields know which is which
are thought to be good
indicators of overall – Especially important for
content relevance accessibility
Spider User
(screaming in horror at the
(pretend it’s a search
usability on your website)
engine)

13. Headings (H1, H2, etc.)
SEO UX
– Break up information into
– Second most important meaningful chunks of
on-page criteria information
– More weight – Speed scanning
– Searching and scanning
– Used to summarize behavior is exponential,
blocks of content not linear
Spider User
(screaming in horror at the
(pretend it’s a search
usability on your website)
engine)

14. Put Most Important Content
Above The Fold
UX
SEO – Inverted pyramid writing style
– Some spiders have an – Conclusion first, then 1st
supporting topic, 2nd
indexing limitation supporting topic
– Users scan from top to bottom
– Text at top of page – Increase chances of being
given more weight scanned by user
Spider User
(screaming in horror at the
(pretend it’s a search
usability on your website)
engine)

15. Images Have Keyword Focused,
Descriptive Alt Tags
SEO UX
– Allows the search – Allows users without
image viewing
engine to understand capability to
what keyword phrases understand what
the link is relevant for content the link points
to
Spider User
(screaming in horror at the
(pretend it’s a search
usability on your website)
engine)

16. Provide Updated / New Content
SEO
– Provides new opportunities
UX
to target new keywords – Users have a reason to
– Extra page of internal links come back to website
to boost internal link
popularity – Open up more
– Crawlers come back more communication
often
channels with users
Spider User
(screaming in horror at the
(pretend it’s a search
usability on your website)
engine)

17. Sitewide

18. Make All PDF’s Available in
HTML Format
SEO UX
– More pages on your
website – Users have a reason to
– Spiders currently cannot come back to website
parse all content within – Open up more
PDF’s communication
– Losing link popularity channels with users
Spider User
(screaming in horror at the
(pretend it’s a search
usability on your website)
engine)

19. Site Navigation Not Built With
Java Script or Flash
SEO UX
– Ensures that people who do
– Ensures that link not have these technologies
metrics can be assigned enabled in their browser will
correctly to each page still be able to navigate the
of the Web site and that site and understand what the
all pages on the Web navigation is communicating
site will be indexed
Spider User
(screaming in horror at the
(pretend it’s a search
usability on your website)
engine)

20. Off-page

21. Embed Keywords Into Links
SEO UX
– Increases internal link – No need to read
relevancy contextual information
above or below link to
obtain meaning
– Good for accessibility
Spider User
(screaming in horror at the
(pretend it’s a search
usability on your website)
engine)

22. Keyword Focused Breadcrumb
Navigation
SEO UX
– Automatically creates – Users see hierarchy
keyword focused of information
internal link to each
page on Web site
– Serves as orienting
tool
Spider User
(screaming in horror at the
(pretend it’s a search
usability on your website)
engine)

23. HTML Sitemap
SEO UX
– HTML Sitemaps – HTML Sitemaps allow
normalize the flow of users an additional
Page Rank through the navigation system which
site and establish some users prefer
additional link relevance
Spider User
(screaming in horror at the
(pretend it’s a search
usability on your website)
engine)

24. Related Products Links
SEO UX
– Establishing additional – Improves conversion
cross links at the rates and up-sell
product level augments potential by helping
SEO performance for customers understand
those pages purchasing options
Spider User
(screaming in horror at the
(pretend it’s a search
usability on your website)
engine)

25. Social Media

26. Link to Social Media Profiles on
All Pages
SEO UX
- Increases the likelihood - Allows users to find
that these sites will rank social media profiles
for brand related terms
easily regardless of
(reputation
first entry page
management)
Spider User
(screaming in horror at the
(pretend it’s a search
usability on your website)
engine)

27. Keyword Focused Tag
Navigation
SEO UX
- Keyword focused tags
- Keyword focused provide additional
navigation tags navigation that is
centered around the
establish additional words that are most
keyword focused likely to resonate with
internal linking users
Spider User
(screaming in horror at the
(pretend it’s a search
usability on your website)
engine)

28. Questions?

29. Thank You
Ray Comstock
Director, SEO, BusinessOnline
ray.comstock@businessol.com
@seocatfish
www.linkedin.com/in/profile
Thanh Nguyen
Director, User Experience, BusinessOnline
thanh.nguyen@businessol.com
@bolteamu
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/thanh-nguyen/3/bab/443
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