It is still often the case that the designers of a website think about the user experience and SEO separately. The SXO, orSearch eXperience OptimizationThis "puts the user back at the center of SEO strategies.
Increasingly, search engine algorithms are including user experience in SEO criteria (see the page of our agency seo). It becomes therefore impossible to think about improving SEO without also trying to optimize the search experience. Where does this evolution come from? How to adapt your website to the new SXO criteria?
How was the SXO born, or Search eXperience Optimization ?
The SXO stands for Search eXperience Optimization. It owes its advent to the fact that search engine algorithms have refocused on user experience in recent years. The positioning of pages in search results becomes inseparable from the user experience. It is therefore a question ofimprove the user's search experiencebut also its navigation on the site, until the conversion.
Google launched the hostilities as early as 2015, developing the "RankBrain" algorithm. This helps it to better understand the search intentions of Internet users in order to provide them with the results most in line with the answers they are hoping for. Google says that taking into account search intentions is the most effective way to improve the quality of search results. 3rd most important referencing criterionThis criterion comes just after the content and links.
Other Google features confirm this orientation user friendlyThe Californian giant's "Mobile-First" index promotes compatible mobile websites, and thus the user experience. The recent advent of the rich snippets is also a step in the consideration of the user by the bots of referencing. These allow the Internet user to find the answers to their questions more quickly in the search results. Most of the functionalities that Google has subsequently developed, including the 0 position, aim to provide an efficient search experience for the user.
Also to be seen: invest in structured data to boost your site's traffic
How to optimize the content of your website for a good SXO?
The fact that SXO is about to replace SEO puts the understanding of the target at the heart of the web strategy. This approach involves, for example, reworking its titles and meta-descriptions. These must answer the questions of the Internet user. With the development of voice assistants, it becomes essential touse queries questions in the meta-title, the meta-description but also in the text.
The content of each web page also needs to be redesigned for blend in with the user's expectations as much as possibleTools such as Answer the public allow to evaluate, for a given keyword, the most recurrent questions of Internet users. Taking an interest in this data allows to improve the semantic score of the pages of a website.
More than ever, websites must also adapt to reading on mobile devices. This means that we have to worry about the mobile compatibility of the website, of course. But the editorial staff must also take into account the small size of the screens. How to make reading easier for the mobile user, who is by definition less patient?
- Favour short paragraphs ;
- Prioritize texts with titles ;
- Betting on bold bets;
- Use bulleted lists.
Also to be read : Voice search and Google Ads: how to adapt your paid referencing?
What ergonomics for a website UX friendly ?
What improvements can a site make to improve its SXO simply? The site must, first and foremost, load quickly. Web designers therefore benefit from optimising the size of all media to improve the speed of the site. They can also secure it via an HTTPS protocol, which reassures the Internet user and is one of Google's referencing criteria.
In terms of navigation, the site designers have every interest in improving the tree structure. The visitor should thus find meeting his needs in less than three clicks. Displaying the breadcrumb trail also helps reassure the user about the depth of the page that interests him. In addition, it is important to work on the overall readability - including colours and fonts - so as not to discourage browsing. An internal search engine on the site also offers a speed of navigation that is appreciated by visitors.
The user also likes that the internal network of the site facilitates his navigation. The internal links must therefore be relevant, with short anchors, with terms copied from the destination URL. Marketers can also ensure that they provide CTAs - or "...". call-to-actions " - consistent with the user path, as well as a simplified control tunnel.
Also to be read : how to improve your SEO with Youtube?
