User Experience
User experience is an important factor for SEO, ensuring visitors have a positive experience when they view a website creates positive brand awareness, while also helping with a site’s authority in search. Within our Hangout Notes we cover recommendations and insights from Google to ensure your site provides a positive user experience.
Get Feedback From Real Users to Assess Your Site’s EAT
John recommends getting feedback from your users about the expertise, authority and trustworthiness (EAT) of the content on your site to find areas for improvement.
Look Into Server-side Rendering For Improved UX as Dynamic Rendering is a Temporary Workaround for Crawlers
Dynamic rendering is a temporary workaround to allow search engine crawlers and social media crawlers to be able to access content even if they can’t render JavaScript. John foresees dynamic rendering being less useful in a few years as all crawlers get better at processing JavaScript, but look into server-side rendering for an improved experience for users.
ETags & If-Modified-Since Headers Can Improve UX Due to Caching Functionality
Google doesn’t always use ETags and If-Modified-Since HTTP headers when crawling as not many sites use them and often get them wrong. However, they can impact UX because they can improve caching of resources for returning users.
ETags & If-Modified-Since Headers Can Improve UX Due to Caching Functionality
Google doesn’t always use ETags and If-Modified-Since HTTP headers when crawling as not many sites use them and often get them wrong. However, they can impact UX because they can improve caching of resources for returning users.
Prefetching In-viewport Links Can Improve UX But No SEO Benefit
Speeding up pageloads by using ChromeLabs Quicklink to prefetch in-viewport links does not impact anything directly from a search perspective, but can have an indirect benefit through improved UX.
Sites Blocked by ISPs Can Have Indirect Effects on Search
If a site is blocked by ISPs this wouldn’t directly impact Googlebot’s crawling and indexing behaviour. However, there could be indirect issues as some users won’t be able to access and recommend your site, so Google wouldn’t be able to pick up these recommendations.
Follow Quality Guidelines But Focus on UX
John recommends using the Webmaster Quality Guidelines as a guide for content quality, but suggests not focusing too much on what Google is doing from an algorithmic standpoint. Instead focus on making and optimizing sites that provide good user experiences.
External Links to Other Pages May Help Google Understand the Context of a Page and Improve User Experience
Including external links to other pages can help Google to understand the context of a page a little bit, and may improve the user experience, but external links don’t impact rankings directly.
Authorship is a User Experience Factor Rather Than an SEO Factor
Google no longer uses authorship markup and doesn’t determine rankings based on how authors are presented on a website. Find out whether or not your users prefer seeing authors’ details, as Google will want to rank pages higher that make users happy.
Above the Fold Ads Can be Problematic For Google
Above the fold ads can be problematic for Google, especially if users aren’t easily able to find the body content.