You’ve probably heard it time and time again: don’t build your website for search engines. Instead, we’re told to build websites with the user experience in mind.
But what’s really the difference between the two? Can a positive user experience and effective search engine optimization SEO) go hand-in-hand?
The answer is most certainly yes—with some balance. Your website should be easy for users to navigate and visitors should be able to quickly find what they’re looking for. And, perhaps most importantly, you want them to keep coming back for more.
The good news is that Google wants this too, so you don’t have to choose between making your website highly searchable or highly user friendly. After all, the goal of Google’s search algorithm is to help users find the best answers to their questions—both in information and in experience. Because of this, there are several different aspects of user experience that Google rewards in search rankings…