How important is a website’s UX when improving SEO?

When improving a business’s search engine optimisation, the focus is normally on link building and content marketing.

This, of course, is super important; these are, if you like, the main backbone of SEO.

However, a top factor that sometimes gets little consideration is the website’s UX.

Sometimes the design is purely focused on what the directors like, rather than on what customers want.

Therefore, sometimes the business will opt for what they see as a minimalist, sleek website.

However, from a customer perspective, they find it difficult to use, say, the main menu on mobile!

Or that the website is so basic that it doesn’t answer the shopper’s query, so they leave.

Therefore, major online retailers today recognise that SEO, web design and UX must work together to deliver successful results.

What does U.X mean?

You make it sound super complicated, such as stating that U.X is about improving page speeds, using split testing to see what customers prefer, and monitoring dwell times to see which page design customers like best.

This is all true, but it’s really overcomplicating the process.

Basically, good UX is just about making a shopper’s life simpler.

Helping them to get to the product, or information they need, and to make it interesting, therefore, here’s what U.X is about:

–            Making sure the website is fast

–            Making sure the hosting is reliable so it doesn’t regularly go offline

–            Making the main navigation a piece of cake to navigate

–            Adding a visual element, such as a big picture of a product, so that instantly the customer can click through to that product category

–            Bullet-pointing sales features, because attention spans are short

–            Putting the most important information at the top of the page

–            If the service or product is complicated, consider using video to explain the benefits of that product or service

–            Making sure that the meta description and title take the customer to the right page

–            Using internal links to draw customers from, say, a blog post, to a sales page, so that they can find the right product

How do we improve our business UX?

U.X is all about engagement; a digital marketing agency like ours could work day and night to get the website to the top positions in Google’s organic search results.

However, if the website doesn’t offer a good user experience, the customer gives up and goes elsewhere.

Think of your own experiences of a poorly designed website.

I can think of one off the top of my head, where the e-commerce shop literally had hundreds upon hundreds of various products to sell.

However, it wasn’t clear whether some were in stock, when some said out of stock, it wasn’t clear when they could be delivered!

Therefore, remember our main point: offering a good U.X is all about making life easier for the shopper.

Here’s our top advice on how to improve your website’s UX

Easy navigation

So, put a lot of time into thinking about the main navigation, and make it simple to use. So, for example, perhaps put your items you want to sell more clearly, the products that you want to sell less of, further down or to the right.

Make the main navigation a piece of cake to use.

Don’t make it too cluttered.

Mobile-friendly content

So, we are in 2026, but some websites are still not designed for mobile at all.

Sometimes the website will be mobile-optimised; it’s just that the design is poor.

For example, using tons of text means that on the mobile version, you have to keep scrolling and scrolling to get where you need to go.

FGood core web vitals

This basically means making the website super-fast; again, as we all know, nobody wants a slow-loading e-commerce website.

If the customer is, say, purchasing, let’s say, golf clubs, if the pages are slow, or the website runs slowly during peak times, for example, during a sales period, then this is no good.

Therefore, you need good web design, coupled with super-fast hosting.

Does the website UX impact SEO?

The short answer to that question is a resounding yes!

The reason is simple: if the bounce rate is sky-high and has been sustained for a long time, it tells Google that shoppers are not sticking around.

If the average shopper only stays on the website for less than 20 seconds, well, this is clear that the e-commerce shop is not answering the customer’s question.

Therefore, if the vast majority of shoppers are leaving after a short period, this means the website is not answering that query.

Google’s algorithm will take note of this.

Because the bounce rate is high and so many shoppers are leaving, it’s normal that the website will be moved down Google’s rankings.

Then, a website that has higher engagement, such as a lower bounce rate and higher dwell times, moves up. Basically, that website is better at answering the shopper’s query.

It’s holding the shoppers’ interest for longer, and the way that Google monitors engagement is through the following:

– Bounce rates

– Dwell time

– Number of pages viewed

How can we improve the U.X of our content marketing

So, to improve any business’s SEO, a lot of content marketing typically needs to be written.

However, content marketing can often offer a better user experience if you do the following:

Page titles

So, what page titles do is improve the UX by allowing a shopper or reader to skip to the section they are most interested in reading.

Now, the reason this is important is simple: if the shopper lands on a blog post that is a solid block of text with no titles, it’s off-putting to read. A shopper might not want to read 2000 words of text.

Therefore, page titles do two things: they allow the shopper to skip to the section they want to read more about.

But they also tell the Google algorithm what that page is about and what questions it answers.

Therefore, it also helps Googlebot understand the page, such as the questions being answered.

Therefore, this helps with indexation, in terms of what questions that page answers.

Internal links

Internal links improve the website’s UX by helping a shopper find a product they would like to buy.

Therefore, instead of leaving the website, perhaps they go to a product page because, after reading a blog post, they realise that it is the product they want to buy.

Visual elements

Visual elements break up the text and convey information instantly, helping explain what the blog post is about.

For example, you could read a thousand-word blog post about link building; some visual elements can instantly convey, in infographics, how to build links.

Clear answers

If you have other clear answers to questions, this can hold shoppers’ interest longer, increasing dwell times.

Conversational writing style

Writing in a conversational style makes the work more relatable and personal, thereby holding the reader’s interest.

If you have a boring writing style, perhaps the work is too technical, which can increase the bounce rate.