Visibility

As search marketers, we must be able to understand how and why a user embarks on a search. The psychology behind why the search is occurring dictates the keyword and modifiers, which should be used to impact the searchers when they are most interested in your product. At this juncture lies a business’s website.

Search engine marketers have to quantify results and driving organic keyword traffic to a website is no longer enough to justify valuable business resources applied to search marketing. Search engine marketers are now challenged with driving conversions. This requires the search marketer to not only understand what drives consumers to search but also what consumers are looking for when they reach the website. A smart SEO program will direct particular keywords and modifiers to specific content, creating optimal situations for the user to convert.

The task of managing conversion funnels on a website leads the need for search marketers to fully grasp both user experience and information architecture. User experience and information architecture specialists have typically lived within the realm of creative or web development teams. However, many times these teams are engaged in the project at the beginning and will have limited involvement through the duration of the program — leaving the search marketer responsible for goal attainment. This problem can be avoided if the search engine marketer is immersed in both user experience and information architecture.

User Experience and SEO

User experience is how one interacts with a website. The ease of use, applicable content and overall aesthetics help shape the experience of the website. Usability experts will create personas — a demographic and psychographic profile of the audience the website wants to reach. The persona becomes the muse to the website design around which all of the creative and developmental elements orbit. User experience ensures the intended audience expectation is delivered.

User experience is critical for SEO. An optimized website can drive organic traffic from core keywords. However, the expectation of the search user, once they have arrived, is key to the user converting. For example, a user searches for “luxury handbags” and she expects to find a website with a recognizable brand, content that speaks to the quality of the fabrics involved in the creation of the handbags, and a design that speaks to luxury. If, instead, the user is taken to a website with unrecognizable brands, disjointed design and a warehouse store location, then the user will not remain on the website to make a purchase — no matter if the keyword “luxury handbags” is written into the content.

Search marketers must understand who the users are and for what they are searching. The collaboration of the two will lend itself to optimal ROI for a company’s marketing dollars.

Measuring User Experience

User experience can be a challenge to quantify. Ease of use, aesthetics and the relevance of content to the user are qualitative considerations dependent upon the perspective of the target audience. These qualitative aspects can be measured and analyzed through methods such as focus groups, eye-tracking studies and heat maps, but the insights gained through these methods are only actionable when the participants are aligned with a site’s target audience.

Another approach to measuring these aspects is applying quantitative measurement through cross-functional competitive review. This approach requires establishing a defined scoring methodology to each aspect (i.e., design) and having internal resources from multiple disciplines score several competitive sites. By averaging the scores you can minimize the impact of individual preference and get a measurement of best practices for user experience in competitive sites. This methodology can be particularly useful in directing initial experience design for a new web property.

It is also important to remember the goal of the user experience — to guide the behavior of visitors. While some common metrics (i.e., time on site, pages per visit) help you measure visitor behavior, deeper analysis of navigation paths (including entry and exit point, paths to conversion and abandonment points) will provide more actionable insights into improving the user experience. Segmenting users into behavior groups, such as converting visitors, will also help enhance the insights gained by this analysis.

As with other types of measurement, benchmark data can provide a good reference for the meaning behind the metrics. Search marketers should realize that the initial measurement is a starting point, and ongoing refinement and measurement should be planned during the early stages of user experience development.

Information Architecture and SEO

Information architecture (IA) is the science of organizing information, accomplished by identifying and utilizing patterns to make access to that information simpler. For search marketers, it is important to note that IA improves the efficiency with which both users and search engines can access content. Information architects align content patterns with the mental models developed by users and, with known information regarding search engine algorithms, develop a blueprint that guides interface design for displaying content.

A user looking to purchase a leather tote may initially look for totes and then narrow the selection down to leather products, or may start by looking for leather products and then narrow down the selection to totes. The goal of the information architect is to allow the user to find the product quickly in either scenario, and then guide that user to purchase.

Search marketers must play an integral role in the information architecture of the site. Search optimization should start by developing or contributing to the sitemap. A search marketer can ensure themed content is grouped together on the website and the content is not buried within the site. Additionally, the sitemap will help direct the URL naming conventions — an intrinsic element for search rankings. Along with URLs, search marketers should assist in navigation to ensure the keywords that drove traffic to the site are the ones directing users onsite. Finally, search marketers should collaborate on the page layout. Dictating the direction of the page layout will ensure that correct content, including informational and conversion generating, is in place to meet the strategic SEO goals of the site.

Measuring Information Architecture

As the goals of IA are aligned with both user experience and optimization of search results, so is measurement of IA.

Remember that effective IA will increase the efficiency with which both users and search engines can access content. A review of the sitemap can usually provide an idea of the number of links required for search engines to access content. The navigation paths analyzed for user experience are also helpful for determining the number of steps required for users to access site content (users rarely navigate as efficiently as search engines). The conversion funnel should also be considered in these steps.

Most search marketing professionals already track indexed pages for managed domains on the major search engines, and this metric provides an indication of the breadth of content that is being accessed. Another important metric to watch is page load times, especially for sites with a complex infrastructure or interface. In addition to the impact that page load time has on page rank and search results, this metric can also provide an alert to potential usability concerns.

For larger sites, site search can be a significant component of IA, allowing users to quickly find specific information within a vast amount of content. For these sites, site search analytics can provide significant insights. The analysis of search activity should include metrics related to the number of searches, but should also include a deeper dive into search patterns (i.e., keywords, categories) to help drive ongoing IA refinements.

Conclusion

Search marketers must remember they are marketers first. As marketers, knowing how the customers think, understanding what they like and don’t like, building audience profiles, and delivering content is all part of the marketing process. Therefore, search marketers must embrace the user experience and information architecture as tools to assist in their SEO strategies.

Additionally, as search engines mature and evolve, they will continue to strive to deliver quality search results for the end user. In doing so, they will move further and further away from keyword search match to keyword on the page. Semantics, relational queries and phrases will become more important to search marketers. Search engine marketers cannot move into these realms without the help of user experience analysis and information architecture input. User search data becomes integral in assessing behavior and determining actions. The key for search engine marketers in embracing the new search paradigm is the ability to interpret what the user wants.