Since the early days of the internet, discoverabililty has been a priority for website developers.
Early practitioners of what is now known as search engine optimisation (SEO) would design and craft web content specifically to rank higher in search results.
In a fascinating article from 2021 tracing the history of SEO, Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal explains that keywords were the go-to strategy to boost a page’s search ranking.
“If you wanted to rank well in this era, the trick was pretty much just repeating your keywords enough times throughout your webpages and meta tags,” he explains.
“Want to outrank a page that uses a keyword 100 times? Then you’d use the keyword 200 times!”
The practice, known as keyword stuffing, successfully boosted a page’s search ranking, but at what cost?
Users were presented with sub-optimal search results based not on relevancy, but on how well the content had been manipulated to rank in a search. Web pages themselves would often be littered with unnatural word repetition and cumbersome keyword-packed headings, with content more focused on the needs of search engines than of the user.
While a high search ranking may have been achieved, the user experience took a significant hit.
User experience is prioritised over keywords
Since those early days of the internet, search engine algorithms have grown increasingly more sophisticated.
Today they take into account more than 200 factors when determining where your webpage will rank in an online search.
Rather than reward keyword stuffing, search engines penalise it. The focus is now on matching search queries to answers, not keywords. Quality content that meets users’ needs is prioritised, with the user experience taking precedence. Search results are highly personalised, with factors such as how quickly a web page loads, and whether or not it has intrusive pop ups influencing how it ranks in search results.
Optimise for UX and you will optimise for SEO
According to Sarah Berry of WebFX, SEO should never come at the expense of user experience.
In fact, she says, now that search engines prioritise the user experience, optimising for UX will mean you are automatically optimising for SEO.
Why should you care?
Optimising your website and content so that it shows at the top of the search results page increases the chances of your target audience finding and visiting your web page.
While you can pay to have your link at the top of the search results page with a sponsored, pay-per-click ad, SEO enables your organic content to feature highly in a search, for free!
Want help producing user-focused content for your website?
Contact us today!