SXO: Optimizing The Search Results For A Better User Experience

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SXO Optimizing The Search Results For A Better
User Experience
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Introduction

• In the current commercial scenario, it is
  essential for brands to be present in front of
  the correct audience at the right moment. There
  is no point in having relevant products and
  lucrative deals if your website doesnt pull in
  enough visitors. Search Engine Optimization
  (SEO), one of the pillars of Inbound Marketing,
  involves adding keywords to individual dedicated
  pages in a way that search engine crawlers can
  pick it up and display those pages when searched
  for the specific keywords. In fact, 57 of B2B
  marketers stated that SEO generates more leads
  than any other marketing initiative (Source).
  While SEO ensures that the correct keyword search
  shows your website pages, it doesnt guarantee
  that your visitors are willing to interact with
  your website.
• Thanks to the plethora of tools available for
  providing a customized and personalized
  experience, it is time that SEO is no longer only
  used for optimizing the keywords but also for the
  user experience. Now, most search engines look
  for results that better answer the queries and
  provide a good user experience to the searchers.
  This necessity brought forth a new form of
  optimization called Search Experience
  Optimization (SXO). This article will focus on
  explaining SXO, the methodology behind it, how to
  provide a good search experience, and some best
  practices associated with SXO.

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What is Search Experience Optimization? How do
search engines evaluate?

• In the early years of SEO, link building page
  rankings were the metrics to measure the search
  ranking of your website. Keeping up with the
  times, SEO has evolved into an ever-changing
  algorithm that functions as a real person. Now a
  ecommerce website design is ranked based on
  user-oriented metrics such as site speed,
  relevance, structure, responsiveness, and
  usability of the provided information. Long gone
  are the days when the quantity (number of links)
  mattered, now it is time for the quality of the
  links.
• Search engines like Google have different kinds
  of metrics implemented to track the relativeness
  of the search results with the actual search, and
  it all depends on the behavior of the user. The
  users click tells about what they need to know.
  If a user returns to the search page after
  clicking a link, it indicates that the link
  didnt satiate the need of the user and the
  search engine will not show that link at the same
  position when someone else searches it. Instead,
  the next link that the user spends more time will
  be given more priority.

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What is Search Experience Optimization? How do
search engines evaluate?

• On the other hand, if the user searches for a new
  term after returning from the link, it indicates
  that the link managed to provide whatever the
  user was searching for.
• Some of the metrics that a search engine measures
  a users search experience are
• Short Click The user returned moments after
  visiting a search result. This indicates an
  unsatisfactory user experience.
• Long Click The user spent significant time on
  the link clicked, which indicates relevancy. This
  is a good factor.
• Click-through Rates It is the percentage of how
  often users click a link compared to how many
  times it is displayed in the search results.
• The Next Click A critical metric, this
  determines the user satisfaction. If the next
  click is another search result, it indicates
  dissatisfaction. If the next click is a new
  search term, it shows user satisfaction.

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The SXO Methodology

• The SXO methodology relies on three core
  principles
• Usability of the provided content
• Relevancy to what user is searching
• Authority of the link
• A search result that manages to provide relevant
  information in a usable format and carries enough
  authority in itself is bound to give a good user
  experience to the user. So let us approach the
  methodology by breaking it down to individual
  principles.

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Usability

• Usability means making it easy for users to find
  the information they need. This means creating a
  structured layout that provides the required
  information in an easy to understand format
  without much distractions. By organizing your
  content logically, your visitors wont face
  trouble finding what they are looking for.
• With proper indexing, search crawl bots wont
  have any issues in classifying and indexing your
  site. Usability is also about optimizing the
  content so that it is easily accessible,
  irrespective of the device or screen size your
  potential visitor is using.
• The least you can do to improve the usability of
  your site is to eliminate the most likely
  problems in your site architecture such as broken
  internal links, 404 errors, and wrong redirects
  to eliminate poor user experience.

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Relevancy

• Next comes making sure that the content answers
  the search query that lead the user to your page.
  This means including page content that matches to
  their search intent. Generating relevancy in your
  content can be broken down into three tasks.
• Identifying the keywords Recognizing the
  keywords that your audience used to land on your
  website will help you create a portfolio of
  different variations of the same keyword. This
  will help you ensure that the content you publish
  matches the needs of your prospects.
• Keyword relevance assessment Depending on which
  stage of a buyers journey, your visitors are,
  the long-tail keyword will vary. So by assessing
  how and why a person will look for your content,
  you can craft customized information for them.
• Optimizing existing content Moving towards SXO
  doesnt mean that your existing content is worth
  nothing. Your existing content is a goldmine of
  information about why someone reached that
  specific content, and the recorded metrics for
  that page will help you understand the
  effectiveness as well as what needs improvement.

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• Survey the existing visitors

• Even though not a part of the SXO methodology, by
  surveying the existing visitors and customers
  about what drew them in and made them stay, you
  get information that your prospects are looking
  for.
• To begin with, segment your visitors based on the
  search query they used. The next step is to
  segment their answers based on the pages they
  visited. Based on the segmentation, you can
  prioritize the list of what your user needs.

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Authority

• Your page is worth nothing if it doesnt have the
  required authority. Authority needs to be built,
  and cant be developed overnight. Building
  authority for web pages is where your existing
  content can shine.
• Optimize your existing content on which you are
  the authority will help you gain credibility.
  When your content makes the visitor stay on the
  page for a longer duration, search engines pick
  it up as a credible content. When you link newer
  content to the high ranking pages of your site,
  you pass on the link juice to the new page
  through association and make it credible from a
  search engine point of view.
• Do constant research on what your prospects are
  asking about your field. Engage with them and
  land them to your authoritative pages to build
  credibility.

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How to provide a better search experience

• There is a 7 stage process when it comes to
  improving the search experience of your
  prospects.
• Step 1 Identify the problem with your site
  structure such as 404 errors, broken links,
  improper redirects that can create a negative
  user experience.
• Step 2 Address indexing issues such as improper
  page tags, broken navigation, or incorrect page
  movement logic.
• Step 3 Create a Keyword Portfolio that has all
  the keywords used in user search as well as
  keyword index that is aligned with search
  queries.
• Step 4 Next comes managing the keyword
  portfolio. This requires constant tracking,
  monitoring, and management. Seasonal changes to
  keywords and competitor research are a part of
  Keyword Portfolio management.
• Step 5 Mapping the content to the relevant
  keyword. Is your content answering the customers
  questions?
• Step 6 Optimizing the existing content. This
  means ensuring the content youre offering is
  useful, fresh, and unique.
• Step 7 Building links as well as an authority
  on the developed content with internal and
  external links. You need to periodically assess
  whether the provided links are adding value to
  your page.

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Best practices

• Prioritize between different broad queries In
  order to ensure that your page remains fresh, you
  need to optimize it constantly. There might be
  too many points of improvement but you need to
  prioritize which aspect of your content needs
  attention. Make a judgment based on the frequency
  of the different search queries to make the
  decision.
• Time is never on your side Statistically, it
  takes 10 seconds for someone to make a decision
  about continuing on a site. If the user doesnt
  find what they came for in the first 10 seconds,
  they will drop-off. Make sure you hint enough to
  have them stay longer.
• Have meaningful headlines and meta description
  Most search engines display the Meta title as
  well as 156 characters of the meta description in
  the search result. Make sure you craft your
  headlines in such a way that it answers the
  search query. Ideally, your title should resemble
  I need to search_query.

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Wrapping Up

• The goal of search experience optimization is not
  only to drive-in more traffic but to create a
  better web experience along the way. By investing
  some time and patience into your site building
  efforts, it wont take much time in transforming
  your SEO into SXO.
• SEO is a continuous process, and the sooner you
  start it, the better! For further work, you can
  choose our SEO packages and let us handle the
  transition while you focus on increasing your
  business. Get in touch to start this search
  experience optimization journey with QeRetails
  free in-depth SEO Analysis.
• And in the meantime, if youre trying to optimize
  your website pages development, take advantage of
  our free Meta Tag generator template.

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  Get In Touch With One Of The eCommerce Handymen
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