There is a lot that goes into creating an exceptional website UX, but its importance to engagement metrics cannot be underestimated. Most websites these days build for mobile experience since that is where the most traffic comes from, however UX on desktop matters as well.
Ads
An ad layout that is too aggressive risks losing the user or being penalized by Google’s search algorithm.
Speed
When it comes to SEO and organic search performance, Google uses a set of 3 speed metrics called Core Web Vitals. These metrics are largest contentful paint (LCP), first input delay (FID) and cumulative layout shift (CLS).
Page speed as a ranking factor is very light (less than 5% weight in the algorithm) and does not make a huge difference for ranking purposes unless it truly impacts user experience.I
Here are some resources that can help you measure, monitor, and optimize your Core Web Vitals:
- Check the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console. This shows how your pages perform.
- Learn more about Core Web Vitals, a guide about Core Web Vitals, including how to measure, debug, improve and best practices.
- Learn about the different tools that can help you measure and report Core Web Vitals. These tools measure LCP, FID, and CLS.
Readability
Website readability is a measure of how easy it is for visitors to read and understand text on a web page. Readability depends on a text’s presentation (e.g., font choice, spacing, colors, etc.) and context (i.e., the actual words and sentences that are written on the page).
A highly readable website is more likely to keep visitors than one with poor readability. Publishers should strive to create easy-to-read and easy-to-digest website copy that inspires their target audiences to act.
- Font size should typically be at least 16-18px on both mobile and desktop.
- Recommended line height is 24px.
- Recommended padding between lines is at least 1.7px.
- Color contrast should be distinguished (black and white vs. white and light grey).
- The average human across the world has an 8th grade reading level. Write in a way that is easy for users to understand and clearly expresses the point.
- Users want content written BY humans FOR humans. Adding personality to the editorial content is a great way to stand out and show search engines the uniqueness of your content.
Formatting
How the website / content is formatted can have a major impact on UX. For content heavy publishers that are investing in articles or galleries, these strategies are recommended:
- For News sites especially, summary bullets at the top are customary.
- Add table of contents functionality to drop the user to the section they’re looking for in long-form articles.
- 2-3 sentence paragraphs before breaking to the next section. This not only makes it easier on the reader but allows excellent opportunities for natural ad insertion.
- Use heading tags to separate sub-topics throughout the post.
- Articles should always have internal links throughout the copy. Internal links need to open in the same window with external links opening in a new window.
- Images and videos improve text based content. Using diverse images creates a more engaging environment. Ensure that images are compressed and formatted correctly. Using a light WebP format.
- Always attribute articles to a writer, and expand author bios to be robust and personal.
Navigation
On mobile, a hamburger navigation is customary and on desktop, a horizontal nav is best. Navigations should be comprised of the most important topics to the publisher, 4-5 main categories should be sufficient. When applicable, adding a level of sub-categories helps Google know the most relevant topics of the brand.
Adding navigation related structured data types can help enhance the SERPs:
Add to the article template - How To Add Breadcrumb (BreadcrumbList) Markup | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers
Add to the homepage - Sitelinks Search Box (WebSite) Structured Data | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers