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Organize Your Website Pages for Better User Experience AND Better SEO
While your website’s design may command all of your attention, you should be focusing on your website’s structure. Read on to find out why.
We touched briefly on the importance of website structure last time to show how it relates to being ADA-compliant, but structure also affects the success of both your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and User Experience (UX) efforts. Thoughtfully structured websites get extra points from search engines and those with poor structure are penalized, so organizing your content correctly is more than worth the effort.
Remember back in high school when you learned how to outline and write an essay? The content on your website – and on each web page – should be outlined exactly the same way. You start with a title, list a few main points, and then elaborate on those until wrapping up with a conclusion.
On a web page, the conclusion is your Call To Action and the CTA may be different on each page. “Buy Now” is a CTA, but so is “Call Us,” “Subscribe,” or even “Learn More.” Plan for the action you wish the User to take on each page so that your content leads them to the appropriate conclusion.
The content on each page needs a headline, just like that on your high school essay, that declares what to expect. In website development, this is your H1 tag (Heading #1). There should only be one H1 tag per page stating one main topic. This helps search engines categorize your page and serve it as a search query result while helping Users scan for topics of interest. H1 tags are particularly helpful for those who use screen-reading technology to navigate online.
The words in your H1 tag should also be in the Title meta tag of your web page. Also, pull out that list of keywords from your marketing research so you can use the appropriate search terms in your H1 and Title tags to improve your Search Engine Optimization.
After the H1 tag, which is the headline of your web page, organize the rest of your content to be easily scannable by Users and screen-readers. Break up sections with H2 tags, or even H3 tags, if it makes sense, with more detailed content available in each section for Users who want to learn more than the main points.
Keep in mind that font size and heading tag are two different things. You could have three section headings that are all 18-point text, but only the first one should be your H1 tag. Sometimes folks use the H1 setting because it “looks good” instead of reserving it for the appropriate use.
Web page structure and H1 tags are key factors in search engine ranking, but just as important, structure impacts the User Experience. Clear hierarchy provides reassurance to the User that your website is to be trusted and that your business is both knowledgeable and reputable. Improving User Experience is one of Google’s main goals and they have confirmed that UX is a main ranking factor.
As Disability Pride Month draws to a close, now is the perfect time to review your website for structure and clarity. Not only for ADA-compliance, but for better SEO and UX as well. Ask us about our free website audit to get started.
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko
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Kate Gingold
I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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