When Google’s Search Quality Senior Strategist Andrey Lipattsev was asked about Google’s most important ranking factors, he gave three[1]: content, links, and RankBrain.
We’ve known for a long time that links impact websites’ search rankings and Google has for a very long time emphasized the importance of quality content. What is RankBrain all about, however? Unlike content and links, RankBrain is influenced by behavior metrics[2] that indicate that users actually find a site to be useful. These behavior metrics, more than anything else, are influenced by the usability of your website — in other words, user experience (UX).
If you’ve been focusing on content and links at the expense of user experience, you won’t be able to maximize the performance of your website in the search engines. The following five UX tips will give you an SEO advantage.
1. Work on your site’s mobile compatibility
Google hasn’t hidden the fact that it pays a lot of attention to a site’s mobile compatibility. Anyone who has been in SEO for more than a few years will remember mobilegeddon[3], and mobile-first indexing is a thing: in other words, coming to terms with the realization that most of the usage of its search engine comes from mobile devices, Google has decided to start indexing the mobile version of a website first.
In other words, if your website does not have a mobile version — or if the mobile version of your website is not properly optimized — then you could lose more than half of your search traffic.
Below are some tips to ensure your website is mobile compatible:
- Use a responsive website design that adapts to mobile devices