Controlling and improving the flow of your on-site content can actually help your SEO. What's the best way to capitalize on the opportunity present in your page design? Rand covers the questions you need to ask (and answer) and the goals you should strive for in today's Whiteboard Friday.
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Video Transcription
Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to chat about a designing a page's content flow to help with your SEO.
Now, unfortunately, somehow in the world of SEO tactics, this one has gotten left by the wayside. I think a lot of people in the SEO world are investing in things like content and solving searchers' problems and getting to the bottom of searcher intent. But unfortunately, the page design and the flow of the elements, the UI elements, the content elements that sit in a page is discarded or left aside. That's unfortunate because it can actually make a huge difference to your SEO.
Q: What needs to go on this page, in what order, with what placement?
So if we're asking ourselves like, "Well, what's the question here?" Well, it's what needs to go on this page. I'm trying to rank for "faster home Wi-Fi." Right now, Lifehacker and a bunch of other people are ranking in these results. It gets a ton of searches. I can drive a lot of revenue for my business if I can rank there. But what needs to go on this page in what order with what placement in order for me to perform the best that I possibly can? It turns out that sometimes great content gets buried in a poor page design and poor page flow. But if we want to answer this question, we actually have to ask some other ones. We need answers to at least these three:
A. What is the searcher in this case trying to accomplish?
When they enter "faster home Wi-Fi," what's the task that they want to get done?
B. Are there multiple intents behind this query, and which ones are most popular?
What's the popularity of those intents in what order? We need to know that so that we can design our flow around the most common ones first and the secondary and tertiary ones next.
C. What's the business goal of ranking? What are we trying to accomplish?
That's always going to have to be balanced out with what is the searcher trying to accomplish. Otherwise, in a lot of cases, there's no point in ranking at all. If we can't get our goals met, we should just rank for something else where we can.
Let's assume we've got some answers:
Let's assume that, in this case, we have some good answers to these questions so we can proceed. So pretty simple. If I search for "faster home Wi-Fi," what I want is usually it's going to be...
A. Faster download speed at home.
That's what the searcher is trying to accomplish. But there are multiple intents behind this. Sometimes the searcher is looking to do that..
B1. With their current ISP and their current equipment.
They want to know things they can optimize that don't cause them to spend money. Can they place their router in different places? Can they change out a cable? Do they need to put it in a different room? Do they need to move their computer? Is the problem something else that's interfering with their Wi-Fi in their home that they need to turn off? Those kinds of issues.
B2. With a new ISP.
Or can they get a new ISP? They might be looking for an ISP that can provide them with faster home internet in their area, and they want to know what's available, which is a very different intent than the first one.
B3. With current ISP but new equipment.
maybe they want to keep their ISP, but they are willing to upgrade to new equipment. So they're looking for what's the equipment that I could buy that would make the current ISP I have, which in many cases in the United States, sadly, there's only one ISP that can provide you with service in a lot of areas. So they can't change ISP, but they can change out their equipment.
C. Affiliate revenue with product referrals.
Let's assume that (C) is we know that what we're trying to accomplish is affiliate revenue from product referrals. So our business is basically we're going to send people to new routers or the Google Mesh Network home device, and we get affiliate revenue by passing folks off to those products and recommending them.
Now we can design a content flow.
Okay, fair enough. We now have enough to be able to take care of this design flow. The design flow can involve lots of things. There are a lot of things that could live on a page, everything from navigation to headline to the lead-in copy or the header image or body content, graphics, reference links, the footer, a sidebar potentially.
The elements that go in here are not actually what we're talking about today. We can have that conversation too. I want a headline that's going to tell people that I serve all of these different intents. I want to have a lead-in that has a potential to be the featured snippet in there. I want a header image that can rank in image results and be in the featured snippet panel. I'm going to want body content that serves all of these in the order that's most popular. I want graphics and visuals that suggest to people that I've done my research and I can provably show that the results that you get with this different equipment or this different ISP will be relevant to them.
But really, what we're talking about here is the flow that matters. The content itself, the problem is that it gets buried. What I see many times is folks will take a powerful visual or a powerful piece of content that's solving the searcher's query and they'll put it in a place on the page where it's hard to access or hard to find. So even though they've actually got great content, it is buried by the page's design.
5 big goals that matter.
The goals that matter here and the ones that you should be optimizing for when you're thinking about the design of this flow are:
1. How do I solve the searcher's task quickly and enjoyably?
So that's about user experience as well as the UI. I know that, for many people, they are going to want to see and, in fact, the result that's ranking up here on the top is Lifehacker's top 10 list for how to get your home Wi-Fi faster. They include things like upgrading your ISP, and here's a tool to see what's available in your area. They include maybe you need a better router, and here are the best ones. Maybe you need a different network or something that expands your network in your home, and here's a link out to those. So they're serving that purpose up front, up top.
2. Serve these multiple intents in the order of demand.
So if we can intuit that most people want to stick with their ISP, but are willing to change equipment, we can serve this one first (B3). We can serve this one second (B1), and we can serve the change out my ISP third (B2), which is actually the ideal fit in this scenario for us. That helps us
3. Optimize for the business goal without sacrificing one and two.
I would urge you to design generally with the searcher in mind and if you can fit in the business goal, that is ideal. Otherwise, what tends to happen is the business goal comes first, the searcher comes second, and you come tenth in the results.
4. If possible, try to claim the featured snippet and the visual image that go up there.
That means using the lead-in up at the top. It's usually the first paragraph or the first few lines of text in an ordered or unordered list, along with a header image or visual in order to capture that featured snippet. That's very powerful for search results that are still showing it.
5. Limit our bounce back to the SERP as much as possible.
In many cases, this means limiting some of the UI or design flow elements that hamper people from solving their problems or that annoy or dissuade them. So, for example, advertising that pops up or overlays that come up before I've gotten two-thirds of the way down the page really tend to hamper efforts, really tend to increase this bounce back to the SERP, the search engine call pogo-sticking and can harm your rankings dramatically. Design elements, design flows where the content that actually solves the problem is below an advertising block or below a promotional block, that also is very limiting.
So to the degree that we can control the design of our pages and optimize for that, we can actually take existing content that you might already have and improve its rankings without having to remake it, without needing new links, simply by improving the flow.
I hope we'll see lots of examples of those in the comments, and we'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.
Rand,
Man sometimes I wish you had a tip jar on these videos HA! This is making me change my mind set when creating content from now on in terms of the page flow. What I mean is taking the searchers query into consideration and building on how to best answer those questions, and more times than most I find that when I lack research on a topic prior to building out a page is when I truly miss the main goal.
I really like how you took the main topics that someone would be looking for in the example and ensured that they were placed in the right spots on the page to prevent them from leaving, answering the initial search, and creating a resource for the web instead of just another landing page.
Thank you as always have a great Friday, and Kudos to the Moz team for being awesome!!
Thanks Tim! I worry that many pages have been designed to serve the business' goals first, and the searcher's second, or that SEOs+content creators are constrained by templates that don't allow them to tackle what searchers want immediately, so they have to wait until later in the content to do so, and thus lose out (often via pogo-sticking) to the competition. Even a page with great content, great links, and great technical optimization is gonna lose out in those cases.
Adding to a common issue I see with SEOs+content creators (myself included)...
Including a TON of detail, background info, etc. on a topic before to getting to the meat of the answer. We do this knowing that longer, more comprehensive content typically ranks better, but oftentimes at the expense of giving users what they want as quickly as possible.
A good solution (which I've seen done here on Moz) is including either a table of contents, a TL;DR version, or a "key takeaways" section right at the start of our longer form content. As a user, I find this particulary helpful so I imagine others do as well.
Another great topic with great insights, Rand.
Every time, I got something new. They way you explained how to fulfill the searcher's intent is great. I love the idea to make things simple, quickly accessible and enjoyable but Rand the difficult part is boos/clients never get satisfied they want everything in a single page.
Hi Rand,
I totally agree with you that a better design and content flow will help to rank higher. However, I'm a little bit afraid on designing the content according to searchers multiple intent. In my personal experience, I've seen that it's more easier to rank and effective to focus on 1 intent rather than multiple.
Example: I found this one yesterday while doing keyword research. If you look at the SERP results for "sales pipeline" keyword, Google is showing different types of results. #1 and #2 ranked content are very focused and only optimized for 1 intent. (what is it). On the other hand, #9 and #10 results are very comprehensive, nice flow of searcher intent, backed by great data and overall a beautiful content. Yet they rank last.
Am I missing something here or comparing apples with oranges? Really want to know your feedback on this.
This probably has something to do with their authority, page markup, or page load speed. The content flow is important, but other factors are also contributing to the rank.
I would be interested to hear Rand's feedback on this, too!
Agree with this!
I have similar thoughts on this one. Yeah, it might be other factors too, or there might be something we missed in the part - PLANNING. Rand can we have some light on this?
This reminds me of the webinar "Website Navigation For Link-Worthy Content Assets - With Eric Ward, Shari Thurow & Garrett French" on YouTube where they explain more about this as it relates to website navigation.
Similar concept to your content page flow.
Thanks JetMan - here's the link for that if folks are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aGEaZNG_sk
Awesome....wondering if there are any tools that can help with this process? This is SEO/UX design and often an SEO will have to work closely with either a designer or developer to get these types of insights and recommendations implemented.
Hrm... I'm not sure there are -- you'd need something that intuits what searchers want from a query, how they want it, and then helps format content and layout to optimize... Unfortunately I think that's gonna be a very manual process for a long while to come.
Plus side - machines aren't taking marketers' jobs on this front anytime soon :-)
haha very true :) .... I am going to add this to our auditing process for sure. So many websites are just built for function without any regard to the user experience and this feels like the missing piece.
Very interested in tools to help with this!
Good WBF ,
I love the idea of serving all types of user's intent in a progression. It goes very well with one of your previous post (How Google Gives Us Insight into Searcher Intent Through the Results). Now, by interpreting search results and mapping my business goals, I will be able to create this content flow, responding to user's intent AND answering my clients' business goals.
I'd love to see another post about the elements that goes in the content flow. That would close this loop of information so well!
Thanks Rand.
Great suggestion Jean-Christophe! We'll add that to the list. Only challenge is that it's so limitless and so customizable by query, but I bet I can do a decent job of at least covering the most common scenarios.
I bet you can! Thanks again for this great WBF
Thanks Rand. So, the next time you’re asked to create a new design, step back and ask yourself and your team what user flows you are trying to create through the website, and let that insight drive the design process.
Right! And not just the website as a whole, but even just the searcher's task that they hope to accomplish on that single page. So few pages seem to get this right.
I think that design and a good UX are critical this days. The content flow is a very important part on SEO. But i think that very different intention defined on the same content flow may be cause some noise and lost some rankings.
Love this WBF thanks Rand you always rock.
Very interesting post. I have thought a lot about this topic, I think that it is important to speed simplicity, for that reason we have to create fast websites, with greater usability for the users increasing the utility, we will continue working and learning with your posts, thanks, good weekend!
Just another awesome WBF Rand!
First of all, I just loved this added "Audio" section included in your blogs.
When we talk about page's design, is it good to add Feature "Related Article" section just next to or nearby footer section? This way I think we will be able to drive traction our other topic related pages too. As for lot of time a topics has several sections covered in multiple blogs / article.
Also I believe sometime because of topic covered this placement many replace each other, as per requirment!
The details in your video and transcript are very helpful to create effective web content. You are the man Rand!
They're not used as often these days, but I still appreciate a jump link near the top of the page. People (like me) are often impatient, and want to quickly get the info their after. Structure your content like Rand said for SEO, and keep in mind for user interface that sometimes people know exactly where they want to go on the page, and it might not be in the same priority as you created the page. Best of both worlds.
Thanks Rand, for this article.
Hi all! I think that to maximize seo you should not only make proper content, but also think about webdesign and UX kits. Starting from according icons and ending with right font. I've found one web designers blog not long ago https://fuselabcreative.com/the-role-of-graphic-de... you can find there an example of good web desing for one exact industry and check what is important. That really made me think more about how many aspects should you think when you want to optimize your website. Maybe you have different opinions, it will be interesting to discuss. Thank you! :)
Iam having a high bounce rate of 70% on my site. Iam going to use these methods to improve it
Hello Rand,
Awesome little article, will help me in creating a better customer engagement which could lead to a better conversion rate. Yes providing targeted contents which compels customers to click the next page or in my case the next product is what is so very important, which could lead to a better session rate, better engagement rate and possibly a good conversion rate.
Thank you Rand for such wonderful SEO tips and like to read more of these in days to come.
Our main focus should always be on reducing bounce rate. This little number can be of great help both to us, our users and our SEO. Lower bounce rates means happier users and happier users means no pogo-sticiking happening and ranking better in google.
Thanks Rand - great tips for honing in on the user intent.
I also believe that layout design and important content placement are really integral parts of a proper on-page optimization.
Many time some of sites have no contents only images are there of website, as we know content is king then how can we design
I think that page content is a very important factor with in SEO. We need to make sure that all pages are as optimised as they possibly can be.
Have to agree with you! Sometimes we simply do not pay enough attention to the optimization of the page content even tough it is very important.
First of all, this is a great article! This days google consider the intent of searchers. This factor, design, on page seo, great backlinks and a little luck will put an blog article on top of results.
Also in mobile results, the AMP play a huge importance
Hi Rand.
It is true. Sometimes we seem to forget to give commercial sense to everything we put on the web, when the first thing is to answer some essential questions such as what the objectives are or what the client wants.
Thank you very much for the information
Good weekend
Tough balance for sure -- the bottom line has to be served, and the revenue is what allows us to create the content in the first place. But I agree, a content-first, multi-visit strategy that's using non-conversion-centric terms to build brand and audience is the way to go. From there, it's much easier to convert folks after they know you, like you, and trust you.
For an E-commerce website, the user's intention is product price then came to the content , review etc for the product. If price are same on multiple website then user surely trust on the site which have great informative content and trusted reviews.
Hey Rand!
Its awesome. I was always thinking in this area but never got such clarity of thoughts. The way you presented is awesome.
I am still thinking about how I can apply this to tech blogs. I mean tech blogs are kind of quick publishing medium and not every article are thoroughly designed to attract readers. Specially as the business goal is to gain traffic.
Can you advice in such scenario??
Thanks
Very useful. I must try it. About a lot of information heard before, but you can learn news things. In my opinion the content is the most important and other things do not count so much.
Many times we do not pay attention to how to structure the content, and it is essential that we think before doing anything. Today's poest explains it very well.
Thank you.
como siempre una gran publicación en la que hay mucho que aprender y mucho que poner en práctica. Deseando que la siguiente llega !!!
Hi Rand,
Always following your Whiteboard Fridays i love them! I wanted to know if you could please my blog post i wrote on On-Page SEO. Just to check what i am saying is correct. :) Thank you.
https://www.corydigital.com/what-is-on-page-seo/
Oh the goal 3 of "optimize for the business goal withouth sacrificing the intent search" is so true... This is deffinetly what I most struggle with.
Sometimes it is hard to belive that not putting the focus on the sale and giving more value and information instead, it is going to be better for your business.
Thank you for the guide Rand, there are a lot of great tips.
Actually, I can think of one instance when our customer had very low quality scores in Adwords. So we went ahead and added some pricing tables to his site and then advertised this new feature in his ad's text. What was the result? His scores moved from 2 and 3 to 8 and 9. Magic, right?
Awesome, Rand! I talk to clients about this. Sometimes they have a sequence order they want for an article, but it buries the answers searchers want WAY down on the page. Super ammunition for these conversations. Thank you.
Yes, I 'm agree with you, Blogpost with attractive design help to increase your website SEO.
Thanks for the tips, it's always nice to be reminded of the things we should keep at the forefront of our work.
Do you have any additional tips on to what might make the header image more likely to get in the featured panel? Is the alt text everything here? Is it more likely to show up in a featured snippet if the alt text is answering certain search questions?
Very Informative article. Thanks for sharing!