In Part 2 of our SEO for Med Tech Marketers blog series (read Part 1 here), we will take a look at how the usability and design of your website can affect its search engine rankings, and outline four key items you can address to improve your site. The ultimate goal of this blog is to help you improve organic search engine rankings and page placement of your content. The higher your page ranking, the higher likelihood that potential customers will find your content, and familiarize themselves with your company and product. In case you are wondering if page ranking truly affects traffic, you should know that 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results. So it is well worth your time to address the factors that influence the user experience (UX) and search engine optimization (SEO) of your website.
The Symbiotic Relationship Between UX and SEO
As search algorithms get “smarter,” the visibility stakes get higher. Search engines like Google expect your website to provide a quality user experience in order to achieve high ranking and attain the “Holy Grail” of SEO – appearing on the front page. With hundreds, if not thousands, of search results for every imaginable topic, search engines have become more selective, ranking sites on a variety of engagement factors that indicate the user-friendliness – and therefore perceived credibility – of your website. SEO MOZ calls this the "No one likes to link to a crummy site phenomenon.”
To determine if your site has a high quality user experience, Google typically evaluates visitor engagement metrics such as:
- Time spent on site
- Bounce rate
- Bounce rate back to Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
- Return visits
- Conversions
As the marketer, it is your job to make sure that your website content and design reflect well in the metrics and conversion rates from your site.
What’s Next for the Motivated Med Tech Marketer
Crafting a thoughtful, empathetic user experience helps guarantee that visitors to your site perceive it – and your company – positively. Here are four things you should focus on during your next website revamp to ensure that both visitors and search engines find your website “friendly”.
1. No Compass Required! Make Your Site Easy to Navigate
From your homepage to your Contact Us page, the flow of information on your website should follow a framework that guides visitors through your site in a logical progression. A simple sitemap can be key in helping visitors quickly find the information they are looking for.
What should you think about while creating a sitemap structure? First, give visitors what they want, then give them what you want them to have. This reflects the principle of value exchange while proving your relevance and authority to your audience before diving into a sales pitch.
You will find that after a site navigation refresh, the lead and conversion rates from your demand generation assets are also impacted for the better.
2. Put Your Best Foot Forward with Quality Content
Engaging content that provides useful information is paramount for all aspects of your business. If the content of your website is unoriginal and stale, you are not giving visitors much reason to stick around and get to know you better. Your website is your company's face in the online world, so your content strategy should emphasize the development of interactive, original content that enhances your credibility. Actions such as sharing, bookmarking, and repeat visits are positive signals that trickle down to search engines and contribute to higher rankings.
When developing user-friendly content, it is a good idea to approach this from the perspective of your intended audience. Which keywords are most commonly used to find your site? What problems are you trying to solve and how can you use your site to demonstrate you provide a solution?
3. Gain a Solid Online Reputation with Links
Link building can be thought of as the word-of-mouth references of the Internet. When third-party websites link back to yours, it raises credibility in both the eyes of your readers and search engines. High quality sites tend to earn more organic links than low quality sites, which improve their reputation. Not only will links on other sites drive more traffic to your site, you will be seen as a more trustworthy resource in your area of expertise.
You can read more about how to gain high-quality links in Part 1of this blog.
4. Welcoming All Comers from All Browsers and Devices
You would not invite guests to a dinner party based on their mode of transportation to the venue, would you? That policy certainly would not make you a popular host and would lower the number of friends around the dinner table. You should take a similar “open door” policy to website accessibility. Optimizing your website for multiple channels ensures that every visitor feels welcomed with a positive user experience. The two most important areas to address are; mobile optimization and browser compatibility.
Mobile Optimization
You may be reading this blog post on your phone right now, demonstrating the statistic that over half of Internet searches are now done on mobile devices. Optimizing your site for iOS and Android platforms will allow more visitors to access your site on the go, and is also looked on favorably by the Google bots that rank sites.
Mobile advertising is also on rise to take advantage of this new medium for gaining consumers’ attention. Ready to take your mobile marketing to the next level? Download our guide, "Mobile Marketing for Medical Technology Companies," to learn about using mobile advertising to increase ROI.
Browser Compatibility
The most popular browsers in order of ranking are: Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Apple Safari. If your website is not optimized for the latest versions of these different browsers, visitors will experience formatting inconsistencies, slow page loads, and possibly the loss of entire page elements. These issues lower the quality of the user experience, and should be addressed by your website designer.
Wrap Up
A large part of your job as a marketer is to continually smooth the path for potential prospects in your sales pipeline. You want to make a transition to using your service or product as seamless as possible and creating a “friendly” web user experience is an important step.
But ask yourself these questions:
- Are your website visitors satisfied by your content?
- Do your visitors engage with your website?
- Will they return for more?
By addressing the user experience items in this post, you will also be able to drive organic page results with improved search engine ranking. This delivers a one-two punch that will see dramatic results in your lead generation cycle.
This is what Grey Matter Marketing does for many of our clients. We help drive traffic to their websites, optimize the onsite user experience, and analyze the impact the engagement has on their business. When SEO and UX work hand-in-hand, the result is a usable site that also performs. And that is something our clients never complain about.
