If you’ve worked with any of the awesome writers or strategists here at Geonetric, you’ve probably heard them advocating for the best user experience possible. Whether you’re looking at reshaping a single page of content, a complete information architecture overhaul or a new site design – be sure to keep the user central to your decision-making process.

User experience matters in so many ways, but more recently, Google has focused on the quality of a page in terms of search engine optimization (SEO). While it’s not really a brand new idea in the world of SEO, it’s worth revisiting.

Focus on the User!

If you’ve kept up with any of the recent blog posts or YouTube videos from the team at Google, you’ve noticed that the user experience and quality of a page continue to be hot topics. They repeatedly say that Google wants to send users to websites that are of a certain quality and provide value to the end-user.

Fair enough. What does that mean for your website and its content?

Well, here are a few pointers:

1. Write strong, useful content that is valuable to the end-user.
2. If you’ve done #1, users will want to bookmark the information and/or share it via their social networks. Create content that makes sense to be shared and provides value standing on its own.
3. Avoid copy or design choices that mislead the user. Links should make sense and take the user to the next logical step. Design choices should keep everything in context.
4. Continue to ensure pages have useful page titles, page descriptions and headings throughout. Remember: if you’re writing these items for the search engine, you’re not thinking about it correctly! It’s for the user.

None of this is necessarily brand new, earth-shattering information. The way we all think about SEO, though, should shift in focus.

Stop asking, “How can I make Google rank my site higher?” and start thinking, “What can I do for the user with the content I’m creating?”

You never know! The other puzzle pieces may just fall into place.