SEO or Website Usability

The term Website Usability is a popular phrase but seems to have a different meaning, depending on who one is talking to.

For the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) professional or web developer, usability generally refers to the ease by which search engines understand, recognize and rank a website. Of course when you speak with the average lay person looking for products, information or services, they take this term to mean that the site they are directed to will be easy to navigate and quickly find what they are looking for. On the other hand, the owners of websites are looking for dual purposes. They have come to expect that Website Usability will make it easier for search engines to find them as well as creating a site that is convenient and simple to navigate for potential clients.

In order for professionals to measure success both the terms SEO and Website Usability are dependant on certain core aspects that can be built upon step by step in a methodical fashion. A successful SEO campaign must be efficient, effective and easy to learn and use by all parties concerned. It must provide the client with Reputation Management/Brand Protection protocols and recovery plans if misuse is detected. Equally as important is how user satisfaction is rated.

In order to determine the effectiveness of a website, your SEO service provider must be able to show that pre-determined objectives have been met and all required and/or promised tasks have been completed. One way to measure this is by making certain that searchers (users) are able to find exactly what they were looking for both by the search engines and ultimately through the client’s website. If these objectives have not been achieved; why not and further more, how can these hurdles be prevented?

The next step for the Website Usability professional is to assess how easily (efficiently) users were able to find what they were looking for. They must determine how quickly a user was able to navigate the site once there and how long it took for them to get the information/product/service they wanted.  Another aspect of “ease of use” refers to whether or not the searcher (user) was quickly able to learn how to use a particular website. It is a fact that a website that requires too many steps to complete a desired task or is complicated to learn will result in the user navigating back to the search page to find an easier site. A simple and efficient website will also be remembered by users as a place to go when looking for what they want, whether that is a product, reliable information or a service.

In short, the term Website Usability must satisfy the needs and goals of all concerned; the SEO professional, users (the average searcher), the owner of a company website as well as the web developer.