Core pages essential for a successful website roadmap
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Chrisa
UX and SEO and Why They Matter in Website Roadmap
First, some context. A well-organized website structure is like a good map—easy to navigate and satisfying to explore. Why does this matter? Firstly, it makes things easy for visitors, allowing them to move around effortlessly and find what they’re looking for. Secondly, it’s a win-win for user experience (UX) and search engine optimisation (SEO). When a website provides a great user experience, search engines like Google notice and rank it higher. This means more visibility in search results, leading to increased organic traffic.
During the design phase, using content mapping is crucial to ensure all important information is present and easily accessible. It’s also vital to organise page URLs logically, helping both users and search engines understand the site’s architecture. When your website is ready to launch, creating a sitemap that outlines your site’s structure and submitting it to Google speeds up the process of getting your site indexed. Remember, Steve Jobs said it best: “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.” So, how do we achieve this harmony between UX and SEO?
SEO and UX Are Now Best Friends
As implied, gone are the days when SEO was a game of keyword stuffing and link building, disregarding the user’s journey on your website. Today, search engines have evolved, and they’re not just looking at your keywords, but they’re evaluating how users interact with your site. This shift has brought SEO and UX together as inseparable allies. Let’s expand a bit more, just to give you some more background, and then we move on.
Website Roadmap Essentials Before & Now
Relevance Trumps Keywords
- Old SEO: It used to be all about cramming as many keywords as possible into your content, regardless of how it affected the overall user experience.
- Modern Approach: Search engines now prioritise relevance. The context of the user’s query matters more than the sheer quantity of keywords. This means your content should genuinely answer user queries, creating a win-win for both SEO and UX.
User Intent Takes the Spotlight
- Old SEO: The focus was on ranking for specific terms, often at the cost of understanding user intent.
- Modern Approach: Search engines now strive to understand what users are truly looking for. This means your content should align with and fulfil user intent, making your website more valuable to visitors and search engines alike.
Mobile Optimization Is Non-Negotiable
- Old SEO: Mobile-friendliness was a nice-to-have; it didn’t significantly impact rankings.
- Modern Approach: With the surge in mobile users, search engines heavily prioritise mobile-friendly sites. A seamless mobile experience not only enhances user satisfaction but also positively influences your SEO rankings.
Quality Content Is King (and Queen)
- Old SEO: Quantity often took precedence over quality. More pages, more content, more chances to rank.
- Modern Approach: Search engines now emphasise high-quality content. Well-researched, relevant, and engaging content not only keeps users on your site longer but also signals to search engines that your content is worth promoting.
“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology”.
The Core Pages for an Optimal Website Roadmap
1. Homepage
2. Products or Services Page
3. About Page
4. Contact Page
5. Privacy Policy/Terms and Conditions Page
6. Blog Page
Bonus Pages for Conversions
7. FAQs Page
8. Case Studies/Testimonials Page
What We Do
When we design a website, we follow a clear plan called a website roadmap. We kick things off by analysing the website, using real examples to guide us. This roadmap includes a quality assurance plan to make sure everything is top-notch. We pay special attention to how users will experience the site, and we document this process in a report, giving you insights into what we’re doing.
A good roadmap is vital for search engines (SEO), so we seamlessly blend SEO principles into our design. From the basics of website design to checking everything with an SEO audit, each step is carefully thought out. Our approach goes beyond just design – we also include a complete marketing plan with content strategy, extensive keyword research and studying what our competitors are doing. This ensures your website not only looks good but also works great and is easy to find online.
