The user experience (UX) is arguably one of the most important Google ranking factors in 2018 – it’s right up there with backlinks and SEO optimization. After all, Google wants to deliver the best content to their users for any given search string. Their complex algorithms take a whole plethora of things into consideration before deciding whose pages get to live on the first page of Google’s SERP. Like it or not, if your site’s user experience is poor, your rankings will be too.

Generally, the first condition for an excellent user experience is to accommodate each and every need of the customer. In terms of web design, your site should be straightforward and uncomplicated, yet polished and refined.

A true UX is much more than merely delivering customers what they want – rather, your site’s engineering, advertising, design, and interface must all come together to create a site that’s well optimized for Google and converts traffic into paying customers.

Your UX will make or break your site’s conversions. Without a pleasant UX, your bounce rate will skyrocket and you’ll have a tough time generating new leads for your business, regardless of how much time you spent creating your site, or how much money you spent hiring a web designer. Conversely, a splendid UX will keep people around longer, as they’ll enjoy using your website.

As a consequence, they’ll be far more likely to click on your call to action and give you their email, purchase a product, or sign up for your online seminar. Regardless of the genre or design for your website, a fantastic UX will help to guide people down the sales funnel towards your ultimate goal of lead generation, whereas a poor UX will have people running out the door before they’ve even gotten starte

• Your content should be useful. In order to be useful, it has to be original, and it must fulfill a need of some sort. Think about it: people wouldn’t visit your site if they weren’t getting something from it in return for their time. First, before you even create your site, think about what your target audience is looking for in exchange for their time. Then you’ll be able to include that in the forefront of your site’s design.
• If your website’s content isn’t usable, nobody is going to give you the time of day. Broken links, poorly organized or false information, and block paragraphs that are too large to easily read will kill your site’s usability and UX.
• You should be using your brand and color scheme to spark emotion and gratitude. This will convey to your users that your content is desirable.
• By utilizing a clear, well-organized navigation bar and, more importantly, a well-planned page, you’ll assure that all of your content is easily findable. If people aren’t able to find your content, what’s the point of having it in the first place?
• Lastly, you’ll want to establish trust and credibility with your users. You can accomplish this by flashing the logos of other large brands you’re working with and setting up an SSL certificate for your website.

A poor UX will reduce your site’s ability to generate backlinks, and more importantly, conversions. Every aspect of web design and optimization boils down to the UX, so you ought to make sure you’re doing it properly!