Optimising For Humans: Why Should SEO and UX Join Forces?

Begum Kaya•

31st October 2023

SEO and UX teams collaborating together among other digital marketing teams, sitting with their computers open on the table.

Unpopular opinion: SEO and UX have always overlapped.

That doesn’t mean, though, that these teams don’t have their own specialisations. After all, there’s a reason why these essential acronyms have emerged as prominent players. Providing a seamless process on a website is achievable only when we optimise for humans.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and User Experience (UX) might seem like two separate domains, but they’re more intertwined than you might think. In this article, we will explore the intrinsic connection between SEO and UX teams and (hopefully) convince you that they need to work hand-in-hand.

The Synergy of SEO and UX

Both specialisations highlight the importance of users flowing like honey through the website and everything working smoothly. SEO mostly focuses on whether users find websites and content easily, and that it’s relevant to their search intent , whereas UX puts more emphasis on the intuitive actions the user is influenced to take.

Even though the deriving points differ, the actions to make sure all these goals usually come down to the following criteria.

Page Speed

You must know how painful it is to wait for a slow-loading site. It frustrates users and increases bounce rates, which adversely affects SEO rankings. Search engine algorithms consider page speed, making it an essential factor for SEO. This synergy ensures that smooth user experience enhances a site’s visibility in search results.

The most common pitfalls we see on pagespeed include:

Unoptimised images, not using lazy loading where applicable
No or minimal caching for static items
Not using a CDN

Image Optimization

One of the biggest culprits of poor page speed performance, SEOs have a love / hate relationship with images. Optimised images are crucial for faster loading times and smoother UX. In addition, they contribute to SEO by providing alt text with relevant keywords.

This dual benefit aligns with both SEO’s need for keyword optimization and UX’s desire for a visually appealing, fast-loading site.

This is not to say that neither SEO nor UX take image optimisation seriously for accessibility. Accessibility features provide a more positive UX, not to mention that it’s an influential factor for ranking as well.

Mobile Friendliness

A responsive website design isn’t just a UX necessity; it’s an SEO ranking factor. There are many options you can choose, like responsive design and PWAs (progressive web apps).

As Google prioritises mobile-first indexing, making sure your content renders and provides users with a seamless experience across devices is a priority.

High-Quality Content

Content is queen in the realm of SEO. But from a UX perspective, high-quality content also means valuable, informative, and engaging content. The user’s journey is greatly enriched with informative content, and it’s equally favoured by search engines. When you marry SEO’s quest for relevant keywords with UX’s pursuit of informative content, you strike a balance that appeals to both humans and algorithms.

Keyword Integration

We don’t just talk about keywords anymore – it’s all about the search intent now. To appeal to users, we want to integrate keywords strategically, not just for SEO purposes but to enhance the user’s experience. By offering content that matches search intent, a website should ensure that visitors find value and relevance.

Content Creation

There’s always an interesting quarrel between SEO and content teams regarding what high-quality, informative content means. It’s a delicate balance between user needs or entertainment and including the right keywords for SEO. This way, your website serves as a valuable resource for your target audience and search engines alike.

At Uprise Up, we believe the best content is coupled with strong technical SEO implementation and various other strategies. These include the following:

Taking advantage of rich results
Incorporating FAQ questions to relevant pages
Implementing structured data
Utilising informative anchor texts for internal linking

Information Architecture and User-Friendly Navigation

Miller’s Law, a famous UX principle, suggests that it’s better to divide a huge chunk into smaller pieces for users to understand and engage with it better.

Structuring a clear and intuitive website architecture enhances UX by making it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for. Easy navigation, resulting in lower bounce rates and higher SEO rankings.

Search engines love Marie Kondo-ing your website – a well-organised, structured set of pages. Logical information architecture helps crawlers index your content effectively, resulting in better SEO rankings.

Why Should SEO and UX Join Forces?

One more unpopular opinion: Collaboration of SEO and UX isn’t just a pleasant coincidence, it’s a strategic necessity. It’s about ensuring your website is not only found online but appreciated by your target audience. This then feeds back to SEO via lower bounce rates and improves the rates a website is found.

Weaving together these essential principles creates a virtuous cycle of improving user satisfaction and climbing the search engine rankings Here is further information for charities to enhance user experience.

At Uprise Up, we understand the significance of SEO and UX synergy, and take it as the cornerstone of our approach. Our SEO team incorporates UX processes to create tailored digital strategies to get found online for charities.

Remember, your website isn’t just for the search engines; it’s for the real people behind the screens, seeking information, engagement, and support. The seamless blend of SEO and UX is the key to unlocking their hearts and minds.

So, are you ready to take your charity’s online presence to the next level? Contact us, and let’s embark on this exciting journey together.

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Above the Fold Content for Charities

SEO Team•

15th May 2023

Get to know your above the fold

How much do you think about your above the fold content? When developing pages for your site, do you consider the above the fold vs below the fold split? If it’s an area you’ve not considered in too much detail, then here is our introduction to above the fold content, and why you should be looking at it.

What is above the fold content?

Above the fold content includes everything that you can see on your screen as soon as a webpage loads. Any content that isn’t visible when the page first loads and requires the audience to scroll to be seen, is labelled as below the fold content.

‘Above the fold’ is a concept that originated in printed media with newspapers. Historically, newspapers were usually sold folded in half, showing the headline story. This meant when the customers viewed the different newspapers, they weren’t showing all stories – just the top half of the front page.

In digital content, the ‘fold’ of the newspaper is the bottom of the screen; anything that falls below that screen edge is deemed below the fold.

Why does above the fold content matter?

Above the fold content is the first thing your audience see when a page loads, making it core real estate on any page. From an SEO perspective, we know search engines expect the most important content to be at the top of a page too. It’s also important to consider how this content impacts user’s experiences on your site. The content you include above the fold needs to be eye catching and able to immediately grab your audience’s interest.

It’s been a mass reported trend that user attention spans are shrinking. With so much content available at user’s fingertips, only to be inflated with the growing volume of rapidly generated AI content, attention spans are becoming shorter to help user’s filter through the noise.

What’s more, a user can form an opinion on your charity’s site after 1 second of seeing it. Just 1 second. That’s not a lot of time, so your page needs to work hard and work fast to engage the minds and hearts of your audience.

What do you typically see above the fold for charities?

For most charities, you will see some common themes in above the fold assets. This will include:

Charity branding elements (logo, fonts and colours)
Navigation menu, which may include donate or shop buttons
Main Header
Lead imagery, whether it be a banner image or side image

Often, above the fold content is kept simple and minimal with the elements listed above. Sometimes though, charities may also wish to include a short sentence or two of text to give users more context about the page when they first land on it. Additionally, if your charity has other visual assets, such as emotive videos, you may wish to opt for these instead of images.

What should charities consider when designing above the fold content?

When it comes to the performance of above the fold content, AB testing is key. Trial out different above the fold designs and actions to see which ones your audience responds best to! We have provided some questions below to help you brainstorm the best content when trialling different above the fold designs for individual pages or templates.

Is there a clear action?

Do you have a clear action you want your audience to take when they land on the page? If so, you can include it above the fold! Websites that include CTAs above the fold have found they have higher conversion rates than those that don’t.

Take the Royal Voluntary Service’s homepage for example; the above the fold is bright, engaging and has a clear objective with a CTA inviting their audience to learn more about the coronation champions awards 2023. By including this CTA at the top it is one of the first things users see on the page, which gives them a clear next step on their journey.

Royal Voluntary Service homepage above the fold content highlighting the coronation champion awards 2023.

Does it engage your audience?

Above the fold content should be engaging; in fact it should be the most engaging part of the page. The content at the top of your page should have a clear focus that is supported by the content below the fold. You want it to be easy to use, relevant and to help meet your audiences needs right from the start, to increase the likelihood of users staying on the page.

Some charities don’t include enough information above the fold, meaning that user’s don’t connect with the content and will bounce off the site in search of something more engaging. On the other hand, some charities go the other way and try to fit way too much information into this area. This failure to prioritise the true purpose and actions wanted from a specific page can also have a bad impact, overwhelming your audience and making it hard to understand what they should do.

A good example

Take the above the fold for Dementia UK’s homepage. As a charity focussing on providing nursing support to both individuals with dementia and those supporting them, they have opted for a topical and relevant angle with their above the fold. As soon as you land on the homepage you are immediately presented with a link to their page on admiral nursing support – information many people will be seeking on the site. The relevancy of this link means many users that land on the homepage will engage with it.

The Dementia UK homepage, which presents a link for users to discover more about admiral nursing support for individuals with dementia.

Top tip: We recommend keeping above the fold content focused on your organisation. Whilst it may feel tempting to link to external sites, especially if they provide relevant information, overall, this will result in your audience landing on a page only to be immediately be directed off-site. Instead, you can include references to external sites below the fold as part of the pages supporting information. Use the prime real estate at the top of the page to showcase what your own charity provides!

Does it contribute to your objectives?

Your above the fold content should aim to help meet your charity’s objectives and KPIs. Whether you want donations, volunteers or fundraising event sign ups, the content at the top of your page should contribute to your targets.

The objective you focus on will differ depending on the page you’re reviewing. For example, if a user has landed on on of you blog pages, a CTA offering them the opportunity to sign up to your charity’s newsletter may be more likely to convert than a hard CTA asking for donations. Considering the type of information your user will be consuming on that particular page and how far along they will be in the conversion funnel will help guide the choice of CTA you may want to place above the fold to meet specific objectives.

Does it look good on all device types?

Don’t forget to consider how this content looks on different device. Where the fold falls on a page will always differ slightly, depending on whether users visit your charity on mobile or desktop and taking into account different screen sizes However, with sites deploying responsive designs, where that ‘fold’ falls on sites is roughly the same across desktop and mobile layouts of a page.

Final thoughts

User’s will only scroll down a page if they feel there is a good reason to. When user’s see a lack of valuable information, they will stop scrolling. If your content above the fold doesn’t succeed in capturing user attention, there’s a high chance they’ll exit your site and bounce back to the search results. So it’s an area you need to get right.

Hopefully the insights above have given you some good starting points for you to begin optimising your own charity’s above the fold content – we’d love to see some of your examples in the comments below!

Looking for love at first web-sight?

Have a chat with us about how you can refresh your above the fold content to enhance SEO and user engagement on your site! You can email us at hello@upriseup.co.uk or visit our contact page to drop us a message – we can’t wait to hear from you.

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Enhancing User Experience for Charities with SEO

SEO Team•

15th March 2023

Enhancing User Experience for Charities with SEO

Is the world of online search heading towards a new reign; where user experience, not content, is king? With Google making more and more updates to its algorithm with a core focus being on the experience a user has when they come to your website, it’s only natural to think, ‘will this soon be the number one priority for Search?’.

Content vs User Experience

We’re not saying content won’t continue being vital – of course it will be. You can’t sell a product you don’t have. You can’t get clicks to a webpage you haven’t created, and people aren’t as interested in an article three years out of date.

Google still wants new, fresh, and updated content to rank. But in a world where more charities are becoming increasingly inclusive of SEO in their strategies, there is now more new content being created than ever!

Charities also need to focus on enhancing user experience on their site to achieve a competitive edge against others in their industry. Our SEO team have put together some top tips on things you should consider reviewing to optimize user experience on your website, including:

Maximising donations
Targeting your audience’s demographics and preferences
Having a clean, easy-to-read page design
Use simple navigation
Give your visitors clear next steps

Do you want donations?

User Experience for Charities - Making donations

Donations are the lifeblood of many charities. Securing donations enables a charity to fund valuable research and services to support society. It’s therefore crucial to make sure that user experience throughout the donation process is as simple and easy as possible. Increasing donations means maximizing the positive impact your charity can have.

You should think about the whole user experience, which starts the moment someone enters a search query into Google. Users will either be coming directly to your charity to donate, or they are going to be looking for the best charity to donate to.

Once they have found your charity, consider the following:

Can a visitor get to your donate page with one click?
Do they know why they should donate and what their contribution is going to do?
Have you told a real-life story or given some statistics to back up the why?
Are they able to donate on the domain or will it take them to a third-party platform?
Can they make a choice on how much and frequently they want to donate?
Is the form simple and easy for users to understand and fill out without assistance?
Does your donation form require them to fill out irrelevant information?
Do you have a cookie policy compliant on the page?
Does your donation landing page target the keyword ‘donate’?

These are some good starting points to get you thinking about the user experience of your donation process. If you’d like to conduct a more in depth analysis, you might want to consider a full user experience audit.

Are you targeting the right audience?

Target your audience – not someone else’s. You should know the type of users coming to your website. These may include, but are not limited to:

People seeking advice or support for themselves
People looking for a charity to support someone they know
People who want to support a cause close to their heart
Friends and family of someone suffering looking for a support network of their own.

Using the correct language is also key. Some charities champion causes which can cover quite sensitive topics, so using the correct tone of voice is crucial to ensure people feel safe and respected. Also, it’s important to make sure your copywriting uses language that is accessible and relevant to your target audience. If your charity focusses on supporting the elderly, don’t write using unfamiliar slang for a millennial audience.

Engage your users with content targeted specifically to meet their wants and needs. This will encourage them to stay longer and click around to other areas of your website to gather more information.

Have you considered page design?

Never underestimate the power of page design. Good page design can drive an increase in conversion rates and lower bounce rates. If the navigation on your pages is a nightmare, users will just leave.

Some simple tips to enhance page design include:

Clear and easy to read copy
Easy-to-read fonts
Clear and readable font sizes
Easy to read and visually appealing colours
Making use of white space to highlight important elements on your page.

White space doesn’t mean worthless; it’s just free of any content, which enables users to focus on the most important information on a page. Google’s homepage is over 88% white space, drawing you eye to the search bar. Try to work out what’s most important on your page and, instead of making it bold or bright, make it stand out by clearing everything around it.

Navigation and flow of the pages

Navigation menus, page titles and headers should be as straightforward as possible for users to understand; don’t lose your audience amid a sea of irrelevant pages. Charities need to ensure they have all of their most important pages in the main navigation menu. This may include things such as:

Services or products
Guidance and information
Donation page
Fundraising events
Volunteer vacancies
About the Charity

Why are navigation menus important for user experience?

It has been reported in this B2B Web Usability Report that, after reaching a company’s website, 50% of visitors will use the navigation menu to orient themselves; so ensuring your navigation menu is simple to use is vital for keeping users on your site!

The research also suggested that 47% of people go straight to ‘Products and Services’, 33% to your homepage and 16% to ‘About us’. These pages should therefore be prominent in your navigation menu. Having your most important pages at the left-hand side or top of your nav menu will help them find relevant pages quicker and signal their importance to Google.

Search bars and user experience

Remember, don’t underestimate a search bar; if a user wants something specific and is having trouble finding it, they will look to the search bar. 61% of users said that if they didn’t find what they were looking for right away on a mobile site, they’d quickly move on to another site. Don’t give them the chance to exit your site and go to a competitor!

You can use the data collected from search bar queries to find out what people are looking for when they come to your website. It will also highlight any pages which are too difficult to find on your website – giving you a list of pages to work on.

The principle of flow is to have as few clicks as possible between the user coming onto your website to converting, whether that is purchasing a product or downloading a PDF. A user should be able to click their way through your easy-to-use navigation to find exactly what they are after.

Help your users convert more frequently by providing clear call to actions and making the buying or donation process easy for them to follow. Charities that have a best-seller displayed as a recommended product improve its chances of being seen, clicked on, and purchased. Perhaps you keep the ‘Add to Cart’ button prominently displayed on each product listing on a product listing landing page. Customise to your charities unique goals and make it easy for your audience to convert!

Give your users a reason to stay

You might be getting good levels or traffic to your site, but what are users actually doing once they are on your site? Are they bouncing straight off? Are they signing up to offer volunteer support? Have they donated to your charity?

Once users have consumed the information on your page, you need to give them a next step to encourage visitors to stay longer on your site. This could be to explore other service pages, asking them to donate to your cause and getting them to sign up to an event or newsletter. Make sure to clearly signpost the next step of the journey for a user.

Want to upgrade your user’s experience?

If you are looking to have a UX audit of your website to identify ways to improve user engagement, get in touch with us today to find out how we can support your goals.

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Optimising For Humans: Why Should SEO and UX Join Forces?