SEO is a popular concept to any Joomla users, especially Joomla webmaster. “Search engine optimization”, yes, we have been fighting for the best rank in search engine for many years. The battle to gain the high ranking in search engine result pages has never stopped. But now, hang on and let’s have a look around. The battle is not only about search engine anymore, it’s also the battle with User Experience. Now it’s time for SUX: Search User Experience.
What is the relationship between User experience and Search engine?
Search engines are born with the aim to support users to find the right things they need. Google updates its search algorithm monthly to give users exactly what they want. Yahoo also offers popular search terms to help users get the results they might be interested in. Bing and many other search engines too – all of them are built on User Experience.
If you check The Full Version Of Google Search Quality Rating Guidelines, you can see the ranking factors they listed such as high-quality content, fast loading speed or mobile optimization. And their advice are to understand user intend and improve user experience.
So stop optimizing your website for Search engines only. Focus deeper on User experience too. Your question now should be: “How to optimize the website for better SUX”. I will give you the answer in the following part.
What to do to improve Joomla website for better SUX?
1. Focus more on content quality
There’s no need to tell you more about the importance of content quality, right? I’m sure that all of us know that Content is King, but, how you can have the high quality content while improving your site ranking? The answer is SUX. Now puton your customer’s shoes and start focusing on the topics your customers want, not just a keyword.
Instead of writing for keywords you should prepare the list of topics & keywords that related directly to customer’s demand. Check the list with a search engine to find the gap between your customer’s potential favorable topics with the keywords related to those topics. It can be the trending topic that many customers are interested in or the topic that people search for but there’s not many good results.
2. Be more active on social media channels
Nowadays, customers don’t just use search engine to find the thing they want. They also use social media channels for this purpose. When searching for a brand or a product on a social channel, a customer can check if he can trust the company or not by the reviews from others
So if you’re running an online business, spend time on social channels too.. Plus, there are many Joomla extensions to support your website with social media channels such as Perfect Facebook Like Box Sidebar, Facebook wall feeds, Nice Social Bookmark.
3. Make your website mobile friendly
80% of internet users own a smartphone. 48% of consumers start mobile research with a search engine. Do these numbers mean anything to you? Google also lists “mobile friendly” as a ranking factor.
4. Take advantage of local business
Mobile search and voice search make local search become more and more important than ever. For example, if you search for a restaurant from your mobile, it means that you want to find the best restaurant near you to save your time, right? Your customers just do the same.
Conclusion
As you can see, Search user experience (SUX) is not the new definition.It just got more popular nowadays. SUX is a real part that any Joomla websites have to optimize. I hope that my article can equip you with some basic knowledge and help you get started with SUX easily. Are you interested in this topic? Feel free to discuss with me by leaving your comments below.