Experience over excellence: Balancing SEO & CRO

Transcript

1. Let me introduce myself Head of SEO & CRO Mum of two (plus 1 fur baby)
2. Experience Over Excellence Balancing SEO & CRO
3. What is more important, technical excellence or experience?
4. It depends…
5. Only joking. In my opinion experience is the most important thing.
6. A better experience will still deliver excellence.
7. Striving for technical excellence can be detrimental to experience.
8. Experience is everything
9. But, I’m not saying to neglect the technical side.
10. It’s all about the balance - let me explain.
11. Can Google see it? Can your customers see it? Is the site useable? Are your customers engaged?
12. Awareness / Acquisition Consideration Conversion SEO SEO & CRO CRO
13. If you are failing to optimise the experience, you are failing your business.
14. Let’s have a look at some examples.
15. Multiple image versions Variations on screen size, device & image sizing does allow for ‘optimum’ image delivery. But, what is the impact of it? • Can cause HTML bloat • Longer page load speeds Although it can be done and technically there are benefits, will the customer really feel the impact? Does the effort warrant the benefits from it?
16. Images before text* *This is dependent on industry, site & page • Our client’s product pages had high bounce rates, we didn’t know why. • We ran user testing to learn more about the customer journey. • Found for their site the customer expected to see an image above the fold. So we prioritised images over text on a few product pages. It resulted in: - A lower bounce rate - Increase in conversion rate - Increase in revenue - No impact on rankings
17. JavaScript optimisation You’ve noticed there is significant unused JavaScript - what do you do? • It would be easy to recommend ‘remove unused JavaScript’ • But, how much dev time / effort would this be? • And, what benefit is there for FCP & LCP? • Making changes risks introducing new bugs
18. User error, bugs & unexpected side effects.
19. Experience delivering excellence through accessibility • Site structure • Page element shape / size • Colours ◦ https://colourcontrast.cc/
20. How can you find the right balance between experience & excellence for you?
21. Finding the balance • Audit your site: Not just technically but also from a customer journey perspective • Identify areas that require optimising: Issues impacting performance • Understand your sticking points: Where do your customers drop off? • Consider experience: Plan in fixes that address the performance issues but also consider experience • Consult with devs: Discuss potential tech debt that might impact performance
22. Your optimisations are only as good as your delivery of them. Getting buy in and your recommendations implemented is the biggest hurdle. Sometimes you need to choose based on what you think is likely to get done and therefore be impactful.
23. Thank you