UX vs SEO

Don't mistake the lion for the zoo.

Should a brand prioritise User Experience (UX) or Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)? To ask this question is like comparing apples with oranges. But in a time of limited budgets and seemingly infinite technologies, sometimes brands need to prioritise.

SEO is a set of processes to help search engines find your website. This may be particularly useful for two reasons: 1. You're a relatively unheard of brand trying to establish credibility, or 2. You're an established brand launching a new product that may fall outside of the scope your customers associate you with.

While SEO is incredibly effective at generating leads, there are a few downsides. SEO's currency is authority, and establishing this requires a lot of effort. You need

to create content, tag it correctly, and generate SEOfriendly URLs amongst other tactics. It works best if it is a consideration from the outset, rather than an afterthought. It takes a long time for SEO efforts to yield results as it’s an organic approach.

Done correctly, SEO is more affordable than paid media, so it is worth doing when budgets are limited.

In the case of both B2B and B2C companies, SEO falls within the top three most successful lead generators, alongside social media and email marketing.

UX, on the other hand, is how your customer experiences your brand in totality, which includes the user interface of your website or app. It’s especially important if your business relies on repeat purchases to generate a profit.

Most companies rely on repeat business, so UX is always going to be a factor. One bad experience and you could lose a customer for life. Not only that, but in today's hyper-connected world, negative reviews spread fast. Unfortunately, most brands give very little thought to its product/service UX strategy until it needs to react.

So to determine whether to prioritise SEO or UX, consider these factors;

Compare the outcomes If you reduce these processes right down to what they primarily do, you’ll find that proper SEO generates new leads. It may secure repeat use of the service or product, or encourage return visits to a website. The motivation will then come down to the business objectives, i.e. new business or repeat business. Based on this, it will be simple to identify what to prioritise.

The customer journey is an ecosystem If we had to imagine customer experience in layers, our top layer would be our overall customer experience (CX). Our second layer would be the various user experiences (UX) within that customer journey (our products, our services, etc.) Our third layer would be the various user interfaces (UI) of each of these products. Where does SEO fit into our layered cake? Well, it forms an integral part of the overall customer experience, but it may also fit into the user experience phase of our products.

If we had to imagine customer experience in layers, our top layer would be our overall customer experience (CX). Our second layer would be the various user experiences (UX) within that customer journey (our products, our services, etc.) Our third layer would be the various user interfaces (UI) of each of these products.

“Stripping out certain elements of your customer's experience, isolating them, and then prioritising them based on perceived outcomes is too simplistic. Be careful not to mistake the lion for the zoo. While the lion is an attraction, there are many other animals to observe and appreciate at the zoo,” explains Craig Hannabus from Rogerwilco.

Thinking about marketing efforts in isolation by separating social media, SEO, website and campaign work, will without a doubt result in an unconnected, fragmented experience that won't be half as effective. Marketing efforts must be a coherent whole, and although there is scope for prioritising certain aspects of a digital ecosystem to align to a specific audience and messaging strategy, the specialist teams must work together to build off each element.

Craig Hannabus is Strategy Director at Rogerwilco, providing marketing strategies, social media management, creative services, UX, web development SEO services.