UX × SEO
Multiplying effect you get when UX and SEO work together to develop and execute strategy from the beginning of the process.
Each multiplies the impact of the other.
1Thursday, September 27, 12
A couple of things before we startPresentation will be on slideshare linked from EdUI site
David Poteet, President
@davidpoteet [email protected]
Melissa Beaver, Director of UX
@misb [email protected]
Jessica Behal, Director of Internet Marketing
@jes525 [email protected]
Questions at the end
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One of our favorite clients - Old Dominion University Distance Learning - demonstrates the impact you can get when UX and SEO work together.
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ODU DISTANCE LEARNING - RESULTS
Enquiry Traffic to Enroll
Fall of 2011 140/day 3%Fall of 2012 3,064/day 20%
Saw huge increase in traffic, but more importantly the rate at which students who filled out the enquiry form then enrolled jumped significantly.
SEO can drive traffic, but UX helps you convert.
We’ll show you the process we followed to get these sort of results, and then we’ll give you more details of the ODU case study.
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DefinitionsUser Experience
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or “Organic”
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or “Pay Per Click”
Analytics
Conversion
Funnel
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Why This Matters
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0
2.5
5
7.5
10
12.5
15
1995 2009 2020 (projected)
4.13.5
2.8
5.5
4.6
3.4
13.1
12.1
8
18-24 25-34 35 and over
9%
32%
US ENROLLMENT TRENDS (MILLIONS)
Source: Na+onal Center for Educa+on Sta+s+csh5p://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/2011026.pdf
Most of us have spent the majority of our working career in higher ed during a period when enrollment was growing fast enough nationwide that you could screw up a lot of things and still grow enrollment.
We’re moving into a period where that will not be the case.
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0
500,000
1,000,000
1,500,000
2,000,000
2,500,000
3,000,000
3,500,000
1995 2009 2020 (projected)
HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES
Source: Na+onal Center for Educa+on Sta+s+csh5p://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/current_tables.asp
-3%32%
Over the next decade, although higher ed enrollment among traditional age students is projected to increase approx. 9%, the actual number of high school graduates in the US is projected to decrease by approx. 3%.
Note that this varies a lot depending on where you live. In some states graduates will increase, in some they will decrease. More on that in a minute.
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0
500,000
1,000,000
1,500,000
2,000,000
2,500,000
3,000,000
3,500,000
1995 2009 2020 (projected)
ATTENDING 2 OR 4 YEAR COLLEGE
HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES
Source: Na+onal Center for Educa+on Sta+s+csh5p://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/current_tables.asp
-3%32%
62%
70%80%
So when you overlay the number of HS grads going on to college, you see that the percentage is increasing.
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5%
35%
33%
27%
Reading
< Basic
≥ Basic
≥ ProficientAdvanced
3%
24%
36%
37%
Math
12TH GRADE ACHIEVEMENT LEVELS IN 2009
Source: Na+onal Center for Educa+on Sta+s+csh5p://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/current_tables.asp
But let’s look at the achievement levels of high school graduates. These percentages haven’t changed much in the last 15 years, so we shouldn’t expect them to change much in the next 10.
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0
500,000
1,000,000
1,500,000
2,000,000
2,500,000
3,000,000
3,500,000
1995 2009 2020 (projected)
ACHIEVEMENT LEVELS
Advanced Proficient Basic or below
HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES
Source: Na+onal Center for Educa+on Sta+s+csh5p://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/current_tables.asp
-3%32%
We’re making an assumption here that most students who are Advanced or Proficient are already going to college. So if the percentage of high school graduates who go on to college is going to increase, then it is more likely to come from the students who are on the lower end of the achievement scale.
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Your mileage will varyCHANGES IN HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION LEVELS BY STATE
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Source: Na+onal Center for Educa+on Sta+s+csh5p://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/2011026.pdf
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0
250,000
500,000
750,000
1,000,000
1,250,000
1,500,000
1,750,000
2,000,000
1995 2009 2020 (projected)
White Black Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander
HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES
Source: Na+onal Center for Educa+on Sta+s+csh5p://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/current_tables.asp
So when you overlay the number of HS grads going on to college, you see that the percentage is increasing.
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REALITY CHECKYou will have to work harder to
reach the best students.
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So Why SEO?
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Source: Noel Levitz 2012 E-‐Expecta+ons Reporth5ps://www.noellevitz.com/papers-‐research-‐higher-‐educa+on/2012/2012-‐e-‐expecta+ons-‐report
HOW STUDENTS BUILD THEIR LIST OF POSSIBLE SCHOOLS
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WHO’S DOING IT?
0
25
50
75
100
Organic PPC Using Analytics
4 Yr Private 4 Yr Public 2 Yr Public
Source: Noel Levitz 2012 E-‐Recrui+ng Prac+ces & Trends at Four-‐Year and Two-‐Year Ins+tu+onsh5ps://www.noellevitz.com/papers-‐research-‐higher-‐educa+on/2012/2012-‐e-‐recrui+ng-‐prac+ces-‐and-‐trends-‐at-‐four-‐year-‐and-‐two-‐year-‐ins+tu+ons
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Why they fight
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Why UX & SEO FightSEO expert usually brought in after the site has already been built.
Seen by rest of the team as adding “keyword spam”
Often just focused on “traffic” without understanding of real user goals.
UX plans sites without considering needs of SEO and analytics
Not enough content in the right places to optimize
Links and titles don’t match the way people search
Hard/impossible to track clickstream through to conversion
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SEO Needs UXWhy high bounce rates?Why dropoff in conversion funnels?Inbound keywords can indicate user goalsWhen more traffic ≠ more conversions
Wrong traffic?
UX problems?
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UX Needs SEOPrioritize based on measurable demandUse common language keywords and phrasesQuantify $$ impactSettles political debatesReveals untapped market demand
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Content strategy
Navigation & overall experience
Brand strength
Clear concise message
GOOGLEBOT EATS UX!!
http://www.seobook.com/learn-seo/infographics/brand-branding-brands.php
Over the last year Google has incorporated more and more UX factors into how it ranks websites. So UX is becoming critical for good SEO.
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PROCESS OVERVIEW
What are we trying to make happen?
What’s happening now?
Who are our users?What do they want?
Develop site architecture & and campaign strategy
How can we track goals and patterns?
Create human & robot friendly content
Prototype & test Measure & improve
How do they search?
Design & test
Build & test
Launch
24Thursday, September 27, 12
RESEARCH & STRATEGY
What are we trying to make happen?
What’s happening now?
Who are our users?What do they want?
Develop site architecture & and campaign strategy
How can we track goals and patterns?
Create human & robot friendly content
Prototype & test Measure & improve
How do they search?
Design & test
Build & test
Launch
- Find out user info goals, what motivates them to act- How this affect search behaviors
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What are we trying to make happen?UNCOVERING BUSINESS GOALS THROUGH STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEWS
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What are we trying to make happen?What are the priorities for your institution?
What (3 things) should the website accomplish for your institution?
How will you personally define success for this project?
Among other things, you are trying to get out some goals that you can then track and measure and use SEO to support.
Some other great resources for example stakeholder interview questions: Kevin Hoffman A List Apart article Aug. 2010 and Undercover User Experience Design
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Identify Measurable GoalsGoal: Increase enrollment
- How can the website support yield?
- How much? By what date? From a particular region? In specific majors?
- Higher GPAs, better SATs
Goal: Promote new program
- Generate web traffic—how much? Increase inquiries? Track “buzz”?
Goal: Balance portrayal of fun with academic rigor
Goal: People in business know what we do
- Take feedback from and suss out goals that you can quantify for SEO. Follow-up with questions if needed.- Set arbitrary (but realistic) targets if you don’t have real numbers in mind.- You might have more definite goals: like increase enrollment of students- SEO can find out how much traffic you get
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What’s really happening right now?DIGGING INTO ANALYTICS
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Setup Google Analytics
-setting up at beginning-If using Google Analytics, doesn’t apply to past data-different types of profiles, traffic-comparing the right time periods
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How current insights help UXIdentifying Patterns
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How current insights help UXTop pages and paths
Sources & keywords give clues about goals
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How UX research guides SEO strategyINTERCEPT SURVEYS, KJ SESSIONS, USER INTERVIEWS
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What did you come to sitename.edu looking for today?
Are you a... [audience group]?
Optional
Top 3 Criteria
Name & E-mail
Intercept Survey
Using Ethnio.com
Digging into your analytics can tell us what keywords users are using to get to your site, but it doesn’t always tell us what they were really looking for or what’s important to them
Example?
So, let’s ask them!
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WHAT ARE YOUR TOP 3 CRITERIA?
Example of results we got in a recent survey. You see lots of overlap in the words survey takers used; e.g., reputation, ranking, prestige, quality...
It also reveals a common search behavior pattern: searching on major, searching by “best program in ____”
But we like to dig in on these keywords; SEO can send traffic to our site by optimizing on those search terms, but can we “convert” those users by making sure we answer the content questions they have.
We primarily do this by talking to users. The intercept survey I just showed you is a great way to contact students for follow-up on responses to their answers. Follow-up with you said reputation, atmosphere, and academics were the 3 most important items to you. Ask them what do those things mean to you? Size can mean many things for example—class size, student-to-teacher ratios, can I walk to classes? will I feel overwhelmed? are you big enough for me to feel energized?...
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KJ SESSION AT ST. VINCENT’S COLLEGE
You don’t need to do academic research here. You are just trying to get a better idea of what students are looking for and how they talk about it.
KJsFocus Questions- What do you come to the website to find or do? (Vote for your top 6)- How do you know a college fits? What things do you look for? (Vote for your top 3)
One-on-one interviews- Cover some of the same questions: what do you look for on the website, what are your top criteria?
The UX research often takes this interview data and sums up the findings in personas and task maps....
Take note of the language they use—this is a great place to start researching keywords and looking at search behavior.
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Maria• Works hard, has good college
scores
• Wants to study International Relations & Spanish
• Wants to work at an embassy
• Considering going on to a postgraduate degree
Daniel• Good student but has
struggled academically
• Doesn’t test well due to slight dyslexia
• Not sure which course he’ll take, maybe computing & technology
• Can he get help & not be stressed out?
Christian• International student
finishing his IB
• UK degree is more respected by employers
• Wants to be able to work outside his home country
• Getting recommendations from a local agency
Sophie• In her early 30s, took time
out from school to start a family
• Currently enrolled in college
• Wants to become a teacher
• Can only consider universities nearby
Personas, University of Portsmouth
Maria, a solid A/B student who is already thinking about career
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PersonasMaria
• WHAT - international relations degree international relations postgraduate courses international relations uni postgraduate spanish courses
• WHEN - 1 year before application early fall of final year
• WHY - identify universities where I can study what I want to be identify universities with helpful, knowledgable and good lecturers identify universities with great potential for future careers identify universities where she will be supported
• HOW - friends search engines family teacher recommendations
• WHAT will they search? (right terms to attract qualified leads)
• WHEN will they search? (time)
• WHY will they search? (goals - bad goals)
• HOW will they search? (methods / mediums)
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TOP USER TASKS
Took all the feedback from KJs and a collection of one-on-one interviews conducted over the course of a very intense week.
This is showing a sample of top information goals around courses (majors). Prospective students were really concerned about digging into the core of what the major entailed— • what topics will be covered, • what will my professors be like, • will I learn what I want to learn
SEO can look at these information goals and see what areas are ideal for optimization
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TOP USER TASKS
SEO can highlight the items Jessica: top things to optimizeEach of these could be an entry point where prospective students would begin their journey
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KEYWORD RESEARCH
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KEYWORDS TO CAREWORDS
Gerry McGovern, Customer Carewords: ask users which 10 keywords would they click on when visiting your site.
We use the words from the KJs, user research, and keywords from early SEO research to survey suers on what they would click
In this example for University of Portsmouth, we see the prevalence of course related content—which we also found in the KJ session. In the KJ session, we found top information goals around courses
42Thursday, September 27, 12
ARCHITECTURE
What are we trying to make happen?
What’s happening now?
Who are our users?What do they want?
Develop site architecture & and campaign strategy
How can we track goals and patterns?
Create human & robot friendly content
Prototype & test Measure & improve
How do they search?
Design & test
Build & test
Launch
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KEYWORDS TO CAREWORDS TO SITE ARCHITECTURE
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Sanity CheckHow are we going to track everything that UX is planning?
What patterns would we like to be able to track?
Pitfalls
Offline
3rd party tools
Mobile
Forms
URL changes
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CONTENT & PROTOTYPE
What are we trying to make happen?
What’s happening now?
Who are our users?What do they want?
Develop site architecture & and campaign strategy
How can we track goals and patterns?
Create human & robot friendly content
Prototype & test Measure & improve
How do they search?
Design & test
Build & test
Launch
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EXAMPLE OF PAGE EDITING
Using the search phrase about 3-5 times for a 200 - 500 word page.
Use phrase in page title
Use it in the meta description tag because this is what Google shows as the page description in your search results. Even though this doesn’t help your ranking per se, it can help your click throughs.
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ORGANIC AND PAID LINKS FOR CHATHAM HALL
-content-title-meta description-links / anchor text-alt tags
Data shows that appearing in both the organic results (center) and paid results (right column) increases your likelihood of getting a click.
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AFTER LAUNCH
What are we trying to make happen?
What’s happening now?
Who are our users?What do they want?
Develop site architecture & and campaign strategy
How can we track goals and patterns?
Create human & robot friendly content
Prototype & test Measure & improve
How do they search?
Design & test
Build & test
Launch
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Ongoing Testing & OptimizationUsability testing
Mini-feedback surveys / intercept surveys
A/B testing
Tools
UserTesting.com
VisualWebsiteOptimizer.com
Optimizely.com
CrazyEgg.com
Usabilia.com
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Putting it all together
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CURRENT DL.ODU.EDU SITE
ODU DISTANCE LEARNING - BEFORE
ODU’s site before we started.
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PERSONAS
Greg, managerBS in Human ServicesConsidering MA
Tiffany, momWants to finish degree in education
Beth, engineerPursuing MS in Engineering
Developed a series of personas based on user research.
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ADDRESSING THE BIGGEST QUESTION
One of the questions that all personas had was how distance or online learning really works. We knew we had to overcome this obstacle before anyone would convert, so we planned the content that would help make our case.
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“HOW IT WORKS” DESIGN
Designed version of this landing page
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KEYWORDS
Google’s keyword research tool.
We use this and other keyword tools to identify keywords and phrases that a) real people are actually searching for, and b) match up with the programs ODU wants to promote
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CAREWORDS
Carewords survey incorporates those keywords, helps us determine which links on the website people are most likely to click on.
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OPTIMIZING CONTENT
HOME PAGE“distance learning degree va” #1
Harder to optimize a home page since there is typically much less text. We created a home page where much of the interaction actually happens while still on the page. So from Google’s standpoint, there is more content on this page than you see when you first open it.
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ODU SEARCH RANKING
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OPTIMIZING CONTENT
MODELING & SIMULATION DEGREE“mod sim degree” #1
More people search on “mod sim degree” which is an abbreviation of “modeling and simulation.” Notice how we worked “Mod Sim” into the body copy as an abbreviation.
Also, the content under each tab is actually part of this same page, so it makes it easier for us to optimize.
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OPTIMIZING CONTENT
CRIMINAL JUSTICE (BS/BA)“virginia criminal justice distance learning” #2
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OPTIMIZING CONTENT
ENGLISH (PhD)“online PhD in english” #4
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COMPREHENSIVE CAMPAIGN
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ODU DISTANCE LEARNING - GROWTH IN VISITS
NewCity kicks off campaign in April 2011
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ODU DISTANCE LEARNING - RESULTS
Fall 2012 enrollment +26%Partner community colleges see enrollment increases as high as 38%
Enquiry Traffic to Enroll
Fall of 2011 140/day 3%Fall of 2012 3,064/day 20%
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Read moreKiller Web Contentby Gerry McGovernhttp://www.gerrymcgovern.com/
Letting Go of the Words by Ginny Redishhttp://www.redish.net/
Call to Actionby Bryan Eisenberg and Jeffery Eisenberghttp://www.futurenowinc.com/
Search Analyticsby Louis Rosenfeldhttp://www.rosenfeldmedia.com
Web Analytics 2.0 by Avinash Kaushikhttp://www.kaushik.net
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Questions?
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