Presentation by Ben Lloyd of Amplify Interactive for the Seattle Interactive Conference 2011. Covers how SEO & Usability work together.

1. SEO & User Experience:
Like Peanut Butter & Chocolate
Navigation, Links & SEO
How Much is Too Much?
Presented By: Ben Lloyd - @blizzle
www.amplify-interactive.com

2. Thoughts
“I like having a selection, I just don't like
making a choice”
-Carrie Renee Mathews
Jam Study:
“The presence of choice might be
appealing in theory… in reality, people
might find more & more choice
debilitating”
-Professor Sheena Iyengar, Columbia University

3. Choices
Ever try to pick a paint color?
Did you know there were
THAT MANY shades of
white?
How about order from a
restaurant menu that’s 5
pages long?

4. Links
•SEO Says: “Too many on-page links”
•Designer should hear: “The Navigation is Overwhelming”
•Site Owner/Client freaks out about cutting down user options
- SEO Benefit: Improved spidering = more pages available
for search
- Design & U/X Benefit: Contextual navigation = improved
usability
- Site Benefit: more visitors, better usability = ROI

5. Case Study

6. Internal
Links
1. Major duplicate content issue resolved
2. Nav change to news
3. Nav change to events
4. Nav change to posts
5. Minor duplicate content issue resolved

7. Template
Changes
Example:
Simple Template Changes
 Sidebar links
 Number of posts

8. Directory
Changes
Example:
Simple Template Changes
 Cut down on columns
 Sidebar links are
contextual

9. Post
Changes
Example:
Post-Level Changes
 Keep the links contextual
Links to related posts

10. Organic
Search
URLs Receiving Entrances from Search
Q3 2010 Q4 2010 Q1 2011 Q2 2011 Q3 2011
Gains in page yield outstrip the number of posts added to the site.
This means that more pages are getting indexed.

11. Organic
Search
1. Major duplicate content issue resolved
2. Nav change to news
3. Nav change to events
4. Nav change to posts
5. Minor duplicate content issue resolved

12. SEO & UX?
Go together like peanut butter & chocolate