Website User Experience as a Ranking Factor – Does it Really Matter?
As we know user experience is one of the most critical ranking factors as of 2019 and anyone wanting to take their business to the next level should be looking into their Google analytics to see how their website performs.
Of course, user experience includes many aspects. The most important one refers to the quality of the user’s interaction with a product, system or service.
In our case we are talking about interaction with a website.
Like anything in life there are always different opinions and in this short article I want to share my opinion about website user experience and what I think of it as a ranking factor.
Does it really matter? I promise the answer will not be what you may be thinking.
Ranking at the top
As you probably know website rankings depend on many aspects, such as bounce rate, average session duration.
Logically thinking these two aspects are critical because they show exactly how visitors behave on a website.
If your website is interesting and attractive both in the aspect of design and content it means visitors stay longer on your website.
Because it’s easy to navigate, it’s interesting to read your content.
This means visitors stay longer which means session duration is long and bouncer rate is low.
Though bounce rate doesn’t exactly mean your website is not good.
It may be that visitors come to your website, read your content and get information they have been looking for. After reading it they leave your website.
Does this necessarily mean your website is not user friendly or uninteresting? No.
That’s why bounce rate is a little questionable aspect that many SEO experts are talking about and have different opinions on that.
Form this we understand that Google pays a close attention to user experience and how your visitors behave on your website.
Based on that Google ranks your website and decides what pages deserve higher rankings and more traffic.
You may have 100 pages and just a few of them may be sending you as many visitors as to make you a full time income.
Content – Does it Really Matter?
Logically thinking the more content (pages) you have the more traffic you can expect from Google. But does this really happen? What is more important?
User experience or number of pages? Of course, quality content matters more than just number of pages.
But sometimes or often times you have quality content and multiple high rankings on Google though your traffic is very low.
Whatever you do nothing seems to change the situation on your website.
You continue to produce quality content, get comments on your website which means there is an interaction on your website but still Google doesn’t send you the traffic you may deserve.
I know it firsthand. Some friends of mine shared similar experiences with their website.
One of them was posting 5 days a week but his traffic didn’t increase. Believe me, I know many similar stories. I’ve been making money online since 2014.
I’ve been consistently posting since 2014 and my traffic has never been over 270 visits a day. My best traffic day was 269 visits a day.
My question to you: Do you know how many pages I have on my website? I have 480 pages of quality content.
Sites that have so much content should be getting at least 1000 visits a day. But my traffic doesn’t increase.
Many SEO experts including Brian from Backlinko also told in many of their youtube videos that creating more content is not always equal to more traffic.
User Experience – Does it Really Matter?
Ok, let’s now do some research and find out what is the reason that some sites get a ton of traffic with 100 pages while others get 100 -150 visits with hundreds of pages?
Maybe it’s due to a bad user experience?
Maybe because those sites have a high bounce rate?
Maybe visitors leave their sites because their content is not interesting?
Let’s do some research and find out the truth.
I know many affiliate marketers and many of them have been running a successful online business for years now.
Some of them are friends of mine. Recently I contacted some of them and asked to share their google analytics info so I could compare that info with mine.
I was very surprised to say the least. I contacted two of them. One of them has over 500 pages and the other one has 800 pages of content.
They post more frequently to be honest. But one year ago they had way less content, very close to my numbers (480 pages) and still they have been getting over 1500 visits a day while my traffic has been around 150 visits a day.
Now the most interesting part of my research is going to shock you.
I Asked to share their google analytics data from January to May 2019 and here is what I received from them. I will not reveal their site domains though.
The data from one site is very similar to my data. The first screenshot is my data and the second screenshot is the data from my friend’s website.
As you can see the bounce rate, average session duration is almost the same on both sites.
This means both sites perform almost equally in the same niche. BTW our sites are all related to MMO ( make money online) niche.
In terms of user experience our sites are almost no different though the amount of traffic we get from Google is very different.
My other friend didn’t send me his metrics because I didn’t ask him to send BUT here is his reply to me: “Your user engagement metrics are even better than mine”.
Now we have THREE sites in the same niche. Two sites perform equally in terms of user experience according to Google analytics but traffic is very different.
His traffic is around 1780 visits a day. Another site performs worse than mine in terms of user experience BUT still getting around 1200-1500 visits a day.
What does all this mean? Is quality user experience equal to high rankings and flood of traffic?
All this means that though according to Google user experience is one of the most important factors for a website ranking reality is a little different.
Even if your site performs well in terms of user experience and Google gets a signal from Google analytics that your site performs well it doesn’t mean Google will flood your website with a traffic.
Unfortunately, we can do nothing because it totally depends on Google.
There is no guarantee that you will get a lot of traffic from Google even if you create quality content.
Believe me, there are so many sites online that have a great piece of content and yet other sites with less quality content outrank them for unknown reasons.
I don’t want to discourage you from starting a business. I just want to show you the other side of the business.
If you create quality content I guarantee you will get traffic from Google. But the amount of traffic is totally unpredictable.
If you want to learn how to choose a niche for your website and increase chances of your success you can read my case study .
If you want to learn how create a business online I suggest that you start with a free account first.
Let me know if you have questions and I will help you get started.
About the Author: Adam
My name is Adam. I'm the founder of Your Income Advisor. My goal is to help others succeed online, by exposing scams and reviewing top rated products. I can help you start your own business online 
This is an interesting analysis. I always thought that user experience is an important factor in SEO, but your analysis proved it doesn’t. Google algorithm is truly a big mystery. A friend I know has three to four thousand organic page views per day with only less than 80 pages content. His site is so-so but the content is good for the audience. I think quality of content need to be mixed with right keyword to generate high organic traffic
I can’t say user experience doesn’t matter. It does but not always and not everywhere. You are right. It’s a kind of mystery. You never know what to expect from the next update. Of course, quality content in combination with right keywords can do wonders. But as I said above, it’s not a rule. I’ve seen sites with similar content but getting totally different amount of traffic.
Hi Rufat!
Writing quality and engaging content is essential to reduce the bounce rate. Adding videos, images, and animation will keep the audience engaging. If we write long paragraphs without media, people will not read the article fully. Displaying more advertisements may irritate the visitor. Even the color in your theme should be pleasing. As you side taking care of keyword competition and low hanging fruit is also essential. Some times Google Algorithm behave mysteriously, for which we are helpless. Without bothering about google let us keep on writing quality content.
Thanks for sharing a useful article.
I agree with all your statements but ten sites doing the same thing get different results that are hard to explain. There is a lot of theoretical info about building niche sites and writing quality content especially guys from Income School explain it very well. But still when it comes to real facts not everything works exactly as they explain it. But I still continue creating quality content and hope maybe something will change in the future. I’m not just writing. I’m doing research what works and what doesn’t work and try to improve my writing skills and my approach to writing content.
Hi,
there’s always been a problem with SEO and figuring out the right “recipe” for huge ammounts of traffic. You explained the situation very well and many many people that “teach” others don’t even mention the reality. It can be very frustrating. That’s why WA is the best in my book, I’m in business since 2009 and I started to make money online full-time in 2015 when I first joined WA. 4 months after I joined I saw the light at the end of the tunnel and later that same year. Awesome explanation, best regards
Yes, I know. Many so called gurus are talking and teaching others while not explaining the reality. WA is extremely helpful which is why I’m still a member of this awesome community after 5 years. I’m still not a full time marketer but plan to quit my main job in a few months.
After reading your post I am a bit confused. I understaand that the quantity and the quality of a website content is not the only factor that can improve ranking or traffic. So is the user experience the solution? or is it that when you associate quality content with good user experience that you can improve your traffic and ranking.
Thanks
User experience is the solution but not always. Quality content is the guarantee of a good user experience but even with quality content you are not always guaranteed to get desired results. I can’t provide an exact answer or recipe. I just shared my experience.
Interesting post on user experience. Appreciate all of the research you did on the bounce rate. I to am in internet marketing, and focus on building quality content based on keywords that are easier to rank for i.e. low hanging fruit. I’ve notice that by creating great content that people do tend to stick around on the site longer. Thanks again. Cheers.
In fact, this process is out of our control. The only thing we can do is continue creating quality content and continuously work on improving our writing skills. One day you can create a piece of content that will change your whole life.
It is critical to be in the top 10 of Google. In fact, to be the number 1 is all what matters. As you said,and also can be seen in other graphics, it gets more than 60 percent of the traffic, if you are the number one in Google. Making your site user friendly, will help with this.
It’s critical and not so too. You can get traffic even from the second page of Google. Of course, seond page sends way less traffic but it’s still a lot of people.