Married couple, Jake and Alisha Truemper -- one a UX, and the other an SEO professional -- co-presented "The Marriage of SEO & UX" at STLUX 2014 a user experience conference. The husband and wife explain the history of the relationship between search engine optimization and user experience.

1. THE MARRIAGE OF SEO & UX
Jake & Alisha Truemper Present

2. VS.
User Experience and Organic Search are rumored to be enemies.
WHY?REALLY?

3. …WHEN PEOPLE HEAR
“SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION”
UX & SEO: A Love Story
Mark Oleszczak
User Experience Designer
Usabilla
They think of shady people keyword stuffing…

4. In the beginning…
SEO WAS ABOUT GAMING THE SYSTEM
...but, SEO matured, with the algorithms

5. Search engines seek to evaluate quality.

6. ...while UX experts sought the same.

7. They developed common interests.
OH.

8. “DON’T BE EVIL.”
Google’s Motto

10. Source: UX Myths that Hurt SEO, start: 07:19; stop 8:43.448
RAND FISHKIN ON UX & SEO

11. “UX & SEO: A LOVE STORY”Mark Oleszczak, Usabilla

12. “WHEN SEO, IA, AND UX WORK
TOGETHER, HUMAN USERS ARE
THE ULTIMATE WINNERS”
“UX is the New SEO”
Marianne Sweeny,
Sr. SEO Strategist
Portent

13. “SEO IS UX FOR ROBOTS”^says John Goad, SEO, AddThree.com

14. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

15. USER EXPERIENCE

16. We are both mediators between the
human and the computer.

17. SEO’S ROLE UX’S ROLE
● Connect searchers with
what they are looking for on
your site
● Help users achieve their goals
on the site
● Improve effectiveness of
off and on-site findability
● Test and tailor experiences to
appeal to target personas
● Improve quality of traffic ● Turn traffic into conversions
● Target keywords searched by
desired personas
● Turn visitors into return visitors● Turn searchers into visitors
● Increase off-site findability
by expanding web visibility

18. SEOS WILL OFTEN USE
UX TO INFORM
DECISIONS AND BACK
UP SUGGESTED
ACTIONS.

19. UX DOES THE SAME
WITH SEO DATA.

20. SEO CAN’T FUNCTION
INSIDE OF SILOS.

21. NEITHER CAN UX

22. Think of me as a
SEARCH EXPERIENCE ARCHITECT

23. Google’s Mission Statement
“TO ORGANIZE THE
WORLD’S INFORMATION
AND MAKE IT
UNIVERSALLY ACCESSIBLE
AND USEFUL”

24. Pre-Campaign
• What’s trending?
• How do they search for it?
• What are the related search
terms?
• What’s the intent of search?
• What’s the desired landing
experience?
• What’s the desired visitor
behavior?
• What are good success metrics
and target numbers?
Post
• Did we deliver on searchers’
expectations?
• Where did they come from?
• Where did they go after?
• Cannibalization handling
• Redirect Handling
• Did content earn backlinks?
• Did we reach our target numbers?
• How did this content affect other
pages ranking and traffic earning?
Ask Your SEO
CONTENT STRATEGY

25. Why UX Loves SEO

26. Improving accessibility usually improves crawlability
ACCESSIBLE

27. SEOs assess and earn site authority.
UX assesses and earns credibility.
CREDIBLE

28. UX directs on-site traffic
SEOs direct off-site traffic
FINDABLE

29. SEOs analyze results.
UX analyzes actions.
DESIRABLE

30. SEOs evaluate “intent of search.”
UX manages expectation.
USEFUL

31. USABLE
SEO needs a site to be usable to encourage
return visits. UX wants the user to complete the
desired task.

32. VALUABLE
To earn SEOs’ desired trust and freshness metrics,
the site needs to fulfill the searchers’ needs.

33. UX will help improve crawlability
UX provides insight into visitor behavior
UX helps align search intent with expectation
UX assists in ushering traffic toward conversion
WHY SEO LOVES UX

34. HUMANS FIRST
SEO and UX professionals agree
And then bots

35. W. Edwards Deming
“THE RESULT OF LONG-TERM
RELATIONSHIPS IS BETTER AND BETTER
QUALITY AND LOWER AND LOWER
COSTS.”

36. THE END
Jake
UX, Manifest Digital
@Trump29
truemper@gmail.com
Alisha
SEO, Scottrade
@AlishaTruemper
ablu272@yahoo.com