When running a website, two key performance indicators (KPIs) will always come to the forefront: SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation). Both are essential for growing your online presence, but there’s often a tension between the two. SEO focuses on getting your website seen by a wider audience, whereas CRO aims to turn those visitors into paying customers. So, how can you strike a balance between improving your search rankings while maintaining, or even boosting, your conversion rates?
In this post, we’ll discuss actionable strategies to optimise your website for SEO without negatively impacting your CRO metrics. Let’s dive in.
The Relationship Between SEO and CRO
Before we discuss the techniques, let’s quickly understand the relationship between SEO and CRO. Both are crucial for driving success on your website, but they often work differently:
SEO is the practice of optimising your website’s visibility in search engine results. The higher your site ranks for relevant keywords, the more traffic you’ll generate. This traffic, however, may not always convert into leads or customers.
CRO focuses on converting that traffic into actual sales, sign-ups, or other valuable actions. You can get lots of visitors to your website, but if they don’t take action, you’re not seeing a return on your investment.
Sometimes, SEO strategies, like adding more content to your pages or optimising for specific keywords, can interfere with CRO tactics, such as making a website’s user experience too complicated or cluttered. On the flip side, optimising for conversions could result in design decisions that affect how your website performs in search engine rankings, such as poor mobile optimisation or slow page load speeds.
The good news? With the right approach, SEO and CRO don’t have to work against each other. In fact, many strategies can improve both.
1. Focus on User Experience (UX)
When it comes to both SEO and CRO, user experience (UX) is a foundational element. After all, users who have a good experience on your site are more likely to stay longer, convert, and return.
Why UX Matters for SEO and CRO
SEO Impact: Google’s ranking algorithms consider factors like page load speed, mobile responsiveness, and ease of navigation. A poor user experience can lead to higher bounce rates, which directly affect your rankings. For example, if your site is slow to load or difficult to navigate, users may leave before interacting with your content. This leads to a higher bounce rate, which can send negative signals to search engines.
CRO Impact: The more intuitive and user-friendly your website is, the more likely visitors are to complete a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a contact form. A confusing layout, long loading times, or poorly designed calls-to-action (CTAs) can make visitors abandon their goals, hurting your conversion rates.
What to Do:
Mobile Optimisation: With more people browsing and shopping on mobile devices, it’s essential that your website is responsive. Ensure that the design adapts seamlessly to all screen sizes, improving both SEO and the likelihood that visitors will convert.
Improve Site Speed: A slow-loading website can hurt your rankings and frustrate potential customers. Google has indicated that page speed is a ranking factor, and users are less likely to convert on a site that takes too long to load. Optimise images, enable browser caching, and consider using a content delivery network (CDN) to speed up load times.
Simplify Navigation: Both users and search engines prefer websites that are easy to navigate. Streamline your menu, add clear labels, and ensure that visitors can find the information they need quickly.
2. Optimise Content for Both SEO and Conversions
Creating content that works for both SEO and CRO can be tricky, but it’s definitely possible. The key is to strike a balance between optimising for search engines and making the content engaging for visitors.
SEO and Content
From an SEO standpoint, content is critical for ranking in search engines. Well-optimised content that targets specific keywords will help your website rank higher in search engine results. However, focusing solely on keyword optimisation can result in keyword stuffing, which will negatively affect the readability and conversion potential of your content.
CRO and Content
For CRO, your content should be persuasive and focused on driving action. Visitors need to be able to clearly see the value of your product or service, and your content should gently nudge them toward a conversion — whether it’s purchasing a product, signing up for a newsletter, or requesting a quote.
What to Do:
Keyword Optimisation Without Compromising Readability: While keywords are important for SEO, you must avoid overloading your content with them. The goal should be to write naturally, ensuring the content provides value to readers. Use keywords strategically in headings, meta descriptions, and throughout the body content, but ensure that the content flows naturally.
Engaging, Action-Driven Copy: Use persuasive language in your copy to convert visitors into leads or customers. For example, highlight the benefits of your product or service rather than just listing features. Use clear calls-to-action (CTAs), such as “Request a Free Quote” or “Sign Up Today” to guide users to take the next step.
Content Hierarchy: Use headings (H1, H2, H3) to break up the content and make it easy for both users and search engines to understand the structure. Properly optimised headings improve SEO and make it easier for visitors to navigate your page, improving CRO.
Multimedia: Incorporating images, videos, and infographics into your content can improve both SEO and CRO. Search engines rank multimedia content (like videos and images with alt text) higher, and multimedia can keep users engaged longer, thus increasing the chances of conversion.
3. Improve Site Structure and Internal Linking
An organised site structure benefits both SEO and CRO. Properly structuring your website ensures that search engines can crawl and index your content effectively while providing a seamless user experience.
SEO Impact:
Search engines rely on your site’s structure to understand which pages are most important. A well-organised website with logical navigation helps search engines rank your content and understand the context of your pages.
CRO Impact:
For conversions, a well-structured site ensures that visitors can easily find what they are looking for. A clear path to action — whether that’s purchasing a product or signing up for an offer — increases the likelihood of conversion.
What to Do:
Flat Site Architecture: Keep your website’s structure as flat as possible to ensure that visitors can find what they need quickly and search engines can index your pages easily. Ideally, pages should be no more than three clicks away from the homepage.
Internal Linking: Use internal links to connect related pages on your website. This helps search engines crawl your site more efficiently and improves your content’s discoverability. Internal links also guide visitors to other relevant content, increasing the chances they’ll take action on your site.
Create Landing Pages: For CRO, dedicated landing pages for specific campaigns, products, or services improve conversion rates. These pages should have a clear focus and be optimised for both SEO and conversion, with persuasive copy, relevant keywords, and strong CTAs.
4. A/B Test to Find the Balance
One of the most effective ways to optimise both SEO and CRO is through A/B testing. By testing different variations of your web pages, you can see how changes to design, copy, or layout affect your conversion rates without negatively impacting your SEO performance.
What to Do:
Test Headlines: Test different versions of headlines to see which generates more clicks. Ensure the winning headline is still optimised for your target keywords.
Test CTAs: Try different CTAs to see which one converts the best. This will help ensure you’re using copy that resonates with your audience.
Test Page Layouts: Test variations of your page layout to determine which design elements lead to higher conversions.
Through regular testing, you can fine-tune both your SEO and CRO efforts, ensuring that both are working in harmony to deliver the best possible results.
5. Optimise for Featured Snippets
Featured snippets are a great way to boost your SEO rankings without sacrificing CRO. By optimising your content to appear as a featured snippet in search results, you can increase the visibility of your site and drive more qualified traffic to your pages.
What to Do:
Answer Common Questions: Create content that answers specific questions in a concise, direct way. Use bullet points, numbered lists, or tables to structure your content to increase the likelihood of being chosen as a featured snippet.
Optimise for Long-Tail Keywords: Long-tail keywords are often more specific and question-based, which makes them prime candidates for featured snippets. Optimising your content around these keywords can improve both SEO and the user experience.
SEO and CRO don’t have to be opposing forces on your website. By focusing on user experience, creating optimised, high-quality content, improving site structure, and testing regularly, you can enhance both your website’s search engine visibility and conversion rates. The ultimate goal is to create a seamless experience for both search engines and users, leading to more traffic and better conversion outcomes.
By understanding how SEO and CRO work together and finding the right balance, you can ensure that your website drives not only traffic but also tangible business results.
