There has always been this debate on which one of these two brings in more traffic and more sales: usability or search engine optimization? Some would pick usability over SEO, saying your site has to be user-friendly and provides the customers with correct and helpful content to be able to attract visitors and customers. Others would pick SEO, defining that you have to push your products and services for greater visibility to the online community.

This push or pull spectacle has been present for a long time now. Isn’t it about time to offer a different view?

How about the combination of the two? Usability AND search engine optimization in one! Push AND pull! That would definitely give an online business great visibility, more traffic, and more sales. Combining the two will have three factors involved:

1. You need to know how your user or visitor would want your site would look and how it should give information that they need. Basically, it’s like putting yourself in their shoes and looking for site designs that would appeal most to you.

2. Each web page should just be like your home page, in a sense that the design would still appeal to the visitors’ eyes. The structure of the site should give many openings to the other pages. You home page shouldn’t be the only one that has all the good stuff. Do the same with every page.

3. Always make sure that the message you’re conveying is very clear to the users. For example, if you’re selling blankets and pillows, your site should be optimized of “blankets and pillows” and the design should speak clearly of your products and services.

Taking these three would not be that difficult if you put yourself in the shoes of the users. These three also makes up the fact that you can indeed put usability and SEO together. Both complement each other. If your site has a great design and the message is clear, and you pushed it into the search engines, then that would be a treat to both you and the users. Your site will be easily found, it would attract the user, and it would be very helpful for the users that they would certainly be satisfied with your business. You would be satisfied, too, since this speaks of traffic and sales.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 8:25 am and is filed under Online Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.