SEO is often viewed as a field with three pillars: technical aspects, content, and authority. However, at SmartRanking, we add a fourth pillar: Search Quality. And UX (User Experience) falls directly under that. UX isn’t just about a beautiful design or a smooth interface—it’s also about how users experience your website. That experience has a greater impact on search visibility than many marketers realize.
In this article, I explain why UX plays a direct role in SEO, how algorithms like Google’s Navboost confirm this, and how you can work toward a better balance between SEO and UX.
Search engines reward websites that truly help users. This is reflected in the focus on people-first content and page experience. Updates such as Core Web Vitals and mobile-first indexing demonstrate that user experience is inextricably linked to search engine optimization. Search engines want visitors to find answers quickly, have a positive experience, and not immediately return to the search results.
A good UX therefore not only ensures that users stay longer and convert, but also that Google rates the website higher in terms of quality. In addition, a strong UX contributes to brand perception: visitors remember the experience, return more quickly, and associate the brand with reliability and convenience.
In addition to brand perception, UX also responds to changing search behavior. Consider mobile usage, voice search, and AI-driven search interfaces: search engines are adapting to these trends and factoring them into their evaluations. In our view, UX is therefore becoming increasingly important for SEO.
One of Google’s less visible but important algorithms is Navboost. This algorithm analyzes click behavior, dwell time (how long a visitor stays on a page), and whether someone returns to the search results. If many users click on your result and are then satisfied with the page, that sends a strong signal to Google. In other words: UX indirectly but powerfully influences search engine rankings.
A great deal of information about Navboost has been leaked in recent years, including during court cases in the United States. Navboost is not a new algorithm; it has been around for years. Google obtains the data for Navboost from Google Chrome. As many as 69% of the world’s population uses Chrome, and users send all kinds of data (anonymized) to Google in the background. Navboost is one of the reasons why Google is such a powerful and effective search engine.
SEO and UX intersect in several ways that are immediately noticeable in both search visibility and user experience. Below are the most important examples:
Many SEO specialists remain focused on the traditional pillars of SEO: technical SEO, on-page SEO, and backlinks. UX is often seen as the domain of designers or CRO specialists. Yet we’re seeing that UX, in particular, is having an increasing impact on how Google assesses quality. At SmartRanking, we therefore view UX as an indispensable component of sustainable growth in organic search.
SEO specialists and marketers often overcomplicate things. It’s not always necessary to conduct comprehensive CRO audits or set up heatmaps. By looking at your website from your target audience’s perspective and thoroughly researching what your target audience’s actual (information) needs are, you’ll quickly identify opportunities for optimization. Moreover, the documentation provided by Google and others already offers plenty of insights and guidance.
We certainly don’t want to underestimate the value of CRO audits and UX professionals. But to get started on improving your website’s UX, it’s important not to overcomplicate things. If you do, the result is that this often gets neglected.
You don’t always have to approach UX with expensive research or complex heat maps. Of course, a comprehensive UX study can be useful, but you can often make significant progress using simple tools:
This simple approach often goes a long way. The key is not to view UX and SEO as separate entities, but to make UX an integral part of all the optimizations you perform.
SEO and UX aren’t separate worlds; they reinforce each other. A strong UX leads to satisfied users, more conversions, and better signals to Google. With algorithms like Navboost and Google’s focus on people-first content, it’s clear that search engines are taking an increasingly sophisticated approach to user experience.
Take the time to take a critical look at your own website. Ask yourself: What issues do you encounter as a user, and what areas for improvement can you address right away? Only by maintaining that perspective will you remain relevant to your target audience and to search engines.
Do you want to achieve sustainable growth in organic search visibility? Then it’s time to stop viewing SEO and UX as separate entities and instead combine them into a unified strategy. That’s exactly why, at SmartRanking, we place UX under the Search Quality pillar: because a good user experience should not be underestimated.
With a passion for SEO and an unmatched drive for results, Jarik Oosting is the driving force behind SmartRanking. With over 15 years of experience in the field, he has built an extensive body of knowledge spanning technical SEO to complex site migrations. As the founder of SmartRanking, he has assembled a team of like-minded SEO specialists who help businesses achieve sustainable online growth.
His academic background in information science at the University of Groningen, with a specialization in natural language processing, gives him a unique perspective on the world of SEO. For Jarik, it’s not just about visibility in search engines, it’s about sharing knowledge and guiding businesses toward sustainable online success. That mission also led him to write a Dutch book about GEO.