Internet 2.0 Expo Weblog Blog Archive Process Pantylines: Why Search Engine Marketing And
Todays guest post is brought to you by Tamara Adlin, who along with Vanessa Fox is hosting a workshop for Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco titled Getting Them There and Keeping Them There: Using Business-driven Personas to Create Holistic Search and Experience Strategies.
Process Pantylines: Why SEO and UX should share a cubicle.
Those who know me know that I go on and on about Corporate Underpants. Thats when your org structure shows on your website. My old tried and true example? Remember when Expedia first came out? We knew we wanted to go on a trip or travel somewhere (great Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, opportunities, if SEO had existed back then) but, when we arrived on the site, we just accepted that flights and hotels and cars should be thought of, and booked, separately. Was there a good UX-based reason behind that? I bet a zillion dollars there wasnt. Instead, its far more likely that there were separate destinations for each set of activities because there were separate departments handling each one. Classic Corporate Underpants (or, put another way, PNL = URL.)
Well, weve got new Corporate Underpants now. Perhaps we should call them Process Pantylines. These are experience weirdnesses that arise because the people working on a sites UX are not the same people working on the SEO. SEO folks work their brains to the bone figuring out how to get the right eyeballs to show up at the sites front dooror side door, or kitchen door, or in the middle of the stairway. Then a whole different team takes over, trying to move the eyeballs around and do things, like hang new wallpaper or buy a Pekinese puppy.
Each team is user focused, but, because so many companies are confused about who their users actually are and how those people think, the two teams are highly unlikely to have the same assumptions about the users. And even if they do, they are working to solve what are currently defined as two different sets of problems. For SEO, the problem to solve is conversion from search to arrival at the site. For UX, the problem to solve is conversion related to a call to action.
If you get people to come to the party, thats great. But if they show up because they were promised a trunk show of the latest accessories, and end up being presented with last years Tupperware collection, theyre going to be disappointed. And probably bail.
When you think about it for even two seconds, its crystal clear that SEO and UX belong in the same room. But wheres SEO? In marketing. And UX? Over there trying to squirrel their way into the engineering group. What if SEO and UX work together? Maybe, just maybe, you end up matching your promise with your experience. In other words, you end up with a full house of people happily spending money.
By the way, even though I believe we should combine SEO and UX, I vote we dont name it SUX.
Want more? Come join me and Vanessa Fox, SEO Goddess, for our workshop at the Web 2.0 Expo, at 9am Monday, May 3.
Register now!
~~
Tamara Adlin is the president of adlin, inc., a user experience strategy company in Seattle.
Vanessa Fox is an expert in understanding customer acquisition from organic search.