We often speak of SXO as a mix of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and UX (User Experience). But with this acronym, isn’t there a confusion between “UX is a relevancy criterion of Google’s algorithm” and “UX is the logical continuity of SEO in a website’s traffic capture scheme”?
Many articles or posts on social networks speak of the SXO as the fact that the user experience is taken into account by Google as a criterion of relevance for its algorithm (which usually turns out to be wrong or grossly exaggerated). My vision is different: for me, UX is the logical continuation of SEO in the process of considering the traffic generated by search engines.
SEO generates traffic for searches the website is legitimate for, while UX converts and transforms that traffic to ensure goals are met.
Here are some explanations on this topic:
My definition of SXO – Video N°210 proposed by Olivier Andrieu (Abondance). Source: Abundance
Transcript of Video 210: “My Definition of SXO”:
“Hello and welcome to this 210th Abundance video where I wanted to talk to you about my definition of SXO. I have already made some videos on SEO and UX. A few definitions – you will see at the end of the video the reminders of the other videos I made on this topic – so UX is all about user experience, SEO is search engine optimization so natural referencing and SXO is the mix of SEO and UX .
And when I read a certain number of articles about the SXO, I tell myself that sometimes there are two different interpretations of the term and the acronym SXO, and that allows a certain number of questions to be asked. The first vision is UX as an SEO relevance criterion: search engines such as Google rank results according to UX criteria such as easy navigation on the page, bounce rate on the page, pogosticking or length of stay, which are used to analyze the behavior of Internet users in the search results, does he click, does it therefore come back in the SERP, accessibility for disabled people, is the page in https, is the page load time good, is the page mobile friendly, etc. and will it affect a page’s ranking in search results? I remind you that neither the ease of navigation, nor the rebound rate on the page, nor pogosticking or dwell time, nor accessibility are criteria for SEO relevance! Unfortunately, we read a lot of wrong things about it. This is not the reason your website ranks well or not. I also remind you that https, page break time and mobile compatibility are official Google relevance criteria, but they currently carry extremely little weight. They’ll get you a spot at best, but we’re not going to do any real SEO with that today. We can maybe put a little damper on mobile compatibility, but in short, these aren’t really up-to-date SEO basics.
In the end, I find this first vision, which presents UX as a criterion for the relevance of page rankings, somewhat marginal in terms of SEO. Personally, I see SXO more as a link between SEO and UX, since UX would be the logical continuation of SEO. You have an internet user who searches on google, he will get to the site and there he will take the UX to transform, convert, to make sure that the visit generates traffic, whether in the desired destination at the beginning.
For me UX is actually the logical continuation of SEO and that is ultimately SXO: SEO generates traffic on the website and then UX takes over and converts that traffic so that the person buys, or leaves contact details, or stays x minutes on the website etc. short said that it converts, that it transforms. Here’s a bit of my vision of the SXO, it’s a logical sequence of actions to be implemented and everything that makes the SXO!
Here I also leave you to watch the other three videos that I made a while ago but which remain fully valid on the subject of UX and SEO, so numbers 115, 116 and 117. Thank you very much, have a great week and see you soon for a new Abundance video! Thank you and goodbye 🙂”