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Developing a Keyword Ranking Tool for Precision SEO Insights.
victorious.com
Victorious is a premier SEO Agency launching their early access application in Q2 of 2024. Their goal is to systematize SEO by integrating and developing technology into their process and strategy to increase their customer growth and online presence.
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Victorious utilizes a robust keyword strategy platform consisting of Keyword Themes, a specific grouping of keywords curated by a SEO strategist that rank on a webpage.
My Role
UX / UI Designer
Timeline
Jan 23' - May 23'
The Problem
High keyword ranking is critical in the success of SEO performance and current Victorious SEO strategists spend 10 - 15 hours per week on external tools such as Agency Analytics to monitor keyword rankings for it's customers.
How might we...
Design and implement an interactive keyword ranking tool within the Victorious App that reduces the amount of time required for monitoring.
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Agency Analytics, a platform currently used by Victorious strategists to monitor keyword rankings.
The Solution
A keyword performance tracker that allows SEO strategists to monitor keyword performance, encourage investigation to identify trends, and make quicker decisions to avoid a drop in rankings.
Results & Impact
User Impact
Strategists saved 8 hours a week vs. using external sites and products.
This outcome was achieved by implementing the Keyword Performance Tracker as a core feature during the app's internal beta launch.
Business Impact
Potential savings of $50k - $60K per year on external performance monitoring tools.
The new Keyword Performance tracker can consolidate 4 different tools strategists must use to complete their performance monitoring tasks.
Discovery
We conducted interviews and user observations with 10 Victorious strategists. The goal is to understand their process, identify key pain points, and determine what keyword metrics hold the most significance to success.
Here is what users had to say:
"In order to determine how a theme is performing, I have to look up each keyword position individually and determine the average position of them all."
"Most of our tools have delayed reporting. The most recent day I can see is usually 3 days ago."
"If a customers keywords are ranking well, then typically their web pages are positioned higher on search engines."
Key Insights
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There is an inability in current tools to compare keywords over time.
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Real-time tracking is missing and there is no way to see their current rank.
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Average Keyword Rank and Keyword Difficulty are what drives the biggest impact.
Product Goals
Alongside stakeholders and product managers, we identified the requirements needed to build a rank tracking tool that will increase efficiency.
Design a layout that strategists can easily navigate and utilize efficiently.
Ability to compare different themes and or keywords rankings over time
Ability to see the distribution of keywords for the overall site
Design Explorations and User Testing
During the design phase, we conducted 2 rounds of moderated usability testing sessions to quickly stress test our designs. We tested out prototypes with 10 SEO Strategists that have different levels of experience.
User Testing included
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Scenario-based tasks
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1-10 Likert scale
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Opened ended questions to identify areas for improvement
Designing an efficient layout
We began developing wireframes and low-fidelity mockups. We experimented with card layouts, visualizations and tables to provide all the metrics from our identified requirements.
Our initial designs had segmented control for Position (later changed to Rank) and Distribution, to utilize the same chart (as shown in Version 1.0).
Version 1.0
User Feedback
6/10 of our users missed the toggle to switch Position and Distribution. Our users indicated that the Average Position was more important and should be prioritized.
In Version 2.0, we removed the toggle for position and distribution. I designed the Keyword Themes to be the default view, with the rank chart at the top of the page, followed by Visibility and Distribution.
This led to the design of the Theme table, which allows the user to quickly identify theme data, as well as dive deeper by clicking into the theme row.
Version 2.0
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User Feedback
7/10 of our users identified a need for a keyword view that encompasses all keywords in a customers campaign, not just those within a specific theme. This led to the design of the adding a Keyword page.
Final Solution: Dedicated views for themes and keywords
Both views utilize an Average Rank card and Distribution card for the primary metrics, accompanied by a table with secondary metrics.
Clicking a theme row will automatically navigate the user to the keyword page and pre-filtered to the theme's keywords.
The keyword page houses all keywords within a customers campaign, providing metrics such as Rank, Volume, Cost Per Click, and Average Difficulty.
Developing a comparison feature
The goal was to create a way to allow users to compare individual themes and keywords against each other to aid strategists in making better decisions on keyword strategy.
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In Version 1.0, a dropdown allowed a user to select the theme they want to view. All keywords within a theme are included within the legend of the chart. Users can compare them by clicking the checkboxes and adding them to the chart.
Version 1.0
User Testing
4/10 users were not able to easily compare different keywords and encouraged more explorations. Due to the character length of keywords, this created an overload of information on the chart and was not visually pleasing.
Version 2.0 moved the checkboxes to the table rows. Users can click the compare checkbox, adding the theme or keyword to the chart. We also limited to amount of comparisons to six to reduce cognitive overload.
Version 2.0
User Testing
In testing, 6/10 users were not able to easily compare different keywords. Comparing via the table was not intuitive enough to know it updated the chart and constant scrolling up and down the page was not a good experience.
Final Solution: Comparing themes and keywords
We landed on using a comparison button within the chart card. Users can compare themes and keywords on the Average Rank Chart, allowing quick pivoting in making better keyword decisions.
Keyword Distribution
The goal was to create a way to show the distribution of all keywords within a customer campaign to get a snapshot of the performance of their strategy as a whole.
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In Version 1.0, we included a distribution card within the keyword page. When the card is selected, the chart visualizes the distribution as a stacked bar chart.
Version 1.0
User Testing
8/10 users found it difficult to identify the higher ranking numbers (Top 3 and Top 10 at the time). This forced me to look to other visualizations to better enhance legibility.
Version 2.0 utilized an area chart, as well as feedback from stakeholders to include the distribution of all keywords associated on a customers website. This led to the Overall Keyword Ranking Distribution chart.
Version 2.0
User Testing
In testing, 4/10 users were did not understand the area chart on overall distribution. It was confusing as why the chart looked and performed differently than the rest of the ranking charts.
Final Solution: Keyword Distribution
We landed on highlighting the Campaign Keywords as well as All Keywords. "Campaign Keywords" refer to those specific to the users campaign with Victorious. "All Keywords" encompass all keywords on a customer's website.
We opted to limit the distribution to the Top 5, Top 10, Top 25, and Top 100. This not only reduces cognitive load but also provides a concise snapshot of your target keywords' performance.
Next Steps
Launching internally to all Victorious strategists
Victorious will be launching this feature in Q2 of 2024 to all internal strategists.
Plans to launch to customers by Q4 of 2024
Due to the success of the feature, Victorious is planning to include the Keyword Performance tracker to the customer application. This is to be marketed as a differentiator from other agencies.
Learnings
This project was a valuable learning experience. It taught me the importance of iterative testing. I learned that even small changes can significantly improve the user experience if they address the right problems.
The introduction of a comparison feature and information visualizations that allowed strategists to investigate and make faster decisions was a novel approach that proved to be very effective.
I am happy to discuss this project further, please send me an email or give me a call to set up a meeting!