Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Last year, I was working with a B2C e-commerce client who had what I thought was the perfect website. Stunning visuals, award-worthy design, micro-interactions that would make any designer jealous. But here's the kicker - their organic traffic was terrible, and users were bouncing faster than a pinball.
It took me three months of testing to realize I'd been optimizing for the wrong user experience ranking factors entirely. While I was obsessing over visual perfection, Google was punishing us for factors I barely considered important.
This revelation completely changed how I approach UX for search rankings. Most agencies are still stuck in the "make it pretty" mindset, but after working on dozens of sites, I've learned that user experience ranking factors have almost nothing to do with how beautiful your site looks.
Here's what you'll learn from my painful (but profitable) discovery:
Why Google's Core Web Vitals matter more than your design awards
The three UX metrics that actually move rankings (spoiler: none are visual)
My framework for testing UX impact on search performance
How to audit your site for the ranking factors that actually matter
The counterintuitive UX changes that doubled organic traffic in 90 days
If you're tired of beautiful websites that don't rank, this playbook will save you months of frustration.
Industry Reality
What Google actually measures for user experience
If you've read any SEO blog in the last five years, you've probably heard the standard advice about user experience ranking factors. The industry loves to talk about:
Visual design quality - Clean layouts, professional typography, beautiful imagery
Intuitive navigation - Clear menus, logical site structure, breadcrumbs
Engaging content - Interactive elements, videos, rich media experiences
Mobile responsiveness - Adaptive design that looks good on all devices
Accessibility features - Alt text, proper heading structure, keyboard navigation
Here's the thing - this advice isn't wrong, but it's focusing on the human side of user experience while completely missing what Google actually measures. The SEO industry has created this myth that if users love your site, Google will automatically rank it higher.
The reality? Google doesn't see your beautiful design or intuitive navigation. Google's algorithms measure user experience through very specific, quantifiable metrics that have nothing to do with aesthetic appeal.
Most businesses spend thousands on design improvements expecting ranking boosts, then wonder why their organic traffic doesn't improve. They're optimizing for the wrong signals entirely.
The conventional wisdom exists because it feels logical - better user experience should equal better rankings. But Google's definition of "user experience" is purely data-driven, not design-driven.
This disconnect between human UX and algorithmic UX is where most websites fail. You can have the most intuitive, beautiful site in the world, but if you're not hitting Google's specific user experience ranking factors, you're invisible in search results.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When I landed this e-commerce client, they were frustrated beyond belief. They'd invested over €15,000 in a complete website redesign six months earlier. The new site was genuinely impressive - clean, modern, with smooth animations and a layout that any design agency would proudly showcase in their portfolio.
But their organic traffic had actually decreased since the redesign. They were ranking on page 3-4 for keywords they used to own on page 1. The client was convinced their previous developer had somehow sabotaged their SEO during the migration.
My first instinct was to dive into the technical SEO basics - crawl errors, broken links, missing redirects. Everything checked out fine. The site architecture was logical, content was comprehensive, and all the traditional ranking factors were in place.
That's when I started looking at the user experience ranking factors everyone talks about. Navigation was intuitive, mobile experience was flawless, content was engaging. From a human perspective, this site delivered an excellent user experience.
But then I ran a Core Web Vitals audit. The results were brutal:
Largest Contentful Paint: 4.2 seconds (should be under 2.5s)
First Input Delay: 180ms (should be under 100ms)
Cumulative Layout Shift: 0.18 (should be under 0.1)
The beautiful design was killing their search performance. High-resolution images, custom animations, and complex JavaScript were creating a slow, janky experience that Google was penalizing heavily.
The previous "ugly" website had been fast and functional. The new "beautiful" website was slow and unstable. Google didn't care about the visual upgrade - it only measured the performance degradation.
This was my wake-up call that user experience ranking factors are not what most people think they are.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Once I understood that Google's user experience ranking factors are purely performance-based, I developed a systematic approach to optimize for what actually matters.
Step 1: Baseline Performance Audit
I used Google PageSpeed Insights and Core Web Vitals data to establish current performance metrics. The key insight here is that Google provides the exact metrics it uses for ranking - we just need to listen.
For this client, I discovered that their "premium" theme was loading 47 different JavaScript files and 23 CSS stylesheets. Beautiful design, terrible performance.
Step 2: The Brutal Simplification
This was the hard part - convincing the client to remove design elements that were hurting performance. I removed:
Custom animations that required heavy JavaScript libraries
High-resolution hero images (replaced with optimized WebP versions)
Third-party widgets that weren't essential
Complex CSS frameworks in favor of minimal, custom styles
Step 3: Performance-First Rebuilding
Instead of designing for aesthetics first, I rebuilt sections with Core Web Vitals as the primary constraint:
Critical CSS inlined for faster rendering
Lazy loading implemented for all non-critical elements
Font loading optimized to prevent layout shifts
JavaScript execution delayed until after initial page load
Step 4: Real User Monitoring Implementation
I set up tracking for actual user experience metrics, not just lab data. This revealed that mobile users were experiencing even worse performance than desktop audits suggested.
Step 5: Mobile-First Performance Optimization
Since most traffic was mobile, I optimized specifically for mobile Core Web Vitals:
Reduced image sizes for mobile viewports
Simplified navigation to reduce interaction complexity
Eliminated hover effects that don't work on touch devices
The counterintuitive result? The "simpler" website actually converted better than the complex one. Faster loading meant users stayed engaged, and clearer calls-to-action improved conversion rates.
Within 90 days, we saw dramatic improvements in both user experience ranking factors and business metrics. The lesson was clear: Google's definition of good user experience is not about beauty - it's about speed, stability, and usability.
Speed Metrics
Focus on Core Web Vitals scores rather than visual appeal for ranking improvements
Mobile Performance
Optimize for mobile-first since most traffic and ranking signals come from mobile users
Real User Data
Use field data from actual visitors rather than lab testing for accurate UX measurement
Performance Budget
Set strict limits on page weight and loading times before adding any design elements
The transformation was remarkable. After implementing performance-first UX optimizations:
Core Web Vitals Improvements:
Largest Contentful Paint dropped from 4.2s to 1.8s
First Input Delay improved from 180ms to 45ms
Cumulative Layout Shift reduced from 0.18 to 0.05
Search Performance Results:
Organic traffic increased by 127% within 90 days
Average ranking position improved from 3.2 to 1.8 for target keywords
Mobile search visibility increased by 89%
The most surprising result was that conversion rates also improved by 34%. Faster loading times meant users were more likely to complete purchases, proving that Google's user experience ranking factors align with actual business outcomes.
These results came not from better design, but from better performance. Google rewarded the improved user experience signals, and users responded positively to the faster, more stable experience.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
This experience taught me that most agencies and businesses are optimizing for the wrong user experience ranking factors entirely. Here are the key lessons:
Google measures experience differently than humans do. Beautiful design doesn't translate to better rankings if performance suffers.
Core Web Vitals are not suggestions - they're requirements. Sites that don't meet these thresholds will struggle to rank, regardless of content quality.
Mobile performance matters more than desktop. Google's mobile-first indexing means mobile UX metrics carry more weight.
Real user data beats lab testing. Focus on field data from actual visitors rather than perfect lab conditions.
Performance improvements compound. Better Core Web Vitals lead to better rankings, which bring more traffic, which provides more user signals.
Less can be more for SEO. Removing design elements often improves both performance and conversions.
Business metrics follow search metrics. When you optimize for Google's UX signals, user behavior and conversions typically improve too.
The biggest mistake I see is treating user experience ranking factors as separate from technical SEO. They're the same thing - Google uses performance metrics to measure user experience, not subjective design quality.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups optimizing user experience ranking factors:
Prioritize app performance over visual complexity
Monitor Core Web Vitals for your marketing site and product
Test performance on actual user devices, not just development machines
Consider performance impact before adding new features or integrations
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores focusing on UX ranking factors:
Optimize product page loading speed over image quantity
Implement lazy loading for product catalogs
Minimize checkout page complexity to improve conversion and performance
Use performance budgets when adding new marketing tools or widgets