A search engine sends the visitor. The website decides whether the visit was worth it.

A user-friendly website lets people find what they came for, understand it and act on it with little effort. It works on the device they use, loads quickly and does not get in their way. It meets the user intent without making the visitor work for it.

In parts, and indirectly. Google's documentation says that beyond Core Web Vitals, other page experience aspects “don't directly help your website rank higher in search results”, while they make a website more satisfying to use, “which is generally aligned with what our ranking systems seek to reward”. Usability serves the goal ranking systems pursue.

Google expanded mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal for mobile searches worldwide in April 2015 and completed mobile-first indexing in October 2023. A site is now judged by its mobile version. A page that works only on a large screen is judged by the version that does not.

Intrusive interstitials are overlays that cover content, such as pop-ups that appear as soon as a visitor arrives. Since January 2017, pages whose content is hard to reach from mobile search results may rank lower. Google states that intrusive interstitials and dialogs can lead to poor search performance.

Because the ranking only delivers the visitor. Whether that visitor reads, trusts, buys or returns depends on the page. SEO that brings people to a page they cannot use produces costs, and no results.

If only price drove shoppers away, faults of the site itself would be absent from their reasons. Four of the reasons they name are faults a better design removes.

Cognitive load is the mental effort a page demands. Dense layouts, unclear navigation and competing elements raise it. People facing too much effort leave, or decide by shortcuts.

Clear headings, short paragraphs, the answer placed first, and a visible structure. People search a page with their eyes before they read it. What does not stand out is often never seen.

By watching real people use the site with realistic tasks, asking them to think aloud, and noting where they hesitate. Even small tests reveal many problems. Analytics show where people leave, and tests show why.

An accessible site can be used by people with disabilities, with screen readers, keyboard navigation and sufficient contrast. The same clarity helps everyone. A structure that works for a screen reader also works for a search system.

A user-friendly page anticipates what the visitor needs. Supervised Search goes one step further and asks: what brought you here, and have you experienced this before. A page that clarifies the user intent in the content removes the hardest part of usability, guessing.

Make the answer to the most common need visible at once, remove what blocks it, and test with a handful of real users. Then fix what they stumble over. Every improvement shows in the visits SEO already brings.