SEO tool microcopy

Identified unclear and confusing language patters in a tool with high support volume. Worked with design and engineering to improve UX content for our Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tool:

• 75% positive sentiment in user feedback with very low negative sentiment. 
• 38% fewer support tickets for analyzing SEO recommendations 😊
• Reduced the length of the initial SEO recommendations list by 40%.

The problem

Unclear language patterns and redundant recommendations were contributing to low adoption and a perception that using the SEO tool took "too much time."

My role

• Content audit of the existing language in the tool.
• Implemented consistent language patterns for each recommendation.
• Simplified UI design by grouping related recommendations.
  

Findings

• Each individual recommendation had its own nested explanation. This required more clicks, and a longer list of recommendations to view at a glance.

• Recommendations were phrased inconsistently, some in the positive and some in the negative. But this had nothing to do with the status of whether or not the recommendation had been implemented or not.

  • For example, Add get started to the title is phrased as an instruction for them to complete. It's unclear that this phrase is being used to tell the user that this item has already been completed (DONE).

• There were multiple separate to-do items for the same feature, including:
  • 3 separate recommendations related to the meta description.
  • 4 recommendations about the page title
  • Some recommendations about the same page attribute were dispersed throughout the list instead of all together

Solution

• I provided example copy for 2 possible solutions to help the team visualize what both options would entail.

• Then I collaborated with the UX designer to put related recommendations into collapsable sections, organized by topic. This reduces cognitive load and the number of items users need to scan in the list of recommendations.