Lauren Irwin and Lucy Williams

Today we have Lauren Irwin and Lucy Williams on the show. Lucy is an SEO expert and UX designer. Lucy has 20 years of digital design experience working with big brands and startups. She’s worked with KFC, LG, Hasbro and Molson Coors to name a few. One of her favourite projects was an award winning mobile commerce experience for Pizza Hut Delivery UK.

Lauren has 10 years of digital marketing experience and loves problem solving and working on complex SEO strategies. Her general marketing knowledge has led her to specialise in SEO and SXO (Search Experience Optimisation). She’s worked in-house and agency side with companies like Earth’s Best and Ella’s Kitchen being two of her faves.

Lucy and Lauren met in 2015 at a previous web agency. They now work together at Abstract, a web design and development agency in Nottingham, UK. Since joining Abstract last year Lucy and Lauren have been working together to bring their SEO and UX knowledge together to create a seamless and successful SXO process that delivers big client results. They focus on creating digital experiences that perform in search engines, support user journeys and convert.

Table of Contents

• Who are Lauren Irwin and Lucy Williams?
• Current Projects that Excite Lauren and Lucy
• Tactical and Strategic SXO Advice from Lauren and Lucy
• Where Do Lauren and Lucy See the Future of SXO Going?
• How to Get in Contact with Lauren and Lucy
• Conclusion

Who are Lauren Irwin and Lucy Williams?

Lauren Irwin: From Ice Cream Dreams to SEO Expert

Lauren Irwin is from Nottingham, UK, aka Robin Hood country. As a child her dream job was to be an ice cream truck driver. However, life took a different turn as she grew up. Lauren studied film and media production at university which laid the foundation for her future in digital marketing.

After university Lauren’s journey into the digital world began unexpectedly. She started by selling handbags and then moved into a role as a buyer for film and media products. A turning point came when she was offered a marketing role within the same company despite having no marketing experience. This threw her in at the deep end of digital marketing where she had to learn everything about the field quickly.

As time went on Lauren developed a special interest in SEO and content writing. Her childhood love of writing proved to be a big asset in her career:

I used to love to write when I was little. So when I got into copywriting that really enabled me to write people-first content. And that’s really supercharged my SEO as well because I have that detail thinking with the creative thinking of copywriting.

Lucy Williams: From Miss Honey Aspirations to UX Design Maven

Lucy Williams grew up in Leicestershire, about an hour south of Nottingham. As a child she was inspired by the character Miss Honey from Roald Dahl’s Matilda and wanted to be a primary school teacher. However life took a different turn.

Lucy did a degree in multimedia design which gave her a broad foundation in many digital skills. After graduation she found herself at a crossroads:

I did a degree in multimedia design and it was one of those degrees where at the end you came out of it and you were like, I know a little bit about a lot, but I don’t know a lot about anything. So which direction do I want to take?

She decided to focus on web design and got her first job at an agency in Nottingham. Initially Lucy worked on web design and front-end development, doing CSS and HTML. As she progressed in her career she became more and more interested in user experience (UX) design:

I got really into UX when that came about however, like 15 odd years ago when I really got into that and I thought, Oh, that’s like three jobs, you know, design UX development. I’m going to have to ditch one of these. So I sort of retired from development.

Lucy decided to specialise in design and UX so she could focus on two sides of digital creation, creativity and user centric thinking.

Current Projects that Excite Lauren and Lucy

Lauren and Lucy are working together at Abstract, a web design and development agency in Nottingham, UK. Their work together has led to the development of a approach that combines SEO and UX principles which they call SXO (Search Experience Optimisation).

SXO

They are currently working on implementing this SXO process for clients. The process starts with a discovery workshop where both Lauren and Lucy sit down with the client to gather the information. Lauren explains:

We start most of our projects together. If we get a website project in and it has that planning stage then we’ll instantly start working together.

Their approach involves looking at different parts of the project from their respective expertise:

1. Lauren looks at:
• Search queries
• User behaviour on the site
• Analytics data (e.g. time on page)
2. Lucy looks at:
• Building audience profiles and personas
• Competitor websites for content structure and language use

They then get together to share what they’ve found and collaborate on the strategy. Lucy explains:

We’ll be coming back together with what we’re learning and then sort of collaborating at every point.

Site Mapping

One of the interesting things they are doing at the moment is their approach to site mapping. Lauren and Lucy are creating separate site maps:

• Lauren’s site map is SEO focused and based on search intent
• Lucy’s site map is user focused and visual, based on brand language and user navigation

They then combine the site maps together to create a final structure that meets both SEO and UX. This way they can satisfy the technical requirements of the search engines and the practical requirements of the user.

Tactical and Strategic SXO Advice from Lauren and Lucy

Understanding SXO

SXO, or Search Experience Optimization, is the combination of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and UX (User Experience) principles. Lauren explains:

SXO is SEO and UX combined. It creates that force and it’s really about creating a really user-centric approach to building a website. And that means building it from the very initial planning stages of really thinking about the structure of a site and how that’s laid out and the content zones and thinking about not only how the user navigates around it, but thinking about how a search engine crawls that site as well.

The goal of SXO is to maximize visibility in search results while ensuring that the user’s search intent matches the experience they have when they land on the website. This approach aims to reduce the number of clicks needed for a user to find the information they’re looking for or complete their desired action.

Key UX Principles That Impact SEO

Lucy highlights three main UX principles that have a significant impact on SEO:

1. Clear and Intuitive Navigation
• Benefits users by making the site easy to understand and navigate
• Improves SEO by enhancing crawlability and indexing
2. Internal Linking
• Helps users discover related content and continue their journey on the site
• Benefits SEO by distributing page authority and helping search engines understand the site structure
3. Well-Designed Call-to-Actions (CTAs)
• Guides users to take the next step in their journey
• Increases engagement rates, which can positively impact search rankings

Effective Navigation Strategies

When it comes to improving website navigation, Lucy offers the following advice:

• Reduce the number of items in the main menu to avoid decision overload
• Aim for 5-7 options in the main navigation
• Group menu items logically and avoid random placement of pages
• Consider the mobile experience when designing navigation

Internal Linking Best Practices

Lauren shares her approach to internal linking:

• Analyze existing content and its performance in search console
• Understand user behavior and time spent on different pages
• Create links based on user intent and the natural flow of information
• Ensure that linked pages have the same search intent as the source page

Regarding anchor text, Lauren advises:

What I think is most important is that language, whether it’s click here or read me or whatever that is, it needs to follow the same search intent. So if you’re just putting click here or read more, it doesn’t mean anything to anyone really, but if you’re saying, um, read more about this podcast or read more about this and actually saying what it is for, that’s more intuitive. And it also has more keywords in it. So it’s beneficial to SEO.

Effective Call-to-Action Strategies

Lucy provides insights on creating effective CTAs:

• Avoid overusing the same CTA multiple times on a page
• Place CTAs at strategic points in the user journey
• Make CTAs visually prominent without being overly flashy
• Use personalized and contextually relevant language for each CTA
• Consider the user’s readiness to act and provide additional information if needed

Data Analysis for SXO Success

To measure the success of their SXO efforts, Lauren looks at various data points:

1. Search Console data:
• Keyword performance
• Page performance (clicks, impressions, click-through rates)
2. Google Analytics data:
• Engagement time
• User behavior flows
3. Additional tools:
• Hotjar for user behavior analysis
• Custom goals and KPIs set by clients

Balancing SEO and UX

One of the main challenges in implementing SXO is finding the right balance between SEO requirements and UX design preferences. Common areas of conflict include:

1. Language and Headings
• UX perspective: Focus on brand voice and emotive language
• SEO perspective: Inclusion of important keywords
2. Content Length and Structure
• UX perspective: Easily digestible, scannable content
• SEO perspective: Comprehensive, keyword-rich content
3. Technical Implementation
• UX perspective: Smooth, interactive user experiences
• SEO perspective: Ensuring content is crawlable and indexable

To resolve these conflicts, Lauren and Lucy emphasize the importance of:

• Open communication between SEO and UX teams
• Education on both SEO and UX principles for all team members
• Data-driven decision making
• Compromise and finding creative solutions that satisfy both SEO and UX requirements

Where Do Lauren and Lucy See the Future of SXO Going?

Both Lauren and Lucy believe that the integration of SEO and UX, or SXO, is the future of digital marketing and web design. They see several trends and factors shaping this future:

Increased Importance of User Experience in Search Algorithms

Lauren points out that major search engines, particularly Google, are placing more emphasis on user experience in their ranking algorithms:

Google is so dominant in search. And we know that the algorithm updates they’re doing and helpful content update and E-E-E-A-T and all of these different things is so focused on user experience now. You kind of have to get into that angle of SXO and really understand how they work hard together.

This trend suggests that websites that prioritize both SEO and UX will have a competitive advantage in search rankings.

Evolving User Expectations

Lucy highlights the changing expectations of users when it comes to online experiences:

Users have such different expectations now. They do just expect fast, intuitive, engaging online experiences. We have such short attention spans now, you know, like TikTok is dwindling our attention spans and we don’t want a slow website that’s hard to navigate, that isn’t got valuable content.

This shift in user behavior means that websites need to be not only discoverable through search but also engaging and user-friendly to retain visitors and convert them into customers.

Holistic Approach to Digital Presence

Both experts emphasize the need for a more holistic approach to digital presence, where SEO tactics are implemented within the context of a well-designed, user-centric website. Lauren notes:

You can do as much SEO as you want, but if your website isn’t strong enough, then it’s not going to work in the end, I don’t think.

This suggests that future digital strategies will need to consider both technical SEO aspects and user experience design from the very beginning of any web project.

Integration of SEO and UX Teams

Lucy predicts that there will be an increased demand for agencies and professionals who can bridge the gap between SEO and UX:

Look for agencies who are merging this together because there’s such a difference when your SEO agency is completely separate from your design agency because you don’t have that crossover and you don’t talk and those really valuable conversations don’t happen.

This integration of skills and knowledge will likely lead to more effective digital strategies and better outcomes for businesses.

Emphasis on Data-Driven Design and Optimization

Both Lauren and Lucy stress the importance of using data to inform both SEO and UX decisions. As analytics tools become more sophisticated and accessible, we can expect to see more data-driven approaches to SXO, allowing for continuous optimization based on real user behavior and search performance.

Focus on Mobile and Fast Experiences

With the continued growth of mobile internet usage and Google’s emphasis on mobile-first indexing and page speed as ranking factors, the future of SXO will likely involve an even greater focus on creating fast, mobile-friendly experiences that satisfy both users and search engines.

How to Get in Contact with Lauren and Lucy

Lauren Irwin and Lucy Williams can be reached through their company, Abstract, a web design and development agency based in Nottingham, UK. While specific contact information wasn’t provided in the podcast, interested parties can likely find more information and contact details on the Abstract website or through professional networking platforms like LinkedIn.

For those interested in learning more about their work and approach to SXO, it’s recommended to:

1. Visit the Abstract agency website
2. Follow Lauren and Lucy on professional social media platforms
3. Look for any published articles or case studies they may have shared
4. Attend digital marketing and web design conferences where they might be speaking

Conclusion

The conversation with Lauren Irwin and Lucy Williams provides valuable insights into the emerging field of SXO (Search Experience Optimization) and its importance in today’s digital landscape. Their collaborative approach, combining Lauren’s SEO expertise with Lucy’s UX design skills, offers a blueprint for creating websites that not only rank well in search engines but also provide excellent user experiences.

Key takeaways from their discussion include:

1. The importance of integrating SEO and UX considerations from the early stages of website planning
2. The value of data-driven decision-making in both SEO and UX design
3. The need for clear communication and collaboration between SEO and UX professionals
4. The growing emphasis on user experience in search engine algorithms
5. The evolving expectations of users for fast, intuitive, and engaging online experiences

As the digital world continues to evolve, the principles of SXO are likely to become increasingly important for businesses looking to succeed online. By focusing on creating websites that are both search engine friendly and user-centric, companies can improve their visibility, engage their audience more effectively, and ultimately drive better business results.

The insights shared by Lauren and Lucy serve as a valuable guide for digital marketers, web designers, and business owners looking to improve their online presence. As we move forward, the ability to balance technical SEO requirements with intuitive, user-friendly design will be a crucial skill in the digital marketing toolkit.