How Do Chatbots Affect Your Site’s SEO

Did you know that ELIZA was the first chatbot in the world? Well, now you do. It was developed by Joseph Weizenbaum at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1966.

ELIZA provided a pre-programmed response to the users by studying their entered keywords and phrases. Over time, how ELIZA operated laid the foundation for the chatbots that we interact with today.

The primary motive of implementing a chatbot on a website is improving its customer service through quick responses and necessary support.

However, chatbots can work beyond customer satisfaction and assist your site’s SEO. But only if you know how to use them.

In this post, you’ll learn how chatbots affect SEO?

Website Loading Speed

Website loading speed is one of the most critical factors responsible for your domain’s SERP performance. It has a direct effect on the rankings, conversions, lead generation, and growth of your business online.

47% of people expect a website to load within 2 – 4 seconds. Every second delay after that incurs a loss in customer satisfaction by 16%. Chatbots can be one of the reasons for your website’s slow loading speed. Therefore, you must use PageSpeed Insights and make sure that it isn’t.

PageSpeed Insights by Google examines your entire website and lists every issue affecting its loading speed.

The report reveals whether the chatbot script has been highlighted as an issue or not. If it is, then you must examine it again and ensure that it is seamless.

You can use an external server to handle the working of your site’s chatbot. However, remember to implement the correct code specifying this.

Bounce Rate

Page loading speed has a domino effect on a website’s bounce rate and dwell time. If a chatbot is responsible for hindering a site’s loading speed, then this can increase the bounce rate and simultaneously reduce the dwell time.

Slow page loading speed isn’t the only reason behind a visitor taking an exit from a website. Agencies that specialize in Greenville SEO reveal that sometimes visitors bounce off because they are unable to find a solution to their queries. 

Webmasters must use chatbots to increase the dwell time since they are implemented to help visitors understand and gain knowledge about how your site operates and its numerous associated products and services. Plus, they can provide appropriate solutions to the visitor’s query. All of this can give the visitors enough reasons to stay and further explore your website, thereby increasing the dwell time.

Website Navigation & Usability

Is your chatbot upsetting your visitors by making it difficult for them to operate and navigate? You can determine this by analyzing the session and bounce rate recorded in Google analytics.

If the session rate is low, and the bounce rate is high, one of the reasons behind this can be website navigation and usability. Improper implementation and placement of chatbot can affect the navigation of your website on both desktop and mobile devices.

When chatbots pop up abruptly while users are interacting with your website design, it annoys them because they are unable to access your entire website as the chatbot masks the content. 

Site owners must place chatbots on the right side (on mobile and desktop) without any abrupt popups. So, whenever the visitors need any assistance, they can access the chatbot at their convenience.

Final Thoughts

No amount of hard work your website and graphic designer do will work in your favor, until and unless your chatbots are optimized.