Redesigning Victorious'
Keyword Strategy Tool

VICTORIOUS
Aug - Nov 2024

OVERVIEW

Victorious launched its MVP Keyword Strategy Tool to streamline keyword research and strategy creation, but users faced challenges due to slow load times and unreliable outputs. The redesign improved app performance, simplified workflows, and enabled Strategists to work more efficiently and confidently.

MY ROLE

As the sole designer for this project post-MVP launch, I led the redesign by conducting competitive analysis, synthesizing user feedback, ideating solutions, creating mockups and high-fidelity prototypes, conducting usability testing, and supporting QA regression testing.

TEAM

Product Manager (Kevin Wallner)
Front End & Back End Engineers
Overview
ProblemContextGoalsSolutionResults
Process
ResearchIdeationDesignValidationImpactConclusion

Problem

Confusing workflows and technical inefficiencies led users to create incomplete strategies

The MVP Keyword Strategy Tool faced significant usability and performance issues that made it cumbersome to use which eroded user trust. Building Themes was confusing due to unclear workflows, slow load times, and a lack of direction, often leading to inconsistent Strategies and frustrated users. A complete overhaul of the tool was needed to remedy these issues.
Slow and unreliable
Slow load times and frequent loading errors fueled user doubts about data accuracy, leading to excessive refreshing that increased data usage and operational costs.
Confusing workflows
Keyword Research and Theme Building were combined in a single drawer with little visual distinction between the two workflows, making it hard for users to resume work and often resulting in incomplete Strategies.

Context

The anatomy of a Keyword Strategy

Strategists conduct Keyword Research and group relevant keywords together. A Primary Keyword and Theme type is selected resulting in a completed Theme. Strategists repeat this theme creation process until they have multiple themes which ultimately make up a Keyword Strategy.

Context

Creating a Keyword Strategy is similar to concepts like building a crypto portfolio on apps like Coinbase

goals

Empower users to efficiently and confidently create reliable Strategies while reducing load times and operational costs

The goal was to redesign the Keyword Strategy Tool to streamline workflows, improve usability, and increase employee productivity by enabling users to efficiently create high-quality and reliable Strategies. The redesign also aimed to enhance performance by cutting load times and optimizing technical efficiency to build trust and lower operational costs.

SOLUTION

Separate Keyword Research, Theme Building, and Keyword Strategy into their own distinct features

Dedicated Research Area
Changes to data no longer affect the associated Theme without user confirmation. This separation ensures greater control over data usage and theme accuracy.
Theme Builder
Chosen keywords are added to the "Selected Keywords" drawer for review, where users can designate a primary keyword and finalize the Theme. The new step-by-step process ensures all required information is completed, preventing unfinished Themes from being included in Keyword Strategies.
Theme Details
Completed Themes are accessible through the Strategy page, starting with an Overview tab showing key details like indexability status, external links, and theme type. Users can change the Theme through the "Manage Keywords" button, which links back to the Research flow.

Results

3x faster data load time, 3x increase in Strategy output capacity, 28% reduction in operational costs

Redesign page load speed
MVP page load speed
36s
2 mins
3
X
Faster Load Time
67
%
Faster to complete a Keyword Strategy
28
%
Reduction in operational costs

Research

Understanding the Problem

The MVP of Victorious’ Keyword Research tool launched quickly with limited user validation. While it generated interest, analytics and feedback revealed critical usability and performance issues. Five months later, I was tasked with redesigning the tool to boost productivity, improve usability, and ensure scalability.

Insight #1

Page insight recordings revealed that Strategists often forget to select a Primary Keyword before finalizing a Theme

Users frequently missed selecting primary keywords when finalizing themes, leading to frustration as they could only confirm this by manually checking each theme or reviewing the exported strategy in a Google Sheet.
Manually backtracking into each theme to select a Primary Keyword, increasing cognitive load

Insight #2

Heatmaps revealed frequent refreshing due to concerns around performance and data accuracy

Driven by a lack of trust in the app's accuracy, users frequently hit the data refresh button after making changes to their research. This behavior increased data costs and highlighted the need for improved technical reliability.

Insight #3

Lack of a designated research area caused unintended theme changes and user frustration

User feedback revealed that post-theme research unintentionally altered completed themes due to the lack of a “save” option or separate research area. This forced users to undo changes manually, adding extra work, increasing cognitive load, and discouraging tool usage.
Slack thread of user frustrations

Ideation & Design

Laying the Foundation

Page analytics and user feedback provided a strong starting point, but we saw additional opportunities to enhance usability. A usability audit was held which helped identify key improvements including streamlining workflows to reduce redundancies, optimizing page layouts, simplifying data calls, and more. It was clear that the root problem lay within the current Information Architecture, so we began reimagining the new IA map that would drive the redesign.

Information Architecture

The MVP IA (Information Architecture) combined keyword research and theme creation within a single drawer module, making it difficult for users to distinguish between these workflows. The redesigned IA separates Research, Theme Building, and Strategy, emphasizing that research is an independent process that can either produce a theme as an intentional output or serve purely as a space for exploration.
Based on this, a foundational design was established with global elements and interchangeable components.

Design Iterations

The tool went through many iterations before a shippable design was selected. Below shows a glimpse of these explorations:
Exploring accordion designs where selected keywords would be easily accessible and visible.
Introducing guidance through toasts and buttons
Page module & drawer explorations. These iterations led to the final design which was inspired by eCommerce websites where adding/removing keywords was similar to that of a shopping cart.
Introducing the idea of a Strategy builder that would show progress indicators

Final Designs

The Research tool and Theme Strategy became their own respective features. Below are wireframes encompassing several specific workflows:
  • Conducting Keyword Research and creating a Theme
  • Reviewing a completed Theme
  • Editing an existing Theme
  • Conducting research only (no intention of editing the theme)

Validation & Impact

Putting it to the Test

The final designs were presented to internal stakeholders and we were given the green light to move onto user testing.

Usability Testing

Across 5 test participants, a 4 out of 5 usability rating was given. All users were able to create complete themes and although 2 users had issues with editing existing Themes, the overall paradigm of separating Research from Strategy was clear to users.
Conducting research on existing themes is such a huge part of our day-to-day, and lots of times it's just to keep a pulse on things... so we really aren't looking to shake up the themes whatsoever. Keeping the two processes siloed is going to be an absolute game changer.
— Test Participant, SEO Strategist

Redesign Impact

The redesign resulted in the following:
67
%

Faster to complete a Keyword Strategy

Creating a Keyword Strategy decreased from an average of 1.5 hours to just 30 minutes, enabling Strategists to complete three times as many strategies in the same amount of time, while improving the quality of deliverables.
3
X

Faster load times

Data-load times improved by 70%, decreasing from an average of 2 minutes to 36 seconds, which significantly enhanced user trust in the app by providing faster, more reliable access to data that supports their customers' needs.
28
%

Reduction in Operational Costs

28% cost savings in third-party data providers as improved reliability increased user confidence, significantly reducing excessive manual refreshes and unnecessary data requests.

Conculsion

What Comes Next

Advocating for users becomes more impactful when supported by real data and feedback, as it helps stakeholders understand and address broader underlying issues. While feature enhancements may seem like a simpler alternative, it's important to have the courage to ask hard questions and tackle root problems head-on. This project taught me the importance of leveraging quantitative metrics to drive meaningful change and balancing persistence with empathy for team members and stakeholder priorities.

Looking ahead, Victorious is shaping the tool to eventually become customer-facing, unlocking new opportunities for business growth and scalability.
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