User Signals: interpret behavior correctly instead of overinterpreting
What is meant by user signals, which hints are useful and where direct SEO keys would be too easy.
The topic often decides whether content is only available or actually meets the search intention. Usually, the biggest lever lies in better tailoring, clearer utility and less in mere amount of text.
What is meant by user signals, which hints are useful and where direct SEO keys would be too easy. This wiki page arranges the topic practically and shows, When priority arises, which mistakes are often and how you derive concrete measures from them.
Example: A short session completely solves the question
A visitor searches for a phone number, finds it immediately and leaves the page. The short stay time is not a clear quality deficiency here. For a long consulting article, the same behavior may have a different meaning.
Therefore, first define the task of the page and suitable events. Analytics values are not directly readable Google ranking factors. Distinguish observed behavior, gaps in measurement by consent, and hypotheses about why users act.
User Signals as KPIs
User Signals are for Google & Co. KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). The search engine algorithms assess the signals and determine the quality and relevance of the website. They are relatively certainly considered a ranking factor. Web designers and webmasters should therefore know them and, when designing and operating the website, make sure that the user leaves his traces on the page.
Types of User Signals
- CTR (Click Trough Rate): This value sets the number of clicks in relation to the number of impressions on the website. The CTR increases if the website fits well with the search query. Google identifies the search intention via the CTR.
- ToS (Time on site, dwell time): The SEO relevance of this user signal is sufficiently known. The longer a user stays on the page, the more important their content must be, which is always positive for the ranking. The ToS differs according to the dwell time on specific and the entire domain. The Google algorithms form an average of these values. Like any user signal, however, this is not to be considered in isolation, because a high dwell time can also be caused by a lack of usability. A short ToS could mean that the user has quickly found the desired information.
- Bounce rate (bounce rate): This value indicates how many visitors left the page without clicking on an internal link. The website has obviously not managed to bind the user, which is rated negatively. Again, there may also be other reasons for the departure, which is why this KPI should not be considered in isolation. There are even statements from Google that the bounce rate should not be a ranking factor, which SEO experts doubt.
- RTS rate (Return to SERPs): RTS means that the user returns to the Search Engine Result Pages (organic search results) after visiting the page, i.e. continues his search with the same intention. Obviously, he did not find the desired information on the first page visited. It is presumed that a time factor flows in at the RTS rate. From the point of view of Google algorithms, this could point to whether the user is still looking for further information or was generally dissatisfied with the page.
- Scroll depth: The visitor looks at a certain percentage of their content on a website and goes into the depth of the subpages or not. That's the scroll depth. It can be achieved by first captivating the user and then being motivated by the information found. A low scroll depth refers to rather deficient or uninteresting content. For OnePagers (websites from a single page), the scroll depth is particularly interesting.
- Frequency of visits: Google can measure how many times a website has been accessed from an IP address. If this happens very often by many users, the website seems to be very interesting, which promotes their ranking. However, the algorithms of Google & Co. are to use various measurement methods for this purpose. Thus, it is conceivable that recurring visits during a browser session are not counted. If users delete their cookies or refuse to accept them, their visits can also not or only poorly count.
Technical Measurement of User Signals
There are various methods by which search engine algorithms measure the user signals. For Google, it is helpful if the user uses the Google browser Chrome and the smartphone operating system Android. Webmasters can also measure user signals. For this purpose, various tools for web analysis are available. For free, they can be found in Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Importance for SEO
That user signals for search engine optimization are of paramount importance, no one doubts. However, about their weighting by Google & Co. there are only hypotheses. This circumstance affects all assumptions about the algorithms of search engines, because they remain secret.
It is believed that Google uses ~200 algorithms, which also change slightly as part of large (about annual) updates. It is therefore recommended that webmasters and designers pay appropriate tribute to all user signals in their work. This is done on the part of the web design through a good OnPage SEO and from the point of view of the webmasters through good content marketing.
The fact that the user signals are so relevant for SEO is not surprising: Again and again search engine operators emphasize that websites should be set up for the users. So their left behind signals have to be accordingly important.