Top 3 User Metrics That Make A Difference In Google Rankings

No doubt about it, every blogger and webmaster wants to be at the top of Google SERPs. However, getting higher Google rankings is not as easy as you think, ABC.

As a matter of fact, it is like a war, and that’s why we all want to find ways to achieve higher rankings on Google and other search engines.

It’s a process that changes constantly because Google updates its ranking factors periodically. This is why it’s not as easy as some people may have thought.

Therefore, for you to be able to get the best of search engine results, you have to always keep yourself updated and stay on top of the game.

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User metrics that make a difference

So, what makes a difference in Google rankings and search engine results? In one of its recent blog posts, Link-Assistant helped us to understand changes in Google’s ranking algorithm and process.

I am an avid user of the Link-Assistant website. I must confess that it’s not one of the best sources for SEO tools for link building. The tool also helps with backlink analysis and keeps you up-to-date on anything SEO.

Their SEO Powersuite offers a search engine optimisation tool that makes SEO easy and affordable. It contains four distinct SEO tools, namely, Rank Tracker, SEO SpyGlass, WebSite Auditor, and Link Assistant.

It is one of the most complete sets of effective SEO tools. It’s good enough to achieve and maintain top traffic-generating positions in any search engine.

Below are 3 essential user metrics that make a difference in Google rankings, according to a recently posted article on Link-Assistant blog:

#1]. Click-through rate

It is clear from numerous patents filed by Google that they collect and store information on click-through rates of search results. A click-through rate is the ratio of how many times a search listing was clicked to how many times it was shown to searchers.

There is no such thing as a universally good or bad CTR, and many factors that affect it are not directly within your control. Google is, of course, aware of them.

To start with, there’s presentation bias. Clearly, SERP CTR can vary a lot by ranking position in search results. Top results often get more clicks.

According to Google…

“The basic rationale embodied by this approach is that, if a result is expected to have a higher click rate due to presentation bias, this result’s click evidence should be discounted; and if the result is expected to have a lower click rate due to presentation bias, this result’s click evidence should be over-counted.”

Link Assistant SEO PowerSuite Secondly, different click-through rates are typical for different types of queries. For every query, Google expects a CTR in a certain range for each of the listings (e.g. for branded keywords, the CTR of No.1 result is around 50%; for non-branded queries, the top result gets around 33% of clicks).

As we can see from Rand Fishkin’s test mentioned above, if a given listing gets a CTR that is seriously above (or below) that range, Google can re-rank the result in a surprisingly short time span.

One other thing to remember is that CTR affects rankings in real-time. After Rand’s experiment, the listing users were clicking and dwelling on eventually dropped to position No. 4 (right where it was before). This shows us that a temporary increase in clicks can only result in a temporary ranking improvement.

#2]. Dwell time

Simply put, dwell time is the amount of time that a visitor spends on a page after clicking on its listing on a SERP and before coming back to search results.

Clearly, the longer the dwell time the better — both for Google and for yourself. Google’s patent on modifying search results based on implicit user feedback says the following user information may be used to rank pages:

According to Google…

“The information gathered for each click can include: (1) the query (Q) the user entered, (2) the document result (D) the user clicked on, (3) the time (T) on the document […]. The time (T) can be measured as the time between the initial click through to the document result until the time the user comes back to the main page and clicks on another document result. In general, an assessment is made about the time (T) regarding whether this time indicates a longer view of the document result or a shorter view of the document result since longer views are generally indicative of quality for the clicked through result.”

#3]. Pogo-sticking

Google wants searchers to be satisfied with the first search result they click on (ideally, the No.1 result). The best search experience is one that immediately lands the searcher on a page that has all the information they are looking for so that they don’t hit the back button to return to the SERP and look for other alternatives.

Bouncing off pages quickly to return to the SERP and look for another result is called pogo-sticking.

According to Google…

“Additionally, the user can select the first link in a listing of search results, move to a first web page associated with the first link, and then quickly return to the listing of search results and select a second link. The present invention can detect this behaviour and determine that the first web page is not relevant to what the user wants. The first web page can be down-ranked, or alternatively, a second web page associated with the second link, which the user views for longer periods of time, can be up-ranked.”

Good performance in terms of clicks and viewing times isn’t just important for the individual page (and query) you are going after. It can impact the rankings of your site’s other pages, too. All of this affects your website’s overall quality score.