User behavior is an essential component of how Google ranks your site. To get ahead of your competition, the first step is to get to know your users. Search engines use your online activity to influence what you click on next.
While keyword research and quality content writing are important, collecting and analyzing user behavior analytics is often an overlooked step when working on search result rankings. The Google algorithm has advanced to focus on user behavior on your website.
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User Clicks & Bounce Rates
Google tracks how users interact online to determine if a search result matches the URLs being displayed. For instance, if someone clicks on the top search result and immediately returns to Google and visits the next website, Google notes that the top result is not the best answer for the search query. On the other hand, if a user clicks on the first result, stays for a while, then returns to Google for another source then Google knows the source is relevant to the search query.
Pro Tip: Google gets a lot of valuable information based on user clicks and bounce rates to determine the relevance of a search result.
User Behavior That Doesn’t Impact Page Rankings
While Google Analytics gives you an in-depth look at your website’s performance, having it installed on your site does not affect your page ranking. Another surprising thing that Google doesn’t use to rank your website is your social media presence. While social media gives your brand a voice and opportunity to reach new audiences, the amount of followers is not a factor that Google uses to rank web pages.
SEO & User Experiences
Search engine optimization is what you hear of when talking about your website ranking. However, user experiences work with SEO to tell Google which websites to rank first. Technical SEO includes page load time, crawlability, javascript indexing, and more. These factors also influence the user experience.
Conclusion
If you’re not looking at user behavior and experience to understand your Google search rankings, you could be missing a key component to improving your website’s positioning. Ready to start ranking for your keywords? Connect with our digital marketers to get started on a professional SEO strategy.
