In 2019, Google is using a new ranking factor to rank the websites. This factor is huge, in response to have higher rankings and more traffic. This article discusses about the new ranking factor and the elements of it.
Earlier, the more the number of backlinks a page have the higher it is ranked. However, now to rank higher in the search results Google takes into account of the User Experience (UX) signals. It includes time on site, bounce rate, click-through rate (CTR), return-to-SERP rate.
Time On Site
It is the average time a user browses through the site. The more the time spent, Google presumes the content to be interesting and ranks the site higher. The reasons for low time on site might be due to meagre content or the structure of the website that makes it hard to browse through. Updating the contents regularly and fixing the errors would considerably increase the time spent on the page.
Bounce Rate
The measure of the percentage of visitors to the website who exits after going through a single page. It can either be positive or negative, the reason for high bounce rate. On a positive note, the user might have found the required information immediately. In the negative front, the content could have been boring and irrelevant. If it is the second case, webmasters must produce relatively interesting content. Slow webpages could also be a reason to leave the site immediately. Hence, the enhancement of the loading times is necessary.
Click Through Rate (CTR)
It is the percentage of the number of clicks on the link to the number of times it is displayed as a snippet for the search queries. The links on the first couple of pages of the search results tend to have higher CTR. Improving the quality of the meta-descriptions would help increase the click-through rate.
Return-to-SERP Rate
SERP expands as the Search Engine Results Page. Hence, Return-to-SERP is the rate at which the users return to the search results page immediately after clicking into the website. The higher this rate is, the search engine would consider the site to be low on relevant content and rank it lower for that particular keyword.
Besides, not optimizing the website for mobile browsers is quite a problem. For example, if a website has high desktop rankings and low mobile rankings, it will send negative feedback to the search engine. Webmasters can access this info about user signals on their website using tools like Google Analytics and improve their rankings in the search results.
Even though backlinks continue to be the cornerstone of Google’s algorithm, it is clear that UX signals influence the search engine rankings today.