OK... It's a new day in my office. I am changing my focus away from the standard SEO optimizing stuff and instead putting my focus where it really belongs - getting site visitors to embrace my site. Let's call this SEO for SITE VISITOR ACTIONS. I think that the search engines are getting a lot smarter and they can tell when certain SITE VISITOR ACTIONS are happening on a website - they now have tons of data at their disposal from toolbars, context ads, SERP logs, SERP advertising, and other sources. If they are not using the info heavily now I think that they will be using it heavily soon. So, from today moving forward, my priorities, content development, site structure changes, navigation, etc. are going to be focused to yield the site visitor actions specified below.
In the past I have spent my time wisely on the optimization stuff (correctly thinking that it will fetch traffic) but now I am gunning for other things which I have always realized were the "high road" of website development - but I have focused upon the optimization for economic reasons.
I want to say it clearly: I am betting my booty that Site Visitor Actions either are already driving SERPs or will be in the very near future - trumping clever optimization tricks - and ranking right up there with a big load of backlinks. The search engines have EVERY ability to use these things for determining SERP rankings.
The usability people will probably be nodding and saying that this is where I should have started and maybe they are right but I think that - at least for me - I am making this call at about the right time. optimization was the traffic driver of the past but site visitor actions are the potent juice now.
Bookmarks: When this happens a lot it is a sign of a great site and that should earn a ranking boost.
Time Onsite: People don't waste time on spammy sites so I'm doing things to make my sites sticky.
Page Views: Present lots of interesting options to people so they really explore your site.
NATURAL Links: Links will always be valuable... but don't waste any time on contriving links - the SEs can smell them and are getting savvy about giving them zero or negative value.
SERP CTR This is all about sexy title tags. Its a Site Visitor Action that begins in the SERPs.
OK... that's my two cents on this stuff... What do you think? Do you think that this make sense? Can you think of other Site Visitor Actions that can be added to the list?
I'm not sure how I feel about SVA, either. Although, I must say that it's a clear signal that things are going right. For example, a site where visitor actions are to leave quickly, never bookmark and rarely return are indicators that things are not going well in both web development and SEO...
Brilliant entry, EGOL - I heartily support and am finally starting to practice many of these techniques.
I believe the most important thing is the user. So if a user can't find what is looking for quickly it will leave. If they get frustrated at any point they will leave. If SEO isn't the answer I think the length of a visit and a conversion will be. Can a conversion be tracked?
I've just read this after reading the more recent one by WebGeek and he's right, it's great.
I especially like the line
Coming from a background in sites based on CMP advertising (rather than AdWords or affiliate schemes) as I do , it's always been the aim to get people to hang around on a site for as long as possible. So this just (if just isn't a bit of an understatement) means that now the engines are rewarding godd site design & content.
EGOL
Great post and indeed if not under way in use now.. certainly where some sort of concentration will be placed as balance needs to be put into the SERP equation to help with the apparent link struggle Google can't get around.
@ EGOL, who questioned where mom-n-pop would get access to this kind of information - I only read through a few pages of the Persona document (so keep that in mind when reading my post), and it seems that there are other companies out there willing and able to provide for a fee (or for free, on a very limited basis), demographic information for just about every demo you could be after. I have an extremely thick folder of data from a marketing firm that provided info to a Fortune 100 company about the demos that exist in the USA, where those demos exist, and what each demo is like (I'm thinking their groupings were not unlike these "personas"). If memory serves me it was possible to download for free some of this information. But it was more than 5 years ago when I last visited the site, so I can't recall where to send you (big help, right?). If I find the info I'll certainly share it.
But it's out there.
And even if it can't be had for free anymore, I would think a man of your experience would have thought of commissioning a university-level study (*wink*). For a few grand you may be able to discover exactly the kinds of things you'd love to know about.
thats really good to hear :) Its probably because im not getting a huge amount of search engine traffic, but a lot of traffic from high quality themed links. More intrested visitors i guess.
I agree that Site Visitor Actions are the wave of the future in SEO, and I really enjoyed this thread. I think that the growing importance of Site Visitor Actions and article on Personas only serves to reinforce the idea that web marketing is not that different from any other kind of marketing opportunity. Traditional marketing media have been using demographic info and hypothetical personas to help determine marketing strategies since long before the web came along.
It is odd to me that the community has so willingly embraced “link bate” as a new concept. To me it seems tantamount to the toy in the bottom of the cereal box. I understand how it could have been missed, and agree that it is important to mention, but giving freebees to the people who drive purchase decisions/positive Site Visitor Actions has always been a good idea. Right?
Wow, EGOL, this is a great post...You wrote this almost two years ago, and it's dead on.
These are things that every webmaster should do. When algos reward the same things that visitors appreciate then that contributes to the positive development of the web.
Imagine how many billions of dollars in labor and effort has been spent on link exchange... then imagine if that was spent on site development and content. What would the web be like now?
Well said, EGOL. I wholeheartedly agree.
One of the VERY few SEO posts thats over half a decade old now and still very relevant.
That's a fantastic bookmark rate. You must have free beer on that site!
My best site has a 7.2% rate so far this month.
Thought provoking article. Good point and it's well noted. :)
Wow, that is some article. It shows just how complex this stuff can be. Thanks for pointing it out. How does a small shop of just a couple people learn about all of these things? This suggests to me that the future web will be dominated by the large companies with an analytical staff or the Mom and Pop who just happen to "dumb luck" their way into a good website.
EP - Thanks, actually this was posted by EGOL, who's now sharing the captain's chair with me at SEOmoz.
Nice comments Rand: My main website is the "brochure on the web" for my business. It has an interactive aspect and is unique in the indusstry for having consistent updates. We are a hard service so we ultimately speak with all our customers and many who view/contact us via the web.
The other day immediately after we updated with an event that day we got a call asking about that aspect of our service. VERY REWARDING. Earlier I had a call from someone who had bookmarked our site from a year ago.
Our conversions average 2.5-3 visits and range from 1-20 visits.
From comparisons with other businesses w/sites in the industry as best as we can tell we are averaging 3-10 times the traffic and significantly better with regard to conversions. Its all about content.
Good post Rand.
Thanks for the great comments. Making this switch will be only positive for my sites. I think that I have been gunning the SEO efforts at the expense of other important efforts - a person has only so much time. Now, starting to focus on new enhancements will be a big boost for my sites.
Bill, I really like your ideas #1 and #2. I have not been doing those and the newsletter/archive idea gets double mileage out of the same content. Thanks!
As for the ethics of this, I think that it all traces back to the terms of service that we agree to when we download a toolbar or subscribe to another service. And some SEs might be comfortable using some of the SVA metrics and decide not to use others. If I were running one of the SEs I would be comfortable using these metrics if they are in the terms of service.
Think about this.... right now an awful lot of resources are being spent on link exchange, link schemes, buying links, etc. I don't see this as an effecient use of webmaster time or anything that is contributing to the web in a productive way. It's all done to manipulate rankings.
So, when the SEs start boosting rankings of websites that please visitors and being very clear with webmasters about this. That will be the day that an awful lot of resources get refocused on activities that build the web in positive ways. I see it as "Win Win Win" for SE, for webmaster and for site visitor.
Excellent post, and great observations.
I like the mix of SEO and usability that recognizes both approaches have a lot to offer each other. Here are some other ideas for you:
1. Offer "you are here" signs. These can be such things as breadcrumb trails, intelligently crafted navigation, well written page titles, and more. But all of them should share the idea that they need to work together to tell a visitor who has arrived on that page of the site via a search engine at least three things - Where they are, where they can go, and where they have been, if they travel around the site a little.
2, Have people subscribe to a newsletter, or give thme a chance to comment on a blog, or use an RSS feed to subscribe to it, to start conversations with your client, and to extend your connection to them in both space and time. Give them reasons to come back to your site when you do. Offer archived copies of those newsletters so that people can see what they are getting when they subscribe. Provide means of getting people to respond, such as comments in a blog. Conduct surveys with your newsletter users. Answer questions from specific users. Offer prizes or other incentives to get people to respond to you.
3. Introduce some seasonal changes in your site. Have fun with it, and let your customers do too.
I like your article alot and I too have been thinking along the path... our website do have enough traffic it seems.. (did I just say that) I mean I could always use more traffic and we love it... but I was thinking more along the lines of conversion... our conversions are below industry average... which I am told is 1%...so what are some ideas that I could do to make it more sticky?
Thanks for sharing Rand!
Shirley
My apologies to EGOL. Looked again and there was his name.
Make the site work. I've been interacting with lovethecoast enough to share specifics about sites and businesses. He had a killer ap recently.
Found something newsworthy that, on its face value had nothing to do with his sites...but from a sales perspective had lots to do with his sites and generated a large increase in coversions/sales for the related period of time.
Once the traffic is there, or in coordination with growing traffic it is important to make the site work w/ length of time on the site, page visits, etc. and of course conversions if it is a commercial site.
But why am I commenting on this to EGOL...that is like preaching to the choir.
I see it all the time there are to much focus on "SEO" and to little focus on "web site development". With proper "web site development" it is possible to have a very successful web site without any traffic from the search engine result pages.
If your web site is important enough for the visitor then he (or she) will make sure to either bookmark the page or remember the URL.
That being said, most quality web sites will also be doing very well in the SERPS. Because of the number of links they will grow over time.
I have to disagree with you on your main point. I do not think Site Visitor Actions (SVA) will affect the organic search results any time in the future. First of all SVA is a poor indicator of the value of a site, second of all there will be legal and ethical issues connected to the collection and use of SVA data.
Bill Slawski has a great thread on bookmark managers at https://www.cre8asiteforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=25416
Bottom line is that the SEs are going to know practically everything about visitors and their behaviour. They're going to know everything there is to know about a site's stats too if sites sign up for similar products to Urchin/New Google Logging Effort. What a brilliant way to get a very real view of what's actually happenning!
SEs don't have to put anyone at the top of rankings on a regular basis - so long as Jo Public gets good results, that's all that matter.
So sites could be rotated in the top 50 rankings (not saying they will, just that theoretically they could be) and the SERPS would still look good to Jo.
With Yahoos MyWeb 2.0 we're getting the beginning of Trusted Search from the ground up, built by the users.
Trusted Search will be another component in the whole shebang.
So the picture that's beginning to emerge is that the SE's will have a very accurate idea of what visitors do on your site; plus whether or not visitors actually rate your site in areas that weren't previously thought about. For example, did a visitor get good after-sales service? Did they return and buy more products, perhaps off-line? (I can think of a very simple way of measuring an overall trust score that would probably take off-line purchases into account).
In short, the ideal website now is one that knows its customers inside out and relates to them perfectly. Pure marketing. Whether or not Google et al agree that the site is any good is going to become more and more a matter of chance. With X billion sites out there, they can randomise from the top 200 brilliant sites without Jo Public knowing.
Your ideas are great, but I'd suggest that you're focussing on the symptoms, not the cause. Before bookmarks, time on site etc. there might be other basics to consider.
I'm sure you've already done it, but for anyone who hasn't a good starting point is profiling customers (good article here).
Then there's all the good usability principles and business building blocks, figuring out your market, figuring out a strategy that will keep you in business eetc.
Often overseen, tracks left by visitors can boost SE rankings too. Great content/design/usability and cold (sheer technically applied) SEO aren't mutual exclusive traffic boosters. In my linking tutorial I've used your five catchwords as kinda storyline to explain how site visitor actions influence SE rankings today, and most probably even more in the near future. I hope you don't mind the theft and thanks for a great post:)
whats a good add to favourite %?
my stats used to say 21% but i added a call to action "add to bookmarks" link and got it up to around 30% is this fairly good? i know it all depends on the topic, but some averages would be useful