October 2, 2024 | Robert Campbell
One of the unspoken truths regarding Search Engine Optimization is that your site’s usability, or more specifically Google Analytics’ Average Engagement Time per Active User metric is by-far the most important SEO ranking factor. Google likes to see your score before they decide how to position your content in relation to popular search queries. If you are reading this, you’re probably wondering what you can do to increase user’s time on your webpages, and the best ways to boost engagement levels.
High User Engagement = Page One Rankings on Google
User engagement involves users taking meaningful actions on your web pages. Google Analytics allows webmasters to set events which lets them measure specific interactions or occurrences on your website or app. For example, you can use an event to measure when someone loads a page, clicks a link, or completes a purchase, or to measure system behavior, such as when an app crashes or a paid Ad is served as an impression. A savvy news website will have “article_read” events, “video_play” and “newsletter_signup” as reporting metrics. Measuring these events helps the website owner understand which content is most popular and how users engage with their presentation.
How Does GA4, the new Google Analytics, measure User Engagement?
GA4 takes a fresh approach to user engagement, moving beyond counting page views to understanding the quality of those views. The engagement rate and engaged users metrics can be used to better understand the depth of interactions users are having with your content. But if you are like me, you just want something you can show you clients, investors, and friends. Simply pointing out the Active Engagement Time per Active Use will allow you to draw reasonably accurate conclusions which are supported by other data. Let’s get specific.
Eastview Homes, a home renovation company in Burlington Ontario has a good reputation for remodeling side split homes. This is because of the quality of their work of course, but also because of a five-year-old blog post which details how they remodeled a side split house in Burlington. This blog post has consistently ranked higher than all of the Service pages and is a page one result on Google ca for ‘side split home’ + ‘renovation’ queries because it has a minute-long engagement time. The piece has an infographic showing how Burlington is zoned and a video made by the Town Council encouraging residential development. It was originally a three minute read-time and the decline is an indicator that the content should now be updated.
Average engagement time = The total length of time your website was in focus or your app was in the foreground across all sessions, divided by, the total number of active users. Average engagement time is calculated automatically using data from the pages and screens that are set with Google Analytics.
Eight Ways to Increase User Engagement for SEO
- Producing great content that is unique, enticing, and something different from your competitors is the best way to increase usability. One of the best ways to achieve that is through gamification.
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1. Gamification Increases Website Usability
- Famous examples include how Peloton shows a leaderboard for improved performance, and an financial app called Greenlight awards points for saving money. Headspace offers contextual encouragement for daily use. You can even say that Starbucks’ online rewards program for frequent purchases is a form of gamification, and so are the tiny progress circles on LinkedIn which encourage members to complete their profiles.
Given the success of Call of Duty in the marketplace, it was just a matter of time before the US Army’s principal recruitment agency added similar games to the Americas Army Proving Grounds website. This is a gaming platform developed by the US Army to boost the number of eager recruits. Despite being controversial, gamification has obviously been successful in targeting the right audience and has played a significant role in attracting thousands of potential servicemen.
Gamification can increase users’ time on page and event scores amazingly and if deployed in a competitive marketplace it can quickly catapult contenders to the top of search results. KPDI Digital is filled with experts who can suggest the best plugins for embeds to increase web usability.
2. Loyalty Programs Boost Usability for Web Domains
From an SEO perspective and with usability in mind, the best loyalty programs require the user to visit your website and do something, which may or may not include purchasing goods or services, and then collect some reward for participating. For example, the free-author platform Inkitt.com entices users to upload more and better stories by promising more exposure and more exclusive submission opportunities.
Webmasters and data scientists love loyalty programs because they create rich data sets which yield profound insights into customers’ behavior. A customer loyalty program can inform web administrators and frontline staff who can improve customer satisfaction. In most cases, the ultimate goal is to encourage existing customers to recommend your brand in their social circles which of course yields increased sales for your business.
3. Implement Omnichannel Experiences for Increased Usability
A customer’s decision to make big purchases involves more touch points than ever before. Depending on the commitment, research indicates consumers will interact with businesses many times before going ahead and buying or walking away forever. Because there are so many paths and touch points it’s now more difficult than ever to know how, when and where consumers engage with your brand and what they’re feeling and what they want to see from your business. They could be impacted by messaging and connect in person, on your website, by telephone, on social media or via a mobile app. Additionally, it’s worth remembering consumers now use multiple devices including smartphones, tablets and desktop computers. To coordinate messaging on all of these paths, businesses have embraced multichannel marketing and agencies like KPDI Digital use various different methods to streamline messaging and to reach and serve prospects in different mediums with varied calls-to-action, tweaking the pitch, tone and expectations of each presentation.
Dentists who celebrate career milestones on LinkedIn can attract new patients, impacting them until they arrive at their doorstep already familiar with the office interiors and staff. Businesses can grow their followings and increases the number of people who could use social paths to their website by embedding social media feeds on their webpages. See below how a Buffalo area sign company uses Pinterest to encourage students to post pictures of their school’s logos and murals which is the sign company’s design work on display on campus.
4. Rich Media can Enhance Content Value
Embedding videos, podcasts, and infographics adds depth to your content. Rich media not only keeps users engaged but also helps the page rank for a broader set of search queries (e.g., video search). Google rewards pages that provide a variety of content types that enhance the overall value.
If your Instagram account is public, your content (example: post, reel, guide) or profile can be shared by third-party sources like blogs and articles using an embed code. Embed codes allow your profile or content to be shared along with your username and a link to your Instagram profile.
5. Push Notifications Boost The Best Traffic to Increase Usability
A push notification is a short message which appears as a pop-up on your desktop browser, mobile home screen or in your device notification center from a mobile app. Push notifications are typically opt-in alerts that display text and rich media, such as images or buttons, which enable a user to take a specific action. A good example would be how Fox News pushes headlines onto the desktop browsers on all members who are logged into the site which is an enormous amount because you have to be logged-in to leave a comment on a news story.
Push notifications positively affect traffic. Fox News get more repeat visits and more comments because of their pushing. Members stay longer and enjoy more page views per visit – all of which makes Google consider their site more valuable than say MSNBC where there are no comments allowed or any push notifications (there could be but I’m not logged-in to get them). Essentially these pushes continue to summon your target audience, where you can expect greater engagement metrics.
6. Chatbots and In – App Messaging Increase Usability
Competitive industries which have lots of information to impart users, and those with answers to frequently asked questions, can certainly benefit by adopting a chatbot to help users navigate their website.
The very first week KPDI Digital embedded the Dental Attendant chatbot on the Archer Dental website, the Bounce Rate for homepage dropped to below forty percent, which is significant. It didn’t stay there long, but the site was never quite the same afterwards.
Today Archer Dental web users visit more pages and spend more time on each page. The Bounce Rate hovers around 65% which is admirable in dentistry. We’ve added custom prompts to the chat which link to pages with information regarding pricing and costs, and thus we recycle price-checking traffic through the content on site. By offering such useful information the chatbot vastly improves the odds that website traffic will ‘convert’ and a higher percentage of users will book introductory visits.
You can see in this real-life glimpse at Archer Dental’s Google Analytics for December 2019 how consumers behave on site, and how they need multiple touch points before actually committing to appointments.
7. Feedback and Surveys are Win / Win for SEO
In a competitive marketplace, the primary data that you collect from a web survey is valuable information which can boost your on-page experiences and off-page content marketing efforts and help you establish a stronger brand. But simply compelling users to fill-out the survey is an SEO reward in itself because users are essentially interacting one-hundred percent with your web content.
To obtain data you can use, the survey has to be voluminous. When conducting an online survey, be sure to have a statistically significant sample size so you can gain insights into both your customers and your target market. As a traditional market research method, surveys have stood the test of time and remain a relevant tool for understanding consumers as you shape your marketing strategy.
8. Optimizing User Experience To Improve Usability
In summary, on-page attractions which cause users to spend more time on a web page and interact with its content positively impact SEO rankings by lengthening Dwell Time, lowering Bounce Rate and overall increasing the quality of the user experience.
Dwell time refers to the amount of time a user spends on a page before returning to the search results. A longer dwell time is often interpreted by search engines as an indicator of high-quality, relevant content. If users engage with on-page attractions—like interactive elements, videos, infographics, or comment sections—they are more likely to stay longer, which can signal to Google that the page is useful.
Imagine a living in city where there are several bakeries who sell chocolate cakes online. The webmaster who collects and displays user generated pictures, and who celebrates innovation by allowing users to post recipe hacks and design ideas is sure to rank at the top of Google for ‘best chocolate cake.’
Interactive elements like clickable tabs, sliders, and pop-up surveys can keep users involved. Engagement metrics such as clicks, time spent on page, and interactions with multimedia content are tracked by Google Analytics. Positive engagement signals can indirectly improve SEO as they show that users find the site helpful.
Engaging content can lead users to share pages on social media, which can generate backlinks and social signals—both of which contribute to SEO. Although social signals themselves aren’t a direct ranking factor, the visibility and traffic they bring can lead to organic backlinks, which are highly beneficial for SEO.
Enhanced User Experience (UX)
Elements like easy navigation, mobile responsiveness, fast load times, and intuitive design directly impact user experience. Search engines, especially Google, prioritize pages that provide a seamless user experience. When users stay on the page longer and interact meaningfully, it indicates a positive UX, contributing to better rankings.
In short, by making a page more interactive and attractive, it improves user behavior signals like dwell time, bounce rate, and engagement. These factors, in turn, align with search engine ranking algorithms, leading to potential improvements in SEO.