Understand & Optimize User Signals

1. What are the most important User Signals?  
2. Measurement of User Signals
3. What speaks for and against user signals as a ranking factor?
4. How optimizing user signals always moves your project forward  
5. Conclusion

User signals refer to the behaviors of users of a website, which are accessible to objective measurement. They are given special weight in the context of search engine optimization.

Google officially denies a direct influence on search engine rankings. However, anyone who has been dealing with SEO for a while knows that this doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Therefore, this topic has nevertheless been controversially discussed in SEO circles for years. That the improvement of user signals contributes to the success of a website, on the other hand, is disputed by hardly anyone.

In this post you will find out,  

• which the most important user signals are.
• how Google and you yourself can measure these signals.
• why the topic is so contentious and what speaks for and against user signals as a ranking factor.
• how optimizing user signals contributes to your website success in any case.

What are the most important User Signals?  

Before we delve deeper into the subject, it makes sense to first take a look at the most important User Signals.  

Basically, any objectively measurable user behavior can be considered a user signal. Furthermore, there are complex user behaviors (e.g. Pogo Sticking), which can only be recognized by the combined measurement and interpretation of several signals and are rather "vague".

There are some basic user signals that you should definitely know. We will take a look at them in the following:   

Click-Through-Rate (CTR)  

The Click-Through-Rate is the click rate, i.e. the proportion of impressions in search results that lead to a click. Logically, a high CTR is desirable, because it means nothing else than that a higher proportion of searchers come to your website.  

While the click rate itself is easily accessible and is also displayed in the Google Search Console, comparing and evaluating the development over time is not so easy.

This is due to the fact that the CTR in the context of SEO depends on many factors. You can indirectly influence some of them (more on this in the optimization section), others are entirely in the hands of the search engine.

Important influencing factors on the click rate are:

• Structure of the search results page (SERP)
• Proportion of paid search results
• There may be the possibility of a “No Click Search”, i.e. Google tries to give users* a relevant “answer” directly on the search results page
• The size of your SERP Real-Estate  
• How well page title and page description (Meta Description) of a search result match the search intention of users   

Return to SERP Rate

“Return to SERP” simply means “return to search results page” in German. In theory, the following happens: A user conducts a search and clicks on a search result.

The user is taken to a website and does not find what he/she wants. He/she clicks back on the browser and lands back on the search results page. In such a case, this seems like a negative user signal at first. The search intention could not be satisfied on the destination page.

In reality, however, behavior patterns are often less unambiguous. For example, a popular strategy is to open new tabs with some of the favorite results and then examine them one by one.

Also, a wild switching between the search results is not uncommon (also called Pogo-Sticking in SEO circles). It is not uncommon to end up back at a search result that you previously turned your back on.  

Dwell Time (Time on Site)

The dwell time is the time a user spends on a specific URL or the entire website. Ideally, you want to keep users on your website for as long as possible. They should spend more time on the target page and then also visit other pages.    

In practice, however, it is not so easy to achieve this. Often, users just want a very specific piece of information and nothing more. We'll discuss the options you have to retain users further on.  

A metric related to dwell time, which is also very popular among SEOs, is the so-called Dwell Time. However, this is more complex and not directly accessible to you. In my opinion, it therefore plays a slightly less role for optimizing your content.

Bounce Rate (Bounce Rate)

The bounce rate is the proportion of users who leave one of your pages during a visit without further interaction. This is, of course, negative at first and it would be desirable to keep visitors on your site longer.

However, for visitors who come to you via search engines, it is perfectly normal to have bounce rates in the high double-digit percentage range. This is because they are usually looking for something very specific. If this need is met, they simply leave the page again.

Sometimes, however, it is possible to lure users to other pages with related content and thereby position yourself as an expert in a certain area.  

The measures for this are similar to those for improving dwell time and will be discussed later.  

Before we optimize the user signals, we first need to understand how they are measured. We will look at this in the next section.

Measurement of User Signals

Our definition at the beginning of the post stipulated that user signals are accessible to objective measurement. This naturally raises the question of how the data can be measured and how you can gain access to it. 

We also ask ourselves what Google knows that we might not know. Here, one has to differentiate how, where and especially by whom the measurement can take place.

How can webmasters measure user signals on their own site?  

Let's first look at the possibilities available to you as a webmaster to measure user signals.

About 50% of the top 1000 .de domains use Google Analytics for tracking their visitors. Google Analytics does nothing but track so-called DOM events via JavaScript and write them to a database at Google.

From these data, the many metrics can be extracted that most webmasters know from Google Analytics. Since all data lies with Google, it would be rather an embellishment to speak of one's own data here.

Technically, tracking important events via JavaScript is not a big problem. Anyone could implement this on his/herwebsite without Google Analytics, and store the data in their own database.

Of course, this is a not to be neglected effort and many webmasters lack the resources and know-how. However, there are also ready-made solutions that allow tracking without passing on data to third parties. Matomo and Piwik are the best-known.

For example, Matomo offers a WordPress plugin that writes the data easily into your own WordPress database.

The possibilities mentioned (incl. Google Analytics) are limited to the behavior that happens on your site. As far as search behavior and associated metrics like click rate are concerned, we are dependent on what search engine providers are willing to share with us (e.g. in the Google Search Console).

How can Google measure user signals?  

You probably already figured out that Google can rely on a much more comfortable data base than you and I. But where exactly do the data come from?  

1. Event tracking on the Google website
   Tracking events on their own website is probably the easiest task for Google. Anyone who masters basic Javascript can do this. With this, Google has access to the CTR and Return to SERP Rate.
2. Chrome User Data:
   Over 67% of the world's page views take place in a Chrome browser and Google happily collects data (Source: Statista). By the way, providers of browser plugins also collect these so-called clickstream data.
   
   Google also makes no secret of the fact that these data are used to form certain ranking factors. For example, the evaluation of the Core Web Vitals is based on the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX).
3. Android Data:
   With Android, Google is the author of the most widely used mobile operating system (global market share 71.6%). Here too, Google has extensive possibilities to collect data. (Source: Statista)
4. Data from Tracking Cookies (Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Ads ...):
   In fact, most webmasters are accomplices when it comes to providing Google with data. There is currently a trend towards alternative tracking methods that work without third-party cookies. How far this will be established remains to be seen.
   

Google therefore has no shortage of possibilities to collect user data. The question remains: are these also used to create search engine rankings?  

What speaks for and against user signals as a ranking factor?

I don't want to assess the topic based on indications like statements from Google, registered patents, and sporadic tests, but I have decided to take a look at the motivation for and the problem of user signals as a ranking factor.

I generally recommend you to pay attention to the optimization of User Signals. We'll discuss the possibilities starting next.

But first let's look at the pros and cons of user signals as a ranking factor.  

Contra: User signals are easy to measure but hard to interpret (Noisy Signals).  

If you have read the paragraphs on the individual user signals above attentively, you have probably already noticed: In many cases, it is not so easy to say whether a metric is rather good, bad, or neutral to judge.

Pro: Satisfied users are the basis for Google's most important business model

The entire Google algorithm has only one purpose: To provide the best results for a search query. Or, put differently: satisfied users.

If a large number of users were dissatisfied with the search results and changed to another search engine as a result, it would be a catastrophe for Google. After all, Google's largest source of revenue is still paid search.

Most user signals are very easy to measure for Google. It seems hard to believe that the search engine giant doesn't do everything, to use these in some form to judge the quality of individual search results.

But the Click-Through Rate as a direct ranking factor, as is sometimes claimed? There are some older Google patents that suggest that this is not completely off the shelf. However, they come from a time when one could rank websites well if one provided them with enough spam links.

Contra: User Signals are easily manipulated  

For a long time, the manipulability of rankings through the Click-Through-Rate (Click Rate) was more or less regarded as a fact among Black Hat SEOs.

Just in the field of negative SEO there were repeatedly indications that it is possible to weaken competitors by targeted Click Bot attacks (Before you get stupid ideas: This was many years ago). An attempt was also made to "click up" search results.  

Now, Google is allergic to very few things as to factors that are easily manipulable. I therefore find it completely excluded that Google looks at such practices for longer without doing something.

This is confirmed by a very impressive experiment, in which it was possible to manipulate Google Trends, the Keyword Planner and Search Console data for certain search queries with a click bot. Google seemed to not have filtered out the bot's clicks.

Nevertheless, they did not result in any changes of the rankings. Thus, the CTR as a ranking factor makes no sense on several levels.   

Update November 2023: The information from a former Google employee information from a former Google employee has recently caused a stir. They indicate that Google, at least in the past, has used click rates as a ranking signal. The German SEO expert Olaf Kopp writes in this CTR as a ranking factor, that he managed to systematically influence rankings through clicks. However, the influence has decreased when repeating the experiments. Various SEO experts have come with experiments to different results over the years. The manipulability of rankings through the Click-Through-Rate (Click Rate) was more or less regarded as a fact for a long time among Black Hat SEOs.

Pro: Artificial Intelligence opens up new possibilities

Machine Learning and artificial intelligence could relativize both the problem of the “Noisy” signals and the manipulability.  

It is conceivable that certain combinations of user signals could be recognized as quality features for certain search queries. Such complex combinations are difficult to represent algorithmically, but could be represented in a neural network.

This would make it harder for outsiders to recognize schemes that could be used for targeted manipulation, as it is still tried with the CTR today.    

However, neural networks are not safe from manipulation either.  

Neural networks are “black boxes” from the outside, and not even Google itself could exactly say what exactly a ranking factor is.

As a result, they also have less direct influence on the ability to prevent manipulation. They can't directly influence what is being replicated in a neural network. This depends on what data was used to train it and what kind of data it can take in the first place.

So it may also be that very trivial, easily recognizable patterns are replicated from the outside, which can be recognized and used for manipulation. Logically, Google will also notice this relatively quickly and react accordingly.

For on-page attributes, the recognition of patterns is already happening today in the form of AI-based tools like Page Optimizer Pro or SEO Surfer. These are only used for optimizations on their own websites though, not to manipulate the data base of Google and should therefore not be critically seen by Google.

Since user signals are not so easily accessible in aggregated form, the recognition of patterns in this context is likely to be much more complex. The challenge to recognize these patterns and then copy them undetected however, should not be overlooked.

Interim Conclusion  

The somewhat unsatisfactory conclusion is that it cannot be said seriously in what form user signals influence the ranking.     

My personal opinion is that it is highly unlikely that Google does not consider user signals in any way given their importance.

On the other hand, I consider it highly unlikely that there is a direct correlation between a particular user signal (e.g. CTR) and rankings.     

There are still “agencies” that offer to improve your search results by clicking. When I receive such an offer, it goes directly into the trash.

I'd rather invest in content quality. Or the direct optimization of user signals. In some cases, that’s not even hard to do.  

How optimizing user signals always moves your project forward  

Whether user signals are a ranking factor or not - you should definitely keep an eye on them and optimize them. The reason for this is simple: They correlate in 99 % of cases with the goals of a website.

The reason for this is mainly related to one thing: the search intention.

Search Intention - The Heart of Search Engine Optimization

The search intention corresponds to the goal of the searcher. What do they want to achieve/ learn when they enter a specific search query? As we established earlier, the satisfaction of the search intention is central to Google's business model and its success.  

Users use Google because they expect their search intention to be fulfilled here faster and better than with other search engines.

So Google's goal is always to present the results that best fulfill the search intention for a search. This makes the search intention a central ranking factor.   

And here's the point: The sustainable optimization of user signals is the same as optimizing the search intention. The signals give you an indication of how well the search intention is met at certain points.  

What does “at certain” points mean?  

1. On the SERPs:
   When the users look at the SERPs and you signal that you meet the search intention as well as possible, they will click on your result (Click Rate).
2. On your website:
   Once you have the users on your website, the content must answer their questions and satisfy the search intention (Return-to-SERP/ Time on Site/ Bounce Rate).
   

The basis for optimizing user signals is therefore a precise understanding of the search intention. Your first step is therefore a very precise determination of the search intention.

More clicks at the same ranking: Optimize CTR

A higher CTR brings you more visitors at the same rankings. It is even possible that a lower ranking with a higher CTR is better than a higher ranking with a lower CTR (of course, it is best to strive for both things).     

An increase in CTR is immediately reflected in more traffic. If you haven't yet gained experience with this topic, you can make quick progress with little effort.

You can take the following steps to improve your CTR:

• Snippet Optimization with structured data
• Title and Meta-Description tags optimize so that they meet the search intention.
• Put the search word, in the Title and Meta Description tag, so that Google does not generate its own.
• The right length of Title and Meta Description note.
• Special characters
  and (sparingly) use emojis in the Meta Descrition.
• Special characters in the Title tags (Note: with Google Ads specifically regulates which characters are allowed)
  

I have conducted a few small case studies myself, in which the CTRs have increased by up to 50 % after comprehensive optimization within a few days.

Search Intention: Improve Return to SERP, Bounce Rate, and Time on Site = Improve Rankings

The Time on Site gives you an indication of how well your content meets the search intention. Since search intention is now one of the central factors of search engine optimization, the dwell time can, for example, give you a good indication of why a certain content piece is not getting into the top rankings.  

In the following, I want to give some impulses on how to reduce the bounce rate and return to SERP and increase the time on site.

Please note: How you keep the users on your page also strongly depends on the expected content format. Users who expect a product page are not necessarily helped with a table of contents. All recommendations should therefore be examined in the appropriate context.

First Impression - Preventing Bounces

Many users bounce back after a "scan" of just a few seconds if they feel that their search intention is not being met. The goal is exactly to prevent this by signaling that the search intention is taken up and satisfied on the page.

Here are some suggestions for actions:

• Choose a headline that includes the search word and picks up the search intention
• Write a short introduction that explains to the reader what to expect (i.e. the fulfillment of their search intention)
• For blogs/ counselors, do not use layouts with large, indifferent stock photos
• For blogs/ counselors show the author's name and photo “above the fold”
• Fast site loading time

The Content - Fulfilling the Search Intention

Even if visitors do not bounce right away, there is a risk of bouncing at any time. Therefore, it is important to design your content flexibly and informatively with regard to search intention.
The possible actions include:

• Use tables of content
• Create content according to the funnel model to meet different information needs
• Structure content well and use sub-headings
• Use images, charts, infographics, and other visual content that helps users
• Websites are more likely to be “scanned” than read. Therefore, a logical visual structure of your content helps your visitors
  

With Content Hubs keep the users on the Website

As explained before, a high bounce rate for SEO Traffic does not mean that the search intention is not met. Of course, it would be nicer to keep users on the page even after their "satisfaction".

One way to achieve this is to work with content hubs. This not only makes your content more appealing for search engines, but also gives you more opportunities to present users with additional content. Here it makes sense not just to set links to topics that are somehow related, but to orient yourself on the Customer Journey and explicitly offer the next "step in the journey". Achieving that users on your site take the next step in the Customer Journey, is a big advantage. In addition to improving bounce rate and time on site values, you prevent users from returning to the search engine where you are again in competition with others for the next step.

Conclusion

If you are serious about SEO, you should definitely look into user signals. Satisfied users are central to both Google's business model and the business models of most website operators.

Although it is debatable whether user signals are a ranking factor, it is clear that they are a success factor. This article has given you an initial overview. I recommend that you definitely take a closer look at the topic of optimizing search intent.