In the early days of SEO Google evaluated webpage content based on backlinks and on-page SEO. Over the last few years, Google has started to incorporate “User Experience Signals” into their algorithm. Specifically, they measure how users interact with the SERP results… and google use this to help evaluate content quality and rank your pages.
It is now very important to know about which UX Signals (like Dwell Time and Organic CTR) work for your website. Successful web professional’s will be cognisant of what is needed to improve these signals and optimise your content for these UX signals.
In short, good relevant content will score you high, poor content will cost you and can even penalise your pages if you have a high bounce rate
These are the User Experience Signals Google will use to rank your pages.
Dwell Time
Dwell Time is the amount of time that a Google searcher spends on a page from the search results before returning back to the SERPs. Dwell Time is a very important Google ranking signal.
Bounce Rate
Bounce Rate is defined as the percentage of visitors that leave a webpage without taking an action, such as clicking on a link, filling out a form, or making a purchase.
Pogo sticking
What is Pogo sticking? Pogo sticking is when a search engine users visits several different search results in order to find a result that satisfies their search query.
Organic click-through-rate
Organic click-through-rate (also known as “Organic CTR”), is the percentage of searchers that click on a search engine result. Organic CTR is largely based on ranking position, but is also influenced by a result’s title tag, description, URL and presence of Rich Snippets.
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are a set of specific factors that Google considers important in a webpage’s overall user experience. Core Web Vitals are made up of three specific page speed and user interaction measurements: largest contentful paint, first input delay, and cumulative layout shift. In short, Core Web Vitals are a subset of factors that will be part of Google’s “page experience” score (basically, Google’s way of sizing up your page’s overall UX).