You can’t overstate the effect that Google search has on your business. It is the place customers go when they need information about your product. Research shows that over 60% of traffic to company websites comes from organic search results. Make no mistake: no matter what industry you’re in, Google is your enemy. That is, unless you take control of your brand online (then you can be friends).
There are hundreds of factors that influence Google Search Results Page (SERPs) listings. We don’t know for sure the exact value of each factor. Some of them are more important than others, and their importance is constantly shifting as Google updates their algorithms.
The all-new MindTouch Responsive is built to help you maximize your product and help content for Google search (read about MindTouch Responsive here). This content is used during sales and support, and most customers begin their research with Google. And this trend shows no sign of slowing. It’s more important than ever to take control of your brand online. From increased inbound leads, to accelerated sales cycles, to a better support experience, self-service through search engines is a crucial part of any customer engagement strategy.
If you make this information available (and web-optimized), buyers and customers will come in droves. In fact, we help our customers double organic search traffic. For some, we’re responsible for up to 60% of organic search traffic. And, on average across our customer base, mobile search traffic to the MindTouch site has doubled as well.
What does MindTouch do to content that Google search loves? I’ve curated 10 of the top factors affecting SERPs (of over 200) to discuss why they matter and how MindTouch helps boost each one. The factors all are taken from a handy blog post from Backlinko.
1. Magnitude of Content Updates: The significance of edits and changes is also a freshness factor. Adding or removing entire sections is a more significant update than switching around the order of a few words.
Companies produce tons of content. Updating each of these articles is tedious work and typically requires some serious coding skills to maximize it for Google. With MindTouch, you can reuse content across multiple pages. Updating one updates all of the others automatically. Keeping content fresh is easy, and it will be more relevant in Google’s eyes.
2. Multimedia: Images, videos and other multimedia elements may act as a content quality signal.
Unlike a PDF or Word document, it’s simple to integrate videos and images into articles. Google loves videos (especially Youtube videos, since, you know, they own it). MindTouch brings the simplicity of drag and drop to article creation. Our customers are using this to enhance the customer experience, especially in the onboarding/training of new customers. Varied media types that are linked together help Google identify your site as an authority.
3. Broken Links: Having too many broken links on a page may be a sign of a neglected or abandoned site. The Google Rater Guidelines Document uses broken links as one was to assess a homepage’s quality.
Oh, the infamous 404. While it is fun to come up with creative error pages, it’s a hassle for customers. And Google will knock your site for it. With MindTouch, moving pages doesn’t break links, and updating content can be done without removing the page.
4. Number of Pages: The number of pages a site has is a weak sign of authority. At the very least a large site helps distinguish it from thin affiliate sites.
MindTouch might not write all of the articles for you, but by making all of your product and help content that you already produce public accessible and web-facing you’ll dramatically increase the heft of your site. With so many more pages of authoritative content, Google will see this as a sign of your site’s authority.
5. Presence of SiteMap: A sitemap helps search engines index your pages easier and more thoroughly, improving visibility.
Content in MindTouch is hierarchically organized and broken into micro-content. Just by organizing your content in MindTouch, a Google standards compliant XML SiteMap is generated that can (if you want it to) be crawled by Google to show up in SERPs.
6. Breadcrumb Navigation: This is a style of user-friendly site-architecture that helps users (and search engines) know where they are on a site:
Unlike Hansel and Gretel, breadcrumb navigation helps users to understand where they are in a site. As many companies have content for multiple products, it can be confusing to know whether you’re looking at relevant information without breadcrumb navigation. Since many Google searches are long-tail, results can put users right in the middle of the action. Breadcrumbs help them navigate from there to discover more information.
7. Mobile Optimized: Google’s official stance on mobile is to create a responsive site. It’s likely that responsive sites get an edge in searches from a mobile device. In fact, they now add “Mobile friendly” tags to sites that display well on mobile devices. Google also started penalizing sites in Mobile search that aren’t mobile friendly.
The New MindTouch Responsive is optimized for Google Search.
Consumers are doing everything on their phones, from researching and purchasing products, to finding support. With Google’s most recent update, non-mobile-friendly sites will be penalized. MindTouch now provides a responsive interface across all devices and operating systems, allowing mobile users to discover easily consumable micro-content.
8. Bounce Rate: Not everyone in SEO agrees bounce rate matters, but it may be a way of Google to use their users as quality testers (pages where people quickly bounce is probably not very good).
It’s one thing to get people to your site, it’s another to get them to stay. Bounce rate can be a signal of poor quality content. If users are constantly bailing after a few seconds on your site, you’re losing the attention of buyers and customers. With a simple user experience providing quality content, related articles, and page feedback that encourages consumers to stay on the site, our customers are noting bounce rates being cut in half.
9. Branded Searches: It’s simple: people search for brands. If people search for your site in Google (ie. “Backlinko twitter”, Backlinko + “ranking factors”), Google likely takes this into consideration when determining a brand.
Lots of attention is placed on keyword optimization. But the keyword companies tend to ignore is their own brand. Once buyers know your company, they’re using branded search (Company name + search term) to do research. Or your customers looking for support are doing branded searches for their problems. With MindTouch, you can have tons of branded, authoritative content to better capture these searches. That way, your customers spend less time searching, and more time doing.
But if you’re still worried about keywords beyond your brand, the new MindTouch Responsive notifies you when you have only one article tagged to a keyword. It will help you manage the way articles relate to each other, and improve the findability for consumers through search.
10. Repeat Traffic: They may also look at whether or not users go back to a page or site after visiting. Sites with repeat visitors may get a Google ranking boost.
With an easy to use design backed up by authoritative content, customers will come back. With your content in MindTouch, you’re helping to reestablish your company as the authority. Companies note that repeat traffic grows alongside growth in new site users as well.
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