Four Pillars of SEO: User Engagement

By Josh Hiemstra

June 15, 2021

In our “Four Pillars of SEO” series we have been covering the main concepts used by search engines to decide how to rank websites in organic search. The first pillar was about relevance, and we also looked at how keywords affect relevance. The second pillar was about crawlability and making sure search engines can easily understand the content on your website. In today’s post we cover User Engagement, which is the third pillar of SEO.

What is user engagement and why does it matter to search engines?

User engagement is all about making sure users spend time interacting with your website content. Search engines want to ensure they are directing their users to websites where time is spent reading/engaging in the content.  Search engines do not want to send their users to websites where a user would exit the site quickly as there is no engaging content.  

How can I understand and improve my website’s user engagement?

Tip #1: Check Your Page Speed

Page speed is important as users of your website will potentially exit if pages do not load quickly.  Here is a Website Page Speed post discussing page speed and how to check your page speed on your website. A good rule of thumb is to have web pages load in less than three seconds. If your website has slow load time we’ve also written a post about the easiest ways to improve your website’s site speed load time. 

Tip #2: Monitor How Users Interact with Your Website

The best way to understand how users are interacting with your website is through Google Analytics.  Through this software, you can learn what pages users visit and how much time is spent on each page.  This information can help guide you to update content or direct users to specific pages.

Tip #3: Keep Your Content Fresh

Another way to help with user engagement is to have fresh content.  Previous users of your website will have an opportunity to further engage with your website.  The easiest way to have new content on your site is to routinely create new blog posts. You can also maintain routine updates to your website’s other pages to highlight new and relevant information. 

Want more? You can read our other Four Pillars of SEO posts: Why Relevance Matters to Search Engines, Keywords for Relevance, Crawlability, User Engagement.

If you’d like additional information about Simpler Site’s SEO services or are looking for help implementing these tactics, email Josh and we will be happy to discuss more.

Ready to Connect?

Call: (616) 822-3706
Email: hello@simplersite.co

About Josh Hiemstra

Josh Hiemstra manages SEO and website maintenance, helping clients improve digital presence and drive strategic results. Josh’s background in medical and automotive engineering has honed his ability to thoughtfully analyze complex data and information. Clients appreciate Josh’s commitment to getting the details right. From complex audits to standard maintenance, they trust his results. Josh earned his Bachelor of Science in Engineering from University of Michigan. At the University of Michigan Josh studied user experience and user interfaces. Josh has a Fundamentals of Digital Marketing certificate, an Advanced Google Analytics certificate, and Google Tag Manager certificate and is also certified as a Six Sigma Black Belt.

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