RankBrain is a machine learning system that helps Google sort their search results.
That might sound complicated, but it isn’t.
RankBrain simply measures how users interact with the search results…
…and ranks them accordingly.
For example, let’s say you search for “cold brew coffee” in Google.
The #4 result looks especially enticing. So you quickly click on it.
And when you get there…wow! It’s the best darn article about coffee you’ve ever read. So you devour every word.
RankBrain is going to take note…and likely give that #4 result a rankings boost.
On the other hand, let’s say that you do the same search. But this time, you click on the #1 result without even looking.
But the content is TERRIBLE. So you bounce from the page after a few seconds. And you click on the #4 result to find something about coffee that’s actually worth reading.
RankBrain will also notice this. And if enough people quickly bounce from that result, Google will boot it from the #1 spot.
As you can see, RankBrain focuses on two things:
1. How long someone spends on your page (Dwell Time) 2. The percentage of people that click on your result (Click Through Rate)
Let’s break each of these down.
RankBrain and Dwell Time
Dwell Time=how long a Google searcher spends on your page.
As it turns out, RankBrain pays A LOT of attention to Dwell Time.
In fact, the head of Google Brain in Canada recently confirmed that Google uses Dwell Time as a ranking signal. He stated that RankBrain measures when:
“someone clicks on a page and stays on that page, when they go back”
And a recent industry study by SearchMetrics supports this statement. They found that the average Dwell Time for a top 10 Google result is 3 minutes and 10 seconds.
If you’ve spent any time digging through your Google Analytics, you know that a 3+ minute Dwell Time is legit.
And it’s no coincidence that pages with awesome Dwell Time tend to rank best. In fact, RankBrain is upranking these pages for that exact reason.
This makes sense if you think about it:
If you spend a long time on a page, you probably like the content on that page.
And if enough people feel the same way, Google will uprank that content to make it easier to find.
RankBrain and Organic Click Through Rate (CTR)
Google Engineer Paul Haahr caused a stir in the SEO world when he put up this slide at a conference:
This slide basically says:
“RankBrain sometimes ranks pages higher up than they “should” rank.
And if that page gets an above-average CTR, we use that as a sign that the page should get a permanent rankings boost.”
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, if no one clicks on your result, why would Google keep it on the first page?
And if your site is getting clicked on like there’s no tomorrow, why would Google keep it buried in the #9 spot?
If you want a few simple strategies that you can use to boost CTR, check out this infographic that I recently made with Larry Kim.
If you want to master SEO in 2018, you need to become a CTR Jedi.
Yes, because of RankBrain.
But also because of:
And:
And most deadly of all:
In fact, one industry study found that organic CTR is down 37% since 2015.It’s no secret why: Google is crowding out the organic search results with Answer Boxes, Ads, Carousels, “People also ask” sections, and more.
And to stand out, your result needs to scream “click on me!”…or else it’ll be ignored.
CHAPTER 3:Comprehensive, In-Depth Content Wins
In the old days, Google would analyze your page to see how many times you used a specific keyword.
In other words, they focused 100% on your page’s content. So the Google spider would visit your page to check if your keyword appeared in your:
Title tag
URL
Image ALT text
Description tag
H1 tag
To be fair, they still look at that stuff. But today’s Google is MUCH smarter than it used to be.
So instead of only measuring content, they now focus on context.
What do I mean?
Remember: Google’s #1 job is to show their user the BEST result. And in most cases, the “best” result isn’t a piece of keyword-stuffed content.
Instead, the best pages cover an entire topic in-depth.
With in-depth content, a Google searcher gets everything they need in one place (one stop shopping).
In fact, my recent ranking factors study found that in-depth content tends to rank best in Google.
How To Write Comprehensive, In-Depth Content
So: how can you write the type of in-depth content that Google wants to see?
First, publish content that’s at least 2,000 words. That way, you can cover everything a Google searcher needs to know about that topic.
In fact, our ranking factors study found that longer content (like ultimate guides and long-form blog posts) outranked short articles in Google:
Add LSI Keywords to Your Content
Once you’ve put the finishing touches on your 2,000-word monster, add LSI keywords to it.
LSI keywords are words and phrases that are strongly associated with your page’s topic.
For example, let’s say that you just published an article about The Paleo Diet.
LSI keywords would be terms like:
Nutrition
Caveman
Weight loss
Recipes
Grains
And when Google sees these LSI keywords on your page, they think: “Awesome! This page obviously covers this topic really well.”
How do you find LSI keywords? Here are three simple ways to find ‘em:
Just enter your target keyword into the tool, and it’ll show you a bunch of LSI keywords that are associated with that term:
Add any of these that make sense to your content.
Second, use good ol’ Google. Just search for your target keyword. Then check out the “Searches related to…” section at the bottom of the search results.
No comments