Guest contributor Bryant Jaquez shows you why SEO professionals need to think like site users when it comes to usability.
Google spends a lot of its time trying to figure out how to make their machines act, and process data like humans. This means you are already one step ahead of Google. You have the invaluable benefit of being human. (Congratulations!)
In the effort to make its algorithm think more like a person, Google will continue to advance its usability ranking signals, and as they do, we all need to be ready for them. To date, the most prominent usability update was the “Page Layout Update.”
As an SEO consultant, I have spent a lot of my time explaining usability to my clients, and have found plenty of real-life example of how usability affects SEO. Today, I am going to use Forbes.com as an example.
Just to clarify: I do not dislike Forbes or their content. The reason I am using their website is because they have 98 DA (SEOmoz rank), 96 PA (SEOmoz rank), and 8/10 PR (Google). They have a huge brand, and they have the relevancy to rank for anything business-related.
The danger of being ad-heavy
Here is what Google has said in the past about ad-heavy websites:
“As we’ve mentioned previously, we’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content ‘above-the-fold’ can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.”
Websites that are ad-heavy are a nuisance to readers. Google intentionally does not tell us a specific number, but they point us to a tool. Google’s Browser Size Tool (soon to be integrated into Google Analytics) shows us exactly how much content is visible above the fold.
According to WC3 Schools, the most popular browser size is 1024×768. According to this statistic, only 20-30% of visitors see content above the fold when they visit Forbes.com.
A few other usability factors that Forbes could improve on:
- Visitors are forced to click past a full screen pop-up ad any time you visit their website.
- They have two unsolicited videos that auto-play when you visit their home page. (Who wants to pause their Spotify station to listen to a commercial? I do not!)
- They also have 300+ links on their home page which dilutes their link juice (something that a lot of news sites do wrong).
I realize Forbes makes money off ad-views, but they are potentially losing ad views in the long term by upsetting their visitors.
How does this affect rankings?
This past week, Apple and Samsung wrapped up a chapter of their patent lawsuit battle. Every major news organization in the world covered the news, including Forbes.
In fact, Forbes has 204 search results that mention “Apple Samsung Lawsuit,” and a number of those results are brand new articles. Both the “new post,” “popular post,” and their home page features articles about the case.
I used keywords out of Forbes’ article titles and Google Suggest to see how well they rank for this story. Forbes does not show up on the first page of SERPS for these search terms:
- apple wins patent lawsuit against samsung
- apple wins lawsuit
- apple samsung verdict
- apple wins samsung
- apple wins lawsuit against samsung
Do not take my word for it: search for yourself. Try different variations of these terms. Forbes.com is not showing up in the first page of results for any of the most popular keyword-phrases surrounding this court case.
Now, I am not suggesting that this is an exhaustive case study; it is not. I am simply suggesting that Google’s public statements about ads and page layouts are not something you can afford to dismiss.
When my team and I disagree with each other, we revert to our fall-back answer: just test it. Are you dealing with a site that has an obstructive amount of ads above the fold? Test out different layouts, move some of the ads, and (for pete’s sake) please get rid of the auto-play videos.
