Design features as a ranking factor?
-
i created a new design of my website, very clean and highly orientated towards conversion. its a far better looking site than the old one but the navigation is almost the same. a few days after i uploaded the new site we were ranked number 1 on the biggest keyphrase in my industry.
Does google crawl design feature, maybe with something like conversion heat mapping software and include that as a ranking factor?
love your thoughts on this one.
-
Uhhh, Corey,
You said you have always paid in the past for SEO, I know SuperlativeB and I sent invoices, did you not get invoices from Alan or Simon??? Odd, they usually send first.
-
thanks guys, really helpful. i am new to all of this as i have always paid for my SEO work but as a budding entrepreneur i can only see understanding it myself as a advantage for future ventures. i dont believe i have increased rankings just to be a fresh result because i have been hovering around the top 5 for months.
i asked this question because as the web advances, i can only see it as a good thing that SE's start to use new technologies to see what users see. the bit about conversion rate optimisation that confuses me a bit is my site converts more people quicker, with less distractions. this means a lower bounce rate but also means less time on site and less pages visited. this is why i think over time as CRO grows more poplular. SE"s may need to look at other ways to crawl design aspects of websites.
thanks again guys
-
The pointer that I saw as the key information in that post was that quality raters use Firefox web browser. So make sure your site is looking proper in firefox.
"I said no secrets, but I guess this is a little bit of inside information. Google raters are instructed to use Firefox, along with the web developer add-on. Do with that as you will."
-
Three good answers including yours Robert, lots of great help and pointers here for Corey
-
Thanks Alan. A good addition to the answer by yourself there.
-
Simon and Alan are correct here, but there was a recent post by Dr. Pete that also sheds a bit of light on this. Quality Raters.
This is an interesting post and I have looked back at it several times. That said, when you redesigned the site, if you took off ads, got rid of superfluous information, etc. You likely improved the way the algorithm looks at it, too. As Simon said, if you improved the ability of the spiders to crawl it, that helped. As Alan said, if it is just a freshness factor it could drop again soon. So, keep it fresh and keep it simple.
By the way, this was a great question and followed by two good answers.
-
Simon is correct, there is no such factor I have heard of. What i do suspect is that you had somthing in your old design holding you back. some unknown factor that was not liked by the SE's, putting up your new design has rid you of it.
Plus there is also the QDF factor, Query deserves freshness. where search results like to inclued a few sites that have new content along with the normal high ranking sites. in this case you can exspect to drop again, sorry
Between these points nad what Simon has suggested i think it can be eplained
-
Hi Corey
Kind of. Search Engines don't crawl design features as such, however the ability to easily crawl pages within a website is believed to be a factor, as are other factors such as page speed.
Regarding 'conversion heat mapping', I doubt it. The closest factor that I'm aware of is Engagement, as in how visitors interact with a website; do they spend time reading pages or bounce straight off, do visitors visit many pages on a website such as going through a research and purchase cycle, or do they not stick around for long.
So there are ranking factors here to take into account such as those mentioned above. Check out 'The Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors' which is also included in a blog post here on SEOmoz.
Regards
Simon
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Nice Domain Authority but Not Ranking
Hi, A client of mine who owns a website reached out to me. He got penalized a while ago and has long since recovered (not sure exactly, but for sure a year). His domain authority is in the upper 30s but is still not ranking for many of his keywords that he ranked on the first page. I am not so familiar with the technical aspects of penalties and such, but is this a common scenario? Why is his domain authority great but his ranking downright awful? Does he have a chance if he builds great links, or is something else wrong that we can't figure out?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rachel_J0 -
How to rank my website in Google UK?
Hi guys, I own a London based rubbish removal company, but don't have enough jobs. I know for sure that some of my competitors get most of their jobs trough Google searches. I also have a website, but don't receive calls from it at all. Can you please tell me how to rank my website on keywords like: "rubbish removal london", "waste clearance london", "junk collection london" and other similar keywords? I know that for person like me (without much experience in online marketing) will be difficult task to optimize the website, but at least - I need some advices from where to start. I'm also thinking to hire an SEO but not sure where to find a trusted company. Most importantly I have no idea how much should pay to expect good results? What is too much and what is too low? I will appreciate all advices.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gorubbishgo0 -
No Google Ranking..yet
I have een working on my site for soem time. Trying to take the right steps to achieve good ranking in the long run and present the information we need to showcase to prospective clients. After several months I still see no ranking at all and I'm wondering if its becasue the front page is using a design similar to a one page website design? If anyone can provide some insight I would appreciate it. Even the smallest nudge i nthe right direction. We are also developing some new content for a blog and expanded written content for our services page. http://thatworksdesign.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bvrettski0 -
Tagged URL ranking organically
I've noticed that one of our GA tagged urls are ranking organically & therefore is skewing the referral data. The campaign that we were tracking is no longer active but the link still works, but it's going to an old landing page. I asked our developers if we could redirect it but they said that it didn't work. Does anyone have some advise or a solution for this? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Elihn0 -
Home Page Rankings Drop
Hi all we have being working with a small local client in the last few weeks getting good rankings using onsite op, and business listings we have been getting good ranking ie top 15 then today we drop right out the top 50, after completing manual checks i see the keywords as all related | glasgow catering | Not in Top 50 | down > 42 | |
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Will_Craig
| catering glasgow | Not in Top 50 | down > 41 | |
| glasgow caterers | Not in Top 50 | down > 39 | |
| caterers in glasgow | Not in Top 50 | down > 37 | |
| caterers glasgow | Not in Top 50 | down > 32 | Also when completing manual checks on the above keywords, the home page is not ranking what so ever, infact its missing i went 300 results deep and cant find it, other inner pages rank but not the home. The only other recent change is that we now have a listing under the Google maps section of the homepage on page 1 any advice www.georgieporgies.co.uk0 -
Can 404 Errors Be Affecting Rankings
I have a client that we recently (3 months ago) designed, developed, and launch a new site at a "new" domain. We set up redirects from the old domain to the new domain and kept an eye on Google Webmaster Tools to make sure the redirects were working properly. Everything was going great, we maintained and improved the rankings for the first 2 months or so. In late January, I started noticing a great deal of 404 errors in Webmaster Tools for URLs from the new site. None of these URLs were actually on the current site so I asked my client if he had previously used to domain. It just so happens that he used the domain a while back and none of the URLs were ever redirected or removed from the index. I've been setting up redirects for all of the 404s appearing in Webmaster tools but we took a pretty decent hit in rankings for February. Could those errors (72 in total) been partially if not completely responsible for the hit in rankings? All other factors have been constant so that lead me to believe these errors were the culprits.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheOceanAgency0 -
Local SEO (Rankings) + UK-wide SEO (national rankings) - achieving both
Hi All, For clients wishing to sell online / generate leads nationally, yet still want to have a local online presence to attract town / county-wide customers, I've often placed Town / County locations within both the Title Tag (or just County if space is limited) and Meta Description, plus within the Hx headings, Alt-text and within the footer of every page. My question is, does adding the location of the client within these fields really infringe their attempts to rank nationally, as some nationally ranked pages have no mention of location while others have their location (Town, County or Both) shown within them? Any help, insight or feedback greatly appreciated 🙂 Happy New Year Tony
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tony-Dimmock0 -
Why does this 1-page doorway rank #2?
Search on "santa cruz custom cabinets." In my SERPs, I'm seeing exact match santacruzcustomcabinets.com rank #2. This is a 1-page site provided by Yellow Book as part of an ad it sold to this cabinet shop. The site has no other pages, no inbound links, etc. So much for Google saying it's going to turn down the meter on exact match domains because that's all I see this website, if you want to call it that, has going for it. what do you see? Why is it ranked so high? Why is it above the site below it for example? And why doesn't Google lower the boom on Yellow Book for these doorway pages? Thought you'd all find this interesting. Any comments?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KatMouse0