People-First SEO will rank your website higher, and here’s why:
According to a study by Search Metrics:
- The Time on Site for the top 10 URLs is 3 minutes and 10 seconds.
- The average Bounce Rate for URLs on the first page of search results is 46 percent.
But:
What does that mean, and what’s People-First SEO?
How the Top Sites Got There
First let’s break down the numbers:
On the top ranking sites, 64 percent of visitors are spending around 3 minutes or more on the site.
Think about the sites you’ve spent 3 minutes or more on. There’s no reason to stay on a website unless you are engaged with the content in some way.
You must love the content on that page!
…Or else you would have already left!
When you really connect with a page, Google notices. It’s no coincidence that the highest ranking pages have the most engaging content.
The content serves the reader, and they stay on the page.
However:
Time on Site doesn’t matter if no one makes it to your site.
That’s where your website’s Click-Through-Rate or CTR comes in. If you want the details, you can read this article by Wordstream.
To sum it up:
CTR is the percentage of people that saw AND clicked on your search result.
When a particular search result gets a ton of clicks, Google takes that as a sign that people are getting real value from that page’s content, and boosts it accordingly.
If a page shows up in the search results, but is rarely getting clicked on, Google sees that people don’t find that page useful, and down it goes, never to be heard from again.
Let’s look at an example with a search for “local electrician”:
What do we see here? The second result leaps out, but why?
It’s simple:
It includes the overall rating of the company, and a targeted description.
Based on nothing more than the results in Google, I can tell that this company is highly rated, and knows the local area well.
A highly-ranking page is built from “People-First SEO” strategies. And at this point you might have guessed the meaning of People-First SEO…
It’s SEO designed for people first!
In other words:
The content that serves people the most, ranks the highest.
Pretty simple on paper, but executing on that idea is much more challenging. There are tons of companies all trying to rank for the same keywords and categories, so what sets the top sites apart?
High-ranking pages have two things:
- A “hook” that draws someone in.
- Content that engages the user and answers their question.
So:
Now you know two big factors that contribute to a page ranking, but how do you act on this knowledge?
The Secret Sauce of People-First SEO
We’ve seen that to get higher rankings, you need people to want to view your content, and your content has to keep people on the page.
Here’s how it’s done:
The “Hook”
The hook is what draws someone to your website instead of all the other results in their search.
Check out our blog post on “Writing the Killer Hook” for more information about this.
The Content
Writing content isn’t just about keywords, it’s about serving people.
How do you accomplish that?
Ask yourself:
Why would someone be searching in the first place?
Because they need information.
This seems obvious, but I’ve seen tons of content that fails to provide me with the information I needed.
There are two main keys of People-First content:
- Intrigue the reader.
- Answer the reader’s question.
On their own, these won’t boost your ranking.
You need to combine both to keep people engaged with your content.
Let’s break those down.
The Keys of People-First Content
Intriguing Your Reader
It doesn’t matter how interesting the rest of your content is if someone doesn’t get past the first paragraph.
Lead with a short introduction summarizing the goal of the page, and an indication of how you will fulfill their search.
Essentially:
There’s good stuff here and it’s worth reading.
Give the reader a compelling reason to stay and they will.
Answering the Question
This seems obvious, but it’s crucial to keeping your reader on the page. If you don’t answer the question, your page is not relevant to the search, and it will be down-ranked accordingly.
Think about it:
What sort of questions would lead someone to your content? Make sure you give solid, well-defined, and concrete answers.
The more relevant the answer, the better the ranking.
Don’t leave the reader hanging! Give them exactly what they searched for.
If you do that, you’ll be shooting up the rankings in no time!
Now You Know…
Since you’re an expert in People-First SEO and you know how to write People-First content, it’s time for you to get out there and make something!
Don’t forget:
The content that serves people the most, ranks the highest.
Give, and it will come back to you.
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