Micro SEO Case Study: Improving Site Engagement

For a while now I’ve been wanting to test out some things related to long-click optimization. If you aren’t too familiar with what “long-click” means AJ Kohn describes it well here:

“A long click occurs when a user performs a search, clicks through on a result and remains on that site for a long time. They don’t come back to the result set immediately to click on another result or to refine their query. In general, long clicks are a proxy for satisfaction and success.”

I also recommend reading another of his articles here. Anyway, let’s get back to the SEO test.

Long-Click Metrics

We can’t really measure long-clicks super accurately but there are some metrics that could indicate if users are happy after landing on a given page such as bounce rate, pages per session, time on site, etc.

The idea was to add a couple of simple features to a site and see if these metrics improved. I decided to focus on showing users related articles while they were reading blog posts. I also decided to recommend multiple articles at the end of each post. The goal was to get users to keep browsing the site longer and read more content.

What I Did

I installed two WordPress plugins; Inline Related Posts and Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. I used Inline Related Posts to show users related articles in the middle of blog posts while they were reading reading them. I used Yet Another Related Posts Plugin to recommend multiple articles at the end of each post as well.

The Results

I took a look at the time period of five weeks after the changes were made and compared them to the five weeks before.

local-seo-engagement-improvement-case-study

Even though traffic was down a bit, the bounce rate, pages per session and time on site were up!

Why not give it a try and see if it works for you!

About Dani Owens

Dani Owens, the owner of Pigzilla, has been in the digital marketing field since 2011. Her resources have been mentioned and shared by local SEO experts such as Eric Ward, Darren Shaw, Phil Rozek, Marie Haynes, David Mihm and Local U. From small, independent Mom-and-Pop shops, to enterprises with thousands of locations, Dani Owens has years of experience strategizing and implementing reliable local SEO tactics that lead to increased organic traffic and conversions.