Why Does This Work?

Over the past few years, Google has been working on incorporating “user experience signals” into its algorithm.

This is a fancy way of saying that they want the behavior of real people to influence which websites get priority in search results.

Other factors such as links and content still remain the dominant factors in determining which websites rank well – but it’s clear that user experience signals are playing a larger role.

There are two main user experience metrics that Google looks for:

Click-Through Rate: This is the rate at which people click on your GMB listing instead of others.

Dwell Time: This is based on if users actually“stick” on your listing for longer – or if they immediately hit the back button to see more search results.

The Engagement Overdrive strategy works to address both metrics.

This is backed up by my own testing, on both normal websites and GMB listings.

And I’m not the only one.

Instead of asking you to blindly trust me, let’s look at two objective sources that back this up.

Bill Slawski (Go Fish Digital):

Bill has over 23 years of SEO experience and is one of the most prominent experts on Google’s patents.

This is article explains Google’s patent about user behavior, dwell time, and click-through rate: Read it here.

Depending on your familiarity with SEO, this can be a little too technical, but it’s available if you want to read it.

Google’s Official Patent:

What’s more believable than Google’s own patents?

…Especially when they’re constantly being updated to reflect their own progress.

Click here to see Google’s official patent.

There are many other sources which show the importance of user experience signals and SEO.

The fascinating thing is that almost all of the research and content focuses around user experience signals for websites.

The true power is combining this with GMB – since it’s a platform they own and are already biased towards.