The discipline of SEO is constantly evolving. There are so many different elements in play that it is hard to know what to focus on and what to live without. SEO is the process of getting your webpage to rank higher on Google/other search engines. There are multiple ways that you could attack this problem, but the searcher’s perception (eye tracking) of what they are seeing is ultimately going to be what makes you successful or not.
We’ve all been trained over time to be able to search for anything on Google, and then interpret those results to find exactly what you are looking for. In order to get your search results in front of the consumer, and ready for interpretation, there are many different factors at play.
First there is paid vs. organic results. When it comes to how the searcher is interpreting search results, people’s eyes generally discredit the paid advertisements and go right to the organic results. So while you could get your website onto the first page of google by running an ad, people will scroll right by a good portion of the time. Keywords are another good way to move your rank up. If you are posting relevant content to what people are searching for, then you’re in good shape. Just hope it shows up along where people’s eyes process google results.
What exactly is eye tracking?
Eye tracking is one way of knowing (beyond raw rankings) how many times your website has a chance to be seen.Traditionally searchers use a F-shaped pattern with their eyes when analyzing results. Users eyes are drawn to, “bold keywords, titles, and descriptions in organic search results (‘The Art of SEO’). This is why it is important to have those elements locked down.
How to properly engage with the searcher?
Eye tracking is an often forgotten about part of SEO. Through eye tracking you can know how useful your placement really is. For example people hardly ever make it down to the last results in google, so your website placing down there does you no good. The best way to fix a situation like this is to go back to the details of your website and find out what is hitting well and what isn’t, cut out the irrelevant keywords, titles, nameless pictures, etc. It’s important to know where you are ranking and if that ranking is even even going to get you any engagement with searchers, because it might be there, but they still won’t see it. That’s what makes this discipline ever so changing, you have to be narrow enough to be relevant, but also broad enough to show up for many different results, it all comes back to the back-end elements of your website.
For more eye tracking help, check out these great resources:
https://searchengineland.com/eyetracking-seo-fad-fact-or-fiction-98799
— Logan Brydson