Recent leaks from Google have highlighted engagement as part of their ranking system, suggesting the importance of influencing audience behavior to improve rankings, organic visibility, and other SEO-specific metrics.
That said, I’ve used simple variations of these measurements in the past to evaluate the impact of integrated PR and SEO campaigns: I don’t think the idea of measuring search behavior is new, but the Google leaks have highlighted its importance.
To sustainably grow your organic search visibility and rankings, you need to shift your SEO strategy to include metrics that reflect how well your owned assets, marketing assets, and messaging influence your audience's search behavior.
Google’s broader goal of ranking content that is truly useful to specific audience segments provides important context for considering this change.
Therefore, SEO professionals need to evaluate their website performance based on engagement-driven metrics such as asset NPS, idea adoption rate, time to activation, etc. This will be crucial to maximise organic search visibility directly and indirectly.
Why measure impact?
Recent Google leaks highlight the growing importance of audience engagement measurement in page rankings.
This highlights the importance of integrating SEO, content creation and PR, with influencing audience behavior being the key measure.
I think:
- Google values engagement: Google leaks suggest that Google places importance on user engagement metrics such as click data, returning visitors, site traffic, related click data, etc. While it may be incomplete and out of date, this is one of many examples of Google using user engagement in some way.
- Integrating AI into algorithmsAs AI becomes more deeply integrated into Google’s ranking system, it will be able to interpret and use this user engagement data to influence rankings.
- Brand searchSite traffic from branded search is an indicator of audience engagement and can impact your visibility in organic search.
But to increase audience engagement, you need to think beyond simple SEO activities like link building, creating keyword-driven content, and technical SEO.
The future of search marketing is about designing scenarios that influence your audience's search behavior.
Ideal search behavior scenario
Today's audience journey is more complex than ever before because they turn to a variety of sources to learn about their problems, solutions, and opportunities. But this scenario simplifies how to think about your search strategy.
Scenario: You create an asset, it gets featured in PR, your audience searches for it on Google (they may not find it by keyword, they search by your brand name), and then they keep coming back to your site for new assets and resources (either as resources or as offerings) to solve their problem or create an opportunity.
Simple search behavior scenario statement:
You need to create a content asset [a problem or opportunity]to get coverage [an asset of the asset] The audience encourages [audience interest]which will trigger viewers to search [category or terms you own]and they will quickly return to the site and take action. [solve a problem or create an opportunity].
You will need to modify this based on the goals of your specific website event, but the essence of the statement will get you in the right direction.
This directive allows us to focus on the following more important but harder to impact measures:
Since I have a background in product management and marketing, I adapted these measures from product marketing concepts as they relate directly to audience behavior.
Measure 1: Asset NPS
How likely is it that your audience will promote your content assets and ideas?
The NPS score is used to measure audience loyalty and satisfaction using the survey question, “How likely are you to recommend our content to a friend or colleague?”
Respondents could give a rating from 0 to 10.
- Promoter (9-10): A loyal and engaged audience that continues to talk about your content and ideas and recommend them to others.
- Passive voice (7-8): They’re happy with your content, but their audience isn’t engaged enough to listen to your competitors’ perspectives.
- Critics (0-6): Disgruntled viewers who speak negatively about your content.
A high NPS indicates that your audience is highly engaged, which can drive engagement and indirectly impact organic visibility.
Collecting data usually requires surveying your audience. To collect questions, you can use Google Forms, Survey Monkey, or any survey tool that has a rating scale.
Pro Tip: Research your site’s audience, your social media followers, or the email list you’re building as a result of your audience submitting their contact information through your site or newsletter.
Metric 2: Idea adoption rate
Will your audience adopt your ideas?
The adoption rate of an idea refers to the percentage of your audience segment that starts using your idea after you publish your assets.
This is a key indicator for understanding whether your audience is receptive to a particular idea and provides insight into engagement and market fit, which can directly impact engagement signals that can affect rankings.
Click here for calculation method
Metrics
- Audience segment size: How many people are in your audience segment?
- Viewer usage scale: The number of people who use the ideas in your content.
Formula: Adoption rate = (audience usage size/audience segment size) X 100%
This data can be collected in a variety of ways, but shares alone are not a good metric because they may not reflect true influence.
Find out the discussions and actions that have taken place as a result of your ideas or content.
- Is your audience discussing your ideas on LinkedIn, Twitter (X) or relevant social media?
- Does your newsletter talk about your ideas or the essence of your ideas?
- Are the process steps discussed?
- Are people sharing videos using your products or ideas?
Pro Tip: Some creators worry that their original ideas will be “stolen.” I don't think this is a bad thing. It's a sign that your idea is being adopted because it solves an important problem or opportunity.
Solution 3: Start-up time
How long does it take for users to take action on your site?
Activation time measures how long it takes your audience to search for a topic or take an action on your site after engaging with your message.
This includes branded searches, owned search keywords, document downloads, quote inquiries, demo requests, etc.
This metric indicates how well your content is being adopted, or whether your messaging is aligned with your audience's behavior. A shorter activation time indicates better alignment with your audience's needs and greater content effectiveness.
Measuring method
- Identify activation points (ex. events you want your audience to trigger) or goals on your site.
- Estimate how many people read or engaged with your content.
- Measure how many people take action on a particular event on your site.
Pro Tip: Some marketers say you shouldn't measure your programs because attribution models won't work or SEO takes time. However, time to activation highlights the importance of evaluating the on-site action your campaign should drive. Design your campaigns so that the time to activation for each event is less than three months, six months for big goals, and 12 months for larger business impacts like creating a new market category.
Activating your audience increases the likelihood that your branded search will have an impact, as they will be more likely to search Google for more information on your topic.
Measure 4: Branded Search Volume
Will your audience search for your brand on search engines?
Brand metrics refer to the number of times users search for a specific term that you brand or own on a search engine.
You can measure this in Google Search Console by searching for your brand name or terms you own.
Pro TipBranded keywords, along with non-branded keywords, are reported in Google Analytics for popular search engines (e.g. Google). Look for short-term spikes or sustained trends in Google Search Console, and segment in every way possible (by page, query, date, rebranding terms, etc.) to explore the impact. Design your strategy to measure the impact of branded search.
Strategic Implications
Integrating SEO and PR strategies to influence audience behavior and engagement is key to maximizing organic visibility and search rankings.
A recent leak from Google highlights the importance of audience engagement and the need to integrate content creation, SEO and PR to drive meaningful interactions.
Metrics such as asset NPS, idea adoption rate, and time to activation provide valuable insights into audience loyalty, idea adoption, and time to action.
These are likely important for driving engagement and influencing search engine rankings, but they are also crucial for audience engagement.
These engagement-focused measures will ensure your content truly resonates with your audience segments without you having to keep up with Google's evolving algorithms.
Start designing an integrated PR and SEO strategy.
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