Behavioral factors: what they are and how they affect website success

AFFHUB is here! In this article, we will look at behavior in SEO.

How to analyze it and how to work with it? What are behavioral factors, how do they work, how to improve them, and much more — read on now!

Behavioral factors: what is it?

Behavioral factors are indicators that allow you to see audience activity on a page.

Google Analytics and similar analytical resources for SEO are often used to track them. 

The better the behavioral factors, the more chances you have to be at the top of the search results.

There are external and internal BF.

External factors show user activity outside a specific page. For example, where the user came from, what they did after clicking on the site link, what queries they used, etc. 

Internal factors are those that show audience activity directly on the site. There are a bunch of them. For example:

• the number of pages opened, the depth of viewing;
• number of sessions and their duration;
• percentage of sessions lasting less than 1 second;
• how often users share your content
• interaction with various elements of the page;
• number of direct and repeat visits;
• scrolling, reading to the end, and other activity indicators;
• cursor movement on the page.

How can you improve behavioral factors if things are not going well?

The first thing you can do is fix any errors and improve the performance of the site.

Then you can think about advertising and other ways to improve your asset.

If the site does not work properly and has a bunch of errors that clearly do not inspire user confidence, advertising will not help. People will visit, see something that is, let’s say, not very attractive, and leave. The same goes for slow loading. Many people find this extremely annoying, as it wastes the user’s time. The result: the person leaves your site and looks for something else.

You can check your site for errors and loading speed using Google PageSpeed Insights or similar services.

Internal linking

This is a very good trick for increasing activity. This way, you increase the amount of time users spend on the site.

For example, you write an article on a specific topic and your site already has similar content. Or let’s take those articles in which you describe in more detail what you mention in the new one.

Leave links to them so that people can click through and read more about what interests them.

Voilà! The user is satisfied because they have received more relevant information rather than superficial text, and the behavioral factors on your site already look “happier.”

Review your content — make it more interesting

Perhaps the problem is that the content on the site does not attract enough attention from users.

Try to keep up with all the trends and news. Use this in your content. Interpret what is trending in relation to the theme of your site.

We also recommend not using AI to create texts or creative content. AI can be a great tool for finding ideas, inspiration, etc., but it cannot replace the work of a real, live specialist. Search engines now quickly detect such moves and block content that looks suspiciously like the work of AI.

Enable user interaction on your website

Sometimes it seems that this is no longer necessary and that people visit websites solely to fulfill their requests. But here everything is a little different.

Add the ability to leave reactions, comments, etc. Create content that will encourage more detailed interaction with it. A call to action is always a great practice in such cases.

Search snippet: yes, don’t forget about it either

Here we will talk about the same “SEO” approach when publishing content.

Use:

• keywords and create titles and descriptions with them 
• micro-markup and icons
• quick links
• ratings
• clear and understandable URLs

And finally: Launch your ad

It is not surprising that this point is last. The golden rule for a successful ad launch is a perfectly “packaged” profile or website. As we have already mentioned, there is no point in purchasing traffic for a low-quality platform. It will not yield good results if your website does not attract and “retain” people.

BF faking: A magic pill or the ultimate destruction of an asset

When asked whether it is worth boosting behavioral factors, we will immediately and without hesitation write in capital letters that IT IS NOT WORTH IT!

Why? Someone might say that it’s not a bad idea.

You don’t need to do anything extra, just pay a dubious platform, get a “boom” in a couple of minutes, and sit back and enjoy your website “taking off.”

Search engines aren’t stupid either. They’ve been seeing these tricks for a long time and are very quick to “close up shop.” In the worst case, the site may simply be banned, and it will be difficult or impossible to restore it.

But there is one thing: sometimes BF boosting, which can be called an “asset killer,” can become your ally. 

How is that possible?

This is often done to competitors. Artificial activity is inflated on their website, and the search engine lowers its ranking. Accordingly, many people “raise” themselves in the search feed.

But we would not advise you to do this 😉

In summary

Behavioral factors not only allow you to better track audience activity, but also promote you to the top of the search feed.

It is always important to monitor their quality. If you see that things are really bad, there is a way out. You can always help improve them — take into account the tips we wrote about in this article.