What is Pogo Sticking and How to Avoid It
Chris Mulvaney is the CEO of CMDS. I make things... I’m the creative entrepreneur with passion for (re)making brands and inventing solutions to problems no one knows exist.
Here’s a little known (useless) fact: the Guinness World Record for most pogo stick jumps was set by James Roumeliotis who stayed on his pogo stick for 20 hours and 13 minutes (jumping 206,864 times).
Now, here’s a useful fact you do need to know: Google takes pogo sticking into account when they rank your website content and you will be penalized for it. Pogo sticking in the world of SEO refers to the action of clicking back to the search engine results pages (SERPs) and choosing another result. Search engines measures this as part of your search results algorithm.
Why Are Pogo Stickers Bouncing Around?
If someone searched a top keyword for your business and landed on your page, why would they leave and look for a different result? It could mean a number of things. Either they’re not satisfied with the content on your website, your website isn’t user (or mobile) friendly, or maybe they just want to do some more research and modify their search term. No matter what the reason is, if someone lands on your page and stays less than 10 seconds before they click the back button, your result will be ranked lower on the SERPs.
How to Know If it’s Happening to You
Our marketing professionals at CMDS know the ins and outs of Google Analytics to analyze your website. We not only look for important keywords search terms to use for future content, but we also examine the bounce rate and pogo sticking results. Bounce rates differ from pogo sticking in that bounce rates define the percentage of visitors who look at single page on a website instead of traveling deeper into the site. Pogo sticking, on the other hand is all about click-back-and choose-a-different-result behavior.
How To Get Them To Stick Around
Entice users to stay on your site longer than 10 seconds by blowing them out of the water with a top-notch first impression. Write engaging blog content (think: “What are all the answers that your target user may be looking for in their search results?”), post regularly and make sure your topics are relevant to your keyword search terms. Ensure your site is mobile friendly, loads quickly and is optimized for SEO purposes.
Satisfy Your Search Query with CMDS
Start by thinking like a searcher (not a buyer); consider what people are “Googling” and you’ll build a stronger website for conversions. But remember, even if your content is relevant and insightful to the person searching, a poor user experience will lead to a pogo sticking problem. Give us a call at 732-706-5555 to talk about the future of your website and how you can get off the pogo stick (’cause bouncing around for 20 hours and 13 minutes isn’t really that cool anyway).