Multiplying organic traffic by 50 in two and a half years
I've been working in digital marketing, and especially SEO, for almost 20 years. During this time, I've witnessed not only the evolution of Google's algorithm but also, and above all, the transformation of the online marketing industry itself. Both of these developments have driven me to adapt, to continuously train and stay up-to-date, and to keep the spark of passion alive for a profession that continues to excite me. Increasingly, the SEO sector is overflowing with (so-called) professionals who promise immediate results and claim to have the magic formula for the success of any project (often at suspiciously low prices or, conversely, outrageously high ones). However, those of us who manage digital acquisition channels strategically know that sustainable growth isn't a matter of chance, but rather the result of a rigorous methodology, data-driven decisions, and a deep understanding of the business. The success story I'm sharing today perfectly reflects this philosophy. This is a Barcelona-based project focused on a highly competitive local sector (specialized services for venue and sound and lighting equipment rental, music production, and training), which I began working on in September 2023. The initial objective seemed clear: to break through a glass ceiling that was holding back the brand's visibility in organic search results. Thirty months later, reality has exceeded all initial expectations. By implementing a comprehensive strategy that began with the foundations of technical and semantic SEO, and which has now expanded to include advanced analytics, paid media, and internationalization, I have managed to increase the website's organic traffic fiftyfold. Far from stabilizing, the domain is currently experiencing its strongest technical performance, achieving such clear visibility that it not only dominates Google's search results pages but has also become a recurring reference source for leading AI-powered conversational search engines (LLMs). Below, I break down step by step the implementation phases that made this exponential growth possible, of which I am especially proud. The Importance of Diagnosis and Conducting an Initial Audit When a digital project is completely stalled, the most common mistake is to start reactively writing content or buying links immediately. However, I was clear that before charting any course, it was essential to understand the root causes of the problem. Therefore, the first thing I told the client was that at that stage of the project, the most important thing was to conduct a thorough audit divided into five strategic pillars: technical SEO, architecture and semantic SEO, keyword research and content planning, competitor analysis and mapping, and analysis of the domain's link profile versus its competitors. It is very common for a client to be reluctant to conduct a preliminary audit, mainly for two reasons. The first is the price. A thorough audit requires many hours of work to extract data from various sources, perform the analysis (of data, content, competitors, SERPs, etc.), define the strategic approach and the actions needed to correct any problems detected, and finally, draft and summarize all the information in a report. The second reason why a client might be reluctant to have an audit done is simply a sense of urgency. We live in a world where we want everything now, and paying for a service only to see that no changes are being made to the site or that no content is being published feels like throwing money away. Some clients find this phase difficult to understand, and for consultants, it can be frustrating to see a client disappear for this reason (although a "hybrid solution" is often sought, such as phasing the audit to implement changes as certain aspects are audited, or including it within the fee to avoid a significant initial outlay). Fortunately (for both myself and the client), in this case I encountered a very reasonable, inquisitive, and dedicated partner, so I was able to dedicate the first month entirely to studying the patient and finding a solution. I mentioned five fundamental pillars earlier. Below, I'll detail them with a bit more context to show why they were so important. A. Technical SEO Audit The first step was to ensure the website's foundation was ready for massive crawling. I meticulously analyzed the indexing status on Google, eliminating duplicate URLs, redirect loops, and "technical noise" that was unnecessarily consuming the crawl budget. I also optimized the performance metrics (Core Web Vitals), guaranteeing optimal loading speed for both users and search engine bots. Although the site didn't have many landing pages at that time, it did have an e-commerce section with a large number of products. The constant addition and removal of products, lack of optimization, and several other problems had left a legacy of 404 errors, large images, and a general lack of instructions for crawlers, both in the source code and through indexing and crawling files (robots.txt, XML sitemap). B. Architecture and Semantic SEO A website can have a lot of authority, but if its structure is not clear and well-defined, it will end up confusing the algorithm and will probably not rank its main services. I restructured the site's hierarchy by implementing structured data that provided an unambiguous semantic context for crawlers. In addition, I optimized the content of the transactional landing pages and reorganized the internal linking to ensure an efficient flow of authority (link juice) to the highest-converting sections of the business. C. Keyword Research and Planning I have seen many websites that base their content on intuition and on what they believe to be the most searched or suitable keywords for each page. While direct experience in a
SEO and the emotional intelligence of algorithms: Will search engines be able to 'understand' emotions?
After writing about the potential evolution of SEO with the arrival of conversational search engines, today I want to reflect on the ability search engines might have to interpret (intuit? understand?) the emotional state behind a search. This is a step further towards a more personal interaction and a closer bond between user and search engine, which could become something more than what we know today. Since the "Stone Age" of SEO, when optimizing for search engines mainly meant including the right keywords and building links of dubious quality, the world of digital marketing has evolved enormously. For a long time now, search algorithms have not only identified isolated words but have also tried to understand the context and intent behind users' queries, and frankly, they do it quite well. Concepts like search intent and semantics have become central to SEO strategies. But how far can this evolution go? What if search engines could not only interpret what we're searching for, but also how we feel while searching? This new frontier where SEO could intersect with "emotional intelligence" is getting closer, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence and natural language processing (NLP) technologies. Tools like Google's Sentiment Analysis API can already detect the emotional tone of a text. This raises an interesting question: if search engines can detect emotions in content, could they influence search results based on those feelings? Could they respond more empathetically, adapting to users' emotions? In this article, I want to explore the possibility that in the not-too-distant future, search engines will not only understand what users want, but also adapt to how they feel. From sentiment analysis to the emotional processing of large volumes of data, AI tools could transform the strategies of those of us who work in SEO. This is the beginning of a new era, where "emotional intelligence" could be present in search algorithms, adding a completely new dimension to how we optimize our content for the web. The evolution of SEO: from keywords to search intent. In the beginning was the verb… or rather, in its early days, SEO was a numbers game. Search engines like Google based their algorithms on factors such as keyword repetition within a web page. The more times a relevant keyword appeared, the more likely a page was to rank highly in search results. This practice, known as "keyword stuffing," dominated SEO strategies. Early search engine optimizers understood that if they managed to fill a page with the right word, they would be guaranteed a good ranking (to the point that they added "invisible" keywords in the page's HTML, "playing dirty" with font colors so that the text blended in with the background color). This purely literal approach had many limitations. Search engines didn't understand context or the semantic relationships between words. A website could appear in top positions simply by repeatedly mentioning a keyword, even if the content wasn't relevant or useful to the user. Soon, Google and other search engines realized that this strategy not only produced a poor user experience but also incentivized deceptive and low-quality tactics. The real change began when search algorithms evolved to go beyond individual words and started considering the intent behind the search. This shift marked the beginning of semantic SEO, in which search engines began focusing on understanding the deeper meaning of a query, rather than just matching keywords (or picking up other ranking signals, which are equally easy to manipulate). This transition to semantic understanding has been one of the biggest advances in SEO history, making optimization strategies more about content relevance than mere word repetition. Over time, Google has advanced its ability to interpret what a user is truly looking for, beyond the exact keywords they use. This process, known as "search intent," has transformed how search engines process information. Instead of simply matching a keyword to search results, algorithms now attempt to understand what the user is trying to achieve with their query. One of the key milestones in this evolution was the implementation of BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) in late 2018. BERT marked a turning point in Google's ability to understand the full context of a search by allowing the algorithm to interpret the meaning of words in relation to the surrounding words. Unlike previous approaches, which analyzed words sequentially, BERT can read a sentence bidirectionally, understanding how each word influences the overall meaning. This advancement was especially relevant for natural language processing (NLP), as it allowed Google to interpret complex and colloquial queries much more accurately. With BERT, Google significantly improved its ability to identify nuances and subtext in searches, making it easier for results to more accurately reflect the user's true intent. This capability not only improved results for long or conversational searches but also marked a significant breakthrough.
Transformations Driven by Artificial Intelligence and Conversational Search Engines
The world of SEO has been largely synonymous with Google for the past two decades. Since its launch in 1998, Google has transformed how we access online information, quickly coming to dominate the search engine ecosystem. Today, more than 92.1% of global searches (in Spain, its market share is around 95.1%) are performed through Google, according to recent statistics. Its search algorithm, which began with the innovative concept of PageRank, has constantly evolved, with significant updates such as Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird, and more recently, BERT and MUM, which have shaped SEO strategies over the years. SEO, as we know it, has been a complex mix of content optimization, link building, improving website load time and user experience (no longer just for those factors included in Core Web Vitals), optimizing crawl resources and indexing… all aimed at capturing the attention of Google's algorithms and ensuring a favorable ranking on its search engine results pages (SERPs). For many businesses and content creators, achieving a first-page ranking on Google has always been the key goal, as this position guarantees greater visibility and, consequently, highly valuable organic traffic. However, it wasn't always this way. In the early days of the internet, in the late 1990s and early 2000s (when most home modems were still those 28kbps ones that made an infernal noise when connecting and sent phone bills soaring), there was a greater diversity of search engines, such as Yahoo, AltaVista, Lycos, and several others, each with its own way of crawling and ranking information. These early competitors shared a more fragmented market, but over time, Google managed to surpass them all, establishing itself as the dominant player due to its accuracy and focus on the relevance and quality of its results. The New Paradigm: Despite this historical dominance, the SEO landscape is now undergoing a significant new shift driven by the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) and the emergence of conversational search engines like ChatGPT. While Google has begun integrating AI into its algorithms with technologies like RankBrain and BERT, new AI-based conversational search models, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, are introducing a new way to interact with information. These search engines not only return links to web pages, but also generate complete, accurate, and personalized answers to user queries. The arrival of these conversational search engines raises crucial questions for the future of SEO. For example, how will the rules of the game change for SEO professionals when users no longer need to click on a link to get information? Will ChatGPT, or similar technologies, be a potential rival to Google's hegemony, altering organic web traffic as we know it? We are possibly at the beginning of a new era for internet searches, and SEO professionals must prepare to adapt to this new paradigm. A brief history of SEO and search engines: Before Google became the undisputed giant of internet searches, the landscape was very different. In the early days of the internet, between the 1990s and the early 2000s, the first search engines appeared, competing for relevance and users (and fueling the dot-com bubble, but that's another story). Among the most prominent names of that era were Yahoo!, AltaVista, Lycos, and Excite (so many memories!), each with its own approach and crawling technology. AltaVista, launched in 1995, was one of the first search engines capable of indexing a vast number of URLs, giving it an early advantage in terms of coverage and reach. Yahoo!, which also debuted in the mid-1990s, began as a hierarchical directory of websites… manually organized! As it grew, it incorporated its own search engine, although initially it relied on other systems like Google's. Each of these search engines had its strengths and weaknesses, and SEO at that time was much more rudimentary, as search engines ranked web pages primarily based on factors like keyword repetition and directory listings (did someone in the room say spam?). The landscape changed dramatically with the arrival of Google in 1998. Founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google introduced a radical innovation: the PageRank algorithm, which ranked web pages not only by the number of times a keyword appeared, but also by the quality of inbound links. This revolutionary approach transformed how information was ordered on the internet, prioritizing the relevance and authority of pages. In the following years, Google consolidated its position through a series of updates that continually improved the quality of search results and complicated the SEO process, effectively launching its war on web spam, thin content, black hat SEO practices (especially regarding link building), and everything else now included in its algorithm to ensure that the results returned in SERPs closely match users' search intent. Some of the most notable updates were: Panda (2011): This update penalized low-quality content, such as "content farms." These were websites created primarily to generate traffic without offering real value to users. Sites with duplicate or low-quality content saw their rankings drastically affected, forcing them to focus on content creation.
When I helped my partner set up a blog and it ended up winning a national award
About seven years ago, around 2017, my partner and her father wrote a book about urban gardening. It was purely for the love of it, without any great ambition behind it. As an online marketing professional, I advised them to create a website to promote the book, since it would be self-published and wouldn't have the marketing support of a traditional publisher. Although I'm not a programmer, I've used WordPress extensively over the years, building several websites and working on those of my clients, so I offered to create the website for them. The idea was to create a simple blog to share content about horticulture. This blog would also serve as a way to promote and advertise the book. In a short time, thanks to their dedication, they had a pretty decent blog, with different sections based on topics, a section where they told their story, and, of course, a few calls to action to encourage blog readers to buy the book. The Importance of Content: Simply creating a website, except in rare cases, is usually not enough to generate traffic. Simply having a website is no guarantee that people will magically visit or find it, especially if its launch lacks a clear content strategy, good technical optimization, a solid off-page SEO plan, or the boost provided by other factors such as brand awareness or other traffic drivers. Obviously, there are countless different situations and many nuances, but let's say that in the case of "homemade" websites with little to no budget, it's highly unlikely that simply creating a microsite of just a few pages will start generating traffic and visits. Therefore, it was clear that they needed to provide that website with content. After the monumental task of creating a book from scratch, and with no prior experience in similar endeavors, father and daughter set to work populating the blog with content, writing potentially interesting articles for their readers: «Everything you need to know to grow tomatoes at home,» “How to protect plants from frost and snow,” “The myth of 'I have no green thumb' and how to care for what you buy at a nursery,” “Strawberry cultivation special: how to enjoy those from your own garden,‘ and other similar blog posts. Naturally, I gave them tips on writing according to SEO guidelines: I suggested topics with high search volume and a suitable level of competition for a domain that at that time had neither age nor authority, guidelines for article writing and content structure, and so on. A little link building. But of course, as you know, semantic SEO isn't everything. So I started looking at the top-ranked horticulture blogs and analyzed their link profiles to see where they were getting links from and if there were any opportunities. that we could replicate. In other words, which websites with a certain authority and which with thematic affinity were linking to these blogs about vegetable gardens. We discovered that one of them, having won a blog contest from a well-known newspaper, had several links from the newspaper's website and from other websites that mentioned the contest and its winner. To our surprise, the submission period for the annual edition of the contest was open! Our idea was simply that, as contest participants, they might link to our blog, without any further expectation. However, my partner and her father were aware that the content was very well-crafted and created with great care. They completed all the necessary steps to register for the contest, and... all that was left was to wait and cross their fingers. It was the "20 Blogs" contest from the newspaper 20 Minutos. And, suddenly, a national prize! It must be said that, before they knew they were winners, they were informed that they had been among the three finalists. This was, in itself, a real prize for them. Especially since they were competing against a newspaper. A Madrid-based digital environmental news site, with a full staff, and the blog of a public gardening professional whose goal was to safeguard green spaces. The competition was fierce. What chance did an amateur blog run by a father and daughter sharing their tips and tricks for urban gardening have? The title of this post is a spoiler enough. So you can imagine the result. They won the Best Blog 2020 award in the Green Blogosphere category! And yes, they obviously got the coveted link from the 20 minutos website—quite a link-building achievement! Link building is a fundamental aspect of organic search engine optimization that requires planning and research (of the competition, the market in which a website operates, etc.), but also, as in this case, sometimes opportunities to build quality links that add authority to your site can arise in unexpected situations. By the way, you might be thinking that I haven't mentioned the name or URL of this famous gardening blog at any point. I did this on purpose to keep things interesting, and if you've made it this far, now comes the "reward": the site is called Growing at Home, and obviously, I encourage you to visit it. I also encourage you to contact me if you don't have a link building strategy or if you want to improve your current one.
The myth of Google's 200 ranking factors
Is it true that the Mountain View giant's algorithm uses 200 factors to determine a website's ranking? The myth that Google's algorithm relies on more than 200 ranking factors began to gain traction in 2006, when Alan Eustace, then senior vice president of the company, mentioned in a press release that Google's algorithm uses more than 200 ranking factors to determine website rankings. Interestingly, Alan Eustace, in addition to spreading this rumor within the SEO industry, is famous for having broken the stratospheric skydiving record in 2014. On October 24th of that year, he performed a freefall jump from an altitude of 41.42 km, thus breaking the world record previously held by the renowned Felix Baumgartner. Returning to our ranking factors, while di Eustace's statement conveyed the complexity of the algorithm to the general public, it also contributed to cementing the idea among many SEO experts that Google has "200 or more ranking factors." While this statement isn't entirely incorrect, this approximation falls far short of the actual number of elements that Google's algorithm considers today. Four years later, in 2010, Matt Cutts (then head of Google's anti-spam department and a prominent figure in the industry) debunked the myth of ranking factors, clarifying that the search engine is far more complex than that. Cutts explained that each of the 200 factors has 50 variations, resulting in 10,000 signals that Google's algorithm checks to rank websites. A few years later, in 2016, Google officially announced that the three most important ranking factors are content, links, and RankBrain. While other factors can influence rankings, these three are considered among the most crucial. Now, everyone knows the motto "content is king." While it could be argued that, as Google is a semantic search engine, content is clearly the primary input for the algorithm to evaluate a page's quality, it's perhaps a bit of an exaggeration to say that "content is king." Simply because there isn't a single king among ranking factors. One of the mantras of industry "experts" is the importance of constantly adding content to your website. Many SEO experts suggest, as a general rule, that new content should be added to a website at least once a week. The truth is, there's no research to support this claim or how it actually helps SEO. Moreover, upon reflection, it doesn't make any sense, since not all websites are the same and therefore cannot all have a content strategy based on a common foundation of publication frequency. Furthermore, we all agree that quality is better than quality (this could be the SEO equivalent of the saying "buy cheap, buy twice"). The only strategy that has been tried and tested is that if, within the framework of a content strategy based on generating high-quality articles or landing pages (that is, those that are useful to the user and fulfill the function of answering the search query), all aspects related to the content are addressed (structure, indexability, linking to other content through internal linking, etc.), then yes, content can be a key element in achieving organic traffic. It's not simply about producing increasingly longer articles (another myth... the one about articles needing a minimum word count) to generate traffic, but about writing content that is SEO-friendly for search engines (meaning they can crawl and index it correctly... a concept that deserves its own article to explain in detail) and for users (simply put, that answers their search query). From that official 2016 list (content, links, and RankBrain), we're left with links and RankBrain... and the eight years that have passed since then! Briefly, a website's link profile is an external factor that provides Google with a lot of information about a domain's authority. The goal should be to build a "solid" and consistent link profile, in relation to a number of metrics that also deserve a separate article. Link building (or link acquisition… or whatever you want to call it) is a practice that's as common as it is poorly executed in the vast majority of cases (I can attest to this from the incredible number of spammed link profiles I've encountered in my years working in SEO). Most "SEO experts" don't know how to build links correctly, so you have to be extremely careful when someone proposes a link building campaign (especially if this service is offered without being supported by other actions, such as content creation). Although it's predicted (or rather, assumed, since Google hasn't confirmed or denied these rumors) that the weight of external links within Google's algorithm will decrease in the coming years, it's true that today it remains an extremely important element (especially in highly competitive environments). Finally, to finish talking about these "magnificent three," there's RankBrain. But what is RankBrain? Google RankBrain is a machine learning (AI) algorithm, whose use was confirmed by Google in 2015, that helps understand search queries and deliver relevant results. RankBrain analyzes how users interact with search results.
Paella without paella, and SEO without SEO
June, Costa Brava, a restaurant with sea views. García and his family have reserved a table to enjoy a delicious paella, as this place is famous for the quality of its rice dishes. The waiter takes their drink order and brings them the menu. They choose the "senyoret" paella, the one that comes with peeled seafood. The price per person is 30 euros, and the wait is about 30 minutes. When it came time to order, García showed off his negotiating skills: “Excuse me, my son doesn’t like mussels, so just put half.” “The langoustines end up being nothing, take them out and give us more prawns.” “My wife had an allergic reaction to clams last summer; just in case, it’s better if you don’t put clams in.” “Besides, we came for the seafood, you can leave out the peas, nobody likes them anyway.” “Oh, and we’re in a hurry! You don’t need to make homemade stock, just use store-bought, you can’t really tell the difference.” “With all this, I’m doing you a favor, the paella will be cheaper for you, €20 per person, okay? And quick.” García had come to taste one of the best paellas in the area, but in the end, he ended up ordering rice with prawns, a couple of mussels, and store-bought stock. If the restaurant were to heed his requests, García, after eating his "paella," would probably think: well, it wasn't all that great, I was expecting something tastier. "Most people know what ingredients are in a paella, but not what ingredients are in a good SEO strategy." Obviously, this is an exaggeration, but it serves to illustrate that sometimes clients ask for "SEO" services, but exclude the parts they don't understand, don't consider relevant, or think are too expensive. There are "Garcías" everywhere; the difference is that most people know what ingredients are in a paella, but not what ingredients are in a good SEO strategy. Removing individual elements from a complete budget usually results in a final product that isn't what was expected. To use another analogy, we can shift from the food theme to dating. Imagine González approaches you and says, "I want to hook up, tell me exactly what I have to do." But it's not that simple. Do you want a partner, an open relationship, a one-night stand, multiple dates at any time of day...? The first step is to define your objectives. What resources do you have at your disposal? Are you already on a dating app? Do you have good, up-to-date photos? Have you crafted a well-written profile? Is it realistic? This would be the equivalent of a preliminary audit of your online presence. After a match, are you interesting? Or are you one of those people who just sends a "Hi, how are you?" We'd need to look at your metrics, your website's usability, your bounce rate, and other indicators. Lots of matches are useless if, for example, you're too lazy to chat. And once you meet in person, what then? There are many options: you can use your conversation skills, choose an interesting location for the date, opt for a specific type of clothing, highlight your physical appearance… And everything counts, of course. Well, it's the same with search engine optimization: there's technical SEO, semantic SEO, link building… and here too, everything counts! As you can see, the request to "want to hook up," which seems very clear and simple, can be approached in many ways. Just like your online presence. Trying to rank on the first page of Google with a poor SEO strategy is like trying to succeed on Tinder with a picture of yourself wearing a garbage bag over your head. Exactly the same. Putting aside the humorous comparisons in this post, all I can do is encourage you not to be like García or González. Seek advice from professionals, consider their perspectives and suggestions, trust their experience, and follow their recommendations. Your paella and your dating life are sure to improve.
Don't let keyword stuffing compromise your site's SEO
When optimizing website content for search engines, it's easy to fall into the trap (a legacy of outdated SEO practices) of trying tactics that supposedly improve the semantic relevance of our content, thus facilitating its ranking in Google and other search engine results. These supposed tactics or "SEO tips" are usually found on black hat SEO blogs and/or forums, promising to reveal tricks for quickly improving organic ranking. One such practice is "keyword stuffing," or the excessive use of irrelevant keywords. While it's true that certain black hat SEO practices can bring some (even significant) short-term benefits (or long-term benefits, depending on how skillfully the webmaster hides their tracks and hinders Google's pattern detection), keyword stuffing has proven to be an obsolete SEO tactic that can actually damage a website's visibility and organic ranking. What is keyword stuffing? According to the definition found in Google Search Center, keyword stuffing is "the practice of filling a web page with keywords or numbers with the intention of manipulating a site's ranking in Google search results." Essentially, it involves frequently repeating the same target term (keyword) on a web page to increase its relevance within the overall keyword density (what is often called "keyword density") and achieve better SEO ranking for that term in search engines. While this practice is not as popular as it was a few years ago, it's not uncommon to find websites that still use it to try to increase their visibility in search results. The traditional form of keyword stuffing involves the unnecessary repetition of words or phrases (often out of context or irrelevant to the rest of the page's content). Instead of using variations and synonyms of the keyword for which the content is being written, in accordance with natural language processing and semantic markup, as is advisable, Those who use keyword stuffing to write their content will repeat the same search term many times (especially in the first paragraphs) in order to achieve a high keyword density. What is keyword density? Keyword density in SEO is the percentage of times the target search term is used, relative to the total number of words in the content. Keyword density = (number of repetitions of the word in the text) / (total words in the text). For example, let's imagine we are supposedly optimizing 500 words of content using keyword stuffing to improve the relevance of the search term "best SEO website," and we repeat that keyword phrase 40 times throughout the text. In this case, the keyword density is 8% (40 / 500). While there's no single ideal keyword density, it's generally considered good practice to aim for a density of around 21, TP, 3, and to use synonyms or variations of the main term when repetition is necessary. Besides the practice I just described, there are other types of keyword stuffing, typical of black hat tactics used many years ago, which now guarantee penalties from Google and other search engines, who have long been aware of and able to detect these further attempts at manipulation. One such tactic involves hiding keywords from readers, making them visible only in the page's HTML (and therefore only readable by search engine crawlers), for example, by writing text in the same color as the background. Another form of keyword stuffing is the repetition of text in the page's code, particularly in meta tags (previously, the meta keyword tag was used, which Google has ignored for over a decade) and in the alt attributes of images. Why is keyword stuffing harmful to a website? One of the most obvious reasons why this practice is ill-advised and disliked by search engines is that it creates a truly terrible user experience (and we know that Google increasingly values a page's UX/UI). The purpose of website content should be primarily informative, adding value and helping the user in the decision-making process (including the purchasing process). If we fill the content with the same keywords repeated over and over, we are not fulfilling this purpose. This often happens when a copywriter (or whoever writes the content) stops writing for their readers and starts writing for search engines. This not only generates a poor user experience but will likely also lead to an increased bounce rate, resulting in a general decline in the quality of visits. Furthermore, since keyword stuffing is a practice widely condemned by search engines, writing content in this way could lead to a penalty, with disastrous consequences for the domain (or at best, for the URL whose content was written using this harmful practice), which could even disappear completely from the SERPs. Perhaps at this point you're wondering, "So, how do I use it correctly?"
Searches without interactions: what to do to avoid losing traffic?
Although it was anticipated, the day a long-awaited piece of news finally arrives marks a turning point, especially when there are irrefutable numbers to corroborate reality. Last June 2019, for the first time, more than half of the searches performed on Google.com resulted in no interaction with any of the results; that is, they didn't generate a single click. Major digital marketing portals have echoed this news, which, as I mentioned earlier, is backed by real data provided by the American data analytics company Jumpshot. This platform aggregates, stores, and organizes literally trillions of anonymous interactions per day, providing an endless amount of valuable information for decision-making by brands and e-commerce businesses. It's worth noting that the data Jumpshot used for its study refers to the analysis of more than 40 million searches performed on Google.com in June 2019, via desktop and mobile devices (including tablets) in the United States. It is possible, therefore, that the data would differ somewhat if the same study were conducted in other countries, but it is true that this trend has been observed globally for years, making this information undoubtedly valuable and representative of a shift towards a different way of consuming information through search engines. In fact, if we analyze the graph of data for the second quarter of 2019 (April, May, and June 2019), we can see that zero-click searches already represented 49.761% of all searches analyzed. In this case, the data sample analyzed consists of more than 140 million searches performed on Google.com in the second quarter of 2019 in the United States, including desktop and mobile devices. It's also interesting to note that a significant portion of searches end up going to one of Google's properties, whether it's a google.com subdomain (such as maps.google.com), YouTube, or another brand belonging to the Mountain View giant. These properties often rank highly in many search results, further reducing the likelihood of users clicking on non-Google snippets. If we broaden the timeframe and analyze the last three and a half years, we can detect a clear trend: searches without interactions have grown almost exponentially and steadily, now representing more than half of all searches. The data sample used for the trend graph above consists of over two billion searches performed on Google.com in the United States, from January 2016 to June 2019, using all types of devices. Although the upward trend in searches without interactions is evident (as is that of searches that end in a click on a paid result), to truly appreciate the increase of this type of search over time, it is necessary to break down the data by differentiating between queries made on mobile and desktop devices, since not only are these devices usually used differently (due to the different screen sizes and the time of use to which they are usually associated), but it is also necessary to take into account the impact that ads, rich results (featured snippets), answer boxes, video and image carousels, etc. have, especially on the small screens of a mobile device. It's clear that there's a very marked trend on mobile devices, indicating that the click-through rate (CTR) for organic searches has been steadily declining, dropping 15 percentage points in just three and a half years, from 41.44% at the beginning of 2016 to 26.68% in June 2019. In other words, currently only one in four organic searches performed on mobile devices generates a click on any of the results. Conversely, clicks on paid results have more than tripled, perhaps due to the various ad formats that are increasingly optimized for mobile phones and tablets. This data is obviously very interesting (for both publishers and advertisers), since more than half of all searches globally are performed from a mobile device. The same trend graph, but filtering the data for searches performed exclusively on desktop, provides a very different picture of how organic, paid, and non-interaction search traffic has evolved over the last three and a half years. The graph shows how the percentage increases (or decreases) in all three search types are much less pronounced on desktop, although the trends are the same as those observed in the mobile search analysis. But what does this data mean for a traffic manager, a digital acquisition director, or someone who simply wants to grow their online presence? Mobile is here to stay. Unless there are surprises, it seems clear that the spread and use of mobile devices will continue to increase (remember that more than half of all searches are already performed on these devices), so it's reasonable to assume that organic search will continue to generate less and less traffic due to the combination of increasingly effective ads and rich results offered by Google, especially through answer boxes and feature snippets. The importance of having an omnichannel strategy. The game is changing; there's no other option but to accept it. Focusing on a single channel (whether direct investment in paid traffic, or in content and links to improve organic ranking) can be very costly, and may not fully capitalize on the opportunities available.
