Google Top 10 Tests: How to identify valuable moments of your website

Google regularly tests pages by displaying them on the first page of the search engine result pages, and seeing how they perform. If they do well during this “test” phase, Google will keep them on page 1. This is why it’s really important to capitalise on this by optimising content. Ryte’s new feature helps you to do just that!

Free traffic to your website! More traffic means more conversions, and more conversions mean more money. So traffic equals money! That sounds pretty good, right? The whole idea of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) revolves around getting organic traffic to your website. However, it’s not as easy as it sounds. There is usually fierce competition on high volume search terms. Just because you create a website that contains certain keywords does not mean that you will also rank highly for these keywords.

Google Top 10 tests: the Barrier to Traffic

Taking that thought to a deeper level, we find that Google and other search engines carefully select which sites are worth ranking for which keywords. As well as search results being personalised, there is a general continuous change in what is shown on the first few pages. This process is called "Google Top 10 Test", and it tests which keyword-webpage combination is best suited for page 1 of the search results. Being on page 1 has tremendous results, as multiple studies have shown. From Position 1 to 5 a sharp decrease in clicks can be observed, while results on page 2 are basically in a black hole that barely anyone gets to see. No Top 10 result means no traffic.

Getting organic traffic usually boils down to two challenges:

• Being shown among the Google Top 10 results

• Having a high user-centricity in your website title and description, which results in a high CTR

A Google Top 10 Test increases traffic

Websites with high CTRs will continuously climb through the ranks, which in turn leads to more traffic. So what it comes down to (next to technical parameters) is that you want to optimise your webpage’s title and description to provide the best intent-result fit that is possible. But when you have tens of thousands of pages - which ones should you optimise?

Identify the candidates: All the pages, every day

That line of argument leads to a task many SEO managers are facing every day: Which pages are currently on the verge to reach the Top 10 results, how to identify and improve them? Imagine having the responsibility for a large website with thousands of pages. What would your approach be?

Detecting all Google Top 10 Tests manually is a huge amount of work

Any approach you develop will be highly inefficient. There is no defined time frame for a Google Top 10 Test - they might last for a long time, but they might not. There might be clear signals for a Top 10 Test - such as a sudden increase in CTR for a keyword you’re monitoring, but there’s no guarantee of clear signals. You would need to manually check every single keywords-webpage combination which results in millions of patterns. Every day. Well, obviously we don’t only state the problem, but also show the solution. At Ryte, we developed a fully automated way to identify Google Top 10 tests based on statistical pattern analysis to solve that problem for you.

Introducing Ryte’s New Feature: Google Top 10 Tests

At Ryte, we don’t only want to identify problems and provide data to analyse the problems, but rather directly solve the problem for you. Moreover, we aim to provide suggestions and recommendations to ease your life, make you more efficient and successful. Therefore, Data Science @ Ryte has produced a new feature: “Google Top 10 Tests”. Based on several statistical patterns, we analyse your historical Google Search Console data, identify Google Top 10 Tests and automatically notify you which combinations are currently being tested for a position on page 1.

As we feed the results of our calculation through your personal News Feed, we provide you with the easiest way to tackle the real issues: how can you optimise your webpages to ace the test and provide the most value to your future visitors.

The benefit to you

One of the main ideals when developing new features needs to be the value it provides to our customers and their users. Therefore, it is important to consider this fact very carefully: What is the benefit of our Google Top 10 Test? There are two parts to answer this question.

• Save time – therefore money. With notifications showing you where Page 1 tests are occuring, including recommendations sorted by priority, you save hours and hours of work. You no longer to spend hours looking through loads and loads of keywords to detect pages that are being tested by Google.

• Satisfy your users. Identifying these tests helps you ensure that your content is meeting the users’ search intent. This means your website has a better chance of fulfilling your users’ needs.

To sum it up, with this new feature, you save thousands of hours of work, and at the same time help your users have a better experience on your site when looking for the information they need. All of that through some user-centricity combined with Data Science and creativity. Oh, and did I mention that our solution is unique in the whole market?

What to do next

So what should you do once you find out you have a page that is being tested on page 1?

1. Google the keyword to find exactly where you’re being tested (e.g. people also ask, images). See if you can replicate the test.

2. Identify the intent of the search term. Ask yourself: does my search snippet and content meet the intent?

3. Have a look at best practices. What’s the best snippet in the results? How can you stand out?

4. Identify whether this is really a target keyword for you. Do you really want traffic for this keyword? How important is this keyword to your business?

5. Add the keyword to your keyword monitoring to more easily track its progress in the future

Identifying whether Google is testing you on the first page of the results is always a long manual process. And you probably won’t find many - it doesn’t happen that often!

When and why does Google test pages?

No-one knows exactly when or why Google tests pages, but here are a few scenarios where it might come up:

• If you’re tackling a longtail keyword and it’s working well, Google may test you for similar keywords.

• Search augmentation – if the search intent for a keyword is mixed, Google often tests different keywords to see which ones have the best results.

• When you create new content. After creating new content, Google will often test keywords on page 1. It’s vitally important to perform well straightaway when creating new content

• After/during a Core Update – after a new algorithm update, Google will often be testing new pages on page 1.

• If you’re website is generally of a high quality, you’re likely to get more chances for your keywords to be tested on page 1.

Ryte’s new feature, Google’s Top Ten Tests, provides a valuable opportunity to capitalise on these instances where Google is testing a web page on page 1 of the search results - helping you to save time!