Move over, links, content, and RankBrain — there's a new ranking factor in town, and it's a doozy. All kidding aside, the idea of searcher task accomplishment is a compelling argument for how we should be optimizing our sites. Are they actually solving the problems searchers seek answers for? In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains how searcher task accomplishment is what Google ultimately looks for, and how you can keep up.
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Video Transcription
Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week, we're chatting about a new Google ranking factor.
Now, I want to be clear. This is not something that's directly in Google's algorithm for sure. It's just that they're measuring a lot of things that lead us to this conclusion. This is essentially what Google is optimizing toward with all of their ranking signals, and therefore it's what SEOs nowadays have to think about optimizing for with our content. And that is searcher task accomplishment.
So what do I mean by this? Well, look, when someone does a search like "disinfect a cut," they're trying to actually accomplish something. In fact, no matter what someone is searching for, it's not just that they want a set of results. They're actually trying to solve a problem. For Google, the results that solve that problem fastest and best and with the most quality are the ones that they want to rank.
In the past, they've had to do all sorts of algorithms to try and get at this from obtuse angles. But now, with a lot of the work that they're doing around measuring engagement and with all of the data that's coming to them through Chrome and through Android, they're able to get much, much closer to what is truly accomplishing the searcher's task. That's because they really want results that satisfy the query and fulfill the searcher's task.
So pretty much every — I'm excluding navigational searches — but every informational and transactional type of search — I mean, navigational, they just want to go to that website — but informational and transactional search query is basically this. It's I have an expression of need. That's what I'm telling Google. But behind that, there's a bunch of underlying goals, things that I want to do. I want to know information. I want to accomplish something. I want to complete an activity.
When I do that, when I perform my search, I have this sort of evaluation of results. Is this going to help me do what I want? Then I choose one, and then I figure out whether that result actually helps me complete my task. If it does, I might have discovery of additional needs around that, like once you've answered my disinfect a cut, now it's, okay, now I kind of want to know how to prevent an infection, because you described using disinfectant and then you said infections are real scary. So let me go look up how do I prevent that from happening. So there's that discovery of additional needs. Or you decide, hey, this did not help me complete my task. I'm going to go back to evaluation of results, or I'm going to go back to my expression of need in the form of a different search query.
That's what gives Google the information to say, "Yes, this result helped the searcher accomplish their task," or, "No, this result did not help them do it."
Some examples of searcher task accomplishment
This is true for a bunch of things. I'll walk you through some examples.
If I search for how to get a book published, that's an expression of need. But underlying that is a bunch of different goals like, well, you're going to be asking about like traditional versus self-publishing, and then you're going to want to know about agents and publishers and the publishing process and the pitch process, which is very involved. Then you're going to get into things like covers and book marketing and tracking sales and all this different stuff, because once you reach your evaluation down here and you get into discovery of additional needs, you find all these other things that you need to know.
If I search for "invest in Ethereum," well maybe I know enough to start investing right away, but probably, especially recently because there's been a ton of search activity around it, I probably need to understand: What the heck is the blockchain and what is cryptocurrency, this blockchain-powered currency system, and what's the market for that like, and what has it been doing lately, and what's my purchase process, and where can I actually go to buy it, and what do I have to do to complete that transaction?
If I search for something like "FHA loans," well that might mean I'm in the mindset of thinking about real estate. I'm buying usually my first house for an FHA loan, and that means that I need to know things about conditions by region and the application process and what are the providers in my area and how can I go apply, all of these different things.
If I do a search for "Seattle event venues," well that means I'm probably looking for a list of multiple event venues, and then I need to narrow down my selection by the criteria I care about, like region, capacity, the price, the amenities. Then once I have all that, I need contact information so that I can go to them.
In all of these scenarios, Google is going to reward the results that help me accomplish the task, discover the additional needs, and solve those additional needs as well, rather than the ones that maybe provide a slice of what I need and then make me go back to the search results and choose something else or change my query to figure out more.
Google is also going to reward, and you can see this in all these results, they're going to reward ones that give me all the information I need, that help me accomplish my task before they ask for something in return. The ones that are basically just a landing page that say, "Oh yeah, Seattle event venues, enter your email address and all this other information, and we'll be in touch with a list of venues that are right for you." Yeah, guess what? It doesn't matter how many links you have, you are not ranking, my friends.
That is so different from how it used to be. It used to be that you could have that contact form. You could have that on there. You could not solve the searcher's query. You could basically be very conversion rate-focused on your page, and so long as you could get the right links and the right anchor text and use the right keywords on the page, guess what? You could rank. Those days are ending. I'm not going to say they're gone, but they are ending, and this new era of searcher task accomplishment is here.
Challenge: The conflict between SEO & CRO
There's a challenge. I want to be totally up front that there is a real challenge and a problem between this world of optimizing for searcher task accomplishment and the classic world of we want our conversions. So the CRO in your organization, which might be your director of marketing or it might be your CEO, or maybe if your team is big enough, you might have a CRO specialist, conversation rate optimization specialist, on hand. They're thinking, "Hey, I need the highest percent of form completions possible."
So when someone lands on this page, I'm trying to get from two percent to four percent. How do we get four percent of people visiting this page to complete the form? That means removing distractions. That means not providing information up front. That means having a great teaser that says like, "Hey, we can give this to you, and here are testimonials that say we can provide this information. But let's not give it right up front. Don't give away the golden goose, my friend. We want these conversions. We need to get our qualified leads into the funnel," versus the SEO, who today has to think about, "How do I get searchers to accomplish their task without friction?" This lead capture form, that's friction.
So every organization, I think, needs to decide which way they're going to go. Are they going to go for basically long-term SEO, which is I'm going to solve the searcher's task, and then I'm going to figure out ways later to monetize and to capture value? Or am I going to basically lose out in the search results to people who are willing to do this and go this route instead and drive traffic from other sources? Maybe I'll rank with different pages and I'll send some people here, or maybe I will pay for my traffic, or I'll try and do some barnacle SEO and get links from people who do rank up top there, but I won't do it directly myself. This is a choice we all have.
How do we nail searcher task accomplishment?
All right. So how do you do this? Let's say you've gone the SEO path. You've decided, "Yes, Rand, I'm in. I want to help the searcher accomplish their task. I recognize that I'm going to have to be willing to sacrifice some conversion rate optimization." Well, there are two things here.
1. Gain a deep understanding of what drives searchers to search.
2. What makes some searchers come away unsatisfied.
Once they've performed this query, why do they click the back button? Why do they choose a different result? Why do they change their query to something else? There are ways we can figure out both of these.
To help with number 1 try:
Some of the best things that you can do are talk to people who actually have those problems and who are actually performing those searches or have performed them through...
- Interviews
- Surveys
I will provide you with a link to a document that I did around specifically how to get a book published. I did a survey that I ran that looked at searcher task accomplishment and what people hoped that content would have for them, and you can see the results are quite remarkable. I'll actually embed my presentation on searcher task accomplishment in this Whiteboard Friday and make sure to link to that as well.
- In-person conversations, and powerful things can come out of those that you wouldn't get through remote or through email.
- You can certainly look at competitors. So check out what your competitors are saying and what they're doing that you may not have considered yet.
- You can try putting yourself in your searcher's shoes.
What if I searched for disinfect a cut? What would I want to know? What if I searched for FHA loans? I'm buying a house for the first time, what am I thinking about? Well, I'm thinking about a bunch of things. I'm thinking about price and neighborhood and all this. Okay, how do I accomplish all that in my content, or at least how do I provide navigation so that people can accomplish all that without having to go back to the search results?
To help with number 2 try:
Understanding what makes those searchers come away unsatisfied.
- Auto-suggest and related searches are great. In fact, related searches, which are at the very bottom of the page in a set of search results, are usually searches people performed after they performed the initial search. I say usually because there can be some other things in there. But usually someone who searched for FHA loans then searches for jumbo loans or 30-year fixed loans or mortgage rates or those kinds of things. That's the next step. So you can say, "You know what? I know what you want next. Let me go help you." Auto-suggest related searches, those are great for that.
- Internal search analytics for people who landed on a page and performed a site search or clicked on a Next link on your site. What did they want to do? Where did they want to go next? That helps tell you what those people need.
- Having conversations with those who only got partway through your funnel. So if you have a lead capture at some point or you collect email at some point, you can reach out to people who initially came to you for a solution but didn't get all the way through that process and talk to them.
- Tracking the SERPs and watching who rises vs falls in the rankings. Finally, if you track the search results, generally speaking what we see here at Moz, what I see for almost all the results I'm tracking is that more and more people who do a great job of this, of searcher task accomplishment, are rising in the rankings, and the folks who are not are falling.
So over time, if you watch those in your spaces and do some rank tracking competitively, you can see what types of content is helping people accomplish those tasks and what Google is rewarding.
That said, I look forward to your comments. We'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.
Thanks for checking out Whiteboard Friday this week everyone. This one's particularly important, IMO, because we've been seeing more and more searches where the results that win aren't those with the most links, the best anchor text, the best KW targeting, or the highest authority. Instead, we see sites and pages winning with content that does the best job answering the searcher's query -- completing that task!
Some examples:
Would love to hear if you have more to share, and if you've seen this in your SEO work of late, too. I think it's a truly exciting development in the search rankings, because it suggests we might be able to win certain kinds of rankings without the insanely difficult process of outearning our competitors links, and instead winning on better searcher task accomplishment.
Thanks for giving us a head start in the new age SEO! :) hahaha
Watched the whole video.
Still don't know how to disinfect a cut and now I'm also worried about infections...
A very good reason this URL definitely shouldn't rank for "disinfect a cut," even it does have the keywords on the page and get lots of links or anchor text and live on an authoritative website :-)
We'll see if I can get it ranking for "searcher task accomplishment," though!
I have read the whole article and I think the reflection is very good, but I have a doubt. This reflection is good for all areas of the maketin ?.
In a ecomerce for example, this is not applicable, since I give you information first hand. Or am I wrong ?.
Greetings
Great WBF and so important for this to be communicated now to webmasters and marketers.
I am not yet convinced that a page can rank on searcher satisfaction alone. If the page has weak relevancy signals and little or no link authority it's never going to get the chance for Google to collect any searcher satisfaction signals.
I believe that relevancy and links get you to the first two pages of SERPs. Once there, searcher satisfaction becomes the most important ranking factor. This makes intuitive sense, fits perfectly with what Google users would want and confirmed in all the examples Rand provides above.
I would add that we should also be thinking much more about searcher satisfaction in the SERP snippets. I see so many cases now where Google is ignoring the meta description and replacing it with text from the page that helps the searcher better understand that the page will satisfy their needs.
I have been telling my clients for years that their primary focus should be search engine users, not search engines.
I totally agree with you, Danny. I think a site needs first to have traffic and links, so Google he can have signals about whether the page answers the need or not. That's why for me it's a bit early for saying that searcher task accomplishment is the most important factor.
I'm sure it'll be, though!
True Danny.. Relevancy is matter. Here, Rand really did great research. boww
If search engines are using task accomplishment as a ranking factor then fast rankings will probably not occur. Your new page will be indexed, appear in the SERPs, and then climb or sink slowly as Google collects data from your visitors, applies that to your ranking score, and adjusts your position. Fast rankings will only occur where there is enormous activity for Google to monitor.
I think that Google has been using this for a while. It explains how a page with very few links can rank well in difficult SERPs against other pages that appear more powerful based upon traditional SEO metrics.
When Google believes that based on overall domain-relevance, content relevance (word2vec) and content quality, a new page could be super relevant, they might just rank it for a few days and see what happens. Good user signals -> rank it even higher; bad user signals -> throw it away. So even with task-completion as a ranking factor, fast rankings could occur.
But I agree, when a lot is going on (Query Deserves Freshness) fast ranking changes are more common.
Great video Rand! And I think very appropriate to post the week of Mozcon as I feel like this topic was the main recurring theme and takeaway this year.
Even if this isn't something that is part of the algo, it's wise thinking for anyone in the business.
I've always pushed our clients away from the concept of rank and more towards increasing revenue, profit, leads, etc.... you know, actual KPIs, and not the diagnostic metrics that tend to obscure the true goals of any digital marketing activity, including SEO.
The idea that Google could actually be using this as a ranking factor is a fun concept, but I wonder if Google would truly have all it needs to answer this question without becoming invasive.
Either way, a great read.
Hi Rand, another great subject today, It looks like Google are moving towards becoming the personal assistant solution for everyone on the net?
Hope the Arm gets better soon. you should get that looked at :-)
see you next week.
Hey Rand,
What you're referring to is also named "the long click":
~ Steven Levy. In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes our Lives
Rand, a wonderful investigation!
This is all about understanding the searcher's intent. You know what? I believe that the way Google is adding direct as well indirect ranking factors, it will be difficult for the SEOs to make their customers understand that SEO process will become slower day by day.
Also, I feel that this is the reason why we see such new search helpers like knowledge graph, featured search snippet, and the one that comes in the end of the SERPs - "similar search related to <search query>" (an old one which is a real gold one). These are definitely helping Google to understand that what all queries a user would be searching for, to accomplish his task.
What are your thoughts on this, Rand?
Hi Rand Fishkin,
Thank you for more valuable information. I watched your video and I saw there a ways more simple way!
thanks.
Very apt WBF for today's times. The searchers attention is getting smaller and the total searches are increasing. In order to fulfill both these these demands your content has to be in-depth that will provide the searcher with all the required information (In-depth content) and secondly has to provide the answer quickly which can be provided by including a brief summary that answers the searchers query at the beginning of the page.
This is still a little bit fuzzy to me. I know that I have to satisfy visitors with all my arms but generally how it'll be done?
With bunch of strong and meaningful contents linked together? or make force the visitors to stay as long as they can on the site? or making them to buy or send a comment or visit out contact us page? or all of them?
I'm still learning so bear me with mind.
Thanks for another great WBF!
It would be interesting to see if there is any correlation between searcher task accomplishment and length of articles.
Intuitively, comprehensive task accomplishment will take a fair amount of explanation in most cases.
Also, the rise of searcher task accomplishment seems to coincide with Google's preference for long form content.
The question is, does the empirical evidence hold up under solid research?
Ok. Nice video... But... Isn't this kind of old?
The core of SEO
is(!)
was(!)
and will ever be(!!!!)
=> Providing additonal benefit to the user. That's it. End of the storie.
Everything which helps users is good. Everything which is not directly linked to users benefit is allready bullshit or will be bullshit during next updates of google. You can't trick google on long term. Even on short term you wil get f*** most likely. If you do things which are awesome for benefit but google can't value it right now, you will get a uplift in future. That's it. So damn simple is SEO.
-> Understand who are your users you wan't to reach
-> Understand what are there questions, thoughts, idears, => what do the just "want"?
-> Answer their problems, help them => provide additionale beneftit
We ranking with the most used open source shop systems (magento) on position number 1 in germany.. Accident? nope.. Just sticking by our own belives about seo. Providing additional benefits to the users in all different kinds of ways.
Fascinating white board, Rand! I truly hope Google does continue to go in this direction - especially because it's too easy to dupe them with paid links and black/gray hat tactics. The highest bidder shouldn't get the best result, the best content should.
I'm curious of your thoughts on how this applies to ecommerce, where there's often very little content on the pages. How do you optimize product pages for searcher task accomplishment?
I read your post with most intention but me too believe that only links from relevant sources put our website in SERPs. But that case happens when there are a lot of competitors. Otherwise i ran a website with some low quality but unique contents, i received 2000 unique visitors/day and my alexa rank, analytics reports were good, only i had a low domain authority of 14 but i was still an authoritative niche in the eyes of Google. because my topic was blind accessibility so there were no competitors.
I tell my clients all the time that Google has a significant interest in making sure that searchers have fulfilling experiences. There's a strong business case for why they would pursue this path, even if we can't exactly prove it yet.
To me, it's a no-brainer that we take this as gospel and invest in finding the most efficient balance between CRO and SEO, since they can compete with each other or support each other or both!
Rand, what a fantastic video. Tremendous value for anyone and everyone who wants to do online business. I am so glad to have discovered you recently.
We need to show our website users that "we care" by going deep into their query by not only answering their initial question but also their follow-up questions.
Thank you very much. Very grateful for your amazing work.
Hi Rand,
Thanks for this white board Friday. Great Topic . Relevant !!! . I think Google should make some immediate changes in its algorithm . I say so because as Google focuses on User Experience and User Satisfaction, it should give more importance to Content which completely satisfies user needs rather than Links which mainly depend on relation building and external factors rather than the actual user . What you think Rand?
Thanks
Nice post Rand!
It is a rather interesting subject.
Google is still trying to make things simpler. It is true that when you are looking for something, you want to find it as fast as possible and of course it is what we are really looking for. But if it also teaches us additional information that we may find useful to know, much better.
Regards und until next WBF.
Been reading plenty lately on what really matters to Google. I have written and spoken in the past about how Google's algorithm seems to get tweaked to bring search back in line with providing the best results based on the query and to do so without artificial influences (black hat). It has always been my theory and approve that Google treats search in much the same way we provide recommendations in the real world.
That boils down to professionalism and expertise as my two, and generally most people's, top ranking criteria. All other factors, in some way, tie back into those. For Google, professionalism is site architecture (onsite optimization, page load times, etc). Expertise is site authority - and without question, authority is derived from backlinks (more specifically the link profile). You do not earn backlinks without high end content.
SEO for me is all about content and site architecture. My simple disclaimer: even a poor site with high end, professionally written content will work (think about the best food in town at the restaurant with crappy service).
To the point of this article, the TYPE of matters. For me, the idea has always been to provide valuable content which addresses the concerns or questions others have and want resolved.
This is a real goodun. Thanks for consistently giving hope to us smaller local businesses. This page should rank for 'awesome'
When i survey's a single search from my relevant industry it has too many keywords because i am dealing in e-commerce market, so i am searching about buyer persona's like how many different type of pharmacist? and what type of medical uniform they wear?, so do i need any special survey, interviews, or any other tactics to take feedback from customers?
It looks like Google is doing some testing ... It does not always appear the listing that was displayed here in this article .... Different Featured "snippets" are being displayed.
I consulted and saw that Google says a little about it at this link => https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6229325?hl=en
More I will do some tests here in Brazil (Google BR)
I watched the video, but is there a ways to understand "search task accomplishment" in more simple way!
Thanks for another great WBF, Rand.
Happy Weekend all Moz Fans
Awesome post!! It´s amazing how smart is getting Google, Is it going to become something like Skynet?
And now, talking seriously, I appreciate a lot all these advices, I was considering changing my mind about SEO for my blog, and I think that now is time to put the focus in the user satisfaction.
But in the other hand, as @sergiolara, I wonder how can we deal with that in an ecommerce? Any advice?
Hey Rand, this is super interesting topic. Usually when you have done all your "magic tricks" and still can't figure out why someone else is ranking higher, its most probably due to this.
I think the big question here is what we can considered to be "completed task" and how Google counts them? Visitor behavior suggests that going back to Google from search results is a bad thing. So does this mean we should focus making content more into multiple pages so that visitor does not go back Google? Is answering every question in a page is a bad thing? What if lead form is searcher task completed?
I believe Google does more than just track visitors going back to search results but what else Google might be doing to track searchers completing tasks. What do you think?
So on the other hand there might be less of a conflict between CRO and SEO for transactional search queries? I mean: If the user searches for "buy XYZ" then there should be a very big "buy" button on the page, souldn't it?
Hi Rand, do you think that this type of trend towards "task acomplishment" results will change the search behaviour of the searcher? Perhaps towards longer tail more detailed questions/search phrases because they start getting more pertinent results for that type of query. Also, will there be less less reliance on auto suggest (perhaps that will change as a result)
It would also suggest that this links in well for voice search on devices where people have less time or ability to evaluate results (mobile, Alexa etc etc)
Either way it is great opportunity and i like to think that great websites with great value to searchers will be rewarded.
Thank you for this Rand, i know i say this every week but you do pull off a good video. This search task accomplishment i have been doing for some time now. The rankings are there but as i have left the pages there and just created more blog posts, like a blog post on the locations as well as the products, the rankings are constantly positive. Bit worrying when you have to think about removing the contact forms though, i wonder where people are going to start to try and convert there potential clients.
These next couple of years in the marketing world are going to be very interesting.
Nice post!! I like two steps of CRO process of accomplishment task first is competition analysis and survey of small group.. I think these two steps are really interesting and helpful..sometimes we ignore these steps..
Thanks for this Rand, I have just experimented with ‘related search terms’ It's a great method to use when structuring a series of blogs. Just a thought - when I want to know how to do something I search for videos that show me rather than read about it. Maybe format preferred by the user is also relevant to searcher task accomplishment?
Format is definitely an important factor in searcher satisfaction.
I'm not sure I would just assume that any particular format (e.g. video) is going to be the best format in all cases.
I often click away from video content because it is harder for me to scan the solution and get to the answer quickly. Each query needs to be evaluated in context.
Yes good point - I admit to skimming videos to find the information I want in the same way I skim a blog post, although blogs are usually better signposted. As you say in your other comment, the primary focus should be on the user rather than search engines.
You go a week to the beach and Google has already changed their algorithms haha! He does not let us live in peace or on vacation ...
Seriously, excellent post Rand !! A pleasure to learn from you!
Hi Rand, great video and article once again, thank you.
I optimise for debt recovery and insolvency law. I write 10X content (thanks for that) and spend usually between 5 to 10 hours on each piece of content, outbound links to precedent cases, internal links to relevant content, images, lsi, relevant searches as sub-headings, etc... So, I like to think that I do answer the searcher's query and provide all the answers.
However, ultimately we are a business and we do not want out potential clients to be able to do it themselves, we want to do it for them and charge them for it. It almost seems that the better the content, and/or the better you serve a searcher's query, in certain instances, the less likely you are to make a conversion.
For example, I just wrote a huge piece on how to draft statutory demands if a company owes you money. If I make it too good, the client may just attempt to do it themselves and I lose the lead.
I guess the extra impressions (due to this searcher accomplishment bump) counteracts the content being so good that the client doesn't need you any more. Just a thought.
Great Whiteboard today. Searcher task accomplishment results in happy searchers. Over optimized websites can rank well but if they don't assist the searcher in task accomplishment they are not very useful.
Seeing more and more results that help accomplish the query's task results in a better internet. The intent of the person making the query should be first and foremost.
"Tracking the SERPs and watching who rises vs falls in the rankings. Finally, if you track the search results, generally speaking what we see here at Moz, what I see for almost all the results I'm tracking is that more and more people who do a great job of this, of searcher task accomplishment, are rising in the rankings, and the folks who are not are falling."
The new white hat!
Very helpful!
Another great WB Friday! Thanks!
Very interesting that now conversion rate optimization and SEO may be at odds. Marketers will have to decide whether they want to provide a frictionless SEO-friendly experience by offering content to users without any forms or gated content, or continue to try to drive conversions by offering teasers and then sign-ups to get to the quality content. Makes me think: I wonder if there's a tactic to have our cake and eat it too?
To be honest, I think that in the past CRO was at odds with SEO. But right now SEO and CRO are already going hand in hand. "Downloading a gated whitepaper" COULD already be the desired task accomplishment for a search query you wish to rank for.
And don't forget that CRO is more than "gating things". Really good CRO is about helping users to reach theirs goals. And that helps with the above mentioned ranking factor "task accomplishment".
Good WBF, an excellent way to put marketing to users first to do great SEO. Starting by deeply understanding the users and what can you do (if you can't you take on another topic) and only then do your typical onsite/offsite SEO.
I think task based approach is why I see a resurgence of PDF and old ugly websites, etc. who are tied to the query intent and for niche queries in verticals with not a lot of content. Conversion focused pages used to take that space with basics SEO stuff done; now it's not enough they can outrank by PDF that is more aligned with the intent, still far from perfect but interesting :-)