What Is Meant by Pogo Sticking in SEO?
Have you ever heard the term “Pogo-Sticking” before? Maybe read it in some marketing or SEO article? Well, if yes, then the chances are that you have tried to look it up and discovered that, in reality, it is not as fun as it sounds. However, if you are still not aware of what it is about, continue reading to find out.
The term “pogo-sticking” in SEO was coined by Google itself. This term describes what happens when a visitor lands on your website from a SERP and then returns to the search engine results page, exiting your site. And from there, they click on the next search result and visit another website. Now, this right here is the worst possible case in SEO, and we just can’t exaggerate it. Forget about high bounce rates, low times on-page, or any other metrics that you have been told to be concerned about for SEO – this is worse than all of these.
Wondering why is that so? The reason behind this is quite straightforward. This serves as a signal to the search engines that the content on your page does not adequately satisfy the query the searcher came looking to find answers for from the SERP. If your website experiences too many pogo-sticking incidents, you will soon find out Google (and other search engines) have begun demoting your website to lower rankings in the SERPs.
The primary motive of search engines is to present faster and better results to the users that effectively answer their search queries as conveniently as possible. More pogo-sticking incidents mean more searchers are leaving your website in disappointment, and their decision to visit the next search result shows that they were not satisfied with the content your page offered to them. Therefore, this decreases your page’s relevance to the particular search query, resulting in a sudden drop in your SEO rankings.
How to Avoid Pogo-Sticking?
Having read the potential consequences of pogo-sticking, you must be wondering how you can prevent it from happening in the first place. So let’s dive into that.
Pogo-sticking happens when a page fails to satisfactorily answer the user’s search query for which it is actually ranking for in the SERPs. Therefore, when it comes to pogo-sticking, the key to avoid it is to provide value to the site visitors.
You don’t need to formulate some super-advanced page layout strategy or add persuasive CTAs to avoid pogo-sticking incidents. While these aspects may come in handy, you must know the one and only most efficient way to prevent pogo-sticking is to offer meaningful, relevant, and worthwhile content that either answer the searcher’s query appropriately or fixes the problem they are facing.
Analyze how visitors land on your website in the first place. Consider the types of search queries your web page is ranking for in the SERPs? Think about what must be going on in the users’ minds when they enter their queries in the search box? If your web page offers a useful answer to the search query or a solution to the user’s problem better than anybody else, you will naturally and most probably not face the pogo-sticking issue.
Your website should offer unique value to people that none of the other sites do. However, keep in mind that it should also provide the “right” value. For example, if users are searching for “television repairers” and your page is all about buying a “new television,” then you will end up receiving bulks of traffic that jump on and immediately off your website and then keep on looking for alternatives in the SERP, resulting in high pogo-sticking rates. Remember, even if your blog is about television repairers, there is a possibility that it may fail to engage the site visitors and assure them that you are credible. So, in such cases, you can expect to see increased pogo-sticking rates.
When creating content for your website or web page, focusing on offering great value to the users visiting your site is the best thing to do here. Now, this brings us to our next topic – is pogo-sticking a vital ranking factor? Let’s take a look at that.
Pogo-Sticking as a Ranking Factor
Another crucial point to note here is that pogo-sticking is not just another ranking factor – it is one of the most valuable ranking factors that search engines take into account. Search engines mostly care about only two factors, i.e., relevance and credibility of a website. Now, while online reviews and backlinks convey credibility, on the other hand, relevance is concluded on the basis of several factors. And yes, you got that right; pogo-sticking is one of those factors.
The reason is that how can search engines regard a particular page as relevant if the users keep on landing on and exiting it and then wind up searching the results somewhere else? If truth be told, sometimes, marketing professionals and SEO pros treat pogo-sticking as the most critical ranking factor of all.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to say that this is the ultimate answer because let’s face the truth, only top-ranking results receive the most clicks from the search engine results page in the first place. Besides, if content, backlinks, and reviews didn’t play a significant role, pogo-sticking would not even have a chance to become relevant.
Having said that, once your results successfully acquire a higher ranking position in the SERPs, you should undoubtedly expect pogo-sticking to acquire the status of the #1 ranking factor. Confused, why is that so? It’s because by the time your results earn a place in the first SERP, regardless of what the search query and its volume is, almost all the results on that SERP will have relevant content and backlinks. And therefore, as discussed earlier, in order to determine the relevance, search engines will take pogo-sticking into account. So that’s when you should start paying attention to it.
Wrapping It Up
This all about the term “pogo-sticking” and the horrifying consequences it brings along for your site. To sum it up, offer as relevant and high-quality content on your page as you can. Look for the search queries you are ranking for, analyze your competitor websites, and try to provide better content than them. Offering value to your visitors is the best way to avoid pogo-sticking incidents. Pogo-sticking is a vital ranking factor that search engines consider to determine a specific page’s relevance to the query it is ranking for. Last but not least, it may not be the most crucial ranking factor for websites that don’t have a prominent ranking position as they barely get clicks from the SERPs, but once you obtain a higher ranking, it becomes the #1 ranking factor.