We’re sure you’ve heard about Google’s announcement this summer. Yes, they’ve made another one. In brief, they said that they’re going to update their algorithm in 2021 to include a factor called Page Experience. This is going to be an important element that has an impact on rankings.

As part of this initiative, they’ve launched Web Vitals – a series of benchmarks essential to measuring and enhancing the user experience on the web.

Hold on. What is Page Experience, anyway? And do you really need to add to your overflowing to-do list? Let’s take a closer look.

The page experience in a nutshell

This includes existing Google Search signals: mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS, and intrusive interstitial guidelines.

It also includes metrics in Google’s Web Vitals. Currently, the focus is on three facets: loading, interactivity, and visual stability.

1. Loading, in this context, measures perceived load speed. That’s the point in the page load timeline when the main content is likely to have loaded.
2. Interactivity is the time from when a user first interacts with a page – a click or a tap, for example — to the time when the browser begins processing that interaction.
3. Visual stability has to do with preventing annoying and unexpected movement of page content.

Visual indicators of page experience

Google has also stated that by next year, they will introduce a visual indicator to designate those search results that meet all of their page experience specifications.

They’ve done something like this in the past, too. You must have observed, for example, AMP icons as well as slow and mobile-friendly labels.

If this indicator is displayed prominently in search results, there are good chances that users will prefer these sites over others.

While Google is yet to announce the shape, size, and position of such indicators, it’s a mark of how seriously they’re taking their forthcoming page experience guidelines.

This means that all of us should start planning from now itself.

Hold on. Page experience isn’t everything.

Now, you may have read this far and decided that the most important thing is to fix all of the above parameters. And you’ll see your traffic zoom.

That won’t necessarily be the case. (Although we hope it is!) You see, content is still king. Everything starts with that.

However, you can rest assured that when there are many pages that are similar in relevance, your improved page experience will make all the difference in search results.

Why you should pay attention to this algorithm update 

The fact remains that the new page experience metrics should be taken seriously by developers and all those involved in optimization strategies to improve search rankings.

To begin with, if your user experience is seen as being in the top bracket, visual cues will guide consumers and browsers to your page over the others.

Google itself is pretty clear about the increased weightage they’re going to give to page experience. After all, a terrific page experience lets people get more done and increases engagement.

It seems evident that those pages which fall below the new benchmarks are going to be left behind in the rankings. This means a significant drop in traffic.

Google already considers hundreds of aspects to determine rankings. The inclusion of page experience lets them guide people, so they can access information more easily and enjoyably.

For site owners and others, understanding these signals and making the necessary changes should be a priority.

Otherwise, you run the risk of your page being ignored. You wouldn’t want that now, would you?

For any business to succeed, you need a great website — and great tools to gauge its success. They are many tools you can use; however, measuring online traffic and data is only one small part of the bigger picture. Call tracking is the most important tool you can use to get a full understanding of your online or offline marketing efforts. Below, you’ll find the top reasons why your business needs call tracking and why tracking incoming calls can help you optimize your business to get the most out of your marketing. Call tracking can help you gather and analyze customer data to increase and improve sales.

#1 Attribute phone calls to digital marketing efforts

Without call tracking, you can’t accurately measure the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts. Sure, with Google Ads (formerly AdWords) and Analytics, you can measure online conversions and goal completions. But what if someone decides to call you instead of filling out an online form? With call tracking, phone calls will no longer be lost in translation. By tracking phone calls as conversions, you’ll be able to get a full picture of your online success.

#2 Dynamic number insertion

Dynamic number insertion is the bread and butter of online call tracking. This feature automatically assigns specific phone numbers to visitors based on their source, allowing you to accurately attribute where your calls are coming from. Even when your visitor leaves your website and comes back at a later date, they’ll continue to see that same phone number. Whether it’s a PPC ad or an organic search, you’ll always know which sources are driving phone calls.

#3 Improve customer service with call recording

Call recording allows you to gather valuable feedback about your callers and employees. For one, recording conversations enables you to better qualify leads and spend more time with the ones who are more likely to convert to sales. Secondly, recording phone calls allows you to listen in on conversations between callers and your customer service or sales team to provide tailored feedback to your employees. With call recording, you will know exactly what happens when customers call your business and you can use this information to better optimize training, marketing campaigns, the customer experience, and more.

Another bonus of call recording? You can use customer feedback to create content for your website.

#4 Measure the success of online and offline
campaigns

Web analytics makes it easy to see how your online efforts are paying off. But how do you accurately measure your offline efforts? With call tracking, you’ll have a reliable way to track your offline marketing campaigns thanks to campaign level call tracking. You can place tracking numbers in commercials, billboards, flyers and other traditional advertising outlets to accurately track the success of your efforts. By measuring this data alongside your online marketing data, you’ll have a better idea of which campaigns are yielding the greatest ROI for your business.

#5 Determine which keywords are driving calls

Call tracking enhances the power of your paid online efforts by giving you insight into which keywords are driving calls and conversions. With visitor level call tracking, Call tracking will assign a unique phone number from your number pool to each individual visitor, allowing the system to know who is calling you and how they found you online. After each visitor is done browsing your website, their phone number is freed up for another person to use. This feature allows you to effectively track your PPC visitors and which keywords they use to discover your business.

When a visitor decides to call your business, their data is fed into Google Analytics and Ads, allowing you to track phone calls as conversions. Pair this with other data you gather from Google Ads and Analytics and you’ll have a full understanding of which keywords are the most advantageous for your business.

#6 Multichannel attribution

The ability to track your customer’s entire journey is revolutionary, to say the least. With multi-channel attribution, you can see every touchpoint that leads to a phone call, allowing you to gain a better understanding of your customer.

Before multi-channel attribution, you could only see the first source a visitor used to get to your website. But now, you have the ability to gain a better understanding of your customers’ online behavior, allowing you to better attribute credits to the right marketing channels optimize your marketing campaigns in the future.

#7 Call management

An intuitive yet powerful dashboard allows you to manage calls like never before. Some key features include:

• Call scheduling: Schedule calls to be forwarded to your cell phone or another employee during designated hours.
• Custom interactive menus: Create your own menus for callers to help them reach the right person quickly.
• Keypad Scoring: Using the keypad of your phone, you can score any call as a good lead and add tags to the call to immediately categorize it and view how they became a caller.
• Select a user to receive calls from a designated tracking number to take ownership of calls.
  Building custom call flows ensures each call is answered by the right person every single time.

#8 Tie data together seamlessly with hundreds of integrations

Integrating phone call data with your sales, marketing and analytics programs of choice is possible thanks to call tracking. With more than 300 integrations available, data about your phone calls can feed right into programs such as Google Analytics and Ads, Salesforce, HubSpot and more for powerful customer insights and seamless reporting. No more having to jump back and forth with different logins and passwords — all of your data will be right in front of you on your existing accounts.

#9 Get real-time data with advanced reporting

CallRail’s call tracking platform allows you to see calls in real time to take your reporting to the next level. As soon as the phone starts ringing, you’ll be able to see which source drove the call, as well as in-depth information about your caller, including but not limited to:

• Call and text history
• Web activity, including previous email correspondence
• Previous call recordings
• Detailed caller ID information
• It’s easy to sort and analyze your reports by source and keyword to get a better analysis of your data. When you’re ready to share your data, you can easily export your reports as CSV files.

#10 Outbound call tracking

Inbound call tracking is great, but outbound call tracking is just as valuable. This useful feature allows you use to one of your tracking numbers to place calls to customers, enabling you to track and record outbound calls. With outbound call tracking, you’ll be able to see which sales team members are following up on phone leads and quickly follow up on missed calls for a faster lead response time.

Businesses that should invest in call tracking

Phone calls are a critical part of the customer journey and a key component in gaining any business new customers. If your business falls into any industry below, consider what call tracking could do your growth.

• Digital marketing agencies
• Multi-locational businesses
• Home services
• B2B/SaaS
• Legal
• Healthcare
• Automotive
• Financial
• Real Estate
• Education

Call tracking’s powerful features allow businesses to truly get to know their customers and understand their behavior. From small business owners to large corporations, call tracking can help you dig deeper into you customer insights to measure and improve your business’ success.

If you need help with your Orange County website design or Orange County Search Engine Optimization, call us and we can help.