Read the page as somebody who typed the query. If they would not have their answer within a screen, the ranking is borrowed and the page is not doing its job.

The page

A page ranking near the top for a specific question, receiving a few hundred visits a month.

Twelve hundred words, structured with headings, covering the topic thoroughly by any formal measure.

Almost everybody who arrives leaves within a few seconds, and the page has produced no enquiries in a year.

The business regarded it as a success because it ranked, which is the only figure anybody had been looking at.

What the reader does

They typed a specific question and expected a specific answer.

The page opens with three paragraphs establishing the importance of the topic, then a section defining terms, then a section on why it matters.

The answer, in the form of a figure and a recommendation, is in the ninth paragraph.

Most readers do not reach it, because they are scanning for the shape of an answer and the first screen contains none.

They go back and open the next result, which is what the ranking was ultimately worth.

How pages end up like this

The last is the mechanism behind most of them. Somebody observed that the pages ranking were long, concluded that length was the cause, and produced length without the substance that had made those pages long.

Ranking is not the outcome

The confusion at the root of it.

A ranking is a position, and a position produces visits, and visits are only worth something if the visitor gets what they came for.

A page ranking first and satisfying nobody is borrowing a position it has not earned, and that position is not stable.

Search results change as behaviour is observed, and a page everybody leaves immediately is not a page that stays where it is indefinitely.

So the argument for fixing it is not only commercial. A page that does not answer the question is on a position it will eventually lose.

A worked example

The page was rewritten to about six hundred words.

It opened with the answer: the figure, the typical range, and the one condition that changes it.

Then what moves the number, when it does not apply, and what to check before deciding.

The definitions and the importance-of-the-topic material were deleted entirely.

Time on page went up, the bounce rate fell substantially, and the page produced its first enquiries within two months.

The ranking did not fall, which had been the fear, and had been the reason nobody wanted to shorten it.

The test

Simple, and it takes a minute per page.

Find the query the page ranks for, which your search reporting will tell you.

Open the page as a stranger and read only the first screen.

Ask whether somebody who typed that query now has their answer, or at minimum knows the answer is coming and roughly what it will be.

Where they do not, the page is ranking for a question it does not answer.

Do this for your top ten pages by traffic, which is where the problem is worth fixing and where it is most likely to exist.

Traffic without value shows up in the figures

If you look at the right ones, which most people do not.

Compare visits against time on page and against anything the page was meant to produce.

A page with high traffic, very short visits, and no resulting action is the signature, and it is visible in any analytics account.

Rank the pages by traffic and look at that combination, rather than looking at the total, which averages the good pages with the bad.

The pages at the top of that list are where the largest improvements available to a site usually are, because the audience already exists and is being wasted.

Shorter is usually the fix

Counterintuitively, given how the pages were produced.

Cutting the preamble, the definitions, and the context frequently improves a page's performance rather than harming it.

The material that was added to reach a length is the material a reader is scrolling past to find the answer.

Where length is genuinely warranted, because the topic requires it, the length should come from more answers rather than from more approach.

A long page that answers eight related questions is useful. A long page that takes nine paragraphs to answer one is not, and they are frequently the same length.

Check what the query actually wants

Before rewriting, because the page may be answering the wrong question entirely.

Look at the results above and below yours and see what they are giving people, since that is evidence about what the searcher wanted.

Sometimes the query looks like a request for a figure and the people typing it actually want to know whether they need the service at all.

A page can be well written, direct, and answering a question nobody typed, which is a different failure with the same symptoms.

Where the query and your page have drifted apart, the fix is to write the page the query wanted and leave your original as a separate page for the question it does answer.

The counter-case

Not every page needs to produce enquiries.

Some pages legitimately exist to help people who will never buy, which builds standing and occasionally produces referrals years later.

The test is whether the reader was helped, not whether they enquired, and a page that answers a question well and produces nothing commercially may still be worth having.

There are also topics where genuine depth is required and a short answer would be misleading.

Judge by whether the reader got what they came for, and treat traffic without that as a cost rather than an achievement.

What to change

  1. List your top pages by traffic.
  2. Find the query each one ranks for.
  3. Read the first screen as a stranger.
  4. Move the answer to the opening.
  5. Delete the preamble and definitions.
  6. Add length only as more answers.
  7. Judge by whether the reader was helped.

Step three is the whole diagnosis, and it is uncomfortable precisely because these pages look thorough to anybody reading them as their author rather than as a stranger with a question.

The traffic side of this is covered in the post that brought traffic and no enquiries.

Frequently asked questions

How can a page rank and still fail?

By answering the question in the ninth paragraph. Readers scan the first screen for the shape of an answer, do not find one, and open the next result instead.

How do pages end up like this?

Written to a word count rather than a question, structured for coverage, padded with definitions, or produced by observing that ranking pages were long and copying the length.

Is ranking not the outcome?

No. A ranking produces visits, and visits are only worth something if the visitor gets what they came for. A page everybody leaves is on a position it will eventually lose.

What is the test?

Find the query the page ranks for, read only the first screen as a stranger, and ask whether they now have the answer or know it is coming.

Which figures reveal it?

High traffic with very short visits and no resulting action. Rank pages by traffic and look at that combination rather than at the site total, which averages it away.

Does shortening hurt the ranking?

Usually not. The material added to reach a length is what readers scroll past. Where length is warranted it should come from more answers rather than more approach.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Page that ranks and produces nothing?

Read its first screen as somebody who typed the query. The answer is usually nine paragraphs down.

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