Fibre Marketing

Year: 2020

The Canonical And Mobile-Indexing Bugs: What You Need To Know

Posted on by Laura

September saw some noticeable canonical and indexing issues that affected Google’s search results. Although some in the SEO community originally thought that these spikes in the SERPs were the result of an as-yet-unannounced Google update, it was later revealed to be two different bugs that were causing all the commotion.  

As confirmed by Google, one of the issues affected mobile indexing, while the other affected canonicalisation, which in turn affected how content was being shown in search results. For clarification, canonicalisation refers to search engines being notified of which version of a URL is the ‘original’. If a site owner decides to syndicate content – meaning they allow their content to be republished on another site – then canonical tags are used to show search engines whether a URL is the original content page, or a ‘duplicate’. This helps the site that originally provided the content to still rank in the SERPs when its content is reproduced elsewhere.   

So, if your site’s organic traffic was affected on 21st September, it was likely due to the indexing issues. 

On 1st October, Google Search Liaison reported they were “working to resolve two separate indexing issues that have impacted some URLs.” 

They have been elaborating further via their Twitter thread:  

What Happened 

On 23rd September, there was talk in the SEO community of another Google search ranking algorithm update, with automated tracking tools showing spikes. Users reported seeing unrelated results for their queries, and there were reports of previously indexed web pages no longer appearing in search results.  

The fluctuating SERPs can be seen in this screenshot of the SERP volatility checker below: 

SEO veteran Glenn Gabe commented on 26th September: “I had a news publisher reach out to me that has seen 1,300 articles get canonicalised TO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ARTICLES.” 

Fibre previously tweeted about the issues on 30th September (see here).  That same morning, SEO Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz reported seeing several complaints on Twitter about pages being dropped from Google’s search index.  

One user commented on the article, “Today I found out that the main page has disappeared from the index. The page has been in the top for more than 4 years, no prohibited methods were used, there were no alerts, no changes were made to the site either. Yesterday I filled out the questionnaire “Share your experience with Search Console Insights” and today the page is not in the index, and accordingly the drawdown of positions and traffic. Where to dig, what happened.”  

However, Google Search Liaison said the canonicalisation problems actually started as early as 20th September, and that the mobile-indexing issues began even earlier (although these bugs really became more noticeable on 21st September); 

Why It Matters 

The topic of duplicate content is already tricky in the SEO community, as you have to be careful that search engines don’t mistake the wrong URL as the original. When Google started selecting the wrong page despite the canonical tag, this made the situation even more complicated. The canonicalisation issue has resulted in syndicated content no longer being linked to its original site, so original web pages no longer showed in the search results, causing sites to lose organic traffic. URLs that once ranked well in the SERPs no longer rank.  

The Current Situation 

Gary Illyes from Google said that they are “estimating the impact and potentially annotating the reports affected,” which means Google might be adding footnotes to Search Console reports to highlight the indexing bug. 

Google said the indexing bug only impacted about 0.02% of its index, and as of 2nd October, Google restored about 10%. This was followed by another update on 6th October, where Google Search Liaison reported this: 

What Can Site Owners Do? 

Site Owners don’t need to panic; in this case it is down to Google to fix the problem.  

On 2nd October, Google Search Liaison tweeted: 

Conclusion  

This isn’t the first time Google has experienced indexing issues; 2020 has seen numerous problems take place. For instance, just in September Google reported an indexing bug in the Top Stories section of search, and, back in July, Google Search Console flagged up a problem with indexing, but this was fixed relatively quickly and with less commotion. And lets not forget the large glitch that occurred in August, caused by an indexing bug, which resulted in major, temporary changes to search rankings.  

There has long been speculation that something is underway at Google; so perhaps these bugs are just the catalyst for bigger changes further down the line? We’ll keep an eye out for more developments.  

Implementing SEO For A New Website

Posted on by Chloe

Starting out in the world of SEO can be a bit daunting, especially when you’re working on a new site. Nevertheless, getting just a few basics right can be enough to start seeing real results, whatever your marketing goals are. A good rule of thumb is to begin by tackling the fundamentals first, and leave the more complex SEO techniques for your SEO marketing team – especially since the more exotic methods tend not to have as great an effect on your results as simply doing the basics correctly.

Here’s a list of things you can do when working on a new website.

Understand what SEO is

In a nutshell, SEO is Search Engine Optimisation, so any techniques and methods you use to improve your visibility to search engines like Google. You can pay for traffic and clicks (PPC), but SEO is largely used for organic results. People tend to click overwhelmingly on the first few highest-ranking results and ignore the rest – hence the need for SEO to make sure you appear in these top coveted positions.

The main goal is to make sure that search engines can easily find your page. Your content, keywords and technical SEO will affect how you show up in search results, but you need to understand exactly how a) the search engine is viewing your site and, more importantly, b) how your visitors are viewing it.

Both search engines and users are looking for content that is actually relevant to their search terms. Though keywords are important, the overall quality and richness of content makes the difference. Your content should be posted regularly, and needs to be trustworthy, useful, authoritative (i.e. you’re an expert voice or link to one) and somewhat novel.

Setting up Google Analytics

Whatever SEO methods you end up using, you’re going to need a way to track and monitor their effectiveness so you can adjust as needed. The most popular (and free) way to do this is via Google Analytics. You’ll first need to create and then sign into your account. Set up what’s called a “property” (i.e. your website) and then set up a reporting view for this property – the app itself will guide you through this process. Finally, you’ll need to add a tracking code to the website so Google can begin gathering and analysing data from it.

Once you’ve acquired some data, you can look at how your site is performing. Take a look at your main page and click “All Sessions.” Look at the audience overview and select “organic traffic.” From these menus you can customise which data stream you look at.

Using Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a fantastic free tool that tells you how often your site has been crawled, what Google thinks of your site, and any issues that it may have. Here you’ll find valuable data such as how often your site appears in Google’s search results, which search queries conjure your site, and how often users click through for those queries. You could also use a rank tracker to see how specific keywords are performing, and adjust as you go, making sure that you’re staying relevant compared to your competition.

Keyword Discovery

Keyword research is another thing you can get started with even as a beginner, bearing in mind that a huge proportion of sites ever created are never actually searched for. Understanding your niche and what your customers want can help you brainstorm keywords, but you can also check what words work for your competitors, or use a keyword discovery tool. Here, you put in “seed keywords” (broad terms relating to your niche) and it generates some ideas to further investigate.

Starting a Blog Page

A simple way to begin creating useful content (with keywords) is to start a blog page. Whatever platform you’ve used to create your site, simply spend some time making a well-indexed blog page with content that genuinely addresses your readers’ problems and adds value. A blog is a great way to build content and increase your ranking and visibility. To brainstorm topics, think of your visitors search terms, and use these as keywords to organise an article or guide.

Once you’ve generated some content, you can begin to optimise those keywords, and build in internal and external links. Take the time to include keywords in titles, meta descriptions, and title tags – and don’t forget to include them in your image tags and captions, too.

The next steps

As you begin to feel more comfortable with various SEO tactics and your new website starts to flourish, you can also start various other tasks, such as:

  • Schema markup, which will improve the search result appearance – for both search engines and humans.
  • Signing up to Google My Business (GMB), to help ensure that your local area can find your business online, so they can visit you later.
  • Submitting your sitemap.
  • Optimising your site for mobile and ensuring that it loads quickly for your online visitors.

As your website continues to grow, the number of SEO strategies to use will increase. But by applying the tips above, you’re already on the right track.

The Google Guaranteed Badge: What We Know So Far

Posted on by Chloe

There have been many signs that Google will launch a subscription-based plan that monetises local SEO, and we may now be another step closer.

The Google Guaranteed badge enables businesses to be screened by the search engine giant. If you pass, you’re awarded the badge, which in turn makes your Local Service Ad (LSA) stand out even more from the very top of search results, thanks to the bright green tick that appears underneath your business name and star rating.

But will this subscription plan truly catch on? Here’s what we know so far.

The Basics

Google My Business (GMB) started as a free marketing platform for all kinds of businesses, allowing business owners to control their presence online. But fraudulent listings slowly grew into more of a problem, and so Google realised that it needed to up its game when it came to building trust for its users. How can people really be sure that these businesses and sole traders are safe enough to invite into their homes?

Google tested ‘Home Services Ads’ for services such as plumbers and cleaners, allowing users to regain confidence in those who were advertising themselves via paid local search. The search giant then stated:

“In order to prevent fraudulent businesses from advertising on Google using false identities, Google Ads and Local Services advertisers in certain verticals will be required to complete Advanced Verification.”

In the past, businesses have relied on reviews and ratings left by their customers, which boosted local search rankings. But depending on everyday users made it harder for Google to verify each business, so now they are upping their game, it seems.

The Google Guaranteed Badge

The spam build-up has resulted in the coveted badge (which was released in 2016 to LSA’s only, but first promoted to GMB members in 2020), allowing various service providers to improve their local Ads. Over the past few years, Local Service Ads have been slowly moving up to top the local SERPs for home maintenance searches, and this has just confirmed Google’s push for this channel.

Google Guarantee Badge Preview

So how can local businesses get the badges?

Google sent out emails to GMB members (of eligible industries) who aren’t already using Local Service Ads during the summer months, offering an ‘upgraded business profile’ for $50 a month. This was immediately met with suspicion throughout the SEO community, as it adds to the belief that Google is trying to shift organic search to paid.

For those who sign up, they will undergo background checks and provide various documentation and credentials. Thanks to Google’s use of third parties, the overall process can take weeks or months.  

The Reaction

There has been a mixed reaction overall about the badge. Many saw it as a new opportunity to stand out against competitors operating in the same area, which may drive said competitors to also invest in the badge. There’s no denying that this may be an exciting era for small business owners – to say that you’ve obtained a Google Guarantee badge does give off a good impression.

However, one obstacle is the cost. Not all business owners – especially those just starting out – can afford to pay $50 a month. They risk losing out on customers because one or two of their competitors have obtained the Google Guaranteed badge, and so are more appealing to users than the listing without. SEO veteran Lily Ray tweeted that it “boils down to whether it’s worth $50 a month for your business to have a label that says “Google screened this business.”

As more information rolls out about this badge system, we can only imagine what this means for not just paid local search, but organic too. The fact that Google reached out to GMB members who were not utilising LSA suggests that, as aforementioned, they are once again attempting to push organic search into the hands of online advertisers. As Search Engine Journal pointed out, what once started as a move to combat fraud, now appears to have a monetary aim.

We’ll certainly be keeping an eye on this one to see where things go.  

 

Above image from Search Engine Land.

Back to Basics: How to Use Keywords in Your Content

Posted on by Chloe

 

Most people are only ever going to look at the first page of search results, with most of their clicks going to just the first three hits. Since keywords are used by search engines to decide who ranks within search results, it makes sense to optimise keywords to get as much organic traffic as possible. We’ve compiled a few practical ways you can do this below.

Firstly, a keyword is any word or phrase that describes your content. These are (or should be) the words that users type into a search engine, and they’re also the words that a search engine is going to use to index your site, so it knows exactly what to show people when they make a search query.

Knowing this, it’s clear what the overall goal of keyword use is to make your content seem as relevant as possible.

Devise a focused content strategy

It’s never enough to simple stuff content with keywords you guess are appropriate. Each piece of content ideally should focus on one keyword. The keyword discovery process can be done on your own or with a marketing team – look for “people also searched for” for some easy clues. You could also access your Google Search Console to find out what keywords people are already using when they arrive at your site.

Single word keywords may be more natural, but you’re facing enormous competition with them – try to think of some long tail keywords as well (for example, “best affordable wedding venues Devon”), to really hone in on your site.

Think about where to place your keywords

An SEO marketing team can help you with the technical SEO side of things, but you can get started by adding keywords to titles. A title summarises the page and is the first thing people will read. There are apps and software to tweak titles for maximum potential in search rankings (such as Yoast) or you can simply take care to make sure your keywords are appearing as early as possible in the title.

Meta-descriptions fall underneath headings in the search result, and need to contain keywords. You’ve taken the time to craft high-quality and value-adding content, now you need to summarise it clearly. You may also choose to structure your subheadings so they appear in a featured snippet or question box – these need to be very relevant to your content and the search query.

Your keywords obviously have to appear in the content itself. It’s worth being careful here, since unnatural tactics like keyword stuffing can actually damage your rankings. Use your primary keywords in both your title and preferably within the first and last 200 words or so of the text. If you can, keywords in the very first paragraph are even better.

Finally, make sure you have some keywords in your various subheadings, and also in the anchor text of your links – but try to keep it varied. Put keywords in your image-alt tabs, and in your website URL. Depending on your content marketing strategy, you may like to highlight keywords in any social media posts you make.

Decide on how many keywords to use

Aim for around 5 to 10 keywords per piece. To make this easier, brainstorm just one primary keyword and then think of some additional secondary keywords. If you’re unsure if you’re using too many, the test is simple – if the flow seems unnatural or forced, you need to remove keywords. Another rule of thumb is to distribute keywords so there’s one every 100 to 150 words, or about one per paragraph.

Use keywords naturally in high quality content

Your main goal with a sound content creation strategy is to produce content that is high quality and extremely relevant to readers. You need to appeal to potential customers while making it easy for search engines to rank you highly.

It’s your primary keyword that should appear in the most obvious and prominent locations, with your secondary and additional keywords appearing more dispersed throughout the rest of the content. When in doubt, always prioritise your human readers above the search engine algorithms.

Some keywords are just naturally more awkward than others, but you have some wiggle room and can use stop words to make things flow better. For example, the keyword “marquee hire Devon” can also be “Marquee hire in Devon” without affecting how it appears to Google’s web crawlers.

With these few basic tips, you’re well on your way to creating an effective keyword strategy.

Capturing Users’ Attention Span With SEO

Posted on by Chloe

When used correctly, SEO is a powerful tool that can drive traffic to your site, boost search engine rankings, build brand awareness, and ultimately, increase sales and revenue. Utilising strategies to improve your SEO can be an effective way to drive growth within your company and achieve your strategic business objectives.

That being said, your SEO strategies will only be effective if you manage to capture your users’ attention quickly. Even though the idea that an average person’s attention span is just 8 seconds has been debunked, it is true that users are less willing to wait around for appealing content. 38% of people will leave a website if the content is unattractive, and it takes just 5 seconds for them to form an opinion about a site overall (according to sweor), meaning that you don’t have long to win users over.

With that in mind, let’s look at some of the top ways to capture users’ attention with SEO in 2020.

Create engaging content

Quality content is key when it comes to capturing your customer’s attention and boosting your search engine rankings. It is no longer enough to simply publish blogs and post the odd status on social media. Your content should be tailored to your intended audience and written in a way that users will find engaging and interesting. For instance, make sure that any blog posts have a well-written introduction that will hook your readers and keep them interested. You should also focus on writing in a way that is natural and friendly. You can capture your users’ attention with content by asking questions, requesting feedback from your customers, and ensuring that your content brings value to the reader.

We also have a number of posts on our blog to help you create valuable content:

Understand your audience

For your content marketing strategy to be successful, you must have a clear understanding of your intended audience. You should conduct thorough audience research to determine who your audience is and how they behave online. It is also important to learn about their marketing preferences – for example, do your customers prefer to read blog posts or watch video content?

Having this insight will allow you to tailor your content and connect with your target customers more effectively. This information can also be used to optimise your website and make your pages more user-friendly and appealing. Overall, understanding your audience will help you learn how to keep your users’ attention using content and SEO.

Focus on your website speed

Website speed is fundamental to SEO and it will be virtually impossible to improve your search engine rankings if you have poor loading speeds. Marketing studies show that web pages that take five seconds to load have a 35% bounce rate. Research has also found that a massive 79% of consumers won’t return to a company if they experience poor website performance. Think about it – there are hundreds of companies online offering similar products and services. With so much choice available, users are less likely to accept issues like slow page loading times. People will simply leave your site and search for an answer to their query elsewhere.

With that in mind, you must optimise your web pages and focus on increasing usability. Some suggestions to help you improve your page load speed include enabling compression, reducing redirects, and improving the service response time.

Remove potential distractions

Your page loading speed is important, but you must also place a special focus on your website design and remove potential distractions. If a user lands on your site and becomes distracted or frustrated by things like pop-ups and redirects, then you are likely to experience a high bounce rate. This will harm your search engine rankings and damage your SEO efforts. You can conduct a website audit to identify any issues with your site that may frustrate your users. On that note, here are some tips to improve your website design:

  • Minimise the number of advertisements and banners displayed on your website.
  • Break up large blocks of text with headings, images, and other visual media.
  • Repair any broken images or links and reduce the number os pop-ups.
  • Make your site easy to navigate and reduce your site’s click depth.

The internet has opened up endless opportunities for businesses to boost sales and revenue through online channels. However, it has also increased competition and your site is likely to become lost online if you have poor SEO. Short attention spans are a particular challenge when it comes to SEO and you must create engaging content that will attract your users and keep them interested. Try implementing the above suggestions to capture your users’ attention and maximise the results of your SEO and digital marketing.

Is Apple Upping Up Its Search Game?

Posted on by Chloe

Since it started back in 1997, Google has dominated the world on online search, currently holding a massive 87% of the market.

However, several developments over recent weeks suggest that this could soon be coming to an end with the potential development of a search engine by Apple. These rumours are nothing new. When the Applebot was announced back in 2015, the SEO world got excited this could point to something big.

So what is all the fuss about? Why are SEO experts getting excited about a potential Apple search engine, and could it be true? Let’s take a closer look at the evidence.

1. Applebot has become more active

According to several SEO experts such as Jon Henshaw from Coywolf, Applebot has suddenly become much more active, crawling websites much more frequently than it has done in the past.

“Checking my server logs on WP Engine revealed that Applebot had been regularly crawling my sites daily, something I haven’t noticed until now,” he said.

The Applebot is used for Siri and Spotlight Search to search websites and rank them in much the same way as Google, so this sudden increase could suggest something is indeed in the works.

2. Apple have announced more job vacancies

A quick look at the Jobs at Apple web pages show an increase in the number of job vacancies for search engineers across Siri Search, Apple Maps and the app store itself. As one such advert reads;

“The App Store engineering team is looking for engineers dedicated to improving the search experience across the platform in order to aid content discovery and acquisition.”

However, this isn’t necessarily cause for excitement- most large companies continue to recruit new staff when developing and improving new platforms, features and tech.

For example, back in 2013, Apple acquired the entire social search firm, Topsy to help with indexing and searching expertise, and ended up developing Spotlight Search as a result. An increase in recruitment could simply point to their continued desire to improve Apple products for their customers.

3. Apple have recently updated their Applebot support page

The Applebot support page has been completely revamped over the last few months, with information on web ranking factors also updated. This include the following changes:

  • New information on how to verify traffic from Applebot
  • Expended robots.txt rules
  • New section on search rankings and ranking factors they use
  • Expanded information on Applebot user agent with information on desktop vs mobile versions
  • New section to say they don’t only crawl HTML but render pages in a similar way to Google.

Like the increase in search engineer vacancies at Apple, these could simply suggest that they continue to improve and refine their existing tools. Having said that, these changes are focused on search rankings, crawling and performance…

4. UK and European regulators aren’t happy about Google’s dominance of the market

The deal that Google has with Apple that makes it the default search engine on Apple products such as Safari for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS could soon be coming to an end.

For a long time, both users and regulators across Europe have expressed their frustration about the way in which Google dominates the search market.

Back in July, Google were forced to create a ‘search choice’ screen for android users setting up their new devices. Given greater choice, more users could make the switch away from Google, creating a gap in the market that Apple could fill. Could this already be part of Apple’s plans?

5. Apple have already bypassed Google search with Spotlight Search

Spotlight Search is the Apple tool that allows you to find information stored on your phone or on the web and aims to help you find what you need faster. In the past, this has led the user through the Google search engine to their result.

However, the new version of Spotlight Search for iOS and iPadOS 14 completely skips Google and takes users directly to the web pages they need. As explained on Apple news website, Mac Rumors, “…you can hit the “Go” button to open the website directly without having to tap a link in the search results.”

Combined with the other developments we’ve seen recently, this is perhaps the most interesting of them all and does seem to suggest we’ll see more from Apple search.

Final thoughts

Apple is famous for always being visionary, putting privacy first and going beyond user expectations. If the rumours about Apple developing their own search engine are in fact true, this could potentially reshape the world of search, open the market up to further competition and change the way that website developers and SEO experts achieve the best results.

This can only be a good thing, pushing towards new technological advancements and a better overall user experience for us all.

Black Hat SEO Techniques and How to Tackle them

Posted on by Chloe

“Black Hat” tactics are the dark side of SEO, and, as you can guess, they’re frowned upon across the board, since they violate Google’s terms of service in order to improve rankings. Any competent marketing team will tell you that good SEO takes time and constant adjustment. While black hat SEO may appear to be a useful cheat code that helps cut corners, you’ll want to stay vigilant. By being familiar with the many different underhanded tactics out there, you can ensure you’re playing fair and avoiding the penalties and damage to your site reputation.

Black hat link building techniques

Being one of the most important aspects of search engine algorithms, links are understandably one of the most frequently manipulated aspects of SEO. Beware of links that are bought, sold, traded or exchanged, and especially avoid private blog networks (PBNs) or “link farms” created solely to supply links.

Unnatural links or automated programs are a red flag, as are over-optimised internal links, “linkbait” or spammy links, particularly those crammed into footers. A routine site audit will give you an idea of how links are functioning on your site. The solution for any kind of iffy linking is simple: always focus on excellent content, genuine relationships with industry experts and natural links to active, reputable sites – err on the side of caution for anything else.

Black hat content tactics

Content quality is another important factor when it comes to determining rankings. The “white hat” SEO approach is to create up-to-date, high quality, trustworthy and authoritative content, and as long as this is your focus, you’re unlikely to fall foul of Google’s terms of service.

Be aware, however, that certain practices are dodgy even if they seem relatively harmless. Keyword stuffing is unacceptable, especially if it’s obviously unnatural. “Cloaking” happens when a site shows different content to the searcher than it does to the search engine – the latter being packed with keywords. The same can be done with white words on a white background or by hiding text behind an image. Always remember that the main function of keywords is to make your user’s life easier, not to manipulate a search engine.

Article spinning is essentially rewriting content to distribute all over the web, to avoid creating duplicate content. While this can be a legitimate white hat practice, it’s important that every version actually adds some value or relevance, and is not simply churned out to create links. Responsible content syndication makes efforts to create meaningful, varied pieces and not near-copies. Avoid auto-generated content if it sounds obviously unnatural – remember, your goal is to add value to the reader.

It goes without saying, but “malicious content”  (viruses, malware, unwanted downloads, spyware, and annoying pop-ups) are a definite no-no. Scraping content or plagiarising other people’s work is likewise unforgivable – always give appropriate credit where it’s due.

Finally, clickbait is an easily avoidable black hat technique, as are “bait and switch” tactics where a link leads somewhere other than where it promises. Make sure your links lead to relevant content and that you aren’t piggy backing on unrelated traffic.

Black hat social network methods

Bots used to spam Facebook, YouTube or Instagram with fake comments or likes are obviously underhanded. It’s important to have a clear social media marketing strategy, so you know precisely what you’re doing, and to report and avoid any suspicious activity. If you’re unsure, consult an SEO team for guidance. Guest posts, for example, can be problematic if they’re low quality and add no value. Tailored, carefully researched content and collaborations are always preferred.

More serious tactics

Things like rich snippet markup spam (marking up content that is irrelevant or misleading), automated queries to Google to query rankings (via specialised software) or negative SEO aimed at decreasing the rank of other pages are all more sophisticated techniques that you’re unlikely to fall into by accident.

Nevertheless, it’s wise to be on the lookout for such attacks on your own site, including having your content stolen, fake reviews, unwanted spammy links or URL injection spam (where a hacker creates new spam-filled links and pages on your site).

While these and other black hat techniques may offer a temporary rankings boost, in the long term you risk serious penalties that are simply not worth it. Unfortunately, other people using black hat tactics are a fact of life, but it’s not too difficult to make sure you’re avoiding them completely and staying in the clear. Regular site audits and a sound marketing strategy will help you get the results you want, without breaking the rules.

7 Ways to Come Up with Engaging Content Ideas

Posted on by Chloe

In order to create a solid content marketing plan, you need to be coming up with fresh new content ideas constantly.

These ideas need to cover topics your audience loves, solve their problems, answer their questions, address their needs and build loyalty. If that wasn’t enough, you need to make sure these ideas are also good enough that they can boost your Google rankings and continue to grow your business.

It’s certainly not an easy task and pulling a few ideas off the top of your head isn’t almost certainly isn’t going to deliver the results that your business deserves.

If you want to stand out in a crowded market and more effectively market your business, you’ll need to do your research before you start creating your content. Here are seven of the easiest ways you can get started.

1. Ask your audience

Creating content your audience will love is key when it comes to building your business and increasing your search rankings.

For that reason, one of the best ways to get content ideas is to reach out and ask them. Post a question on social media, create a poll or even send an email to your blog subscribers and ask them what they’d like you to help them with.

Not only will this leave them feeling like you care about your customers, it will also help ensure you’re writing for your readers, and not just the search engines.

2. Use your analytics

You can use your Google Analytics, Google Search Console and social media analytics to find out which of your content pieces your audience resonates with the most.

Ask yourself questions such as;

  • Do they prefer your posts on a particular topic?
  • What do they like and share the most?
  • How did they find your site and what keeps them there?

Once you’ve gathered your information, you can use it to create ideas for new content that are likely to generate interest and engagement from your readers and add value.

3. Explore Google’s ‘People Also Ask’ feature

Have you ever done a Google search and, as you scrolled down, noticed a box titled ‘People also ask’ with drop down answers on the page? As the name suggests, this nifty feature uses an algorithm to connect your search term with other similar questions, making it really useful when coming up with new content ideas.

If you use these queries to create your content, and make sure it’s concise and well written, you could improve your rankings and appear here too.

But that’s not all. As Search Engine Watch points out, the People Also Ask feature could also help you develop more long term content plans; “…[People Also Ask] serves a more practical goal, beyond understanding your audience and topic better. If you search Google for your target query enough, you will soon start seeing certain searching patterns.”

4. Look at ‘Answer the Public’

Do you feel overwhelmed when given spreadsheets and big lists of keywords? Then you’ll love Answer the Public.

This tool gathers together current search engine data and uses it to generate phrases and questions that people are actually searching for. Then it gives you the results in a user-friendly mind-map format or easy-to-use data sets that you can instantly use to create new content.

If you haven’t tried it before, we highly recommend that you go ahead and do so.

5. Follow the latest trends

What do people are about at the moment? Are there any trends on social media and in news that are relevant to your business? If so, these can be a great starting point when it comes to generating content ideas. For maximum impact, make sure you don’t just share the news, but also adds something new and relevant to the conversation.

Staying up to date is easy to do. Simply read the news, check social media, research any national/international days relevant to your industry, and subscribe to the useful Google Trends notifications.

6. Check your competition

What are other businesses in your industry or niche creating content about? Have they covered topics you’ve not yet covered?

This can often be a great guide that will spark your inspiration and help identify any topics you’ve forgotten to talk about so far. You can then use this to add even more value to the conversation by perhaps sharing a different option or even going more deeply into a topic.

7. Use Google Search suggestions

Many businesses find they have plenty of general topic ideas for content but they’re not sure exactly how to refine these into high performing pieces of content. A great solution in this case is to turn to Google Search suggestions.

Simply type your core content idea into the search bar and it will suggest related phrases based on what you are searching for.

For example, if we were thinking about creating content on ‘remote working’, we could input these sentences and be given the following:

  • Remote working is bad uk
  • Remote working 2020
  • Remote working jobs

Again, these are based on real keyword searches so are likely to perform well when turned into content.

 

As we mentioned at the start of this post, finding new ideas for engaging content isn’t easy. But by using the tools and tricks we’ve suggested here, you’ll find plenty of inspiration for content that will keep readers and search engines happy.

Off-site, On-site & Technical SEO: What Do They Mean?

Posted on by Chloe

If you’re a business owner or entrepreneur, you know that SEO is essential when it comes to getting noticed. You know that it will help improve your search rankings, attract more potential customers and help you to grow your business.

But there’s one tiny problem.

You don’t have a clue when it comes to the difference between off-site, on-site, and technical SEO, let alone why they matter.

So let us help out. In this article, we’ll break down what each of these are and what’s involved, then share a few tips on how you can get started with each.

Off-site SEO

Off-site SEO refers to anything you do outside of your website to improve your search rankings. This includes link building, content marketing, social media, podcasts, Google My Business, reviews, and citations.

When you do this, you’ll be building connections between your website and business, and the rest of the digital world. Your brand or business will be mentioned and linked to online, which will help drive traffic towards your business, help your customers discover you, and help build your brand.

As we mentioned a few months back in our post on brand building; “Building your online brand can have a number of significant benefits such as creating awareness and interest in your business, attracting new customers, growing your business online, and securing repeat customers. All of these are important factors in any successful business.”

But that’s not all.

It also shows Google that you have authority in your field, that your audience/customers trust you and that you are relevant to your topic. In short, this greatly impacts on your potential search rankings.

According to SEO software creators, Moz, “…data from our Search Engine Ranking Factors study show that off-site SEO-related factors likely carry more than 50% of the ranking factor weight.”

How to improve your off-site SEO

If you want to improve your off-site SEO, you need to invest time in marketing your business. This includes building connections within your local community and industry, creating guest posts, using social media, optimising your Google My Business page, creating natural links and getting people to share your content.

On site SEO

As you’d expect from the name, on-site SEO refers to everything you do on your website. This can include creating and optimising content, internal links, title tags and meta tags, featured snippets, image optimisation, keyword optimisation, and so on.

Although Google uses a range of ranking factors these days, Google does still use this stuff to rank your website. By getting this stuff right, you will significantly improve your website ranking and so improve your visibility online.

But let’s not forget that great SEO isn’t just about ranking highly. If you optimise these elements correctly, you will also make your website much more user-friendly. It will be much easier for your audience to find the information they need and enjoy the overall experience. Again, this converts to a better overall user experience and greater brand loyalty.

How to improve your on-site SEO

Start by looking for any problem and then fixing them immediately. This might include creating meta tags and descriptions, using keywords in your content, optimising your images and so on.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO related to the more complicated elements of SEO. It’s the stuff that directly impacts how the search engines index and crawl your website. This includes things like site speed, structured data, and sitemaps.

You’d be right if you’re thinking that there’s a certain amount of overlap with the other types of SEO. But technical SEO takes this to another level to further optimise your website’s search performance.

It’s important to get this right because these factors play an important role in getting organic traffic. After all, if a search engine can’t crawl your site, it can’t share it with your potential audience and customers.

How to improve your technical SEO

Start by performing a site audit to analyse your website and highlight areas for improvement. For example, how quickly do your webpages load? Is your website mobile-friendly? From this information, you can devise a plan then systematically work through each element. This can be complicated, so it’s usually best to hire an expert unless you’re very tech savvy.

Summary

To quickly recap, off-site, on-site, and technical SEO are all vitally important when it comes to optimising your website.

Each refers to different aspects of the same game.

  • Off-page SEO refers to those general digital marketing activities you do outside your website.
  • On-page SEO refers to what you do on your website.
  • Technical SEO refers to the detailed optimisation for the search bots.

Many of the tweaks and improvements you’ll need to make to optimise your website are relatively straightforward to do yourself. But to get it right, it’s better to hire an expert.

Google’s Recent SERP Feature Tests

Posted on by Chloe

In the past few weeks, Google has been testing new search features to decide on the best way to progress in the services that they are offering their users – as well as being effective for them.

Ensuring that Google users are getting the best results and businesses are having the most impact with their SEO efforts is essential, and this is why it is important to have a good understanding of where Google is heading with search results.

Google have been testing several changes and new features to discover what difference they can make to those who use them, including:

  • Categorised sections
  • Changes in advertisement headline sizes
  • Local Q&A box interface
  • A ‘For Context’ section
  • An ‘Also in the News’ Box
  • The visual look of the SERPs

Testing Categorised Sections

One of the major aspects that Google has been testing is in the way that they display the results on their SERPs. The testing involved grouping the search results into categories, meaning that instead of giving searchers a list of websites that correlate to their search, the results are split into categories, such as ‘reviews,’ related ‘videos’, ‘Nearby stores’, related ‘Images’ and ‘Online stores’.

This is an interesting way to display the search results and could have knock-on effects for SEO. With a SERP that is split into categories, SEO strategies need to consider each separate category to have the maximum effect.

Google Ads Headline Size

Another change to the visual impact of Google’s SERPs that was being tested is that in the top four ad results, a hyper-linked sub-heading is shown. The Heading 1 and Heading 2 are also having a significant difference in size. It is worth noting that in the test, this wasn’t the case in the results below the top four.

With a larger font size, this will probably result in a higher click-through rate for the top advertisers – and be beneficial for Google too. This contributes to the age-old debate that Google will eventually make paid search a more predominant method of search, making it harder for organic listings to earn traffic, especially for startups or smaller businesses who may not have the budget to stretch to Google Ads.

Local Q&A Box Interface

Google already gives searchers the opportunity to ask local businesses questions through its Local Q&A box. They appear to be, however, testing putting this box outside of the panel for each business. It is still unclear why they are considering making this change, but it could be to allow more general replies as well as locally focussed ones.

It is important, therefore that businesses ensure that their Google My Business account is kept as up-to-date as possible.

‘For Context’ Section

One of the biggest issues with using search engines is that sometimes searchers get content out of context. The ‘For Context’ section that has been tested mainly in conjunction with news, displays links to other articles that can provide extra context.

In terms of your business’s SEO, this means that you would be able to have more opportunities to get your content visible, but also makes getting your content accurate and relevant even more important.

‘Also in the News’ Section

In a similar way to the ‘For context’ section, Google was also testing an ‘Also in the News’ section. This also appeared underneath the news section and appears to link other news articles that are related to the original story. The main difference between the two sections is that the ‘Also in the News’ stories can be older and not as recent.

The question that arises from this is whether or not your content needs to be indexed in Google News, in order for your site to appear underneath within this section.

https://twitter.com/robin_xing/status/1290186649918349312

SERPs Visually

Google has also been testing out some other aspects of their SERPs. Some tests have included the use of thumbnail pictures in the results page as well as in the search suggestions box, and thicker grey lines between the search results. Of course, these potential changes may be to help searchers to understand the results quicker, but there may be other reasons for them.

Google is continuously looking to update the services that they are offering both searchers and the businesses that use Google to attract people to their websites. This means that it is more important than ever to ensure that your website is visible in searches relevant to your business. In order for this to happen, it’s vital that the SERPs are observed on a regular basis, so that you know when it’s time to adapt your SEO strategy and optimise what you can to make the most of the latest features.