Fibre Marketing

Category: SEO

Author Authority in Search: Does it Matter to Google?

Posted on by Ella

The ability of author reputation to influence page rank has been an ongoing dispute for many years. Google Authorship was a feature that appeared in Google search results for around three years, from June 2011 until August 2014. The feature allowed and encouraged content creators to identify themselves when posting a piece of content – be it a blog post, article or other type of web-based copy – by displaying a profile image and linking to their Google Plus account. Theoretically, this aimed to help authors stand out in the SERP and bolster their click-through-rate. The Google Authorship markup fell under Google’s E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) umbrella, whereby the verification of authors on the internet would improve users’ overall search experience.

Unfortunately, the Google Authorship initiative retired in August 2014 when Google removed all author photos in their mission to better marry the user experience with mobile and desktop search – which involved decluttering the search page. Google had also established that participation in the authorship markup was extremely low (almost non-existent in many verticals), with searchers receiving little to no value from the addition. It was reported that when the markup was removed, there was little difference in ‘click behaviour’ on the search results page than when the authorship feature was in play.

However, conversations around author authority in the SEO space have since crept back into the headlines. In July there was an interesting discussion on Twitter surrounding the weight of author authority in the health industry. Google’s John Mueller referenced YMYL sites as an example of why authorship is a necessary factor to consider when publishing or reading sensitive content, such as online medical advice. He mentioned that if you are writing about a topic on health and you’re not an expert in that field, then you’re already starting off on a “shaky foundation.” He added that it makes sense for writers to find experts to write or review the content so that it is “correct and trustworthy.” Despite this, there is still little evidence to suggest that content authorship is a ranking factor in Google search. However this doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t an important element. In fact, many people believe that author authority has a number of benefits. With this in mind, let’s look at some of the evidence for and against the importance of author authority in Google search.

Considerations for content authorship

There was renewed interest in the impact of author authority on Google search following Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines (SQRG) update back in July 2018. Under these guidelines, web pages could appear higher in the search results if they rank highly in Google’s three attributes of content quality – Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. An addition to the July 2018 update was the inclusion of content creators as part of the measure of content quality. On assumption, this could imply that the reputation and expertise of the author is still an important component of the overall E-A-T rating.

What’s more (while this has not been confirmed), should Google want to identify and evaluate authors on the web according to the E-A-T specification, using something like Machine-Readable Entity IDs (MREIDs) would be essential. Google is constantly looking for ways to enhance the user experience, so it makes sense that at some point Google will begin to look for signs of authoritative and reputable authorship on content pages. For that reason, it’s advisable that publishers only accept content from creators with good reputations who have experience in the specified field. Publishers should also give preference to content creators who have a clear, positive presence online i.e. creators with active social media accounts.

The authorship veto

Back in August 2014 Google removed the ability for publishers to display the author’s name, photograph and the number of Google Plus circles the author had been added to. Once the Google Authorship feature was removed, many marketers and publishers no longer resonated with the importance of content authorship. What’s more, as mentioned above, Google has publically declared that content authorship is not a ranking factor. According to information on searchenginejournal.com – “Google’s John Mueller has clarified that the search engine’s algorithms do not look at author reputation when ranking websites.” For that reason, many businesses don’t consider it an important factor in their marketing efforts.

Final thoughts

There is little evidence to support both sides of the authority debate. However, this doesn’t mean that it’s not an important factor to consider in your marketing efforts – there is certainly no harm in providing a quality, transparent and accountable author reputation to your content. It’s also important to keep in mind that Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines could update at any point in the near future and perhaps include author authority as a ranking factor.

Why Your ‘About Us’ Page Is Replacing Your Business Card

Posted on by Chloe

Before the digital world took over, business cards were one of the best ways to promote your brand and foster new business. However, with a plethora of online alternatives providing instant information for consumers at the touch of an enter key, the humble business card is slowly vanishing from the enterprise space.

According to data from Internet live stats, the number of daily searches on Google is rising exponentially – currently standing at 3.5. billion – and when consumers arrive at your website ‘About’ page, you need to be confident that you have followed SEO best practice to ensure maximum conversions.

Designing your website doesn’t have to be a complicated feat, so long as each component is carefully considered, planned and executed within Google’s guidelines. 81% of shoppers will conduct online research before making a purchasing decision, so it’s important that your website represents your business accurately and assures users that your company is the stand out competitor.

When users arrive organically at the website of a business they’ve never heard of before, they will likely conduct a quick online investigation. According to a study lead by KoMarketing, 52% of visitors will be looking for an ‘About’ page. Without one, businesses risk being hidden from potential customers.

An ‘About’ page:

  1. Allows customers to get to know you, the basis of a relationship between them and your brand. The better the relationship, the more successful your business will be.
  2. Present your achievements, experience and credentials, improving your site’s E-A-T (Enterprise, Authority and Trust) and thus helping your rankings.

The problem is, many businesses fail to create ‘About’ pages that effectively convey their message and brand mission to consumers. It is also all too common for companies to overlook the weight of this page entirely, despite evidence from Google Analytics that suggests ‘About’ pages are one of the most frequented webpages.

With this in mind, let’s look at the key features of an ‘About’ page, and what is needed to assure users that your company is one that they can trust.

Tell Us Your Story

When creating content of any form, it is vital that you keep your audience engaged. They need to be interested enough to carry on reading.

This page does not need to be an essay, but it does need to explain where you came from, what your goals are and how you or your business got started. Focus on key elements that have influenced you in some way and how they’ve impacted your company. Your readers don’t need to know how many suppliers you’ve been with or a year-by-year growth timeline – just the parts that emphasise your relevance to your target audience. It is generally advised to cut out any jargon – you’re better off using a simple tone of voice that suits your company ethos and writing in a way that users will actually understand.

Make Your Mission, Values and Visions Clear

This is probably one of the most important features to consider when creating your ‘About’ page. Your mission, values and visions provides an insight into what your business entails – they reflect pretty much every facet that makes up your company.

Is your company environmentally conscious? What do you believe in? These are your values, and they say a lot about your company culture.

Note, your values are not the same as your mission statement. Your mission is why your company exists and what it wants to achieve in the short term. This matters to users as it’s more action orientated and thus suggests what your team are doing to put their values into practice.

Now on to your vision statement. Your vision statement should explain what your business is aiming to achieve in the long run. The simplest way to differentiate this from your mission statement is to think about what goal your mission serves. How will your company change its sector? Where does your company want to sit within your industry or even general society?

E-A-T Factors

If you know anything about SEO, you’ll know that E-A-T is a major ranking factor (if you weren’t aware of this, click here).

There are many reasons why an ‘About’ page can work wonders for E-A-T. You can include your credentials, testimonials and experience within your content to show that you are a reliable business to go to within your field. When talking about experience, don’t forget to mention how long your company has been operating – this will fit in nicely with your story.

To demonstrate your enterprise, you’ll also need to include information on any qualifications and awards that you’ve obtained. Have you been mentioned by relevant experts from your industry? Integrate this into your page (and link to the source to make it easier for Google to associate you with them).

By following the factors above, Google is more likely to recognise your business’ website as credible and will favour you when ranking sites. Just remember that the aim of your content is to clearly demonstrate you or your business’ purpose, and how you intend to meet it. This information should always be easily accessible.

Include A Variety Of Features

User experience (UX) is an indirect ranking factor when it comes to websites. Google’s aim is to improve UX as much as possible by presenting high-quality sites to its users.

Visuals are a good way to achieve this, as they break up your text and make the page look less intimidating. They can add value to your content and, if they’re personal, they can add an element of company culture which users often find appealing. They don’t necessarily need to be headshots of your team members – there is a large variety of media you can go for instead, such as images, videos, infographics, and timelines. Don’t forget to optimise images for SEO.

A Quick Recap

There are many key elements that make up a quality ‘About’ page. We’ve explored the most essential features above, but here is a quick check list for you to take note:

  • The story of your business
  • Your values, mission and vision statements
  • E-A-T factors such as credentials and experience
  • Different forms of media

By including these different elements, your ‘About’ page will speak volumes and assure users that you and your team are capable of meeting their requirements. This will contribute to your overall visibility and keep customers coming back to you, boosting your rankings and future conversion rates.

Why Reducing Your Link Depth Is Critical To Your Blogs’ SEO Success

Posted on by Ella

A new study has found that the structure of many blogs could be having a detrimental effect on their search engine rankings. The main issue is due to link depth, which is the average number of clicks from the homepage of the blog to the relevant content. The study by Perficient Digital found that two thirds of websites have a link depth higher than five. This is likely to have a negative effect on the PageRank and ability of search engine bots to crawl the content. Shockingly, the study found that – ‘31.5% of the posts were 21 clicks or more from their respective home pages,’ ‘9.5% of the posts were 50 or more clicks away’ and some posts even exceeded 1,000 clicks away.

The problem with high link depth

The main problem with having a high link depth is that your content will essentially be buried below multiple other links. This in turn, sends a strong message to the search engines that your content may not be relevant to the users query and as a result, reduces the websites search spider crawl budget. What’s more, if one page in the chain of links has an error, then the crawler will be unable to access any of the pages further down the link chain. Therefore your content may not be effectively crawled for long periods of time. Keep in mind that your link depth should ideally be between 3 and 5, depending on your website’s size and structure. You can easily check your average link depth with the help of online SEO analytics tools.

How to identify your link depth culprits

A number of factors may be affecting your link depth. Here are four of the most common culprits to be aware of:

1. Pagination

While pagination may be an essential tool for improving user experience and reducing server load time, content on your website that includes lengthy paginated lists can actually cause significant problems for SEO. For example, if there are 40 pages in the list but the highest page you can click to go to automatically is page 6, then you would then have to make many clicks to reach higher pages. Pagination can also be a catalyst for duplicate content issues, seeing search engine crawlers waste precious resources on indexing poor quality content.

2. Faceted Navigation

Filters implemented on large sites can help users narrow down their search results to find a desired product or content. However often construed as a SEO nightmare, a navigation strategy with poor filter combinations can create new pages at volume. This can quickly increase link depth, swallow up crawl budget and dilute link equity. It is advised that website developers should avoid using multiple filters simultaneously (two at most) to maximise traffic potential and to limit the URL being changed. Be aware that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ strategy and you may have to manually create indexable landing pages for some of these key filter combinations.

3. Tracking parameters in URLs

Tracking parameters are used to deliver useful information about the source of a click through the site’s respective URL. Parameters can be derived from a huge range of combinations and can quickly generate URL variations en masse. Many low value URLs that display similar if not the same content, can lead to keyword canibalisation and impact site quality. Parameters are also a detriment to page performance as they often look less clickable and trustworthy in form.

4. Broken URLs

Broken links on a website can appear on an internal and external basis. Internal links on-page often return a 404 response as the page the link is leading to may no longer exist. Broken external links take users from your own website to a non existent page. Both types of malformations will impact user experience and likely diminish your click through rates. If these issues are not resolved quickly, Google will identify the deterioration of the website and reflect this in your search rankings.

Ways to amend your blog content structure

Fortunately, there are some simple ways to amend your blog content structure and reduce your link depth. Here are some key actions to consider:

Add internal links to valuable content

Determine what content on your site is most valuable to you and most importantly to your audience. Adding plenty of internal links – such as navigational links and contextual links – will help demonstrate to search engines that this content has value and should be seen by users. As a general rule of thumb, the optimal internal linking structure follows a pyramid hierarchy. See here for a trusted guide to internal linking.

Systemise your site structure

Ease of user experience and display of original, relevant content should be at the core of your website’s ambitions. Cleaning up your blogs’ structure doesn’t have to be an overly technical process and can be achieved through numerous strategies. Succinct site menus, functional categories, tags and keeping content updated and in line with Google algorithm updates are a couple of examples that come to mind.

Rethink your content strategy

If you are new to the SEO scene, prioritise quality content over quantity. Make sure you check your old content and either revive it or remove anything that is outdated, low quality, or no longer relevant. However, before deleting any content, be sure to perform rigorous audits so as not to upset your rankings in the SERP. Auditing your content will help you evaluate what adds value to your site and what is harming it. When refining your website, consider whether it meets Google’s E-A-T requirements and aligns with new algorithm updates before making any changes.

Final thought

Businesses should be aware that their blog structure can have a significant impact on their link depth and overall SEO ranking. It is important that all businesses take action to effectively improve their websites in order to ensure that their web pages are effectively crawled by search engine bots and are accessible to users. Use the tips above to help identify and improve any issues with your link depth or alternatively speak to us for specialist advice.

Leveraging Schema To Increase Organic Performance

Posted on by Chloe

Update:

From 16th September 2019, Google made changes regarding the regulations of Reviews Rich Snippets. Please see here before implementing this schema markup. 

If you’re somewhat involved in SEO, you will have likely heard of phrases such as schema and structured data. You also may have heard that by leveraging your schema or other forms of structured data, you can help improve your site’s rankings and visibility through featured snippets, knowledge graphs and other search features.

But what exactly is schema? Is it an essential for your website? And how does it help increase your organic performance?

In 2018, John Mueller stated that while structured data will not give you a ranking boost, Google understands that schema is important for a website as it can help them understand your content more, potentially leading to higher rankings.

Therefore, schema implantation is recommended for any website, especially now content is one of the most significant factors of SEO. If you’ve created quality content that complies with the Quality Guidelines, it may not rank if Google does not understand what exactly is on the webpage.

To understand what schema and structured data can do for your business, follow our guide below.

Schema and Structured Data – what’s the difference?

Schema

Schema, also known as schema.org, is a project formed in 2011 across multiple search engines. It consists of different mark-ups made up of tags that you can add to your site’s HTML to help search engines understand your webpage and the way that page is displayed, thus resulting in better representation in the SERPs.

Essentially, it is these tags that tell search engines whether your information is about a specific place, person, movie, book, etc. These tags are classed as structured data.

Structured Data

When it comes to structured data, it is essentially a way of adding a standard set of values to the text on your webpage that will help search engines understand your content. It’s a bit like talking them through your website section by section so they can make sense of every part of it.

These set values are part of a hierarchy:

  • Itemscope – this simply paves the way for a new item on the webpage.
  • Itemtype – there are many different itemtypes, not just movies, people and places as we mentioned earlier. The broadest type is ‘Thing’, which has four different properties: name, description, URL, image. There are then more specific properties within these broader types, known as Itemprops, the final instalment in the hierarchy.

Here’s an example from the Schema.org webpage to break this down a little more.

So you have a webpage about the movie Avatar which includes details about a ‘Person’, which is a specific ‘Thing’. Say that person is James Cameron (director of Avatar), so that’s a specific type of ‘Person’. You can even broaden this even more, by saying that the film he directed is Sci-Fi, a specific type of ‘Movie’.

So, by adding these into your schema markup with the correct tags,  the search engine is now aware that this page features a link to the Avatar trailer, a Sci-Fi film directed by James Cameron. See here for how this would look in HTML code, or for a quick reference, here’s their image of this code:

Schema

And the difference?

To summarise, structured data puts names with values within your HTML code to help ensure that search engines thoroughly understand your content and index the webpage correctly. Schema on the other hand is the overall project that provides the set of standard values and definitions for the tags.

To check that your structured data is validated, you can test using Google’s Structured Data Testing tool.

How do you leverage schema to improve organic search performance?

There are a variety of ways to use schema that can help boost your visibility and presentation in the SERPs. This can be done by adding different features that can help promote your site and company as a whole.

The way that these results are presented were previously labelled as ‘rich snippets,’ but now they are ‘rich results’, and can take many different forms such as carousels, additional data, star ratings under the meta title, etc.

Here are a few examples of different types of schema that can help boost your visibility.

Location Schema

Schema can work wonders for local SEO, as it allows search engines to understand location-related information for your business, such as addresses, phone numbers, HQ location, events and more.

The problem with location schema is that not many people realise that it can work for local SEO as they have verified GMB listings and therefore believe that they do not need to do anything more. But the reality is that using schema can help provide essential information into your business’ knowledge panel.

Here are some ways you can do this:

  • You can apply Postal Address schema, which adds your local address for your business. Click here to see how.
  • There is also the Local Business schema mark-up which is ideal for brick and mortar businesses. This schema allows you to add opening hours and types of payments that your company offers.
  • The Organization mark-up allows you to specify your logo, social links and contact information.

As an example, the screenshot below shows The Lab Spa using schema markup for their business.

Reviews and Ratings

By using Ratings schema mark-up, star ratings and reviews that your business has received on its website will show in the SERPs. This can be added to certain content types, including:

  • Local businesses
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Recipes
  • Products
  • Books

This schema can be particularly useful for restaurants hotels and bars, as shown here:

Events:

This is incredibly beneficial for spreading the word about an event that you have organised. When your events show in the search results, you’re able to direct users to the listing most relevant to them while also taking up more space in the SERPs – streamlining traffic to your site.  As you can see below, the dates and locations of your event (so in this case, performances of Les Miserables) will be listed underneath the meta description and will take you straight to the landing page when clicked.

Event Schema

You can find the vocabulary for this schema mark-up here.

Product Information:

The Product schema mark-up allows businesses to show more information about the products they offer directly in the SERPs. So, underneath the meta title and the green URL in search results, users can see the product’s price, ratings and if it’s in stock, as seen below.

Product Schema

This particular schema can be beneficial for small businesses who are competing against well-known brands and organisations, such as eBay, Ikea, Amazon, or other large companies that operate within your industry. If your offerings are more price competitive, the searcher will likely come to you.

Breadcrumb:

This mark-up allows users to understand a website’s hierarchy by implementing a series of links in the SERP. It’s a useful schema to apply when the ranking page doesn’t appeal to the user as you can present a few other pages that you have on offer. To expand on the image below, the blue links under the meta description are known as ‘child pages’ or ‘breadcrumbs’. These results clearly emphasise the ‘Enhance Your Site’s Attributes’ page, but in case that doesn’t interest you, two more pages, (such as the, ‘Establish Your Business’ page), display below as an alternative option for the user. In doing this, you will increase your chances of users arriving at your website from an array of different search queries.

Breadcrumb Schema
The schema mark-ups listed above are just a small selection of possible options available to you and your website. While schema and structured data are not quick fixes for the architecture of a site, it can certainly enhance your chances of gaining featured snippets while improving your organic listings. This way, your website is more likely to be noticed over your competitors, improving your click-through-rate and organic traffic. With so many different Schema and structured data mark-ups available, they can truly be a benefit to any business looking to improve their organic search visibility.

The Untapped Potential of Google Image Search

Posted on by Chloe

When it comes to SEO, most people automatically think of words. Keywords, meta descriptions and links are all important parts of SEO, but one area which is often either overlooked or not given much attention is images.

In fact, images can have a massive effect on your SEO – Google Image has an important role in the world today. As everything becomes more visual, images, infographics and the like are increasingly important and can be a valuable asset in terms of SEO.

Understanding how Google Image Search can help your SEO is important in today’s world. There are a number of things that you can do to tap into the power that Google Image can have for you.

Optimising your current images

Before you start anything else it is important to make sure that your current images are optimised for search engines like Google. This basically means that it can help your image to appear in the Google Images rankings.

The aim again is to have your images come out at the top of the Google Images rankings – of which there are many more per page than text searches.

  • Edit your file names to something that is relevant to the picture (instead of the file name such as DSC_052.jpg as named by the camera).
  • Edit your alt tags to something rich in keywords and as short as possible. These alt tags can help with SEO, but their main purpose is to help people who are visually impaired so keep this in mind when you are choosing the words.
  • Compress your images. The time that a page takes to load is vital for SEO and attracting people. A large image file can take a long time to load, put people off, and, ultimately, bring up your bounce rate. By compressing your images, they will take up less memory, load quicker and improve your SEO.

Avoid Stock Photos

Stock photos are great because they’re free. But that’s about where their usefulness ends, as far as SEO is concerned anyway.

Stock photography usually looks poor quality and doesn’t do much for your own specific branding. It can be used sometimes but definitely not all of the time!

Using your own images can be vital to good image SEO – in a similar way to other content. If you have an image which is unique to your website, it will always link to your website and not to the hundreds of others that have used the same picture. People are also likely to use your image and include a backlink.

With Google Images, the first result on their search results list will always be the original image so it is worth the effort of getting your own images on there.

Content management involves ensuring that you have the best, most effective images, which can help to attract as much traffic to your website as possible. And this involves using unique images which are specific to your website.

A Reason for your Images

If you are putting an image onto a page, don’t put it on there just for the sake of it. Make sure that it is there for a reason. Just like in other SEO content marketing strategy, you will only increase your bounce rate if you have irrelevant and unconnected images.

You should also keep this in mind when you are labelling your images. Make sure that you label them in a way that connects them with your content. If, for example, you have a blog about cactus’s, make sure that you label it this way and not ‘Mexican landscape’. People who are looking for pictures of landscapes in Mexico might not want to learn about the inner workings of a cactus.

Infographics are an excellent way of attracting relevant traffic to your website, and, as long as you are making them, they can be both completely unique to you and informative.

Image Sitemap

Sitemaps ate useful to search engines like Google as they can help to tell them what images are present on your website and where. This means that all of the images that you want to be found are found quickly.
WordPress and Yoast automatically add images to your sitemap or you can create your own image sitemap for your website.

Understanding the power that images have in terms of SEO is important, and judging by current online trends, is only likely to become more important. By getting your image SEO right, you can add to the other work that is done to keep your digital marketing efforts effective and see it show not only in an SEO audit but also in the amount of traffic that you are getting to your website.

Cut through SEO Jargon with this Ultimate Glossary

Posted on by Chloe

At Fibre, we pride ourselves on knowing our stuff when it comes to executing ethical SEO strategies.

But, for many, learning SEO can be an extremely complicated exploit that – like most skills – takes time, patience and a whole lot of perseverance. (This is why it’s worth hiring an SEO specialist who dedicates the time to do it for you.)

However, you can make significant headway by first expanding your knowledge on key SEO terms and understanding where they fit into the SEO space.

We’ve compiled a basic glossary to help you get up to speed.

SEO from A to Z

Alt Text: Also referred to as alt tags and alt descriptions, an alt text is the copy inserted within the code of a webpage that describes an image should the user be unable to view it in its original form i.e the HTML. It’s also for Google, as it provides context for them to crawl the page accurately.

Anchor Text: As one of the key pillars of SEO, an anchor text is the written keyword that the user will click on and then be referred to another webpage. An anchor text can take many forms, such as:

  • Exact-match: An exact-match anchor will directly reflect the page it is linking to, for example, ‘anchor text’ will link to a page about ‘anchor texts.’
  • LSI (latent semantic indexing): LSI keywords will be similar keywords to the one you are targeting and used to increase the relevance of your site.
  • URL: This is a naked URL that appears anywhere on the webpage that links to your site.
  • Branded: A branded anchor text will include the exact name of your brand, such as, ‘Fibre Marketing’ within the webpage content.
  • Long-tail: Long-tail keywords will usually involve a more specific search query consisting of three or four word phrases. 

Backlink: A backlink is an incoming link from one webpage to another. How a backlink is implemented can have a huge impact on your webpage visibility as this is a key factor Google uses to rank a page on the SERP.

Black Hat SEO: This strategy works against ethical SEO methods to improve site visibility and better your rankings on Google. This can involve, keyword stuffing and using private link networks and can often result in Google penalties to your site.

Conversion Rate: A conversion rate is the volume of users who fit the desired action of your new business goals. This could be buying a product, subscribing to a newsletter or calling for a quote.

CTR (Click-Through-Rate): This metric measures the volume of users who click on a link within the webpage, compared to those who simply view the page.

Domain Authority: Often abbreviated to just DA, domain authority will give you an indication as to how well your website will rank on the SERP.

Deindexing & Indexing: When you add another webpage to Google, Google will crawl this page and index it in its search system. Deindexing is the opposite of this, where the webpage is removed from the index. 

EAT (Expertise, Authority and Trust): Expertise, authority and trust are the three core values Googles’ search algorithm uses to determine the level of trust accountable to each website.
Crawling: In laymen’s terms, crawling (or spidering) is the process by which Google bots will scan and analyse the information on a webpage.

Featured Snippet: A featured snippet is a highly coveted format positioned at the very top of the SERP, but below the paid ads. Also referred to as a ‘direct answer,’ it’s the text box that usually answers your search query immediately, or prompts you to click through to the site to which the information originated.

GMB (Google My Business) Listing: A GMB listing will likely appear on the right hand side of the SERP when you search for a specific service and will be local to you. This is a crucial factor to any local SEO strategy if you want to improve your business visibility and rankings on a concentrated level.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language): HTML is the text-based approach used to describe webpages.

Internal Link: Within the same domain, internal links can be used on one webpage to link to another. This will make it easier for Google to understand the structure of your site.

Keyword Research: This is probably the most important task you’ll execute for your site. The goal is to get into the minds of the consumer and uncover alternative search terms to those entered into Google to find a specific service or offering.

Keyword Stuffing: Often resulting in penalties from Google, keyword stuffing is the process by which a webpage is over-optimised for specific keywords.  Too many of the same keyword on one webpage is detrimental to the fluidity of the content and can lower your rankings.

Link Building: Quality links indicate to Google that the content on your site is worthy of citation. Link building is a core SEO technique that involves building both internal links and backlinks to authoritative websites.

Meta Descriptions: When you review the search results on Google for a key term, below the blue URL text will be a description of the webpage’s content – this is the meta description and it is an essential factor to on-page SEO.

Mobile Indexing: In 2018, Google started rolling out mobile indexing on a broader spectrum. This meant that Google would determine rankings in organic SERPs from the information collected from mobile-friendly sites, before the desktop version. As of yet (25 July), mobile first indexing has kickstarted but we are still waiting for the full roll out.

Off-Page SEO: Off-page SEO includes all SEO measures that take place outside the walls of your own domain used to impact your rankings, such as building backlinks, guest blogging and social media marketing.

On-Page SEO: On-page SEO includes all SEO measures performed on individual webpages used to impact your rankings such as, keyword optimisation, building internal links and editing the title tag and meta description.

Referral Traffic: Referral traffic is the volume of traffic reported by Google that visited your site from an external source outside of a search engine.

SERP (search engine results page): This is the list of search results that appear on your screen when you hit the enter key on Google. It is estimated that 75% of users do not scroll past the 1st page of Google.

Trust Flow: This metric measures the ‘trustworthiness’ of a particular site.

White Hat: The opposite of black hat SEO, white hat techniques refer to all ethical strategies used to increase search visibility and rankings that remain in line with Google’s code of conduct.

YMYL: This is acronym for, ‘your money or your life’ is the term Google assigns to webpages that impact the future of users’ happiness, i.e. health or financial stability sites.

Reviving Blog Posts: How To Use Old Content For New Results

Posted on by Chloe

Producing great content is vital if you want people to be attracted to your brand and engage with it. Around 84% of buyers frequently or occasionally access business related content on their phones, while B2B marketers rated blog articles as the most effective content format in the awareness stage. These statistics can confirm that, right now, content is a vital for your marketing strategy.

It’s also important to remember that Google pays attention to the quality of the content that you produce. If the quality is high, your business is more likely to feature highly in search results. This helps to attract more traffic to your business website or blog.

The problem with creating great content is that it can involve the investment of a lot of time and effort. Reusing blog content that has been produced previously can help to reduce this investment without having an adverse effect on your overall content quality. However, you need to make sure that you reuse content in the right way.

How reusing blog content can work for business

Let’s start by looking at how reusing blog content can be good for your business. The fact is that a good piece of content can help you attract more traffic, strengthen your brand and improve your conversion rates, even if you use it more than once.

Getting this to work is all about repackaging the content in the right way. Doing so means that it can appear as something fresh and new to both current customers and potential customers that you are trying to attract. After all, everyone loves a good story or appreciates being provided with valuable information.

If your business has produced a blog post that has done either of these things well, there is a good chance that it still has a lot of life left. This is why you should always revisit your blog posts and not just consign them to the archives for good.

Which content should you reuse?

If you want to revive blog posts effectively, you need to understand which content you can reuse and which you should leave where it is. The two main criteria to use when deciding this are evergreen content and popular content.

Evergreen content is content that is not time bound. This means it continues to work well year-on-year. For instance, the advice in this article is evergreen. The basics of reviving blog posts do not change.

Popular content is time, season or statistic-heavy content that which has attracted a lot of interest. You can check the Google analytics stats for your business, to see which of your blog posts this applies to.

It’s important to note that you should not necessarily disregard content simply because some of the facts and figures used need updating. Think about the overall message of the content and decide whether it would still work if some updating work was carried out.

How to revive content

There are several methods that you can use to revive blog content so that it can work for your business again. Having decided which content you may be able to reuse, here are some ideas that can inspire you.

Create A Series

Choose a listicle that was previously created and create a series of blog posts from it. In order to do this, you will probably need to expand on the content somewhat, using each point as the focus for each blog. Consider the titles you use – if they relate directly to user intent, e.g. ‘How to’ and ‘why should…’ searches that are popular (For example – this article you’re reading!)

When writing these blogs posts, you can then improve your internal linking structure, directing traffic to the original content and other relevant pages on your site.

Create Visual Content

Repurpose your content by turning it into an infographic or visual data, which can then be used for link building purposes if you wish. Infographics are liked and shared 3x more than other types of content, so you’d be missing out on something if you don’t try this tactic out.

You don’t even need a professional graphic designer to create an infographic. Apps like Canva are perfect for this strategy

Update The Statistics

Update the content of a blog post to include the latest industry and technical information.

Internal Links

Create new, more appropriate, links within the content. If you have created pieces of content recently that can relate to one of the points stated in an old post, go back and link that new content in. It shows that you keep your posts updated, and as they continue to relate to current trends, you can share them across social media to bring in even more traffic.

Ultimate Guide

Use the information that you have within one or more blog posts to create a comprehensive guide, also known as an ‘Ultimate Guide’ or ‘Beginner’s Guide,’ etc. to a specific subject, which you can then link to relevant blog posts and pages that you want ranking. You may want to create this guide as a guest posting in order to raise the profile of your brand.

Using one or more of these methods can help you take the content that you already have and create something fresh and exciting.

In summary

There is no doubt that reviving blog posts can provide many benefits for your business. Doing so gives you the opportunity to bring excellent content to a whole new audience, attracting new customers.

Using great content in this way can also help you to feature highly in search results, which is obviously essential if you want to optimise the amount of traffic that your business attracts.

It’s also important to remember that you get all of these benefits without having to invest as much time and effort as you do when creating new content. Even if the blog posts that you are revitalising need to be updated, this is still less resource intensive than having to start from scratch.

Hopefully, you can see the benefits of reviving blog posts and have been inspired to look for content that you can reuse.

The Latest Google My Business Features

Posted on by Chloe

Over the years, Google has made it easier for you to reach your potential clients – particularly those local to your business. Generally speaking, consumers who search for a service using the terms, ‘near me,’ without a particular company in mind, will likely look at the businesses who rank in the top positions of the search engine results page (SERP). They will also be more prone to interacting with the business whose Google My Business (GMB) listing is displayed at the very top of the SERP.

Therefore, it is highly recommended that you optimise your website for local searches. Unfortunately, 56% of companies have yet to claim their local business listing on Google, which means that they could be missing out on a relatively simple way to manage their business information, build brand awareness and gain a whole lot of web traffic. A whopping 82% of smartphone shoppers conduct ‘near me’ searches.

Recently, Google announced additional updates that allow you to enhance your listing even further, which are now being rolled out. This blog will give an overview of what features GMB has on offer to help get you and your business up to date and on the local Google search map.

If you’d like more insight into how to optimise your GMB listing, click here to read our advice.

Short Names

Short names, or short links, have been added to the GMB feature with the aim of giving businesses a simpler way of making their GMB profile more accessible. Currently, this feature has only been adopted by 1% of all active GMB merchants.

The shorter name/link must fit between 5 and 32 characters in length and can contain your business name, location, brand, or any other description. For example, you can use your name along with your location, such as @CheltenhamSEO. Be mindful that you can also only change your short name three times a year.

To create your short name:
1. Sign into Google My Business and select the location.
2. Click ‘Info’ from the left-side menu, followed by ‘Add Profile Short Name.’
3. You can then enter your short name.

Once applied, your name will show as ‘Pending,’ and the short URL will then show on your business profile once it’s ready.

Cover Photos and Photo Displays

Businesses can now select a header image, meaning that they can choose the photo(s) that will be seen when they are searched. Previously, the GMB owner did not have much say in which image Google chose to display, so this is great news.

As well as this, you’ll soon see carousel or slide show style photo displays, plus the addition of captions, which will help you tell the story behind your photos. A study conducted by BrightLocal revealed that 60% of consumers said ‘local search results with good images captured their attention and pushed them towards a decision.’

Google has advised businesses to upload a minimum of three exterior photos and three interior photos to their GMB.

Adding Your Logo

If you’ve submitted your business’ core information (address, phone number, opening times, etc), you will have the option to display your business logo on the upper right-hand side of your profile.

To do this, you will need to:
1. Sign in to your ‘Google Admin’ console. Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).
2. From the ‘Admin Console’ home page, go to ‘Company Profile Personalization’.
3. Select ‘Custom logo’.
4. Click ‘Choose File’ and select the file containing your logo.
5. Click ‘Upload’.

Offline Features

Google has launched a website which allows you to aid the promotion of your local business on GMB. You can access social media posts, stickers and posters that are generated using information pulled directly from Google review content, star ratings and your profile’s core information. These posts make great content to share on your social media channels.

These features are extremely useful for businesses with positive reviews on Google, as they allow for the management of your reputation and encourage interaction with your business both online and offline.

Welcome Offers

In October 2018, Google launched a ‘Follow’ button that appears on business listings in the Android Google Maps app, following the removal of Google+. This allows customers to view the GMB post in their ‘For You’ tab.

Businesses now have the opportunity to reward following customers by providing offers, coupons and discounts to use offline. Beware that users will not see exactly what the offer is until they follow the business listing.

Manage Bulk Reviews

From August 16th, Google has added a new feature that allows users to manage reviews in bulk for multiple listings. This means that you’ll be able to view, respond to and flag all reviews at once – a dream feature for GMB users.

Although it should be noted that this feature is only available for location groups with no more than 500 locations, and is not available for organisation accounts.

While this is only a small change, it is certainly welcomed by the SEO community as managing reviews on each individual listing can be time consuming. Just log into your account and click ‘Manage Reviews’ from the side menu.

Hotels Can Add More To Their Listings

Hotels can now add more to their GMB listings, as Google has now made it possible for users to edit ‘services’ and ‘amenities’ in the ‘Hotel Attributes’ section of Google My Business. Please be aware that this can only be done from your desktop, not the mobile app.

Google provides summaries of a hotel’s amenities and services for customers to view from search results, but now that this can be modified by the hotels themselves, users are more likely to see factually correct information. Previously, owners of hotel sites would not be able to change it themselves.

Regarding services, you can add a range of features to your listing to offer search users a more in-depth idea of your hotel. The options include housekeeping, baggage storage, wake up calls, elevators, gift shops and more.

In Summary

Signing up to GMB is completely free and certainly worth the effort if you want to plant your local business firmly at the top of the SERP. Google is constantly rolling out new specifications for their GMB feature and it is vital you keep an eye out for the most recent updates, so that your business can continue to expand its online presence.

Update

Today (on July 5th 2019), users have already detected sightings of a more visual and user friendly interface when they log in to their GMB account. We’ll be monitoring for any further progress so we can keep you fully informed.

Discussion on Twitter here.

The .uk domain explained: What it is and how it could impact your business

Posted on by Chloe

You might not have paid much attention to the end of a domain name. But for most people, the domain name of a website is used to indicate where the organisation is from and improve search engine rankings. In the UK, most domain names finish in ‘.co.uk’, ‘.org.uk’ or ‘.net.uk’.

Remembering a website’s address can be difficult, and it is common for people to forget the domain name of it. Even if you have a well-designed website, people need to be able to find it. SEO is an important way to get you found, but some people rely on their memory.

According to the rules from the global domain name system, the same characters before the dot (or the ‘string’) can be used by different organisations with different endings. This can be a problem for some organisations as it can cause confusion amongst people who are looking for their website.

The .uk domain

The .uk domain is shorter and snappier than the current domain names which most people use. It is easier to remember that the more long-winded domain names, often shortening a web address.

The . uk domain has only been available for just under the last five years and Nominet – the business who is responsible for the . uk domain name is keen to remind people with existing ‘.co.uk’ and other domains that the deadline is looming for them to claim their ‘.uk’ domain.

Ask any online business expert about the power of a good domain name, and they will tell you that it is important to be memorable and easy to use for marketing and promotions. That means simple yet powerful. And this is a particular strength of .uk

In terms of customers finding you, .uk has more benefits. Most countries around the world have an ending based on this model. This means that people from all over the world are more likely to look for you at ‘whattheythinkisyourwebsite.uk’ than any other. If you don’t have a ‘.uk’ name, therefore, they might not find you, or, worse, they could find your competitor first.

Changes in .uk Domains

Nominet has been implementing the change to ‘.UK’ for the past five years. Anyone who has a ‘.co.uk’, ‘.org.uk’, ‘.net.uk’, ‘.me.uk’, ‘.plc.uk’ or ‘.ltd.uk’ domain are able to register to get the ‘.uk’ domain. That is until 25th June 2019. This has been running since June 2014 and now an estimated over 2 million people have registered for their rights of having a .uk domain.

If you have one of the domain names above, you can find out what your options are if you are wanting to claim your ‘.uk’ domain. You can visit Nominet’s website and use their checker to see what the situation is:

  • You will have the right to claim you .uk domain name
  • The .uk domain will have been claimed already
  • You will be able to register for the domain name but with no rights

If you have the rights to register the domain, just get in touch with your domain registrar (the person who you registered your first domain name with), or you can transfer it over to a different registrar (speak to your hosting provider to find out how).

In July, all of the unregistered domains which had previously been ‘reserved’ will be up for grabs, and Nominet has been in touch in as many ways that they can to get website holders informed.

If you have a domain that you like and don’t want to change, you also have the option to not change anything and carry on exactly as you were.

Why should you claim your .uk domain?

It really is up to you whether you want to claim your .uk domain. However, experts are predicting that those which are not claimed by your legitimate business are likely to be snapped up by unscrupulous people who might want to trick people or carry out fraudulent activity.

This could become a problem when you find people pretending to be you, and, as they are expecting an influx of complaints when this comes into practice, it might take a while to become resolved.

It is important that as many people as possible know about this change so that businesses and other organisations can make an informed decision about whether they want to embrace it or not. It means that businesses can take advantage of the benefits of the introduction of .uk, or at least be aware of the potential problems that could occur if they don’t.

If you haven’t registered your .uk domain and feel that you have the right to, time is running out, so get it done today!

Google’s Latest Design of Search Engine Results Pages

Posted on by Chloe

You are probably already aware that Google make regular minor changes that affect the design of search result pages. This includes several small changes to the font and size of ads over the years. However, last week Google announced that they have made a major change to the design of mobile search results and ads. Google state that the design update aims to put “website’s branding front and center” so that web users “better understand where the information is coming from”. The new layout should also create a more streamlined design on search engine result pages. With this in mind, here’s everything you need to know about Google’s new update.

What are the changes?

Black ad sign

The green ads sign has been replaced with bold, black text. This may seem minor, however it could have a significant impact on search results as it helps ads to blend in with the rest of the search results and appear more like organic content.

Name of the site

With the new design, the site name and information appears next to the favicon in search results. Prior to the update, the name of the site appeared in smaller green text below the title and there were no logos or images present. This helps search users to understand where their information is coming from.

No grey line

Previously, ads stood out from the rest of the search results and were easily recognisable. For example, back in 2013 Google ads were displayed in a single block with a coloured background, clearly separate from other result types. More recently, ads and organic search results were  differentiated by the presence a grey line, but Google has now removed this to give each result a more singular look.

Google SERP

 

Image from Twitter

Presence of a favicon

The new design layout takes a brand-first approach and the site’s favicon will now appear at the top of the search result. This means that the user will be able to instantly see where the information is coming from. This is an important feature as it will help you in building an online brand.

These changes mean that organic and paid results will appear more similar on search result pages. The new design also brings some branding to search results and allows users to get quick information on the businesses and sites included in their search results.

Do I have to have a favicon?

A favicon is essentially a small icon that can be associated with your site. Previously, they would only usually be seen in the address bar of a browser, or next to a bookmark for your site. However, with Google’s new update, having a favicon is more important as they will be displayed next to search results. Not having a favicon may affect how your business appears to consumers and have a negative effect on traffic to your site. Your favicon should act as a visual representation of your business and brand, and it needs to the correct size and format so that it can be supported. There are plenty of free tools available online that can convert a standard image into a favicon file. Check Google’s guidelines for more information.

Will the changes increase traffic?

The most notable benefit of Google’s new update is that it helps ads appear more like organic search results. This may help improve click through rates and traffic to paid search result pages. Although it may be too early to notice any impact yet, it is definitely worth monitoring your click through rates on both organic pages and paid results to check for any changes. Another benefit of the new design, is that it provides users with details on where their search results are coming from, so they can get instant information on your site and business. This will help build brand awareness and make your business more recognisable to people. Consumers are far more likely to buy from your business if they know and trust it. For that reason, the new update could help to improve organic traffic to your site, leading to more conversions and an increase in revenue.

Final thought

Overall, the changes have created a more streamlined design to search result pages. It is too early to say whether Google’s new update will improve traffic to paid search results. However, re-designing ads to appear more similar to organic search results, will certainly make it harder for consumers to differentiate between the two. It is important for all marketers and site owners to monitor the potential impact on traffic from Google mobile search, in response to the new updates.