Fibre Marketing

Tag: Google

Site Indexing: What is it, and why does it matter?

Posted on by Chloe

The main aim of any business website is to attract interest in the brand. From this interest, sales  of products and services can be increased. This is why creating a business website that works is so important. It’s your way of establishing a global shop window, where people can see what your business has to offer.

Establishing a website is not the full story though. If your website is not indexed by Google, it will not appear in search results, where you want it to be. As we recently reported, there has been a recent issue with sites dropping out of the index due to a bug. This has led to problems for businesses who have missed out on potential custom as a result. Although this recent issue is a glitch that is being resolved, it’s possible to have ongoing issues with indexing if you do not have a proper understanding of how important it is.

What is site indexing?

It’s important that you have an understanding of site indexing, in order to realise how vital it can be for your business. The process of indexing involves Google searching the web for pages to be added to the Google Index. It’s this index that is used to produce results when searches are made online.

Websites need to be structured correctly, in order to be indexed and to appear in search results. This means that there needs to be an efficient sitemap in place and that tags need to be correctly added to enable Google bots to find the content and index the page correctly.

Why is site indexing important for your business?

Knowing what site indexing means, you should be able to get an idea of why it’s so important. In order for your business to show up in search results, the pages of your website need to be indexed. Any pages that are not indexed are not available to be presented in search results. The pages exist but no-one can find them, so they are not of much use.

You need to make it as easy as possible for Google to find your online content so that all of the information contained on your website is added to the index.

Keeping check on your index status

As can be seen from the recent issues caused by a bug, just because your website pages are added to the Google Index, this does not mean they will always remain there. The recent problem was a temporary one, but there can be issues which cause your pages to drop from the index more permanently. If you do not realise that this has happened, you may be wondering why traffic to your website has dropped.

You can check on the current index status of your pages yourself. However, many businesses find it easier to get experts to do the work for them, giving them time to concentrate on the day to day running of the business.

The simple fact is that if the pages of your website drop from the Google Index, no-one is going to know that they exist. This makes monitoring the index status of pages a vital exercise.

As we mentioned at the start of this article, the main aim of having on online presence is for your website to attract people to your business. You want them to visit your site, and see all of the good content that is there; and you want them to go on to invest in your products or services. This is not going to happen if people do not know that your website exists, because it does not show up in search results. No matter how wonderful your website content is, it does not matter if the pages are not indexed. You need to make sure that it’s easy for Google to find, and navigate through, the pages of your website, so that they are added to the Index and can be produced in search results.

Google dropping pages out of the Search Index

Posted on by Chloe

It’s been reported that a Google bug is causing the removal of pages from the search index. Starting on Thursday 4th April, Google confirmed the bug on Saturday 6th, and as of the time of writing, (11th April), it is yet to be fully resolved.

Sites are seeing web pages being omitted from their index, thus not showing up in Google search results. This could have a huge impact for these websites, resulting in less traffic and therefore less e-commerce check outs, leads and conversions.

On Twitter, people have been asking what the issue is/was, but Google seemed to be avoiding the question:

Come Monday morning, the issue was still not resolved:

Google did also confirm that, while you can use the URL inspection tool to expedite pages, everything will be fixed by Google and we don’t necessarily need to do anything:

Hopefully, this issue will be resolved soon – has your site been affected?

This is not the first Google bug we’ve seen – a few months ago, a bug caused 14 Ads to show on mobile SERPs.

UPDATE: The issue has been resolved:

How to Optimise Your Google My Business Listing

Posted on by Chloe

Optimising your presence online is essential if you want your business to be as competitive as possible. Making sure that your Google My Business listing works as effectively as it should is a major part of this. It makes sense to use this vital tool to its full effect as it does not involve any financial expense to your business and it can help you to feature highly on Google Maps and in Google’s overall organic rankings.

You can choose to do all of the work to optimise your Google My Business listing yourself, or you can work with professionals. This can have benefits for you, as professionals have experience and expertise in working with tools such as Google My Business.

Whatever decision you make about dealing with the optimisation of your Google My Business listing, you need to know what is involved.

Make sure your Google My Business profile is complete

You need to remember that this is a device which is being used to help people find your business. This means that you need to include all important information in your profile. The information that should always be featured includes:

  • The address of your business.
  • Your phone number.
  • The hours that your business operates. Do not forget to include details of any special opening hours which may apply on bank holidays.
  • The operating category of your business, so that people know what you do.
  • A description of the role of your business.
  • How to find your premises.
  • How people can buy your products or pay for your services.

This is your opportunity to tell people about your business, so use it wisely.

Include photographs of your business

Google My Business listings that include photographs usually receive more click-throughs, and more other forms of contact. People like to see what your business look like. Make sure to include photographs that show the inside and outside of your premises.

When you are choosing photographs to use, it’s important to opt for quality and relevance. Do not just decide to use photographs that you already have, if they are not clear or do not accurately represent your business. Have some up to date photographs taken, that show people what your business is all about, and what they can expect when they visit.

Pay attention to your reviews

People can leave reviews on your Google My Business listing, and if these reviews are good, they can have a positive impact on your rankings. The best way to get good reviews is to make sure that you provide a high standard of service. Make sure that products are delivered on time and that services are carried out as promised. You also need to ensure that good customer service is at the centre of everything that you do.

Whether the reviews you receive are positive or not, you need to make sure that you respond to them. People like to feel that they are being listened to. Acknowledge people who are pleased with your service, and say thank you. If people have suggestions, say that you will take them on-board, or explain why it’s not possible to do so. If someone is unhappy with your service, say that you will contact them about the issue. The exact response you give will depend on the situation.

Keep your listing up to date

Once you have created your Google My Business listing, you need to make sure that it’s kept up to date, in order to ensure that it works as effectively as it should. If your address or telephone number changes, do not forget to make the change to your listing. Likewise, if you add to your services, tell people about it. Doing this work helps to make sure that your listing is optimised as all times.

Google My Business is an important tool to use, when it comes to advertising your business. It helps people who are looking for your products or services, in your area, to find you. Make sure that you include all of the relevant information about your business, including photographs. Once you have created your listing, do not forget to update it every time there is a change that people need to know about, in order to help them find your business.

Update for August 2019: 

Google are rolling out new features for Google My Business accounts. Click here to read what these entail and how they can benefit your business.

7 SEO Mistakes that You Should Avoid

Posted on by Chloe

Anyone who is involved in digital marketing and a business’s online presence will know how important SEO is to the success of its website. SEO is the key to your website being found online, and it is therefore essential that you get it right.

The world of SEO, however, is ever-changing. With new trends, new tools and new algorithms coming out all of the time, it is easy to overlook things and make mistakes.

By dealing with these mistakes, you can give your website a new lease of life, enhance your SEO and see your website shoot up those search engine rankings.

Seven of the most common SEO mistakes which are made include:

1.   Not using Google Search Console

Google’s Search Console (or Webmaster Tools as it used to be called) has been gifted to webmasters to give you everything you need for good SEO. Search Console allows you to monitor your site with regards to SEO, submit content for crawling, see the search queries that people are using to find your website and check backlinks.

It is also where they would be able to communicate with you and advise you of any problems – such as manual penalties, crawling errors, any malware that has been detected, and increases in 404 pages.

Everyone can sign up to Google Search Console, meaning that you don’t have to guess anymore. You should also sign up to Bing’s Webmaster Tools who can also give you similar information about your website’s performance on Bing.

2.   Not getting the H1 tags right

It can sometimes be difficult to understand when to use H1 and H2 tags. More than just a font size or making a page look nice, H1 and H2 tags tell the search engines what your pages are about. If you don’t use them or aren’t accurate in the way that you use them, you will be giving the wrong information to the search engine, and, ultimately get penalised because you are not giving their searchers what they want.

Use the H1 tag as the title of your page, and only once. Make it clear and related to the information that is being given – like the title of a book. Any sub-headings should then be made under the H2 tag, and then H3 for sub-sub-headings under H2 and so on.

3.   Not using the Google Keyword Tool

Another useful tool from Google is the Keyword Tool. This gives webmaster details about what queries people are making before they are directed to your website. Keyword research allows you to see what is and isn’t working, and then change your content accordingly.

It is important to remember that businesses with a big online presence are likely to be focusing on the most popular keywords, so try to focus on long-tail and low completion keywords to get your presence higher.

4.   Not having great content

Good content is all about creating trust and authority. As Google continue to develop their algorithms, content is no longer about stuffing it full of keywords, but more about being useful and interesting.

Make sure that you have a good content marketing strategy and that the content is well written, packed with information and something that people will want to read.

5.   Not having a plan

It is important to be consistent when you are posting content for SEO purposes. Search engines hate inconsistency and the best way to be consistent is by having a plan.

Creating a publishing schedule which details how many times you will be publishing content and having a few back up articles which are ready to go will help you stay consistent and help push your website to the top of the search engine rankings.

6.   Not having internal links

Internal links are crucial to good SEO. Not only can they direct your visitors to other pages on your site – which can help you to engage with them better, but internal links will also show the search engines about other pages that you have.

It is easy to create an internal link from any content that you have, and both your readers and SEO rankings will thank you for it.

7.   Having a slow website

We all know how infuriating a slow website can be. It is enough to put people off reading it, making your bounce rate higher, which in turn will lead to lower SEO rankings.

Check that your loading speed isn’t being affected by the formatting on your website and seek help if you can’t make any difference to your website’s speed.

Getting your SEO right is no mean feat, especially as the criteria keep on changing. But there is a lot of help out there – even through the tools that search engines are supplying, and by making a few changes, you could see your website charging up to the top of those search results.

The rise of voice search optimisation: what you need to know

Posted on by Chloe

Voice search is becoming increasingly significant in terms of SEO, as right now, 20% of search queries on Android devices and Google’s app are conducted by voice search. It’s changing the way businesses need to think about their SEO, indicating that they will need to apply voice search SEO if they want to succeed.

 

Voice search allows users to find out what they are looking for without actually loading up a search engine and typing in keywords to generate results. People who use voice search prefer it because it allows them to multitask and they can get information immediately, which is handy for when you’re cooking or driving.

 

And so, due to the increasing amount of usage, search engines are beginning to emphasise voice search optimization.

 

One of the many advantages of voice search optimisation is that it’s a great way to gain brand awareness. When someone asks a question in voice search, the answer usually begins with ‘According to…’, thus informing the listener of your brand.

 

Voice search SEO is different from traditional SEO. For example, voice search uses long tail keywords and a conversational tone, as they are often questions instead of exact keyword searches, like ‘What is the weather like today?’ instead of ‘Cheltenham weather.’

 

It is therefore vital that you should know how users speak about your business and its products. Your content should be written for people, not search engines. Answer questions directly and try and make it obvious that a paragraph is an answer to a question. An example of this type of content is blog posts – many article headings’ feature a question that the post itself then answers.

 

And, of course, you must know your audience and what they are likely to be asking.

 

Making sure that your site is optimised for mobiles is just as important – this is where voice search comes from after all. Mobile SEO needs to be good and page content needs to be high-quality, as your content should be as relevant to the desired search query as possible. Using sections with lists, bullet points, and heading tags can be read easily by Google and thus perform better, and are more likely to be used for voice search.

 

Local SEO is essential as the most popular types of search queries for voice search are location-based – users want to know things like opening times, locations, and what products are available where. So if a site and its content are optimised for local searches, then it’s more likely to succeed in the voice search industry. One way to work out what sort of local content you ned is to think of the popular search phrase ‘…near me.’ Most voice search queries are essentially that but in question form, and that’s the type of information your website will need to provide.

 

In conclusion, voice search optimisation is making changes to mobile SEO, making it something that business owners need to consider when designing their websites. It is speculated that voice search will be a huge trend this year, proven to improve brand awareness and purchases. It’s usage is still on the rise, so by optimising your site for voice search now, you are sure to see results that will help grow your brand in the long-term.

 

See more thoughts about this voice search optimisation here.

Google bug shows up to 14 ads on mobile search pages

Posted on by Chloe

If you follow us on Twitter, you would have seen that we recently posted a video showing a Google mobile SERP that features up to fourteen ads:

As you can see, there are four ads on the top of the page, followed by two organic listings.  Seven more ads appear followed by six organic listings, and then the page ends with three final ads. That’s twice as many ads than usual, and our video kick-started a backlash across Twitter.

We believed that this was another test by Google concerning its search engine results pages, only this one focused solely on mobile searches.

From what we have seen, the SERPs are not still like this, but the discussion on Twitter is still ongoing:

It has been predicted for a while that Google would push its Ads, and the founder of Moz, Rand Fishkin, recently reported that, in 2018, there had been a decline in click-through rates yet an increase in no-click searches. This statistic reflects how Google SERP features, such as Google Ads and Featured Snippets, are competing for clicks.

However, Google Ads responded to our tweet, confirming that it was, in fact, a bug and not a test:

While their reply has received some mixed responses, it is a relief to know that this is not likely to be the layout of mobile searches anytime soon.

See the rest of the Twitter discussion here.

Google displays ‘empty’ search pages to European users

Posted on by Chloe

Recently, Google shared screenshots of proposed search engine results pages that would display if the EU passes Articles 11 and 13 of the EU Copyright Directive. The search results appear empty, as if they have failed to load correctly, and only links are displayed:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Image from Search Engine Land 

These types of results were then shown to European users, as discussed on Twitter:

 

The experiment was, according to Google, ‘to understand what the impact of the proposed EU Copyright Directive would be to our users and publisher partners.”

Two provisions that are part of this proposal are Articles 11 & 13. Article 11 would mean that Google and other search engines are required to pay licensing fees when displaying snippets of content. Article 13 requires certain platforms, such as Google and social media sites including Facebook and Twitter, to monitor content uploads for potential copyright infringement.

The full Twitter forum is below: