WebProNews

Tag: SEO

  • Neil Patel’s 6 Tips to Dominating Google

    Neil Patel’s 6 Tips to Dominating Google

    “Do you want to know what’s better than being on page one of Google?” asked digital marketing expert Neil Patel. “Not just ranking number one, but owning the first page.”

    In Patel’s latest video (below) he reveals six tips designed to help anybody with unique and useful content result on the first page of a Google search. Incredibly, Patel says that these techniques will actually help you achieve not just the number one result, but will rank your content in multiple listings on the first page.

    Neil Patel, digital marketing expert, entrepreneur, and business influencer discusses how to own the front page of Google:

    Tip One: Interlink Your Content

    The first tip I have for you is to interlink your content. Let’s say you’re trying to rank for a term like ‘SEO’ or ‘online marketing.’ If you have an article that’s super in-depth about that topic you can create other offshoots. For example, I have a lot of topics about online marketing. One of them is ‘Online Marketing Made Simple – A Step-by-Step Guide.’

    I also have other articles that break down online marketing tools. What I can do is cross-link those articles together. By doing that It’ll increase my chance that both of those pages can rank on page one for the term ‘online marketing.’

    Tip 2 – Create Multiple Pages That Cover the Same Topic

    In addition to that, you want to have multiple pages that cover the same topic. I just gave you an example. One could be on ‘Online Marketing Beginners Guide.’ Another one could be ‘Online Marketing Tools.’ Another one could be ‘How To Get Started with Online Marketing.’ Another one could be the ‘Advanced Guide to Online Marketing.’

    You get the point. By having multiple pages, and not just two, by having five or six or seven it’s going to increase your chances that you can rank on page one with more than just one listing.

    Tip 3 – Do Not Duplicate Your Content

    The third tip I have for you is to not duplicate your content. A lot of people when they’re trying to rank for a term like ‘online marketing’ they’ll take the same content and regurgitate it throughout their whole site. If you do that Google is not going to want to rank duplicate content from your own site multiple times. That will create a terrible user experience. If you do that you’re not going to do well, so don’t duplicate your own content. Write fresh unique content that you already haven’t written about before.

    Tip 4 – Build Links

    The fourth tip I have for you is to build links. If you build links to your site you’re going to rank higher. You know that, but you also want to build links to every version of your posts that you’re trying to dominate page one for. Using Ahrefs they have a feature called Link Intersect. You can put in your URL as well as other competitive URLs and it will show you who links to your competitors but are not linking to you.

    The beautiful part about this feature is if someone links to three or four or five of your competitors but not you, there’s a good chance you could potentially convince them to also link to you. This is because you know they’re open to linking to other sites within your space. By using the Link Intersect tool you can see who links to other online marketing articles or other online marketing sites.

    Then from there what you’ll want to do is hit up those sites and ask them, ‘hey you got a detailed post that you cover A, B, and C’ that your competition may not. Ask them to link to you as well.  Don’t just do that for your main post on that subject but also do it in regards to your secondary and third pages that are also around that same topic.

    Tip 5 – Promote Your Articles on the Social Web

    The fifth tip I have for you is to promote your articles on the social web. From Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn, you’ve heard this before. You want to promote your main articles as well as your sub-articles that are also around that topic. But what most people don’t tell you when it comes to social promotions is that when you share an article on Twitter or Facebook, most of your fans or friends aren’t going to see it. You don’t want to just share it once. You want to share it four or five times over the next six months.

    By doing this you’re going to continue to get more eyeballs and more shares indirectly. Some of those people may link to the article or leave a comment. This will help with the engagement and better user metrics and that should help with overall rankings in the long run.

    Tip 6 – No One Likes Outdated Content

    The last tip I have for you is no one likes outdated content. When you publish content it gets outdated over time. It’s natural even if you write about tools and tips. For example, if I wrote about Vine, which is a company that Twitter bought, it’s outdated. It doesn’t exist anymore. Twitter shut it down. I’d have to update that content and talk about a different tool out there, maybe Instagram.

    The point I’m trying to make is whatever you write on is going to get outdated. That’s okay and that’s natural. However, once a year consider updating your main pieces of content because that’ll help them all rank higher.


  • Reports of Unstable Google Search Results

    Reports of Unstable Google Search Results

    SEO expert Barry Schwartz has reported that in his tracking there appears to be some unstableness with the Google search results recently. This would explain why a lot of sites are complaining a bit louder lately about search traffic declines.

    “Over the past few days, I’ve been tracking this and it seems like there’s really some unstable search results going on in the Google search results,” Schwartz said. “I’m not sure if it’s an algorithm update or if it’s more of like a penalty affecting a very specific niche or two, or maybe a specific type of tactic, maybe around links, I’m not sure. It seems a little bit more blackhat oriented where the blackhat communities are complaining a little bit more, but I’m not really sure.”

    “The algorithm tools that are tracking this stuff really aren’t showing many fluctuations at all, which is interesting,” noted Schwartz. “But there is definitely, within certain types of communities in the SEO industry, a lot of communication going on over the past 3-4 days or so around a bunch of ranking changes for their websites. We’ll keep investigating that but I just wanted to bring that to your attention because it does seem to be somewhat significant for a limited number of segments within our industry.”

  • Google Search Algorithm Update on October 16th Looks Like a Big One

    Google Search Algorithm Update on October 16th Looks Like a Big One

    SEO expert Barry Schwartz released a video this morning stating that he sees “lots of signals” that the recent October 16 Google algorithm update was a “big one.” Barry also talked about a Webmaster Hangout this morning with Google’s John Mueller and a popular site owner who lost 60 percent of his traffic overnight. John and his team actually looked into this one in detail but offered no advice except to keep improving the site.

    Barry Schwartz on the Google October 16 algorithm update:

    Although Google won’t confirm it yet, I asked them, there seems to be a Google search algorithm update on October 16th and it looks like a big one. We have lots of signals from both the SEO community as well as the different tracking tools that there was some sort of big algorithm update. It probably was related to tweaking what they have done over the last couple of months.

    John Mueller said that all Google updates impact every single website in the Google index. Obviously, if your site didn’t see an impact, it was still impacted by the algorithm but just had zero impact change. It’s not like specific sites were impacted, it’s just the overall algorithm.

    This morning, John Mueller did a Hangout which he does weekly (roughly) and a guy came in who runs a popular website that lost 60 percent of his organic traffic. He came to John before and John asked for detailed examples which he gave him.

    The interesting thing about this is that John actually explained that he went to the Google engineer team, went over the examples with them, and came back with the answer that the algorithm is working as expected, things change over time, and to keep making your website better.

    Of course, understanding and seeing somebody whose traffic dropped and who also has payroll because he has a big staff is a big impact on a website and a business owner. Listening to that conversation, to John and the site owner who lost half of his business or more because of the Google algorithm is somewhat heartbreaking.

    Hopefully, he will be able to figure out what to do. John’s not giving any specific advice outside of just make your site better, read the quality rating guidelines and look for things there.

  • Eric Enge Says Google’s Two Most Important Ranking Factors Are Still Content and Links

    Eric Enge Says Google’s Two Most Important Ranking Factors Are Still Content and Links

    SEO is constantly changing but search ranking expert Eric Enge still says that everything else should take second priority to content quality and links. In a recent video discussion (below) and blog post, Eric explains how the Google Ranking Score intersects with the Google Content Score which results in a Google Link Score.

    Eric Enge is General Manager of Perficient Digital, a full-service digital agency. Previously, Eric was the founder and CEO of Stone Temple which was acquired by Perficient in July 2018. Here’s how Eric explains Google’s current method for ranking content:

    Google Considers Content and Links the Two Most Important Ranking Factors

    Earlier this year I was part of a live hangout with Andre Ropeta of Google where he said that Google considers the two most important factors for ranking to be content and links to your site. I provided strong backup for the power of links in a study I published last year. From my experience, I think many organizations could dramatically improve their SEO just by creating better quality content and more effectively promoting it but so few bothered to do that.

    Are Content and Backlinks All That Websites Need to Think About for SEO?

    Of course, just thinking about content and backlinks for SEO would be a gross oversimplification. There are still a lot of other things you can do that will help your SEO. These are things like a better information architecture, making better use of SEO tags, good usability and all that. However, I think it’s undeniable that all of those take a second priority to content quality and links.

    How Do Content and Links Interact?

    To keep it simple, let’s imagine a hypothetical set of scores for content and links. Here ’s an equation that depicts the possible relationship between those two things:

    Ranking Score = Content Score * Link Score

    Now let’s pop that plot that on a graph (below). Notice two things, first the Y-axis is labeled Chances of Ranking, not Ranking. We’re dealing with probabilities here, the higher in the curve you are the more probable it is that you will rank high, but of course, they’re never any guarantees.

    Second, notice that I’ve made the content score way more influential than the linked score. Think about it, if your content isn’t at least good quality and it doesn’t do a good job of satisfying your users’ query or if it provides a poor user experience then it really shouldn’t have any chance of ranking in the first place, no matter how many links you get.

    While links are very powerful for establishing the basic authority of a page, Google is smart enough to know that they don’t tell the whole story. That’s why Google is invested so much in being able to discern the quality and appropriateness of content.

    How Should Websites Apply This in a Practical Way?

    My goal with my two step ranking model is to simplify SEO for most people without oversimplifying it. But making it simple in no way implies there’s not a lot of hard work to be done in order to be successful, far from it. It comes down to the two things that have always been true for successful companies, make really good stuff and market it effectively.

    In the case of content marketing, the good stuff is the content that goes above and beyond in creating delight, trust, and respect in your target audience. The marketing part is effectively sharing and promoting that content and getting it in front of the right eyes and if it’s really good that’s where the earned linked opportunities kick in.

  • 5 SEO Trends Digital Marketers Should Not Ignore in 2017

    5 SEO Trends Digital Marketers Should Not Ignore in 2017

    Anyone who has worked in the SEO field for a while would surely know that there is no fixed rule in the game. To consistently outperform your rival, it is necessary to master the trends as they come or be swept away into oblivion.

    For 2017, here are the top 5 trends in SEO that will give your brand more visibility online:

    Smarter AIs Could Change Algorithms

    One of the major factors that could affect SEO in 2017 is, of course, the latest advancements in artificial intelligence technology. Everyone should expect the way search engines work to change as smarter AIs join the game.

    Google users should expect changes on how the popular search engine does the work for them. In late 2016, Google RankBrain was unleashed, paving the way for the search engine to learn how people use the facility.

    The latest Hummingbird extension boasts of an algorithmic machine learning technology with the end goal of improving the search experience for users. According to Forbes, RankBrain enabled Google to learn how people use phrases in their queries and, with the information, update the search engine’s algorithm accordingly. Of course, this means that content providers must relearn things if necessary and adapt to the changing search landscape. The previous update left many webmasters grumbling when they found out that their articles hardly make it to the coveted “Top Stories” section anymore.

    The rising popularity of digital assistants, such as Siri and Cortana, is also changing the way people make searches online. This means that with the increasing use of these intelligent digital assistants, advanced forms of conversational queries will increase, opening up another segment that companies could target.

    AMP Gets Amped

    While desktop computing won’t exactly disappear, search engine use is projected to see the most growth in the mobile segment. The Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project protocol anticipates this trend and is in place to make content optimized for mobile browsing.

    Pages running on AMP get loaded on mobiles devices four times faster than regular ones. In fact, Google favors AMP content. Since last February, Google has been marking AMP sites with a lightning bolt icon and featuring them more prominently in search results.

    Going AMP would also benefit users in the long run. Pages load faster because it uses 8 times less data compared to a regular page. And of course, everyone knows that loading speed is a big factor in viewer retention.

    Branding Goes Personal

    Some industry watchers predict that personal branding is the way to go to be successful with your online campaign. Of course, that is not saying that you should do away with the corporate brand, but there are advantages when people within an organization tell their own stories. Think of personal branding as a way to complement a company’s SEO efforts and how it reaches out to its online customers.

    Nowadays, corporations have to deal with being perceived by consumers as manipulative and greedy. Therefore, engaging consumers on a personal level is seen as the solution to diffuse this consumer wariness. By providing a personal identity that corporations naturally lack, personal branding makes it easier for consumers to trust the brand.

    In addition, posting on a personal level amplifies the reach of a company. For instance, if a CEO of a company has three personal accounts on social media for this purpose, he is multiplying his corporate exposure as all of these accounts can grow their own follower base independently. In addition, these separate accounts can be used to target different segments of the market, which could result in a more customized posting that could potentially increase engagement.

    UEO Meets SEO

    Another important trend to watch out for is the rising importance of UEO in SEO. In fact, there are indications that user experience optimization (UEO) is going to become more important in SEO rankings.

    Google is now giving hints that it may give more weight to user experience in its search result. One such hint is that the search engine giant seems to favor pages that load quickly with its preference for AMP content.

    If the trend continues, the next step would be for Google to favor pages that offer a more enjoyable user experience. One metric that could come into play is the length of time a visitor stays on a page– staying a long time usually means that the visitor enjoys the content. While user experience has been an important metric in ranking pages for some time now, it looks like it’s going to become even more important in future versions of the search algorithm. The bottom line is that webmasters should post quality content in well-designed sites that most people will enjoy.

    Content Gets Denser

    Speaking of content, there is another trend that experts are predicting– the rise of denser content. According to Smart Insights, there was a time when tons of brief but “fluffy” content-wise posts sufficed, which was eventually replaced by lengthy, seemingly complicated content to rank in SEO. However, those two extremes are now being replaced by what is referred to as Dense Content.

    Simply put, Dense Content is when one offers tons of information using the smallest space possible. Of course, this presents an entirely new challenge which would definitely involve some spark of creativity and the flair for creating stunning visuals. But of course, the challenge is what makes SEO very interesting.

    [Featured Image by Pixabay]

  • SEO Vs. PPC: How to Make the Right Choice

    SEO Vs. PPC: How to Make the Right Choice

    Most successful online businesses typically aim to make maximum profits. To reach this goal, these businesses greatly rely on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay Per Click) to drive traffic. The more people that visit your site, the better your chances of making sales.

    Both SEO and PPC advertising offer profitable result. However, there are many notable differences between the two, thus choosing the right one for your campaign is vital.

    In order to choose, you need to first understand what they are and why they are different.

    Why Choose SEO

    Image result for search engine optimization benefits

    SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and as its name suggests, it targets organic search engine results. Before choosing to market your business with SEO, here are a few things to factor into your decision:

    •  It’s free
    •  80% of website traffic comes from search engines
    •  Getting to the first page of search engines mean sustained traffic.

    Keep in mind that since SEO is a free strategy, the competition will be extremely fierce. You won’t be the only one utilizing SEO, so you’ll need to up your game. Improve your website’s functionality and aesthetics, as well as be consistent with your posts.

    When to Choose SEO

    The right marketing tool to use strongly depends on what kind of company you run and what goals you’ve set for the future. Below are more scenarios wherein SEO will be the better choice:

    • You’d rather invest time and effort to get results in the long run, instead of paying money for quick results.
    • When you want to increase your website’s value.
    •  Reaching the first page of a search engine means that you get sustained traffic.

    Why Choose PPC

    To use PPC, you’ll need to dish out some cash to get results.

    Image result for ppc benefits

    Unlike SEO that depends on consistently posting new content, PPC is a method that will get your website on the first page of a search engine through bidding. Here are a few handy things to know about PPC.

    • You need to bid a certain amount for your ads to appear in the “sponsored results” section of search engines.
    • You pay for every person who clicks on your promoted campaign.
    • Examples of PPC tools include Google AdWords, Yahoo Advertising, and Facebook Promotions.

    When to Choose PPC

    If you are willing to spend money to generate traffic to your website, PPC is the way to go. Here are more circumstances wherein PPC will be the better marketing tool.

    •  You want immediate results.
    •  You want to target a specific age group, income bracket, and other demographics.
    •  If you’re aiming for keyword domination since the top 3 sponsored links on a search engine results page receives 50% of the traffic.
    • When you are promoting an event or limited-time offer.

    Choosing the right marketing method for your company may seem like a big and heavy decision to make on your part. However, don’t think of PPC and SEO as competitors since they are actually complimentary. If you are able to do both, then you are certain to get way better results compared to what you will get by choosing only one.

  • How Social Media Marketing Improves Your Google Rank

    How Social Media Marketing Improves Your Google Rank

    In boosting your search engine ranking, it’s almost criminal to exclude social media marketing, especially given its pervasive presence online.

    Last year, nearly 70% of people worldwide used social media in one form or another. Also in 2016, 2.34 billion people had a social media presence, and stats predict that this will increase to 2.67 billion by next year.

    Number of social media users worldwide from 2010 to 2020 (in billions)

    It’s not clear how Google really gauges social media when it comes to ranking websites. That’s understandable, considering the search engine has always been very secretive about its algorithms. What’s clear at this point, however, is that social media does help in driving traffic to your site, albeit indirectly.

    The correlation can be found in the top ranking websites, which also have very strong social media signals. So even if Google says that social media shares don’t really count as one link, a large volume should account for something.

    Below are just some of the ways social media marketing can boost rankings:

    Cultivates Relationships With Customers

    Social media provides an easy platform where businesses can directly interact with their customers. More than superficial interaction, it actually allows you to develop a relationship with your clientele. Successful use of social media even gives the power to the consumers to dictate how product value is offered. It’s not just about numbers, but rather making them feel that they have a stake in the company. Cultivating your customers through social media will drive more traffic to your site, resulting in a better ranking on Google.

    Links to Your Website

    The main purpose of social media is to raise awareness of your product or service. The main goal of Google, meanwhile, is to give the most relevant result when users submit a query. Posting your web address on your social media page—and asking your customers to share it—will also drive traffic to your website.

    Businesses are always trying to figure out where their customers are, especially if their websites fail to get traffic even when they have existed for quite some time. Social media offers a ready customer base, with its almost three billion population. The trick is how to harness it.

    Means to an End

    You should keep in mind that social media is just a means to an end, as Google doesn’t really recognize any of it in its search engine results page (SERP). Knowing this, it’s important for you to make great content that can possibly go viral. YouTube, in fact, has become the battleground for marketers to create the next viral video. It may not directly lead traffic to your website, but it does make for perfect brand recall. Of course, knowing the attention span of Millennials, you’ll need to routinely churn out great content to be effective.

    In sum, just remember these simple steps to boost your Google rank with social media.

    • First, create an account on social media—particularly the big four of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube—which can help drive traffic to your website.
    • Second, fill your social media account with great content, with proper search engine optimization techniques, to make sure Google crawls through the page and indexes it in their search engine results page.
    • Third, make sure that the viewers or readers can see the share button to make it easy for them to post your content on their own social media accounts. Afterward, just wash, rinse, and repeat.

    Customers, however, are not as keen to forgive on social media, as compared to websites, when the company fails to respond immediately. As such, it’s best to appoint an administrator tasked to respond to queries or complaints on your social media page so your customers walk away happy. This increases the chances of visitors recommending your business to their families and friends.

  • Google Explains How It Establishes a Crawl Budget for Your Site

    Google Explains How It Establishes a Crawl Budget for Your Site

    If you’ve never heard of a “crawl budget” you’re not alone. It’s actually something that most publishers don’t have to worry about, as long as your pages tend to be crawled by Googlebot the same day that they’re published. Also, if you have a small site with fewer than a few thousand URLs, it is probably already being crawled in a timely fashion.

    However, Google felt it necessary to explain in a blog post exactly what a crawl budget is and what factors can impact a quick crawl by Google.

    First there is the Crawl Rate Limit which limits the maximum fetching rate for a given site in order to not degrade the user experience. “Simply put, this represents the number of simultaneous parallel connections Googlebot may use to crawl the site, as well as the time it has to wait between the fetches,” says Gary Illyes who is part of the webmaster team at Google.

    The crawl rate will go up and down based on site speed and server errors. Fast responsive sites with no errors will get crawled more. Also, in the Search Console webmasters can manually add limits to crawling.

    “Even if the crawl rate limit isn’t reached, if there’s no demand from indexing, there will be low activity from Googlebot,” said Illyes. He says that popular sites get priority crawling and that in general Google wants to crawl new content. “Taking crawl rate and crawl demand together we define crawl budget as the number of URLs Googlebot can and wants to crawl.”

    Low-Value-Add URLs

    Having many low-value-add URLs can negatively affect a site’s crawling and indexing. In order of significance, low-value-add URLs fall into these categories:

    “Wasting server resources on pages like these will drain crawl activity from pages that do actually have value, which may cause a significant delay in discovering great content on a site,” says Illyes.

    Read their full blog post here.

  • 5 Reasons Adding a Number to Your Blog Post Titles Increases Page Views

    5 Reasons Adding a Number to Your Blog Post Titles Increases Page Views

    You should add a number to at least half of your blog posts according to a successful small business marketing blogger. What he really means is that list formatted posts, such as 4 Best Ways to Make Money Blogging, 10 Incredible Gmail Tricks and Tips or 4 Best Ways to Make Money Blogging… are extremely effective in driving social sharing which also leads to linking which is great for search ranking.

    “Over the past three years, I’ve crafted titles for over 5,000 blog posts and have received over 58 million unique visitors to date,” said Brandon Gaille in a guest post on Google’s Inside AdSense blog. “With that many titles and that much traffic, it’s allowed me to identify what types of titles get the most traffic.”

    Gaille has been on a tear over the past 3 years, founding business advice site BrandonGaille.com which now has over 2 million monthly visitors. Galille has since parlayed that success into offering a course called The Blog Millionaire for others to learn how to make millions too. “The overwhelming success of his blog system led Brandon to create an online course to guide bloggers and businesses down the same proven path of success that his clients pay him up to $100,000/year for,” said Galille on LinkedIn. There is currently a waiting list to join the course!

    5 Reasons Adding a Number to Your Article Titles Increase Traffic

    1. Placing a Number Gives Users What They Are Used To!

    Call it the BuzzFeed effect, but lists drive traffic and a number in the title signifies a list. It’s really that simple.

    “Titles that begin with numbers are proving to drive traffic,” says Gaille. “This is largely due to the increased consumption of users reading list posts more than any other type of blog post. A list post typically has anywhere from seven to forty key points, which are listed out numerically.”

    2. List Posts Are Shared the Most on Social

    People love to share List Posts on social media like Facebook and sharing can supercharge your traffic. Why not play into the social media game and give them what they want, short, easy to digest sharable content.

    3. Odd Numbers in Titles Are 20% More Effective

    “Although no one has figured out exactly why this happens, the odd numbered titles get more clicks than the even numbered titles,” said Gaille.

    I think it’s probably because it sounds more legit, not made up. For instance, if somebody posts the 10 best ways to drive traffic, people will inherently think that the writer thought of 10 points and stopped thinking. However, if it was the 7 best, it sounds as if these are actually what the author thinks are truly best.

    4. People Love to Link to Lists Which Makes for Great SEO

    Search engine optimization is driven by links and what better way to get links than to get your content shared on social. So part of your SEO strategy should be to write content that people want to link to and then not only will they link in their own blogs but they will also get the word out by sharing your posts on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and many other places.

    5. Gaining a List Site Reputation Will Cause Repeat Traffic

    Just like Brandon Gaille has discovered, writing lots of list style posts and including a number in the title gives you traction as a place people want to go. People like simple straight forward easy to read advice and that’s what Gaille delivers. Those who are looking for something to share on social or for inspiration on an article (like this one) find list sites a great destination source.

  • eBay Browse Pages Make it SEO Friendlier

    eBay Browse Pages Make it SEO Friendlier

    eBay announced last week that in order to make their Google links more SEO friendly they have created “browse pages.” They said that in the past, a click from a search result to eBay would often be to an eBay search result itself.

    Those of us in the SEO world know Google hates search results going to more search results. Google killed directories in their results and those kinds of results are similar.

    With eBay’s new browse pages, they have organized the results to be more what a consumer would expect to see when clicking a search result. The pages include pictures of various similar items broken down by brand, type and price and include summary descriptions.

    screen-shot-2016-11-07-at-11-56-40-am

    eBay Says This Move Was Prompted by Millennials

    “We’ve noticed something lately,” said eBay in a blog post. “New online shopping patterns have emerged, especially with Millennial buyers. Instead of visiting specific online retailers for a single-purchase transaction, shoppers are using search engines to turn up results based on keywords.”

    They say that this behavioral change is because buyers are looking for inspiration and guidance, and they’re more inclined to explore and discover to find what they want.

    I could be wrong, but it sounds like it was more of an SEO play than a reaction to new Millennial behavior. But, whatever the reason, it’s definitely a better page for the Googler to land on than another set of search results.

    Made Possible by Structured Data and RPIs

    Earlier this year eBay announced to the consternation of some of their sellers that all products would be requiring Required Product Identifiers (RPIs). This structured data enabled eBay to make these new “browse pages” and helps them improve the shopping experience for buyers.

    screen-shot-2016-11-07-at-12-07-44-pm

    eBay told their sellers: “The most amazing part? All of these improvements were made possible by you. By adding Structured Data and Required Product Identifiers (RPIs) information to your listings, you allowed us to better organize site inventory and create a new, more relevant shopping experience for eBay buyers.”

  • Google Says “Don’t Worry About Links”

    Google Says “Don’t Worry About Links”

    Links are a topic on the mind of every webmaster, search marketer and entrepreneur, especially as it relates to ranking in Google search results. The funny thing is, Google really, really doesn’t want you to worry about links, because of course, that wouldn’t be natural.

    I thought it interesting to raise up a few comments Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, John Mueller made during his latest Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout, that illustrate how much Google doesn’t want us to worry about links.

    One hangout participant stated that as a teacher he gets a lot of links from random places, some that might even be considered bad neighborhoods and asked; Are these kinds of links good for me or bad for me? Is Google giving me credit for them? Is Google penalizing me for them? Is Google discounting them? Should I disavow them? Should I not worry?

    “I like that last option,” said Mueller. “In general, if these are normal links, organic links, that are happening that are pointing at your content, then I would just let them be. That’s the way the internet works, people link to your content.”

    He added, “If your students have blogs and they think, oh, this is actually a teacher that knows what he’s talking about, then that’s a good link. That’s not something you need to disavow just because maybe it’s a sitewide link or in the blog role. I wouldn’t worry about where people are linking from. If these are organic links that are at your site, that’s perfectly fine.”

    The caller stated, “So in best case scenario, I get credit for them. In worst case scenario, Google will discount them. But nothing to worry about being paralyzed or anything like that?” Mueller answered, “Exactly.”

    Another person asked, “Are you ever going to create an episode just for the discount of links? Like a hangout just for that kind of subject, because I still feel like it’s discounted. If you had, let’s say, five bad links, and that link– I think there was an example there from the “New York Times.” So that “New York Times” link will also be discounted by accident, or no, it won’t? It’s just still a gray area there with this whole discounted link thing going on.”

    “Yeah, but in general, that’s not really something you need to worry that much about,” answered Mueller. “That’s kind of the way our algorithms are picking up these links and trying to figure out, how should we treat these links? And that’s something that we’ve been doing in the past as well. That’s even in the basis of PageRank, in the sense that not all links are the same, and we need to figure out how to value the individual links.”

    “But that’s not something that as a webmaster you really need to worry about, because you can’t really control that,” he said. “From that point of view, it’s hard to say we could do a whole Hangout just on links, because ideally in the background, there is this big, big sign saying, you shouldn’t be playing with links. And if we’re talking the whole time about how to make links look natural, then that’s essentially contradicting the other one.”

  • Google To Lower Mobile Search Ranking of Sites with Interstitials

    Google To Lower Mobile Search Ranking of Sites with Interstitials

    Google announced that on January 10, 2017 they are going to lower the mobile search ranking of sites with interstitial ads popping up in front of content. This is something that many mobile searchers will applaud and many publishers will not be too happy about.

    “To improve the mobile search experience, after January 10, 2017, pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly,” posted Google Product Manager Doantam Phan . “Pages that show intrusive interstitials provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible. This can be problematic on mobile devices where screens are often smaller.”

    People have become very upset over intrusive popups on mobile devices because it significantly degrades the user experience. “I can’t stand all this stuff popping up on my phone,” commented Bonnie Akridge. “I wish they would get rid of it all. Much of what I read is already mobile friendly but I get the question box do I want to switch to mobile friendly. All this crap is so flipping annoying. I didn’t sign up for this and I hate it being force on me.”

    An internet marketer had a somewhat different reaction. “I’ve always hated those popups that come up and block the page (especially on mobile),” stated S. Kyle Davis. “Now it seems that Google has made the use of “interstitials” a ranking point. Good to hear! Of course, any time Google does something like this, the opposite reaction is that it is making things harder for advertisers (thus making it harder for content producers to make money and continue producing content). However, I always hope that it pushes us to find better, less obtrusive and more effective ways to communicate paid messages to audiences.”

    Although this initially applies to only mobile search rankings, its a reasonable prediction that Google will extend this to desktop rankings as well in the future, effectively killing interstitial and popup advertising on the internet.

    “Although the majority of pages now have text and content on the page that is readable without zooming, we’ve recently seen many examples where these pages show intrusive interstitials to users,” says Phan. “While the underlying content is present on the page and available to be indexed by Google, content may be visually obscured by an interstitial. This can frustrate users because they are unable to easily access the content that they were expecting when they tapped on the search result.”

    Google specifically does not want sites to show a popup that covers the main content either immediately or delayed, they don’t want any ads that have to be closed by the user and they consider large top ads to be effectively the same as an interstitial. So they are going to penalize sites where ads dominate above the fold space.

    Screen Shot 2016-08-24 at 12.51.41 PM

    They did offer exceptions where they won’t rank lower sites with interstitials that are a response to a legal obligation such as age verification, are part of a login process or small top banners.

    Screen Shot 2016-08-24 at 12.52.29 PM

    “Remember, this new signal is just one of hundreds of signals that are used in ranking,” said Phan. “The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content.”

  • Changes in Google Ranking Factors – 2016

    Changes in Google Ranking Factors – 2016

    What is and isn’t a ranking factor in search? Here are the latest thoughts by industry experts on search ranking factors and particularly Google Ranking Factors as they are in 2016.

    Content & Links Are the Two Most Important Ranking Signals

    Eric Enge noted in a post that he participated in a Hangout with Google’s Andrey Lippatsev, Search Quality Senior Strategist, who was asked about the top 3 ranking signals, noting that RankBrain was announced as the third most important. “I can tell you what they are. It’s content and links going into your site,” answered Lippatesev.

    “When you aren’t facing page relevance or quality issues, links can, and do, continue to significantly impact rankings.” said Enge.

    “Backlinks remain an extremely important Google ranking factor,” said Brian Dean founder of Backlinko in a recent blog post on Google Ranking Factors. “We found the number of domains linking to a page correlated with rankings more than any other factor.” Read more on the Backlinko Ranking Study at the end of this article.

    RankBrain – Third Most Important Factor

    Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand wrote an interesting piece on how RankBrain has now become the third most important ranking factor behind content and links. According to a report onBackChannel RankBrain is being used on almost ALL search queries helping determine the most relevant results and their order:

    Google is characteristically fuzzy on exactly how it improves search (something to do with the long tail? Better interpretation of ambiguous requests?) but Jeff Dean says that RankBrain is “involved in every query,” and affects the actual rankings “probably not in every query but in a lot of queries.” What’s more, it’s hugely effective. Of the hundreds of “signals” Google search uses when it calculates its rankings (a signal might be the user’s geographical location, or whether the headline on a page matches the text in the query), RankBrain is now rated as the third most useful.

     
    Click-Through Rate (CTR) is Not a Ranking Factor

    “I think we can establish that CTR is not a direct ranking signal for Google. At the same time, it can have an indirect effect,” said Eric Enge in a recent video (below) they posted on their marketing website Stone Temple Consulting. “Lots of people clicking on a certain result might indicate a real interest in it, and that might mean it’s a better result than the result above it. Notice I said might there. That will be important later. Anyway, many people have assumed that search engines like Google would use such a signal, of course, bouncing it off against other signals that it uses in ranking.”

    So with that answer, one wonders why isn’t then CTR a ranking signal? Primarily because Google has told us they don’t, commented Enge. He noted that it’s simply too easy to game and that it doesn’t necessarily mean the user was satisfied with the result. Google uses it internally for studying search behavior but it is not a ranking signal. He provided this chart in a recent blog post. Enge wrote another article about CTR as a (non) ranking factor here.

    Screen Shot 2016-07-27 at 10.24.57 AM

    Google Confirms 301, 302, 3xx redirects Do Not Lose PageRank Value

    “30x redirects don’t lose PageRank anymore,” Google’s Gary Illyes said in a tweet yesterday. Eric Enge asked Illyes in a Twitter reply if the redirects are “not even a dampening factor?” Illyes replied, “@stonetemple for PageRank, no.” Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land has more.

    Local Business Ranking Factors

    2016 Quantitative Local Search Ranking Factors Study: If you want your business to rank better in local search results, focus on building popularity for your business, as the results of the study indicate that business popularity seems to outweigh all other factors, most importantly in the form of reviews and quality backlinks to your site. Google Review and Profile View are by far the two most important local business ranking factors.

    Dan Leibson, Vice President of Local & Product at Local SEO Guide, made a presentation on this study at SMX Advanced 2016:

    Mobile-Friendliness – a Ranking Signal on Mobile Searches

    “Last year, we started using mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal on mobile searches,” said Klemen Kloboves, a software engineer at Google, in a Google Webmaster blog post. “Today we’re announcing that beginning in May, we’ll start rolling out an update to mobile search results that increases the effect of the ranking signal to help our users find even more pages that are relevant and mobile-friendly.”

    Google Now Ranks Mobile Page Speed Separately

    Jennifer Slegg of The SEM Post noted that Illyes mention of this at Search Marketing Summit Sydney was the first time that Google confirmed that it indeed plans to make page speed a factor in its next mobile friendly update. Illyes told Jennnifer that the update will be in a matter of months. Illyes has been hinting at mobile friendly sites ranking higher for months.

    Google Updates Search Quality Guidelines

    “We recently completed a major revision of our rater guidelines to adapt to this mobile world, recognizing that people use search differently when they carry internet-connected devices with them all the time,” said Mimi Underwood, Sr. Program Manager of Google Search Growth & Analysis. “You can find that update here (PDF).”

    More Causes for Lower Ranking

    Enge also says that there are other factors contributing to less appearance of a site on the first page of a Google search result, which is in effect a lower ranking:

    1. More real estate allocated to paid search
    2. More content from other sources, such as image search, YouTube, and the other factors I mentioned above
    3. Some pages that have less than 10 web results
    4. Portions of the web results that are clearly less driven by links, such as local web, query deserves diversity, and in-depth article results

    Backlinko Study

    The Backlinko Study is unbelievably helpful in understanding all ranking factors, not just the new ones that happened in 2016. Backlinko analyzed 1 million Google search results to answer the question: Which factors correlate with first page search engine rankings?

    Backlinko identified 11 main ranking factors that I’ve summarized below:

    1. Backlinks are still the number one factor in determining search ranking.
    2. Site Authority correlates to ranking.
    3. Tightly focused content ranks better.
    4. Longer content ranks higher.
    5. Sites using HTTPS do better than equal sites using HTTP.
    6. Schema markup doesn’t help.
    7. An image in content raises ranking.
    8. Small correlation with title tag keyword optimization and ranking.
    9. Speed is now a huge ranking signal. It matters a lot.
    10. Exact match anchor text has a strong influence.
    11. Low bounce rate  improves ranking.
  • Google To Rank Mobile Page Speed Separately

    Google To Rank Mobile Page Speed Separately

    According to Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes, Google is planning to rank mobile site speed separately from desktop. This means that if your mobile site loads quick and the desktop version of your site is slow you will rank better for the same query in a search done on a mobile device than you would on a desktop Google search.

    [subscribelocker]Jennifer Slegg of The SEM Post noted that Illyes mention of this at Search Marketing Summit Sydney was the first time that Google confirmed that it indeed plans to make page speed a factor in its next mobile friendly update. Illyes told Jennnifer that the update will be in a matter of months. Illyes has been hinting at mobile friendly sites ranking higher for months.

    Google added a mobile friendliness to their search ranking algorithm well over a year ago, but this is the first time that they are actually going to use mobile speed as a factor in their ranking and specifically for searches occurring on mobile devices.

    Google offers a rich amount of information on how webmasters and web developers can make a site speedier and mobile friendly in general. Start here.[/subscribelocker]

  • Google Search Console Introduces ‘Property Sets’

    Google Search Console Introduces ‘Property Sets’

    Google has launched ‘Property Sets’ within their Search Console allowing webmasters to combine apps and sites within a single group in order to monitor overall clicks and impressions within a single report. It will be rolling out to all users over the next couple of days. This is a great feature for those that have many subdomains as well.

    Screen Shot 2016-05-23 at 8.22.51 AM

    Google provides these instructions to get started:

    1. Create a property set
    2. Add the properties you’re interested in
    3. The data will start being collected within a few days
    4. Profit from the new insights in Search Analytics!

    Google adds:

    Property Sets will treat all URIs from the properties included as a single presence in the Search Analytics feature. This means that Search Analytics metrics aggregated by host will be aggregated across all properties included in the set. For example, at a glance you’ll get the clicks and impressions of any of the sites in the set for all queries.

    This feature will work for any kind of property in Search Console. Use it to gain an overview of your international websites, of mixed HTTP / HTTPS sites, of different departments or brands that run separate websites, or monitor the Search Analytics of all your apps together: all of that’s possible with this feature.

  • Googler Tweets About Comments’ Impact On Search Ranking

    Googler Tweets About Comments’ Impact On Search Ranking

    In case you’re interested in the latest on how Google views the comments on your content, Google’s Gary Illyes (a webmaster trends analyst) provided some insight in a conversation on Twitter.

    Hat tip to Search Engine Roundtable for highlighting the conversation between Illyes and Jennifer Slegg of The SEM Post fame:

    Of course a “healthy” and “thriving” community in comments means good moderation. Too often, spammers and trolls ruin this, so if you can’t keep things “healthy,” there’s a chance your comments could actually hurt your pages in Google’s eyes.

    Like Illeys said, it “feeds into general quality”.

  • Google Webmaster Guy On The One Thing He’d Ask From SEOs

    Google Webmaster Guy On The One Thing He’d Ask From SEOs

    Gary Illyes, one of the faces of Google webmaster relations in the post-Matt Cutts era, gave an interview to Search Engine Journal discussing Accelerated Mobile Pages, the Mobile-Friendly update, and more.

    When mobile-friendliness came up in the conversation, he noted that things have gotten a lot better over the past year. Just to give you an idea of how much importance Google places on mobile-friendliness, consider this quote from Illyes:

    If I could ask one thing from the SEOs, it would be to decrease page load times on the sites they manage. It makes a huge difference for the users!

    AMP of course plays into this. It does stand for Accelerated Mobile Pages after all. Google has indicated in the past that using AMP will make your site mobile-friendly, so you’ll be able to pass Google’s test for that.

    Unfortunately, there are apparently a lot of so-called SEOs that aren’t even aware of AMP, let alone using it.

    Image via iStock

  • Survey: Less Than A Quarter of SEOs Have Implemented AMP

    Survey: Less Than A Quarter of SEOs Have Implemented AMP

    SEO PowerSuite released results from a survey of SEOs, finding that only 23% have begun to implement Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) on their mobile sites, though a third plan to do so within the next six months.

    Google began showing AMP content in search results in February, and announced an extension of this last week, with content appearing in a carousel at the top of search result pages.

    “While half of SEOs surveyed expect AMP to have a significant impact, only 23 percent have begun to implement it on their mobile sites; 29 percent plan to implement AMP in the next six months, and 42 percent say they plan to research it further,” SEO PowerSuite’s report says. “Only 5% say they have no plans to support it.”

    Only 75% of SEOs said they were aware of AMP, which is pretty troubling considering it has been one of the biggest SEO narratives since Google announced it. Just 18% said they had researched it extensively. Yikes.

    50% said they expect AMP to significantly affect rankings in mobile search results, and 45% said they believe it will have some effect on them.

    “SEO marketers really need to act fast and seize the first-mover opportunity ahead of their competition,” said SEO PowerSuite CEO Aleh Barysevich. “We expect Google to unveil more algorithm updates in the future to reward sites that maximize their mobile user experience.”

    The survey was conducted among roughly 400 in-house SEOs and agency SEOs in North America and Europe. You can find the full report here.

    Image via iStock

  • When Google’s Penguin Finally Arrives, You Probably Won’t Ever Have To Wait For Another One

    When Google’s Penguin Finally Arrives, You Probably Won’t Ever Have To Wait For Another One

    The wait continues for Google’s much-anticipated Penguin update. Once the wait is finally over, however, webmasters and SEOs should never have to wait for another one again. That is if Google’s Gary Illyes, who recently stopped making predictions about the timing of the roll-out because he kept being wrong, is correct in a recent tweet.

    In a conversation on Twitter (via Search Engine Roundtable) about the eventual roll-out (still no time frame), he said, “It’s likely there won’t be a ‘next one’.”

    As has been discussed for many months, the upcoming Penguin will represent a fundamental shift in how the update works. It will operate in near real-time, constantly updating. That’s one reason why it is so anticipated. Many just want to recover after suffering major drops in rankings from the last one, but many more are excited about the prospect of being able to recover at anytime in the future without having to wait for another major roll-out.

    Google has already indicated that it will announce when this one finally rolls out.

  • Google Gives Google News Boost To AMP Content

    Google Gives Google News Boost To AMP Content

    Back in February, Google introduced AMP content in search results on mobile devices. These appeared in a new carousel that says “Top Stories” on mobile search results pages:

    On Wednesday, Google announced it is doing the same thing across mobile platforms: web, Android, and iOS.

    In a post on the Google News blog, Google News engineering director Maricia Scott explains, “So – what’s new? At the top of the page, there is a new AMP carousel filled with important headlines and stories of the day. Users can browse up to 14 headlines there quickly, and click any article to jump into the viewer, which is optimized for fast-loading AMP articles. In the viewer, people can also swipe to continue reading other stories from the carousel. Within the regular News stream, AMPlified articles are labelled with the AMP lightning bolt icon. That way, users can know these will be fast even before they click.”

    “Our tests have shown that AMP documents load an average of four times faster and use 10 times less data than the equivalent non-amp’ed result. In many cases these stories will load instantly,” says Scott. “That adds up to a win for publishers and users. While we can’t expand the amount of time in the day, with AMP we can help users consume more content in the time they do have. It is also great for publishers because people will read more and click on more stories when they know they will load fast, driving more traffic to a publisher’s site.”

    The update is for English in the U.S. for now. More languages and regions will roll out soon.

    Images via Google, Wikimedia Commons

  • Google Toolbar PageRank Now Gone

    Google Toolbar PageRank Now Gone

    Last month, we learned that Google was officially killing off Toolbar PageRank. The data hadn’t been updated for a long time anyway, but the company went on record saying it was dead.

    At the time, Barry Schwartz reported:

    Google explained that they still use PageRank data internally within their ranking algorithm, but the external PageRank values shown in the Toolbar are going away completely….You may continue to see PageRank values in the toolbar for the next couple of weeks, but after that, you should no longer see it.

    Those couple of weeks (give or take) have now expired, as the values have reportedly gone. Search Engine Land says it has seen dozens of reports from over the weekend of people saying their PageRank is gone.

    Again, PageRank is still a major part of the Google algorithm. It’s just that the value displayed in toolbars, which likely hasn’t been a good representation of actual PageRank for quite some time, will no longer be there giving you a sense of how your page is doing.

    Google did recently name its top three ranking signals, which are content, links, and RankBrain.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons