On-page SEO Archives On-page SEO

Feb 21 2024

Top 3 SEO Checklists For On-Page & Technical SEO In 2024 via @sejournal, @WixStudio

This post was sponsored by Wix. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

In the last 18 months, conversations about SEO have been dominated by artificial intelligence.

New ways of working and new user journeys for search visitors have come to the forefront.

In 2024, we can clearly see that there’s a great mix of “old hat” and “new hat” SEO best practices that you can start implementing right now.

To help you keep up with the current SEO best practices, we’ve created a series of:

Why Use SEO Checklists?

Doing SEO is often a bit like conducting a symphony.

There are lots of SEO activities, big and small, taking place across each website, and each SEO task, whether it be on-page or technical, contributes to the larger success of your website.

Just as a conductor has their sheet music, the best consultants and agencies use SEO checklists, templates, cheat sheets, and other project management documents to make sure everything is on track.

The medium of the SEO checklist has evolved from being as simple as a few items scribbled on the back of an envelope to something as complex as a dynamically generated interface within your CMS, offering AI functionality and integration with your favorite tools.

This versatility means that they can be reworked to suit most requirements.

In the sake of versatility, here are three, high-level types of SEO checklists that can help you elevate your brand’s website.

1. SEO Checklists On Shared Documents

If you’ve been in the industry for a while, you’re probably familiar with using a spreadsheet to keep track of SEO progress.

Now, we’re living in the fast lane, with the ability to leverage shared SEO. Easily transferrable, this can be as complex or simple as required.

Image created by Wix, February 2024

2. Dynamic, Real-Time SEO Checklists

Fast forward to a next-generation SEO checklist: The Dynamic SEO Checklist.

A dynamic SEO checklist responds to updates in content in real-time.

This means that anytime a change is made to your website, you get a series of next steps to execute to make your content rank.

Examples Of Real-Time SEO Checklists

Site-level SEO Assistant is one new example of a real-time checklist.

This type of checklist is built directly into your CMS and includes entry points and integrations that allow users to complete tasks in the list.

From setting indexability to connecting to Google Search Console, you can complete important tasks from within the list itself.

With intelligent recommendations and the ability to skip tasks as necessary, this kind of checklist works in tandem with your website.

Built-in functionality like this can help you save time and get the most out of a CMS.

Top 3 SEO Checklists For On-Page & Technical SEO In 2024

Experience created by Wix, Feburary 2024

3. AI-Powered SEO Checklists

With the assistance of AI, you can get a dynamically generated checklist to help you execute your SEO workload.

Plus, this type of list can also help you carry out within the list itself, simply by using AI inputs.

For instance, the checklist in the Wix SEO Assistant uses a keyword prompt to create AI meta descriptions and title tags for a page.

Once these are generated, you can add and tick them off your list, right in the CMS.

Experience created by Wix, February 2024

Looking at user data, we see that the addition of AI to a checklist can increase usability significantly.

How To Properly Use An SEO Checklist For Success

If you aren’t already using an SEO checklist to manage your workload, we urge you to try any of the above styles of checklist.

Increase Your Agency’s Profitability

If you’re an agency owner or account manager, checklists are particularly efficient because they can be reused and adapted for each client.

This can save time on research and development (R&D) and become part of the corpus of resources you make available to clients and staff.

Checklists for SEO tasks can also assist with more efficient onboarding for new clients and projects, and help you expand your offering and improve client satisfaction.

When managing clients, tools like the Wix Studio Client Kit mean that account managers can upload client checklists, templates, and even video tutorials directly into the dashboard of the CMS.

This means that materials for client success are accessible to everyone working on the site, at all times.

Image created by Wix, February 2024

If you’re managing SEO teams, creating frameworks for SEO account management can help you gain and retain clients for the long term.

Joshua George, founder of Clickslice Agency explains that he developed his SEO project proposal template “after testing 20 different variants of proposals,” but once he “finally found one which converts the best,” he was able to get better results from client pitches.

Similarly, freelance SEO, Nick LeRoy, developed a client retention checklist to manage touch points and habits that build client trust.

Image created by Wix, February 2024

Better efficiency for SEO agencies and freelancers means more opportunities to deliver high-value outcomes and increase profitability – a checklist can be an important part of that process.

Make Knowledge More Accessible Across Your Team

Templates and checklists are also a highly accessible way to hand off to juniors and even clients easily.

As well as being designed to help your team accomplish goals, checklists can also serve as a knowledge base to help your team grow. This approach can help you get drive visibility on the SERP.

Image created by Wix, February 2024

Founder of AS Marketing agency, Adriana Stein, explains that she uses a blog writing template because, “when you use a particular structure, provide helpful information, as well as follow SEO best practices, that gives your content the best possible chance to rank, drive organic traffic, and when scaled out, drive conversions.”With live collaborative documents, teams can adapt lists to changing requirements and ensure that the knowledge base of the team continues to grow, even if account managers change roles.

Improve Quality Assurance

It is often assumed that it is beginner-level SEO specialists who use checklists, but this is not exactly the case.

For more seasoned SEOs, checklists often serve as a means of maintaining the quality of implementation when working with multiple teams and stakeholders. Experienced SEO professionals create checklists to ensure consistency of delivery when handing off day-to-day tasks to other members of their teams.

Ashwin Balakrishnan, Head of Marketing at Optmyzr, explains that for tasks like backlink tracking, he creates templated documents to reduce errors and ensure a consistent level of implementation.

Balakrishnan says that, “transferring knowledge and experience to junior SEOs (especially teammates) goes a lot smoother for everyone when you use checklists and templates. It gives newer SEOs confidence and frameworks to work off, and it allows more seasoned practitioners to review work faster and avoid giving arbitrary feedback.”

This can free up time for senior SEOs to pursue more complex SEO, billable tasks.

So rather than dying a death, the humble SEO checklist has evolved.

What’s Next For SEO Checklists?

Given the wealth of data sets, data feeds, automation, and AI tools available to marketers, the active integration of AI into SEO should only continue. But as well as being able to generate inputs, we are likely to see data-driven, AI-crafted guidance from checklists become more common.

Those who use checklists in the format of Google Sheets and MS Excel will benefit from generative native apps and enhancements in the AI workspace race. Being able to harness scripts, feeds, and add-ons is nothing new, but AI offers new scalability for task completion, offering new opportunities for growth but the value of the SEO checklist is alive and well in 2024.

Download checklists, templates, and toolkits to develop smoother SEO processes and ramp up productivity—on any project.

Wix SEO Resource Center

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Wix. Used with permission.

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Jan 23 2024

10 SEO Problems You Never Knew You Had – And How To Solve Them via @sejournal, @Brian_W_Gareth

1. Manual Actions & Penalties By Google

You may have been breaking Google’s guidelines or posting spammy and harmful content without realizing it.

These things can incur a well-deserved manual action.

How To Uncover Manual Actions & Penalties

To find out if you have been smacked with a penalty, look inside Google Search Console.

10 SEO Problems You Never Knew You Had – And How To Solve Them

Screenshot from Google Search Console, January 2024

If it says anything other than “No issues detected,” you are in trouble.

Luckily, Google will describe what they did and why, so you will know right away how to lift the sanctions against your site. Sometimes it will be as easy as deleting offending content.

2. Inefficient Internal Linking

Hyperlinks do much more than just let users jump between pages.

They have two important jobs:

Transfer authority from one page to another.
Shape the user journey.

These jobs apply both to external and internal links. While the content of an externally linked page is often out of your control, the internal links are fully under your control, so you can’t afford to neglect how you use them.

Otherwise you will end up with a site that neither ranks in Google nor is user-friendly.

How To Make Your Links User-Friendly & Google-Friendly

To interlink the pages on your site efficiently:

Make your links’ anchor texts descriptive. Users must be able to look at a link and immediately understand where it leads.
Link from pages with high authority to pages with lower authority. That way, low-authority pages can receive more authority and rank higher. Find pages that could benefit from it with WebCEO’s Internal Links tool.
Use a navigation bar and a footer. They contain links to some of the most important pages (like homepage, FAQ, About Us, Contact Us) which users must be able to find at any time.
Create topic clusters. A good practice for increasing your site’s authority is creating multiple pages on several related topics and linking them together.
Make the user journey as short as possible. An unwritten three-click rule states that users must be able to find anything they want in three clicks or fewer. Even if no evidence supports this rule’s impact on SEO, it’s hard to deny that it’s good for user experience.

3. Lack Of User Accessibility

As we know, not all users are perfectly healthy. Old age, diseases, or disabilities can make it very hard or even impossible to comfortably browse the Internet.

If your website does not cater to all levels of users, it becomes less user-friendly, which gets in the way of a positive user experience.

It’s so important that it’s even required by law. You can’t fix a lawsuit with SEO, so don’t tempt fate.

You want your site to be available to as many people as possible – and for that purpose, there is user accessibility.

How To Improve The User Accessibility Of Your Website

Is your site accessible? There are many tools to find that out, like ARIA by EquallyAI.

Screenshot from EquallyAI, January 2024

World Wide Web Consortium provides several extensive resources for designing and developing accessible websites.

If your site doesn’t pass the accessibility test, or if user feedback lets you know about any problems, you should apply practices from those resources.

4. Using The HREFLANG Tag Incorrectly

If you target a multilingual audience (for example, with an ecommerce site), you need to watch out for this one.

You don’t want to ruin the users’ experience with a language barrier.

The hreflang tag’s job is to show the visitors the version of your site they can read, based on their location and language.

How To Use The HREFLANG Tag Correctly

A properly coded HREFLANG tag should look similar to:

Parts Of An HREFLANG Tag

The “en-GB” attribute means it targets English-speaking users in the United Kingdom. “En” is the language code (ISO 639 format) and “GB” is the region code (ISO-3166-1 alpha-2 format). Always remember to refer to these Wikipedia links to pick the correct codes!

If the tag has the wrong attribute or none at all, you risk giving your visitors a bunch of text they can’t read or navigate, making your site useless to them. Kiss those conversions and rankings goodbye, say hello to bounce rates.

So make sure your hreflang tags are in order by scanning your site with WebCEO’s On-Site Issues Overview tool.

Screenshot from WebCEO, January 2024

Although, the hreflang tag isn’t a perfect solution. There’s always a non-zero chance the user’s native language isn’t even used wherever they reside. For these cases, and for all others too, it’s best to have an option to manually switch between the languages on your site.

Screenshot from Facebook.com, January 2024

5. Opening New Links On The Same Page

This problem can affect your rankings by diverting traffic before a conversion.

While Google have an opinion about the links’ target=”_blank” attribute, it’s still a good idea to use it on your links.

Why Should You Open All Links In A New Tab?

When the link opens in the same tab, users leave the page they were on – often before there was a conversion. That makes your high-ranking pages less useful. And if it keeps happening, Google will agree and lower the rankings.

Fortunately, the solution is simple: include the target=”_blank” attribute in your links’ HTML code. Some platforms, like WordPress, often add this attribute automatically.

Important! The target=”_blank” attribute should always be used together with rel=”noopener” or rel=”noreferrer” for security reasons. If you inadvertently link to a shady page, either of these attributes will prevent it from gaining access to the tab from which the user opened the link, protecting both your site and the user’s device.

In other words, the HTML code for a secure link will look like this:

Your link

6. Poorly-Optimized Images

Image quality is a very obvious factor, so let’s assume your site uses only good-looking images. But at the same time, this factor is a double-edged sword: with high quality comes high file size.

And large images affect your site loading speed.

Website Image Best Practices

You should never sacrifice the quality of your visuals. So what can you do instead?

Save your images in the most optimal format. The logo icon should be ICO or SVG, large photos should be JPG, and you can use WEBP instead of GIF (although not all browsers support WEBP).
Manually set height and width. Shave off all the excessive pixels.
Merge images if they are placed right next to each other.
Compress your images with software like TinyPNG.

And then upload them.

7. Website Caching Issues

In addition to poorly optimized images or assets like CSS and Javascript files, your site could be loading slowly because of caching issues.

A cache is where browsers store a website’s elements upon visit.

For example, a website’s logo is the same on every page, so once it’s stored, your browser doesn’t need to load it anew – instead, it will just retrieve it from cache, and your site will load faster.

How To Properly Cache A Website

If your website suddenly starts showing resistance to caching, you should check the .htaccess file on your server.

The .htaccess file can be used for many cool things, like password-protecting your site or customizing your error 404 page.

It can also be used to set expiration dates for the cached resources.

Open your file and look for code like this:

 

  ExpiresActive on

  ExpiresDefault "access plus 2 days"

  ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 month"

  ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month"

  ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 month"

  ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 1 month"

  ExpiresByType image/ico "access plus 1 year"

  ExpiresByType text/html "access plus 600 seconds"

If there’s nothing like that at all, feel free to copy and paste this example.

Otherwise, tweak those “access plus time” bits to your preference or add entries for additional file types.

The trick is to set a long expiration period for elements that don’t change often, like the logo icon. That way, they will stay cached for as long as you decide.

8. Failing To Match User Search Intent

You’ve probably used SEO tools to find the best keywords: long-tailed, with a high search volume, not too competitive.

You’ve put them in all the right places: title, description, URL, headings, and throughout the text too.

Yet your site rankings and visits aren’t increasing. Why not?

It’s possible you forgot to account for the most important factor in keyword optimization: user search intent.

What Is User Intent In SEO?

You don’t want to bring users without purpose.

You want them to do specific things: learn, discuss, subscribe, purchase, share, and so on.

This variety makes it possible to categorize user search intent under several types:

Informational (learning new information).
Navigational (looking for a specific website).
Commercial (looking for a product).
Transactional (buying a product).
Locational (looking for a place or information about a place).
Seasonal (tied to a time period or a date, like Christmas).

That’s why not only your content, but your keywords must reflect it as well. And with so many types, it’s easy to make a mistake and choose the wrong keywords for the job. Knowing the difference between them can make or break your SEO.

How Do I Implement User Intent Into My SEO Strategy?

Target users with even higher accuracy by remembering the stages of the keyword funnel:

Awareness: the user has a need and starts searching for a solution, possibly not knowing yet what it could be. Example: buy laptop.
Interest: the user narrows down and explores the options. Example: best gaming laptops.
Action: the user knows exactly what they want and intends to get it. Example: laptop Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3.

Choose the best keywords that reflect these stages and you’re good to go.

9. Accumulation Of Harmful Backlinks

Backlinks are necessary for building up your site’s authority – and site rankings. It’s a crucial step in SEO: very hard to do right and incredibly easy to mess up.

Having no backlinks at all is bad, but it’s even worse to have lots of low-quality backlinks.

If you don’t check your link profile from time to time, you won’t even know you have this problem and need to fix it.

How To Find Harmful Backlinks & Remove Them

First, scan your backlinks with WebCEO’s Toxic Pages tool.

Screenshot from WebCEO, January 2024

It will look through all of your site’s backlinks and display the potentially harmful ones in a table. If you find any backlinks from sites you actually trust, you can keep them. But the ones that do look bad have to go.

Your options are:

Delete those backlinks yourself.
Ask somebody who can edit the linking site to delete them.
Use Google Disavow (in-built in the Toxic Pages tool) to make Google ignore those links.

10. Failing To Follow SEO Trends

Search engine optimization has come a long way since its inception.

Many new things were introduced, many old things stopped working, and even more were improved upon and made more accurate. And this process continues.

So if you don’t monitor the SEO news and innovations, you may find that your SEO efforts aren’t effective anymore.

Make it a habit to read SEO news regularly (like on this very site). Pay attention to any important updates – especially to Google’s core algorithm updates. When those roll out, SEO changes drastically for everybody.

The more you know about different SEO problems, the easier you can identify and fix them in time. All you need is a good eye and reliable tools. Stay sharp and check your site for signs of trouble often.

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Jan 18 2024

2024 SEO Success Guide: Tools & Tactics To Refresh Your Strategy & Boost Performance via @sejournal, @ahrefs

This post was sponsored by Ahrefs. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

With generative AI and constant Google algorithm changes, how can you shift your strategy quickly enough to keep up?

How do you stay on top of the latest SEO trends, while maximizing your site performance?

2023 has forced SEO professionals to begin finding new ways to adapt their approach to SEO success in 2024.

The rise of AI technology is becoming a strong force in shaping search algorithms and user experiences.

Meanwhile, Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) is shaking things up and altering the dynamics of online discovery by influencing how search engines interpret and deliver information.

So, if you’re looking to not simply survive but thrive amidst these seismic changes, a strategic pivot is imperative.

The key to success in today’s world of SEO is standing out and boosting your online presence.

In this guide, we’ll not only uncover strategies to help you increase your search discoverability, but we’ll also introduce the tools you need to implement them effectively.

Some of the most significant improvements you can start making in 2024 include:

Knowing how and when to leverage AI tools.
Mastering technical SEO and website optimization.
Executing and measuring your SEO more efficiently.

Let’s dive into how these key strategy tweaks can completely transform your SEO this year and get you on track for higher SERP rankings and better performance.

How & When To Leverage AI Tools For SEO

Everyone’s talking about how to best harness the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in 2024.

But if there’s one thing you should take away from the AI conversation, it’s this: AI is not a human replacement.

Think of it more so as a formidable ally that exists to amplify the capabilities of human expertise.

Utilizing AI in 2024 is about striking the perfect balance and finding the synergy between human ingenuity and AI advancements.

Rather than relying solely on AI technology, find ways to use it to enhance your results.

For instance, if you’re a content marketer looking to streamline your process, AI could assist by offering insights, recommendations, and data-driven strategies to elevate the quality and relevance of your content.

What To Use AI Tools For In Content Marketing & SEO

With Ahrefs’ free AI-powered writing tools, you can:

Input your rough ideas and get an organized, well-structured outline in minutes.
Improve the quality, clarity, and readability of a sentence or paragraph with an instant content refresh.
Generate optimized meta titles for better search engine visibility.
Craft informative, SEO-friendly meta descriptions for your articles quickly and easily.
Simplify and summarize your content with precision.
Brainstorm variations of ready-to-use, SEO-friendly blog post ideas to drive more traffic to your blog.
Generate descriptive alt text for your images to improve accessibility and SEO without a hassle.
Get inspiration for your next piece of content by generating a variety of creative ideas.
And more!

Not only can AI help you save time while crafting compelling copy, but it can also automate keyword research processes.

If you’re familiar with Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer tool, you’ll be pleased to know that they recently launched a new AI assistant to generate keyword suggestions effortlessly.

With this new update, you can get AI keyword suggestions directly within the platform, without needing to go back and forth with ChatGPT when doing your keyword research.

Stay ahead of the curve and start leveraging AI to your advantage with Ahrefs.

How To Master Website Optimization & Technical SEO

A well-optimized and technically sound website acts as a sturdy foundation, insulating you from the impact of ruthless core updates that search engines may roll out.

With search algorithms becoming increasingly sophisticated, seamless user experience, fast loading times, and adherence to Core Web Vitals have become critical factors in SEO success.

By mastering technical SEO and keeping your site in top-notch condition, you’re not just offering a seamless user experience but also signaling to search engines that your content is reliable and trustworthy.

This proactive approach helps to ensure your site remains visible and valuable amidst ever-evolving ranking criteria.

With Ahrefs’ Site Audit tool, you can run a thorough SEO audit to uncover your website’s technical and on-page SEO issues, and find out exactly what’s holding your website back.

Plus, the platform recently added some exciting new features to enhance your analysis efforts.

Here are some key updates you should know about:

Core Web Vital (CWV) metrics: Filter your pages by various CWV data points during website recrawls. Visualize CrUX and Lighthouse scores, historical changes, and individual metric performance in the Performance report.
Google Data Studio integration: Build personalized reports by blending data from different sources and visualizing everything in the form of reports and dashboards.
Search by HTML code and page text: Easily search for specific elements extracted during a crawl, such as Google Analytics IDs or “out of stock” labels.
List of issues for a particular URL: Addressing an issue on a specific URL is streamlined with a dedicated tab showcasing all related issues, allowing comprehensive fixes.
Links Report in Site Audit Issues: Navigate issues more effectively with an additional links report tab, facilitating in-depth analysis at the links level. For instance, browse and export links related to 404 pages for a thorough understanding.

Easy Way: Use An SEO Plugin To Help Optimize Your Content

Ahrefs also launched a WordPress SEO plugin to further assist in your optimization efforts.

With this new plugin, you can automate content audits and see how each article performs for a chosen target keyword.

The tool also provides recommendations on how you can improve the article for better results.

Here are a few key capabilities:

You can import “focus keywords” for each article from Yoast, RankMath, and AIOSEO.
Smoother audit progress that shows real-time audit completion percentages.
Export to CSV all metrics for all analyzed articles or only articles with selected performance status.

Ready to get your site in tip-top shape for the year ahead? Check out Ahrefs’ latest offerings today.

How To Execute & Measure Your SEO KPIs More Efficiently

Keeping your website up-to-date with SEO trends is important – but the buck doesn’t stop there.

Staying competitive requires you to keep a vigilant eye on your rival sites as well, dissecting their strategies, and adapting your own accordingly.

Success in SEO isn’t just about visibility; it’s about outperforming your peers.

Reassessing the metrics that matter most and recalibrating your strategy based on real-time insights are the secrets to staying ahead of the curve.

In this evolving landscape, the ability to execute with precision and measure impact accurately will be the key to unlocking sustained SEO success.

You can start by knowing how to spot SERP changes effectively.

For example, with Ahrefs’ historical SERP checker tool, you can go back in time and see what the SERP looked like for any given query in their index.

And if you already use Ahrefs Site Explorer tool, you’ll love the recent updates they’ve made to their overview report.

Not only does it load noticeably faster than the previous version, but you get access to the following new features:

New history chart.
Comparison mode.
Paid traffic data.
Year-over-year mode.
Google algorithm updates.
Calendar report.
Site structure report.

Visit Ahrefs to learn more.

Start Ranking Higher & Maximizing Opportunities With Ahrefs Now

In the rapidly evolving SEO landscape, Ahrefs emerges as a strategic ally, providing the tools you need to not only stay afloat but rise to new heights.

From leveraging AI tools intelligently to mastering technical SEO and executing with precision, we’ve dissected the key strategies that will redefine your SEO in 2024 and beyond.

It’s time to embrace change and elevate your search performance.

Start your journey to sustained SEO success with Ahrefs’ vast array of tools and exciting new features.

With their updated usage-based pricing model, you can access the features you need most. Try it today!

TRY IT NOW

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Ahrefs. Used with permission.

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Nov 16 2023

Search Evolution 2024: Navigating SEO’s Future Landscape [Webinar] via @sejournal, @sejournal

We’re hosting an exclusive deep dive into the evolving world of search – and you’re invited!

On November 29, join our live, roundtable discussion on the evolution of search, and learn how to navigate the changes that will shape your SEO journey next year.

This webinar features a panel of SEJ experts, led by editor-in-chief Amanda Zantal-Wiener. You’ll get insights directly from our very own SEO content strategist, as well as our senior news writer and editor.

Our team has combed through the year’s most substantial SEO developments and they’re ready to unpack what they mean for your strategies.

From tips on integrating AI into your content marketing and SEO, to the impact of SGE on SERPs, we’ve got you covered.

Meet The Experts:

Shelley Walsh, SEO Content Strategist: Shelley is a distinguished digital consultant with over 20 years of creative, marketing, and tech experience. In addition to her work at SEJ, she’s also been published by Moz, Econsultancy, Smashing Magazine, and State of Digital.
Matt G. Southern, Senior News Writer: Matt oversees strategy development for SEJ’s news department. He specializes in gathering details, checking facts, and making complex subjects easy to understand.
Ben Steele, Senior Editor: Ben has over six years of experience in crafting and refining SEO content. As a pivotal member of the editorial team, he spearheads the creation and development of SEJ ebooks.
Amanda Zantal-Wiener, Editor-in-Chief: Amanda is a versatile professional with a diverse skill set in writing, editing, and marketing. Joining the SEJ team from HubSpot, she has a proven track record with bylines featured in Thrillist, EcoSalon, and Fast Company.

Key Discussion Topics:

The biggest changes to the world of search in the past year, and where they’re leading: 2023 saw some significant shifts in the search landscape. From algorithm updates to user behavior changes, understanding these changes can provide crucial insights into the future of search, helping you adapt your strategies accordingly.
The fundamentals to focus on for next year, from the impact of SGE’s evolution on SERPs to addressing challenges with Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines: As search engine algorithms continue to evolve, a renewed focus on SEO fundamentals is essential for the upcoming year. Find out how updated search engine guidelines are redefining SEO success and learn how to align with these evolutions to boost your website ranking and visibility.
The leading Google ranking signals to focus on right now: In the realm of SEO, several ranking signals play a pivotal role in determining a website’s position on SERPs. Understanding the most influential Google ranking signals is key to optimizing strategies. We’ll provide valuable insights into which ranking signals and systems deserve the bulk of your attention in 2024.
How to integrate new AI technologies into content marketing and SEO (and where to avoid it): As AI continues to shape the digital landscape, it’s important to know how it can be used to your advantage. We’ll explore the practical applications of AI tools and technologies, and how they can significantly enhance content creation and optimization. We’ll also delve into the limitations and areas where AI might not be as effective.

Whether you’re a seasoned SEO pro or new to the game, this session is your gateway to understanding what it takes to stay ahead in the rapidly evolving world of search.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments

Nov 15 2023

How To Find The Best SEO Keywords That Win The Customer Over (& Why It’s Important) via @sejournal, @Brian_W_Gareth

Step 1. Fully Understand The User’s Search Intent

It’s easy to just take whatever keywords you like from a keyword research tool and put them onto your site. But if you suspect that that strategy is a bad idea, you are correct.

Finding the right keywords requires planning.

The key is to put some thought into your keyword research; you will have a much better shot at making your site more visible in search.

So, here’s the first step: have a full understanding of the user search intent.

What Is User Intent?

Keywords can be divided into categories based on their purpose:

Commercial Intent: when users are looking for something to buy or comparing products. Example: best types of pizza.
Transactional Intent: when they want to spend money on something specific (not to be confused with commercial!) Example: order pizza.
Informational Intent: when they want to learn something. Example: how to carve a pumpkin.
Navigational Intent: when they want to find a site or a page. Example: Nicolas Cage Twitter.
Locational Intent: when they want to find a place. Example: car wash near me.
Seasonal Intent: when they want something related to a time period. Example: Halloween decorations.

As you can see, everybody browses the Web with a different purpose in mind.

For some, it’s to have fun, to buy something, to learn something, to find directions – the list goes on.

And these purposes don’t always intersect: for example, when you just want to watch a funny video, you probably aren’t in a money-spending mood.

As you can see, knowing the difference can make or break your business.

Use the wrong keyword, and you won’t get any visitors who actually want to become customers.

Keywords have to fit your site’s niche and topics. If you want to successfully attract the kind of audience you want, your content needs to:

Match your audience’s wants and interests.
Include phrases that they often use while searching for what they want.

This is the combo you need: both content and keywords that reflect user search intent. The two can only work together.

Step 2. Find The Best Keywords

Now that you know what kind of keywords you should look for, you can proceed to the next step: finding them.

This is where SEO tools come into play.

These keyword research tools are required for measuring keywords’ effectiveness and providing helpful numbers, and here’s why.

When people Google things, they often use the same or similar search phrases. (Example: Halloween decorations and Halloween decorations DIY.)

SEO tools can count how often people use any given keyword.

They display it in a metric called search volume, and it’s usually monthly (i.e. number of searches per month). A higher number means more people using the keyword.

But there’s a catch: the most used search phrases tend to be too short and too vague, completely failing to reflect the user search intent.

It makes sense when you look at it from the users’ perspective. Have you ever Googled something without fully understanding what exactly you want? You tried a simple search query first, then a more descriptive one which narrowed the search results down a bit and gave you the right answer.

If you have experienced it, then you know firsthand that long search phrases (or long-tail keywords) work much better than short ones.

So, what’s the best practice for keywords? We have a great formula for you to follow.

What’s The Formula For The Perfect Keyword?

We recommend that your keyword phrases should:

Be descriptive (at least 3 words).
Reflect the user search intent.
Have a high monthly search volume.

Time to boot up WebCEO’s Keyword Suggestions tool and start hunting.

Enter your keyword ideas, and the tool will show the most popular search phrases related to them.

How To Find The Best SEO Keywords That Win The Customer Over (& Why It’s Important)

Screenshot from WebCEO, October 2023

Also, remember seasonal keywords? Pay attention to the Search Trends column: it shows how often a keyword is used every month.

But that’s not all. You can find even more effective keywords in the same tool.

Spy on Competitors tab: Enter your online competitor’s URL and see all of their keywords. Use it in tandem with the Competitor Rankings by Keyword report. If a competitor doesn’t rank very high for a keyword with a decent search volume, that means they don’t use that keyword much – and if YOU use it more, you can easily outrank your competitor!
Top Queries tab: It shows how effectively you use keywords on your site. If you optimize a page for a keyword, it will appear in search, and this report displays how many users have seen your site in Google and clicked on it. If a keyword gives you a lot of impressions but not many clicks, you should polish the pages that use that keyword and improve their performance.

Let’s also not forget Google’s helpful features like autocomplete and People Also Ask. These features suggest search phrases used by other people – and what’s more, those phrases are often long-tail keywords. A safe bet to use on your site! (Although it doesn’t hurt to check their search volume and seasonal relevance anyway.)

Lastly, keywords and phrases related to your main keywords can serve you just as well – even if they are low-volume.

For example, if you run a fitness blog and have an article about training your back, you definitely want to mention all the muscle groups and the different exercises that target each of them. Even though gym enthusiasts don’t usually Google “rhomboids.”

Step 3. Use Keywords On Your Site Effectively

First things first: how many keywords do you need to use on a page?

English is a rich language (as is any other), and there are multiple ways to describe pretty much anything. When millions of people are looking for the same thing, they don’t all use the same words. They use a large variety of different search queries, sometimes even at once.

This means that in order to use keywords effectively, you can’t pick just one to optimize a page. You have to use several related keywords at once to cast a wide net.

With that in mind, you can finally start putting your keywords to good use. There are two major ways to do it:

Use keywords to optimize new pages.
Use new keywords to refresh old pages.

Where Should I Put My Keywords?

Here are the places to put your keywords:

Page URL.
Page title.
Meta description.
H1-H4 headings.
Throughout the text.

If you want to do more than optimize a webpage, you can also try these more niche uses for keywords:

Image filenames and ALT texts. This causes your images to appear in Google Image Search.
Video title, description, transcript, and thumbnail’s filename. For Google Video Search, natch. Works even for YouTube videos.
Internal and external link texts. Keywords placed there affect the linked page (i.e. help it rank), not the page where they are used.

That’s a lot of places and you don’t want to miss any of them. SEO tools can help you find important spots that you forgot to fill.

Scan your site with WebCEO’s On-Page Issues tool to see if your keyword placement map is complete.

Screenshot from WebCEO, October 2023

Note the mention of Google’s video search results. They appear in search along with regular results, and you definitely want to occupy as much space on Page #1 as possible.

And there’s a third way to get there: featured snippets. The easiest route to Position 0 lies in creating an FAQ on your site and optimizing it with long-tail question keywords. Unsurprisingly, that’s how you can also end up in voice search.

Step 4. Avoid These Big Mistakes When Using Keywords

Of course, even the best keywords can be used improperly and ruin all your hard work.

What are some of the biggest don’ts when it comes to keywords?

Don’t use the same keywords for multiple pages. Doing so causes your site’s pages to compete with each other for rankings and drop together. Compete only with other sites!
Don’t put keywords where they don’t belong. Some webmasters use keywords in their texts too often in an attempt to tell Google “this is relevant” – known as keyword stuffing. But all they get is an unnaturally sounding mess of a text shunned by users and Google alike. Instead, write about your topics in-depth, and you will end up using just the right amount of keywords.
Don’t be overly stingy with keywords. The opposite extreme of keyword stuffing can cause problems, too. If you use a keyword only once or twice on the entire page, Google may not consider it relevant enough – and then the page will not show up on a SERP for said keyword.
Don’t forget about the search intent. Before using a keyword, ask yourself: “Why would someone type this in Google?” If you can put yourself in the user’s shoes and realize their thought process, you can filter away the keywords that aren’t right for your content.
Don’t forget to use keywords that convert (i.e. lead to an action). This is most important for pages with a transactional purpose where you want visitors to do something, not just admire your writing and visuals.

Step 5. Monitor Your Keywords’ Performance

Have you found and used the absolute best keywords?

Then the next step is to watch how well they perform.

Monitor the results of your work in WebCEO’s Site Rankings report.

Screenshot from WebCEO, October 2023

Here’s how to use it:

Open Settings.
In the Keywords tab, add all your keywords and check their boxes.
In the Search engines tab, add where you want to check your rankings (search engine and location).
(Optional) In the Search results tab, check all the different types of results you want to track.
Click Save.

And let the tool give you your first report.

To see how your keyword rankings change, run new scans on a regular basis. You can set the tool to do it automatically by clicking on Scan Schedule.

What’s Next?

If your keyword rankings are high, great! If they are low or start to drop, it means some other website is stealing your thunder – in that case, you may want to refine other sides of SEO.

Either way, stay tuned on the news in your niche and the topics in your expertise. Any changes and innovations may result in the emergence of new keywords that you will want to use.

Wrapping Up

It turns out keyword research is a lot more complex than one might expect. But the reward for doing it right is more than just rankings and revenue. In the process of carefully picking keywords for your site, you gain a deeper understanding of your target audience – and that certainly makes you better at gaining new customers.

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Nov 15 2023

3 New Ways To Use AI For SEO & Keyword Research [Without AI Prompts] via @sejournal, @CallRail

More specifically, advances in AI-powered speech recognition present exciting new opportunities for businesses.

For instance, with CallRail’s Conversation Intelligence, you can get the most important insights faster to proactively address your customers’ concerns and make smarter business decisions.

By turning your conversations into easy-to-act-on data, this technology takes you directly to the source for information, ensuring your audience gets exactly what they need from you.

Want to learn more about how conversation intelligence can fuel your strategy? Download CallRail’s new ebook.

In the meantime, let’s dive into three of the ways you can start using AI to your advantage.

1. Identify SEO Trends & Patterns Without Prompts

One of the key ways AI has revolutionized SEO is by improving the way businesses conduct research.

Now, with the power of AI research tools, you can process vast amounts of data and identify patterns and insights that would be impossible to uncover manually.

For instance, you can use AI monitoring and listening tools to:

Stay on top of industry trends.
Monitor your competitors.
Identify opportunities for engagement with customers.
Track customer sentiment and respond quickly to negative feedback.

Start by using conversation intelligence to analyze the language your customers and prospects use during calls to discover what they really want.

How To Do This

Set up CallRail’s Conversation Intelligence.
Determine which key terms are important to your business and set up Key Term Spotting to automatically detect how often those terms are (or arenʼt) used in conversations.
Use these insights to adapt your marketing strategies or sales talk tracks to get better results.

With tools like CallRail’s Call Tracking, you can gain even more valuable insights into your customers’ journey.

Examine your web visitor tracking data to identify which campaigns, keywords, and ads your leads interacted with along their journey, making it much easier to know what’s actually working.

Get the ebook to learn more about how calls can boost your marketing efforts.

2. Mine Data To Enhance Online Discoverability & Increase Local SEO Market Share

Another advantage of AI technology is that you can leverage the data you collect to enhance your search discoverability.

With conversation intelligence, you can automatically identify key terms spoken in phone calls and map their frequency to spot emerging trends quickly.

You can then see how the most frequently spoken terms and phrases on your calls compare to the keywords you target for your marketing campaigns and use this data to boost your SEO and keyword bidding strategies.

Compare what your customers say they want to what your business actually offers, and fill in any gaps between the words you use to market your business and the terms your customers are using.

By using AI to analyze the top trends in your customer calls, you’re able to spot new opportunities for your business and better serve the needs of your audience.

How To Do It

Review the Key Terms Spotted report in Conversation Intelligence to identify the most commonly-spoken words and phrases at a glance.
Check Call Highlights for recommendations of relevant and powerful keywords and phrases not set up in Key Terms Spotting.
Use insights from both reports to further refine your SEO and keyword bidding strategies and respond to customer sentiment appropriately.

Find out more about how to use AI to turn your calls into a competitive advantage.

3. Use Voice-Recognition AI To Create Human-First Conversational, SEO-Driven Content

Although using AI for content generation is nothing new, only recently have marketers been able to refine their use of the technology for more authentic results.

In the past, there’s been a negative stigma associated with AI writing – for one, the data that some AI models use is outdated, but also, AI tools have been known to plagiarize content from other websites.

Today, however, there are more advanced AI tools for content generation, which allow SEO professionals to create higher-quality content that ranks well in organic search.

Plus, with insights from conversation intelligence, you can ask an AI content generation tool, like ChatGPT, to generate content topics or even a rough draft based on popular keywords and phrases your customers are using.

Then, once you have something to work with, you can go in and add your human touch to make sure the content really resonates with your target audience.

Try this:

Sign up for an AI-based writing service, or use Microsoftʼs ChatGPT or Google Bard for free!
Use keyword terms and phrases surfaced from Conversation Intelligence and ask it to generate interesting topics based on those keywords.
Use your AI writing tool of choice to generate drafts, but remember to put your brand’s personal spin and the human touch on your work before you press publish.

Learn more about how to use call data to improve your content strategy in CallRail’s latest ebook.

Start Using Next Generation AI With CallRail, Now

With recent advancements in AI technology, marketers are able to make significant improvements in their strategies – from research, to search and SEO discoverability, to content creation.

Are you ready to start leveraging AI to enhance your marketing results?

Learn more in CallRail’s new ebook, Unlock your marketing potential: Use AI to turn your calls into a competitive advantage, and try these services today, 100% risk-free for 14 days!

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Nov 1 2023

How To Always Survive Algorithm Updates Using AI: The Ultimate Search Engineer’s Guide via @sejournal, @mktbrew

If you’ve ever felt like you’re on a rollercoaster ride with Google’s ever-changing algorithms, you’re not alone.

Google’s Core Algorithm Updates are known for keeping you on your toes, and it’s become increasingly challenging to keep up – not to mention get ahead.

These algorithmic shifts have the power to make or break your website’s performance, so it’s crucial that you understand the specifics of each new update, its effects, and the right course of action.

But how do you stay on top of these search engine updates and optimize your SEO strategy for success?

How do you take advantage of each algorithm change and turn it into an opportunity to rank higher?

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll show you how.

How To Understand Each New Google Core Algorithm Update

Whenever Google rolls out a new update, you no doubt ask, “So, what changed this time?”

And as an SEO professional, your entire strategy rests on the answer to this question.

The impact of an algorithm update can be unpredictable – a change that benefits one website might harm another.

Therefore, it’s important to stay fully informed and continually adapt your SEO strategies to remain competitive.

The key to surviving Google’s constant algorithm shifts is understanding:

Make sure you’re analyzing official statements from Google and only consulting reputable industry resources for insights into the latest algorithm updates.

It’s also important to stick to data-based evidence. (For instance, a report measuring an increase in ranking correlation for a particular algorithm.)

These correlations can be used to uncover patterns that reveal which strategies are effective after the update.

But of course, the buck doesn’t stop at simply understanding each Google algorithm update – there’s much more involved in keeping your website’s rankings intact amidst the changes.

Let’s break down the essential steps needed for you to start mastering Google’s Core Algorithm Updates.

Step 1: Collect & Analyze Pre-Update Data

The data-collection stage helps to form the foundation for your analysis post-update – so the more data you have, the better you’ll understand the update’s effects.

As soon as you hear that a new algorithm is going to be released, you’ll want to start gathering data on your website’s landing pages, including:

Rankings.
Organic traffic.
Backlink profiles.
On-page elements.

You’ll also want to segment the pages into relevant groups based on content, keyword focus, or user intent.

Maintain Focus On Your SERP Competitors

But don’t forget about your competitors!

While focusing on your website is important, it’s also crucial to keep an eye on how your competitors are doing.

Be sure to collect data not only on the sites that rank above you but also those below you in the SERPs, as this information will help you identify trends and changes across the landscape.

It’s best to use a tool to help automate the data collection process and provide more comprehensive results.

Pro Tip: There’s a newer SEO technology that many of the more competitive digital marketing teams are using: the search engine model.

Use Search Engine Models To Enhance Your Strategy With Data-Driven Insights & Predictions

Search engine models allow you to define, create, and deploy statistical replicas of any search engine environment.

They’re basically a map that you can use to navigate Google’s algorithms.

These models essentially work by simulating the complex algorithms and ranking factors used by search engines to predict the order in which websites appear in search engine result pages (SERPs).

As one of the leading providers of search engine modeling technology, Market Brew has the advanced tools you need to predict ranking changes with each optimization you do.

Here’s how we recommend you use this technology to collect and analyze your data:

Build 2-3 search engine models for each major area or template of your site. This will give you a representative sample of models that should give you guidance for all of the pages that use that same template. (When a company like Walmart uses Market Brew, they don’t create a million models. They focus on building guidance for each template, which means at a minimum 2-3 models for landing pages/ keywords that use that template.)
Group the models logically into teams. For instance, the models that center around landing pages that use one particular template could be placed together in the same team, to ensure recommendations within a group are consistent, and will allow you to spot patterns that are specific to issues with that part of the site.
By adding the search engine models now, your team will be tracking each competitor site’s history as well. Your team can even tap into Market Brew alerts to be notified when your competitors change their content/ link strategy. Every input and output of every modeled algorithm will be available to you now.

Get the full checklist and make sure your strategy stays on track.

Step 2: Monitor Post-Update Changes & Assess The Impact

To really know the effects of an algorithm change, you’ll need to monitor the rankings and organic traffic of your landing page groups after the update.

Don’t forget to also collect the data for each landing page that shows up in your SERPs – this way, you can sort the winners and losers when all is said and done.

If you’ve set up your search engine models, it’s important to regularly re-calibrate them (preferably every 90 days or so) to reflect the latest ranking changes.

Be sure to track and visualize the changes in weights for each modeled algorithm before and after the update.

Also look through your models to ensure that top-performing sites in these boosted algorithms continue to perform well in their respective SERPs, and sites that were doing poorly are now performing worse.

Conduct An Analysis Of How The Algorithm Update Affects Rankings

From here, you’ll want to conduct a statistical analysis:

Analyze the relationship between ranking changes and each of your SEO software’s algorithms. Create a “fitness” equation that provides a prioritization of tasks based on your team’s objectives, like sorting by task ROI.
Identify patterns and correlations that reveal which strategies are impacted by the update. Copy the winning patterns and remove or replace the losing patterns.
Understand that there could be a confluence of algorithm changes that have caused issues with your landing pages, and not just one specific algorithm change.

Keep up with your progress with this checklist to keep you on task.

Step 3: Adapt Your SEO Strategies & Priorities For Success

So you’ve collected and analyzed your data – now, it’s time to take action.

Start adjusting your SEO strategies based on your statistical analysis from step 2, making sure to emphasize factors that show strong correlations with improved rankings.

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Oct 18 2023

How to Recover from Google’s Helpful Content Update

Google’s latest “helpful content” algorithm update ended on September 15. It was disastrous for many sites.

If your site lost organic traffic, here’s how to recover.

1. Evaluate Losses

“Helpful content” is now a sitewide factor per Google’s Search Central guidelines:

Any content — not just unhelpful content — on sites determined to have relatively high amounts of unhelpful content overall is less likely to perform well in Search.

Hence the entire site suffers if Google claims extensive unhelpful content, making it difficult to identify which pages to focus on. Estimating the overall impact is the first step to identifying the scope. If it’s sitewide — in my view, 60% or more URLs have lost traffic — rework your whole content strategy.

Google’s Search Console identifies the pages that lost organic traffic.

Go to the “Performance > Search results” report.
Choose “Compare” in the “Date” filter.
Choose “Compare last 28 days to previous period” and click “Apply.”
Click on “Pages” and the “Clicks Difference” column header to sort by traffic changes.

Export the table to a spreadsheet for a better view of how many pages lost traffic.

Search Console identifies pages’ organic traffic changes. Click image to enlarge.

2. Identify Competing Pages

Enough time has passed to identify external pages with traffic gains. Determine the search queries with the biggest ranking drops and find pages that gained what you lost. Tools such as Ahrefs, Semrush, Sitechecker, and others can produce this info. Look for URLs with meaningful ranking changes for each query.

Spyfu can also help. It offers a handy graphical representation of search rankings — URLs that increased and decreased for a given query.

Screenshot of a Spyfu graph with change of rankings.

A graph in Spyfu shows URLs with gains and losses in rankings for a given query, “my waterfall” in this example. Click image to enlarge.

Google’s definition of unhelpful content is, well, not very helpful. It’s content with “little value, low-added value or is otherwise not particularly helpful to people.” Analyzing winning competitor pages could provide clues. For each page, ask:

Is the content more broad or more specific than yours?
How is it structured?
Does it contain keywords throughout the page?
Is there a table of contents and jump-to links?
Is there social proof — such as shares or comments — on the page?
Is there an author byline that links to a bio?
Does it contain Schema.org markup? How much?
Does the content link to trusted sources?
Does it include images or videos?
Does it include data, trends, or stats?
Is it new or freshly updated?
Does it thoroughly address the query with FAQs and definitions as needed?
Does it include related entities — reputable brands, products, people, places — or concepts that yours doesn’t? Text Optimizer can help identify those. It will analyze URLs on your site and a competitor’s, scoring both based on the number of related concepts and known entities. inLinks offers a handy entity checker, too.
Has the site gained rankings seemingly out of nowhere? Google’s helpful content attempts to find “hidden gems,” low-ranking sites with excellent info. Finding one of those might inform Google’s priorities.
Does the author’s bio state her experience and expertise relevant to the article?

The helpful content algorithm ranks pages for each query based on how searchers could benefit. Some queries require definitions and answers to common questions. Others seek clear steps or instructions to solve a problem or task. Your research aims to find what Google found particularly useful for each query.

Use the Wayback Machine to see a page’s earlier content. Perhaps it now contains better data, explanations, or sections that trigger the helpful content filters.

3. Show Fewer Ads, Popups

Quite a few discussions on SEO forums suggest that heavily monetized sites have lost the most rankings, especially those with intrusive interstitials or excessive ads.

“Intrusive interstitials” are popups that block most of the screen. These are typically email signups or special offers that require exiting to interact with the page. Disable or replace them with smaller, less onerous elements.

Google’s Search Central blog cites “excessive ads” as a negative user experience, although it doesn’t specify what it considers excessive, only “ads that distract from or interfere with the main content.”

Regardless, the harm of massive popups and excessive ads goes beyond the helpful content update. They impact readers. Avoid them irrespective of Google.

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