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.

Downloadable SEO checklists & templatesImage 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 2024Experience 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.

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

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

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

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


Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Wix. Used with permission.

PPC Made Easy: 4 Strategies To Save Time With No-Cost Tools

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

Tired of overspending on PPC tools that provide more than you need? It’s time to get back to the basics.

Whether you’re an established PPC manager or a small business owner handling your company’s Google Ads campaign, advertising tasks can quickly become overwhelming.

While it’s tempting to turn to pre-packaged software for help, there may be a more efficient way.

Learn to do more with less by following a few PPC management tips for maximum efficiency and performance.

1. Become Proficient In Google Ads Offline Editor: Your Secret Weapon For Quick Edits

Time Savings: 1 hour/week

It’s surprising how many Google Ads users neglect this powerful tool.

With the Google Ads Offline Editor, you can quickly download, edit, copy, paste, move, review, and upload changes.

The real magic is that you can make dozens of changes in seconds without waiting for the browser to reload every time you go to another screen. If you’ve spent any time in the Online Editor, you know how annoying this can be.

How Google Ads Offline Editor Speeds Up Your PPC Workflow

Here’s a quick example of how efficient the Offline Editor can be.

Imagine you’re running a PPC ads campaign called “Plumbing.”

You’ve got various services under this umbrella, but you’ve noticed that water heaters are particularly in demand.

So, you decide it’s time to break out the “Water Heaters” ad group from your Plumbing campaign into its own campaign.

In 15 seconds, working offline in Google Ads Editor, you can:

  1. Duplicate the “Plumbing” campaign.
  2. Rename it “Water Heaters”.
  3. Delete the non-relevant ad groups in the new campaign.
  4. Pause the old Water Heater ad group in the old campaign.

If you do this online, each action – pausing or deleting – requires navigating through and waiting for multiple web pages to load.

Offline, making changes like pausing multiple ad groups or deleting irrelevant keywords can be done in bulk with a few clicks, without any loading delays.

While seemingly insignificant, small delays add up to significant amounts of wasted time and decreased productivity throughout a campaign’s lifespan.

This streamlined approach not only saves time but also eliminates the clutter of “paused” or “removed” assets in your campaign, keeping your workspace organized and focused.

In the Offline Editor, you can make edits before posting online. When you delete items from the new campaign, there’s no history of the old keywords, ads, or ad groups existing. Once they’re gone, they’re gone – no residual clutter.

But this just scratches the surface regarding the Offline Editor’s functionality. Here are a few other things you can do with this no-cost tool:

  • Upload/edit campaigns in bulk from a CSV.
  • Import from Google Drive.
  • Quickly apply Negative Mobile App lists (among many other options).
  • Copy and paste location targeting in seconds.
  • Compare account structures side-by-side.
  • Edit PMAX campaigns.
  • Upload photos.
  • Edit extensions in bulk.
  • Catch errors before pushing live.

2. Master DIY Tools: Easily Build Quick Solutions In Your PPC Workflow

Time Savings: 20 min/week

Need Custom, No-Cost PPC Tools? Build Yours With Our Help.

Are you considering using high-end budget pacing tools? You may be surprised to find that creating your own versions in spreadsheets can be more effective.

Despite popular opinion, automated PPC management software does not guarantee a life free of issues. In fact, it gives some people a false sense of security.

Does this mean that you should completely shy away from automation? Absolutely not!

While automation is useful, it shouldn’t entirely replace vigilant, hands-on management.

For instance, what if data to the software lags or something is set up incorrectly and the software starts ramping budget unbeknownst to you?

In fact, we’ve seen an account overspend by nearly 50% in a month under automated software.

How To Track PPC Campaigns At A Lower Cost

Imagine starting your day by reviewing a custom spreadsheet in Google Sheets or Excel that acts as your PPC command center.

A custom spreadsheet can:

  • Show yesterday’s spend, monthly pacing versus budget, and L7 and L30 KPIs.
  • Offer complete recommendations for daily budget adjustments.
  • Actively recommend actions to meet your monthly targets.
  • Display alerts to flag any account that starts overspending.
  • Keep your PPC team agile and informed.

With our spreadsheets, we manually make budget changes at Redesign.co because, frankly, we want that control.

Budgets are vital to client-agency relationships, and keeping the decision-making power close at hand ensures every dollar spent is a dollar well-considered.

Another significant advantage you’ll find with Google Sheets or Excel is the ability to tailor reports to your specific needs – a level of flexibility often lacking in PPC management software.

We’ve used the same report for over a year, and it’s custom-built for us. It’s still 98% the same as one year ago.

Talk about a huge ROI on our initial time spent building it!

PPC Made Easy: 4 Strategies To Save Time With No-Cost ToolsImage created by Redesign.co, January 2024

3. Streamline Account QA & Maintenance: Google Sheets As Your Efficiency Ally

Time Savings: 2 hours/week

Simplify Your PPC QA. Let Us Help Create Your Free Template.

Google Sheets can also play a critical role in your PPC management by creating robust systems and processes for PPC account QA and maintenance.

Mistakes like burning through a month’s budget in two days, directing traffic to the wrong website, or typos in ad copy are costly.

It’s the little things that often go unnoticed until they snowball into major issues, affecting your credibility and client trust.

Use a simple tool like Sheets or Excel to create well-crafted, structured systems to prevent mistakes.

We use systems and QA checklists to:

  • Keep PPC budgets on track.
  • Ensure traffic goes to the correct landing page.
  • Regularly review search terms.
  • Catch ad copy typos.
  • Monitor ad schedules and targeting accuracy.
  • Quickly fix conversion tracking issues.
  • Stay on top of crucial account verification deadlines.
  • Notice subtle changes in performance.

With thorough, well-designed QA lists in a spreadsheet, you can zip through your weekly and monthly QA checks, sidestepping blunders that cost time and money and hurt client relationships.

We’ve learned that even the sharpest managers benefit from structured systems. Allowing managers to “wing it” and rely solely on their expertise creates blind spots.

Mistakes happen not because people are unqualified but because they’re human; structure and systems act as a guardrail against costly human mistakes.

Avoiding a common yet critical PPC mistake requires a delicate balance: not getting too absorbed in the minutiae or losing sight of the big picture when optimizing accounts.

The key is in setting up systems that allow managers to effectively alternate between a “10,000-foot view” for overarching strategy and a “magnifying glass” for detailed scrutiny.

How To Set Up QA In Google Sheets

The Easy Way: Build Your Free Custom Template With Us.

Utilizing Google Sheets or Excel for listing all essential tasks scheduled bi-weekly and monthly and holding our team accountable for each task.

A built-in notification feature gently nudges us if a task is overdue, ensuring that nothing slips through the cracks.

PPC Made Easy: 4 Strategies To Save Time With No-Cost ToolsImage created by Redesign.co, January 2024
PPC Made Easy: 4 Strategies To Save Time With No-Cost ToolsImage created by Redesign.co, January 2024

4. Use Google Apps Script For Proactive Automation

Time Savings: 1 hour/week

Losing sleep at night worrying about your Google Ads campaigns? The key to your peace of mind is preventing problems before they happen.

By using Apps Script to automate certain tasks, you can keep all your campaigns on track, even when you’re focused elsewhere.

Scripts require a bit of coding knowledge, but the proliferation of ChatGPT allows you to get 90% of the code written for you.

One of our favorite scripts at the moment pauses campaign ad spend and sends an email when an account reaches a pre-set threshold. The applications don’t stop at monitoring ad spend, though.

Need help catching PPC errors?

From scanning PPC ad copy for spelling mistakes and broken URLs to setting up alerts for sudden changes in KPIs, Google Apps Script can be your first line of defense.

Looking to refine PPC keyword strategies?

Set up a script to analyze search terms and send a monthly summary of those generating clicks but not conversions.

Tired of pulling data for reports?

Use a script to automate the process in a Google Sheet for real-time reporting and analysis.

You can even connect it to the reporting dashboard mentioned earlier so that it’s entirely hands-off once built!

Bonus Tip For The Tech-Savvy: Advanced Automation With Anomaly Detection

Time Savings: 2 hours/week

If you’re already comfortable with Apps Script and have experience with Python or R, you can take the previous strategy up a notch by automating anomaly detection.

This isn’t a beginner strategy, but we’ve found it incredibly effective. By combining the vigilance of Google Scripts with the analytical power of Python, we’ve set up a system at Redesign.co that alerts us to any unusual activity within our campaigns.

Every morning, we receive a report pinpointing recent anomalies, complete with graphs of key metrics to help us grasp the full context.

PPC Made Easy: 4 Strategies To Save Time With No-Cost ToolsImage created by Redesign.co, January 2024

Transform Your PPC The Redesign.co Way

Mastering PPC doesn’t have to mean investing in expensive, complex software. It’s about smart, efficient strategies that maximize your resources and minimize hassle.

No-cost tools like Google Ads Offline Editor and Google Sheets provide a DIY path to transform your PPC campaign, turning potential chaos into an easily manageable system customized to your needs.

If you’re looking for more PPC management strategies, along with expert support, Redesign.co offers a partnership that extends beyond the basics. Book a free, no-pressure call with our PPC marketing agency to learn how we can help you focus more on growth and less on the day-to-day grind.

This article has been sponsored by Redesign.co, and the views presented herein represent the sponsor’s perspective.

Ready to start optimizing your website? Sign up for Redesign.co and get the data you need to deliver great user experiences.


Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Redesign.co. Used with permission.

Smart Paid Strategy: 4 Tips To Save You $4K In Monthly Ad Spend via @sejournal, @CallRail

As a marketing agency, the bottom line for your clients comes down to how well you’re managing their budget.

No one likes the idea of wasted ad spend, but often, it can be hard to tell which funds are actually being put to good use.

Even when a campaign is successful, it’s important to understand which tactics are more effective than others.

How do you determine which platforms are generating the most quality leads for your clients? And how do you prove it?

With the right tools at your disposal, you can remove the guesswork from your marketing strategy and analyze performance more efficiently.

The key is to find out exactly what’s working and what’s not so you know where to focus your ad spend moving forward.

After all, a simple shift in budget allocation could ultimately save you thousands of dollars.

So, how can you optimize your marketing strategy and trim the unnecessary fat in your budget?

Let’s explore the top tools and tactics you can use to reduce your cost per lead and boost ROI this year.

Tip 1: Get A Strong Understanding Of Your True, Granular ROI

One of the biggest problems agency marketers face is limited insights, which can greatly impact decision-making.

Without the full picture of your marketing performance, it can be difficult to identify your top-performing – as well as underperforming – channels.

This was the challenge for shared workspace management and consulting firm Workspace Strategies.

However, with the right tracking and recording tools, they were able to gain valuable performance insights and pivot their strategy to eliminate wasted ad spend – ultimately saving them $1,000 per month!

So how’d they pull this off? Let’s dig deeper into how the firm was able to prove the true ROI for its campaigns.

The Downside Of Using Multi-Channel Advertising

The bigger a brand’s digital footprint, the more successful it’ll be, right? – Well, not necessarily.

Although it’s important to expand your online presence, there is such a thing as overdoing it.

It’s one thing to market on multiple online platforms, but how can you tell whether they actually bring value to your business?

Workspace Strategies was utilizing Google Ads, as well as various social media platforms to maintain the occupancy rates at their managed workspaces.

Jason, the firm’s Director of Operations, suspected that some of these channels were generating more leads than others.

However, he struggled to prove which marketing channels truly drive results.

Tracking & Optimizing For Maximum Campaign Success

The solution for Workspace Strategies, in this case, was simple: They were able to track and optimize their campaigns more effectively with Call Tracking by CallRail.

With this advanced tool, the firm was able to attribute every one of their leads to a specific channel, which helped them remove marketing spend from ineffective social platforms.

“When you’re making decisions about how to allocate your marketing budget, proof of ROI is everything. We got proof with CallRail.”

– Jason Tiemeier, Director of Operations at Workspace Strategies

Read the full case study to learn more about Workspace Strategies’ success.

How To Uncover Your Highest ROI Channel

With 360° data, you can:

  • See which sources and keywords are generating high-quality leads.
  • Pinpoint which paid ad campaigns are driving the most calls for your business.
  • Improve customer service using Call Recording to identify opportunities for staff training and coaching.
  • Speed up sales and drive ROI more efficiently.

If you’re ready to prove – and improve – the value of your marketing tactics, it’s time to add CallRail’s Call Tracking to your marketing tech stack.

Tip 2: Expand Your Datasets Outside Of Google Analytics 4

If you’re a business with multiple locations, tools like Google Analytics 4 may only provide you with a partial picture of your marketing ROI.

But what if you need to track the source of leads who contact your business by phone?

As businesses increasingly rely on phone calls as a valuable touchpoint for customer interactions, diversifying your datasets is even more important.

The Limitations Of GA4

While Google Analytics 4 certainly has its benefits, it also has its share of limitations.

Some of the most notable challenges include:

  • Complex data migration.
  • A new reporting interface.
  • Fewer attribution models.
  • Limited data collection.

For Workspace Strategies, the limited data Google Analytics provided made things particularly difficult, as it painted an incomplete picture of user interactions and behavior.

However, with Call Recording by CallRail they were able to collect valuable customer insights and close more sales.

How To Improve Customer Interactions With Call Monitoring

Sometimes, the problem with businesses simply lies in how they’re interacting with their customers – anything from excessively long phone calls to weak sales pitches could end up costing them conversions.

For instance, when Jason of Workspace Strategies started monitoring recorded phone conversations with incoming leads in CallRail, he uncovered some missteps made by staff members while trying to close sales.

As a result, the firm was able to quickly incorporate these findings into staff coaching and training.

Find out more about how Workspace Strategies identified and corrected their client-customer communication gaps.

Tip 3: Boost Campaign Results With AI-Enhanced Call Data Analysis

Often, businesses that receive a high volume of inbound phone calls through their marketing campaigns struggle to qualify those leads efficiently and accurately.

However, trying to outsource this task can be expensive and drive up the overall cost per lead.

For example, digital marketing agency Wit Digital dealt with inaccurate and expensive lead qualification, with their cost per lead sitting well above the industry average.

To resolve this, they powered up Call Tracking with CallRail’s Conversation Intelligence software.

As a result, Wit Digital is now saving up to $4,000 per month with a 64% lower cost per lead.

Learn more about how the agency benefited from CallRail in the full case study.

How To Use AI To Unlock The Data Within Your Calls

Conversation Intelligence uses AI technology to analyze your calls and turn your conversations into easy-to-act-on insights.

This advanced technology can:

  • Automatically record and transcribe all of your phone calls with near human-level accuracy, so you can easily refine keyword lists for agency clients.
  • Easily spot keywords and phrases in every call for automated insights and analytics.
  • Define rules to classify calls automatically when specific conversation criteria are met.

“With Conversation Intelligence, I have new insights into what’s working in our campaigns and what’s not. Sometimes even a simple word change can make all the difference.”

Ryan Cook, Director of Client Strategy at Wit Digital

Automate Your Analysis & Achieve Higher Accuracy

With Conversation Intelligence, you get more accurate:

  • Keyword spotting.
  • Auto-tagging and lead qualification.
  • Sentiment analysis.

Plus, you can automatically filter and categorize your phone calls – for instance, if a call from a first-time caller lasts more than 60 seconds, you’ll know it’s very likely a qualified lead and can have it automatically categorized as such.

By removing the need to manually listen to calls and categorize them, Wit Digital was able to stop overpaying vendors to analyze their call data.

Wit Digital is now getting a better return on its own marketing efforts and retaining more customers as they too get better ROI on their pay-per-click campaigns.

And now, CallRail’s new multi-language transcriptions can even help agencies overcome language barriers between clients and their customers, regardless of their native tongue.

Ready to automate your data analysis and boost your campaign results? Try CallRail’s Conversation Intelligence free for 14 days.

Tip 4: Consolidate Your Marketing Data & Streamline Your Process

Sometimes, the hassle of navigating between multiple platforms can be overwhelming.

Impactful SEO Reporting: 7 Tips For Effective SEO Reports That Build Buy-In via @sejournal, @getstat

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

Wondering how to get more SEO budget in 2024?

Hoping to build a more robust SEO strategy that involves teams and multi-level buy-in?

The answer lies in a great SEO report.

Crystal clear SEO reporting is the key to demonstrating value, impressing your boss, and keeping stakeholders happy.

We know – reporting isn’t the most exciting part of your SEO job – but love it or hate it, no matter how talented a search professional you are, effective SEO reporting can make the difference in:

  • Retaining a client.
  • Securing more budget.
  • Snagging that promotion.

As you’ve undoubtedly learned so far in your position, SEO cannot exist as an island.

SEO strategies see more impressive results when they are supported by other teams, like the folks responsible for creating content and making changes to a site.

This requires buy-in and prioritization at various levels of the organization to reach its full potential — so, even if creating reports feels especially painful at times, try to view reporting as a necessary vehicle for helping you get to the best-performing SEO strategy possible.

At its core, effective reporting is effective communication.

What Makes A Great, Actionable & Effective SEO Report

In the world of SEO, being able to distill down high volumes of nuanced search and keyword data in a straightforward way becomes integral to success.

Taking the initial time to get clear on priorities and set expectations at the onset of a reporting relationship (be it with a colleague, client, internal stakeholder, or executive) is well worth the effort.

Here’s how to get reporting right and gain happier stakeholders by:

  • Demonstrating successes.
  • Driving strategic optimizations.
  • Pinpointing impact to the bottom line.
  • Building trust.
  • Communicating value.

Impactful SEO Reporting: 7 Tips For Effective SEO Reports That Build Buy-In

1. Tailor Your Report To Your Audience

Cryptic jargon, unnecessary information, or excessive, in-the-weeds details can quickly turn potential buy-in to frustration and sheer confusion.

To avoid this, you’ll want to ruthlessly tailor the content of your reports to the audience who will be receiving it.

What Each Report Should Include

When reporting to C-suite executives like CMOs, you’ll want to report on higher-level, more holistic findings, and always tie metrics back to revenue and ROI.

When reporting to individual contributors, you can be far more detailed — down to the level of individual keyword reports even.

Ensure the KPIs you’re measuring accurately reflect results and progress towards the goals you and whoever receives the report care about most.

Take the time to discuss what each metric means and ensure that stakeholders understand the necessary context around the KPIs you’re reporting to them and why.

2. Avoid Reporting On Vanity Metrics

Speaking of KPIs, let’s talk about what not to do in your reporting.

You’ve probably heard about the dangers of vanity metrics before — that is, relying on surface-level measurements that may look impressive at first glance, but don’t capture the full picture or could be taken out of context to inflate wins or perceived importance.

While these buzzword or clickbait-type metrics may look good on the surface or in a single report, they can get you into trouble down the road if things don’t quite add up, which can lead to confusion and erode confidence.

What To Do Instead

The key to effective reporting is demystifying results in a way that is accurate and clearly communicates the outcomes of your work straightforwardly — this transparency helps build trust with stakeholders and encourages continued buy-in down the road.

For example, resist the temptation to overemphasize a keyword ranking win — winning the first organic result for a query with no search volume is not cause for celebration.

By making sure your boss or clients understand the metrics you’re reporting on with the appropriate context, you’ll establish a strong strategic partnership.

3. Speak S.M.A.R.T.

Setting Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant and Time-bound goals (S.M.A.R.T.) with stakeholders will help set your reporting relationship up for success.

Not only will it ensure that you’re setting clear expectations, but you’ll also be able to measure and articulate progress toward meeting those goals and demonstrate the value of your work.

How S.M.A.R.T. SEO Reporting Communicates Value

Get S.M.A.R.T. when it comes to how you’re communicating, too, as it greatly impacts the perceived value of your work.

The example below from the brilliant Kameron Jenkins illustrates the difference between simply stating facts and communicating value.

Each sentence is based on the same data, but the way that data is communicated vastly changes the impact:

Impactful SEO Reporting: 7 Tips For Effective SEO Reports That Build Buy-In

Credit: Kameron Jenkins | Moz — High-Impact SEO Reporting for Agencies

4. Remind Your Audience Of The Long Game

SEO is a marathon, not a sprint.

This is an essential piece of wisdom to share with your stakeholders.

What’s more, the marathon doesn’t have a predefined finish line — in fact, it doesn’t have a finish line at all!

Successful SEO is about making iterative improvements and then leveraging those wins for continued gains.

It’s important to set realistic SEO goals, show steady progress, and articulate that the goal is to incrementally build momentum towards a stronger organic presence that will pay long-term, sustainable dividends into the future.

5. Weave A Compelling Narrative

While we’re self-professed data nerds over here at STAT, data by itself is hard to grasp and can feel arcane to stakeholders who don’t work in SEO.

It’s your job to wrangle that data to make sense of what’s happening on the SERPs and surface strategic insights.

After all, data without insights is pointless.

How To Tell A Powerful Story With SEO Data

To take your reporting from metrics to insights, you need to turn your data into a compelling story that highlights opportunities and provides the next steps.

For example, a position one ranking on a search engine results page (SERP) with a local pack, paid ads, and several large SERP features appearing before the organic listings (and pushing rank one below the fold) is not nearly as impactful as a rank one position appearing at the top of a SERP that doesn’t have those extra bells and whistles taking up valuable real estate, and the CTR between the two will vary drastically for good reason.

Or, if a client is struggling to rank for a target keyword, through analysis, you can identify if they are creating the right content for the SERP.

If they’re going after a keyword that surfaces primarily video content, they will need to match that format if they hope to stand a chance, regardless of how masterfully crafted their copy is.

6. Make Sure SEO Reports Are Straightforward: Cut To The Chase

When deciding how to structure your reports, lead with key takeaways, provide intuitive data visualizations, eliminate extraneous information, and do the heavy-lifting surfacing insights.

Relegate any nitty-gritty data to an appendix section — there for reference and to support your claims, but secondary to the takeaways themselves, which should spell out the “so what?” for your audience.

Impactful SEO Reporting: 7 Tips For Effective SEO Reports That Build Buy-In

7. Find The Right SEO Reporting Cadence

The optimal reporting cadence will vary depending on your unique reporting relationship, but at the very least, once monthly is recommended to establish a consistent touchpoint — and we suggest setting up a standing call to go through it.

Not only will this ensure that stakeholders are actually looking at your reports, but you’re better positioned to answer any questions and articulate recommendations to help facilitate buy-in and follow-through.

What Is A Good SEO Reporting Schedule?

In most cases, you’ll want to establish quarterly (on the third month of each quarter) and annual summary reports to look at progress relative to the previous period.

You’ll want to show comparative MoM (month over month) and YoY (year over year) metrics, which are especially impactful in communicating value and ROI to higher-ups and budget holders.

Take the time to get reporting right.

At the end of the day, effective SEO reporting boils down to effective communication.

We hope this has given you the confidence to tackle SEO reporting in a way that demonstrates the value of your work and eliminates confusion with the stakeholders that matter most.

Take the opportunity to position yourself as the expert and educate your audience through your reporting. SEO data will only impact revenue positively if it’s acted upon and leveraged to inform strategy, so establish an ongoing strategic partnership that is cyclical and continues to build trust, loyalty, buy-in, and helps clear barriers for internal approvals.

Once you get the cycle off to the right start, you’ll continue to reap the benefits over time.

If you found this helpful, subscribe to our newsletter for more of the same, straight to your inbox. We’ll email you once or twice a month, tops, with the latest goings-on in the industry and here at STAT.


Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by STAT Search Analytics. Used with permission.

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 ThemScreenshot 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:

  1. Transfer authority from one page to another.
  2. 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:

  1. Make your links’ anchor texts descriptive. Users must be able to look at a link and immediately understand where it leads.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Create topic clusters. A good practice for increasing your site’s authority is creating multiple pages on several related topics and linking them together.
  5. 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.

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

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

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

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

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!


Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Ahrefs. Used with permission.

Unlock Ecommerce Success: How You Can Get Up To 87% More Traffic [+ Report] via @sejournal, @getdotstore

Wondering how to boost your ecommerce SEO to help you rank higher on SERPs?

Do you feel like you’re getting a new competitor every day?

In the era when everyone has an ecommerce storefront, how do you make sure your store has as many advantages as possible?

Gaining traffic and visibility is listed as one of the top issues that online sellers face, especially if you’re just starting your business and the next step is to choose your URL.

So, what are some of the major issues you might face as a new ecommerce company? How can you solve them?

Let’s dive in.

How To Boost Ecommerce Performance & Decrease Customer Acquisition Costs

The game has changed and .com domains aren’t the only way to get customers to take your business seriously.

If the primary goal of your website is to sell, nothing says that better than a .Store domain extension.

It’s the perfect call to action that instantly connects with potential customers and attracts them to your site.

Some of the key advantages of using a .Store domain include:

  • 87% more traffic.
  • 2X visibility.
  • 12% lower cost of conversion.

Increase Your Web Traffic by 87%

An ecommerce website on a .Store domain gets 87% more visitors than its .com counterparts.

Your domain name is basically like the virtual storefront of your business, and choosing the right one can have a significant impact on your success.

Why It Works

When users see a .Store domain, it instantly communicates that they are on an ecommerce platform where they can make purchases.

This clear and direct messaging not only attracts more visitors but also translates into increased sales, which ultimately results in more revenue for your business.

Double Your Site’s Visibility On Search Engines

An ecommerce site sporting a .Store top-level domain (TLD) gets an impressive double the amount of search visibility.

How?

Well, search engines love contextually relevant keywords, and having the word “store” in your domain name can be a powerful keyword tactic for your site’s rankings.

This added relevance doubles your visibility on search engines, ensuring that potential customers looking to make an online purchase can find your store more easily.

Check out the study.

Reduce Your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) By 12%

Marketing costs can be a major concern, especially for new and growing businesses – and this is yet another way the .Store domain can transform your SEO strategy.

When users come across ads for a product category, they are 12% more likely to make a purchase if the ad directs them to a “store” domain.

Thus, the cost to acquire your user is much lower.

Analyzing .Store Domain Performance: The Full Report

[Get the full report]

The true impact of .Store TLDs on both paid and organic traffic were examined in a groundbreaking study conducted by Contrast Digital.

This extensive report uncovers a wealth of insights that can reshape your understanding of domain performance.

According to the data, there’s a potential long-term benefit of using .Store domains from a SEO standpoint.

We’ll dive into some key facts from the study below, but you can download the full report to dig into the detailed results.

Organic Study

This extensive 12-month experiment examined the performance of two distinct websites.

The key difference between the two websites was the domain extension.

One website was on .com while the other was on a .Store; with the second-level domain being identical (think example.com vs example.store).

Both sites comprised 82 pages categorized into products, categories, blog posts, and information pages, maintaining identical layouts and product descriptions in order to control variables and conduct a fair assessment.

Googlebot’s crawl time, along with impressions, clicks, and click-through rate measured through Google Search Console, provided a detailed comparative analysis.

Significance testing using MATLAB code offered insights into potential differences between the sites’ metrics, forming a comprehensive overview of their organic performance.

Key Performance Trends:

  • Example.store achieved the first 100 clicks, 20,000 impressions, and 250 clicks in a 30-day window faster than example.com.
  • Google seemed to prefer the example.store domain over example.com, indicated by faster indexing and crawling.
  • Example.store had a 49.01% larger keyword footprint than example.com, correlating with larger impressions over 12 months.
  • In non-blog content, example.store had a 30.27% increase in visibility compared to example.com.
  • In blog content, example.store had a 67.02% increase compared to example.com.

Overall, the significance tests consistently show that .Store TLDs outperformed equivalent .com TLDs in clicks, impressions, and click-through rate (CTR) over the 12-month experiment.

Want to learn more? Check out the full report for additional insights.

PPC Report

This report delves into the Google paid ads segment of the experiment, evaluating the performance of example.com and example.store over 5 months.

After allowing both websites to naturally perform for three months, paid media was introduced to assess their response to targeted paid traffic, with a primary focus on understanding consumer trust around TLDs.

To ensure fairness in the paid ads environment, settings were adjusted to rotate ads indefinitely, preventing bias toward any particular ad.

Additionally, landing page destinations, ad content, keyword targeting, and max bids were standardized across both accounts, eliminating variables and placing emphasis on individual performance.

Key Performance Trends:

  • Example.store had a 12.12% higher conversion rate than example.com, 1.48% vs 1.32%.
  • Example.store managed PPC spend more consistently through daily budgets, possibly contributing to better performance.
  • Example.store had a statistically significant 15.37% higher CTR compared to example.com, potentially due to the recognizable association of .Store with eCommerce.
  • Example.store outperformed example.com in conversions (33 vs 24) and had a cheaper customer acquisition cost (£39.59 vs £44.45).
  • After 5 months, example.store performed the best overall in clicks, CTR, average cost per click, and cost.

Overall, the .Store domain consistently outperformed .com and emerged as the superior performer in the paid experiment.

Navigating The Customer Acquisition Challenge

We know how difficult it can be to capture the attention of your ideal audience, particularly as a new online business without an established track record.

Another key issue you might be facing is profitability.

As essential as marketing may be for your brand, it can certainly be costly to execute effectively.

So what are some ways you can get the most bang for your buck and maximize your return on investment (ROI)?

How can you add value while keeping your customer acquisition costs low?

Though there are various marketing tricks and tactics you can try, sometimes, the answer can be just as simple as picking the right domain name.

Oftentimes, the domain you choose for your business can tell consumers a lot about what you offer and what they can expect.

So if you’re looking to enhance your online retail presence and lower your cost per acquisition (CPA), it might be time to switch things up.

With a .Store domain extension, you can gain a significant performance advantage and get a leg up on your competitors.

Diversify Your Digital Identity: Embracing The Evolution Beyond .Com

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Will customers trust an address that doesn’t end in .com?

How does Google classify a website with a .Store domain and how will it impact your search rankings?

Domain names are not actually a part of your overall search engine rankings – however, that doesn’t mean you can just forget about them.

Your choice of domain name can be an important aspect of your UX and public image, and should usually be the most recognizable aspect of your business.

Till now, the domain extension decision for anyone building an ecommerce site was largely determined by conditioning, perception, and an overall lack of data.

The idea that .com domains are the only viable choice for websites is incredibly common.

However, there’s now an objective, data-backed study available which, for the first time, shows that .Store as a top-level domain (TLD) can actually benefit ecommerce sellers in a major way.

How To Improve Page Speed To Pass Google’s Core Web Vitals Assessment via @sejournal, @DebugBear

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

A fast website provides a more pleasant experience for users and can lead to higher conversion rates.

But Google also takes website speed into account as part of the Core Web Vitals and uses it as a ranking factor.

Learn how Google’s Core Web Vitals assessment works and what you can do to ensure your website loads quickly and provides a good experience once it’s loaded.

What Are The Core Web Vitals?

Google’s Core Web Vitals (CWV) aim to measure website quality and user experience.

To do that, several new metrics were developed which can be collected in the Chrome browser.

Three of these metrics form the Core Web Vitals:

  • Largest Contentful Paint.
  • Interaction to Next Paint.
  • Cumulative Layout Shift.

Largest Contentful Paint

The Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) metric measures how quickly the single biggest piece of page content appears on the page after a visitor opens a page.

You can see an example of the LCP in this DebugBear rendering page speed filmstrip, which shows what content would be visible to users at different points in time.

How To Improve Page Speed To Pass Google’s Core Web Vitals AssessmentDebugBear filmstrip showing how page content appears gradually on a website, November 2023

Here content starts showing up after just 1.27 seconds.

However, the image on the right is identified by Chrome as the LCP element, and this image only shows up 2.33 seconds after the navigation.

The Largest Contentful Paint is closely related to two other Web Vitals metrics that are not part of the Core Web Vitals: Time to First Byte and First Contentful Paint.

Time To First Byte

Time to First Byte (TTFB) measures how quickly the server responds to the request for the HTML document that’s loaded at the start of the page load process.

Without the HTML document, the browser can’t show any content or start loading any other resources.

First Contentful Paint

The First Contentful Paint (FCP) looks at how soon any content appears on the page.

Content here usually means text or an image.

However, when this milestone is reached by the page most of the content may still be unavailable to the visitor.

The FCP can’t happen until after the TTFB milestone. In turn, the Largest Contentful Paint is always greater than or equal to the First Contentful Paint.

That means that TTFB and FCP put lower bounds on the LCP and looking at these two metrics can help you understand the loading behavior of your website.

Interaction To Next Paint

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) measures how responsive a website is to user input.

It generally looks at the slowest interaction a user has on a web page.

INP reports how much time elapsed between two timestamps during a page interaction:

  1. The user input, for example, a click or keypress.
  2. The next visual update (“paint”) of the website (whether the content changes or not does matter).

For example, this filmstrip shows a “View Details” button being clicked.

The click is handled by  JavaScript code on the page and running this code takes some time. While the click is being processed the website UI remains frozen. Once the CPU processing is complete the browser renders the new content.

How To Improve Page Speed To Pass Google’s Core Web Vitals AssessmentScreenshot by DebugBear showing the steps involved in a page interaction, November 2023

Technically, Interaction to Next Paint isn’t one of the Core Web Vitals yet, but Google has announced that INP will replace the older First Input Delay metric in March 2024.

Cumulative Layout Shift

The Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) metric checks whether page content is visually stable after it appears.

An unstable UI disorients users and can lead to unintended page interactions.

This screenshot shows an example of a layout shift that happens during the page load process.

At first, the image in the top right is not yet visible as the browser is still downloading it. Once the image appears, the size of the image element updates. In this case, the element becomes larger and therefore pushes down content that’s below it on the page.

How To Improve Page Speed To Pass Google’s Core Web Vitals AssessmentDebugBear screenshot showing layout shifts on a website, November 2023

CLS is called “cumulative” because the impact of different shifts is added up.

Originally this spanned the entire time the page was open, but this unfairly gave long-running single-page applications a poor rating. Google has now switched to the windowed CLS definition which only looks at a time window of up to five seconds.

What Is Google’s Core Web Vitals Assessment?

Google performs a Core Web Vitals assessment on your website and uses the results as a ranking signal.

If your website does not meet the Core Web Vitals, you will get a warning in various tools, for example, the “Core Web Vitals Assessment: Failed” alert in Page Speed Insights.

How To Improve Page Speed To Pass Google’s Core Web Vitals AssessmentScreenshots of page speed insights with a failed Web Vitals assessment, November 2023

The data for the Core Web Vitals assessment comes from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX), which collects real user data from Chrome users.

In addition to PageSpeed Insights, Google Search Console also checks your web vitals and explains what URLs aren’t considered “Good”.

How To Improve Page Speed To Pass Google’s Core Web Vitals AssessmentScreenshot of Google Search Console showing Core Web Vitals data, November 2023

What Makes A Good Core Web Vitals Assessment?

Google defines “Good”, “Poor”, and “Needs Improvement” thresholds for each metric.

Metric Good Needs Improvement Poor
Largest Contentful Paint Below 2.5 s Below 4 s Over 4 s
Interaction to Next Paint Below 200 ms Below 500 ms Over 500 ms
Cumulative Layout Shift Below 0.1 Below 0.25 Over 0.1

To get the maximum ranking benefit, your website should be rated “Good” across all three Core Web Vitals. As your website gets worse, this gradually impacts your rankings until the “Poor” threshold is reached.

How To Speed Up Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

To improve your LCP, you need the main content of your website to load faster.

  1. Run a free website speed test to understand what is causing the main content of your webpage to lag.
  2. Receive and review the insights from the visual filmstrip and high-level performance metrics to uncover what your next steps are.
  3. Use those insights to optimize your page load speed.
How To Improve Page Speed To Pass Google’s Core Web Vitals AssessmentResult of a DebugBear website speed test, November 2023

You can then dive deeper into the specific metric by clicking on the “Largest Contentful Paint” metric title in the test result.

This will show you:

  • What page element is responsible for the Largest Contentful Paint.
  • If the LCP is an image, what the image URL is, and what request priority was used by the browsers.
  • If the LCP is an image, what other requests the image file depended on.
How To Improve Page Speed To Pass Google’s Core Web Vitals AssessmentDebugBear screenshot showing an analysis of the Largest Contentful Paint, November 2023

Request waterfalls show what resources were loaded over the network and how long they took to load. In this case, the partial request waterfall focusing on the LCP image shows that the image depends on first loading a large JavaScript file. This is a common problem and you should aim to load LCP images directly from the HTML document.

The DebugBear test result also offers many automated recommendations and ranks them by expected impact.

Screenshot by DebugBear, November 2023

How To Improve Interaction To Next Paint (INP)

Only 64% of mobile websites currently provide a Good INP experience, making it an important metric to optimize.

The INP metric can be hard to debug as it depends on a user interaction that can’t be tested as easily.

You can manually test out page interactions and measure them using the Chrome DevTools performance profile.

This works well if you know what page elements users typically interact with. DevTools is also really helpful once you’ve identified a slow interaction, as the Chrome developer tools will tell you exactly what the browser spends time on during that interaction.

The INP Debugger tool can also be handy as it automatically simulates interactions with different page elements. All you need to do is enter a website URL.

How To Improve Page Speed To Pass Google’s Core Web Vitals AssessmentScreenshot of the free INP Debugger tool, November 2023

However, the INP Debugger won’t be able to identify all interactions, especially if they are part of a longer user flow. This is where collecting real user monitoring (RUM) is useful, as it allows you to focus your optimizations in exactly the right place.

With RUM data you can see exactly what page elements most users are interacting with and whether they are experiencing interaction delays.

How To Improve Page Speed To Pass Google’s Core Web Vitals AssessmentScreenshot of real user monitoring data in DebugBear, November 2023

You can also see a RUM breakdown into its different components:

  • Input Delay.
  • Processing Time.
  • Presentation Delay.

Input Delay measures how long after the user interaction the browser started processing the user input. A high Input Delay indicates that background tasks or previous event handlers are blocking the user interaction.

Processing Time measures the actual time spent handling the user input. If this is slow, your developers need to look at what code runs in response to the interaction and how that code can be optimized.

Presentation Delay measures how much time elapsed between the event being handled and the next paint. This number can be high if rendering the page is complex, or if other CPU processing has been queued up while the interaction was handled.

How To Reduce Cumulative Layout Shift

Similar to INP, Cumulative Layout Shift can be hard to fix as it often happens when the user scrolls down the page or when additional content appears after the user clicks on a UI element.

If the layout shift happens during the initial load of the page, it’s easy to identify by:

  1. Running a page speed test.
  2. Clicking on the “Cumulative Layout Shift” metric title to see what page elements have moved.
  3. Fixing the element that is causing the shift.

For example, here, additional content was loaded causing the layout to change.

How To Improve Page Speed To Pass Google’s Core Web Vitals AssessmentScreenshot showing lab-test layout shift in DebugBear, November 2023

How To Fix Layout Shifts

To fix layout shifts, ensure that appropriately sized placeholders are in place if some content only appears later on in the page load process.

You can also work on ensuring the other content loads earlier – if the content is ready as soon as the page starts rendering then there’s no layout shift.

If your CLS score is hard to replicate you can use DebugBear real user monitoring to see what’s causing layout shifts for your real users.

In addition to looking at high-level distributions you can also look at individual user experiences and what led to layout shifts for them.

How To Improve Page Speed To Pass Google’s Core Web Vitals AssessmentScreenshot showing real user layout shift in DebugBear, November 2023

Monitor Page Speed & Core Web Vitals

If you’re struggling to pass the Core Web Vitals assessment, DebugBear monitoring can help you identify issues on your website and make sure you get alerts when there’s an issue.

Simply start a free trial and enter your website URLs. See all your page speed metrics at a glance on the dashboard. DebugBear also keeps track of Lighthouse scores and the real-user Google data that impacts rankings.

How To Improve Page Speed To Pass Google’s Core Web Vitals AssessmentScreenshot showing key page speed metrics in DebugBear, November 2023

In addition to continuously testing your website in a controlled lab environment, you can also install an analytics snippet on your site to track real user experiences.

How To Improve Page Speed To Pass Google’s Core Web Vitals AssessmentDebugBear showing real user Core Web Vitals charts, November 2023

In addition to the high-level Web Vitals overview, DebugBear RUM lets you break down user experiences by page speed, country, or web browser.

How To Improve Page Speed To Pass Google’s Core Web Vitals AssessmentDebugBear screenshot showing a real user TTFB analysis, November 2023

Having detailed lab reports and real user data allows you to get ahead of the Google CrUX data that impacts rankings and is reported with a 28-day delay. DebugBear provides powerful insights into your Core Web Vitals and helps you communicate with the rest of your team and management.

Ready to start optimizing your website? Sign up for DebugBear and get the data you need to deliver great user experiences.


Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by DebugBear. Used with permission.

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:

  1. Match your audience’s wants and interests.
  2. 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:

  1. Be descriptive (at least 3 words).
  2. Reflect the user search intent.
  3. 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:

  1. Use keywords to optimize new pages.
  2. 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.

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

How To Find The Best SEO Keywords That Win The Customer Over (& Why It’s Important)Screenshot from WebCEO, October 2023

Here’s how to use it:

  1. Open Settings.
  2. In the Keywords tab, add all your keywords and check their boxes.
  3. In the Search engines tab, add where you want to check your rankings (search engine and location).
  4. (Optional) In the Search results tab, check all the different types of results you want to track.
  5. 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.

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

  1. Set up CallRail’s Conversation Intelligence.
  2. 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.
  3. 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

  1. Review the Key Terms Spotted report in Conversation Intelligence to identify the most commonly-spoken words and phrases at a glance.
  2. Check Call Highlights for recommendations of relevant and powerful keywords and phrases not set up in Key Terms Spotting.
  3. 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:

  1. Sign up for an AI-based writing service, or use Microsoftʼs ChatGPT or Google Bard for free!
  2. Use keyword terms and phrases surfaced from Conversation Intelligence and ask it to generate interesting topics based on those keywords.
  3. 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!