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A beginner’s guide to Google Search Console

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Updated September 2019

Google Search Console is a must-use tool if you want to track how your website is performing. You can keep an eye on keywords, page impressions, click-through rates, rankings, mobile usability, top linking sites and so much more.

It’s a fantastic companion to Google Analytics and completely free to use.

It can be a bit daunting to start with, which is why I’ve put together this beginner’s guide to the various reports and features to give you a handy starting point.

My big tip is to spend some time playing with the different features and filters in the Performance report (more about that below) to understand more about how you can use the data to boost your SEO efforts.

What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console began its life as Google Webmaster Tools.

Essentially, it’s a free platform from Google that lets you see how the search engine views your website so that you’re better able to optimise your organic presence.

Using Google Search Console, you can tap into important information such as:

  • Queries/search terms used to find your site in search engine results pages (SERPs)
  • Average ranking position for keywords/phrases
  • Impressions and clicks for specific pages
  • Errors that need correcting
  • Top linked-to pages (internally and externally)
  • Which websites are linking to your site

On 9th September 2019, Google fully transferred to the ‘new’ interface for Google Search Console that it had been beta testing for two years and removed access to the old version.

This guide covers the new version.

 

How to add your website to Google Search Console

If you don’t have access to Google Search Console already, your first step is to set it up.

  1. Go to Google Search Console and click on Start now.
  2. Sign in using your Google account. If you have a personal and a business account, choose your business account. (If you don’t yet have a Google Account, hit the Create account option and follow the instructions).Sign Up Screen in Google Search Console
  3. You’ll be taken to the Google Search Console dashboard. Click on Add a property.
  4. On the Select property type pop-up that appears, you’ll be given the choice between adding a Domain or a URL prefix.

Select property type - Google Search Console

Google gives an explanation about what these two options mean that I’d recommend reading.

Essentially though, the Domain option covers all subdomains (e.g. www.example.com, blog.example.com, m.example.com) and protocols (i.e. http, https) associated with your website.

It’s a way of consolidating all of your data from your whole domain into one view.

Domain property graphic

The alternative – the URL prefix option – was the only method available in older versions of Google Search Console.

It only covers URLs under the entered address and specified protocol, e.g. https://www.example.com.

URL Prefix property graphic

If you use several subdomains and protocols, you would be better choosing Domain.

Please note: Currently, Google Analytics will only link to URL-Prefix properties.

My advice would be to set up a Domain property for your entire domain but also create a URL-Prefix property for your primary site URL and protocol, e.g. http://www.example.co.uk. This would be the primary version of the site that’s indexed with Google.

5. Click Continue.

6. As Google Search Console will give you access to confidential data about your website’s performance, you will need to pick a way to verify that you own the website you’re trying to add.

If you’ve chosen the Domain option, you will see the following pop-up:

Domain verification in Google Search Console

Follow the instructions given to verify your ownership of the domain.

If you’ve chosen the URL Prefix option, you will see a different verification screen:

URL verification

Pick your chosen verification method and follow the instructions given.

Google Search Console will start to collect and display data about your site as soon as it is verified.

Note: Google will let you re-add a web property that you’ve removed in the past without you having to go through a second verification process if the property still has one verified owner.

To re-add a website/domain, follow steps 1-5 above and you should be automatically re-verified.

Link Google Search Console with Google Analytics

As I mentioned above, Google Analytics will only link to URL-Prefix properties.

To link Google Search Console with Google Analytics you will need to complete the following steps:

  1. Log into Google Analytics
  2. Click on Admin, which you’ll find next to the gear symbol at the bottom of the main left-hand menu.
  3. Click on Property Settings in the menu under the name of the website to which you want to link Google Search Console (middle column).
  4. This menu will move to the left of the screen and a larger Property Settings panel will open – scroll down until you see the Adjust Search Console option. Click it.
  5. Click on Add.
  6. Scroll down until you find your website address. Tick the box and hit Save.

Your Google Search Console and Google Analytics should now be linked.

 

Creating a sitemap

Once your website is verified in Google Search Console, you should create and submit a site map, as this tells Google what pages you have on your website that you would like it to crawl.

There are lots of different ways to generate a site map.

If you have a WordPress site, you can create an XML sitemap using the fantastic Yoast WordPress SEO or a dedicated XML sitemap plugin, such as Google XML Sitemaps.

If you don’t have a WordPress site, Google offers advice about the different site map formats and general guidelines for building and submitting a site map.

Once you have generated a site map:

  1. Click on Sitemaps under the Index heading in the main Google Search Console menu to the left of the screen.
  2. Under Add a new sitemap, enter the URL for your sitemap.
  3. Click Submit.

 

Your Google Search Console Overview screen

Google Search Console Overview screen

On your Overview screen, you’ll notice that the main menu runs down the left-hand side.

There is also an at-a-glance view of:

  • How many web search clicks your website has had over the past three months (find out more with the Performance report – see below)
  • How many valid pages Google has currently indexed from your site and how many pages have errors (find out more with the Coverage report – see below)
  • Mobile usability problems (find out more with the Mobile Usability report – see below)
  • Which rich results Google found in your property, and whether or not they could be read (find out more with the Sitelinks Searchbox report – see below)

Let’s take a look at what the different options in the left-hand menu mean.

 

Performance

The Performance section of Google Search Console is where you can find incredibly valuable information about your website’s overall search performance in Google.

GSC Performance view

As you can see from the screenshot above, Performance gives you clear information about your website:

  • Total number of click-throughs from SERPs
  • Total number of impressions in SERPs (i.e. the number of times your pages showed up in search results)
  • Average click-through rate (CTR)
  • Average position in searches, overall and for each search term

You can view all four tabs together or select different combinations or single selections of the four tabs, depending on what data you want to view.

Dimensions and filters

In addition, Google Search Console lets you group your data by five different Dimensions:

  • Queries (see all the searches for which your web pages have ranked over the given time period)
  • Pages (see all the pages that have ranked in searches)
  • Countries (see where your audience is based by country)
  • Devices (see how your traffic is split across desktop, mobile devices and tablets, and whether the device on which SERPs are viewed influences your click-through rates)
  • Search Appearance (this will show up pages that contain rich snippets or Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) so you may not see many results listed here)

It’s also possible to filter in/out specific information to help you target specific information (I’ll be covering that in more detail below!)

The Performance report replaces the Search Analytics report in the older version of Google Search Console.

One of the most significant differences between the old and new reports is that you can now see a fantastic 16 months’ worth of data instead of just 90 days. This helps you to build up a longer-term view of how your keywords are performing.

 

Ways you can use the Performance report to boost your organic SEO

  • Identify your highest click-through rate queries

Click-through rate (CTR) is defined as the percentage of impressions that turn into click-throughs to your website.

CTR is an important metric to keep an eye on because it’s an indication of relevance between search terms and your content. Google is likely to view a high CTR as a positive ranking signal, especially if your CTR is higher than for other pages in the same SERP.

So, what are your highest CTR queries? Here’s how you can use Google Search Engine to find out:

  1. Click on Performance in the main menu.
  2. Click on the Queries tab below the graph (although the Performance page usually defaults to this view).
  3. Click on the Date display to the top-left of the graph and change the date range to Last 12 months (or whatever range you’d prefer) and then hit Apply.Performance date range
  4. Make sure the Average CTR tab is selected.Average CTR view
  5. On the line above the list of search queries, click on the arrow next to CTR to sort the results from highest to lowest. This will show you which of your search terms have the highest CTRs.

Of course, this information doesn’t give us the complete picture. A search term could have a 100% CTR but should you spend your energies on optimising that search term if it has only appeared once in a SERP?

To get a more complete understanding of your best performing search terms, click the Total Impressions tab too.

Which search terms stand out for having a high number of total impressions and a high CTR?

Note: If you’re wondering what makes a good CTR, a good starting point is the Advanced Web Ranking CTR Study. This regularly updated chart shows the organic click-through rates for searches coming from over 2.8 million keywords for 53,000+ websites.

This chart shows that CTRs are directly influenced by ranking position.

A further helpful step here can be to highlight the Average Position tab too. Make a note of search terms that have high impressions, high CTR but rank in position 5 or below in SERPs (i.e. halfway down page one and lower).

You could try building targeted content around these search terms to attract more traffic for these queries and boost them up to the top half of page one.

  • Find pages with a low click-through rate

It can be a red flag if you are getting loads of impressions for a search term but the click-through rate is low. This can be a sign that you need to revise your meta title and description, for example, to grab attention and show searchers/Google that your content is relevant to particular search terms.

With this in mind, Google Search Console can help you to pinpoint where you need to improve click-through rates.

Try the following:

    1. Click on the Average CTR and Average PositionPerformance low CTR
    2. We want to find the pages that rank at number five on Google or lower (the bottom half of page one) and have a bad CTR. This means that we need to filter out higher ranking pages that have an average position of 1-4 in SERPs.
    3. To do this, you will need to click on the Filter button to the top right of the list of search terms (and below the graph) and tick Position checkbox.Position check box
    4. This will bring up a new line above the list of search terms where you’ll see the word Equals next to a small triangle indicating the presence of a dropdown menu.Click to view the dropdown menu and click on Greater than.Type 4.9 in the Filter by Position space. This will filter the results so you only see pages with an average ranking position of 5 or lower.Filter results in GSC
    5. At the time of writing, the latest Advanced Web Ranking Click-through Rate Study figures show that websites ranking in position 5 on Google should have a CTR of 7.5% for mobile searches and 4.17% for desktop searches. We can use 4.17% as our baseline.This means we will need to filter the list of search terms further so we find those that have a CTR lower than 4.17%.Click on the Filter icon again and check the CTR boxfilter by CTR
    6. Now go back to the dropdown menu where it says Equals and choose Smaller than. Type 4.17 in the Filter by Position boxYou now have a list of low ranking search terms with low CTRs
    7. Now click on the Total Impressions and Average Clicks tabs as these will show you how many times your low ranking/low CTR pages have been seen in SERPs and searchers have clicked through to your site.
      Performance low CTR
      In the example image above, the highlighted line stands out. The search term has been seen 1,169 times and yet there have only been 29 click-throughs.
    8. We need to take this line of investigation further by understanding which pages are showing up in SERPs for the search term with the low CTR.To do this, click on the individual search query that you want to explore. This will isolate all the data to that particular search term.
    9. Click on the Pages tabGSC Pages tab
      This will give you the page or a list of pages on your website that rank in response to the search term.From this information, you can add to the picture you’re building about specific keywords and pages. For example, do you have lots of pages all ranking – and competing – for the same keyword?But the picture still isn’t complete.
    10. It could be that a page on your website has a low CTR for the search term you initially identified but that it ranks better and has a much higher CTR for a different search term.There’s no point optimising to improve the CTR for a keyword if it might negatively affect keywords that are already performing well for the page in question.To check this out, go to the top of the screen and click on New then Page and enter the URL for the page you want to investigate:GSC Performance low CTR
      You’ve now got a list of all the keywords the page ranks for. Which of the keywords have the best CTR? Which have the highest number of impressions? Depending on what you see, you might decide to tweak the page in question and its meta data to optimise it for the greatest amount of search traffic.One of your priorities should be to make the meta title and meta description as enticing as possible.Remember, these are what people see in search results. They need to act as a compelling call to action, encouraging searchers to click through to your website.
    11. Monitor the results! Having tweaked your meta data and optimised your low CTR pages, it may take a few days for Google to recrawl the updated content.Check into Google Search Console regularly over the next couple of weeks to see if the CTR improves

  • Identify your highest-traffic queries

Google Search Console can also help you identify which keywords bring the most search traffic to your website.

To find this data:

  1. Go to the Performance
  2. Click on the Query tab if it’s not your default view.
  3. Click on the Date range button to choose the time period you want to view (e.g. last 28 days)
  4. Make sure the Total Clicks tab is the only one selected in graph at the top of the screen. This relates to the actual number of searchers who clicked through to your website from a Google search, i.e. the total number of visitors arriving on your website from an organic search.
  5. Click on the small downward arrow next to Clicks to sort from the highest to the lowest.
  6. Click on each high performing search term and then the Pages tab to see which pages are ranking for the term.

You can use this information in a number of ways:

  • Optimise the ranking pages for conversion (e.g. more bookings or sales)
  • To update the ranking pages so that they maintain their position
  • To support the page with paid promotions such as Google or Facebook ads
  • Using them to link to low-ranked but relevant pages

 

  • Track ranking increases and decreases

Once you have implemented SEO changes to increase CTRs, for example, you will want to keep an eye on whether your rankings are going up or down for your target keywords.

Google Search Console helps us with this:

  • Go to the Performance
  • Click on the Queries tab if it isn’t your default view.
  • Click on the Date option to the top-left of the Performance graph and then choose the Compare tabGSC - Date compare
  • Select to compare two equivalent date periods (e.g. Compare last 3 months to previous period) and then hit Apply.
  • This data will show whether your average clicks, total impressions, average CTR and average impressions have gone up or down between this period and the previous one.At this stage, you can view the data in Google Search Console or export it as a CSV file or to Google Sheets. To export the data, click on the Export/Download icon and choose how to want to save the data.GSC Export button
  • For a view of ranking changes in Google Search Console, make sure that you only have the Average Position tab selected. This will bring up three columns of data – Last XX days/months position, Previous XX days/months position, Difference.Slightly confusingly, the lines with a negative difference (e.g. -0.9) represent an increase in rankings between the last and previous periods, whereas the lines with a positive difference represent a decrease in rankings.
    You can see some examples of this in the screenshot below:

Average rankings difference

If there are some significant increases or decreases between this period and the last, you may need to investigate the cause.

Sometimes, you’ll notice a big variation because the search wasn’t made during the previous period. This will be indicated with a 0 in the relevant column. It could be that this is the first period during which your site has ranked for a search term, in which case you won’t need to worry about the increase or decrease.

My advice here is to begin building up a picture month-on-month of your highest ranking keywords. If you suddenly notice a nosedive for a usually productive search term then you will want to explore this further.

  • Are your competitors targeting the same term?
  • When did you last update/refresh your content?
  • Could you have been hit with a Google penalty?

These are all questions you might want to consider.

  • Find ‘Opportunity’ keywords

You can use the Performance data to find keywords that rank between positions 8-20 in SERPs and get a good number of impressions. These are sometimes referred to as ‘Opportunity keywords’, i.e. words and phrases that reveal an opportunity to rank highly in SERPs.

With ‘Opportunity’ keywords, you should already have a page that is ranking well for the search term. With a little care and attention, you could boost the relevance of the page and bump up its rankings.

But how do you find ‘Opportunity’ keyword?

  1. Set the date range of the date to the Last 28 days.
  2. Filter the report to show keywords ranking Greater than 7.9 (this will show everything ranked from position 8 and below).
  3. Sort by Impressions (largest to smallest) and look for key phrases with a good number of impressions and a ranking average somewhere between 8 and 20.
  4. See which page ranks for this keyword by clicking on the search query and choosing the Pages tab

Once you’ve identified the pages you could improve to see a quick increase in rankings, you’ll want to turn your attention to the page in question.

  • Look at ways to add more detail by covering as much as you can about the topic.
  • Add in a video to keep people viewing the page for longer.
  • Provide step-by-step instructions.
  • Link to connected content.
  • Share on social media and build backlinks to the updated page.

As we can see, the potential within the Performance report is MASSIVE!

 

URL Inspection

Next in the main menu to the left-hand side of the screen is the URL Inspection tool.

You can look at individual URLs on your website to:

  • Check the current index status of the URL
  • Determine whether a specific URL can be indexed
  • Request that Google crawls – or recrawls – a page
  • View how Googlebots see a page
  • View a loaded resources list, JavaScript output and page code

Note: This isn’t a live test. Instead, this tool gives us a view of the most recently indexed version of the URL. To test the live version of the page, you will need to click on the Test Live URL button to the top right of the screen.

To check a URL, simply:

    1. Click on URL Inspection in the main menu.
    2. Enter the URL you want to inspect in the search box at the top of the screen.
    3. Review the results.

URL Inspection

You’ll notice that the Coverage, Mobile Usability and Sitelinks searchbox sections each have a little arrow to the right on them. Click on these to expand the section for more information.

Within these boxes, you can see when a URL was last crawled by Google and whether it was crawled as a Googlebot smartphone or desktop, for example.

You can check out the user-selected canonical URL and whether this matches the Google-selected canonical (a great way to hunt out duplicate content!)

The URL Inspection tool will also flag up errors such as:

  • Problems with the page’s coding, structure, rich snippets, etc.
  • Page can’t be indexed
  • There is a duplicate version of a canonical page
  • The content is password protected or has a noindex tag

When problems are indicated, Google Search Console will give you appropriate information about how to fix the errors.

 

Index>Coverage

Click on the Index>Coverage option in the main left-hand menu.

This report shows the indexing state of all URLs that Google has visited – or tried to visit – in your web property.

The summary page groups the results by status (error, warning, or valid) and the specific reason for that status, such as Submitted URL has crawl issue or Submitted URL marked ‘noindex’.

Coverage summary

Click on the Error row you want to investigate for a list of all of the URLs affected by the same error.

You’ll notice on the screenshot above that you can sort the Coverage summary screen by four different tabs, which show the following:

  1. Error: URLs that haven’t been indexed because of an error.
    (If you’re not sure how to fix a particular error, click on the Help question mark icon to the top right-hand side of the screen and Google Search Console will bring up a list of errors and their probable solutions).
    You may want to give these pages your attention straight away.
  2. Valid with warnings: These are pages that Google may or may not have indexed, depending on specific factors. For example, the page may have been indexed while being blocked by robots.txt. Google may not be sure whether it was your intention to block the page so flags it up with a warning.Any URLs in this category will need your attention.
  3. Valid: These are URLs that have been submitted to Google and indexed with no problems.
  4. Excluded: URLs that Google feels it shouldn’t index. This could cover pages with a ‘noindex’ tag, Not found (404) URLs, pages with redirects, duplicate of a page with a proper canonical tag, and many others.Again, you can click on the row that gives the reason for exclusion to see what URLs fall under that heading.

Note: Google Search Console highlights that you probably won’t need to use the Coverage report if your website has fewer than 500 pages. It says it’s far simpler, in the case of smaller sites, to search for your site on Google by entering site:example.co.uk, where example.co.uk is your site’s homepage URL without the http:// or https:// prefix.

For example, I would enter site:seo-plus.co.uk

The search results show pages that Google knows about on your site. You can add search terms to find specific pages on your site – for example, I could enter site:seo-plus.co.uk local SEO to bring up all of the indexed pages about local SEO.

Index>Sitemaps

This report shows sitemaps that you have submitted to Google for indexing related to the current web property.

You can submit image, video and news URLs in your sitemap but the Sitemaps report doesn’t currently show any data for those types of URLs.

I covered how to create and submit a sitemap earlier in the guide.

The report will tell you whether or not sure sitemap was read and processed successfully or whether there were any problems that require your attention.

Click on the Help question mark icon to the top right-hand side of the screen while you’re in the Sitemaps report for a helpful guide to troubleshooting common sitemap problems.

Enhancements>Mobile Usability

The Mobile Usability report shows which pages on your website have problems when viewed on mobile devices.

Mobile Usability report

As we can see from the above screenshot, Google will either mark a crawled page as having an Error or being Valid, based on an internal mobile usability score. If a URL has multiple errors, you should notice that it’s listed under each error type that affects it.

To see which pages you need to look at to fix an error, click on the Error row in the Details list (see the screenshot above) and you’ll get a list of every URL with the same error.

Pages that are listed as Valid have met the minimum mobile usability score set by Google. They may still have some mobile usability issues but not enough to flag up in this report. To double-check for more minor issues, you can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool.

If you have a large number of pages with mobile usability errors, Google recommends that you fix them in the default order given in the report (i.e. most common causes first).

If yours is a very big website, it’s worth noting that Google will only list the first 1,000 pages found to have the same error in the Details list; other pages may also have errors.

Once you have fixed a mobile usability error on a page, you should return to the error listing and click on the Validate fix button. Google will then recrawl the page and change its status to Valid if it meets the minimum mobile usability score.

Validate fix

Enhancements>Sitelinks searchbox

If you have rich results or structured data markup (see my Schema Made Easy Guide) on your website, this report will help you to troubleshoot any errors in how Google sees and processes this information.

Sitelinks searchbox

As with the Coverage and Mobile Usability reports, errors are shown in red, valid with warnings in amber and valid pages in green.

Some people find that they’re unable to see this report. There can be a number of reasons for this.

At the time of writing, Google only provides reports for 11 types of rich data: datasets, events, FAQs, fact check, how-to, job posting, logo, product, Q&A page, recipe, and sitelinks searchbox. It could be that your rich data is not currently supported.

Google can only look at rich data on crawled pages and doesn’t support this report in every location yet.

If you think Google Search Console is missing your rich data, you can use the Rich Results Test Tool (currently in beta testing) to see the rich result code.

Again, Google Search Console’s Help feature has some great pointers for troubleshooting if you do have errors highlighted within this report.

Security & Manual Actions>Manual Actions

Google issues a manual action against a site when a human reviewer at Google has found something on the site that they consider to breach Google’s webmaster quality guidelines. This is often where ‘black hat’ SEO techniques attempting to ‘game’ Google’s rankings will show up.

If your website has been hit by a penalty and you’ve noticed a sudden drop in rankings (or a page has completely disappeared from searches), this is the report to check first.

If you do have manual actions against your site, they will be listed in this report with details of the affected URLs. Google will expect you to fix the highlighted issues on all affected pages, not just a selection, before you see an improvement in your rankings moving forward.

When all of the issues have been fixed on all pages, you can select to Request Review. Google says that in your Reconsideration Request, you should:

  • Explain the exact quality issue on your site
  • Describe the steps you’ve taken to fix the issue
  • Document the outcome of your efforts

You should receive an email to confirm that your Reconsideration Request has been received but it may take one or two weeks before the review is complete.

Common manual actions include:

  • Thin content
  • Unnatural links to/from your site
  • User-generated spam
  • Cloaked text or images
  • Keyword stuffing
  • Sneaky redirects

 

Security & Manual Actions>Security Issues

The security issues report will flag up if your web property has been hacked in some way. This can include types of malware, content or code injections, or social engineering (phishing) scams that attempt to trick web users into doing something dangerous, such as revealing confidential information or downloading harmful software.

As with the other reports, Google Search Console will walk you through the steps you need to take if any issues are flagged up. This could include checking third-party resources on your site, removing content or following the hacking recovery process.

 

Legacy tools & reports

Google Search Console’s legacy tools and reports are those that don’t yet have a full replacement in the new search console. Google says its Search Console team is “working on a replacement strategy for these items”.

For the time being, the following legacy tools and reports are available:

  • International Targeting

If you have a website that can be viewed in multiple languages then the International Targeting report will monitor your hreflang errors or enable you to choose a country that should be prioritised in your search results.

I found a good guide to this tool at Direct Online Marketing.

  • Removals

The URL Removal tool is intended as a first step for content that you urgently need blocked from Google searches — for example, if it contains confidential data that was accidentally exposed.

Using the tool for other purposes might cause problems for your site.

Google says that if your site has been hacked, you should only use the URL Removal tool to block URLs the hacker may have added to your site. You shouldn’t use the tool to take your site offline while you clean up the hacking.

You can find more information about the URL Removal tool in the Search Console help.

  • Crawl Stats

The Crawl Stats report provides information on Googlebot’s activity on your site for the last 90 days, taking into account all of the content types that Google downloads (e.g. CSS, JavaScript, Flash, images, and PDF files).

Generally speaking, the graphs should look fairly level over the 90 days with minor peaks and troughs. If you add more content to your site, you would expect the graph levels to increase.

If you notice a sudden, significant drop in crawl rates across the three charts, you may need to investigate further.

Have you added any fresh content recently? Google crawls unchanging sites less frequently than regularly updated sites.

Have you added a new robots.txt rule that is blocking your content from being crawled?

Do you have image-only pages? Google will not crawl these.

If you’ve recently added a new sitemap for Google to crawl, you may notice a swift spike in crawl rate.

  • Messages

Here, Google Search Console will flag up any reports you might want to look at or send messages about features and tools available to you.

  • URL Parameters

URL parameters are most commonly used on e-commerce sites where there are multiple pages for very similar products, e.g.

  • https://example.com/products/women/dresses/green.html
  • https://example.com/products/women?category=dresses&color=green
  • https://example.com/products/women/dresses/green.html?limit=20&sessionid=123

This tool reduces the crawling of duplicate URLs but it should only be used if you know how URL Parameters work. Incorrectly excluding URLs can cause them to disappear from searches.

  • Web Tools

This link will take you through to a number of Google’s Web Tools such as:

 

Links

This report gives you an at-a-glance view of:

  • Your most linked to web pages from external sources
  • Your most linked to web pages from internal links
  • The top linking sites to your content
  • The text people use to link to your site

If you spot that one page is attracting a lot of backlinks, you can click on the URL to see all of the websites linking back to it.

This is a great way of building up a picture of who’s connecting with your content and sharing it with their own communities.

The information you gather from this report can help you identify guest blogging opportunities, influencers in your sector, content that you might want to link to, similar audiences and much more.

The report can also help you spot spammy links back to your site, which can sometimes be the cause of a manual action (see above) being logged. If you do find spammy backlinks, you could ask the publisher to remove them or disavow the links.

With the internal links information, you can build up a better view of how your content is connected across your site.

Are there pages that you link to regularly? This could be your cornerstone content, i.e. the pillars on which your website is built. If you use the Yoast SEO plugin, it has a feature that allows you to mark cornerstone content for Google. This is a way of telling Google which content is evergreen, in-depth and important to your audience.

 

Settings

Finally, the Settings feature will just let you check that your web property has been verified. You can also check approved users/owners and learn more about the indexing crawler for your domain.

 

Now, over to you.

Are you a longstanding user of Google Search Console or has this guide inspired you to give it a go?

Which Performance report do you plan to look at first? Or are you more interested in who’s linking to your site? Do you have errors that need fixing? Have you identified good keywords to target?

Leave a Comment to let me know.

How your website’s design can help create a phenomenal user experience that’s good for SEO

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LAST UPDATED: JULY 2019

When you create a new website, one of the big dilemmas is whether to prioritise the design, the content or the SEO.

Beautiful web design gets visitors to read your content. In turn, great content supports your SEO efforts but, without SEO, no-one is going to see the beautiful design or read what you have to say.

It’s the ultimate ‘chicken and egg’ situation.

Ultimately, a truly phenomenal user experience – which is what every website should offer – is a perfect trio of design, content and SEO, all developed in partnership.

In this blog, it’s your web design that I want to concentrate on. It’s a crucial part of your on-page SEO.

Website design matters – here’s why!

The majority of website visitors skim read rather than viewing content in-depth.

Great website design can help people to navigate their way through your content, drawing them in and encouraging them to stay on the site.

As well as providing a pleasurable user experience, your web design can encourage social shares, citations, keep your bounce rate low and your average time spent on site high. These are all positive indicators to Google that your site is worth staying on because it provides customer-focused content.

So, how can you use elements of your website’s design to create a phenomenal user experience (and boost your SEO efforts too)?

I’ve put together some easy-to-action ideas.

Website design matters

1. Use images and graphics (and help Google understand them)

Did you know that visitors take just three to five seconds to decide whether or not to stay on a website? This is known as the ‘blink test’.

Because you only have this short space of time to grab attention, it’s important to make a strong, positive visual impact. Large, unique images and other graphic elements can help you do this because they show what a web page is about at a glance.

Unfortunately, Google can’t see images when it indexes content.

However, there are steps you can take to make your visual content accessible to search engines and visually impaired users.

I’ve written an article packed full of advice about optimising the non-text elements of your website.

Alt tags, captions and Schema markup are just three ideas that will help your website look beautiful while still being crawlable.

2. Use the header to its full potential

We know from eye-tracking research that there are certain points on the screen – both desktop and mobile – where people tend to look first.

The header is one of these points. In fact, it’s arguably the most important piece of real estate on any web page. This is why lots of websites use large carousel or slider images in the header to promote the website’s most important messages or pages.

When creating your header, go for a headline that clearly spells out what the page is about. Aim for unique images and graphic elements that reflect the page content too.

There are some great examples of impactful, effective headers in this article on the Design Your Way blog.

Here’s just one example from a property website:

Web design header example from Open Door Properties

As we can see, the header shows us with a single image that we’re on a property site. The headline tells visitors this is the place to ‘Find your next home today’, which reflects the search that would have brought them to the site.

Within the header, we have the opportunity to search their property database by location. The main navigation is clear with the ‘Contact us’ and ‘Search properties’ calls to action standing out from everything else on the screen.

In addition, the prominent placement of a five-star review, headed by the single word ‘Exemplary’, gives immediate social proof (see below) that the site will deliver what it promises.

As a visitor, we have access to all of this information at a glance.

3. Plan which elements of your website design will sit above or below the ‘fold’

You might have been advised before that the most important elements of a web page should sit ‘above the fold’.

What does this mean?

The concept of a ‘fold’ dates back to the earliest printed newspapers, which were folded for display purposes. Newspaper editors would want to put the most compelling headlines, pictures and stories on the section above the fold that people would see on the newsstands. Get this right and sales went through the roof.

This concept has carried over to web pages, only now when we talk about ‘above the fold’, we mean content that you can see on the screen without scrolling down.

In reality, the above/below the fold division is more fluid than it once was. Faster load speeds and our willingness to scroll down web pages, especially on mobile devices, mean that you don’t need to cram all of your most crucial information above the fold.

Despite this softening of the divide, you might still want to place certain elements near the top of the page:

  • The main navigation menu
  • A call to action, especially if people who are visiting the web page are on the verge of buying (see point 4 below)
  • A strong headline (see above)
  • An overview of what an article is about (this carries over from newspaper articles, which often summarise a story in the first paragraph)

When people can see what they’re looking for at a glance, they are more likely to read deeper into your website, again communicating important signals about the content to Google.

4. Create clear calls to action (CTA) that stand out

The call to action is a phrase that ‘calls’ the reader to do something specific straight away.

This could be booking an appointment, downloading an ebook, signing up to a course. The idea is to tell your audience what you want them to do next rather than letting them drift away from your site.

Every web page should have a call to action.

Getting a call to action to work isn’t just about the wording. Even the most compelling CTA can get lost on a web page if the design is weak.

The colour, shape or position of a CTA, for example, can influence whether people notice it and click on it.

Recent research highlights the following pointers for designing the placement of your call to action:

  • Always consider the AIDA (Attention – Interest – Desire – Action) before inserting any CTA into your page
  • Place a CTA above the fold if you’ve created a short page or ‘mini experience’ that provides all the information your visitors need to make a decision without having to scroll down
  • Place a CTA below the fold if you’ve created a story that your visitors feel invested in and will want to follow all the way to the bottom
  • It’s fine to place the CTA below the fold so long as you use directional cues, such as downward pointing arrows, to lead visitors to it
  • Mobile users prefer to do less scrolling, though only if you’ve provided all the relevant details they need in the decision-making process up top
  • Always A/B test your CTA to see what works best for your audience

There are some fantastic call to action examples over on the HubSpot blog.

Netflix gives us a great example:

Call to action example

The red, central call to action stands out against the almost-black background. The ‘Try 30 days free’ message echoes the ‘Free for 30 days’ text in green. The design is so simple that the call to action or the option to sign-in on the top right of the screen immediately draw your eye to them.

5. Break up the content

There’s some debate about whether people read web pages following a Z-shape (i.e. top left to top right then bottom left to bottom right – this is called the Gutenberg Diagram) or in an E- or F-shape.

What we know for sure is that the design of a web page can influence visitor habits. Create enough visual interest and you’ve got a much better chance of people reading your content.

These simple design tips can massively improve the user experience:

  • Use short paragraphs and vary sentence lengths – people don’t want to read big blocks of text
  • Include your most important points in the first two paragraphs on the page
  • Use headings and sub-headings to break up the content and highlight your key points for skim readers
  • Start your headings and sub-headings with the words that carry the most information – if someone only read the first two or three words of a heading, would it still tell them what that section of the page is about?
  • Visually group small amounts of related content – e.g. surround sections with a border or use a different background
  • Bold important words and phrases
  • Use bullet points or numbered lists
  • Ditch generic link phrases like ‘Click here’ or ‘Read more’ and go for descriptive links instead (I’ve used descriptive links throughout this article to give you some examples)

6. Add trust signals

When we talk about ‘trust signals’, we mean design elements that show new visitors that your business/content is trustworthy. As well as improving the user experience, Google values signs of your expertise, authority and trustworthiness (EAT).

Trust signals strip away the barriers that stop people buying.

For example, someone who’s worried about the security of their payment details will be reassured by the HTTPS certificate on your domain. Someone who’s looking for a specialist product or service will appreciate reading customer testimonials. Media mentions tell people that you’re viewed as an expert in your field.

Clear and strategically positioned trust signals are an important part of successful web design. Could you add any of the following to your website?

  • Reviews and testimonials
  • Social shares (see below)
  • Case studies
  • Easy-to-find contact details/contact form
  • Customer logos
  • ‘As featured in’ media mentions
  • Logos from governing/accrediting bodies
  • Money-back guarantee
  • Multiple payment methods
  • HTTPS

7. Social sharing

We mentioned social sharing briefly above. Part of providing a phenomenal user experience is making it easy for people to share content with their networks.

A Facebook like button, Twitter follow button or a Pinterest pin can all give subtle messages that encourage social sharing.

social share icons

Also, icons like those shown above are a subtle way of showing that other people like what you say. This acts as a vote of confidence in your content for new visitors.

8. Other web design elements

Above all, your website design should make it easy to scan the content and identify the most important information on the page.

Your website should also load quickly. Page speed is another ranking factor that could lose you traffic via Google and cause you to have a high bounce rate away from your site. Therefore, the design needs to work well and load quickly.

Make sure you keep an eye on page load speeds and the usability of your web pages. Companies often think they have to reinvent the wheel to create a great user experience but this isn’t the case. Your visitors will appreciate a website that’s logical, clear and simple in its approach. These features make for the best user experience.

Do you want to be found by the very people looking for your services?

We’ve put together a handy checklist of SEO basics to help you increase your visibility in Google.

These SEO basics will help the search engines to index your website and users to find what they’re looking for.

Simply click the link for your checklist >> Send me my free SEO basics checklist now!

If you found this post helpful, we’d love it if you could share it – thank you

On-page SEO: The complete guide to on-page SEO (2020)

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Getting your on-page SEO right is a fundamental part of organic search engine optimisation (SEO) and essential to secure high Google rankings.

To help you get to grips with the on-page factors that matter, we’ve put together a complete guide to the on-page SEO basics below.

But before we get stuck into the nitty-gritty, you may have one burning question:

What is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO is the process of optimising different elements on a web page to give it the best possible chance of being indexed by Google and ranked highly in searches made by your target audience.

How does on-page SEO differ from off-page or technical SEO?

Off-page SEO is concerned with actions that can be taken outside of your website to improve the rankings of your web pages.

Many people would say that off-page SEO is entirely about attracting backlinks from third party websites.

Yes, backlinks are at the heart of a successful off-page SEO strategy but you can also build reputation and trust in your content through off-page activities such as social media marketing, guest blogging, influencer marketing and brand mentions (even if they don’t link back to your site).

There is some crossover between on-page SEO and technical SEO but the latter specifically focuses on making web pages as easy for search engines to crawl and index as possible. Good technical SEO also enhances the user experience by making sure pages load quickly and everything works as it should.

Do you want page one ranking on Google?

If you do, on-page SEO matters.

We know that Google’s search algorithm uses approximately 200 signals/factors to decide where to rank a web page on a search engine results page (SERP). Some of these factors count on a page level, some on a domain level and some are completely outside of your control, e.g. Google giving some preference to big brands for certain keywords.

On-page SEO is something that is within your own hands to implement, monitor and improve.

Read on, and, should you have any questions about how you can put this information to work on your website, drop a comment below the article or get in touch – at SEO+, we are always happy to help.

On-page SEO: Our complete guide to the on-page SEO basics

Our complete on-page SEO guide

Follow the steps below on each of your web pages to properly optimise the on-page elements.

If you have a large website, you might want to pick your most important 10 to 20 pages to start off with. You can then measure how the changes you make effect your web traffic and decide if elements of the page need tweaking further down the line.

 

1. Have a SINGLE topic in mind for each page

When someone does a search on Google, they want to be taken to a web page that meets the needs of that particular search. For example, you’ve come here because you want to understand more about on-page SEO so that’s what this page is about.

This means that the strongest web pages, both for readers and in terms of SEO, are those that have a single focus.

If you know EXACTLY what a web page should be about, it helps you to keep the content super relevant. It also means that you can explore a topic in greater depth than if you were trying to cover lots of different subjects at once.

Plus, if you have lots of different pages covering the same topic and competing for traffic for the same keywords, you risk diluting your SEO efforts and not having any page rank well for your target keywords. This is what people mean when they talk about splitting the link juice from a keyword across two or more pages.

A note about keywords:

It’s been a number of years since Google dropped keyword tags as a ranking factor. It’s also becoming harder to track the performance of keywords because search engines are increasingly able to personalise searches. They do this by considering factors such as the searcher’s location and their previous search history.

Although keyword research is still important, our advice is to focus on the topics that matter to your customers. What would someone search for to find a topic? That’s your springboard.

 

2. Always start with the creation of quality content

Your website will ALWAYS rank higher if it’s full of useful, relevant, UNIQUE content that’s been written to create a great user experience first, and satisfy Google second.

Two key ranking signals are:

  • Your website’s bounce rate, i.e. the percentage of people who land on the site, stay on just one page and ‘bounce’ away without visiting any other pages
  • The average ‘dwell’ time of visitors to your site, i.e. how long they spend on your site during a visit and how many pages they look at before they leave

This is because Google wants to know that, if it sends people to your site, they’re going to find information that’s useful and valuable to them, and that they’re sticking around to read it and even go deeper into your site to find out more.

Well-written, well-researched and unique content that’s genuinely useful to your audience kills two birds with one stone because it gives visitors what they were looking for and lowers bounce rates while increasing dwell time.

Our tips for creating great quality content are:

  • Write in a natural way– Yes, keywords are still important (see above) but search engines are rapidly evolving to be able to understand natural language.  Being able to write like you would speak to your customers is a fantastic way to develop a tone of voice for your brand; it’s engaging, readable and builds trust, which is so important to current SEO.
  • Check your spelling and grammar – Subconsciously, potential customers often judge businesses that have a poorly written website. Grammatical errors and spelling mistakes suggest that you may not pay attention to detail or care about presenting a professional operation. Also, Google will find it harder to crawl pages where the content is unclear because of errors.
  • Blog on a regular basis – Google will reward you for keeping your site updated with fresh, relevant content. In addition, you get more and more chances to rank for a variety of keywords. Blogging is also a fantastic way to show your audience that you know your stuff – this builds your reputation as an expert, which attracts mentions, backlinks and trust.
  • Tackle your topic in-depth – Although you may have been told to keep your content bite-sized in the past, Google actually seems to prefer longer, in-depth copy. Various studies have shown that the highest ranked pages contain approximately 2,500 words on average. Many are longer. Long-form content gives you the opportunity to provide truly useful information and is more likely to attract backlinks from third party sites.

 

3. Think about the user experience (UX)

Google is a business and its goal is provide its customers with the most relevant, useful search results as well as a great user experience.

It’s the user experience that should always be front of mind when working on your on-page SEO and creating or updating your web pages.

  • Is the content useful?
  • Is the content (and the page it’s on) usable?
  • Is the answer to the searcher’s query easily findable on the page?
  • Is the content well-researched and credible?
  • Is the content and the experience of viewing it desirable?
  • Is the content accessible?
  • Is the content valuable to the reader?

These seven characteristics are at the heart of a great user experience. They can be influenced by everything from the design of your website, the calls to actions you use, the font, images, writing style, punctuation and grammar, right through to your social media presence, professional reputation, guest blogs and more.

 

4. Use a focused and descriptive Title Tag

The title tag is the title of a web page as it appears in SERPs.

A focused and descriptive Title Tag is important for on-page SEO

It’s also visible on the tab above the address bar when a web page is open.

The title tag is visible on the tab above the address bar when a web page is open

As you can see from the picture above, if you can’t see a title tag in full, you can hover your mouse pointer over it and the entire title will appear.

The Title tag is there to give web visitors and search engines an insight into what a page is about. As well as influencing how your page is ranked, it will also affect click-through rates (CTR) – i.e. the percentage of people who see the page in SERPs and click through to it on your site – depending on whether or not it meets a searcher’s needs and captures their interest.

Here are some pointers:

  • Include the main keyword for which you want your page to rank as near to the beginning of the title tag as possible
  • Target just one keyword or phrase per page
  • Write your title in a natural way – cut the spam and the keyword stuffing; instead, think about how you can create interest
  • Keep your title tags to under 50 characters so at least 90% of them will be displayed properly in SERPs

 

5. Write Meta Descriptions that stand out in the SERPS

The meta description is a short piece of text that describes the content of a page in SERPs. This helps people to decide whether the page is likely to answer their search query.

Here’s an example from one of our pages:

Write Meta Descriptions that stand out in the SERPS

Whilst search engines no longer use Meta Descriptions as a ranking signal, the words you write remain crucial because they influence your CTR from the SERPs.

Follow these tips:

  • Describe what the page is about and give readers a reason to WANT to click through to keep reading – it helps to think of it as a call to action
  • Weave in keywords, but write in a natural way – if you accurately reflect the topic of the page, the keyword should crop up naturally
  • There’s no definitive maximum length for meta descriptions. But as a rule of thumb, aim for around 156 characters as anything longer is often truncated with ellipses (like this…)
  • If you’re getting a high volume of impressions in searches (i.e. your pages are ranking highly and being seen by lots of people) but your CTR is low, it may be that your meta descriptions need revising to make them more engaging

 

6. Give your main heading an <H1> tag

The main heading or title on a web page is potentially the most important piece of copy on the entire page. Eye tracking studies and heat maps repeatedly show that people look to the top left of a web page first.

A clear heading that identifies what the page is about – that central topic we discussed above – is a sure-fire way of letting visitors know that they’ve landed on the right page for their query.

The role of the H1 tag is to tell search engines what the main heading on the page says and, therefore, what the page as a whole is about. This helps the algorithms determine whether or not to feature a page in SERPs about the same topic.

Follow these tips:

  • Stick to just ONE H1 tag per page
  • Include your focus keyword/phrase in the main heading
  • Most content management systems (CMS) like WordPress automatically add an H1 tag to page headings but some themes can override this setting
  • To check whether a web page has an <H1> tag, right click on the page and choose the Inspect page source Type ‘Ctrl’ and ‘F’ to bring up the ‘Find’ option and enter <h1>. Look for the title of the page between the <h1 and </h1> tags

 

7. Break up your content with sub-headings (each with headline tags)

Sub-headings are a great way to break up long-form copy so that people can read a web page in detail or scan through the headings to get a gist of the content.

As with the main heading, all sub-headings on a web page should be given appropriate heading tags, i.e. <h2>, <h3> and so on, to help search engines distinguish headings from body copy.

  • You can weave your keywords in – or words and phrases related to your focus keyword – but, again, do it naturally
  • Incorporating your keywords and related phrases tells Google that you’re staying on topic, meaning the content is still relevant to the original search term
  • H2, H3, H4 tags (etc.) can be used more frequently than H1 tags, but use them in a hierarchy – for example, use H2 tags to head up new sections, and H3 tags to indicate sub heads in each sections and so on.

 

8. Ensure your URLs are short, simple and descriptive

URLs should be meaningful and reflect the hierarchy of your website.

  • This is a meaningful URL – domain.co.uk/page-name or www.domain.co.uk/keyword (in other words, a searcher could potentially guess the URL just from your company name and the topic in which they’re interested)
  • URLs that look like this – domain.co.uk/index.php?id=2 are to be avoided – they don’t give search engines (or users) any useful information about what the page contains
  • Hyphens (-) in URLs are ALWAYS preferable to underscores (_)
  • Use your URLs to reveal your website’s hierarchy (i.e. how the site is structured and where pages sit in the navigation). For example:
    • domain.co.uk/services/SEO
    • domain.co.uk/blog/SEOtips

In the above examples, search engines (and users) can instantly conclude the SEO page relates to a service offering, and the SEO Tips is a blog post.

 

9. Include your focus keyword in the first 100 words of your copy

By having a single focus/topic for each page of your website, it’s inevitable that your target keywords, phrases and related words will crop up. The key is to know what terms your audience will be using when talking about your products, services or things that are happening in your industry.

One tip is to include your main focus keyword within the first 100 words of the body copy of a web page. This is another sign to users and search engines that the entire page is relevant to the search query.

When you’re writing your introduction, it’s worth thinking about how you could make it more likely to be listed as a featured snippet on page one of a Google search – we’ve written a blog packed with hints and tips to help you with this.

 

10. Break up the copy

Although we mentioned above that long-form copy tends to rank better with Google, the very act of reading from a screen does make big chunks of body copy harder to process.

You can help make your content more accessible for users and search engines by employing the following tactics:

  • Keep paragraphs short with plenty of line breaks
  • Use sub-headings to signpost the different sections
  • Use bullet points (like the ones in this article) to draw out key points so that they’re easy to skim read
  • Use italics or bold text to highlight important points
  • Reinforce the message of the copy with good quality images

 

11. Use a variety of (optimised) multimedia

While we’re on the subject of images, well-optimised web pages will often include a variety of media such as images, infographics, videos and diagrams.

It’s important that these elements are properly optimised because search engines aren’t as clever at identifying and understanding images as they are text.

Follow these pointers:

  • Include your focus keyword in the file name of an image
  • Give each image a strong alt tag
  • Consider adding captions to visual elements on the page

You can find loads more helpful advice on this topic over on our blog about optimising the non-text elements of a web page for accessibility and SEO.

 

12. Apply structured data (Schema markup) to your web pages

Web page elements such as reviews, product descriptions, recipes, events, etc. can be hard for Google to spot.

Structured data using Schema markup is a way of flagging up content so that it can be indexed properly. Search engines are also able to use this information in the rich snippets that sometimes supports page listings in SERPs:

Apply structured data (Schema markup) to your web pages to help with on-page SEO

Check out our Schema made easy beginner’s guide for a comprehensive breakdown about applying Schema to your site.

 

13. Use outbound links

There are a number of reasons to include outbound links to external sources within your web pages.

If you’re able to show where the information you’re sharing came from, it demonstrates to readers that you’ve done your research and have referenced credible sources to support your expert opinion.

It’s also an excellent way to reach out to third party sites that you respect and may help you to attract backlinks to your content from them.

Adding external links enables your audience to read deeper into a topic, making your content more valuable and in-depth because it’s supported by wider sources.

Follow these tips:

  • Link to the source of any data, stats or quotes you include in your content
  • Ensure the link destination opens in a new window so that users can read the external content without leaving your site

 

14. Use internal links to tie related content together

If you have a blog on your website, the chances are that many of the articles complement one another or touch on related topics.

Your blog readers will find it incredibly helpful if you let them know where you have related content about a topic because it will enable them to explore different aspects of their search query and develop their knowledge over time.

As an example, you’ve come to this page to learn more about on-page SEO but as you get to grips with it, you may specifically want to understand more about how internal links work. By adding a hyperlink to the copy, you can go straight to our Ultimate Internal Linking Cheat Sheet without having to search the site for possible information.

These days, more and more websites are using a Pillar and Cluster model (sometimes referred to as ‘Hub and spoke’) to organise content and make it easier to browse.

With this approach the pillar/hub is a long-form article that gives a strong overview of a topic. The article you’re reading right now is an example of a pillar article about on-page SEO!

But, much like a table of contents, the pillar/hub article links to all the other content on the site that’s relevant to the main topic. These off-shoot articles – the spokes – cover sub-topics of the main pillar.

Use internal links to tie related content togetherThe strength of this model is that, by linking to every spoke from the hub and then back to the hub from every spoke (and targeting a different keyword in each spoke article), link juice comes into the hub and spokes from every interconnected element.

Each time a new spoke article is added, the hub should be updated to reflect this, which helps the content to stay evergreen and crawled regularly.

 

15. Avoid duplicate content

Google rewards unique content. That said, there may be occasions where you need to have duplicate content on your website – this especially happens with product descriptions, for example. If that is the case, make sure you don’t get penalised and label your pages appropriately.

  • Use a canonical tag to tell Google which version of your duplicate content is the standard, most important version that you want it to index – this ensures Google knows which page you want to earn page rank

Yoast does a great guide to using the canonical tab. We’ve also put together comprehensive advice about identifying and dealing with duplicate content.

 

16. Use social sharing buttons

Although social sharing buttons on a web page aren’t a direct ranking factor, research by SEO platform BrightEdge Technologies found that their presence on articles can increase shares and mentions by a whopping 700%!

In turn, this can put your content in front of new audiences and bring traffic back to your site from a wider range of sources. Google looks at factors such as your reputation and influence as signals around page and domain authority, with higher authority sites and pages ranking higher in searches.

We love the Social Warfare WordPress plugin here at SEO+.

 

17. Check your website is mobile friendly

These days, it’s essential that any website is multi-device friendly. Google now prioritises mobile-first indexing to return the most mobile-friendly versions of websites in SERPs. Having a site that offers a poor mobile experience can damage your rankings.

Follow these tips:

  • Check out whether your site is mobile friendly
  • Responsive website design automatically resizes the content of a web page to fit the device being used – is your site responsive?
  • Mobile URLs allow your content to be tailored specifically for viewing on a tablet or smartphone
  • Make sure that call to action buttons on your site are easy to use on a mobile device and that pages load quickly and display properly – a good UX is essential

Mobile friendliness is one of many Google ranking factors

 

18. Check your page load speed

Users get a better experience when a website loads quickly. As a result, one of the ranking factors Google uses is your page load speed.

 

19. Resolve any crawl errors

A “crawl error” relates to individual URLs that search engines can’t crawl (and therefore can’t index), or that return an HTTP error code.

  • Use Google Search Console to identify any crawl errors so you can fix them
  • Many errors can be fixed with 301 redirects (this is a permanent redirection from one URL to another. Use it if you’ve removed a URL to avoid a user landing on a 404 ‘Page not found’ error)

 

20. Check the Robots.txt file

The Robots.txt file is a nifty tool that enables you to see which pages are blocked from being viewed by search engines. Remember, any pages that are blocked CANNOT be indexed (and so are unlikely to appear in the SERPS). There is a good reason for blocking certain pages – for example, admin pages or poor quality content – but core pages should NEVER be blocked and will harm your ranking if they are.

  • View your robots.txt file by typing the following into your web browser (swap www.domain.co.uk for your website address) – domain.co.uk/robots.txt
  • This will give you a plain text list of any URLs on your website that can’t be crawled
  • “Disallowed” pages are blocked – so ask yourself, “should they be?”
  • If any core pages are disallowed, remove them

 

Quick SEO Overview

SEO practices keep changing as Google gets smarter at eliminating loopholes and ensuring quality websites rise to the top. Success all starts with your content. Writing for users first and then Google will ensure your website is filled with the relevant information that will appeal to your target customer.

And whilst outreach and link building remain important, if these external SEO strategies aren’t supported on-page, you won’t achieve the ranking you deserve.

What do you think?

Which of these on-page SEO fundamentals have you neglected? Have you seen a boost in your ranking after checking off an on-page SEO basic that you’ve overlooked? Do you have any questions?

I’d love to know what you think so please leave your thoughts in the comments below.

SEO Checklist

We’ve created a handy SEO checklist to help you increase your visibility in Google. Download your free copy here and create a website that Google and your customers love.

Need help with your SEO, we can help you. SEO+ are an award-winning SEO Company and help businesses throughout the UK naturally rank at the top of Google for the long term. Take a look at our  SEO packages here and if you’d like to explore your options and discuss your business and your goals schedule a call with Hazel here

If you found this post helpful, we’d love it if you could share it – thank you!

SEO and GDPR: Why SEO will be your best marketing tool in the GDPR world

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At the beginning of April, I saw the following post from fellow SEO expert Andrew Holland on LinkedIn talking about SEO and GDPR.

Andrew’s post raises some key points about marketing in the GDPR world. Many businesses, especially those who have been reliant on poor quality or spam marketing, are going to have to adapt.

But how?

And how will GDPR affect future marketing approaches?

Plus, of course, where does SEO sit in the GDPR world?

How will GDPR affect future marketing and where does SEO sit in the GDPR world?

 

What is GDPR?

Firstly, let’s look at GDPR and what it means.

GDPR stands for the General Data Protection Regulation, which was launched two years ago and comes into force on 25th May 2018.

It applies to every business that holds, collects and stores information about EU citizens that makes them personally identifiable, even if it’s just their name, email address or computer IP address.

GDPR also covers if/how we give data to third parties such as web developers, virtual assistants, web hosts, email marketing providers, analytics providers, plugins installed on our websites and more.

The aim of the regulation is to protect people’s privacy and ensure that data that could personally identify them is held and used in an ethical way, and that it is disposed of in a timely and correct manner too. This includes giving people the ‘right to be forgotten’ and to have their data fully erased.

The regulations require that data is “collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes”.

Previously, each of the EU countries have had their own privacy laws. GDPR is about unifying data protection laws for a single, consistent approach. It’s also about bringing data protection into the 21st century.

Even when/if Brexit is finalised, the GDPR will be incorporated into UK law and will still apply, especially if you want to do business with anyone in the EU.

If you run a business then GDPR is something you need to know about and act on.

 

Personal data as a commodity

Why is data protection such a hot issue?

Everything we do online leaves a digital footprint. In May 2017, The Economist called personal data ‘the world’s most valuable resource’, even rating it above oil!

Companies (maybe this includes your own) track the searches we make, the websites we visit, the things we buy, the phone calls we make, the photos we take, where we go and much, much more. This helps to build up an understanding of buyer behaviour, making it easier to sell to us.

And because all this data is so valuable, it’s also a target for theft and misuse.

According to UK Government statistics, nearly half of all UK businesses suffered a cyber breach or attack in 2017.

The joint class action against Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and two other companies for allegedly misusing the personal data of more than 71 million people to develop ‘political propaganda campaigns’ highlights that data protection isn’t just about cyber-attacks, fraud or identity theft – it may also be used to influence opinions and shape the very fabric of modern societies.

 

Beyond the scary headlines

There have been a lot of headlines about the potentially massive fines associated with GDPR non-compliance. Worst-case scenario figures such as €20 million or 4% of annual turnover are daunting for any business.

Couple this with misinformation out in the public domain and it’s tempting to panic about the impact GDPR will have, especially on small businesses without extensive resources.

However, I think we all need to take a calming breath and look beyond the hype.

One of the most reasoned explanations of GDPR I heard recently is that it really just tightens up and consolidates the data protection regulations already in place.

GDPR is about gaining ‘active’ consent from people about capturing their data rather than relying on implied consent or expecting people to opt out of data capture.

The GDPR says that you must use plain language to tell people who you are when you request their data, as well as:

  • why you want it
  • how long you’ll keep it
  • what you’ll do with it
  • who will receive it

Businesses that are collecting customer data in a responsible way with a clear opt in and information about how they will use the data probably don’t have too much to worry about (although you should understand how GDPR will affect your business and be proactive about compliance).

This article isn’t about how you become compliant with the GDPR though. Instead, I wanted to explore why SEO and other GDPR-compliant marketing approaches will be even more important from May 2018 onwards.

 

How GDPR may effect marketing and data capture

Recently, Smart Insights asked their members whether their companies were GDPR-ready – only 6% responded that they were! Sixteen percent said they don’t even know what GDPR is.

It’s clear that there’s still a lot of work to be done.

Many business owners are currently trying to work out what the GDPR means for their company, especially in terms of marketing and capturing/using data for current and potential customers.

  • Will long-established mailing lists have to be deleted?
  • Or, at the very least, will masses of customers decide not to opt back into mailing lists if/when prompted to confirm their ongoing consent to be contacted?
  • Is it still OK to get people’s sign-up details in exchange for a lead magnet?
  • Is Google Analytics GDPR-compliant?
  • Will we be able to hang on to the contact details of previous clients and contact them with special offers?

These questions and more are being asked time and again, often receiving different answers, depending on who’s answering the question.

Without a definitive, plain language list of obligations for each type of business, GDPR will herald a period of uncertainty as everyone tries to work out what applies to their organisation.

This means that companies are likely to look for ways to attract new business that are less reliant on data capture and lead magnet marketing in order to risk falling foul of the GDPR and associated fines.

As Andrew Holland said in his LinkedIn post that I referenced at the beginning of this article, businesses may turn to Google AdWords or Facebook advertising to target and bring in new customers. But, with growing competition for keywords, the prices will soar. There is also some debate about how the GDPR will affect these two PPC advertising options.

SEO may be a safer investment.

SEO and GDPR: SEO is about creating a fantastic user experience (UX) and building your professional reputation as an authority in your field.

SEO and GDPR-compliance

Search engine optimisation will potentially be one of the best and most effective ways to market your business once GDPR comes into effect because, in many ways, it is already GDPR compliant.

On- and off-page SEO doesn’t rely on data capture. Instead, SEO is about creating a fantastic user experience (UX) and building your professional reputation as an authority in your field.

As we’ve explored in numerous previous blogs, the ranking signals that search engines look for when creating search engine results pages (SERPs) are all about relevance and best answering the searchers’ queries.

Simple steps can help you bring more customers to your website and, in turn, attract more enquiries, bookings and/or purchases WITHOUT marketing to your mailing list.

Think about the following:

·      Meta data

A strong meta title and meta description should reflect what visitors will find on the web page and show how your content will meet up to the reason for their search.

If you can write each meta description as a compelling call to action, it should bring people to your website from search engines. It’s your opportunity to say, “Click on me instead of anyone else”.

·      URLs

Short, targeted keyword-rich URLs also help to signpost what each page is about to your website’s visitors and show the relevance of your content, bringing in more traffic.

They also make it easier for people to make an educated guess about the address of a web page on your site without having to search for it. According to SEMRush’s Ranking Factors Study 2017, direct website traffic – i.e. traffic where the source or referrer is unknown or the visitor has typed in the company URL – is the most important ranking factor. This beats dwell time, bounce rate, backlinks, content length and more.

·      Crawlable pages

If you use text that search engines can read, as well as images and videos or embedded properties with relevant alt tags, it will help search engines to rank your web pages and bring in a relevant audience who want to buy what you sell.

·      Clear headings

Headings and sub headings that reflect what your content is about are essential to help visitors identify what a web page is about. If people can see at a glance that they’re in the right place, they’re likely to stay on a page for longer, lowering the bounce rate and upping the dwell time. These are both important ranking signals.

·      Intelligent use of keywords

As I discussed in a recent blog, artificial intelligence (AI) is shaping SEO, not least in how we use keywords. It’s crucial to intelligently employ primary, secondary and related keywords throughout your content to show its relevance to a specific topic to search engines.

If you can do this, it will help search engines to return the most relevant results in searches, especially in the context of voice searches through virtual assistants such as Google Home where the top result is often the only one searchers hear.

·      Website security

Google recently announced that, from July 2018, a ‘NOT SECURE’ notification will pop up on websites that are HTTP rather than HTTPS.

Changing the security certificate of your website to HTTPS is an effective way to show that you value the online security of your web visitors. It is also likely that non-secure websites will drop in rankings moving forwards with priority being given to secure sites.

Under the GDPR, you will also need to update your cookie and privacy policies to capture an active opt in rather than implying that a person gives consent to their details being tracked or captured by virtue of visiting your site.

These are all steps that you can take today to boost the visibility of your business at the same time as cleansing your data and making sure that your mailing list is GDPR compliant.

GDPR-compliant marketing options

 

Other GDPR-friendly marketing options

SEO isn’t the only GDPR-friendly marketing option you have at your disposal. You might also want to think about the following:

·      Social media marketing

Social media marketing is likely to become more important to businesses in the GDPR-compliant world.

In many ways, GDPR is about encouraging organisations to create mutually beneficial relationships with their audience, which is a concept that social media is built on.

We already understand that, via social media, fans can unfollow or unlike a business with a single click. Other forms of marketing will be subject to the same rules under the GDPR.

Each of the social media platforms are reviewing and clarifying their position as data processors and data controllers. These are two important distinctions within the GDPR rules.

In the most part though, GDPR is likely to have less of a direct effect on social media marketing than other marketing avenues.

People who follow your social media platforms are actively saying that they want to see your content. If that changes, they understand that they can unfollow at any time. In the meantime, you can ‘speak’ to them via advertising and/or your business profiles without ever holding personal details beyond their names.

A bonus is that social media marketing can have many positive effects on your SEO and vice versa.

Of course, because every business will be looking for GDPR-compliant marketing options, social media marketing may become a lot more competitive.

My advice, as with every other form of marketing and SEO, is to focus on creating relevant and quality content for your audience. Think about how you can give value, be engaged with conversations and genuinely invested in building a relationship with your customers. This is how you will stand out in the marketplace.

·      Content marketing

With GDPR coming into force, content marketing is also an important weapon in your marketing arsenal and great for SEO too.

Content marketing is not reliant on data collection. Instead, your focus should be on creating fresh, informative and relevant content that is targeted to your key audience.

This is a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate that you’re an expert in your field. If you can get people to read your blogs and share your content, you can build your credibility in three ways: with your audience, with influencers and with Google.

Content marketing is also essential to attract backlinks to your website. Each backlink acts like a vote of confidence from a third party, and the greater the authority of the backlinking sites, the better for your rankings.

Good quality, relevant articles usually encourage people to stay on a website for longer (increasing dwell time) and read deeper into a website via internal links (decreasing bounce rates). Again, these are two important signals to Google about the quality of your content compared to that offered by other sites.

If you can create content that supports the products and services that you offer, you should find that you attract more enquiries by being seen as an expert and, in turn, make more sales.

 

Your mailing list still matters

I’m not suggesting for a second that you should ditch your mailing list and forget about lead capture mechanisms such as your newsletter or a free ebook. These are the lifeblood of most businesses.

What GDPR means is that businesses may need to revise, diversify or clean up their marketing strategies.

SEO, social media marketing and content marketing are all areas that are great for boosting visibility and creating customer loyalty without being reliant on capturing data. You may want to develop your activities in these areas while tightening up your data processes.

 

Conclusion

As an SEO professional, I know that websites are rewarded with higher rankings and greater visibility when they focus on giving value to visitors, creating a great UX, and being ethical.

I believe the GDPR will drive more businesses to build relevant and value relationships with their customers and that this can only be a good thing.

The outcome will be connecting with potential customers who are actively interested in the products and/or services that you offer.

Are you ready for the GDPR? How will the new regulations affect your business, especially your marketing activities? Will you be investing more in SEO as a way to bring in new customers? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the Comments below.

 

BEFORE YOU GO

GDPR resources

Are you confused by GDPR?
 
Heard so much conflicting advice that you don’t know what to believe?
 
Not sure if it applies to you?
 
If that’s the case I’ve got something really cool to share with you. This FREE GDPR Checklist makes it easy for you to ensure you’re compliant come May 25th.
 
Download the FREE GDPR Checklist HERE
 
This Checklist has been created by the brilliant Suzanne Dibble, the Small Business Law expert and multi-award-winning data protection lawyer.
 
Suzanne is on a mission to break this complex regulation down into simple steps and bring you the straight truth about what you REALLY need to do to comply.
GDPR comes into force on 25 May 2018, so you need to start working towards compliance now.
 
Get your copy of Suzanne’s straight-talking, FREE Checklist and discover the easy way to GDPR compliance.

 

Suzanne’s free GDPR Checklist will guide you through the simple steps you need to take to be GDPR compliant and to keep the Regulators at bay.

What is off-page SEO? – SEO BASICS

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What is Off-page SEO?

SEO BASICS – WHAT IS OFF-PAGE SEO?

SEO can really be split into 2 main areas.

We have On-page SEO, everything that we do on a page to optimize for Google and Off-page SEO, everything that is done outside of a site or an article to help it rank in the SERPs.

On-page SEO is relatively simple because we can control everything that we do.

We can implement Htags, build internal linking as we link from one related article to another, add images with keyword friendly descriptions and tags and speaking of keywords we can carefully set up and optimize for our chosen keyword phrase or phrases if you are targeting multiple keyword phrases.

You are in control of how you set up for On-page SEO.

Off-page SEO is a little different because there are a few elements to this side of SEO that move out of our control the big one being gaining quality backlinks.

A Backlink is when another site links back to you

A site needs as many quality backlinks as they can get because they provide positive signals that your site is one that Google should take notice of.

There are two types of links that you can acquire for your site. Nofollow links and Dofollow links.

They are self-explanatory really but just in case you don’t know the difference Nofollow links instruct the search bots to ignore the link so if a site links to you with a Nofollow link there is no real benefit.

No link juice is passed to your site.

The only benefit is that you have the chance of a click through to your page as a result of someone reading the content and finding you in an organic way.

Despite the fact that Google ignores Nofollow links they are still very important.

They do generate traffic and visitors to your site and they are a very big part of a natural linking profile,

I will explain more on this in a second.

Dofollow links are links that pass on link juice, they pass on some authority to you.

For this reason, they are on every site owners wish list. They are a positive signal that Google acknowledges.

 

Do you have a natural linking profile?

Dofollow links are harder to obtain because webmasters are scared of passing on their authority they, therefore, tend to be much harder to gain.

Nofollow links, on the other hand, are much easier to obtain. and for this reason, Google looks for you to grow a lot more Nofollow links than Dofollow links.

It would be very unusual to have more Dofollow than Nofollow links because of the difficulty in obtaining Dofollow.

A linking profile with more Dofollow links may be seen as suspicious and unnatural and Google wants everything to be organic.

Google wants webmasters to be rewarded for good content not for finding a way to, as Google sees it, manipulate its search algorithm.

So if you think Nofollow links have no value then think again, they are very much part of a natural linking profile.

 

Why Are Backlinks A Big Deal For Off-page SEO?

As already said backlinks pass on link juice and that boosts your own in the eyes of Google.

It is simple really, the more sites linking to you the more Google pays attention and passes better SERP’S results your way.

What you really want are links from authority sites and news sites.

If you can secure these then your own authority and TrustRank grows but these are not easy to get because authorities tend to link to authorities as a way of qualifying what they write about.

As a blogger, you also need to be qualifying what you say and guess who you link to do this? Yes, the authority sites.

Once you become an authority in what you do it is a win-win when it comes to gaining quality backlinks.

This article is a guide to off-page SEO and so you will find that I also link to a few authorities that qualify and confirm what I am saying.

It is easy for authority sites to get backlinks for the reasons stated but it is not so easy for regular bloggers to get backlinks.

This is why it is crucial to make your content as good as possible and as long-form, insightful and relevant as possible.

You have to stand out.

If you can answer the search users intent you will pick up backlinks and comments on your content.

 

Should You Buy Backlinks?

It sounds like a good way to fast-track your site, doesn’t it?

But knowing that Google likes natural linking the answer is no.

It is a very bad idea. It is seen as a very black hat SEO method.

There is nothing more suspicious to Google than seeing 100 Dofollow links suddenly appear.

And where do these paid for links come from? Are they even from a related niche?

 

Social signals

Social media is one area of off-page SEO that you can control to some degree and it really does benefit your SEO strategy

Again the better your content the more shares you can pick up.

And of course the more followers you have the easier it is to get shares.

If you can grow your audience within your social media channels then it does get a lot easier to create a buzz.

The problem is the buzz doesn’t last that long.

 

Automation

Although automation is useful, I’m not a huge fan.

Saying that there are a few sites that I can recommend that will help you with automation.

When I talk about social media automation I am really talking about some software or a site Tweeting or Pinning or Liking my content on my behalf.

Its basically a means to save time.

And time is something you need if you are running a business or you just have a hectic home life.

Whenever you can free up time it is a good idea.

I tend to go for a semi-automation approach for off-page optimization.

Whenever you share to a social site particularly the main socials that you are active on then you need to appear as a real person rather than a robot.

You need some personality in your share to engage a response from followers.

Engagement is born from creating real natural shares that ask questions to gain a response.

Of course, you can do this with automation but you will find you will forever be updating your message just to keep it natural.

It actually becomes quicker to just go ahead and share without automation.

My strategy with automation is to share on my main social channels with natural call to action type shares and then to automate those to secondary channels.

The secondary channels then appear natural because they follow your real message that you share on your main channels.

An example of a great site to use to set up secondary social shares would be IFTTT

There is so much you can do with IFTTT an example would be when you add a new image to Instagram the same image can be tweeted on Twitter with the same message and tags.

What you have to bear in mind is how the message will appear on different channels.

It is accepted to add lots of tags on Instagram however on Twitter too many will make your tweet look spammy.

For a full guide on how to cross-promote with Instagram and Twitter, you can check out my guide here How to cross promote with Instagram.

 

Leverage 0ther Social Media Users

As I mentioned earlier it is very difficult to keep the buzz going when you social share.

After all, there is only so many times that you can share the same message.

But what if you could leverage other social media users to Tweet, Pin, Facebook share etc for you?

Does that sound like a good idea for you?

It does to me!

It is very easy to leverage other social media users particularly on Twitter and gain tweets on accounts with potentially 100s of thousands of followers.

If like me you think this sounds like a good idea then you need to head over to ViralContentBee and create a free account.

There is an upgrade but you do really just need the free version.

ViralContentBee is a community site that allows you to add articles that you would like shared on social media.

You simply share other peoples articles for ViralContentBee credits that you can then apply to your own. It is a reciprocation kind of deal.

ViralContentBee (no affiliation) is one of those sites that you must join because as long as you keep your projects active you can keep the buzz around your own content alive.

There is also another overlooked feature on VCB and that is the ability to see who is interacting and engaging with your projects.

You just click interactions on the VCB menu and you get a list of everyone who has Tweeted, Facebook shared, Pinned on Pinterest and Stumbled.

 

 

Off-page SEO - VCB
Click Interactions on the VCB menu bar to see who has been engaging with your content.

Building Relationships Really Boosts Off-page SEO

Checking out who interacts with you on ViralContentBee gives you the opportunity to build valuable relationships with bloggers in your niche.

This leads to more followers and the potential of organic Dofollow links to your own content and maybe guest blogging opportunities which can prove very useful.

 

Blog Comments

When readers visit your pages they often have the option of commenting and having their say on the subject you have written about.

This is great because it keeps the buzz around the content going and it makes the content longer and adds additional value.

And yes you guessed it does help lead to better rankings as Google notices.

If you want more comments on your posts then work on building relationships and comment on relevant posts.

It often leads to reciprocation and it shows other niche bloggers what you are writing about as they click through to you to comment.

 

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is a very popular method of growing backlinks.

The idea is that you write for another blogger in exchange for a link back to one of your articles.

There is, however, some controversy about this as Google has gone on record to say that if you are guest blogging purely for backlinks then it is not a very good idea and can get you penalized.

The reason being the links you gain are not organic and gained naturally. You basically put them there yourself.

I don’t have a problem with guest blogging at all.

I do accept them on my own site as long as they meet my specifications

1/ The content has to be great

2/ It has to answer user intent and offer value

3/ Long-form content is what Google likes

I am also happy to contribute to other webmasters sites, providing they are the same niche or closely related.

Google loves great content and great content is still great content despite there being a backlink or two within the post.

Google is not going to worry too much about that.

However, if you add 3,4,5 backlinks to your own content and the article is very short in length then that will be seen very differently by Google.

If you are linking back to your own site more than once or twice I would recommend no following some of the links so as to get Google to discount them.

Show Google that your guest blogging for the right reasons and that it is just not a part of a bigger backlinking strategy.

 

Off-page SEO Checklist

Here are some SEO Basics to boost your Off-page SEO and the backlinks to your site.

5 Simple Ideas For Link Building

1/ Create great content.

If your content serves a purpose, if it answers a question then it will gain backlinks over time naturally and this is the Google way.

But it is slow and you need to be patient.

2/ Drive traffic with social media

It is by far the best way to get pretty much instant traffic to your content while you wait for Google to decide where to place you in the SERP’s.

Social sites like Twitter, StumbleUpon and Pinterest are great traffic generators.

3/ Guest blogging done the right way works

The content that you write for someone else’s blog needs to be as good if not better than you add to your own.

4/ Reach out to other bloggers

If you have written a great article that you think would benefit the readers of someone else’s blog then drop them a message on their contact form.

Maybe they will agree and link to you.

5/ Be consistent in what you do

Post regularly, share on social media often. Be consistent in what you do.

Off-page SEO Backlinking Checklist
Thanks for pinning my image to Pinterest 😉

Off-page SEO – Takeaways

SEO is not that hard to set up on your site but it can be time-consuming.

With On-page SEO, you’re in control, when you move to Off-page SEO then it gets a little bit more difficult to get the desired results you are after.

The best course of action is to just write the best content that you can.

Get noticed for the right reasons.

Create exposure to what you write via social media. Build relationships and trust and grow your brand awareness.

That’s all for now

If you have any thoughts on this subject then please leave them in the comments section and I will be sure to follow up with you

Regards

Dexter