If you’ve been following from Step One, you may remember that Step Two: Competitor Research, highlighted UEO as the new SEO. If you haven’t read it, here’s a key takeaway:
SEO is more about user experience optimization (UEO) than optimizing the search engine.
That makes user experience then, your most important focus for getting your site ranked.
And how does UEO relate to competitor research? Well first of all, discovering how to enhance, or in a worst case scenario, dredging your user’s experience up from the bottom of a mucky pond to the surface light of day, starts by watching your competitors with a keen eye.
But there’s more to it than that.
When you created your site, you didn’t create it for silent, mechanical aliens that would follow clickbait like naive school children follow Bobo the Clown. Not even close. You made it for real live people. People with different problems and pain points. People with very personal frustrations and levels of tolerance. People dotting the entire spectrum of tech savviness.
And although you know it is a rather unrealistic desire, your intention is to make every page on your site 100% accessible to everyone who lands on it. And so it should be, realistic or not.
You’ve got to get inside the head of your ideal customer and know what is going to frustrate the crap out of them and do everything you can to avoid creating that kind of experience.
Then, you’ve got to know exactly what makes them stay on your page and eventually convert and feel that it’s one of the best decisions they’ve made this year. And then you create that experience too.
Easy, right? Well, sort of.
The best way to get started is to visit as many websites in your industry as your sweet time allows and note every little thing that makes you want to stick a fork in your eye and every little thing that makes your experience feel like you’re on a first class flight with Emirates. Then compare these features to your own site.
But once you’ve done that, how do you actually know that everything you’ve set in place to create the best user experience is actually, well, the best?
Google Analytics helps track user behaviour so you can get a deeper look at what parts of your site are keeping people engaged, and which ones are encouraging them to take a hike.
(And remember, GA is a free tool).
Now this next tip is a bit Sherlock so prepare yourself:
Ask your customer.
I know, right? It’s like telling someone to check that the TV is plugged in when it won’t turn on, but so many of us ignore the simplest way. Our complex brains like complication.
So how do ask? Check out Step Six: Reviews for tips on how to ask your customer.
Neil Patel tells us that at the core of the user experience is information architecture. A basic understanding of information architecture is outlined in the image below:
Source: Neil Patel
So now we’ve got the fundamentals outta the way, let’s look at a few more superficial but equally valuable components of UX.
This may seem obvious but we have to ask: Does your website look nice? Is it tidy or cluttered with content and images? Are your chosen colours complementary? Does your logo actually capture the ethos of your business? Is there any possibility that it overwhelms or confuses? Remember, simple is best for any site of any business in any industry. You don’t want to make people work to buy your product or service because they won’t.
A great majority of the adult population cannot read past an eighth grade level so unless your business is highly technical or you, for some reason, require a great deal of nomenclature in your content, then write for the eighth grade reader. If you can’t write, you’re not alone, and there are plenty of professional copywriters out there who can deliver some bang-up content. Choose someone who is able to capture the voice of your business and stick with that person. Using too many different writers will make the voice of your business sound less cohesive and convincing, like reading a novel where the writers change from chapter to chapter.
Now remember, and this is where it falls apart for a lot of businesses: make sure your content is well-researched, quality stuff. People can sniff out bullshit faster than our overpopulated planet can churn it out. Make your shit unique and the stuff of roses, stuff people can actually get something out of.
Think of your site as a trip to the science centre. Each station should draw you in, entice you to know more, indulge in your curiosity and fascination about the way the world works. So too should your site about your product or service. Use whatever means are necessary to keep your user engaged. Include links to where they can get more information, whether that’s on your site or an affiliate’s. Use appealing images, photos, videos, or memes that support understanding, that deliver a bit of humour, that invite the reader to further question what they’ve read (and then invite them further down the learning path). In short, give them an experience.
CTAs might be the most important part of your site––where they’re placed and how they call users to convert.
Forget the old, boring “buy”, “purchase”, or “submit”. Get creative (or trust in your content writer to do what you paid her to).
When we’re bogged down by metrics, it’s easy to forget that there are real live people behind those numbers. And what drives most people to buy?
They have some painful, nagging thorn in their side that makes them need your product to remedy their situation.
People don’t buy your product because it looks nice. They buy it because it solves a problem.
Maybe they don’t know they’re in pain, which is why you need to remind them, strategically, at each step of the conversion cycle and use the CTA as an opportunity to highlight, once more, how your product is going to solve their problem. Now make sure that problem-solving actually alleviates their pain rather than contribute to it.
You got this. Leave a comment and let us know what your main UX gem is.
Do you want more traffic to your site?
Of course you do, and it starts with understanding two key actions taken by Google (and other search engines but we’ll focus on Google): crawling and indexing.
Your pages are being crawled, and if you want them to be, they’re also being indexed. How frequently they’re being crawled and indexed is the major question.
Let’s start by defining these two key terms.
Google’s Spider crawler constantly searches for new web pages and finds them because of links to a page. Once on a particular page, Google will follow the path your page leads them down through your links to other pages on your website. When the crawl is done, they’re indexed.
It’s that simple… almost. We’ll get to what can influence the frequency of crawling.
But first,
Simply put, indexing is gathering and processing the information acquired during the crawl and adding web pages into Google’s search engine.
Being indexed is not the same thing as being listed in Google’s SERPs. When a page has been indexed it has been downloaded to the server of the search engine; a site doesn’t have to be indexed to be listed.
And in some cases, you may not want your page to be indexed, such as when it has thin or no-value content, for example, thank you pages, login pages, and internal search results pages. In that case, you want to insert a no-index tag, which means that although your page is still being crawled, it’s not added to Google’s search index.
The take-away: Index only the most important parts of your website.
Note: Every WordPress post and page is indexed automatically but to improve your search results, you need Google to re-index your site frequently (use Google Search Console to find out how often your site is being crawled).
Your site is probably already being indexed but if it’s new, there’s any easy way to check:
Enter site:yourdomain.com into Google’s search bar. If you’re indexed, the SERP should look like this:
If not, it will return a message that your search did not match any documents.
If that’s the case, it doesn’t mean you have to sit back and wait for Google to notice you. It’s kind of like seeing that perfect potential mate from across the room. If you sit there and wait for him or her to approach, you may be waiting a very long time. Alternatively, if you take action and make it happen, chances are you’ll have a date. Google is a little less risky though, they won’t reject you if you follow the right steps.
But, like dating, indexing is not a one-time deal that gets you where you want to be. You need Google to keep re-indexing your site because they don’t update automatically.
Google offers us the following tips to improve our page indexing:
(Source).
Regular new quality content that is relevant and doesn’t break any rules (see below) is one of the primary ways. Add new, relevant, and user friendly, high-quality content regularly and update existing content by creating a content marketing strategy. Have a look here at how that’s different from a simple content strategy:
Include the primary keyword in your domain name.
Use high quality backlinks that are reputable and trustworthy.
Internal links are a great practice for SEO and for keeping people engaged on your websites and answering their questions the second they come up. When linking to a section in the same page, use the same anchor text to encourage deep crawling.
An XML sitemap is a roadmap to help Google look deeply into your website because it lists every URL. A variety of plug-ins are available that you can use to generate a sitemap. For WordPress, use Yoast SEO.
WordPress Ping Services automatically notifies search engines that your site has been updated with new content, which keeps those bots crawling and (hopefully) indexing.
Playing by Google’s rules will keep you in their good books––their index, so avoid the following:
In some cases, you may want to prevent Google from indexing your site. See their support guide for some simple guidelines.
Happy customers leave great reviews.
The number-one, not-so-secret strategy for achieving high customer satisfaction––which causes them to leave positive reviews––is giving them the very best user experience possible.
Let’s assume you’re already doing that (of course you are).
We know your business is awesome. But every once in a while, someone comes along and says something negative about it. And they post it on the web for the whole world to see.
This is both a problem and an asset.
It’s a problem because of what Craig Bloem reports on Inc.com:
“Research shows that 91 percent of people regularly or occasionally read online reviews, and 84 percent trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. And they make that decision quickly: 68 percent form an opinion after reading between one and six online reviews.
Yikes! (Of course that’s good news in the case of great reviews––which we’re going to help you get).
What people say about your brand can either promote it or destroy it––sorry to be blunt, but research shows we’re more likely to report on a bad experience than a good one. Bad stuff makes better stories, and people love telling stories.
The kicker is that quality beats out quantity when it comes to reviews. One bad review is worth about three good reviews. So even ten incredible, amazing, super-duper reviews are virtually worthless if you have three bad reviews.
This is where most business owners feel a little uneasy because of their inability to control what is said about their product or service offering. Except that’s not entirely true.
Remember I said they’re also an asset?
Reviews are a bit like press exposure: even bad press is good press. Negative reviews are free user-generated content which helps SEO efforts. You might be surprised to learn that once people are on your site, bad reviews have very little to do with how long they stay or how well they engage with your site––keep reading to discover this juicy little stat.
But of course, we don’t want to generate bad reviews just to boost our ranking.
Negative reviews are the insight that helps you improve your already awesome business to make it even more awesome and enhance the customer experience, which organically influences more reviews of the positive variety––and we like those.
You can also take key steps to direct and influence the quality of reviews and ultimately, your business’s reputation. And depending on how you deal with negative feedback, you can transform it into more sales.
The main aim of the game though is to get as many happy customers as possible leaving a review so let’s take a look at how to do that.
Every great business has a solid customer correspondence strategy, whether it’s the people you hire to manage customer feedback or the quality of your email newsletters.
But it’s not a one-sided conversation. You have to give your customers a voice too, so you can gather insight into how to improve and maintain the quality of your product or service.
And when they leave a positive review you want to jump on it, right?
Word.
But why is that so important?
It is a simple psychological truth called positive reinforcement. People like to be acknowledged. When their “good behaviour” is recognized, they are more likely to continue it. This encourages others who are also vying for recognition, to share their experience too (if you’re not convinced, observe a class of kindergarteners for five minutes as the teacher praises one or two students for good behaviour––it’s a teaching strategy, why not a business one?)
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One thing to keep in mind here is that good reviews influence other people to leave good reviews. It’s something the industry calls social proof (I call it snowballing), and it looks like this:
Type “[your industry] + reviews” into Google and see what comes up in the SERP to determine which one is best for your business. Some platforms keep reviews exclusive; others syndicate them to other sites. Check out this graphic from Phil Rozek:
Source: MOZ.
This is so obvious that many business owners overlook it. If you want something, you have to ask for it. Make sure you ask customers for a review soon after their purchase so their experience doesn’t fall from memory. It’s an act of kindness on their part (though I might argue it’s consumer responsibility), they’re not getting anything out of leaving you a review. Don’t send them through a matrix to help you out. Send them an email with a simple call to action.
But go one step further here. While a good review is great, a story is even better. So, in your invitation, ask your customer to “tell us a story about your experience”. It reads like you’re more interested in them than in getting something out of them––which, of course, you are––and they are more likely to provide more details about what they liked because you prompted them to.
Sounds too good to be true, right? I mean, how do you turn a lump of coal into a pot of gold?
More than 65% of users will read four or more reviews before they trust a brand:
Consumer trust is one of the biggest factors in conversion rates and negative reviews make your brand more trustworthy. One online source reports that 95% of people suspect fake reviews if they don’t see any negative feedback.
Further, less than 1% of consumers will actually leave a site after reading a bad review (there’s that juicy little stat I was telling you about).
A few bad reviews peppered in amongst all the good ones give your potential customers a reason to believe the content in the good reviews––and it prolongs their engagement on your site.
But there is a critical point here––owner response to negative reviews. It is the alchemy that transforms those not-very-nice words into powerful sales pitches. This is an opportunity to demonstrate your superior customer service publicly.
Respond quickly (within 24 hours if possible).
Acknowledge the customer’s concern authentically, sympathetically, and politely.
Offer to make it right.
We’re reaching into the SEO arsenal and pulling out another tool for digital marketing success: Online business citations.
Don’t worry––no injection required.
The number one reason why online citations are so important––let me repeat––SO IMPORTANT is a secret we’re going to let you in on in this blog.
And the gooey little nugget of truth comes from SEO master Rand Fishkin, so we know it’s going to be good.
But first––
Let’s be clear––the tools defined here and in the previous four steps to SEO success do not exist independently of each other. Nor are they take-it-or-leave-it strategies that can be actioned once and then expected to care for themselves.
Think of each of these strategies as two-year-old children–they require constant parental guidance and commitment if they are to grow into human beings other people will want to be around.
These steps form the foundation of SEO success. Miss a step and you’ll trip yourself up. You want a solid stairway to SEO heaven and it requires a certain amount of devotion––and faith––to the practice.
So, let’s start with the basics of Step Five to SEO Success.
An online citation is a reference to a company’s contact details and other core data found on business directories, websites and apps, and social media platforms. They are either structured or unstructured.
Unstructured citations are mentions of a business in a blog or other online publication.
Structured citations are listings on local business data platforms, such as Google My Business (GMB) and geo/industry-specific platforms, like chamber of commerce or professional association websites.
Structured citations are the ones we’re most concerned with because, as the name suggests, structuring them appropriately will boost our rankings and establish validity and trust with potential customers.
MOZ outlines four core business data platforms: Google My Business, Acxiom, Neustar/Localeze, and Infogroup.
These are the ones you want to use when building citations, which is why we included the links––so you can get down to business right after you finish reading this (and keep reading because we included six crucial ingredients for building your online citations).
Then go hand-pick your industry-specific platforms.
But the big question is––
Good question. Rand Fishkin breaks it down for us here:
Photo Credit: Moz.
Online citations help potential customers find you or your client’s business online, particularly through the use of third-party directories.
They also achieve links and although most of them are no-follow, they validate the association of your website with your NAP (name-address-phone number) listing.
Experts agree that NAP consistency between the business website and that referenced in citations and GMB (if built correctly), can have a significant impact on local search rankings and influence localized organic rankings.
And there’s more.
Most people think online citations are about helping customers find your site.
While that’s true, you wouldn’t be reading this blog if it were the only reason. Unintended benefits often trump the original purpose of an action plan.
What’s the purpose of customers finding your site if they’re not going to visit it? You need to enhance your online citation image before people even get to your page so that they want to get to your page instead of your competitor’s.
The primary reason online citations are so important is not just that they help validate your business out there in cyberspace, but they also––
ESTABLISH TRUST
Think of it like this––
When you’re reading an online article about the use of steroid injections for sports injuries, you’re not just going to take that information at face value. You’re going to scan the article for references that validate certain information. These citations will show as links to other sites, or at the least, include the bibliographic reference, which we can consult to verify data. This helps to establish trust.
In addition to having an influence on ranking, Rand Fishkin tells us that online citations are also useful for signalling trustworthiness. This is a particular benefit for online-only businesses because Google effectively tells people that yours a legit business and your site is a real site, not spam.
Determine which platforms are most useful for your business. In addition to those mentioned earlier (see links), Facebook, Yelp, and IYP (Internet Yellow Pages) are also big league. Then go pick platforms specific to your industry and geography.
Ensure your citations are accurate and consistent. Mistakes or inaccuracy can hurt your reputation and lead to lost revenue. According to marketing expert James Watts, NAP consistency on major citation sites is a critical ranking factor on par with reviews and backlinks. Further, NAP consistency is one of the most critical factors in making it into Google’s coveted 3-pack/local finder (yes, 3-pack is the new 7-pack as of August 2018).
Use an automated solution like Moz Local for getting your business info into various forms to save yourself time. Such tools prevent you from feeling like you’d rather pluck each of your nose hairs out, one by one.
See Google’s guidelines for representing your business online. To get started, first claim and verify your GMB listing.
Choose the right categories in GMB and when selecting industry-specific platforms. See Moz for how to choose local business categories and HubSpot for 57 Online Local Business Directories.
Use a local area code and address. While GMB allows toll-free numbers, a few directories don’t, and GMB recommends using a local phone number. Allow your address to appear, even if you’re a service-area business operating remotely or out of your home. This makes your listing more complete, and therefore, verifiable. It also helps to establish your business as locally-focused––a main pillar in local search success. The chances of anyone showing up at your home are slim (and––a recent development––specific address and phone number don’t show in the SERPs anymore, only in the actual listing).
You know you should check your sources before making any decision––when there is a monstrous needle involved but most especially concerning which listing to click. After all, we’d hate to give the wrong impressions…
Help your customers to not only make the right decision but avoid making the wrong one. Get visitors to your site and increase your conversions by putting forth the effort required to build and maintain accurate and comprehensive online citations.
The results will be well worth your time, and you’ll avoid stabbing yourself in the ass.
Then, review steps 1-4 to ensure they haven’t fallen by the wayside.
Remember––SEO is a staircase of strategies; each step gets you closer to the top of the SERP.
Logging out,
Logical Mix
If you did your homework, you would have made some discoveries about how to rank for keywords.
If you haven’t already checked it out, see Step One to SEO Success: Keyword Research to find out how to get started on this critical stage.
If you’ve done your research, let’s take a look at what you’ve discovered.
Two of your major findings would have been:
Using as many tools as possible, you compiled a list of long-tail keywords. You ranked them by relevance and difficulty and then chose the ones that are most relevant and least competitive.
Right?
Great, what were they?
If you used a Venn diagram to display the results of a simple keyword investigation in the health supplements niche, it might have looked like this:
Now, what do we do with this? Let’s get to the nitty gritty…
On-page SEO is essentially structuring individual web pages around target keywords with the goal of creating more traffic and achieving a higher rank.
It’s also about responding to the people who come to your page looking for answers.
One of the most obvious ways to hit on all these points is through content so let’s start there.
You could start structuring content around the keyword “gluten-free supplements for weight loss” because it is both relevant and low competition. This is a perfect jumping off point for a review of competitors’ brands (if there are any), or an article about how gluten-free supplements are hard to come by (until they stumbled across your brand of course), etc., etc.
Let’s hope you don’t just plop this juicy keyword into existing content about the benefits of supplements.
Of course you wouldn’t because you know as well as we do that it is better to start at the beginning.
Like a plant has a seed, a keyword is the crux of great content, which is still one of the top ranking factors. It’s easy to sniff out in the opening paragraph when keywords have been stuffed or simply dropped into existing content. Readers will quickly realize that your page is not going to deliver what they came looking for.
Irrelevancy makes you unreliable, and when you’re unreliable, people aren’t going to ask you for help and Google will note that and respond accordingly.
Don’t be that guy.
Make yourself trustworthy and deliver fresh new content that answers your users’ questions.
Now, let’s take a closer look at why content is king in SEO success and how to masterfully craft content around the keywords you want to rank for.
Enter RankBrain.
RankBrain is a machine-learning component of Google’s algorithm that measures dwell time (how long users are spending on your page) and click through rate (CTR), which is the total clicks divided by total impressions (read more about Google Analytics here). RankBrain then moves your page up or down the SERP depending on those two factors.
There are three key ways to win at RankBrain. First, optimize your titles and meta descriptions for better CTR. Second, rank for highly relevant keywords. Third, write quality content.
Sounds easy, right? They are, and they’re also dangerously easy to overlook. Each point carries some pretty heavy weight when it comes to on-page SEO so ensure you are focusing your efforts on all three.
The first point is so important. Time and effort are wasted on creating great content out of awesome keyword research if there is nothing to attract users to your page. A gripping title and simple, to-the-point meta descriptions are necessary. Like the department store Macy’s revolutionized the storefront window, the title and meta description can lead users right to your page, wanting more of what your virtual window promises.
Let’s highlight the second point. You can write as much content as you want but if it’s not relevant to your offering, people are going to bounce.
The word people is strategic here. We talk a lot about the user, which makes me picture a hand on a mouse, or the reader, which makes me picture a book. But when I read the word people, I imagine a face, which directs my efforts to a person with a brain and the ability to subjectively decide what he or she is going to read and why. It makes my work more personal.
Okay, maybe not that face exactly. This one is a little closer to human (and looks a little like my grandma):
This point is, I’m not directing my efforts to the Google Machine, I’m addressing the needs of the people who ultimately determine what Google does with me. Right? This is a critical mind shift with which to lead.
High-quality content is one of the top ranking factors. But quality is a bit of an ambiguous, static term, isn’t it? Let’s go with engaging instead; it’s a bit more active.
Content that engages draws the reader in right away with a hook phrase that is both relevant and interesting. It keeps the reader wanting more by providing useful bits of information that are easy to absorb and answer the readers’ questions directly. It often tells a story to which the reader can relate. It also leads the reader to helpful resources that explore their query further.
Now, great content needs a bit of decoration. Something that yells out READ ME. Because let’s be honest, no one has time to fart around looking for the juiciest tidbit of meat.
When I land on a page, the first thing I do is cut the fat. I quickly scroll through the content to see if anything jumps out. What do I notice?
Three things, mainly: Images/videos, length, and headers.
We love images. They’re the eye candy that break up the text.
Length is often a good sign that a chunky chunk of content is going to feed me what I’m looking for.
Headers offer a place to start if I’m looking to pinpoint specific information. If the headers aren’t relevant to what I’m looking for (i.e., they don’t match my keyword query) then bouncy-bounce I go back to SERP and right into RankBrain’s time-out chair.
Rand Fishkin outlines seven elements of an optimized webpage. They are less quantitative than the SEO methods of yesteryear that called for specific keyword placement so they may seem a little loosey-goosey. But they’re not.
Qualitative strategies take center stage as the algorithms that assess relevance increase in complexity.
So, what makes a page brilliantly optimized according to Fishkin and Logical Mix?
Fishkin created this genius, though mythical, perfectly optimized page, highlighting his seven factors, mentioned earlier:
Pretty cool, right? I’d love to land on more web pages like this: perfectly structured to answer my question and oh so pretty.
So there you have it. On-page SEO is actually a bit fun. Maybe not as fun as the keyword research it took to get here, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.
Remember, you’re doing this for a living, breathing human being (or several thousand if you’re doing it right). Not a doll, not an ape (though possibly some monkey brains). Google is a machine, and although we want to please the machine, we’re still the ones ultimately in control… for now.
Appeal to your customer and find out how you can deliver what they want through super-duper on-page SEO.
When you’re structuring your pages, always keep this in mind:
People have questions. Be that place where the answers are.
Logging Out,
Logical Mix
Feature photo credit: The Freedom Chase
Have you seen the movie Tag? It’s about five friends who’ve played a 23-year-long game of Tag.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is kind of like that: a continuous game of Tag–but inverted. You want to be IT.
In the game of Tag, being IT means you’ve let your guard down and left yourself wide open to the competition.
In SEO, being IT means you’ve done the opposite and you’re ranking #1 because you’ve kicked some butt.
But in SEO, maintaining IT status requires continuous effort.
Luckily, there are tools that can help you, so you don’t have to run all over the place trying to stay ahead.
Google Analytics and Google Search Console are two of these tools, and they’re some of the best tools for SEO.
Why?
They give you detailed metrics about your site, which you can use to get more traffic.
More traffic = more conversions.
Sounds simple, right? It is.
And the more we know, the better equipped we are to solve the issues that are preventing us from ranking in the top spot of Google’s search results and converting users to buyers.
Contrary to popular belief (not knowledge), ignorance is not bliss–especially in the world of digital marketing!
What’s one of the most loved things about these tools?
They’re free! And there is no catch. Simply embed the proper code on your website.
Granted, not all free stuff is good. I don’t like free advice I haven’t asked for and I don’t like free hotdogs.
In fact, there is a lot of research out there that supports the notion that the more you pay for something, the more you value it.
But tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics are the exception.
The fact that they’re free is not the best thing about either tool though.
Keep reading to find out why they’re the scaffolding of a successful SEO strategy and how they can help you discover what’s working on your site and what’s not (you might be surprised).
Before I get into what each one is, I feel compelled first to point out that both tools are extremely useful for both beginners and experts.
Also, installation and setup for both tools are fairly intuitive, so I won’t offer a step-by-step guide here. Instead, I’ll get to the meat of how these tools are a necessary part of any SEO strategy.
So, what is Google Search Console (GSC) and Google Analytics (GA)? Are they the same thing?
They appear similar, but the information they provide is different.
Google Analytics tells you about your visitors: who they are, how they’re getting to your site, where they are geographically, and how much time they’re spending on your site.
Google Search Console, on the other hand, is a suite of tools that provide information about external links and keywords.
But read it from the makers themselves:
“Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor and maintain your site’s presence in Google Search results. You don’t have to sign up for Search Console for your site to be included in Google’s search results, but doing so can help you understand how Google views your site and optimize its performance in search results.”
With GSC, you can understand how you’re ranking and why, so you can focus your efforts and continue to improve. You can’t be successful in internet marketing if you’re a passive learner. Well, maybe you can be by sheer luck, but the odds are against you.
But that doesn’t mean it takes a lot of hard work either. GSC and GA are some of the best tools available because they’re easy to use, they’re comprehensive, and they’re free.
Let’s start with GSC.
Here’s a quick look at what you can do with this suite of tools:
Google Analytics provides filters to help you access valuable data about your site. The options are Clicks, Impressions, CTR (click-through rate), and Position.
Clicks counts the number of clicks that brought users to your site from the SERP.
Impressions displays how many links to your site appeared in the SERP, even if they don’t display in their field of vision (if the user didn’t scroll down to the bottom of the page). However, this only applies to the first page, so if your link appeared on the second page, it doesn’t count.
CTR is the sum of the clicks divided by the impression count (because an impression is required for a click).
Position measures the average position of the topmost result from your site.
Pretty cool, right?
Keep in mind that these metrics will change depending on whether you aggregate results by site or page.
These metrics are a good starting point from which to refine your results further. From there you can look at several more options.
Queries – lists all the keywords that brought users to your site.
Page – shows you which of your site’s pages appeared in the results.
Country – displays where the searches originated.
Device – calculates which devices and how many of them were used to search.
Search – indicates the type of search used: video, images, web, etc.
Date – allows you to choose the timeframe.
Start with impressions. If you’re showing up in search results but not getting clicks, then you need to optimize for those specific keywords. You can do this by selecting those first four filters (clicks, impressions, CTR, and position), as well as queries. This will return a list of keywords. Go through each one, applying those first four filters again, to see how each keyword is performing in better detail.
Then grab your finest SEO tool–your brain–and go into manual mode. Search each keyword in Google to see the SERP. If you’re on page, you need to look very closely and objectively at why you’re not getting a lot of clicks.
What’s the one thing that draws you into an article, a book, or a film more than anything else?
You guessed it–the title!
The title tag and meta description are the most significant but often overlooked parts of SEO. Even little tweaks, such as changing one word, can boost your CTR. We won’t get into the nitty-gritty of them because that could (will) be an entirely separate blog. For now, ensure your title and meta tags are optimized, compelling, and specific. Look at what is also showing in the results page. How does yours compare?
Mobile keyword research is an essential part of serious SEO, and you might be surprised to learn that mobile keywords are quite different from desktop keywords. How much do you spend on your phone? For some, it’s the only device they use.
GSC can return results on which keywords are being used specifically in mobile searches, which you can then use to enhance your mobile SEO strategy.
Another impressive feature of GSC is that it gives you the ability to compare dates. A report generated by GSC only covers the previous four weeks so you can look at older dates (up to 90 days back) as well as compare dates within a specified range. This feature will assist you in examining and analyzing any changes in your position in the SERP.
This tool gives hundreds of different metrics, but there are a few on which you want to focus.
Discover what people are looking for in your site by finding out what they’re typing into the search field. When you know exactly what people are searching for you can provide targeted information, right? Right!
Check on-site behaviour with the behaviour flow report and see how people are navigating around your site. This gives insight into where your users are dropping off so that you can create more internal links or CTAs, and improve those pages with better content.
Using the goals function, track your conversions according to each of your marketing activities, so you know which ones are returning the best ROI.
Analyze your social media posts to determine which channels are generating the most traffic.
Determine what devices are generating more conversions. If your mobile conversation rate is low, this is an opportunity to optimize your pages for mobile.
Discover what pages are generating the most conversions so you can guide traffic to other areas of your site.
This blog is just a sample of what GA and GSC can do.
Remember, these tools are made for beginners and more experienced SEO geeks.
After an easy installation, play around with each tool and learn how to take advantage of their features to improve your user’s experience and ultimately, increase your conversions.
A final tip – like any of your SEO strategies, GSC and GA are not one-time deals. If you want to drive thousands of people to your site, you have to use these tools consistently to stay on top of your success. Like Tag, it’s a never-ending game. (We didn’t get to mention Tag Manager, even with all the puns at our fingertips)
Oh, and we love to help so,
Logging out,
Logical Mix
