It’s here. After weeks of reported search volatility (going back as early as May), we see an official announcement for the August 2023 Google Core Update.

Launched on the 22nd, and with a rollout expected to last at least two weeks, webmasters can expect to see some changes—whether big or small—in their rankings very soon.

If you’re seeing a dip, don’t worry. The guidelines for website owners are the same as always, and I’ve prepared a quick checklist to go through to help your website recover.

August 2023 Google Core Update

Google Core Updates play an important role in how websites will be ranked and displayed in the search results. 

As of writing this article marks the second week since the rollout started of the said Google core update that started last August 22, 2023. 

This is the second broad core algorithm update for this year, after the March 2023 core update, which took 2 weeks to finish its full rollout. I expect this one to take the same amount of time. 

What to Know About the August 2023 Core Update

As Google continues to fully roll out the core update, here are some of the important things you need to know about it:

• It will target all types of content – blogs, images, etc.
• It will impact Google Discover and other features, such as featured snippets.
• It is not a penalty but a reward for great web pages instead.
• It is a global update that will affect all regions and languages.
• It will take about two weeks to roll out fully.
  
• Recovery post-update is not guaranteed, continuous website improvement is a must.

The August 2023 core update from Google aims to improve how the search engine delivers results to users. This update has the potential to significantly affect the performance of websites, making it important for SEO professionals and webmasters like us to keep an eye on how our websites perform as this core update rolls out. 

Unlike other updates, this one is holistic and updates how Google reviews websites as a whole. This means if your website has been affected, it doesn’t necessarily point to any one mistake—it’s just that there are now other pages that Google thinks provide more value than yours, based on its new ranking guidelines. 

Google’s ranking release history page shows us when this update started, officially. I recommend checking it now and then to see when the update is finished. 

What to do after the August 2023 Core Update?

It depends. If your pages are seeing a boost in rankings, then that’s great—it means your SEO is being rewarded.

If you’re seeing some volatility, then it’s time to review your website as a whole to determine if it’s being caused by the core update or some other things you might have changed on your website (coincidentally at the same time.) 

No need to panic, since Google themselves have provided their advice on how to manage this:

• It’s important to understand that a drop in rankings doesn’t necessarily mean there’s something wrong with your web pages
• Google also provided a list of questions to reflect upon if your site experiences a core update impact. I summarized the official Google advice on core update recovery in another post.
• It’s worth noting that while minor recoveries in rankings may occur between core updates, the most significant changes typically happen after subsequent core updates.

Google’s Advice for Boosting Page Rankings After the August 2023 Core Update 

Google advises websites to self-assess their content since the focus of organic search should be on delivering relevant answers and resources to users.

Take a look at your worst-performing pages, and ask yourself these questions:

1. Does my content meet the user’s search intent?
2. Does my content provide original information or analysis?
3. Does the content have any spelling or stylistic issues?
4. Is my content easy to understand?
5. Is my content trustworthy, and does it reference other authoritative sources?
6. Was my content written with the user and their experience on my page in mind?
7. Was my content written by someone who knows the given topic?
8. Do my on-page factors (such as title tag and headings) provide a descriptive, cohesive, and helpful summary of my content?
9. Is the content mass-produced or spammy?

The bottom line that Google is getting to is this: make sure that you have a high-quality website that provides high-quality content. Follow that, and you should be fine.

I also suggest that you check out the SEO checklist and helpful content update guide that I prepared, which cover the best practices to help your website recover its rankings. 

Impact and Recovery after a Core Update

Ranking fluctuations and impact post-update seem normal, and what we’re seeing is similar to the last core update. Lots of SERP volatility. 

I predict that the trend for volatility will also be similar to what we saw in March—volatility will be highest within the first week, before slowly settling and returning to normal around days 12-14.

After that, what we can expect in the next week or two is Google launching another update reversal to roll back any elements that have led to “bad” search results during the update rollout.

I can only speak for myself, we are fortunate that we have not seen any of our current clients being directly impacted by the August 2023 core update. Even most of our clients have seen positive patterns in their rankings, but I believe this is a result of our continuous optimizations versus a direct impact from the core update.

And now if you are negatively affected by the August 2023 core update, have some patience, as it will typically take several weeks or months for pages to recover rankings lost due to a core update if your website improvements warrant it.

Remember that Google is constantly tweaking its algorithms. It may release minor updates between the broad core updates that can positively impact pages that have made changes in the meantime.

Key Takeaway

As I have always said—SEO is a long game. It means you will have to constantly update your website and keep up with any algorithm changes to ensure your website meets what Google is always looking for: a trustworthy website that provides valuable answers for users. So when Google comes up with an update, that just means you have to reevaluate how you’re providing that value to your audience.

So if you consistently strive to make your website highly relevant through the right methods, then there’s no need to be alarmed by the August 2023 Core Update.

As an SEO specialist, I’m closely monitoring the impact of this update and will update this post when I find anything noteworthy regarding search trends or other relevant factors.

The post Google’s August 2023 Broad Core Update: How it Affects Your Website appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

SEOs are once again dealing with another broad core update–the first of 2023. And this one touched down hard and fast, shaking things up more than the previous September 2022 update.

With all the fluctuations and volatility in search results before and after the update, how can you ensure your website comes out as a winner once the dust settles? 

Let me discuss my insights and a few key strategies to help you deal with the March 2023 Core Update.

What Does a ‘Broad Core Algorithm’ Update Mean?

The name is self-explanatory. It’s an algorithm update that focuses on broad changes, with no specific focus in each area.

Core updates are made to keep the search results both updated and accurate to user queries. Think of it as similar to a list of recommended restaurants to eat – year to year, there may be newer, better places for you to eat at. Updating this list every few months is pretty similar to a core update in that it keeps your list relevant and up to date. 

With each core update, there are often widespread fluctuations in ranking, which ultimately means that your website could either be positively or negatively affected. 

The information we get about these updates is limited, as you can see from Google’s official document on core updates and their announcement post. Most of the data and strategies we get from this update are through webmaster tools, expert insights, and speculations. 

How often do Google core updates happen?

Generally, they’re released every few months, with the last two being in May and September of 2022. You can check the release dates of all the core updates so far in this document.

Google tends to announce these updates a few days before, or the day of. At times, you might even start to see the effects of one a few days before it’s officially announced.

Once released, it can take several days up to a few weeks to finish rolling out for users. 

The March 2023 Core Update

Google’s March 2023 Core Update was released on the 15th of March and officially finished rolling out on the 28th of March, 07:26 PDT.

It took 13 days to roll out, and this update was more noticeable than the last one we had in September 2022. 

Here’s a quick rundown of what widely notable effects I and other SEOs have seen so far:

• Target: All types of content, as is usually the case with core updates.
• Penalty: No penalty, focused on promoting or rewarding pages that fit their new algorithm.
• Impact: Global update, impacting all regions, and in all languages. This one hit hard and fast, and we saw significant volatility in the SERPs (more on that later).
• Features: Core updates impact Google’s features, such as Discover, featured snippets, and more. 

Just like any other core update from Google, the update seems to reward websites that follow E-E-A-T, high-quality content, and improved user experience. Websites that don’t hit these criteria or practice black hat SEO will likely see significant losses.

This update does not particularly target specific types of websites in fact, the goal of a core update is to improve the quality of the search engine results and make sure every result is relevant to every user by assessing the overall content in the SERPs.

SERP Volatility

Checking the SERP sensors from our various tools, it is noticeable that there were drastic movements in the SERPs, starting from the day after Google released their new broad core update. Below is a snapshot of Semrush’s Sensor:

Diagnosing Issues Caused by an Algorithm Update

Since the algorithm changes in a core update aren’t detailed or explained in any of Google’s official documents, it can be hard to tell if your website has been hit by them.

And, because the updates are made in broader strokes than more specific changes to Google, I’ve found that pages that suddenly drop in the SERPs don’t necessarily have anything ‘wrong’ with them–it might just be that your competition better fits what Google is looking for currently. 

All in all, it can be difficult to diagnose whether the losses (or gains) you’re experiencing now are due to the March 2023 Core Update. That said, I understand that those doing less well after this rollout are feeling the need to do something about it. 

So, what SEO checklist should you look at to narrow it down? 

The Timing

First, check when your pages dropped in ranking or traffic. If it happened within a day or two of the rollout, then there’s a good chance that Google’s algorithms have changed in a way that prefers other sites’ content over yours. 

But, there are a few cases where unfortunate timing for landing page optimizations, website revamps, or any other significant changes on your site were made–which can also be the root cause of your problems. 

This is when I recommend digging around in your webmaster’s tools.

Search Console

The next step is to check your Google Search Console performance tab. This is where you can find if your impressions and clicks dropped off for specific landing pages. 

If significant drops are aligned with the initial rollout date (March 15, 2023) or the official finish date (March 28, 2023), then it’s likely caused by the Core Update.

If so, I suggest looking at the affected landing pages and keywords. You can also look at the ‘Search Appearance’ filter to see which rich results are showing for your site. Segmenting this data can help you understand what keyword clusters or specific site areas were hit by the update.

Analytics

Your Google Analytics profile is another tool I suggest you check. You can combine its data with the insights you found on Google Search Console to see what aspects or content of your website you need to work on.

Go to the Behavior category, and check on your Landing Pages report. Filter the results by ‘Organic Traffic’ to narrow down the data. Here, you can continue to dig into the issues that were revealed to you in your Google Search Console Data.

Use this to benchmark your website’s performance against previous dates, as well.

Competitor Analysis

Performing Competitor Analysis either manually or through SEO tools (such as SE Ranking, Semrush, or Ahrefs) can also highlight what your website is currently missing.

Take a look at your competitors–what are they doing that you currently aren’t? Ask yourself these questions:

1. Do they have higher quality content than what you have currently published?
2. Do they have higher-quality link-building efforts than you?
3. Do they have greater keyword coverage for the products and services you’re offering?
4. Are these things you can add to or improve on your website?

Sitewide Effects

Core updates often have a sitewide impact–which means they often affect most of your pages, though not every single page on the site. 

If you notice changes on just one page, this is probably not due to a Google core update.

How Can I Optimize My Website for the March 2023 Core Update?

Similar to previous core updates, Google did not provide any specific information about their recent algorithm changes. As a result, there is no definitive procedure on how you can optimize your website following this update. Instead, you’ll have to look at holistic changes to your website and its content.

Google mentioned in their page quality guidelines that practicing E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is one of the important things you need to consider to maintain good quality content in the SERPs. 

If you’re interested in understanding how to recover from a broad core algorithm update, I have a few key SEO practices to help you:

Improve user experience

This is one of the relevant factors Google considers since they are user-centric. Letting users navigate your website easily will make you gain a high engagement rate online. These are the vital recommendations and some tools I would suggest for you to maintain and improve your website user experience:

• Ensure your website is mobile-friendly: you can check your website’s mobile-friendliness through Google Search Console’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

• Improve page speed: You can use PageSpeed Insights to check your website’s speed on mobile and desktop. This tool also suggests improvements and factors you need to improve on or avoid on your website.

• Improve Readability: check your website regularly and make sure the font details and the positioning of the texts are readable and uniform. 

• Improve accessibility and navigation: make sure your website is accessible and navigational to all kinds of users. This includes providing descriptive alt text on images, closed captions on videos, and ensuring compatibility for text, visuals, buttons, etc. on all types of screens.

• Avoid using intrusive ads or pop-ups: this may lower users’ perception of your website, or distract them–both will reduce engagement. Additionally, make sure your website is secure from any kind of online threat.

Create high quality content

Creating high-quality content will always be a must for ranking high and ensuring Google finds your website authoritative. 

I’ve written a guide on how to write helpful, informative content (following Google’s most recent content update) if you want to improve your content strategy or revisit your old blogs and landing pages. 

Other standard practices you might have to double-check on your website are keyword stuffing, readability, duplicate content, scraped content, and relevance to users. Not following what we consider good practices in these areas can harm your credibility as a website. 

If you ever have trouble refreshing your old work or generating new content, you have the option of using generative AI. Tools like ChatGPT and Jasper can help you lessen the time and effort spent on updating your content–though use these tools carefully. 

Make sure to proofread and fact-check (as AI tools are never 100% accurate when it comes to data), and add your unique insight and expertise to what they generate. Doing so makes all the difference for your rankings. 

Other tools, like Bing AI, can also help generate content, though not on the same level as tools specifically designed for copywriting. Unlike ChatGPT, however, it does have access to the internet and is integrated with OpenAI’s GPT-4. So it can create more informative or insightful answers for you.

Refrain from doing Black Hat SEO

Websites that practice Black Hat SEO may experience spikes in traffic and ranking–but these are inconsistent. And, these practices essentially set you up for future penalization. 

Common black hat practices are using hidden headings, texts, or links, duplicating content, spamming, keyword stuffing, and cloaking content or URLs. 

Websites that take advantage of these methods will eventually drop off the SERPs, despite the initial visibility boost they can provide. 

How Long Will it Take to Recover from the March 2023 Core Update?

SEO, no matter what strategy you decide to use, takes time to show results. It’s why I don’t suggest you wait when it comes to recovering from a core update. Starting right away by reviewing your website and auditing your content will help you stay ahead of the competition and minimize losses as quickly as possible. 

Key Takeaway

Google is and will always be user-centric. Changes like the March 2023 core update are meant to improve user satisfaction, and push people-first content to the top of the SERPs. 

If you’re one of the many SEO specialists scrambling after this core update, it’s time to step back and start creating a plan. You should focus on improving your website as a whole. 

There is no silver bullet to recovering from this, or to jumping back to your initial position. Instead, this update calls for a thorough sweep through your website and analyzing where to improve. If you have not started practicing this, then I encourage you to.

The post Google’s March 2023 Broad Core Update: What You Need To Know appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Just when we thought that we could use everything AI to write all of our content, developers went and dropped AI writing detectors on us, too.

The creators of ChatGPT themselves released one just a few weeks ago, amidst new Google statements and updates on the whole issue of generative AI and content. 

It’s looking hard out there for these writing tools—but can engineers really develop a way to detect whether text has been by AI writers and conversational chatbots? Can Google detect AI-generated content? And, should you be worried about penalization if you’ve been using these tools yourself?

Let’s get into what this all means for your content production, and what you can do to avoid getting hit by Google’s algorithm. 

Is AI Content Bad for SEO?

Yes, AI-written content can be bad for your SEO. 

Google has said multiple times in the past that purely AI-written content goes against its guidelines. We’ll get into why and how it can be a problem for you later on.

Google also has a long, long history of using and developing AI tech. So, it’s safe to say that they do have ways to tell if your articles are written by an AI tool. 

Why AI-Generated Content Goes Against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines

Is using AI assistance in writing explicitly prohibited by Google’s Webmaster Guidelines? No. But, there are guidelines that strongly condemn ‘spammy automatically-generated content.’ Specifically, they call out any article written by AI for the “primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results,” which they state is a violation of our spam policies.

This is a mistake you can commit if you’re trying to churn out the most content simply to climb the ranks as fast as possible. 

So, it’s not that AI-generated content is, by default, something that Google will punish you for. But, if you’re just mass publishing content using AI, then it may ultimately hurt your rankings, rather than help. 

Danny Sullivan—a renowned SEO expert and representative of Google—made this clear in a past statement:

“We haven’t said AI content is bad. We’ve said, pretty clearly, content written primarily for search engines rather than humans is the issue. That’s what we’re focused on. If someone fires up 100 humans to write content just to rank, or fires up a spinner, or a AI, same issue…”

How Can Google Detect AI Content?

To understand how Google can detect AI content, it’s important to understand how AI writing tools work.

Jasper, ChatGPT, and other similar AI use a process called Natural Language Generation (NLG) to generate copies and responses. NLG uses algorithms, trained on a large corpus of data, to generate human-like text. 

Google on the other hand can use machine learning algorithms to learn the different signals in content—such as text structure, grammar, and syntax in the text. This will help it detect patterns in the content that are indicative of AI generative writing. 

In short, if it falls within a structure that is noticed by the algorithm, Google can flag it.

This is entirely possible because AI writing is missing the natural variation, nuance, and complexity found in human writing. Plus, AI writing tends to be repetitive, and the facts and data they present may also be outdated or misinformative. 

So, Can Google Detect AI Content?

Yes, even if it’s been run through your AI tools a couple of times. It can possibly even detect it if it reads naturally.

However, even if Google recognizes some of your content being AI-generated, it may not affect your rankings, so long as the content is primarily designed to be helpful, useful, and valuable for users. That means, your AI-written content may only be penalized if Google feels that you’re using it simply to manipulate your rankings. 

That’s not to say that Google’s algorithm is 100% accurate, though. When asked in an interview if Google was able to automatically detect the difference between human and AI content, Google’s John Mueller responded “I can’t claim that. However, if the web spam team sees anything that is automatically generated, they will take action.” 

So, it’s clear that there is no foolproof way of detecting AI-generated content, at least not yet. As AI technology and machine learning continue to develop, it’s safe to say that they will develop a highly reliable way to detect and penalize it.

Other AI Writing Detectors

As I mentioned earlier, there are several AI detection tools out there that can catch AI-generated content. 

The one developed by Open AI, which they’re temporarily calling “AI Text Classifier,” is just the latest in the long line of tools you can use. Originality AI is a premium tool that charges you 0.1 cents per credit and checks your content for both originality and AI. Another option is AI Content Detector from Writer, which you can use for free—though only for 1,500 characters at a time.  

I tried the free tools myself. I first asked ChatGPT to write me an article:

Then, I put it into the AI detector tools, without any edits:

Here’s what AI Content Detector had to say:

So, these tools seem pretty reliable in finding purely AI-written content.

Should You Stop Using AI for Your Content?

“I’m using an AI writing tool, should I be worried?”

A lot of people are asking this question now. After all, with the introduction of ChatGPT in late 2022, and the explosion of AI software adoption, we all saw the incredible capabilities of AI. Suddenly, we all had free access to a tool that could replace a lot of the legwork and money that usually goes into content writing. 

How could we not use this technology in our SEO strategies, when it was so good? 

And now, months later, many are wondering if their AI-written content puts them in danger of a Google penalty. 

So, should you be worried if you used an AI writing tool for your site? The answer is—it depends. 

The situation as I see it is this: when you use things like ChatGPT to make content, you either publish it as is, or edit it before doing so. 

The first puts you in a bad position because you’re putting out bad content. And like I mentioned earlier, it may be downgraded by Google because it’s low-quality content that doesn’t provide a helpful, valuable experience for readers.

Why? Because tools like this only scrape and remake content that was fed to them. They do not provide anything novel, since you’re not adding your expertise, your thoughts, or your interpretations to the content. When you take the content they spit out and post it without a second thought, you’re essentially doing black hat SEO, spamming users with useless posts with the intent of boosting your rankings.

So the name of the game now is knowing how to use these tools efficiently, while still adding quality (and a human touch) to your content. Always offer that expertise to it that makes it valuable to readers.

How Does This Affect AI-Generated Content?

You might still be skeptical, and feel safer if you’re writing content purely without AI.

However, what you should be worried about is choosing the best content writing tools, and making sure to use them properly. After all, given how much time and money you can save with this in your toolbox, it’s worth taking the risk—with a few guidelines set in place.

Google even supports this (in a way), in their updated page on AI-generated content:

On the same page, they also said this: “This said, it’s important to recognize that not all use of automation, including AI generation, is spam. Automation has long been used to generate helpful content […] AI has the ability to power new levels of expression and creativity, and to serve as a critical tool to help people create great content for the web.

This is in line with how we’ve always thought about empowering people with new technologies. We’ll continue taking this responsible approach, while also maintaining a high bar for information quality and the overall helpfulness of content on Search.”

So no, you don’t have to stop using your tools. But you might have to revisit how you’ve been using them.

For starters, I suggest working with the right team. If the people using them are complete novices, then it might do your content more harm than good. 

Why? Because if they don’t know how to use these tools properly, then they might end up producing low-quality content that will, at best, be ignored by users (and at worst, get penalized by Google). Either way, the result is something you need to avoid.

Plus, if they keep churning out that kind of content on your site, you’re probably going to see a dip in your traffic and engagement.

On the other hand, if you’re able to train them to use these tools in such a way that creates great content for your audience with less time and effort spent, then it will become an extremely valuable asset for your site. In the right hands, it’s a powerful thing. 

So if you’re going to use an AI writing tool, invest some time in learning how to use them, and figure out what you should avoid doing with your content creation. 

What to Do When Using AI for Content Creation

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Check the writing style, tone, flow, and grammar of the generated content. Nothing turns off a reader more than something that is poorly written—or sounds odd.
• Use the tool to generate the bulk of the text. You could start with an outline, and ask for a paragraph or two for each point. This will make it easier for you to target as many relevant talking points as possible with less effort on your end.
• Provide clear guidelines. Without proper instructions, AI tools can struggle to generate quality content. If you don’t do this, you’ll probably waste time trying to re-generate the content you’re looking for. 
• Understand what prompts you can use. AI tools are programmed to respond a certain way to prompts, which can help you generate content in different formats, or for a dedicated focus. Knowing what prompts to use in a given situation can help cut down the time you spend trying to create the right content with your tools.
• Your content should be relevant and informative. Don’t just push out articles and blogs for the sake of it. If it isn’t relative and informative, it has little to no value for any reader. 
• Make sure to add your own take on the content—add in your expertise, your thoughts, and your comments on the matter. This human touch not only displays your knowledge of the topic but also transforms the content into something that will be uniquely yours. 

What to Avoid When Using AI for Content Creation

And here’s what to avoid doing completely with your tools: 

• Relying completely on AI for your content. As I said earlier, doing this will do you more harm than good, especially since the tools (and Google’s algorithm) can sniff out purely AI-written content. 
• Substituting AI-generated content for human creativity. Use these tools to cut down on writing time so you and your team can invest in something more valuable—your human creativity, insight, and expertise. Always insert that into your writing.
• Using AI for complicated, niche topics. Depending on your industry, you might not always be able to use it for your content. While AI is pretty sophisticated in what it can answer, it often cannot answer questions that require inference, a nuanced understanding of language, or a deeper understanding of multiple topics. 
• Keyword stuffing. This is an SEO content best practice as old as time. When you stuff your writing full of keywords, it will make your work sound spammy, and may even get you penalized by Google for being spam content.
• Forgetting to proofread and fact-check. Don’t expect AI to be perfect. Always proofread and fact-check. Any data, statistics, or facts given by your tool should be checked for accuracy. 

Conclusion

Can Google detect AI-generated content? The answer is yes, but that doesn’t mean that you have to stop using it in your SEO. 

Though several AI writing detectors are out there—many of which are free to use—it’s clear to me that AI-generated content won’t be going away anytime soon. In fact, there are several ways for it to be used ethically for SEO. 

With the proper guidelines, you can add AI writing tools as a valuable addition to your content creation arsenal, without fear of penalization.

The post AI Bust: Can Google Detect AI Generated Content? appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

January 25, 2023, the day that Yandex—Russia’s search engine—was hacked. 

Its complete source code was leaked online. And, it may not be the first time we’ve seen hacking happen in this industry, but it is one of the most intriguing, groundbreaking events in years.

But Yandex isn’t Google, so why should we care? Here’s why we do: these two search engines are very similar in how they process technical elements of a website, and this leak just showed us the 1,922 ranking factors Yandex uses in its algorithm. 

Simply put, this information is something that we can use to our advantage to get more traffic from Google.

Yandex vs Google

As I said, a lot of these ranking factors are possibly quite similar to the signals that Google uses for search.

Yandex’s algorithm shows a RankBrain analog: MatrixNext. It also seems that they are using PageRank (almost the same way as Google does), and a lot of their text algorithms are the same. Interestingly, there are also a lot of ex-Googlers working in Yandex. 

So, reviewing these 1,922 ranking factors, which come from the “Kernel” archive (and are only just one of the many sets of factors in the Yandex codebase) is a must. Understanding how they play into search rankings and traffic will provide some very useful insights into how search engines like Google work. No doubt, this new trove of information will greatly influence the SEO industry in the months to come. 

That said, Yandex isn’t Google. The chances of Google having the exact same list of ranking factors is low — and Google may not even give that signal the same amount of weight that Yandex does. 

Still, it’s information that potentially will be useful for driving traffic, so make sure to take a look at them here (before it’s scrubbed from the internet forever).

An early analysis of ranking factors

Many of their ranking factors are as expected. These include:

• Many link-related factors (e.g., age, relevancy, etc.).
• Content relevance, age, and freshness.
• Host reliability
• End-user behavior signals.
• Clicks.

Some sites also get preference (such as Wikipedia). FI_VISITS_FROM_WIKI even shows that sites that are referenced by Wikipedia get plus points. 

These are all things that we already know.

But something interesting: there were several factors that I and other SEOs found unusual, such as PageRank being the 17th highest weighted factor in Yandex, and the 19th highest weighted factor being query-document relevance (in other words, how close they match thematically). There’s also “spam karma” for dubious sites,  based on Whois information. So sites used for spam and link farming and such are likely to take a hit.

Other interesting factors are the average domain ranking across queries, percent of organic traffic, and the number of unique visitors.

You can also use this Yandex Search Ranking Factor Explorer, created by Rob Ousbey, to search through the various ranking factors.

The possible negative ranking factors:

Here’s my thoughts on Yandex’s factors that I found interesting: 

FI_ADV — this factor means having tons of adverts scattered around your page and buying PPC can negatively affect rankings. 

FI_DATER_AGE — this one evaluates content age, and whether your article is more than 10 years old, or if there’s no determinable date. Date metadata is important, so if it’s missing from your content, it can lower your rankings. 

FI_COMM_LINKS_SEO_HOSTS — this can be a negative factor if you have too much commercial anchor text, particularly if the proportion of such links goes above 50%. Pay attention to anchor text distribution. I’ve written a guide on how to effectively use anchor texts if you need some help on this. 

FI_RANK_ARTROZ — outdated, poorly written text will bring your rankings down. Go through your site and give your content a refresh. FI_WORD_COUNT also shows that the number of words matter, so avoid having low-content pages.

FI_URL_HAS_NO_DIGITS, FI_NUM_SLASHES, FI_FULL_URL_FRACTION — urls shouldn’t have digits, too many slashes (too much hierarchy), and of course contain your targeted keyword.

FI_NUM_LINKS_FROM_MP — always interlink your main pages (such as your homepage or landing pages) to any other important content you want to rank. Otherwise, it can hurt your content.

FI_HOPS — this factor shows us that the longer it takes to get to an important page, the less likely it will rank. So, reduce the crawl depth for any pages that matter to you. No important pages should be more than a few clicks away from your homepage. I recommend keeping it to two clicks, at most. 

FI_IS_UNREACHABLE — likewise, avoid making any important page an orphan page. If it’s unreachable from your homepage, it’s as good as dead in the eyes of the search engine.

The possible positive ranking factors:

FI_IS_COM— .com domains get a boost in rankings.

FI_YABAR_HOST_VISITORS — the more traffic you get, the more ranking power your site has. The strategy of targeting smaller, easier keywords first to build up an audience before targeting harder keywords can help you build traffic.

FI_BEAST_HOST_MEAN_POS — the average position of the host for keywords affects your overall ranking. This factor and the previous one clearly show that being smart with your keyword and content planning matters. If you need help with that, check out these 5 ways to build a solid SEO strategy.

FI_YABAR_HOST_SEARCH_TRAFFIC — this might look bad but shows that having other traffic sources (such as social media, direct search, and PPC) is good for your site. Yandex uses this to determine if a real site is being run, not just some spammy SEO project.

This one includes a whole host of CTR-related factors. 

It’s clear that having searchable and interesting titles that drive users to check your content out is something that positively affects your rankings.

Google is rewarding sites that help end a user’s search journey (as we know from the latest mobile search updates and even the Helpful Content update). Do what you can to answer the query early on in your article. The factor “FI_VISITORS_RETURN_MONTH_SHARE“ also shows that it helps to encourage users to return to your site for more information on the topics they’re interested in. Email marketing is a handy tool here.

FI_GOOD_RATIO and FI_MANY_BAD — the percentage of “good” and “bad” backlinks on your site. Getting your backlinks from high-quality websites with traffic is important for your rankings. The factor FI_LINK_AGE also shows that adding a link-building strategy to your SEO as early as possible can help with your rankings.

FI_SOCIAL_URL_IS_VERIFIED — that little blue check has actual benefits now. Links from verified accounts have more weight.

Key Takeaway

Yandex and Google, being so similar to each other in theory, means that this data leak is something we must pay attention to. 

Several of these factors may already be common knowledge amongst SEOs, but having them confirmed by another search engine enforces how important they are for your strategy.

These initial findings, and understanding what it might mean for your website, can help you identify what to improve, what to scrap, and what to focus on when it comes to your SEO strategy. 

The post Yandex Hack: How it Affects SEO appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

You are stuck in a maze and you’ve tried every possible turn but there is no way out.

This is what our brains feel like sometimes and if you haven’t tried banging your head against the keyboard out of frustration with your content strategy, you have no business reading this.

Yes, even I have those days when getting the mix of SEO and the client’s technical writing desires in your content strategy seems like an unsolvable puzzle.

So here are 5 things to keep close when planning your content strategy so you don’t ever have to damage your keyboard again. You will rank and you will also provide the best possible content to your client and your readers – win, win and win.

The Importance of a Strong SEO Content Strategy

Before anything else, it’s important to acknowledge that quality content is one of the defining components of an SEO strategy. Great content paired with SEO efforts has always been the backbone of any successful campaign. Regardless of other standard SEO practices- if your content isn’t good enough for Google, then your website isn’t good enough to rank.

Ways of Setting Up An Effective SEO Content Strategy

Do Keyword Research Above All Else

Keyword research is like the egg to your omelet- all your ingredients won’t come together without it. Never start building your SEO content strategy without gathering your keywords first. Your keywords will be the foundation of any type of content that you’ll be publishing to your web pages. It’s important to keep in mind these guidelines when doing your keyword research:

• Use keywords that acknowledge your target audience
• Ensure keyword relevancy to your website
• Understand the search intent of each keyword in the list
• Only consider keywords that have good monthly search volume

Learn more about the latest keyword research practices!

Identify Website SEO Content Opportunities

It’s a fairly general SEO practice to commit all your content publications as blogs for your website. While this particular SEO content strategy proves to still be very effective in attracting website traffic- wouldn’t it be ideal if you could attract THAT traffic straight to pages that have higher possibilities to convert?

Imagine an e-commerce site with a web page that purely displays product listings as its content.

By including a frequently asked questions (FAQ) type of information, we allow that page to target SEO-friendly keywords increasing the chances for it to have a strong online presence.

This is an example of an “SEO content opportunity” on your website. Instead of simply publishing blog articles, you can direct your writing efforts to pages where there’s an opportunity to target a keyword.

You can mainly identify these SEO content opportunities by analyzing search results and identifying what type of pages are ranking. For example- when searching for the term electric scooter, the search result returns product listings. Therefore, there’s a higher chance of ranking a page that mainly displays products. Which makes it a good target for additional content.

Keep Your Content Human

Build your content for users.

The rising popularity of AI-written content allowed web pages to rank high within search results. This led to unnaturally written articles being presented to users. As a result, Google continues to release algorithm updates that punish these pages’ rankings.

It is very important to note in your SEO content strategy how the articles should be written. Always bear in mind to present information in a way that’s digestible and easily understood by readers. Not only will this help keep Google’s eyes away from you, but it will also increase user retention.

Acknowledge Your Competitor’s Content Strategy

In any card game, there’s a benefit to knowing what hand are your opponents playing. The same concept applies when building your SEO Content Strategy. Your competitors have done the work, so why not learn from them?

Noting your competition’s implementation of content in web pages, topics they publish in their blogs, and how they’re structuring their content can give you an idea of how can you improve your own content strategy.

The tool that I mainly use to gauge my competition is SE Ranking’s competitive research tool.

This allows me to see what organic keywords are they using on their website, in addition to manually browsing through their content.

Optimize As Much As Needed

Let’s assume that you’ve already started publishing your content- the only way to maintain and improve its quality is to perform regular on-page SEO optimizations. Not only can it serve as the solution to ranking changes, but it also allows you to be flexible in the content you have on your website.

Here are some of the things that you should consider when performing on-page SEO optimizations:

• Maintain the quality of the SEO factors being implemented in your pages by ensuring proper keyword usage in SEO factors such as title tags, meta descriptions, headings, and the like.
  
• Look for opportunities to improve/update existing content- such as enhancing keyword usage and content comprehension.
• Point out and correct any existing UI/UX issues to improve the visitor experience
• Ensure proper indexing practices such as appropriate robots and sitemap implementations that guarantee website visibility.

Key Takeaway

There are honestly a lot of ways that you can approach your website’s content. But instead of overloading yourself with information, learning these 5 ways of building a solid SEO content strategy can allow you to focus on the basics. Only then can you start applying other SEO practices that can help you formulate a successful SEO campaign.

If you want to learn more about content marketing, check out our guide on how to write your content!

The post The 5 Key Elements for Successful SEO Content Strategy appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

As the holiday season is just around the corner, you should be prepared for all the opportunities it comes with. This time of the year is when people will be taking a break from their usual 9 to 5 jobs and will be on vacation.

This means that they will have more time to spend on the internet, the question now is – are you going to be visible to them?

In this article, you will find out key things you should be focusing on to improve your online visibility this upcoming holiday season!

Study Last Year’s Trends

In preparation for the upcoming holiday, you should be looking at the trends and keywords that performed well for you and your website last year. Through this, you can analyze if you are sticking with the old strategies and keywords from last year or if you are going to research and find new ones that could further improve the quality of your SEO for this year’s holiday season.

The bottom line here is that the keywords you select should drive a fair to a high amount of traffic while still being relevant to your brand.

As an example, here are the SEO trends for 2021:

• Optimize for Core Web Vitals and Page Experience
• Focusing on User and Search Intent
• Verify Website on Google Search Console
• Utilize AMP
• Apply Schema Markups

You can check out this article we wrote about the SEO trends of 2021.

Research about Seasonal Keywords

One of the most critical things about SEO is keywords, that’s why trying to rank for the seasonal keywords can be a big boost for your website for the upcoming holiday season.

For example, this Christmas season brings in keywords such as:

• Christmas decorations
• Christmas foods
• best Christmas gifts
• top Christmas destinations

Another holiday is the upcoming New Year which brings another set of keywords:

• New Year firework show
• New Year countdown party
• best foods for New Year

In short, you will have a hard time being visible in the search results if your brand or website does not include seasonal keywords on your product pages, landing pages, blogs, or articles. That’s why you should always do your keyword research to find out the keywords that are most used by searchers and consumers during the holiday season.

Here are some tools you could use for your seasonal keyword research:

• SERanking
• SEMRush
• Google Keyword Planner
• Google Suggest

Create Content for the Holiday Season

Content is king!

Content that attracts and engages audiences can definitely help boost your website traffic during the holidays, so use creative content as leverage during this time of the year. Write how your brand can make this holiday celebration more special, you could provide gift ideas, or even share celebration stories with your readers!

You can also create a specific landing page on your website and add some design or flare that will make them feel more the essence of the celebration. This makes your website look festive and cheerful even for a short period of time but can make a lifetime impression on your audiences.

Here’s a checklist for a good content strategy:

• Always have a 1-3% keyword density for your focused keyword/keyphrase
• Engage with your target audience by writing long-form holiday content
• Avoid keyword stuffing; try using related phrases and keywords and spread them throughout your content.
• Create visually appealing content, and add videos, images, infographics, or even GIFs!

Optimize Your Website’s ‘Basic SEO’

In your goal to create content and be visible during the holiday season, you might overlook the basic SEO of your website. Here are the technical things you should be checking to ensure your website has a good SEO foundation:

• Review and resolve pages with error ‘400’ for the deleted or broken pages
• Fix the 301 redirects for broken links and lost landing pages
• Optimize your page speed – both desktop and mobile
• Check your server if it can handle high-load traffic
• Clear and Visible Call To Action (CTA)

There are many tools out there, but one of the most reliable tools that I personally use in tracking a website’s SEO is Screaming Frog.

Key Takeaway

As the holiday season is just around the corner, it is never too late to optimize your website to be visible during this time of the year. Make use of these tips and strategies not just for this season but also to help jumpstart your website’s SEO for the new year!

The post 4 SEO Tips and Strategies for the 2022 Holidays appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

A 1,000% increase in organic traffic is the dream. It is something you certainly can achieve and this guide will help you nail that by going for the best keywords you can center your SEO campaign on. As one of the cornerstones of an effective SEO strategy, it is essential to implement the right approach in choosing your keywords. Here is every question you need to ask yourself when doing effective keyword research for SEO of 2023.

What Does My Website Offer?

In order for you to start composing your list for your keyword research, you have to first identify WHAT you want to be seen from your website. Which of your service, product, or information would you like to be visible within search results?

For example, let’s assume that you’re building an SEO strategy for a cosmetic dental clinic in Sydney, Australia. It would ultimately make sense to use keywords based on the term cosmetic dental clinic itself and particular cosmetic dental services- such as dental veneers, dental implants, and other similar services and terms.

Who’s My Target Market?

Now that you’ve taken the first step in identifying your keywords, you move forward in adjusting your approach to your research. Provide revisions on your initial keyword findings based on WHO you want to attract to your website. “Who” usually pertains to 2 types of people who use search engines- these are people who search to get information and people who are looking to avail of a particular product/service.

It should be easier to identify which type you are inclined to target once you’ve acknowledged what pages on your website you want to be seen on the search results pages.

In addition, knowing your target market is also associated with WHERE you want to be seen. Adapting your keyword based on your location is one of the things that you should consider when doing keyword research. These keywords are specifically called geo-tagged keywords. They allow your website to rank for people looking for particular information or service within a specific area.

Continuing on our earlier example, building an SEO strategy for a dental clinic in Sydney, Australia would prompt you to include the term “Sydney” or “Australia” in addition to your keywords- cosmetic dental clinic sydney, dental veneers australia, etc.

Click here if you want to learn more about the importance of geo-tagging keywords!

How Are Your Keywords Performing In Google?

We’ve now further refined your keyword ideas. But before finalizing or implementing your keywords, you should first check out how it’s doing within the actual search engine. It wouldn’t be wise to start driving your car, without checking if your check engine light is on.

Start by observing and analyzing the search results for each one of your keywords. Let’s try searching for a keyword and then go through the search results. For the keyword ‘electric scooter philippines’, the result is the following:

Based on the image above, you’ll notice that the search results are dominated by the actual distributors or shopping websites offering electric scooters in the Philippines. If you’re a website that’s offering electric scooters within the Philippines, this is a clear indication that you can rank for this keyword.

Not only that, the geo-targeted keyword “philippines” ensures that the website will appear way better to people searching from the Philippines and not in other countries if you don’t serve those markets anyway.

What about search results that tell you if you can’t rank for a particular keyword? Take a look at the results for ‘best electric scooters’:

The results indicate web pages that offer guides and listicles that feature a variety of electric scooter brands. The websites that hold these pages offer only news articles and tech reviews.
As a website that offers electric scooters straight to consumers, it wouldn’t be applicable for you to rank for this keyword. Your website’s intention to sell is mismatched with the websites that provide news and articles as their service. The keywords that you apply to your website must always match what your website offers.

How’s My Competition?

Ah yes, competitor analysis. Who doesn’t love checking on the competition?

For all websites, especially if you’re just starting out your SEO, there will always be a more authoritative website that offers a similar product, service, or information as you do. This is why it’s essential for keyword research that you are able to analyze and study what your competitors are doing to their websites.

Understanding what keywords are they utilizing and how they’re building their website’s content will not only give you an idea of how to rank your own site but also figure out how authoritative they are. It’s not just about trying to expand your keyword list but also being smart on which keywords to target.

Let’s assume we’re trying to broaden our list of keywords for our e-commerce website in the Philippines for electric scooters. And the best way to do this is by using one of my favorite tools, the SE Ranking Competitive Research feature. We’re now able to single out what keywords one of our competitors is ranking for.

As you can see, the keyword that it presents is associated with the Difficulty metric. This allows users to have a more general idea of how competitive a particular keyword is. By using this information, you’d have a deeper understanding of which keywords to target.

If you just newly developed your website, go for lower difficulty. But if you’re building your SEO strategy on an already authoritative website, then you can compete for keywords with higher difficulty.

Only after further competitor analysis can you then identify which keyword should be utilized in order to gain more traction. Hey, they did the hard work, why not learn from them and put your own effort into it, eh?

What Are My Related And Relevant Keywords?

Lastly, with the keywords you’ve managed to list down, add keywords that are closely related to all of them. An easy way to do this is to look up sub-topics and synonyms for your chosen keywords.

Why?

SEO is holistic. Targeting 1 keyword implies you target many. With the Google Algorithm updates in 2022, the search engine has been particularly inclined to websites that have good topical authority.

Google gauges a website’s credibility by also checking based on the number of relevant topics that a website is able to cover. If you want to be able to rank and write for the keyword ‘cosmetic dentist, then you’d have to also rank and publish articles for its subtopics such as ‘dental veneers’, ‘dental implants’, and other similar services.

Additionally, synonyms should also be included in your list of keywords to target. In the eyes of Google, there are some keywords that express the same meaning when searched.

Notice the bolded texts when searching for the term ‘cosmetic dentist’. This implies that Google understands that the user is also searching for the term ‘cosmetic dentistry’. This is also the same reason why SEO content writers sprinkle closely related keywords when trying to build content.

Key takeaway

With Google’s ever-growing updates in its search engine, there is increasing importance in ensuring your foundations for the keyword strategy you are using for SEO.

Keywords are what dictate and direct your entire SEO campaign. This makes keyword research an extremely important task at the get-go.

I hope that this guide has added value to you today and if it has, please also check out our full guide to keyword research for a new website here!

The post Drive Results with this Definitive Guide to Keyword Research for 2023 appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

Imagine that you are the greatest artist or designer to ever live. But you’re starving right now because the amazing works that you produce are not being found by the people who would WANT to buy them.

That’s not where I want you to be, that’s why we built this guide for you so that you will be visible to your intended audience whenever they search on Google.

Whether you are a freelance artist, a startup business, or a reputable creative agency, these are the most important things to remember in using SEO as a creative professional.

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization or “SEO” is the process of improving your website’s visibility by appearing within the search engine results pages (SERPs). Search engine results are the list of links that appears whenever a person searches within Google. A website appearing in this list is considered an “organic search listing” and based on statistics, 53% of all website traffic comes from organic searches.

You may be wondering, “can SEO really generate traffic to my website?”

Definitely!

Data says that businesses that create original content get 55% more traffic to their websites. This also improves their brand authority and awareness over those that do not.

How beneficial can SEO for Creatives and Artists be?

In 1968, the famous artist Andy Warhol fearlessly claimed, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” 

And he was right about this, as it is very apparent with the rise of the internet.

One of the digital platforms that came up with the internet is search engines. But instead of “15 minutes” it only has 10 spots to rank for on its first page out of a million or even billion search results. It is tough to get up there but once you achieve it, the rewards are endless, and here are some of them:

Noticeable increase in traffic

Publishing search-friendly content on your website will inevitably make you visible on the search results pages. This will result in an increase in your website’s traffic.

More Leads = More Sales

Now that you have more people coming in your website from search, we can strongly assume that you have what they are searching for. Naturally, they will buy from you and will be more likely to return when they need something else that relates to your products or services.

Builds up brand awareness and reputation

When you create high-quality content for your website’s optimization using relevant keywords, you gain authority and higher rankings on the search engine results page (SERP). Believe it or not, when you rank #1 on Google search, people tend to believe you are one of the best brands out there in the world today.

How To Do SEO for Creative Websites

Now how do you actually rank when your website is full of images and videos?

Here is a short list of things for creatives on where to concentrate their SEO efforts, understand the fundamentals, and expand their businesses using search engine optimization:

Optimize your Image Tags

As a creative, you should use the images on your website as leverage in your SEO. These images are as valuable as written content in Google’s eyes. The clicks you can get from Google Images through your website can help in attracting people who can be interested in your business.

Remember that naming all your images properly can be vital in your website’s ranking. Even if it does not display visibly to your website’s visitors, these are still direct factors for your ranking on the search results page.

Here are a few elements you can optimize for image texts:

Filename

Renaming the filename of your images can help Google understand what your image is about. Always rename your images with a keyword-rich filename.

• Bad Filename: image0123.jpg
• Good Filename: black-abstract-painting.jpg

Alt-text

Always remember that Google cannot visually see and understand the images you have uploaded to your site. So describing those images can help Google understand what it is and can be used as a factor in ranking your images higher on the search results page.

• Bad Alt-text: black abstract painting
• Good Alt-text: black and red lines abstract painting

Image Captions

These are short write-ups under the images. Captions, unlike file names and alt text, are visible on a website page. Therefore, they can affect directly the user experience of your website visitors.

Image Title

These are texts that are only visible whenever you hover over an image on your website. Image title attribute doesn’t have any impact on keyword rankings because search engines don’t crawl them. But look at it this way, if you and your competitor have the same exact level of website optimization, but you still did your Image titles and your competitor did not. Who do you think Google will see as a more valuable and optimized website?

Optimize your Image Sizes and Formats

Having your website load quickly is a direct ranking factor in the game of SEO. Site speed optimization is a must-do if you want to rank high nowadays. In fact, it is doubly important because it also directly impacts the user experience of your site’s visitors.

A website with a gallery of images can really slow it down. Especially for creatives like you who want the highest quality preview of your works online, but most of the time these files are just too big and slow to load.

To avoid your website slowing down, here are a few things to do before uploading your images:

Right Format

If your images do not require any transparency, it is advisable to save them in a JPEG file format – as this is smaller in size. You can also save them on next-gen image formats such as WebP, as this is made by Google for a more optimized website.

Image Dimensions

You should scale your images’ dimensions to exactly what is just needed for the user.

Compress your Images

Compressing your images and making sure that they are less than 60 megapixels can help maintain your site speed. You can use free image compression tools such as TinyPNG. You could also take a look at Imagemin which is recommended by Google because it can compress a wide variety of image formats.

Now you are wondering, how about images that are existing on your website? Do you have to re-upload all of them? Don’t worry. If you’re using WordPress, you could download plugins that can automatically compress all images on your website. We recommend using WP Smush.

Those are just some tips on what you can do to improve your website’s speed and Image SEO.

Optimize your Media Sitemaps

A sitemap is a list of all web pages on your website. It’s like an archive of every webpage on your website. This file should be easily discoverable on your site to let the search engine crawlers follow the links to all your individual web pages so that they won’t miss out on anything.

You can access your sitemap at “/sitemap.xml” on your website.

• Example: https://seo-hacker.com/sitemap.xml

Here is a guide to help you set up your sitemap.

Video Sitemap

A Video Sitemap gives additional information about the videos that are hosted on your website. It can help Google understand the different video content on your website, especially for content that is not discoverable within the usual crawling mechanisms.

You can create a separate video sitemap, but I recommend you embed your video sitemaps into your existing sitemap.

Here is an example structure of a video sitemap:

If you want to dive deeper into video sitemaps, here is a learning material created by Google Search Central about it.

Image Sitemap

An Image Sitemap serves the same purpose as to video sitemap, this helps search engines locate images that cannot be easily found through usual crawling.

You can also create a separate sitemap for this, but I recommend just adding it to your existing sitemap.

Here is an example of an image sitemap:

If you also want to dive deeper into image sitemaps, here is a learning material created by Google Search Central about it.

Setup Tools to Monitor your Website’s Behavior

The next thing to do is observe how your website is doing after you apply some of the suggested optimizations earlier.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is what we use to monitor a website’s traffic – it is a ton of help as it provides very informative data about your website.

• Pageviews
• Website Visitors
• Traffic sources (e.g. social media or search engine traffic)
• Time spent on page ( average amount of time users spend on a page)
• Bounce rate (the percentage of people who leave your website without taking an action)

It is crucial to monitor these data to help you pivot your SEO strategy as you go in dominating the first page of Google. The great thing about Google Analytics is that it’s free and it’s super easy to set up. Here is the guide to get you started.

Google Search Console

Search Console is another tool that Google makes freely available to webmasters. This tool can help you monitor what people are typing into Google to find your site, and if they are actually clicking your listing in the search results. It will also let you know if your website has errors that can directly affect your rankings on the search engine results page (SERP.)

Acquire Quality Backlinks from Other Creatives

In the world of arts and creatives, it is very important to put your works out there to be seen and to make a name for yourself.

That is why it would be best to go out there and partner up or collaborate with other reputable artists online. You could promote each other on social media or other platforms but the main goal would be to earn a backlink from them pointing to your website portfolio.

A good number of strong, legitimately earned backlinks are still a strong signal to Google that you are a website worthy of ranking higher.

Key Takeaway

Putting out your artwork online is easy, but making it stand out and getting people’s clicks may be challenging. Keep in mind that SEO is a long game, it could take months or even years of consistency. But once you have got the proper structure, fundamentals, and analytics set-up, you will be driving in a perpetual amount of customers and clients than you’ve ever imagined.

Are you a creative business in need of help with your website’s SEO? Click here so we can do a free website audit for you today!

The post SEO for Creatives: A Guide to Improve Your Online Presence appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

There are a lot of factors that go into creating an SEO-friendly website. Integration of keywords into content, proper use of header tags, optimization of technical factors, and more. Even if you come up with a great strategy, the most important thing is this — the execution. This is where choosing the best CMS for SEO comes in. You want a content management system that allows you to easily customize multiple parts of your site.

In this article, I am going to be sharing with you why I think WordPress is one of the best content management systems for SEO.

Easy To Use Software

First of all, WordPress is extremely easy to use. This is especially the case when it comes to optimizing meta data, alt text, as well as categories & tags. With a few plug-in installations, you can quickly optimize your website by adding important keywords to your pages.

Meta Data

One of the most important things to look at when you do on-page optimization is a page’s metadata. The meta data needs to include the keyword that you want the page to rank for while also being able to accurately describe what is on the page. With WordPress plugins like Yoast SEO, you can easily edit the title tags, meta descriptions, and URLs of each of your pages.

Alt Text

Another factor that you can easily edit in WordPress is a photo’s alt text. As you may already know, alt text helps a search engine’s algorithm understand and decipher what a photo is about. In WordPress, you can input the alt text either before you put the piece of media on the page or after.

Categories & Tags

Lastly, categories and tags. URL structure is important for any website to be successful in terms of SEO. In WordPress, you can easily create new categories and assign the necessary pages to each one. Another way that you can classify your posts is through tags. Tags can help you track more specific pieces of content that revolve around certain topics. Both of these can make your content easier to find and your website easier to navigate through.

Blog-Friendly

Next, let’s talk about content. To create SEO-friendly blogs that can help your website rank for more keywords, there are a certain number of factors that you can optimize. WordPress makes it easy for you to consistently publish customized blogs, which is a good way to keep the freshness of your site.

In terms of technicalities, with WordPress it is easy to adjust your headings from H1, H2, H3, and more. This hierarchy helps Google understand more about the flow of information in your articles.

If you want to manually adjust the theme of your blog, you can switch over to the code section and start editing it there.

In terms of customization, you can also easily bold, underline, or italicize words for emphasis. You can do this with one click of a button or with keyboard shortcuts.

Customizable URLs

Besides content, another important factor to work on in your website is your links. With WordPress, it is easy to create SEO-friendly URLs as all of its URLs are completely customizable. This means that you can easily put your keywords in with no problem.

WordPress also makes interlinking easy as all you need to do is highlight your anchor text, type in Ctrl + K, and immediately a list of all the pages and posts on your website will pop up. You can even type in words to help you find the best page to interlink to. All you need to do is click the appropriate page and your interlink will be good to go.

Plug-In Friendly

If you have other SEO-related tasks that WordPress’ base functions can’t handle, you can also easily download free plug-ins from its store. Not only that, but these plugins are also easy to use as well.

Redirection

If you’re looking to do 301 redirects during your site migration, you can easily download a redirection tool to help you out. You can even do 301 redirects across different domains with it.

Sitemap XML

If you’re looking to set up a new sitemap on your site, you can download the Sitemap XML tool to generate a sitemap for you. With it, you can also choose to manually remove the pages that you’ve labeled as “noindex”.

Schema & Structured Data

And if you’re looking to create custom schema on your pages to improve your rich results, you can download a Schema tool plug-in and easily fill up the ones that you want.

With WordPress being a well-known content management system, plug-ins for all kinds of optimizations are readily available for SEO specialists and digital marketers alike.

Key Takeaway

Now you know some of the reasons why I think WordPress is the best CMS for SEO. It’s easy-to-use, customizable, and plug-in friendly. Execution is not a problem with a content management system that has a high regard for SEO.

Want to share any other ways WordPress has helped improve your efficiency when it comes to optimizing your website? Let me know in the comments section below!

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Video content is possibly one of the most famous platforms today where numerous people spend a lot of their time-consuming content in different mediums. With decent internet and improved video quality being more accessible as the years go by, videos can definitely attract large numbers of traffic from varying sources. 

This is why improving your video’s visibility is a must for SEOs and webmasters. Especially for the ones that use video as their primary content creation platform. It’s apparent that you should put in effort into making your videos more visible on the platforms mentioned, but it is also important for you to try and take advantage of any other platforms that can effectively market your videos. One specific platform would be Search Engines like Google. Although search engines are not primarily used to look for video content, there are keywords/queries that specifically serve video content since it targets the intent of the user, it’s a more convenient form of answering the user’s questions, and sometimes users prefer watching videos over reading text-heavy pages. That said, here’s what you need to know about Video SEO:

What is Video SEO and How is it Different from Traditional SEO

Video SEO is the act of optimizing your videos to help them be more visible in the search engine results for relevant and beneficial keywords/queries to reach a wider audience base. 

Video SEO and traditional SEO is closely related in terms of their goals – having the optimized page or video be more visible in the search results. The primary difference between the two is that instead of optimizing the factors inside a page, you will optimize various details/facets of the video. These facets include the Title, Description, tags, etc.

While having similarities, Video SEO and Youtube SEO are completely different practices wherein video SEO focuses on ranking your videos in search engines while Youtube SEO focuses, as the name suggests, on Youtube rankings.

Video SEO Keywords

The last thing you have to remember before optimizing your videos is you should be targeting relevant and beneficial keywords. This is one of the most important steps in your Video SEO Process since this will be your foundation to improving your video’s search visibility.

What you need to remember when you’re determining which keywords to optimize for is that the keyword’s intent and type of search results that they have should be a perfect match for your video. You can’t expect to rank your video for a keyword that only has web pages in its search results. At the same time, you can’t expect your video to actually perform well while ranking for keywords that serve a different intent. 

Here’s an example:

When you search for the keyword “Bow tie”, the main focus of the search results would be providing web pages that contain useful information about the object. 

But when you search for the keyword “How to tie a bow tie”, the search results drastically change to be filled with a massive video tutorial, images, and other relevant videos. The traditional webpage-heavy search results only start at the bottom of the page.

This means that the keyword “How to tie a bow tie” has search results that focus on video content. So, if you produce videos related to tying a bow tie, then this would be the perfect keyword for you. This is what it means to target the right kind of keywords for your videos. 

This isn’t anything new since search intent has been one of the most talked-about topics in the industry. As seasoned SEOs, we already know not to produce a text-heavy, informative landing page for keywords that primarily display product categories or specific product pages. This has the same thought process with Video SEO keyword research wherein we pick the right kind of keywords to achieve massive success.

Now that we’ve talked about the foundation of Video SEO, let’s talk about the best practices when it comes to optimizing your videos for search:

Video SEO Best Practices

Update older videos

A good first step in optimizing your videos for SEO is to take a look at your older video content. This would help you see what kinds of videos have been successful, along with videos that might be able to gain more traffic despite them being older. This means updating the title and description to include more searchable terms and keywords and even adding relevant links and tags that you might have missed out on before.

On YouTube, updating your video content is pretty simple to do as the editing system makes the process smooth and hassle-free. This is similar to updating older blogs to keep up with current content. While updating the videos themselves might not be an option, adding annotations and links to an updated video would not only bring in new viewers but also lead them into newer content.

Optimize quality

One of the best reasons why people view content is because of how well-made they are. In YouTube, the videos that get the most views are from channels that commit to putting in quality in their production. This means having good audio and video quality, along with solid graphics and images. Creating quality videos is something that may not happen on the very first video but investing your time and effort would bring in better-looking videos that audiences would enjoy.

While some people might think that you would need professional help to create quality videos, it can be done for much less, especially with much of the things that you need to know available on the internet. Content delivery is one of the most crucial elements of driving more views and traffic and making sure that you are able to refine it are ingredients for success.

Taking Advantage of Social Media 

Social media websites have become the best place to share content on the internet. From Twitter to Facebook, sharing content opens up more opportunities to expand your audience and drive more traffic into a website. Over the past few years, Facebook has been optimizing its website to become a more viable video platform, and that saw a rise in views and led to more users. As you can see, in the Google Videos search results, 3 out of the top 5 videos for my passion project, Leadership Stack, are from Facebook:

A lot of major brands have been making use of video content and taking a look at these would help you create quality videos, and also have an idea of what your audience would like to see in their videos. So, take advantage of social media and post your video content there as well.

Integrate them into the rest of your content

Since we’re on the topic of SEO, blog content has always been one of the best ways to drive organic traffic, and this also means that integrating video content can be something that would help both of your platforms gain more traffic. Adding videos add a new dimension to your content, allowing users to learn more about a certain topic, or even bridge different topics together. Blogs and videos allow more users to discover new websites, allowing more traffic and building more potential connections that can prove to be beneficial.

A lot of users want more interactivity in their content and adding videos to give them another dimension while reading. For example, reading a video game review article also has a link to a review video, allowing you to get to analyze the topic from a different perspective. Along with optimizing the user experience, you would also be able more views to your videos, along with bringing in traffic for your articles.

Key Takeaway

Video content has gone a long way since its start and is now one of the biggest platforms used by millions of people around the world. This is why it’s important for you to ensure that you are taking advantage of its popularity. With the help of the definitions and steps above, you would be able to optimize your videos and skyrocket your growth to new heights.

If you have questions and inquiries about video content or SEO, leave a comment below, and let’s talk.

The post Everything You Need to Know About Video SEO in 2021 appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.