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Tuesday, December 3, 2024 | 1PM ET Join E inat Hobbian-Seybold and Paz Dekel for a roundup of 2024s standout SEO releases , from the latest AI solutions to enhanced accessibility features —and get an exclusive sneak peek at what’s to come in 2025.  In this webinar, we’ll cover:  The highlights of 2024's SEO releases How to get the most out of the latest solutions  Upcoming product releases for 2025 Meet your hosts: Einat Hoobian-Seybold Head of Product, SEO & A11y, Wix Einat began her SEO career by developing organic strategies for top global brands and later discovered her love for product development. As the Head of Product for Wix SEO, Einat builds impactful products that make SEO accessible and approachable to more than 200M users around the world. X | LinkedIn Paz Dekel SEO Product Manager, Wix After working in marketing at a fintech, Shira joined Wix to build products that help users promote their business. As a Product Manager for SEO, Shira’s focus is twofold; she develops products that streamline workflows for professional SEOs while also making SEO more accessible to DIY users. LinkedIn Mordy Oberstein Head of SEO Branding, Wix In addition to leading SEO Branding at Wix, Mordy also serves as a communications advisor for Semrush. Dedicated to SEO education, Mordy is an organizer of SEOchat and a popular industry author and speaker. Tune in to hear him on Wix’s SEO podcast SERP’s Up, as well as Edge of the Web. X | LinkedIn Crystal Carter Head of SEO Communications, Wix Crystal is an SEO and digital marketing professional with over 15 years of experience. Her global business clients have included Disney, McDonalds and Tomy. An avid SEO Communicator, her work has been featured at Google Search Central, brightonSEO, Moz, Lumar (DeepCrawl), Semrush and more. X | LinkedIn

Author: Petra Kis-Herczegh How do you set a five-year plan when you don’t know what the industry will look like in six months? Even at the conference level of the SEO industry, expert speakers regularly have to update their presentations to account for the latest updates. Job descriptions are constantly shifting, requiring SEOs to cover more within their skillset, from creative copywriting to engineering machine learning algorithms and prompting AI tools. So, how do you keep up to date with it all?  The answer is simple—become really good at learning—but the execution requires attention to detail. Whether that’s learning to adapt, learning from others, learning from your own mistakes, or learning how you learn best, this process should be the first thing on your mind when you think of career development. In this article, I’m going to cover some key elements you can start focusing on to kickstart your career progression. In each category, experts from the industry have weighed in to share their experience. Table of contents: Lead with your transferable skills Optimize learning through self-efficacy Build an authentic personal brand Use your interpersonal skills to invest in relationships Don’t try to fix people problems with technology Reflect on your progress and reinforce what works Lead with your transferable skills “You don’t have to know what you want to do in two years’ time. Actually, that kind of rigidity can make you miss opportunities in front of you. Like life, careers are fluid. You might start in SEO but find you build skills that move you into analytics, performance marketing, product, development, or more. You'll learn more by diversifying and leaning into your strongest skills instead of chasing a constant linear progression.” — Samantha Verge, Marketing Manager at PitPat   Embracing lifelong learning is the most beneficial thing you can do to continuously progress your career. Generally speaking, the most effective approach for this is to start with your existing, transferable skills. If you ask experienced SEOs whether they ‘wanted’ to learn Google Analytics 4  (GA4), most would tell you that they didn’t, but oftentimes we just don’t have a choice. In times like this, a strong understanding of your transferable skills is extremely useful.  Let’s say you’re tasked to recreate SEO reports from Universal Analytics (UA) in GA4 .  If you have strong analytical skills,  you might want to start your learning by exploring the new metrics, how they are collected, and how they are grouped. If you’re familiar with learning and exploring new databases, you might find that this approach makes it much easier to create new reports (compared to creating exact replicas of UA reports). Or, if you’re more user- and solution-minded,  you could start by noting the purpose of each report and the problem(s) they solve, and then start your learning by exploring how GA4 can answer those very same questions. However, it’s hard to tell what’s hype and what’s here to stay when it comes to digital marketing skills, and skills can become requirements almost overnight. When that happens, you have two options:  Accept, adapt, and learn the skills required to continue on your path. Shift your career towards the things you enjoy learning about.  Either way, learning is required, which is why it helps to understand a little bit more about how we, as people, learn. Imagine your brain as an air traffic network. The airlines represent your expertise in different areas and the routes are the skills required. Routes in high demand will become more efficient, while routes that are no longer required might get abandoned. Imagine what has to happen when there’s suddenly a demand for new skills. That’s learning. When picking up a new skill, it’s best to initially lean on your existing, transferable skills—in our air traffic example (above), that means relying on existing routes. Perhaps going directly from A to B requires a lot more investment than to use existing routes to go from A to C and then C to B.  There’s certainly more than one way to learn new job skills, but no matter how you choose to approach it, weigh out your motivation, the investment you’re willing to make, and the transferable skills that can help you get there. Optimize your learning through self-efficacy “It was humbling to begin my SEO career in my thirties at such a junior level, and imposter syndrome was a big factor. Initially, I constantly reminded myself that I had been successful in both of my previous careers (as a teacher and journalist) and that both required continuous learning—something I had done many times before and knew I would have to do countless times again in my life. So, I leaned in and eventually minor successes gave me the confidence to take on bigger responsibilities, and now I’ve managed my own SEO publication for over two years.” — George Nguyen , Editor-in-Chief, Wix SEO Learning Hub To better understand your motivations, the investment required and your transferable skills, you need to understand self-efficacy (i.e., your belief in your capacity to execute the behaviors necessary to reach a specific level of performance, according to the APA ) .  Self-efficacy is basically your confidence in what you know and what you can learn. They go hand-in-hand: learning improves self-efficacy and self-efficacy improves learning.  The connection between these concepts can play out in two distinct ways: Self-limiting beliefs  — This refers to when your low self-efficacy prevents you from learning something new. Let’s say you want to apply for a job but, after reading the job description, you feel unqualified, and so you don’t apply. Obviously, that means you won’t go through the interview process and you definitely won’t get the job, which means you lost out on a learning experience as well as potential a job offer. Buck this pattern by shifting your mindset to focus on the process. There are also a number of factors that could help you conquer self-limiting beliefs, such as peer support and external demands. You might have someone refer you for a role you otherwise wouldn’t have applied for. Whether you get the job or not, the process should yield some useful feedback that you can learn from. Self-fulfilling beliefs  — Eventually, as you undergo more learning experiences, your self-efficacy improves, and the process becomes smoother and less intimidating. If required digital marketing skills keep changing every year, then the only way to keep up is to ensure your self-efficacy serves you well. It’s similar to how you need to understand the business you’re working for in order to come up with an effective SEO strategy . The better you understand how things work (and how you  work), the environment you are operating in, and the people you work with, the more effective you will become despite Google updates  and market shifts. It takes self awareness, self discovery, and a good amount of reflection to accurately judge what skills are relevant for your career. Page experience, NFTs, generative AI—there’s always hype around what’s new in digital marketing, but don’t get distracted—make sure to consider your own unique personality and confidence as a key factor for prioritization, because that’s what self-efficacy is. Build an authentic personal brand People often think building a personal brand is all about ‘raising your profile’ and becoming known in your industry, which can be a part of it, but is this really why you should do it?  Azeem Ahmad on stage at MozCon 2024. Just like branding for businesses, your personal brand needs consistency, so it’s important to define why you’re building your personal brand.  If you think of personal branding within the role of career progression, the goal is to form meaningful connections because these will help open up relevant opportunities. Whether that’s an opportunity to learn something new, support someone else’s progression, find your next role, or even to start a business with someone. The keyword here is relevance —which, as an SEO, you should already be very familiar with.  Personal branding is not about the spotlight—it’s about genuine connection with others. “In the beginning, I didn't understand the true importance of crafting a distinct personal brand. It has allo wed me to build relationships and improve my speaking and networking skills in public, whilst in private I focus on sharpening my tactical skills. This has really helped push my career forward. So, my words of advice for anyone reading this, and thinking about it is to put effort into building that personal brand. Share your expertise, connect with your audience across various platforms, and don't be afraid to admit when you get things wrong and be prepared to learn from others. This has really helped push my career forward.” — Azeem Ahmad, Digital Marketing Consultant & Podcast Host, Azeem Digital Asks Try things that help you connect with others in the industry. These could (but doesn’t necessarily have to) include: Speaking at industry events Hosting a podcast Participating in industry conversations on social platforms,  Contributing to blogs (or starting your own) to share expertise Engage in company initiatives that resonate with you or suggest initiatives that don’t exist today but might be a good way to connect with likeminded people in the industry. Join communities and participate in them, or even create your own. Share, empower, support, and ask for support.  This could also be something on a smaller scale, but much more relevant to your direct environment, such as creating a workshop within your company to share a useful skill or presenting the result of your work to the wider team or department. There are so many different ways to build your personal brand, but no matter how you approach it, make sure that it resonates and works for you (because, again, personal branding is about being genuine to who you are). “ At the start of my career, I thought that being knowledgeable about and skilled in all areas of SEO and beyond, (e.g., coding), would be absolutely necessary for progression, however with time I realized that an understanding is of course needed but it is better to find your strengths and focus on that. Whether that leads you to specializing in tech SEO, following a leadership route, or one of the newer paths (maybe becoming an SEO product manager). Whatever you choose, one thing is clear: purely having hard skills will not be enough. You need to work on your soft skills too.” — Vanda Pokecz, SEO Lead, Global Savings Group Use your interpersonal skills to invest in relationships  Finding it hard to learn something new? A supportive community (or just a friend) cheering you on can make a huge difference. Trying to get recommendations implemented for a technical project ? You’ll need the trust and support of your stakeholders and decision-makers. Want to get promoted? Start by assessing the impact you currently make on the people around you. At the end of the day (or quarter), when it comes to your promotion it’s still going to be people making those decisions—not algorithms. “ Human connections matter just as much as technical skills. Initially, I prioritized expertise, thinking it was the key. However, I've come to see that people want to work with those they genuinely enjoy being around—not just someone competent. The skills get you in the door for the interview; how you relate to others determines if you will thrive or not. SEO is a highly collaborative discipline requiring close coordination across teams. No matter how bright someone is, if coworkers find them difficult or demotivating, it influences how the project is going to go.” — Myriam Jessier, Co-founder of Neurospicy Agency Interpersonal skills, often also referred to as ‘soft skills,’ are an essential part of any role.  Soft skills include empathy, listening, communication, storytelling, leadership, critical thinking, and other skills that help you interact effectively with others. The main goal of soft skills is to improve your connections. So it’s no surprise that it’s one of the crucial things to focus on when thinking about career progression. Are you considering becoming a team lead in the future? Make sure to start emphasizing the people element of the role, because being a successful leader means you’re able to empower your team and help them grow. “Initially, I did not place enough value on my soft skills. I was focused on developing my technical skills, I even contemplated learning to code (massive lol). In the end, it was my soft skills that really highlighted my value as a manager. My ability to coach and mentor others, instilling confidence and fostering growth, proved invaluable. Additionally, skills such as driving commercial outcomes, educating stakeholders on the value of SEO, and upselling were also key to career progression.” — Miracle Inameti-Archibong, Head of Organic Search, John Lewis Finance Soft skills also come in handy when securing buy-in. While data might convince your stakeholders about your project, I’m going to bet that you won’t get the buy-in you need if you haven’t built respect and credibility through connections. When I asked Travis Tallent, VP of SEO at Brainlabs about his biggest surprise learning in SEO, he said: “Getting buy-in from colleagues. My first agency experience was quite competitive (in a friendly way), and it built a ‘me vs. them’ mentality. This led to me avoiding folks who I didn't enjoy working with. In my subsequent career moves, I realized that winning influence ultimately means building close relationships—even with folks who aren't natural fits for you—and understanding what motivates them. I've found that when I can align their goals with my goals, it's a win-win for everyone. Beyond, being kind is always the nicest thing to do in any situation and that’s an easy way to eventually win people over.” — Travis Tallent, VP of SEO, Brainlabs Connections impact you, your projects, and your career progression. We all know professional achievements are great for career progression, but it’s often overlooked that in order to do the work that gets you to an achievement, your colleagues need to at least respect you enough to want you to succeed. Don’t try to fix people problems with technology “As a tech SEO, working directly with engineering means more work may be implemented, resulting in more trust, more wins, more revenue. But also: working with amazing engineers likely means you are learning to work through their process. Having a functional framework for logical problem solving, testing, iterating… that can be transformative in terms of what work you do and how impactful it is!” — Tory Gray, CEO of Gray Dot Your greatest ideas are worth nothing if they cannot (or simply just won’t) get implemented. Execution through smooth and successful implementation is crucial to success and you want to approach this as a process rather than something you have to ad-hoc fight for every time you need to get something across the finish line. You have to understand that no matter how much data you have to back something up, if there’s a people-problem in the process, issues won’t go away with technical solutions. They can only get fixed through human connections.   Do you have site changes going live without sign-off, negatively impacting your SEO? Are devs not following the process you advocated for? No matter how much more money you throw at fancy tools or creating decks on how things are supposed to work, unless you go and talk to the development team and work on those relationships, initiatives will continue to fail. Avoid siloing and make sure to develop relationships with your stakeholders. Listen and learn with the purpose of understanding others’ perspectives, goals and motivations. Reflect on your progress and reinforce what works  We are at the end of an extensive list of advice you should consider testing and implementing in your day-to-day. And while testing implies that you should be taking feedback, I couldn’t leave you without emphasizing how important it is to reflect on your progress and use the feedback as an opportunity to reinforce what works (and reevaluate what doesn’t). This step can be so easy to overlook, especially when you are in high-stress or fast-paced environments. As SEOs, we often try new things and move on to the next without taking the necessary time to reflect. But if you remember that learning is a process that you optimize through self-efficacy, you can also learn to take a critical eye to your progress. This will help you build that authentic personal brand that’s so helpful in forging meaningful connections and cultivating a mindset that is always ready to adapt to whatever the industry throws at you. Petra Kis-Herczegh - SEO Consultant   Petra is an SEO consultant  with a background of working in-house for B2C & B2B brands, TUI, Jack Wills, as well as enterprise software brands, Yext, and Botify. She is also an international conference speaker. Twitter  | Linkedin

Updated: March 23, 2023 Author: Crystal Carter The new Wix Edit by Page feature allows site owners to review, monitor, and edit their pages’ meta tags , URL slug, indexability, and more, all from one place in the Wix Dashboard. Currently available for main pages and product pages (with more pages to come), this update is a game-changer for Wix users, allowing them to make adjustments to important aspects of their SEO on Wix efficiently and effectively. In this article, we’ll discuss: Getting started with the Wix SEO Settings Edit by Page feature How to make edits using the Edit by Page feature Examples of ways to use the Edit by Page feature to improve SEO on your Wix site Edit by Page release notes Getting started with the Wix Edit by Page feature The Wix SEO Settings Edit by Page feature shows an overview of your default settings and configurations for multiple pages, all within a single dashboard (shown below). To navigate to this feature, go to the Wix Dashboard and select Marketing & SEO > SEO Tools > SEO Settings , then choose either Main pages , Products , or Events and select the Edit by Page tab. From here, you can monitor and update various aspects of your SEO setup with speed and ease, while viewing at-a-glance details that can help you make more informed SEO decisions. Understanding the Edit by Page table The Edit by Page feature displays information about your pages ( title tag , meta description , URL slug, and indexability) in a searchable and sortable table. For main pages , you will also see a column for the Page name (as shown below). In these same settings, you will instead see a column for Product name and Event name for their respective page types. The table offers you insights into your overall SEO approach and can be toggled (by clicking on the column label) to sort columns alphabetically, reverse alphabetically, or by indexability. Below are some definitions that will help you navigate the Edit by Page table: Column Details Product name This column lists the name of each of the products that are showing in your online store . If a product is not listed here, it may be hidden. Page name This column lists all of the names of pages (as defined in the Wix Editor ) that have been created on your site. Event name ​This column lists all of the names of all published event pages on your site (both previous and current). Draft and deleted events are not visible here. Page URL Click ⓘ (in the column header) to review your default URL format for your pages. Title tag ​This column lists the title tags associated with your main pages. Click ⓘ (in the column header) to review your default title tag settings. From this popup, you can also click the Customize default link to edit your default title tag elements. Meta description This column shows a preview of the meta description associated with each main page. Mousing over the preview will show you the full meta description. Click ⓘ on your meta description column, then click Customize default to review your meta description defaults or update them. Indexable ​This column shows pages that can be indexed and displayed in search results. If there is a minus sign, then indexing has been turned off for this page and/or the product has been marked as hidden in your store. If the page shows a checkmark, then it can be crawled by search engines. Click the column header to sort your pages by indexable or not indexable. Each row of the table represents a main page or product page, and shows additional information for the associated page (details for both published and saved pages are shown). Click on elements of the table for additional information or to take steps to edit your page. The example images in the table below reference the screenshot above. Column Capabilities Example Page name Review the live page name (as defined in the Wix Editor ) for this page. This might not be the same as the page title. Page URL ​See the current URL slug for your page or click the link to visit the published page. Title tag ​View a preview of your title tag. Hover over the text to see the complete title tag as a popup (as shown in the image to the right). Meta description View a preview of your meta description. Hover over the text to see the complete meta description as a popup (as shown in the image to the right). Indexability ​For each page you will see a minus sign or a checkmark. If your page has a checkmark, then it can be crawled by search engines. If your page has a minus sign, then it cannot be crawled. Hover over the minus sign to access a popup with instructions on how to change your indexability (pictured right). You can also use the search bar (shown below) to query the content of any column and find relevant phrases or terms. How to make edits via Edit by Page To take action from the Edit by Page screen, hover over the row for the page you would like to edit and click the three dots on the far right (as shown below). From here, you have the option to Edit, Go to page info , or View live page : Edit — This opens the SEO Settings panel for the selected page. Go to page info — This opens Wix Editor for the selected page so that you can update designs, copy, and more. View live page — This opens the page, as users see it, in your browser. Pages that are not indexable are viewable from this link, but will not be crawled by search engines. Using the SEO Settings panel When you select Edit on a given page, the SEO Settings panel for that page will appear on the right-hand side of the dashboard (as shown below). This panel includes editable fields for your SEO settings, with tabs for SEO basics , Social share and Advanced settings . Previously, this panel was only accessible from the Wix Editor, but now you can make and save edits without having to open the Editor. Edits made and saved here will show on the Edit by page (or Edit by product , if you’re working on your product pages) table immediately and will also be updated on the site. After you’ve made your desired edits, click the Publish button to save and implement them. Then, click the X in the top-right of the panel to return to the table, where you can select another page to optimize. Working this way, you can implement changes to improve the SEO on your Wix website more quickly (as opposed to manually opening the settings for each page, one by one). Examples: Using the Edit by page feature to improve SEO on your Wix website Seeing crucial details about your main pages’ optimizations on a single table allows you to make more coherent decisions to improve your SEO. As an example, here are a few SEO tactics that you can implement effectively on your Wix website with the Edit by page feature. 01. Add keywords to your SEO meta tags Holistically considering your keyword profile can greatly benefit SEO sitewide. Because you can search all the content within the Edit by page table, you can easily check how prevalent certain keywords are across your SEO meta tags. For instance, if you were looking to optimize for a specific keyword or topic cluster , then you would be able to see how often this keyword shows on your site’s URLs, title tags, and meta descriptions with a single query. This information can allow you to prioritize which keywords you might need to improve or which keywords you might need to consider. In terms of ranking in search results, pages that are optimized for the same keywords may be more difficult for Google to interpret as distinct content. So, you may wish to add more variety to the terms across your site so that each page has a unique keyword topic or intent focus . In the case of a website about space travel, for instance, some pages may need to be optimized for the topic/keyword astronauts , but we might also consider optimizing pages for related terms, like space explorer and space traveler , and even drill down into long tail keywords that include space organizations (like NASA) or specific relevant events (like the Space Shuttle launches). 02. Write relevant title tags for your website When you review your title tags via the Edit by page table, you can see check to see if they: Use a clear pattern that makes it easy for users and Google to understand your content Accurately reflect the content of each page and your site overall Each include a relevant, unique keyword for the page Have the optimal length of approximately 60 characters By viewing all of your title tags in a single table, you can check for errors, issues, or inconsistencies that are repeated across the site. If this is the case, then you can take steps to optimize the title tags on your site. 03. Create unique meta descriptions to support search Sort your meta descriptions alphabetically (by clicking on the associated column header) to identify duplicates that could make it more difficult for Google to understand that your pages are distinct. Doing so can help users better understand your content in search engine results pages. Meta descriptions often show in Google, so taking time to make them unique can improve click-through rate and may potentially contribute to improved performance in search. 04. Ensure your most important pages are indexed Indexing is one of the most important steps in making sure that your content performs well on search engines. Pages that are still in draft and products that are not listed on your site should not be indexable. Conversely, it’s important to ensure that your most important pages are indexed and can be seen by search engines. The Edit by page feature gives you a quick and easy look at which pages you have set for indexing or have blocked from crawling. This table is a great place to start understanding which pages you have made available to Google (or other search engines) and pairs well with Wix’s Site Inspection tool to help manage your crawl. 05. Fine-tune your automated and default SEO settings In the Edit by page table, you can see your default settings for automated meta descriptions and titles, as well as the page-by-page implementation (shown in each row). This means that you can quickly assess if your automations work well or should be adjusted. For instance, you might want to consider creating unique meta descriptions or customizing your SEO defaults if you see multiple pages where the meta descriptions: Do not follow natural language patterns or don't make sense Generate meta descriptions that exceed the 500-character field limit Improve your SEO with Wix’s built-in tools The Edit by Page feature compiles crucial SEO details for your pages in one table, giving you the information you need to take quick action as well as the ability to do so without having to open up the Wix Editor and select individual pages. But, SEO is an ongoing process and there’s even more you can do to further your SEO gains. Explore the SEO Hub to learn more about how to optimize your site pages and make use of the full suite of Wix SEO Tools . Edit by Page release notes May 2023: Edit by Page feature opens to English-language users for Wix Blog pages. February 2023: Edit by Page feature opens on Wix to global users for Main Pages, Wix Events, and Wix Stores Product Pages. January 2023: Edit by Page feature opens on Wix to English-language users for Wix Events pages. November 2022: Edit by Page feature opens on Wix to English-language users for Main Pages and Product Pages. Crystal Carter - Head of SEO Communications, Wix Crystal is an SEO & digital marketing professional with over 15 years of experience. Her global business clients have included Disney, McDonalds, and Tomy. An avid SEO communicator, her work has been featured at Google Search Central, Brighton SEO, Moz, DeepCrawl, Semrush, and more. Twitter | Linkedin

Last updated: 23 February 2024 Author: Matthew L. Kaminsky Once you know who and what your site is for , you can start thinking about how its SEO, structure, and content can be used to benefit your audience and achieve your business goals. All websites aim to drive conversions. Whether you want people to sign up as a client, buy a product, or visit a physical location is up to you. Your website should be built to suit the needs of your particular business. What are SMART SEO goals? The SMART framework is a goal setting method designed to create more actionable aims and objectives by ensuring that each goal is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound. Examples of SMART Goals for SEO When working on projects, laying out your targets, KPIs and SEO reporting , SEO lends itself really well to the SMART framework because each plan of activity should be carried out in response to a business need that is demonstrable with data. You can use SMART objectives on your website growth strategy by ensuring that each SEO recommendation shows: Specific area of the site, conversion metric, or behavior that you wish to impact Means of measuring the effect of your marketing Confirmation that you have the tools and resources to achieve your desired outcome Clear relevance of the SEO goals with the business goals Estimated time to complete and see an improvement from the work Taking this approach can help you turn a general SEO goal into a SMART SEO Goal. Here are some examples of how you can convert a general goal into a SMART goal in SEO: General Goal SMART Goal Improve mobile performance During Q3, we will increase traffic and revenue from mobile users by improving the number of product pages which are optimized for rich results. Increase traffic from local audiences Next month, we will increase user visits to location landing page, from GBP by optimizing the GBP profile. Improve indexing Over the next 3 months we will optimize the product feed to increase the percentage of live product pages which are indexed by Google. Setting up your site to drive your goals Your website is a key component in your digital marketing activity  and understanding how it can be used to drive your overall business goals is important. You need to consider site structure, content, and also how people use search engines to find your web pages . The way your site is configured will help you understand which goals are achievable and relevant to your business. Structure your site with the sales funnel in mind The sales funnel is a basic marketing concept. It is all about a buyer’s journey from their first interaction with your brand right through to the point where they take action. The top of the sales funnel is all about introducing a broad audience to your brand. Further down the funnel, you’ll lose some users but others will move through to conversion—that’s why the funnel slims toward the bottom. How many people eventually convert will depend on how effective your website’s content and structure are, among other factors. When choosing your site structure, you need to create intuitive navigation so users can find what they’re looking for. In addition to an easy-to-use menu bar, every page on your website should feature a call-to-action(CTA) , which moves people along your sales funnel toward conversion. Keep in mind that your website visitors won’t necessarily land on your homepage and go from there. Google will lead them to whatever page is most relevant to their search terms. So, think of every page as a landing page , or potential entry point into your sales funnel. Plan & measure content for different stages of the sales funnel When choosing content for your website, keep in mind that certain types of web pages relate to different parts of the buyer’s journey. If someone lands on a “How to” blog post, you shouldn’t go straight for a hard sales pitch. That visitor is probably still in the awareness phase and not ready to buy. So, this is the time to be helpful, supportive, and make a lasting impression. To nurture your new lead, you could include a CTA that encourages further reading or a newsletter signup. This way, you’ll be the first brand they think of when they are looking for products or services in your industry. On the other hand, someone reading a product page is probably further down the sales funnel. Whether they’ve browsed your site to get here or arrived directly from search results, they may be ready to make a purchase. So, this is where some impressive, sales-focused information will be useful for both your users and your business. People visit certain pages for certain reasons. When considering your SMART objectives for SEO, paying attention to what is measurable at each stage of the funnel will help you to benchmark and attribute your goals to something tangible. Equally, data on the length of the sales cycle will help you to gauge what is achievable across a few weeks or a few months. If you’re in tune with your users and cater to their needs, it will be easier to create content that leads to conversion and fulfills your goals. Account for search intent As it turns out, a buyer’s journey through the sales funnel largely corresponds with a user’s search intent . So, if you cater your content to suit the needs of your users at various stages of the journey, you’ll optimize both your sales funnel and your search rankings. Different pages on your website should correspond to different search and keyword intents , and this intent will depend on where the customer is in the buyer journey. For example, if someone types “How to make pancakes” into Google, the intent behind their search is likely to be informational. So, they probably don’t want a product page or a sales pitch disguised as a recipe—these types of content are more appropriate for searches with a commercial research or transactional intent. Considering the needs and requirements of your audience can help you set targets that are specific and highly targeted for the user. How do you know if a website is successful? Tracking certain metrics will empower you to gauge the performance of your website over time and help you identify what’s working and what needs improvement. These metrics are known as key performance indicators (KPIs) and, in addition to linking your website and your business goals, they convey how successful your marketing activities are. What are examples of KPIs based on SMART SEO Goals? The website and SEO goals and KPIs you choose will depend on your specific goals, but they should always be: Specific to your website’s configuration Measurable with your SEO and marketing tools Achievable with resources you currently have or can attain Relevant to the success of your company Deliverable in a timely manner Associating KPIs with each stage of the sales funnel will help you identify which parts of your website are contributing toward your company’s success, as well as which areas need work. Example SEO KPIs for the top of the sales funnel (ToFu) SEO is a great way to reach people who are unaware of your business and start them on the buyer’s journey. If your ToFu goals includes using SEO content to drive traffic to the website with awareness raising content like targeted blogs, videos and guides, then the following KPIs can indicate growing awareness of your business: Search rankings: Tracking how search engines rank your content over time can help you identify whether your brand is trending towards more or less visibility. Generally speaking, the higher the ranking, the more impressions you’ll receive, which usually translates to greater brand awareness. Organic traffic: This is the number of visitors that come to your website from Google’s search results. Number of new visitors: If this number is high and growing, it’s a sign that your strategy for building awareness is working. Example SEO KPIs to track the middle of the sales funnel (MoFu) Once people are aware of your business, you want to engage their interest. During this stage you may be investing time in your SEO content strategy to improve you E-E-A-T with trust building content on your home page, about page, and profile pages for experts in your team. Since your goals will be to build engagement, your KPIs show signals that visitors are moving toward conversion: Number of returning visitors: This will tell you how effective your website is at building and retaining an audience online. Pages per session: The average number of pages someone looks at during their visit provides an important gauge of how engaging your website’s content is. If this is low, you may need to look at improving your website’s structure, navigation, and CTAs. Email signups: Trackable in Google Analytics, this KPI can be an indicator of how engaging and helpful your blog content is. If this is a CTA anywhere on your website, this is an important KPI to track. Branded search volume: The number of times your company name is searched each month indicates how many people know about and are interested in your business. If this is increasing, you’re doing a good job. This metric is available in most keyword tools. Alternatively, you can use Google Trends to keep track. Example SEO KPIs to track the bottom of the sales funnel (BoFu) At the bottom of the sales funnel, your leads are ready to convert. This is usually the part that directly advances your business goals. Depending on your website, users may make a purchase, contact your sales team, get a quote or book an appointment. So, these are the KPIs to track: Leads and Form submissions: The number of incoming submissions tells you about how successful your website is in building trust and guiding users toward conversion. Average Order Value:  As a site-wide metric this can indicate if your customers are engaged with your campaigns, see you as a trustworthy brand, and help you to determine the expected return on additional marketing channels like PPC. Conversion rates:  Track the percentage of users who purchase, subscribe, or enroll via organic search channels. A higher conversion rate indicates that your marketing funnel is working well. Purchases: High sales volumes can signal great content and navigation. Shopping cart abandonment:  This shows how many people leave your website in the middle of filling out a form or making a purchase. If this is too high, it may indicate that the process is too complicated. When measuring the value of your ecommerce website , monitoring abandoned carts can help you to create actionable campaigns to achieve your overall business goals. You don’t have to track all of these KPIs, but it's a good idea to regularly monitor some from each stage of the sales funnel. This will provide a succinct and simple overview of your website’s progress, without weighing you down with hefty reports.  Adopting a SMART approach to SEO goal setting When setting out to achieve your SEO goals building a solid SMART approach can help you to get great results for clients and to empower your team. Whether you are working with an SEO agency, or carrying out SEO work in-house having clear, data backed objectives from the start will help you throughout the lifetime of the project. Matthew Kaminsky - Wix SEO expert and online instructor Matthew is responsible for SEO education initiatives at Wix, helping people increase their sites’ visibility on search engines with SEO. Twitter | LinkedIn

Author: Aleyda Solis Making technical SEO recommendations for your C-suite and getting them implemented can be two distinct endeavors. For the latter, identifying areas to improve isn’t enough—the real challenge is in obtaining buy-in from the teammates responsible for carrying out your recommendations (often the web development and design teams). Having worked with companies across the world over the last 15+ years, I’ve picked up many lessons on how to overcome stumbling blocks and hurdles to ensure that my recommendations translate into real performance and search visibility improvements.  Let’s look at some of those lessons and how you can put them to use to get your recommendations across the finish line. Table of contents: Set the foundations for partnership with devs and product stakeholders Understand the goals and workflows of other stakeholders Create a technical SEO knowledge base Communicate regularly with external teammates Strengthen communication for better implementation and outcomes Explain how each task impacts KPIs Approach collaboration with flexibility Communicate wins—not just issues Prioritize your technical SEO recommendations Avoid fixing every SEO issue flagged by tools Start with the tasks that are most impactful and easiest to implement Avoid using proprietary third-party metrics in your reporting Validate technical SEO execution Define how you’ll measure progress Test before you publish Validate recommendations and agree on an execution timeline Set the foundations for a successful partnership with devs and product stakeholders Getting your technical SEO recommendations implemented often involves working with multidisciplinary teams: developer, product, design, and content stakeholders, and those who manage the website product, infrastructure, and marketing. To be successful here, you will need to: Understand not only your own goals, but also the goals for all involved stakeholders and the business overall Effectively communicate the importance of SEO recommendations to achieve these goals Agree on the technical SEO resources and execution timeline to develop SEO recommendations Maintain robust lines of communication for efficient coordination and successful execution Understand the web development, product, and design teams’ workflows and goals  Aligning SEO with the aims and objectives of your web development, design, and product teams helps keep everyone on the same page. This will enable you to identify the best way to prioritize SEO needs and create a plan of action with your counterparts from other teams that keeps everyone on track and moving in the same direction. For example, if the web development team works in sprints, knowing how long each sprint is can help you coordinate reasonable goals for each one. Create a technical SEO knowledge base for your teammates Develop an “SEO knowledge base” for the company by curating/creating webinars, guides, checklists,  etc.   based on what you found in your site audit. Use this to evangelize to the web development, product, and design teams at the beginning of the process, as well as to create easy-to-reference resources during the ongoing SEO validation workflow. The more they know about what you do and the reasons behind it, the more likely they’ll be willing to help. This is why it’s fundamental to go beyond the identified challenges and opportunities by including the level of criticality these have towards goals.  Communicate regularly with external teammates From the start, set a fluid communication workflow with the teams you will be collaborating with to implement the SEO recommendations.  Agree on recurrent calls and follow-ups for major alignment, clarify complex questions, and ongoing reporting. The frequency of these calls and follow-ups will depend on the speed of the implementation, although this is typically set for once per week or every two weeks.  Establish a collaboration channel or platform (like Monday or Asana) for ongoing project management to facilitate asynchronous communication and resolve non-complex but urgent blockers without waiting for the next weekly meeting. Strengthen communication for better implementation and outcomes One way to enhance communication is to treat other stakeholders like they’re an extension of your own team. This means: Explaining the connection between various tasks and associated key performance indicators (KPIs) Maintaining flexibility when collaborating with other teams Recognizing and communicating wins Explain how each task impacts KPIs Whenever you report about the site’s technical SEO status or evolution over time, remember to explain the importance of each SEO issue with regard to the website’s rankings and, ultimately, revenue. This reiterates for stakeholders and C-suite alike the importance of a given recommendation to the business’s bottom line, which may help you get your recommendations implemented faster. If the technical SEO status isn’t evolving as expected, detail the reason behind this while providing alternative solutions to solve it, along with the resources needed to achieve the associated SEO goal. Approach collaboration with flexibility If you get technical pushback due to a lack of viability or resources to execute your SEO recommendations, communicate with your external teammates to identify alternatives or workarounds to achieve similar results.  There may be other tools or methods that you can use to achieve a similar result. For instance, you may not be able to get access to edit the of the site pages for hreflang implementation, but instead, you can establish the automated generation of an XML sitemap featuring the required hreflang annotation.  This is why it’s important to communicate the expected outcome of each recommendation and ask the development team for input (leveraging their knowledge and experience) to establish alternatives together that are both feasible and easier to support and scale.  Communicate wins—not just issues Don’t just focus on your technical SEO recommendation’s status. Make sure to recognize milestones and achievements, and everyone involved in accomplishing them.  This helps keep teammates motivated and the recognition can be important internally, especially when managers need to know where their teams are investing their time. Prioritize your technical SEO recommendations It’s unrealistic to include every potential optimization on your list of recommendations (and it wouldn’t be very cost-efficient to the business or respectful to the other teammates responsible for implementation). To present an achievable plan, you’ll need to: Identify the SEO issues worth resolving based on SEO goals aligned with other stakeholders and areas of the business. Focus on recommendations that can be traced to actual goals and universal metrics, instead of proprietary third-party metrics. Prioritize your SEO recommendations to start executing the easiest, most impactful actions. Don’t try to fix every SEO issue flagged by tools SEO tools can provide you with an extensive list of website elements to optimize, but those tasks don’t all carry the same weight for your specific site optimization needs. This will depend on your own business context and goals. That’s why it’s fundamental to assess each of the issues and opportunities identified in your SEO audit , analysis, and research. Take the greater context of your website into account and consider whether these issues are actually hurting important queries, page rankings, or, ultimately, your expected goals in a meaningful way. Then prioritize them accordingly  within your existing SEO action plan.  Start with the tasks that are most impactful and easiest to implement When sharing your prioritized SEO recommendations, start with the most impactful and easiest to implement. Explain: The importance and expected impact of each recommendation Why it should also be a priority for the web development, product, or design teams The benefits the recommendation will bring to the website, the teams involved, and/or the business overall  Explaining your recommendations in these terms will help you align teams and efforts according to the greatest potential benefit for your business, which should reflect well on all involved. Avoid using proprietary third-party metrics in your reporting New metrics—particularly proprietary third-party metrics—can confuse your C-suite and non-SEO stakeholders. In addition, the SEO tools  you rely on may change over time—sometimes as a result of new technical needs, other times as a result of internal business needs. Instead, focus on monitoring your SEO status and report  using meaningful metrics that you can easily obtain through multiple sources to showcase your site’s evolution and achievements on an ongoing basis.  Taking this into account, identify the different SEO metrics you’ll monitor (and need to communicate progress of) through multiple data sources. Doing this will also help to validate your recommendation prioritization, ensuring that each task can be traced consistently with meaningful metrics, like:  Crawlability  Indexability Ranked pages Ranked queries Average position Clicks Conversions Revenue from organic search Validate technical SEO execution Verifying that SEO-related dev requests or tickets have been correctly implemented is a crucial step towards the desired outcome during SEO execution. From website security fixes  to validating structured data , you need to be able to confirm the outcome status of SEO-related technical updates.  Define how you’ll measure progress Remember that on one hand, you have those metrics you want to track to monitor your SEO efforts over time. But on the other hand, you also have metrics that will allow you to report on the progress of SEO execution and goals. Each stakeholder will likely want to answer different types
of questions about SEO progress, so the KPIs to track and report on should also be agreed on.  The KPIs tend to be more or less technical, depending on the role, specific interests within the project, and goals. “If it’s meaningful, then it can be measured,” said Jamie Indigo , director of technical SEO at Cox Automotive.  “What is a quantifiable metric? Are there multiple?” Indigo said, recommending that SEOs contextualize and weight these metrics appropriately when gauging performance changes. “In some cases, there’s a direct artifact (like when Google sees the tag!) and a longer term metric (that measures if Google seeing the tag actually matters). For example, Google sees max-preview-image (immediate technical marker) followed by Google returning more of your articles in Discover.” “Not defining what success means or how it will be measured prior to execution is how SEO becomes a dirty word (or shoved to the bottom of the backlog).” — Jamie Indigo, Director of Technical SEO at Cox Automotive Test before you publish Agree on a QA workflow, tools to use, as well as a staging environment with the web development team to test any SEO-related release (or any web release that could affect SEO-related configurations) before they go live.  This environment should be as similar to the live site as possible but blocked to search engine crawlers and require user authentication to access. It’s then also fundamental that you agree on what tools and methods you’ll use to access and validate any execution status to ensure success. Remember that it’s important to not only validate before any release, but also after launch and to agree on what should happen if a critical bug—like one that can harm the site’s SEO goals—is identified. Establish the best course of action depending on the criticality and existing dev workflow. This should be coordinated to reduce disruption to the wider site, explained Crystal Carter , head of SEO communications at Wix. “There are often multiple teams working on a single site at once. If you do not coordinate the time between deployment and validation, it can get difficult to isolate issues. If the team moves on to another deployment, then a rollback could mean that new content or features have to be republished.” — Crystal Carter, Head of SEO Communications at Wix Validate recommendations and agree on an execution timeline Before any recommendations actually get implemented, make sure that everyone involved understands what they’re responsible for and why.  Then based on the available resources, agree on an SEO execution workflow with the web development, product, and design teams, while ensuring there’s: Enough time for validation before and after any release The agreed timeline actually allows you to see the expected outcome on time If this is not the case, then collaborate with stakeholders to establish alternatives and communicate the tradeoffs with the expected goals to decision makers to align expectations. It’s critical to align understanding about SEO results based on the recommendations’ execution to avoid disappointment. Collaboration is the key to better technical SEO Getting your technical SEO recommendations approved and implemented can be as much about communication and teamwork as it is about faster loading times or crawl budget optimization. While collaboration isn’t what you might immediately go to when thinking about your role, your ability to communicate and collaborate with other stakeholders is likely to influence how successful you are at getting recommendations implemented, which will eventually affect how your business website performs as well as your success as a technical SEO. Aleyda Solis - SEO Consultant and Founder at Orainti Aleyda Solis is an SEO speaker, author, and the founder of Orainti , a boutique SEO consultancy advising top brands worldwide. She shares the latest SEO news and resources in her SEOFOMO newsletter, SEO tips in the Crawling Mondays video series, and a free SEO Learning Roadmap called LearningSEO.io. Twitter  | Linkedin

Updated: October 11, 2024 Author: James Clark If you’ve followed our guide to getting started with Google Analytics 4 , you’ll know how important the concept of an ‘event’ is within this popular analytics tool. Any interaction your users have with your site or app—from a page view to a form submission—can be captured as an event. But, not all these events will be equally valuable to you or your business.  In GA4, you can choose to mark particularly important events as ‘key events.’ Then, you can use this data to further your business by understanding more about your most valuable users and how to grow that cohort. If you’re a longstanding Google Analytics user, you may be more familiar with the term ‘goals’ (as important interactions were called in the old Universal Analytics) or ‘conversions’ (as they were called in GA4 until April 2024). The term ‘goal’ no longer exists in GA4 at all, and ‘conversion’ now has a specific meaning relating to paid advertising only. Yes, Google Analytics is always evolving !  In this article, I’ll keep to Google’s terminology  and use key events to refer to any event that “contributes to the success of your business.” Only key events that are imported into Google Ads become conversions. So in GA4, every conversion is a key event but not every key event is necessarily a conversion. (To make matters more confusing, a ‘conversion’ in GA4 is called a ‘conversion action’ in Google Ads—thanks, Google.) So if you want to understand conversions, you need to understand key events first: the typical key events for different types of site, how to set up key events in GA4, and the benefits of tracking key events. Let’s dive in. Table of contents: Identifying your business and website objectives Toggling events as key events Creating custom events to use as key events Marking custom events as key events Finding and using event parameters Key event limits in GA4 Using key events in reports Choosing an attribution model Advanced uses for key events conversions Explorations Google Ads Audiences Identifying your business and website objectives “Any event that contributes to the success of your business” is quite a broad definition, so it might be worth asking yourself:  What are your business objectives? How does your website support those objectives?   What would a ‘successful’ visit look like to you? If you have an eCommerce site, you will no doubt be trying to get users to make a purchase. If you have a marketing website for your small business, you’re probably using it to generate inquiries—in which case, a user completing an inquiry form or clicking on a ‘click to call’ phone number might be successful outcomes. After all, these actions are also potential revenue generators (if only indirectly). With editorial or publishing sites (where your revenue generally comes mainly from advertising), it can be more difficult to identify ‘success.’ Perhaps you’re trying to build an audience by encouraging email newsletter signups or site registrations—in which case, these would be good candidates as conversions.  In short, there are no hard and fast rules: the events that contribute to the success of your business will be as unique as your business itself. Toggling events as key events Now that you have a good grasp of the events that contribute to the success of your business, you can mark them as key events. You can view your current conversions by going to the Key Events  page in the GA4 interface (in the left-hand navigation, Admin > Data Display > Key Events ). By default, if you’re using a web data stream, your Google Analytics 4 property will have only one event marked as a key event: the purchase event. This event indicates that an eCommerce transaction has occurred, and is always counted as a conversion. To mark an event as a key event, go to the Events  page ( Admin > Data Display > Events ). This lists all the existing events being collected on your site, and shows how many of each have occurred within a given timeframe. If you’ve turned on GA4’s enhanced measurement feature  (and we strongly recommend you do), you may have received some automatically tracked events, including: file_download — When a user clicks a link leading to a file click — When a user clicks a link to an external site view_search_results — When a user conducts a site search on your website scroll — The first time a user reaches the bottom of each page In addition to these events, you may see other events that your platform or CMS is sending. For example, Wix’s ‘live chat’ widget sends events, including ‘Chat - Opened’ and ‘generate_lead’ (when an inquiry is submitted). Third-party plugins and add-ons may also send events. Using a platform that automatically sends events is particularly useful for eCommerce, which can be complicated to set up manually. To mark one of your events as a key event, simply click on the corresponding toggle on the right-hand side (as shown above). Now, when you go back to the Key Event  page, your new conversion will be listed there. This approach only works if the event has been collected at least once in the timeframe you are looking at—otherwise you won’t see it listed. Note: You can also untoggle an event at any time—except the purchase event, that is. Creating custom events to use as key events What happens if you only want specific instances of an event to be counted as a key event?  Let’s say you’re raising money for charity and you’ve built a website to help create awareness. Your site has links to lots of other websites, including one to the fundraising platform where people can make a donation. You’re already automatically tracking clicks on all these links as outbound ‘click’ events through GA4’s enhanced measurement feature. You’ve also thought about the aims of your website, and you’ve identified that clicks on the fundraising link would make an ideal key event. But, if you go ahead and toggle the ‘click’ event as a key event, that will mark all  link click events as key events, which is not what you want. Instead, you will need to create a new, more specific, custom event based on the existing ‘click’ event, then mark this new event as a key event. Here’s how: 01. In Admin > Data Display > Events , click on Create Event . 02. Click Create . 03. Give your event a name. There’s a limit of 40 characters, you can’t use spaces, and event names in GA4 are normally lowercase. Google’s enhanced measurement events tend to follow the pattern action_object , so something like “fundraising_click” would be perfect. 04. Next, add some ‘conditions.’ When all of these conditions are met at the same time, your new event will trigger. The first condition is simply “event_name equals click.” 05. Click Add condition . This second condition is where you’ll indicate that the event should only trigger on clicks specifically to the fundraising platform. For that, we need the parameter “link_url equals” and then the full URL (as shown below). 06. Click Create in the top-right. Finally, close the Create events panel. Next, you’re ready to mark the custom event you just created as a key event. Marking custom events as key events You’re now back on the Events  page, but don’t worry that you can’t see your new event. It might take 24 hours or so for it to appear here after someone has performed the action on your site—which means you won’t be able to toggle it as a conversion yet.  Fortunately, there’s another way to set up the key event, and we can do it straight away: 01. Go to Settings > Data Display > Key Events . 02. Click New key event . 03. Enter the name of the custom event you saved earlier (in our example, “fundraising_click”) in the New event name box and click Save . The reason I don’t recommend this approach for setting up all your key events is that it introduces the risk of getting the event name wrong. It’s easy to misremember your form submission event name as form_submission  instead of form_submit , for example. Generally, it’s safer to use the toggles on the Events page. Finding and using event parameters In our fundraising example, you’ll notice we used an event parameter called “link_url.” An event parameter is just an additional piece of information about that event. So, ‘click’ events have parameters including: link_url — The full URL you are linking to (e.g., https://fundraiser.co.uk/example) link_domain — The domain you are linking to (e.g., fundraiser.co.uk) outbound — Here, a value of ‘true’ indicates that it is a click to an external website. But, how do you find out what parameters are available for you to use when you’re setting up a custom event? You could check Google’s documentation , at least for the enhanced measurement events (such as ‘click’ ). But, the simplest and surest way is to go to Reports > Realtime and look at the Event count by Event name card. This lists all the events that have happened on your site or app in the past 30 minutes: Click on any event to see its parameters, then click on any parameter to see the values belonging to that parameter. So, by going to your website and triggering the event you want to use as a key event, you will be able to check the parameters and values in the Realtime report before setting everything up. A more advanced approach would be to use GA4’s built-in debug mode and DebugView report . This lets you see only the events you are triggering, rather than every event being triggered by every visitor to your site. So, if your site receives a lot of traffic, this approach makes it much easier to find the events and parameters you are looking for. Key event limits in GA4 A standard GA4 property can have up to 30 different key events . This may sound like a lot, but given that you can have as many events as you like in your web data stream, it’s a definite limitation—and something to bear in mind when you start identifying the events that contribute to the success of your business. Enterprise customers paying for Google Analytics 360 have a higher limit of up to 50 conversions. And, here’s a different kind of limitation: Marking an event as a key event doesn't affect data you've already collected, only new data from that point on. So, it’s important to identify your key events as early as you can so as to make full use of the data you gather about your users’ behavior. Using key events in reports Now that you’ve set up key events, you can make use of this data in GA4 reports. The place to start is Reports > Engagement > Pages and Screens . This shows you a list of pages on your site along with the number of views, events, and key events that have taken place on each. The top row gives you a total for all pages. OK, but say you are tracking two key events, a ‘click to call’ event (which is somewhat valuable to your business) and a purchase (which is highly valuable). A total that includes both isn’t necessarily that insightful. Fortunately, there are two ways you can drill down further into the data to understand the exact value being created. First, use the filter on the ‘key events’ column to select a specific key event: Second, you will also see a column called “Total revenue.” If you’re tracking an eCommerce site, your ‘purchase’ events will have a ‘value’ parameter capturing the monetary value of the purchase. This allows your Pages and Screens report, as well as other reports in GA4, to show how much revenue your site is generating. Here it is in the Events report: It’s possible for other conversions to be assigned a value, too. Let’s say you run a plumbing business and you know that a new customer is, on average, worth $500 to you. You also know that one in five of your contact form submissions converts into a paying customer. So, it would be reasonable to give a contact form submission a nominal value of $100 (that is, $500 divided by five). Loves Data has a useful guide to adding a monetary value to key events  (here called “conversions”).  Istarted this article by saying that key events are events that “contribute to the success of your business.” One of the biggest benefits of tracking key events is that you can see how marketing activity is contributing to the success of your business. The place to go for this information in GA4 is the Advertising  section. Don’t be fooled by the name: it gives you insight not just on paid advertising (such as search and display ads), but on all of your traffic sources, including organic search. When you first try to access Advertising, Google Analytics will prompt you to link your GA4 property to a Google Ads account (if you haven’t done so already). You don’t need to actually run any ads to see these reports (i.e., it won’t cost you any money), but you do need a connected Ads account: This section provides information on both key events and conversions (that is, key events you’ve imported into Google Ads). Individual reports and cards will either focus on one or the other, so check the card titles to understand what they are showing you. Let’s look at the Advertising Snapshot  first ( Advertising > Advertising Snapshot ). The card in the middle shows you your traffic ‘channels’ and how many key events each channel has generated: There’s an easy-to-miss dropdown in the top-left of this overview report that lets you select and deselect individual key events. So, you may find that one traffic source is responsible for most of your email newsletter signups, but another traffic source (perhaps email) is responsible for purchases. However, user journeys are becoming more complex and a user may come to your site several times before they convert. The Attribution Paths report ( Advertising > Attribution > Attribution Paths ) illustrates this.  The top of the report shows your most common “early,” “mid,” and “late,” touchpoints to give an overview of your converting users’ behavior: Underneath this are the specific conversion paths that users take. In the screengrab below, you can see that users to this particular site often make two, three, or four visits via organic search before performing a key event: Choosing an attribution model What happens if a user comes to your website via lots of different channels before converting? Perhaps their first visit is via one of your paid search ads. Later, they come back via organic search. They visit again via a link in an email newsletter—and then finally convert. Which touchpoint (or touchpoints) should get the credit for the conversion? This is where attribution models come in: An attribution model is simply a set of rules that decides how credit is allocated. Credit here means both the number of key events and any revenue coming from those events. GA4 makes it very straightforward to see the impact of its two attribution models via the Attribution Models report ( Advertising > Attribution > Attribution Models ). The report shows you key event numbers and revenue for each of your traffic channels—and how those numbers would look under either the ‘data-driven’ or the ‘last-click’ model: ‘Last click’  is the easier one to understand: it attributes all credit to the final touchpoint. This model was the default in the old Universal Analytics, so opt for this if you want to remain consistent with your historic data.  Within last click, you can choose either ‘paid and organic channels’ or ‘Google paid channels.’ The Google paid channels option always gives credit to the final Google Ads touchpoint (if there was one), ignoring any later clicks from organic channels. This model is useful for analyzing the effectiveness of paid campaigns.  If you’re running paid ads for a client, you may be tempted to choose this model just to make your results look better—please try to avoid that temptation as it could lead to difficulty down the line when the client asks why organic or social aren’t driving much revenue. ‘Data-driven’ is GA4’s default model. Instead of following a fixed set of rules, it looks at your historical data and uses machine learning to work out how to assign credit. It’s a powerful feature, but something of a black box in that you can’t see exactly how it works. As Google says , “each Data-driven model is specific to each advertiser and each key event.” All of GA4’s other attribution models (first click, linear, time decay, and position-based) were deprecated in November 2023. Your choice of model is more than just an interesting exercise. If you’re using your conversion data to make business decisions (for example, on where best to spend your marketing budget), then choosing the most appropriate model can help with that. It’s worth considering: do you want to focus on the ‘converting’ channel only, or consider all the channels that might have contributed to that conversion? In the non e-Commerce example below, moving from ‘last click’ to ‘data-driven’ massively increases the number of key events shown as being driven by organic social. This tells us that organic social is important earlier in the user journey—perhaps how users first learn about the brand: Although the Attribution Models  report lets you see the impact of different models, you’ll find the setting to actually change your chosen model in Admin > Data Display > Attribution Settings . Advanced uses for key events and conversions in GA4 Now, you have seen how to set up key events and conversions and make use of this data in GA4’s predefined reports. But, there are many other applications—let’s take a quick look at some of them. Explorations If you prefer to build your own reports (or ‘ Explorations ’ as GA4 calls them), then you can add key event-related metrics and dimensions to any of those reports.  In July 2022, Google added conversion rate metrics: a popular and much-requested feature from Universal Analytics. Originally called ‘user conversion rate’ and ‘session conversion rate,’ these metrics have since been renamed to ‘user key event rate’ and ‘session key event rate’ to make it clear that they don’t just apply to Ads conversions. User key event rate: The percentage of users who have performed a key event. Session key event rate: The percentage of sessions in which a key event was performed. Analytics Mania has a comprehensive guide to finding and using these key event rate metrics . Google Ads We’ve already seen that to enable the Advertising reports in GA4, you need to link your GA4 property to your Google Ads account. You can then import your key events into Google Ads, where they become conversions (in GA4) and conversion actions (in Google Ads). You can use this data to optimize your bids so your campaigns generate more conversions for less ad spend. Importing your GA4 key events isn’t the only way to send conversion data to Google Ads. You could, for example, use a Google Ads conversion tag in Google Tag Manager and bypass GA4 completely. However, linking GA4 with Google Ads and importing key events gives you the benefit of seeing the same data in both locations. To start the process, go to Goals > Summary  in Google Ads and click Create Conversion Action . Then choose the Import option from the following selection: For more on linking Google Ads and GA4, take a look at the Optimize Smart guide . Audiences Another section of GA4 that makes use of conversion data is Audiences   (Admin > Data Display > Audiences ). Here, you can build a segment of users who meet certain conditions that are important to your business (e.g., users who have made a purchase, users who have performed any key event, etc).  GA4 also offers so-called ‘predictive audiences’: one of the presets here is “users who are likely to make a purchase in the next seven days.” However, you will only be eligible to use these if your site meets certain criteria , one of which being a minimum traffic threshold. These audiences have several applications: first, you can add them as a ‘comparison’ to your standard GA4 reports and see what makes them different to your overall users. Perhaps they are more likely to come from a particular country, or visit a certain section of your site. This could be valuable marketing intel. If you’ve linked GA4 with Google Ads, your audiences are also available for use there. This allows you to target your paying customers (or valuable users) with relevant messages as part of so-called ‘remarketing’ campaigns.  The Google Analytics help article on audiences is a good place to start if you are interested in exploring these possibilities. Key event tracking helps you get the most from your site traffic We started this guide by saying that key events are events that contribute to the success of your business. Tracking key events (and conversions) also contributes to the success of your business—by helping you to understand your audience, report on revenue, target your marketing, and make smarter decisions about your website.  Not everyone sees the benefits of setting up key event tracking... but, hopefully, I’ve shown you that it’s the key to unlocking the full value of website analytics for your business. James Clark - Web Analyst James Clark is a web analyst from London, with a background in the publishing sector. When he isn't helping businesses with their analytics, he's usually writing how-to guides over on his website Technically Product . Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Mordy Oberstein Audio content, such as a podcast, is more popular than it has ever been, with some estimates showing a 45% increase in its popularity since 2014 . This means that podcasts may play an increasingly important role in all facets of a business’s growth trajectory, from branding down to acquisition. The importance of strong visibility on podcast platforms, such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify, goes without saying. However, one channel that may fly a bit under the radar when thinking about acquiring visibility and listeners is Google Search. Your podcast appearing prominently on Google’s result pages is powerful for both brand awareness and building a listenership. The problem is, the process to grow your podcast’s organic visibility on Google is somewhat elusive. That’s why, with the help of some of the SEO industry’s foremost experts, we’re going to explore “Podcast SEO” in a way that it hasn’t been explored before. Table of contents: Podcasts on the SERP: An overview How do you get a podcast to rank on Google? Foundational optimization matters more for podcasts Authority, entity recognition, and schema markup The role of links in podcast SEO Thinking beyond the podcast SERP Podcasts on the SERP: An overview Part of the complexity around podcast SEO hinges on the ecosystem Google created for podcast results. Before we take a closer look at that ecosystem, though, let’s first establish that the demand for podcast SEO exists. That is, are people going to the Google search engine results page (SERP) to find podcasts? The short answer is, yes. The demand for podcast SEO According to Semrush, over 71K people search for best podcasts on Google each month: If we break that search volume down (because, unless your podcast is one of the best in the world, this query may not be applicable to you), we start seeing between 2-3K monthly queries for popular categorical podcast searches. For example, best sports podcasts has a monthly search volume of 2.9K: The search volume numbers are still solid (all other considerations being equal) even when you go a bit niche. The keyword best seo podcasts has a monthly search volume of nearly 1K (globally): For the record, I’m trying to be conservative here by using a keyword with a high intent to listen (i.e., best X podcast ). If we broaden the terms, there are even more searches: the search volume more than doubles when we look at the keyword seo podcasts (without the term “best”): I think it’s clear—there are a good amount of people looking to find podcasts on Google. So, if you have a podcast, it likely makes a lot of sense to optimize it for search. How Google shows podcasts on the SERP As I mentioned, the ecosystem for podcasts on the SERP is unique. The bulk of the issue with podcasts has to do with how Google displays them (well, also the type of organic results shown, but I’ll get to that in a bit). Take the keyword seo learning podcast . We get an initial set of nine podcasts with their thumbnails and titles. We also get a secondary carousel of podcasts that generally appears below the initial organic result. This carousel (as opposed to the larger “Podcast series” carousel) is episodic—it presents links to specific episodes, not to the podcast as a whole. It’s because of this that IPullRank’s Garrett Sussman, host of the Rankable Podcast , advises focusing on achieving visibility within the larger, more prominent carousel. “What’s the best way for your audience to discover your podcast on Google?” Sussman said, “You need to appear above the fold for someone who’s searching for podcasts in your industry, category, or topic.” Should you click on a podcast within the top set of thumbnails, the result expands to present a carousel of content from across the web that features or mentions the selected media asset (as shown below). At the bottom of the initial set of listings, you can expand the box to reveal additional podcasts (in our case here, there is only one additional podcast, but generally there can be up to 42 more podcasts shown once the box is expanded). Let’s return to our keyword of seo learning podcasts , which I chose to highlight the episode carousel. Do you notice anything funny about the results in the carousel? All of them contain the keyword learn . As it currently stands, there is a bit of a gap in how Google shows results in the episodic podcast carousel: there is an overemphasis on keywords. Just look at the first three initial results in the episodic carousel for the keyword best seo podcast : Does this mean that you should add “best” to the name of your podcast and beyond? In my opinion, no. Podcasts are one of those assets that speak heavily to brand perception. Adding modifiers such as “best” or “top” may not speak to your audience and may ultimately present your brand as being a tad immature or arrogant. Speak to what resonates with your users first and foremost (but hey, if it does work for your branding, just know it also tends to work on podcast SERPs… for now). For the record, the nuance of keywords doesn’t just apply to the episodic podcast carousel. Simple and small changes to the keyword can have a big impact on what podcasts do and do not appear in the top podcast listings. Even a simple insertion of an “s” to the query (as in podcasts vs. podcast ) can make a difference. In the example below, you’ll notice that two of the podcasts shown in the initial podcast carousel for nfl podcast do not appear for the query nfl podcast s (and vice versa): Lastly, there are the standard organic listings. The organic results on podcast SERPs are a prime example of the intricacy of dealing with SEO for a podcast. This complexity predominantly occurs due to the fact that not many actual podcasts rank among the top organic results. Below are the results for the query history podcasts : There is only a single result that represents an actual podcast, the rest of the traditional results are listicles. Keep in mind I specifically did not search for best history podcasts as that would perhaps overemphasize an intent to get a list of podcasts. Still, nine out of ten of the initial organic results (i.e., the text results) are listicles. This is indeed a hard environment to navigate. Which leads us to our main topic—how do you give your podcast some organic visibility on the SERP? How do you get a podcast to rank on Google? I don’t have any magic answers here. A lot of what I’m about to share comes from my experience working with multiple podcasts, including the SERP’s Up Podcast , The SEO Rant , Edge of the Web , and others. Along the way, I’ve experimented and learned a few lessons (many the hard way) but I don’t have a 100% foolproof guide to ranking your podcast on Google. I think this is one of those emerging areas where no individual person has all the answers, which is why—throughout this post—I’ll be referencing some brilliant SEO minds who were kind enough to share their wisdom about how they approach SEO for their own podcasts. Foundational optimization matters more for podcasts Podcasts, categorically, might not be a niche where Google flexes all of its advanced algorithmic muscle. As mentioned above, Google seems to heavily rely on keyword placement for appearance in the podcast episodes carousel. This seemingly reflects what would be a far more linear approach than we might see Google take in other areas of the web, such as those queries that reflect YMYL ( Your Money or Your Life ) content. This is why what I’ll call “foundational optimization” matters more for podcast visibility than perhaps with other niches. To that end, there is an overwhelming amount of consensus from SEOs who run podcasts about handling these foundational SEO tasks. Optimize podcast title and description for SERP visibility Kate Toon, host of The Recipe For SEO Success Show , urges podcast creators to pay close attention to their show titles: “Just as with getting your podcast ranking on iTunes, I’d argue that the podcast title and description are the most important elements. Choose a podcast name that incorporates your primary keyword and clearly tells listeners what they’re going to get.” This is a sentiment shared by Sarah McDowell, the host of the SEO Mindset Podcast and SEO manager at podcast hosting company Captivate, when thinking about Google’s top-of-the-SERP podcast gallery. “To optimize for the grid at the top, it seems Google is showing podcasts which include keywords and/or synonyms in the podcast title and overall show description,” she said. That’s something I’ve definitely seen from experience. When SERP’s Up initially launched, we opted to leave “SEO Podcast” off the title as we liked the shortened version for branding purposes. At the same time, we kept a close eye on how the podcast performed organically, specifically within the top podcast box. After some time, we weren’t happy with the podcast’s consistency in the search feature and changed the name on the podcast’s RSS feed to the “SERP’s Up SEO Podcast,” upon which we almost immediately began seeing consistent placement in the podcast box (an experience I’ve had when working with previous podcasts as well, meaning this was not a one-off). Note: Platform-specific algorithms such as those employed by Spotify, etc., are not very complex either, and adding on some keywords to the branded title of the show will generally help here as well. When it comes to specific episodes, sometimes the titles can get lengthy. In such cases, you may have to forgo certain elements—one of which, as Kate Toon says, should be the episode number. “For episode titles, forgo adding ‘Episode 17,’ etc., at the start. Instead, front load the episode title with a searchable term, sometimes that may be the [episode guest’s name] if it’s someone famous.” — Kate Toon, host of The Recipe For SEO Success Show podcast This applies equally to both the podcast’s main and episodic descriptions. Here too, due to the nature of how Google seems to function in the space, being strategic about keyword placement comes into focus. As Azeem, host of the Azeem Digital Asks podcast puts it, “One piece of advice that’s helped me rank higher is to use specific keywords in the description that a potential user might search. It’s not a coincidence that the last three words of my own show title end with ‘digital marketing podcast.’” That doesn’t mean you should stuff whatever you would like into a show’s (or episode’s) description. “Similarly, when it comes to episode descriptions, one thing I see lots of other podcasts do is repeat the episode title and write lots of nonsense that listeners won’t read,” Azeem said, adding, “Get to the point quickly and you’ll be rewarded.” Though it may sound basic, don’t shy away from throwing words like “podcast” or “episode” into the description in a natural way. The SEO value of podcast transcriptions “In recent years, there has been a lot of discussion about if, and how, Google indexes the spoken words in audio content,” said Jack Chambers-Ward of Candour Agency and host of the Search With Candour podcast, adding, “In short, having a transcript helps search engines understand the specific content of your podcast episode.” “Don’t get me wrong, just like with on-page SEO, the episode title and description are still key elements for your podcast. However, by using some on-page SEO techniques and accompanying your audio with text [transcripts], you can make your episode pages far more discoverable.” — Jack Chambers-Ward , host of the Search With Candour podcast This uncertainty about if, and how, Google auto-transcribes podcasts definitely brings the value of an accurate podcast transcript into SEO focus. McDowell puts it well, saying, “Whilst Google is indexing podcasts, they are taking information which they can find on the page, to my knowledge (and I did have a conversation with [Google’s] John Mueller at BrightonSEO) they aren’t transcribing audio, so this is where transcriptions come in handy.” (For the record, there is a lot of confusion here as reports around Google auto-transcribing podcasts surfaced back in 2019. However, since then there has been no further official indication nor discussion as to whether Google is transcribing podcast episodes.) Let’s also remember transcripts are very important for accessibility. “I’d also highly recommend publishing a transcript of your episode, not only is it more content for Google to chew through, but it really helps listeners (who don’t have your language as their first language) deal with difficult accents and also is great for those that prefer to read rather than listen,” Toon said. This, to me, is the lynchpin: It’s possible to write an episode summary in order to satisfy both Google and users looking to get the gist of what an episode is about. The truth is, I do this on a very informal podcast I host called the SEO Rant . It’s very much a fun little thing I do on the side and I don’t necessarily have time to edit an entire transcript (my experience has been that doing a proper transcription takes more time and effort than you may think). Instead, I opt for a relatively decent-sized episode summary. In fact, you could argue that going with an episode summary is a better idea than a transcript from an SEO point of view as it allows for more flexibility with content structure and is far more aligned with how written content is generally formatted (without any sort of textual fillers that are inherent to transcripts). However, even if a podcast episode contained a prolific synopsis section, users with auditory impairments, for example, would not be as completely served unless a transcript was also included. That’s why you should still ensure that your transcripts are both accurate and without unnecessary fillers (such as “ums,” or verbal stuttering that your software may transcribe). Further, it is entirely possible to format the transcript with appropriate headers so that it is both more interpretable to users and search engines. Due to the often unstructured nature of certain podcast formats, I recommend you “zoom out” when thinking about a header for a section of your transcript. From experience, I can tell you it’s not always possible to cleanly summarize an entire section of a podcast under a header. Either take the main crux of the section and use that to determine the accompanying header or, as I said, zoom out and find a common thematic thread that unites the section. In any case, understand that a transcript is not simply about automating the conversion of audio to text, but requires real human input and action to make it actually valuable for your audience. The podcast’s web page matters Let’s not forget one thing: we’re talking about Google here and Google deals with webpages. Yes, we’re dealing specifically with podcasts and podcasts are hosted on a platform and then shared via RSS feed. However, everything with Google is semantic and that applies to your podcast. Giving your podcast a website is a must. That’s actually not hyperbole—in 2021, Google began requiring podcasts to have an associated homepage to be eligible to appear as a recommendation within Google Podcasts. In fact, Google explicitly said: “Linking your podcast to a homepage will help the discovery and presentation of your podcast on Google surfaces.” — Google , 2021 Does that mean you can have a homepage for the podcast with essentially no content on it? I think not— what is on that homepage matters . The site you create for the podcast and the content you put on it—particularly on the homepage—matters. It can greatly impact how visible the podcast is on the SERP. For instance, shortly after creating these guidelines, SEOs began to notice that knowledge panels for podcasts were appearing on the SERP. While correlation doesn’t equal causation, the logic does add up: In order to be present in Google’s knowledge graph , Google needs context for the entity and a significant part of that is the entity’s actual website. Add in that the knowledge panels began appearing shortly after Google updated its aforementioned guidelines, along with the fact that the company explicitly stated that the guidelines impact “presentation of your podcast on Google surfaces,” and there’s a solid case to tie podcast knowledge panel appearance to podcast websites. I’ve personally seen the impact of updating the podcast's website long before Google officially updated its guidelines. Since October 2018, when I founded the In Search SEO Podcast with Rank Ranger, I added the podcast homepage to the RSS feed. Two (or so) months after launching the podcast, I finally got around to optimizing the page, which was relatively thin up until that point. After that, the page began to slowly but steadily increase in the rankings for keywords like seo podcast . Concurrently, when the episodic podcast carousel was added to the SERP in 2019, the podcast began to regularly appear in it for similar keywords. The bottom line is that optimizing the podcast’s homepage plays a big role in its SERP visibility. Pragmatically speaking (and in addition to the basic title and description), I recommend including the host(s) as well as when episodes are released, links to various platforms where the podcast can be found, as well as a bit of embellishment as to what the podcast is all about and who it services so as to give Google a bit of context. Contextualizing the podcast also includes the other pages on the site that are related to the podcast. To that end, Olga Zarr of SEOSLY and host of SEO Podcast by #SEOSLY recommends, “Each new podcast episode should also be published as a separate post or page on your website with the embedded player to listen to the episode directly on the site.” To me, this is practical regardless of the organic traffic expectations you have for individual episode pages (which is a complicated matter since most of the listens a podcast receives do not occur on the site itself). Having a site for your podcast that you retain full control over is an important part of the overall branding and marketing of the podcast. As Azeem describes it, “Most importantly, don’t opt for the easy route and use distributors’ own websites—build your own. They are your listeners, not the distributor’s—send listeners to [your own podcast site], use analytics to understand how long they spend with your podcast, and give them more of it.” Authority, entity recognition, and schema markup Broadening what we discussed above (regarding the homepage for the podcast), it’s vital to understand that a podcast is an entity . In fact, it’s an entity that inherently incorporates other entities (in the form of show hosts and guests). How Google is aware of the entities within the podcast is a good question. As mentioned earlier, there have been instances in the past of Google auto-transcribing podcasts (which has been one of the company’s stated goals ). Of course, for relevant web pages and your episode descriptions, there’s also explicitly mentioning the hosts and guests by name as well as linking to their social profiles or sites. However Google is doing it, it is able to (at times) pull out relevant entities from a specific podcast episode. These entities are sometimes shown at the bottom of a podcast episode within Google Podcasts and reflect both people as well as topics. Meaning, it’s vital to discuss topics that are within the confines of the podcast’s stated mission and to have guests relevant to those topics for both your audience and for Google itself. To that end, Jack Chambers-Ward says, “Previous guests, topics, and episodes can often come up naturally during conversation and, with a transcript, these are perfect opportunities to add internal links to create a topical relevance and connections between podcast pages.” Structured data markup and podcasts When trying to make entity connections (which is vital for podcast SEO), structured data markup comes into focus. As Olga Zarr puts it: “Take care of the E-A-T of your podcast by demonstrating your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness as a podcast host. You can use schema to help Google connect the dots.” — Olga Zarr, host of SEO Podcast by SEOSLY There are multiple markups that are applicable from PodcastSeries markup for the podcast’s homepage to PodcastEpisode markup for specific episode pages. And, (because podcasts involve people) Person markup is almost always applicable, as is Organization markup when the podcast is run by a company or group. “This [structured data markup] should not be overlooked,” explains Crystal Carter, Head of SEO Communications at Wix (and co-host of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast ). “Google adds well-optimized podcasts to the knowledge graph. This means that each podcast is considered to be a unique entity and can be identified across the web. By investing time in schema properties for people and organizations (like creator, contributor, editor, funder) you are helping to make this entity more accurate across the web.” Structured data has given a boost to the EDGE of the Web podcast, according to host Erin Sparks. “Structured data has been a boon to our show. As we have unfurled podcast episodes and podcast series schema and unpacked the entities we are discussing—we've done that with such a reliable frequency that we are seeing our entity ‘glossary’ start working inside guests' knowledge graphics as the source of trust for that entity,” Sparks said. “That can only happen with a continual building of confidence from the continual layered process of optimization.” The role of links in podcast SEO Personally, I find link building to be my least favorite part of SEO. Aside from its tedious nature, building links makes it quite easy to cross the line and violate Google’s guidelines. However, at the end of the day, links are indeed a part of the ranking equation and link building can be powerful when done properly . Link building factors into getting your podcast visible on the SERP in two unique ways: Surfacing in the initial podcast series box of results Visibility in the traditional organic results (kind of, more on this below). Links for getting podcasts into Google’s podcast series box One of the strongest ways to garner search visibility for your podcast is by appearing in Google’s initial podcast series box. As we mentioned earlier, when a user clicks on a podcast within the box, the listing expands to show more information about the podcast along with a set of “results” that in some way feature the podcast. Due to this functionality, links play a very important role for your podcast’s organic visibility. In this instance, I would feel comfortable saying that links are valued significantly more than they are in general (although, I obviously can’t say that with 100% certainty). There’s a logical reason for this: with the functionality Google employs here, there has to be content that references the podcast, otherwise there’s nothing for Google to show when the result is expanded. Clearly, links play a primary role in all of this. In fact, when we launched the SERP’s Up Podcast in August 2022, the show did not appear within Google’s podcast series box. However, as time went on and the show accumulated links on pages that discussed podcasts, it started to appear within the podcasts that Google lists for relevant keywords. (These appearances were boosted by our modifying the podcast title, as mentioned earlier.) For the record, it’s not merely the link that has the desired effect here (the podcast had a decent amount of links early on). It’s a certain type of link that really matters: the show needs to be contextualized as Google only shows content (such as lists of podcasts or episode pages) within the expanded listing. The importance of links in the context of podcasts is commonly recognized by SEOs who run their own podcasts and, as McDowell says, it’s a good reason to have guests on the show: “Google also seems to like podcasts that have backlinks or mentions from other authoritative and relevant websites. If you’re toying with the idea of having guests on your podcast, this is one great reason to do it.” — Sarah McDowell, host of the SEO Mindset Podcast The emphasis on a podcast appearing within some sort of listicle content has generated a sentiment from SEO podcasters that I very much agree with: “Google currently places too much weight on ranked lists when building out entities around podcast topics,” Sussman said. According to him, “a podcast on three lists will appear higher than a show on two lists” which is a very superficial way to order podcast appearances on the SERP. Links: Leveraging traffic from the SERP’s organic results The second way links factor into the equation has nothing to do with the ranking of a given podcast asset per se. If you’ll remember, the majority of the text/organic results do not reflect actual podcasts and their websites. Rather, the SERP is dominated by lists of various podcasts. This presents an obvious problem in that no matter how “perfectly optimized” a podcast’s own website is, there is a severe limitation in the opportunity to rank. The net result is that a podcast is heavily dependent on appearing within a relevant list of podcasts, as hosted by a third-party site for its “organic visibility” (if you even want to call it that). An additional problem is that a significant portion of these listicles present poor and/or outdated content (depending on the niche). This makes it that much harder to get listed in one. And, of course, if you’re a newer podcast, you would have to wait for new lists to be created (and then rank) or for a third party to decide to update their listicle. To that latter point, Google does (at times) present lists that haven’t been updated in years. It all makes for a complicated, difficult, and perhaps unbalanced organic ecosystem. This leads us to our next point. Thinking beyond the podcast SERP With the SERP for podcasts still not being fully mature and (at a minimum) “difficult,” it makes sense to push the podcast’s presence on other platforms. This means that tactics like repurposing for YouTube come into focus. Aleyda Solis, who heads up Crawling Mondays , doubles down on Youtube, saying, “Whether your podcast is video or audio only, publish it via YouTube too, you'll be surprised (or not) by how many video carousels are shown in Google search results, not only for podcasts names but also for the informational topics covered usually by podcasts, as well as the additional visibility and listeners you can attract via YouTube, too. You want to get in there…” In this way, and specifically when considering YouTube videos, you give your podcast content the opportunity to gain visibility at the episodic level, which can be tricky unless you significantly invest in the text-based content that supports each episode. This can be especially true when the keywords relevant to a podcast episode are highly competitive and where there is a prolific amount of content already available. If you are hosting podcast episodes on YouTube, here’s a pro tip from Wix SEO Advisory Board member Kevin Indig, who hosts the Contrarian Marketing Podcast with Wix SEO Learning Hub contributor Eli Schwartz: “One podcast optimization trick I learned is optimizing timestamps for keywords. Since Google uses timestamps for its ‘Key Moments in video’ feature and key moments can appear for keywords, making sure your timestamps appeal to a user intent or hit the exact match of a keyword can make your podcast rank in the SERPs (if it’s hosted on Youtube). Of course, the overall topic of the podcast needs to fit to the keyword, so it might pay off to do keyword research, then plan your podcast topic, and then optimize timestamps for keywords.” — Kevin Indig, host of the Contrarian Marketing Podcast Parenthetically, when working with timestamps for a podcast episode, Erin Sparks recommends correlating them in the ID3 tags . “Google is processing the ID3 tags as a content roadmap,” according to Sparks. “Doubling down inside of the show page with an exact correlation to those stamps can root the show in a level of trusted content,” he said, recommending that podcasters “segment out with timestamps the key segments/chapters of the show (on the episode page). Utilize the same framework inside the ID3 tags and apply that to your timestamps.” Of course, both repurposing a podcast and distributing it goes well beyond uploading the full version to YouTube. It should also include a sound social strategy with elements such as audiograms for engagement as well as an influencer marketing strategy, which is quite natural if the podcast contains a guest interview. Back to “basics” with podcast SEO I think what makes doing SEO for podcasts so interesting is the nuance that goes into what would normally be considered “basic SEO” tasks. Most practitioners understand there is value in having quality relevant links, but due to the SERP’s ecosystem for podcasts, these links play a deeper role. We all understand the importance of a well-constructed title or “product description” (which is essentially what a podcast description is) but the complexity involved increases as podcasts are consumed within their own unique ecosystems and that same title and description needs to work on multiple levels, from SEO down to clickability within iTunes. I want to end by thanking all of the contributors in this article for sharing their expertise. There’s a lot of murkiness and complexity in trying to bring visibility to a podcast in Google Search. Sometimes it takes a village. Mordy Oberstein - Head of SEO Branding, Wix Mordy is the Head of SEO Branding at Wix. Concurrently he also serves as a communications advisor for Semrush. Dedicated to SEO education, Mordy is one of the organizers of SEOchat and a popular industry author and speaker. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Ryan Jones Keyword  mapping has driven success for many websites in many niches, and it can do the same to propel your business. In my role at SEOTesting (where I developed the content strategy for the business from scratch), keyword mapping has enabled us to position our content strategically, using the right keywords to take our organic traffic from 2,000 per month to over 8,000 per month (in a little over six months). Along with the traffic growth, keyword mapping has also facilitated better rankings and higher user engagement. As you may already know, the better our businesses do organically, the better the bottom line typically looks. Using SEOTesting as an example, we have taken MRR from $22,500 to $31,000 in the last eight months with content, aided by a great keyword mapping strategy as the foundation. To help you leverage this strategy for your website, this guide will give you all the information you need about keyword mapping, offering you the insights and tools to harness its full potential—whether you’re a seasoned pro or just dipping your toes into the SEO realm. Table of contents: What is keyword mapping? The benefits of keyword mapping for your business and its SEO How to start keyword mapping for your website Beware of keyword cannibalization Tools to help your keyword mapping What is keyword mapping? At its core, keyword mapping is assigning keywords to corresponding pages on your website. In the context of SEO specifically, it’s a strategic approach to ensure that each web page is not only optimized for a specific keyword (or cluster of keywords, which I’ll go into more detail about later ) but also resonates with the user’s search intent  and journey.  This process involves a detailed analysis of keywords to understand their:  Search volume Relevance Competition Potential impact on your content strategy Keyword mapping is about creating a blueprint for your website’s content. It’s where SEO meets user experience, intertwining the “art” of content creation with the “science” of search engine algorithms. By mapping keywords to specific pages, you ensure your site is organized, relevant, and, most importantly, discoverable by your target audience. The benefits of keyword mapping for your business and its SEO Keyword mapping isn’t just an initial step in your overall SEO strategy—it also helps inform tactical, strategic, and business aspects of your website by: Guiding new content creation Helping you identify underperforming content to optimize Revealing performance patterns that could affect your strategy Targeting niche search queries to overcome bigger competitors Guide new content creation When you start creating new content, keyword mapping acts as your guide. It helps you identify gaps in your current content, revealing opportunities for new topics that resonate with your audience’s interests and search queries. You can create content that fills these gaps by analyzing relevant (but not yet targeted) keywords. This ensures that your website addresses a broader range of user search queries, increasing the breadth of your content and enhancing its relevance for users and search engines. Identify underperforming content to optimize Keyword mapping is also an excellent way to troubleshoot and optimize existing content. By mapping current content to its respective keywords, you can identify pages that might be underperforming or not ranking for their intended keywords. This insight allows you to re-optimize these pages by adjusting the keyword focus, updating the content to align with search intent, or improving on-page SEO  elements. Such optimizations ensure that your existing content remains competitive and continues to attract organic traffic. Reveal performance patterns Monitoring entire keyword clusters, rather than individual keywords, will enable you to assess how search engines and users respond to your brand for entire topics, giving you a better overview of how your brand is seen across that topic. For example, you spot a decline in traffic for your website following a Google algorithm update , and you look into this and see that it’s down to your rankings declining for keywords within a [best running shoes] cluster of keywords, it could signal that your brand is lacking authority or relevance on that topic. Another example might be if your rankings for the keyword cluster are stable, but traffic from those keywords declines. This could indicate a new Google search feature  or a decline in interest in that topic overall. Niche-down for more conversions For small businesses, in particular, keyword mapping is a game changer. It levels the playing field, allowing smaller entities to better compete with larger enterprises. Small businesses can target their content more precisely to their audience by focusing on specific, local, or niche keywords. This targeted approach leads to higher-quality traffic, more engaged users, and better conversion rates. If you’re operating on limited resources, keyword mapping helps you ensure that every piece of content created or optimized contributes towards your business’ online visibility and success. How to start keyword mapping for your business’ website Whether you work for a small business or a large organization, the steps to begin keyword mapping for your website are the same. Let’s begin. Plan your keywords Most businesses (especially those with an established online presence) already have many target keywords. These are typically based on your product offerings, services, industry terms, and even competitor analysis . However, expanding beyond this initial list is vital to excel in this planning stage it opens your business to untapped markets and audiences, allowing it to grow even more. Once your business is already established, growing new revenue generally comes from expanding to new audiences. One effective way to expand your list of target keywords is to use tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, AlsoAsked, etc. These tools offer insights into keyword search volumes and competition levels, and suggest related keywords that your audience might use.  By analyzing this data and selecting the greatest keyword opportunities (by comparing search volume, the difficulty to rank, and the intent for that keyword, among other elements), businesses can identify high-potential keywords relevant to their niche, but less saturated with search competitors. In addition, sourcing keywords through interactions with your customers  (particularly sales and customer service calls) is an often underrated technique. These conversations are goldmines for discovering the exact queries and questions your audience uses when searching Google. By tuning into these conversations, you can uncover valuable long tail keywords  that are highly specific and often closer to the point of purchase in the customer journey. Incorporating the terms you discover into your content strategy can help improve various SEO metrics and ensures your content resonates more deeply with your audience’s needs and search terms. Organize your keywords into clusters Clustering allows websites to organize their keywords into meaningful groups (clusters) that reflect various topics or themes . This method enhances the relevance and focus of your website’s content to better satisfy user queries and rank higher in search results. Not to mention, keyword clustering can save you a lot of time! If you carefully craft clusters before creating or optimizing content, you reduce the risk of developing underperforming or duplicate content  (i.e., content that does not need to be made). When clustering keywords, the goal is to group terms that are thematically similar or related to a common user intent. For example, keywords like [best running shoes], [running shoe reviews], and [durable running shoes] can be clustered under a broader category, such as [running shoes]. This clustering will help you create more focused content and also aid in structuring your website more logically, ensuring that related topics are interlinked and easy to navigate. There is also another way to think about keyword clustering: in terms of how Google processes the term. Google treats certain specific (but often similar) search terms identically. For example, take [SEO testing] as a keyword. Google treats all of the below keywords as the same keyword: [SEO testing] [What is SEO testing] [SEO testing approach] [Testing SEO tactics] [SEO testing agency] This means that I can create one authoritative guide based on the [SEO testing] keyword, include all of the keywords within this grouping and target all of these queries with one web page. This technique can help your website cover more search terms relevant to your industry, especially when you’re creating a lot of content regularly. And, even if you’re not creating much content, you can still make content management easier for yourself using this technique, as you’ll have fewer pages to maintain and update . Keyword Insights can be a valuable tool for this purpose. It assists with keyword clustering process by analyzing the relationship between different keywords (based on search data).  The tool identifies patterns and commonalities among keywords, suggesting clusters that might not be obvious. This can significantly streamline the clustering process, ensuring your keyword groups are data-driven and aligned with actual search behavior.  Create your keyword mapping document Creating a keyword mapping document is the final step that lays the foundation for your entire SEO strategy going forward. This document details how you will use each keyword across your website. To begin, start by listing your keywords and keyword clusters. Then, assign each cluster and keyword to your website’s pages or sections. The goal is to ensure that every page targets a distinct set of keywords aligned with the content and the user’s search intent. Your keyword map should include headings (columns) like: Keyword cluster (if appropriate) This will list the group of related keywords. Target page This column identifies the specific page on your site that will target these keywords. Search intent Typically navigational, informational, commercial, or transactional, this classification helps clarify the purpose behind the user’s search, guiding your content creation to meet these needs. Current ranking This provides a benchmark for existing content and your content when it is first created. Notes This can include, for example, additional insights or strategies for each keyword cluster. Depending on your needs, you might also want to add columns for search volume, keyword difficulty, or a status field to indicate whether optimization is in progress. Once your keyword mapping document is complete, it becomes an excellent content creation and optimization guide:  For new content, it informs the topics and keywords to focus on, ensuring that your efforts are aligned with your SEO goals. For existing content, it helps identify areas to optimize, whether it’s updating keywords, enhancing content, or improving on-page elements. Want to get started? Try this free keyword mapping template in the resource center. Create and optimize content according to your keyword map Now that your keyword map is actionable, it’s time to start creating and optimizing content.  Content creation is its own separate topic, so I will not go into detail here as there are already many great articles online about producing and optimizing fantastic content . Maintain and update your keyword map Understand that your keyword map is never finished (that is, unless you stop working on your website). There will never be a time when your mapping document should not be worked on and improved and updated with new keywords. As your business grows, expands into new areas, and generally gets bigger and better, there will be more topics you need to create content about, more audiences that need to be satisfied, and more keywords that correspond to them. As these new topics and keywords come into play, your keyword mapping document will constantly expand. The map will grow more extensive as time goes on to keep supporting your website’s SEO. Keyword cannibalization: Don’t let it hold your SEO back Over the better part of a decade spent working in digital marketing and SEO, I have seen first-hand how the industry constantly moves forward. However, certain principles remain consistent, one of which is the importance of correct keyword mapping. Done correctly, keyword mapping is a powerful tool for superior website visibility and traffic. Done incorrectly, it can lead to keyword cannibalization , which occurs when multiple pages on your website compete for the same keywords, confusing search engines and diluting your SEO efforts. Keyword cannibalization isn’t just a technical issue. It’s also a strategic misstep that can significantly hamper your website’s ranking ability.  When multiple pages target the same keyword, they inadvertently compete against each other. This internal competition can lead to search ranking fluctuations, with different pages alternating for the same spot, hindering your SEO strategy’s overall effectiveness in addition to your website’s visibility. How to avoid keyword cannibalization Avoiding keyword cannibalization starts with a robust keyword mapping strategy. Hopefully, this article has pointed you in the right direction so far! Keyword mapping ensures that each page on your site is assigned unique primary and secondary keywords to target, reducing the potential for overlap and cannibalization. Regular content audits using tools like Google Analytics  and Google Search Console  are crucial to identify potential cannibalization issues. In cases where pages are too similar, consolidating them  can resolve cannibalization and enhance the overall value of the content. If consolidation isn’t viable, using canonical tags  helps direct search engines to see a specific page as the “primary” destination for a keyword. Additionally, a strategic internal linking  approach, emphasizing links to the most relevant page for each keyword, reinforces which page search engines should view as the primary page. Tools to help your keyword mapping To round off this article, I will talk about some of the SEO tools  you should use to make the keyword mapping process easier for you and your website. Keyword research tools Proper keyword research lies at the heart of keyword mapping. This is where keyword research tools come into play, serving as the “market intelligence” of your mapping toolkit. These tools are crucial for discovering new target keywords, allowing you to create a comprehensive map covering all aspects of your content’s needs! Some tools you can consider include: Ahrefs Semrush Google Search Console Google Keyword Planner These tools provide keyword metrics like search volume, competition, and relevance. You can use them to identify the primary and secondary keywords that are most relevant to your content and audience, forming the basis of your keyword map. AlsoAsked is another excellent keyword research tool, although it differs from the ones listed above in that it offers the People Also Ask  output from Google search results for your given keyword (instead of keyword metrics). Regardless of what tool you choose, bear in mind that the metrics they provide are estimates, based on their own data (unless they’re Google’s own tools). You should accept that these figures can vary depending on source. Spreadsheet software Creating a spreadsheet is a necessary step of the keyword mapping process. Compared to a Word document or third-party software, a spreadsheet’s clarity and organization are unparalleled, especially when dealing with hundreds of keywords and their alignments to your web pages. This format offers a structured and visually clear way to categorize, track, and analyze keywords. A well-maintained spreadsheet enables SEO professionals to update and modify their keyword map easily, accommodating the dynamic nature of search trends and website development. Moreover, the ability to analyze keyword data through various functions like sorting and filtering streamlines any decisions that you may need to make. Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel are popular choices, each with unique strengths and weaknesses. Google Sheets for keyword mapping Microsoft Excel for keyword mapping Highly collaborative Real-time editing and sharing Ideal for teams Advanced analytical capabilities Better for complex data sets (such as a keyword map for a very large website) The choice of spreadsheet software often depends on your company’s existing practices and requirements. But if it’s up to you, the tool you select should align with your team’s needs and the specific demands of your keyword map. Web crawling software Web crawlers, like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb, provide a competitive advantage when you need to create an excellent keyword mapping document. These tools crawl through your website , like search engine bots, gathering detailed insights about your site’s structure, content, and keyword usage. This information is invaluable for identifying gaps in your keyword coverage and discovering areas of your site to optimize for better SERP visibility. By providing a comprehensive view of how your content is currently aligned with your target keywords, web crawlers enable you to precisely refine your keyword map, ensuring that each page is well-positioned to rank in search results. The detailed analysis these tools offer can make the difference between a good SEO strategy and a great one, setting your site apart in highly competitive verticals. Keyword tracking software A keyword tracker is vital when mapping because it allows you to monitor and evaluate keyword performance over time . Keyword trackers provide essential data on how well your intentionally targeted keywords (and other keywords) rank, offering a view into the effectiveness of your SEO strategy. This real-time feedback helps you understand the impact of your keyword choices and make necessary adjustments.  By closely monitoring your keyword performance, you can quickly identify trends , capitalize on successful keywords, and adjust or replace those not performing as expected, ensuring your website stays competitive and relevant. When it comes to choosing a keyword tracker, there are many excellent options:  Ahrefs is known for its extensive database and detailed keyword analysis, making it popular amongst SEO professionals.  Semrush offers a comprehensive suite of SEO tools with great keyword-tracking features. SE Ranking  is generally praised for its user-friendly interface and the accuracy of its tracking. Each platform offers unique features and benefits, making them suitable for various business needs and SEO objectives. Using them can significantly contribute to the refinement and success of a keyword mapping campaign. Successful SEO is never just “one and done” Keyword mapping transcends word-to-page alignment. It’s about strategically creating content that resonates with the intent of searchers (i.e., your audience). It’s a dynamic and ongoing process, continually evolving with your business and the ever-changing SERP landscape. Remember that keyword mapping shouldn’t be treated as a one-time deal! You must continually choose to change, re-format, and evolve your keyword map as your business evolves. Every time your business expands into a new area, think of this as a new “branch” of content to be created and add it to your map! Don’t let new business opportunities go to waste because of a static document. Whilst using tools can give you a small edge, especially when it comes to the speed of your work, and, sometimes, accuracy, using tools is not vital! It’s certainly possible to complete a great keyword mapping document completely manually, without any tools’ input! This is especially true if you’re an expert in your field. Ryan Jones - Marketing Manager at SEOTesting Approaching a decade in marketing, Ryan has worked in-house and agency side. From scaling an eCommerce business from £400K to over £1.4M in annual revenue to increasing conversion rates for small, family businesses, Ryan loves making marketing work for the masses. Twitter  | Linkedin

Author: Chris Green In my first post on the site migrations , I covered the fundamental elements you need to be aware of to run a successful migration. We looked at: What a site migration is The elements of a successful site migration Migrating to Wix from WordPress Whilst it was a relatively comprehensive article, believe it or not, we only covered the basics. Now, it’s onto the advanced techniques to help manage migrations effectively. Table of contents: Content auditing Mapping your site’s keywords and content 301 redirect mapping Tech SEO checks Reporting and benchmarking Content auditing One of the primary reasons migrations go wrong (or outright fail) is because content is lost as part of the process. Sometimes this loss is intended, other times it is by accident or simply not thought of. I strongly advocate migrating as much content as you can if you want to retain organic performance, but there are clear times when this is not ideal or practical (for example, if you have years of content that is out of date, or no longer relevant). Whatever your situation, there is no valid reason for not taking inventory of your content and auditing it to see what you have and what is working. So, what pages are working? To determine the performance of any given page, I like to capture the following data points about each: Organic traffic (Google Analytics) Conversions (Google Analytics) Backlinks (Your tool of choice) Clicks/impressions (Google Search Console) For small(er) sites, this can be done at the page level, but for larger sites, you may need to report on the directory/section level. How to obtain performance data While you can pull this data manually and use something like VLOOKUP to match up the different metrics, this method can be time consuming and error prone over large data sets. One of my favorite methods is to instead use Screaming Frog to pull all this data in one go. The process is as simple as crawling the website (as you would usually), except before you start, you want to set up Google Analytics , Search Console , and either Ahrefs or Majestic APIs. As each URL is crawled, it will also pull the traffic/ranking/impression/backlink data, which enables you to download a complete spreadsheet that you can sort and filter by metric. Very handy. Seer Interactive has a great guide on using APIs in Screaming Frog, and you can find some more tips here . For more on content audits in general (and how you can run them), this blog/video shares some great thoughts. But, what if there is no data? In too many cases, I have come to audit content only to discover that Google Analytics (or similar) is not present and Google Search Console has not been set up. This means two things: 1) the content audit is made more challenging and 2) the business has no idea what is/isn’t performing. In this circumstance, I would opt for running an initial benchmark ranking report. By this, I mean: 01. Crawl the site 02. Extract the titles/ headings 03. Clean and de-duplicate 04. Run this list of key terms/phrases through a rank-tracking tool 05. Re-check performance after the migration This is clearly a less-than-ideal method, but it still provides you with a list of the content that’s performing best. Mapping your site’s keywords and content Mapping your target keywords to your content is a crucial step in the migration process. This is like creating an IA (information architecture) or a sitemap which UX designers and web designers will likely work on. A really important thing to note is that it is not the same as those, however. The differences are crucial, as they can cause some large issues. Design/UX sitemaps usually map out the structure of the key pages, but they often do not include keywords or URL structure. In the above example, the UX sitemap has entries for “Store” and “Blog” but does not itemize these URLs individually. As we’ll be using this mapping to also create the redirects, it really helps if the process is as complete as possible. Mapping your keywords Mapping your keywords to content can be time-consuming—it should be. Cutting corners during this process is not advised and the better your planning is, the better the migration will be. Trust me. To assist with this process, I have detailed the steps and created a template to help you on your way . (Note: You must first make a copy of the template before you can use it.) I start this process by checking that the most important pages are documented, just to ensure they are present. Return to your content audit and ensure you’re retaining as much of the key content as you can. Missing content and content gaps Assigning keywords to relevant pages is an important element of this plan. This accomplishes two things: Ensures you can retain the keywords you currently rank for Clearly highlights where any gaps or opportunities are In my experience, this stage is usually where you need to start managing the expectations of the wider team. In an ideal world, this is where you dictate everything that is best for SEO, but there aren’t many projects where you will get 100% of your recommendations implemented. You will have to make compromises, but you’ll be able to clearly illustrate—as a result of creating a sitemap—which keywords are missing and the respective traffic that may be lost (based on the content audit). If they don’t want to bring the content across then fine, so long as everyone realizes what is lost as part of this. 301 redirect mapping Once we have an account of the key content that needs to be present (and which pages are targeting which keywords), it is time to map the 301 redirects . I covered how to manage redirects in my previous article , but this will go into more depth. 01. Run through your keyword mapping document. For each new page you have created, assign the URL (or URLs) of the old pages that should be 301 redirected to it. 02. Export a list of pages from Google Analytics and Google Search Console for the last year. VLOOKUP these against your initial list and note what is missing. There may be a lot of noise here (e.g., URLs with tracking parameters, mixed casing issues, or similar), but for this stage, you’re best off mapping everything. 03. Run through the list and assign the page that will be the best-case match once the site is live. If you find that the page only “kind of” matches or it doesn’t really, then consider letting these pages 404. This is assuming you’ve already matched your most important ones, though! 04. Format a spreadsheet into two columns (OLD and NEW) and sort OLD in ascending order. Check to see you do not have any duplicates. If you’re working on thousands of redirects (or hundreds of thousands, for that matter), matching each redirect line-by-line is going to be pretty tough. Here’s some advice for getting started: Look for IDs or unique values in the URLs, if you can ensure that these URLs will stay consistent on the new site, you can match URLs using regex. If you have content on a staging site that is staying the same as the live site, crawl both sites and then export to Excel with titles, meta descriptions , H1s, or any values that are unique. With both crawls, you can use a VLOOKUP to match one to the other. In some instances (such as adding redirects via Nginx or .htaccess), you can first set rules to force all URLs to lowercase and add/remove trailing slashes. This will cut down on individual matches for each variation. Likewise, if you don’t need parameters on the new URLs, creating redirect rules to match to URLs (whether the URL has or doesn’t have parameters in place) will save a lot of time. The above list is more to make you aware of what is possible, not necessarily solve each issue—the implementation and technical setup will heavily influence how you do this, and I don’t want to give advice that may cause issues. Just know that you don’t have to match EVERYTHING manually and there are workarounds. Testing redirects Where possible, always test redirects on a staging environment. Always make time for this, fixing redirect issues post-launch (when everyone is busy doing their planned post-launch tasks) is NOT a situation you want to find yourself in. Work with your developers to implement the redirects during staging—as you would with a live site—you can then modify your redirect list to run a test. Get your original 301 redirect mapping and then run a Find & Replace on your OLD column, but replace the OLD domain with whatever your staging domain is. For example: https://www. youroldsite.com /a-web-page becomes https:// stage.new-domain.com /a-web-page Crawl the list of OLD URLs and then check the destinations against your original URL list—redirects that take place as expected on the staging environment should work on the live site. This gives you more confidence in what you have set up, and the ones you identify as not working are ones you can fix before launch. Even though you have tested—and fixed issues—in a staging environment, ensure that one of the first things you do after launch is re-crawl all your original URLs to verify everything works as expected. Tech SEO checks Ensuring that your new site is technically compliant is another key element of the migration process. This (somewhat) lengthy guide isn’t going to get into the nuances of technical audits, but these are the core elements you especially need to focus on. Crawlable front-end framework : If you’re changing to a JavaScript front end, ensure that any content that is important for SEO (i.e., content and navigation) is rendered server-side. JavaScript SEO is one of the most technical areas you can venture into— this guide is probably one of the best out there if you want to learn more. Performance: Your new site needs to be as fast—if not faster—than the old version. Page speed is a ranking factor and a step backward here can be detrimental to SEO and user experience. Internal linking: Significant internal linking changes (particularly reduction) will require some serious investigation. Crawl the site to get an overview of its technical health: You can use third-party SEO software to understand how compliant your new site is from a technical SEO perspective. There are many things to look out for—a more accessible site-audit process built around Screaming Frog can be found here . There’s so much else you need to get right, but (at a minimum) you want the new site to be as good as the current site. Do not accept lower standards than you currently have and strive for as close to perfect as possible, anything less sets a terrible precedent and is often hard to recover from. Comparing your staging and live sites A quick way to ensure your staging site is going in the right direction is to run comparative crawls with the live site. Screaming Frog has a simple way to do this, but most crawlers have this kind of functionality. The key things you need to watch out for are: Changes in titles/metadata Changes in crawl depth Changes in the number of pages Changes in internal linking There are many other elements to check, but again, significant changes to items in the list above can have profound impacts when you complete the migration. It goes without saying, but you may expect there to be significant changes—after all, you’re launching a new site! But, this is where you’re going to use the audit to highlight changes you may not have been expecting—this is your focus. Reporting and benchmarking A key part of site migrations is the story you tell about it. You may not believe this, but one of the most common conversations I have with new clients is how their SEO performance has been slowly getting worse. And, they also changed websites around the same time. But, nobody put those elements together. If you are not tracking and reporting on these things, many businesses do not know it happens. Unless you are trying to cover up a bad migration (please don’t), you always want to report on progress and own your own narrative here. Ranking performance You need to be aware of all the keywords that currently drive clicks/impressions to your site. Without a solid view of ranking performance before the migration, you will find it harder to show the success (or troubleshoot issues) post-launch. The more complete a view you can build of this, the better. I recommend the following tools to access the data you need: Google Search Console — Look at the top traffic-driving queries for the last year (export via API or Looker Studio if you have a lot of data and don’t want to be limited by sampling). Semrush/SISTRIX — You can use these tools to collect all ranking keywords (and their pages). Both platforms require a subscription, but basic-level access will provide the information you need here. Rank tracking software — If you’re already tracking rankings for your most important keywords, this data is invaluable. A rank tracker can let you track your own keywords, which gives more control than found within Semrush’s and Sistrix’s pre-existing databases. Both tools will also enable you to run your own rank tracking campaigns, although there are other options readily available. In my experience, you will need a combination of the above keyword sources to see the full list, but if you do not have all of this available, the bare minimum is the Google Search Console data. If you are changing domains (and want an easy way of comparing the old site to the new site), then this guide provides a great walkthrough of how to achieve this using Looker Studio (formally Google Data Studio). If you are adding content or making other improvements as part of the migration, you will want to start tracking the new keywords before the migration. This is essential for measuring the growth post-launch. Benchmarking other metrics Rankings and visibility are the best metrics to judge the elements SEO has the most control over, but you will also want to understand other metrics. I like to think of metrics as being on a spectrum, from those that have technical value to those that have financial value. To help visualize this, I have created the metric chain (see below), that illustrates the key migration-related metrics and where they fall on the technical/financial spectrum. A technical metric is less closely related to revenue, but you need to understand this to do your job better. Financial metrics don’t give direct implementational information, but they are great to provide to stakeholders to showcase your impact on the bottom line or to lobby to get your recommendations implemented. Create a snapshot of the key metrics (before your migration) where you highlight what’s most important to the wider team. I usually build these in Looker Studio and include: Clicks (Google Search Console) Impressions (Google Search Console) Organic traffic (Google Analytics) Organic revenue (Google Analytics) Organic conversion rate (Google Analytics) Organic average time on site (Google Analytics) Organic pages per session (Google Analytics) CRuX data (from here ) If you are using Looker Studio, you can easily change the date range covered in your snapshot. This is important as you are also going to want to select the date range to compare against. I usually default to six weeks prior to the migration (but you will need to keep an eye on crawl stats for potentially six months also). This is because six weeks is the usual post-launch window to understand the full impact of the migration, and you want to compare like-for-like as best you can. If your traffic is highly seasonal, comparing a six-week period pre/post launch may not give you a true representation of traffic performance. So, I usually compare six weeks pre/post-launch and the six weeks post-launch against the same period the previous year. This gives you multiple ways of understanding performance and what is related to the migration against other factors. Wrapping Up A successful site migration is entirely possible—you do not need to lose traffic just because you have moved websites. You can’t take it for granted, though. To reiterate, you need to focus on: Ensuring that you do not lose any content that currently performs well Ensuring the new content contains the content/keyword focus you agreed is needed for the new site Testing 301s so you know they will work Auditing the site to maintain/implement strong technical SEO standards Benchmarking, tracking, and reporting on success so you can tell the story of the migration to stakeholders The best place to start is at the beginning. Familiarize yourself with the elements discussed above and use it to form a plan. Ensure all key people involved are aware of the plan and get going! Chris Green - Senior SEO Consultant at Torque Partnership Chris Green is an SEO consultant and trainer of over 10 years. A lover of all things digital and uses spreadsheets for more of his life than he really needs to, Chris specializes in migrations, auditing, reporting, training and standing up new processes for teams. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Jeremy Rivera The time when a shop or local business could just open its doors, place a few local ads, have a grand opening event and call it a day are over. Search engines are ubiquitous and now they’re in people’s hands as they head out the door as part of every smartphone. People now instinctually turn to their phones and search engines when looking for a local shop or service provider, like yourself. Search engines connect them to the products and services they’re looking for, and investing in proper search engine optimization (SEO) can mean the difference between appearing near the top of results and not showing up at all, leaving potential customers for your competitors. “81% of retail shoppers conduct online research before buying. The overwhelming majority of retail consumers start their journey with online research.” — GE Capital Retail Bank Even if you know investing in SEO is a smart choice for your business, there can be other considerations preventing you from committing (such as whether you should learn it yourself or partner with an agency, or even what agency to trust, for example). In this article, I’ll discuss what you can expect to invest, what you should know before pursuing SEO, and what you get in return for your investment. Table of contents: What you’re paying for when you invest in SEO Potential reasons not to invest in SEO Investing in SEO: DIY vs. In-house vs. Outsourcing Can you use PPC/CPC to project ROI? Useful ways to predict traffic and ROI from SEO What you’re paying for when investing in SEO Unlike paid advertising (PPC) campaigns or paid social media campaigns, you aren’t paying the platform (in this case, Google) directly for the visitors that arrive at your website. Instead, you’re competing with other small businesses and sites to appear in the top search results. The better your SEO is, the more visible your brand is likely to be when potential customers search for relevant terms (like your industry, products, or services). In turn, that increases the chances that searchers will click on your listing from search results, get directions to you from Google Maps, or that your content will be read aloud as the response from a smart speaker. So, if you’re not paying directly for that traffic from search engines, what are you paying for exactly? Content: Someone needs to write the pages or articles that will appear in search results, familiarize audiences with your business, and ultimately nurture them towards becoming a customer. Links: You need other sites to lend you relevance and authority by linking to you , and that usually means some type of outreach which needs to be managed. Website design: Your site’s layout and visitor flow can contribute or hinder your ability to convert visitors into paying customers. You may need to pay for some help to optimize your site’s conversion rate. Technical SEO: Ensuring Google and other search engines are properly crawling, indexing, and ranking your site, and resolving technical issues or schema code deployment takes time and expertise. Analytics/strategy: It takes experience and skill to effectively review your site’s performance , your competitor’s performance, and establish a reasonable plan of action or relevant keywords to target with pages or posts. These are the elements that come together to help you appear in search results and turn those online visitors into in-person visitors and/or potentially paying customers. Separating SEO myths from facts Unfortunately, as soon as a small business is registered, it starts getting cold calls and pitch emails from every corner of the world, promising seemingly overnight success for a small investment. There are offshore companies that exist just to try and convince small business owners to pay for their services , and a number of them claim to “do SEO” for your business. It is true that there are shady service providers, and one of the best ways to tell whether they are just trying to make a quick buck off of you (and not actual SEO experts) is because they are not using SEO to reach you—they’re cold-calling or emailing you! If they actually did have the skill needed to rank other businesses in search results, then the proof should be in their own search rankings for their website! Do THEY show up for a relevant search? Beyond that litmus test, there are a number of other ways to evaluate whether an SEO agency or freelancer is the real deal: They don’t guarantee rankings for specific keywords. Their website actually ranks for keywords related to the services they provide. They don’t promise instant results. They don’t claim to be “Google Certified” for SEO services (no such certification currently exists). They have testimonials from previous SEO clients. The potential cost of ignoring SEO If you don’t engage in SEO, then your business may not get found in search results, which limits the amount of people that can find and patronize your business. While this disadvantage alone is enough for most businesses to take SEO seriously, there are a number of other, related disadvantages for you to consider. For example, when people are researching “ What is the best [service/product] that [does what you do]? ”, you will miss out on the opportunity to get in front of that audience since you’ll have no relevant content for them to consume. Instead, the search results will show them a list of competitors or content from your competitors. There is an opportunity window when somebody is doing research before they commit (in SEO, this is referred to as “ informational intent ”). This is even more true the more expensive the purchase is. Optimizing your site enables you to attract searchers at this stage of the funnel , familiarize them with your brand, and, over time, instill trust and nudge them towards becoming a customer. For local businesses, you also have the ability to claim your space directly on Google Search results , and show up in maps. If Google interprets the intent of the search to be local, then it may show a local knowledge panel (shown above)—businesses can claim their local knowledge panel, enabling them to showcase their location details, reviews, images, as well as post product, service, or business updates and promotions. There’s even an entire field of SEO for these local results , and extra steps that can increase a small shop’s ability to reach clients who a ready to buy and physically nearby. The list of potential SEO benefits is long, but when you think about passing on those benefits, remember also that you’re making the internet an easier place for your competitors to reach their audiences because you’re limiting your digital presence (that’s one less business that customers have to choose from). For some types of customers, that’s the same as not existing at all. But, there are legitimate reasons not to invest in SEO There are potentially real reasons why it might not make sense to invest in SEO right this minute. If you’re a small business, with no free time, no budget, and no knowledge of SEO to start with—and you have other successful marketing channel options—then perhaps now is not the best time to invest in SEO. It could be that you’re in a small community, have an incredibly small, niche audience, provide hyperlocal services, and have very little budget to work with. In that case, hiring an SEO consultant or paying for an agency could be far more costly than the potential return. As a business owner, you should also know your audience’s preferred channels. For example, if your target demographic is not very tech savvy, they may be more receptive to traditional marketing. Or, if a social media platform, like Instagram, is the go-to channel for your industry, your initial investment should go towards that. And then, there may be reasons specific to your business: If you are looking for SEO to “save” your business, you may be setting yourself up for failure. If you can’t play the long game (and need a quick return on that investment) then other channels will likely benefit you more. Investing in SEO: DIY vs. In-house vs. Outsourcing Can just anyone do SEO? The short answer is that technically, yes, nearly anyone who can write an email can “do SEO.” But, that’s the same as saying anyone who can turn a wrench or use a screwdriver or watch a Youtube video can fix a car—I would call on someone who has experience and knows how to do it effectively before asking grandma to put down her tea and fix my Corolla. There is no Google University . There’s no “SEO certificate” that you get handed. There is no college degree in SEO and, with the pace of evolving search engine algorithms, it’s a good bet to say that there never will be. You’re really paying for experience and expertise —for someone who has already read, learned, implemented, tested, and iterated on the areas that site owners can optimize to appear higher up in the search results for relevant terms. So, your options include: Investing your own time as a small business owner to learn SEO Hiring an in-house employee to handle SEO for your business Hiring a freelance SEO consultant to address your needs Looking for a digital marketing agency to handle link building outreach, content marketing, and on-site optimization (or separate agencies that specialize in these sub-disciplines of SEO). Each option has pros and cons. Learning SEO for yourself will take time that could otherwise be spent running your business. Hiring an in-house SEO needs to compliment or work with your current marketing strategy or team. It takes time to vet a freelancer or agency and determine if they’re the right fit with the right skills your particular business needs to succeed. Naturally, that leaves us asking: “Is it all worth it?” Can you really use PPC/CPC to project ROI? It’s not unusual for digital marketing tools to provide rough estimates of search volume for a particular term or phrase that might be relevant to your business. Several tool providers use a combination of monthly search volume numbers and simply multiply them by the cost-per-click data (typically provided by the Google Ads API) for that particular phrase. They suggest that you can calculate the “value” of your traffic by simply multiplying the ad cost for the term by its search volume. Does this give you a viable number? No. It really falls short in several ways that can give you a false sense of value , which, in turn, leads to poor budget allocation and decision making. First, this is because you will only ever get a portion of that monthly search volume. Even if you’re at the top of the results, you can only realistically expect to attract about 30% of that total search volume or so (depending on the type of query). So, multiplying the entire search volume number by CPC misses the mark there. Second, just because it would cost you that much for a click via paid search, that’s not typically how much money that click would earn for you . No website gets 100% of its visitors to buy something. Usually, it’s between 2.5-7.5% of visitors (depending on the industry) and can vary depending on how familiar people already are with your brand. So, it’s not even an accurate representation of what that traffic is worth to you. Useful ways to predict traffic and ROI from SEO Let’s take a look at two potential methods to calculate your return on investment for SEO: The first is by calculating the potential change in your site’s current organic traffic and comparing that to the potential expense for the SEO campaign. While simplistic, this could be a good place to start if your main question is “Will my SEO investment pay for itself?” The second is looking at your target keywords and coming up with a potential outcome (if you ranked for those terms in search results) and comparing it to your expense. This method enables you to get more granular by identifying the value of certain keywords for your business. Method 1: Predicting ROI via a projected change in traffic Numerically, this is a fairly easy process: Get your last 30 days of revenue generated by organic traffic to your site. Multiply that revenue by the percentage increase in organic traffic that you’re confident you can achieve after the proposed SEO campaign and you have a rough estimate of how valuable that could be for your business. Then, you can compare that against the cost of the campaign. (Note: If seasonality affects your business, you may want to use average monthly for this calculation.) Of course, you need to have your Google Analytics configured properly to capture not just your site’s visitors, but also to identify search engines as the source of traffic that sent the visitors who made a purchase on your site. That’s assuming you can track the actual sale and sale amount. Usually, this is easiest for eCommerce sites, because transactions are typically recorded and designed to get that data into your analytics program. Method 2: Predicting ROI via search volume, CTR, conversion rate, and revenue per sale The second way to calculate your SEO ROI requires access to a tool like Semrush , DataForSEO, or Ahrefs, where you can build a list of relevant keywords for your business (to eventually identify their associated search volumes). Talk to your salesperson, your receptionist, look over support emails, and gather a list of likely terms and phrases people will use to discover businesses like yours. You’re then going to go through a process to predict your potential organic traffic . Here’s a nifty graphic outlining your next few steps: You will need to take your list of relevant keywords and plug it into your SEO tool of choice to get the associated monthly search volumes. Next, add each keyword and its search volume to a Google or Excel Sheet (you may be able to download this data in a spreadsheet directly from some SEO tools). Remember, that value represents the approximate amount of total searches for that phrase in the previous month. In the next column, you’re going to enter a value representing the organic click-through rate of your site. Because there is more than one choice available on the search results, total search volume will be split up between all the URLs that are displayed. The lion’s share will go to the top position. Here’s a typical breakdown of organic CTR from Advanced Web Ranking’s ongoing case study : So, let’s say that we want to estimate our traffic if we were to rank 1 for a commercial search query. Our Organic CTR would be 28.49% (according to the chart above). So, create a simple formula in the next cell of your spreadsheet to multiply your search volume number by that percentage and you’ve got an estimated amount of traffic for that particular search term (if you ranked 1). Repeat the process by applying that formula all the way down your sheet for each of your terms to project your traffic if you were to rank in a given position on the search results. Calculating potential conversions, sales, and revenue You’re likely aware that not every visitor becomes a customer. Actually, on average most sites convert just 2.5-5% of their visitors into paying clients. You can use this number as a stand-in if you haven’t yet configured your analytics system to track your actual conversion rate . However, if you do have it handy, use your own conversion rate and add it to the next column and then add a simple formula multiplying your traffic (from the previous step) by your conversion rate. If you have a sales team involved, taking leads from the site, then you need to know what percentage of leads from the site they turn into customers. I call this the “sale rate”—add that to the next column and multiply your leads by it. If you’re an eCommerce business, then you can likely skip this step. Lastly, you will add a revenue per sale for the given keyword. It can be an average value or even a projection of lifetime value for acquiring this kind of customer—it’s up to you, but make sure to stay consistent with your measure of value. Multiply the number of sales you get from your conversions and you have your potential monthly revenue. Of course, SEO is not magic. You cannot possibly rank number 1 for every target phrase, no matter how much content you have or backlinks you get. So how can we make a reasonable estimate? Get the sum of all of these values for your set of keywords and make a chart based on the following concepts: If I ranked number 1 for 50% of these keywords If I ranked number 1 for 25% of these keywords If I ranked number 1 for 12.5% of these keywords Now, you have a reasonable SEO ROI projection based on relevant data showing your market potential, which should be used to help you decide what to invest in for your business. SEO is almost always worth it, but you should still know your potential ROI before you buy Keeping in mind that SEO isn’t implemented overnight and its ROI comes over time, you now have some rough, but reasonable numbers to determine how much your organization can benefit from your SEO investment. You can take that SEO forecast from above and use it as a starting point for your in-house candidate, or your prospective SEO consultant or agency. Or, if money is tight but you have plenty of time, there are tons of resources available to learn more about SEO and how to implement it for yourself to reap those rewards in additional traffic and revenue. Jeremy Rivera - Founder of SEO Arcade Over 16 years in SEO, Jeremy has worked with literally hundreds of sites, small businesses, and enterprise level companies in dozens of industries. His focus is on ensuring companies get the best return on investment for their SEO campaign . Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Abby Gleason At its core, SEO success relies on your keywords ranking on the first page in search engines, like Google. Competition for those top 10 positions can be stiff—especially if your business is in a saturated market. When you’re building a keyword list, choosing topics you can realistically rank for is essential to driving organic traffic. If you target keywords that are too competitive for your website, search engines might not even show your content to users—resulting in wasted time and effort. Proper keyword difficulty measurement is a crucial part of a successful SEO strategy. Here, I share my own framework (the Keyword Difficulty Assessment Matrix) for how to assess it more accurately, so you can feel confident that the pages you create will drive traffic. Table of contents: What keyword difficulty is and why it’s important for SEO How keyword difficulty is calculated A more comprehensive approach: The Keyword Difficulty Assessment Matrix Tools to help you determine keyword difficulty What is keyword difficulty and why is it important for SEO? Keyword difficulty (or keyword “competition”) is a metric used to convey how challenging it might be to rank for a given keyword in organic search results. Popular keyword research tools, like Ahrefs or Semrush, provide keyword difficulty figures as a number between 0–100, with 100 representing the most competitive keywords. SEOs typically use keyword difficulty scores to quickly determine how “reasonable” a keyword is to target. They may weigh this difficulty score against the authority of their website to evaluate whether they actually have a shot of ranking high enough to attract clicks from the search results. In general, if your website is highly authoritative (like Wikipedia or Healthline, for example), then a higher keyword difficulty score may not necessarily be as challenging for your website as it would be for one of your less authoritative competitors. However, if you’re in the majority and work with a medium-to-low authority domain, accurately measuring keyword difficulty becomes much more important. You don’t want to waste your time creating content only to be buried on the fifth page of search results. No—you want to be front and center on the first page, and choosing the right keywords is how you make this reality. For example, if you’re a medium-sized business that sells furniture, trying to rank for [dining tables] may be a lost cause. You’re up against some of the most authoritative sites out there, and ranking among them will be difficult, if not impossible. However, a more specific keyword, like [ space saving dining tables ], shows a bit more opportunity. Yes, the term has lower search volume than its more generic counterpart, but it’s easier to rank for. Plus, that specificity means the shopper is likely closer to purchase (these types of keywords are often described as “high intent”). As a rule of thumb, long-tail keywords tend to be less competitive than short-tail keywords. Here’s an example of this concept in action: The phrase [pizza] is short tail (i.e., a short phrase that is likely highly competitive). Longer, more specific variations of the short tail term (like [pizza delivery] or [vegan pizza delivery in NY after midnight]) are less competitive. Generally, more specific searches mean fewer competitors. How keyword difficulty is calculated Keyword research tools use a variety of parameters to inform their scores. Semrush, for example, shares its list of inputs and corresponding weighting: Note: Different tools may use different methodologies to calculate keyword difficulty, so it’s always a good idea to research how each produces its scores. Doing so can help you understand how reliable those scores actually are. While these numbers can provide a helpful starting point for your research, they shouldn’t be taken as fact. Keyword research tools’ metrics aren’t foolproof, and there are many factors that may not be included in the data. Take seasonality, for example. It might be easier to rank for [buffalo chicken dip recipes] in July than in February, when the Super Bowl typically dominates pop culture in the US, and search results become saturated with publishers trying to capitalize on that traffic surge. Keyword tools might not capture that. Or consider trending keywords . The term [chatGPT] showed zero search volume in keyword tools for months after its launch—and it took a while for the keyword difficulty score to reflect reality. You should also evaluate how you use keyword difficulty scores from a collaborative perspective—including a difficulty score in your keyword list might confuse your content team. When I used to include scores in my keyword lists, I would get loads of questions: “What do these numbers mean?” “Are keywords that score below 30 good to go after?” “What are the chances of ranking?” These numbers tell your team next to nothing, so you’ll either have to explain these concepts or omit them when they’re just not relevant for those teammates/stakeholders. The long and short of it is: Keyword research tools can only take you so far. Keyword difficulty needs context in order to be worth mentioning. It has to be more than “a number out of 100.” Keyword difficulty scores are clearly an imperfect metric. As an SEO and/or website owner, you can look at a wider range of criteria to ensure that the keywords you’re trying to rank for are realistic. In the next section, I share my method for assessing and communicating keyword difficulty in a more intuitive way. The Keyword Difficulty Assessment Matrix Once you’ve done your keyword research and have a list of topics you want to potentially target, you’ll want to scrutinize those terms for difficulty, so you can prioritize the highest volume, lowest competition topics. Accurately determining keyword difficulty involves reviewing the search engine results pages (SERPs) and explaining with words (not just numbers) how challenging ranking for that keyword will actually be. I've created a keyword difficulty matrix to help explain the different difficulty levels to your team(s). You should adjust this with whatever language makes sense for your business, but I'd recommend keeping it clear and simple. The Keyword Difficulty Assessment Matrix Ranking Difficulty Criteria Low Top 10 search results do not all contain the primary keyword Top 10 search results are mostly old content (2+ years old) Top 10 search results contain different locales (e.g., ".uk" or ".au" sites in US results) Clicking into competitor content shows mostly low-authority sites with poor experiences: intrusive ads, poor formatting, etc. Medium Top 10 search results mostly contain the primary keyword Top 10 search results are a mix of high-authority and mid-to-low authority sites Top 10 search results are a mix of recently published & old content (2+ years old) Clicking into competitor content shows fairly well-optimized pages, with some opportunity for improvement High Top 10 search results all contain the target keyword & engaging titles Top 10 search results are all high-authority websites (e.g., Mayo Clinic for a medical query) Top 10 search results are all up to date (less than 2 years old) Clicking into competitor content shows extremely well optimized pages, with little opportunity to improve Closely examining the search results is a key part of what makes this process more effective and trustworthy. Instead of putting your sole trust in an SEO tool’s data, you’re rolling up your sleeves and seeing the search landscape for yourself. The result is a keyword list that you can target with an incredibly high degree of confidence. I’ve created a handy Google Sheets template with this criteria that you can tweak and use for your own content strategy. I recommend including these guidelines in your keyword list to clarify how you measure keyword difficulty, and to help your team do the same. Tools to help you determine keyword difficulty While I’m a proponent of adding manual research to your workflow, I’m also a huge fan of using tools to speed things along where possible (and without sacrificing data integrity). Thruuu Thruuu ’s free SERP analyzer tool lets you scrape (extract data from) Google’s search results for any keyword. Analyze up to 100 Google results and find on-page data points (like competitors’ content structure) for a quick, accurate analysis. I love that Thruuu is free, and has a clear, easy-to-use interface to quickly assess the search results. Frase Frase is a paid content optimization tool with a helpful SERP analysis feature that shows you key components of competitor pages including page titles , headings , and word count. I especially love that it shows the most popular topics used throughout competing articles—this can be very helpful context when writing your own content. Apify Apify’s free Google search results scraper enables you to extract organic and paid results, ads, queries, People Also Ask , prices, reviews, and more. My favorite thing about this tool is that you can scrape the results for multiple keywords at once, instead of one at a time (which is a limitation on Thruuu and Frase). Ahrefs & Semrush Ahrefs and Semrush both offer a “SERP overview” report that shows the top 10 results for your target keyword, including metrics like backlinks and estimated traffic. As mentioned above, these tools do offer their own assessment of keyword difficulty by providing a score for each keyword. Even though I don’t recommend relying on their keyword difficulty metrics without additional research, those numbers can provide a helpful benchmark to kickstart your process. Build a keyword list you can feel confident in Assessing keyword difficulty may feel tedious at times. The manual portion of this research does indeed take more time than exporting a spreadsheet from a keyword tool. But, I assure you, a more contextualized, meticulous method makes up for the effort with accuracy. You’ll have a high degree of certainty that these keywords are good opportunities for your business—which can go a very long way in ensuring that you (and your teammates) use your time and resources most impactfully. Abby Gleason - SEO Product Manager Abby Gleason is a content-focused SEO with 6+ years experience leading successful organic search strategies for SaaS and eCommerce brands. She loves to share her learnings and has been published on Moz, Semrush, Search Engine Land and more. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Sophie Brannon What good is an SEO report if it doesn’t clearly communicate the state of your site’s search visibility and provide stakeholders with actionable insights that align with their business objectives? Even if the report includes all the appropriate metrics, it’s your job as an in-house or agency SEO to interpret those trends and make recommendations. Communication in a report is more important than the numbers themselves. Merely compiling your impressions, traffic, rankings, and so on isn’t enough if you want to maximize your chances of getting buy-in for your recommendations. You need to present your findings concisely and unambiguously. To help you create more accessible, effective SEO reports , I’ll cover: What to avoid in SEO reports How to create SEO reports for easy data consumption Looker Studio PowerPoint/Google Slides Spreadsheets Tool-generated reports What you should always include in your SEO reports What to avoid in SEO reports The way you report to stakeholders or clients may change depending on their preferences or the tools available to you. It may also change depending on the level of understanding they have about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. So, instead of starting with how to create an easily understandable SEO report , let’s first look at what you should avoid, as that will be applicable regardless of what software you’re using to create the report. Jargon Overcomplicating your write-ups and using uncommon phrases to explain what you’ve been working on isn’t going to resonate with stakeholders. A director of a local plumbing company isn’t going to understand what Core Web Vitals or a log file analysis is. And most likely, they’re not going to care either. Avoid using too much jargon to keep your reports simple. If this is unavoidable, then offer a written explanation that clearly defines the term(s) you have included. Information overload Giving too much information is just as bad as giving too little. While data is important, data fatigue is all too real. Even if the data is important to you, it may not be for the stakeholder. No matter how clearly the data and charts may portray information, without context this could be seen as just a collection of numbers. Pinpoint the most important data based on what is relevant to your stakeholders and who is viewing the report, instead of simply including everything. Meaningless metrics This is one of the most common scenarios in reporting that I’ve seen. Equally, it’s one of the most common complaints from stakeholders and clients that I’ve seen, too. Often, the data that you’re showcasing is meaningless to stakeholders (even if it’s important to you and your team). Refine your SEO report to show the most important metrics that tie back to the core business goals and defined KPIs. This helps to keep your report clear and transparent without confusing the person you’re reporting to. If there is too much to consume, they will switch off and will not understand the value of your efforts, which could eventually lead to less support for your campaigns. Incorrect attribution Have you experienced an organic traffic spike to particular categories, products, or pages this month? Fantastic! But, have you looked into the real cause of this spike or are you simply attributing it to all of the hard work that you’re putting into your campaign? There can be extenuating circumstances or other channels that feed into the success of your SEO campaign—such as a trend in the overall market, an online sale, or even a successful email marketing campaign—which can drive success via your channel (alongside the work you’re doing). Not acknowledging this within your reporting, and having the stakeholder pull this up, can quickly lead to distrust in the reports you’re delivering and the data you’re showing. Be completely transparent and attribute successes correctly. Confusing layouts An SEO report should tell a story. It should answer the questions that your stakeholders have without them having to ask. Piling in too much data, into too many slides, without a proper order can cause confusion. If you’re using automated reporting, ensure that the system is user-friendly and that the action users need to take is clear. Frustrating the reader before they’ve even absorbed the report will lead them to feel negatively about the entire channel, regardless of the work you’ve done and the results you’ve achieved. Focusing on just one metric This could be a result of stakeholder priorities due to lack of “big picture” understanding, or it could be how you’ve always approached SEO reports. Focusing on just one metric (such as rankings, for example) is no longer as simple as it was before. Search results have changed, Google’s algorithm has changed , and technology has changed to provide a more personalized experience for the user. This means that a lot of metrics are less certain than they used to be. All tools, even Google’s own Keyword Planner, can have discrepancies and this needs to be accounted for within your reporting. Otherwise, a myopic focus on a single metric could lead to a worthless report that neither shows your progress or provides a roadmap to better performance. Find the most accurate source for the data that you’re showing, adjust for any ambiguities, and look at a combination of metrics over a period of time to showcase your results. I prefer a year-over-year comparison to mitigate any seasonal trends that may muddle the month-to-month data. During the pandemic period, I would compare against 2019 pre-pandemic figures to get a clear picture of the market (positively or negatively). Focusing on one metric over a short period of time can make your SEO efforts look far less successful than they actually are. Highlighting only positives If you’re showing only positives, you’ll likely raise a few eyebrows. Particularly when the stakeholders are involved with the business and can see the bigger picture. Don’t be afraid to show where things have gone wrong or if things are not quite going to plan. This is all part of the communication behind the report. It’s more important to show what you’re going to do about it if it’s not going as planned. Showing only positives when this isn’t the case can make your data (and, consequently, you as a professional) seem untrustworthy. Business owners and stakeholders know that things aren’t going to be perfect all of the time. Not personalizing reports I see a lack of personalization all too often in SEO reporting. Your SEO reports should be bespoke to the person or people reading them. This means tailoring the data to the expertise of the reader to show them what they care about most. I’ll go into more specific detail about how to effectively personalize your SEO reports in a later section. How to create SEO reports for easy data consumption Technically, there are infinite ways to structure an SEO report, but Looker Studio , PowerPoint/Google Slides, spreadsheets, and automated tool reporting are some of the most common ways to construct a report. This is important as each tool will have different strengths and potential shortcomings for you to consider when it comes to crafting a clear, intelligible story about your SEO efforts. Here, I’m breaking down the do’s and don’ts of these common tools to help you build a report that is easy for the reader to consume and potentially act on. Looker Studio Formerly known as Google Data Studio, Looker Studio offers a dashboard style of reporting, connecting multiple channels via APIs to build an interactive, real-time report. Do’s: Your dashboard should be consumable at a glance. Use Looker Studio dashboards to provide a clear and simple helicopter view of a campaign by adding relevant charts and graphs in an easy-to-read format. Automate your internal reporting, including the technical details and metrics that matter to your team. This level of granularity won’t always be useful for your stakeholders, but it may be imperative for your colleagues, particularly those working alongside you. Create tabs within the dashboard to divide information, enabling stakeholders to get a clear view of how various efforts are going without getting bogged down with information overload. Utilize the various APIs that Looker Studio supports to integrate the most important data in your reports, quickly and easily. This will save you time with your monthly reporting and also provide an interactive dashboard with up-to-date data that can be referenced at any time. Add annotations to your charts and graphs to make sure that everything is clear to the reader with regard to the relevance of the data and why you’re showing it. Don’ts: Do not simply refer clients and stakeholders to the dashboard in place of regular reporting. You still need to accompany your reports with an account of the work you put in and the success you’ve achieved over time—this is the storytelling component and it’s vital if you want SEO to continue to be a priority for your organization or client. Avoid adding unnecessary widgets or sections. These can draw attention away from the details that matter most. Don’t adjust filters without checking if the changes you’ve made have broken any of the widgets. Try your best not to over complicate your dashboard. It’s easy to get carried away with BigQuery and all of the different adjustments you can make with a Looker Studio dashboard. Keep your dashboard clear and concise based on what your stakeholder wants to see within it. PowerPoint/Google Slides PowerPoint, Google Slides, or even a document (such as a PDF) can offer a more detailed reporting option if you want more write-up space. A lot of text can be overwhelming to stakeholders that have little understanding of SEO, so make sure to refine your doc/slides if this is the option you’re choosing. Bulleted and/or numbered lists with key insights and actions can make this more digestible. Do’s: Use bullet points or numbered lists with key insights and actions to make the report more digestible. Use graphs and charts where possible to make data clear. Give context for all of the information that you’re providing. The “why” is sometimes more important than the “what.” Provide an executive summary of the most important stats. This way, a stakeholder who may not have the time to peruse the entire presentation can get the most important information on one slide. Don’ts: Do not use filler content to fill empty white space. Do not use outdated data during your reporting period. This can lead to a lack of trust and authority in your reporting. With a lack of real-time APIs, you can easily fall into a trap of using data that is no longer relevant, so always cross-check this before submitting your reports. Try not to make presentations any longer than they have to be. This is something that I learnt the hard way after delivering deck after deck of over 100 slides to clients who just didn’t have the time to read through that much information. Where you can, keep your decks as short as possible, without underselling your work. Spreadsheets Some SEOs prefer spreadsheets for their SEO reporting. Again, this can quickly become data-heavy, so ensure that you have clear visuals and only the data that matters most to the stakeholder to keep this clear and actionable. This is typically one of my least favorite types of SEO reporting, usually because the examples have been unclear and data-heavy. But, that doesn’t mean that they can’t be used effectively. Do’s Similar to Looker Studio, use the tab functionality to segment data clearly. Use graphs and charts, alongside annotations, to showcase information. Clearly format all data and information to keep the spreadsheet tidy. Highlight headers in tables, centralize numbers, and use consistent formatting throughout. Use VLOOKUP functions to pull data from different sheets (and even different files, if needed) to cleanly collate the information you need to show. Use formulas to automate calculations to keep your reporting output quick. Color code positives and negatives to clearly highlight what the stakeholder/client should pay attention to. Extract data directly from tools such as Google Search Console using APIs, and use Power Pivot to handle large rows of data and complex data sets. Don’ts: Don’t use the report as a data dump or technical audit export without any proper formatting or explanation. Instead, build out a static dashboard. Try not to overload a sheet with numbers. If you’re struggling to read the numbers, then your stakeholders will likely have an even harder time. Avoid including millions of rows of data just because Power Pivot can handle it. Keep your report as streamlined and visual as possible. Tool-generated reports With the wealth of tools with increasingly sophisticated capabilities available to SEOs, many professionals like to generate their reports via the software that they use day to day. Do’s: Use the automated functions of tool-generated reports to speed up your reporting processes. This way, you can spend less time on reporting and more time on the work that makes a difference. Use the graphs and charts that the tool provides, and use these consistently over time for clear comparisons month-over-month and year-over-year. Utilize any API functionality to pull in data from elsewhere (e.g., Google Analytics or Google Search Console ). Take advantage of the ease of reporting by customizing pages or charts automatically in one place. Export the report—don’t leave it just within the platform. If you unsubscribe to the tool at any time or the client needs data, but the tool has changed its features and the “live” version of the report has broken, you may be left in a sticky situation. Exporting your reports and saving them as static PDFs (for backup purposes) can give you some protection for the future. Don’ts: You should not rely solely on data from just one tool. This can sometimes be inaccurate due to the way tools compile their databases or if they’ve made changes to their reporting functions and other features. Compare this data with other information to get the most accurate numbers for your report. Do not interpret the numbers that the tool gives you as 100% fact. Generally, tools will provide an “average case view” of your data. Results in Google are highly customized, so it can be difficult to pinpoint an exact, 100% accurate figure through third-party platforms for all circumstances. It’s not necessary (or even desirable) to pull in every bit of data the tool provides you with. Keep your reader in mind and make sure you’re not going into too much detail. For example, exporting a technical audit as part of your report every single month can result in clients caring more about how many alt tags they have left to resolve than the fact that their MoM/YoY revenue is significantly increasing as a direct result of your work. What you should always include in your SEO reports So far in this article, we’ve covered the don’ts and we’ve covered some of the top tips for the most common reporting tools in the SEO world. In this section, I’m taking a look at what you should always include, no matter what tool you’re using. Personalization Any report, no matter the tool you’re using, should be personalized to the person you are delivering it to. This means the metrics should align with the KPIs they are interested in and the level of detail within the report should be tailored to the expertise of the reader. If you’re handling more than one client or stakeholder at a time, templating your report can be tempting. But, this can be a downfall in terms of gaining trust and buy-in from a stakeholder, because, nine times out of ten, a template won’t show them what they want to see. Here’s some general guidance to help you customize your reports for the specific type of stakeholder: For a business owner , focus on the direct impact of the channel on revenue or conversions as a result of your work. For a marketing manager , you can include more detailed information on impression share or market captured, and how other channels are feeding into SEO and how SEO is feeding into other channels. For a more senior SEO , you can document exactly what you’ve done so far in a campaign and exactly what you’re doing next. Annotations With all reports, accompany your graphs and charts with annotations and write-ups. I recommend including both insights and recommendations in the following format: The data and the charts — This is the “what” The insights annotation — This is the “why” The recommendations — This is what you’re doing about it This can help you clearly explain what your report is showing, how this aligns with what the stakeholder wants to achieve, and how this feeds into your current and future strategy. This also helps explain where things aren’t going to plan and why. It can even promote action if the cause is internal or not related to you directly, but impacts what you are doing. Clean and clear layouts No matter the format, no matter the tool, and no matter the data you’re showing, make sure that it’s always clean and clear. Graphs and charts typically display data in easy-to-read ways. Consider your audience and their understanding of SEO, and structure your reports (and annotations) around this. A report should be easy to consume on first look. If there’s too much going on, then the stakeholder isn’t going to connect with the report and may therefore look sourly upon all the work that you’re doing. Metrics that matter The most important thing about creating reports that are easily consumable is to always clearly include the metrics that matter to the stakeholder. This doesn’t mean that you should ignore other datasets, particularly if they’re important to showcase the value of the work that you’re doing, but they should be a subset of the report (i.e., shown on a different page or on a different tab). Pull in the reader with the metrics that they care about most through an opening page or executive summary on the report. Then, use other data and annotation to clearly supplement the report. The campaign’s story Your report should always be structured in a way that tells a story, no matter the software you’re using to build it. Lead with the most important stats that summarizes the work you’ve done and the results you’ve achieved, which link directly to the KPIs or business objectives that the stakeholder compares your achievements against. Use the data as the “what” and use insights and recommendations in the form of annotation or clear notes (bullet points work well for this) to explain the “why” and what you’re doing about it. Be transparent with your story and don’t try to bury poor results. Explain why they occurred and how you’re going to adjust the strategy to counter this. And, don’t forget to always follow up a report that you’ve sent with a call or a meeting to talk the stakeholder through it. This helps to ensure that there is no confusion with any of the data or recommendations that you’re suggesting. As with anything in SEO, clear communication is key. You’ve already done the work, all that’s left is to report the story Clearly, there are a healthy amount of factors to consider when compiling a successful SEO report, but they’ll become intuitive over time. Remember, it’s worthwhile to spend time and meticulously craft your reports because, otherwise, your efforts may go overlooked. Or worse yet, you could take the blame for factors that are out of your control. The upside of appropriately detailed, personalized reports is equally high—you stand to secure buy-in for future campaigns, which can enable you to drive success for yourself and your company or your client. Sophie Brannon - SEO Specialist Sophie is an SEO specialist with 7 years of agency experience. She's led strategy, implementation, and communication for local campaigns through to multi-language international campaigns. She's also an industry speaker and led the Web Almanac 2022 SEO chapter. Twitter | Linkedin