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Author: Veruska Anconitano Despite a myriad of transformations in recent years, SEO remains a pivotal component of the digital user’s journey. However, traditional SEO approaches focusing solely on keywords or backlinks are no longer enough. The true game changer in today’s SEO is understanding the user’s search intent —the information they are seeking when they type a query into a search engine. While explicit intent, dictated by the specifics of a query, has been a focal point of SEO strategies for years, implicit intent—the unspoken, often unrecognized motivations and desires of searchers—is frequently overlooked. In this blog post, I’ll delve into the nuances of implicit search intent, highlighting its significance for an engaging SEO strategy and detailing how marketers can leverage it to drive traffic, improve user experience, and ultimately, rank higher on search engine results pages. Table of contents: What is search intent in SEO? Understanding implicit search intent Why context is key to search intent Examples of implicit search intent How to use implicit search intent for better SEO What is search intent in SEO? Search intent has been a widely accepted way to approach keyword research for a long time now, and understanding it is essential if you want to produce content that ranks well on search engine results pages and provides users with the information they need to convert. Typically, SEOs group search intent into four categories : Informational Navigational Commercial Transactional Marcus Tober has done an outstanding job of explaining keyword search intent and its four types in his article “ Keyword intent: What you need to know about how customers search .” This is what we call “explicit search intent”—the clear and direct purpose that a user has in mind when searching online. It is precisely what the user is searching for, as expressed directly by the keywords and phrases they use in their search. In fact, the keywords and phrases a user types into a search engine serve as a window into their needs at that given moment. These specific and pointed search terms are not randomly chosen, but purposefully used to retrieve the most relevant and useful information as per the searcher’s requirements. Let me break it down with some examples tied of the four search intent categories: Informational intent : If a user searches how to grow tomatoes indoors , they are explicitly looking for information on indoor tomato cultivation. Their choice of keywords makes it clear that they need a guide, tips, or steps on how to achieve this. Navigational intent : A search term like OpenAI Github repository shows that the user is trying to navigate to a specific web page (in this case, OpenAI’s repository on Github). They’re not looking for information about OpenAI or Github; they want to reach a particular location on the web. Commercial intent : If a user searches best DSLR cameras 2023 , they are looking for comparisons, reviews, or listings of the top DSLR cameras for the year 2023. They may not be ready to buy just yet, but they’re gathering information to make an informed purchase in the future. Transactional intent : When someone searches the phrase order Nike Dunk Low online , their intention to make a purchase is explicitly shown through the keyword order . The user is likely prepared to buy and is looking for a retailer so that they can make the purchase. While there are still numerous ways in which we still use explicit search intent today, such as when we search for experiences (e.g., best Paris food tour ) a sole emphasis on this element can potentially jeopardize the effectiveness of our SEO and go-to-market strategies. In fact, another aspect of search intent is often overlooked— implicit (or underlying) search intent. What is implicit search intent? Implicit search intent refers to the underlying reason behind a user’s search query that may not be explicitly stated in the search query itself. It involves understanding the user’s search behavior, context, and preferences to infer their true intent. It also involves empathy. When a user searches for the best way to track time (for example), we assume they are looking for software or apps to track their time (and probably thousands of companies think the same and see this as a huge opportunity). However, your audience may not be looking for products—people also often search for solutions to their problems and want to feel understood (remember: empathy) . What if the user struggles with time management and wants to find a technique or method to balance their personal and professional life? This is an example of implicit search intent —something the user doesn’t explicitly ask for, but implies through their search query. In the past, users would type precise queries to ask Google for specific information. Today, users “search to optimize their lives. It lets them feel more confident and less anxious.” And over time, Google has become more intelligent and can now serve users customized search results based on their location and search behavior. As a result, a search query is now made up of two parts: the explicit aspect (what the user types into the search bar) and the implicit aspect (the underlying intent or problem the user is trying to solve). For brands and SEOs that prioritize international and multilingual search , implicit search intent takes on even more nuance. This involves understanding the user’s context, the location in which they are searching, and what is happening in that particular place at that moment, which I’ll cover in an upcoming article. Why context is key to search intent In sociology, context refers to the circumstances, conditions, environment , or background information surrounding a particular event, situation, or concept. It provides the framework for understanding and interpreting what is happening and how what is happening influences life/culture/your audience in a specific place. In other words, context is the broader setting that shapes the meaning of something, and it can include factors independent of the user. Considering this, it can be inferred that contextual factors significantly impact our emotions, behaviors, and objectives, ultimately shaping our personal and social circumstances. Imagine attending a live concert of your favorite artist in a large stadium filled with fans. The lights are flashing, the music is loud, and everyone around you cheers and dances. In this social context, you are likely to perceive the performance as highly enjoyable and memorable, as the crowd’s energy and the event’s atmosphere amplify your positive feelings. Now let’s say you’re watching the same artist perform, but you’re streaming the performance from a bus on your way to school or work. Given this context, you may find the performance lackluster or underwhelming. Your environmental context dampens your expectations and impacts how you experience the performance. If we look at this from an SEO and marketing perspective , the concept of context becomes easier to understand. In this case… Context refers to the events, situations, and occurrences that happen in a particular location at a specific moment. These factors can greatly influence the user’s need to search for information about a particular topic. Implicit intent becomes more clear when you consider all of the factors above. Implicit search intent pertains to a user’s unspoken needs or wants they may not even know they have. This type of intent is often influenced by emotional or psychological factors affecting a user’s search behavior. Think about it: When something happens around you (or something affects you), you need to find solutions, answers, and anything that can help you decipher what is happening in order to respond to it efficiently. This imperative translates into a specific way of searching online, both for physical and non-physical items (i.e., digital content, services). This could manifest in search behavior such as emotional shopping, looking up trending terms due to FOMO, and so on. Examples of implicit search intent Different types of implicit search intent can influence a user’s behavior and search queries. On an elementary level, we can identify two big macro-categories of underlying search intent: Emotional intent : This type of intent relates to the user’s emotional state or desires, which may not be explicitly expressed in their search query. For instance, a user searching for comfortable shoes for nurses may be looking for comfortable shoes suitable for a nurse’s job (which requires a lot of standing and walking). However, if we consider the implicit emotional intent of the user, we can extrapolate more information about their underlying feelings and motivations. For example, the user may feel physically exhausted and need relief. Their implicit emotional intent may be to find shoes that provide immediate comfort and relief from their foot pain. Contextual intent : Contextual intent refers to the situation or context motivating the user’s search query. Let’s imagine a user searching for best pizza near me on their mobile device. Based on this search query, it is clear that the user is looking for nearby places that are highly rated and well-reviewed. But if we consider the user’s contextual implicit intent, we can identify more reasons behind this search. For example, if the user is searching for pizza places during lunchtime on a weekday, they may be looking for a quick and convenient option to order and eat within a short timeframe. Alternatively, if the user searches for pizza places just ahead of the Superbowl (in the US), they may be looking for a restaurant that can deliver numerous pizzas for a party on game day. Implicit search intent Description Emotional intent Relates to the user’s emotional state or desires, which may not be explicitly expressed in their search query. Contextual intent Relates to the situation or context motivating the user’s search query. Within the two categories listed above, we can identify more specific subcategories that are harder to spot: FOMO : The Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is a potent emotional driver that can prompt users to search for information on a specific topic, product, or destination. In the travel industry, when a particular destination gains popularity within a specific country or social group, users may search for information merely to stay up-to-date with the conversation, even if they do not intend to visit that place. Let’s say the Indonesian Tourism Board has planned a massive viral campaign in the UK to promote Bali as a destination. People have started to see advertising everywhere and become curious about the destination. They start searching for information on Bali—not necessarily because they are interested in traveling there, but because they want to be part of the conversation and not miss out on what everyone is talking about. In this case, the users’ search behavior is driven by the fear of missing out and a desire to be part of the context in which Bali has become popular. They may not even want to travel to Bali, but their search behavior is influenced by their need to stay connected and up-to-date with the conversation. Fear : Fear can also drive search behavior, as users may search for solutions, answers, and positive reinforcement when something wrong or scary happens in their environment. Their search behavior may not be driven by fear, but rather by a desire for reassurance and coping mechanisms. For instance, when a recession is looming in a country, users in that specific country may search for information not only on how to recession-proof my finances (explicit intent) but also on topics like learning to cook at home (implicit intent). In this case, the implicit intent may be driven by a fear of not having enough money in the future and a need to learn new skills to better manage their finances. However, the user may not explicitly state their fear in their search query but express it indirectly by looking for related solutions. In Ireland, the search volumes for Tesco Clubcard increased as the cost of fuel and essential items rose. This led people to look for ways to shop and save money while collecting points to redeem at Tesco. Motivation : Motivation can drive search behavior as users seek resources to help them accomplish a goal. Motivation plays a very important role in the health and beauty industry, and understanding users’ real needs and interests is crucial for success. Imagine someone who wants to lose weight and get in shape (we all have this desire, don’t we?). They may search for information about achieving their goals, such as healthy diet plans, exercise routines, and weight loss tips. While practical advice is helpful, this user may also seek content that motivates and inspires them to stay committed or solutions that allow them to stick to their healthy habits without explicitly addressing this need. For example, a user may search for healthy meal delivery services or meal prep ideas . Even though their explicit intent is to find resources to help them manage what they eat, their implicit intent may be driven by a desire for convenience and simplicity, as meal delivery or prepping can make it easier for them to stick to a healthy diet. In this case, the user’s search behavior is driven by their implicit search intent to make healthy eating more accessible and manageable, which will ultimately help them achieve their goal of losing weight. Environment : Environmental factors play a crucial role in shaping users’ implicit search intent, as their specific surroundings or situation can prompt them to search for information relevant to their needs. For instance, a Spanish user planning a trip to Thailand and searching for elephant sanctuaries in Thailand may have an underlying desire to understand more about the ethical and humane treatment of the animals in these places. In this example, the user’s implicit search intent is driven by their concern for animal welfare and a desire to have an ethical and responsible travel experience. They may not explicitly state their concern for animal welfare in their search query, but it is an essential factor driving their search behavior. Biases : Biases are commonly viewed as negative, but they can be crucial in driving users’ implicit search intent by helping them identify and meet their specific needs/preferences. This is particularly evident in luxury products, where owning certain high-end items in specific markets is often associated with a high social status. For instance, a user may search for most expensive designer handbags or luxury watches for men not necessarily to purchase these items, but to reinforce their behavior of displaying social status through luxury products they already own. In this case, the user’s implicit search intent is driven by their desire to showcase their social status and reinforce their behavior of wearing high-end products and keeping up with trends. Subcategories of implicit search intent Description FOMO Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) drives users to search for information to stay up-to-date or be part of a popular conversation, even if they don’t intend to engage directly. Fear ​Fear-driven intent leads users to search for solutions, answers, and reassurance when they encounter something wrong or scary in their environment. Motivation Motivation-driven intent prompts users to search for resources and information that will help them accomplish a particular goal. Environment ​Environment-driven intent arises from specific surroundings or situations that prompt users to search for relevant information. Biases ​Bias-driven intent involves users searching for information that aligns with their specific needs, preferences, or desire to reinforce certain behaviors. How to use implicit search intent for better SEO Unraveling the implicit intent behind a user’s search query can be a complex process, demanding more effort than recognizing explicit search intent. To truly comprehend your target market, it is essential to have an understanding of the socio-cultural environment they live in. This might include grasping the socio-political climate, the dominant cultural attitudes (e.g., individualistic vs. collectivistic ), and the balance between their online and offline experiences, among other things. Conducting market research is imperative and accounting for these elements can help unveil the rationale behind a query, offering a wealth of opportunities to enhance your SEO efforts. In fact, while implicit intent may not be as apparent as explicit intent, it provides valuable insights into a user’s requirements and aspirations. Harnessing this effectively can substantially improve your SEO strategy. Here are a few ways to leverage this: Content innovation : Recognizing the implicit intent of your audience enables you to develop personalized content that meets their distinct needs. This knowledge could make you a pioneer, generating content for niche areas that users may not anticipate finding in search engines. Take again, for example, the query comfortable shoes for nurses . Not only can we create content around the shoes, but we could also consider addressing the emotional aspects of nursing, providing a more comprehensive approach to engaging this specific audience. User experience (UX) enhancement : Implicit search intent can provide valuable insights for improving your site’s UX. If users exit your site quickly (indicating a high bounce rate), this could signal that they struggle to find what they need. For instance, if users from the UK search for Bali due to the Indonesian Tourism Board campaign (see example above ), they likely expect to find specific pages discussing the campaign’s highlights. If users struggle to find this information and leave your site, it’s a possible indicator that you need to make improvements. Better use of long-tail keywords : Although identifying implicit intent might be challenging, it can guide you towards better performing long tail keywords . These more specific keyword phrases cater to the precise needs of users, attracting more targeted, high-quality traffic. For example, given the scenario of learning to cook at home and the spike in Tesco Clubcard searches , targeting long tail keywords related to affordable, healthy Tesco products or ingredients for easy-to-prepare, cost-effective dishes could be an effective tactic. It’s worth noting that implicit search intent often leads to low or zero-volume keywords with high ranking potential and strong conversion power. Incorporating these three components can be a transformative shift for your SEO approach. By prioritizing highly targeted content, you stand a chance to not only emerge as an industry leader but, more importantly, make headway with your audience. This strategy can greatly diminish the distance between your brand and your users, fostering engagement and a stronger connection. Deciphering implicit search intent is your key to brand success Traditional SEO methods—focusing on elements such as keywords and backlinks—have served us well, but today’s digital landscape demands a more nuanced approach. The rise of personalized user experiences has changed the game, and to stay ahead, we need to evolve our tactics. Integrating explicit and implicit search intent is the foundation of this evolution. Embracing this dual approach of catering to both explicit and implicit intent can set your brand apart from the rest. It provides an opportunity to lead your industry by delivering highly targeted content that truly resonates with your audience. But, the benefits don’t stop at industry recognition. The real advantage lies in building meaningful connections with your users. By truly understanding their search intent, you’re able to reduce the gap between your brand and its patrons, fostering stronger relationships and driving higher engagement. Moreover, this strategy is not merely about improving your search ranking (though that is a definite perk). It’s about enriching the user’s journey from the moment they initiate a search to the moment they find what they’re looking for on your site. It’s about transforming their experience from a transactional interaction to a meaningful connection. By capitalizing on this shift, you can redefine the way users interact with your brand to propel growth. This approach is not just about keeping pace with the constant change of the digital landscape, but most of all about enriching user experiences and forging meaningful connections—setting the stage for continued success and evolution. Veruska Anconitano - International & Multilingual SEO Consultant Veruska is an SEO consultant that works at the intersection of SEO and localization to help companies enter non-English-speaking markets. She follows a culturalized approach to SEO and localization, leveraging cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and data. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Veruska Anconitano Understanding implicit search intent is crucial in SEO (and, arguably, for overall digital marketing as well). But, it becomes even more critical in international SEO  because it is closely linked to knowledge of the market and its unique characteristics, as well as the target audience and their particular needs/challenges .  As a consequence, implicit search intent should inform the multilingual marketing strategies you create. I’ve already written about implicit search intent  in great detail, but let’s take a look at why it takes on an even more central role when marketing to international audiences, and what you can do to identify implicit intent for a competitive advantage that maximizes conversions, not just rankings. Table of contents: Explicit vs. Implicit search intent What is implicit search intent? Why is implicit search intent important in multilingual SEO? Understand what’s happening in the regions you’re marketing in Understand each market’s unique characteristics Understand regional differences How to identify implicit search intent for multilingual SEO Conduct country-based user research Perform cross-data analysis Monitor user behavior for trends and changes Delve into local cultural and social factors Tips for securing buy-in from stakeholders Explicit vs. Implicit search intent If you want to produce content that achieves high rankings in search results and provides users with the information they need, then you need to understand explicit search intent .  In the SEO industry, we generally categorize search intent into four categories :  Informational Navigational Commercial Transactional  I refer to this as “explicit” search intent because the search query directly reflects the purpose the user has in mind when they conduct the search. For example, the query [Buy Samsung Galaxy S22 online in the UK] has the following explicit intent: — Action ( Buy ): The user wants to make a purchase. — Product ( Samsung Galaxy S22 ): The specific item the user wants to buy is clearly stated. — Location and method ( online in the UK ): The user specifies both the method (online) and the location (UK) for the purchase.]  However, another crucial aspect of search intent—particularly with regards to nuanced audiences, like you’ll find with multilingual SEO —is often overlooked: implicit (or underlying) search intent. What is implicit search intent? Implicit search intent  refers to the underlying motivations and circumstances behind a user’s search query that aren’t explicitly expressed in the search query itself. I’ve already written an article  that explores implicit search intent in great detail, so I’ll keep this explanation more concise. When a user searches for [the best way to lose weight], it’s generally assumed they’re seeking advice and suggestions—a notion seemingly shared by Google, as evidenced by the search engine results page ( SERP ). However, this might be a scenario where searchers are seeking proactive solutions, rather than mere advice for weight loss. Consider this: losing weight is a challenging endeavor for many. Establishing and adhering to a routine demands significant commitment and dedication.  What if the audience is searching for a practical solution, like a product/program/personal trainer to actively assist in their weight loss journey, rather than just advice?  This could exemplify “implicit search intent,” where the user’s query subtly suggests a desire for a solution, even though it’s not directly requested. In years past, search users would enter more literal search queries (e.g., [rent kayak lake tahoe] to find the results they were looking for, giving rise to “keyword-ese”—something of a search engine hack born from the limitations of the technology at the time. Over time, Google’s systems improved to serve users more nuanced results based on their location and search behavior.  Consequently, you can now look at a search query based on its two constituent parts: the explicit aspect (what the user types into the search bar) and the implicit aspect (the underlying intent or problem the user is trying to solve). I’ve already mentioned the four explicit search intents above. For the sake of brevity, I’ll recap two the main implicit search intent categories: Implicit search intent Description Emotional intent Relates to the user’s emotional state or desires, which may not be explicitly expressed in their search query. Examples of emotional search intent include: FOMO, fear, motivation, biases, etc. Contextual intent Relates to the situation or context motivating the user’s search query. Examples of contextual search intent include: Environment, current events, cultural context, time sensitivity, etc. For international businesses pursuing multilingual SEO, these concepts become even more crucial as the audience’s circumstances, environment, and even current events can dictate your campaign’s success.  Let’s take a look at some examples of how this might play out and what you need to understand to make implicit search intent work for your brand. Why is implicit search intent important in multilingual SEO? Understanding the market(s) you’re running campaigns in will help you see beyond what users are searching for, enabling you to create content and messaging that is not only brand safe , but also resonates with your target audience to maximize conversions. 01. Understand what’s happening in the countries/regions you’re marketing in By identifying the underlying emotional motivations and intent behind a user’s search, you can provide more relevant and personalized content to your audience while avoiding the mistake of targeting keywords that don't convert.   Let’s say, for example, you’re targeting American consumers looking for information on mobile phones and want to expand into the Italian market. You notice that the iPhone 15 Pro Max has a monthly search volume  of over 130,000 and is marked as a transactional keyword. Your initial reaction may be to translate your existing content about the product into Italian  to capture users’ interest and increase your chance of a conversion .   However, the new market you want to expand to may be very different from the one(s) you’re already operating in. Italy has one of the lowest salaries in Europe , and consumers face high inflation rates, further eroding their purchasing power.  The implicit search intent behind the high-volume keyword [iphone 15 pro max] may differ from what you initially thought. For instance, users may be looking for a cheaper alternative based on the phone’s specs or searching for a reason to prioritize buying this phone over spending money on something more substantial.   Thus, translating your existing content 1:1 and keeping the same angle may not be appropriate in this context . It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t localize that page for Italian users. But, if you do, you must find a different angle for your content that addresses your Italian audience’s underlying emotional motivations and intent. Even the Italian word for “inflation,” which is “inflazione,” is experiencing a surge in search popularity. This is something a brand should take into consideration: when a term like this rises in popularity, it means something is going on, and the effects can be felt across various segments, niches, and platforms. 02. Understand each market/audience’s unique characteristics Let’s say a company targets Spanish-speaking users in Mexico for a new line of running shoes. The company’s keyword research in Mexico shows that [tenis para correr] (English: running shoes) has high search volume and is marked as a transactional keyword. The company creates content around the shoe’s performance and features to target users’ explicit search intent.   However, the company may be missing out on an opportunity to address the implicit search intent of Mexican users, who may be searching for durable running shoes that can withstand Mexico’s harsh terrain and climate conditions.  By understanding this implicit search intent, the company could optimize its content to highlight the shoe’s durability and reliability in challenging environments, which would better resonate with Mexican audiences and improve engagement rates. Keywords that reflect this strategy (often long tail ) may not have the same search volume, but the converting power would undoubtedly be higher. 03. Understand regional differences Imagine your company is marketing to French-speaking users in France and Canada for a new line of winter jackets. Your keyword research shows that [manteau d’hiver] (English: winter coat) has high search volume and is designated as a transactional keyword in both countries. So, you pursue your users’ explicit search intent and create content and pages around the jackets’ features and performance. However, by analyzing regional differences in implicit search intent, you may discover that French users in Canada are more interested in jackets that can withstand extremely cold temperatures, as Canada experiences harsher winter weather than France.   On the other hand, French users in France may be more interested in fashionable jackets, as temperatures are significantly higher in France than in Canada during winter. How to identify implicit search intent for multilingual SEO I’ve shown (above) that tapping into implicit search intent requires a deep understanding of the user’s behavior and motivations, as well as practical knowledge about the country the user lives in, their social surroundings, and current events that might influence their online behavior.  But, how can you learn all of these details to make tactical, informed decisions about your campaigns? There are several ways to approach this: Conduct country-based user research Surveys, focus groups, and other research methods  can help businesses learn their target audience’s preferences, behaviors, and pain points. Analyze the responses/results of your research to better understand the underlying motivations and needs that drive your audience’s search queries.  For example, a business targeting runners in India may conduct a survey to gain insights into their target audience’s running shoe preferences . The survey could ask questions about:   The most popular running shoe brands in India The features that runners look for in a running shoe The biggest challenges faced by Indian runners when it comes to finding the right shoe etc. By analyzing the responses to this survey, the business might discover that Indian runners are looking for lightweight and breathable shoes, as the weather in India can be hot and humid—a requirement that’s unlikely to be reflected in the search terms this target audience uses (and thus, not addressed via explicit search intent categorization). Armed with this knowledge, the business could better tailor their content to address its audience’s requirements, starting with keyword research and improving its engagement rates and sales in the Indian market.  The bottom line:  Work with your business intelligence team to get the most out of the research. Perform cross-data analysis Cross-data user behavior analysis helps you identify patterns and trends that can speak to your audience’s implicit search intent(s). This analysis may involve examining various user data sources, including: Search queries Website analytics Social media engagement Etc.  Let’s take Japan and the query [moisturizers] as an example: While this query may seem straightforward, a cross-data analysis could reveal that Japanese users are particularly interested in products that provide intense hydration (rather than just a basic moisturizer).  This could inform a business’s content in the Japanese market, as they may want to emphasize the hydrating properties of their products to better appeal to this audience. Additionally, the analysis may reveal that Japanese users are more likely to engage with content featuring user reviews , indicating that businesses should focus on creating this content to improve engagement rates. The bottom line:  Do not assume that if something works in one market, it can work worldwide. Cross-reference data and study your target market’s unique characteristics. Monitor user behavior for trends and changes It’s essential to monitor trends and changes in user behavior to identify emerging implicit search intent.  For example, your company sells home decor products and you notice a trend of users in Germany searching for [minimalist decor ideas] or [minimalist home design] in your website analytics .  By digging into this trend a bit further, you discover that users are not only looking for design inspiration, but also searching for ways to simplify their lives and reduce clutter, as evidenced by:   Behavior patterns in which users navigate from product pages to blog posts or articles about minimalist lifestyles/decluttering. High engagement on content related to lifestyle simplification (guides, blog posts, etc). Google Analytics or Search Console showing searches that often co-occur with terms that suggest this implicit search intent, such as [how to declutter], [minimalist lifestyle benefits], or [simplifying home life]. The implicit search intent behind these queries may be to create a more organized and calming living space. Knowing that, you can start experimenting with a new type of content, providing tips and tricks for decluttering and simplifying one’s home to address your audience’s implicit needs and motivations.  The bottom line:   Trends shape user search behavior , so it’s crucial to keep an eye on trends in countries you’re marketing in to gain insights for your SEO (and overall SEM) strategy. Delve into local cultural and social factors To truly understand implicit search intent, you must delve into the cultural, social, and legal factors that shape it. A country’s unique characteristics and policies can significantly influence its people’s interests and needs, and businesses need to pay attention to these nuances to create content that resonates and converts.  This means checking relevant local sources (news, regulating bodies, user-first research , etc.) and using them in your SEO strategy.  For instance, in Finland, winter tires are a seasonal need for driving in snowy conditions—as well as a legal requirement. Therefore, Finnish users searching for [winter tires] may have different implicit search intent than users in other countries (it’s not just about surviving the snow, it’s also about local laws). Understanding this can help businesses tailor their content and advertising to meet the unique demands of their Finnish audience. The bottom line:  Collaborate with local people(s) to understand the specific circumstances and conditions that can affect your tactics and strategy. Integrate implicit search intent into your business’s wider objectives for better implementation and impact For implicit search intent to make an impact on your international campaigns, it’s not just you and your team that needs to embrace it—your stakeholders must understand and support it as well if you want to keep bringing results over the long run. To secure stakeholder buy-in:  Start by presenting data-driven insights  that illustrate the tangible benefits of this approach, such as increased engagement and customer satisfaction.  Highlight the long-term benefits  and sustainable growth potential of an ethical approach in new markets, emphasizing the enhanced customer experience and loyalty it fosters.  Show the competitive edge  this strategy offers by providing examples of successful implementations by competitors and contrast this with the risks of not adapting, including potential damage to the company’s reputation.  Suggest initiating a pilot project to demonstrate the strategy’s effectiveness  in a controlled setting while stressing the importance of cross-departmental collaboration involving SEO, marketing, and content teams to address the target audience’s emotional and psychological needs comprehensively.  Encourage continuous learning  through workshops or training sessions for stakeholders. Set realistic expectations , clarifying that while results may take time, they lead to more sustainable and ethically sound outcomes.  Lastly, emphasize the need for ongoing feedback and adaptation  to ensure the strategy remains effective and relevant, thereby securing necessary stakeholder support into the future. By communicating these points effectively, you can weave a narrative that emphasizes implicit search intent’s importance and connects it with your organization’s wider objectives and principles, paving the way for successful implementation and market impact. Veruska Anconitano - International & Multilingual SEO Consultant   Veruska is an SEO consultant  that works at the intersection of SEO and localization to help companies enter non-English-speaking markets. She follows a culturalized approach to SEO and localization, leveraging cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and data. Twitter  | Linkedin

Author: Jamie Indigo Before May 2020, your site’s performance depended on who you asked. Different tools, platforms, and services all offered their own version of what “fast” was and how it was defined. This led to a number of problematic “performance-enhancing” solutions. Page taking too long to achieve DOMContentLoaded? Why not punch out a bunch of holes and load content in later! It’s not like actual humans will be stuck with the terrible headache that comes when a page suddenly wedges itself between a header and a footer. Actually, it is like that. When workarounds to subvert technical definitions of performance make the experience worse for actual humans, it fundamentally undermines the entire endeavor. So we needed a unified, human-centric definition of performance. Enter Core Web Vitals. Table of contents: What are Core Web Vitals? Real User Monitoring data vs. Lab data Real User Monitoring data Lab Data Origin-level data vs. URL-level data vs. Platform-level data Core Web Vitals metrics explained Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) First Input Delay (FID) Interaction to Next Paint (INP) The differences between RUM and Lab metrics A practical SEO workflow for optimizing Core Web Vitals What are Core Web Vitals? Core Web Vitals were originally announced by the Chromium team in May 2020. Chromium is a free and open-source web browser project that powers major browsers like Chrome, Opera, and Microsoft Edge. It also powers the web rendering services used by Google Search and Bing Search, respectively. The Chromium team studied business key performance indicators and how they relate to various performance metrics. The data pointed to a couple of key takeaways: Users have an incredibly short attention span. If a user can’t tell a page is loading, they leave. If tapping a button doesn’t seem to work, the user leaves. If a user accidentally taps the wrong button because everything suddenly shifted, they leave and never come back. This led the team to craft the first iteration of the unified human-centric metrics we now refer to as Core Web Vitals (CWV). 01. Is it loading? — Largest Contentful Paint 02. Can I interact? — First Input Delay 03. Is it visually stable? — Cumulative Layout Shift For more details on these specific metrics, jump ahead to the metrics defined section . These changes became part of Google’s ranking systems as the Page Experience signal (more on this below). Core Web Vitals: Real User Monitoring data vs. Lab data As alluded to above, there are two types of data we can use to improve site performance and SEO outcomes (real user data that comes from the field and lab data). Before I explain the nuances of each, let’s look at why there needs to be two types of data in the first place. In order to troubleshoot effectively, you need detailed data. In order to maintain user privacy, you need to limit the amount of detailed data you collect. It’s a balancing act. Each page load has a unique set of circumstances. A user trying to buy a new umbrella on their smartphone while waiting at a rainy metro station will have a much different experience than the dev sitting in the office telling you, “It works on my machine.” The balance between protecting real user data and providing insights means that Core Web Vitals has two modes: Limited metrics available for Real User Monitoring (RUM) data and the detailed metrics available as Lab data . Real User Monitoring and Lab data are both types of CWV—the differences come from how they are gathered and used. Real User Monitoring data Source: The Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) , which provides metrics for how real-world Chrome users experience page loads for a URL. Aliases: Field data, CrUX data Used in: Search Console's Page Experience Report, CrUX Dashboards CrUX data is collected by Chrome and published on the second Tuesday of every month in a publicly accessible dataset in BigQuery , Google’s platform for managing and analyzing data at scale. In order for a user’s page load metrics to be included in CrUX data, the user must: Enable usage statistic reporting Sync their browser history Not have a sync passphrase set (so that Google can read your Chrome data) Use a supported platform including desktop versions of Chrome (i.e., Windows, MacOS, ChromeOS, and Linux operating systems) or Android versions of Chrome (such as native apps using Custom Tabs and WebAPKs ). This means that not all Chrome page loads are included. Some notable page loads left out of CrUX are: Chrome on iOS Native Android apps using WebView Other Chromium browsers (like Microsoft Edge, for example) In order for a page to appear in the dataset, it must: Be indexable Not be part of a Single Page Application Have a minimum number of visitors to anonymize user data (Google has not disclosed the exact number)* *CrUX strips easily recognized fragments and parameters like UTMs from URLs and groups them together. If your site uses parameters to differentiate pages (i.e., ?productID=101) instead of unique URLs, this can result in the URLs being grouped together. The benefits of Real User Monitoring Data As with any methodology, RUM data has its strengths and potential weaknesses. Some of its more compelling advantages include: Inclusion in the Helpful Content Update — The Page Experience Ranking Signal was folded into the Helpful Content update in April 2023. Captures true real-world user experience — You test your site using Lighthouse in your browser or a technical SEO crawler and everything looks great! But then the latest batch of Crux data comes out and it says your site is a dumpster fire. Testing from your office can’t emulate all the variables (viewport, device processing capacity, network connectivity) experienced by real users. Enables correlation to business key performance indicators — The key to getting both stakeholder and developer buy-in is showing the results of your work. As you prioritize improvements, tie them to a quantifiable KPI and share the results! The potential drawbacks of Real User Monitoring data For all its advantages, RUM data isn’t perfect. Its drawbacks come primarily in the form of limitations: RUM data may not be available for every page —If a page doesn't meet a minimum number of page loads, it’s omitted for user privacy. Only a restricted set of metrics is available — Three metrics can only get you so far. CWVs are a simplified representation of your rendering strategy. Limited debugging capabilities — In order to resolve a poor CWV score, you'll need to get under the hood. The big three metrics give you a place to start. RUM data availability Real User Monitoring data pulled from the BigQuery dataset is available in multiple locations. These include: Google Search Console — Aggregates sitewide performance, groups issues together based on behavior patterns, and provides example URLs. CrUX API — Allows you to query URL-level data for the most recent month’s dataset. CrUX History API — Allows you to query the previous six months of historical CrUX trends. PageSpeed Insights — Provides URL-level and origin summary data along with Lab data for the test page load. As an extra bonus, the CWV assessment for the URL is shareable via a link! PageSpeed Insights API — Allows you to bulk query URL-level RUM data. You can also collect Core Web Vitals for every real user page load by running Google’s web-vitals library on your site. This tiny modular library enables measurement for all the Web Vitals metrics on real users in a way that accurately matches how they’re measured by Chrome and reported to other Google tools. Note: Wix site owners can view real user data via the Site Speed Dashboard , which shows your website’s Core Web Vitals as well as a performance estimation from Google’s PageSpeed Insights, even if your site doesn't meet GSC’s traffic thresholds. What should I do if RUM data isn’t available for a URL? Not all pages will have enough data to be available in the CrUX data set. If you test a page and see “The Chrome User Experience Report does not have sufficient real-world speed data for this page,” don’t fret. You have two options: 01. Test other URLs that use the same template/resources as the unavailable URL. 02. Use Lab data instead. Lab Data Source: Lighthouse , Google’s automated, open-source tool for improving web performance. Aliases: Lighthouse data, Synthetic data Used in: Debugging, QA The benefits of Lab data When you discover an issue affecting Real User Metrics, Lab data allows you additional deep dive insights. Lab data: Is helpful for debugging performance issues — RUM data’s three high-level metrics can only get you so far. With lab data, you can dig deeper into key technical moments that affect the big picture. Allows for end-to-end and deep visibility into the UX — Lighthouse allows you to test user flows . It utilizes Puppeteer to script page loads and trigger synthetic user interactions, capturing key insights during those interactions. This means that performance can be measured during page load and during interactions with the page. Offers a reproducible testing and debugging environment — We can’t fix what we can't see. Lab data allows you to recreate issues affecting real users in a way that allows engineers to replicate and isolate the variables. The potential drawbacks of Lab data If you've ever raised an issue only to hear “it works on my machine,” then you’ve experienced the drawbacks of Lab data—it exists in a digital petri dish. Might not capture real-world bottlenecks — The conditions of a local environment can’t emulate all the variables impacting real users (such as device usage or network connection). Cannot correlate against real-world page KPIs — Each business has its own unique goals. Lab data alone can’t help improve ROI or be matched 1:1 with KPIs. Can show tests passing on that one dev’s machine — No one likes their ticket being marked “will not do.” A lot of the variability in your overall Performance score and metric values is not due to Lighthouse. Browser extensions, antivirus, and A/B tests are just some of the reasons Lab data can fluctuate. Additional metrics available in Lab data In addition to the metrics comprising Core Web Vitals, Lab data also provides metrics helpful for diagnosing underperforming CWVs! These include: Time to First Byte (TTFB) — How long it takes your server to respond to a request for the page. Slow server response times are one possible cause for long page loads. First Contentful Paint (FCP) — How long it takes the browser to render the first piece of DOM content after a user navigates to your page. Images, non-white elements, and SVGs on your page are considered DOM content; anything inside an iframe isn’t included. Speed Index — Is a calculated metric that shows how quickly the contents of a page are visibly populated. Lab data availability Lighthouse powers auditing tools across the internet, including: PageSpeed Insights — As mentioned earlier, this tool allows you to query a single page. PageSpeed Insights API — Also mentioned above, this API allows you to pull Lab data in bulk. Chrome DevTools — Built into Chrome, this panel allows you to audit a single page at a time. Node CLI — Allows you to programmatically audit pages using a headless version of Chrome. Core Web Vitals: Origin vs. URL vs. Platform CWV is available for individual URLs, origins, and for platforms. Each level of data is uniquely suited for different purposes: URL-level data is used for the Page Experience ranking signal. Use URL-level data when optimizing for rankings. Origin-level data is an aggregate for all URLs on a given domain across both http:// and https:// connections. An origin could be www.example.com or subdomain.example.com. If your site resolves without www, then it could use example.com. Origin-level data is typically used for high-level monitoring (via the CrUX Dashboard ) or competitive research (via the Chrome UX Report Compare Tool) . Technology-level data represents the aggregate metrics across sites using a specific technology platform. If you’re considering re-platforming your site and want to consider which of the major technologies could give you a competitive edge, HTTP Archive’s Core Web Vitals Technology Report looks at aggregated performance across 2,000 technologies. Core Web Vitals metrics defined Below are the CWV metrics that present-day SEOs are concerned with, but know that these metrics are designed to evolve. Core Web Vitals actively announces new experimental metrics and solicits feedback before making changes. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) Represents: Is the page loading? Goal: LCP < 2.5 seconds Available as: RUM and Lab Data Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures the time from when the page started loading until the render of the largest image or text block is visible within the initial viewport. For a good score, LCP must be 2.5 seconds or less . The node [read as: element on page] representing the Largest Contentful Paint tends to follow a page template. For example, you have an eCommerce site that uses the same template for all product detail pages. The product image is the largest visual element in the template. If you use a standard template for your product pages and the product image is the largest visual element in the initial viewport, then all optimizations for the product image load will benefit most of your product pages. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) Represents: Is the page visually stable? Goal: CLS < 0.10 Available as: RUM and Lab Data Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures the total of all individual, unexpected layout shifts that occur during the page’s entire loading phase. An unexpected layout shift occurs any time a visible element changes its position without user interaction. For a good score, CLS must be 0.1 or less . Cumulative Layout Shift tends to follow a specific element. If you’re having trouble reproducing CLS issues for your site, it’s probably your cookie banner or a promotional prompt pushing content down the screen. If you’d like to learn more about the metrics, Wix’s Support Center offers additional details and insights. First Input Delay (FID) Represents: Can I interact with the page? Goal: FID < 100ms Available as: RUM Ineffective on: Single Page Applications (SPAs) Deprecation date: March 2024, to be replaced by Interaction to Next Paint (below) First Input Delay (FID) measures the time from when a user first interacts with a page (e.g., by clicking on a link or button) until the browser is actually able to process that interaction. For a good score, FID must be 100 milliseconds or less . One of the most common causes of slow First Input Delay is JavaScript keeping the browser’s main thread busy. It can’t respond to a user interaction because it’s too busy running scripts called by the page. Interaction to Next Paint (INP) Represents: Can I interact with the page? v2.0 Goal: INP < 200ms Available as: RUM Promotion date: March 2024, to replace First Input Delay Within a year of CWV’s launch, the need for a better responsiveness metric was clear. First Input Delay's accuracy past the initial page load for single page applications is dubious. INP measures the visual feedback that accompanies user input (think tapping a thumbnail to see a product image, typing information into a form, or clicking an “Add to Cart” button). The metric reported is the longest latency encountered. For a good score, INP must be 200ms or less . Interactivity is primarily powered by JavaScript though can sometimes be controlled by CSS. The optimization concepts used for FID JavaScript optimization will remain relevant with this new replacement metric. The differences between RUM and Lab metrics The metrics comprising Core Web Vitals differ slightly depending on whether you’re using RUM or Lab data. First Input Delay requires user interaction for measurement. At this time, Lab data can’t accurately replicate a user’s interactions. Instead, Lab data uses Total Blocking Time. This metric has slightly different thresholds. Metric RUM Data Lab Data Largest Contentful Paint X X First Input Delay X ​ Interaction to Next Paint X ​ Total Blocking Time ​ X Cumulative Layout Shift X X A practical SEO workflow for optimizing Core Web Vitals It’s important to remember that optimizing for CWVs affects all your users—every medium, channel, and device will benefit. If you’re looking for where to start, here’s a quick framework as a jumping-off point: 01. Start with Google Search Console’s Core Web Vitals Report. You should always start with RUM data since we know that’s impacting real users. Google Search Console groups together pages with similar issues. As you click through the mobile or desktop reports and into a specific metric, you’ll be able to see a count of pages along with sample URLs and RUM data for them (if available). 02. Run PageSpeed Insights to join Lab data to the RUM data. Comparing Lab data with RUM data side by side provides a more detailed look at the mechanics causing the underperforming metric. Scroll down the page. Just below the render screenshots, you’ll find a helpful selector that lets you see which Opportunities and Diagnostics are relevant for the metric you’re targeting. Performance matters because it matters to humans The same audience you’re trying to reach is constantly being bombarded by companies wanting the same thing from them. All these calls to action are taxing. Providing an experience that delivers what it says on the tin, in an easy-to-use format, is key to keeping your users engaged and coming back. As you work on Core Web Vitals, remember that these efforts benefit every user—regardless of the traffic’s referrer or channel. Jamie Indigo - 100% Human Technical SEO Jamie Indigo isn’t a robot but speaks bot. As a technical SEO, they study how search engines crawl, render, and index. They love to tame wild JavaScript and optimize rendering strategies. When not working, Jamie likes horror movies, graphic novels, and D&D. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Ryan Jones Your potential customers are constantly putting your website to the test. They’re evaluating your brand based on relevance, content quality, user experience, and so on. They’re also comparing your site to your competitors’ to see where they should spend their money. Diving into your web analytics can help you get a snapshot of your performance, but it doesn’t always help you understand which of your optimizations are moving the needle, or how well your content could perform in organic search. For that, you’ll need to conduct SEO testing. In this blog post, I’ll help you get started with your own SEO testing by covering: What SEO testing refers to Why SEO testing matters Getting started with SEO testing Tools for SEO testing An example of SEO testing (with free tools) SEO tests to try on your own site Single page Group A/B and split testing Analyzing your SEO test results What is SEO testing? SEO testing is the process of optimizing elements of your website in order to obtain data or a particular outcome in your reporting . You can test to optimize traffic, keyword rankings , or on-page metrics, like bounce rate. You can also test as a way to correlate your SEO recommendations/implementations to business revenue, or simply to identify potential website issues. SEO testing allows digital marketers and business owners to find and improve features and content on their website in a systematic way, enabling them to navigate Google algorithm updates by consistently improving content , and achieving long-term success away from the general spiel of writing new content, building backlinks , and maintaining technical SEO health. Why SEO testing is crucial for online businesses Any brand that relies on its online presence as a revenue driver and competes against other brands in the search results can benefit from SEO testing. SEO testing becomes even more indispensable the more your business relies on organic traffic and the greater your competition becomes. Conducting SEO tests allows marketers and business owners to monitor changes on their website to see what has the biggest impact so they can close the gap on competitors and get buy-in for larger projects. While regular SEO testing can be very advantageous for all businesses, it is crucial for businesses in an agency or enterprise setting, perhaps even more so than for small businesses. Having a strategy-defined SEO testing plan can allow you to: Create a data-informed strategy and help you stick to it Learn what you can change on your website to have the most impact on the SERPs Determine which tactics get you closer to your website’s goals, so you can put more time and budget into these activities Verify what works and what does not, so you can take those lessons into future SEO campaigns (or client accounts, if you work in an agency setting) When I talk about a “strategy-defined SEO testing plan,” I’m referring to making changes (testing) as aligned with your strategy, which should be defined by your company goals. For example, if one of your goals as a company is to grow organic traffic by 20%, you may test meta titles and meta descriptions in order to directly bring more traffic in. If one of your goals is to improve the on-page time from 50 seconds to 1 minute and 40 seconds, then you might make changes to page copy or improve CTAs . A strategy-defined SEO testing plan is not about making changes for the sake of change—it is about planning and testing in order to move closer to your company goals. Getting started with SEO testing: The fundamentals It’s one thing to change an element on your website and track the result of that change. This—in the most simple terms—is SEO testing. But, you can go further. In this section, I will guide you through how to start SEO testing from scratch to move your website forward. Formulate an objective to keep yourself on track First and foremost, it’s critical that you identify your objectives and corresponding metrics. Are you looking to: Increase organic search traffic to your website? Keep visitors on your site for longer? Improve your conversion rate? Correlate a new page layout with a change in average order value? Etc. Knowing what you want to influence with your optimizations and tests helps you stay on track and work in lockstep with your business (as opposed to operating in a silo). There is a belief in some SEO circles that traffic and ranking are the main goals— that is incorrect. The main goal should be making your business more money. This means that SEO testing does not necessarily need to use search KPIs, you can use business metrics, too. This is especially true for smaller businesses. You could think about tracking form conversion rates, page load times (for better user experience), and so on. Whatever KPIs and objectives you set, make sure to record them within your strategy document. This will help ensure the people in charge of your SEO testing know exactly what the test is measuring when they come to track, analyze, and report on the results. If you’re looking to uncover opportunities for testing (or simply find the highest-value area to start with), you could conduct a content audit and form some testable hypotheses based on it. For example, is there a blog post on your website from 2017? Could it benefit from being refreshed ? This is a good idea to test out so you can have some idea of the ROI on a wide scale content refresh campaign. Track data carefully so you can better interpret results You’ll likely monitor the impact of your tests over a variety of metrics. For example, let’s say you plan to refresh a blog post on your website and let the test run for six weeks (to collect data). To truly measure the outcome of your efforts, you’ll need: Data on the performance of the content during the test Historical data on the performance of the content during a corresponding time period before the test Comparing these two data sets is how you’ll determine whether the test was considered a success or simply provided you with useful data. The data you’ll need to collect is based on the KPIs you’ve designated for the test. If you want to test to see if the content refresh improves search traffic to the page, you need these numbers (from your analytics tool of choice). If you want to experiment with UX metrics like bounce rate, then you need to record this data, too. Once you have all your data, visualize it with graphs and charts to compare the period before the test to the period during and after the test to find out how your performance changed. At this point, I need to mention that tests that do not yield a positive result are not failures. Every test is a learning opportunity. If you have a test that has not yielded a positive result, go back and find out why. Have you missed certain information in the blog post? Is the URL not SEO friendly? There could be several reasons. The main outcome you need after processing an SEO test is a lesson. You can take these lessons into all future SEO tests. Tools for SEO testing There are several tools you can use when you start SEO testing. Each tool has its particular strengths and weaknesses, making it better (or worse) for certain types of businesses/use cases. In this section, I will go through some of the main SEO testing tools (including a free option), their advantages, and how you can use them. SEOTesting SEOTesting is a popular SEO testing tool that allows users to complete a wide array of SEO tests, including: Single-page SEO tests Group SEO tests A/B tests and split tests URL redirect tests This comprehensive range of test types makes SEOTesting suitable for all business sizes and marketers of all skill levels. However, it’s worth noting that SEOTesting does not allow you to make website changes within the tool itself. You will need to make these changes manually through your CMS or via your development team before logging it as a test in SEOTesting. So, if you are working with a client and find it takes a long time to get basic website changes approved and implemented, this might not be the right testing tool for you. SEOTesting is competitively priced and intuitive to use, making it a great option for small businesses and agencies looking to complete regular SEO tests. SearchPilot SearchPilot (formerly DistilledODN) is an enterprise SEO testing tool that focuses specifically on A/B testing for SEO. SearchPilot has some features that SEOTesting does not have, which might make it a better fit for larger businesses that wish to deploy SEO testing in a systematic fashion across websites (e.g., large agencies). SearchPilot allows you to make changes within the tool itself, meaning you do not need to create the pages independently from the tool, which can be a big timesaver. It also uses a neural network algorithm to analyze changes for you, letting you know whether a test has been successful or not directly within the tool with no outside input. This is an enterprise-focused tool, which might not make it the right choice for smaller businesses or individuals who do not have a large budget to dedicate to SEO testing. Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and built-in reporting You do not need paid tools to start SEO testing. You can start by simply using your CMS’ built-in reporting capabilities and Google’s suite of tools, like Search Console and Google Analytics . SEO testing, in its purest form, is making a change to your website and analyzing the results. When we think of it like this, we have all been doing SEO testing for a while. If you do not have the budget for paid SEO testing tools like SEOTesting and SearchPilot, you probably do not need to use them. Simply hypothesize a change you wish to make and how long you want the test to run for, take the data for the time before the test, make the change on your website, and let the test run. You should be able to get a good, actionable feel for how performance changed based on the data within these tools and the guidance in this blog post. To illustrate my point, let’s take a look at an example of SEO testing using nothing but Google Search Console. An example of SEO testing (with free tools) Let’s take a look at what this process might involve, step-by-step. For this example, we will use a meta description change as our test. For ease (and because you may have access to a tool like SEOTesting or SearchPilot), I will explain how to conduct the test manually. 01. Start by exporting the raw data from Google Search Console for the period before the test. You can do this by heading to the appropriate Search Console report, adding a filter for the page you wish to test, and clicking the “Export” button in the top-right corner. 02. Once you have all the desired data downloaded into a spreadsheet, implement the change you wish to test and submit the page for re-indexing . Once this has been done, let the test run. The duration of the test depends on your website. If you are testing a page that does not gather a large number of clicks per day, you should leave this test to run longer to ensure statistical significance. A shorter test will likely work fine for other pages with more clicks per day. For most tests, I recommend leaving it to run for at least 14 days. 03. After the testing period ends, repeat the first step by downloading all the raw data from Search Console for the test period. This will include (but is not limited to): Clicks per day Impressions Click-through rate Now, you can open both spreadsheets (or merge the data into one) and compare the “control” period to the “test” period to evaluate whether the test was a success. This is a very manual process, but it is one just about anyone can follow. You do not need to use any external tools other than Search Console to start SEO testing for your business. SEO tests to try on your own website Now that you know more about what SEO testing is, why it is important, and how to do it, all that’s left is some inspiration. Here are some potential tests to try out for yourself as you integrate SEO testing into your workflow. Single-page SEO testing As you might have assumed from its name, single-page SEO testing is great for small-scale tests on single pages. The page type does not matter. You could test your website’s homepage one minute and an eCommerce product listing page the next. Great examples of single-page SEO tests include: Title tag testing Meta description changes Changes to text within a single-page template This is a very useful test type for a variety of scenarios, but especially if you work at an SEO agency and are looking to get buy-in from clients for larger-scale work. For example, you could conduct a content refresh of a page, show the client the increase in clicks and ranking, and get more buy-in for more content refreshes. In other words, more work for your business. Group SEO testing Group SEO testing is similar to single-page SEO testing, but allows you to test a single group of pages. For example, your blog pages as a group or a particular topic cluster . Some common examples of group SEO tests include: Template changes to blog posts Changes to specific sub-folders You can also apply the experiments listed within the single-page SEO testing section as a group test. The only difference is that these test types run across multiple pages at once. As an example, let’s say I want to change the layout of my blog posts to include a smaller hero image. I could download the data for all of my blog posts as a group, make the change, and then review the data after. I’ll be able to easily see if the test was successful. A/B and split testing First off, an important note: A/B and split testing are often used interchangeably, but there is a slight difference: A/B testing refers to two web pages competing against each other. Split testing ensures traffic is equally split between the control variant and the test variant. That being said, A/B and split testing often work for similar experiments, so I am including them here. A/B (or split) testing is effective when you want to decide which direction to go down for a particular group of pages or are trying to get buy-in for larger projects. Examples of this include: Changing layouts of product listing pages or product detail pages Mass changes to large areas of your website Mass image optimization Improving page speed You can see the theme here: A/B and split tests are great for assessing the impact of large-scale changes before implementing the change site-wide. Analyzing your SEO test results If you take nothing else from this article, understand this: SEO testing is useless if you do not fully analyze the result. The main takeaway is that you learn from every single test—not necessarily that the particular test was successful. The first step is to analyze the results against your pre-test KPIs. Were you running an SEO test to increase clicks to a page? Did clicks to the page increase across the test period? If not, it’s time to figure out why. It’s also important to look at data from multiple angles. Continuing with the example above, did you find that your test did not improve clicks? It would be easy to look at this and consider it a failed test, but that might not be the case. Did your overall ranking improve for the page? If so, you could still consider this a successful test. It might have been a case in which the search volume for your queries reduced over the test period. Were there any outside factors that may have impacted the test? Was there a public holiday? Look at the whole test and its surrounding context, not just your KPIs. Once you obtain all the data and have analyzed it from multiple angles, it’s time to start making decisions. Do you consider the test result successful? Have all stakeholders been notified? If so, you can push the change live across the rest of your site (if this was the goal behind the test). Don’t need to make a decision right away? For example, if you ran a single-page test and updated a meta description, you could simply save the data, as it may be useful when writing meta descriptions in the future. Saving data is massively important. It will help you optimize your SEO testing process over the long term. You can see what works and what does not work for your site, apply this to future tests, and become more successful over time. Today’s SEO tests may be tomorrow’s key to success Most SEOs and site owners know about the importance of: Content quality Brilliant backlinks Amazing technical SEO But, what happens when all of that seems to be the best it can be? What do you do next? Planning and executing a comprehensive SEO testing strategy for your business or your clients’ sites might just be the path forward you need. It can allow you to overtake competitors, get a better understanding of how the search algorithm works for your chosen keywords and topics, and make better decisions for future clients or your own brand. 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: Lidia Infante In the world of SEO , ranking on Google is not just a matter of having great content, some backlinks, and good technical optimization. There is limited space on the search engine results page (SERP) and not everyone can make it to the top. You’re not ranking in a vacuum. As the word suggests, “ranking” involves comparing content against other content and ordering them by how likely it is that a given page satisfies the user’s intent. This means that “ranking” is actually about outranking your search competitors . When you think about it this way, an awareness of the context in which you’re trying to rank is absolutely essential. That’s where an SEO gap analysis comes in. In this guide, I’ll explain what an SEO gap analysis is, how it can help you outrank your competitors, and how to conduct your analysis across three essential areas of SEO: content, technical SEO, and backlinks. Table of contents: Why conduct an SEO gap analysis? An overview of the 3 pillars of SEO Step 1: Identify your competitors Step 2: Benchmark your SEO performance Benchmarking content Benchmarking backlinks Benchmarking technical SEO Step 3: Identify your weakest pillar Analyzing your weakest SEO pillar Why conduct an SEO gap analysis? An SEO gap analysis helps you identify areas where you’re falling behind your competitors and gives you actionable insights to improve your SEO strategy. By identifying gaps in your SEO efforts and opportunities to improve, you can get ahead of your competitors and rank higher on SERPs . Through an SEO gap analysis, I aim to understand how my brand is performing against competitors. I like to divide my analysis into three categories: Content Technical SEO Backlinks Segmenting my competitor analysis this way helps me identify my weakest area so that I can create a strategy to improve it. The idea behind this approach is that there is a ceiling to how much optimizing one aspect of your SEO can improve your rankings. Be it content, technical SEO, or links, the returns on your SEO activities diminish as you become better and better at one particular area. So, if you have the best content but it’s still not ranking, improving it further is probably not going to make a substantial impact, and it would be best to explore optimizing your technical SEO setup or building some links . The 3 pillars of SEO Content, technical SEO, and backlinks: I intentionally divide my SEO gap analyses this way because they’re what’s referred to as the “three pillars of SEO”—the three primary subdisciplines of SEO that must come together if you want to show up for relevant searches. Let’s briefly explore the three pillars of SEO so that you can apply it to benchmarking your site. Content Content is at the core of what we do, because it’s what will satisfy the user’s intent . Through content, we help users get the job done, whether that means helping them buy a product, decide on a holiday destination, or simply reach the Amazon homepage. Technical SEO There are two sides to technical SEO: Ensuring that search engines can find, understand, and index the right content Allowing users to enjoy that content Technical SEO includes activities like crawl budget optimization, faceted navigation (especially for eCommerce stores), web performance optimization, and managing indexation. Enriching your web pages with structured data might also fall under this SEO pillar as well. Backlinks Backlinks vouch for your content. In the very early days of its ranking algorithm, Google extrapolated the way that the world of academia uses citations (the more cited a study is, the more one can trust it). Then, it started using links in a similar way. The way Google evaluates and uses links has evolved over time, but their role continues to be the same: to crowdsource content evaluation to the masses. Step 1: Identify your competitors There are many different approaches you can take to figure out who your SEO competitors are—the most rudimentary being a simple SERP analysis for relevant keywords . You can also use an SEO tool to identify which brands mainly rank for your keywords. You can even develop a workflow that includes a combination of both methods. I have covered this extensively in my guide to finding your real SEO competitors . Step 2: Benchmark your SEO performance Now, let’s review your SEO performance so that you have something to compare against your competitors later on. My favorite way to do this is using a spreadsheet, so I’ve provided an empty template of my gap analysis for anyone to use. Just access this file , make a copy, and follow along with this guide. It’s best to use an SEO tool to get most of this data. I recommend that you use the same tool for every metric so that your numbers stay consistent across the board. Personally, I like to use Semrush because of how easy it is to find link and traffic metrics without having to download them into a separate spreadsheet. Other tools that you can use for this analysis include Ahrefs, Moz, and Sistrix. Benchmarking content Evaluating content performance is more of an art rather than an exact science, but it can be a very informative, revealing exercise. Here are some basic metrics to get an overview of your competitors content performance (and your own, for that matter). ​Estimated monthly traffic In most SEO tools, you can find this data in the overview section for the site. Editorial URLs Explore your competitor’s site and find where they’re hosting their editorial content. This will likely be in a subdirectory named “blog,” “articles,” or “resources.” If your competitor is on Wix, their blog posts will most likely be in /posts/. Number of keywords Look at the total number of keywords that your competitors rank for and then take a deeper dive by position. You can expect to see most of the keywords your competitors are targeting by looking at the number of keywords ranking at positions 1–30. Their winning keywords will be in positions 1–3. Now that you have an overview of the content landscape across competitors, you can take it a step further and look at what kind of traffic they are focusing on to develop your own content strategy. Branded traffic — On your chosen SEO tool, filter your competitor’s ranking keywords to the ones containing their brand name (and variations). Write down the traffic estimated for these keywords in your spreadsheet. Editorial traffic — Look at the estimated traffic that your competitors are receiving on their editorial URLs (as explained above) and note it down. Editorial efficiency — You can divide the estimated editorial traffic by the number or editorial URLs to gain an understanding of how effective your competitors are at getting search traffic through their content. Product traffic — Traffic that does not fall into the editorial or branded categories is likely to fall under the product umbrella. This might not be the case for you, so make sure you check what your competitors’ site looks like. Each vertical will also likely have some specific traffic types to look at. eCommerce businesses, for example, might also want to analyze category traffic. A SaaS business, on the other hand, might want to look at the performance of their documentation or partner pages. If you find that you’re significantly underperforming in content compared to your competitors, you might want to execute a content gap analysis , too. Benchmarking backlinks The next area to focus on is backlinks. Here’s what you should look for when analyzing your competitors’ links: Link gap analysis Look at the number of links and referring domains that point to your competitors. You can do some simple math to estimate the difference, but you’ll also need to take notes about the quality/relevance of the referring domains to get a fuller picture. Link growth ​Analyze how many links your competitors had 6 or 12 months ago and calculate the percentage of growth. This will give you insights into how aggressive your competitors are when it comes to link building and help you understand how fast a competitor can potentially catch up with your link profile. ​Link quality ​You can take a look at the distribution of authority across your competitors link profile (as well as your own). Using branded authority metrics like DA, DR, or AS, you can add a column to your spreadsheet focused on the gap at a certain level of authority. At this point of the benchmark, I like to get an idea of how popular my competitor’s brand is by looking at: Branded search — Check how many people are looking for your competitors' brands to understand your level of brand awareness compared to theirs. Branded traffic — Take a look at your branded traffic and how it relates to your brand search volume. If you’re on the lower end of the benchmark for branded traffic, but on the higher end for branded searches, this might indicate that your customers are not able to find answers about your brand within your site and are getting this information elsewhere. If this is the case, you should consider building out content that answers these questions. They tend to be around the topic of pricing, reviews, promotional codes, or how reliable your services are. They can also include support questions about your product(s) that could be answered with support content or documentation. Benchmarking technical SEO Finally, the third area to focus on is technical SEO, which can be really difficult to assess. I can provide a few ideas of what to look at, but each industry and tech stack has its own challenges. The metrics below can give you an idea of how much your competitors are investing in technical SEO. Site audit scores ​Most SEO tools offer some form of site auditing and give you an overall score for the site. Website owners often neglect little things like redirect chains or 404 errors that drive these scores down. A website with a healthy score is a giveaway that their owners are investing in its SEO. ​ Core Web Vitals (CWV) scores I approach this by using the Chrome UX (CrUX) report in Google Looker Studio to extract my competitor’s CWV numbers. To make it easier to analyze, I like to note down their number of “good” URLs for each score and calculate an average. Page speed Analyze your PageSeed Insights scores for mobile and desktop to get an easy idea of how much your competitors are investing in web performance optimization (WPO) on their key pages. Manual checks Look at your competitors robots.txt file , the sitemap, and how canonicalization is managed to identify any issues that need to be addressed. If you’re in eCommerce, it’s especially important to explore how your competitors are managing their faceted navigation. Step 3: Identify your weakest pillar Now that you have all of your competitors’ performance data in a nice spreadsheet, it’s time to draw some insights. If you have been using my SEO gap analysis template , this will be straightforward, as the conditional formatting that comes built in will point out your weakest pillar (in red or dark orange). Take a look at the numbers and identify the areas where you are below average or average compared to your competitors. Ideally, you would work on the weakest pillar, but this decision can get a little bit more complex. If you’re lacking in technical SEO, but your web development department is overwhelmed, you might want to start working on your second-weakest pillar. If you are new at a company and you see that working on links is your biggest opportunity, but you don’t have your stakeholders’ trust yet to lead a project like that, start with the next pillar. Now that you’ve selected the right pillar to focus on, it’s worth your time to look a little bit deeper into the numbers to understand what the right strategies for your brand are. Analyzing your weakest SEO pillar If your chosen pillar is content , you can: Perform a content gap analysis and target the keywords that are performing well for your competitors. Evaluate how you’re highlighting the expertise of your authors. Audit your on-page optimizations for existing content. Run a workshop for other content creators in your organization about the importance of search in content discovery. If your chosen pillar is backlinks , you can: Perform a link gap analysis to find valuable links that your competitors have and that you’re lacking. Analyze your competitor’s link profile to find what types of content are most popular in your industry. Use a tool (like Buzzsumo, for example) to research the types of content that get the most links and engagement by topic. Find out if your competitors are leveraging their internal experts to provide commentary to journalists and content creators. If your chosen pillar is technical SEO , you can: Perform a technical audit on your site. Meet with your developers to evaluate potential WPO opportunities. Research opportunities to get more content indexed by surfacing categories and filters. Understand the opportunities and limitations within your current tech stack. Next steps: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail Congratulations, you have completed an SEO gap analysis! While this is a huge milestone in itself, all of the data and knowledge that you’ve gathered will yield you no results unless it sparks some action. That means it’s time to make an implementation plan. Use your competitor’s performance to set some SMART goals and work backwards from them to create a list of actions to perform on your end. Make a plan that covers the next three to six months, and then reevaluate your chosen pillar. Competitor data can be very useful for you to show your leadership how you’re bridging the gap (or creating a larger one in your favor) and bringing value to the business, so make sure you share your results with relevant stakeholders! Lidia Infante - SEO Consultant Lidia has been working in SEO for almost a decade, helping businesses in SaaS, media and eCommerce grow online. She has a BSC in Psychology and a Master in Digital Business, and is a regular speaker at international SEO events such as MozCon, BrightonSEO, and WTSFest. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Sophie Brannon Whether you work at an SEO agency or in an in-house setting, it’s vital to understand how to accurately measure the success of the work you’ve put in. Doing so can help you build trust with stakeholders, get buy-in for your proposals, and even lead to upsells and cross-sells when metrics are reported on well. Getting more granular with your analytics and basing them on specific keywords (or groups of keywords) can help you plan the campaign in greater detail—even when you’re simply tracking for internal purposes. To help you determine the specific metrics that work best for measuring your SEO success and conveying that story to stakeholders, I will explain and contextualize some fundamental keyword metrics you can use to track and measure your website’s performance. Table of contents: Organic traffic by keyword In GSC In GA4 In Wix Impressions Click-through rate Conversion and event tracking by keyword Keyword rankings Average position Keyword visibility Backlink metrics Should you report month-over-month or year-over-year? Year-over-year reporting Month-over-month reporting Free template : Download our SEO keyword performance tracker to track branded queries, see how your keywords are doing in specific positions, assess your CTR, and more. Organic traffic by keyword Organic traffic refers to the number of website visitors that found your site via a search engine (such as Google or Bing), but have not clicked on a paid ad. You may already be monitoring your site’s organic traffic as a whole, but tracking it by keyword allows you to identify which pages are actually working to attract visitors, so you can make the right strategic decisions moving forward. Takeaway : Use tools like Search Console and GA4 (more on this below) to gain detailed insights into specific search queries and the terms that drive traffic most effectively. Doing so can help you see which groups of pages and terms are performing (or underperforming), allowing you to strategize accordingly. This is particularly useful for small business owners whose SEO objective may be to be visible for a specific term or group of terms. How to check organic traffic by keyword in GSC You can evaluate your site’s organic traffic via impression and click metrics, which can be found in Google Search Console ’s Performance report. By default, the report is filtered by query, but you can also use the various filters to narrow down the report (i.e., exclude or include only specific queries that you want to drill into). Clicks and average position are a more significant metric to look at in Search Console to get an understanding of the traffic levels the site is driving. How to check organic traffic by keyword in GA4 To see organic traffic in Google Analytics 4 , you can go to the Traffic acquisition report under Life cycle > Acquisition . Google Analytics 4 offers great visualization charts and easy-to-consume data for reporting purposes, and the Traffic acquisition report is no different. The data is broken down more granularly into the following metrics: Users, sessions, engaged sessions, average engagement time per session, and engaged sessions per user. To view keyword data in Google Analytics 4, you must first connect your Search Console account (GA4 restricts the ability to see keyword data due to privacy, and this is instead replaced with “[not provided]”). By integrating Google Search Console, you will be able to access two new reports: Google Organic Search Queries and Google Organic Search Traffic (shown above). Once your Search Console integration is complete, you will need to go to Library (shown below) and publish these two new reports. Once complete, you will see a Search Console section in the left-hand navigation panel. Data may take 24–48 hours to appear. The Google Organic Search Queries report shows the queries that generated organic impressions. While this does not show a specific keyword ranking, this will give you an understanding of the amount of traffic (and therefore visibility) your site has for specific key terms and groups of terms. How to check organic traffic by keyword in Wix Wix site owners can view the Top Search Queries on Google report within Wix Analytics to identify which pages are their top performers. As you can see from the screenshot above, the report is sortable by clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position, and the data can be compared to the previous period. Impressions Impressions are triggered in Google Search Console when a user searches a query and your site is viewed anywhere in the search engine results page (SERP) for that query. This means your content can appear on page 1 or page 10 and an impression will still occur. While they do not represent organic traffic visiting your site, impressions are still a very valuable metric to monitor. Impressions offer a good understanding of your brand’s reach, how often Google displays your site in SERPs, and search demand for specific queries. You can compare datasets to gain insights into seasonality or visibility growth. You can also use impression data to identify new opportunities to improve your site’s online presence and pursue better average position for high-demand terms. Click-through rate (CTR) Click-through rate (CTR) refers to the percentage of people who’ve seen your search listing and click on it. This ratio can help you better understand how your content is performing and whether you need to improve it. CTR is an interesting metric to measure because it can be influenced by a number of factors: Average position Search demand Intent matching Title link and meta description Naturally, the higher a page ranks for a given search term, the more likely it is that the CTR will also be higher. Organic CTR for position one (on desktop search results) ranges from 47-19% , depending on the presence of rich results and other SERP features (such as images, featured snippets, etc). Tracking and optimizing your click-through rate over time (e.g., through micro conversions) can influence larger conversions on your site. Ultimately, the higher the percentage of people that visit your site from search results, the more likely you are to convert them—if they are able to find what they’re looking for. You can check your average click-through rate in Google Search Console’s Performance report. For a more granular analysis, you can view specific queries and compare associated metrics, such as clicks, impressions, and average position, to determine which pages and queries perform best and which areas you need to focus your efforts for improvement. Conversion and event tracking by keyword If your business objective is to increase online sales or leads, conversion tracking is one of the best ways to determine a campaign’s success. In Google Analytics, you can create or identify an event that is important to you and measure its growth over time. There are two different types of conversions to consider: Macro conversions — These are conversions that meet the main objectives of your website. For example, if you are managing an eCommerce site, the macro conversions are likely to be transactions and revenue. For a lead-generation site, this may be form fills, demos booked, or signups. Micro conversions — These are smaller steps that users may complete throughout their journey to convert. Examples of micro conversions include newsletter signups, viewing a set number of web pages in one session, etc. Tracking both macro and micro conversions can allow you to better understand your user journey and help you optimize it moving forward. In GA4, you can filter the Traffic acquisition report by organic, then add the “Session manual term” to sort the report and show conversions by keyword (as shown below). Alternatively, you can use Google’s Looker Studio (formerly known as Data Studio) to blend data from GA4 and GSC, pulling in your top landing pages, keyword clusters that belong to that landing page, and conversion metrics. This helps you understand which landing pages perform best from a traffic, ranking, and conversion perspective, and get a detailed view of which specific key terms are driving performance. Takeaway : Get granular with your conversion tracking to understand your user journey and how users are engaging with your content. Use this data to continuously optimize the site to improve the journey from initial visit to conversion. Don’t overcomplicate the conversion reporting when reporting to stakeholders. Focus on their core business objectives and what they want to achieve from the campaign. Keyword rankings There are many reasons why rank tracking is important for SEO . But, how much does this really determine your SEO success? Keyword rankings must be contextualized. It can be incredibly exciting to rank in position one for a core keyword, but if that term isn’t driving valuable traffic, how worthwhile is it? For example, if you’re ranking in position one for the keyword [dress], but your eCommerce site specifically sells [wedding dresses], you may attract a huge amount of irrelevant traffic (i.e., people looking for summer dresses and casual dresses, which are more common to shop for than wedding dresses). Of course, Google is very good at understanding keyword intent and ranking relevant websites, but there are always sites that slip through the algorithm. Be aware : In many cases—particularly working with small businesses—clients can be preoccupied with “being position one” for keywords that they think are the most relevant to their business. This usually comes from misinformation or a lack of understanding about the bigger picture in SEO. Nevertheless, this can end up being a challenge that agencies and freelance SEOs have to face when reporting to clients. So, how might you work around this? Here are two potential ways: Look at average position instead – Keyword ranking tools are not always accurate due to Google’s increased SERP personalization (i.e., differences in devices, location, and other variables). Looking at average position provides you with a clearer understanding where you rank, despite this personalization. This gives you a broader view of where the majority of individuals are seeing your site on search, and therefore how visible you are for certain terms. Don’t report on rankings at all — You can keep this data internally to help you benchmark performance, but focus your reporting efforts on more business-oriented metrics (like conversions, for example) as opposed to vanity metrics around ranking for a particular keyword. Average position Google’s John Mueller stated that the search engine calculates average position using real data (actual search results). This makes average position more reliable, as Google aggregates all of the different positions your content appears in to give you a more realistic description of how visible you are in SERPs. You can hear more from John Mueller on this topic in the AskGooglebot video series. Takeaway : Rankings are important to monitor as they influence the traffic a site receives and how much of the market you capture. However, if you can keep this information internally, it could help you sidestep potential friction with clients that are only interested in a vanity keyword position—this is particularly true for those who have limited understanding of SEO. If your client prefers to show keyword data, use average position data from Google Search Console for a more accurate representation. Keyword visibility Keyword visibility allows you to track how much of the market share you’ve captured based on your overall number of ranking keywords. Depending on the tool you’re using, this can be broken down by: Top three positions “Page one” positions (the first ten organic results) “Page two” positions (positions 11–20) Etc. You can monitor your keyword visibility via a variety of third-party tools, including Semrush, Ahrefs, SEOmonitor, SE Ranking, and many more. For your reference, here’s an example of a keyword visibility graph: Monitoring your keyword visibility can help inform your SEO strategy. For example, if you’re ranking for strong head terms relevant to your industry and site on page two of the SERP, then you may want to focus your efforts on optimizing that content so it can break into the top 10 results. Note : Similar to tracking individual keyword rankings, keyword visibility is not always 100% accurate—however, it does give a broader view of performance over time. Takeaway : Keyword visibility can give stakeholders a broad view of how their site is performing in search. It can be a valuable part of your strategic planning—if there are notable drops (such as from algorithm updates or website changes), keyword visibility can help you understand how your site was impacted. Backlink metrics Many SEO strategies involve earning backlinks . In order to determine the quality of a link, there are a variety of metrics available. The most popular ones are third-party, tool-based authority metrics, such as Domain Rating (DR) from Ahrefs, Domain Authority (DA) from Moz, and Authority Score (AS) from Semrush. This already causes a potential conflict if your agency uses a certain metric to measure link authority but your clients use something completely different. When reporting on your SEO success, agree with the client how link metrics should be reported in order to stay consistent before you even produce the first report. Whether this is digital PR or alternative forms of link building , reporting on links is important to justify budget spent in this area. Link metrics can help to show the value of the links gained. Some of the ways you can measure link success includes: Volume of links gained An authority metric (such as DA/DR/AS) Relevance Link type (follow or nofollow ) Placement type (i.e., whether the content is syndicated or exclusive) Your link acquisition can directly affect keyword visibility. Closely review your anchor text to identify the proportion of exact-match anchor text compared to anchor text that uses natural variations of keywords. This can help determine which type of anchor text is more effective for your site. While there are arguments for and against the use of exact-match anchors , there may be some correlation between movement for specific terms and the links and anchors chosen. Tracking this closely can help you understand the impact of your link acquisition on your campaign and on specific pages and key terms the links are targeting. Takeaway : If you can agree on a defined authority metric with the client, then reporting on this can be useful to maintain buy-in for this SEO channel. There are arguments for and against link metrics as a measurement (for example, DA can be manipulated and isn’t always a true measurement of quality), however it’s a necessary evil to quantify the success of a link building campaign. When it comes to Digital PR, more often than not, clients are looking at the publications they are gaining coverage in and less on the metrics around them. Should you report month-over-month or year-over-year? One of the most difficult decisions to make is whether to report month-over-month (MoM) or year-over-year (YoY) performance. Here, I’ll break down the pros and cons of both reporting options. Year-over-year reporting Pros Cons Facilitates more accurate comparisons because seasonal search behavior is essentially accounted for. SEO is a long-term strategy and YoY comparisons are more likely to show improvements that are a direct result of your work. Companies often set annual marketing budgets. YoY comparisons can help you lobby for a bigger budget. ​If you are working with a startup or a company that does not have historical data, it will take at least 12 months to have data to compare against. The scope is broad so it may be difficult to draw comparisons about specific SEO improvements. Month-over-month reporting Pros Cons You can report on the impact of your work over the short term, which enables you to showcase ROI sooner. You can dive into data more granularly month-to-month. ​Seasonal fluctuations can impact data accuracy—it can potentially make your performance look worse than it is. Takeaway : Discuss with the client which reporting frequency they would prefer during the initial stages and stay consistent with this reporting. Don’t be tempted to manipulate data in reports to make the numbers look better—for example, if you decide on MoM, don’t switch this to YoY when you have a low-performing month. Instead, be completely transparent with the client, convey what went wrong, and strategize on how to resolve this to improve performance the following month. Personally, I prefer YoY reporting for more accurate comparisons that mitigate fluctuations caused by seasonality. As with everything in SEO, the devil is in the details Remember that tracking and reporting are only part of your role—the other part is to create and execute a strategy based on keyword performance trends. To that end, narrowing the focus of your SEO reporting (whether internally or externally) by measuring individual keyword performance can help you to more granularly optimize a campaign. I recommend that you closely review the following metrics as part of your campaign strategy: Organic traffic by keyword Organic click-through rate by search query Overall keyword visibility Organic conversions by keyword Using these as benchmarks can help you report effectively and show growth quickly. Whether or not you actually show this data to the client will depend on their business objectives. As specific keywords can fluctuate quite dramatically, it’s important to also report on the bigger picture to ensure that your overall efforts are moving your brand in the right direction. 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

Author: Debbie Chew For many websites, building backlinks (also known as off-site SEO) may be the missing piece in your SEO strategy. But, link building isn’t something you should just jump into. Assuming your content is link-worthy to begin with and that there aren’t any major technical SEO issues on your website, you’ll need to know which link building elements to monitor in order to understand how your efforts impact rankings, traffic, and revenue. Here’s what you should do to ensure that the links you’re pursuing are the most valuable for your website. Table of contents: Why tracking and measuring link building is important Key link building metrics to track Before building links After building links 01. Link-specific metrics 02. Page-level metrics 03. Outreach-specific metrics Reporting on links as an in-house SEO Reviewing link reports from agency partners Don’t just focus on the link building metrics: Go full-on SEO Why it’s important to measure and track your link building Measuring your link building is essential to show how SEO (and your efforts) impacts your business’s bottom line. You need to be able to connect the dots together for your stakeholders to justify continued (or additional) investment. Without measuring, it’s also difficult to know what link building tactics and strategies actually work for your website. As Laura Slingo, outreach manager at Sage , puts it: “Link building is a key lever in any holistic SEO strategy and so the ultimate KPI for links is to drive revenue via organic performance. The story of outreach is: building links improves page-level authority, which improves rankability, drives rankings, organic traffic, and finally, revenue. It can be really difficult to prove that links are driving organic performance, especially when other factors are at play (e.g., algorithm updates, on-page changes etc.), so tracking key metrics associated with the above workflow is key.” — Laura Slingo, Outreach Manager at Sage This means that—in order to draw correlations between the impact of your link building efforts, organic growth, and revenue—properly tracking the right metrics is as important as the link building itself. Let’s take a closer look at those metrics. Key link building metrics to track When it comes to link building, you need to know where you’re starting from to understand what’s feasible for you to achieve. This will help you create more realistic outreach campaigns and ensure that you’re building links effectively—as opposed to simply chasing down big-name, low-relevance domains. Before building links When building links, it’s important to prioritize relevance . The goal of link building is to increase your authority on a topic (among other things) and relevant links will have a greater impact on your SEO. With that said, there isn’t an official “relevance score” or metric that you can reference. This is because relevance is subjective—it depends on your niche. When you prospect your link outreach targets, you need to determine how relevant they are to your niche or target audience. You can manually tag each prospect as “high,” “medium,” or “low” relevance, and then focus your link building efforts on websites with high relevance. For example, if you’re in the travel niche and your website’s target audience is solo female travelers, sites like Tripadvisor and Lonely Planet would be highly relevant and good targets for link building. A backlink from Home Depot or Nike, for instance, will have much less impact since their audience and topical authority (in this case, on home improvement and sports apparel) is completely unrelated to travel. Pro tip: After you finish reading this article (and are familiar with what metrics to track and why), it's a good idea to perform an initial backlink audit. That way, you know what backlinks are already working for you and can compare your backlink profile against similar competitors, which could help you identify relevant domains to outreach to. After building links Once you’ve started building links to your website, there are three groups of metrics that you should track. The first two, link-specific metrics and page-level metrics, are must-haves. The third group is outreach-specific metrics, which are optional to track. 01. Link-specific metrics These metrics are all about the “what” and “where” of your links. In the table below, I’ve highlighted the key metrics that link builders track (although this is not an exhaustive list of all potential metrics). ​ Essential metrics (the bare minimum) Good-to-have’s (most link building campaigns will track these) Additional metrics (you might want to track these) Link publish date : When did the link go live? Referring page : What page is the link on? Linked page : What page (on your site) does the link point to? Anchor text : The hyperlinked text the referring page used for your link DA/DR of the referring site : Third-party metrics (not created by a search engine) related to the size of a domain’s backlink profile Follow/nofollow : A link attribute that tells search engines whether or not to consider the link as a “vote” for the linked page Referral traffic : How much traffic the link brings to your site Conversions : How many signups (or revenue) can be attributed to the backlink Since the essential metrics are quite straightforward, I’ll go into more detail about the metrics in the last two columns: Anchor text — This is essentially how another site describes your page. It’s also how readers and search engines contextualize the linked page. Let’s say a website wants to link to your page about the “10 best cities for solo female travelers.” Instead of using generic or non-descriptive anchor text, like “here,” the anchor text would ideally be “cities for solo female traveling” or something relevant to your linked page. With that said, don’t coerce anyone to use a specific anchor text as this is considered a manipulative way to build links . DA/DR of the site — Although these are not Google’s metrics, many link builders use domain authority (DA) and/or domain rating (DR) as proxies for authority. The idea here is that search engines place a higher value on backlinks from authoritative sites (compared to less authoritative ones), so DA/DR can help you identify domains to outreach to. But, not only are they unofficial metrics, they can also be flawed since they can be artificially inflated and relevance isn’t accounted for, despite its importance. Follow/Nofollow : By default, all links on the web are “followed,” which means search engines consider them similar to “votes of confidence” for their respective target pages. A nofollow link, on the other hand, tells search engines that the link shouldn’t be counted as a vote or pass SEO value. If you or the agency you hire is running a digital PR campaign that targets news publications, you may find that links from certain high authority sites may be nofollow. For this type of campaign, it may be helpful to track which links are follow vs. nofollow. Even when they’re nofollow links, you might still benefit from them as a source of invaluable referral traffic. Referral traffic and conversions : You can use your analytics platform to gauge whether your referral traffic is improving as a result of your link building. If a link you built drives relevant traffic to your website, that link could essentially “pay for itself” if it results in conversions . If that’s the case, you need to be able to track and show this correlation to your stakeholders to highlight the impact of your link building (especially if you’re working in-house). When your primary goal for link building is to drive referral traffic and conversions, you can focus on building those links on very niche websites with a small but engaged audience—even if they have relatively low authority. Pro tip: These metrics can also be important if, for example, you’re an eCommerce brand with an affiliate program, since keeping track of the referral traffic and conversions you receive from affiliate links will help you determine whether it makes sense to continue running that affiliate program. 02. Page-level metrics Another way to illustrate the value of your link building is to keep track of page-level metrics. These metrics help you measure the actual impact of your efforts on your organic search performance. For the pages that you’re building links to, you want to track: Head term keyword rankings — Since you're typically building links to help improve your organic rankings, keeping track of how those pages rank for their head term (or the primary target keywords) helps you measure your progress towards that goal. You can keep a monthly record of the number of links built compared to the average position of the head term. Organic traffic — Your head term rankings may not accurately convey the entire impact that your links have, so track organic traffic as well to add more context in case other keywords are also providing an uplift. For example, after a few months of link building, your head term ranking for a certain keyword may be #6, but you rank #1 for a number of secondary or long-tail keywords. Tracking the influx in organic traffic to the page shows the benefit of these links. 03. Outreach-specific metrics Aside from link-specific and page-level metrics, another set of metrics that you might also want to keep track of are those related to your email outreach. This means tracking your open rate, reply rate, and success rate (the percentage of replies that resulted in a new link) over time. If you want to A/B test your emails, tracking these metrics can help you understand what to tweak to improve your success rate, for example. Reporting on links as an in-house SEO It’s important to be able to present the metrics you’re tracking to stakeholders—here’s how you can go about it: For link-specific and page-level metrics, use Google Sheets to track these figures. Use Google Search Console or an SEO tool like Ahrefs or Semrush to export your keyword position and organic traffic data. Use Looker Studio to pull data from your Google Sheets to create helpful visualizations. This is particularly useful when you share your link building results with colleagues that aren’t on the SEO team. For inspiration on ways to visualize your link building success, you can refer to AgencyAnalytics’ link building report template . Consider creating charts that show traffic before and after link building for a specific group of pages—this is an easy way to showcase your results to your managers or C-suite. Using the travel site example from earlier, if you’re building links to several guides on “What females should know when traveling to [country],” you can create a chart that looks something like this: Pro tip: In-house SEOs and link builders often have greater freedom to experiment with different link building tactics than their colleagues on the agency side. In that case, you should also keep track of the particular link building tactic you used to get the link. This will help you identify what works, especially when you are just starting to build links to your site. Reviewing link reports from agency partners If you decide to hire a link building agency, you might wonder, “How do I keep track of performance when link building isn’t my area of expertise?” First off, make sure you understand the “Key metrics to track” section of the guide. Next, remember that the metrics your agency will track depends on the deliverables you agreed on. On a monthly basis, that could be “10 DR 70+ links” or “10 links to X page,” and the reporting for this will usually be straightforward. The most important thing to remember is to go beyond the link-specific metrics that I covered earlier. In addition to verifying that the agency makes good on their deliverables, pay close attention to the websites and pages that your links come from. DA/DR scores do not guarantee content/website quality. You also can’t use it to determine whether the referring domain or page is relevant to your website. This means you should always spot-check the links built and visit the referring pages. Only then will you be able to identify potential red flags, such as: These types of links tend to have temporary, little, or no impact. And, in severe cases, they may earn you a penalty from Google or other search engines. Check for these red flags regularly. Don’t just focus on the link building metrics: Go full-on SEO As important as it is to build links, a common mistake is to continually build links to one page without verifying if that page even has a link deficit (i.e.,your page has fewer relevant links and/or lower quality links compared to other pages in the SERPs). No matter if you’re building links in-house or outsourcing it, this can easily happen. This is when tracking your head term’s average position can be especially important. For example, if you consistently build links to your “10 best cities for solo female travelers” page but start seeing the average position or traffic decline, it’s crucial to take a closer look at the SERPs . Ask yourself: Do you already have more referring domains than your competitors? Has the search intent changed? Is there now a featured snippet that wasn’t there before? If so, there may be other areas of your page to improve that can better increase its ranking without building more links. That can mean adjusting the angle of your content, enhancing the user experience or your E-E-A-T , improving your Core Web Vitals , or adding internal links . You might find that your page even has more links than the competing search results from domains with higher authority and relevance, but if searchers have a poor page experience, your rankings will suffer. Backlinks are just one part of the equation. Measure, optimize, repeat Keep in mind that the impact of your link building will vary depending on your site’s authority and the niche that you’re in. With that said, digital marketing agency Aira found that 1–3 months is the most likely time frame to start seeing results. You can also keep an eye on your competitors’ link velocity (how quickly links are being built, usually on a monthly basis), but also scrutinize relevance and authority. When you choose the right link building tactics for your niche, execute them well (or get an agency to help execute) and track your progress, then you can start to optimize how you build links. Once you get to that point, you can A/B test at different stages of the link building process (such as prospecting, outreach, or tactics). Over time, you’ll be able to build links more effectively—and much better than your competitors. Debbie Chew - Global SEO Manager Debbie Chew is an SEO Manager at Dialpad with over 8 years of experience in digital marketing. She specializes in content and link building, and is passionate about sharing her learnings with other marketers. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Bengü Sarıca Dinçer As an SEO expert, I’ve witnessed firsthand the power of backlinks to propel websites to the top of search engine results pages. However, it’s not enough to acquire backlinks once and assume they will continue to benefit your website indefinitely. The quality, relevance, and status of your backlinks can change over time and failing to monitor them can hurt your SEO. By regularly monitoring your backlinks, you can identify potential issues and remedy them before they impact your search visibility—or as a way to showcase your success to stakeholders. Although there are probably hundreds of SEO tools, Google Sheets’s flexibility makes it handy for many SEO applications—particularly for backlink monitoring (and especially for those working with a tight budget). To get started with the process I developed, you’ll also need a data source (i.e., Google Analytics 4 ) to pair with Google Sheets. Once I show you how to connect these two elements, you’ll be able to reference your quantity of backlinks, specific target pages, their referring domains, and their statuses (follow/nofollow)—all from one Google Sheet, and for free if you’re willing to put in a few minutes of work. Table of contents: Why use Google Sheets for backlink monitoring? How to set up Google Sheets for efficient, up-to-date backlink monitoring Automating the backlink monitoring process Troubleshooting common issues Why use Google Sheets for backlink monitoring? You could simply track your backlinks using a third-party SEO tool or within Google Analytics, but chances are you’re going to export that data into a Sheet or Excel file to work with or report on later anyway. And, Google Sheets is flexible and free, making it far more accessible and ultimately likely to save you time. Here’s how that flexibility and freedom play out in an SEO setting: Unlike dedicated SEO tools that generally require paid subscriptions, Google Sheets only requires a Google account. This makes it an appealing option for those on a limited budget (while maintaining effective backlink monitoring capabilities). Even for businesses with a generous SEO budget, you might still need to show a proof of concept before you can ask for a sliver of that budget for more paid tools. While dedicated SEO tools provide extensive features and additional data, they generally come at a significant cost. These tools are designed for in-depth SEO analysis, typically encompassing far more than backlink monitoring. However, if your primary focus is monitoring and managing backlinks, Google Sheets can offer a free, collaboration-friendly alternative without compromising essential monitoring capabilities . Google Sheets enables you to import backlink data from various sources, including Google Analytics, Google Search Console , other SEO tools, or manually. Once you import your data, you can leverage Google Sheets’ functions, formulas, and formatting options to organize and analyze the information. This is crucial because, while you may monitor backlink data directly via a third-party tool or GA4, it’s not always easy to analyze it within those platforms—especially if you need to cross-reference other data points. As a cloud-based application, Google Sheets allows you to access your backlink monitoring data from any device with an internet connection. This enables you to monitor your backlinks even on the go and facilitates easy collaboration with other team members. This particular feature might be appreciated by professionals that compulsively check their backlink profile every time they launch a new product, publish a new blog post or press release, etc. How to set up Google Sheets for efficient, up-to-date backlink monitoring This workflow process involves exporting backlink data (either from GA4 or another SEO tool; but for this article, I’m sticking to just GA4) and setting up a Google Sheet as a shareable, easy-to-reference resource for more efficient backlink monitoring and collaboration. 01. Create a new Google Sheet to store your backlink data Start by visiting Google Drive (you’ll need to log into your Google account). Next, create a fresh spreadsheet to manage your backlink data. For those unfamiliar with Google Sheets: Click the + New button and select “Google Sheets” from the dropdown menu. Then, give the spreadsheet a title (the title doesn’t matter for this workflow). 02. Import your backlink data into Google Sheets from GA4 One of the easiest ways to export backlink data from Google Analytics is by using a Google Sheets extension. I prefer SyncWith’s GA4 Google Analytics add-on for this purpose because it’s free and allows me to automatically refresh the data within the Google Sheet via a scheduling option. To get started, first, install the extension by clicking here or by navigating to it from within the Google Sheet you just created: 1. Click Extension on the toolbar at the top of your Google Sheet and then select Get add-ons . 2. Next, search for [GA4 Google Analytics add-on] in the Google Workspace Marketplace pop-up window. Find the one by SyncWith (which is what I’ll use for this backlink monitoring technique) and install it. Then, connect your Google Analytics account by allowing the required permissions. 3. Now, in the top toolbar, go to Extensions>GA4 Google Analytics addon by SyncWith>Launch sidebar . 4. Select Google Analytics v4 as your connection. 5. Finally, fill in the required fields for the data you want to export. Report title: The new Sheet tab to which backlink data will be exported (by default, the text in the field reads “Untitled report,” as shown above). Don't use any spaces between words in the title to ensure your Google Sheets formulas work properly. For the Google Sheets formulas I use in this article to work properly, title your report “LinkingPages”. Select a login: Select your GA4 account. Select a Google Analytics v4 property: Choose the property you want to export backlink data for. Time period: Choose from options on the dropdown window to list links from a specific time period on your website. Fields: Select the following — “Page referrer” to show the source page that linked to your web page “Landing page” to see which of your web pages received the backlink from the source page “Date” to see when your web page got the backlink “Sessions” as a metric Sort: Select “Page referrer.” Dimension Filters: You can use these fields to eliminate sources you do not follow as backlinks. For example, I filtered out links from search engines such as Google and Bing because search engines are organic traffic sources for us, not referrals. Update mode: “Replace contents of sheet” will overwrite all backlinks in your current Sheet when your data automatically updates. “Append rows to end of sheet” adds new backlinks to the bottom of your current Sheet when your data automatically updates. “Update or add rows as needed” is the option I prefer, because it helps prevent backlinks from being listed more than once. As an example, here’s what the GA4 add-on with the desired parameters looks like: Click the Next button to set up your automatic reporting schedule. 6. You can set the report to automatically refresh: Daily Weekly Monthly Hourly Every five minutes I find that daily updates are sufficient for my situation. While there are other options on this screen (“Status row” and “Insert location”), it’s not necessary to change them for this example. 7. Hit the Insert button and voilà! The add-on starts exporting your backlink data from your Google Analytics property. This process should take a few minutes to complete. After the data finishes exporting, you should see your backlinks list in the new Sheet (that you titled “LinkingPages” at the first step of working with the GA4 add-on). 03. Customize your backlink monitoring spreadsheet In order to make the data we imported more meaningful, we need to create a new spreadsheet and customize it with some columns and formulas. The starting point here should be what the spreadsheet needs to monitor. Here are the basic columns you’ll need to create for your backlink monitoring spreadsheet: Linking pages: These are the pages linking to yours (which we already had a list of in our “LinkingPages” tab). Enter the following formula into the cell below the “Linked pages” column (A2): =( LinkingPages!A3 ) The “LinkingPages” part of the formula references data from the LinkingPages tab. So, if you give your sheet a different title, you should write the corresponding sheet title in the formula instead. The second part in the formula, “A3,” refers to the first cell of the source page (data exported from Google Analytics via the add-on). To apply the formula to the other cells below, hold the blue dot at the bottom-right corner of the first cell you entered the formula in and drag it to the cells beneath. You will repeat this process for each column. Linking page titles: This refers to the linking page’s title tag , which can help you get a better idea about the content on the referring page. To gather this info, use this formula on the first cell of this column (B2): =IMPORTXML( A2 , "//title" ) Apply the formula to the other cells below by dragging the blue dot at the bottom-right corner of the cell you entered this formula in. Target pages: This refers to your web pages that receive the backlink. Enter the following formula into the cell below the “Target pages” column to extract URLs from the “Landing page” column of the “LinkedPages” report sheet. Important: Enter your own domain name instead of “https://domain.com” in the formula. =ARRAYFORMULA( "https://domain.com" & LinkingPages!B3 ) Apply the formula to the other cells in that column as needed. Lost status: This allows you to see whether you still have a backlink on the referring page (or, alternatively, have lost the link). Use this formula on the first cell of this column: =iferror(importxml( A2 , "(//a[contains(@href, '" & $C2 & "')]/@href)[1]"),"No link" ) Apply the formula to the other cells in that column as needed. Nofollow status: This is where we can see if the backlink has a nofollow tag . Use this formula on the first cell of this column: =IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH( "nofollow" ,LOWER(IMPORTXML( A2 , "(//a[contains(@href, ’" & $C2 & "’)]/@rel)[1]" )))), "Yes","No" ) Again, apply the formula to the other cells in that column as needed. To give you an idea of how the final spreadsheet looks, look at this example I created for QRCodeDynamic, a dynamic QR code generator —one of the micro-projects I’ve been working on. You can customize the spreadsheet with additional columns (such as for Domain Rating, your own notes, etc.), but that will be a manual process. With your Google Sheets backlink document set up and your data imported, you’re now ready to automate the monitoring process so that you can reference the most up-to-date data and get notified of any changes to your backlink profile. Automate the backlink monitoring process At this point, you have a spreadsheet (showing your backlinks and their current statuses) that is scheduled to update at the frequency you specified during configuration. But, it needs a few last touches to ensure that it always shows the most up-to-date data. Automatic data recalculation By default, whenever changes are made to the underlying data, Google Sheets automatically recalculates formulas and functions. However, for larger spreadsheets or complex calculations, automatic recalculation can sometimes cause performance issues or slow down the responsiveness of your Google Sheets document. To make the process flawless, click Settings from the File tab’s dropdown menu in your Sheet’s top toolbar. Then, in the Calculation > Recalculation section of the window that opens, select “On change and every minute,” and save the setting. This should ensure that your formulas recalculate whenever there’s a change in the data. For example, a change regarding nofollow status in a cell should trigger a recalculation on the spreadsheet. Email updates about new backlinks How can you keep tabs on whether there’s been a change in your spreadsheet (e.g., gaining or losing a backlink)? A lot of different solutions can notify you of these changes, but for the purpose of this article, I’m going to use Make.com (freemium). With a simple scenario consisting of only Google Sheets and Gmail modules, you can get notified of every change to your monitoring spreadsheet via email. To configure the scenario, choose Google Sheets as the starting module and select “Watch Changes” from the menu. After connecting your Google Sheets with Make.com, choose Gmail as the second module and select “Send an email” from among the options. After connecting your Gmail account, you can define the title and content of the email that will be sent to you after changes occur on your backlink monitoring spreadsheet. Troubleshooting common Google Sheets backlink monitoring issues Even with the most streamlined backlink monitoring processes and advanced tools, it’s not uncommon to encounter a few bumps along the road. In this section, I will mention some common issues that may arise during this process and provide tips for troubleshooting and resolving them. Performance issues: Google Sheets becomes slow or unresponsive, especially when working with a large amount of backlink data or complex calculations. To solve this issue, consider working with smaller data ranges. This can help improve performance by reducing the amount of data being processed. In addition, disabling unnecessary add-ons can also help to improve performance. Formulas are returning errors or incorrect results: To handle this, double-check the syntax of your formulas. Even a minor error can lead to incorrect calculations. Also, ensure that the cell references in your formulas are accurate and point to the correct data range. Incorrect references cause formulas to return incorrect results. In addition, keep in mind that sometimes a linked page may not use an element written in the formula. For example, the formula we set to find the title element for the page title column will return an error if the linked page does not have a title tag. Data discrepancies: If you notice inconsistencies between the data in Google Sheets and the actual data from your data source (i.e., GA4), ensure that you’ve configured your spreadsheet correctly. Incorrect settings can lead to mismatched or incomplete data. Automated backlink monitoring—not automated digital marketing Whether you’re automating your backlink monitoring using my process or a third-party SEO tool, the data is just URLs and words in spreadsheet columns until you make it work for your SEO. Consider how your link-building efforts factor into your business’s overall goals. If you haven’t already, clearly define your objectives. Determine what specific metrics or insights you want to gather from the data. This will help you structure your monitoring approach and focus on the most relevant aspects of your backlink profile. To that end, you should also establish a baseline for your backlink profile before initiating any link-building campaigns. This baseline will be a reference point for future analysis and enable you to contextualize changes and progress over time. Now, give my backlink tracking template a try to discover insights that can help drive your website’s search visibility over time. Best of luck! Bengü Sarıca Dinçer - SEO Team Lead at Popupsmart Bengü is the SEO team lead at Popupsmart, where she consistently seeks innovative strategies to enhance website performance, increase organic rankings, and maximize conversion rates. She also enjoys staying up-to-date on the latest developments in the SEO world. Twitter  | Linkedin

Author: Cari O’Brien For years, website optimization strategies for digital marketing tended to focus solely on gaming the search engines to show up high on results pages: Find the right keywords or phrases, write copy incorporating those phrases into your pages, and you’ll probably rank well enough to bring in the traffic you desire. But, search engines and digital marketing best practices have matured—ranking well is now only part of the equation (remember, you don’t just want people to go to your site, you want them to convert). You need your audience to click through to your content; you need to keep them engaged. Once engaged, you need to move them from website visitor to customer. One of the most successful ways to do this across all steps is to create clear, consistent brand messaging. After all, if you’re not creating these kinds of experiences for your potential customers, your competitors will. In this article, we’re going to discuss how to create brand messaging to boost your web content for increased clicks and conversions. Specifically, we’re going to cover: A brief history of SEO content The role of branding and how it impacts search The brand messages you need to communicate to your audience The brand attributes you need to define and follow Where and how to incorporate your brand messaging for the greatest impact What’s past is prologue: A brief history of SEO content The early days of search marketing were a bit like the wild west, where anything went and most tactics—questionable or otherwise—worked at claiming top rankings. SEOs went after whatever could rank. The content had to follow suit, incorporating whatever those keywords were in formulaic ways . For instance, in 2008, I recall receiving strict instructions from my employer about which keywords needed to show up where, how many times they were to show up, the different ways to format said phrases, and so on and so forth. There was little room for creativity and limited focus on branded voice. I found myself having to convince clients to approve content that sounded spammy, was overly structured, and had zero personality. Thankfully, Google got smart and began cracking down on thin content, illicit SEO techniques, and more. Google updated its algorithm to reward quality content, starting with its Panda and Penguin updates and leading to more recent changes like the Helpful Content Update . This focus on quality content means you need to do more than simply identify and incorporate keywords and phrases that matter to you. You need to deliver content based on a holistic strategy. Your content needs to be reader-focused , delivering value to help the reader answer their query or resolve their problem. Moreover, with all your competitors vying for your audience’s attention, your content needs to sound unique. You need to stand out. That’s where branding comes in. The role of branding and how it impacts search To stand out online, you have to stand for something. You must have a clear message that’s all your own. With a well-defined brand, you can maximize the performance of your SEO content thanks to these three benefits of branded content: Personality in content attracts attention in search results. Valuable content gets more social shares. Branded copy creates a stronger connection with website visitors, leading to increased conversions and greater customer “stickiness.” Remember that a brand is more than a logo. It’s more than a tagline. It’s the combination of visuals and words you use to communicate who your company is to the public. That said, branding isn’t exactly how you present yourself—it’s how the public perceives you. Your best bet in shaping that perception is consistency in branding across all channels, from video to web content and phone conversations to email marketing. To create this consistency, you need to get clear on the messages you want to communicate to your audience. The brand messages you need to communicate to your audience There are three critical brand messages you need to define to best connect with your audience: brand story, brand values, and what I like to refer to as “superpowers.” In addition to a detailed explanation of each of these components, I’ve included three real-life examples so you can see how and why these messages work. 01. Brand story Storytelling has gained a lot of ground in content marketing, and for good reason. Research has shown that a compelling story increases oxytocin and cortisol levels in a reader’s brain. This, in turn, pulls in the reader, taps into their empathy, and keeps them engaged to see what happens next. If your brand can tell a story that taps into your audience’s minds and hearts, you’ll build a valuable, long-lasting connection. You’ll not only have a hook to pull them in, but you’ll encourage them to keep coming back for more. To be effective, your brand story needs to be the living, breathing backbone of your business. It needs to incorporate your company’s history, mission, and vision. This will require you to go beyond facts, dates, and basic “what we do” statements. Like any good story, your brand story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Let’s review what each part of your story should include before looking at a few brilliant examples of brand stories in action. The beginning Your company has an origin. This is your “why”: why you started your business, what problem you were looking to solve with it, and why your company needs to exist to address that problem. The middle Here, you share the “what” and “how” of your company. This section covers the nuts and bolts of your business, including a description of your products or services and how you deliver them. It also begins to incorporate the “who”: your staff, partners, customers, and anyone else who has a role to play. The end As a business in progress, you won’t ever actually end your story. Instead, you will paint a future for your company. Share that future with your customers and, most importantly, help them see the important role they play in it. Your brand story is your foundation. Get your foundation right and you’ll be able to create search-optimized content that grabs attention and keeps your audience engaged. Brand story example: TOMS Shoes Blake Mycoskie founded TOMS on one simple idea: to give away a pair of shoes for every pair purchased. This idea grew from his personal experiences traveling to Argentina, where he saw innumerable children running around barefoot. His personal passion turned into a global brand, allowing TOMS customers to build philanthropy into their everyday lives. Now, thanks to its expansive growth and continued success, TOMS is able to give one-third of its profits to grassroots efforts. TOMS also paved the way for companies to follow its novel “One for One” philanthropic business model. Brand story example: Airbnb Airbnnb started out as three roommates turning a small space in their apartment into a bed-and-breakfast by simply filling up an air mattress and welcoming strangers into their home. From that seemingly absurd idea grew a community and business built on connecting guests and hosts, and ensuring that anyone can “ belong anywhere .” This idea gained traction quickly, catapulting Airbnb to new heights and successes. Brand story example: GoldieBlox GoldieBlox became an overnight sensation after winning a free SuperBowl commercial spot. Why? Because it offered a new way of thinking about shopping for gifts for girls. This thinking came from its founder’s personal experience of being the only woman in an engineering program—an experience that immediately connected with myriad women across the US. The GoldieBlox website says it best, “it became clear that Debbie wasn't just starting a company - she was starting a movement.” 02. Brand values Are you clear on your company’s brand values? If not, now’s the time to get clear, because consumers’ purchase decisions rely more and more on principles and values. “66% of consumers in the U.S. make purchase decisions based on values.” — Ipsos Global Trends Report, November 2021 The consumer preference to support brands with values that reflect their own means your company should clearly (and frequently) share its values across all channels (i.e., your website, display ads, newsletters, social media posts, etc). Your values are what drive your mission and purpose. Recall what I said earlier: To stand out online, you need to stand for something. Your values are what allow you to stand out. Brand values exercise If you’ve not yet defined your values, here’s a simple exercise for you and your team to complete together (shared here with permission from a previous business coach of mine). Step one: Brainstorm. Ask yourself and your team the question, “What matters most to our business?” Write down all the words and phrases that everyone shares. This is simply the information-gathering stage. Step two: Keep going. When the room gets quiet, take a few minutes’ break. Encourage folks to get up, take a short walk, get a beverage, whatever. Shake up the situation to get the brain moving in a different direction. Then, come back together and ask the same question again. Write down anything new that comes to mind. Step three: Turn inwards. Now’s the time for everyone to review all of what’s been shared. Sit quietly for five-to-ten minutes, consider everything already shared, and seek to fill any remaining gaps. My coach liked to play music with a positive message to help get the brain working in yet another way. Do whatever makes sense for your team during this time. Step four: Ask for additions one more time. See if, after that introspective period, anyone has anything new to add to your list. If they do, add them. If not, that’s ok, too. Step five: Cluster your words and phrases. Work together to consolidate similar items together. This will help shorten your list, which is imperative before you hit step six. Step six: Narrow your list to your top three-to-five values. Why so few? Because you and your team will need to know these values inside and out moving forward. Focus on making your list meaningful and manageable. Here are a few examples of brands with clear values and a commitment to transparent communication about them. Brand values example: Bombas Following in TOMS’s footsteps is Bombas, another clothing brand focused on the one-for-one model: give away a piece of clothing for every piece purchased. Randy Goldberg and David Heath, founders of Bombas, first focused their company on socks, as they heard that socks were the number-one requested item at homeless shelters. The passion for helping the homeless connected with customers, growing Bombas into a company that now also offers other clothing items of great need, including underwear, t-shirts, and slippers. Brand values example: WeWork It’s no secret that WeWork has come under fire in the past. But, it’s making a strong comeback, in large part due to its recommitment to its core values (“Do The Right Thing; Give Gratitude; Strive To Be Better, Together; Be Human, Be Kind; Be Entrepreneurial”). These values can be seen in the ads it puts out, the welcome customers receive when walking into one of their many locations, and the way it embraces its employees. This is a great example of a brand making its values public and then ensuring it holds itself accountable to those values to build trust with its customers. Brand values example: Marriott International, Inc. Marriott is another brand that does a phenomenal job of showcasing and defining its values (“We Put People First, We Pursue Excellence, We Embrace Change, We Act with Integrity, We Serve Our World”). One of the most wonderful ways it puts its values into action is by showcasing the stories of its employees . Marriott refers to its employees as “the heart of the house,” and highlights the many ways the individuals behind the business are what make Marriott so successful. That builds brand loyalty like no other. Share your values Remember to share your values with your company and audience. Then be sure to live those values in person and online every day. This will place you in a prime position to make authentic connections with your customers. Authentic connections lead to real conversations, which lead to conversions. To help those conversions along, you’ll want to pair your values (what you stand for) with your competitive advantages (your “superpowers”). Let’s dive into those next. 03. Superpowers The fact of the matter is, you are not your competition. The best way to showcase this is to define and communicate your competitive advantages; what I like to call your “superpowers.” Often referred to as your market differentiators, unique selling propositions (USPs), or unique value propositions (UVPs), your superpowers encompass a combination of several elements that make you unique. For instance, they can include a mixture of any of the following: Experience Service quality Education Training Personality Guarantees Values Etc. Expand beyond this list; it’s really just a starting point. You have certain attributes that fully distinguish you from your competition. And, if there’s something you have that overlaps with a competitor? Well, if you own the conversation and you frame it well, then you own that superpower in your audience’s minds (e.g., Patagonia isn’t the only philanthropic clothing brand, but it’s likely the most well known). Identify your superpowers and you’ll have your key competitive advantages ready to use in your brand promise, position statement, elevator pitch, and throughout the rest of your marketing copy. Superpower example: Warby Parker Warby Parker’s superpowers lay in its focus on affordability and ease of buying a new pair of prescription eyeglasses. Based on the beliefs that eyeglasses are too expensive and that everyone deserves to see, Warby Parker disrupted the market. It did so through two of its biggest USPs: You get frames for as low as $95, and you can test out five different frames at home for five days for free before making a decision. This company also follows TOMS’s lead—every pair purchased equals a pair donated. Superpower example: Whole Foods Whole Foods started as a single organic food market focused on selling products that met strict “standards for colors, flavors and preservatives.” Today, Whole Foods is a national chain known for its broad array of organic foods, responsible sourcing, and sustainable practices. Its solid foundation in organic food and partnership with Amazon make Whole Foods a go-to national retailer for consumers. Superpower example: Canva In 2013, Canva upended the graphic design world by creating a platform that makes it easy for anyone to design and publish anything, anywhere. From pre-created templates to thousands of designs, images, fonts, elements, and more, Canva is a fully-packaged tool that comes with both free and paid offerings. The ease of use, from signing up for an account to creating a brand new design, sets Canva in its own category. You are uniquely you. Your business is uniquely yours. Take some time to lay out your superpowers. With them in hand, you’ll be able to confidently answer your audience’s question, “Why should I choose you?” The brand attributes you need to define and follow Two brand attributes work together to bring your business to life: voice and tone. They define your brand’s personality and drive your approach to content creation. Let’s talk about what each is and how to define them for your company. 01. Voice Put simply, your brand voice is your brand’s personality. It’s what allows you to start building a connection between your company and your customer. Remember, connections are what drive conversions. To define your brand voice, brainstorm with your team the many personality traits that your company expresses. Is your brand witty? Courageous? Empathetic? Bold? Sarcastic? Helpful? Sophisticated? If you’re uncertain about which characteristics best define your brand, run through the exercise listed in the brand values section (above). If possible, include external stakeholders in this conversation, too. For instance, you can survey your current and past customers to understand how your brand voice comes across to individuals outside your company. Brand voice example: Mailchimp Mailchimp has a well-defined voice , which focuses on being the “experienced and compassionate business partner,” educating through “off-beat humor and a conversational voice.” You hear this voice shining through in all its content, from its marketing emails to its step-by-step instructions in its resource center. A big driver of Mailchimp’s success in maintaining such a consistent voice is its well-defined content style guide that it shares with all its content creators. Brand voice example: Panda Planner Panda Planner’s voice, which originates from its founder and his personal journey, is supportive, engaging, and compassionate. For small companies, it’s quite common to adopt the voice of its leader. This goes to show that even solo and small ventures can create a unique voice simply by looking to its key people for inspiration. Brand voice example: SPI Spend any time reading the copy on the SPI website or its email newsletters (or listening to any of its podcasts), and you’ll quickly identify the unique attributes of SPI’s voice: service, gratitude, and heart. This voice has been with SPI since its founder’s humble beginnings as a podcaster. Pat Flynn has since built an online empire, growing his team and expanding his company’s offerings. Through it all, this core voice has remained steadfast and true. 02. Tone Approximately 95% of customer purchases stem from emotional decisions (not logical ones), according to Harvard Business School Professor Gerald Zaltman. This means your marketing must tap into the emotions of your audience to connect and convert. That’s where tone comes into play. Tone is the combination of your writing style and the emotions you want to evoke in your audience. In concert, these two help to craft an experience and an environment that draws in audiences and makes them more comfortable with your brand. How you write and the emotions you target require you to first understand your primary audience. For instance, baby boomers require a different content style and emotional approach than Gen Z’ers. Get clear on your ideal customer and you’ll quickly be able to identify how to approach your writing style and which emotions to target. The best way to understand this is to see it in action. Here are a few examples to help you clarify your brand’s tone. Brand tone example: Dove Dove stands out as a brand that has set a new standard for tone in marketing. Through its messaging , Dove connects with its audience via a tone characterized by confidence, inspiration, authenticity, and sincerity. This comes through in its copy and imagery, fully embracing what it is that makes each woman beautiful. In a world where beauty has traditionally been narrowly defined, this message connects strongly on an emotional level, affirming women for who they are and not selling what they should be. Brand tone example: Nike A brand’s tone will often change based on the situation at hand. Nike, however, has found a way to bring a consistent tone to all of its marketing campaigns. That consistency centers around encouragement: From its “Just Do It” campaign to its approach to ads during the Coronavirus pandemic , Nike consistently pushes its customers to keep going. This encouragement is often paired with messages of inspiration and support featuring famous athletes , breaking barriers and connecting customers with their sports heroes on a more personal level. Brand tone example: Southwest Airlines Heart is at the center of Southwest; it shines through in its messaging with its customers, employees, partners, investors, and the broader community. Southwest put its tone on display in its publications when COVID-19 first became a worldwide pandemic—you can see it in full force in this letter from Southwest’s Vice President of Marketing and Digital Experiences, Bill Tierney. Heart isn’t the only aspect of tone that builds connection and loyalty with Southwest’s customers, however. Southwest also embraces personality and individuality, which is evident any time you board a Southwest flight and hear from an attendant. Humor and heart: these are absolutely two key tone attributes that help Southwest stand out from its competition. How to incorporate brand messaging for the greatest impact Your goal is to infuse your brand through all your messaging, because consistency is key. This means incorporating your brand messaging in a variety of locations, including your: Tagline/slogan Webpage copy Metadata (title tags, meta descriptions , alt text) Social media Email Video Virtual meetings Product descriptions This may feel overwhelming due to how many different touchpoints you potentially have with your audience—thankfully, it’s not as challenging as it sounds. Define the handful of items we’ve covered here, pull them all together into one brand guide ( Mailchimp’s content style guide is a great example), and share that guide with everyone on your team. This will ensure a cohesive approach no matter who’s creating content or where that content will live. Let’s look at a few companies that have successfully created a consistent brand across myriad locations, enabling them to build strong connections with their customers. Example: Apple Apple’s tagline to “think different” and its emphasis on quality and creating experiences have impacted all aspects of its marketing: You see it in its advertisements. You feel it in the packaging of its products. You experience it every time you open your MacBook or unlock your iPhone. It also shows in its employment practices and its commitment to inclusion and diversity . Regardless of how you interact with Apple, you immediately understand what makes it stand out from the rest. When you consider the many ways your products, services, or messaging can show up for your audience, ensure that they consistently employ your tone and voice guidelines to create strong brand recognition. Example: Coca-Cola From “Have a Coke and a smile,” to “Share a Coke,” to the holiday campaigns featuring polar bears or Santa Claus, Coca-Cola’s brand has consistently centered around the ideas of joy and bringing people together. It’s also the perfect brand to watch from a multichannel marketing perspective. Take, for example, the advertisements Coca-Cola ran during the 2012 Super Bowl featuring its iconic animated polar bears. The polar bears also took over the company’s Twitter account and had a website all their own that was a “live feed” of the bears watching the game. Example: Disney “It all started with a mouse.” From quoting Walt Disney in articles to paying homage to the first movies that made Disney a household name, it’s clear that one of Disney’s core values is never forgetting where you came from. At the same time, innovation is at the core of all Disney does, from its “imagineering” department in its theme parks to its animation styles in its movies to its toys that draw in fans of all ages. This balancing act of envisioning and planning for the future while honoring its past is something Disney does exceedingly well. In addition, Disney’s attention to the most minute details is what has garnered great acclaim across its products, parks, services, and leadership practices. All in all, Disney is the epitome of a brand to emulate when it comes to strong, cohesive marketing that crosses (and encompasses) all channels. Infuse your brand voice and tone into your content to better connect with audiences and increase conversions To be successful in organic digital marketing, you need to accept one truth: It’s no longer enough to optimize your content solely for top search rankings. Now, you must also optimize your content for customer connection. Remember, strong branding breeds strong connections. Strong connections set the stage for increased conversions. The higher your conversion rate, the more people you’ll be able to serve. In the end, you’re in business for a purpose. You’re here to serve that purpose to customers who need you. Connect with those customers through search-optimized, brand-focused messaging. Cari O'Brien - Chief Word Nerd & Founder at Custom Content Solutions Cari O'Brien is Founder and Chief Word Nerd at Custom Content Solutions , a digital content agency. She’s the creator of the Connection Copywriting Method and the online course, Write That Site. She’s a frequent speaker on branding and copywriting. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Ashwin Balakrishnan If you ask 100 content and search marketers for the top three elements of a successful website, chances are “better content” shows up in most answers. Google even released a search algorithm update in 2022 called the helpful content update . For many marketers, the quest for better content is a dead-end thanks to vague definitions of what that content looks like. What we can agree on is that it takes balance to create content that has value and ranks. Address the problems your (potential) customers face, but also make it easy for search engines to understand what it’s about. Since every industry and business has its nuances, we’ll focus on the shared traits that make content better—and a few universal truths about the way they’re presented for search engines. Table of contents Three purposes your content should serve Hallmarks of a great content experience Examples of high-quality content in different formats What does “better” content mean anyway? It’s tough to define “better content” because there’s always some variance. One business might get better results with short-form videos , while another benefits from deeply researched white papers that run thousands of words. Instead of looking for a best practice, go where your audience is by building your content around the three purposes Ann Handley outlines in Everybody Writes : utility, inspiration, and empathy. - Utility means it helps an audience. Readers will read what we write only if something is in it for them - Inspired means it’s inspired by data or creatively inspired. Or both. - Empathy means we understand the reader’s point of view. Also: We make it easy to understand. We don’t make the reader work too hard. We take as long as we need to tell the story well. (The length of the content is dictated by the kind of content we’re creating.) —Ann Handley, Everybody Writes, 2nd Edition Boiling this down to even simpler terms, this means that you need to create content that’s helpful , unique , and connects to your audience. Let’s get more granular with each of these aspects of successful content so that you can use them to enhance your strategy. How to create content that’s helpful If utility is the easiest purpose to achieve, that’s because it’s the most superficial. It often is as simple as finding out what problems your customers want to solve and then producing content that shows them how. Truly helpful content has several second-order characteristics, including specificity, authority, and actionability. Specificity: When deciding what topics to address, being as detailed as possible will take you further. Trying to rank for best social media strategies might serve the purpose, but it isn’t as powerful as something that targets how to grow followers on Twitter . After all, long tail keywords account for the bulk of intent. Authority: Content is more likely to rank higher and carry weight with audiences when you involve subject matter experts. Your audience may perceive opinions from outside your business as objective, thus validating your ideas. As a bonus, subject matter experts often have sizeable audiences, which can help with reach beyond search if they also promote your content. Actionability: Content that sheds light on a problem often passes as acceptable. To rank highly and win hearts, aim to tell (or better yet, show) people how to solve it. It could be a detailed step-by-step video or a list of experiments to try. Either approach is better and more positive than just talking about what’s wrong. How to create content that’s unique Once you know what elements to incorporate to make your content helpful, it’s time to layer in something that helps it stand out. In most situations, you’re far from the only one trying to rank for a topic. Your audience doesn’t want to read or watch the same thing a dozen times, so what are you saying or offering that everyone else isn’t? Unique content comes in many forms—research, perspective, and visualization among them. Research: Original research is often the easiest way to make your content unique, but it’s not always simple. Research is expensive and time-consuming, but numbers are hard evidence of an idea; they carry more weight than any unsubstantiated claims. Allowing the data to speak lets you focus on interpreting what it means—a far more valuable pursuit for your business. Perspective: Known as “ the angle ” in journalism circles, a unique perspective on a topic is often all you need to stand out for the right reasons. Having an angle also allows you to boost specificity, making the content more relevant for your target audience. If you want to go deeper on how to take care of a monstera , for example, one angle might be how to take care of a monstera in cold climates . Visualization: Walls of text are eyesores and hinder user experience. People are visual creatures, and we respond better when ideas are presented as images. Data, graphics, and diagrams explain concepts faster and more effectively. If you plan to rank using the written word, invest similarly in the creativity and quality visuals to accompany them. How to create content that connects Just because your content is helpful and unique doesn’t mean it’ll resonate with audiences. Add a layer of empathy to your content to make a good impression on visitors—one that gives them reason to choose your brand over others. This is arguably the most difficult part, and while it begins with deeply understanding your audience, too many marketers stop at the surface. Once you’ve dived into the psychology of what your audience fear and crave, you can use that knowledge to make your content more relatable. Fear: I’ve had the opportunity to work with some brilliant strategic planners in my career, and every one of them has used fear to help craft brilliant communication. Headlines and titles are a great way to make that first connection by speaking to people’s problems, worries, and fears. The key is to do it subliminally and with a positive spin, speaking about solutions with the problems in the subtext. Motivation: Nearly all decisions are emotionally charged , so appealing solely to your audience’s logical side leaves room for others to create that emotional connection. People buy things because they want to escape a situation (push) or feel something (pull). If you want them to take notice of your content, give them a reason to believe that you can provide what they seek. Connection: There’s a difference between content that speaks at you and content that speaks to you. A conversational tone is good, but there’s more to framing your message in a way that makes people feel understood. Use their terminology, don’t be preachy or disparage their current situation, and carry yourself with the air of someone who wants to make things better. Curating a world-class content experience People don’t go to movie theaters just to watch a movie; they go for the reclining seats, the decadent snack bar, the immersive sound, the big screen. The method of consumption is as important as the product itself , which is why your content experience is make-or-break. It’s here that you make things both enjoyable for people and suitable for search. Fortunately, there’s plenty to do. Format: Content has different goals, including education, promotion, and conversion . The format you produce should match what your content seeks to achieve. Teaching someone how to fix a problem? A highly structured blog lends itself to instruction, especially if paired with a how-to video. Length: People are busy, so if you want them to actually consume and share what you create, it has to be digestible. Don’t record a 45-minute video to explain something that takes 10 minutes—we’ve all seen these, and we all hate them. Lead with value, get to the point quickly, and use only as much time and space as you need. UI: The way your content is displayed greatly impacts how it’s perceived. Third-party platforms like YouTube offer a consistent, uniform experience. But, if you’re hosting content on your website, make sure your layouts are readable, load quickly, and respond well on both web and mobile . UX: After visual appeal comes the enjoyability and ease of the experience itself. If you’re publishing on your own website, monitor core web vitals —loading time, interactivity, and visual stability. You should also pay attention to navigation, readability, and ease of access among other things . Discoverability: If people can’t find your content, then it likely doesn’t serve the audience or your brand. Ensuring that your content is easily discoverable by search engines means you’re helping them help your potential customers find answers. Achieve this with well-written titles, descriptions , and schema markups. Keep an eye on crawling and indexing after publishing, and build backlinks to grow authority. Accessibility: Among your audience, there will be people who cannot enjoy your content the same way you create it. Build accessibility into your content by subtitling your videos, adding alt text to images, avoiding stylized fonts and excessive emojis, and writing in simple language. Examples of better content in the wild Content comes in many shapes and sizes, so we picked five common ones. Here are examples of high-quality content for those formats and why they work. Blog post: Podia What it got right Helpful: Relevant advice from those who’ve achieved success Unique: Includes inputs from experts in Podia’s network Empathetic: Anchor links let you skip to what interests you Podia does all types of content exceptionally well (one of the hallmarks of a go-to-market strategy without a traditional sales component). Its blog is particularly good: Each article is easy to navigate, clearly explains the value and topics being discussed, and makes great use of Podia’s network of expert creators. You’d be hard pressed to find this level of content on any of Podia’s competitors’ sites. Product page: Notion What it got right Helpful: Shows how to use the product—not just what it does Unique: Generous images of the Notion interface put everything into context Empathetic: Speaks to the challenges of cross-functional collaboration Notion’s growth over the past few years has been one of the greatest stories in tech. While a good chunk of that success is because of funding, the company also nailed both the product itself and how it communicates its value. Rather than stuffing it with keywords, the copy clearly explains what teams can expect when using their product, supported by rich graphics that show you how different features look and feel. eCommerce site: Obvi What it got right Helpful: Products presented by need (e.g., anti-aging, weight loss, etc.) Unique: Customer reviews back what Obvi claims Empathetic: Site optimized for mobile (primary source of traffic) When it comes to eCommerce and direct-to-consumer marketing, brands win and lose revenue in a matter of seconds. Obvi’s landing page for its collagen-based protein powder does everything it needs to do—from showing the product and explaining who it’s for, to explaining why you should buy it and how much people love it. Anything a person might be interested in learning is a tap away. Learning resource: HubSpot What it got right Helpful: Explains what you can expect as outcomes Unique: Creative angle addresses social media beginners Empathetic: No attempts to sell HubSpot software In addition to creating great software for revenue teams, HubSpot has developed a reputation as a knowledgeable educator for marketers. One of its offers is a social media workbook leading to a HubSpot certification. The landing page for this asset explains the progression clearly, putting it beside a slew of benefits. Combined, it makes for a compelling offer that social media beginners will find hard to resist. Video: Solutions 8 What it got right Helpful: Clear titles with no false promises Unique: Eye-catching thumbnails Empathetic: Varied video duration Solutions 8 began investing in YouTube as a growth driver in 2022, and its business value is visible in the quality of its video library. Not only does everything look great when you land on the channel; the videos themselves are well-researched and address topics that are both relevant and lacking in quality content. Whether you’re David or Goliath, better content is within reach If creating better content were as easy as some people claim, we’d all be doing it. In reality, the bar is low—as it stands, nearly 91% of pages on the web get no traffic from search engines. Low-quality content is not just prevalent; it’s the norm. So, unless all of your competitors are running highly optimized websites—which not all of them are—consistent, patient investment in content and SEO can help you establish yourself as a user-first brand and catch up to or overtake your competitors. Ashwin Balakrishnan - Head of Marketing at Optmyzr Ashwin Balakrishnan is a B2B SaaS marketer specializing in organic growth, backlinks, and content SEO. He leads the marketing team at Optmyzr, where he hosts the Search Marketing Academy podcast. His personal backlink profile includes gaming, Lego, and electronic music. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Geoff Kennedy The short answer is: no, you don’t need specialized tools to do SEO . But, that’s not to say that you shouldn’t use them. Armed with only an understanding of search engine optimization principles, I could sit down and optimize page copy, add some internal links to my site, and even run a campaign to drive backlinks . However, I could also use tools to help me do any one of those tasks, probably more efficiently, and possibly saving myself time. Additionally, there are some areas of SEO in which tools are essential to help you diagnose and resolve issues. There are some tasks that simply require a tool for technical analysis and to see things like Google does. But, tools come at a cost. Not only the obvious financial cost, but also the risk of distraction, or becoming overly reliant on what they tell us. This article will help you weigh out the pros and cons by examining: What we mean by “SEO tools” Why you should use SEO tools The potential pitfalls of SEO tools Assessing the value of SEO tools Free SEO tools So, do you really need tools to do SEO? What do we mean by “SEO tools?” What we’re talking about here are tools that are primarily considered SEO tools (not simply general purpose tools that can be used for SEO). These are the tools that you’d be unlikely to use unless you were doing some kind of SEO. For example, Google Sheets is a tool that I use daily for SEO. But I also use it for all sorts of other tasks—I wouldn’t consider it specifically an SEO tool. On the other hand, rank trackers, crawlers, and auditing tools are usually (but not always) designed specifically as SEO tools. There’s no definitive list of the types of SEO tools available (and if there was, it would be constantly growing). But, here are some of the the most common types you’ll encounter: Why you should use SEO tools I’ve already stated that you don’t need tools to do SEO, and I stand by that. There are many aspects of SEO that you can perform without a tool. But, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use them when they can help you: Save time Make sense of large datasets more easily Discover additional insights (often through third-party data) To summarize these points into a simple rule: You should use SEO tools when they help you work more efficiently and/or effectively. You might assume that this would always be the case. But in my experience, it isn’t. That’s why this article aims to help you navigate the pitfalls of using SEO tools and ensure you get the most out of them. The potential pitfalls of SEO tools For all the advantages that tools offer, there are some very real downsides that you need to be aware of in order to make proper use of them to grow your site’s organic visibility. Information overload With almost any tool, you’re going to be bombarded with data and recommendations, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Even when you’re familiar with a tool, it’s easy to get distracted. One minute you’re logging into Google Search Console (GSC) to check the canonical status of a URL, the next you’ve found yourself down a rabbit hole of search query reports. It happens all the time. The most important thing to remember is what you’re there for. Have a clear vision of what you’re trying to achieve, and keep focused on the task in hand. Try not to get distracted by all the bells and whistles a tool offers. We’ll look at how to handle those soon, in the “shiny new thing” section . Having a clear objective isn’t just important for avoiding information overload, it’ll also help you use tools more effectively. If you don't know where you are going, You’ll end up someplace else. — Yogi Berra Your priorities vs. your tools’ priorities Tools generally work on a set of best-practice SEO rules and a hierarchy of what's important. They use these criteria to prioritize their recommendations of what you should do. Sometimes, identifying high priority issues is fairly straightforward. For example, if an auditing tool detects that you’ve noindexed your whole website, or a content analysis tool identifies that you’ve not even mentioned your primary keyword on the page, these are both clearly high priority. This type of rule-based prioritization is useful, to a degree. But what these tools don't have is context —an understanding of what's important to you and your business, and what you’re trying to achieve. More often than not, assigning real priorities is much more nuanced than a set of rules. That said, here’s some tips to help: ✘ Avoid thoughtlessly following the priorities assigned by tool recommendations. ✘ Don’t assume that all recommendations provided by tools are worth implementing. ✔ Do sense check tool recommendations. ✔ Do prioritize actions yourself—use tool priorities as a starting point and layer on your own considerations. “Shiny new thing” syndrome There are always new tools to try. Some come and go. Others that stand the test of time regularly release new updates and features to tempt you. Although it’s good to keep up to date with what’s available, it’s important not to let them become a distraction. New tools make great procrastination fodder! To avoid “shiny new thing” syndrome, I recommend using some simple rules to structure your exploration: 01. Keep a list of tools that you want to try. 02. Schedule regular time to try new tools . I try to set aside an hour or two on Friday afternoons. 03. Prioritize your list based on your SEO objectives. There’s no point spending all of your time playing with fancy content tools if your next six months are going to be filled with technical audits! 04. Set tasks for yourself. Allow some time for exploring, but don’t just spend your time aimlessly. Either select a real task or make up a scenario to test the tool properly. Javascript rendering One of the benefits of certain tools is being able to look at a website the way Google (or rather Googlebot) does. But whatever tool you use, there’s no escaping the fact that you aren’t actually Google, and that can cause issues. Traditionally, web pages would consist of a page of code (mainly HTML) that Google would read. This is the same code that a tool would look at if you’re using an HTML crawler. Right-clicking the blank space on a webpage and selecting “View Page Source” (if you’re browsing with Chrome) enables you to see the code in all its glory. This used to mean you could easily view page code the same way Google would. For better or worse, those days are gone now, thanks to Google’s ability (and willingness) to render JavaScript. That means that Google doesn’t just see the response HTML (i.e., the code we can see on the page), it renders the JavaScript within it, too. In many instances, the response HTML might be identical to the rendered HTML. In other cases, the JavaScript may make small changes to elements of the page. And in extremes (albeit not uncommon), the website may rely completely on JavaScript rendering. The important thing to remember is that if you’re using an HTML crawler, what you can see might not be what Google renders. There is thankfully a relatively simple solution to this problem. Many SEO tools now offer JavaScript crawling. This aims to replicate how Google crawls, so you can see the same rendered HTML. JavaScript crawling is much more resource intensive—which makes it slower and more expensive. For that reason, most tools still default to HTML crawling, even if they are capable of JavaScript crawling. So, what’s the answer? 01. Always be aware of whether a tool is using HTML or JavaScript crawling. 02. If you spot anomalies between crawl data and what you can see on a page, try Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to view how Google renders the page. 03. Run spot checks using a JavaScript crawler to compare the response vs. rendered HTML. For a more in-depth explanation of why it’s important to consider rendering issues, have a look at this guide on comparing response and rendered HTML . Blocking Websites are generally built for users. Exceptions are made for the likes of Googlebot and other crawlers. And on the whole, most websites are happy to let most people (and bots) access them. But sometimes, when using tools—especially crawlers—to access a website, you’ll find that you’re just not wanted there. There are completely valid reasons why you might want to prevent bots from crawling your website . But, these reasons are usually associated with malicious behavior, so assuming you’re not doing anything naughty, you’re probably not the intended target of such measures. Regardless of whether you’re the intended target of blocking, you need to be aware of when and why it happens. Blocked tools One of the simplest reasons behind crawling issues is that a website owner has chosen not to let the bot of the tool in question crawl their website. This type of blocking could be done by user agent, or if it’s a cloud-based tool, the IP range the tool uses to crawl from. When this is the case, you might not be able to crawl the website at all. Assuming that you have a relationship with the website you’re trying to crawl, your best bet in this instance is to request to be whitelisted. This essentially means setting a rule (either on the firewall or server), to allow you to crawl the site with that particular tool. Blocking bad behavior Sometimes though, things are a little more personal (and maybe for good reason). Most SEOs at one time or another have been guilty of some overzealous crawling, resulting in a client’s website “falling over.” We’ve all been there, it’s a bit embarrassing, but a necessary learning experience. Even if the result isn’t as dramatic as the website going down completely, it can often result in server errors (which can in itself be misleading if you’re not aware of why they’re happening). Accident or not, this type of behavior can look an awful lot like a DoS (Denial-of-Service) attack. So inevitably, it’s becoming more and more common to encounter measures to protect against such behavior. Responsible crawling is the most important thing to remember here. This type of blocking is in place for good reason, so if you don’t want to fall foul of such measures, it’s best to play nicely. Most tools/crawlers will default to a reasonable speed, so the first step is to avoid substantially increasing those default settings. If that’s still too fast, there are usually settings available that will let you reduce the rate of your crawl . False positives/negatives If retrieving a webpage or crawling a site fails completely, it’s usually pretty obvious. But with partial or sporadic crawl failures, the effects are sometimes harder to recognize. The simplest version of this is when a tool cannot crawl a URL and therefore flags it as an error. The likes of links and canonical tags pointing to the page may also be reported as broken. In reality, Google may be able to crawl the page just fine, so the issues are only with your crawling and not genuine SEO issues. The flipside of this is that if a tool cannot properly crawl a page, it won’t be able to identify any issues within it. The lesson here is to not rely solely on one data source. Double check using other tools, and ideally go straight to the source (GSC) to see what Google can tell you about a page. Assessing the value of SEO tools Most of us do SEO to make money one way or another, whether that’s through improving the search presence of our own business or selling our SEO services to others. So, cost is inevitably a factor when it comes to choosing the tools we use. There’s no simple answer to how much you should spend, as it’s different for everyone. How much you should spend is dependent on what value it can bring to you and your current situation. Even with no budget, there’s very little that you can’t do when it comes to SEO work (in the next section, I talk specifically about free SEO tools ). With a combination of free tools and manual work, most tasks are achievable one way or another. However, it does come at a cost—primarily in the form of your time. This concept of time vs. monetary cost is essential when considering the value of any given tool. It’s also important to remember that value is different for everyone. For one person, spending $1000 on a particular tool might be a no-brainer, yet for another person even $50 for that same tool could present a completely unjustifiable cost. I’ve already talked about how you should have a clear purpose when it comes to selecting which SEO tools to use. Costing is another reason why that’s important, because if you know what you’re trying to achieve (and what that’s worth), you can work backwards to assess the value of tools. Essentially, you need to weigh the cost of the tool against the value of your time that it saves: That equation assumes that you’re already able to carry out the same task using only your own time and free tools. An alternative calculation might focus more on the value you can create by using the tool: Obviously these equations use simplified scenarios—costing is usually a bit more complex and often isn’t an exact science, but the same general principles apply. Free SEO tools I’ve already talked about the value of SEO tools in the previous section, and although we all love free stuff, free doesn’t always offer the most value. But, there are times when there simply is no budget available. Luckily, there’s always options available. Completely free There are some very talented SEOs out there, producing great tools, and sharing them completely for free. Sometimes these tools might just be a simple plugin or spreadsheet, but others are full-blown tools. Many of them even stack up against the paid alternatives. Occasionally, there is such a thing as a “free lunch,” and the SEO community is generally pretty great for sharing. But before you go diving in, there’s a few things to consider. Be aware Although it’s easy to be blasé when you’re not actually paying for something, it is important to apply a sensible level of caution in choosing which free tools to use—especially if you’re going to share data or connect accounts. Data security Many of the free tools you’ll see commonly used in the SEO community are created with genuinely altruistic intentions. Or at least only self-serving in so far as the creator uses their tool as a way to increase their profile. Even with these tools, you should check to ensure they’re keeping your (or your client’s) data safe, if the tool has access to it. Monetization “If something is free, you're the product .” - Richard Serra , 1973 Some tools, although free to users, are monetized in other ways—most commonly by using your data in one way or another. This may be as simple as allowing the creator to market a paid product or service to you. It could go as far as actively selling your data. Or, it could be something in between, like using data for research. This is especially relevant when you grant the tool access to the likes of Google Analytics or Google Search Console. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Any above-board tool should be clear on how it uses your data, and require you to agree to this when you sign up (of course we all read the small print, don’t we). Personally, I don’t usually have a problem with tools doing this as long as they’re up-front about what they’re doing. But you need to be aware and make your own judgments. Bad actors Lastly, there are inevitably some bad apples when it comes to free tools. Just like any other industry, where there is a demand (in this instance, for “free SEO tools”), there are nefarious actors that will try to capitalize on that demand in various dodgy ways. Simply put: unless you trust the tool and/or creator, don’t give access to your data, connect accounts, or install software. Stick to tool recommendations and creators that you trust. Some simple background checks on Google are usually enough to judge whether a tool is genuine. Share and give back to your favorite free tool creators It would be easy to over-emphasize the negatives, but it’s worth repeating that there are some genuinely amazing free tools out there. If you do use one, and get value from it, I’d strongly encourage that you give a little something back to the creator, especially if they’re an independent creator (as many are). A review, link, share on social media, or even just a message to say thank you is often much appreciated. Some also offer a “buy me a coffee” donation link too, where you can send a small monetary thank you. Freemium As well as being a horrible mashup of the words “free” and “premium,” freemium is a strategy used by tool creators to draw you in with a free product, with the eventual goal of leading you to purchase the paid premium version. Under this model, the free version usually either limits the features available to free users or has some kind of credit system that limits usage before needing to pay for more access (e.g., a keyword research tool might allow a limited number of free keyword searches per day). Similar to “completely free” tools, there are some genuine gems out there that offer great features even to free users. Where most free plans tend to reach their limitations is when you need to scale up. Many tools limit by number of URLs or number of keywords. So, you may be fine working with smaller sites, or samples and segments, but if you want to go big, you’ll usually need to pay. Sometimes there are workarounds for these limits, often in the form of using samples or segments (as I’ve already mentioned). However in most instances, when you reach that point, you’d get more value from the paid version of the tool, especially considering the time you’d spend on workarounds. Free trials Lastly, we have free trials—obviously, these come with some pretty clear limitations. Typically they’ll last somewhere between a week and a month, depending on the tool. Due to the short-term nature of free trials (yes, most have restrictions in place to stop repeat trials!), I'm not going to suggest that you consider them part of your toolset. But, I do think there’s a way to utilize them more wisely. Plan your trial If you’re anything like me, you’ll be guilty of regularly seeing new tools you want to try, signing up for the trial, then never actually doing anything with it. Or worse yet, you spend some time aimlessly nosing around the tool, but not actually doing anything substantial enough to evaluate it properly. If you think a tool is worth testing it out, do it properly: Schedule some time to do so. List out some tasks you want to try. Or even better, outline a project or scenario to test it out on. Give it a real trial If you really want to test out a tool, the best way to do so is with real work. When you're on a tight budget, this is even more true. It can allow you to work out the value of a tool and assess whether it’s worth you paying for, without the outlay. If you work for clients, you may even be able to take it a step further. If you’re able to use a free trial to deliver a paid piece of work, the money earned can be used to pay for the tool and continue using it. Where to find free tools I’m not going to list tools in this article. That’s not the goal of this resource, and it’s a big job to compile such a list (and even more so to keep it up to date!). Free tool lists Instead, here are some great resources others have put together: LearningSEO.io by Aleyda Solis; it includes free SEO tools. Backlinko.com by Brian Dean; it includes filters for free, freemium, and paid tools. Note: This domain is now owned by SEO tool provider Semrush. MatthewWoodward.co.uk by Matthew Woodward; it includes free and paid tools. Recommendations There’s often no better recommendation than a word-of-mouth recommendation. My first go-to is asking friends and colleagues what they use. Then, to widen the net, I sometimes ask for recommendations on Twitter. We all have different places that we can engage with the SEO community, though. It doesn’t really matter where you go for recommendations. The important part is that you’re getting first-hand recommendations, from people that you trust, that have already used the tools themselves. Google Search Console The one specific tool I will mention is Google Search Console . If you’re not already using it, get it setup now. It’s one of the few ways that Google gives data and feedback about how it sees your website. It’s not perfect, and you need to consider the output objectively (as with any tool). But right now, I’d say it’s probably the most important tool for SEOs. Note: Wix users have access to GSC data from within their SEO Dashboard and can also monitor organic performance using GSC data in Wix Analytics . So, do you really need tools to do SEO? There is a lot of SEO you can do without the need for tools. But if you’re serious about SEO, you are going to reach a point where it makes sense to utilize some of the many tools available. Tools have the potential to provide additional insights, save time, and help us be much more efficient. But, they can also work against you if you let them dictate priorities or distract you. The most important thing to remember when working with tools is to be aware of their limitations and potential pitfalls. With that in mind you can use SEO tools as they’re intended: not as a replacement for your own knowledge and expertise, but as tools to help you be more effective in reaching your SEO goals. Geoff Kennedy - SEO & Digital Marketing Consultant Geoff Kennedy is a UK based SEO consultant with over 15 years experience working with clients around the globe. He works with a wide variety of businesses, including well-known brands, specializing in SEO audits and providing strategic support. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Adriana Stein If you own, work on, or market a website, you need to understand the basics of crawling and indexing. Why? Well think of it like this: If you can’t see, access, or find something, how can you buy it? The same goes for websites. If your content isn’t crawled and indexed, Google can’t see it and it certainly won’t show it when someone searches for it. Essentially, if people can’t find your website, they’re going to have a much tougher time buying from you. So when Google can find you, customers can find you. In fact, making your website “discoverable” is an essential element of SEO success. When your content is crawled and indexed, you have a chance to show search engines like Google that your content is relevant and valuable to searchers, which increases the likelihood of it showing up in search results (i.e., ranking). The more pages you rank, the more organic traffic you stand to gain, which often correlates to leads and conversions, meaning more money in your pocket. So let’s now take a look at how crawling, indexing, and ranking are three essential elements of good SEO. Table of contents: The basics of website ranking How web crawling works for search engines Who, or what, crawls a website? How indexing works for search engines How often do search engines crawl and index web pages? Checking crawling and indexing statuses for your pages The basics of website ranking Ranking refers to a website’s position in the search engine results pages (SERPs). This can be achieved through optimizing various on-page and off-page factors . While attracting and converting visitors is one of the primary goals behind a successful SEO strategy, ranking highly for relevant searches is typically the vehicle that drives these goals. To be clear, ranking is the final thing that search engines do to deliver search results (crawling and indexing occurring first; more on that below), but for the sake of contextualizing the process, we’ll start with the goal in mind. Although there are some clear-cut actions to help improve rankings, it’s a nuanced process. There are hundreds of potential factors that search engine algorithms analyze to rank websites based on relevance and value to specific queries (the terms people use Google to search for). Simply put, focus on relevant content for your audience If you’re reading this article, it’s likely that you’re just starting out and have a smaller website. And you probably read the above paragraphs and are thinking, “Where do I even begin? How can I manage to create content that adheres to such a variety of ranking factors?” Well, it’s actually rather simple. Here’s my best advice as someone who’s done SEO for years for a wide variety of websites: 01. Create content that’s relevant to your audience 02. Targets keywords (queries) that your audience searches for 03. Provide a good user experience Despite all the noise and SEO guidance you’ve probably already run across, that’s really what all websites should focus on. When you stick to the three elements listed above—no matter the algorithm update , changes with AI , or whatever SEO trend may come—high-quality, helpful, relevant content is simply the most effective way to rank your pages and generate results for your brand or business. Keyword research can help you identify content ideas One of the best ways to figure out what works for you is to research and explore different keywords (keywords being, for the sake of this article, synonymous with “search terms” and “queries”) relevant to your target audience. On a fundamental level, you can refer to your experience with your audience as a starting point by pursuing low/zero search volume keywords if you know that's what your audience is looking for. But it’s also important to be realistic and remember that content production should also focus on targeting keywords with search volume related to your products, services, or information within your niche. Once you’ve got an idea of your target search terms, you can then analyze the search engine results pages (SERPs) to see what types of content currently rank. That’ll give you a good idea of what you may need to create (but always try to improve on competitors rather than mimicking them—after all, you can’t win a race from behind). A simplified example of keyword research in action To provide a quick example of this, let’s say I used Ahrefs free SEO tools to research the keyword free social media template . This generates the following keyword ideas for the US market: You can see that free social media template has a search volume of 450 (as shown above), meaning that the tool estimates that there are roughly that many searches for this keyword per month. For the sake of this example, that’s perfectly fine, but remember, search volume isn’t everything . Next, I go to Google to search our keyword, free social media template , which shows the following results for the US market: Next, I might review each listing to assess what they have in common and what sets them apart. Identifying these elements can allow you to exploit gaps left by the competition and create content that meets your audience’s search intent . Of course, there’s more to a successful SEO/content strategy than keyword research and search analysis—it’s also important to follow content optimization best practices. I won’t go into that topic in this article, but Wix has a helpful overview here . How web crawling works for search engines Now that we know what the goal is, let’s take a more granular look at the initial steps that search engines take to help us get there. For any website to rank and appear in search results, it needs to be crawled and indexed by search engines. This is the process I mentioned in the intro of this article that makes your pages “discoverable.” We can tell from the above example that Freepik, HubSpot, and Hootsuite are “indexed” (which also means they had to be “crawled” before getting indexed) because they show up in Google search results. This is how they are able to show in the SERPs and rank for relevant keywords (in this case, free social media template). Let’s now focus specifically on the “crawling” aspect. Website crawling is the action that search engines perform in order to comb through websites and discover new ones. To refer back to the previous example, if you search for free social media template, you’re likely looking for a downloadable PDF template for social media, which is precisely what we see reflected in the SERPs (as Google does its best to always show the most relevant and helpful results). Who, or what, crawls a website? When it comes to Google Search, website crawling is done through Googlebot , a software that reviews web pages by following hyperlinks on these web pages within known URLs to continually expand its reach. This first step in the process of delivering search results is all about discovery. Google (and other search engines) will crawl both new and previously crawled content so that the most relevant, up-to-date content is available in the search results. The search engines then store what they find in an index in order to create a network of interconnected information. Other search engines like Bing and Yandex use similar processes to crawl web pages as well. Your pages must be crawlable for them to appear in search results. However, not all pages are meant to be crawled (for example, a “thank you” page or a site that’s still under construction) so search engines do follow certain directives from site owners to omit them from crawling . How indexing works for search engines Web indexing is the process of taking information that was found during a website crawl and transferring it into a database (like the Google Search index) where it is stored for later retrieval in order to generate relevant search results. As someone who wants to improve their search visibility, it’s important to understand the relationship between crawling, indexing, and ranking. Here’s a helpful visual from SISTRIX : Overall, as long as your website is properly set up (which it generally will be because most website creation tools allow search engines to crawl pages by default), it will be crawled and indexed. How often do search engines crawl and index web pages? One important thing to remember when it comes to crawling and indexing is that it takes time—it’s not always realistic to expect your pages to show up in relevant search results right after you publish them. If you consider how many websites are out there in the world, then it makes sense that search engines are constantly trying to keep up. That’s why there’s no concrete answer on how long it takes. Depending on how big and active your website is, search engines can crawl your pages between every few days to every month. Once a crawl starts, it can spread out over a few weeks. If you want to try to speed things up, you can try manually submitting your content for crawling and indexing in Google Search Console (GSC) , but this doesn’t guarantee it’ll happen overnight. Here’s a rule of thumb: The larger your website is, the longer it will take to crawl. Factors like crawl budget can also affect how often and quickly your website is crawled and indexed, but this generally only applies to large websites. Checking crawling and indexing statuses for your pages Once you’ve chosen your target keywords, created content, and are trying to rank your web page, the next step is to check that your page has been indexed and crawled so your target audience can find it on relevant SERPs. You can do this by checking Google Search Console (GSC), probably the most amazing free SEO tool there is. Start by typing your page’s URL into the GSC search bar (at the top of the dashboard). Next, you’ll see a report that looks something like this: In the above image, you can see that the page is indexed because there is a green check mark. So Google is able to crawl, index, and show it on relevant SERPs. If this wasn’t the case, the report will tell you so and give you some reasons as to why the URL has issues. As a quick summary, your web page may not be indexed by Google due to the following reasons: The newly launched site or web page has not yet been crawled by Google (which means you may need to keep waiting) The page design hinders Google’s ability to efficiently crawl the content Google encountered an error while crawling the page Googlebot cannot access the page for crawling purposes (possibly because it has been marked “noindex” ) If you’d like to dig deeper into the nuances of using GSC, here’s a quick video from Google Search Central that explains how the above process works . Note: Wix users can access Google Search Console data—including index status—from within their dashboard via the Wix Site Inspection tool. You can’t rank if you’re not first crawled and indexed If there’s one key takeaway you from this article, it should be this: If your site isn’t crawled and indexed, it won’t show up in the search results. And without that, you’re losing out on potential traffic and conversions. Of course, there’s so much more to SEO that needs to be taken into consideration over the long run. But for now, focus on creating useful content and ensuring your target audience can actually find and read it. Adriana Stein - CEO and Founder at AS Marketing Originally from the US and now living in Germany, Adriana Stein is the CEO and founder of the marketing agency AS Marketing . She leads a team of multi-language SEO experts who develop holistic international marketing strategies for global companies. Twitter | Linkedin