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Author: James Clark Errors are bad and need to be fixed, right? That’s not always the case when it comes to 404 errors on your website. These errors give a clear signal to users and search engines that a page is “Not Found”—which can actually be the right thing in many situations.  Let’s take a look at when these 404 errors matter for SEO (and why), how to find them on your site, when you should resolve them, and how to do so. Table of contents: What are 404 errors? “Soft 404” errors 410 errors 404 pages aren’t always bad 404 errors for SEO Why 404 errors matter for SEO Unpublishing and republishing content Requesting a recrawl 404s due to broken links How to find 404 errors on your website Find 404 errors with Google Search Console Find 404 errors on Wix or other web platforms Find 404 errors in Google Analytics 404 error examples and fixes Page URL has changed Page has been deleted User mistypes a URL Mistake in a link Spammy backlinks No content (soft 404) What are 404 errors? 404 errors occur when a user requests a missing web page and the server responds to say “Not Found.” This can happen when a user mistypes a URL, an internal link is broken, the page URL has changed, the page is deleted, etc. Whenever you visit a webpage, your browser requests it from that website’s server and the server responds. Along with the page’s content, the server will send a so-called “response code” or “status code”—a small note or label indicating whether the request has been completed. In most cases, the request will be successful and the server sends a “200 OK” status code. But sometimes, the requested page can’t be found on the server. Perhaps it no longer exists, never existed, or moved (and we’ll look at all those scenarios in the final part of this article). In that case, the server will usually give a different status code: “404 Not Found.” The “404 Not Found” status code is commonly called a 404 error, although it doesn’t necessarily indicate an error with your website. If a user requests a web page that doesn’t exist, the error may be on the part of the user doing the browsing. Server status codes don’t mean much to the average user, so when a server returns a 404, a website will typically display a human-friendly HTTP error page. Sometimes, as you can see here with Google’s, the page will use the term “404”: But, more often than not, they will simply say “Page Not Found.” Here’s the New York Times’ 404 page: Incidentally, if you want to see any website’s 404 page, try going to a URL that is unlikely to exist. I tend to go /bananas, for example:  https://google.com/bananas  or https://www.nytimes.com/bananas But, you can use your own random word or nonsense phrase. What are “soft 404” errors? “A soft 404 occurs when a webserver responds with a 200 OK HTTP response code for a page that doesn't exist rather than the appropriate 404 Not Found. Soft 404s can limit a site’s crawl coverage by search engines because these duplicate URLs may be crawled instead of pages with unique content.” — Google Search Central A regular 404 error is when a user requests a missing web page and the server responds to say “Not Found.” What if the page is missing but the server responds to say “OK”? That’s when we have a so-called “soft 404.” It isn’t actually a status code, but a term used by Google and the SEO industry to describe this situation. You might also come across the term “hard 404,” which is just another name for a regular 404 (when the server gives the appropriate response code). One scenario that results in a soft 404 is a page with no content: The server successfully serves the page (which explains the “200 OK” status code), but from a search engine’s perspective, the content is “not found.” This might sound unlikely, but it happens surprisingly often with tag and category pages. If your web platform automatically generates a page for each category, and you create a category without assigning any content to it, you’ll end up with a page that has no content. This so-called “thin” page is a perfect contender for a soft 404. Classifieds and eCommerce websites might also generate soft 404s if no stock is available for a search results page or combination of filters (as shown below). Soft 404s are confusing for both users and search engines , so you should fix them wherever they occur. This is another scenario we’ll look at in the final section of this article. If you’re not sure whether a page is returning a 404 response code or not, you can see for yourself using Chrome’s built-in Dev Tools . What about 410 errors? You may come across another response code that is very similar to a 404: “410 Gone.” While a 404 only indicates that the page is not found, a 410 means the page is permanently  unavailable. In practice (and especially from an SEO point of view), there’s little difference between the two. Google has clarified, for example , that “if you’re just removing content [from your website] naturally, then that’s perfectly fine to use either one.” 404 pages aren’t always bad A 404 status code isn’t necessarily bad, and neither is a user seeing a 404 error page. It just means the page they tried to access couldn’t be found.  For example, let’s look at one common cause of 404 errors: mistyping a URL. A user wants to go to  yoursite.com/news , and accidentally types yoursite.com/mews  into their browser address bar instead (“mews” instead of “news”). That page doesn’t exist, so they get a 404. Now, this isn’t a scenario you can prevent. Nothing is broken on your website—it’s purely a case of user error. The best thing you can do in this case is provide a 404 page that has as much value as possible for the user. Many sites, such as YouTube and the BBC, include a search box on their 404 pages, giving users a second chance to find the content they are interested in: Besides being useful, your 404 page could be entertaining. Amazon’s 404 page currently displays one of the dogs of Amazon: “the dogs who help make Amazon a great place to work.” Each time you hit (or refresh) the 404 page, you’ll see a different cute dog: This then encourages users to visit the “Workplace” section of the site and supports Amazon’s recruitment efforts, so it provides value to both the user and Amazon.  But, perhaps incentivizing users to visit your 404 page is a step too far: it will artificially inflate your 404 traffic, making identifying and (potentially) fixing 404 errors trickier. 404 errors for SEO Just as 404 error pages aren’t inherently bad, neither are 404 errors necessarily bad for SEO. Google has said so consistently for more than a decade: Why 404 errors matter for SEO So if 404 errors aren’t necessarily bad, can’t be completely avoided, and don’t result in any sort of penalty from Google, why do they matter at all for SEO? To answer this question, we need to look at how Google (and other search engines) treat 404s—including soft 404s. Google doesn’t want users clicking on search results that take them to pages that are “Not Found,” as that would be a poor user experience. So, it’s no surprise that Google removes those URLs from its index . This means they will no longer appear in search results. That’s not the only action Google takes when it encounters 404s. As Google Senior Search Analyst John Mueller explained : “We generally reduce crawling a little bit of those URLs so that we don’t spend too much time crawling things that we know don’t exist.” This can be a good thing, as it helps you manage your crawl budget (i.e., the number of pages a search engine bot will crawl  and index on a given site, within a given time period). You don’t want a search engine to spend too much time crawling pages that don’t exist, as you would have to wait longer for it to crawl your new or recently updated content . This becomes more of a concern the larger your website is. Even with Google crawling 404s less frequently, you can still lose a large chunk of your crawl budget to those pages. For example, here’s a site where 34% of requests are squandered on 404s: Screenshot from Google Search Console. Think twice about unpublishing and republishing content The fact that Google crawls 404s less is something to bear in mind when you’re thinking about unpublishing content. Let’s say you have a page with out-of-date content. You’re planning to update it soon, but you decide to unpublish the page in the meantime—leading Google to remove it from its search index. Then, even once you update the content and republish the page, you may have to wait an uncertain length of time before Google recrawls the URL and adds it back to its index.  This would be frustrating with a single page, but imagine if it affected a whole section of your site. It would be better, if possible, to leave the page published and just update the content as soon as you can. Requesting a recrawl If you do temporarily unpublish a page and it gets removed from Google’s index, you can use Google Search Console (GSC ; a free, invaluable SEO tool) to ask Google to recrawl the URL —that is, send its bot to visit the page again and attempt to read the content: “Indexing requested” for an individual page using the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console. Even when you request a recrawl, as Google says, “Crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.” And there’s no guarantee that a recrawl will result in Google adding the page back into its index. Later in this article we’ll look at GSC in more detail, in particular how you can use it to identify 404s. 404s due to broken links There’s another reason why 404 errors matter for your SEO: while they aren’t a cause of SEO problems, they may be a symptom. They could indicate anything from a typo in a single link all the way up to a major issue with your site structure or content. Let’s take the example of a typo in an internal link  (a link from one page of your site to another). Any user clicking on this link would encounter a 404 error rather than reaching the content they clicked through to. This is clearly bad for user experience and may result in the user leaving your site in frustration. If you’re an eCommerce business, you could miss out on a sale as a result. But, the impact of a broken internal link can be greater than that. As we explain in our Hub article “ The fundamentals of internal linking for SEO ”: “Internal linking is essential for any site owner that wants to rank their content on the first page of Google search results. This is because Google looks at the quality and quantity of internal links pointing to a given page to help it assess which pages are important on your site.” — Goodness Azubuogu, SEO Analyst at Trek Marketing Our link (with the typo in it) isn’t pointing to the correct page, so isn’t telling Google anything about the intended destination. By fixing the link, we can better help Google understand the importance of that destination page, potentially improving its ranking in search results. The same applies to inbound links (i.e., links to your website from other websites, also referred to as backlinks ). Here, we could be talking about: Links in marketing campaigns such as on social media Links acquired naturally from other sites as a result of your high-quality content Links acquired as a result of deliberate outreach and link building If these links are broken, any users clicking on them will get both a 404 error and a subpar user experience. And again, you’re missing out on an opportunity to send Google a signal about the importance of the destination page. Of course, it can be harder to fix broken inbound links, as you may not have direct control over them! Email newsletters and other broadcast emails are a bit of an exception. Google doesn’t crawl email newsletters (unless a web version also exists), so links here don’t help Google to understand your site—but they could still be broken and cause 404s. Broadcast emails can be an important source of traffic and conversions. Check them for broken links to avoid unwanted 404s. So while 404 errors aren’t inherently bad for SEO, they present an opportunity for you to find and fix errors that might otherwise hold back your SEO (and UX). That’s why it’s a good idea to investigate all your 404 errors and decide, case by case, whether you should take action. How to find 404 errors on your website Before you can decide whether to act on your 404 errors, you need to be able to find them. There are a few ways to do that: With an SEO tool, such as Google Search Console In your content management system (CMS) or web platform Using an analytics tool, such as Google Analytics 4 They each have pros and cons, so let’s look at them in turn. Find 404 errors with Google Search Console Google Search Console is a free SEO tool from Google that helps you understand how the search engine sees your website, including information on any 404 errors it has discovered. To use GSC, you first need to verify your site to prove you own or manage it. Our complete guide to Google Search Console  has instructions on doing this. Then, within GSC, go to the Page Indexing  report ( Pages > Index ). This shows you how many pages of your website Google has added to its index—and how many it has omitted. Scroll down a little and you’ll see a table listing various reasons why pages aren’t indexed, along with the number of pages affected by each reason: One of those possible reasons is “Not Found (404).” (You may also see “Soft 404” or “URL blocked due to other 4xx issue”—Search Console Help provides a full list of possible non-indexing reasons .) If you do have pages that are “Not Found (404),” click on this reason to see: The number of pages affected A graph showing the trend over time Some example pages with this non-indexing reason The last time these pages were crawled Use the EXPORT option at the top of the report to export a list of affected pages in CSV, Excel, or Google Sheets format (note: Google caps this at 1,000 pages).  You could fix those 404s, wait for Google to recrawl the pages, and then export another batch of 1,000 URLs—but this would be very slow. And, besides, I’ve already shown you that not all 404s are unwanted. You might be wondering whether this data is available via an API instead. Unfortunately, while Search Console does have an API , it doesn’t cover indexing data. If you find yourself hindered by these limitations, consider one of the other methods of identifying 404s. Find 404 errors on Wix or other web platforms Your CMS or web platform may also provide you with information on 404s (although sometimes a plugin or extension is necessary). The Response Status over Time report in Wix, showing 4XX and 5XX errors. Wix gives you this sort of insight out of the box  (as shown above). Here’s how you find it: Log in to your Wix dashboard In the main menu, go to Analytics & Reports > Reports Scroll down to the SEO section of the page Click Show more reports Click on Response Status over Time By default, the report shows a bar chart so you can spot trends — but switch over to the “Table” view if you want to dive into the details. Use the “Response status classes” search filter at the top to show only 4XX responses (this includes 404s, 410s and other so-called “client errors” ). For each 404, you’ll see the page affected, the date of the first hit, the date of the most recent hit, and an overall count. This will let you identify the biggest issues first and make the most effective use of your time—important if you have a lot of 404s! Click the Download option to export your data as a CSV, Excel file, or image, and continue working on it outside Wix. If your CMS or platform doesn’t provide you with any information on 404s, you may be able to get it directly from your server logs instead. These text files are a record of server requests (including response codes) and can often be accessed through your hosting account. Your web host should be able to provide instructions on how to do this. Find 404 errors in Google Analytics Finally, you can also track 404 errors via analytics tools, such as Google Analytics 4 (GA4). This is easiest if your 404 page has a unique page title such as “Page Not Found” or “404 Error.” You can then build a report that shows pageviews for any pages with that page title. Looking at the URL (page path) dimension will show you where the 404s are happening. The 404 page on this site has a unique page title of “Page Not Found,” so it is possible to search for it in GA4 reports. Unlike the Google Search Console approach, this won’t detect soft 404 errors. It also only detects pages that are not found, rather than images or other file types. However, it may pick up on 404s that Search Console misses—such as those resulting from broken links in email newsletters. Analytics Mania has a comprehensive guide to tracking 404 errors  in GA4, whether or not your 404 page has a unique page title (two different methods). 404 error examples and fixes Now that you’ve found your 404 errors, what action should you take? That depends on the cause of each 404. Here are some common scenarios and a fix for each. The page URL has changed A page URL might change even if you don’t edit it yourself. Depending on your platform, renaming or moving the content could trigger a URL change.  Let’s say your URL structure for an individual post is: yourwebsite.com/category-A/post-name Moving the post from category A to category B could change the post URL—as could changing the post name. Your platform or CMS might automatically put in a redirect from the old URL to the new one (which is the case whenever you change a Wix page’s URL slug ), but if it doesn’t, anyone coming into the old URL (through an internal or external link) will encounter a 404.  The right approach here is to put in a redirect yourself. In this case, you want a permanent or “301” redirect —it’s called this because it returns the status code “301 Moved Permanently.” You may be able to add the redirect directly in your web platform or CMS, or you may need to edit your web server configuration files . In addition to helping your users reach the content they want, the redirect will pass any link equity to the new URL, so your organic search rankings and traffic won’t suffer. If you can, you should also update any links so they point directly to the new URL. This is to prevent redirect chains if the content moves again in future (see the image below). An example of a redirect chain. One redirect is fine, but you want to avoid situations where Page A redirects to Page B, which redirects to Page C, and so on. This adds to page load times and may affect your crawl budget. To see whether there is a redirect chain already in place for a particular URL, use a tool such as Redirect Checker . This will show you the redirects it takes to get to the destination page, along with the status code at each point. For example, it takes two redirects to get from the HTTP non-www version of my homepage to the HTTPS www version: Finally, you will want Google to discover, crawl, and index  the new URL. The redirect you’ve put in place should help this happen, but you could also request a crawl in GSC. The page has been deleted Deleted pages are another common cause of 404s. Your course of action here depends on why you deleted the page. If you deleted it because you merged it with another page, or because it’s very similar to other content on your site, you should absolutely set up a 301 redirect. However, if you deleted the page and you don’t have any other relevant content on this topic, then just leave the 404 in place. “Not Found” is the correct server response in this situation. Don’t be tempted to redirect a deleted page to irrelevant content, or indeed to your homepage. Google has said in the past that it could see this as a soft 404 , so there would be no SEO benefit from doing so. It could also be confusing to users. You should, however, remove any internal links to the deleted page. This will help prevent user frustration should someone click through to missing content. The URL Inspection Tool  in Google Search Console will tell you how Google discovered the page, which can help you identify where these broken links reside: However, this might not be the only link. So a more efficient option might be to use an SEO tool, such as Screaming Frog , to crawl your site and generate a comprehensive list of internal links (the free version is fine for sites with less than 500 URLs). A user mistypes a URL We’ve already looked at a scenario where a user accidentally types “/mews” instead of “/news” and gets a 404 as a result. If this is a one-off, there’s nothing you can do about it. But if the same misspelling keeps happening, you may want to put a 301 redirect in place from the misspelled URL to the correct one. As Google recommends: “If the URL is a commonly misspelled or alternately spelled word or URL (for example, example.com/flights/canceling versus example.com/flights/cancelling -- notice the extra ‘l’ in ‘cancelling’)... then map your common misspellings or alternate spellings to the same page on your site using redirects or some other mechanism.” — Google Search Console Help A mistake in a link 404s can also happen when someone links to one of your pages but makes a spelling mistake in the link itself. This means that the link ends up pointing to a non-existent page. If this is an internal link, the solution is easy: fix the link! But if it’s an inbound link, things can be a bit trickier. You could reach out to the referring website owner and ask them to fix it. After all, they thought your content was valuable enough to link to in the first place. However, they may be unable or unwilling to do this. The next course of action would be to 301 redirect the non-existent page through to the intended destination. That way, anyone clicking on the broken link will be taken through to the correct content—and that page will gain link equity from the inbound link. Spammy backlinks Your site may attract spam or fake backlinks that result in 404s. These links are often generated programmatically (i.e., in bulk, using a script or other automated process) and point to pages that have never existed on your site. Here, “Not Found” is the correct response, so you can safely leave these as they are. There’s no need to try to fix them or “Validate Fix” in GSC. Don’t use Google Search Console’s “VALIDATE FIX” for pages that are giving a 404 if “Not Found” is actually the correct response. No content (soft 404 ) With a soft 404, there’s a mismatch between the server response (“200 OK”) and the page experience—and it’s this mismatch that confuses both users and search engines.  The solution is to bring the two in line. This usually means one of the following courses of action:  Optimizing by adding content to the page  Deleting the page to ensure the server responds with a regular 404.  301 redirecting the page to another, relevant page that does have content Add 404s to your regular SEO auditing and maintenance Now you know what 404s are, how to find them, and what to do (or quite possibly not do) about them. But, checking your site for 404s isn’t a one-off job. It’s an ongoing task that will help you pick up on problems with your website or marketing as soon as possible, minimizing harm to your business. For the best site health, you should come up with a process for monitoring your 404s regularly. Verifying your site with Google Search Console is a good first step, as this free tool will email you if there is a sudden increase in pages giving this error.  For larger sites, you may prefer to set up 404 tracking in Google Analytics 4 or another analytics tool. You could even then pull this data into Looker Studio  and automatically email yourself a one-page report each month. It doesn’t matter exactly how you do it, as long as it is something you can keep  doing. Don’t let your process for identifying 404 errors be “Not Found”! James Clark - Web Analyst   James Clark is a web analyst from London, with a background in the publishing sector. When he isn't helping businesses with their analytics, he's usually writing how-to guides over on his website Technically Product . Twitter  | Linkedin

Author: Naomi Francis-Parker I find that a lot of eCommerce brands don’t see the value in creating content that isn’t directly related to selling their products. Though product is the cornerstone of any eCommerce business, there’s a common misconception that simply by offering something your customers want, they will visit your website and buy from you—no questions asked. By their very nature, eCommerce websites are a shop window for products, but in a world where shoppers have more options than ever before, you need to stand out and demonstrate why your brand is the best choice. One of the most effective ways to do this is through content that connects with users at all stages of the marketing funnel. You need to transform your website from a shop window to an informative, decision-making resource that truly adds value to your customers’ buying experience. In this guide, I’ll explain why eCommerce brands need a content marketing strategy and lay out a framework to help you research, plan, and implement expertise-led content to appeal to customers at all stages of the marketing funnel. Table of contents The value of content marketing Why eCommerce businesses need content Product detail pages & product landing pages: Content that sells Informational content vs. Commercial content: Why you need both Informational content: Examples and use cases Commercial content: Examples and use cases How to plan an eCommerce content strategy Research your topic Plan your pillar guide Expand your subtopics into clusters Add internal links and CTAs The importance and value of content marketing  Content marketing’s primary advantages are twofold: Content marketing can benefit your SEO and help you rank more prominently in search results for your niche. Content marketing can assist potential customers who want to know more about your product or topics in your niche. Content marketing for SEO Every serious business is fighting for a slot at the top of Google search results, and content marketing is one of the few ways you can truly get there by demonstrating your expertise. Search engines operate on the understanding of topics, and your performance in the search results is influenced by how well your website presents valuable and unique knowledge (in the form of content) within your topic area. In other words, you need to show Google that your website deserves to rank for relevant topics and demonstrate why it is more deserving than your competition (who will likely be writing the same content). These are the fundamentals of content marketing, and most businesses recognize that by having content on their website, they are more likely to rank for the topics they want and therefore drive more potential customers to their website via greater visibility on Google (or other search engines).  However, when people talk about content marketing in the context of SEO, I find that this is often restricted to informational content led by keywords and search volumes  that only cover the basics of a topic.  Writing content purely to target a set of keywords with desirable search volume that happens to align with your niche will only get you so far.  The internet is becoming increasingly flooded with such content in nearly all industries, making it increasingly more difficult to stand out from the crowd. That’s why you also need to consider content marketing for the customer. Content marketing for the customer To help cut down on low-quality content, Google aligned its search quality evaluator guidelines  with what human users value and trust—expertise. This incentivizes you to leverage your experiences (as a business or business owner) as a point of distinction, proving to search engines and users that your content isn’t just a cookie-cutter article for ranking. I’ve found that when this concept is explained to businesses, most assume that “experience” only applies to service-based businesses or bloggers who write about specific topics. Experience is seen as something that only an individual or a small group of individuals can provide, rather than a big brand—which isn’t true. Expertise is born out of experience, so if your business has the expertise to sell a product, then you also have the experience of selling your products to (and sharing knowledge with) your audience. This is what users are looking for when they’re searching for content that is relevant to their query. Content that is created for the user and can demonstrate experience through expertise (the other “E” in E-E-A-T) will naturally become content that ranks. In short, content for SEO and content for the customer are now the same. Why eCommerce businesses need content Nearly every eCommerce business that I’ve worked with assumed that content isn’t for them because:  They think that content is for publication websites or blogs. The content they created in the past hasn’t generated revenue. To sell your products and to show users you know what you’re talking about when it comes to those products, your website needs to become more than a shop window. You need to evoke a sense of trust and the only way to do that effectively on your website is through different types of content that caters to potential customers’ needs, no matter what they are. Site visitors look for various types of content according to the stage of the customer journey they’re in. It’s the same as someone walking into your physical store and asking a store clerk for advice. A good store clerk will provide as much information as possible to help the customer better understand a product or choose a specific product based on their query. Having no content on your website (besides your products) is the same as having a store with no store clerks.  Ultimately, your potential customers will leave to seek advice elsewhere and will likely purchase from the same competitors that gave them the advice they were looking for. This is why your website needs to be an information resource tailored for customers regardless of whether they’re ready to buy. Product detail pages & product listings pages: Content that sells This might sound basic, but your product listings pages (PLPs) and your product detail pages  (PDPs) are not the same as your blog. Each serves a different purpose and caters to customers at different stages of the marketing funnel, so the content you provide on each page type should differ to match the corresponding user intent . User intent Description Informational The user is looking for more general information or answers about your product/industry. Navigational The user is looking to navigate to a specific site or page that they already know about. E.g., the returns or login page. Commercial The user is moving closer to conversion and wants to research/compare products, read reviews, and find other information that will help them make a decision. Transactional The user has decided to buy and intends to make a purchase or complete an action. PLPs and PDPs, let’s call them “money pages,” both cater to customers in the middle of the marketing funnel at the interest and decision stages. These customers have an idea of what they want and they’re looking at their options to find the best product to meet their needs. For example, they might want a new pair of running shoes but aren’t sure which type to go for. They will be browsing your money pages and looking for information to help them make an informed decision. In other words, they’ve just walked into your store and asked a store clerk for advice. This advice must match the intent of the query for the customer to move closer to conversion, so you would expect the store assistant to explain the differences between each type of trainer and suggest several options based on the customer’s requirements. At this point, you wouldn’t expect the clerk to explain the history of running or how running affects your health because you will have likely researched this information before you decided to go into the store. In the same way, customers don’t expect your money pages to do this either. This is the key difference between the content you provide on your money pages and the content on your blog. One is for selling and the other is for informing. One of the most common mistakes I see eCommerce businesses make is putting as much information as possible on their money pages in hopes it will help them rank. The problem is that this is generally content for content’s sake and therefore adds no value for the user while providing a worse user experience. Your money pages’ duty is to provide expertise to help secure an eventual sale and move the customer further down the funnel to the conversion stage. Just like it’s a store clerk’s job to do the same. Therefore, the most effective content to have on these pages is FAQs  with answers that are accurate, insightful, and aim to help customers pick the best product for them. This, coupled with some contextual information about the product collection and perhaps some of your bestsellers is enough to make your PLPs engaging and informative without turning them into a blog. BULK’s whey protein PLP contains FAQs and bestsellers to educate customers and help them find the best product. Source: Bulk.com There will be times when customers need a little more information about a topic or want to learn more about something specific. You can guide these customers to your blog content with internal links . That way, you’re enhancing the experience without blurring the lines of intent. This also has the added benefit of improving the internal linking structure between your pages, which improves the topical authority of your site overall. Informational vs. Commercial content: Why you need both “We tried doing content but it didn’t convert, so we stopped”. This is something that I’ve heard countless times from businesses and it does make sense—if you’re an eCommerce brand and your main goal is to sell products, then you naturally want to focus on content that converts. But with this mindset, you’re ignoring users at the top of the marketing funnel who are just starting their buying journey and are looking for a solution to their problem. If your business has the solution, why not nurture those users early on with information that can help guide them down the funnel and turn them into your potential customers? As users progress through the funnel, their preferences for content shift. Those in the awareness stage are more drawn to informational content because they’re researching the topic as a whole, while those in the decision stage are researching more specifically to find the exact product that addresses their needs, so they are more interested in commercial content. More than half (52%) of customers go out of their way to purchase from their favorite brands (according to a study  by Zendesk), with one of the most influential factors being support. Aside from the traditional customer service support that you provide, I believe that support can also come in the form of content that truly helps the customer and makes them feel confident about your expertise and your product. If you want to be recognized as a business that supports its customers—rather than one that just wants to sell products—your website needs to have content that is both informative and commercial. Without both, you’re leaving money on the table. Informational content: Examples and use cases There’s a reason why even the biggest eCommerce brands have whole portions of their website dedicated to education—it’s because an informed customer is more likely to make a purchase. By educating your customers, you make them feel like you understand their needs and are willing to help them without forcing them to buy something. This is why all businesses need informational content. The types of content that users are looking for during the early stages of the buying journey are: Informative blog posts How-to guides Infographics Webinars The purpose of this content is purely to educate and inform. This isn’t the place to push your latest products (that comes later) so don’t be tempted to treat this content as a sales pitch. That’s not to say that you can’t add internal links within the content where relevant, just make sure they’re subtle and make sense. Source: Newbalance.co.uk. New Balance does a great job of this by publishing dedicated guides that are purely informational, but with subtle links to their products throughout (as shown below).  The product links aren’t intrusive and are less frequent than the links to supporting content, making it more helpful to users. This also helps build strong topical authority by showing search engines that there’s a clear link between each of the guides and the PLP. Source: Newbalance.co.uk. The metrics you should use to measure the success of this type of content need to be engagement-based  (rather than conversion-based). To determine how well your informational content is working, measure things like: Impressions Rankings Clicks Click-through-rate (CTR) New users Bounce rate and/or engagement rate Average pages per session Average session duration Average time on page The goal here is to make the content as engaging as possible to encourage users to explore more and move into the consideration stage. Make sure you’re writing multiple content pieces that each cover an entire topic so you can include links to other relevant content throughout. This will not only improve your user experience as you’ll have several resources that potential customers can explore, it will also strengthen your topical authority, which can lead to better visibility, rankings, and traffic. Commercial content: Examples and use cases Commercial content exists to help customers in the consideration stage make an informed purchasing decision. There is an educational element to commercial content that can spill over into the realm of informational content; this is fine, as a customer’s movement through the marketing funnel doesn’t have to be linear. The types of content that users are looking for at this stage of the buying journey are: Buyer’s guides Product comparison guides Product deep dives and demos FAQs The purpose of this content is to provide your customers with information about your products that will help them decide whether it’s right for them. The key with this kind of content is to describe your products as though someone had just walked into your store and asked a sales assistant for more information about a product (or a set of products) because they know what they want but they’re not sure which product to choose. Buyer’s guides and comparison guides are great ways to help your customers decide, especially when two products have the same or similar features. The metrics you should use to measure the success of this type of content need to be conversion-based as well as engagement-based.  To determine how well your commercial content is working, measure things like: Average pages per session Average session duration Average time on page Returning visitors Branded traffic Revenue Pay close attention to the user journey  from these pages to understand how many people are reading your product-focused content and making a purchase off the back of it. Source: Lululemon.co.uk. Lululemon’s running hub is a good example of commercial content done well. The company highlights its products throughout but provides relevant information about why they suggest a particular product within the context of the original query. This is helpful for customers who need a little guidance before they make the final purchase and a great way to connect your blog with your money pages whilst remaining aligned with user intent. Source: Lululemon.co.uk. How to plan your eCommerce content marketing strategy Before you begin to plan your content marketing strategy, you need to decide which product category you want to focus on first. You can focus on more than one category (depending on how much time and resources you have), but I always recommend starting with one because it’s easier to plan and easier to build a robust topic cluster  that way. This product category will be the topic you want to increase your website’s visibility for, so knowing this before you start will help guide the content as you plan your way through the marketing funnel. Once you determine your topic, you now need to plan according to each stage of the marketing funnel, starting with your informational content and then ending with your commercial content. For this example, I’m going to continue with the theme of a brand that sells running shoes and accessories. 01. Research your topic The first step in planning your content is to:  Research to understand what kinds of questions potential customers are asking about your chosen topic. Research what competitor content already exists to answer those questions. The easiest way to do this is to do a Google search using some of the primary keywords related to your topic and see what content comes up in the results. In the screenshot below, I’ve Googled [road running for beginners] and all of the top results are informational. This confirms that the content I need to create on this topic needs to be informational to match the user intent and rank successfully for this keyword. I can also see what the most common questions around road running are by looking at the People Also Ask box. This can help guide the content’s structure and provides good insight into what my content should include to ensure it adds value to the user. I also recommend using an SEO tool  like Semrush or Ahrefs to see what content works well for your competitors to give you an idea of which subtopics to start with as you build out your funnel content. Analyze your competitor’s top blog posts to see which subtopics you need to focus your content on to engage the user. For each potential piece of content, write down whether the content will be informational or commercial, as this will help you map your content against the marketing funnel. Some SEO tools even categorize keywords by their intent, but I always recommend that you actually search the topic/keyword to manually assess how Google treats the query. 02. Plan your pillar guide This is where you get back to basics. As an expert, it’s easy to assume that most people know the basic information about your industry/topic because it’s second nature to you. The reality is that there’s always someone who is a complete beginner and these people are the target audience for your top-of-funnel content. This content will form the basis of your pillar guide. Pillar guides are all-encompassing guides that cover a topic at a general level to provide the reader with everything they need to get a good understanding before delving further. In our example, this could be a “Beginner’s Guide to Running.” Pillar guides will naturally touch on all the nuanced subtopics that form the main topic, but only with enough depth that encourages the reader to explore that subtopic further. Your subtopics will then form all of your supporting content pieces and drive users further down the funnel. An example of a topic cluster with pillar content. To plan your pillar guide and figure out what you need to include, I always recommend using customer FAQs coupled with search data as sources of information. As an eCommerce business, you will likely have an idea of the questions your customers ask when wanting to better understand the topic you specialize in—these are the questions you’re looking to answer within your pillar guide. Additionally, utilize a tool like Semrush (shown above) and couple it with Google’s People Also Ask  feature (shown below) to find out what else users are asking about the topic. This will give you an idea of the types of information that people want to know and what you need to cover. Remember, the pillar guide is typically for beginners, so make it as accessible as you can. In our example, the structure of your pillar guide could look something like this: Why you should start running Running vs jogging: What’s the difference? Health benefits of running Different types of running terrain Road running Trail running Track running Treadmill running Different running styles Recovery run Long run Tempo run Fartlek run Progression run Running equipment Shoes Bottoms Tops Accessories Socks 03. Expand your subtopics into smaller content clusters Now that you have planned your pillar guide, you should be aware of the subtopics that will form your supporting content pieces. Expanding on your subtopics is crucial to deepening the user’s understanding and is the first step to guiding them through the marketing funnel. Additionally, subtopics often lend themselves to long tail keywords , which are typically better at attracting high-intent customers. Start with an informational guide When expanding your subtopics, start with another informational guide that focuses just on the subtopic you’ve chosen (e.g.; trail running). Within this guide, you can start to discuss your products in relation to the topic, but make sure that the knowledge outweighs the product mentions to keep the guide informative and not overly sales-oriented. For example, your informational guide could be “An Enthusiast’s Guide to Trail Running.” This would include information on: What is trail running? Trail running vs. road running Trail running vs. track running Trail running equipment Tips for trail running for beginners This guide is knowledge-led with just one section dedicated to products (“trail running equipment”) which nurtures customers who are still at the awareness stage whilst introducing products for them to explore. This is how you help guide your customers further down the marketing funnel. While it may be tempting to link out to your product pages at every opportunity, those links might suggest to Google that this content is actually commercial in nature, which could negatively affect your search rankings for informational queries, but definitely affects your user experience (like your store clerk asking “Do you want to buy that one?” for each shoe a potential customer gazes at). Build out your commercial guides Now that you’ve subtly and naturally introduced your products, there will be users who have moved firmly into the consideration stage of the funnel. This is where the content will be led partly by search data but mainly by your customer data and expertise, and should reflect what your customers want to know about your products. For example, you could create any of the following: A product comparison guide explaining the differences between two similar products Source: Lululemon.co.uk. A product highlight guide that explains all of the key features of a particular product Source: Nike.com. A buyer’s guide that puts your products in the context of the topic Source: Brooksrunning.com. These are just some examples. Pay attention to which products customers are comparing yours to (or choosing over yours), then explain—via your content—the considerations that shoppers should look at. With a bit of creativity, you can build out many useful subtopic clusters to help audiences make their buying decisions. 04. Add internal links and review your CTAs The key to any successful content marketing strategy (but especially a full-funnel strategy) is internal links and relevant CTAs . This helps ensure that your content cluster is structured in an intuitive way for the user but also for search engines. Internal links need to point from your pillar page to your subtopic pages and vice versa. Your subtopic pages need to link to the relevant PLPs and PDPs to ensure the topical authority is clear as well as any link equity that you may acquire through link building . Your eCommerce content needs to complement sales—not deter them To futureproof your content marketing strategy and make sure that it’s relevant to your audience at all stages of their journey, start by thinking about what your customer needs to know about your products before they decide to make a purchase. For your informational guides, keep these key things in mind: Cover the basics—your customers don’t know what they don’t know. Focus on the need-to-know information to help your customers understand your industry. Use your internal data to understand your real customers’ questions . Don’t try to force the sale. For your commercial guides, keep these points in mind: Speak about your products within the context of your topic. Answer questions that real customers are asking. Internally link to both your money pages and your informational content. Integrate product mentions with genuinely useful information that’s relevant to the topic. Your content should be complementary to your sales—not a detriment. A knowledge-led content marketing strategy can help you generate revenue through information if you focus on educating the user and guiding them through the marketing funnel. By turning your website into an information resource, you’ll turn users into customers who are more likely to remain loyal because you’ve nurtured them every step of the way. Naomi Francis-Parker - SEO Manager Naomi is an SEO expert with over 5 years of experience working with eCommerce brands. Her passion comes from a holistic approach to digital marketing that encourages growth through the collective use of content, PR, social media, and SEO. Twitter  | Linkedin

Webinar on SEO for AI Search Conversions In this essential webinar, Andy Crestodina and Crystal Carter will give you tips and tactics to shift your SEO strategy from merely attracting traffic to converting highly qualified visitors into valuable leads in the age of AI search.  Learn how to craft content that directly addresses user intent, leverages AI trends, and ultimately drives real business growth. Don't let your marketing efforts fall behind—discover how to future-proof your pipeline and achieve measurable results. Download Andy Crestodina's Presentation Download Crystal Carter's Presentation What You'll Learn: In this myth-busting, practical webinar, you'll discover how to optimize your SEO strategy for the AI age: Prioritize Conversions Over Clicks:  Understand why chasing rankings alone is insufficient and how to build content that truly drives leads, revenue, and sales. Adapt to AI-Powered Search:  See why pages designed to satisfy bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) needs are perfectly positioned for discovery by AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and other conversational search tools. Write for the Right Visitor:  Discover how intimately knowing your specific audience's needs, emotional triggers, and fears can drastically improve traffic quality and lead generation. Meet your hosts: Andy Crestodina Cofounder and CMO Orbit Media Andy is the CMO and Co-Founder at Orbit Media Studios in Chicago. He has been at the forefront of digital marketing innovation for over two decades. With a deep-seated passion for SEO, analytics, and website optimization, Andy is highly regarded as a leading expert in the marketing field. X/Twitter  | LinkedIn   Crystal Carter Head of SEO Communications, Wix Crystal is an SEO and Digital Marketing professional with over 15 years of experience. Her global business clients have included Disney, McDonalds and Tomy. An avid SEO Communicator, her work has been featured at Google Search Central, OMR, brightonSEO, Moz, DeepCrawl (Lumar), Semrush and more. Twitter  | LinkedIn

Author: Mordy Oberstein Wix Studio  (launched in October 2023) brings a lot of new capabilities to a lot of different types of people across the web. From designers to developers to content creators and beyond, there’s a lot to explore.  While there’s been a lot written about Wix Studio, I’d like to dive into the platform from the perspective of a digital marketing agency.  Let’s take a look at the Wix Studio features that might be the most valuable for those working at scale, managing teams, projects, and clients, and creating high-performing websites. Table of contents: What is Wix Studio? How is Wix Studio different from Wix? Wix Studio features for SEOs & digital marketers Custom reusable templates (and site sections) Advanced permissions settings and team management Client management kit AI-powered responsive sections Reusable apps and widgets Bonus: The Wix Studio AI Assistant What is Wix Studio? For the record, I promise this H2 is not here for some absurd SEO reason—rather, it’s here because this may be your first introduction to Wix Studio.  Wix Studio is an advanced web builder created specifically with agencies and enterprise-level companies in mind. The platform offers both advanced customization as well as project management capabilities.  We built it to address the needs of large to enterprise-level businesses, as well as the needs of agencies and large in-house teams looking to manage a project (if not multiple projects) at scale and with less friction.  To that end (because my intention is not to write a bunch of marketing mumbo-jumbo), Wix Studio enables you to: Customize a site’s CSS  Create custom breakpoints and design with pixels Leverage hundreds of APIs Create code within the Wix Studio IDE  or connect a site to GitHub Collaborate with multiple teammates on a canvas in real-time  How is Wix Studio different from Wix?  In short, Wix Studio offers a more advanced editor geared toward web professionals. It also offers a business manager meant specifically to help agencies and enterprise teams oversee sites, projects, clients (in the case of agencies), team members, etc.  At the same time, Wix Studio is built on the Wix infrastructure. This means that all of Wix’s advantages get carried over to Wix Studio as well. This includes:  99.9% uptime Enterprise-level security  Cutting-edge SEO tech (such as structured data  automation, one-click indexation inspections , etc.) All of the foundations—from performance to security to SEO—that are embedded into Wix are part of Wix Studio, with the added power of the Wix Studio editor, business manager, and way too much more to cover right now (but if you want to learn more, check out the Wix Studio Academy ).  For now, I’ll highlight some of Wix Studio’s functionality that was designed to make work easier for digital marketers and SEOs.  Wix Studio features for SEOs & digital marketers For agencies, more efficiency means more ROI. The following Wix Studio features can help you work more efficiently across all your clients: Custom reusable templates (and site sections) Advanced permissions settings and team management Client management kit AI-powered responsive sections Reusable apps and widgets Bonus: The Wix Studio AI Assistant 01. Custom reusable templates (and site sections) Whether it’s a landing page or a category page, creating something that performs well can take a lot of refinement. Getting to the point where you’ve nailed the formula for a certain page type, template, etc. can legitimately be the culmination of years of trial and error.  This is why when we, as marketers, find something that works, we tend to stick with it.  In Wix Studio, you can take your winning formula and reuse it across any and all of your clients via custom templates. Custom templates work at the site level, meaning that you can reuse a template you created for one client by repurposing it for another.  Custom templates are stored in a library within the main Wix Studio dashboard. In addition, SEOs and digital marketers are often looking to templatize an element or page of a site. For example, if you have the perfect conversion-oriented landing page for a SaaS product, you want to be able to replicate that across any applicable clients. This is where creating custom reusable sections of a site comes in.  Wix Studio lets you create a library of reusable page sections.  When working on a client’s site, you can pull in saved assets that you’ve used across any number of projects. In our example of the perfect LP for a SaaS product, you can save the sections that matter to you as a reusable asset. Then when you have the next client, you don’t need to start from scratch. You can simply import those site section assets and recreate your perfect LP in a matter of a few clicks.  As another example, say you like to have a design asset that lists the local business’s total number of locations, number of clients served, and number of years in business (or whatever). You can save that asset and add it to a similar client’s local landing pages without having to rebuild it. All you’d have to do is align the numbers to that specific business.  There’s an endless number of ways you can use Wix Studio’s custom reusable templates. The bottom line is that you can take site elements that work (and even recreate pages) and replicate them on your other clients’ sites, saving you time and letting you work with greater scalability.  Here’s more on how you can get started creating reusable custom templates  and custom reusable sections  with Wix Studio. 02. Advanced permissions settings and team management If a variety of your team members also work on a client’s site, then the ability to set specific permissions can help you better manage the project while providing the client with a sense of security.  Wix Studio gives you in-depth control over what team members can (and can’t) do on a client’s site.  To start, you can assign general user profiles to members of your team. For example, if a team member is only working within the CMS, you can assign them the “Content Writer” role so they can edit any of the text, links, and media, but not make wider site changes.  Get started setting team member permissions by seeing if one of the broader profiles in Wix Studio fits your needs. You can also create a custom role to get more granular about what team members can access on the site.  Create a custom role for your team members to set more granular permissions. For example, you can create custom permission settings that dictate whether or not a team member will be able to: Manage social posts from the site Access SEO tools Create and manage emails or coupon codes Manage the client kit Create, delete, or modify CMS collections  Publish or edit blog posts  Create custom code  Access the alternate versions of the site in other languages Etc.  Within the Wix Studio editor, you can even assign which static pages a team member can or can’t edit .  03. Client management kit  As an SEO, I know that client relations can make or break your agency’s success. That’s why Wix Studio’s client management tools—specifically the client feedback tool and the client hand-off kit—are some of my personal favorites. Client feedback tool The feedback tool allows you to invite a client to offer feedback  directly on the site itself, but without altering the work you did on the site. It’s almost like using the comment feature on platforms like Figma.  Collect client feedback directly on editor pages using Wix Studio. If you’re a content marketer or an SEO, this can save you from having to either run through the site with the client or decipher exactly what the client is looking for.  Clients won’t have to take screenshots and try to explain to you via email.  So at a minimum, you’re making it easier for the client to give you feedback, which is not only better for your overall relationship, it’s better for your business over the long term. Wix Studio’s feedback tool allows clients to leave comments efficiently. Once a client leaves feedback, you’ll get a notification and be able to manage any comments within a unified dashboard.  You can manage client feedback directly in the Wix Studio dashboard. Client kit I tend to provide a wealth of resources when handing SEO tasks off to clients . I’ll often send a report, a list of “SEO reading material” to help the client contextualize things, and even Loom videos showing them how to implement my recommendations . Wix Studio’s client kit lets me upload everything to one place. And when the client logs into their account, they’ll immediately see the resources in their own dashboard.  The Wix Studio client kit enables you to upload any resource you’d like into one central dashboard. In addition to uploading whatever you’d like, you can connect your Wix Studio account with Google Drive and simply import documents directly from there.  Once you’ve uploaded assets to your Wix Studio account, you can simply select them from your library to add them to a specific client’s kit. This is helpful if you have designated resources to share with your clients at various stages (e.g., new client onboarding, quarterly updates, etc). 04. AI-powered responsive sections “Does content display well for mobile devices when viewed on them?” This is one of the questions Google asks when assessing page experience . Moving beyond Google, designing a mobile-friendly site can lower bounce rates, enabling you to better drive conversions for your business (or client’s business).  Wix Studio helps you build responsive websites that provide a fluid, intuitive experience for your mobile device users. The built-in AI responsiveness tool  enables you to create responsive functionality with a single click.  When you select a page section within the Wix Studio editor, an “AI” icon will appear (shown below). Click on it to automatically create a responsive design for that section.  You can apply the tool to every breakpoint, to a specific section, or solely to the mobile version.  If you like the design, simply click to accept it. You can reject it and run a new implementation as many times as you like. Or, you could abandon the AI recommendations altogether and manually adjust the page to your preferred responsiveness. If you’re adjusting responsiveness manually, page elements can be set to various behaviors to ensure they function correctly: Text is automatically set to scale in proportion, but you can customize it here, too.  But again, the AI solution makes responsiveness more accessible and can make the process far more efficient. For more information on these options, reference our knowledge base guide on building a responsive site on Wix Studio .  05. Reusable apps and widgets Similar to replicating custom themes and site elements across your client’s websites, Wix Studio lets you create reusable apps and widgets via Wix Blocks .  With Wix Blocks, you can build anything from a simple list widget to a custom dynamic element (like a countdown clock or mortgage calculator). You can start a build from scratch or use one of the various templates available.  Once you’ve started, you can insert various elements and make a variety of adjustments using the “Add” panel (shown below). You can do things like add text, insert buttons, change layouts, embed media, and so on with ease. So even if you are using a template, you can adjust the app or widget to your liking.  If you already built apps and want to pull them into a new application, you can use the embed functionality. The Wix Blocks Add Panel enables you to embed code to build apps or widgets. You can build an app or widget once and reuse it for other clients’ sites. In this way, all you’d most likely have to do is adjust some design elements or small functionality changes and you’re all set.  It’s really a matter of efficiency and getting the maximum value for your efforts. Build an app or widget once; reuse it multiple times across multiple clients. You can even sell the apps  you build to other Wix Studio users. Bonus: The Wix Studio AI Assistant For those that code, Wix Studio has its own IDE  that enables you to add code to the backend (and more complex code to the frontend than the editor itself allows for).  Built into the Wix Studio IDE is the Wix AI Assistant , which can aid professionals that are already proficient at coding but is invaluable for those who dabble.  You can use the AI Assistant to both create code or fix code that isn’t working the way you intended.  In the example below, I asked the AI Assistant to create basic code for an accordion: Not only do I get the basic code, the AI Assistant also gives me guidance on how to go about implementing it:  If I get stuck here, I can just go back and ask a follow-up question.  In the case of fixing code, I purposefully botched some FAQ structured data markup. The AI assistant had no issue realizing that I had set the “type@” to “FAQ” when it should have been “FAQPage”:  This powerful tool can make your processes a lot more efficient and embolden you to try new things when working with a client that you wouldn't have otherwise taken on.  Wix Studio is the best of Wix for agencies and enterprise businesses There are so many possible use cases for the Wix Studios features listed above. I tried to offer the general gist of things to show you how some of the elements are relevant to digital marketers of all types.  In addition to that, Wix Studio incorporates the best of Wix. This means you have enterprise-grade security, 99.9% uptime, and… all of the SEO , marketing , and analytics tools Wix offers.  Specifically, this means Wix Studio comes with:  Automated structured data for blog pages, products, courses, etc. One-click indexation status inspection A full suite of analytics and sales reports Native integrations with Google Merchant Center, Google Tag Manager, Amazon, etc.  Access to tools like Semrush, SE Ranking, Klaviyo, and much more The platform has evolved into a multi-layered ecosystem—explore these capabilities to see how they can help you accomplish more for your clients.  Mordy Oberstein - Head of SEO Branding, Wix   Mordy is the Head of SEO Branding at Wix. Concurrently he also serves as a communications advisor for Semrush. Dedicated to SEO education, Mordy is one of the organizers of SEOchat and a popular industry author and speaker. Twitter  | Linkedin

Author: James Clark Understanding who comes to your site, how they get there, and then how they interact with it gives you crucial information for optimizing your site for search, and for future users. This knowledge is key to improving your site content and its functionality. In order to do this, you will need data from site analytics tools, among them Google Analytics. NOTE: Google's Universal Analytics is set for deprecation on July 1, 2023 . Refer to our guide on getting started with Google Analytics 4 for the most up-to-date guidance. What is Google Analytics? Google Analytics is a powerful web-based tool offered by Google to help you understand your website’s users—where they come from, what they do on your site, and whether they are converting. If you’re finding Wix Analytics Reports useful but really want to dive deeper into your data, then Google Analytics could be for you. It is also a good option if you’re already using other Google products such as Google Ads, as it’s designed to work together with these products to help you gain more insight into your marketing activity. Although Google does offer a premium version of Google Analytics, called Analytics 360, this is an enterprise-level solution with an enterprise-level price tag. The standard Google Analytics is both free and suitable for most websites, so that’s what we’re focusing on here. Google Analytics isn’t the only analytics tool available, and it isn’t even the only free tool, but it is certainly the most popular. With a huge community of users and lots of guides and resources available, as well as easy integration with Wix, it’s an obvious choice. What about Google Analytics 4? There is a lot of buzz—and confusion—about Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Google first introduced the next generation of its analytics platform in October 2020, but it will continue to support Universal Analytics (the version of Google Analytics that this article focuses on) until July 1, 2023. That essentially means that on July 1, 2023, Universal Analytics will stop processing hits and site owners must switch over to GA4. Why not start with Google Analytics 4 now? Some of the functionality that marketers and site owners might look for isn’t available yet in GA4. Nevertheless, it's a good idea to set up your GA4 property as soon as possible so that you can start keeping track of how users interact with your site. This will also enable you to get acquainted with the interface, which is a departure from Universal Analytics. You can simultaneously maintain properties for your site on Universal Analytics and GA4—this provides you with the robust features of Universal Analytics while preparing you for the inevitable transition to GA4. Creating your Google Analytics account To use Google Analytics with a Wix site, you’ll need a Premium site with a connected domain. The process has two steps. First, create your Google Analytics account and get your tracking ID. Then, enable Google Analytics on Wix and add your tracking ID. Here's how to do both. To create a Google Analytics account, you’ll need a free Google account. If you use Gmail, then you probably have one already, but if not, you can sign up for one here . Next, follow these steps: Go to analytics.google.com Click on the blue Start measuring button Give your account a name—maybe use your own name or the name of your business—and click Next Enter a property name—this could be the name of your website Important! Click Show advanced options and toggle on Create a Universal Analytics property Enter your website's URL, including the www Select Create a Universal Analytics property only (there's no harm in creating both a Google Analytics 4 and a Universal Analytics property, but we're going to focus specifically on Universal Analytics for this article) Provide some basic information on your business as prompted, and hit Create Choose your country, then read through and accept the relevant data processing and data protection terms Congratulations—you’ve created your first Google Analytics account and property. You should now be on the “Tracking Code” page, and in the top left you’ll see a Tracking ID in the following format: UA-123456789-1 Make a note of this, as you will need it in a minute! The letters “UA” at the beginning tell you this is an ID for a Universal Analytics property. If your ID begins with a “G”, you’ve created a Google Analytics 4 property instead. Adding your tracking ID to Wix Now that you have your Google Analytics property set up, completing the process on Wix is relatively straightforward. Log into Wix and go to Marketing & SEO > Marketing Integrations In the Google Analytics panel, click Connect At the top right, click Connect Google Analytics Paste in your entire Google Analytics ID (for example UA-123456789-1) Click Save Verifying your setup It typically takes 24 hours for data to start showing up in most of your Google Analytics reports. The exception is the suite of “Real-time” reports—reports that show you what’s happening on your site right now . Data appears in these reports straight away, making them perfect for checking that your setup is working correctly. In the vertical menu on the left, click on Real-time to open up the category and then click on Overview . This particular real-time report shows you, among other things, page views on your site as they happen. In most cases that includes your own page views, unless you are specifically filtering them out or are using a browser that blocks Google Analytics. So, go ahead and view a few pages—the data should appear in the report. Finding reports The next step is orienting yourself in Google Analytics. All the reports are listed in a vertical menu on the left-hand side of the interface. Aside from the real-time reports, there are four other categories of standard (i.e., predefined rather than custom) reports: Audience —who are my users? Acquisition —what are my sources of traffic? Behavior —what do users do on my site? Conversions —are users completing important actions, or “goals”? Each of these categories can be useful for understanding the effectiveness of your SEO activity. For example, you might want to know what proportion of traffic comes from organic search (Acquisition) and the landing pages those users come in on (Behavior). Next, you might want to look at how many purchases those users are making, or how many inquiry forms they’re filling out (Conversions). If you’re looking for a specific report but can't seem to find it, just type the name into the search box at the top of Google Analytics and click on the suggested matching result. The search box is also smart enough to understand questions about your data, such as: How many users did we get last month from the UK? What percentage of users were from organic search? What is my most popular landing page? Just type in your question and hit enter to open the “Insights” panel. As well as (hopefully) answering your question, this panel will provide you with a link to the most relevant report and suggest some follow-up questions you might want to ask. Working with a report You have a question about your site and you’ve found the most relevant report. Now, you need to analyze the data in that report to tease out your answer. But, how? For this example, we'll look at the Location Report (in Audience > Geo > Location ), which shows the geographical location of your site's visitors. Part of the Location report, showing date range selector, primary dimension selector, and search box. First, select a date range in the top-right. By default, the report will show the most recent seven-day period, but this is easily changed by picking a new start and end date. Tick “Compare to” if you want to compare, for example, the last 30 days against the same period last year. Perhaps you’ve noticed high traffic levels from Canada recently—comparing against a previous period will let you see whether this is an anomaly. Just below the main chart is an option to choose the “Primary Dimension.” Google Analytics reports are all made up of “dimensions” and “metrics”; without getting too complicated, think of these as rows and columns of a table. For the Location report, the default primary dimension is “Country”—but you could change this to “City”, “Continent,” or “Subcontinent”. If you drill down into the data, the dimension may change automatically. For example, click on “Canada” in the Location report and the primary dimension changes to “Region.” This lets you see whether those Canadian users are all coming from, say, Ontario, or are spread out across the country. To the right-hand side of the Primary Dimension selector is a small search box. Unlike the large search box at the top of Google Analytics, this one is used to search and filter the data within the report. So, if you had a primary dimension of “City” selected, you could search for “Toronto” to see the data for that city only. Click “Advanced” if you want to search for more than one value (or rather, city) at the same time, or even exclude a particular value from your search. Although we’ve been looking at the Location report, these options and filters are common across most of the other standard Google Analytics reports. So, getting familiar with one report will help you use the entire tool with confidence. Accessing your data easily with Analytics Now you know where and how to find the data you want, let's make sure you can easily access it in future. The first option is simply to Save any report using the button at the top of the page. This adds the report to a list in Customization > Saved Reports. It also saves any search filters or other changes you have made to the standard report, which means you won't have to make those same changes again in future. Alternatively, you can click on the Share button just to the right of Save. This lets you share a report (via email) but, more importantly, lets you schedule it to be sent out on a regular basis—daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Once you set this up, you will be able to find and edit it (or delete it) under Admin > Scheduled Emails . You can also set up Custom Alerts so that Google Analytics notifies you when certain conditions are met. This option is located in the Admin menu above Scheduled Emails. For example, you might want to receive an alert when Google Analytics has received no data in any given day, indicating a problem with your site tracking—or perhaps with the site itself. Alternatively, you might want to be notified of any sudden, large changes (positive or negative) in your organic search traffic. Next steps on your Google Analytics journey If you’re serious about learning Google Analytics, take a look at the free video courses that Google offers in its Analytics Academy . These range from Google Analytics for Beginners right through to Google Analytics for Power Users. After that, you can even consider sitting the Google Analytics Individual Qualification exam and getting certified! Ultimately though, Google Analytics is just a tool—it will help inform your SEO strategy but can’t compensate for not having one. To delve deeper into how to build and implement your own SEO strategy, visit our SEO Hub . * You should make sure your use of Google Analytics is compliant with local data protection regulations. Learn more about this here . James Clark - Web Analyst James Clark is a web analyst from London, with a background in the publishing sector. When he isn't helping businesses with their analytics, he's usually writing how-to guides over on his website Technically Product . Twitter | Linkedin

Updated: October 9, 2024 Author: James Clark Google Analytics is without doubt the most popular website analytics platform in the world. But, why do so many website owners turn to Google Analytics to understand their audiences’ behavior? There are several compelling reasons. First, it’s free (or at least the free version is suitable for the vast majority of users). As you would expect, it plays nicely with Google’s other products— from Google Ads to Google Search Console  and the data warehouse tool, BigQuery . It’s also well established, with a large, knowledgeable community behind it and plenty of training available. Google even offers official certification . The latest version of Google Analytics builds on these longstanding benefits by offering a number of new features of its own. These include powerful custom reports  called “explorations,” improved user engagement analysis, and the ability to combine mobile app and website usage data—all so that you can analyze how visitors are behaving on your properties and optimize to meet your business goals. Here’s everything you need to know to get started (and excel) with Google Analytics 4. Table of contents: Google Analytics 4 overview What you can learn from GA4 Setting up your Google Analytics 4 account and property Google Analytics 4 account structures Create a data stream How to tag your site Data may take time to appear Find your way around GA4 GA4’s standard reports Explorations Google Analytics 4 overview The current version of Google Analytics is Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Although it was introduced back in 2020, many users stuck with the previous version of the tool, Universal Analytics (UA), until it stopped collecting data in 2023. Now all historic data has been deleted from UA and the interface is no longer accessible. GA4 is the only option when it comes to Google Analytics. If you were a user of UA, you may be surprised how different GA4 is from its predecessor. Although the user interface looks reassuringly familiar, everything under the hood has changed . GA4 collects, stores, and reports on data in a new way. The initial setup, too, is different. This means that you can’t use online guides or documentation about UA to help you navigate GA4. Before we dive into how GA4 works, let’s look at why you would want to use it in the first place. What you can learn from GA4 As a website owner, it’s gratifying to see traffic on your site and fascinating to learn more about your users—both of which GA4 is invaluable for. But, the platform is above all else a tool for making business decisions. For example, you can use it to inform your marketing strategy. Perhaps you spend a lot of time focusing on social media; GA4 can tell you whether that is driving users to your site and whether those users are converting. You might find that some other activity is quietly generating more revenue. In our example above, we’ve discovered that average purchase revenue per user is hugely higher for email traffic than for any other channel. That’s definitely worth further investigation. If you run a blog or a news site, GA4 can help shape your content strategy. It will tell you which content is attracting not just the most users, but also the most engaged users (or to put it another way, the ones least likely to bounce ). Knowing what works for your audience and what doesn’t can ultimately help you learn more about what they prefer. Once you have a grasp of GA4 and its capabilities, you can start to plan changes to your site that can help you achieve your business goals . And of course, GA4 will be on hand to measure how effective those changes are. This enables you to make incremental improvements to your site based on real data. Sounds good? Let’s get started! Setting up your Google Analytics 4 account and property To set up Google Analytics, you’ll need a free Google account. If you have a Gmail email address, then you already have a Google account. If not, you can sign up by following these instructions . Next, navigate to Google Analytics . If this is your first time using Google Analytics, you’ll encounter a “welcome” screen; click on the blue Start measuring button to go to the “account setup” page. If you already have access to at least one Google Analytics property,, you’ll instead be taken to the “Home” for whichever property you viewed most recently. To get to account creation from here, click on Admin  at the bottom of the vertical, left-hand menu and then on the blue Create Account  button. What you need to know about Google Analytics 4 account structures We’re mentioning accounts and properties a lot, so it’s worth pausing to explain exactly how these two concepts work together in Google Analytics. In short, a property represents a website or app you’re tracking. An account is a way of organizing one or more properties. So for example, you could have an account containing a property for your business website and a property for your personal website. Or, because GA4 can be used on apps as well as websites, you might have a property for the iOS version of your app and another for the Android version. Universal Analytics also had a third level, “views,” so each property could have one or more views with different filters applied. However, this concept doesn’t exist in GA4, so at the simplest level, to use GA4, you’ll need an account with a GA4 property in it. That’s what we’ll create now. From account setup, Google walks you through a few short pages of settings, asking for information such as your time zone and email communications preferences (which you can change later on anyway). It’s pretty straightforward, but watch out for the step called “Business objectives”: your choice here personalizes the types of report that appear in your GA4 property. If you aren’t sure, tick “Other” to get access to multiple types of report. By the end of the process, you will have an account with a property in it—but no data yet. For that, you’ll need to set up a “data stream.” Create a data stream To start viewing information about how your users interact with your site, you'll first need to feed site data to Google Analytics via a data stream. Here’s how Google defines a data stream : “ A data stream is a flow of data from a customer touchpoint (e.g., app, website) to Analytics. When you create a data stream, Analytics generates a snippet of code that you add to your app or site to collect that data. Data is collected from the time you add the code, and that data forms the basis of your reports. ” When you first create a property, Google will helpfully guide you through the data stream setup process. If you navigate away, it will prompt you to go back via a big, red Go to stream setup  button at the top of the screen. 01. On the data streams page, choose your platform: Web, Android app, or iOS app. Although you can have more than one data stream feeding into the same property, a simple website setup will just have the one “Web” stream. Let’s click that now. 02. On the “Set up data stream” overlay, add your website URL and a stream name of your choice (you can use the URL again if you like, or just call it “Web stream”). 03. On the same overlay, choose whether you want enhanced measurement (it’s enabled by default). This is a GA4 feature that automatically tracks certain user interactions, such as scrolls and clicks on outbound links. Although it was possible to track these interactions with Universal Analytics, they didn’t come “out of the box,” so this is a big step forward. Most of the time, you’ll want to leave it enabled and click Create & continue . 04. Still under Enhanced Measurement , click the cog icon to access advanced settings for the Page View event. Here you’ll find the option to track“page changes based on browser history events.” Without getting too technical, this option is to help Google Analytics 4 work with single-page applications (websites that don’t reload the page during the user’s journey). However, with some platforms, such as Wix, this option can cause duplicate pageviews. So Wix site owners will need to untick the box . 05. Finally, on the web stream details page, the key piece of information is the Measurement ID . This will be a “G” followed by 10 letters and numbers, in the format G-XXXXXXXXXX. You’ll need this ID no matter which method you choose to tag your website with your analytics code. How to tag your site How you tag your site (that is, add the snippet of code that collects and sends data to Google Analytics) depends partly on the platform it’s built on. One popular option is to use Google Tag Manager, and you’ll find instructions for this on the web stream details page. Some platforms and website builders offer GA4 integration without needing to install a third-party plugin. Let’s take a look at how Wix handles it: Go to Settings > Marketing Integrations  in your site’s dashboard. Click Connect under Google Analytics. Click Add Google Analytics ID . Paste your Google Analytics 4 Measurement ID in the pop-up. . Note: Make sure that there are no extra spaces before the code. Select the IP Anonymization  checkbox if you want to hide your site visitors’ IP addresses from Google. Click Save . Data may take time to appear Once you’ve set up GA4, the first place you will see data begin to appear is the realtime overview ( Reports > Realtime ). Google warns that it may take some time for data collection to start, but more than likely, it will happen almost straight away. The realtime report gives you a snapshot of users on your site over the past 5 and 30 minutes, including their locations, traffic sources, and “ events ”. Again without getting too technical, GA4 treats each user interaction on your site as an event—from session starts and pageviews, through to the enhanced measurement events we looked at earlier. If data is showing up in your realtime report, you can be confident your setup is working. But it could still take up to 24–48 hours for data to appear in the standard reports. Find your way around GA4 For experienced users, the layout of the GA4 homepage is similar to the old Universal Analytics. You can access all the predefined reports using the menu on the left-hand side of the interface, swap between different accounts and properties using the dropdown menu in the top-left, and get to your Admin settings via the link in the bottom-left. The universal search box along the top is a powerful feature. You can search for the name of a specific report, but you can also ask questions about your data, such as “How many new users yesterday?” A good place to start is by searching for “Tour”—the results to this query, such as Admin Settings Tour and Reports Library Tour, give you a quick visual tour of different parts of the interface. When viewing an individual report, you’ll see it’s made up of a number of “cards”—each card being an individual table or graph. You can customize these by clicking the “customize report” icon in the top-right (the one that looks like a pencil). And, of course you can designate a date range (the default setting shows the last 28 days). Finally, many of the cards have a small dropdown menu in the top-left that lets you change the primary dimension. For example, you may be able to change “users” to “new users.” This makes the reports much more flexible. GA4’s standard reports GA4 has fewer predefined reports than Universal Analytics, and at launch it was missing some popular UA reports. This proved something of an annoyance for migrating users!  Google has since reintroduced some of the missing reports, such as the landing page report, and in general GA4 needs fewer reports because the ones it does have are more flexible. The default reports are divided into sections including: Acquisition : Which channels do your users come from—organic, direct, paid search or something else? Within this section, the traffic acquisition report lets you compare various channels to see which has the highest engagement rate, number of conversions, and so on. Engagement : How “sticky” are your users—that is, how likely are they to return to the site? This section also covers events. One particularly interesting chart (shown below) plots event count over time, so you can see when there is a sudden change to one event relative to the others and troubleshoot it to keep users progressing through your customer journey. User Attributes (previously Demographics) : How does your audience break down by age, location, gender, and language? What interests do they share? The demographic details report shows engagement rate for each individual country, age bracket, gender and so on. This can help you understand who your content is resonating with—and who it is not. Explorations Another reason that GA4 doesn’t offer so many standard reports is that it encourages users to create custom reports called “ explorations .” Many different exploration methods are available, from “free-form” (which, by default, presents your data as a table), through to funnel exploration and segment overlap. Fortunately, GA4 includes a template gallery with pre-built examples to help you understand how each exploration method works. To build an exploration, start by selecting the relevant dimensions (categorical data such as country) and metrics (numerical data such as number of users), as well as adding segments, filters and so on. If you’ve used Looker Studio, or created custom reports in Google Ad Manager, then this will be familiar to you; otherwise, it might be a bit of a learning curve. But it’s worth persevering, as explorations are what makes GA4 so powerful. Fortunately, there are plenty of guides online to creating useful explorations, whether you want to explore your site search data  or understand how far users are scrolling  down the page. Do your future self a favor and set up your GA4 property today One of the most important capabilities that Google Analytics offers is the ability to compare how your current efforts are performing against previous baselines. But, you need to begin tracking that historical data to be able to compare it later. The sooner you set up your GA4 property, the more historical data you’ll have to compare against, which can help you make better business decisions. Now if you really want to unlock the full value of your data, try linking GA4 with Google Search Console and check out our guide to understanding organic traffic . You can even use GA4 to automatically monitor your backlinks  as part of an advanced SEO strategy. James Clark - Web Analyst James Clark is a web analyst from London, with a background in the publishing sector. When he isn't helping businesses with their analytics, he's usually writing how-to guides over on his website Technically Product . Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Crystal Carter Get started by: Creating a website → When web design principles align with SEO, it’s a win for users, for Google, and for your brand. In this blog post, I’ll discuss how you can add SEO into your design workflow to achieve better organic reach for your clients. Part of the Wix Studio Academy sessions for Wix Studio website creators, this beginners guide will teach you how to use SEO competitor analysis to inform design decisions and engrain keywords into your process to launch sites with SEO in mind. Table of contents: Do web designers need to know SEO? SEO terms designers should know Creating a Wix Studio website with SEO in mind Competitor research for understanding user expectations Keyword research for identifying web design priorities Using Wix SEO features to optimize as you build Wix SEO features for web designers This blog post is an accompaniment to our webinar “Designing with SEO in mind”— Click here to download the webinar slides . Do web designers need to know SEO? It helps the long-term search viability of a website if the design team understands SEO. As a web designer, you may not need to know every aspect of SEO, but an understanding of how your website is shaped by the expectations that users coming from search engines have can definitely lead to better outcomes for a website over the long run. SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of improving websites to add value for users and thus rank better on search engines for organic (non-paid) search results. The purpose of SEO is to ensure that search engines (like Google) can see and understand your website and that human users want to see your website. If you can achieve those two things, then you have a winning recipe for website (and thus, business) success. In order to get to that point, SEO should be considered throughout website development, content creation, and website management processes. Just as the design language, color palette, and UX help to deliver a good brand experience for your website visitors, SEO best practices influence the value people get from your website and, therefore, how highly Google ranks it. SEO terms that designers should know When working on SEO projects or alongside SEO experts, here are a few common terms that you may run into. These terms refer to how search engines work as well as opportunities for better SEO both on-page and on the SERP. For Google, crawling, indexing, and ranking are top priorities. Crawling : What happens when Google visits your website and reads the content there. Indexing : Which pages are (or aren’t) showing on Google. Ranking : Where and how prominently Google shows content from your site. For people and Google, elements that make your content more discoverable are key. The SERP (Search Engine Results Page): What shows on Google after you search a term, before you click through to a result. The SERP’s appearance and features can vary depending on the search query (e.g., a map for local queries or a video carousel for “how-to” content). Keywords : The focus topic for each web page and the most likely words users will enter into Google to find the page or information they are looking for. On-page SEO : Opportunities to add keywords, structure, calls-to-action, and unique information for users. This term refers specifically to the search optimizations you can implement on a given page. Internal links : These links help users (and Google) move from one page on your site to another. They also help indicate which pages are most important on your website. Backlinks : Links from external sites that point to your content. These show Google that people value your site and help Google discover your work. Rich Results : Special features on Google search results that are generated via structured data . In many cases, Wix automatically adds this code to your pages . You can download this glossary as an easy-to-reference PDF below: How to create a Wix Studio website with SEO in mind Achieving user satisfaction is one of the top goals for both web designers and SEOs, and it hinges on understanding your audience and their intent. The audience insights that you can tap into with SEO tools and tactics can help you identify what’s most important to your potential website visitors. Before you launch your site, keyword and competitor research can uncover new opportunities for content and page types. As you go live, monitoring your indexing (in tools like Google Search Console) can help you confirm that your site is easy to navigate. And after launch, your site’s SEO performance can tell you what worked well and what didn’t, providing you with a roadmap for continuous improvement. Keeping SEO in mind as you design ensures that your build is tuned to all of the ways that users interact with your content. Carry out competitor research to understand user expectations Your website is one of billions on the web. When users search for and visit your page, they know there are many other pages like it. Businesses often vie for the same keywords, the same audience, and the same pool of organic search visibility. These competitors sometimes even sell the exact same product. This competition is even more intense on the search results page, as Google only shows a limited number of top organic results per query. Fortunately, as a web designer who understands your SEO competitors and the user journey, you are well positioned to create a website that exceeds user expectations. For those with a design background, it’s worth approaching this in a similar manner to how you might create a visual mood board . In both cases, the aim is to get a sense of how you can effectively connect with your audience by taking inspiration from how others are connecting with their respective audiences. An example of a visual mood board. Source: Canva. For a comprehensive SEO competitor analysis, you may want to engage a specialist SEO agency; but even in those conversations, it helps to have an idea of a process that resonates with your needs. In my experience with designers can get useful SEO competitor insights by following these five steps: 01. Carry out 3–5 searches to complete a user goal related to your website — This replicates the user discovery journey and helps you to understand how Google manages keyword intent for your page’s topic. For instance, if Google shows local maps and business profiles, there is clearly an intent to visit a physical location. This means that web design that prioritizes contact details and location will perform better on search. 02. Take note of SERP features for relevant keywords — Google generates search features (like rich results , featured snippets, etc.) from content on the website. Review the SERP to see what draws you into a website. For instance, if there are lots of images then consider including more images in your design to optimize for this feature. 03. Identify competitors —A brand’s assumed competitors may be different from their SEO competitors. Search your brand and/or your core offerings to see who is winning on Google for those terms. Google often shows competitors at the bottom of knowledge panels when you search for a given business. Google often recommends competitor brands alongside your own brand on the SERP, so take a look at them, too. 04. Review 3–5 top-ranking competitor websites — Pages that rank well are those that deliver customer value. So, try to identify the value each page gives for that query. Look for common tactics like CTAs and videos. Consider what design elements make you feel like you can trust the website . 05. Review best-in-class competitors — Large sites like Amazon.com get millions of visits per day, so it’s likely that your customer has visited their site as well. Whether it’s how they handle checkout or how they integrate reviews, think about how you can include some of these elements in your site experience to be more competitive. Use keyword research to identify web design priorities At its core, keyword research is audience research. The terms that people use to find information and complete tasks online reflect what they need and value. From the perspective of web design, this means that keyword research can help you understand what is a priority for your website visitors. For instance, for the query in the image below for the head term keyword, yoga classes, we see Google’s predictive search offering additional keyword recommendations, based on actual user searches. The terms fall into themes around: Where the classes take place Who the classes are for The type of class Etc. To reflect this in web design, elements like maps, clear audience segmentation, and even imagery can be designed to best serve this audience, therefore increasing your opportunities to rank. Google’s search suggestions provide a clue as to what Google expects to see on a website about this topic. While there are a number of methods for carrying out granular keyword research , we can see some of the page and section topics that Google expects to see on a website designed for this content reflected in its search suggestions. To carry out some initial, top-level keyword research to guide your web design decisions, consider the following: Where do keywords segment into groups? High-traffic “head” term keywords segment quickly in research tools. Which segments do you see? Should your website serve these groups? Which themes do you see in your keywords? This research can show audience needs and concerns. Recurring questions, for example, can inform site navigation and what should show above the fold. Which on-site elements bring the page’s keyword to life? In addition to including keywords in URLs, meta descriptions , title tags , H1s , and anchor text for links, are there media, page elements, or types that add value to the topic? You can use general keyword research tools in tandem with Wix and Wix Studio’s built-in tools to carry out your keyword research. Recommended free tools include: The Semrush integration in the Wix SEO Setup Checklist to identify core site terms Also Asked to provide insights into the user journey The SEO Pro Extension shows on-page optimizations for you and your competitors Wix’s built-in SEO checklists for static pages and blog posts can help keep you on topic Generate a collection of keywords by theme with ChatGPT Explore topics and search volume in Google Trends You download this list as a PDF below: During a web build, keywords insights can help your content, UI, and design to meet users expectations. Use Wix SEO features to optimize as you build Every premium Wix and Wix Studio website includes access to a full suite SEO tools, integrations, and functionality built into Wix by Wix. So, every premium site on Wix has a technical SEO configuration that includes: Server-side rendering (SSR) Server-side caching Global CDN infrastructure Valid SSL certificate Dynamic XML sitemaps Automated redirects Bulk redirects And in addition to that, Wix automatically adds structured data for page types like Blogs, Events, Stores, Forums and apps like Wix Video, enabling you to earn rich results without manually adding the structured data markup yourself. This means that—as a web developer building in Wix Studio—you can use the platform to optimize parts of your website by adding features and page types that have been enhanced to perform on search. Which Wix SEO features can best serve web designers? Here are some of the Wix tools that can guide and support you and your client to make informed decisions as you build your website: Wix SEO Setup Checklist — Use the Wix SEO Setup Checklist to perform keyword research for your site. Optimize your homepage for instant indexing via Google Search Console . And, prepare your site for ongoing optimizations with resources like the Wix Site Inspection tool. SEO Assistant — Use the Wix SEO Assistant to set a focus keyword for your blog posts, follow the optimization tasks, and fix issues on the spot. Create AI text - Use AI Text Creator to add keyword-focused copy to your static pages, which you can use as anchor text in your internal links , ultimately increasing crawlability. Remember, SEO happens over the long-term SEO is not a “set-it-and-forget-it” activity. New competitors emerge, your audience expectations may change and it is important to be aware of that process. When you launch with Wix and Wix Studio, our SEO tools can help guide the way but it will be up to brand teams to deliver SEO brilliance. Crystal Carter - Head of SEO Communications, Wix Crystal is an SEO & digital marketing professional with over 15 years of experience. Her global business clients have included Disney, McDonalds, and Tomy. An avid SEO communicator, her work has been featured at Google Search Central, Brighton SEO, Moz, DeepCrawl, Semrush, and more. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Rob Peck SEO discussions as of late have centered around large-scale programmatic AI plays, less-than-helpful search results, and publisher horror stories of traffic loss.  However, not everything is in flux. In this case study, I’ll show you how a small health and wellness coaching practice has made consistent gains in Google Search traffic via building a solid base online, writing about what they know, and small-scale, natural link-building efforts. Table of contents: The client: The Whole Health Practice  Starting from scratch: SEO consulting for health coaches Background & ethos: Setting the stage for WHP’s SEO success  Content strategy: Writing authoritative articles for clients and for SEO Optimizing for local clientele Adapting to unexpected rankings and change The Helpful Content Update: Readiness or survivorship bias? Meet the client: The Whole Health Practice From a home office in Singapore, the husband-and-wife duo (Alastair Hunt and Felicia Koh) behind The Whole Health Practice  (WHP) have offered health, wellness, and nutrition coaching to both individual and corporate clients throughout the world since 2021.  By bringing the same holistic approach to their website as they do their business, The Whole Health Practice is succeeding online and supporting clients who are starting (or already on) their health and wellness journeys with lifestyle and nutrition consultations, health programs, and more. Their Wix-powered site has enjoyed increasing traffic and rankings throughout tumultuous Google algorithm updates . As their for-barter SEO consultant, I’m happy to play a part in their success. Let’s dive in and find out what’s working.  Starting from scratch: SEO consulting for health coaches With no web development, marketing team, or ‘ domain authority ,’ I knew I had to get nimble and focus on techniques offering the most bang for the buck.  Additionally, staying in Google’s good graces is much more important when working on smaller sites: Issues on larger sites can be mitigated by resources and a strong backlink  profile, whereas errors, issues, or penalties on small sites can be exponentially harder to recover from. I knew we had to get things right from the outset with a solid foundation of best practices and then gradually grow from there.  When I first met Alastair, co-founder of WHP, he was concerned about a lack of online visibility for his business. Personally, I was concerned about pre-diabetes and hypertension while hauling around an extra 20 kilograms. So, we decided to trade services and started working together. Alastair provides health and wellness coaching while I offer up SEO consulting.  We began with goal setting. On the SEO side, we targeted page one rankings for core [{service} in Singapore] and [{type of} coach in Singapore] terms, genuine referral traffic by creating relationships (and thus links) from complementary businesses within the wider Singapore healthcare space, and we began generating inbound health assessment requests from organic search. Later, we realized the need for additional soft-conversion goals, including visitors joining the WhatsApp group and signing up for the newsletter.  Google updates over the last two years have been especially volatile. Even so, The Whole Health Practice has grown by pursuing best practices as well as opportunities. Background & ethos: Setting the stage for WHP’s SEO success  “We needed a web platform that would allow us to create content and promote our services with, ideally, little time commitment.” — Alastair Hunt, NBC-HWC, Co-Founder at The Whole Health Practice The Whole Health Practice initially operated online via a rudimentary site created with a free website builder offered by their webhost. Part of SEO for SMBs  is working with what you have, so instead of immediately suggesting a CMS change, I explored the admin panel.  While some SEO basics  (e.g., tags, titles, alt text) could be optimized, several dealbreakers emerged:  Google Tag Manager wasn’t supported, which (alongside no ability to create custom ‘thank you’ pages) blocked effective measurement and conversion optimization. Structured data was not customizable, which is particularly important for the client’s website as it features a mix of page and post types. There was no integrated newsletter option to automatically send posts to subscribers.  For those reasons and many more, it was time for a change. We shortlisted the usual suspects—Wix and WordPress, ultimately opting for Wix due to a low barrier to entry, a reputation for better support, and not having to worry about hosting.  From the initial site build on Wix to today, a few key strategies have led the way:  Content shouldn’t be ‘written for Google’; instead it must be written for (current and potential) customers.   This also means all information, exercises, and recipes consider the demographics of Singapore, where most of WHP’s clientele is located. In addition, a key content pillar focuses around synthesizing Western content for Singapore’s unique diet, landscape, and culture. Establishing credibility is non-negotiable.   Without starting a debate over ‘Is E-E-A-T  a ranking factor?’, it’s a concept that we certainly consider for WHP’s website since health is a YMYL topic . Alastair’s (NBC-HWC) and Felicia’s (MA Human Nutrition) education and certifications are front and center on their bio and author pages , medical claims in articles cite genuine research studies and lab reports, and key memberships are displayed on the site. Content strategy: Writing authoritative articles for clients and for Google To build the client’s content strategy, we took stock of the pillars of wellness (physical, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual) alongside relevant content types (recipes, exercises, inspiration, etc). With broad ideas in mind, we further organized our content approach using a mix of methods:  Subject matter knowledge led the way. Ultimately, the business owners knew what their clients needed to help them follow through on their wellness journey. Semrush’s Topic Research tool further defined the strategy by breaking up broad topic ideas into approachable subtopics and also gave us insights into People AlsoAsk  questions to potentially include as subtitles and FAQs. ChatGPT  played a secondary role, speeding up article publication as well supporting the wider content calendar by providing input on related topics and clustering.  “We stayed focused writing and creating content on subjects that matter to our clients and ourselves. Importantly, we learned to have trust in the longer-term process of content and SEO.” — Alastair Hunt, NBC-HWC, Co-Founder at The Whole Health Practice As the site began publishing, new content angles and topic clusters  emerged: New-to-the-world ideas and concepts Modernizing classic health concepts with newer views or tactics Opinion-driven content on current events, trends, and topics within the wellness space Localizing global topics to the unique nature of food, exercise, and general wellness in Singapore  A balanced diet of the content above serves readers, clients, and Google well. This blend continues as the basis for the content calendar; however, remaining flexible has been key. More recent content includes articles focused on introducing trending wellness ideas to the Singapore market as well as pieces addressing more top-of-funnel concerns and symptoms to help people realize they have a need for health coaching. And, finally, we are taking a more passive approach to link building . The old adage “If Google didn’t exist, would we still be doing this?” led the way. Where we did engage in link building, it was driven by genuine relationships —membership organizations, partner companies, and even clients all play a key role. Cold outreach is limited to local publications where we truly feel WHP deserves inclusion in related articles and lists. Optimizing for local clientele From a local SEO  perspective, Singapore is a unique place. The nation is approximately the same area as Memphis, Tennessee, thus, many (if not most) service businesses target the entire country. When creating WHP’s Google Business Profile  listing, we first listed the address and verified it, then we switched the listing over to a service area business  when the listing went live (which hides the address and enables the business to target a large area of Singapore, as shown above).  For a strong listing, we carefully selected business categories  and built out key service offerings. This is particularly important as many categories overlap with physical gyms and personal trainers (neither of which are relevant). Finally, we capped off the GBP launch with frequent topical Posts  as well as soliciting reviews  from actual clients. Adapting to unexpected rankings, change, and progress SEO is dynamic, so evolving trends , algorithms, and competition require both proactive and reactive techniques.  After the new site was launched and the first round of articles went live, I was a bit surprised by what the client’s site ranked for (nutritional information) and what it didn’t (core business terms). An example of a nutritional information query that The Whole Health Practice ranked for (AIO, #1 organic, and top PAA). Although the recipe and nutrition traffic was strong, we did not want to risk getting pigeonholed by Google as a recipe site (along with all the concerns that can come with that ).  While article publishing initially followed the content calendar, it had to grow more flexible to pivot around changing industry and fitness trends (e.g., the rise of pickleball), health products spiking in popularity (e.g., AG1), and wellness influencers holding events in Singapore.   Even beyond Google, The Whole Health Practice team are coaches and nutritionists, not cooks. Thus, the next series of articles focused on health and wellness outside of food, including guides on:  Working with a health coach What hormone lab tests to watch Medical conditions (and how a healthy lifestyle can mitigate them)  Of course, when focusing on medical topics, we made sure to include ample citations from experts and clinical trials. The standard SEO advice is to ‘build content that people will naturally link to.’ Of course, that is easier said than done, with the concept staying in the abstract SEO realm for most sites. However, this came to life with a positive impact when Singapore was named a ‘Blue Zone’ city  (a city with higher life expectancy and lower rates of chronic diseases). As wellness professionals in Singapore, it was a natural topic for The Whole Health Practice to cover.  Two key pieces effectively, and quickly, tackled the topic: The first was a listicle clustering together existing articles specifically about healthy eating and activities in Singapore. The second was a more focused blog post on healthy local foods. The site began to rank for [Singapore Blue Zone]-related search terms, which lead to inbound media and corporate requests without any outreach from our side. Interestingly, a great deal of this happened on social media , not via links. Holistic health meets holistic SEO. The Helpful Content Update: Readiness or survivorship bias? The client’s organic rankings increased during some very turbulent times for SEOs (as shown in the traffic chart above ). This includes high-impact core updates, the final(?) product review update and, of course, the Helpful Content Updates  (HCU).  Clearly something is working; however, I’m a bit reluctant to offer hard advice on how to navigate the HCU as there are so many unknowns and few (if any) sites that were negatively impacted have recovered. With that said, between what worked and what we learned from the Google API leak in May , a few key ideas seem worth sharing:  On the content side, we stuck to our topic area of expertise and did not stray into wider topics (even if keyword research tools suggested it would be a good idea to do so). Content publishing cadence was measured and consistent; while some periods warranted more frequent publishing, we never flooded the web with articles. When a piece worked particularly well, while we’d certainly learn from it, we did not chase it. I’ve seen other sites get manual actions by flooding Google (particularly Discover) with content that is too similar to other content on the domain. Looking at sitewide considerations, we don’t run any ads on the site and, beyond contact forms, there is minimal use of widgets. Both of these factors help prioritize user experience. In addition, it’s safe to say that accounting for considerations beyond SEO (e.g., user experience) ultimately helps SEO. The Whole Health Practice delivers here with an active WhatsApp group and newsletter, which both drive meaningful volumes of ‘non-Google’ traffic as well as brand searches.  Continued plans for growth on Google with Wix Seeing the power of an effective web presence, The Whole Health Practice now sees its site as “a real tool, not just a window shop.” With that in mind, the business leverages articles not only to target new search terms, but also provide existing clients with information to help them on their health and journeys.  On my end, building and optimizing on Wix is a welcome departure from what I am used to with SEO projects for corporations and publishers. The starkest difference is that we are doing this without the need to coordinate with a system admin, schedule the development team, or communicate requirements to the designer. Implementing changes is a straightforward process between SEO and client… no Jira tickets, IT departments, or sprint scheduling needed. The SaaS nature of Wix fills a much-needed space between custom CMSs (where new feature requests can turn into lengthy development projects, if they are accepted at all) and open source (where there is no direct line of support from the platform itself). Rob Peck - Performance Digital Marketer Rob Peck is a T-shaped digital marketer with 14+ years of SEO experience. Specializing in the SERP (organic and paid), Rob consults independently and in collaboration with marketing and branding agencies to drive performance marketing for brands and publishers alike. Linkedin

Author: Crystal Carter Get started by: Creating a website → The new Zapier integration for Wi x Studio offers increased granularity and targeted activity for your workflows and customer funnels. This added flexibility improves your ability to manage accounts for your SEO clients (or for your own brand) and allows you to maximize conversions by directly connecting events on Wix and your favorite CRM, email marketing, and analytics tools. In this article, I’ll show you how Wix Studio’s Zapier integration works, how to get started, and some great ways to use this integration to automate your marketing funnel. Table of contents: What’s new with Wix Studio & Zapier Which Wix apps work with Zapier? How the Wix Studio Zapier integration works How to set up your Wix website for Zapier automations How to automate your digital marketing funnel with Wix Studio & Zapier Automate new content distribution via social channels Automate Posts to Google Business Profiles Create reporting datasets for Google Looker Studio Send leads to your CRM Automate marketing task management What’s new with Wix Studio & Zapier The first phase of the Wix Zapier integration allowed you to use Wix Automations to create Zaps and manage workflows. Now, we’ve collaborated with Zapier again to release a new and upgraded integration that offers over 50 trigger events for Wix and Wix Studio’s most popular apps. This update even allows you to set up all your automations directly from your Zapier account. Custom configuration via Wix Automations is still possible, but this new iteration offers previously unseen ease of use.  Which Wix Studio apps work with Zapier? With this 2023 update, you can automate triggers from over a dozen of the most popular apps on Wix Studio. Wix Forms Wix Stores Wix Bookings Wix Blog Wix Pricing Plans Wix Events Wix Chat Members Wix Restaurants Loyalty & Referrals Wix File Share Wix Online Programs Wix Automations As you set up your Zaps, you will see product-specific options for event triggers and content variables. Each is designed to save you time and ensure consistency. How the Wix Studio Zapier integration works To use Zapier with Wix Studio, head over to Zapier  to create an account. The tool has free and premium plans, so you can try out a simple setup before upgrading for more advanced capabilities. Users can set up triggers directly on Zapier, with the ability to select and connect your Wix Studio account as you build your Zaps. An example of setting up a Zap when a session is booked via Wix Bookings. Once you select Wix as a trigger, the possible Wix business solutions and their triggering events will appear. Within the chosen Wix business solution, you can choose specific triggering events. For example on Wix Bookings, you can choose to create an automation workflow triggered by a session starting, completing, or being canceled (as shown in the image above). How to set up your Wix Studio website for Zapier automations The workflows you set up on Zapier will work with the pre-built configurations in the backend of your Wix Studio website, so after it is configured, you only need to ensure that your Wix Studio website has: Active and installed Wix Studio apps that you want to use for each Zap Live data for each field used in your Zap Correct and active trigger actions on your Wix Studio site for each Zap While you can set up a Zapier automation for a Wix app that hasn’t been added to your site yet, the automation won't operate until the app is activated. Similarly, you will only see data for apps that have current activity. For instance, if you’ve added the Wix Bookings app to your site but there are no current bookings sessions, creating a Zapier automation tied to active booking sessions won’t trigger an action until a booking takes place. If you are managing multiple websites, you can also duplicate your Zaps for use on additional Wix accounts. You will, of course, need to log in to each site individually, but this means that you can duplicate your workflows and/or offer automation creation as a service as you build websites. How to automate your digital marketing funnel with Wix Studio & Zapier To maximize the chances that the users you acquire via SEO are also moving into your marketing funnel , you need to ensure that you have a consistent flow of engagement and conversion points. To that end, you should create optimized content for customers engaging with your business at different levels of interest and intent . In addition to optimizing for user discovery via search, you should also lead customers that are interested in your products/services to become long-term, high-value users. With this in mind, you can create content as a lead-generation tool. Engagement with that content can offer you opportunities for remarketing, incentivizing, and adding value via additional channels.  Wix Studio and Zapier automations that you can create to support lead generation for your clients and projects include: Automating content distribution via social channels Automating Posts  to Google Business Profiles Creating reporting  datasets for Google Looker Studio Sending leads to your CRM Automating marketing task management Automate new content distribution via social channels When you create new events, products, blog posts, and other pages, you can automatically share them via your social media accounts to let followers know that you have new content for them to check out.  The SEO benefits of social shares Google relies on signals like social shares for an understanding of which content is most important around the web. This means that content distribution can help you be more proactive about managing indexation  and can help drive traffic to your site. Automate Posts to Google Business Profiles Businesses with physical locations can use Zapier to increase engagement on their Google Business Profile by auto-sharing Wix Blog posts as GBP profile Posts. Great for local SEO , this tactic can help you keep your audience informed about your activities and can also support indexing.  You can use this feature with other content as well, including Wix Events.  Create reporting datasets for Google Looker Studio Since you can sync your Wix Studio data to a Google Sheet via Zapier, you can also use that data as a source for reporting via Google Looker Studio .  If you are coordinating a webinar, you can configure a Zap to give you information about when people are booking to attend your event.  This could help guide your marketing decisions about when you should target advertising, share social posts, send emails, and other promotional activity. Send leads to your CRM With our new Zapier configuration, you can add the leads that you generate through your website to the CRM of your choice. So if you are using Google Sheets, Mailchimp, or Hubspot to manage the leads across a multichannel campaign, you can easily bring them all together in the same tool.  Automate marketing task management Zaps can help immensely with productivity when linked to task management tools. For instance, by configuring a trigger from Wix Forms, you can automate follow-up tasks to help nurture new leads and improve client retention. Or you could trigger a Zap from Wix Stores based on a completed sale to help you better manage fulfillment. Use this Zap to connect top project management tools like Monday.com and Trello to add value at the bottom of the funnel.  Automation on Wix Studio: Faster, easier, better Our revamped Zapier integration is a new way to automate your marketing activity, and it joins our lineup of time-saving features that help you streamline SEO. Work at scale and save even more time with our: AI-powered meta tag creator for title tags and meta descriptions SEO Assistant for on-page auditing Microsoft Bing IndexNow integration Edit by Page section for bulk optimizations Crystal Carter - Head of SEO Communications, Wix   Crystal is an SEO & digital marketing professional with over 15 years of experience. Her global business clients have included Disney, McDonalds, and Tomy. An avid SEO communicator, her work has been featured at Google Search Central, Brighton SEO, Moz, DeepCrawl, Semrush, and more. Twitter  | Linkedin

Author: Rejoice Ojiaku Even if your website attracts thousands of potential customers daily (thanks to your search engine optimization efforts), those customers can't buy from your business if they can't locate your products/services. The same is true for your differently abled audiences—except that the challenges they face may not be obvious to you. Nevertheless, if you can't resolve those challenges to serve those customers, they'll move on to someone who can and will (your competitors). That's just one of many compelling reasons to consider website accessibility each time you create content: Many countries have implemented legislation to guarantee digital content accessibility, meaning that non-compliant site owners may be vulnerable to lawsuits. Approximately 27% of adults in the United States have some type of disability, according to the CDC. Improving website accessibility also improves user experience (header tags, anchor text, alt text, navigation, etc.), which can ultimately help increase conversions. There are even more reasons to invest in website accessibility, and while some of those reasons are complementary with your SEO efforts, you must remember that they are two distinct disciplines. This is because general website accessibility is not a Google search ranking factor—even though some accessibility features (like anchor text) are also used by search engines to inform rankings. In this blog post, I'll show you how website accessibility affects SEO, resources to make your site more accessible, and best practices to ensure that your website is ready for all audiences. Table of contents: What is website accessibility? How web accessibility affects SEO Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and best practices Legal requirements and penalties for non-compliance Web accessibility best practices Guidelines for creating accessible content Techniques for designing accessible websites Techniques for testing website accessibility Working with developers to improve accessibility What is website accessibility? Website accessibility is the practice of designing and developing websites that are inclusive and suitable for individuals of all abilities. It's about removing barriers and ensuring that every visitor— regardless of their physical or cognitive challenges —can navigate and interact with your website seamlessly. By prioritizing accessibility, you demonstrate a commitment to inclusivity and empathy, making a positive impact on your customers. But accessibility is not just a moral imperative—it's a legal one too. Various laws and regulations exist globally to ensure equal access to digital content for all individuals: In the US, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act set guidelines for accessible websites. In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 requires organizations to make reasonable adjustments to ensure accessibility for people with disabilities. In the EU, the Web Accessibility Directive mandates that public sector websites meet specific accessibility standards. By understanding and adhering to these laws, you not only meet your legal obligations but also tap into a broader customer base. Investing in website accessibility is an investment in your customers and your business. It's an opportunity to create an inclusive digital environment that fosters trust, loyalty, and brand advocacy. How web accessibility affects SEO Let's zoom out for a moment and consider the bigger picture for your brand: When you prioritize accessibility, you’re not only catering to individuals with disabilities but also addressing broader concerns that impact user experience and conversions. Elements like clear and descriptive headers, meaningful and well-crafted alt text for images, and intuitive navigation are all essential aspects of accessibility that directly contribute to a positive user experience. After all, SEO isn’t just about getting traffic to your pages—it’s also about how you satisfy those visitors and guide them along their customer journey. An example of the customer journey funnel. Now, let’s zoom back in and look at a few examples of overlap in terms of implementing website accessibility and SEO: Header tags help you create an intuitive, user-friendly structure for your content. Users that rely on screen readers can use headers to skip to the desired section of your content, or skip repeated content (like menus, for example). Both human users and search engines look at these headers to help them understand your content. Alternative text (alt text) helps individuals with visual impairments understand the content and context of images through screen readers (or other assistive technologies). Search engines also use alt text to help identify the content within an image, which could help them show up in image search results. Anchor text helps to describe the purpose of a link and contextualize the destination page for users and search engines. For users that rely on screen readers, this text distinguishes the link from other links on the same web page. There’s far more overlap, including title tags , readability, breadcrumbs, site navigation, etc. While I do cover some best practices later on in this blog post, it’s by no means a comprehensive guide on accessibility. For that, you’ll need to reference the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (more on that below ). It's important to note that while not all accessibility considerations directly impact SEO, those that do can influence conversions. When you invest in making your website accessible and user-friendly, you create an inclusive and welcoming environment in which your audience can actually achieve what they went there to do—whether that’s reading a blog post, making a purchase, or just checking the forecast. This fosters trust and credibility, and encourages users to take the desired actions. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and best practices The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a widely recognized organization that develops standards to help people build websites based on sound accessibility, internationalization, privacy, and security principles. The W3C publishes the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) “with a goal of providing a single shared standard for web content accessibility that meets the needs of individuals, organizations, and governments internationally.” These guidelines are considered the definitive reference for web accessibility. So, what can the WCAG offer you as a site owner or SEO? The WCAG comes with a comprehensive set of standards and success criteria, empowering you to create highly accessible websites and digital content. Its flexibility and adaptability cater to various types of content, including multimedia and mobile platforms. By embracing the WCAG, you demonstrate your commitment to providing an inclusive online experience for all users. The WCAG is based on four key principles : Perceivable: Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive. Operable: User interface components and navigation must be operable. Understandable: Information and the operation of the user interface must be understandable. Robust: Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies. These guiding principles are then broken down into detailed directives, each with its own set of success standards. Color contrast, keyboard navigation, multimedia accessibility, and alt text for images are only a few of the subjects covered. Let's dive into an example scenario where you, as a savvy marketer or business owner, can follow the WCAG to drive success: Imagine you’re launching a new website for your online store that sells fashion accessories. You understand that an intuitive user experience is vital for customer satisfaction and conversions. By following the WCAG , you can ensure your website is accessible to users with diverse abilities and needs. One particular area you can focus on is website navigation, a critical element for user engagement. The WCAG 3 (the forthcoming version of the WCAG that’s currently available as a working draft) provides best practices in its ”Navigation” section (3.2.1) for creating intuitive and inclusive navigation structures. By following these guidelines, you can enhance usability and help users effortlessly explore your site. Legal requirements and penalties for non-compliance While following these specific guidelines may not be legally mandated, adhering to them is crucial if you want to reach as wide an audience as possible—which includes individuals with disabilities. By making your websites accessible, you not only comply with regulations but also unlock new opportunities to connect with this diverse audience. As I mentioned earlier, legislation designed to guarantee digital content accessibility has been passed in countries all over the world (the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and the EU, just to name a few). For instance, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) , becomes mandatory on June 28, 2025, to support over 100 million disabled users in the region. So, that means that you have an additional incentive to prioritize web accessibility: avoiding the consequences if someone reports your site to a governing body or files a civil lawsuit. Non-compliant sites are vulnerable to lawsuits . These repercussions are not to be taken lightly: Think hefty fines, exorbitant legal fees, and irreparable damage to your company's reputation. It’s a nightmare scenario, and small businesses may be particularly vulnerable as legal fees are likely to account for a disproportionately large slice of their budget, making it even more important for you to avoid this potential pitfall. Accessibility lawsuits in the news Now, let's dive into some real-life cautionary tales: Domino’s Pizza filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 to challenge a case it lost in a lower court revolving around its inaccessible website and mobile application, which were found to be in violation of ADA guidelines. The Supreme Court’s “decision not to grant the case is a loss for the company and a win for disability advocates, who have argued that if businesses do not have to maintain accessible sites, disabled people could be effectively shut out of substantial portions of the economy,” Tucker Higgins wrote for CNBC . That same year, 32-time Grammy Award-winning artist Beyoncé’s Parkwood Entertainment company was sued for neglecting to create a user-friendly website for individuals with visual impairments. Amazon and Nike have also had class action lawsuits filed against them by users with visual impairments. These high-profile cases serve as a stark reminder that compliance is not just an ethical obligation— it’s a legal necessity to protect your business. Web accessibility best practices While the WCAG standards serve as a solid foundation, there’s a treasure trove of additional best practices awaiting your exploration. Let’s explore each practice in detail, with examples of good and bad implementation, and discover how they relate to creating accessible websites. Guidelines for creating accessible content 01. Use clear and concise language: When crafting your content, opt for language that is straightforward and easy to understand . Good: A travel website describing destinations in plain language, making it accessible to users with cognitive disabilities. Bad: Using industry jargon and complex terminology that alienates users, leading to confusion and frustration. Let’s evaluate the language of some real marketing copy with clarity and concision (for accessibility) in mind: “Discover our new collection of sustainable sneakers, crafted from recycled materials and designed for both style and comfort." In this example, the sentence uses simple, straightforward language to convey a clear message. It highlights the key aspects of the product (sustainable sneakers, recycled materials, style, and comfort) without unnecessary complexity or jargon. This approach ensures that the information is easy to understand for all users, including those with cognitive disabilities or language barriers. By employing clear and concise language, marketers and website owners make their content more accessible and user-friendly. It eliminates confusion and enables users to quickly grasp the message or offer. Conversely, using convoluted or overly technical language can create barriers for users, causing frustration and hindering comprehension. It may result in users abandoning the website, impacting conversion rates, and diminishing the effectiveness of marketing efforts. 02. Provide alt text for images: Images play a significant role in visual storytelling, but they must be accessible to all. By including alt text , you describe the image to users who rely on screen readers or have visual impairments. Good: A clothing retailer providing alt text that describes the color, style, and key features of each product image. Bad: Failing to provide alt text or omitting relevant information, leaving users with visual impairments unable to comprehend the image’s content or context. The alt text for the image above is: “ Decadent chocolate cake with a rich ganache frosting, garnished with fresh raspberries.” In this example, the alt text provides a clear and concise description of an image, conveying the essential details of the chocolate cake. It includes relevant information such as the cake’s appearance, frosting, and garnish. This alt text ensures that individuals who are visually impaired or rely on screen readers can understand the image, even without being able to see it. 03. Use descriptive headers and subheaders: Headers and subheaders help organize your content, enabling users to navigate and comprehend it more easily. This is an especially important consideration for some websites as it may also enable users to skim your pages and quickly identify the content they’re looking for. The Wix SEO Learning Hubs uses header tags to help visitors navigate to the specific type of content they’re looking for. Good: A blog website’s homepage using clear and descriptive headers that assist users in quickly finding relevant content across blog categories (as shown in the example above). Bad: Presenting content without proper headers, resulting in a wall of text that overwhelms users and makes it difficult to locate specific information. For example: H1: "Our Services" H2: "Website Design and Development" H2: "Digital Marketing Strategies" H3: "eCommerce Solutions" In this example, headers and subheaders are used to create a clearstructure for the content on a services page. The main header ”Our Services” sets the overall theme and establishes a hierarchy. The subheaders provide specific categories or topics related to the services being offered. By writing descriptive headers and subheaders, SEOs and website owners enhance accessibility for all users. Users with (or without) visual impairments and those who rely on screen readers can navigate the content more easily, understanding the overall structure and finding relevant information efficiently—including how to transact with your business. 04. Avoid using color alone to convey meaning: Color should not be the sole means of conveying information on your website. Consider users who are colorblind or have visual impairments. Good: A financial website using both color and icons to distinguish between positive and negative trends in a chart, ensuring accessibility for all users. Bad: Using red text to indicate errors without additional visual cues or text explanations, leaving colorblind users unable to perceive the error message. For example: On an eCommerce website, a product listing displays different stock statuses for items: “In Stock,” “Low Stock,” and “Out of Stock.” In this example, color is used in conjunction with other visual cues to convey the stock status. Here's how it can be implemented: Color: The text for “In Stock” is displayed in green, “Low Stock” in orange, and “Out of Stock” in red. Color is not the sole method of conveying the inventory status, but it serves as an additional visual cue. Adding basic colors (or a colored highlight) to text can help make your inventory levels more accessible. Icon or symbol: Each stock status is accompanied by a small icon or symbol next to the text. For example, a checkmark icon (✅) for "In Stock,” an exclamation mark (❗️) for “Low Stock,” and an X mark (❌) for “Out of Stock.” Like color cues, these icons also provide an extra layer of visual communication. Text labels: The descriptive text labels of “In Stock,” “Low Stock,” and “Out of Stock” are also present, ensuring that the meaning is communicated clearly through text, regardless of color perception. By combining color with other cues, such as icons and descriptive text, marketers and website owners create a more accessible experience. Users with color blindness or visual impairments can still understand the stock status without relying solely on color. Remember, accessibility isn't just about compliance—it’s about unlocking new possibilities, reaching a wider audience, and creating meaningful connections. Embrace these practices to build trust, drive traffic, increase conversions, and foster a user-centric digital environment. Your commitment to accessibility will help set you apart as a leader in your industry, driving success, and making a positive impact. Techniques for designing accessible websites Let’s delve into the realm of accessible website design and explore these essential practices. We’ll illustrate the significance of each practice with an example that provides actionable insights: 01. Use responsive design: Embrace responsive design to ensure your website adapts seamlessly to different devices and screen sizes. Digital marketers, ensure that your content is displayed in a user-friendly manner across desktops, tablets, and mobile devices. This allows your audience to access and navigate your website effortlessly, regardless of the device they're using. Scenario: Imagine a customer browsing an online store on their smartphone. With responsive design, the website automatically adjusts its layout and content, optimizing the shopping experience by ensuring clear visibility, easy interaction, and smooth navigation on the smaller screen. 02. Use clear and consistent navigation: Craft a navigation menu that is intuitive, well organized, and consistent across your website. Digital marketers, aim to provide a seamless user experience by ensuring that visitors can easily find the desired information or navigate between pages. Scenario: Picture a potential customer exploring a travel agency’s website. Clear and consistent navigation enables them to effortlessly locate sections like “Destinations,” “Tours & Packages,” and the “Contact Us” page. This consistent structure allows users to confidently browse through the site, increasing the chances of bookings and conversions. 03. Provide descriptive anchor text: Make your links descriptive and meaningful, providing users with clear expectations for the linked web page. Digital marketers, ensure that your links convey relevant information to enhance user understanding and streamline navigation. Follow these guidelines for both navigational and in-text links . Scenario: Consider a blog post about sustainable fashion. Instead of using generic anchor text like “Click here,” opt for descriptive text, like “Learn how to embrace sustainable fashion practices.” This enables users, including those using assistive technologies, to understand the purpose and destination of the link without ambiguity. 04. Use color contrast: Select color combinations that provide sufficient contrast to ensure readability and legibility for all users. Digital marketers, prioritize accessible color choices to accommodate individuals with visual impairments or color deficiencies. Scenario: Imagine a news website featuring articles with clear color contrast between the text and background. High contrast allows users with visual impairments to easily discern and read the content, enhancing their overall experience. Marketers, ensure that your website follows WCAG guidelines for color contrast ratios to cater to all users. Example: Foreground Color: # 000000 (Black) Background Color: # FFFFFF ( White ) Accent Color: # 0078D4 ( Blue ) In this example, the color palette maintains a high level of contrast between the foreground (text) and background colors, making the content easily readable for all users. Black (# 000000) for the text ensures strong contrast against the white background (# FFFFFF), creating a clear distinction between the content and the surrounding space. This high contrast allows users to read the text without strain or difficulty. Additionally, the accent color of blue (# 0078D4) can be used sparingly to draw attention to specific elements or interactive elements on the website. You should ensure that the color palette used throughout the website meets or exceeds the WCAG contrast ratio requirements. Under the “Visual Presentation” guidelines, there are specific success criteria related to color contrast, including: Success Criterion 1.4.3 : Contrast (Minimum): This criterion outlines the minimum contrast ratio required between text and its background for standard-sized text. It provides specific contrast ratio values that must be met to ensure readability. Success Criterion 1.4.6 : Contrast (Enhanced): This criterion addresses the contrast ratio requirements for large-scale text and provides higher contrast standards to accommodate users with low vision or other visual impairments. By implementing these design practices, you create a welcoming and inclusive digital environment because you are ensuring a seamless access on different devices for all users. Techniques for testing website accessibility As an SEO, you may already be familiar with the value of testing and measurement to help you identify what works for your brand and its target audience. In that sense, testing your website accessibility is no different—it’s about learning whether what you’re doing is working and identifying more opportunities to help you cater to the largest possible customer base. Use automated testing tools You are overseeing the launch of a new eCommerce website. To ensure its accessibility, you've incorporated various accessibility features, followed best practices, and implemented WCAG guidance. Even so, it’s crucial to verify that your accessibility optimizations are actually working for your site users. This is where automated testing tools come into play. These tools—specifically designed for accessibility testing—scan your website’s code, structure, and content to identify potential accessibility issues and provide valuable insights. By using automated testing tools, you can: Identify accessibility gaps Ensure compliance Improve user experience Streamline the testing process Examples of automated testing tools WAVE : A free community service by WebAIM at Utah State University, WAVE examines web pages for accessibility issues, providing detailed reports and features like color contrast analysis and alt text suggestions. What to know first: I, personally, have a shallow amount of experience with this tool, but the general consensus from different talks I have listened to is that it may generate false positives or false negatives, meaning it can sometimes incorrectly identify accessibility issues or miss certain issues, requiring manual verification to ensure accurate results. Image: Tenon.io. Tenon : This tool scans websites for accessibility violations, offering features such as comprehensive reporting and integration with development workflows, enabling digital marketers and business owners to identify and resolve accessibility issues efficiently. What to know first: Tenon may not provide as detailed or comprehensive reports compared to some other tools, requiring additional analysis and interpretation to fully understand the accessibility issues identified. Image: Axe. A xe : Also available as a free Chrome browser extension, Axe assesses web pages for potential accessibility barriers, offering features like in-depth issue descriptions and integration with popular browsers and development tools. What to know first: Axe may have limited support for certain programming languages such as Swift, PHP, and Ruby as well as frameworks, which could restrict its effectiveness for websites built using less common or niche technologies, requiring alternative tools or approaches for thorough accessibility testing. Conduct manual testing While automated testing tools are valuable, they have limitations in fully capturing the user experience and identifying nuanced accessibility issues. This means automated web accessibility testing tools are better when you use them in tandem with manual testing methods. Manual testing for website accessibility can offer you the following benefits: User-centric evaluation: Manual testing allows you to put yourself in the shoes of users with disabilities, experiencing your website firsthand. By navigating through the site and interacting with its elements, you gain valuable insights into the usability and accessibility challenges your users may face. Comprehensive assessment: Manual testing goes beyond automated scans as it evaluates considerations such as keyboard accessibility, screen reader compatibility, and usability for individuals with different disabilities. This holistic evaluation can ensure a thorough examination of your website’s accessibility across various user scenarios. When conducting manual testing, focus on the following aspects: Keyboard accessibility: Ensure that all interactive elements, menus, and navigation can be accessed and operated using only the keyboard, without relying on mouse or touch input. Screen reader compatibility: Test your website using screen reader software to ensure that it accurately reads out the content, including alt text for images, headers, and other important information. Visual and interaction design: Evaluate the visual design and layout of your website, ensuring that text is readable, color contrast is sufficient, and interactive elements have clear focus indicators or visual cues. Usability for different disabilities: Consider how users with different disabilities (such as visual impairments, hearing impairments, or motor disabilities) would experience and interact with your website. Look for any barriers or challenges they might encounter and seek ways to improve their experience. Conduct user testing User testing plays a crucial role in achieving better website accessibility because it involves observing and gathering feedback from individuals with disabilities as they interact with your website. It differs from the manual testing process I mentioned above in that end-users perform the testing activities. The testers follow a predefined set of test cases or scenarios to evaluate the accessibility of a product or system. Here’s why user testing is essential for website accessibility: Real user perspectives: User testing helps you gain valuable insights from individuals with disabilities who represent your target audience. By directly involving them in the testing process, you can understand their unique challenges, preferences, and needs when accessing your website. Usability and accessibility validation: User testing helps validate the effectiveness of your accessibility measures. By observing users with disabilities navigate your website, you can identify any barriers, difficulties, or areas of improvement that may have been overlooked during the implementation process. Iterative improvements: User testing provides an iterative feedback loop for continuous improvement. By incorporating user feedback, you can refine and enhance your website’s accessibility features, ensuring it aligns with the real-world needs and preferences. To conduct user testing for website accessibility, follow these dos and don’ts: Do: Recruit a diverse group of users with different disabilities and abilities relevant to your target audience. Create realistic testing scenarios that mimic common user tasks and interactions on your website. One way to approach this is to follow the path laid out in your user journey map , if you’ve already developed one. Encourage participants to provide honest feedback and insights about their experience, including any challenges they encountered. Don't: Rely solely on your internal team’s perspectives. Seek external users with disabilities to provide unbiased insights. Intervene or guide participants excessively during the testing process. Allow them to explore and interact naturally with your website. Dismiss or overlook feedback from participants. Even if it challenges your assumptions, all feedback is valuable for improving accessibility. Remember, accessibility is an ongoing process, and user testing provides a valuable opportunity for continuous enhancement. Working with developers to improve accessibility You are responsible for ensuring website accessibility for your brand. But to achieve this, it’s crucial to work closely with your web developers to make accessibility a top priority. Here are some actionable tips that can assist you in fostering a strong partnership with web developers to improve accessibility: Engage in collaborative discussions: Initiate open and regular discussions with your web developers about the importance of accessibility. Share the significance of inclusive design and its impact on user experience, conversions, and SEO. By fostering a mutual understanding, you can collectively prioritize accessibility in the development process and share victories. Provide accessibility guidelines and standards: Equip your web developers with clear accessibility guidelines and standards, such as the WCAG. By providing these resources, you empower developers to implement best practices and ensure compliance with accessibility standards. Conduct accessibility audits and testing: Collaborate with web developers to perform thorough accessibility audits and testing. This involves evaluating your website for potential barriers and ensuring that it meets WCAG standards. By working together, you can identify and resolve accessibility issues early in the development phase, resulting in a more inclusive and user-friendly website. If you’re not getting buy-in from your stakeholders to grant you the development resources to implement your accessibility recommendations, remember that it’s not just about improving the user experience for differently abled individuals—it’s also about keeping your business compliant with legal requirements. Website accessibility isn’t about SEO—it’s about real people Achieving website accessibility is an ongoing mission that demands continuous dedication and progress. Even so, forgoing these efforts means that you’re also giving up on making the most out of your content—after all, you’ve already created it; all that’s left is to make it more accessible. For SEOs, the low-hanging fruit lies in overlap areas (alt text, headers, anchor text, etc.), but stopping there means that your site visitors will be met with an inconsistent user experience, effectively undermining the efforts you have made. Certainly, you should not approach website accessibility with an all-or-nothing mentality, but consider how your potential customers will respond when they rely on your accessibility features to transact with your brand. Rejoice Ojiaku - Co-founder at B-DigitalUK Rejoice has worked in SEO as a content specialist and account manager. Her passion for diversity in the workplace inspired her to co-found the B-DigitalUK network for Black marketers . As an award-winning diversity and inclusion advocate, she is a frequent speaker about all things D&I, as well as SEO content. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Michel Fortin In traditional SEO, experts typically recommend following a keyword-first approach: find high-volume keywords, create content around them, meet a bunch of ranking factors, and wait for traffic to come rolling in. But, if the results are less than expected, where did it fail? The problem is not necessarily that it failed, but that it failed to take into account the most important part of SEO: the user. With a keyword-first approach, the focus is on the search engine, which can lead to optimizations that end up being at the user's expense. Traditional SEO is often a zero-sum game, where trying to appeal to both searchers and search engines can be a delicate balancing act that forces unwilling sacrifices and compromises. But today, it’s no longer necessary. A user-first approach naturally appeals to the search engines because they have evolved in order to meet the same objective you have, which is to help the user. In this article about user-first SEO, I’ll discuss: Why keyword-first SEO is outdated Traditional SEO vs. Modern SEO How ranking factors can mislead The opportunity cost of chasing rankings Rankings as KPIs The three pillars of SEO Going beyond exact keywords The essentials: Quality content and experience Aligning intent and keywords Quality signals Why traditional SEO is outdated In the late 90s, I taught marketing at a local college. Part of the curriculum included SEO. While it was quite basic back then, the keyword-first SEO approach was the prevailing method. It’s the same method that persists today. But, simply because something is done a certain way and has been done that way for over 20 years doesn’t mean it’s the best way, let alone the only way. There’s an old folktale about a new Jewish bride who, for her first big meal, would cut off the ends of the brisket before cooking it. There are several variations of this story , but a popular one is when her in-laws ask her why she cuts off the ends, to which she answers: “That’s how my mother always did it!” Curious, they ask the mother the same question. Her answer was identical: “That’s how my mother always did it!” Thinking it’s some sort of secret family recipe handed down from generation to generation, one day they ask the grandmother the same question, to which she exclaims: “Because it wouldn’t fit in the pan!” Similarly, the traditional, keyword-first approach to SEO made sense because it worked and worked well for a long time. But today, it’s less effective and there are a few reasons for that, chief among which is how search has evolved. To understand how things changed and what’s more effective, it’s important to understand where they have changed and why. According to Google, SEO is the process of making your site better for search engines so they can easily find, crawl, and understand it. But SEO is not really about search engines—they’re an intermediary. Your goal is to target your audience while going through that intermediary. It’s to improve your chances of appearing when your audience searches for you or something you offer. If you’re acquainted with SEO, you know that it has three dimensions: technical SEO, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO . Another way to look at it is optimizing signals that come from behind your site, on your site, and beyond your site. These three things haven’t changed since the beginning. However, Google updates itself thousands of times a year in an effort to improve the quality of its results. When you consider that, over the course of the 20+ years it’s existed, the total estimated number of updates is potentially in the thousands, if not millions. It would be foolish to think that the signals Google looks for remained stagnant—or that an SEO approach from two decades ago still applies today the exact same way it did back then. “Our computers, smartphones and apps are regularly updated to help make them better. The same thing happens with Google Search. In fact, Google Search is updated thousands of times a year to improve the experience and the quality of results.” — Danny Sullivan , public liaison of search at Google (Google, 2021) As search engines have evolved to improve their results (and to borrow from Google’s definition), so too has “the process of making your site better for the search engines.” Traditional SEO vs. Modern SEO One of the biggest changes we’ve seen is Google’s increasing transparency. It used to operate as a black box, where ranking factors were mostly unknown. Obviously, Google kept its cards close to its chest because it didn’t want to open itself to misinterpretation and degrade the quality of its results—let alone allow spammers and other bad actors to exploit any potential loopholes to game the system. Granted, Google is still not 100% transparent. But, that black box is definitely shrinking. Today, we know more about what Google wants because it tells us what it’s looking for. For example, Google offers several comprehensive guidelines to follow. Its search advocate team openly answers questions through its search forums, podcasts, and social media accounts. Google also regularly files many patents on its search process, which are available for all to see. Thanks to SEO experts like Bill Slawski (RIP) and Olaf Klopp among others, we get a glimpse into Google’s inner workings. What precipitated the change in transparency, in my opinion, is the way things have evolved, which has made it possible for Google to become more transparent (if not pressured in doing so). More specifically, there are three key shifts that may have played a role. 01. Search environments Environmental factors play a significant role in how we search for stuff. The questions we ask and the answers we seek may vary according to trends, times, news, politics, habits, economies, and much more. New external factors come into play all the time, too—some of which we never would have imagined or prepared for (like a global pandemic, for example). Moreover, we used to search the internet only on desktop computers and via browsers. But today, we have hundreds of mobile devices and smart appliances that can search the web—let alone countless apps and platforms to search with (and not just browsers). As these technologies are updated all the time, as Google’s Danny Sullivan once noted, it creates new opportunities for Google to adapt and improve. 02. Search behaviors SEO is a never-ending process because Google doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Rankings are volatile because they have to be. If all things were equal (i.e., if all users searched the same way with the same intent, and using the same keywords meant for the same purpose), then there would be little need to optimize things. Obviously, that’s not reality. “The only constant is change,” as Heraclitus famously posited. Google is constantly introducing new features as well as new ways to appear in its results . At the same time, doing so also increases the likelihood that new bugs, errors, and vulnerabilities will surface. This creates new avenues for spammers, who wish to leapfrog over legitimate sites, to exploit, potentially filling the search engine results pages (SERPs) with poor-quality content that provides users with less value. 03. Search algorithms Finally, in alignment with and likely as a consequence of the previous two shifts, Google has three goals: serve higher quality results, make them harder to manipulate, and above all, remove spam. Google deals with an always-increasing number of spammy search results, reaching 40 billion in 2020 , so it’s no surprise that it made significant advancements in spam detection. Plus, Google’s algorithms use machine learning, which is becoming increasingly more sophisticated and effective. This artificial intelligence is always learning and growing, even beyond Google’s ability to grasp or explain how it works in a succinct manner. In fact, it employs human quality raters to manually verify its algorithms and ensure they’re performing as expected. (I’ll come back to this point.) Consequently, the three shifts mentioned above have likely influenced the need for greater transparency. While that’s a good thing, it’s also an important wake-up call: SEO may remain technically the same over the years, but as search engines continue to advance to provide better results for their users, so too should we consider advancing the way we optimize for them. In modern SEO, “ranking factors” is misleading “We’ve kind of moved away from the over 200 ranking signals number because it feels like even having a number like that is kind of misleading. (...) A lot of these [signals] take into account so many different things, you can’t just isolate them out.” — John Mueller , search advocate at Google, (SEJ, Montti, 2021) Google’s challenge in explaining its algorithms (at least in simple terms) is also the very reason why it’s becoming difficult to pinpoint any specific ranking factor that will have an impact on rankings, particularly beyond the technical factors. This is not to say that ranking factors don’t exist, but things are becoming less black and white, and any previously identified ranking factors are getting more complex. Many years ago, it used to be easy to rank. For the most part, and competition aside, you only had to research targeted keywords with high search volumes and low competition; stuff those keywords into your content and throughout the page; and get backlinks from other sites that point to those pages. Back then, if your keyword had a misspelling, it didn’t matter. If the keyword didn’t make sense or didn’t fit with the content, it didn’t matter. If it made the content look awkward and robotic, it didn’t matter. After all, these pieces of content were never meant for human consumption—they were meant for ranking, not reading. There was no need to create good content or offer any value, anyway. Once you had your keywords covered, backlinks were next. But trying to earn legitimate backlinks to those awful pieces of content was next to impossible. You had no choice but to beg for them, which rarely worked. So you had to bluff, borrow, or buy them instead. Once you were able to farm enough backlinks, it worked. Your content would rank and rank well. But as Google grew smarter and more sophisticated, trying to rank the same way was no longer as easy as it used to be. Ranking factors became a little harder to gauge. Many SEOs have tried to crack the Google code and speculated on a number of ranking factors, while testing helped to prove but a few. Google has publicly confirmed some of them, but for many others, it denied or skated around them. Discovering any unconfirmed ranking factors was a double-edged sword: While they made it easy to rank, they also made it easy for spammers to exploit and game the system. It may have forced Google’s hand in becoming more transparent and in getting smarter in order to fight spam. However, “getting smarter” elicited more speculation and added more possible ranking factors to the ever-growing list, which seemed to expand with every update. And therein lies the problem. Google continues to introduce smaller algorithms —or “ baby algorithms ,” as Google’s Gary Illyes once called them—that pay attention to an increasingly larger number of signals. Unlike a small, yet broad, set of ranking factors, Google uses statistical analysis and millions of these micro-algorithms in its ranking process. Trying to keep up is next to impossible and irrelevant, in my estimation. With different ranking factors that work differently in different situations, which Google measures in a variety of ways and weighted differently according to an increasing number of variables, it’s no wonder that the SEO industry has jokingly memefied the phrase “it depends” as the typical answer to questions about ranking factors. Because it really does. The opportunity costs of chasing rankings So if ranking factors are misleading, should you ignore rankings altogether? No. Rankings are still important. But, ranking for specific keywords—particularly those you selected based on their high search volumes like in my previous scenario—are vanity metrics and specious at best. Chasing them will only divert your attention away from more important metrics that have a stronger impact on your business. It’s tripping over dollars picking up pennies. For example, a common problem I encounter when I conduct SEO audits is when a client wants to rank for a pet keyword that failed to get any traction. (Of course, it was the SEO’s fault.) However, during that time while the client was so focused on ranking for their beloved keyword, they failed to see the 200 other related ones that their site is now ranking for—the combined total of which drove far more traffic. Now, let’s say that the keyword is a good one after all. By putting all their attention on that one keyword, this client is likely to ignore all of its possible variations, some of which may have driven more, and perhaps better, quality traffic. And, let’s not forget alternative keywords and related ones, too. There’s also the issue of a keyword’s ambiguity, fluidity, and polysemy—i.e., keywords having completely different meanings depending on the context or situation. For example, say you want to rank for the term “Philadelphia lawyer” because it has 23K monthly searches. Plus, it’s trending upwards, which makes it even more enticing. But, Google shows almost 50M results, which is extremely competitive. More importantly, other types of results dominate the SERPs. There are no actual practicing attorneys until a few SERPs later. For instance, “Philadelphia lawyer” is a term dating back to colonial America to describe a shrewd and skillful attorney . Thanks to a 1948 Woody Guthrie song , it’s also used to describe a sneaky, unethical lawyer. More recently, it’s a label given to someone who loves to debate and argue. So it will be very tough (if not next to impossible) to rank for that term. Add in the fact that it’s for a completely different audience and type of result, and it’s clear that this would be a waste of time that could be better spent elsewhere. Regardless of what you want to rank for, keep in mind that search volume is not all that it’s cracked up to be. I know of many sites that have generated considerable traffic with keywords that initially reported little to no volume. Conversely (although rarely), some sites that ranked very well for some popular keywords received little to no traffic. There are several reasons for these discrepancies, but the most common one is that many keyword research tools report search volumes that are incomplete, inflated, or inaccurate . Some tools extract their volume data based on spelling-specific keywords, and they don’t include common misspellings, keyword variations, or related words that trigger the same search results, which may translate into a far greater number of searches for that one keyword. On the other hand, some source their data from Google Ads whose estimates are broad matches that may also be too broad. Google often lumps keywords together that may be similar but have completely different meanings or intents. (If you’ve ever used Google Ads before, you know how handy the negative keywords feature is.) Some calculate search volumes based on snapshots taken at different points in time or during certain intervals, and averaged out (such as over a year), regardless of any fluctuations that may occur. Others are based on mere extrapolations, guesstimates, or forecasts. Some use clickstream data (i.e., aggregate data from apps, browsers, extensions, and so on), but they do not account for all searches. In our increasingly privacy-conscious world, tracking makes data less reliable. Moreover, many anonymize their data and then sanitize it by filtering out automated queries and suspected spam, making the numbers more imprecise. Ultimately, chasing keyword rankings based solely on their search volumes is a futile endeavor. While rankings are important in general, keyword rankings by themselves are less so. They’re vanity metrics based on unreliable or inflated data that provide little value other than the perception of popularity. And contrary to popular opinion , SEO shouldn’t be a popularity contest. Rankings are not key performance indicators Not all performance indicators are the same, and not all of them are important or relevant, either. Those that have an impact on your business are called key performance indicators (KPIs) because they are key to your business and should tie into your business goals. Some are tied directly, others are not. In economics, what’s called a “leading indicator” is a measurement of something that will directly impact, influence, or predict other results in the future. On the other hand, a “lagging indicator” is a measurement of something that is the result of, or influenced by, other indicators—often, the leading ones. In marketing, leading KPIs are the direct results of a campaign occurring in the early stages, while lagging KPIs are the consequential results that mostly occur in the later stages. A good analogy is to think of your business as a car. Leading indicators look through the windshield at the road ahead while lagging indicators look through the rearview window at the road you were on. What does this have to do with SEO? Looking at keyword rankings is like taking snapshots with your camera from a rearview mirror while you’re driving your business. Plus, they’re taking your eyes off the road, let alone important gauges on your dashboard, like the ones telling you when you’re running out of gas (i.e., resources). Lagging indicators look at the end-results, such as leads, sales, and profits. With SEO specifically, they include organic traffic and the conversions it generates. But, unlike paid campaigns that produce quick, immediate results, generating organic traffic takes time. Gathering feedback and applying course corrections along the way takes longer as well. Now, the most common leading indicators in SEO are rankings. But rankings are poor KPIs as they may not always translate into meaningful results (i.e., they may not influence lagging indicators like quality traffic and sales). Moreover, keyword rankings are never an appropriate feedback mechanism for making course corrections for the many reasons expressed already. Instead of keyword rankings, focus on visibility. The more visible you are in search results, particularly in those that matter (specifically, to your audience) and in relation to your competition for those results, the greater and more positive the impact will be on your traffic, your conversions, and your business. Furthermore, tracking your search visibility instead of your rankings allows you to identify problems early and apply any improvements quickly. Like a paid ads campaign, you can see how many times your site shows up in search results. Monitoring visibility also provides competitive insights that can help you benchmark performance and identify any gaps worth pursuing. The three pillars of search visibility Arguably, search visibility is truly the best indicator of an SEO strategy’s success. SEO is about gaining visibility that drives traffic and generates business. Rankings are important but only one small part of the equation. Visibility includes rankings as well as other KPIs. In fact, search visibility is an aggregate indicator based on three key characteristics. I call them the “Three Ps of SEO.” They are: Presence Prominence Performance 01. Presence Presence refers to the number of properties indexed by the search engines. A property is any asset that search engines can discover, crawl, and index such as pages, images , videos, documents, and so on. For the sake of simplicity, I will use “pages” from now on to refer to any indexable property. Presence is also based on the number of associated queries for which you show up in search results. The more pages appear and the more keywords trigger their appearance, the stronger your presence will be. Of course, not all pages need or deserve to be present. But those that do should be. 02. Prominence Prominence refers to how often and how well your site stands out in search results. It’s based on the number of times it appears and how high it does. These appearances also include search features (such as cards, snippets, and carousels) and other sources (such as Google Discover and Google News). The best tool to gauge search visibility is Google’s Search Console (GSC) . In the Search results report (in the left-hand navigation panel), the “average position” is the average of all pages and for all impressions in Google Search. You can drill down to see more granular metrics, such as individual pages. The average position for single pages is based on the fact that the keyword and the position can be different each time your page appears in search results. 03. Performance Of the three, performance is the most important. It refers to the number of times your pages appear and generate clicks. GSC generally counts a search impression only when a result is loaded and can be seen, irrespective of the user actually scrolling down the SERP and seeing it. If it’s on a subsequent SERP that’s never loaded or further down in mobile results, however, Google doesn’t count it as an impression. This is important, as the more searches trigger your pages to appear in results, the stronger the indication that your pages are ranking well. The more often your pages appear in the SERPs, the higher the chances they are going to get clicks. And, the higher the number of search impressions that translate into clicks (called “ clickthrough rate ” or CTR), the more you know how productive your SEO efforts are. Changes in impressions don’t always correlate with changes in clicks. When they don’t, there are many reasons for that, such as the intent behind the query (I’ll return to this). CTR is helpful for this reason. Google Search Console results from a recent SEO campaign by the author. It’s important to monitor changes over time (especially sudden changes), which may indicate that something may be going on—like a Google update , for example. But, changes also provide important feedback on your SEO strategy, including the competitive landscape, that can help you make course corrections. Are keywords dead? Or is it just semantics? Higher search visibility reveals a page’s ability to answer questions. For instance, if your site is more visible in search, it means that it’s not only ranking well but also that Google determines your pages to be in alignment with what users are looking for— with or without keywords . Keyword research is still important because it’s a starting point. The goal is not to find out what keywords to rank for but to learn what your users are looking for instead. The distinction is subtle but critical . In the early days, keywords were restrictive, which made searching the web a drudgerous task. A keyword search could turn up countless results that were completely disjointed and disparate. While they may have contained keywords that matched the query exactly, they were vastly different from the intent of the search, forcing you to wade through endless SERPs to find what you were looking for. If you’ve been around the Internet for as long as I have, you might remember when we had to “search the search engines” (which seemed paradoxical) to find any decent matches. Even when a match was found, the chosen page might still offer nonsense like keyword-crammed content. Lucky for us, Google has evolved. For many years, it was primarily a lexical search engine that served results based on literal keyword matches. (It’s for this reason that stuffing keywords worked so well.) With the help of machine learning, however, Google is getting better at understanding the different ways we use words by taking into account the irregularities and nuances of the human language. This is called semantic search . For this reason, keyword research is no longer about finding what keywords to optimize for, which is a core aspect of traditional SEO. Now, it’s about learning what topics to build content around. It’s about addressing the searcher’s problem and helping them along their journey in solving that problem—and not just merely matching content to keywords. “Content that ranks well in semantic search is well-written in a natural voice, focuses on the user's intent, and considers related topics that the user may look for in the future.” — “ Semantic Search ” (Wikipedia, 2020) In machine learning, topics are called entities (e.g., people, places, events, or ideas) associated together in a collection called a “ knowledge graph .” In simple terms, the knowledge graph is a group of related entities and the inferred relationships between them that help search engines better understand context and nuance. For example, someone took Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone and fed it into a basic machine-learning algorithm. It came up with this simple knowledge graph: Source: “Turn a Harry Potter Book Into a Knowledge Graph” (Bratanic, 2020) In the same way, Google’s algorithms (which are vastly more complex) create knowledge graphs based on grouping entities and inferring relationships between them. Like the example above, it does so by looking at the various ways these entities are mentioned in the content it finds. It then creates logical associations to create clusters of topics and subtopics. It’s like Google’s version of “ Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. ” What’s important to note is that, with the help of knowledge graphs and a form of machine learning called “natural language processing” (NLP), Google can understand queries like humans do, infer associations from them, and make connections without the need to find exact keywords. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. SEO boils down to two essential ingredients In a way, Google wants to think like a human in order to understand the search user and their intent, allowing them to more effectively bypass countless possibilities and irrelevant results to finally find the one most relevant search listing or piece of content. One way to look at it is Google trying to remove itself as an intermediary from the search equation. What does this mean? Where before SEO meant to optimize for the search engine, today it means to optimize for the user, which is what Google really wants, anyway. In essence, the practice of search engine optimization is evolving to be less about engines and more about users. Some call it “search user optimization.” I like to call it “user-first SEO.” Throughout my 30-year career in digital marketing, I’ve seen SEO start out as being about just a handful of things. It eventually grew to include a lot of things, growing more and more complex while the speculated number of ranking factors ballooned. But, with the help of machine learning algorithms, the pendulum is swinging back to somewhat simpler times. Nowadays, SEO has returned to being about just a few things. In fact, modern SEO boils down to two simple but fundamental ingredients. (Of course, each one of these two may have many facets and variations.) They are: The quality of the content, and The quality of the experience. In essence, simply offer great content users want and a great experience consuming that content. The higher the quality of the content and user experience is, the more likely your page will earn greater visibility—and more importantly, your traffic and conversions will likely be of higher quality, too. You might be asking, “How do you measure quality, then?” As with all things in SEO, it depends. Quality is subjective and relative. What it means is different with every user and in every situation. With some things, it’s pretty clear-cut; with others, not so much. Google’s many algorithms are complex for this very reason. It’s also the reason why relying on specific, black-and-white ranking factors is futile. Instead of focusing on ranking factors (or what some call “ranking signals”), focus on improving your quality signals and the quality of those signals. Google certainly does—in fact, it provides two sets of detailed guidelines that offer plenty of recommendations to follow. The SEO guidelines are for site owners and SEOs. They’re fairly straightforward and address what your site needs to have and what it must avoid. While they focus on requirements for inclusion in Google’s database, they provide a lot of advice on how to improve your visibility, too. The quality raters guidelines (QRG) are intended for individuals whose jobs are to spot-check search results and confirm that Google’s algorithms are performing as intended. Unlike the SEO guidelines, however, raters use scales to measure quality since it’s subject to interpretation. What makes the QRG interesting is that it offers plenty of examples, illustrations, and screenshots that give us a glimpse of what quality signals Google prefers. In helping raters understand what to look for, the manual is also helping site owners and SEOs do the same. Intent alignment is a key quality signal There are two major categories in the QRG. “Needs met” refers to how well the content matches what the user is looking for, while “page quality” is how well it meets their expectations. The goal should always be to fully satisfy the user’s search. Your ability to do so depends on how efficiently, how effectively, and how thoroughly your content answers their query. According to the QRG, when users must see additional results to get the answers they want (by bouncing or “pogosticking” back to Google), then the result is not relevant and should be rated as “Fails to Meet” (the lowest rating on the QRG’s scale). But, when the result removes any need to investigate other results, it typically gets the highest rating (“Fully Meets”). Your aim should be to answer your users’ queries by giving them relevant answers and providing value. It’s more than just fulfilling the request. It’s also understanding the user’s journey , anticipating subsequent needs, answering other questions they may have on that journey, and delivering those answers in a way that achieves the user’s intended purpose and preferred method of consumption. Specifically, what’s often referred to as “search intent” is the objective the query aims to reach. There are four kinds of search intent. To put it in simple terms, it’s when the user wants to know something, research something, do something, or go somewhere. Here’s a quick look at each one: Informational intent is when the user is looking for information. Some easy questions may only need short answers, while other questions may be complex and call for a more detailed explanation. For example, queries may range from “weather today” to “how do I build a birdhouse.” Investigational intent is when the user is conducting research prior to making a decision. They’re shopping around, or narrowing down their choices and validating them. Some examples include “Apple vs Android” or “best tacos Vancouver.” Transactional intent is when the user wants to perform a transaction. While it’s often to make a purchase, it can be any transaction, which may be specific or implicit. For example, “order pizza,” “free trial Wix,” “signup PayPal,” or “dress shoes sale.” Navigational intent is when the user is looking for (or trying to get to) a website. Either they’re unsure of the domain name or are simply taking a shortcut. They may also be searching for a quick way to access specific internal pages. “TD Bank” and “Twitter login” are a few examples. Some practitioners and publications use “search intent” and “user intent” interchangeably, but for my purposes, user intent goes a step further. Whereas “search intent” is the objective the query aims to reach, “user intent” is the objective the user wants to achieve. But, unless you’re a psychic, true user intent is unknown. However, with the help of machine learning algorithms and countless split-tests conducted behind the scenes across millions of searches to constantly refine its search results , Google makes educated guesses and predictions as to what people are looking for and how they want it. It goes to reason, therefore, that analyzing the SERPs can offer clues worth paying attention to. For example, enter a topic your audience is interested in and examine the SERPs. Look for patterns and any distinct elements that stand out. See what’s being served, both as and beyond the blue links. Note the search features (like cards and carousels ) or media types (like images and videos) that appear the most. Consider the types of content that show up, such as how-to tutorials, buying guides, listicles, etc. Also, visit some of the top results to see what they do and how they do it. Pay attention to the quality of their content. It’s more than just looking at the word count, which doesn’t matter when you apply a user-first SEO approach, anyway. Instead, see if the content answers the questions the user may have related to their query and if it provides them with sufficient value. If the intent doesn’t fit, go beyond the search results. Google offers helpful suggestions to guide the user along their journey. Called “query refinements,” they’re not only opportunities to refine and validate the intent around your chosen topics but also provide you with a rich source of content ideas. An example of Google’s People also search for feature. For example, they include the dropdown autocomplete search predictions in the search bar and the related searches at the bottom of the SERP. But the most insightful ones are the “People also ask” questions in the middle and the “People also search for” suggestions that appear when returning to Google. If you’re looking for more content ideas without having to dive into every individual SERP, I recommend AlsoAsked.com and SearchResponse.io . They both analyze Google’s SERPs around a given topic or page, mine further, and combine the results, which should give you plenty to work with. Ultimately, keyword research can help you identify topics around which to create content for your audience, while intent research can help verify the potential viability and visibility of your chosen topic. Creating quality content that aligns with a clear intent will generate stronger quality signals and improve your visibility. In fact, it’s important, if not essential, to ensure intent alignment before doing anything else. Otherwise, it’s like paddling in a canoe in the dark while being on dry land. Quality signals, meet signal quality Finally and most importantly, the quality of your quality signals is just as important as the signals themselves. I know this sounds odd, but if Google can’t find or validate your quality signals, they will be for naught. You want to ensure they’re clear and strong. That’s where “page quality” from the QRG comes in. The QRG provides a lot of detail around things like usefulness, appropriateness, and transparency. But the thing that stands out as the most vital is a concept that the QRG mentions over 120 times—it’s called “E-A-T,” which stands for ” Expertise,” “Authoritativeness,” and “Trustworthiness .” In other words, E-A-T refers to being credible, believable, and reliable. These quality signals are, in my estimation, critical in modern SEO for a variety of reasons. In an age where misinformation is rampant, spammers (and scammers) are busier than ever, and competition is at an all-time high, giving your users what they want will fall short if they don’t have confidence in the content you’re offering them (or in you, for that matter). There are plenty of tutorials on E-A-T out there, including some of my own . Some revolve around the quality of the content and improving a variety of signals that support it. Others include adding helpful snippets of code called “Schema markup” that helps Google contextualize those signals. But, to distill key signals from Google’s 170+-page set of guidelines down into a simple checklist, while possible, would be incomplete due to its subjective nature. But short of reading the QRG, here’s a simple list: Is the content helpful and does it have a beneficial purpose? Is the author or site owner clear, transparent, and credentialed? Is the site safe, secure, intuitive, and aesthetically pleasing? Is the content current, unique, accurate, and grammatically correct? Is the author or owner in good standing, with a good reputation? Is the site user-friendly, mobile-friendly, and obstruction-free? Is the author or owner mentioned in authoritative sources? Is the content cited elsewhere, authenticated, or peer-reviewed? Is the page offering an adequate amount of information? There are plenty of other signals, of course. But, these are the kinds of questions your audience wants answers to when visiting your site, whether they do so consciously or unconsciously. Your job is to provide those answers and to make them abundantly clear. How many answers you will need to provide and the depth of those answers will vary depending on many factors, such as the sensitive nature of the content or its degree of influence on the user. For example, a site offering medical advice will likely require more depth than one about cat lovers. To make the distinction, think of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs . Your users may have different needs. But there are foundational human needs, like survival, safety, and security, that must not only be met but also protected (from risks, threats, or perils) and not compromised. For instance, a site with a misleading, deceptive, or harmful page will have poor quality signals. If it has the potential of being any of these inappropriate things (or if it can be misconstrued as such), even if the site is legitimate and genuinely trying to be helpful, then the objective will be to strengthen the quality signals as much as possible to increase confidence in it and remove any doubt. All sites require quality signals. I submit that all sites need E-A-T signals to some degree, too. How much E-A-T, however, will depend on how much harm it can potentially cause. I’m certainly not a lawyer. But in civil litigation, I know that you must have a preponderance of evidence to support your argument. With SEO, the same holds true. The “preponderance of evidence” is directly tied to the weight of the argument, the risks involved, or the gravity of the potential consequences. The heavier the weight is, the stronger the evidence (or in this case, the quality signals) must be. Success leaves clues A keyword-first approach to SEO is the traditional way of getting rankings. That way still works, but it’s losing steam and not as effective as it used to be. A more effective way that will have a stronger impact on your visibility, and therefore your traffic, is to apply a user-first SEO approach. Search engines evolve and become more intelligent all the time so that they can combat spam, improve the quality of their users’ experience, and increase confidence in their results. Fundamentally, SEO hasn’t changed. But, to keep applying it in ways that Google has learned to overcome and improve on is wasted effort that could be better spent elsewhere, such as on providing users with more value. Think of it this way: you and Google share the same audience. Consequently, you ought to share the same goal, too, which is to provide users with the best possible content and user experience. If you don’t, the competition that does a better job of achieving that goal will eventually steal your share. Michel Fortin - VP of Digital Marketing at Musora Media Michel Fortin is a marketing advisor, author, speaker, and the VP of Digital Marketing at Musora Media, the company behind Drumeo. For nearly 30 years, he has worked with clients from around the globe to improve their visibility, build their authority, and grow their business. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Giuseppe Caltabiano In today’s saturated content marketing  landscape, where generative AI is redefining the way we work, creating content that not only engages website visitors but also secures high search engine rankings is more critical than ever.  This is where a great SEO-first content brief steps in. Distinct from traditional content briefs, an SEO-first content brief integrates essential SEO components, including target keywords, meta descriptions, and various optimization tactics to ensure superior visibility in search. Functioning as a strategic instrument, your SEO-first content brief can help you achieve this dual objective of ensuring that the content you commission is not only compelling and relevant to the audience, but is also optimized for search, helping drive organic traffic to your website or business. This comprehensive guide is designed to equip you with the necessary knowledge to craft the perfect content brief specifically tailored for SEO-first publications. Table of contents: What is an SEO-first content brief? How to create an SEO-first content brief SEO components Content components Tips for optimizing What is an SEO-first content brief? An SEO-first content brief is a document that provides specific instructions to content creators, outlining not only the topic, research, and key points to cover, but also the SEO elements needed to optimize the content for search engines. It is designed to help content rank higher in search engine results, thereby driving organic traffic to the website. The value of an SEO-first content brief lies in its ability to align content creation with your company’s SEO strategy . This dual focus can lead to improved visibility in search engine results, increased website traffic, and ultimately, higher conversion rates. Your content brief is crucial but, without SEO, you’re leaving traffic on the table As mentioned, an SEO-first content brief differs from a regular content brief in its emphasis on SEO elements (in addition to the usual content elements). While a regular content brief focuses on the content’s topic, audience, tone, and structure, an SEO-first content brief goes a step further by including SEO-specific components such as target keywords , meta descriptions , and SEO-friendly titles . It also often includes guidance on internal and external linking, keyword density, and other SEO best practices. We at Rock Content outsource most of our content creation so we certainly understand how an SEO-first content brief can improve internal workflows as well as content performance. After performing thorough keyword research and evaluating the search engine results page ( SERP ) to monitor competition, we use our own marketplace ’s AI-powered tools to find the creators that best match our brand’s needs. Average time on page, before and after our recent content brief revamp. The recent revamping of our SEO content brief reflects our dedication to SEO results and quality content creation. A survey of freelancers conducted after presenting the updated brief revealed that 90% found briefing quality significantly improved and the writing process strongly impacted. A post-revamp analysis using Google Analytics  showed a 23.73% increase in average time on page, a 3.94% drop in bounce rate, and a 7.84% extension in session duration, indicating improved user engagement. Although not all successful key performance indicators can be directly attributed to the new SEO-first content brief, it has undeniably impacted them. In essence, an SEO-first content brief integrates SEO strategies into the content creation process from an early stage, ensuring that the content is designed to perform well in search results. This approach can lead to more effective and impactful content that not only resonates with the audience but also aligns with search engine algorithms. How to create an SEO-first content brief Crafting an SEO-first content brief requires a nuanced approach that combines strategic thinking with practical implementation. It involves careful planning and execution, which I'll break down into essential steps. In fact, when assigning a piece of content to a freelancer or a junior employee, it’s important to provide clear and detailed instructions. This includes explaining the purpose of each SEO element and how it contributes to the overall quality and performance of the content. It encourages the content creator to familiarize themself with the brand and audience requirements—as well as the SEO requirements, enabling them to produce content that is valuable to the audience and ranks well on search engines. Moreover, it’s crucial to provide them with the necessary training and support. You can accomplish this through online or on-the-job training, workshops, or mentorship programs. Regular feedback and communication are also essential to ensure that they are on the right track and to address concerns promptl y.  Let’s start from the (non-negotiable!) SEO components of the brief. SEO components When creating an SEO-first content brief, there are several key elements to consider. Here is a comprehensive list: Title tag : This is an HTML element that specifies the title of a web page. It is displayed on (SERPs), so it should be descriptive and concise, accurately reflecting the content of the page. Remember to follow best practices when creating your title tags, as Google has been known to rewrite title tags  in some cases. Meta description : This is a brief summary of the page content, which appears under the title tag in SERPs. It should be compelling and include your target keywords. Target keyword(s) : These are the main keywords that your content should focus on. They should be relevant to the topic and have a reasonable search volume.  Some freelancers might offer keyword research as well. If your decision is to outsource keyword research to freelancers, make sure to add your own keyword research guidelines to the brief. Those guidelines might include: Best practices you follow Keyword intent Search volume Keyword difficulty Trending keywords  (if applicable) Long-tail keywords  (if applicable) Word count : Long-form content tends to rank better and earn more backlinks  over time, according to a study from HubSpot . You need to specify the desired length of the content; this can depend on the breadth of the topic and the type of content (listicle, article, etc). I’ve found that providing a word range based on what’s already on the SERPs works best. Internal linking : Include suggestions for internal links to other relevant content on your website—you can even include preferred anchor text. This can help improve the site’s SEO and provide additional value to the reader. Alt text : This is a description of an image used in the content, which helps search engines understand the image. It’s also important for website visitors that rely on screen readers. Buyer journey stage and calls to actions : Let your writer know what the intended goal of the content is. A smart content manager  or SEO strategist can include some notes on monetizing this traffic or driving a desired action with the right calls to action ( CTAs ).  Understanding where your intended piece of content lies in the buyer’s journey can help your writer create more effective content (e.g., shall they include more conversion-focused messaging or adopt a more informational tone?). And, CTAs encourage the website visitor to take a specific action, such as subscribing to a newsletter or purchasing a product. They should be compelling and clearly communicate the benefit of the action to the reader. In addition to all SEO components, it’s also important to consider “traditional” content components, like the brand voice and tone , the target audience, and the content goals (such as driving traffic to the website, increasing conversions, or building brand awareness). This is the topic of our next section. Content components Let’s remember that content isn’t just about keywords and structure. In addition to the SEO components, an SEO-first content brief should include the following content elements to guide writers. Short description of the content: Provide a concise overview of what the content will cover. This should include the main topic, the angle or unique perspective the content will take, and the key message or takeaway for the reader. This helps the writer understand the scope and focus of the content piece. Target audience/personas: Identify the specific audience segments or buyer personas the content is intended for. This includes:  Demographic information Interests Pain points Behavioral traits Etc.  Understanding the target audience helps tailor the content to their needs and preferences, increasing engagement and relevance. Brand voice and style guide: Outline the brand voice and tone that the content should convey. You can provide a style guide (if you have one) that includes guidelines on language, grammar, and formatting. This ensures consistency across all content and reinforces your brand identity. Benchmark articles: These are examples of high-performing content, either from your own brand or competitors, that the writer can use as a benchmark. These articles serve as a reference for the desired quality, tone, and structure of the new content piece. Analyzing successful content can also provide insights into what works well with the target audience and search engines. By incorporating these content components into the brief, you ensure that the writer has a comprehensive understanding of not only the SEO requirements but also the content's purpose, audience, and brand alignment. This holistic approach to content creation can lead to more effective and impactful content. Tips for optimizing SEO and content optimization go hand-in-hand. Beyond a solid brief, instruct your writers to use some of these techniques throughout the content for extra impact: Use headers  that mirror user search queries and format text strategically after headers to increase the chances of earning the featured snippet . Instead of relying on text graphics, employ bold or quote formatting to highlight key information. For example, after headers that ask questions (e.g, “ What is an SEO-first content brief? ” in this article), use formatting (e.g., bold or quote formatting) to call attention to text. Break-up dense content with bullet points and numbered lists for easy skimming. Not only does this enhance user experience, it also increases chances of appearing in featured snippets for list-based searches. Maximize accessibility and image SEO by including all relevant content within the alt text (but make sure to avoid keyword stuffing). This not only takes advantage of potential keywords but also ensures that visually impaired users can access the information effectively. Add multiple internal links to relevant, high-quality pages within your website. This signals topical relevance to search engines and helps users navigate deeper into your content. Craft compelling title tags and meta descriptions that accurately reflect your content and entice users to click. Think of them as mini-advertisements in search results. By implementing these simple yet impactful tips alongside your SEO-first content brief, you’ll be well on your way to publishing content that’s both search-engine friendly and engaging to visitors and potential customers. It’s not just about SEO—it’s about better user experience and business outcomes Crafting the perfect SEO-first content brief is an investment in both search engine ranking and audience engagement. By combining SEO best practices with clear instructions and brand alignment, you empower your writers to create content that attracts, informs, and converts. Think of it as the foundation for a successful content marketing strategy, one that attracts the right audience and delivers measurable results. Remember, the impact of a well-crafted brief goes beyond search engines. It empowers your writers to tell compelling stories, share valuable insights, and ultimately build genuine connections with your audience. Behind every keyword and ranking is a potential reader seeking value and connection. With a meticulously designed content brief, even the most daunting SEO hurdles become surmountable. This, in turn, fosters trust, loyalty, and ultimately, conversions. Ready to unlock the full potential of your content creation? Take the first step by investing in an SEO-first content brief that empowers your writers, engages your audience, and drives real results. Giuseppe Caltabiano - VP of Marketing at Rock Content   Giuseppe is a global marketing leader with 20+ years' experience. He excels in crafting content and marketing strategies for SaaS enterprises. Recognized as 2-time influential European B2B marketer, he has an MBA from SDA Bocconi and is trained in M&A at London Business School. Twitter  | Linkedin