Search Results

Author: Vinnie Wong Your position in search engine results pages (SERPs) greatly influences your online visibility, which is why SEOs and site owners commonly track their rankings. But, the goal with SEO is not necessarily to optimize your pages for the top position—it’s to attract and convert an audience in order to propel your business forward. Like many other SEO metrics, rankings are a snapshot of how your content is performing—it’s not the entire story. Contextualizing your rankings will allow you to get a wider view of how your brand is actually performing in the search results, enabling you to make better strategic decisions. In this article, I’ll guide you through how to approach rank tracking, tactical tips for better rank tracking, tool recommendations, and more. Table of contents: Why rank tracking is important Why rankings aren’t everything Search volume is no replacement for search intent Tactical tips for tracking your search rankings Track SERP features Be deliberate about which keywords you track Monitor multiple search engines Track local and global rankings Rank tracking mistakes to avoid Tools for rank tracking Google Search Console Ahrefs Semrush Rank tracker alternatives Why rank tracking is important for your SEO Effective SEO and content marketing are more than just publishing content and hoping for the best. Be it qualitative or quantitative, data drives strategies and success when it comes to online visibility. Rank tracking gives you a window into how relevant search engines consider your content to be for certain queries, which can be a proxy for what your target audience is looking for. Besides evaluating strategy success and guiding optimizations, tracking your site’s rankings provides numerous advantages, such as: 01. Identifying opportunities for greater visibility: Simply put, the more often your site ranks at the top of search results, the more organic traffic you receive. Over 99% of people will only visit a site on the first search results page, according to Backlinko, highlighting how important it is for your site to rank higher for your target keywords. By tracking your ranking trends for specific keywords, you can assess the effectiveness of your SEO strategy and identify areas for improvement. 02. Stakeholder buy-in: While SEO is a long game, building a number of minor wins will lead to compounding growth. It can be difficult to explain why your team should pursue a certain direction with content or SEO (or why you should get budget/buy-in for your recommendations), but by tracking your rankings, you can show the ROI of your SEO efforts to stakeholders by tying them back to business-critical metrics like conversions or revenue. 03. Competitive analysis: Tracking your rankings alongside those of your competitors enables you to gauge your position in the market and identify any competitors who are catching up or surpassing your brand. By keeping a close eye on your competition, you can adjust your strategy, maintain a competitive edge, or even use their online growth to make a case for more internal resources to regain diminished rankings. 04. Data for more informed decision-making: Rank tracking provides valuable data that can inform your overall business strategy. For example, by analyzing which content pieces or campaigns have led to significant ranking improvements, you can make data-backed decisions on where to focus your efforts and allocate resources. Identifying “striking-distance” keywords (keywords ranking just outside the top positions, usually 11-20, in search results) is also a common way to use rank tracking data to identify low-hanging fruit. You would never need to track your rankings if they didn’t change, but they do—even for older content. Search engine rankings constantly evolve, causing your website’s SERP positions to fluctuate. Let’s dive into the key factors behind these shifts and how they can guide your SEO and keyword tracking decisions. Why rankings change Your content’s search rankings can move up or down due to a variety of factors. Some you can control, others not so much. To make the right moves with your website optimization and keyword tracking, let’s look at the main factors behind ranking shifts: Algorithm updates: Google and other search engines are constantly refining their algorithms to deliver relevant results to users. When they introduce new updates or tweak existing ranking factors, your pages’ positions can change significantly. Competitor activity: It’s frustrating when your competitor leapfrogs your site for high-value keywords. Perhaps they optimized their site, updated their content, or earned more backlinks to those pages. As they improve their own SEO, their rankings may adjust to reflect that, nudging yours up or down in response. New content and indexation: Search engines crawl and index fresh and older content non-stop. This means the SERPs are always changing as new pages join the fray and old ones bow out. If a top-performing piece targeting the same keywords as yours hits the scene, your rankings might take a hit. Seasonality and trends: Some keywords see shifts in search volume and rankings because of seasonal fluctuations or current events. As user behavior evolves, search engines adjust their algorithms, which can impact your position. Technical issues: Website problems like slow page load times, broken links, or indexation issues can drag your rankings down. Keeping an eye on your site’s technical health and fixing any problems is key to keeping your rankings steady. While we’ve highlighted the importance of rank tracking, it’s important to know that rankings aren’t the be-all and end-all of your SEO success. They play a significant role in driving traffic, but other factors like search volume and intent are just as crucial in determining the overall performance of your website. Why rankings aren’t everything You might celebrate high rankings for your target keywords, but don’t let that be your only measure of success. The real magic happens when you turn that traffic into tangible results—think leads, sales, and engaged users. Top rankings alone can’t guarantee an amazing user experience, which plays a huge role in keeping visitors around and driving conversions. Picture this as an example—a page ranks high, but: Takes forever to load, It’s hard to navigate, And visuals are an eyesore. It’s no surprise that visitors won’t convert. On the flip side, a site with slightly lower rankings but fantastic user experience could see much better conversion rates. So, while it’s great to see those rankings climb, remember there’s more to the story (and any number of scenarios in which high rankings don’t equate to business success). Two things to consider when thinking about which keywords to track include search volume and searcher intent. Search volume is no replacement for search intent While search rankings and search volume are different concepts, they’re deeply intertwined by competition: Keywords that have a high search volume are usually more difficult to rank for, since more websites will likely want to get their content in front of those searchers. Search volume refers to the number of times a specific keyword is searched for within a given time frame (typically monthly). Targeting high search volume keywords can lead to increased visibility and traffic, but it’s essential not to overlook the importance of intent and its impact on conversion rate. After all, driving traffic to your website is only half the battle—you also need to turn those visitors into customers. Conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or filling out a contact form. A high conversion rate shows that your website is effectively addressing your audience’s search intent (be it informational, commercial, or transactional), which can be very influential in convincing them to complete the desired action, leading to increased revenue and business growth. When selecting keywords to target, it’s crucial to balance search volume and search intent if you want visitors to convert. While it’s tempting to go after high-volume keywords, established players in your industry might already dominate the results for those search terms. It’ll take a lot of effort and potentially a larger budget to make your way into those results. In this case, it’s probably a better use of your time to go after long tail keywords—more specific, less competitive phrases. These typically have lower search volume but often yield higher conversion rates. These keywords are more aligned with the searcher’s intent, making it more likely that visitors will click through and convert. “There once was a time when nobody really knew what the Walmart Marketplace was. That’s when my former team decided to create a blog series around the Walmart Marketplace because it was relevant to our product. Even though Semrush said there was zero search volume, we rolled with it—and sure enough, those articles were some of our greatest hits. We had some of the earliest ranking content around the topic, and received lots of leads from that series.” — Allison Lee, editor-in-chief at Wix To make the most of your SEO efforts, focus on targeting a mix of high search volume keywords and long tail keywords with strong conversion potential. Remember, the goal of your SEO strategy is to grow your business—not just to achieve high search rankings. Tactical tips for tracking your search rankings It’s challenging to know where to start or which tools to use if you’re new to the world of SEO. Here are some tips to help you track your progress, identify opportunities for improvement, and make informed decisions for optimizing your website. Track SERP features Optimizing certain pages for “zero-click” queries (searches that don’t typically result in the user clicking through to a website, usually because the query was answered directly on the SERP) can boost traffic by way of featured snippets, local packs, knowledge panels, or other SERP features. Yes, that does make the term “zero-click” somewhat misleading, as a study by Ahrefs showed that featured snippets can “steal” nearly one-third of clicks from the top result. Remember, search engines like Google are trying to provide the best user experience as quickly as possible. While this answer (in the example above) might satisfy a search query, a user may still click on the result to learn more considering their dog’s skin condition, for example. However, some zero-click queries actually live up to their name and are far less likely to result in a click-through to a website. This can happen when users are looking for things like the weather, stock prices, definitions, or similar at-a-glance information. In addition, the presence of new SERP features could affect your page’s performance. Rank tracking tools may not immediately reflect this, so if you notice a sudden change in key metrics (like traffic or CTR, for example) that’s not accompanied by a dip in rankings, then the next place to check is the SERP for that keyword. Be deliberate about which keywords you track A common mistake that many new SEOs and site owners make is tracking every keyword that might be relevant to their business. This approach can actually be counterproductive as it can lead to a significant amount of time (and potentially resources) spent optimizing for keywords that don’t drive conversions or revenue. Think of your keyword strategy as fishing. Instead of trying to catch every fish in the sea while fishing at peak hours and sitting next to people who have bigger boats than you, focus on fishing in quieter waters where you know you’ll get a catch. In other words, track keywords that have a high potential to rank and are relevant to your audience. This is why long tail keywords are often a good place to start, as they tend to be less competitive and more specific to a particular niche or audience. Additionally, long tail keywords are typically more aligned with the searcher’s intent, which makes them more likely to generate conversions. Monitor multiple search engines While Google accounts for the lion’s share of the worldwide search engine market (93% as of March 2023), tracking your rankings on other search engines like Bing and Yahoo! could provide new opportunities for traffic and conversions. While your website may rank well on Google, it’s possible that your competitors are outperforming you on other search engines. This is especially relevant for sites with international audiences, as the popularity (and even existence) of any given search engine can vary by country. By tracking your rankings across multiple search engines, you can identify areas where you may need to improve your optimization efforts to stay ahead of the competition. Another reason to track your performance across multiple search engines is to gain a better understanding of how different search engines interpret and display your content. Search engines have different algorithms and ranking factors, which can result in not only different search results, but also different search features or capabilities for the same query. Track local and global rankings If you have a physical store or primarily serve customers within a specific geographic region, tracking your local rankings is crucial. Local SEO refers to the practice of optimizing content for searches that are specific to a particular location, such as best restaurants in Los Angeles or plumbers near me. These results are often displayed in local packs or map listings, making it easier for users to find businesses in their area. Even if you don’t have a physical store, tracking your local rankings is still valuable for home or professional services providers that serve a specific geographic region (i.e., landscapers, home inspectors, etc.). If your business operates primarily online, tracking your global rankings is more important. These rankings are especially important for eCommerce businesses that sell products worldwide or offer services that can be accessed remotely. Rank tracking mistakes to avoid When it comes to rank tracking, there are some common mistakes that can actually hurt your SEO efforts in the long run. Here are a few key “don’ts” to keep in mind: Focusing on low-value keywords As mentioned above, you shouldn’t track every keyword that is possibly relevant. The ones you do track should be for pages that have some sort of strategic value for your business. Prioritizing those keywords simply provides you with more useful, actionable data. For example, if you operated a local gym, a 10-position dip in rankings for your location and sign-up pages would need to be addressed much more urgently than the same rankings nosedive for your “member of the week” page. Focusing solely on rankings While tracking your rankings is an important part of an effective SEO strategy, focusing solely on this metric can be a mistake. Rankings alone don’t provide the full picture of how your website performs in search results or how users interact with it. It’s important to also monitor metrics like click-through rate, bounce rate, time on site, and conversion rate, for example, to understand your website’s overall performance. External factors, like seasonality, should also be considered—an umbrella brand might rank number one year-round, but it's probably converting much less frequently during dry seasons; that is not an insight that rankings alone would show you. Prioritizing only high search volume keywords While high search volume keywords can drive significant impressions and/or traffic to your website, it can be a mistake to overemphasize these keywords in your strategic decision making. High-volume keywords are often highly competitive, making it difficult for smaller businesses to rank for them. Instead, consider targeting long tail keywords that are more specific and less competitive, which can drive more targeted traffic to your site and improve your chances of ranking higher. “Volume doesn't always equal value—keep an eye on zero-volume keywords for niche industries (especially B2B), emerging trends, and recurring events (like the Oscars, for example). Don't underestimate the power of high CPC keywords, as they often indicate competitive and profitable markets even if they are considered to be zero-volume by some tools.” — Myriam Jessier, digital strategist and SEO trainer at PRAGM Tools for rank tracking There’s a large selection of rank tracker tools available, some more comprehensive than others. Depending on your budget, you might not need the most expensive one or you may not require a paid tool at all. So you can decide which tool best fits your situation, we’ll explore a few of the most common options and share why many SEOs consider them to be the best for tracking keyword rankings. Google Search Console Every site owner can access Google Search Console (GSC) for free, all you need to do is verify your site (note: Wix site owners can use the built-in GSC integration to verify their site). GSC provides the most accurate raw data for Google search results and offers a wealth of data about your site’s search performance, including keyword rankings, impressions, clicks, and click-through rate (CTR). It also helps identify and fix technical issues that could be affecting your site’s performance. The downside to GSC is there is no automated way to track keyword rankings. You’ll need to manually go in and check each time you want to know the positions of your target keywords. Identifying “striking-distance” keywords with GSC One way to use GSC’s keyword tracking is to identify low-hanging fruit to go after. To do so, select the Performance report and you’ll see a chart showing clicks and impressions (the default setting). Next, toggle the chart’s Average CTR and Position filters. This gives you an overall idea of how often users clicked on your listing when they searched for a specific keyword. To find potentially under-optimized pages, export your site’s data by clicking on the top-right Export button. You’ll have three options to choose from; Google Sheets, Excel, or CSV. Whichever format you choose, you can create a filter showing keywords that you rank for from positions eight and beyond. Click on the Position filter icon at the top-right of the table. Comb through the lower ranked results, as you can click into each keyword to see which pages these keywords are ranking for. If you haven’t updated those pages in a while, adding or refreshing content could be an easy win to bump your articles higher. Note: Wix site owners can also access GSC data, including average position, impressions, clicks, and CTR, from directly within the Wix dashboard’s Top Search Queries on Google report. Ahrefs If you explore paid rank tracking tools, you'll find more features that can be helpful for SEO professionals at agencies or those managing multiple domains. Subscribing to any of Ahrefs’ paid plans, starting from $99 per month, gives you access to its Rank Tracker. If you have several domains, you can add each of them as separate projects to track multiple keywords associated with each domain. Clicking into one of the projects will bring you to this dashboard where you’ll see which pages are ranking for certain keywords. To track keywords, just click on the orange button in the top-right corner. Add each keyword line by line or search for published articles by URL to track them. From the dashboard, you can toggle specific views by clicking on the corresponding box (the default view is “Share of Voice”) to get quick insights. Under tracked URLs, you can see performance over time through a graph or check what the SERPs currently look like, which can be useful for identifying new SERP features that don’t affect your rankings but may affect traffic (e.g., direct answers). Semrush Semrush subscribers can monitor their rankings using its “Position Tracking” tool. Once you’ve set up your project and added your keywords, you can customize your tracking settings. For example, you can choose to track your rankings on a daily or weekly basis, and you can set up email alerts to notify you of any significant changes in your rankings. You can also use Semrush to uncover underperforming keywords. To do this, navigate to the Organic Research section (in the left-hand menu), enter your domain, and click on the Positions tab. This will show you a list of all the keywords your website is ranking for, along with their search volume, position, and other metrics. Similar to how you might with GSC, you can sort the list by position to find keywords that are ranking below the first page of search results. You can also use Semrush’s “Keyword Gap” tool to compare your keyword rankings to those of your competitors and identify areas where you may be falling behind. The tool even has an “On-Page SEO Checker” feature that can analyze your content and provide recommendations on how to improve it for better rankings. Rank tracker alternatives Most SEOs use either Ahrefs or Semrush. Both are equally robust, and much of the time it comes down to personal preference and how easy each person finds the tool to use. For tracking keywords in particular, there are several cheaper alternatives that deserve a shoutout if you’re on a tighter budget. Agency Analytics: A powerful all-in-one SEO tool with a comprehensive rank tracking feature, customizable white-label reports, and integrations with third-party tools. AccuRanker: A high-precision rank tracker that provides real-time and historical data, competitor analysis, and a user-friendly interface. SERPWatcher: A rank tracking tool that focuses on tracking daily changes in keyword rankings, providing insights into search visibility, and monitoring local and mobile rankings. Rank Ranger: A comprehensive SEO and digital marketing platform that offers advanced rank tracking, in-depth keyword research, and comprehensive reporting capabilities. Keeping track of the goal, not just keyword rankings Regardless of which tool you decide to use, rank tracking should be used to identify the best keywords as part of your overall SEO strategy. But, remember that it’s primarily a means to an end. The goal is to improve your business and raise its bottom line. Keep this top-of-mind when you create, track, and optimize content so you can make more profitable decisions. Rank tracking for its own sake won’t get you very far if you obsess about the numbers; it’s about honing in on what type of content brings the most value to your audience and improves your business. Vinnie Wong - Founder and Chief Strategist at Content Cartography Vinnie is a content expert with over 5 years of SEO and content marketing experience. He's worked with Ahrefs, Empire Flippers, and is committed to crafting exceptional content and educating others on the symbiotic relationship between content creation and effective link building. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Sophie Brannon Whether you’re working agency-side, in-house, or as a freelancer, reporting back to your stakeholders is important for getting buy-in and highlighting your achievements. Even if you’re the only employee of your own business, regularly creating reports can help ensure your SEO strategy is on track. Often, the SEO report provides a justification for the budget that the company is spending on this area of marketing. The problem is, most SEO reports are not easy to understand for people who don’t already know SEO. Here, we’re taking a look at SEO reporting specifically for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). In this article, we’ll cover: What an SEO report is What should be included in your SEO report The depth of reporting Matching data to business goals Essentials to report on Examples of common reporting scenarios Free tools that you can use to build your reports What is SEO reporting? SEO reporting offers insights into the performance of an SEO campaign. It should provide a summary of the key metrics and tell stakeholders (the decision makers that you’re reporting to, which could include yourself) what is working and highlight further opportunities for growth. Effective SEO reporting can help you to make smarter marketing and business decisions. An SEO report can come in different formats, but will generally offer an overview of works completed, key metrics, and justification for why the work was carried out. In most cases, an SEO report is the only tangible thing a client, stakeholder, or the wider team will see—meaning it is the most valuable way to show the work that you have been doing and the impact it’s having. Demonstrating the value of SEO can be difficult—unlike with other channels (such as paid advertising, for example), it’s not always clear what the return on investment is, particularly in the early stages of a campaign. This is why quality SEO reporting is crucial. What to include in SEO reports If you’re working within an SMB and you’re managing the SEO for one or more websites, understanding how to report back to key stakeholders can help you showcase the value of the work you’re doing. But, how do you structure these SEO reports? Define the depth of reporting First, you need to define the depth of the report you’re putting together so that stakeholders understand the business impacts and have all the information they need to make informed marketing decisions. The granularity of your reports will be determined by the people you are delivering the reports to. Whether you’re working in-house or agency-side with SMBs, there are two groups of people your report is likely to be going to: marketing managers and business directors. Marketing managers: This group will at least have a high-level understanding of what SEO is and may be interested in deeper metrics. Depending on the seniority of the marketing manager, they may already have access to Google Analytics or other reporting dashboards and are likely more interested in deeper insights and strategic decision-making. They may want to know how the SEO that you’re leading ties into the greater marketing strategy and other channels that they are managing. Your report should connect the dots and provide insights that they are not able to source for themselves. Business directors: If you’re delivering a report to the director (or a board of directors) of a business, then different metrics are likely to be important to them. They will typically have a lesser understanding of SEO than a marketing manager will. The director of a business will likely be more interested in what impacts the bottom line. Metrics like revenue and transactions (for an eCommerce site, for example) or goal completions (such as form fills and leads) will be more valuable to them than metrics like search visibility. The report itself should be less complex than a report for a marketing manager and should clearly show the most valuable, relevant metrics. Insights and recommendations should be provided as well as an outline of the changes you have made and their impacts. A director of a business is unlikely to know what a log file analysis or an alt attribute is but they will want to know what the return on their budget is. Match data to business goals Show the data that matters most to the business in your SEO reports. In a study of 1200 small business owners and decision makers, 83% of respondents stated that SEO providers should be able to help them “access new customers,” according to Backlinko . Just over 60% of business owners cited that “increasing brand awareness” was also important to them. Specifying what these key metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) are right at the start of the campaign can help you to better structure your reporting later and contextualize results. This can also help you properly benchmark your performance and monitor campaign success. KPIs set at the start of the campaign will define the stakeholder’s idea of “success.” You may consider setting up multiple reporting dashboards: One for you (as the SEO measuring relevant site metrics) but also metrics that feed into these that you deem important. Another more streamlined report that highlights the core business-related metrics for the stakeholder. Essentials to report on So, what are the “must-haves” in an SEO report for SMBs? Traffic (filtered by “organic”) — Show how many people are visiting the site via the search results Goal completions (filtered by “organic”) — This could be revenue, transactions, form fills, etc. Branded vs. non-branded traffic growth Detailed insights (more on this below) Detailed recommendations (more on this below) A clear year-over-year comparison (rather than month-over-month, as this does not account for seasonality or trends) Your SEO report should tell a story. It should have an outline of what your objectives are , what you’ve done to meet these objectives, and the impact of this work. It should include any key learnings or strategies/processes that have been put in place (whether they’ve worked out or not). It should provide detailed insights, looking not just at your changes, but also at the wider market: What are competitors doing? Has there been an algorithm update that possibly influenced performance? And, has there been a significant shift in buyer trends? All of these factors can be included in an “insights” section. The insights should explain why the data says what it says . Your recommendations should explain what you are going to do about it (or what the business should). It is also important that your insights explain any barriers that you are facing. Example of common reporting scenarios Below are a few scenarios that may help you to structure your insights and recommendations. 01. Traffic, revenue, and goal completions have all increased The data shows that traffic is up and revenue and goal completions have also risen. Insight ( What has caused the data to look like that ): An increase in keyword positions Growth in overall keyword visibility Growth in top 3 or page 1 positioning Keyword improvements, specifically on conversion-focused keywords Peak seasonality for the business Other marketing campaigns (such as email marketing or PPC) have contributed to the uplift in organic traffic Growth in brand visibility A combination of the above Recommendation ( What are you going to do about it? ): Replicate the success of the keyword improvements with other terms (you’ll likely need to explain how you’re going to do this as well) Maintain the uplift in keyword positions (and how you’re going to do this) Capitalize on the seasonality by focusing on the main target terms Continuing to maintain visibility in other marketing channels so that they can all work as an integrated strategy (this may require collaborating with other teams) Improve non-branded visibility alongside the increase in brand visibility Focus on the company’s Google Business Profile to improve brand visibility in local searches Improve positioning for all areas of the funnel The report should explain that the campaign is going well (data) , why it’s going well (insights) , and what your team is going to do to make it better (recommendation) . 02. Traffic, revenue, and goal completions have all decreased The data shows that traffic, revenue, and goal completions have all dropped. Insight ( What has caused the data to look like that? ): Seasonality (the industry as a whole has seen a decline) Brand demand has fallen (this can be seen on Google Trends) Impact from a Google algorithm update Major website changes (such as migration or content removal) Manual action Your recommendations have not been implemented Volatility (check if keyword positions for main terms have been moving around frequently) Decreased demand (i.e., search volume reduction, decreased impressions). In this case, you’ll need to identify and report on whether it was a particular keyword, group of keywords, or page that has led to the impressions drop, as well as the cause. Recommendation ( What are you going to do about it? ): Identify opportunities for quick growth (i.e., create new content, re-optimize an important page that has dropped dramatically, etc.) Assess algorithm update , industry impact, and restrategize (i.e., has Google changed its understanding of intent ) Explain how you’re going to get your recommendations implemented (this is especially important if performance is suffering because your previous recommendations weren’t implemented) For a demand drop, identify whether there are other areas of growth that can be focused on and restrategize The report should explain that the campaign is not performing as expected (data) , why it’s not going well (insights) , and how you’re going to make it better (recommendation) . 03. Traffic is down, but revenue and goal completions are up The data shows that traffic has decreased, but revenue and goal completions have grown. Insight ( What has caused the data to look like that? ): Some of the pages that aren’t critical for conversions (such as blog posts) may have lost traffic. This could be seasonal (e.g., guides that do well in winter but lose traffic from spring), or it could be Google updating its understanding of intent for the terms that page is targeting. Conversion-based pages may still be performing well. Other versions of the site may not be performing as well as they were previously e.g., alternative language versions that are being tracked on the same analytics account, but aren’t optimized for search). In this case, focus on the main version(s) of the site, if that’s what you’re tracking. Visibility drop or keyword drop, but branded traffic is still driving conversions. Visibility dropped overall, but main conversion-driving keywords are still performing well. Recommendation ( What are you going to do about it? ) : A content audit might help your team get a better understanding of what has gone wrong in the blog and what you can do to improve it. This could help build a new content strategy as well. Recommend investing budget into other (international) versions of the site. Review the specific keywords that have dropped. Can a page be re-optimized for these terms? Has Google changed the intent and, therefore, do you need to reframe the content that was ranking for this term? Do you need to direct more links towards these pages if it’s a primary term that dropped? The report should explain that the campaign is going well (data) , where it can be improved and why (insights) , and how you’re going to make it better (recommendation) . 04. Traffic is up, but revenue and goal completions are down The data shows that, while traffic is on the rise, revenue and goal completions have declined. Insight ( What has caused the data to look like that? ) : This could be a result of seasonality, where we see a higher number of inquiries than direct sales through the website, even though traffic is still visiting the site. This could be because more traffic is visiting inner pages, such as the blog or the contact page, and not converting at the same rate. This could be informational-based traffic rather than conversion-based traffic as a result of long tail keyword content driving keyword rankings. This could be due to increased branded traffic from customers who may have previously converted and are now returning site visitors. A higher proportion of new visitors have landed on the site. Historically, the average conversion time for this site is X number of visits through different channels before converting, so this traffic is likely to convert at a later date. Measuring macro vs. micro conversions (e.g., they may not have purchased on the site, but we’ve seen an increase in email sign-ups). Recommendation ( What are you going to do about it? ) : Make sure exit intent (an offer or promo code that can appear, usually in the form of a pop-up, as the user is trying to leave the site) and other customer-nurturing strategies are implemented on the site. Make the most of other channels (such as email marketing) to convert users at a later date. Focus on conversion-based keywords if a lot of the traffic is being driven by informational content. If this is becoming a regular pattern, then perhaps the user experience needs to be reviewed and tweaked. The report should state that the campaign is going well (data) , how it can be improved and why (insight) , and how you’re going to improve it (recommendation) . Since your insights and recommendations are based on your performance data, let’s briefly discuss some industry-standard tools that you’ll likely be using to collect that data, as well as other options for your reporting needs. Free tools to track SEO performance Large enterprises and agencies are likely to have several advanced tools at their disposal. With an SMB, the budget may not be available for this. But, that doesn’t mean your reporting has to be any less detailed. Some of the most beneficial tools for SEO reporting are free. Google Analytics Google Analytics has always been an important data platform for understanding how users are arriving at and interacting with your site. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of Google’s analytical platform and offers a variety of predefined reports that you can use for your SEO reporting. By default, you can view the following reports: Acquisition – Where your traffic originates from Engagement – Events and conversion events triggered by the user Monetization – Revenue generated Retention – How frequently users visit and for how long Demographics – The type of users visiting by age, location, language, and gender Tech – The technology your visitors are using You can then proceed to drill down further into this data, adjusting the date range and channel. Google Analytics 4 can allow you to develop a combination of reporting based on your needs. You can view built-in dashboards for more basic reports on the metrics outlined above. For more complex reporting however, you can dive into Google’s reporting APIs , which offer more advanced segmentation. Simply put, Google Analytics 4 offers an invaluable data source which can help to automate both simple and more complex reporting tasks, no matter the type of online business you’re reporting on. Google Search Console Gathering data straight from what the search engine can see is another important part of the equation and can also help you monitor your site’s technical health — Google Search Console is the platform that can do this. ​​The reporting options available in Google Search Console include: Clicks Impressions Position Click-through rate (CTR) Crawl errors Page experience / Core Web Vitals / mobile usability Enhancements ( rich results ) Indexed pages / video pages / sitemaps / removals Security issues and manual actions Backlinks Individual URL inspection Bing also offers Bing Webmaster Tools , which can provide similar data but specific to Bing as a search engine. Google accounts for over 90% of the market share globally (at the time of publication) so while Bing should not be discredited and can be a valuable data resource, Search Console may be more relevant for your SEO reporting. Your content management system Some content management platforms offer data insights directly within their dashboards, such as the Wix Analytics reports . Wix offers pre-built, editable reporting split into a Traffic Overview , Behavior Overview and Marketing & SEO reports. While this data is particularly useful for quick insights and can form the basis of automated reporting (perhaps on a weekly or monthly basis), you’ll have more freedom to get granular with the data on more detailed analytics platforms such as Google Analytics or similar. Keyword positions One thing we haven’t mentioned throughout this guide is keyword positions: Keyword positions are generally an old-school reporting tactic. Google’s advancements mean that different keywords can appear in different positions based on device, location, user behavior and more. This makes tracking individual keywords difficult—especially without the use of paid SEO tools. It can also lead to warped views of SEO performance as those with little to no SEO knowledge may hyper-fixate on specific keyword positions (as opposed to bigger-picture metrics like traffic or conversions). Generally, business-aligned metrics offer a more valuable performance measurement. Unless directly specified by the stakeholder as something to track, avoid reporting on keyword positions unless you have access to tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking or similar that can automate this tracking for you. Generally, combining multiple reporting and data platforms can provide you with a well-rounded view of your SEO performance. With multiple metrics to consider, measure these against the business objectives that you are looking to meet to determine what to include within your reporting. Communicate your needs, recommendations, and success with SEO reports Remember, reports are the core channel of communication to showcase SEO’s value and return on investment. As such, they can make or break a relationship with a stakeholder. When managing SEO for an SMB, there are some key fundamentals to remember to help with your SEO reporting: 01. Define the metrics you should report on at the start of the campaign, and get direction from the key decision maker on what these metrics should be. 02. Tailor the report based on who is receiving it and their level of knowledge. 03. Keep your report only as detailed as it needs to be and avoid excess data. 04. Provide actionable insights and recommendations based on the data. 05. Make sure your report tells a story. 06. Connect all areas of your report to the main business goals and KPIs. The better your SEO reporting, the more buy-in you will receive from the stakeholders that manage budgets, enabling you to make an impact on the company’s success—not to mention your own professional success as well. Sophie Brannon - SEO Specialist Sophie is an SEO specialist with 7 years of agency experience. She's led strategy, implementation, and communication for local campaigns through to multi-language international campaigns. She's also an industry speaker and led the Web Almanac 2022 SEO chapter. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Myriam Jessier Let me tell you about George. George’s last search was for a good vacuum for his house. Potential customers like George are looking for the best, the quietest, the most affordable vacuum out there. Throughout their journey to identify the right vacuum for their needs, they'll conduct informational searches, comparative searches, and visit numerous brand and comparison sites. With a house full of dogs and cats, George needs the best vacuum for pet hair. But, other customers may want to find the best vacuum for their car or tile floors. Each one of these searches presents an opportunity for eCommerce businesses to get in front of customers so that when it's finally time to buy, they'll be in the running. But, you only stand a chance if you're able to address your target customer's specific challenges. This is where long tail keywords come in. Table of contents: An introduction to long tail keywords for eCommerce Breaking down a long tail eCommerce search query How to build a long tail keyword matrix for your online store Long tail keyword matrix example Figure it out with the TOP framework How to pick the right long tail keywords for your pages Homepage Category pages Product pages Sale pages Blog posts Long tail for SEO, big money for eCommerce Long tail keywords are search terms that are highly specific to what the user is looking for and generally contain three or more words. The full definition is a bit more nuanced than that, check out “The long tail: A short history beyond keywords” for a more detailed overview. These keywords mean big money for eCommerce brands. Uncovering them can help your store target customers that are looking for a specific product. Consequently, attracting customers who are almost ready to buy makes them more likely to buy from you. Using these keywords will contribute to increasing your sales. One of the biggest myths about long tail keywords is that they are easy to rank for—this is not necessarily true, either: They are easier to rank for. However, their key benefit is that they are higher intent queries, queries that lead to conversions more often than head terms. To help you visualize what this might look like in execution, here are some examples of the long tail for eCommerce SEO: For an online shoe retailer, instead of optimizing for the head term shoes, it would likely use the longtail keyword men’s white leather shoes, or women’s skate shoes, etc. A jewelry store might use the head term jewelry, but also use long tail keywords like necklaces, bracelets, and rings. However, these categories could also be considered too generic (or “head”) as they are very hard to rank for and very vague in terms of searcher intent. Getting back to our earlier example (featuring George), we can use vacuum as a head term and best vacuum for pet hair as a long tail keyword. If you want to go even deeper, here is an even more specific query: best vacuum for pet hair and hardwood floors. Breaking down a long tail eCommerce search query Now that we have gone over the theory, let’s dive into what an eCommerce long tail keyword looks like in real life—let’s deconstruct the anatomy of a long tail eCommerce search query. When someone searches for black men’s ripped jeans size 32, they aren’t looking for just any old jeans. This person has provided qualifiers: Jeans — The core product Black — Color criteria Ripped — Style criteria Men’s — Clothing category type Size 32 —Size criteria If any one of the expressed criteria aren’t met, then the searcher is not satisfied and would not necessarily consider buying a product that is the wrong color, wrong size, for the wrong type of customer, the wrong style, or simply the wrong product (i.e., not jeans). This is why it’s important to consider the anatomy of a search query to truly understand what folks are looking for and how they express those needs via long tail keywords. How to build a long tail keyword matrix for your online store You may have noticed that the only thing distinguishing some long tail keywords from their head term variants is a few additional characteristics (e.g., embroidered leather blacksmith’s apron vs. apron). Creating a keyword matrix can help you identify potential long tail keywords based on the combination of various characteristics. With a matrix, you will be able to find keywords that have a high volume (because people seek out the products) and zero volume keywords. Keywords with zero search volume can be high intent long tail queries for things you sell that SEO tools cannot provide data for. If an SEO keyword research tool has no information on a product’s search history because it’s too new or just starting to trend again, you could miss opportunities. A keyword matrix can also help you overcome not having a subscription to a traditional paid SEO tool or not having data for specific products. Start by listing general and specific characteristics for your store’s product categories, products, collections, etc. Once the list is complete, create a matrix that shows how those characteristics are related to each other. To help you get started with your own matrix, let’s walk through an example for a gluten-free bakery. General characteristics: bakery, bread Specific characteristics for your categories: cookies, bread, etc. Product characteristics (size, color, type, brand, model, etc.): gluten-free Target audience (for women, men, children, girls, boys, retirees, new moms, etc.): Gluten-sensitive individuals Location: Canada, Québec, Québec City Below, I’ve added an example of a keyword matrix based on this bakery example. Before we use that for our other pages, let’s look at what the bakery’s homepage’s H1 could be, according to some of the characteristics above: 01. BRAND NAME, online gluten-free bakery in beautiful Québec city 02. BRAND NAME, Québec’s very own gluten-free bakery. 03. BRAND NAME, order gluten-free bread, pizza dough and more online Out of these options, which H1 is the best? It depends on your business. In this bakery’s case, they are very focused on delivering throughout the province of Québec, not just Québec City. This means that the first option is not optimal. The second option is great because it says what the company is (bakery) and where it operates (Québec). The third option is also viable because it goes into detail about the product categories and emphasizes the online aspect. We could go further and even create a Frankenstein of an H1: BRAND NAME bakery: order gluten-free bread online This is how most optimizations happen SEO-wise. You keep iterating until you find something that feels just right for your store. Long tail keyword matrix example You can create a long tail keyword matrix for any type of website. Let’s do this for our gluten-free bakery. You can start with a matrix and do a more refined analysis for specific products or collections as you go. People tend to search for longer, more specific phrases in order to find what they are looking for. The best way to find these long tail keywords is by conducting keyword research. You can do this by using tools like AnswerThePublic.com, Marmalead for Etsy, or any premium SEO tools such as SERPstat, Mangools, or Semrush. These tools can provide you with insights and statistical data you can use to create your long tail keyword matrix. You can also elect to go the free route by asking folks online, checking Etsy pages, Google autocomplete, Pinterest, and monitoring what your competitors are optimizing for. Figure it out with the TOP framework If you’re having difficulty coming up with potential long tail keywords for the pages that represent your business and its products and services, try approaching it using the TOP framework, a method developed by eCommerce SEO expert Kristina Azarenko. This framework is a great way to help you think about your products from an SEO perspective. TOP stands for target, occasions, and product attributes: Target audience — Who are your products for? Include the people who would buy these products for themselves and those who would buy it as a gift. Occasions — When are your products relevant? Graduation, divorce, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, hockey match, Bastille Day, etc. Product attributes — Qualities like color, size, trend, etc. Be specific, carmine and oxblood are both red but they’re better long tail opportunities than simply labeling a product as red. How to pick the right long tail keywords for your pages The long tail is an important part of SEO because it allows you to rank for your niche instead of competing with all other sites for the same term or topic. You can rank for something specific and get traffic from people who have that exact need. There are many different page types you can optimize for the long tail: Homepage Category/collection pages Product pages Sale pages Blog posts In the following sections, we’ll look at more specific guidance on applying the long tail to each of these page types. Finding your homepage’s long tail keyword You need to describe your store in unambiguous terms. For example, a customer looking for a gluten-free bakery that delivers would probably look for one they can find and order from online. As such, you could use online gluten-free bakery if you run a gluten-free eCommerce store. But, let’s take it a step further by leveraging your brand name and your location. Tell audiences who you are (your brand name), what you offer (the nature of your store) and where you offer it (online but also the country or city you operate from). Once you have your main keyword, you need to apply rule number one of eCommerce SEO: always optimize the H1. The best place to explain who you are, what you do, and where your business operates is in the big bold title on your homepage. Very often, that main title is the H1 (as it should be). Think of it as a big bold announcement to bots and humans. This is where you let everyone know about your store in a few words. How to find long tail keywords for your category pages Rule number two of eCommerce SEO: prioritize category page H1 titles. This is because category pages usually tend to get more traffic than individual product pages. The key objective to keep in mind for category pages is ensuring that they are not too generic. This also applies to product pages as well. Each category can be an opportunity to engage potential customers based on their intent. For example, if we create a matrix for “stud earrings,” we can see that there are many different search intents tied to that category. People are looking for colored stud earrings, where to buy stud earrings, different shapes, materials, etc. Here’s another form a keyword matrix can take—a mind map. For some, a mind map might help them visualize the strategy more easily than a standard matrix chart. Taking advantage of the way shoppers search, you could create category pages or ensure that certain filter pages are optimized for search. An example of a filter page would be when someone uses a color filter to pick out blue, black, red, or white stud earrings. In that case, the category page would be Colored stud earrings for women. You could also optimize the “gold stud earrings” category page or the “bar stud earrings” page. So, why are some keywords preferable for category pages? Because when folks look for something, they aren’t necessarily looking for a specific product—they may want to browse options. If we are shopping for “black stud earrings,” we have a need but not a desire for a specific product. As such, Google will tend to present pages that offer variety, as opposed to pages that showcase a singular product. This is why prioritizing category page optimizations makes sense if you are an online store. Finding keywords for your product pages Some keywords are incredibly specific: they 100% describe a specific product in your store. Any long tail keyword that sounds like it describes a single product available in your store should be that product page’s main keyword. It should be used in the H1 of the page. An example of this would be: Gold and Black Art Déco Statement Necklace. The difference between product and category pages (and when potential customers use them) is the main thing to keep in mind here. Again, someone looking for women’s stud earrings would want to see multiple options (i.e., a category page), whereas someone looking for Canadian designer black bar stud earrings would probably be looking for a specific product. So, ensure you’re using the right keywords to appeal to potential customers at the right time. Sale pages can also harness the long tail Creating a sales page is an SEO boon. Focus on long tail keywords there as well. When creating a sale page for SEO purposes, it is important to keep long tail keywords in mind from the start (if possible). These keywords should reflect two distinct search intents: Customer is looking for a specific brand’s sale Customer is looking for discounted products By using long tail keywords that are tailored to these two search intents, you can maximize the likelihood that your sale page shows up in relevant search results and helps attract more customers that are more likely to convert. Keywords such as “discounts on apparel” or “Black Friday sale” target customers that are generally looking for discounted items with no specific brand in mind. This way, you can ensure that your sale pages are receiving the maximum amount of qualified organic traffic from search engines. If you do not have active sales going on, you can use that page to tell people when your next sales are. Offer them a form to sign up for sales notifications. That way, you will be able to capture price-sensitive customers that can be more easily nudged towards buying your products. Blog posts can capture long tail search intent, too What do you do when the keywords clearly point to a search intent that does not belong on a category page? First, determine if it is something that describes a specific product you sell. An example of this would be the term black triangle stud earrings for women. Is the searcher looking for the best place to buy stud earrings? Or, could they be searching for the best earring shape for a specific hairstyle? In cases such as these, you are higher up in the customer funnel. Your customer is still on a journey to find the perfect product for them. You should produce content in your blog or resource center to help them find the right product, thus moving them closer to conversion while potentially ranking for those types of queries. Product pages have a transactional nature and cannot satisfy this type of long tail query. You need to provide useful information to help folks make a choice in their online shopping journey. Long tail keywords: Low volume, big opportunity The key to harnessing long tail keywords for an online store is to figure out what type of keywords belong to what type of page. After reading this article, you should be able to figure out what type of keyword belongs in a category page, in a product page, or in inspirational content like a blog article. Any store or site owner can build a keyword matrix, all you need to do is ask yourself and your customers the right questions to map things out. It can be a challenge for brands to show up in Google search results, particularly for their ideal keywords. While they may not be the highest volume queries, long tail keywords offer businesses of all sizes a way to optimize their content for more specific keywords that more than make up the difference with higher conversion rates. Myriam Jessier - SEO Trainer at PRAGM Myriam Jessier is an SEO consultant and trainer with 15+ years of experience. She loves to share her knowledge because it helps everyone make the web a bit more human and bot-friendly. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Myriam Jessier Long tail keywords offer B2B marketers a way to optimize their content for specific keywords that have low search volume, but high conversion rates. If you can rank for these valuable keywords, you’re likely to get more qualified traffic and better conversion rates. Targeting long tail B2B keywords is a great way for startups, SaaS companies, or local service providers to reach the right audience while narrowing down competition on the search results page. In this article, I’ll show how you can apply this to your content strategy by: Figuring out your audience’s search intent Evaluating whether Google favors B2C or B2B intent for relevant queries Identifying relevant long tail B2B keywords Template keywords Common B2B keyword examples Before we begin, let’s briefly take a moment to emphasize the importance of search intent within keyword research, not just for B2B businesses, but for all websites. Search intent: Research and consider content for each stage and motivation The theory is quite simple: You should start with keyword research because it will help you identify the terms your target audience is using when they search for your product or service (or ones similar to the ones you offer). You can then use these keywords in your content and optimize them for search engines, which should help you show up for relevant searches. But in practice, things can get messy. That’s because, while keywords are explicit, search intent is not. Intent is a mix of purpose, goals, motivations, reasons for acting, and so on. Here’s an example of search intent and how it can influence the search results. Users searching for pizza may have very different intents: Local intent: “I want to eat pizza near me.” Commercial: “What’s the best pizza in town?” Informational: “I want to learn about pizza and its history.” If you’re a food brand creating informational content about pizza, with the aim of ranking for that competitive head term (pizza), you should first verify that the keyword and intent you’re pursuing align with Google’s interpretation of the intent behind that keyword. A quick Google search shows that the results heavily favor local and commercial content (mainly local listings, pizza chains, and top 10 lists from restaurant review sites). That being the case, creating informational content may be going against the grain, which is likely to severely limit your visibility and traffic potential. First, figure out the intent behind the search While the nuts and bolts of keyword research are beyond the scope of this article, intent is a key part of the process. You should always focus on what your potential customers are looking for, but also seek to understand their “why” (the motivation behind the search). This will help you create content that speaks directly to their intent. As a B2B marketer, you need to help your potential and existing customers with their “buying jobs.” Each stakeholder has a different “buying job”: making sure the solution meets their criteria, making sure it’s within budget, making sure it’s compliant, etc. You’ll also need to address different buyer personas. You cannot hope to create one piece of content that answers every decision maker’s needs within a company. Some folks may go through an Awareness > Interest > Decision > Conversion path, while others may take a few extra steps (which might look something like Awareness > Education > Interest > Consideration > Comparison > Rationalization > Conversion). This is why knowing your audience is so important. The same keywords could be used by people searching for vastly different things. Ask yourself: Why is my audience searching for this? What do they expect to find in an ideal scenario? What content format works best for them at this stage? What language level do they operate on (do they have expert knowledge in the matter or are they involved at a higher level and thus have a more macro understanding)? For an excellent, concise framework to help you visualize search intent, check out SEO expert Lyndon’s Twitter thread on the subject. Second, figure out if Google favors B2B or B2C intent For this, you need to head on over to Google, type in your keyword(s) and check the results. Closely examine what shows up on the SERP (not just the traditional listings, but search features as well). Adriana Stein has a great example: Let’s say you start with the keyword best chatbot and realize it’s mainly B2C content that ranks on the first page. So, you refine to get closer to what your target audience may be looking for with a long tail keyword like best chatbots for ecommerce. Not only would this keyword be more appropriate for your audiences and your brand, it’ll also help you frame the perspective from which the content is created, making it more likely to win over decision makers. When it comes to the long tail, intent alignment is more important than search volume There are keywords that have zero search volume according to SEO tools. And yet, these keywords are very important in B2B marketing as they can help generate high-intent, qualified leads. When it comes to the long tail, you should not let search volumes lead your strategy. The more specific you get with a query, the more likely it is that someone else could formulate a search with different keywords while sharing the same intent. If you need some convincing regarding the potential of such specific keywords: B2B buyers tend to use longer, specific phrases when searching for services and products. Long tail keyword searches have a clickthrough rate 3% to 6% higher than generic (one-word) searches, according to a study by Smart Insights. The conversion rate of long-tail keywords is also generally considered to be higher because they are higher intent terms. How to find long tail B2B keywords Before you can begin researching keywords for your content, you need to start by defining buyer personas. Once those personas are established, you can then move onto keyword research based on their respective search intents. You should have defined at least three main personas: End-users — These are the people who will actually use your product. Influencers — These people have a say over what purchases get made. They can potentially persuade decision makers. Decision makers — These people sign the contracts and pay the invoices. Once you know what these people prioritize (which should be a part of your personas), you can figure out what “buying jobs” they have to accomplish. You may have some overlap between personas, but that will be uncovered as you progress with your keyword research. Stop focusing on features, start focusing on industries People don’t want features, they want benefits first and foremost. For B2B marketers, that likely means that you should create more specific service pages that capture lost opportunities. One way of doing this (that is rightfully popular among many B2B companies) is to target specific industries. If you haven’t already done so, you should look into your verticals and create industry-specific service pages to cater to long tail queries. Template keywords are a goldmine in B2B SEO Are your long tail keywords too competitive? Template keywords are a great way to overcome this issue. Template keywords are keywords that highlight a search intent that may align with your offerings (particularly those designed for lead generation). When it comes to template keywords, SEO expert Samuel Lavoie had this to say: “For a B2B company with a heavy sales model, you can’t compete on head terms. Head terms work best for B2C situations where self-serve business models thrive.” For B2B companies, the process is almost always more complex than “click on a product, add to cart, pay.” In B2B situations, you often have customers who are seeking a solution to their problems but who are not quite ready to schedule a demo. What can you do? Go for template keywords. Create useful resources in the form of: Checklists Excel sheets Google Docs PDFs These are all great keyword modifiers you can use to uncover templates. Here are a few keyword examples using ERP (enterprise resource planning) + checklist: erp implementation checklist excel erp system requirements checklist erp migration checklist erp vendor selection checklist erp audit checklist erp go live checklist template erp upgrade checklist Example keywords to kickstart your long tail B2B strategy As we said previously in this article, customers don’t want features, they want benefits. Here are examples of how you can go about uncovering the keywords that matter for your potential customers at each step of their journey. We chose to go with a B2B AI company: Best + keyword: best AI companies Keyword + city: AI companies Montreal Keyword + country: AI companies in Canada Top + keyword: top AI consulting firms Keyword variation + best (consulting firms, companies, etc. are variations) Tool/service/brand + keyword: Microsoft ERP consultant Industry + keyword: AI for manufacturing Use case + keyword: AI for investing Matching customer intent is still top priority in B2B SEO Google has fine-tuned search results so that they meet user expectations. In order to ensure proper visibility and discoverability, you should embrace this more human-first approach as well. Your goal should be to connect your audience’s search intent with a specific product use-case. The methodology discussed in this article can be applied to any B2B niche. But, you still need to lead with a greater emphasis on human factors (i.e., search intent), rather than solely on keyword optimization. This will help maximize the likelihood that your content is visible and relevant to your target audience. Myriam Jessier - SEO Trainer at PRAGM Myriam Jessier is an SEO trainer at PRAGM with more than 15 years of experience. She loves going down rabbit holes and figuring out how humans function, how bots behave and what happens when the two meet online. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Myriam Jessier It can be a challenge for brands to show up in Google search results, particularly for their ideal keywords. After all, what car manufacturer wouldn’t like to rank for the term car? But, the results for that search don’t show BMW, Audi, Tesla, or any manufacturer at all. And, even if they did, it’s unlikely that links to car brand domains are what the user may be searching for. The best approach is to target what we call long tail keywords. In this series, we will be focusing on keywords that can take your SEO to the next level regardless of what industry you’re in. Table of contents: What are long tail keywords? Long tail keywords vs. synonymous keywords How to leverage search intent for the long tail How to find long tail keywords, step-by-step How to write with long tail keywords The long tail: A short history beyond keywords What are long tail keywords? Long tail keywords are terms with low search volumes. They get their name because of where they end up on the search demand curve. This is an application of the concept of the long tail, coined by Chris Anderson in 2006. The concept of the long tail is not SEO-centric. It is a term used in online business, knowledge management, crowdsourcing, and viral marketing. Most long tail keywords are not simply queries that contain a lot of words—the number of words hardly matters. One of the biggest myths about long tail keywords is that they are easy to rank for—this is not necessarily true, either: They are easier to rank for. However, their key benefit is that they are higher intent queries, queries that lead to conversions more often than head terms. What matters for business owners can be summed up this way: 01. You must find search terms that real humans look for when they are searching for a solution to their problems. We don’t mean generic keywords but keywords that truly signal an intent to invest in what you have to offer. 02. You must make sure that you truly have an opportunity to be seen for these keywords. The competition is fierce and you mustn’t waste your time on unrealistic SEO goals. The key to boosting organic traffic and conversions Users search for businesses, solutions, and specific products using long tail keywords. These queries help you qualify your audience at an early stage. By using long tail queries, you will be able to reach a more targeted audience more easily than you would if you were aiming to be visible on more competitive queries. This means that long tail keywords can give you better ROI. Long tail keywords in action Let’s go through a real-life example: My friend Stéphanie Walter is an avid plant lover. Sadly, she kills her plants with kindness…and overwatering. Here’s a real term she Googled recently: “Why are my Monstera leaves turning yellow?” This is one of the best long tail keyword examples I've seen. Many people turn to Google to figure out problems like this one. Bloomscape (which earned the featured snippet shown above) is a plant delivery service that answers this question in their common plant questions guide. Searching for true long tail keywords Long tail keyword searches have a clickthrough rate 3% to 6% higher than generic (one-word) searches, according to a study by Smart Insights. That can ultimately mean more qualified traffic for your business. One way to get in front of these higher-intent audiences is to “niche down.” Here’s what I mean: You want to pursue a more particular search intent—not an alternative word to describe the same thing. For example, the keyword How to make coffee and How to brew coffee beans mean the same thing and Google understands that. So if you write an article on How to brew coffee beans you are still competing with content that talks about How to make coffee. Here’s why: You are making a choice to go after a less popular way of talking about a topic (How to make coffee has a search volume of 18,100, compared to just 90 for How to brew coffee beans, according to data from Semrush tools). You don’t include the most commonly searched expression in your content, so you may not be considered by search engines very well. That would be the equivalent of trying to describe what a checking account is without ever using “checking account” anywhere in the explanation. Seek distinct search intents to find long tail keywords that pay So what does it mean to pursue a particular search intent? If you do this right, you will see competition decrease as search volume decreases. In big money industries, many savvy marketers have already pursued low volume/high conversion keywords. Even so, do not get discouraged, there are still ways to gain visibility. Finding the right keyword opportunities As an example, let’s take a look at how a new food blog might go about identifying a more specific intent for a very popular term: Black Forest cake. From Black Forest cake, we can get more specific and target Black Forest cake recipe or easy Black Forest cake recipe. We’re doing this because it’s very unlikely that a brand new food blog will rank for Black Forest cake. Queries like this one (which are also known as head terms) have millions of results, potentially including recipes, dietary information, product pages, local results, and more. To maximize your chances of getting your brand in front of the right audience at the right time, you need to find opportunities tied to your keyword. In this example, these keywords could include: easy black forest cake recipe black forest cake in a jar diabetic black forest cake recipe black forest cake cookies black forest cookies using cake mix black forest cake roll recipe black forest mocha recipe These are all distinct search intents. Someone looking for a mocha recipe, a cookie recipe, or a diabetic version of the recipe are not seeking the same thing. I was able to pull these keywords by doing a five-minute search on SERPStat to see an approximate search volume and the search difficulty for these keywords (although any number of SEO tools will be able to provide you with similar information). It’s not a scientific process. It’s a non-linear, intuitive research process, but it pays off. What helped me carry out this research? Black Forest cake is the specific cake I want every year for my birthday. I’m kind of obsessed with it. The best way to find long tail keywords, step-by-step This has probably been asked a million times because the process is not always so straightforward (depending on your niche). The bottom line is that the long tail keyword must modify the topic. It must show a different or more precise search intent; otherwise, it’s just a variation keyword (more akin to a synonym than a long-tail variant). This is why How to brew coffee beans is not a long-tail variant of How to make coffee. Here’s another example: Can my dog eat bones? Yes, but only uncooked ones. Can my dog eat cooked bones? No, you cannot feed cooked bones to dogs because they are brittle and could cause serious harm. Can my dog eat BBQ ribs? No, because it is implicit that BBQ ribs are cooked and thus cannot be fed to dogs. Thisis.dog is a regular dog blog (PSA: it’s my blog!), up against the SPCA and the American Kennel Association for certain topics. However, neither of these authoritative websites specifically answer the BBQ ribs question from above. This is a prime example of how going the extra mile to answer specific questions can pay off big time. So, this is the content I created to answer common dog owner questions about bones: What Kinds of Bones Can Dogs Eat? We Checked! The tools you’ll need to discover long tail keywords No SEO tool can ever replace what you (should) already know about your audience and their pain points. Tools combined with that knowledge will help you capitalize on long tail keyword opportunities. Here are a few recommendations: Google Ads Keyword Planner: Use this free tool to discover new keywords related to your business, see estimates of the searches those keywords receive by country or by language, and the cost to target them with ads. This is a free tool, but you’ll need to sign up for a Google Ads account. Google’s autocomplete suggestions: Google autocomplete is not designed as an SEO tool but it can be a great way to find long tail keywords. Simply type your keyword into Google’s search bar and see what recommendations come out before you hit enter. People also ask: This is a feature in Google search results. If you see a block of questions show up for your query, click on the relevant ones and Google will provide you with even more questions people ask about the topic. Related search terms on Google: At the bottom of Google search result pages, you will often see a list of related terms. These are incredibly informative when you are seeking long tail keywords because they show you related entities or concepts, not just similar queries. AnswerThePublic: This is a freemium tool that shows you what people are searching for in Google by country in a very visual and organized way. AlsoAsked: Similar to Answer the public, this freemium tool offers an amazing visual interface to help you do a deep-dive on your topic. How to find long tail keywords using AlsoAsked Go to AlsoAsked, input your chosen keyword and the target country, then hit enter. You will get insights instantly. Here is an example with long tail keywords as the search term. Using AnswerThePublic to find potential long tail keywords You can think of this tool as something similar to a Google autocomplete database. AnswerThePublic does not provide search volume, but it's a good place to find ideas. Just type in the keyword and it gives you all the related topics people search for: 01. Go to AnswerThePublic and enter a query. 02. Select a language and country, then hit the search button. 03. Once data is loaded, find search terms organized by “Questions” (how, what, who, etc.), “Prepositions” (to, near, with, etc.), and “Comparisons” (___ vs. ___). 04. Take the list, group keywords by theme or topic and plan your content around that. How do you write with long tail keywords? Offer SEO-friendly solutions content by using headings. Once you find a great question or long tail query, make sure you create a dedicated section for it within your content. You can signal that section to readers and bots by using an H2 or H3 heading. Address the query in that heading and you’re on your way! If you want an example of this tactic in action, this specific subsection (“How do you write with long tail keywords?”) is a great one! If you want to target long tail keywords, you must first investigate and understand the challenges that your target audience has. The key to writing content with the long tail in mind is to provide concrete solutions for those problems. Since long tail keywords are more specific, the content is more relevant to your audience, making them more likely to convert. Don’t obsess over keyword usage to the point of sacrificing content quality. A good rule of thumb is that your long tail keywords should be in the same sentence, but do not need to be written exactly as-is—feel free to adapt your long tail keyword to fit the structure of your sentence. The easiest way to go about this is to put your keywords in a different color to distinguish them more clearly. Here is an example from a blog post for the keyword monstera without holes in leaves: “Baby Monstera has heart-shaped leaves that are intact without holes or splits.” In addition to the general guidance above, below are some tactics you can use to craft content that effectively targets the long tail. Get human, get specific, get weird George, the Wix editor says that inspiration is everywhere: in your product reviews, in YouTube suggestions, on Reddit (I added the last one). Have you ever fallen down a YouTube rabbit hole? Do you get a lot of questions stuck in your head? Write those down! This is how the big Husky FAQ was born on the Thisis.dog blog! After so many videos of huskies being incredibly dramatic, I had to Google the question why are huskies so dramatic and found that…nobody really answered it in-depth. It was obviously time for me to dig in! Step 01: Type your question in the search box. Google wants to provide explanations for its users. If there are no answer boxes for an informational query like this, it means you have the potential to show up there. If you are seeing an answer box, it means that you need to find other opportunities unless you’re confident you can displace the site that currently answers the question. Step 02: Check out the People also ask questions. Another question associated with the first one is “Why do Huskies complain so much?” (there are many YouTube videos of huskies loudly crying when it’s time to leave the dog park). This is not fully addressed by the article Google selected. Instead, it focuses on the vocal aspect without addressing the complaint portion of the question. This would be a great opportunity to create unique long tail content. Rebel against copycat content Does it feel like every result ranking for a query is the same? If you are faced with an infinite amount of copycat content, aim to offer a different perspective. Google favors different points of view. Instead of 'what', could you explain 'why'? —Andrew Charlton, managing director at Crawl Consultancy Instead of “how to improve readability?” you could go with “does readability impact SEO?” Instead of writing about “how to increase organic traffic,” you could aim to talk about “what to do if your organic traffic drops.” Instead of discussing what to do to survive a specific Google algorithm update, you could explain how to go about making content update-proof. Identify and pursue irrelevant answers on the SERP Just because one competing page ranks well for many keywords doesn't mean it should. Here’s an example in French Canada: You know you have a ranking opportunity when a French website (based in France) ranks in the top position. Very often, it means that no local website has answered this question in an appropriate manner. This scenario occurs when Google doesn’t find relevant results for a specific query and shows you answers for related queries or close variant queries. The example above is a People also ask question (“What are the conditions for terminating a lease?”). This specific question is answered by a French article quoting a French law instead of a Québec (French Canadian) law, even though the query was searched from Canada. These cases are quite common in many countries such as Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Monaco. They also occur in German speaking countries in the DACH area, comprised of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Wherever a common language is spoken, but with a distinct local culture and government, you are likely to find long tail ranking opportunities that have not quite been met by existing content. The best content for long tail keywords So now that we discussed how to write with long tail keywords, let’s discuss the types of content that work best with them. Not all content types are created equal. Here are the ones that can help you rank with the long tail: Blog posts are a great way to write for the long tail because they allow you to get in-depth about the topic. FAQ pages can help you address queries that are related to a product or service. This can be a real convenience for your customer support team and customers, as it offers an online self-help option. Certain long tail keywords can also be added directly to product or services pages. Most local long tail keywords (such as “rose delivery seattle”) should be added to contact pages and local store pages. No search volume, no problem As you try out some of the tactics I recommended, remember that the long tail is all about targeting distinct search intents. Don’t be fooled by SEO tools that might suggest there’s no search volume—instead, check that information against what you, as a business owner or SEO, know about your target audience. SEO tools, like the ones suggested in this article, can help you contextualize demand for your content, but they work even better when informed by your experience dealing with customers. Myriam Jessier - SEO Trainer at PRAGM Myriam Jessier is an SEO trainer at PRAGM with more than 15 years of experience. She loves going down rabbit holes and figuring out how humans function, how bots behave and what happens when the two meet online. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Michel Fortin Traditionally, Google would rank your website according to keywords in your content and pages. The number of keywords and the number of times those keywords were mentioned helped to determine the relevance of the page (and they still do, albeit to a lesser extent). However, due to overwhelming spam by some website owners who stuffed their content with keywords, Google has since improved by moving away from keywords and towards something called “entities.” Entities are ideas. They’re concepts that represent places, people, things, events, etc. They also have various attributes and connections with other entities that help search engines understand the context in which they’re used. For example, if I mention the word “robot,” you might think of a physical machine that performs a certain function. But depending on the context, a robot can also be a piece of software, such as a search engine robot that crawls your website to include it in its database. How do you know which one is which? This is where context comes into play. If the word robot is used in a sentence, paragraph, or page in which search engines are also mentioned (or if the word robot is used to describe a particular search engine crawler), then you know it’s the software kind—such as Googlebot. To serve the most relevant results, Google is continuously learning from your brand and about it, just as it’s learning from your users. It’s trying to determine if you’re the right fit for what users are looking for. To add more context to a piece of content, Google tries to understand the entity through its relationships with other entities. So, it looks for connections between them and associates different entities together in something called a knowledge graph. Those connections are vital in the world of semantic search. It’s more than helping Google make those connections. It’s also about increasing Google’s confidence in them—that the connections are correct and make sense with respect to the entity it’s related to. The goal, therefore, is to disambiguate your content and make it easier for Google to learn from you. The more it learns, the more confident it becomes and the higher the chances are that your content shows on relevant search results. This is where semantic SEO comes into play. Disambiguation tips to improve semantic SEO While it’s important to provide great content, your goal should be to provide great clarity, too. “Create quality content” may be Google’s mantra, but once you do, your goal should be to create as much clarity as possible with your great content. In other words, help Google identify the concepts in your content (i.e., entities, attributes, and relationships), connect those concepts together, and increase its confidence in those connections. Semantic SEO is about disambiguating your content as much as possible. Ambiguity can be your biggest stumbling block when trying to rank well as it creates guesswork for Google—and Google is a machine, so it doesn’t make guesses unless it’s confident it’s making the right ones. Disambiguation helps reduce that guesswork and makes things clearer, which can significantly increase Google’s confidence in your content’s topical relevance. To help you, here are disambiguation tips that will improve both clarity and confidence. 01. Write content with clarity First and foremost, you should always write clearly and concisely, using plain language that’s easy to understand. You may have heard the saying that you should “dumb down” your writing—I don’t like that statement because it’s not about making your content less intelligent. It’s about making it easier to read and accessible to the widest possible audience. Quite simply, avoid cryptic language or trying to be clever. If you’re unsure, run your content through readability checking tools to evaluate the level or grade it is currently written in. These tools use various formulas (such as Flesch-Kincaid and others) to rate the level of education someone needs to read your content. Or, use software like Grammarly or ProWritingAid, which can also check your content’s readability. Google has introduced natural language processing (NLP) into its algorithm, which means that it can process and understand human language. Simple language is therefore good for both people and Google. If your content forces users to do mental contortions to understand it, even if only slightly, it will make things even more difficult for Google and potentially prevent it from making those important connections you want it to make. In short, if people have a hard time understanding what your content is trying to say, Google will have a much harder time understanding it. 02. Enhance pages with structured data Structured data (schema) can help Google make better connections with the entities it finds. Schema is metadata—the data beyond (or behind, if you will) the data—that can help Google understand what your content is about. Look at it this way: it’s like a narrator in a movie explaining what is going on that may be unsaid or unclear. Schema is like giving your data a narrator or a voice, if you will, that explains what the content is about. For example, let’s say you’re a baker and you sell apple pies. If the word “apple” is mentioned in your content, and it’s about the fruit and not the electronics brand, then you could add schema about your local business (e.g., “Michel’s Bakery”) or your products (e.g., “apple pies”) to the code of the page. There are all sorts of schema that you can add, from business information to recipes to FAQs. You should add applicable schema to your site, and platforms like Wix offer tools and guides that can help with this process. 03. Structure text for readability Adding schema doesn’t mean you can ignore your content. Schema is not a free pass or a magic bullet. It’s important to make sure your content is well-structured so that it’s easier to read and understand. After all, Google must find entities within your content and understand the relationships between them, so avoid making your pages look like disorganized blobs of text. What’s more, poorly structured content results in a confusing user experience, which can ultimately result in lost conversions. Grouping topics together (and adding headings before each group and throughout the page) can help distinguish important sections and introduce the topics that follow. For longer content, adding a table of contents at the top, and including links that jump to the major sections, may help users find relevant information faster. More importantly, headings and internal links provide context when they’re topics (i.e., entities) as well, such as linking “bakery” with “apples” mentioned in the previous example. 04. Delineate sections with markers Just like headings and subheadings mentioned above, visuals are useful because they help support and contextualize the surrounding content, too. They’re also useful in helping to identify, clarify, and amplify concepts and their relationships—and possibly adding to the knowledge graph, too. Similar to headings, visuals serve as markers that provide cues for both readers and crawlers, including Google. For example, if the word “apple” is mentioned alongside a photo of an apple pie, then the connection is made obvious. More importantly, since people tend to skim, scan, and scroll, cues help users move from scanning to reading. By the same token, they also create landmarks that are important for accessibility (e.g., visually impaired users with screen reading tools). Semantic elements help structure the content in a way that both humans and machines prefer—these can include: Headings (e.g., H1, H2, H3, etc.), Lists (e.g., bullets or numbers), Emphasis (e.g., bolds, italics, highlights, etc.), Visuals (e.g., images, photos, graphics, icons, etc.), and Descriptions (e.g., titles, captions, alternate texts, etc). However, just as it is no longer necessary (or effective) to stuff your content with keywords, it’s important not to go overboard here, too. As the saying goes, “When you emphasize everything, you emphasize nothing.” Plus, too many markers will take away from the clarity it’s supposed to help create. Use them judiciously, moderately, and strategically. 05. Repeat ideas for comprehension With lexical search, it used to make sense to include synonyms and keyword variations in order to capture and rank for all the possible versions. But with semantic search and the help of natural language processing, there’s no need to explicitly use variations or to repeat them needlessly. Google can understand how pages relate to a certain topic, often without containing the exact keywords or keyword variations. However, you may express some ideas in a completely new or unique context. Users may understand what you mean, but it might still be unclear to Google. More importantly, if there’s a possibility that your users can misunderstand or misinterpret what you mean, Google will likely fare even worse. Therefore, repeat new ideas using variations or synonyms, or express them in different ways. This will help remove ambiguity and increase Google’s confidence in your content’s relevance to the user’s intent. Take the term “seal.” A seal can be an animal, an indicia, an envelope flap, a waxed imprint, a certificate, a box closure, a pipe ring, the pop singer, and so on. Google knows all of these meanings. But when a search comes up for one of these, how does Google know which one to show? If we narrow it down a bit more (and to borrow an excellent example from Dave Amberland), let’s say I use the term “trained seal.” This narrows things down a bit more, but some people may think either one of these two: To a non-American, the military “trained seal” may not be immediately familiar. Nevertheless, if I use repetition but with variations, like the words “sea lion,” “circus seal,” or “phocid” (the scientific term for seal being from the “phocidae” family), I’m clearly referring to the animal, not the soldier. 06. Optimize entities for recognition As mentioned above, while Google is sophisticated enough to recognize most entities, it may be missing some. If you create content about unknown terminology or completely new entities, Google may misinterpret or skip them altogether. So, run your content through an entity extraction and recognition tool to see what entities it finds, as well as which ones are ignored or mislabeled. You can then try to reword your content to make it easier for robots to understand (and, potentially users as well). You can use a named entity recognition (NER) program, which can extract, identify, and segment entities in your text, and then categorize them under various predefined classes. Note that these may vary depending on the tool. In addition to Google’s NLP online demo mentioned earlier, there are plenty of entity extraction tools such as demos of entity search engines and open NLP software you can use. 07. Contextualize with internal links In SEO, one of the most important and recommended on-page optimization practices is internal linking. Use it to disambiguate entities, too. Link topics and subtopics within content to other pages they relate to. Contextual links help Google understand what the linked page is about and associates topical relevance back to the origin page. Think of Wikipedia, which does a masterful job of this. The anchor text (i.e., the text that links to another page) contains words or phrases that help to disambiguate the entity and its category by relating it to a page that’s on-topic. For example, if you mention the word “cats” on a page without any context, and you have another page that’s all about pets, you can link that word to that page, which makes it clear that you’re talking about the feline persuasion (as opposed to the Broadway musical, for example). 08. Cover topics fully and frequently According to Google’s Quality Raters Guidelines (QRG), it’s important to meet the needs of searchers and to provide them with quality content. One aspect Google looks for and asks their human quality raters to measure is “comprehensiveness.” For example, does the page provide an adequate amount of information on the topic? With semantic SEO, thorough content also helps to improve the clarity around the topic. The content must contain sufficient information to help clarify what is being discussed. But covering all the bases doesn’t necessarily mean writing an entire encyclopedia entry. Google has released an algorithm update whereby it penalizes websites that contain unhelpful, SEO-driven content instead of user-first content. This applies to overly lengthy content as well. Just think of what your user needs to know along their journey or what questions they may have about the topic. Plus, it doesn’t have to all be on a single page—use contextual links to connect subtopics together where appropriate. Similarly, publishing on-topic content frequently can reinforce topical relevance. But staying on-topic is just as important. Subtopics and related topics are fine, but refrain from including unrelated ones on the same page. Unless they’re related somehow and fall under a larger umbrella topic, keep the main topic in focus. Otherwise, needless variety creates ambiguity and may dilute the page’s topical relevance. 09. Group topics into clusters When multiple pages cover vastly different topics, clustering topically similar content together is helpful for usability. It makes content easier to locate and discover. It also helps users self-orient and navigate your site (such as with breadcrumb menus, tables of linked content, and URL structures). Topic clusters also aid disambiguation by grouping and contextualizing the content from related pages. You can use folders, categories, tags, labels, collections, and so on. URLs may look something like this: https://www.wix.com/seo/learn/resource/user-first-seo This is not about adding keywords in URLs (which is highly unlikely to substantially improve your SEO). Neither is it about making the URLs longer just for the sake of making them longer. It’s simply about contextualizing sections of your website and grouping topically relevant pages together. It improves the user experience and helps both users and search engines understand a section’s theme or function. However, even if a page falls under multiple categories, it can only have one URL. (If it exists under multiple categories, use canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues.) But, it can be the primary category or a larger one, such as an umbrella category that logically covers a series of subcategories. Even with single-category folders, connect topically related content together using contextual links. 10. Answer questions using knowledge graphs Help Google make connections by adding to an existing knowledge graph. When you’re writing about a well-known topic, a good strategy is to answer questions users may still have around that topic or clarifying any information that its associated knowledge graph already contains. This way, you’re adding new connections to an existing knowledge graph, which should be easier than trying to convince Google to create a new knowledge graph entity from scratch. For example, instead of conducting keyword research, analyze the questions people are asking and answer them. Search Google and look at the “People Also Asked” section halfway down the page. If the answers are part of an existing knowledge graph, then take it one step further by linking your answers to its knowledge panel (i.e., a panel that appears in search showing information related to a knowledge graph). Even Google Business Profiles (GBP) can be used as a means of answering questions and connecting them together, such as with the products and services listed in your GBP. When answering questions your market is asking, answering them in your content, and connecting them to your product or service, make sure to add schema markup. It may include Q&A schema, FAQ schema, or eCommerce schema (i.e., product or service schema)—including schema related to media you’ve embedded in your content, such as visuals, videos, photos, etc.—to make it easier for search engines to understand how to make those connections. “What” is never as important as “why” Previously, it made sense to focus on what people are searching for. But now, it makes more sense to focus on why they’re searching for it. Think of it this way: your content is trying to answer the questions that your user is asking. But without any context, it’s like jumping in and interrupting your user’s question midway through, and giving them the wrong answer—or the right answer but for the wrong reasons. SEO aims to help search engines better read your content. But semantic SEO aims to help them better understand it. And by understanding the context behind your content and the intent behind your user’s query, search engines can create more meaningful matches between both. The more meaningful the match is, the more meaningful the traffic it generates will be. 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: Michel Fortin “While we frequently need just the facts, more often what we are really seeking is understanding.” — Lou Frenzel I’ve been using email since the late 1980s. Before the days of online email, I used to use software called Eudora to download them into desktop folders. At one point, I had thousands of emails stored in countless folders and subfolders. The challenge, which grew along with my folder count, was deciding which single folder to file an email into. Another challenge was searching for it later on, particularly when I forgot where I filed it. Back then, search functionality was quite limited and only looked for exact matches. But, trying to guess the words that an email might contain was excruciating, particularly if I needed to find an email several months or years later. The task became even more daunting if I used the wrong words, sequence of words, or spelling. So, I would often give up in frustration. Then in 2004, Gmail came along with a radically different way of managing email. I could label my emails rather than filing them into folders where they would otherwise end up being forgotten. Plus, emails didn’t need to follow a specific hierarchy. I could use as many labels as I wanted, and they could mean different things depending on what I might eventually need the email for. Whether it was two or ten labels, I simply picked whatever topics made sense to me. I no longer racked my brain over which folder an email should go into, and it saved me a considerable amount of time, effort, guesswork, and frustration when I needed to search for them. I could file and find emails quickly based on why I needed them, and not just on where I might have filed them or on what words they might contain. Now, what does my email have to do with SEO? Just as Gmail changed how I categorize my emails, several years ago Google Search changed how it categorized documents in its database. Called “semantic search,” this new process would label topics in much the same way Gmail did, and instead of looking for exact matches, it allowed Google to consider context and meaning over individual keywords. This vastly improved its ability to understand and satisfy search queries, and it was a defining moment that profoundly changed the world of search. This article will show you what it is, what it means, and how to harness it to improve your visibility. Table of contents: What semantic search is and why it matters How Google evolved from magician to mentalist The key components of semantic search The knowledge graph and Google’s knowledge panels How to get your own knowledge panel The role of machine learning in semantic search What is semantic SEO and why does it matter? Keywords are a fundamental part of the search process. But since the introduction of semantic search, individual keywords have become less important. It’s not that Google has stopped using them or that we should, for that matter. It’s that Google is now able to understand and match queries beyond keywords. Rather than looking for keywords, Google now looks for concepts. What’s the difference? Lexical search (or search “with words”) looks for literal matches to queries, which might include alternatives and word variations, such as different spellings, synonyms, and word structure. Semantic search (or search “with meaning”), on the other hand, looks for conceptual matches (i.e., what the queries are about and not just what they say), such as people, places, things, events, organizations, and so on, which may or may not include exact keywords. In essence, concepts are keywords, but not all keywords are concepts. Keywords are just a bunch of words strung together, which can mean anything or nothing at all. Concepts, on the other hand, are topics, and the topical relevance of a match (search result) to a query is based on the query’s intent, not its wording. During the information retrieval process, search engines can only find and match keywords, and they rely on those matches to determine relevance. But individual keywords are often poor indicators of relevance. For this reason, they analyze keywords based on their appearance, the frequency of their appearance, and their prominence on a page and across other pages. With a statistical formula called “term frequency (multiplied by) inverse document frequency” or TF-IDF, search engines measure relevance by comparing a keyword’s frequency to others across a set of documents. TF-IDF does a good job of measuring the relevance of a keyword. But, it’s often wrong or falls short. For example, the word “cats” appears on a page quite often and more than any other. Surely it must be about cats, right? Whether it’s the feline variety or the theatrical one, that’s a different issue. It’s too broad and ambiguous. But even if a query is more specific, like “hypoallergenic cats” or “Cats the musical,” the page fails to take intent into account. Is it to learn about breeds? Or, is it to buy tickets? Semantic search, on the other hand, can help uncover the purpose of a search and offer results that are more meaningful. Whilst lexical search only looks at keywords in isolation (i.e., what they say), semantic search looks at keywords in context (i.e., what they mean). It’s through this meaningfulness that search engines can better gauge the relevance of a match to the query’s intent. How Google evolved from magician to mentalist TF-IDF is still in use today and an important part of the information retrieval process. But, its reliance on keywords fueled SEO tactics and tools around “keyword density.” The objective was to force keywords into content, repeat them often, and incorporate them in as many different locations as possible. If the keyword was misspelled or if it was just a string of unrelated words that made no sense, such as “best catnip Toronto cheap,” it would make the content appear equally nonsensical. Luckily, Google introduced updates to its algorithm (such as Panda) to clean up poorly written content from its search results. But lexical search, on its own, still has many drawbacks. It often yielded search results that were irrelevant or disparate due to the lack of intent, and it often failed to match what the user had in mind. This created three common yet significant challenges: 01. For those conducting a search, the tendency would be to repeat the process. They would try to guess better keywords to search for, or they would reword or refine their query with the hope of finding better matches. But, each repeated attempt would simply add to their frustration. 02. Many would click a search result that appears to be a fit, realize that it’s not, return to the search engine, and move on to the next. They would bounce from result to result (called “pogosticking”) with the hope of finding the one that more closely met their needs. 03. On the flip side, web developers and SEO professionals would agonize over which keywords to cram into their content and how often to include them, without making the content look so robotic and contrived that it would drive both Google and users away. Ultimately, lexical search, while effective at finding matches, can only guess what a user is searching for, but is limited by the keywords and documents in its database. It’s like forcing an increasingly frustrated user to play along with a poor magician who, working strictly from a deck of cards, keeps failing to guess what the user has in mind: “Is this the one? No? How about this one? Still no? How about this one, then?” With semantic search, however, Google went from being a failed card-guessing magician to being a skilled mentalist who can more closely match what the user had in mind. Going beyond a simple deck of cards, it looks for external cues and clues, and it makes connections between them. It gathers data and learns from it in order to make more accurate guesses. In other words, it’s making educated guesses. In the same way, semantic search is Google’s way of going beyond keywords, capturing additional and external data, and then making connections between them. Educated guesses come from learning, but in Google’s case, it’s machine learning—or what people often refer to as artificial intelligence or AI. The key components of semantic search Google gathers information, adds it to a repository, and groups related topics together. It then makes connections based on how various pieces of information relate to one another. Through these interconnections, Google can understand what the concepts mean to each other and how they relate to the user’s query, which in turn helps it better match results to the user’s intended goal. While the late Bill Slawski uncovered a related patent filed in 1999 by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, it wasn’t until 2013 that Google officially launched semantic search. After rolling out a major algorithm update dubbed “Hummingbird,” Google’s algorithm was able to better recognize concepts, extract them, and learn from them. As a result, its search results became considerably more efficient and accurate. Hummingbird works with a model first introduced the year prior, called the knowledge graph. It’s simply a graphical representation of the semantic relationships between concepts. What it is and how it works can be a little technical to explain, and I’m no engineer by any stretch. But, in plain English, it’s simply an alternative classification system to label and structure content through entities, their properties, and the way they relate to one another. Here’s a look at what these are: 01. Entities Entities are the concepts behind keywords. But unlike keywords, entities are not necessarily words or strings of words. They’re specific concepts in the real world that can represent people, places, events, ideas, organizations, and so on—or, as Google calls them, “things, not strings.” As an example, I took the first paragraph of my online bio and ran it through Google’s Natural Language Processing API demo. It found the following entities, which are the colored words below: 02. Attributes Attributes define the categories to which the entities belong as well as their properties and characteristics. An entity, by itself, doesn’t mean anything. But in context, it means something. For example, the entity “Michel Fortin”' is the name of a person, where “person” is a category and “name” is a characteristic. “Marketing advisor” is that person’s profession and “SEO” is an industry he works in. Keep in mind that these attributes are my own and may not reflect Google’s. Attributes depend on their chosen ontology (i.e., the method of formally classifying information). For example, how I choose to label my Gmail emails may not mean much to someone else who may have chosen a different set of labels. My labeling system is my own. Similarly, every domain has its own distinct knowledge graph and ontology, such as Wikipedia, Bing, and of course, Google Search. 03. Relationships Attributes may vary depending on the context, such as “cats” being either the mammal or the musical. It’s through their connections with others that Google can identify the proper one. Like keywords, entities are meaningless by themselves. But through their connections with others, Google can understand their context. It’s the relationships between entities that give them meaning. As French composer Claude Debussy once remarked, “Music is the space between the notes,” not the notes themselves. The knowledge graph and Google’s knowledge panels A knowledge graph is simply a graphical representation of the collection of interlinked entities and their attributes. As opposed to a hierarchically linear system of files and folders, the knowledge graph looks like expanding clusters with connections in all directions. They’re made up of nodes (i.e., entities) and edges (i.e., the connections between them). Labels help identify attributes and relationships. Here’s an example of a knowledge graph using a few more paragraphs from my bio: For example, “Michel Fortin'' is a person, and “marketing advisor” is a title. Both are nodes in the graph. Within this context, one can infer that “is a” means that “marketing” is a field of work, so the edge between them is therefore labeled “position held.” This tool calls these “facts,” and collects facts and adds them to the knowledge graph. Here’s a look a few of them that the above graph software found: While the demo above used a select portion of my bio, Google continually collects and connects entities from various sources. It makes inferences in many ways, such as by analyzing other entities in proximity. For example, if a page with the word “cats” also mentions “Andrew Lloyd Webber” or the song “Memory,” then it’s likely not relevant to your search about Whiskers’ latest hairball incident. The knowledge graph is also useful to help users quickly find information about an entity (as well as any other related information about it). Depending on certain factors, such as Google’s confidence in the facts it gathered, it will display content from its knowledge graph in its search results, usually on the side (if you’re on mobile, this appears in the main results column), called “knowledge panels.” Here’s an example of a knowledge panel: How to get your own knowledge panel Getting a knowledge panel (such as one about you, your brand, or your business) can significantly enhance your visibility in search results. To get one, you must first get into the knowledge graph. Keep in mind that knowledge panels are never guaranteed. But getting into the knowledge graph, if anything, can help Google make better connections, which in turn can help improve the quality of your traffic. First, search for the entity (e.g., yourself, your brand, etc.) to see if it’s already in the knowledge graph. If it is, you may be able to claim it and help Google improve it (via edits that can be suggested after you claim it). If it isn’t, Google must first recognize you in order to build an entity and be confident in the data it collects. This can take time, but there are a few shortcuts that can help expedite things. Create pages Google recognizes peer-reviewed sites, journals, and publications as authoritative sources of information. Some of these include Wikipedia, Wikidata, Google Scholar, industry journals, accreditation associations, academic institutions, national news publications, and several others. Become a contributor and create a page on these platforms. The approval process may take time, so be patient. Create profiles Some authoritative resources can be tough to get into and take time. (Examples include getting your own page on Wikipedia, getting academic citations on Google Scholar, having peer-reviewed articles published in industry journals, getting published in Harvard Business Review, being featured in The New York Times, etc.) But one simple way to get some basic traction is through social media. Create profiles about the entity you want, whether it’s you, your business, or your organization. Focus on the top social networks like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, Quora, and so on. Make sure to include links to those pages and profiles on your website, too. Create citations Along with creating social media profiles, claim listings in industry directories, licensing bodies, alumni associations, peer review sites, trade journals, and certification organizations, such as Yelp, Trip Advisor, BBB, RateMD, FindLaw, Chamber of Commerce, etc. Like Google Business Profile (GBP), these listings may help your local SEO efforts. But, any mention of you or your business in such directories (such as in user-generated reviews and ratings), whilst they may be less authoritative, can still help authenticate and credentialize your brand or business. Create connections With all the above, the next step is to ensure Google can find the information and make the connections (e.g., establish that a profile on an external site is indeed you). Sometimes, this means adding links to your profiles on a distinct page of your site, which may be an about page, an online bio, the company’s history page, and so on. Other times, it means adding guiding information on your site using snippets of data called “schema.” Schema markup is structured data you can add to your website’s HTML code that only search engines can read. SEOs and site owners implement schema to provide search engines with additional context about their content (such as identifying an author or organization, for example). While it can improve your chances to appear in search results, it can also help search engines establish important connections, which increase your chances of getting into the knowledge graph. It can even increase your chances of getting your own knowledge panel and improving it. To some degree, this may seem like you’re hacking the search engine or spoon-feeding it with information. But, remember that the above information is already available on the web (or should be). Schema is simply a way to point Google in the right direction and help it make those connections. After all, Google is only a robot, and humans can often be subjective and fuzzy—which, in fact, leads me to my next point. The role of machine learning in semantic search One of Google’s challenges is trying to guess for which body of knowledge a search is intended. Humans are a fickle lot, and things can change depending on the situation. What if a user’s needs change? What if a concept changes and no longer meets the user’s needs? What if the interpretation of a certain concept varies from person to person, time to time, or place to place? Take, for instance, the word “mask.” In late 2019, search results would be about costumes and cosmetics. But just a few months later, they switched to medical masks and rules around mask use (due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Jumping from being about appearance to being about prevention in a short period of time is quite an extraordinary leap in meaning. But it’s not rare as it happens all the time, albeit in smaller and less obvious ways. This is where machine learning comes in. It helps Google improve at recognizing entities within a document, and at identifying and inferring relationships between them. Moreover, as machine learning grows increasingly knowledgeable, Google introduces new deep-learning algorithms to improve its capacity to interpret information. Some of these include the following, for example: RankBrain is part of the Hummingbird algorithm and learns to better interpret intent based on a number of factors, such as location, time, input, news, signals, etc. Remember the “mask” example from earlier? Rankbrain may have played a role. BERT (or Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) learns to better interpret conversational queries (e.g., questions) by pre-training its algorithm to learn how to recognize words from both the left and right (hence, bidirectional). SMITH (or Siamese Multi-depth Transformer-based Hierarchical encoder for long-form document matching) is similar to BERT, but rather than short texts such as conversational queries, it learns to better interpret information from larger (i.e., long-form) blocks of text. MUM (or Multitask Unified Model), which is a more recent addition, learns to better interpret information from other sources, such as in different languages or in other formats that go beyond text-only content (e.g., images, video, maps, etc). These are important algorithm updates that are part of semantic search to some degree. But, there are several others that are either similar or aim to improve existing algorithms. It’s unclear if Google uses all of these algorithms all of the time. They may be used only for testing or training. The bottom line is that Google keeps learning by improving how it learns and not just what it learns. As Google said, it’s all about things, not strings Nevertheless, when it comes to SEO, doing keyword research is helpful. However, focusing and restricting yourself to keywords may not be as helpful. If things ever change (and they always do), your rankings will drop or disappear as a result. If they do, your tendency may be to create more of the same content or to inject more of the same keywords. This approach is not only less than helpful—it can be harmful. Google is making educated guesses with the help of machine learning, and its capabilities are changing and improving all the time—so should your SEO efforts. By adopting a user-first SEO approach, and by learning about what your users want beyond the keywords they’re using, you’re helping Google, too. As American entrepreneur Jim Rohn once said, “If someone is going down the wrong road, they don’t need motivation to speed them up; what they need is education to turn them around.” 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. 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Matthew L. Kaminsky | 2 min This post was last updated on May 03, 2023. Video Transcript How to Optimize Your Website’s Title Tags Your title tag is the first thing people see when searching online for your products, services or content. If your title doesn’t match what people are looking for, chances are they’ll click on something else. I’m Matthew and that’s what we’ll talk about in today’s video. So... What is a title tag? When you search on Google or other search engines, you’ll get a list of relevant results appearing as snippets. THIS clickable headline is the Title. Snippets also include a URL and page description . These topics will be covered in other videos from this series. Your title needs to quickly and clearly convey what a specific page on your site is about. This helps search engines get a better understanding of that page, increasing chances that people will make a purchase, book a service or read your blog—you name it. Your SEO setup plan suggests titles for your site pages based on your business name, location and key phrases. You can use these titles, or create your own. Let me show you how. Title tag optimizations First, every page of your site needs to have its own unique title. Be specific and make sure it reflects your page content. For this example, we’ll work on our homepage. Our business offers door-to-door plant delivery, so let’s start with that. Second, try to include relevant keywords and phrases you want to rank for . In our case, we specialize in “indoor plants”. So let’s add that. While you can be descriptive, avoid multiple keywords—or keyword stuffing. People, as well as search engines, will think it’s spam. This can impact traffic to your site and may even hurt your ranking. Third, if you’re targeting local traffic, include the location you service. If we had one location in Chicago, we’d add it to our title. However, we’re an online store shipping to multiple cities, so we’ll leave our homepage title as is. Fourth, include your brand or business name. This is about building brand awareness. You want people to make the connection between who you are and what you do…. That looks good. Fifth, keep titles between 50-55 characters. Titles longer than 60 characters will likely get cut off by search engines. See these 3 dots? We need to shorten some… there. Now everything fits. Now, it’s your turn. Follow these 5 guidelines and you’ll be off to a good start. Remember, SEO is an ongoing effort, so go back, test new keywords and further optimize your titles—even after your site is live. Again, I’m Matthew. Thanks for tuning in and... We’ll see you next time.

Matthew L. Kaminsky | 2 min This post was last updated on May 03, 2023. Video Transcript How to Write Meta Descriptions for Your Web Pages Your page description and title on search results is a chance to grab the attention of potential customers and convince them your site has what they’re looking for. I’m Matthew and in today’s video, we’ll cover how to write strong meta descriptions for your site pages. So... What are meta descriptions? They’re what appears below your page’s title on the search engine results page . The goal of a meta description is to provide a short and relevant summary of a specific web page. Think of it as your pitch. Your description should focus on what your page is about and the value you bring. At times, search engines will automatically adjust descriptions for your site, based on your page content and what people are searching for. This means that any one of your pages can show different descriptions depending on the search query. Top tips for creating meta descriptions As a site owner, it’s an SEO best practice to write your own meta descriptions. Let’s go over a few guidelines. First, create a unique description for each site page. Make sure your descriptions reflect the content of your pages, so potential visitors know what to expect. Second, make your descriptions engaging. While descriptions should reflect your site pages, remember you’re talking to people. Think about what will motivate them to click to your site, buy a product or book a service. Third, use your keywords or phrases. If your description includes keywords matching a given search query, these words will appear bold in your description. This can increase your chance that people will click through to your site. Use your best judgment and only use keywords when they reflect your page’s content. And lastly, keep your descriptions short and to the point. We recommend under 155 characters, so they won’t get cut off on the results page. Let’s recap. When crafting meta descriptions, follow these 4 guidelines. Remember, it’s all about being a good match for what people are searching for. Invest time in your meta descriptions—every page counts. Again, I’m Matthew. Thanks for tuning in and... We’ll see you next time.

Matthew L. Kaminsky | 2 min Video Transcript: Google verification Getting your site listed and verified by Google is a key step to start optimizing your site for Google search results. I’m Matthew and today’s video will cover how you can verify your site with Google, index your home page and submit your sitemap—all with our Google integration. During verification, you’re proving to Google that you’re the site owner. But what does it all mean? To get a better understanding, let’s take a closer look at how search engines work. Google and other search bots travel the web and crawl sites 24/7, updating their indexes with the latest content. So whether or not you verify your site, bots will eventually discover and index it—but that could take awhile. To speed up this process, we partnered with Google. You’ll be able to verify your site with Google Search Console in seconds, right from your SEO plan—saving you the time and hassle of having to do it manually. In addition to verification, we handle 2 essential actions. First, your home page gets indexed, so you’ll be able to see it instantly on Google. Keep in mind, this is just the beginning of your SEO journey. It takes time and ongoing optimization till your site starts ranking for your keywords . Second, your sitemap is automatically submitted to Google, so your pages are faster to find and index. Your sitemap gives search engines information about your pages for crawling. Wix sitemaps are dynamic so they’re updated automatically whenever you refresh, add or remove a page. Once your site is verified, you’ll get an email from Google Search Console with access to your account. This tool helps you manage and track your site performance in Google search results. You’ll have a better understanding of how Google crawls your site pages—from insights and alerts on performance issues to which search queries give you more visibility and drive clicks. To verify your site from your SEO plan, you’ll need to complete each item in Step 1. Simply follow your checklist. We’ll walk you through each step. To learn more about optimizing your site for SEO, check out the SEO Learning Hub. Again, I’m Matthew. Thanks for tuning in and...We’ll see you next time.

Carly Ellis | 2 min This post was last updated on May 03, 2023. Video Transcript Image optimization Your images not only enhance user experience, they can also bring a significant amount of traffic to your site, if optimized right. I’m Carly and today we’re going to talk about how to optimize your images for search engines . Before we dive into the details, let’s make one thing clear- Google and other search engines can read text... But when it comes to images, they need to be optimized so search engines can better understand them. This is also key for web accessibility - to give everyone the ability to experience and interact with your site. Now - here’s some practical tips for optimizing your images. First, let's talk about alt text. This is where SEO and accessibility meet. Alt text or alternative text, is the textual description of an image. It’s used within an HTML code to tell people who might not be able to see your images, or search engines, what the image is about and helps them index it properly. Think of it as the written version of the image. When writing alt text, describe the image from the perspective of someone who is visually impaired. Take this image. Describing it as just ”Plant” doesn’t give the reader enough context. Rather, “Snake plant in a yellow pot” are way more descriptive and informative. Think about the context of the image. Be descriptive but concise at the same time. Quick pro-tip - when possible, upload your images as a JPEG file, since they’re significantly smaller than a PNG file. This will help improve page loading time without compromising quality. Second, add captions when it makes sense. These are typically added under images in an article or on product pages. Along with improving visitor experience, they help search engines better understand the context of an image. Make sure to use these guidelines when optimizing images on your site to help search engines read them and more importantly, to make your site accessible for everyone on the web. Again, I’m Carly. Thanks for tuning in and...We’ll see you next time.

Carly Ellis | 2 min This post was last updated on May 03, 2023. Video Transcript How to Optimize Your Page Content for SEO Your content plays a huge role when it comes to ranking on search engines. Solid content will drive traffic and keep your visitors engaged—even better, it can convert your casual visitors into loyal customers. I’m Carly and today’s video will cover how to optimize your page content. Just like people, search engines “read” what’s on your site to get a better understanding of what it’s about. Their algorithms are very sophisticated. By crawling your site pages, they analyze the relevance and quality of your content, then match it to relevant search queries. So how do you make the most of your site content? While there's no one size fits all approach, here are some best practices to get you started. 5 Content Optimization Best Practices First, write for people—not search engines. Think about your audience. What are they looking for? What do they want to know? Then, structure your pages and content in a way that answers their questions. Just make sure your content is original, high-quality and provides value to your visitors. Second, use your keywords strategically, but naturally. In the past, there was a lot of emphasis on using keywords wherever you could. But nowadays, you should only use your keywords when it makes sense—like in your title tags and page headings. Third, headings and subheadings should be clear and concise. Give readers enough info about each section on your page, so they can quickly scan to see if your content is relevant. Next, use heading tags. These tags give structure to your pages by dividing content into sections. Plus, they’re vital for accessibility and SEO. To learn more about structuring your heading tags, check out our guide here . And lastly, keep creating content that’s fresh and original. There are plenty of ways to do this, like blogging. Blogs are highly effective for growing your organic traffic. They attract new visitors and can drive conversions. Simply put, there are no shortcuts. Invest time in creating high-quality content. That way you’re more likely to answer a variety of search intents , signalling that your site is relevant and valuable. Again, I’m Carly. Thanks for tuning in and...We’ll see you next time.