Search Results

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.

Carly Ellis | 3 min This post was last updated on May 03, 2023. Video Transcript What Are Keywords? Choosing strategic keywords is essential to your content strategy, so you can attract the right visitors to your site. After all, that’s what SEO is all about. I’m Carly and that’s what we’ll talk about in today’s video. So what are keywords? Keywords are the main topics that define your site content. When it comes to SEO, they’re the words and phrases people use when searching on Google and other search engines in order to find what they’re looking for. Instead of keywords, we like to think of them as “key phrases” because it better reflects the way people actually search online today. In fact, Ahrefs, a popular keyword research tool, found that nearly 70% of online search queries contained 4+ words . So when potential customers use specific phrases related to your business, you want your site to appear high on the search results page. Obviously, your site content plays a huge role. From the topics you cover to the words and phrases used naturally throughout your content, they help search engines get a better understanding of your site and identify if it’s relevant for a given search query . How to Choose the Right Keywords? In order to develop a strong content strategy, first you need to know which keywords and phrases you’re targeting. So let’s get to it. Here are 3 important questions to ask yourself when researching and choosing your key phrases. The first thing to consider: Who are your potential customers? Imagine what they’d be searching for and how. What are their needs and concerns? What topics grab their interest ? Put yourself in their shoes. Next: What is your unique value proposition? Think about what makes your business stand out from the competition. Maybe it’s the fact that you offer free shipping, quality products or a special expertise. Focus on whatever you think your target audience wants and be specific. Then, see what your competitors are doing. It’s important to do the research and get a sense of what’s working for them. With some detective work, you might even identify critical market gaps. Take this opportunity to highlight your unique values, which can help you rise above your competitors in the rankings. In short, choosing the right keywords is only part of the SEO puzzle. It takes time and quality content in order to establish your site as relevant and trustworthy. We recommend conducting in-depth keyword research to identify the most effective keywords for your content strategy. For more info on this topic, check out our how-to guide on keyword research. Again, I’m Carly. Thanks for tuning in and…We’ll see you next time.

Speaker: Mordy Oberstein | 5 min Read More

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Author: Marie Haynes Despite Google releasing core algorithm updates at a predictable rate of two or three times a year, each update can introduce volatility to the search rankings, which creates winners and losers. If your site traffic is adversely affected by a Google core update, there are ways to bounce back. To recover, you’ll likely need to: Understand how core updates typically impact traffic Identify whether the traffic loss is due to a core update Improve your expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) Improve your content quality Wait for the next core update to potentially reward your optimizations Google core updates can have devastating effects on traffic If your Google organic traffic plummets within 24 hours of an announced Google update, there is a good chance that Google’s algorithms have changed in a way that prefers other sites’ content over yours. Google runs a “core update”—a major change to its algorithms—every few months. These changes often produce widespread fluctuations in the ranking order of search results, which can ultimately mean less organic traffic for sites that are negatively affected. Google records the release dates of core updates in this document. While most updates have a multi-week rollout, at MHC (my consulting agency), we have found that significant changes most often occur within 24 hours of an update going live. To illustrate the potential negative impact, this image shows Google organic traffic for a site that saw declines within 24 hours of the May 2022 core update rollout. How to tell if the losses are due to the update If your traffic drop happens during the rollout of an update, the update is most likely to blame. However, there are cases where unfortunate timing causes a site to launch a new redesign or significant overhaul just before an update, which may also affect traffic. Or, it may be possible that a competitor has made improvements to their site or obtained some new authoritative backlinks to help propel them above you. If you are not sure whether your losses are due to a Google update, you can dig around in Google Analytics to see if the drop is limited to Google organic traffic. If this is the case, then it is much more likely that the update was the catalyst leading to losses. Here is an example of a site that took a large hit to its Google organic traffic following the September 2022 core update: Core updates often have a sitewide impact, although they may not impact every single page on the site. If you notice changes on just one page, this is probably not due to a Google core update. In the example above, the site (which was impacted by the September 2022 core update) saw big losses in some pages, but not all. So, you’ve been hit. How do you recover? Fortunately, Google gives us specific information about what its core updates (and thus, its algorithms) aim to reward. In its documentation on what site owners should know about Google core updates, the search engine highlights two things we should focus on: 01. Content 02. E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness)—especially with regard to how it’s described in the Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines (QRG) Improving E-A-T Google tells us that “assessing your own content in terms of E-A-T criteria may help it align conceptually with the different signals our automated systems use to rank content.” In terms of E-A-T, there are several questions Google suggests we ask ourselves to help us understand what it is looking for. While we don’t know exactly what Google’s algorithms are on the lookout for, we can find some clues in the questions listed in this document. For example: “Does the content present information in a way that makes you want to trust it, such as clear sourcing, evidence of the expertise involved, background about the author or the site that publishes it, such as through links to an author page or a site's About page?” This suggests several improvements we can make: Provide links to authoritative resources from within your content wherever possible. Cite references from scientific resources when appropriate. Clearly demonstrate to the reader that this article is written by someone with expertise. This could be in the form of an author bio or other type of copy on the page that shows it is written by someone with sufficient relevant experience. Feature author bios (when it makes sense; if your brand is known for being experts on a topic, you may not need author bios). Link author bios to author pages that extol their qualifications and mentions. Publish a detailed About page. Use schema to identify your brand to search engines and tell them who your authors are. Use Same-As schema to point to other authoritative places where your authors have been featured. “If you researched the site producing the content, would you come away with an impression that it is well-trusted or widely-recognized as an authority on its topic?” Much of how Google evaluates E-A-T is based on links and mentions. “Google’s algorithms identify signals about pages that correlate with trustworthiness and authoritativeness,” the company said in its white paper about how it fights disinformation. “The best known of these signals is PageRank, which uses links on the web to understand authoritativeness.” But, if links are important, does this mean we should be building our own links? Google is getting much better at recognizing which links truly are authoritative mentions worth counting. In most cases, if you are able to build your own link, you are likely breaking Google’s guidelines on links. These links are likely to be ignored by Google’s algorithms. In extreme cases, excessive link building can cause Google’s algorithms to completely distrust a site, resulting in a manual action or even removal from the search results. (Note: Links from your own profiles on other platforms, such as a Facebook or Yelp page, are perfectly fine but are unlikely to send the same authority signals to search engines.) In 2021, Google released a link spam update (separate from a core update) reminding site owners that buying links is against its guidelines, as is guest posting for the purpose of gaining links. So, what qualifies as a good link? In the QRG, the raters are told to look for evidence of other topic experts and professionals referencing a site or its authors. Most likely, links that can help contribute to E-A-T are ones that truly are recommendations or mentions of your business that would be valuable even if PageRank wasn’t taken into consideration. Examples of valuable and helpful links include: Mentions in articles and interviews on authoritative, well trusted websites (especially sites that are authoritative in your vertical). You can often get these by using a service such as HARO Being listed on a resource page of a well used, authoritative site News mentions of your brand or authors It is also important to make sure that your brand has a positive reputation on the internet. If you have a bad review profile, consistently have customers complaining about you online, or have a history of fraud, this can negatively impact Google’s assessment of E-A-T for your site. Similarly, if your brand has almost no online recognition beyond what you have said about yourself, this can be seen as a sign of low E-A-T. The Quality Rater Guidelines are filled with examples of pages that Google considers high or low quality because of their level of E-A-T. I highly recommend reading the guidelines and looking for clues in the examples given. Improving content quality Returning to Google’s documentation on what site owners should know about Google core updates, some of the questions point to obvious user frustration and UX issues: “Does the content have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?” It is perfectly acceptable to display ads on a page. But, if you have ads that make it hard for searchers to engage with your content, this can be a sign of a low quality page. “Does content display well for mobile devices when viewed on them?” If your mobile experience is frustrating searchers, this can impact Google’s assessment of quality for your site. In my opinion, the most important quality questions are: “Does the content provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?” “Does the content provide original information, reporting, research or analysis?” “Does the content provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?” Look at your content and compare it to a page that Google is now ranking above yours since the core update. Is yours substantially better? Does it do a better job of quickly getting the searcher to the answer they are looking for? What can you add, based on your experience, that would make your article uniquely valuable to searchers? The QRG talks extensively about the importance of fully meeting the needs of searchers. Your goal should be to produce content that: Allows the searcher to find their answer quickly Allows for easy skimming Is factual Is what a searcher would expect to read from an expert on your topic Doesn’t contradict general expert consensus Is thorough enough that the searcher would not want to go elsewhere to read more Gives answers concisely where appropriate so that a searcher who doesn’t want to read the whole article can easily find it If you can improve your content based on these questions, you may have an opportunity to recover from your core update hit. How long does recovery take? In my experience, if a site suffers a noticeable core update hit, a significant amount of work needs to be done in order to recover. Making a few changes in one or two articles is probably not enough—Google wants to see that the quality of your content has drastically improved. Content improvements can result in gradual traffic increases over time. However, “Broad core updates tend to happen every few months,” Google tells us, “Content that was impacted by one might not recover—assuming improvements have been made—until the next broad core update is released.” Here are some examples of sites we worked with at MHC that worked hard to improve and saw some level of recovery with a subsequent core update release. These sites all worked on improving E-A-T both on-site (with schema, author bios where appropriate, improved verbiage to demonstrate expertise, etc.) and off (links and mentions). They also all worked on drastically improving the quality of their content as mentioned above. The next core update is coming, improve your E-A-T and content quality to come out on top Google updates can have a significant impact on a site’s ability to rank. If you have been affected, the key to recovery is likely in improving your E-A-T and content quality. Pay close attention to Google’s core update questions. If you can improve significantly, you may find that traffic increases with a subsequent core update release. Marie Haynes - Owner at Marie Haynes Consulting Inc. Dr. Marie Haynes has been helping businesses perform well in Google's ever changing algorithms since 2008. A recognized leader in the SEO industry, digital marketers around the world use her book and checklist to evaluate website quality like a Google quality rater. Twitter | Linkedin