Microsoft Bing has recently added three notations to its search results pages that show price history, available coupons and ethical choice ratings.
Price history. Bing shows a graph showing whether a product price has increased, decreased or is stable. It highlights the high, median and low prices. Here’s what it looks like:
Microsoft Bing’s Price history annotation
This annotation is available in the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Australia and India.
Available coupons. Bing shows searchers directly in the search results when coupons are available for a website. The coupon will automatically be copied and applied to the purchase for shoppers without needing to do a separate search for a code. Here’s what it looks like:
Microsoft Bing’s Coupons available annotation
This annotation is now available in the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, Germany and France.
Ethical choice. This annotation indicates whether a brand sells eco-friendly, upcycled or fair trade fashion. Microsoft Bing recently expanded its Ethical Shopping Hub, which assigns a rating (powered by Good on You) based on a brand’s impact on people, the planet and animals.
Why we care. What’s good for searchers can also be good for websites. All of these annotations seem designed to help reduce friction in the shopping process and could lead to additional sales for brands and businesses.
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About The Author
Danny Goodwin is Managing Editor of Search Engine Land & SMX. In addition to writing daily about SEO, PPC, and more for Search Engine Land, Goodwin also manages Search Engine Land’s roster of subject-matter experts. He also helps program our conference series, SMX – Search Marketing Expo. Prior to joining Search Engine Land, Goodwin was Executive Editor at Search Engine Journal, where he led editorial initiatives for the brand. He also was an editor at Search Engine Watch. He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.
Cynthia Ramsaran is director of custom content at Third Door Media, publishers of Search Engine Land and MarTech. A multi-channel storyteller with over two decades of editorial/content marketing experience, Cynthia’s expertise spans the marketing, technology, finance, manufacturing and gaming industries. She was a writer/producer for CNBC.com and produced thought leadership for KPMG. Cynthia hails from Queens, NY and earned her Bachelor’s and MBA from St. John’s University.
Analysis and advice: Why recipe sites saw huge fluctuations in visibility
30-second summary:
The recipe space is a very competitive one
While sites like BBC Good Food and the likes saw +22 percent hikes in search visibility, the good times may be over
Award-winning performance marketing agency, Reprise Digital’s SEO Account Manager on how to rank while the algorithm update may still be at play
Google is a popular home for recipes. The search engine giant sees millions of recipe searches every day, with users seeking some inspiration or looking to learn how to whip up a specific meal, snack, or baked treat.
The recipe market is competitive, with big players such as BBC Good Food and Delish, brands including Gousto and Hello Fresh, and thousands of dedicated recipe blogs competing for your attention. Google does a great job of making this recipe content appealing in the SERPs with rich results showing the user ratings, how long the recipe takes, cuisine, and lots more. This means searchers can get all the information they need in a handy snapshot before clicking through.
Recipe sites saw significant increases post-algorithm update in November: sites such as BBC Good Food saw huge increases in visibility at +22 percent just a couple of months later. It was a similar story for most major recipe sites, with allrecipes.com increasing by a whopping 94 percent in the few months post-update. The aforementioned brand websites also saw huge increases. In fact, Gousto’s visibility went and increased by over 150 percent just three months after the update!
However, the good times may be over, at least for now anyway. Following the latest algorithm update in May, those generous portions of huge increases have been eaten away at and replaced with significant decreases. Sites like Gousto and Hello Fresh have been impacted the most, as these brands saw visibility dropping by half!
Source: Searchmetrics
Blog sites have had to swallow a similar fate…
Source: Searchmetrics
The algorithm updates have clearly had a huge impact on recipe sites, but Google has also been playing around with recipes for quite some time now. Many searchers have noticed recipe carousels being segmented by ‘recipe type’ in recent months, for example.
It is clear that recipes are a particular focus within core algorithm updates, so there has never been a better time to ensure your recipe content is the best it can be.
Tips to make your recipe page crème de la crème
Below are some top tips to make sure your recipe page is the crème de la crème. By following these steps, your content will have the maximum chance to not only appear at the top of the SERPs but also drive traffic by making it more appealing as compared to other results:
1. Provide supplementary information
This includes cuisine, cooking time, difficulty, and calories. Also, remember to implement structured data (if you haven’t already!)
2. Add optimized images that are relevant
We eat with our eyes first, images are a great way to make the recipe more engaging, as well as easier to follow. It’s also important to select the best image that will appear in rich results, it needs to be clear, of the recipe in question and of course look delicious!
In a competitive space, imagery is your chance to entice the user to click your result instead of the others. Products out of shot (as below) or low-quality images are a missed opportunity and could result in lost traffic to competitors.
Source: Google search
3. Create a video asset for high-value recipes
We all know videos work great for recipes, but it can be very time-consuming creating a video for every recipe, especially if you have a back catalog of hundreds or even thousands. Instead, focus on those recipes that hold the largest opportunity by asking yourself the below questions:
Are the search terms returning video results?
Are the main competitors using videos for this particular recipe?
Is there decent search volume for the recipe on Google AND YouTube (maximize ROI)?
Is the recipe already ranking near the top? If so, will a video take it to that next level?
Is it a recipe that would genuinely benefit from a video? Are there lots of steps or variations?
As the data shows, recipe content is volatile but small tweaks and improvements can ensure your recipes have the best chance possible to rank at the top and encourage users to click.
Robert Scott is SEO Account Manager at award-winning performance marketing agency, Reprise Digital. Rob has five years’ experience within SEO with a keen interest in content and holistic search.
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Google July 2022 product reviews update had very little ranking volatility, say data providers
On July 27th, Google released its fourth product reviews update named the July 2022 product reviews update. That update took a short and sweet six days to roll out and was completed on August 2nd. In short, this July update was almost none existent to most of the data providers we asked, where in aggregate, there were very few signs of any real Google update during that six-day time period.
Let me add the caveat that if a site was hit by this update, it 100% felt like a major update, where the site can see traffic changes upwards of 80%. Plenty of sites were hit hard and if your site was one of them, this story is not to diminish that in any way. This story just says that it was not as widespread as previous product review updates or core updates. But in the aggregate, it seemed this update was pretty minor across Google’s search results, as a whole.
Data providers show the July update was minor
Semrush. Semrush data showed that the July product reviews update was “incredibly mild,” Mordy Oberstein, Semrush’s communications advisor said.
The change in rank volatility between the July 2022 product reviews update and the March 2022 product reviews update, the data shows that the increases are minimal. Some niches “didn’t even crack a full point increase, the highest fluctuation rate the Semrush Sensor recorded during the update,” Mordy Oberstein added.
This charge shows a comparison between the July and March 2022 product reviews updates, showing July was almost insignificant compared to March:
This also works when you just isolate the peak changes, the most volatile snapshot in time during the update, you really cannot compare the two. It is like the July update was nothing compared to the March update.
Here is another interesting chart showing the newly ranked URLs after each update and also the URLs not previously in the top 20. Click on each chart to expand:
Just one note, around June 15th, Semrush updated its Sensor to adjust the levels of sensitivity it used down. Semrush confirmed this with us today but also posted about it on Twitter some time ago, which is why we asked for confirmation on this story. That being said, the other tools showed similar findings, which was very little volatility related to this update.
RankRanger/Similarweb. RankRanger, a company of Similarweb, showed similar results, where RankRanger data “didn’t see any unusual rank fluctuations,” according to Shay Harel from the company. “The latest Product Review update was pretty uneventful,” Shay Harel added. This is based on both RankRanger and SimilarWeb, RankRanger’s new parent company, data where both traffic data and rank fluctuation data show lower levels of fluctuations.
This chart below shows that the fluctuations and volatility during the period of time of the July 2022 product reviews update were limited, to say the least:
Now that RankRanger has Similarweb, they can now also compare traffic from Google Search to compare on that level. And that also showed that the December update was larger than the July update:
RankRanger compared this July update with the December update, not the March one. So keep that in mind, since Semrush compared it to the March update, which was the most recent one we had prior to this July update.
Now broken down by position, you see a similar picture:
RankRanger also showed the volatility by niche for this last update:
Here are some top winners and losers from Similarweb’s data:
Sistrix. Again, the data shows the same story, “after an initial analysis it’s clear that this update did not have a major impact on SERPs,” Steve Paine from Sistrix told us. Sistrix sent us a few examples of sites that did see movement both up and down after this update:
seoClarity and Moz. Both of those toolset providers told us they saw very little, just like the toolsets above. “Our internal tools are showing minimal changes,” Mitul Gandhi from seoClarity told us. He added that it is “hard to tell in a quick view anything more than standard fluctuations.” Dr. Pete Meyers from Moz also told me that he was unable to pin down a lot on this last update, saying there is not much to see with this update.
More on the July 2022 product reviews update
Google product reviews update. The Google product reviews update aims to promote review content that is above and beyond much of the templated information you see on the web. Google said it will promote these types of product reviews in its search results rankings.
Google is not directly punishing lower-quality product reviews that have “thin content that simply summarizes a bunch of products.” However, if you provide such content and find your rankings demoted because other content is promoted above yours, it will definitely feel like a penalty. Technically, according to Google, this is not a penalty against your content, Google is just rewarding sites with more insightful review content with rankings above yours.
Technically, this update should only impact product review content and not other types of content.
July 27 to August 6. This July 2022 product reviews update only took six days to fully roll out and to be honest, that is surprising. We saw very limited changes from the tracking tools and honestly, while some sites seemed to get hard by this update, it does not seem there was a lot of SEO community chatter around ranking changes due to this update. In fact, we saw a spike on August 3rd but clearly, that was after this update was complete.
What to do if you are hit. Google has given advice on what to consider if you are negatively impacted by this product reviews update. We posted that advice in our original story over here. In addition, Google provided two new best practices around this update, one saying to provide more multimedia around your product reviews and the second is to provide links to multiple sellers, not just one. Google posted these two items:
Provide evidence such as visuals, audio, or other links of your own experience with the product, to support your expertise and reinforce the authenticity of your review.
Include links to multiple sellers to give the reader the option to purchase from their merchant of choice.
Google added the following criteria for what matters with the March 2022 product reviews update:
Include helpful in-depth details, like the benefits or drawbacks of a certain item, specifics on how a product performs, or how the product differs from previous versions
Come from people who have actually used the products, and show what the product is physically like or how it’s used
Include unique information beyond what the manufacturer provides — like visuals, audio or links to other content detailing the reviewer’s experience
Cover comparable products, or explain what sets a product apart from its competitors
Google added three new points of new advice for this third release of the products reviews update:
Are product review updates relevant to ranked lists and comparison reviews? Yes. Product review updates apply to all forms of review content. The best practices we’ve shared also apply. However, due to the shorter nature of ranked lists, you may want to demonstrate expertise and reinforce authenticity in a more concise way. Citing pertinent results and including original images from tests you performed with the product can be good ways to do this.
Are there any recommendations for reviews recommending “best” products? If you recommend a product as the best overall or the best for a certain purpose, be sure to share with the reader why you consider that product the best. What sets the product apart from others in the market? Why is the product particularly suited for its recommended purpose? Be sure to include supporting first-hand evidence.
If I create a review that covers multiple products, should I still create reviews for the products individually? It can be effective to write a high-quality ranked list of related products in combination with in-depth single-product reviews for each recommended product. If you write both, make sure there is enough useful content in the ranked list for it to stand on its own.
Why we care. If your website offers product review content, you will want to check your rankings to see if you were impacted. Did your Google organic traffic improve, decline, or stay the same? Long term, you are going to want to ensure that going forward, you put a lot more detail and effort into your product review content so that it is unique and stands out from the competition on the web.
We hope you, your company, and your clients did well with this update.
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About The Author
Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.
Do you plan to attend in-person events in the next year?
I miss in-person events. I haven’t been to a search marketing conference since late 2019.
But as much as I miss in-person events, I’m not sure if I’m ready to return to conferences in the real world. After all, our free SMX Advanced event in June was 100% online – and got absolutely amazing scores from the 8,000+ search marketers who attended.
This year, we’ve seen the return of in-person marketing conferences (as well as hybrid events) – and attendance levels are definitely not back to pre-pandemic levels.
Recent COVID variants have caused major spikes in cases across the country. In fact, my family just recovered from COVID – and so many of my industry friends and colleagues have contracted the disease in recent weeks.
So how do you feel about returning to in-person events?
Please take this quick, 3-minute survey and tell us how you are feeling about attending conferences in the remaining months of this year and the first half of 2023. We will publish the results in the next few weeks.
Danny Goodwin is Managing Editor of Search Engine Land & SMX. In addition to writing daily about SEO, PPC, and more for Search Engine Land, Goodwin also manages Search Engine Land’s roster of subject-matter experts. He also helps program our conference series, SMX – Search Marketing Expo. Prior to joining Search Engine Land, Goodwin was Executive Editor at Search Engine Journal, where he led editorial initiatives for the brand. He also was an editor at Search Engine Watch. He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.
Google no longer recommends using dynamic rendering for Google Search
Google has updated the dynamic rendering help documentation to now say Google no longer recommends using dynamic rendering, that this is a workaround and not a long-term solution to your Google Search crawling and indexing problems with JavaScript.
Truth is, Google always said this was a workaround but now with advancements in web and crawling technology, Google is pushing harder for developers, webmasters, and SEOs to avoid using dynamic rendering.
What is dynamic rendering? Google said that dynamic rendering means “switching between client-side rendered and pre-rendered content for specific user agents.” You would be able to serve Google an HTML version of the page while serving the user the JavaScript version if you wanted to. Google said that currently “it’s difficult to process JavaScript and not all search engine crawlers are able to process it successfully or immediately.” The company said it hopes the problem eventually can be fixed, “but in the meantime, we recommend dynamic rendering as a workaround solution to this problem,” so this solution may go away as the AJAX crawling schema went away after no longer being needed.
What changed. Google has updated the dynamic rendering help documentation to add a red warning bar that reads “Dynamic rendering is a workaround and not a long-term solution for problems with JavaScript-generated content in search engines. Instead, we recommend that you use server-side rendering, static rendering, or hydration as a solution.”
Google also added and updated these sections to the top of the page:
On some websites, JavaScript generates additional content on a page when it’s executed in the browser. This is called client-side rendering. While Google Search executes JavaScript, there are JavaScript features with limitations in Google Search and some pages may encounter problems with content not showing up in the rendered HTML. Other search engines may choose to ignore JavaScript and won’t see JavaScript-generated content.
Dynamic rendering is a workaround for websites where JavaScript-generated content is not available to search engines. A dynamic rendering server detects bots that may have problems with JavaScript-generated content and serves a server-rendered version without JavaScript to these bots while showing the client-side rendered version of the content to users.
Dynamic rendering is a workaround and not a recommended solution, because it creates additional complexities and resource requirements.
Before screenshot. Here is a screenshot of the page before:
After screenshot. Here is a screenshot of the page after:
Why we care. If you have been using dynamic rendering or considering using it in the future, maybe try server-side rendering or static rendering, or hydration as an alternative going forward. It is not always common for Google to outright say they do not recommend a specific technique and here Google is saying that.
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About The Author
Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.
How to optimize your ecommerce site for better indexing
Over the next couple of years, how search engines index content will likely change.
I’ve covered this viewpoint in Why 100% indexing isn’t possible, and why that’s OK. Still, this ultimately means that we need to work smarter in competitive markets to create better value propositions and uniqueness to move above the ranking quality threshold.
For different websites, indexing key pages can mean different things. But for ecommerce stores, it boils down to two types of pages:
The category page or product listing page (PLP).
The individual product page or product details page (PDP).
Historically, many ecommerce websites have implemented similar strategies – to bulk out the category page with some form of “SEO content” (that mostly fell to the bottom of the page) and an optimized H1.
Individual product pages, on the other hand, often receive less attention. A few key products might have product descriptions written. But most of the time, the page content is left to the product information management (PIM) solution to populate.
Why indexing signals matter in ecommerce
First, I want to clarify that when I’m talking about “indexing signals,” I’m not talking about the page-level indexing signals we can control, such as canonicals and noindex tags.
For the most part, I’d like to think these are correct, as related issues should be found in the first five minutes of looking through any crawl data.
I’m referring to the signals we can generate when Google (and other search engines) are processing your website and the content on individual product pages to ascertain whether it would be a “good” document to rank within search results pages and for which queries.
The decision on whether the page (the individual HTML document) is good enough to index comes down to the notion of a quality threshold. Search engines need to have a quality threshold, as indexing the entire web is impossible.
In ecommerce, the quality threshold bar will differ between industries (e.g., the threshold will be lower for fast fashion than for home medical equipment).
A mistake I often see is that the quality threshold is mistaken for E-A-T, when it’s a wider combination of:
The source of the content (e.g., brand, entity).
The topical relevancy, authority, and breadth of the content.
E-A-T (as we know and understand it).
Historical data and factors.
Competitor content and value propositions for the same search queries.
Google also isn’t linear in how it presents SERPs. For example, the current SERP in the U.S. for the 12,000 monthly search volume query [solar charger] has a SERP containing:
Google Shopping results.
A Top Stories carousel.
Four ecommerce results, including Amazon and BestBuy.
Five informational results (a couple of them look affiliate).
This matters because Google is clearly catering to multiple common interpretations and intents for the query.
By providing mixed results, it also needs to have different thresholds per result source type – as it’s impossible to compare the Amazon result to a random product comparison website result.
This is also why keyword difficulty scores in third-party tools are becoming increasingly redundant for me.
The internal link between supporting content and your PDPs
Internal anchor texts are important and, from my experience, are often underoptimized and left as generic calls to action (CTA).
Examples of generic CTAs include “click here” and “find out more.” Google calls this out in a 2008 Search Central article as a “not-very-optimal way of linking.”
Google’s John Mueller has said on record that the anchor text used for internal links gives Google context around what the page being linked to is about.
Descriptive anchor text relevant to the content they’re placed in and relevant to the page you’re linking to can help Google better understand:
Where the content piece sits in your domain ecosystem.
Whether it should be ranked for a certain query over another page. (As much as we target keywords with specific pages, pages will rank for multiple keywords intended or otherwise.)
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Improving your product detail pages for better indexing
A lot of ecommerce websites don’t invest enough in their product pages.
In competitive markets, most of these PDPs don’t offer unique value propositions and fall below the quality threshold for indexing.
There are several ways to enhance your product pages and leverage the business and brand’s unique selling proposition (USP).
Dynamic metadata and product information
Let’s say your brand’s USP focuses on offering quality products at lower prices, and search terms gravitate around “budget” and “cheap.”
To enforce the lower price in the page content and boost click-through from the SERPs, you can include dynamic elements in the PDP title tag, H2, and body copy to pull through the current price.
Content enrichments
Many product pages tend to follow templated product descriptions, which is understandable as there’s only so much you can write about specific products.
However, you can enrich product pages through expert reviews or advice sections and tie them in with your website’s E-A-T strategy and other content areas.
Championing among variables
Some product lines have the same product but with multiple iterations and releases. Some of these come over several years (e.g., the iPhone) and others over the course of months (e.g., Pokemon cards).
The core product name doesn’t often change, only the version number or name, but you might still want all versions available to users.
One tactic I’ve used here is to create a “champion” version among the near duplicates – typically the most recent or most valuable product. I then add internal links between the versions so search engines can better understand the relationship between each one.
Rather than having the product versions randomly compete for indexing, you’re signaling a champion for more consistency.
Wrapping up
The methods listed above shouldn’t be read as a “do everything checklist.”
Instead, you should leverage the tactics according to what works for your brand, your website (stack), and how much needs to be done to tip the needle in your favor.
Ultimately, optimizing your product detail pages for indexing sets your ecommerce site for success in the SERPs.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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About The Author
Dan Taylor is head of technical SEO at SALT.agency, a UK-based technical SEO specialist and winner of the 2022 Queens Award. Dan works with and oversees a team working with companies ranging from technology and SaaS companies to enterprise e-commerce.
What percentage of your budget should go toward SEO?
Business investment in marketing these days is soaring, especially in digital marketing.
In fact, for the first time in a decade, marketing growth topped 10% from February 2021 to February 2022. According to the latest CMO Survey report, marketing spending grew by 11.8% compared to the previous 12 months. And it’s projected to grow even faster over the next year, to 13.6%.
The digital marketing channel specifically accounts for the bulk of that marketing spend, at 57.1%. According to that same report, digital marketing spend is expected to grow by a whopping 16.2% over the next year.
But how much of digital marketing spending goes toward search engine optimization?
In 2019, U.S. companies spent $73.38 billion on SEO out of a total of $776.30 billion for all digital marketing – roughly 9.5%, according to an earlier report by Borrell Associates.
Those who do SEO in-house (at least with local businesses) report higher costs and lower returns versus hiring a consultant and agency, which yields lower costs and higher returns, according to the report.
According to the report:
“Those who use third parties rate the third party’s effectiveness higher than their internal skill. SEO and web design/development particularly skew towards third parties being more effective.”
That said, SEO is an investment in your business’s future revenue. Think about it:
What drives a business is sales.
What drives sales is leads.
Digital leads come in through a website.
People find a website through impressions in the search results.
SEO allows businesses to own the top of the sales funnel: impressions of your website in the search results. And, some sectors find organic search drives 2x more revenue than other channels.
So what determines your SEO budget? I’ll touch on that next.
Factors that determine your SEO budget
What percentage of your budget should go toward SEO?
It’s not black and white, but the following factors should determine how much you invest:
Your revenue
Your competition
1. Your revenue
I recommend that the greater of $8,000 per month or 5% to 10% of your business revenue go toward SEO. In a highly competitive space, you should lean toward the high end. This is what you will see for businesses that are serious about competing.
Spending at least $8,000 a month usually allows for a good starting point with ample expert resources. At the high end, we have clients at six times that each month.
Also, consider how much money you’re putting toward paid advertising. For example, a national brand that runs PPC campaigns to attract new customers should spend approximately 25% as much additionally on organic SEO. The two channels complement each other to help drive website traffic.
I think it’s useful to say 25% of PPC spend, or at least $8,000 a month, is a reasonable estimate of SEO spending for companies that use ads.
2. Your competition
Consider that most search engine queries yield at least a million search results. And you have to be on Page 1 to even matter.
Any business that is competing in organic search has their work cut out for them. But, if you are in a difficult niche or are up against big brands with bigger budgets, you may have to work a little harder and faster.
This often requires a bump in your SEO budget. And you have to be willing to do this or risk being irrelevant in the search results.
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How to decide your SEO budget
So you know that two basic factors influence your SEO budget: your revenue and your competition. Let’s put this into perspective.
We know that there is massive competition in the search results. So the question isn’t only: “How much do you want to spend on SEO?” But also: “How fast do you want to beat the competition?”
This is really what determines your budget. At a minimum, you should spend 5% to 10% of your revenue on SEO. But if you want to get ahead faster, you typically spend more.
That does not mean blindly investing in SEO with the promise that more money = better results.
But you do need resources. You need to know who you are hiring, and they need to have an excellent reputation and deep expertise.
If you’re using a third-party SEO agency, make sure you only hire experts. Unfortunately, many businesses settle for inexpensive SEO services. Cheap SEO is a near-death experience, and it will cost you more time and money to crawl out of the grave you’ve dug than if you were to invest in a healthy SEO strategy upfront.
With a nice budget that affords a true expert, you can learn how to make the most impactful SEO moves with the resources you have. And, if you can be more nimble than the competition in making those changes, you have a better chance of getting ahead.
If you are able, take advantage of downturns when possible. Those who do not have the knee-jerk reaction of pulling budget for digital marketing when the outlook is shaky will have the chance to ramp up and pass their competition.
Consider diverting budget to SEO
If your marketing budget is already maxed out on other channels, consider diverting some of your budget to SEO.
For instance, say you are spending a significant amount on PPC ads. Carving out 5% to 10% of that for SEO shouldn’t be an issue.
Especially when you consider how SEO trumps PPC on average conversion rates, you will thank yourself later. And, SEO has staying power for your brand’s presence online. You can’t say that for ads – if you turned off your advertising tomorrow, you’d have no residual value in the search results.
SEO is more cost-effective in the long run because your optimized webpages can continue driving traffic for years.
Yes, you must maintain leads coming in today (be it through PPC or something else), so I’m not suggesting you shut those activities off. But, if you have a good stream of leads coming in now, invest some of your budget into the future – and SEO will get you there.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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About The Author
Bruce Clay is the founder and president of Bruce Clay Inc., a global digital marketing optimization firm providing search engine optimization, PPC management, paid social media marketing, SEO-friendly site architecture, content development, and SEO tools and education.
Clay authored the book “Search Engine Optimization All-In-One For Dummies,” now in its fourth edition, and “Content Marketing Strategies for Professionals.” He wrote the first webpage-analysis tool, created the Search Engine Relationship Chart® and is credited with being the first to use the term search engine optimization. Bruce Clay’s renowned SEO training course is available online at SEOtraining.com.
Top technical SEO issues every webmaster should master
Technical SEO issues are more common than most users expect, but you do not have to hire a team of specialists to resolve them.
Developers and web designers want to assure everything on their website is up and running at optimal levels. Therefore, similarly to your website’s site health, monitoring your website’s SEO is important to keep your ranking growing.
In this article, we will discuss some of the issues that affect your website’s technical SEO and how to find and solve them. Included will also be tools that you can use to better manage and monitor your website’s SEO rank and Domain Authority score.
Domain Authority
Your Domain Authority (DA) is a score for your website created by Moz, which gives you a ranking from 1-100 in order to predict if your site is likely to appear higher in a search engine search.
The score is calculated on different factors; therefore, your domain’s score will fluctuate with time. It uses an algorithm to compare how often Google search uses your domain over a different domain within that same search.
Therefore, if your domain ranks higher than a competitor’s domain, it regards it as having more authority. For example, Amazon will have a higher domain authority than a regular eCommerce website.
Why does Domain Authority matter?
Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor in and of itself. However, it does provide some insight into your website, its links, and how it compares to your competitors.
You do not have to strive to make your DA 100, as that is the highest it can go and likely very hard to compete with other large companies such as Facebook or, as previously mentioned, Amazon.
Webmasters should therefore focus on their links, keywords, and other SEO aspects that will affect their Google ranking.
Backlinks
Sometimes referred to as inbound or incoming links, backlinks occur when one website is linked to another.
When your website receives a backlink from an authoritative website, you gain what is known as a “vote of confidence.”
If multiple sources of information link to your website or the same content, SEO regards your content to be of high quality.
However, what happens when links to your website are deemed as “bad” or low-quality backlinks, and what does this mean?
Toxic backlinks
Google defines bad backlinks as:
Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.
This means if any of the backlinks on your website are from a malicious or manipulative source, your SEO will be negatively affected, as it is reflected as bad content.
Google Search Central has further examples and information on what can cause your backlinks to be flagged as toxic or bad content.
How to find toxic backlinks and how to get rid of them
A link analysis is the best way to identify where your backlinks are coming from. You can use Google Search Console to see your entire linking profile; however, for a more in-depth look at your backlinks and their sources, you can use other resources.
Semrush has a Backlink Analysis tool that lets you review your links before making any changes. It is to be noted that Semrush is a paid resource.
In order to address toxic backlinks, you can put in a request in Google Search Console to Disavow them. This lets Google know to ignore the links and not to count them against your SEO score.
Disavowing backlinks is a resource that should only be used if the links to your website are actively targeting your site and bringing your rank down.
Valid markup
Although drag and drop builders are amongst the most popular ways to design a website today, all sites are still made out of code, and this will also be reviewed by search engines.
W3C coding standards
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community that works together to develop Web standards.
It offers free access to these standards as its principle is Web for all, Web on everything. This means all sites should be accessible to users across browsers and devices.
What do coding standards have to do with SEO?
These standards assure that your content is available everywhere, which means if your code is not validated by these rules, it might mean there will be cross-compatibility issues and errors that can negatively impact your SEO.
Validating your code per W3C standards does not affect your SEO, but it can resolve a couple of issues, including:
Malformed code
Content rendering
Microdata markup
Heading structure
It is possible to validate your code in a variety of ways. Including URL, file upload and direct input on the W3C website.
Having your code validated will also assure you that you are available across the globe and platforms, reduce code bloat, and create a better user experience overall. All of which will contribute to better SEO management.
Other factors that might affect your technical SEO
The following are some further issues you might encounter after auditing your website.
Resources blocked by robots.txt – If you block CSS or JS here, search engines cannot render your content.
Broken links – Not only are broken links bad for the user experience but because your website is setting outbound links to pages that do not exist anymore or are misspelled, it reflects as bad content on your website.
Missing images – Similarly to broken links, missing images occur when the image that was in place on a page was removed, or its link updated. Ensure your images are up to date and optimized for search engines.
Server errors
404 not found – per Google, there are a variety of ways a 404 page could affect your website. Having multiple 404 pages with no 301 redirects or custom 404 pages can reflect bad content or issues with your links as they oftentimes will continue to be crawled.
301 redirect loops – this error occurs when one of your links redirects to a new website, that in turn continues to redirect it. As Google Search engine cannot process your final link, it is not able to gather information from that page. Ensure to update your links to point to the correct destination to eliminate the need for a 301.
Mixed content warnings – Mixed content happens when an HTTPS page contains HTTP elements. Non-secure HTTP elements mean a page is not secure and could be attacked, negatively affecting your SEO.
Further resources
There are multiple tools to check your SEO standing and how to improve it. These are just some of our recommendations.
Backlinko is a great resource for SEO training and link-building strategies.
Google Core Web Vitals is one of the most thorough tools to check your site speed and what might be affecting it.
ScreamingFrog is desktop-based software that crawls your entire website and integrates with data from your Google services. The audit scans for broken links, duplicate content and server errors amongst technical data points.
SEORCH can give you vital information on your keyword density, heading structure, and code-to-text ratio.
Semrush is a paid resource with incredible tools that help you understand your links, keywords, ranking, and more. They also offer courses, e-books and community support.
Final words
Technical SEO can be intimidating for some users as it is not as readily available to change as general SEO modifications. Oftentimes it requires changes to code, site architecture and the web server in order to resolve issues.
Keeping an eye out for these issues with consistent monitoring and full site audits helps you catch issues early on. Using tools like Semrush and Google Search Console will help your site grow not only its rank but also its Domain Authority.
If you are interested in learning more about improving your SEO ranking and optimizing your website, amongst other things, check out InMotion Hosting’s blog.
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About The Author
As a certified Great Place to Work, with over 30,000 positive customer comments, we strive every day to make our customers happy. We are an employee-owned technology company, guided by a commitment to the open source community and fostering technical thought leadership in the hosting industry. With a blended approach of technology, expert customer support, and easy to use digital tools, our success and growth have stemmed from our honest desire to help businesses succeed and grow.
Want to speak at SMX? Now’s the time to submit a pitch!
SMX Next returns online November 15-16, 2022, focusing on what’s working in search now and how to prepare for 2023.
Search marketing is ever-changing. And we’ve seen a lot of big changes so far in 2022. Algorithm updates and SERP feature changes are making organic search harder. Automation is proving frustrating in paid search and social. Plus, the death of third-party cookies has been delayed. Again. Oh, and Google Analytics 4. It’s a lot.
SMX Next will help marketers regain control.
If you’re an enthusiastic search marketer who has a passion for sharing knowledge and wants to give back to the industry, please consider submitting a session pitch for SMX Next. We’re looking for subject matter experts to share insights, strategies and tactics that are working now and will help SEO and PPC marketers prepare to be successful in 2023 and beyond.
Whether you’ve been speaking for years or are just dipping your toes into speaking, please consider submitting a session pitch. We are always looking for new speakers with diverse points of view.
The deadline for SMX Next pitches is September 15.
Here are a few tips for submitting a compelling session proposal:
Present an original idea and/or topic not commonly covered at other search events. The focus of Remember: SMX Next focuses on what’s new (and working well) and what’s next (trends and opportunities).
Include details about what attendees will be able to do better or different as a result of viewing your session.
Include a case study or specific examples and explain how they can be applied in different types of organizations.
Be realistic about what you can present in the time allotted. You can’t cover everything about your topic. Going more in-depth on a narrow topic is often more valuable to the attendee.
Provide tangible takeaways and a plan of action.
Jump over to this page for more details on how to submit a session idea, or directly to this page to create your profile and submit a session pitch.
If you have questions, feel free to reach out to me directly at [email protected]. I’m looking forward to reading your proposals!
New on Search Engine Land
About The Author
Kathy is the director of event content at Third Door Media. She has more than 25 years of experience in marketing communications, event management and marketing training. Formerly, Kathy was the director of content and training for the Digital Summit series of events where she oversaw the content development and quality of more than 20 events a year. Prior to that she was the director of training for MarketingProfs where she worked on live events, virtual events and developed marketing training programs using instructional design techniques and adult learning theory. She has also worked on industry events for other companies including the Direct Marketing Association and Penton Media.
