Image optimization for SEO: Everything you need to know for success

As of January 2019, there are more than 1.94 billion websites. That’s a lot of competition. What’s one great way to stand out? Great images. In fact, vision dominates all other senses when it comes to interacting with and absorbing information.

Here are three quick facts to help you understand how critical images are for people (and for SEO):

• 90% of all the data the brain transmits is visual.
• The human brain processes one image in the same amount of time it would take to read 1000 words. (Yes, turns out the old adage is indeed rooted in scientific fact.)
• The recall value of visual content even after three days is 65%, whereas the recall value for written text is merely 10%.

With the majority of search volume coming from phones — and coupled with the fact that people’s attention spans have reduced to eight seconds — it’s essential for websites to be able to deliver a quick, frictionless, and delightful user experience.

Image optimization serves as a major part of this puzzle.

What can image optimization do for my users (and for SEO)?

1. By shaving seconds off your site speed, it can reduce bounce rate and improve site retention.
2. It helps improve page loading speed, which is a major Google ranking factor.
3. It can help improve your keyword prominence. Read more on that here.
4. It helps in reverse image search, which can be a big value add especially if you’re a product-based business.
5. Many devices and desktops use high-resolution screens, which increase the need for good quality images.

Basic image optimization tips

These are some tips that anyone can apply for any type of site (even WordPress), so you’re not solely at the mercy of your developers and designers.

1. Choosing the right type of image: Vector or raster?

• Vector images are simple, created by using lines, points, and polygons. Vector images are best applicable for shapes, logos, icons, and flat images. They have as good as no pixelation when you zoom in, making them apt for high-resolution devices. Additionally, you can use the same image file on multiple platforms (as well as for responsive website design) without having to use multiple variations.
• Raster images, on the other hand, are images that are made of rectangular grids, each packed with multiple color values (pixels). Raster images provide depth to the imagery you would want to convey, giving it an emotional and psychological appeal as these images look real. However, if not handled well, these can heavily hamper your site’s loading speed! Plus, you might have to save multiple file variations to ensure they’re compatible on different platforms and fit for responsive designs.

Here’s a table that Google shared to help understand the pixel-to-byte relation. In short, you’ll get an idea of how heavy one image can get based on its dimensions.

Source: Google

Google also mentioned that it takes four bytes of memory to deliver one pixel. Imagine if you had several images on a site with 800 X 800 pixels. our site would take at least something around 625 kBps. Or in simpler terms, imagine an elephant participating in a rabbit race.

Bottom line

I would suggest wisely using a mix of both. An ideal ratio could be 40% vector images and 60% raster images.

2. Picking the best image format – SVG, JPG, PNG, or GIF?

Best format for vector images:

SVG is the only, and the best, option for vector images. Due to its flat imagery, you also benefit from high quality that is easily scalable.

Best formats for raster images:

• PNG: Produces high-quality images with heavy file sizes. It can be suggested only for times when you want to save every detail of the image.
• JPG: Produces good quality images which aren’t heavy in terms of file size. However, these are lossy images, which means you’ll lose some minor image details permanently. JPG is undoubtedly the preferred image format, which gives you the convenience of hassle-free downloading and uploading of images. Because of this, they’re the most widely used — around 72.3% of websites use JPG image formats and most of the phones save images as “.JPG” files. They are especially suggested for ecommerce sites and social media.
• Gif: If you’re looking for animation, GIF is an ideal choice as it supports 256 different colors chosen from the 24-bit RGB color space. As of now, just 26.6% of websites use GIF formats.

Here’s a chart that could help you take a call on which image format is best to use.

Source: W3Techs

Note: The data in the above chart is of May 15, 2019

3. Resizing images

With a cloud full of devices it’s obvious why people get confused about ideal image sizes.

Note that image size and image file size are two different things. Here we’ll explain how you can get ideal image size (also called image dimensions).

As part of image dimensions, we’ll also discuss aspect ratios.

What’s an aspect ratio?

Aspect ratios tell the width and height of an image and are written in an “x:y” format.

Why is it important?

Remember the time when you tried scaling an image and literally blew it out of proportion? This is exactly what it saves you from. Referring to an image aspect ratio while cropping or resizing images helps you maintain the viability and beauty of the image’s dimensions.

You could refer to this image Shutterstock created to enlist some commonly used aspect ratios.

Source for the image and the table data: Shutterstock

Aspect ratio	Typical dimensions (inches)	Typical dimensions (pixels)	Ideal for
1:1	8 x 8	1080 x 1080	Social media profile photos and mobile screens
3:2	6 x 4	1080 x 720	Photography and print
4:3	8 x 6	1024 x 768 pixels	TVs, monitors, and digital cameras
16:9	1920 x 1080 and 1280 x 720		Presentations, monitors, and widescreen TVs

With reference to the table above, it’s best to focus on the 1:1 and 4:3 image ratio that are apt for social media, mobile screens, photography, and print.

You might have your own dimension templates based on the content management system (CMS) you’re using.

According to Squarespace, the most ideal size for image optimization on a CMS is 1500 and 2500 pixels.

Here’s a quick and simple answer to spot the most common image sizes for the web.

Source: Shutterstock

Bottom line

From personal observation, I can suggest using 1080 X 1080 pixels and 1500 X 2500 pixels.

If you’re feeling too lazy to go through all these details, you could also try scaling the image from the corner arrow while you’ve pressed the “Shift” key. Works for some platforms.

4. Naming images – Best practices

Search engines have brains without eyes, so unless you name your images right, they won’t be able to  “read” your images nor rank you accordingly. This is where your keywords come into play. As I’ve mentioned above, if you name your images well, you can improve your keyword density and chances of ranking.

Let’s explain this with an example:

• How people commonly save images – “Haphazard/random numbers and alphabets”, “Flowers can dance”, and “What was I thinking”
• How  people should save images  – “five-tips-for-image-optimization” and “the-ideal-method-for-naming-images-in-2019”

Name your images in all small letters with hyphens in between and leave no spaces. As you’ve seen, I’ve used the keyword “image optimization” in the “five-tips-for-image-optimization” example. You’ll be surprised with how much that helps in ranking.

Bonus

You could also use the following to improve keyword usage in your site content:

• Alt text (If your image is loading slowly, this text appears in place of the image so users can get an idea of what should be there.)
• Captions (Text that gives a short description, helping users know more about the image.)

Plus, if you have an ecommerce site, you could even make good use of structured data to give the search engine more specific details about your products’ color, type, size, and a lot more.

5. Compressing the byte size of the image files

Compressing a file is possibly the simplest yet the most crucial part of image optimization as it directly relates to the website’s loading time. Points one to four prepare you for this final stage of image optimization.

Two live examples of how much load time can cost your bottom line:

• Amazon.com observed a one percent decrease in sales for every 100-ms increase in the page load time.
• Google experienced a 20 percent drop in revenue for every 500-ms increase in the search results’ display time.

What’s the ideal image file size?

A file size below 70 kb is what you should be targeting. In case of heavy files closer to 300 kb, the best you can achieve is a 100 kb file size. Doing so saves your images from taking extra milliseconds to load while it gives you lossy, compressed images that do not compromise the visual quality.

How can you decrease an image’s file size?

All you need to do is drop these files on a file compression site and you’re all set. These are some good, free image file compression online tools:

• TinyPNG/TinyJPG – (Compresses .png and .jpg files – 135 kb reduced to 43.9 kb – Does up to 20 images at a time – Supports dropbox)
• Image optimizer – (Compresses .png and .jpg files – 135 kb reduced to 49 kb – Only does 1 file at a time)
• WeCompress – (Compresses .png, .jpg, and other files – 135 kb reduced to 48 kb – Only does 1 file at a time)
• EzGif – (Compresses .gif and other files – 2MiB reduced to 1.77MiB – Only does 1 file at a time. It also lets you edit the gif before compressing it.)

Bonus tips

• Use web fonts in place of images with text on them as they look better, do not need to be scaled with the image, take less space, and save loading time.
• Use 72dpi resolution for your images.

Closing notes

You could be using all these image optimization tips and still get stuck with a site that loads in 13 seconds or even worse. This is when you might want to ask yourself:

• Do I need all these images?
• Which images are redundant?
• What’s the best place to put images on the site?

Website content, both visual and written, has an intertwined relationship that stimulates emotions and inspires people to further engage with your product or service. People (or at least I) judge a business through its website so feel free to tell us, which was the last impressive website you visited? Or what have you done for image optimization?

The post Image optimization for SEO: Everything you need to know for success appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

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A guide to implementing Google’s “How-to” schema

Google is always looking for the best ways to provide the most useful results to users. It’s what has allowed Google to dominate the search engine market for so long and, it has kept the SEO industry evolving.

In the beginning, there were quick answer boxes (remember those?) and, most recently, the introduction of “How-to” snippets.

“How-to” snippets aim to provide step-by-step instructions directly in the SERPs for instruction-based queries. There are two types of “How-to” snippets that you can find in the wild.

• A standard, accordion list view of instructions.
• A carousel of images showing each individual step.

This type of schema is mobile specific. And that’s important because it means absorbing huge amounts of SERP real estate. It has also been confirmed by Glenn Gabe, that you can capture both a featured snippet and the “How-to” carousel/list view.

This left very little space for your competitors but also, forced websites to now think more logically about how they structure their content.

Accordion vs carousel

The immediate question is “which type of How-to snippet is best for my audience?” You guessed right, it depends.

Take, for example, a crafting site audience. Visual and creative people. In this instance, you may consider using image rich snippets.

It’s like anything else in SEO, test it and tweak based on your results.

Here’s how it looks

Source: Google Search developer tools

Pretty eye-catching, isn’t it?

And then the accordion view (the standard “How-to” rich result).

Source: Google Search developer tools

My immediate preferred option is the accordion. For a number of reasons:

• It’s easier to markup.
• Each list item can have a few lines of text to explain the step.
• It’s familiar. People recognize featured snippets and the standard “How-to” result, isn’t disruptive to that experience.

The only major difference which may influence user behavior after the click is the ability to anchor link to each step. The standard markup doesn’t allow for this to happen, however, the image carousel does.

Interesting to see how that changes user engagement in the future.

Understanding “How-to” schema objects

Your best source of information is Google’s search developer tools.

However, we often find that it can become complicated for those less-techy SEOs, which could dissuade implementation and testing.

We don’t want that. Which is why we’ve broken down each element of the schema and explained what it means.

Type

This solely defines which type of schema you’re using on the page. In this instance, we’re going to use the type “HowTo”.

Name

You can think of this as the title of your snippet. In basic SEO terms, it’s the equivalent to the page title attribute of a normal webpage.

Description

Here is your chance to describe what you’re breaking down into steps. Keep this short, precise, and interesting enough to still encourage the click.

HowToStep

The “HowToStep” is where we tell Google we’re about to outline a numbered step to appear in the SERPs. Google counts the instances of the “HowToStep” to understand how many steps are there in total.

Text

This sits underneath the “HowToStep”, “HowToDirection”, or “HowToTip”. This is your basic explanation of one of the three aforementioned “HowTo” elements.

HowToDirection

This is where it can get tricky. Using the “HowToDirection” allows you to bullet point your text, rather than use a single paragraph. In our view, “HowToStep” is the easiest element to implement.

URL

The best approach here is to add anchored links to each step of your “How-to” snippets. It’s only used for image-rich results. So, if you’re using the accordion, just add the main page URL to this element.

Image Object

This can be used to define the main image of your snippet. It can also be used to populate the carousel steps found in image-rich “How-to” schema.

Total Time (ISO 8601 format)

This is a critical element. The time defines, to your user in the SERPs, how long something will take to complete. If you’re not familiar with the ISO 8601 format, it’s worth visiting this Wiki page.

Creating your own “How-to” schema

We, as SEOs, are always looking for simple ways to complete complex tasks. Adding this markup to your pages should be no different.

We recommend letting Google do the hard work for you. You shouldn’t have to be a full-fledged web developer to start working with Schema markup.

Use the code generated in Google’s example to then tweak as you see fit.

Example image used for educational purposes, Ryan Roberts, Zazzle Media

You can easily change all elements of valid How-to Schema, generated by Google itself.

Some of the HowTo markups may not be relevant for what you’re trying to do, so, just begin removing sections which are relevant.

“How-to” schema example

Let’s say I own athomefitness.com and I have an article about how to do crunches.

I’d take the code generated above, and tweak where I see necessary. Here’s how that might look:

Example image used for educational purposes, Ryan Roberts, Zazzle Media

And, to preview how this looks in the SERPs, you just select ‘preview search result’ in your code generator and it’ll give you two options to choose from.

• Result type one (image carousel)
• Result type two (standard list application)

In this instance, I’ve marked up my page to display a standard list.

Example image used for educational purposes, Ryan Roberts, Zazzle Media

Common markup errors

Unfortunately, Schema is a fickle character and will very quickly point out mistakes that you’ve made.

The most common errors normally come from missing required properties (known as class type) or syntax errors (uncategorized errors).

1. Parsing error: Missing “,” or “]” in an array declaration

Source: Schemaapp.com

This usually means you haven’t closed an open bracket somewhere in your code. Unfortunately, you have to dig into the code itself to find it. Thankfully, Google highlights the line in which the error appears on the Schema generator.

2. Parsing error: Missing “,” or “}”

Source: Schemaapp.com

Very similar to the syntax error above, this error means you have not successfully closed your {, or you have forgotten to add a comma before the start of your next opening {.

3. Incorrect value type

Source: Schemaapp.com

This type of error means you’ve omitted or mistyped the value of your “How-to” step. In this scenario, it could be:

• HowToStep
• HowToDirection
• HowToTip

Note: A simple spelling mistake could throw your whole script out of sync.

Make Google crawl your URL

You can jump the queue and request that Google crawls your URL sooner to make sure it gets around to your content and (hopefully) finds your new “How-to” markup.

An easy way to do this is with the URL Inspection Tool (similar to “Fetch as Google”).

Source: Google Search Console for zazzlemedia.co.uk

From our initial testing, we’ve found that indexing happens pretty much immediately; irrelevant of the size of your site.

So, if you’re impatient and eager to see if your hard work has paid off, this is a great way to validate that Google has identified the changes to your URL.

Track your performance in the Google Search Console

After successfully implementing your Howto markup, it’s important that you track content performance.

Are clicks increasing/decreasing? Are impressions going up/down?

You can assess this within the Search Console’s performance report

Source: Google Search Console for papanicksdriving.co.uk

The likelihood is you’ll be a very early adopter of this markup, which will make it a quick way to eat up large amounts of SERP real estate.

However, it’s always important to monitor whether or not this markup is a real benefit to your site. This markup aims to enhance your content, not pay detriment to it.

In conclusion

“How-to” schema should begin making its way onto sites much more in the near future as clients (and SEOs) start to see the immense benefit of absorbing as much SERP real estate as possible. Despite the negative connotation of a zero-click search.

We’d love to hear about any tests and progress you’ve made, please feel free to leave any comments below to let us know!

Ryan Roberts is an SEO Lead at Zazzle Media.

The post A guide to implementing Google’s “How-to” schema appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

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Goodbye to average position on Google SERPs

Just when you thought Google was done shaking things up within their Google Ads platform, they did it again with their announcement that the “Average Position” metric would be sunset later this year.

Come September, we’ll have to start relying on the existing metrics “Top Impression Share” and “Absolute Top Impression Share” instead.

The change at first glance

It seems to simply and unnecessarily turn one metric into several, adding more complexity to the already vast data pool. However, the change is actually a chance to more accurately gauge the true page position of your text ads. The Average position has long been one of the most misunderstood metrics in the Google Ads ecosystem and can be a common source of confusion between client, agency, and Google teams.

Average position is going down

Average position is often interpreted as a metric that directly denotes the actual position your ad occupied on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), but that was never actually the case. Instead, average position denoted where your ad fell relative to other ads.

To illustrate the difference, consider that an ad with an average position of two could just as often be spotted sitting at the bottom of the results page as it could be found at the second overall results spot. The latter being in immediate view of a searcher without scrolling at all, the former often forgotten or dismissed.

In these two separate instances, the ad from Joybird is just as much in average position two as the JustFab ad in the next picture.

What are these “new” metrics?

“Top Impression Share” and “Absolute Top Impression Share” are actually much closer to the perceived intent of the average position.

Absolute Top Impression Share

“Absolute Top Impression Share” is defined as “the percentage of impressions your ad has in the very first position above organic search results”. This makes it ideal for knowing when your ad will be shown to a searcher without having to scroll. This is especially crucial when dealing with limited mobile real estate.

Top Impression Share

Meanwhile, “Top Impression Share” is defined as “the percentage of impressions your ad has above organic search results”. This will still be useful when gauging how your ad is being placed in relation to competitors.

While these new prominence metrics are a breath of fresh air, the jury is still out on just how reliable they are now and how reliable they will continue to be given the continuous testing of new page experiences and vertical-specific ad units (for example, hotel campaigns in Google Ads) along with other specialized knowledge panels.

Wake me up when September ends

With these “new” impression-share-based metrics taking center-stage in place of “Average Position”, there are plenty of misconceptions left to fuel more questions as time goes on, but the move should be fairly smooth given the ample amount of time we’ve been given to make the transition to using “Top Impression Share” and “Absolute Top Impression Share”.

With the wealth of data at our fingertips, now is the perfect time for search advertisers to educate themselves and their clients on the pitfalls of vanity metrics and the importance of focusing on clean, useful data that will actually improve returns.

Blake Lucas is an SEM Coordinator at PMG.

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Nine types of meta descriptions that win more clicks

Are you putting enough thought into your meta description tags? If not, you’re missing out. Yes, your meta description tag should describe your post but many companies and websites will go well beyond that to carefully craft descriptions that can massively increase their click-through rate from search engines.

You can do the same. We’re going to take a look at nine types of meta descriptions that can help you get more clicks.

For each, I’ll walk you through an example, showing you what’s working well with that meta description tag and what it could potentially be doing better.

You don’t have to pick just one of these methods to use. You might want to focus on a particular angle, like writing a meta description tag that’s “call-to-action” focused but add in something else too like power words or a USP.

Here are nine different ways you can approach meta description tags:

1. Clarity focused

Meta description tags should be clear, letting the searcher know what they’re going to get. After all, if you confuse people, they’re not going to click through.

What works well 

This description takes a “what it says on the tin” approach in describing the website. It’s very clear about who the target audience is – “nerds and average Joes” rather than, for instance, hardcore bodybuilders. It also clearly and succinctly explains the benefits the site can provide for the searcher with the description line, “lose weight, get stronger, live better”.

Room for improvement

The title tag and meta description are repetitive. The second part of the title tag (after the colon) is the same as the second sentence in the meta description. It would read better if these were both different, this would also provide room to give more information or benefits.

The title tag also appears to be targeting generic keywords like “lose weight”, so it might be better to focus on more specific keywords here.

2. USP focused

A “USP” is a company’s “unique selling point”. It’s something that distinguishes their product from all the other similar products out there. The USP could be based on added value, quality, service, speed, advanced features, or almost anything else that acts as a differentiator.

Leading with a USP can work particularly work well for site homepages, where the meta description might otherwise seem rather generic.

What works well

Zappos is well known for its outstanding customer support and in the United States, it’s often considered the gold standard for online businesses. Here, Zappos communicates this through several strong USPs like “free shipping and returns”, “1000s of styles”, “365-day return policy”, and “24/7 customer service”.

The word “legendary” helps emphasize how Zappos is famed for its customer service and makes them sound a bit more epic. (See point six for more on using power words in your meta description tag.)

Room for improvement

This is a little picky, but all caps plus an exclamation point for “GET FREE SHIPPING & RETURNS!” comes across as a little shouty. It makes it seem like Zappos is trying a bit too hard, and doesn’t really convey quite the right feel for a large, professional company.

3. Question focused

People tend to turn to search engines because they’ve got a question so why not ask them one to help show that you know what they’re looking for?

This is my go-to type of meta description when I’m struggling with ideas and it works in almost all contexts.

What works well

If someone’s searching for SEO tips, asking if they’re interested in learning more about SEO will almost certainly get a positive response – they’re hardly going to say “nope”! The inclusion of “in 2019” helps suggest that the advice provided will be up-to-date, and “key trends” also ties in with this, indicating that this article will focus on tips that follow the latest thinking in the SEO industry.

Room for improvement

This is very picky, but the URL and the date stamp that appear immediately before this meta description tag both include “2018”. It’s obvious if you think about why this is the case. This post was published at the end of 2018, looking toward trends in 2019 but it could create a brief moment of confusion for a searcher who’s scanning through results quickly.

4. Purpose-focused

In some cases, it might be appropriate to emphasize a greater purpose behind your website, whether that’s a particular corporate value or a very practical way in which you make a difference. This can provide searchers with an additional incentive to check out your site rather than the others.

What works well

TOMS’ purpose is very clear from this short, easy-to-read description. They’re not driven by profit, but instead by helping others. Even if the searcher hasn’t heard of them and their “One for One” policy, it’s clear what it means from the context and the ® icon helps indicate that it’s a recognized and registered policy.

Room for improvement

It isn’t actually clear what TOMS sells. They started as a company selling shoes and matching each pair sold with a new pair given to a child in need. They now sell shoes and sunglasses, but you wouldn’t know that from the meta description tag above.

Note: Since the initial research for this post, TOMS has indeed updated their title tag to include shoes and sunglasses, but their meta description tag still uses the rather generic word “product”.

5. Call-to-action focused

Providing a call-to-action in your meta description tag might sound unusual, but for many products, it makes great sense. A clear call-to-action can prompt searchers not only to click but to also do something once they arrive on your site.

What works well

The call to action is both clear and repeated with statements like “Download the full version” and “Start your free trial today”. Having it at both the start and end of the meta description emphasizes it, especially with the word “free” being used in both places.

Room for improvement

The second sentence of the meta description tag is fairly generic, “photos, images, 3D artwork and more”. Given that Adobe is a huge brand, it might be worth it for them to try a little harder here to add more appeal to creative types, perhaps by using some stronger power words. (See point seven.)

6. Offer focused

This type of description combines a question or a point of curiosity with specific offers to entice readers to click through.

What works well

Starting with a question, as we’ve seen already, can help get an easy “yes”. The offers here sound impressively good, a four-star London hotel for £21 definitely sounds attractive. Including details of “The Savoy” makes it clear that KAYAK isn’t just for bargain hunters, though, and includes prestigious hotels too.

Room for improvement

I’m a bit of a stickler for making sure meta descriptions are within the limits and not truncated with the “…” at the end, but some SEOs feel this approach entices the user to click through. You might want to try using an SEO tool that helps check the meta content preview for length and strength, and see how it works for you.

It’s a small detail, but it seems a little odd that KAYAK has “3 stars from £33” and “4 stars+ from £21” – which is significantly cheaper. Obviously, there are lots of reasons this could be the case (e.g. location, special details) but it might cause a brief moment of confusion or even skepticism for the reader.

7. Power words focused

Focusing on power words like “incredible”, “powerful”, “secret”, “little-known”, and so on can help make your meta description tag stand out. Smart Blogger has an enormous list of power words here if you need some more suggestions. Be careful to not overdo it, though. If you stuff your keyword description with power words, it’ll look over-hyped.

What works well

The words “free” and “expert” both work well to grab attention. “Free” is always a good promise and “expert” implies that this advice will be well worth following and ensures that it will go beyond the basics. In the final sentence, “complete” is also a good power word as it suggests the searcher won’t need to turn to any other resource if they use this one.

Room for improvement

The sentence “Get your complete online career advice service” reads rather oddly. It reads more like it’s been optimized for search engines rather than for the people reading it. I’d suggest something like “We’re your complete online career advice service” or “Use our complete online career advice service” (and even those might sound a little over-optimized).

8. Special characters focused

Including symbols and emojis in your meta description tag can help it visually stand out in a sea of words. Depending on your brand, it could tie in well with your values. For example, if you want to come across as playful, or if you’re a brand aimed at teens you could focus on conveying the “fun” element.

Keep in mind that some searchers may react negatively to symbols and emojis, considering them unprofessional or even spammy.

What works well

The green boxes with check marks catch the searcher’s eye, drawing them to the listing. They help to highlight key points in the listing with “the best deals”, “the lowest prices”, and “great savings”.

Room for improvement

This meta description tag is written in a rather generic way probably because eBay has automatically created it according to a set of rules. The exact same description could be used for many other pages with just the words “Temporary Tattoos” changed, so it lacks relevance.

9. Solution-focused

One final approach to meta description tags is to focus on the solution or win that you’re providing for searchers. This type of meta description will promise something that the searcher will achieve through buying from the website or in some cases, simply from reading the content on a site.

What works well

This meta description tag starts with a question that searchers are very likely to say “yes” to. The question “Want to learn how to snowboard in a day?” offers a clear outcome for the reader and also brings in a USP with “the quickest training method” implying that it’s quicker than other similar companies.

Room for improvement

“Recreational standard” lacks clarity, and sounds rather like in-house lingo. Total beginners may not know what this really means, so it would be better to use language that their target audience will understand.

Meta descriptions can make or break how much SEO traffic you get. A great meta description tag will allow any page (including your homepage) to punch above its weight on Google, getting you more clicks through an increased-click through rate, potentially even a higher ranking.

Joe Williams is founder of Tribe SEO. He can be found on Twitter at @joetheseo.

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Seven reasons why your rankings dropped and how to fix them

Do you know the triumph when your content finally hits the first page of Google and attracts significant traffic? Unfortunately, nobody is safe from a sudden drop in rankings. The thing is that the reasons for it may be different and not obvious at all.

In this post, you’ll discover what could cause a sudden drop in traffic and how to fix the issue.

The tip of an iceberg

Unfortunately, there’s no one size fits all decision, when it comes to SEO. When you face the drop in your rankings or traffic, it’s just the tip of an iceberg. So, get ready to check lots of issues, before you identify the problem.

Note: Percentages assigned in the above graph are derived from personal observation.

I’ve illustrated the most common reasons for a plummet. Start from checking these parameters to find out how you can recover your rankings and drive traffic to your website.

Algorithms test

First of all, check the SERP. What if it’s not only your website that changed its positions in search results? These sharp shifts may happen when Google tests its algorithms. In this case, you don’t even have to take any further steps, as the rankings will be restored soon.

If you track your rankings with Serpstat, you can analyze your competitors’ positions as well. It’ll help you understand whether the SERP was changing a lot lately. From the moment you create a new project, the tool starts tracking the history of top-100 search rankings’ changes for the selected keywords. The “Storm” graph illustrates the effect of the changes that have occurred in the search results.

On this chart, you see that for the “cakes for dads” keyword the storm score was pretty high on 21st March. Now, let’s look at how the top-10 positions that were changing on this date.

The graph shows a sharp drop and rise that occurred in most of the positions. In a few days, all the rankings were back to normal again.

This example tells us that whenever you witness a significant drop in your search rankings, you should start with analyzing the whole SERP. If there’s a high storm score, all you need to do is to wait a bit.

In case you checked your competitors’ positions and didn’t see any movements, here’s the next step for you.

Technical issues

Technical SEO affects how search robots crawl and index your site’s content. Even though you have optimized your website technically, every time you add or remove some files or pages, the troubles may occur. So, make sure you’re aware of technical SEO issues on your site. With Google’s URL Inspection tool, you can check the way search engines see your website.

These are the main factors crucial for your rankings:

1. Server overload

If your server isn’t prepared for traffic surges, it can take your site down any minute. To fix this problem, you can add a CDN on your website or cache your content, set up a load balancer, or set up a cloud hosting,

2. Page speed

The more the images, files, and pop-ups you add to your content, the more time it takes for your pages to get loaded. Mind that page speed isn’t only a ranking factor, but it also influences user experience. To quickly check the issue, you can go with Google’s PageSpeed Insights. And to speed up your website, you can:

• Minimize HTTP requests or minify and combine files
• Use asynchronous loading for CSS and JavaScript files
• Defer JavaScript loading
• Minimize time to first byte
• Reduce server response time
• Enable browser caching
• Reduce image sizes
• Use CDN again
• Optimize CSS delivery
• Prioritize above-the-fold content (lazy loading)
• Reduce the number of plugins you use on your site
• Reduce redirects and external scripts
• Monitor mobile page speed

3. Redirections

It’s the most common cause of lost rankings. When you migrate to a new server or change the structure of your site, never forget to set up 301 redirects. Otherwise, search engines will either fail to index your new pages or even penalize your site for duplicate content.

Detecting site errors can be quite difficult especially if it’s located solely on one page. Inspecting every page would be time-consuming. Also, it’d be very costly if you’re running a business. To speed up the process of identifying such errors you can use different SEO tools and site audit tools, like Serpstat, OnCrawl, and other such ones.

 

Wrong keywords

Are you using the right keywords? If you hadn’t considered user intent when collecting the keywords, it might have caused some problems. Even if your site was ranking high for these queries for some time, Google could have changed the way it understands your site’s intent.

I’ll provide two examples to illustrate the issue.

Case one

There’s a website of an Oxford Summer School named “oxford-royale.co.uk”. The site didn’t contain any long-form descriptions but services pages. Once Google began to rank the website for queries with informational intent, SEO experts noticed the traffic dropped. After they added more texts to the service pages, they succeeded in fixing the problem.

Case two

This case occurred to a flower delivery agency. While the website was ranking for transactional queries, everything was alright. Then Google decided the site better suits informational intent. To restore the site’s rankings, SEOs had to add keywords with high transactional intent, such as “order”, “buy”, and many such keywords.

To collect the keywords that are right for your business goals, you can use KWFinder. With the tool, you can identify relevant keywords that you can easily rank for.

Outdated content

This paragraph doesn’t require long introductions. If your content isn’t fresh and up-to-date anymore, people won’t stay long on your site. Moreover, outdated content doesn’t attract shares and links. All these aspects may become good reasons for search engines to reduce your positions.

There’s an easy way to fix it. Update your content regularly and promote it not to lose traffic. The trends keep changing, and if you provided a comprehensive guide on the specific topic, you don’t want it to become outdated. Instead of creating a new guide every time, update the old one with new data.

Lost links

Everybody knows your link profile is a crucial part of your site’s SEO. Website owners take efforts to build quality links to the new pieces of content. However, when you managed to earn a large number of backlinks, you shouldn’t stop monitoring your link profile.

To discover whether your link profile has undergone any changes for the last weeks, go with Moz or Majestic. The tools will provide you with data on your lost and discovered links for the selected period.

If you find out you’ve lost the links from trustworthy sources, try to identify the reasons why these links were removed. In case they’re broken, you can always fix them. If website owners removed your links by chance (for example, when updating their websites), then ask them to restore links. If they did it intentionally, no one can stop you from building new ones.

Poor user experience

User experience is one more thing crucial for your site’s rankings. If it had started ranking your page high on search results and then noticed it didn’t meet users’ expectations, your rankings could have suffered a lot.

Search engines usually rely on metrics such as the click-through rate, time spent on your page, bounce rate, the number of visits, and more. That’s why you should remember the following rules when optimizing your site:

1. Provide relevant metadata

As metadata is used to form snippets, it should contain relevant descriptions of your content. First of all, if they aren’t engaging enough, users won’t click-through them and land on your site. On the other hand, if your snippets provide false promises, the bounce rate will increase.

2. Create an effective content structure

It should be easy for users to extract the necessary information. Most of your visitors pay attention to your content structure when deciding whether they’ll read the post.

Break the texts into paragraphs and denote the main ideas in the subheadings. This step will help you engage visitors looking for the answer to their very specific questions.

3. Avoid complicated design and pop-ups

The content isn’t the only thing your audience looks at. People may also decide to leave your website because of irritating colors, fonts, or pop-up ads. Provide simple design and minimize the number of annoying windows.

Competition from other websites

What if none of the steps worked? It might mean that your rankings dropped because your competitors were performing better. Monitor changes in their positions and identify the SERP leaders.

You can analyze your competitors’ strategies with Serpstat or Moz. With these tools, you can discover their backlink sources, keywords they rank for, top content, and more. This step will help you come up with ideas of how you could improve your own strategy.

Never stop tracking

You can’t predict whether your rankings will drop one day. It’s much better to notice the problem before you’ve already lost traffic and conversions. So, always keep tracking your positions and be ready to react to any changes quickly.

Inna Yatsyna is a Brand and Community Development Specialist at Serpstat. She can be found on Twitter @erin_yat.

The post Seven reasons why your rankings dropped and how to fix them appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

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4 Key Lessons Content Marketers Can Take From Data Journalists

Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines Targeting E-A-T, Page Quality & Interstitials

There is a brand new version of the Google Quality Rater Guidelines, and here are all the changes Google has made to the guidelines and why these changes are important. One major take away is that Google is moving a lot of the documentation in these guidelines away from using the term E-A-T, and instead […]

The post Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines Targeting E-A-T, Page Quality & Interstitials appeared first on The SEM Post.

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10 Basic SEO Tips to Index + Rank New Content Faster - Whiteboard Friday

How to explore a SERP feature strategy with STAT

A summary of Google Data Studio: Updates from April 2019

April was a big month for Google Data Studio (GDS), with Google introducing some significant product updates to this already robust reporting tool.

For those not familiar with GDS, it is a free dashboard-style reporting tool that Google rolled out in June 2016. With Data Studio, users can connect to various data sources to visualize, and share data from a variety of web-based platforms.

GDS supports native integrations with most Google products including Analytics, Google Ads, Search Ads 360 (formerly Doubleclick Search), Google Sheets, YouTube Analytics, and Google BigQuery.

GDS supports connectors that users can purchase to import data from over one hundred third-party sources such as Bing Ads, Amazon Ads, and many others.  

Source: Google

1. Google introduces BigQuery BI Engine for integration with GDS

BigQuery is Google’s massive enterprise data warehouse. It enables extremely fast SQL queries by using the same technology that powers Google Search. Per Google,

“Every day, customers upload petabytes of new data into BigQuery, our exabyte-scale, serverless data warehouse, and the volume of data analyzed has grown by over 300 percent in just the last year.”

Source: Google

2. Enhanced data drill-down capabilities

You can now reveal additional levels of detail in a single chart using GDS’s enhanced data drill down (or drill up) capabilities.

You’ll need to enable this feature in each specific GDS chart and, once enabled, you can drill down from a higher level of detail to a lower one (for example, country to a city). You can also drill up from a lower level of detail to a higher one (for example, city to the country). You must be in “View” mode to drill up or drill down (as opposed to the “Edit” mode).

Here’s an example of drilling-up in a chart that uses Google’s sample data in GDS.

Source: Google

To drill-up by year, right click on the chart in “View” mode and select “Drill up” as shown below.

Visit the Data Studio Help website for detailed instructions on how to leverage this feature.

3. Improved formatting of tables

GDS now allows for more user-friendly and intuitive table formatting. This includes the ability to distribute columns evenly with just one click (by right-clicking the table), resizing only one column by dragging the column’s divider, and changing the justification of table contents to left, right, or center via the “Style” properties panel in “Edit” mode.

Source: Google

Detailed instructions on how to access this feature are located here.

4. The ability to hide pages in “View” mode

GDS users can now hide pages in “View” mode by right clicking on the specific page (accessed via the top submenu), clicking on the three vertical dots to the right of the page name, and selecting “Hide page in view mode”. This feature comes in handy when you’ve got pages you don’t want your client (or anyone) to see when presenting the GDS report.

Source: Google

5. Page canvas size enhancements

Users can now customize each page’s size with a new feature that was rolled out on March 21st (we’re sneaking this into the April update because it’s a really neat feature).

Canvas size settings can be accessed from the page menu at the top of the GDS interface. Select Page>Current Page Settings, and then select “Style” from the settings area at the right of the screen. You can then choose your page size from a list of pre-configured sizes or set a custom size of your own.

Source: Google

6. New Data Studio help community

As GDS adds more features and becomes more complex, it seems only fitting that Google would launch a community help forum for this tool. So, while this isn’t exactly a new feature to GDS itself, it is a new resource for GDS users that will hopefully make navigating GDS easier.

Users can access the GDS Help Community via Google’s support website or selecting “Help Options” from the top menu bar in GDS (indicated by a question mark icon) then click the “Visit Help Forum” link.

Source: Google

Conclusion

We hope that summarizing the latest GDS enhancements has made it a little easier to digest the many new changes that Google rolled out in April (and March). Remember, you can always get a list of updates, both new and old by visiting Google’s Support website here.

Jacqueline Dooley is the Director of Digital Strategy at CommonMind.

The post A summary of Google Data Studio: Updates from April 2019 appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

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The New Moz Local Is on Its Way!

Posted by MiriamEllis

Exciting secrets can be so hard to keep. Finally, all of us at Moz have the green light to share with all of you a first glimpse of something we’ve been working on for months behind the scenes. Big inhale, big exhale...

Announcing: the new and improved Moz Local, to be rolled out beginning June 12!

Why is Moz updating the Moz Local platform?

Local search has evolved from caterpillar to butterfly in the seven years since we launched Moz Local. I think we’ve spent the time well, intensively studying both Google’s trajectory and the feedback of enterprise, marketing agency, and SMB customers.

Your generosity in telling us what you need as marketers has inspired us to action. Over the coming months, you’ll be seeing what Moz has learned reflected in a series of rollouts. Stage by stage, you’ll see that we’re planning to give our software the wings it needs to help you fully navigate the dynamic local search landscape and, in turn, grow your business.

We hope you’ll keep gathering together with us to watch Moz Local take full flight — changes will only become more robust as we move forward.

What can I expect from this upgrade?

Beginning June 12th, Moz Local customers will experience a fresh look and feel in the Moz Local interface, plus these added capabilities:

• New distribution partners to ensure your data is shared on the platforms that matter most in the evolving local search ecosystem
• Listing status and real-time updates to know the precise status of your location data
• Automated detection and permanent duplicate closure, taking the manual work out of the process and saving you significant time
• Integrations with Google and Facebook to gain deeper insights, reporting, and management for your location’s profiles
• An even better data clean-up process to ensure valid data is formatted properly for distribution
• A new activity feed to alert you to any changes to your location’s listings
• A suggestion engine to provide recommendations to increase accuracy, completeness, and consistency of your location data

Additional features available include:

• Managing reviews of your locations to keep your finger on the pulse of what customers are saying
• Social posting to engage with consumers and alert them to news, offers, and other updates
• Store locator and landing pages to share location data easily with both customers and search engines (available for Moz Local customers with 100 or more locations)

Remember, this is just the beginning. There's more to come in 2019, and you can expect ongoing communications from us as further new feature sets emerge!

When is it happening?

We'll be rolling out all the new changes beginning on June 12th. As with some large changes, this update will take a few days to complete, so some people will see the changes immediately while for others it may take up to a week. By June 21st, everyone should be able to explore the new Moz Local experience!

Don't worry — we'll have several more communications between now and then to help you prepare. Keep an eye out for our webinar and training materials to help ensure a smooth transition to the new Moz Local.

Are any metrics/scores changing?

Some of our reporting metrics will look different in the new Moz Local. We'll be sharing more information on these metrics and how to use them soon, but for now, here’s a quick overview of changes you can expect:

• Profile Completeness: Listing Score will be replaced by the improved Profile Completeness metric. This new feature will give you a better measurement of how complete your data is, what’s missing from it, and clear prompts to fill in any lacking information.
• Improved listing status reporting: Partner Accuracy Score will be replaced by improved reporting on listing status with all of our partners, including continuous information about the data they’ve received from us. You’ll be able to access an overview of your distribution network, so that you can see which sites your business is listed on. Plus, you’ll be able to go straight to the live listing with a single click.
• Visibility Index: Though they have similar names, Visibility Score is being replaced by something slightly different with the new and improved Visibility Index, which notates how the data you’ve provided us about a location matches or mismatches your information on your live listings.
• New ways to measure and act on listing reach: Reach Score will be leaving us in favor of even more relevant measurement via the Visibility Index and Profile Completeness metrics. The new Moz Local will include more actionable information to ensure your listings are accurate and complete.

Other FAQs

You'll likely have questions if you’re a current Moz Local customer or are considering becoming one. Please check out our resource center for further details, and feel free to leave us a question down in the comments — we'll be on point to respond to any wonderings or concerns you might have!

Head to the FAQs

Where is Moz heading with this?

As a veteran local SEO, I’m finding the developments taking place with our software particularly exciting because, like you, I see how local search and local search marketing have matured over the past decade.

I’ve closely watched the best minds in our industry moving toward a holistic vision of how authenticity, customer engagement, data, analysis, and other factors underpin local business success. And we’ve all witnessed Google’s increasingly sophisticated presentation of local business information evolve and grow. It’s been quite a ride!

At every level of local commerce, owners and marketers deserve tools that bring order out of what can seem like chaos. We believe you deserve software that yields strategy. As our CEO, Sarah Bird, recently said of Moz,

“We are big believers in the power of local SEO.”

So the secret is finally out, and you can see where Moz is heading with the local side of our product lineup. It’s our serious plan to devote everything we’ve got into putting the power of local SEO into your hands.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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How Often Does Google Update Its Algorithm?

Local SEO for enterprises: Optimizing for the Local 3-Pack

Fifteen years ago, if a customer needed a hammer, they’d probably get out a phone book, look up “Hardware Store,” choose the hardware store closest to their house, drive there, go inside, and ask the clerk “Do you sell hammers?” If they happened to be out of hammers, the clerk might draw the customer a map to the next closest hardware store and the process would start all over again.

Now that most of us are walking around with tiny computers in our pockets, much preliminary research is taken care of in a matter of seconds via mobile search. If a customer needs a hammer, they simply google “Hardware Store,” and three nearby results pop up instantly.

Chances are, that customer will then be done searching. Any stores that don’t pop up will not get their business. Securing one of those top three spots in a Google search is an essential part of nailing local SEO.

This is especially significant for enterprise brands to be able to compete at the local level.

With hundreds or thousands of locations, it can be overwhelming to ensure data accuracy across the board. Partnering with a local search solution to maintain and monitor listings across all locations is a great way boost online presence and drive foot traffic.

Content produced in collaboration with Rio SEO.

If you’re just looking at website analytics, you could be missing out

Most consumers are researching businesses on mobile before they make decisions about which locations to visit in person. In fact, according to RetailDive, two-thirds of consumers conduct research online before even stepping foot in a store.

And while most businesses know that they should pay close attention to their website analytics, many are forgetting that preliminary online research also includes local listings. Research shows that while 75% of consumers use a business’s website as part of their decision-making process, an even greater number, 87%, also consider local listings.

Going beyond website analytics to understand how your ranking in local search results affects in-person visits to your businesses is key to understanding how to use local SEO for real-life traffic.

A study by Sparktoro found that in 62% of local mobile searches, the customer doesn’t click search results to visit a business’s webpage. Further, Rio SEO found in recent data from enterprise clients that just 1 in 60 Map Pack views resulted in a click-through to a website.

Rather, they get the information they need from the local listings that come up at the top of their search results. For many businesses, this means that if you’re not at the top, you might as well be invisible.

Optimizing for the Local 3-Pack

Mobile users are most likely using Google to search for local businesses, and those searches are generally limited to what’s called the “Local 3-Pack.”

In Google’s search engine results, the Local 3-Pack is a colorful, prominent map listing that presents to consumers the three businesses Google considers most relevant to the query and searcher’s location (refer again to the image above).

Coming in as one of those first three spots is critical for making sure local searchers can find your business.

How can your business break the top three?

The key to breaking into that coveted Local 3-Pack is making sure your corporate and local site’s SEO are in order. And the best way to get your SEO in order is to optimize your Google My Business (GMB) page to give Google’s algorithm everything it needs to find your company in local searches.

Here are a few tips for optimizing your GMB:

• Provide critical business information, such as business name and category, location, and/or service area, hours of operation (with special hours or holidays), phone number, website URL, business description, and more
• Give advanced information, like store code, labels, or Google Ads location extension phone
• Encourage customers to leave reviews, which you can respond to within the GMB dashboard
• Upload photos, which appear in both the listing and Google Images

The right tools can boost your online presence

If you’re worried that your business isn’t coming up at the top of those critical mobile local searches, changing your SEO strategy to adopt the right tools could be your best bet for getting seen by mobile users. Join SEW, ClickZ, and Rio SEO in our webinar to learn more about how to choose the right SEO toolkits for boosting your local business into those crucial top three search results–and keeping it there.

What to know more about mastering local SEO for enterprises?

The brands killing it in local SEO now are freeing their corporate teams and local managers of complicated workarounds and messy, muddled local data.

In this webinar, you’ll explore the benefits of taking a toolkit approach to enterprise local search and discover the key tools that must be a part of your local marketing arsenal. Join us and learn how to:

• leverage location-based martech effectively to optimize your brand’s online presence,
• improve customer experience in decision-making moments,
• track and measure location metrics that matter and stop wasting time on the wrong data,
• gain and retain search engine trust in your brand and each of its locations to improve local rankings and visibility,
• empower local managers to support the brand’s marketing efforts without losing control

It’s time to stop throwing disparate, disconnected solutions that only accomplish one or two things into your stack. Isn’t it time your brand’s local marketing efforts worked together to achieve the results your local stores and customers crave?

Join us for our webinar, “Scrap Your Stack: High-Performance Local SEO for Enterprise Brands, Simplified” to learn how.    

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