How does the recent Google leak affect your SEO Strategy?
Recently, around 2,500 Google documents were accidentally shared on GitHub. These documents give important information about Google's search algorithms and ranking factors.
This major leak provides SEO experts with insight into how Google's search operates. It shows new elements like author scores and reranking algorithms.
Here's a review of Google's SEO insights and their implications for your SEO strategy.
Key Insights from the recent Google Leak
Twiddlers and Reranking Algorithms
The leak introduced "twiddlers," reranking algorithms that adjust search results post-ranking. They help reorder search results for better matches to user queries. Twiddlers can modify search results based on specific criteria, ensuring users get the most relevant information.
Author Attribution and Topical Authority Scores
Google now assigns scores to authors based on their expertise, reinforcing the EEAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) principles. High topical authority scores enhance content credibility and improve search rankings. Highlighting expert authors and their credentials can significantly impact SEO performance. Therefore, focusing on experts will help improve user engagement and click-through rates (CTR).
Algorithmic Adjustments
Google’s algorithmic adjustments aim to promote high-quality content and demote low-quality pages. Terms like “Authority Promotion” boost site rankings whilst terms like “baby panda demotion” lowers rankings. Content visibility shifts based on poor quality or relevance as Google prioritises better content.
Your SEO strategy should focus on maintaining high content standards and user-friendly information to adapt to these changes.
Localisation of Search Results
Localisation is crucial, as Google prioritises content based on the searcher’s location. Adding locally relevant keywords and topics can improve rankings in specific regions.
A London bakery should use keywords like "Best bakery in London" or "Fresh bread in London" to attract customers. They could also use niche keywords like "London bakery with organic pastries" to stand out. Local links and citations also play a significant role in enhancing local search visibility.
Indexing Tiers and Link Quality
Indexing tiers affect how Google stores and retrieves content. The most critical pages are kept in flash memory, important but less frequently accessed pages are stored on solid-state drives, and rarely visited pages are placed on hard drives.
Content in higher quality tiers is updated more frequently, which increases its value to Google.
Links from these high-quality tiered pages are more beneficial for SEO strategies. Effective link building and PR efforts can secure these high-authority links, enhancing PageRank and online visibility.
Implications for SEO Professionals
Evaluating your SEO Strategy
Updating SEO strategies based on new data is essential. The leak underscores the importance of content freshness, quality links, and author credibility. Focusing on these elements can help maintain or improve search rankings of your site.
Focus on PageRank and Link Building
PageRank remains a critical factor. Building links from high-authority and frequently updated sites is more valuable than sheer quantity. Quality links from reputable sources boost PageRank and drive more traffic.
Emphasis on Topical Expertise and User Engagement
Google values topical expertise and user engagement. Sites with strong, relevant content score higher.
Encouraging user interaction and maintaining high-quality articles on focused topics can build trustworthiness and relevance, improving search rankings. Google values metrics such as comments, discussions, and clicks.
Addressing Contradictions
Debates on Domain Authority
Professionals continue to debate the concept of domain Authority and its impact on rankings. While Google denies using an overarching domain Authority score, some suggest a site Authority metric might exist. This ongoing debate forces professionals to focus on link building and PageRank.
Google’s Stance on Click-Through Rates
Google publicly denies using click-through rates (CTR) as a ranking factor. Google’s John Mueller affirmed that relying on CTR can harm search quality. Still, user interactions like clicks are crucial indicators in other contexts. This discrepancy highlights the importance of user engagement metrics in SEO strategies.
Suspected Use of Google Chrome Data
Some SEO experts believe Google might use Chrome data for rankings, despite Google’s denials. Google Analytics is a helpful tool for understanding user behaviour. You can improve SEO strategies by analysing metrics such as clicks, views, and time spent on pages.
Conclusion
Advocacy for Scepticism Towards Google’s Guidance
Google representatives often give inconsistent messages, and industry publications frequently echo Google’s advice without scrutiny. This can create confusion and make it difficult for SEO professionals to determine what actually works. It's crucial to test your own strategies instead of blindly following Google's recommendations.
Personal experimentation, data analysis, and continuous adjustments are essential for effective SEO, especially with constantly changing factors like PageRank, link building, and user engagement.
Emphasis on a Holistic SEO strategy
SEO requires a comprehensive approach beyond just keywords and links. Focus on PageRank, user engagement, and topical expertise to ensure success.
Create high-quality content that provides answers to users' questions. Consider their journey through different touchpoints such as social media, email, and display ads. Engaging your audience through various channels builds brand recognition and enhances visibility.
Testing and measuring different strategies can help refine your SEO efforts. Use AI tools like schema markup to enhance your SEO strategy. This can help improve your visibility in video searches and local results.
Importance of Understanding Google’s AI Features
Google's AI features are crucial for effective SEO. They help understand how pages rank, focusing on elements like PageRank, link quality, and content relevance. Businesses should leverage these features to enhance search visibility. EEAT metrics, which evaluate website credibility, highlight the importance of high-quality content that showcases expertise.
User engagement is important. SEO tools can help track data and improve web pages to reach target audiences effectively. Also, understanding the use of Google Chrome clickstream data is important. This data, which reflects user behaviour, influences ranking decisions.
SEO professionals should prioritise site usability and design features such as responsive design and page speed. Ensuring a smooth user experience reinforces a site's search result position, boosts brand recognition, and increases click-through rates.
Final Thoughts
By using Google's SEO insights, you can stay ahead of their changing algorithms and stay competitive.
Want to know more about our SEO marketing services and how it can help grow your business, book a consultation call now.
Website SEO Must-Dos for a Higher Search Ranking
Disclaimer: The information presented here is based on the analysis of leaked Google documents, which may not represent the entirety of Google’s ranking algorithm. Google's algorithms are constantly evolving.
How To Master WordPress SEO Plugins
SEO is the basis to control the Internet, and because it is becoming more and more saturated, it is essential to make sure that you are doing something to and out from others on the web. An easy way to give your website an extra boost is by implementing the right WordPress SEO plugins.
The Issue:
Everybody wants the SEO plugins that are going to make their websites be the only ones who appear desirably on the Google search bar. Although this is possible, the truth is that the SEO market is becoming little by little more and more competitive and saturated. This situation makes it important to have a better structured and optimised website with a search engine, so that you can set yourself apart, and be ranked above your competitors. Unfortunately, that may involve a little bit of plugin stack.
The Essential SEO Plugin Stack
Mastering SEO will be perfect to grow and sustain a strong online presence, no matter if your building sites for clients, or your own business. Luckily, we know how to do it.
You can find 7 critical pieces to the SEO puzzle. In order to start, you need one of the overall on-site SEO plugins to cover the basics, such as robots, meta bags, sitemaps, etc. Apart from that, there are 6 additional complementary sections for plugins:
- On-site SEO
- Mobile Optimisation
- Broken Links
- Speed
- Security
- Image Optimisation
- Rich Snippet
It is true that is hard when it comes to plugins and website speed, however using the right stack to build your SEO, will be beneficial overall.
1. On-site SEO Plugins
They will be the basis of your infrastructure. We can find 2 contenders, All in One SEO Pack and Yoast SEO.
They both have been around for a decade already, and still are very important for this process.
All in One SEO Pack
Price: Free with Paid Premium Option
Elevator Pitch:
Is the original SEO plugin that works out-of-the-box for beginners with advanced features for developers. Overridable meta descriptions/keywords and XML sitemaps allows users to optimize their SEO efforts.
This plugin is translated into 57 languages, and is highly durable; also it works well with a variety of other plugins. All in One provides local SEO recommendations and keyword ranking for users as well.
Key Features:
- Over 3M active installs
- The ONLY free plugin to provide SEO Integration for e-Commerce sites, including WooCommerce
- 4.5 star-rating across 500+ reviews on WordPress.org
Yoast SEO
Price: Free with Paid Premium Option
Elevator Pitch:
Is the one stop for experts and beginners alike. Featuring sitemaps, title and meta descriptions, and the ability to connect Google Search Console, this plugin does everything to please users and search engine spiders alike.
Yoast can also insure that your content is on flick (in Google’s eyes as well as prospect’s eyes). By upgrading it to premium you can find new features including video and news extensions, as well as gaining access to a local SEO extension, which adds a local schema mark-up to your web pages.
Key Features:
- Thousands of daily downloads
- Uses JSON_LD for local
- 5 star-rating across nearly 20,000 reviews on WordPress.org
- Effectively combines content and SEO
- One of the most used SEO plugins on the market with 5M+ active installs
The On-site SEO Winner
Yoast SEO. Vendastians and industry experts all agree that Yoast is the modern-day standard when it comes to WordPress SEO plugins. The free version will cover all of your needs.
2. Mobile Website Optimisation Plugins
Last month, January 2018, Google announced that they would begin prioritising pages with fast mobile loading speed in their search algorithm. Due to these Mobile Website Optimization Plugins have earned themselves a priority seat on Google’s algorithm. Considering that the majority of browsing these days is conducted from mobile devices, it just makes sense.
AMP for WP
Price: Also free!
Elevator Pitch:
It goes straight to the point; it simply adds AMP functionality to your WordPress site in order to improve mobile site speed through search engines.
Key Features:
- 4.5 star user rating on WordPress.org (best in class)
- 100,000+ active installations
- Yoast (and other SEO) plugin integration
AMP for WordPress
Price: Free!
Elevator Pitch:
By using AMP for WordPress, you can insure that your prospects never give up hope as a result of a slow mobile site. By creating AMP content this plugin caters to the needs of major AMP consumers such as Google Search.
Key Features:
- 200,000+ active installs (best in class)
- Built by WordPress, not a third party, so compatibility is not a concern
- Many 1 star reviews, and a 3.5 star overall rating on WordPress.org
The Mobile Optimization Winner
AMP for WP, the reality is that both meet your mobile optimization needs, but AMP for WordPress (the loser) does not have good customer satisfaction.
This is something that you don’t want to see.
3. Broken Link Plugins
Links sometimes go bad. Pages can be deleted. A site that you link to may disappear. Or someone might move a post or page without updating others. All of these actions can cause broken links.
There is nothing worse that a “404 Page not found”, when you are in a rush to find something.
By managing these broken links on your site, you can mitigate lost conversions, questions of credibility, frustration and damage to your SEO ranking.
Broken Link Checker
Price: Free!
Elevator Pitch:
It scans your comments, blogs, custom fields, pages, and posts to detect links that do not work, links redirects and images that my be missing. It might take a while as it verifies each and every link tied to your site. Once done, it will present you with a list of broken links so that you can manage redirects and prevent prospects and customers from losing interest or losing track of you.
Key Features:
- Offered in 30 languages
- Has not been updated in 6 months… customer service?
- 4 star rating across nearly 400 reviews on WordPress.org
- 500,000+ active installs (by far the best in class)
The Broken Link Winner
Just one candidate, and just one winner. Use this plugin, it will be very useful. And it will help optimize your overall SEO.
Guide: SEO musts for a higher search ranking
4. Speed Plugins
Page speed is a huge factor in user experience, as well as in search rankings. Google recommendations appear in half a second, and that is hard to do.
The AMP category is so important ever since Google announced that page speed is now a ranking factor for mobile searching.
Now you will see two site catching alternatives that will have a substantial impact on site load times, particularly with high volumes of traffic.
W3 Total Cache
Price: Free, always
Elevator Pitch:
It improves SEO and user experience by increasing performance and reducing downloads times. W3 includes minification features, a host of caching options, as well as various security features. It also offers improved server performance in order to help weather those high traffic periods.
Key Features:
- 4.5 star rating and over 1 million active installs (best in class)
- Used by many large companies such as AT&T
- Only 9 out of 108 issues resolved in the past 2 months
WP Fastest Cache
Price: Free, the best price
Elevator Pitch:
Plugin is very user friendly due to their functionality automated, and its activeness page statistics. It creates a static html file so that high quantities of traffic do not produce slow render times on your site, and offers numerous options for managing cached files. At the same time it comes with minify html and css options so that users can decrease the size of css files and pages.
Key Features:
- 5 star rating and over 500,000 active installations
- Offered in 17 languages
- Does not yet support WordPress Multisite
The Speed Winner
This is a tough decision. Although the winner is… W3 Total Cache due to the sheer volume of active users and the number of industry experts that swear by it. However, WP Fastest Cache is an excellent caching plugin too, since little by little is growing in downloads and popularity.
5. Security Plugins
Security is an extremely important factor nowadays. If you are a business or a financial institution, security will be more directed towards your site infrastructure.
The main impact of a security plugin is in regards to an SSL certificate (https). These helps your website to maintain rank on search providers. It can also help you to grow in rank, while also encrypting user data – an essential component on many websites.
Wordfence Security
Price: Free with Premium Option
Elevator Pitch:
It was built for the specific application of WordPress sites. It includes a malware scanner, an endpoint firewall, as well as Threat Defence Feed that insures that Wordfence is always up to date with the newest firewall rules, malicious IP addresses and malware signatures it needs to keep your site safe.
Key Features:
- 5 star rating across over 3000 reviews on WordPress.org
- User friendly feeds to monitor performance
- 2M+ active installs (best in class)
The Security Winner
Worldfence Security is the best in class, even industry experts agree. It will definitely meet your malware and firewall needs in the free version – always with the premium paid option as you grow.
6. Image Optimization
The images that you use on your website has a huge impact on user experience as well as click and conversation rates. Although, it is essential to use an image optimization plugin in order to reduce the size of the images (often up to 50%), and therefore page sizes, in order to boost your SEO rankings by increasing user-friendliness and page speed.
There are a lot of compressors, but only a couple in the runnings.
Short Pixel
Price: Free with Paid Premium
Elevator Pitch:
It has one of the cheapest premium options in comparison to other image optimizers on the market. It has one of the most affordable paid rates on the market, and will still reach upwards of 60% optimization.
Key Features:
- One click bulk optimization (major time saver)
- They have relolved every single issue that has been reported to WordPress.org in the past 2 months
- Also offers huge benefits for mobile site speeds
- 4.5 star rating across nearly 300 reviews
Smush Image Compression and Optimization
Price: Free with Pro Option
Elevator Pitch:
It automatically cuts the size of all the images on your website in order to provide speed and quality. It is compatible with numerous other plugins on the market, and for image resizing.
Key Features:
- Huge benefits for mobile speeds
- Highest performance reserved for paying customers only
- 5 star rating and over 1 million active installs (best in class)
The Image Optimization Winner
Both are winners in their own way. ShortPixel is a great alternative if you want to enter into the “paid plugins” world, but do not want to invest the capital that many other require. And Smush is the favourite one for basic free image optimization.
7. Rich Snippet Plugins
Rich Snippets are fields that spice up your search result listing. The good thing about this plugin is that you do not have to write any code. Rich Snippet plugins present fields that you fill in, and the plugin automatically generates the code and tags for you.
Many website developers might not agree, but indeed they are important. Although rich snippets do not directly help you rank, they do provide increased visual appeal to your SERP result as you approach that first page of Google. This visual appeal will likely increase your click through rate (CTR) which will then cause your to rank higher in terms of SEO.
All In One Schema Rich Snippets
Price: Free
Elevator Pitch:
It helps you add article, recipe, review, event, product, video, or other schemas to your site snippet. It makes it possible in a highly user-friendly format, to make your website more interactive and improve your click through rates.
Key Features:
- 4.5 star rating across 100+ reviews on WordPress.org
- Helps Facebook display proper information when users share your links on Facebook
- 70,000+ active installs (by far the best in class)
The Rich Snippet Winner
All in One Schema Rich Snippets has more or less monopolised the market, and is going to be the best option in case you want to master all of the categories of SEO on your WordPress builds.
Conclusion
You'll need seven SEO plugins if you want to have a world class SEO optimised site.
- Yoast SEO
- AMP for WP
- Broken Link Checker
- W3 Total Cache
- Wordfence Security
- Smush or ShortPixel
- All In One Schema Rich Snippets
And ONE the number of pages of Google in which you will likely find yourself on the keywords that matter most if you leverage this plugin combination.
Want to know more? Read our top tips to improve your keyword research.
Take a look at our SEO packages.
Why your local business listings need to be accurate
As a business, how likely is it that potential customers will come through your door? The whole point of online local business listings is to entice customers into your store, your leasing office or your showroom so you can convert them to paying customers rather than just browsers online.
1. Missing hours of operation information can be a dealbreaker
There are many things that people look for in local business listings, whether they are looking at that search engine on a PC or on a mobile device. The top piece of information that most people look for is the hours of operation since their search is likely for a business that they frequent quite often.
2.You can’t spell NAP data (and score a citation) without an A(ddress)
While most people would assume that the number one reason people do a search online is for the address or location of a business, the address is actually behind hours of operation as the second most desired information. But, of course, the whole point of being in business is to make money doing what you love or selling what you love. And that happens by attracting foot traffic and increasing customer base.
It bears repeating that if a business address is incorrect on listing sites such as Google or Bing, then customers will not be crossing the threshold.
3. Local searchers are mobile creatures
According to Localeze, mobile-phone-based searches drive in-store purchases with more than 75% of searches ending in a purchase—if a business has their listing details correct. Now if half of the people searching for a business listing on a local search engine, such as Google Local/Maps, can’t find the store’s business listing details, then the business is going to lose 100% of their business.
For ease of use for potential customers, some of those details need to be as readily available as possible in a mobile-friendly manner. This can be accomplished with a responsive website that supports cellphone and tablet-specific versions.
4. Updated, accurate websites still serve as a first impression
At the same time, more than 60% of searches on PC platforms such as website portals, Internet Yellow Page directories and local sites have a similar chance of ending in a purchase. While mobile searches are becoming more of a standard in where a customer searches, a business owner should not discount the power of a fulsome, consistent and accurate listing that is reflective of the business website.
Local business listings should be linked to the business’s website and feature the exact same information, but more of it. While a website should be enough to entice a customer to visit or buy, if those inconsistencies exist, then trust issues may arise in a business’s practices before a customer ever crosses their threshold.
5. Local searchers mix it up across multiple devices, situations and times
People who search for listings are doing it in many more ways than when the Internet first coalesced into existence about two decades ago. In that time, we went from working on desktops to laptops to PDAs to Blackberries to Apples to tablets—and in each iteration, the methods of search have changed.
However, that has slowed over the last five years or so as web developers realize that they need to be smarter. Rather than designing three different sites for three different platforms, they have created websites that are scalable to the search device. And that has been helped along by the proliferation of types of devices in use every day.
The most important part of those mobile searches is accuracy. If someone cannot find your business in a local search or find inaccurate results whilst out and about, then your business has lost the chance for that browser to become a customer. So having those listings correct in all of the device formats is a must as we, and our technology, continue to evolve in the way we interact with local businesses.
6. Local search results are trusted sources of information
Last but certainly not least is the fact that local search results are considered the most trustworthy. 73% of consumers stated that they lose trust in a brand when the online listing shows incorrect information (Placeable, 2014).
Think about it, would you rather find a local store where you can get that latest purse in town right now? Or you can wait a week for delivery, which is four days past the event that you want it for! Local searches lend themselves to instant gratification and that interaction between browser and salesperson will convert that browser from someone who might get just the minimum to a loyal customer who feels like a million having spent a little more, but getting what they consider to be gold!
Those interactions are what lead people to local searches and the absolute necessity of getting your listings correct. Trust leads to loyalty, which leads to more business, which leads to happy customers and business owners.
And it all starts with that correct listing in that customer’s local search.
We can help you figure all of it out, book a consultation now.
