One tiny acronym separates the best-performing websites from the rest in the search results — SEO. No matter the business, the right SEO strategy can take you from invisible to indispensable.

In this article, I’ll highlight three compelling SEO success stories across industries. You’ll see how different businesses tackled unique obstacles and the strategies that led to their breakthroughs.

SEO Success Story No. 1: Local Drug Testing Services

National Drug Screening (NDS), a trusted provider of drug testing services, had trouble ranking well and bringing in qualified leads. Their website wasn’t built with technical SEO in mind, and it was hurting their performance. NDS reached out to Bruce Clay for help.

Recognizing these foundational issues, our SEO experts suggested doing a full site migration as the solution for long-term SEO growth.

Here are the broad strategies that drove the transformation:

• Built a new SEO-friendly website. Guided NDS through the process of developing and launching a new, responsive website designed to meet modern SEO standards. This included collaborating with the new web development team to ensure the technical foundation supported long-term search engine visibility and performance.
• Enhanced site architecture and navigation. Redesigned the site’s navigation and silo structure to improve responsiveness, user experience and search engine crawlability. This included a complete overhaul of the blog structure and the addition of on-site search functionality.
• Content optimization and expansion. Improved content readability and relevance by optimizing headings, bullet points and informational sections. FAQs and videos were enhanced and strategically placed to increase engagement, while content gap and keyword analyses created a strategy for valuable new content.
• Technical SEO enhancements. Implemented key technical fixes, including schema markup (breadcrumb, video and FAQ), XML sitemaps, canonicals, proper 301 redirects and link cleanups. Core Web Vitals and page experience optimizations were prioritized for mobile performance and speed.

The results?

NDS experienced remarkable growth across key metrics:

• 301% increase in organic search visibility within their target markets.
• 215% growth in organic leads, translating into tangible business opportunities.
• Top rankings for competitive localized keywords, such as “drug testing near me.”
• Website engagement improved with a 20% increase in time-on-page. This showed users were finding the information they needed.

Key Takeaway

A technically sound website is the cornerstone of a successful SEO strategy. Building a strong website foundation and then expanding an SEO program from there can improve visibility, engagement and lead generation.

A thorough audit of your website’s technical health can give you a baseline of what needs to be fixed before you can get momentum in an SEO program.

SEO Success Story No. 2: Home Furniture E-commerce

Home Gallery Stores is an online retailer specializing in furniture. The business enjoyed strong performance, ranking on the first page of Google Search results for many top keywords — that is until they launched a website redesign when traffic and rankings took a downturn.

Here’s what we did:

• Thorough index analysis and diagnosis. Conducted an in-depth audit to identify problematic URLs. This included pinpointing duplicate content, soft 404 pages, product variation pages with minimal organic value and URLs with unnecessary parameters.
• Strategic index management. Developed targeted solutions to address each index-related issue, such as eliminating duplicate URLs, adding noindex meta tags, and removing low-value pages and unnecessary URL parameters.
• Reducing crawl waste. By focusing on reducing the number of irrelevant or low-value pages indexed, the team improved crawl efficiency.

The results?

Home Gallery Stores saw dramatic improvements in their online performance:

• A 230% increase in organic traffic, driving more customers to their website.
• Top rankings for high-converting long-tail keywords, which lead to a boost in online sales.
• Enhanced site usability with a 15% decrease in bounce rates.
• A 120% growth in revenue from organic search.

Key Takeaway

In competitive industries like e-commerce, success often rides on maintaining technical SEO and user experience — especially during significant changes like a website redesign.

Prioritize site audits, publish keyword-specific content and ensure your website redesigns are built with solid technical SEO foundations. Your rankings will be safeguarded and you’ll create an e-commerce experience that attracts and retains shoppers.

SEO Success Story No. 3: B2B SaaS Startup

A startup in the B2B SaaS space was determined to carve out a presence in an emerging tech market. While their highest converting leads came from organic search traffic, previous efforts with SEO firms failed because those firms didn’t fully understand the nuances of their business.

Internal efforts also struggled due to limited bandwidth. Bruce Clay stepped in with a strategic SEO plan tailored to their unique challenges and goals.

Here’s how the client turned it around with our help:

• Keyword research and targeting. The Bruce Clay team created a comprehensive list of 100+ industry-specific keywords to align with their offerings and target audience. The keyword list was regularly updated based on new marketing initiatives and trends.
• Content development and siloing. Created 71 pages of research-driven content, including glossary pages, tutorials and blog posts. These silos of industry-specific content were designed to position the company as a trusted resource and authority in their field.
• Technical SEO and site infrastructure improvements. Addressed foundational issues, including navigation problems, broken links and Core Web Vitals metrics to improve the site’s speed, user experience and overall search performance.

The results? In just 17 months, the company achieved exceptional growth:

• 367% increase in organic traffic, significantly expanding their audience.
• 359% growth in clicks from non-branded keywords, capturing new prospects unfamiliar with their brand.
• Substantial improvements in keyword rankings, driving more qualified leads to their website.

Key Takeaway

Even in emerging or niche industries, SEO can be a powerful tool for growth. This B2B SaaS startup proved that research-driven content, targeted keyword strategies and strong technical foundations can drive results in emerging markets.

If you’re operating in a new or specialized space, focus on becoming the go-to authority by creating valuable, educational content and ensuring your website performs flawlessly.

5 Things That Successful Brands Do in SEO

Regardless of the industry or business size, the strategies that led to transformative SEO results for the businesses highlighted in this article shared a common thread:

1. Successful brands build a strong technical foundation. Every successful program began by addressing technical weaknesses that hindered their website’s performance. Creating a solid foundation helps ensure any SEO strategies built from that point on have a chance at succeeding.
2. Successful brands invest in tailored strategies. Every business faces its own set of unique obstacles, so generic approaches just won’t cut it. Working with SEO experts who take time to learn your needs will put your business on a solid foundation for long-term success.
3. Successful brands align content with searcher intent. SEO strategies thrive when you align with what your audience is actively searching for, ensuring content delivers real solutions.
4. Successful brands prioritize high-quality content. Brands that position themselves as trusted authorities with meaningful content attract improved rankings and qualified traffic.
5. Successful brands adapt to change. Transformative SEO often requires tough decisions in less-than-ideal circumstances. Whether it’s a website redesign that went wrong, a new site build or shifting to or from SEO agencies, successful businesses embrace change when necessary.

Final Thoughts

These SEO case studies show that there’s no single path to SEO success. Each business faced unique challenges and required a tailored strategy to overcome them.

The takeaway? SEO will change your life — with the right approach. It can be the transformative solution for business and website growth, despite any challenge you face.

By the way, you can read more about how Bruce Clay helped clients get better SEO results.

Bruce Clay has helped thousands of clients get more website traffic, improve search ranking and increase revenue for nearly 30 years. If you need better results from your SEO efforts, we can help you, too.

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26,000+ professionals, marketers and SEOs read the Bruce Clay Blog

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• Expert SEO insights from the “Father of SEO.”
• Proven SEO strategies to optimize website performance.
• SEO advice to earn more website traffic, higher search ranking and increased revenue.

FAQ: How can tailored SEO strategies help my website perform better in a highly competitive industry or niche?

SEO strategies offer your website personalized protection in today’s increasingly competitive environment, helping it stand out from its peers and become visible online. Instead of employing generic approaches, tailored SEO offers custom techniques specifically tailored for each industry and its requirements. By targeting specific keywords and understanding more about your audience you can increase site visibility and ranking resulting in visitor conversion that drives increased sales growth and business expansion.

Custom SEO strategies designed specifically to fit niche markets involve in-depth market analyses, studying competitors and understanding target audience motivations.

SEO strategies must be tailored specifically for every industry; each sector includes its own keywords, customer habits and competition levels that must be taken into account when formulating strategies designed to achieve business goals. Customized approaches ensure alignment with business aspirations while simultaneously improving content production, web structure optimization and user experience.

Customized strategies often incorporate cutting-edge tactics like local SEO, voice search optimization and mobile-friendly designs. These tools help you reach audiences across platforms and remain relevant in markets.

Implementing SEO strategies takes constant fine-tuning; with its ever-evolving landscape, SEO requires constant adjustment that ensures your site performs at its highest capacity, drawing in and converting visitors.

SEO strategies provide many advantages for building brand authority and trust among target audiences. By consistently producing engaging, high-quality content that keeps audiences coming back for more, SEO strategies can position your business as an industry expert – keeping customers coming back.

Companies can build online presence, foster growth and experience lasting success by meeting niche requirements, employing sophisticated techniques and tracking performance closely.

Step-by-Step Procedure:

1. Know Your Industry: Take the time to fully understand the challenges, opportunities and latest trends within your industry.
2. Establish Your Audience: Determine who your target audience is by conducting research into demographics, preferences and online habits of this target market.
3. Conduct Competitor Analysis: Evaluate which competitors do well and where their weaknesses exist.
4. Search Keyword Research: Research the search terms that your audience uses.
5. Optimize Your Website Architecture: Make sure your site is user-friendly and structured efficiently.
6. Create Engaging Content: Produce engaging material that caters to audience needs while including appropriate keywords.
7. Conduct On-Page SEO: Optimize meta tags, headers and images to increase search visibility for improved search visibility.
8. User Experience: Give visitors to your website an enjoyable experience by making it load quickly, accessible across devices and viewable from all mobile phones.
9. SEO Tools: Use tools like our SEOToolSet® to keep an eye on performance, gather and analyze data, and adjust strategies as required.
10. Use Local SEO: Strengthen local presence through business listings and backlinks from local websites.
11. Engage in Content Marketing: Provide valuable, informative material across platforms in order to draw customers in and hold onto them.
12. Implement Technical SEO: Overcome technical issues preventing effective indexing and crawling.
13. Monitor SEO Performance: Track analytics to measure the efficacy of your strategies.
14. Adjust Strategies as Needed: It is wise to remain flexible regarding any adjustments required based on performance data.
15. Build Brand Trust: Establish credibility through engaging content creation.
16. Sought Customer Feedback: Use customer testimonials and reviews as an avenue for building trust and improving services.
17. Paid Advertising: Give SEO efforts an extra push with carefully tailored paid campaigns.
18. Stimulate Social Media Engagement: Increase engagement on social platforms by driving traffic to them.
19. Keep Up With Changes In Industry: Keep abreast of changes that might alter your SEO plan and plan.
20. Collaborate With Experts: Join forces with SEO specialists to improve strategies and implementation processes.
21. Target Long-Tail Keywords: Choose phrases less competitive to your audience to target long tail keywords effectively.
22. Employ Schema Markup: Help search engines understand your content more fully by using schema markup.
23. Build Quality Backlinks: Acquire links from credible sources in order to increase authority and rankings of your website.
24. Acknowledging Milestones: Remember achievements and establish new goals for growth.

The post SEO Success Stories: What You Can Learn from These 3 Businesses appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

A site migration is when a website undergoes significant changes. These changes typically include modifications to the site’s platform, structure, content design or user experience.

Without adequate planning and execution, migrations can be complex and risky, negatively impacting search engine visibility.

In this guide, you’ll learn more about the factors and steps involved in a successful site migration:

• Understanding Site Migration SEO Basics
  • Search Engine Optimization in Site Migration
  • Technical SEO Elements
  • Content Quality Analysis
• 16 Tips for Effective Site Migrations
  1. Review Your Backlink Profile
  2. Set Clear Goals
  3. Craft a Detailed Migration Plan
  4. Assign Team Responsibilities
  5. Identify Risks
  6. Document Content
  7. Build Your URL Mapping Plan
  8. Perform a Full Site Backup
  9. Set Up a Staging Environment
  10. Conduct Trial Migration and Trial Run Testing
  11. Implement Technical SEO Optimization
  12. Conduct Post-Migration SEO Audit
  13. Submit Updated Sitemap to Search Engines
  14. Monitor Site Performance and Optimization
  15. Align Content with Business Goals
  16. Communicate Migration Plans to Stakeholders
• Summary of Site Migration Tips
• FAQ: How do I mitigate risks during a site migration to maintain SEO?

Understanding Site Migration SEO Basics

At its core, a site migration project aims to preserve and even increase SEO performance. Next, I’ll go over some SEO basics that help accomplish this goal.

Search Engine Optimization in Site Migration

Given the essential role SEO plays in site migration, improper execution could result in substantial drops in search engine rankings, traffic volumes and conversion rates.

When implemented effectively, however, an SEO site migration can enhance user experiences, improve performance metrics and boost search rankings.

Before getting started with any migration process, it’s critical to do a comprehensive SEO audit using tools such as Google Analytics and Search Console. These tools are helpful in identifying key performance metrics and any issues that might hinder the migration.

Steps to assessing a site’s performance include:

1. Establish Google Analytics and Search Console: First, ensure these tools are installed and functional on your existing website.
2. Identify key metrics: Evaluate key elements, such as site speed, user engagement, traffic sources, conversion rates, etc.
3. Document issues: Make note of any performance-related concerns, such as slow loading times, high bounce rates or low conversion rates that arise during performance testing.

Technical SEO Elements

Evaluate your site’s technical components for search engine indexing purposes. This should include speed testing, mobile compatibility testing and crawl error detection.

1. Website speed: Use tools such as PageSpeed Insights to measure and optimize loading times on mobile devices.
2. Mobile-friendliness: Ensure optimal performance on mobile devices for maximum ranking opportunities on search engines like Google.
3. Crawl issues: Use Google Search Console to detect and resolve crawl errors that might interfere with indexing processes for search engines.

Content Quality Analysis

Analyze your website to detect duplicate, thin or outdated pages. Doing so will preserve SEO integrity after migration.

• Duplicate content: Use tools like Copyscape to identify and address duplicate content issues.
• Thin content: Optimize or consolidate pages with low word counts.
• Outdated content: Replace or update outdated material to ensure it remains relevant and accurate.

16 Tips for Effective Site Migrations

There are several critical steps that must be carefully managed for successful execution of a migration. At times during migrations, guidelines can become convoluted or too complex. The 16 steps below are actionable and concise tips to increase visibility while maintaining site functionality.

1. Review Your Backlink Profile

Backlink profile assessments offer insight into both the quality and quantity of links pointing back to your website, while uncovering potentially toxic ones that should be disavowed.

To analyze your backlink profile, you should:

1. Use SEO tools: Assess your backlink profile and detect toxic links that could hinder SEO efforts. Our SEOToolSet can help.
2. Develop an improvement plan: Aim to acquire higher-quality backlinks while disavowing toxic ones.

2. Set Clear Goals

Goal setting is essential to any successful site migration project. When setting SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely) goals, it is imperative they be clear as part of the process.

Set clear goals by:

1. Establishing your objectives: Define what you hope to accomplish through migration, such as improved user experience, SEO performance or conversion rates.
2. Aligning with your business goals: Ensure that migration objectives align with overall business strategies.
3. Establishing measurable targets: Create metrics to accurately gauge the success of your migration project.

3. Craft a Detailed Migration Plan

A comprehensive migration plan must outline every step, from the initial analysis through post-migration checks. This helps ensure all tasks are clearly defined and deadlines are met.

To plan your migration, you should:

1. Develop a roadmap: Simplify all migration processes and create an outline with manageable steps, from pre-migration audits to post-migration reviews.
2. Delegate duties: Define every team member’s roles and responsibilities and inform everyone of their role.
3. Plan out deadlines and milestones: Create a timeline with distinct milestones and deadlines for every migration task.

4. Assign Team Responsibilities

Assigning clear roles helps ensure that every aspect of a migration project is successfully executed.

Here’s how to effectively delegate:

1. Define roles and responsibilities: Give each team member an outline of their individual duties related to migration.
2. Provide training: Teach your team members to carry out their responsibilities efficiently.
3. Monitor progress: Conduct periodic checks to detect risks and ensure tasks are being completed on schedule.

5. Identify Risks

Evaluate any risks associated with your site’s migration. Take the following steps to do so:

1. Pinpointing risks: Make a list of threats such as data loss, downtime or SEO impacts.
2. Evaluating impact: Evaluate both the likelihood and impact of each identified risk.
3. Creating mitigation plans: Come up with ways to respond to the threats previously identified. Then, draft mitigation or contingency plans to address them.

6. Document Content

It’s essential to make note of all content on your website before a migration. Below are some efficient steps for doing so:

1. Create a content list: Take inventory of existing content elements, such as URLs, titles, meta descriptions and any SEO components.
2. Categorize content: Organize material by category, and identify gaps/improvement opportunities.
3. Perform content analysis: Analyze content to identify areas for improvement. The goal is to determine what to update, remove or migrate to another platform.

7. Build Your URL Mapping Plan

A comprehensive URL mapping plan ensures all old URLs are successfully redirected while preserving their SEO value.

When crafting your URL mapping plan, you should:

• Identify old URLs: Create an exhaustive list of all old URLs.
• Map to new URLs: Each old URL should be mapped to the corresponding new one.
• Plan redirects: Implement 301 redirects as necessary to foster an uninterrupted user and search engine experience.

8. Perform a Full Site Backup

Preserving your website’s data during a site migration can provide you with peace of mind. It’s important to archive all site data to prevent total erasure.

Below are some tips for completing a full site backup:

• Utilize backup tools or plugins: Create a full backup of your website using tools or plugins.
• Verify backup: Ensure the backup is complete and functional before storing it in an accessible location for future reference.
• Check backup completeness and restoration capability: Verify the completeness and restorability of a backup image file or database.
• Conduct restoration tests: Schedule regular backups throughout your migration process for optimal data protection and restoration success.

9. Set Up a Staging Environment

Establishing a staging environment enables you to test modifications before applying them on the live site.

Follow these steps to develop a staging site:

1. Create a mirror site: Replicate your live site within the staging environment.
2. Configure environment: Confirm that the staging site’s configuration matches that of your live site.
3. Access control: Only allow authorized personnel access to the staging environment for testing purposes.

Conducting rigorous tests on a staging site enables you to identify and resolve issues before they impact live site operations. Below are three important types of testing to perform:

1. Functional testing: Review all website functionality, such as forms, links and navigation.
2. Performance testing: Evaluate site speed and performance under various conditions.
3. SEO testing: Confirm that SEO elements, such as meta tags and redirects, have been correctly implemented on the website.

10. Conduct Trial Migration and Trial Run Testing

Undergoing a trial migration helps identify any issues and optimize the migration process.

Steps for navigating a successful trial run include:

1. Performing a full migration on the staging site: Complete a trial migration on the staging site.
2. Documenting issues: Note any issues and make necessary process adjustments before live migration begins.
3. Adjustments: Analyze the results of the trial migration and make any necessary changes.
4. Retest: Continue testing until all issues have been addressed.

11. Implement Technical SEO Optimization

By optimizing the technical components of your new site, you ensure seamless search engine indexing.

Below are several essential steps for technical SEO optimization:

1. Site speed: Reduce images file sizes and browser caching. Minify CSS/JavaScript code to speed up webpages.
2. Structured data: Implement structured data into your site. Search engines will understand it better and it helps improve user experience.

On-page SEO ensures that every page on your new website is search engine friendly.

Take these steps in order to reap the maximum results from your SEO efforts:

1. Title tags, meta descriptions and headers: Optimize each of these categories with relevant keywords.
2. Content optimization: Put out articles that are top-quality, featuring targeted, keyword-rich copy.
3. Internal linking structure: Link to relevant pages throughout your site to facilitate better navigation, create an information hierarchy and enable search engines to index your website.

12. Conduct Post-Migration SEO Audit

Doing an SEO audit after a migration can yield invaluable insight into pre- and post-migration performance as well as growth potential.

You can assess post-migration impact by:

1. Comparing metrics: Assess performance indicators both before and after migration.
2. Identifying issues: Analyze any decreases in traffic, rankings or conversion rates post-migration.
3. Planning adjustments: Construct an action plan that addresses any concerns identified during analysis.

13. Submit Updated Sitemap to Search Engines

Ensuring search engines can access and index your new website quickly is a necessary part of helping it rank. An updated sitemap can assist search engines in understanding your website’s new layout.

Here’s how you’ll submit an updated sitemap:

1. Generate new sitemap: Utilize a sitemap generator tool to generate an updated sitemap.
2. Check for errors: Ensure all important pages are included.
3. Submit to search engines: Submit your sitemap using either Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools.

14. Monitor Site Performance and Optimization

Monitoring site performance provides an efficient means of quickly detecting and solving potential issues.

Steps for continuous site monitoring include:

1. Utilizing analytics tools: Use tools like Google Analytics to monitor site performance.
2. Regularly inspecting key metrics: Common metrics include traffic, ranking, load times, etc.
3. Optimizing performance: Adjust your strategies based on analytics data.

Regular optimization of site performance ensures it meets user and search engine expectations.

You can optimize your site’s performance by:

1. Reviewing speed: Optimize images, code and server response times.
2. Enhancing user experience: Regularly upgrade site usability and design.
3. Updating content: Revise content regularly to meet user trends and expectations.

15. Align Content with Business Goals

Align your content with business goals and user needs to help ensure long-term success.

Align your site’s content by:

1. Reviewing business goals: Regularly compare content with business goals.
2. Understanding user needs: Gather user data and feedback. Craft content that fulfills those needs.
3. Optimizing for SEO: Consider relevant keywords and search intent.

16. Communicate Migration Plans to Stakeholders

Effective communication between stakeholders ensures they all support your migration plan.

Engage stakeholders by:

1. Providing regular updates: Communicate regularly regarding migration progress and any issues.
2. Remaining transparent: Accurately report results or challenges.
3. Creating feedback loops: Accommodate stakeholder concerns and suggestions.

Summary of Site Migration Tips

When done well, a site migration preserves and amplifies your SEO performance while safeguarding search engine rankings. But it’s an involved and time-consuming undertaking that demands thorough preparation, execution and ongoing oversight.

Following the steps above will facilitate an easy transition. With proper tools in hand and an approach tailored toward growth and expansion, this potentially risky endeavor can become an opportunity for growth and advancement.

Here’s a summary of the tips for site migration:

1. Review Your Backlink Profile
2. Incorporate Goal Setting when Migrating Websites
3. Craft a Detailed Migration Plan
4. Assign Team Responsibilities
5. Identify Risks
6. Document Content
7. Build Your URL Mapping Plan
8. Perform a Full Site Backup
9. Set Up a Staging Environment
10. Conduct Trial Migration and Trial Run Testing
11. Implement Technical SEO Optimization
12. Conduct Post Migration SEO Audit
13. Submit Updated Sitemap to Search Engines
14. Monitor Site Performance and Optimization
15. Align Content with Business Goals
16. Communicate Migration Plans to Stakeholders

Need help planning or executing your site migration? You can lean on our experts! 

Schedule a free SEO consultation

FAQ: How do I mitigate risks during a site migration to maintain SEO?

Migrating websites while keeping SEO intact requires careful and deliberate planning, along with open and precise communication from all parties involved.

One primary consideration during site migration should be keeping traffic and rankings intact as SEO can become highly vulnerable when there are changes to site structure, content or URLs.

One key step to managing risks during site migration is conducting comprehensive pre-migration audits – both technical and content audits – prior to moving any content over.

Technical audits focus on site architecture, server response times, existing technical SEO elements, content performance evaluation and relevance/quality determination, giving an in-depth picture of what needs to be taken forward, improved upon or removed altogether from your new website.

Retaining SEO during a site migration also requires creating a detailed 301 redirect plan. A 301 redirect is designed to inform search engines of when a page has permanently moved, thus passing its SEO value from one URL onto another one. By mapping all old URLs over to their new counterparts, it ensures both visitors and search engines find what they’re searching for – thus protecting both its authority and ranking status of your site.

As part of your migration process, it’s crucial that existing XML sitemaps and robots.txt files remain unchanged during migration. Search engines use these documents as guides on how they should index sites, so make sure the new website contains correctly configured sitemaps and robots.txt files to reduce the risk for indexing errors or loss in crawl efficiency.

Preserving SEO requires testing the new site thoroughly prior to launch, with particular attention paid to aspects like site speed, mobile compatibility and broken links as well as URL redirections. User acceptance testing (UAT) ensures that end-user expectations are fulfilled while still meeting functionality and aesthetic criteria.

Monitor the site after migration is of paramount importance. Keep an eye on performance metrics like traffic volumes, bounce rates, search ranking positions and search alerts in Google Search Console to identify any technical problems which arise and fix them fast.

Engaging with SEO tools on a consistent and impactful basis is one of the key ways to maintain long-term SEO health. Tools like Google Analytics, SEMrush and Moz provide insights into site performance, keyword rankings and backlinks – useful data points in order to maintain site optimization post migration while monitoring for any deviations from expected SEO outcomes.

Effective communication extends far beyond your migration team to include your audience. Informing users of your migration and setting realistic expectations regarding potential downtime or changes to site appearance helps in maintaining user trust. An informed audience is more likely to stay engaged and loyal even during transitional phases.

As part of any migration project, having a backup and rollback plan in place is absolutely critical. Even the best laid plans may lead to complications; having an effective way of quickly returning back to the old site ensures you can address issues as they arise without prolonged disruptions to user experiences or rankings.

Professional guidance is vital when considering how to maintain SEO during site migration. Work with an experienced SEO agency if you need help.

Step-by-Step Procedure:

1. Conduct a pre-migration audit for technical and content elements.
2. Visualize the current site architecture and compare it with proposed new structures.
3. Use SEO tools like Google Analytics and SEMrush for detailed site analytics.
4. Make an exhaustive 301 redirect mapping all existing URLs to new ones.
5. Retain and update existing XML sitemaps and robots.txt files on the new site.
6. Conduct an environmental test of your staging environment, testing its speed, mobile compatibility and functionality.
7. Verify all 301 redirects on the staging site to ensure proper redirection.
8. Implement user acceptance testing (UAT) to meet the expectations of your users.
9. Conduct a pre-launch SEO audit that’s focused on meta tags, canonical tags and internal linking.
10. Prepare a comprehensive communication strategy in order to inform all parties involved about the migration.
11. Backup all databases and files before initiating any migration project.
12. Transition your website during off-peak hours in order to limit user disruption.
13. Recheck the redirect plan after it has been executed to ensure accuracy.
14. Enhance Google’s search index using URL Inspection in Google Search Console.
15. Monitor site metrics using Google Analytics and other SEO tools.
16. Set up alerts in Google Search Console for indexing or crawl errors to be informed quickly of potential issues.
17. Adjust any identified issues promptly through precise troubleshooting.
18. Communicate post-migration performance to stakeholders.
19. Optimize ongoing SEO elements like content updates and backlink management for maximum impact.
20. Continue to monitor site performance at least 30 days post-migration.
21. Provide training on current SEO strategies to the site management team.
22. Conduct regular SEO audits to maintain optimal site performance and make adjustments as needed.
23. Analyze user comments and make any necessary modifications.
24. Always have an emergency backup plan ready in case serious problems emerge.

Personality and expert insights added into content increase its engagement factor and help ensure it resonates well with the brand voice and builds trustworthiness. Proofreading ensures errors-free writing so the information provided remains reliable.

Mitigating risks during a site migration requires intensive audits, careful planning, accurate testing and continued surveillance. When properly executed, these steps will not only maintain but could potentially even enhance SEO for your site; additionally expert handling ensures a seamless migration that keeps rankings high while satisfying users.

The post 16 Keys to a Successful Site Migration appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

]]> https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/keys-successful-site-migration/feed/ 3 https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/technical-seo-best-practices-cant-ignore/ https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/technical-seo-best-practices-cant-ignore/#comments Thu, 16 May 2024 19:15:20 +0000 https://www.bruceclay.com/?p=221880 Learn essential technical SEO tactics to improve your website's performance and search engine rankings.

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The search engine is often a starting point in the customer journey. In 2023, Klarna reported that 44% of shopping experiences start with a search engine. And BrightEdge research shows 53% of website traffic comes from organic search.

Getting your share of traffic from the search engines is possible with the right SEO strategies. But don’t expect overnight success; SEO takes commitment. And part of that commitment is undertaking technical SEO.

In this article:

• What is technical SEO?
• Technical SEO: 5 best practices you can’t ignore
• FAQ: How can I effectively implement technical SEO to enhance my website’s performance and rankings?

Unfortunately, technical SEO is an often overlooked piece of the SEO puzzle.

If you look at Backlinko’s SEO Jobs Report, you’ll find only 23% of employers look for SEOs with technical skills.



At one point in a discussion on Reddit, Google’s Gary Illyes pointed out the fact that SEOs often focus on the wrong things and forget about technical SEO basics:

“i really wish SEOs went back to the basics (i.e. MAKE THAT DAMN SITE CRAWLABLE) instead of focusing on silly updates and made up terms by the rank trackers, and that they talked more with the developers of the website once done with the first part of this sentence.”

So where do we go from here? If sites are hyper-focused on some — but not all — the things that matter, will they compete?

In many cases, no. Google’s growing focus is on the user experience, and one of the major ways you create a good user experience is through how your site performs for visitors.



Google discusses how page experience can factor into ranking here:

“Google Search always seeks to show the most relevant content, even if the page experience is sub-par. But for many queries, there is lots of helpful content available. Having a great page experience can contribute to success in Search, in such cases.”

Technical analysis is a major part of how we help clients at Bruce Clay Inc. realize success. Take, for example, this case study where we used technical SEO as part of the larger strategy to help one client realize a 166% jump in website traffic.



Now that we’ve discussed why it’s important, let’s look closer at what technical SEO is and some best practices you absolutely need to succeed.


What Is Technical SEO?

Imagine you’re building a house. Before the fancy decor or the high-tech gadgets, you need a solid foundation and framework; that’s what technical SEO does.

Technical SEO is optimizing the technical aspects of a website to improve how it performs for both search engines and visitors.

Technical SEO tackles things like how fast the site is, how it renders on different screens, if it is secure, if it’s optimal for search engine crawlers and more.

When you zero in on the tech side of your website, you lay down a solid foundation for all things SEO.

Technical SEO vs. On-Page SEO

While technical SEO focuses on the “back end” of a website to improve performance, on-page SEO hones in on helping webpages be more relevant for a search.

In truth, they work hand-in-hand — everything you do to improve a page can make it more relevant for rankings.

You want each webpage to perform its best, so you layer a great-performing webpage (technical SEO) with things like quality, optimized content (on-page SEO).

To learn more, see Technical SEO vs. On-Page SEO.


Technical SEO: 5 Best Practices You Can’t Ignore

Now let’s explore the five technical SEO best practices you can’t ignore if you want to create a user-friendly and search engine-friendly site:

1. Site structure
2. Core web vitals
3. Mobile-friendliness
4. HTTPS
5. Optimizing a website for crawlers

1. Site Structure: Building a Relevant, Easy-to-Use Site

How your site’s content is organized and how your internal link structure is set up can make your site more authoritative, more relevant for search queries and offer a better user experience.

Google says this about site structure:

“When you’re setting up or redoing your site, it can be good to organize it in a logical way because it can help search engines and users understand how your pages relate to the rest of your site.”

You can use SEO siloing to organize website content based on how people search for it:

• Implement physical siloing by linking webpages through URL structures into directories.
• Use virtual siloing to create informational silos through contextual links and related webpages.

Google explains how organizing content in directories can be helpful:

“If you have more than a few thousand URLs on your site, how you organize your content may have effects on how Google crawls and indexes your site. Specifically, using directories (or folders) to group similar topics can help Google learn how often the URLs in individual directories change.

For example, consider the following URLs:

https://www.example.com/policies/return-policy.html
https://www.example.com/promotions/new-promos.html

The content in the policies directory seldomly changes, however the content in the promotions directory likely changes very often. Google can learn this information and crawl the different directories at different frequencies. To learn more about search-friendly site structures, check out our guide for ecommerce sites, for which a good URL structure is more important as they tend to be larger.”

Internal Linking Best Practices

Your site structure relies on internal links, whether it’s your main navigation, footer links, contextual links or related content links.

An internal link is a link that takes a user from one page on a website to another page on the same website.

Internal links are different from external links, which point to a page on another website from your website. Internal links are also different from inbound links, which point to a page on your website but come from another website.



Your internal links:

• Help users find content.
• Help search engines understand you’re a relevant site for your target keywords.
• Enable search engines to discover more pages.
• Passe link equity between webpages.

Here’s what Google has to say about links:

“Links are a great way to connect your users and search engines to other parts of your site, or relevant pages on other sites. In fact, the vast majority of the new pages Google finds every day are through links, making links a crucial resource you need to consider to help your pages be discovered by Google and potentially shown in search results.”

Internal linking best practices include:

• Auditing existing link structure. Regularly review your internal links using SEO tools like SEOToolSet, Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, Semrush or Google Search Console. Look for broken links, redirects, pages with no links and click-depth issues.
• Establishing click depth. Keep the number of clicks it takes to reach important pages from the homepage to a minimum, ideally no more than three. This makes it easier for both users and search engines to find and navigate your site’s key content.
• Only linking to important pages from the homepage. Only linking to important pages from the homepage helps distribute link equity and reinforce the importance of those pages to search engines.
• Using breadcrumb links. Breadcrumb links show users the path they took to reach the current page. They improve navigation and help users understand the structure of your site.
• Using anchor text wisely. Anchor text is the clickable text of a link. Use descriptive and relevant anchor text that provides users and search engines with context about the linked page’s content. Avoid generic phrases like “click here.”
• Using nofollow attributes as needed. Use the rel=”nofollow” attribute for links to pages like sponsored content, affiliate links or user-generated content. This tells search engines not to pass authority from your site to the linked page.
• Managing 404s. Monitor your site for 404 errors (page not found) and fix them by redirecting broken links to relevant pages. A custom 404 page can also help users navigate your site when they encounter a broken link.
• Managing internal links. Regularly review and update your internal linking strategy as your site grows and evolves. Add new internal links to relevant content, remove broken links and ensure your internal linking structure aligns with your SEO goals.

2. Core Web Vitals: Enhancing User Experience

Core web vitals (CWV) are a set of metrics that measure the load performance (how fast a page renders), interactivity (how quickly someone can interact with the page) and visual stability of a website (so there are no unexpected shifts).

CWVs are part of Google’s ranking algorithm, though how much weight they hold is up for debate.

Regardless of speculation, getting these right improves the site experience, which can definitely have an impact on how you perform in the search results and with your target audience.

Take, for example, all the data found on this page that shows the impact of web performance on user experience and business metrics.

As with many other ranking factors, think of CWV as that extra competitive edge. If all other sites are mostly equal, but one site is better at performing, which do you think will rank?

Google’s John Mueller stated on Reddit that CWV was more than just a “tie-breaker,” following up with some excellent advice:

“It is a ranking factor, and it’s more than a tie-breaker, but it also doesn’t replace relevance. Depending on the sites you work on, you might notice it more, or you might notice it less. As an SEO, a part of your role is to take all of the possible optimizations and figure out which ones are worth spending time on. Any SEO tool will spit out 10s or 100s of “recommendations”, most of those are going to be irrelevant to your site’s visibility in search. Finding the items that make sense to work on takes experience.

The other thing to keep in mind with core web vitals is that it’s more than a random ranking factor, it’s also something that affects your site’s usability after it ranks (when people actually visit). If you get more traffic (from other SEO efforts) and your conversion rate is low, that traffic is not going to be as useful as when you have a higher conversion rate (assuming UX/speed affects your conversion rate, which it usually does). CWV is a great way of recognizing and quantifying common user annoyances.”

3. A Mobile-Friendly Website: Performing on All Screens

Mobile traffic accounts for about half of the web traffic worldwide.



And because mobile traffic is growing and a mobile-friendly site is good for users, mobile friendliness is a ranking signal, and Google officially switched to mobile-first indexing.

There’s a lot that goes into having a solid mobile-friendly site. And there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. To ensure your site is mobile-friendly, follow these basic steps:

• Learn about mobile-friendly best practices. Review Google’s mobile-friendly guide and other resources to understand best practices. Consider consulting with an experienced SEO professional for guidance on making good choices.
• Test your site. Use tools like Google’s Lighthouse to uncover data on mobile-friendliness.
• Implement changes. Address the main issues uncovered in the testing phase to improve mobile friendliness. In terms of website configurations, responsive web design is often the easiest to create and maintain.

To learn more, including common mistakes to avoid, check out my article on mobile-friendly sites.

4. HTTPS: Enhanced Security for Peace of Mind

A vast majority of websites already deploy HTTPS (which stands for “hypertext transfer protocol secure”) – but if you’re in the 15% or so that currently doesn’t, it’s a non-negotiable.

HTTPS is a protocol that encrypts data sent between a user’s browser and your website, making it much harder for hackers to intercept sensitive information like passwords or credit card numbers.

But HTTPS isn’t just important for security; it’s also a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm. Back in 2014, Google announced that HTTPS would be used as a ranking signal, giving a small boost to sites that use the protocol.

Since then, Google has become more serious about HTTPS; in July 2018, Chrome began marking all HTTP sites as “not secure.” You can imagine what a warning sign like that could do for your traffic let alone conversions.



HTTPS is constantly evolving, and every new version can offer benefits like better security and performance. So if you want to improve your site’s security and traffic, and possibly give your rankings a boost, implementing HTTPS is a no-brainer.

If you need to migrate to HTTPS, follow the steps outlined by Google here, and check out my article on HTTPS for pitfalls to avoid.

5. Optimizing a Website for Crawlers: Enhanced Search Engine Experiences

Besides getting your content out there for the world to see, you’ve got room to tweak things a bit and make it easier for search engines to find and understand what you’re putting online.

This involves optimizing how search engine bots interact with your site, ensuring they can crawl and index your pages quickly and efficiently.

Some techniques to improve crawl efficiency include:

• Having an XML sitemap. Search engines use an XML sitemap to discover and index your pages. Sitemaps help improve the crawlability and visibility of your site. Read more: What is an XML Sitemap and How Do I Make One?
• Using the robots.txt file to control bot access. Robots.txt is a text file placed at the root of a website that tells search engine bots which pages not to crawl. This is known as the robots exclusion protocol. However, it does not guarantee that excluded URLs won’t be indexed, as search engine spiders can still find them through links from other pages or past indexing. Read more: What Is robots.txt?
• Implementing canonical tags to avoid duplicate content issues. The canonical link element helps solve duplicate content issues because it signals to search engines like Google which webpage is the original or best pick out of a group of pages that are duplicate or near duplicate. For more, see: How to Use the Canonical Link Element for Duplicate Content.
• Minimizing redirect chains and loops. Redirect chains occur when a URL redirects to another URL, which then redirects to a third URL and so on. This can slow down page loading times and confuse search engine bots. Redirect loops, on the other hand, happen when two or more URLs redirect to each other in a loop, causing crawlers to get stuck and preventing pages from being indexed properly.
• Monitoring and resolving crawl errors. Crawl errors occur when search engine bots encounter issues while crawling and indexing a website. Common crawl errors include 404 not found errors, 5xx server errors and DNS lookup failures. Monitor crawl errors regularly and resolve them quickly to ensure that search engines can index your site, and you can provide a better user experience for visitors.

Final Thoughts

Technical SEO is a critical aspect of any website’s optimization strategy. By incorporating technical SEO best practices into your overall SEO strategy, you can build a strong foundation for your website’s success in the search results and with users.

Our SEO experts can help you make sense of technical SEO. They can make recommendations on how to implement the right technical SEO best practices that will get the most results from your SEO campaign. Schedule a free 1:1 consultation with us today.

FAQ: How can I effectively implement technical SEO to enhance my website’s performance and rankings?

Technical SEO involves optimizing your website so that it loads fast, renders properly, provides a good user experience and more. It is a driving force in how well your website performs for users and search engines.

Here’s how you can effectively implement it to improve your website and search engine ranking.

Website architecture: An important part of technical SEO is making your website’s architecture organized and clean. When your website is well-structured, it makes it easier for search engines to crawl and helps users easily navigate it. Establish a clear hierarchy with clean URLs, and it’s a good idea to include an XML sitemap. The goal is to make your webpages easily reachable — the less clicks it takes for users to get to your webpages, the better.

Page speed: Page speed is a huge part of technical SEO, and it has become a major ranking factor for search engines. Fast-loading pages provide a better user experience and tend to rank higher on SERPs. You can improve your page speed loading times by optimizing images, browser caching and minimizing your JavaScript and CSS code. It’s a good idea to use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to get insights and recommendations to improve your site speed.

Mobile optimization: Another key aspect of technical SEO is mobile optimization. Google has moved to mobile-first indexing, which means that search engines prioritize the mobile versions of webpages for ranking. Optimizing your site to be mobile friendly improves user experience, page speed, and gives users the same experience across a wide variety of devices. You can test how well your site performs on mobile devices through the Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

HTTPS: HTTPS protocol makes your website secure and also helps to establish trust. Visitors want to know that any personal or payment information they provide will be kept safe. Sites using HTTPS are preferred over non-secure sites by search engines because they offer encrypted communication that protects data integrity and user information. Implementing SSL/TLS certificates is a straightforward process that adds another layer of security.

Duplicate content: Duplicate content is a very common problem that can harm website ranking. Canonical tags should be used to tell search engines what version of a webpage you prefer. And to consolidate duplicate pages, use 301 redirects. Google Search Console can help you identify and fix any duplicate content issues.

Structured data: Structured data is a very useful tool in technical SEO. It enhances the appearance of a search engine listing and adds rich information to help searchers make a decision, which can improve click-through rates (CTR). Implement schema markup to improve your site’s SERP appearance and give search engines more context/details about your webpage content.

These technical SEO tips will help improve your website performance and your search engine ranking.

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Audit your site: Use SEO tools like Screaming Frog or SEOToolSet® to run a thorough site audit and find any technical issues.
2. Fix crawl errors: Use Google Search Console to find and fix any crawl errors, including 404 pages and server errors.
3. Optimize site architecture: Your website must have a logical structure with a clear hierarchy. Create an XML sitemap and submit it to search engines.
4. Improve page speed: Evaluate your site’s speed with tools like Google PageSpeed Insights. Optimize images by compressing image files and using the correct file format. Implement browser caching and reduce CSS/JavaScript code.
5. Mobile optimization: Give your website a responsive design so that it displays and performs as intended across mobile devices. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check performance.
6. Implement HTTPS: Make your site secure with SSL/TLS certificates. Convert to HTTPS.
7. Manage duplicate content: Avoid duplicate content problems by using canonical tags and 301 redirects. The content on each of your pages must be unique and valuable to increase your chances of ranking.
8. Schema markup: Mark up your pages with schema markup to boost your SERP appearance. You can verify your markup with Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.
9. Improve URL structure: Use clean, descriptive URLs that incorporate your target keywords. Do not use long, complex URLs.
10. Internal linking: Use logical internal links to improve user experience and crawlability.
11. Fix broken links: Regularly audit your site to find broken links and promptly fix them.
12. Optimize Robots.txt: Check your robots.txt file to make sure it guides search engine crawlers appropriately and does not inadvertently block important pages.
13. Regularly update content: Search engines reward sites with fresh, helpful content. Review your content regularly and update it as needed to keep its value and relevance.
14. Monitor backlinks: Use SEO tools like Ahrefs or SEOToolset to track your backlink profile and remove any links that may be harmful to your site.
15. Implement AMP: You may want to consider implementing Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to further improve page loading speed.
16. Reduce server response time: Ensure a fast server response time by either optimizing your server settings or switching to a faster hosting provider.
17. Breadcrumb navigation: Use breadcrumb navigation to improve user experience and help search engine better understand your website structure.
18. Set up canonical URLs: Define canonical URLs to prevent duplicate content issues.
19. Use lazy loading: If you have any content like images or videos that are not essential, implement lazy loading to defer their loading. This will improve your page speed.
20. Implement pagination: If your website includes large lists of content, use proper pagination to improve efficiency.
21. Track technical SEO metrics: Regularly monitor your technical SEO performance with tools like Google Analytics and Search Console.
22. Update plugins and themes: Using WordPress or some other kind of CMS? Keep your plugins and themes updated to avoid security vulnerabilities.
23. Regularly audit your technical SEO: Perform SEO audits regularly to ensure all elements are optimized and identify issues that must be addressed.

The post 5 Technical SEO Best Practices You Can’t Ignore appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

]]> https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/technical-seo-best-practices-cant-ignore/feed/ 7 https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/guide-winning-big-enterprise-seo/ https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/guide-winning-big-enterprise-seo/#comments Thu, 29 Feb 2024 19:44:32 +0000 https://www.bruceclay.com/?p=214148 Enterprise SEO is about so much more than just optimizing a website. It’s about reaching your target audience online when you can help them. It’s about seizing opportunities for more branding, visibility and revenue. Discover the power of enterprise SEO strategies and tools to drive organic growth and revenue for your large organization.

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Enterprise SEO is about so much more than just optimizing a website. It’s about reaching your target audience online when you can help them. It’s about seizing opportunities for more branding, visibility and revenue.

According to Conductor, 72% of enterprises have had success with SEO. By optimizing your enterprise SEO strategies with quality content and sound technical practices, you’re setting the stage for sustainable growth in an ever-competitive online world.

In this article:

• Understanding Enterprise SEO and How It’s Different
• What Makes a Good Enterprise SEO Strategy?
• Enterprise SEO and AI
• The Challenges of Getting Enterprise SEO Done
• How to Measure Enterprise SEO Success
• Enterprise SEO Tools
• Integrating Enterprise SEO with Other Marketing Channels
• Staying Ahead of the Curve
• Enterprise SEO Case Study
• FAQ: How can I implement an effective enterprise SEO strategy to drive organic growth and revenue for my large organization?

Understanding Enterprise SEO and How It’s Different

Enterprise SEO is not just about on-page optimization; it’s a complex venture with a lot of moving parts. This requires a robust strategy to tackle the unique challenges of large organizations.

The sheer size of enterprise websites often means they have thousands, if not millions, of pages. A solid SEO foundation helps ensure you can compete in the highly competitive world of search results.

That means structuring your site and your strategy so that search engines can find and index pages correctly, and visitors and potential leads can find what they need and engage with your brand.

Here are a couple of ways that enterprise SEO differs from other types of SEO programs …

Scale

In small business SEO, one might juggle dozens or hundreds of keywords — but when we talk about enterprises? We’re looking at thousands upon thousands.

You’ll need tools capable of managing enterprise SEO strategies, which let you monitor rankings en masse and provide actionable insights into how well each keyword performs against competitors.

Business Silos

Another key difference between enterprise SEO versus small business or smaller-scale SEO projects is stakeholder involvement. With more cooks in the kitchen — each with their own ideas — it can be tough to create a cohesive recipe for success.

Silos within companies are notorious for making coordination difficult; different departments may have conflicting goals or strategies regarding things like content creation and distribution.

Fixing this problem requires clear communication so that all parts move together towards a common objective: Increased visibility in the search results, which equates to more leads, more customers and ultimately, higher revenue streams.

This calls for regular cross-departmental meetings where SEO isn’t seen as just an “IT thing” but rather integral throughout all stages from product development through post-launch analysis.


What Makes a Good Enterprise SEO Strategy?

When you’re playing the long game in enterprise SEO, your strategy has to be robust and flexible. It’s not just about getting more eyes on your page; it’s about building a sustainable foundation for organic growth in the search results.

In-Depth Research

Whether it’s doing in-depth keyword and topic research or competitor research for SEO, the best enterprise SEO strategies do not skimp on the upfront investment to lay a solid foundation.

Technical SEO

You want everything running smoothly under the hood.

That means spending time perfecting site architecture, which we refer to as SEO siloing. Google echoes this sentiment in its SEO starter guide, which emphasizes clean structure and navigation.

SEO siloing not only helps search engines and visitors discover key pages, but it also makes a site an authority on a subject matter.
Technical SEO also addresses the user experience component of your website, making sure visitors have a seamless interaction with your site. Ultimately, this translates to more revenue for many businesses because you are not losing people to a bad user experience.

One case study showed how an e-commerce company improved performance and saw a 7.6% increase in sitewide conversion, translating to roughly a $6 million lift in annual revenue.



Content Strategy

Quality content helps future-proof your SEO strategy, making your site ready to take on every curveball thrown by changing algorithms or consumer behavior trends.

You want your brand to serve up thorough answers to burning questions (aka search queries) backed by data-driven insights. The goal? To satisfy user intent so well that people keep coming back and ultimately, convert.

Any SEO strategy benefits from quality content; however, enterprise SEO strategies demand it, as brands need to build their authority in the space.

Link Earning

If you get the content piece right, you are halfway there when it comes to earning links. While links don’t hold as much weight as they used to, they still matter.

Today, building links isn’t about quantity; it’s about quality over anything else. Fewer high-quality links can elevate a site more than a bunch of low-quality links.

You can also use competitor research to find link opportunities you may not have thought of previously, and that is something we cover in The New Link Building Manifesto e-book.


Enterprise SEO and AI

Artificial intelligence can be a game-changer for enterprise SEO. AI is transforming how big businesses tackle the challenge of more visibility in search results.

For instance, with AI, companies can now use predictive analytics to foresee market trends and adjust their strategies accordingly. Another major leap forward is AI content.

In addition, AI-powered content married with professional editing can accelerate the progress of an SEO program like never before. Whereas content used to be a roadblock for agility, it’s now available faster with AI.

(For more on AI content, see my article at Search Engine Land: AI content creation: A beginner’s guide.)

But what makes AI truly stand out in enterprise SEO?

The ability to process massive data, fast. By leveraging AI-driven insights, large organizations can pinpoint exactly where they need to improve without getting bogged down by data overload.


The Challenges of Getting Enterprise SEO Done

Deploying an enterprise SEO strategy is no small feat. Here are three major challenges:

1. Buy-in: Without support from the top, SEO programs don’t have a chance. Ensuring everyone understands the value and potential impact of a strong SEO campaign on the organization’s bottom line helps rally support. Focus on building relationships, sharing data on successful SEO, dispelling SEO myths and piloting a small project. For more, read: 6 Practical Ways to Get Buy-In for SEO.
2. Business silos: One major challenge is departmental silos, which can be huge barriers to communication and collaboration. McKinsey reported that cultural and behavioral challenges, which include functional or departmental silos, have the most impact on the ability to meet digital priorities.
3. Resources: Where to find the time, talent and budget to fuel your SEO efforts effectively? Enterprises often struggle with balancing resources against other marketing priorities. According to a survey by Conductor (linked in the intro to this article), 57% of enterprises said limited in-house SEO skills as the most challenging obstacle to achieving important SEO objectives, and 43% reported limited SEO budget as the most challenging obstacle for their company.

To jump over these hurdles, enterprise SEO requires strategic planning, persuasive communication skills and often, tenacity. And, when you can outsource SEO expertise to an expert SEO agency, it’s worth it.

For more ideas, see more of our tips on how to get SEO done.


How to Measure Enterprise SEO Success

When you’re looking at a massive puzzle, each piece is crucial to seeing the big picture. Enterprise SEO has a lot of moving parts, and I’ll outline what to look for next.

Core Metrics

The core of any robust enterprise SEO strategy lies in tracking organic traffic growth over time. Organic traffic is the No. 1 indicator of SEO success.

But what about conversions? You can’t monetize your organic search traffic without a site that is primed for conversions. This is the brand’s responsibility, but one that a good SEO expert can advise on.

For more, see: SEO and Conversions: Two Halves of a Pie

Keyword Rankings

Keyword rankings can feel like vanity metrics sometimes, but they are vital when gauging how your content is performing. What we want is a consistent ranking improvement for strategic keywords across major search engines — a sign that efforts are bearing fruit.

Analytics Data

Digging into analytics like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) allows us to get granular with data. It lets us dissect which pages pull their weight and contribute most significantly to business goals.

Attribution modeling becomes key as it attributes credit where due along customer journey touch points. This is key when understanding complex customer journeys inherent to larger organizations.


Enterprise SEO Tools

The scale of enterprise SEO can be overwhelming. But there are tools out there that make this daunting task manageable — and maybe even a little bit enjoyable. Let me walk you through some essentials.

Technical SEO Audits

One critical tool in an enterprise SEO strategy is the SEO audit. While there is software that can help quickly uncover data about what is hindering SEO success, it is usually surface-level recommendations.

We believe that you get the best answers with a deep technical analysis by SEO experts.

To put this into perspective, three types of audits exist today:

1. The “Good” SEO Audit: Here, software uncovers superficial but useful SEO issues. Though, the results are typically a one-size-fits-all generic report. This works when you don’t have a budget for an in-depth audit, or you want to check some basics before starting with an agency. This is not a waste, but not a deep dive.
2. The “Better” SEO Audit: For this, an SEO vendor or practitioner offers additional SEO insights but without many solutions. They can identify problems that data analytics alone can’t uncover. But without in-depth solutions, this only points to possible trouble areas.
3. The “Best” SEO Audit: In this scenario, an SEO agency performs an in-depth technical audit. It requires the expertise of a seasoned SEO expert who specializes in technical website analysis and SEO business strategy. This is a manual review supported by tools, and it takes many, many hours. This produces the most robust data on how a website can fix issues related to ranking.

Read more: SEO Audits: The Good, The Better and The Best.

Data Analytics

The backbone of any robust enterprise SEO strategy is solid analytics.

What are some baseline tools you can use in your enterprise SEO? Google Analytics and Google Search Console are your windows into user behavior and site performance on a grand scale. Then there’s the need for comprehensive crawling software; a good tool is Screaming Frog.

Our SEOToolSet also has powerful capabilities that go beyond crawling and include:

• On-page analysis
• Project dashboard
• Site spider
• Visual link graph
• Meta details report
• Site health checker
• Ranking monitor
• Competitor tracking
• Multi-page analysis
• Competitor research
• Keyword research
• Backlink reports
• WordPress SEO plugin

Integrating Enterprise SEO with Other Marketing Channels

Integrating enterprise SEO with other marketing channels can score big wins for your business. Here are a few ways:

1. Social media and SEO: By aligning social media campaigns with keyword strategies and content themes, you’re more likely to engage users who are already primed by organic search results. Social engagement increases when content is optimized across both search and social platforms.
2. Paid advertising and SEO: Linking paid ad campaigns directly with high-performing organic content can reduce cost per click while improving ad relevance.
3. Email marketing and SEO: When email campaigns include links to well-optimized landing pages, they extend user engagement beyond the inbox and onto your website where conversion chances increase.

To truly integrate these elements into one unified force, you must break down departmental silos, as mentioned earlier. When done right, it creates a multi-channel approach that leverages each platform’s strengths, leading to better visibility online and ultimately, more conversions.


Staying Ahead of the Curve

SEO never stops evolving, and neither should your SEO strategy.

To stay competitive in enterprise SEO, you need to keep learning about new practices, algorithm changes and industry trends. Doing so not only sharpens your skills but also prepares you to respond well to any sudden shifts.

Consider taking SEO training at least once per year — whether it’s in person, at a conference or virtually (examples include our classroom SEO training or SEO training membership site).

This is in addition to daily reading to stay on top of any significant changes to Google Search, honing skills through monthly or quarterly webinars and attending conferences annually.

By the way, we just so happen to be hosting our next in-person training class April 9–11. We’ve revamped this all-new training course to bring you the latest SEO tips, strategies and techniques. Go here to register and learn more.


Enterprise SEO Case Study

When it comes to enterprise SEO, the proof is in the pudding. Big businesses have seen big wins by fine-tuning their strategies for maximum impact. Let’s explore a case study that highlights this success.

Auto Research and Review Giant Boosts Organic Traffic by 900% in One Week

One of the largest research and review sites in the automotive sector worked with Bruce Clay Inc. for a technical SEO audit with consulting. Our team delivered a 100+ page SEO audit, proposing many improvements, including radical siloing of their massive website content.

The client committed to implementing every SEO recommendation, no matter how large or small. They knew to pull it off, everybody — from the executives to the marketing and IT teams — would need to be on board.

The chairman of the board called a company meeting. He announced that search engine optimization was a key strategic initiative for the company. Everybody would need to be on board or essentially find a new place to work.

After implementing the SEO program and launching the changes, the website experienced a 900 percent increase in traffic within the first week. The site’s prominence continues to this day.

Final Thoughts

Mastering enterprise SEO takes commitment. Remember, getting buy-in from the top down and breaking down silos are two of the most important things you can do to set your enterprise SEO up for success. When done right, enterprise SEO can launch your brand to a new level.

If you need help getting company buy-in from the top down, I recommend checking out and sharing these resources:

• 6 Successful Ways to Get Company Buy-In for SEO [On-Demand Webinar]
• Free Executive’s Guide to SEO [Video Training]

Whether you’re a large enterprise, a mid-sized company or a small organization, our SEO experts can help you win big with your SEO and earn top rankings in the search results. Schedule a free consultation with us today.

FAQ: How can I implement an effective enterprise SEO strategy to drive organic growth and revenue for my large organization?

Implementing an effective enterprise SEO strategy requires careful planning and execution to drive organic growth and revenue for large organizations. The following strategies will guide you towards success.

Understand Your Target Audience: Begin by thoroughly researching your target audience to gain insights into their search behavior and preferences. This will help you tailor your SEO strategy accordingly.

Keyword Research: Conduct comprehensive keyword research to identify relevant and high-volume keywords that align with your business objectives. Keyword variations and stemmed versions can be used to optimize your content.

Technical SEO: Work to improve your website’s technical SEO, such as site speed, mobile-friendliness and crawlability. Streamlining these factors will enable search engines to better index and rank your website.

On-Page Optimization: Craft high-quality and relevant content that aligns with your target keywords. Optimize meta tags, headers and URLs, while ensuring a natural incorporation of keywords within your content.

Content Marketing: Implement a robust content marketing strategy that focuses on producing valuable and informative content. This will attract more organic traffic and establish your organization as an industry authority.

Link Building: Build a strong and diverse backlink profile by acquiring quality links from reputable websites. This will not only enhance your website’s authority but also increase organic visibility.

Local SEO: If your large organization operates in multiple locations, optimize your website for local search. Create location-specific landing pages, optimize Google My Business profiles, and encourage online reviews.

Analyze and Refine: Regularly monitor and analyze your SEO performance using tools like Google Analytics. Make data-driven decisions and continuously refine your strategy based on insights obtained.

Implementing an effective enterprise SEO strategy requires a comprehensive approach that encompasses careful planning, research, technical optimization, content creation and continuous analysis.

Step-by-Step Procedure for Implementing an Effective Enterprise SEO Strategy:

1. Research your target audience extensively, understanding their search behavior and preferences.
2. Conduct thorough keyword research, identifying relevant and high-volume keywords.
3. Optimize your website’s technical SEO aspects, ensuring optimal site speed, mobile-friendliness and crawlability.
4. Create high-quality and relevant content, incorporating your target keywords naturally.
5. Develop a comprehensive content marketing strategy to attract organic traffic and establish authority.
6. Build a diverse and authoritative backlink profile through manual outreach and relationship building.
7. Optimize your website for local search, if applicable, by creating location-specific landing pages and optimizing Google My Business profiles.
8. Monitor and analyze your SEO performance regularly, making data-driven decisions for continual improvement.
9. Regularly refine your enterprise SEO strategy based on the insights obtained from analytics.
10. Stay updated with the latest SEO trends and algorithm changes to adapt your strategy accordingly.
11. Test and experiment with different SEO tactics to identify what works best for your organization.
12. Collaborate with other departments within your organization to align SEO efforts with overall business goals.
13. Consider hiring an experienced SEO agency or professional to assist with strategy development and implementation.
14. Continuously track and measure the impact of your SEO efforts on organic growth and revenue.
15. Adapt and adjust your strategy as needed to maintain long-term success.
16. Regularly evaluate and optimize your website’s user experience to improve organic visibility.
17. Foster a culture of SEO within your organization, ensuring everyone understands its importance and contributes to its success.
18. Stay patient and persistent, as implementing an effective enterprise SEO strategy takes time and dedication.
19. Regularly measure your progress and celebrate milestones to maintain motivation and morale.

By following these steps and staying committed to refining your strategy, you can drive organic growth and revenue for your enterprise.

The post The Ultimate Guide To Winning Big With Enterprise SEO appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

]]> https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/guide-winning-big-enterprise-seo/feed/ 2 https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/businesses-effective-seo-strategy-target-audience/ https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/businesses-effective-seo-strategy-target-audience/#comments Mon, 27 Nov 2023 19:36:07 +0000 https://www.bruceclay.com/?p=204522 A successful SEO strategy starts by understanding your audience’s preferences, behaviors and intent. Following the tips we just outlined will drive organic traffic and convert your visitors into loyal customers.

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Understanding the challenges, preferences, motivations and behaviors of a target audience is the key to a successful SEO campaign.

In this article, we’ll discuss how businesses can tailor an SEO strategy to their audience and optimize their return on investment.

• Audience research is key
• Keyword optimization with audience intent
• Content creation aligned with audience needs
• User experience and technical SEO 
• FAQ: How does keyword optimization contribute to audience-focused SEO?

Audience Research is Key

The first step in understanding your audience is to create detailed customer personas that encompass demographics, preferences, pain points and online behavior.

Gather valuable information through keyword research, social media insights and by using tools like Google Analytics. Armed with this knowledge, you can begin to tailor your messaging, keywords and content directly towards them.

A recent study looking at consumer purchasing habits by CX Network found that 63% of consumers think they are being sold things they don’t need. So why does this matter to you?

Businesses have an opportunity to increase their conversion rate when they do audience research, but most businesses skip this vital step or perform it once every five years.

If you keep up-to-date information on your audience and create clear customer avatars, you can make sure that your marketing content addresses your customer’s pain points clearly. Consumer confidence in your brand will go up — and so will your sales.

Keyword Optimization with Audience Intent

Once you have a grasp of your audience’s preferences, it’s time to focus on keyword optimization.

Instead of solely relying on high-volume keywords, prioritize those that align with your audience’s search intent. Understand the ‘why’ behind their searches. Are they seeking information, looking to make a purchase, or trying to solve a problem?

Develop content around these keywords that addresses the underlying intent to provide real value to your audience.

During this process, it’s also wise to look at your competitors. When do they show up in search queries? What types of searches do customers use when they end up on your competitor’s site?

Understanding when they appear in search results and the specific search queries that lead customers to their websites can provide valuable insights for enhancing your own SEO strategy.

Leverage this competitor data to make informed decisions that will optimize your online visibility and capture a larger share of your target audience.

Content Creation Aligned with Audience Needs

Producing content that aligns with your audience’s needs fosters trust and strengthens your brand connection between them. When your audience finds you helpful, they are more likely to engage with your brand in the form of likes, shares and comments.

Generate articles, blog posts, videos, or infographics that answer their questions and concerns. Regularly monitor, update and refresh your content to keep it current and engaging. This will position your business as an authority in your niche, earning trust and loyalty from your audience.

Search engines will reward you with better rankings, too.

User Experience and Technical SEO

A technically sound website that provides a seamless experience improves SEO rankings and ensures your audience will come back.

Optimize your website so that it is mobile-responsive, loads quickly and is easy for users to find what they are looking for.

Invest in technical SEO to optimize site structure, meta tags and image tags. A fast, user-friendly website will make your audience — and search engines — happy.

A successful SEO strategy starts by understanding your audience’s preferences, behaviors and intent. Following the tips we just outlined will drive organic traffic and convert your visitors into loyal customers.

We can help you figure out how to structure a successful SEO strategy. Reach out to us for a free consultation.

FAQ: How does keyword optimization contribute to audience-focused SEO?

The significance of keyword optimization cannot be overstated. The core essence lies in understanding the nuances of audience behavior and preferences in the online landscape.

Keyword optimization acts as the gateway to seamlessly connect user intent with content relevance, ensuring a harmonious synergy between what the audience seeks and what businesses offer.

Audience research helps businesses gain profound insights into the language and queries used by their target demographic. These insights form the backbone of keyword selection, allowing for the incorporation of highly relevant and resonant terms into content.

This deliberate choice of keywords positions content to organically attract the intended audience, steering traffic towards websites and platforms catering directly to their needs.

Keyword optimization evolves beyond mere word matching — it involves comprehending the context and intent behind the audience’s search queries.

This strategic approach crafts content that not only aligns with specific keywords but also addresses the underlying motives behind the audience’s searches.

It’s about providing solutions, answers and valuable information that precisely cater to their queries, thereby fostering a stronger connection and trust between the audience and the brand.

An insightful tip for effective keyword optimization in audience-focused SEO is the continual refinement of keyword strategies.

Regularly monitoring keyword performance, trends and shifts in audience behavior helps in staying adaptive and responsive.

Adapting keywords to reflect changes in audience preferences ensures that content remains relevant and impactful amidst the dynamic digital landscape.

An effective audience-focused SEO strategy unfolds by transitioning seamlessly between audience research, keyword selection and content creation. Each component works together to form an engaging framework that not only resonates with but also retains your target audience, propelling your businesses toward long-term digital growth and success.

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Understand Audience Behavior: Conduct thorough audience research to comprehend their preferences, pain points and online behavior.
2. Identify Relevant Keywords: Use insights from research to identify keywords aligned with audience queries and interests.
3. Keyword Analysis: Analyze keyword performance, trends and competition to select optimal keywords.
4. Create Targeted Content: Develop content that seamlessly incorporates chosen keywords while addressing audience needs.
5. Monitor and Refine: Continuously monitor keyword performance and audience behavior, adapting strategies accordingly to maintain relevance and resonance.

The post How Can Businesses Develop an Effective SEO Strategy Based on Their Target Audience? appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

]]> https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/businesses-effective-seo-strategy-target-audience/feed/ 4 https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/what-are-googles-top-ranking-factors/ https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/what-are-googles-top-ranking-factors/#comments Wed, 22 Nov 2023 18:20:36 +0000 https://www.bruceclay.com/?p=204446 Discover the profound impact of content quality on website rankings. Learn expert strategies to optimize your content for enhanced search engine visibility and user engagement.

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Back in 2016, a Google engineer famously said that Google’s top three ranking factors were content, links and RankBrain. However, this was later disputed by more than one Googler.

Sure, those three factors are likely a huge part of how Google determines rankings, but that’s not an exhaustive list.

It is wrong to think that the algorithm is made up only of these three factors and that each of them carries one-third weight for each query. That’s because the factors in Google’s algorithm change from query to query.

That said, I’ll spend the rest of this article shedding more light on what I believe are the top factors in how your website ranks.

• Content
• Technical factors
• Links
• RankBrain
• FAQ: How can I increase the ranking of my website with Google using its top ranking factors?

Content

If I were to choose the No. 1 spot among the top ranking factors, it would be content. Content is the fabric of the web. Without content, Google’s search results simply wouldn’t exist.

Now, any website can have content, but quality content is how you rank. That’s because the content you create is important to the efficacy of Google’s search results.

Google wants its users to have a good experience. To do that, the websites featured in its search results must offer good answers to their users’ queries.

To ensure that Google is featuring the best content in its search results, it has created things like:

• Its “Search Essentials,” which teaches website publishers the rules of the game.
• Its search algorithm, which is constantly being updated to find the best websites for page one of the search results.
• Its “Search Quality Rater Guidelines,” which is a manual for assessing the quality of websites.

For more, see:

• The Complete Guide to the Basics of Google’s E-E-A-T
• What Is a Google Penalty and How Do I Avoid It?
• What Makes a Webpage Quality?
• 5 Steps To Help Writers Create Expert Content for SEO

Technical Factors

If your site is not crawlable and/or doesn’t perform well, it will likely not do well in the search results.

One of the most important things you can do is make sure your site is optimized from the ground up so that search engines can access, crawl and understand it with ease. And it must provide visitors with a good user experience.

Case in point: Google’s Gary Illyes once said:

“I really wish SEOs went back to the basics (i.e. MAKE THAT DAMN SITE CRAWLABLE) instead of focusing on silly updates and made-up terms by the rank trackers and that they talked more with the developers of the website once done with the first part of this sentence.”

In Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, it states that unmaintained sites are low quality:

… unmaintained/abandoned “old” websites or unmaintained and inaccurate/misleading content is a reason for a low Page Quality rating.

In 2021, Google rolled out its page experience update, outlining various technical factors that should be followed to ensure a good user experience. If you want to be rewarded with better ranking, optimize your site to address these signals.

For more, see:

• Page Experience: Google’s New User Experience Algorithm Update
• Technical SEO vs. On-Page SEO

Links

If content is the fabric of the web, links are the strings that tie it together. Ever since PageRank, links have been a significant way search engines determine rankings. Why? Links have always served as a “vote” from one website for another.

Even though Google says links have less impact now than they used to, they are still important.

However, not all links are created equal. Google doesn’t give every link to your site an equal vote. In fact, some links can even result in a negative impact on your website’s ability to rank.

Today, links are no longer a numbers game. Even though Backlinko research shows that the No. 1 result in Google has an average of 3.8 times more backlinks than positions No. 2 to 10, we have seen sites with fewer but higher quality links outrank sites with more.

To get links right, you want to focus on link earning rather than link building and the quality and relevance of links versus the quantity. Link earning first starts with creating excellent content and a trusted site so that it naturally earns the links it deserves.

In 2020, Google’s John Mueller said links were “definitely not the most important SEO factor.” What does that mean? Google wants people to focus on making a great site first and not worry too much about building tons of links.

For more, see:

• 3 Steps To Create a Better Link-Building Campaign
• E-book: The New Link Building Manifesto: A Complete Guide to Earning Links That Count
• 50 Ways to Get Quality “White Hat” Backlinks

RankBrain

RankBrain is probably one of the most misunderstood ranking factors. RankBrain is a machine learning component of Google’s algorithm. It uses multiple data points at the time of a search to help the search engine better interpret the intent of search queries and serve the most relevant search results.

With RankBrain, Google can go beyond factors like the quality of the content or the links to a webpage to help identify the very best answer to a search.

So to survive RankBrain, you have a lot of work to do to ensure that you are creating the type of content that satisfies the query / your keywords. If you don’t, you risk the chance of RankBrain deciding that your content is not relevant to a search and you can lose rankings.

For more, see:

• The Real Impact of RankBrain on Web Traffic
• 5 Ways to Create Winning SEO Content That Gets More Visibility in the Search Results
• What Is Google’s “Needs Met” Rating and Why Should Website Publishers Care

There are countless factors that go into ranking a webpage, video, or image. And those factors change based on the search query. Understanding the top factors, though, is an important first step in knowing how search works.

Unlock your website’s potential with our expert SEO strategies tailored to Google’s dynamic ranking factors—let’s boost your visibility and climb the search results together. Talk to us. 

FAQ: How can I increase the ranking of my website with Google using its top ranking factors?

Today’s digital world necessitates having an effective online presence for any business to remain viable; and Google’s top ranking factors play a pivotal role when it comes to your website’s SERP ranking. So, how can these elements help boost website performance and how can businesses utilize these factors to their benefit? In order to understand more on this subject and gain some valuable insights.

At first, it’s essential to recognize that Google uses a sophisticated algorithm to rank websites. Although this algorithm incorporates numerous factors, here are a few primary ones which you should focus on:

1. Content Quality: Producing high-quality, engaging and relevant content is of utmost importance for Google to recognize websites as providers of valuable information to their visitors, so invest time into producing engaging articles, blog posts, videos and other forms of media content creation such as books.
2. Backlinks: An authoritative backlink network can make all the difference for improving website rankings. Partner with prominent industry websites when possible and prioritize quality over quantity when it comes to backlinks.
3. Mobile Responsiveness: Being mobile-first makes having a mobile-responsive website essential. Google prioritizes websites which deliver seamless user experiences on all devices; to maximize this benefit for mobile visitors optimize both design and functionality to provide optimal experience across devices.
4. Page Loading Speed: Slow websites can lead to poor user experiences and reduce Google ranking, so make sure yours loads quickly by optimizing images, minifying code and employing caching strategies.
5. User Experience: Google prioritizes websites that focus on user experience. Focusing on elements like easy navigation, intuitive design and clear calls-to-action will not only increase rankings but will also foster engagement and conversions.

Moving forward to enhance your website’s ranking:

6. Leverage Keywords Precisely: Conduct keyword research to identify relevant search terms, then incorporate these naturally into the content, meta tags and headings on your website.
7. Optimize meta tags: Create attractive titles and descriptions that accurately capture your webpage content while encouraging viewers to visit it.
8. Take Advantage of Header Tags: Header tags can help structure and simplify your content for users as well as search engines alike, making it more readable for both audiences.
9. Include alt text with images: Alt text can help search engines understand your images more readily, making your website both accessible and search-engine-friendly.
10. Regularly update content: Stagnant websites tend not to rank well; to stay ahead, ensure yours remains fresh by regularly publishing articles, blog posts or product updates.
11. Leverage Social Media: Utilize social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook to increase exposure, drive visitors directly to your website, and potentially secure backlinks from outside sources.
12. Monitor and Assess Website Performance: Utilizing tools like Google Analytics can be useful in monitoring website performance, user activity and traffic sources — providing valuable data that reveals areas requiring improvement and potential problem areas.
13. Engage Your Audience: Responding to user comments, queries and feedback is vital in building relationships and maintaining your website’s visibility and reputation. Engaging and building relationships will pay dividends!
14. Increase Website Security: Search engines prefer secure websites; utilize SSL encryption technology and regularly upgrade software updates in order to protect it against malware attacks.
15. Optimize for local search: If your business has physical presence, pay special attention to local SEO factors like Google My Business listings, customer reviews and local keywords when optimizing for local search.
16. Generate an XML Sitemap: Generating an XML sitemap helps search engines understand and index your website more effectively.
17. Stay Abreast of Your Competitors: Keep tabs on what strategies, keywords and tactics your competitors employ in order to increase the ranking of their website.
18. Create an effective internal linking structure: Internal links enable search engines to navigate your website more effectively while also helping establish its hierarchy, dispersing authority more evenly among pages and improving user navigation.
19. Strive for positive user experience: Prioritize providing visitors with an engaging user experience on your website by prioritizing fast loading pages, intuitive interfaces and fast access to pertinent data.
20. Stay current: With search engine algorithms ever evolving, staying informed on latest trends, updates and best practices is key for maintaining and improving the ranking of your website.

Utilizing Google’s top ranking factors is the cornerstone of improving website rankings. Apply these expert strategies, deliver valuable content with exceptional user experiences and watch as your rankings soar higher and higher on search engine result pages.

The post What Are Google’s Top Ranking Factors? appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

]]> https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/what-are-googles-top-ranking-factors/feed/ 8 https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/expert-skills-seo-agency/ https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/expert-skills-seo-agency/#comments Tue, 27 Jun 2023 16:52:03 +0000 https://www.bruceclay.com/?p=192652 Discover how an SEO agency can boost your online visibility and drive organic traffic to your website. Learn about keyword research, competitor analysis, on-page and off-page optimization, technical SEO, content marketing, local SEO, analytics and reporting, SEO tools and SEO training.

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Every Monday, SEO is a brand-new industry. It’s complex and can be difficult to keep up with the constant changes.

In the right hands, SEO is a powerful tool that makes your brand first among equals.

In the wrong hands, doing SEO incorrectly hurts your brand and can ultimately cause your business to fail. The difference between the two is expertise.

So in order to implement a successful SEO program, it would be wise to work with an experienced agency or consultant.

An expert SEO agency knows how to implement good strategies to improve your online visibility, establish your company as a trusted authority in your niche, attract more organic traffic to your website, and increase your revenue.

Not all SEO agencies are created equal — some are good, some are bad. If you know more about SEO than your agency does, don’t expect to see meaningful results. And if you’re not getting the best results from your SEO campaign, it’s time to look elsewhere.

There are many factors you should consider before deciding on hiring outside help. Here, we will look at the top 10 expert skills you should expect from an SEO agency:

1. 1. 1. Keyword research
      2. Competitor analysis
      3. On-page optimization
      4. Off-page optimization
      5. Technical SEO
      6. Content marketing
      7. Local SEO
      8. Analytics and reporting
      9. SEO tools
      10. SEO training

   FAQ: What are the top contributions that an SEO agency can make to your SEO program?

1. Keyword Research

Keyword research is a critical component of every successful SEO campaign. It’s what helps you understand your target audience and their search behaviors.

A good SEO agency will utilize keyword research to provide you with an edge in understanding and outranking your competitors. They will also conduct content gap analyses to identify gaps and enhance an overall competitive content strategy.

The top three search results for a query get the majority of clicks. An agency will help you align your content creation and optimization with the keywords and queries your audience is looking for to give you a better chance of showing up in those positions.

For more, read:

• What are keywords? Why are keywords important to SEO?

 

2. Competitor Analysis

The goal of SEO is to beat the competition, not the algorithm.

SEO agencies know how to conduct a thorough competitor analysis to analyze the SEO strategies of a website’s competition. These insights inform the recommendations they make on how to outperform them.

For more on competitor analysis, read:

• How to do competitor research for SEO

 

3. On-Page Optimization

On-page optimization improves a website’s relevance and user experience, leading to higher visibility in search engines.

Some tactics include:

• Optimizing the website’s content with keywords.
• Deploying the right formatting.
• Schema markup.
• Making sure a webpage is mobile-friendly, user-friendly, and fast.
• Focusing on the organization of the content throughout the site, including the internal linking strategy.

With expert knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, a great SEO agency can optimize a website’s structure, content, and design to ensure it meets the technical requirements of search engines and user needs.

Our Always Up-to-Date SEO Checklist is a great resource to help you with on-page optimization. I suggest bookmarking the page for frequent reference.


4. Off-Page Optimization

Off-page optimization includes things like social media marketing, influencer promotions, press releases, and earning quality links to the website.

Backlinks are a ranking factor, although it isn’t specifically the number of links that matters. Fewer high-quality backlinks can better improve the credibility and authority of a website than a large volume of lower-quality ones.

In other words: The days of “link building” are over …. ultimately, earning relevant links comes down to creating great content that people want to link to and share.

For more on backlinks, see:

• The New Link Building Manifesto: A Complete Guide to Earning Links That Count

 

5. Technical SEO

Technical SEO involves optimizing a website’s performance to ensure it meets the technical requirements of search engines and offers a great user experience.

For example, page speed is a confirmed Google ranking signal, and Google wants pages to load in under 2.5 seconds.

Technical failures are a common reason for a drop in rankings and traffic. And the complexity of today’s websites requires an expert to identify and fix any issues that may cause these drops in traffic.

With expertise in website architecture, server configuration, and user experience, the right SEO agency can ensure that your site is technically sound and make it easier for search engines to access it.

For more on technical SEO, see:

• Technical SEO vs. On-Page SEO: The DIfferences
• SEO Guide: Technical SEO Tips

 

6. Content Marketing

Content marketing is about creating and sharing content in a way that helps you achieve your business and marketing objectives.

Content marketing involves:

• Communicating effectively.
• Making connections.
• Sharing the right content.
• Engaging your audience.
• Being in the right place at the right time.
• Seizing opportunity.
• Inspiring action.
• Nurturing the needs of your customers.
• Showcasing your personality/company culture in a way that fits the brand.

An expert SEO agency understands how experience, expertise, authority, and trust factor into quality content that builds trust with your market. They are skilled at developing content strategies, optimizing content for target keywords, and implementing content promotion techniques that demonstrate authority to search engines and to your target audience.


7. Local SEO

Local SEO is critical for businesses that rely on local customers. In fact, research from BrightLocal shows that 98% of people use the internet to find information about a local business.

Some of the SEO tactics used in local SEO differ from traditional techniques for organic search results (“10 blue links”).

And the complexity of local SEO grows when you have national and multi-site businesses, including franchises.

An experienced agency knows how to utilize local keyword research, on-page optimization, and local link building to ensure that a business’s website appears in local search results for the most valuable queries.

For more on local SEO, read:

• How Do I Rank Higher in Google Local Search?

 

8. Analytics and Reporting

Analytics and reporting are essential to measure the success of an SEO campaign and identify areas for improvement.

SEO agencies should frequently check in with you to provide detailed reports on the website’s performance, rankings, and traffic. They are experienced in data analytics tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and other SEO tools. And with the launch of Google Analytics 4 (GA4), an agency will have even more powerful tools to track and analyze user behavior on your website.


9. SEO Tools

SEO tools can provide a competitive advantage and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of any agency’s services.

These tools can provide valuable information about keyword research, backlink analysis, and website optimization.

Some SEO agencies (like ours) have their own proprietary SEO tools. Our SEO ToolSet software offers a suite of unique tools for website optimization. It’s been used by over 5,000 clients, including Fortune 500 companies and government agencies.

With access to the right tools, an agency can provide businesses with a unique and effective strategy that outperforms its competitors.

Remember that there is always a difference between data and wisdom. SEO tools can inundate you with data, but what sets agencies apart is the wisdom to understand what the data is telling you.

A skilled SEO agency will give you the right data with information specific to your website, then make actionable recommendations to help you make the right decisions for your business.

For more on SEO tools, see:

• The Top SEO Software That Experts Use Every Day

 

10. SEO Training

SEO training, like tools, can provide a competitive advantage and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of any agency services.

By learning how SEO works or improving upon the SEO skills you already have, you can have more strategic conversations with your SEO provider.

As the SEO industry continues to grow, the demand for training courses has steadily increased. Google Trends data shows a notable surge in search interest for SEO training services toward the last quarter of 2021.



These trends underscore the vital importance of investing in SEO training, showing its importance for business survival in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

Some SEO companies provide SEO training – we happen to be one of them. We’ve trained tens of thousands of students over 27 years on the foundations of SEO and evolving best practices.

In the past few years, we have reinvented our SEO training from in-person classes to an online membership site with tons of resources for its members in various content formats.

With the constant changes to search engine algorithms, staying up-to-date on SEO best practices and strategies through quality training is essential to remain competitive in today’s online marketplace.

There are a plethora of SEO training offerings out there — you must do your research and choose wisely. Before committing to anything, I suggest reading my article on Search Engine Land to help you evaluate your options.

Looking for an experienced SEO agency with a proven track record of helping websites get to Page 1 in the search results? Look no further than Bruce Clay, Inc.! Reach out to us to schedule a free consultation.

FAQ: What are the top contributions that an SEO agency can make to your SEO program?

Many businesses don’t have the time, resources, or knowledge to implement a successful SEO program. Working with an experienced SEO agency can significantly enhance your campaign. Here are the top skills you should look for when deciding to hire outside help.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is at the core of any successful SEO strategy. SEO agencies possess the knowledge and expertise required to perform thorough searches that identify relevant keywords for your industry, product, or service. They also optimize websites so they rank higher in search engine result pages (SERPs). By understanding your audience and their search behavior, agencies can optimize sites so they appear higher up in SERPs, leading to more organic traffic and conversions.

Competitor Analysis

To be the best in SEO, it means outstripping competitors. SEO agencies specialize in competitor analysis to gain valuable insight into their strategies and assist you with creating an improved SEO plan by studying what others are doing. Using this knowledge, they can identify opportunities to outrank rivals and bring more qualified traffic to your site.

Expert On-Page SEO

Optimizing the relevance and user experience of your website is paramount for its success. An SEO agency utilizes its extensive knowledge of HTML and CSS to optimize the structure, design and content of your website in accordance with search engines’ technical requirements while simultaneously meeting user demands. A specialist agency can boost rankings and targeted traffic by employing strategies such as keyword optimization, formatting schema markups and creating user-friendly navigation.

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to activities performed outside of your website that contribute to its overall search engine optimization success. A good SEO agency can develop an effective off-page strategy for optimizing your website, including social media marketing, influencer promotion, link acquisition strategies, or creating high-quality links. These experts understand the importance of a good link-building strategy and can create content that earns backlinks for increased authority, credibility and visibility for your brand.

Analytical Insights and Reporting

Reporting and analytics are crucial in evaluating the success of any SEO campaign and identifying any areas for improvement. SEO agencies typically provide regular reports detailing website traffic, rankings and key metrics gathered using data-driven insights provided by tools like Google Analytics and Search Console that will allow you to stay ahead of competitors in an ever-evolving digital landscape. These reports help keep an accurate account of SEO campaign activities while keeping a detailed log of improvements necessary in real-time.

Choosing the right partnership with an SEO agency can be the key to the success of your business. Take the time to get to know them, what they offer and what their track record is like. Leverage their experience in the industry to achieve better results — more traffic, visibility, leads, conversions, sales and customers.

The post 10 Expert Skills of an SEO Agency appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

]]> https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/expert-skills-seo-agency/feed/ 3 https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/unusual-technical-seo-best-practices/ https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/unusual-technical-seo-best-practices/#comments Wed, 21 Sep 2022 16:02:25 +0000 https://www.bruceclay.com/?p=169541 Here are five technical SEO best practices you should follow and how to get started to ensure your website is primed for both users and search engines.

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Things like on-page SEO and content get a lot of attention in the business world. That is the usual SEO focus, and of late throwing on more content seems to be the norm. Often and mistakenly overlooked is everything that goes into making a website run smoothly. We can optimize these areas through technical SEO. And yes, an underperforming website can impact your rankings for many reasons.

In this article, I’ll outline five technical SEO best practices you should follow (and how to get started with them) to ensure you website is primed for both users and search engines:

• Hosting
• Server errors
• Sitemaps
• Website speed
• Mobile friendliness
• FAQ: How can I optimize my website’s technical aspects for improved search engine rankings and user experience? 

1. Hosting

Sometimes website owners choose a shared hosting plan versus a dedicated hosting plan to save on the costs of hosting a website. When this happens, you share an IP address with other websites. This can present SEO problems as both a speed issue (more sites per shared server means each may be slower) and a neighborhood issue.

Say you share your hosting with other websites that happen to be spammy websites. If a site is caught performing spam tactics, the entire IP block and all the sites that share that IP address could be put on a block list, also called an IP blacklist or IP blocklist. That means you’re in a bad neighborhood, so to speak. This significantly impacts email, but it can cause conversion issues if your emails are blocked … and poor conversion is a marketing fail.

While this “bad neighborhood” problem used to be much more prominent, and Google has also indicated that it would be hard to be SEO tainted by surrounding bad neighbors, I still would not take any chances.

IMO we do not KNOW that there is no TRUST impact on a bad neighborhood. And Google can say what they like — for a little effort, why take the chance? Still, blocked emails kill sales.

Probably a more obvious issue is the performance of your website when you share hosting. Being on a shared hosting plan may mean that your servers are not as efficient. You’re often fighting other sites for resources that could impact load time and, indirectly, your organic search rankings, to say nothing of conversion.

There are a couple of things you can do here to look into these potential problems:

Bad Neighborhood Issues

• Get your IP address at WhatIsMyIPAddress.com.
• Go to Blacklist Check at the same website to evaluate if your IP is in a bad neighborhood.
• If it’s associated with other bad websites, call the hosting provider and ask for a new, clean IP.
• Run a check on the new IP if you get it.
• If your hosting provider won’t comply, consider dedicated hosting or finding another hosting provider altogether.

Performance Issues

• Go to WebPageTest.org.
• Run a test for your home page URL.
• Look at the first byte time — this is an indication of the responsiveness of a server.
• Run the same test on your competition (you could use our SEOToolSet for competitive research or check out our article on how to do competitor research for SEO).
• If your first byte time is not as good as your competition, you might want to switch hosting providers or get a dedicated IP



Here are my thoughts on whether you should use a shared hosting plan:

2. Server Errors

Your web server runs your website. When a webpage is requested, the server receives that request and responds with the content of that page. When you have server issues, it can impact the user experience and search engine rankings.

There is much to consider when evaluating a server, from its type to how well it performs. In this section, though, we’ll focus on server errors.

Server status codes are a response by the server in response to a client request. You can find a full list of server status codes at W3.org here. Sometimes servers produce errors when a visitor or search engine spider tries to access something on your website.

Because certain status codes could impact your rankings, so you want to check server response codes and know what is happening with your website.

In particular, here are the following status codes that you want to pay special attention to and fix right away:

• 302: A 302 is a temporary redirect and is generally not SEO-friendly as it does not always transfer a page’s historical link signals to the redirected page. Yes, Google has indicated that it is often treated like a 301 permanent redirect, but I would rather use a 301 and not be concerned with the crawl budget.
• 400: There is a syntax error in the request. It is denied.
• 401: The header in your request did not contain the correct authorization codes. You don’t get to see what you requested.
• 403: You are forbidden to see the document you requested. It can also mean that the server doesn’t have the ability to show you what you want to see or your IP is blocked by the server.
• 404: Document not found – your requested URL does not exist.
• 410: The page used to be there, but now it’s gone. This essentially tells the search engine to purge the indexed entry now instead of waiting for a few 404 errors to cause deletion.
• 500: The server experienced an internal error that prevents it from serving the request.

Common server errors include a 302 and 404. Here’s a video I did on 302s that you can check out:

What To Do: Server Errors

• Use our SEOToolSet’s free Check Server Page tool.
• Identify any potential errors and fix them.
• Here is some information on addressing common 302 and 404 errors: How to Do a 301 Redirect and Design a 404 Error Page to Save a Sale.





3. Sitemaps

Both HTML sitemaps and XML sitemaps are important technical SEO steps. These sitemaps help their users (website visitors and search engines) navigate the site and discover content.

An HTML sitemap is a webpage on your website containing links to key webpages (first and second-level navigation pages) so both humans and search spiders can navigate your site. Google has said that the HTML site map is useful to search engines as it flags what are the most important pages for users (and Google), so the HTML sitemap should focus on top important pages.

Originally, HTML sitemaps were made just for website visitors to navigate a website. However, because search engine spiders use links to navigate from one page to another, HTML sitemaps can be a useful shortcut for search engines to find and index content on a website.

So to recap: Having an HTML sitemap in the footer your website allows:

• A search engine spider can enter your site at any webpage and then quickly discover other webpages via the sitemap.
• A website visitor to view the HTML sitemap and use it to navigate your site.

An XML sitemap is a file that you put on your website to tell search engines about the webpages, images and videos that are on the site. An XML sitemap works like a content map, helping ensure search engines crawl and index more thoroughly.

A technical SEO best practice is to create an XML sitemap and ensure it’s always up to date so that search engines crawl and index all the important content on your site.

Google says that sites under 500 pages might not need an XML sitemap, so some people may think it’s not that important.

And while the search engines should be able to find all the content on your site by following links, most websites don’t have proper linking architecture. So it can be hard for search engines to discover the content.

What To Do: HTML Sitemaps

There are several important considerations when designing your HTML sitemap:

• All of the site’s important pages should be listed in the HTML sitemap(s) in a cohesive manner.
• Use keyword-rich anchor text when linking to the important internal pages, making sure it describes the page it is linking to (“the promise of the link”).
• Make sure the sitemap has a clear hierarchy for top landing pages, categories, subcategories and subpages.
• Pages, including the HTML sitemap(s), should include no more than 100 links.
• If there are over 100 links, the sitemap needs to be paginated or nested.
• The sitemap page design should match the overall site design.
• The sitemap should have fully qualified (or absolute) URLs, meaning http:// or https:// is used in the URL, and the entire URL is in the sitemap.





At one point, Google recommended having less than 100 links on each page (and then later dropped that recommendation). The numbers are arbitrary, just don’t be spammy.

I discuss how many links are too many for a page in this video:

What To Do: XML Sitemaps

Here’s what to keep in mind when you create your XML sitemap:

• Every site should have at least one XML sitemap.
• You can create it manually or use an XML sitemap generator.
• Create separate, special sitemaps for things like news, videos, and images.
• Large websites may need to break their list of URLs into many XML sitemaps.
• Once you have created the sitemap file, upload it to the root of your website (https://www.your-domain-name.com/sitemap.xml), then tell search engines to know about it using your robots.txt file.
• Some people prefer to submit the sitemaps manually due to timing; once you submit it, you can start the indexing process versus just waiting for the search engine to give you a turn.
  Submitting the sitemap can also help you identify errors through the Sitemaps report in Google Search Console.



For more, read: What Is an XML SItemap and How Do I Make One?

4. Website Speed

Search engines have a limited crawl budget for all sites. If a site is slow to load, the search engines cannot crawl all webpages within the crawl budget. This results in a site having fewer indexed pages, which decreases opportunities for rankings.

Page speed is a factor in search engine ranking algorithms. Fast performance is also a critical component of the user experience. If your website takes too long to load, users will abandon it in favor of a different website that does not take as long.

And with Google’s focus on Core Web Vitals and the emphasis on speed there, this is a critical factor for overall ranking. (For expert tips to improve your CWV, watch our on-demand webinar.)

Research has shown that faster performance results in improved KPIs for websites. For example, Pinterest reported that reducing wait time by 40% resulted in a 15% increase in SEO traffic and a 15% increase in conversion rate to sign up.

In 2021, Google rolled out the page experience algorithm update, which combines things like site speed and responsiveness when evaluating a website. So focusing on speed is more important than ever.

A site’s responsiveness and speed have a direct effect on a user’s willingness to use and return to a site.

What To Do: Website Speed

When you are assessing your page load speed, you want to be as fast or faster than your competition. In other words, your website does not need to be the fastest website in the world. The goal is to be least imperfect compared to your competitors.

That said, improving website speed can be time-consuming and expensive. When using tools to evaluate your webpage speed, make sure you have a professional review of the scores. You’ll want to make sure you focus on improving the right metrics. Improving certain metrics past a certain threshold may be difficult, and not worth the resources.

Here are some things that can slow webpage load time:

• Excessive HTML comments
• Excessive white space
• Failing to externalize Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
• Failing to externalize JavaScript
• Failing to specify image dimensions
• Landing page redirects
• No browser caching
• No compression
• No image optimization
• Render-blocking JavaScript
• Slow server response time

I talk more about some of these in one of our “Ask Us Anything” videos:

There are several tests you can run your webpages through. Here are a few:

• GTmetrix
• Google’s PageSpeed Insights
• WebPageTest.org



For more on website speed and page experience, check out the following resources:

• How Fast Should My Webpage Be and Why Should I Care?
• Documentation on PageSpeed Insights
• Google’s recommendations for fast load times
• Google’s Page Experience Update: A Complete Guide
• 3 Expert Tips to Improve Core Web Vitals [On-demand webinar]

5. Mobile Friendliness

The majority of web traffic today (about 55% as of Q1 2021) comes from a mobile device. A mobile-friendly website creates a good experience for people who visit a website from a smartphone or tablet. While that percentage certainly varies by industry and search mission, the fact is that being mobile-friendly is vital. Google indexes your content using a mobile version of the spider, so your designs must be friendly for mobile users.

A mobile-friendly website matters to your search engine rankings because Google wants websites on page one that offer great content through a good experience to mobile users.

In 2021, Google rolled out mobile-first indexing. Google’s announcement explains what that means:

Mobile-first indexing means Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking. Historically, the index primarily used the desktop version of a page’s content when evaluating the relevance of a page to a user’s query. Since the majority of users now access Google Search with a mobile device, Googlebot primarily crawls and indexes pages with the smartphone agent going forward.

This was yet another signal from Google that mobile-friendliness is critical.

What To Do: Mobile Friendliness

In an earlier article I wrote on mobile friendliness, I outlined four steps you can take to get your website in tip-top shape for mobile users:

1. Test your current site: Check out Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test and the mobile usability report in Google Search Console.



2. Learn about mobile-friendly best practices. Check out Google’s guide here and our guide on mobile SEO and UX optimization, too.

3. Implement changes. Here, you may have to decide about things like website configuration (responsive is the current recommendation), website content, and website speed (covered in the last section of this article).

4. Watch for common mistakes. One major pitfall to avoid is sacrificing needed content for the sake of speed. I’ve written about that as well in: Why an Insanely Fast Site Is Your New Priority.

Technical SEO Is Never Done

This is just a sampling of the technical SEO best practices you can and should implement on your website. No aspect of SEO is “set it and forget it,” so there will always be more testing to do and more improvements to make.

The steps outlined in this article give a good starting point for a sound technical SEO foundation.

Our SEO experts can provide technical SEO services to ensure your website runs smoothly and outperforms your competition. Contact us today and let us know how we can help.

FAQ: How can I optimize my website’s technical aspects for improved search engine rankings and user experience?

Every website owner aspires to secure a prominent spot on search engine results pages while delivering a seamless experience to users. Achieving this delicate balance requires strategically optimizing your website’s technical aspects. Each element is crucial in determining your online success, from server performance to mobile responsiveness.

To begin, consider the hosting of your website. Shared hosting may seem cost-effective but can impact website speed and performance due to shared resources. Investing in dedicated hosting ensures a smoother user experience and minimizes downtime, contributing positively to both search rankings and user satisfaction.

Server errors can hinder the crawlability of your site, affecting its visibility on search engines. Regularly monitor server response codes to identify and rectify issues promptly. A well-maintained server enhances search engine indexing and ensures a seamless browsing experience for visitors.

Sitemaps, both HTML and XML, are powerful tools for aiding navigation and indexing. HTML sitemaps assist users in finding essential pages, while XML sitemaps guide search engine bots to relevant content. Regularly updating and optimizing these sitemaps provides clear paths for users and search engines to explore your website.

Website speed remains a critical factor for both search engines and users. Slow-loading pages can lead to high bounce rates and lower search rankings. Minimize image sizes, leverage browser caching, and optimize code to ensure swift page loading. Google’s Core Web Vitals emphasize the importance of fast-loading pages, making this optimization even more imperative.

Lastly, prioritize mobile friendliness. A responsive design is paramount with a significant portion of users accessing websites via mobile devices. Google’s mobile-first indexing underscores the importance of mobile compatibility for search rankings. Ensure your website displays seamlessly across various devices to provide a positive user experience.

Optimizing your website’s technical aspects is a multifaceted endeavor that directly impacts search engine rankings and user satisfaction. By focusing on hosting, server errors, sitemaps, website speed, and mobile friendliness, you can create a strong foundation for online success. Incorporating these insights and taking proactive steps will elevate your website’s performance and solidify your online presence.

Step-by-Step Procedure: How to Optimize Your Website’s Technical Aspects for Improved Search Engine Rankings and User Experience

1. Evaluate Your Hosting Options: Assess the pros and cons of shared vs. dedicated hosting, considering factors like speed and resource sharing.
2. Monitor Server Response Codes: Regularly check for server errors and address them promptly to ensure optimal crawlability.
3. Optimize Sitemaps: Update and maintain both HTML and XML sitemaps, ensuring they reflect your site’s structure and content.
4. Prioritize Website Speed: Optimize images, enable browser caching, and streamline code to enhance page loading times.
5. Embrace Mobile Friendliness: Adopt a responsive design that provides a seamless experience across various devices.
6. Implement Core Web Vitals: Familiarize yourself with Google’s Core Web Vitals and optimize your site accordingly.
7. Leverage PageSpeed Insights: Use Google’s tool to identify areas for improvement in your website’s speed performance.
8. Consider Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): Explore CDNs to distribute content and reduce server load for faster page loading.
9. Use GZIP Compression: Enable GZIP compression to reduce the size of files transmitted between your server and visitors’ browsers.
10. Optimize CSS and JavaScript: Minify CSS and JavaScript files to reduce their size and improve website loading speed.
11. Enable Browser Caching: Configure your server to enable browser caching, reducing load times for returning visitors.
12. Optimize Images: Compress images without compromising quality to decrease page load times.
13. Implement Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP): Consider using AMP to create lightweight and fast-loading versions of your webpages.
14. Monitor Mobile Usability: Regularly check Google Search Console for mobile usability issues and address them promptly.
15. Test Across Devices: Test your website’s appearance and functionality across various devices and screen sizes.
16. Ensure Clear Navigation: Simplify your website’s navigation to enhance user experience and search engine crawlability.
17. Regularly Audit and Update: Regularly audits your website’s technical aspects and make necessary updates.
18. Stay Updated on Industry Trends: Keep abreast of changes in search engine algorithms and best practices for technical SEO.
19. Utilize Professional Tools: Leverage SEO tools to analyze your website’s technical performance and identify areas for improvement.
20. Continuously Monitor and Refine: Technical optimization is ongoing; regularly monitor, analyze, and refine your strategies to maintain optimal performance.

By following these comprehensive steps, you can optimize your website’s technical aspects effectively, improving search engine rankings and a superior user experience.

The post 5 Unusual Technical SEO Best Practices appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

]]> https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/unusual-technical-seo-best-practices/feed/ 7 https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/what-makes-a-webpage-quality/ https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/what-makes-a-webpage-quality/#comments Wed, 06 Oct 2021 15:56:13 +0000 https://www.bruceclay.com/?p=108888 When it comes to competing in the search results, it's quality over quantity. Low-quality webpages reflect poorly on your brand and ultimately just won't rank. So what actually determines webpage quality? Here are some helpful tips to improve your webpage quality and keep your site competitive.

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]]>
SEO rule No. 1: You don’t want to put low-quality webpages out into the world. That’s not a good presentation of your brand and quite frankly, they just won’t rank.

But what actually determines webpage quality? I’ll outline the various aspects that impact the perceived quality of a webpage, by both search engines and users, in the following sections:

• Experience, Expertise, authority, and trust
• Journalistic integrity in your content
• Content optimization
• Technical SEO
• Tips for consistently improving webpage quality
• FAQ: How can I ensure my webpages maintain high-quality standards for better search engine performance?

Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust

Google is notoriously protective of its search ranking algorithm. As a result, much of what we accept as best practice in SEO is based on educated guesses, experience, and simply seeing what works.

When it comes to on-page SEO and what Google is looking for in a quality webpage, though, they’ve been surprisingly transparent. In its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (SQEG), the search giant shares what its search quality raters should consider as indicative of page quality.

The SQEG explains the following are the most important factors for quality raters to consider in determining a page’s quality rating:

• The purpose of the page
• Experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness
• Main content quality and amount
• Website information or information about who is responsible for the main content
• Website reputation or reputation of the person responsible for the main content

That second one — expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, also known as E-E-A-T — is so important that it appears a whopping 130 times in the SQEG.

While not a ranking factor, E-E-A-T is a great framework by which to gauge the quality of your content. Specifically, Google advises that its raters consider the E-E-A-T of the people who create the content, the content itself, and the website as a whole.

Here’s what the SQEG says to consider:

• The expertise of the creator of the main content
• The authoritativeness of the creator of the main content, the main content itself, and the website
• The trustworthiness of the creator of the main content, the main content itself, and the website

Again, this isn’t a part of the core algorithm. Rather, parts of the core algorithm look for E-E-A-T signals; for example, I believe that the Panda update was about expertise, Penguin was about authority, and Medic was about trust.

How can you make sure your webpages are trustworthy and authoritative, showcasing your expertise? For this next tip, I take a page from the most experienced content creators out there.

Journalistic Integrity in Your Content

Even if you’re fairly confident that the information you’re sharing is accurate, it’s important that you make it easy for Google (and your readers) to verify it. Journalists have “Cite your sources!” drilled into their heads from the earliest days of training.

Fact-checking should be an integral part of your publishing process. In fact, Google cares about this to the extent it provides a fact-checking tool that enables searchers to input a claim and see what’s been verified about it online.

Always consider the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of the sources you’re citing on your webpage, too. Restating something as fact is your personal endorsement of that information.



Another important tool for improving the quality of your content is to choose a style guide to go by. Adhering to one style guide gives your content clarity and consistency. For example, the Associated Press Stylebook is the style that journalists use when they write content.

Sticking with one style tells all of your writers, editors, marketers, and others who publish content on-site how to handle links and citations, capitalization in titles and subheadings, punctuation, presentation of statistics, and more.

Essentially, you want readers and visitors focused on your quality content, not trying to overlook omissions or inconsistencies in how the information is presented.

Which style guide you choose is up to you, and in fact, many organizations create their own style guide to maintain consistency. That’s great, too. What matters most is that you choose one and apply it to all of your web content.

Content Optimization

Once you’re satisfied with the quality and accuracy of the content on your webpage, it’s important that you optimize it. How else will Google understand that your webpage is the best answer for relevant queries?

I won’t go into great detail here, as we have an excellent, always up-to-date SEO checklist here. Work through it as you optimize new content, and soon, it’ll become second nature.

Technical SEO

We’ve focused heavily on content and other on-page SEO factors to this point. But even the best content will underperform without the solid underpinning of a technically sound website.

Technical SEO is the practice of optimizing your website so Google and other search engines can easily crawl and index your webpages. It also applies to user experience in that visitors expect webpages to load quickly and smoothly.

Google aims to give each searcher the best answer for their need, and these technical SEO considerations are part of that experience:



Site Speed

How fast your webpage loads has a massive impact on your visitor’s experience — and the actions they will take as a result.

Google’s research shows that “…faster mobile site speed makes people view more pages on the site, convert more, and buy more on most brand sites.”

Page speed has long been a ranking factor, but speed and other core metrics have grown in importance with Google’s 2021 page experience update.

Learn more about how to make your site faster: How Fast Should My Webpage Be and Why Should I Care?

Mobile-Friendliness

Is your site responsive to the device on which the visitor is viewing it?

Does your page load quickly on mobile, and is content formatted for easy reading on different screen sizes?

These are major considerations for Google and in fact, mobile-friendliness is a ranking signal within the page experience update. This impactful update also includes:

• Core Web Vitals, a set of three metrics that help Google understand the experience visitors have on any given webpage: Largest Contentful Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift, and First Input Delay
• HTTPS compliance for secure browsing status
• Intrusive interstitials — specifically, ensuring that you don’t have any

There are many technical factors that can impact your site’s mobile-friendliness — responsive design, properly configured text and buttons, and page loading speed, among them. See Page Experience Matters: The Mobile-Friendly Site to learn more.

A whole host of issues may impact Google’s ability to find, crawl, and index your webpage. Cloaking, redirects, 404 errors, robots.txt status and more are among the more common technical SEO issues that could impact your website quality.

Check out these Technical SEO Tips to learn more about optimizing the back end of your site.

Tips for Consistently Improving Webpage Quality

As you apply best practices and begin looking at all pages through a quality lens, the process will become faster and easier. Run through this list of tips with one of your existing pages and see where you can improve:

1. Focus on demonstrating E-E-A-T in all of your content — written copy, photos, videos, and other elements, too.
2. Remember that the reputation of the content creator and website as a whole matters. Include the author’s name, a short bio (either on-page or linked), and links to social profiles.
3. Fact-check all information and statistics, citing your sources in accordance with the style guide of your choice.
4. Ensure that the page’s content delivers on the expectation a reader will have upon navigating to that page from the SERP.
5. Proofread carefully! Don’t let simple typos or small errors take away from your page’s perceived quality.
6. Create a sufficient amount of content and include enough information to satisfy the need that brought the searcher to your page. (Our WordPress SEO plugin can help you know how much to write in order to compete.)
7. Optimize content to help Google understand how and why that webpage meets the needs of searchers using relevant queries.
8. Make sure preventable technical SEO issues aren’t standing in the way of your page’s accessibility and rankings.

Making a quality website is impossible without SEO-friendly, high-quality content. At Bruce Clay Inc., we have a team of experienced writers who can help meet your needs. Interested in learning more about our content development services? Contact us for a free consultation today.

FAQ: How can I ensure my webpages maintain high-quality standards for better search engine performance?

Maintaining a high level of quality for your webpages is pivotal for driving better search engine performance. In an era where user experience is paramount, search engines like Google are placing increased emphasis on ranking pages that offer genuine value. To ensure your webpages meet these high-quality standards and deliver exceptional results, consider the following strategies:

Prioritize Content Relevance

Craft content that aligns precisely with your audience’s needs. In-depth research into your target audience’s preferences and pain points will help you create content that resonates and provides genuine value.

Incorporate E-E-A-T Principles

Experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) are foundational for high-quality webpages. Showcase your expertise by offering well-researched insights, share your personal experiences and opinions with the subject matter, back your claims with authoritative sources, and foster trust by maintaining transparent and reliable content.

Implement On-Page Optimization

Optimize your content for both users and search engines. Pay attention to title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and keyword placement. Balancing keyword usage with natural readability is key to maintaining high quality.

Streamline User Experience

User experience directly influences search engine performance. Ensure fast page loading times, responsive design for various devices, and easy navigation. Users should be able to find what they need without any friction.

Focus on Technical SEO

Technical SEO forms the backbone of webpage quality. Prioritize tasks like improving site speed, optimizing images, and ensuring mobile-friendliness. These factors enhance both user experience and search engine rankings.

Transitioning seamlessly between these strategies is essential for maintaining a cohesive approach to webpage quality. By prioritizing content relevance, incorporating E-E-A-T principles, optimizing on-page elements, streamlining the user experience, and emphasizing technical SEO, you can effectively elevate your webpage quality and secure better search engine performance.

Step-by-Step Procedure: Strategies to Enhance Webpage Quality for Improved Search Engine Performance

1. Conduct thorough audience research to understand their preferences and pain points.
2. Align content topics with audience needs to ensure relevance.
3. Utilize authoritative sources to back up claims and enhance expertise.
4. Provide clear author credentials to establish authority and trustworthiness.
5. Craft compelling title tags and meta descriptions that accurately represent content.
6. Use header tags to structure content for easy readability and navigation.
7. Integrate relevant keywords naturally into the content.
8. Optimize images for fast loading times and improved user experience.
9. Ensure responsive design to guarantee usability across various devices.
10. Implement a content delivery network (CDN) to enhance page loading speed.
11. Conduct regular site audits to identify and resolve technical SEO issues.
12. Create XML sitemaps to aid search engine crawling and indexing.
13. Improve site speed by compressing images and minimizing server response time.
14. Eliminate duplicate content issues to enhance content uniqueness.
15. Implement schema markup to enhance search engine understanding of content.
16. Monitor user behavior and make adjustments based on analytics data.
17. Regularly update content to ensure accuracy and relevance.
18. Engage in reputable link-building practices to enhance authority.
19. Collaborate with industry influencers to gain credibility and exposure.
20. Continuously monitor search engine algorithm updates and adapt strategies accordingly.

This article was updated on December 19, 2023.  

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]]> https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/what-makes-a-webpage-quality/feed/ 8 https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/forget-2020-seo-trends-classic-strategies/ https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/forget-2020-seo-trends-classic-strategies/#comments Thu, 27 Feb 2020 18:20:10 +0000 https://www.bruceclay.com/?p=77521 Trends come and go. But classic SEO strategies will always serve you well. Here are three proven strategies that every website owner should focus on, no matter what else is trending. The total package Technically speaking Perfectly imperfect FAQ: What are the key components of a whole-SERP strategy in SEO? The Total Package The only […]

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]]> Trends come and go. But classic SEO strategies will always serve you well. Here are three proven strategies that every website owner should focus on, no matter what else is trending.
• The total package
• Technically speaking
• Perfectly imperfect
• FAQ: What are the key components of a whole-SERP strategy in SEO?



The Total Package

The only thing that’s constant in a search engine results page is change. In fact, Google made more than 3,000 changes to Search in 2018 alone.

So building a whole-SERP strategy should be part of any SEO program every year.

SEO is not just about implementing the basics on a site. It also requires thinking past the blue links to get more real estate on the entire SERP.

Just take a look at the search results for any given query — what do you see? Today, many features fill the page.


Image source: SERP Features Monitor, Searchmetrics 

Each feature represents a search vertical or SEO technique worth mastering. By doing so, you can get more visibility on Page 1 and more chances to drive traffic to your owned media.

So for your most important search queries, understand what types of content are likely to be featured. For example, how-to queries may be more likely to show video results. So, create content strategies to supply those queries with video answers.



Research shows that a Google Search user on a desktop will navigate to the top left of the search results page and then scan down to find the result that is most useful to them.

So be mindful: what’s featured at the top of the SERP for the queries you want to be found for — is it a video? Featured snippet? Something else?

(For more, check out our tips on optimizing video, images, and other multimedia.)

Technically Speaking

Google is always going to place importance on website functionality because it impacts Google’s experience crawling your website. It also impacts the user’s experience visiting your site. Remember that your users are Google’s users, too.

Technical SEO works to optimize a website’s infrastructure so that search engines can better crawl and index content. This includes everything from externalizing JavaScript or CSS to including robots.txt files, reviewing server configurations, and much more.

It was just last year that Google’s Gary Illyes said on Reddit that he wished SEOs would stop focusing on updates and get back to the basics:

i really wish SEOs went back to the basics (i.e. MAKE THAT DAMN SITE CRAWLABLE) instead of focusing on silly updates and made up terms by the rank trackers, and that they talked more with the developers of the website once done with the first part of this sentence.

For more, see this primer on technical SEO.

Perfectly Imperfect

For all you perfectionists out there, here’s some relief: You don’t need to be perfect in SEO to succeed. You just need to be the least imperfect. What do I mean?

Search engine algorithms are a best-kept secret. We’ll never be able to reverse-engineer them entirely. So the best we can do is be the least imperfect compared to our competition in the search results.

In other words: Do what the websites in the top results are doing, but a little bit better. Get as many on-page and off-page factors right as possible. If they have 15 out of 20 SEO tactics implemented well, do 16 tactics very well.

Because we have not found any great multi-site analyzers, we built our own — patent pending even. Audit tools like those found in our SEOToolSet® and our new WordPress plugin for SEO help you dissect the top-ranking pages for any keyword. Then you can be the least imperfect among them and beat your competition.

FAQ: What are the key components of a whole-SERP strategy in SEO?

A holistic approach known as a whole-SERP strategy is imperative to effectively dominate search engine results pages (SERPs). This strategy involves several key components, each pivotal in enhancing online visibility and driving organic traffic.

Organic Search

The foundation of any whole-SERP strategy is organic search optimization. This involves on-page SEO, high-quality content creation, and technical SEO to ensure your website ranks prominently in organic search results.

Paid Search

Complementing organic search is paid search advertising. Crafting targeted pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns can help you secure valuable real estate at the top of the SERPs, ensuring your brand is seen by a wider audience.

Featured Snippets

Understanding how to optimize for featured snippets is crucial. By providing concise, informative answers to common questions within your content, you increase the likelihood of Google showcasing your content in the coveted “position zero.”

Structured Data Markup

Leveraging structured data markup (Schema.org) can enhance your search results with rich snippets, which directly display additional information, such as reviews and product details, in the SERPs. This can significantly improve click-through rates.

User Experience Optimization

A seamless user experience is paramount. Ensure your website is mobile-responsive, loads quickly, and easily navigates. Google rewards sites that provide exceptional user experiences.

Local SEO

For businesses with a physical presence, local SEO optimization is essential. Claim and optimize your Google My Business listing, encourage customer reviews, and ensure your NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) information is consistent across the web.

Content Diversification

Diversify your content strategy to include text, videos, images, and infographics. Different content types appeal to a broader audience and can secure placements in various SERP features.

Incorporating these components into your whole SERP strategy will help you conquer the complex and ever-changing landscape of SEO. Remember that SEO is an ongoing process, requiring continuous monitoring, adjustments, and staying abreast of industry trends.

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