Using analysis tools to diagnose a fall in Google search rankings
Google’s ranking algorithm is increasingly sensitive to the smallest of changes and continues to use an ever-growing number of signals to rank websites. As such, it’s commonplace for site administrators to find themselves in the predicament where natural rankings have dropped, visits have fallen and site revenue or conversions have dwindled. Fortunately – we are here to help!
A pro-active approach to any drop in positions is crucial as it’s important that you maintain the trust of your client/boss through this difficult period. There is no issue which can’t be fixed with the correct understanding, approach and action plan.
Dig, Dig and Dig A Little More!
Before we can fix any issues, we first need to understand the root cause of the drop. There are a variety of tools which we can use to help us do this.
Google…
More DIY tips for SEO
Whenever I'm training I'm nearly always asked for useful tools that aid the digital marketing process. This is particularly the case when discussing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and the process of getting better search engine rankings.
I have therefore drawn up this introductory guide to the SEO process for marketers, starting with an introduction to search engine spiders Robots. We'll also discuss two of the free tools/techniques that are available from Google to assist you with this initial phase of SEO.
First step:Help Search Engine Spiders or Robots read your pages.
Spiders or Robots are bits of software that read your pages to find new and updated pages, and returns the content to the Search Engines to be indexed. If they can't read your site, then…
5 Steps to an effective SEO migration from an old to a new site
Whether it's upgrading hosting, improving your URL structure or simplifying information architecture upgrades to your web presence are inevitable for every company.
As more companies reach the limits of their current web investments, many are worried that significant change will impact their organic listings and SEO performance. I've even seen a company maintaining two websites, frightened that merging would reduce their organic rankings, even though it was near impossible for users to find anything.
Whether you are an in-house marketer or an agency specialist, in my experience if you are able to plan ahead and factor in SEO migration tactics to your project you will find a smooth transition. Often the very fact you engage with the search engines can provide improved rankings on the other side.
In this article I look at 5 tactics to help you in the…
4 techniques to reduce duplicate site content
Although we still hear a lot of recommendations on how to optimise pages and the importance of links from other sites to improve rankings, we don't hear so many recommendations about reducing the amount of duplicate content. This seems to be a neglected area of SEO advice, so this refresher highlights some of the techniques to avoid duplicate content.
What is duplicate content?
Duplicate content is where different pages on a site are interpreted as similar by Google. As a result, pages can be discarded or down-weighted in Google's index so that they won't rank. In its webmaster tools guidance, Google says:
Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar. Mostly, this is not deceptive in origin. Examples of non-malicious duplicate content could include: discussion forums that can generate both regular and stripped-down…
New data shows how slow is too slow
Conversion rate optimisation specialists have been recently shared two new pieces of research which show that page load speed should be a concern for all. I thought I'd summarise them here as a reminder that speed matters!
The first shows data shared by Walmart shows how their conversion rate varies as page load times increases. You can see there is a dramatic decline in conversion as page load times increases to 4 seconds:
Secondly Tagman published research that showed a similar pattern, except with specific conversion rates.
How can we review and improve our site performance?
Google has been releasing tools for to help you with your website loading speed for some time now but what is classed as a fast website and does it…
5 DIY options for identifying duplicate content to improve SEO
SEOs talk a lot about why duplicate content matters and what to do about it, marketers don't tend to.
I think an understanding of duplicate content is important to all marketers who manage SEO so they can ask the right questions of their search specialists or agencies or fix the problem themselves. So to help bridge the gap, this is first of two posts explaining what duplicate content is, why it matters and what to do about it.
What is duplicate content
Duplicate content is where a search engine identifies different pages as similar. As a result it either doesn’t include them in the index or down-weights their importance. So you may have pages that you think are unique and should attract visits, but the search engines don't see it that way and pages identified as…
1. New pagination tags
Value/Importance: [rating=3]
Recommended link: Source
Our commentary
A recent release from Google, these new tags are aimed at aiding the Google bot when crawling sites such as media sites (or other content rich sites) & large ecommerce websites. The new tags are to be used on the "Next", "Previous" & View All links on pages helping Google understand a paginated series of pages. This feature is particularly relevant to media sites that use the format of an article broken down into several pages (which I personally find annoying, but I know it's done to increase page views and so ad revenue).
Much like the canonical tag which is used to highlight duplicate pages on your website these new tags are aimed at helping the Googlebot index your website effectively. The two key points highlighted in the post /…
Using Google's new reports to improve both SEO and conversion
Google has been releasing tools for to help you with your website loading speed for some time now but what is classed as a fast website and does it really impact your rankings?
Google clearly take this area of website management seriously, they want users to be delivered relevant content quickly, and therefore it would make sense that they would use it as a factor in ranking your website. It's more obvious to see the impact of slow loading websites on your bounce rate than search but lets look at the tools now available to help you make sure your loading times are not affecting your rankings or site conversion.
Google Page Speed Report(s)
We reported back in August 2011 that reports are now available within Google Analytics which will give you the insights…
What are Rich Snippets and how to create them?
Rich snippets are a way of tagging specific types of content so that Search Engines and web services can use them to display additional information in search results or share to other sites.
Most Search Engines now support rich snippets and are constantly extending them as he announcement this week from Google about the new "Listings" Snippets shows.
Why use them?
Rich Snippets are still relatively new in terms of how they are been used and many websites have yet to even implement them. With the growth of HTML 5, however, they are slowly working their way into websites. This creates an opportunity for early adopters to:
Improve a users experience to your website
Improve the quality of information given to Search Engines (Product price, reviews etc are two examples)
Increased traffic through higher click-through rates
Ensure Search Engines…
Search for infographics with Visual.ly
Recommended link: Visual.ly technology category example
Value: [rating=3]
Our commentary: What SearchEngineLand has described as a "new search engine" was launched this week. Pronounced "Visually", the service offers to "Explore the Best Data Visualizations on the Web". That's what we know as infographics. These are a great way to engage business audiences and they have become popular since they are very shareable.
For example our post on Mobile Marketing Statistics has proved popular.
With Visual.ly you can:
Review infographics in a category
Search by keyword
Upload your own infographics
Marketing implications:
Although touted as a search engine, it's only a niche, vertical search engine. I've also found that it's limited in more specialist areas like mobile or email marketing although there is no shortage of social media examples.
Still we're alerting you to it since:
It's an additional way to search for infographics
You…
