SEO Copywriting Archives - SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines https://seo-hacker.com/category/seo-copywriting/ SEO Hacker is an SEO Agency and SEO Blog in the Philippines. Let us take your website to the top of the search results with our holistic white-hat strategies. Inquire today! Wed, 09 Aug 2023 09:03:47 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 https://seo-hacker.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/cropped-favicon-32x32.png SEO Copywriting Archives - SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines https://seo-hacker.com/category/seo-copywriting/ 32 32 How Jasper AI Fares As SEO Copywriting Tool https://seo-hacker.com/jasper-ai-seo-copywriting-tool/ https://seo-hacker.com/jasper-ai-seo-copywriting-tool/#respond Wed, 22 Feb 2023 06:56:43 +0000 https://seo-hacker.com/?p=207496 The rise of everything AI makes it logical that there would also be dozens of AI-powered SEO copywriting tools designed to create content for your blog, social media, and website. And why not? The amount of content you need to produce to secure that coveted first-page position on the SERPs is unprecedented in history, and […]

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Jasper AI SEO Copywriting Tool

The rise of everything AI makes it logical that there would also be dozens of AI-powered SEO copywriting tools designed to create content for your blog, social media, and website.

And why not? The amount of content you need to produce to secure that coveted first-page position on the SERPs is unprecedented in history, and there is no stopping that.

But when you rush to use these tools to meet a growing demand for content, what will you end up with? Crappy work, for sure.

So how do you meet the growing demand for creating SEO-friendly content in a more efficient way, without risking penalties from Google? Can an AI writing tool really help you here?

Well, I’ve come across Jasper AI, which markets itself as exactly that. It’s been gaining traction as a powerful force in helping writers create SEO-friendly content quickly and easily.

Let’s take a close look at its features, and most importantly how it’s going to affect your SEO.

What Is Jasper AI?

Jasper AI is a content creation tool that was created for content creators, writers, and marketers. It even claims to help you, quote, “create content 5x faster with artificial intelligence.” What’s more, this AI bot apparently is capable of generating, “original, creative content.”

Sounds pretty far-fetched–after all, doesn’t AI just rehash data and information its developers feed it? Well, here’s what Jasper’s team has to say about it:

“Jasper doesn’t scrape URLs but instead generates content from pieces of words previously recognized on the internet.”

“[…]He is trained on a trillion data points that use pattern recognition and not previously written sentences or phrases. If he sees something similar, he does not write the same thing again. Jasper is trained to detect patterns and phrases that people have already written, so the styling is similar, and then optimize your output to match those patterns but not replicate them.“

It also has a built-in natural language processing (NLP) feature that analyzes the user’s search intent in order to create tailored content that can rank higher in search engine results pages.

In addition to optimizing existing content for SEO purposes, Jasper AI can also be used as an editorial assistant when creating new pieces from scratch.

What Can Jasper AI Do?

Users can access several different templates, which can help streamline your content. Some of Jasper AI’s templates that I find helpful in terms of SEO are:

  • SEO – Blog Posts
  • SEO – Homepage
  • SEO – Product Page
  • SEO – Services Page

All of these templates help you write SEO-optimized title tags and meta descriptions that can help your blog posts, homepage, product page, and services page rank well in Google.

Jasper SEO templates

 

Another template that is also considered helpful for SEO is its One-Shot Landing Page, which can generate a full landing page with headings or H1, H2, and H3, elements that Google highly considers for your web page to rank in the search results.

Jasper one-shot landing page

 

So I tried the One-Shot Landing Page Template to see how Jasper AI fares in generating H1, H2, and H3 for landing pages. While some content writers might find this template will come in handy, it’s best that you don’t completely rely on letting any AI tool do the heavy lifting when writing content.

With Google still against spammy, low-quality content, it’s critical to still have humans edit and fact-check anything this tool creates for you.

How Can Jasper AI Help With Content Creation?

Simply put, it helps generate content that resonates with your target readers. Because of its natural language processing (NLP) feature, it understands human language. Meaning, it can suggest content that reads as if it was written by an actual human–and for humans.

Writing, as we know, is one of the most difficult aspects of SEO. You need a lot of creativity and skill to churn out content. You’ll also need to do plenty of research into anything you write about. It’s crucial if you want to hit all the topics in your niche, and do so in a way that is enticing and engaging to your audience.

Essentially, this tool will always come in handy in overcoming writer’s block, speeding up the more tedious parts of writing, and leveraging ideas for your content.

What you should be taking note of if you’re new to SEO and you’re going to use this tool is this: it can help make your writing more efficient. With all the functionalities that come with the platform, it’s common sense that you make the most of it to your advantage, especially in terms of SEO.

Utilizing Jasper AI: Some Points To Take Note Of

I’ve found that, while AI-powered tools are pretty useful, it’s a good idea to follow a plan when using them. Doing so can make sure the content it generates is both high-quality and the best fit for your website.

Here are a few things I recommend you do when using Jasper AI:

  • Do your keyword research beforehand

Any self-respecting SEO specialist knows the importance of keyword research for a successful SEO strategy. Look for search terms or keywords your readers will most likely use when they research online. Keyword research not only gives you a better understanding of your readers but also gives you better insight when creating your outline.

Your keywords should not only be limited to one term or word. It’s also recommended to add long-tail keywords and questions in your keywords list for your content creation.

  • Utilize the template for generating title and meta description

This is one of the most helpful templates in the tool. They say that coming up with a title or meta description for your content can be quite daunting to do, especially if you have written long-form content.

When you’ve got a title and meta description that clearly describes what you’ve just written–and hits all the right notes to entice the reader–you can expect more people to click on your article.

While click-through rate isn’t technically a ranking factor (a hotly contested topic almost as long as I’ve practiced SEO), it does help with organic traffic and rankings, which is a good thing! It’s why I also wrote a guide on how to raise your organic CTR.

  • Proofread and edit your work

What I also need you to take note of is that even if you use Jasper, you still need to edit and proofread your work. Though the tool claims to generate original content that won’t get flagged for plagiarism, it doesn’t hurt to be careful. If you will completely rely on Jasper AI doing the writing work for you, it might do your content – more harm than good.

Going over it before publishing is also a great time to make some tweaks, add some flair, and insert some unique insights into your content. The last part is important–adding some of your expertise on the given topic is something I believe helps you rank for Google’s helpful content update.

How Does Jasper AI Affect SEO?

Content writing is a central pillar for SEO, making well-written, rank-able content one of the most important tasks in any SEO strategy.

AI tools, like Jasper, are geared towards making this process a whole lot faster and easier for us in the industry. And, it does so in many aspects–from creating outlines to providing whole paragraphs.

Since AI tools can process data at scale and use a number of methods to generate text (including deep learning, sentiment analysis, and NLP), they can also guide you towards content that is highly relevant to your audience’s needs.

That said, there is a lot of trepidation about using AI writing tools. After all, isn’t it against Google’s guidelines?

Google’s Danny Sullivan said this about AI:

“We haven’t said AI content is bad. We’ve said, pretty clearly, content written primarily for search engines rather than humans is the issue. That’s what we’re focused on. If someone fires up 100 humans to write content just to rank, or fires up a spinner, or an AI, same issue…”

In Google’s Search Essentials, AI isn’t directly mentioned either. But, it does warn against using “spammy automatically-generated content,” which is why it’s best that you use any AI writing tool out there with a grain of salt.

Key Takeaway

With all these features combined together in one single platform, Jasper AI can be a pretty powerful SEO copywriting tool to add to your toolbox.

Whether you’re looking for ways to optimize existing pieces or starting from scratch with new material; whether you need help finding relevant keywords or just want an extra pair of eyes on your work; Jasper AI has the potential to make that task much easier for you.

But, always do what any self-respecting content writer does best: edit your work.

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An In-Depth Look at SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform https://seo-hacker.com/se-rankings-content-marketing-platform-seo-hacker-review/ https://seo-hacker.com/se-rankings-content-marketing-platform-seo-hacker-review/#respond Thu, 05 Jan 2023 06:48:00 +0000 https://seo-hacker.com/?p=207424 Nothing is more frustrating than when your team creates outstanding content, and nobody reads it. If you want the content to work in your favor, you need to make sure it ranks so it gets relevant readers right away.  So if you are a blogger and want to win over your readers, if you run […]

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SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform: SEO Hacker Review

Nothing is more frustrating than when your team creates outstanding content, and nobody reads it. If you want the content to work in your favor, you need to make sure it ranks so it gets relevant readers right away. 

So if you are a blogger and want to win over your readers, if you run a business and need to outperform your competitors, or if you want to increase your revenue, you need to make sure that all the textual content produced by you or your team is optimized with SEO fundamentals and your chosen content strategy

That way, you can ensure your site ranks on the first page of Google Search and gets significantly more traffic. 

In a Content Marketing Institute survey, 88% of marketers reported that content marketing was successful in building brand awareness and credibility, 78% reached their goal of building loyalty with their clients and users, and 64% of marketers confirmed success in nurturing leads. 

By the way, if you need help reaching any of the objectives above, read our guide on 5 easy ways to build a solid content strategy

In this blog post, I’ll be reviewing a content optimization tool that can make your life easier: it’s a new roll-out by the SE Ranking team called the Content Marketing Platform

The Content Marketing Platform from SE Ranking is a time-saving tool for creating content to advance to the next level in marketing and business. It’s a simple-to-use, all-inclusive content marketing solution for SEO that covers a range of SEO factors stemming from content production efforts. Let’s check it out! 

Exploring SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform

SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform is a tool that takes your content to the next level. It saves time by helping your writers automate their work and provide your business and clients with exceptional marketing results. 

With the help of an AI algorithm, the tool analyzes all competitors’ content. So, in addition to keeping an eye on your rivals, you can create insightful briefs for your content marketers and copywriters and get suggestions on how to improve your messages from an SEO perspective. 

The Content Marketing Platform has two main tools: the Content Idea Finder and the Content Editor. With the help of these tools, you don’t need to spend hours scrolling through articles in search of relevant and up-to-date content ideas that will bring you thousands of readers. 

Features of SE Ranking’s Content Idea Finder

Let’s look closely at the Content Idea Finder. One of the fascinating things about this SE Ranking tool is that all you need to do is write down the desired topic. In a matter of seconds, you get keyword groups, which are accompanied by key SEO & PPC parameters such as search volume, keyword difficulty, CPC, and level of competition.

SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform: SEO Hacker Review

Another valuable feature of this tool is that it allows you to find interesting topics for your readers and the most effective keywords, which search engines also take into account. 

Thanks to SE Ranking’s tool, you can get a list of the top 10 articles with the best performance in the SERP, according to the keyword in your cluster with the highest search volume.

If you still can’t pick the right keywords for your article, you can use a mind map to see a visual comparison of keywords ranked by difficulty and search volume. You can then transfer some keywords to the Content Editor to continue working on your piece of content.

SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform: SEO Hacker Review

Features of SE Ranking’s Content Editor

To ensure that your future content is fully aligned with SEO requirements, you can create a comprehensive brief for your writers with the Content Editor. 

Setting up a brief

With the help of an automated AI-powered tool, the software analyzes the top-ranked content of your rivals. You can select the most relevant pieces from a list of competitor publications that is automatically provided according to the search intent and based on domain and page trust indicators, the total number of referring domains, word count, and the website’s visibility. 

Below is what it looks like.

SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform: SEO Hacker Review

Then according to the list of articles, the tool suggests the length for your content, the number of used media elements, and other content parameters. 

SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform: SEO Hacker Review

SE Ranking’s AI algorithm also suggests terms and common expressions with the needed SEO information for you to use in your text. All these suggestions are data-driven, so you can boldly rely on them (unless, of course, you know better because of niche experience).

SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform: SEO Hacker Review

Another part of setting the brief is the content structure. With SE Ranking’s Content Editor, you can see how your competitors build their texts and can then add their H1-H6 headings to your SEO technical assignment or use them as a reference and create your structure from scratch, and add the notes and comments with your copywriter. 

SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform: SEO Hacker Review

When the brief for your article is finally ready, you can share a link with your content team so your writers can collaborate on your project, even without logging into SE Ranking’s account. Another option is sharing your brief via email.

SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform: SEO Hacker Review

Editing an article

Using SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform, your writers can insert the Content Editor outline from your brief and start working on the text right there on the Platform, instead of Google Docs or Microsoft Word, as the tool has all the needed text formatting features. 

To make sure that the text is fully aligned with your brief and SEO requirements, the Content Marketing Platform checks all the content’s parameters and keywords, even as the team is creating the piece.

SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform: SEO Hacker Review

The Content Editor also has its own  assessment of the quality of drafts. The program checks the grammar, spelling, and punctuation of texts. It also defines the stop-words and grades the piece’s overall readability score. So you can be sure that your article will be high quality and bring you the best possible results. 

SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform: SEO Hacker Review

Pricing

Even though SE Ranking released its Content Marketing Tool only three months ago, it has already been ranked by G2 as a niche product among the market’s Content Analytics Software, according to user reviews. To join those clients and assess the Module yourself, you can try SE Ranking’s SEO tool for free for 14 days and get two free content pieces with access to the Content Marketing Module.

Note: A paid SE Ranking account is needed to continue working with the Content Marketing Platform. You can get 15 articles per month for an additional $29, 30 articles for $49, or 120 content pieces for just $99.

Key takeaway

SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform elevates your content to the highest possible standards. The Module analyzes competitors’ content in just minutes, and with the help of the AI algorithm, you can build a customized brief with all the needed SEO requirements and notes of your content team. 

Within the Content Marketing Platform, you can assess the quality of created texts and their SEO parameters, making sure that your content is also SEO-friendly. 

If you want to ensure that all of your content is appreciated by readers and search engines and effectively attracts traffic to your site, check out SE Ranking’s Content Marketing Platform.

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SEO Copywriting 2023: 5 Common Mistakes and Tips to Avoid Them https://seo-hacker.com/seo-copywriting-5-mistakes-and-tips/ https://seo-hacker.com/seo-copywriting-5-mistakes-and-tips/#respond Wed, 21 Sep 2022 08:41:51 +0000 https://seo-hacker.com/?p=207295 There are so many copies out there that are meant to rank well in the search results but then it flops. Ever had that experience with your team? Perhaps this article can tell you exactly where you failed. As many consumers nowadays are searching on the web whenever they need something. SEO copywriting is very […]

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SEO copywriting mistakes

There are so many copies out there that are meant to rank well in the search results but then it flops. Ever had that experience with your team? Perhaps this article can tell you exactly where you failed.

As many consumers nowadays are searching on the web whenever they need something. SEO copywriting is very critical for you and your business, it helps you make sure that your website and content will be seen by the target market.

What is SEO copywriting?

Let us first define what is SEO and copywriting.

SEO is the process of improving your website’s ranking in the search results, through practices that are based on data and guidelines. On the other hand, copywriting is the craft of creating persuasive messages that will inspire people to take action.

Now, what is SEO copywriting?

SEO copywriting is the combination of both, writing persuasive content that is not only engaging to your readers but also recognizable by search engines as relevant and value-giving when it gets crawled by it.

In simpler terms, SEO is the science, and copywriting is the art. Having a perfect balance of both ‘the science’ and ‘the art’ can definitely make you outrank your competition in the search results.

How beneficial can SEO copywriting be?

A great SEO strategy involves well-written and searchable content. From your landing pages, blog posts, or even your ‘thank you’ pages, all those pages need copywriting that is on point. This is to ensure that your website and its content will be visible to users browsing the search engine results page (SERPs.)

By utilizing SEO copywriting, you can:

  • Increase your website traffic
  • Create more leads
  • Build your authority in your industry or niche.

So here’s the thing – you may be left in the dark with the wrong things your team might be doing when it comes to SEO copywriting, right? No problem – I’ve done the work and identified the most common problems and mistakes you could commit to prepare you to have the best SEO copywriting practices for 2023:

  • Not Identifying your Target Audience
  • Disregarding Keyword Research
  • Failure in Organizing your Ideas
  • Forgetting to Optimize your Content for SEO
  • Ending with an Uncompelling Message

Now that I got that out of the way, I’ll clarify what these really mean for you on the points below as you read on:

Not Identifying your Target Audience

Before anything else, you need to identify who you are writing your content for. Who are they? What matters to them? What are they looking for? How can you help them?

To help you answer these questions, try putting yourself in their shoes and think like how they think to find out their pain points. It shouldn’t be hard for you since it is the market you desire to serve. Through this, you could create the perfect persona that will be your guide for the rest of your SEO copywriting efforts.

Using this persona you created as a guide, generate topic ideas to what questions you think that persona would have. Shortlist the ideas and try categorizing them from the topics that you have a lot to say about down to the topic that you need to do a ton of research on. From there, you can choose the topic that speaks to you most and what you think you can give out the most value.

Disregarding Keyword Research

In order for you to execute SEO copywriting effectively, you certainly need to be smart on your target keywords. These keywords will be a core part of your whole SEO strategy; as you’ll be integrating them all throughout your content.

But also know that it’s not about putting multiple keywords inside the body of your content, as this can hurt your reputation/ranking in Google’s eyes. This method is known as keyword stuffing and it is already considered a malpractice in the SEO industry. Some experts even go so far as to say that it is a strategy for black hat SEO.

Going back to our first point, put yourself in your target market’s shoes and think from their perspective. And through that, you now have to narrow down the list of keywords you want to focus on. Now you have to check if those keywords have enough users searching for them.

There are a lot of tools that can help you with this process, such as SE Ranking’s Keyword Research Tool. SE Ranking can tell you how much monthly search volume a certain keyword has. This helps a ton in allowing you to lock in the keywords you will center your SEO copywriting efforts around.

There are four types of search intent in SEO:

  • Informational – to get information (who, what, when, where, why, and how)
  • Transactional – to purchase a product/service (e-commerce)
  • Commercial – to buy in the near future (reviews/comparisons)
  • Navigational – to go to a specific website (brand names)

Tip: The best way to know the ‘search intent’ of a keyword is to search it on Google and see what type of content or suggestions shows on the search results page.

As an SEO copywriter, your main goal is to give solutions or answers to users searching on the web, that’s why your content should be suited to the intent of your keywords. So that whenever users search for it, you will be seen as the most value-giving website and crush the rankings in the search engine results page (SERPs.)

Failure in Organizing your Ideas

After gathering the needed information about your target audience and keywords, it is now time to write. In SEO copywriting, the flow of your content is very important. Bored readers are not good for you. Be clear, concise, and straight to the point. Creating an outline can really help you construct the structure of your content.

Here’s an example of how you can outline your idea:

  • Title (Headers)
  • Intro Paragraph
    • Bulleted list with explanation 1
    • Bulleted list with explanation 2
    • Bulleted list with explanation 3
  • Paragraph with Supplementary Information
  • Summary and Closing Paragraph

This makes it so much easier to construct the foundation of all the topic ideas you gathered on one page. Always remember that you’re writing for people first. Optimizing it for search results can come later. Your main goal is to answer all the questions you have come up with in the rough draft thoroughly.

Then polish your draft. This part is where you improve the readability and fix all the errors in your copy.

Here’s a checklist of things to do while polishing your rough draft:

  • Check for grammatical errors
  • Add images (supplementary visual aids)
  • Break up long paragraphs
  • Assign headings for each section (H2 and H3)
  • Utilize bullet points or lists wherever necessary to make it easier for your readers if possible
  • Lastly, try reading it out loud (this is to know if it sounds as good as it is written.)

Forgetting to Optimize your Content for SEO

As most copywriters write just for readership, the searchability aspect of their content tends to be forgotten. No matter how valuable and well-written your content is if it is not visible to users when they search on Google, then it is ultimately going to be an opportunity lost and consequently, we can consider it a wasted effort.

In optimizing your content, you now transition from writing for people to putting in what matters for search engines too. This is the time when you make use of all of the data you gathered from your keyword research.

Let’s start with metadata such as Title Tag and Meta Descriptions as these will be the first two things that search engines will see when they crawl your website.

Here are some tips for writing your title tags and meta descriptions:

  • Title tags:
    • Include your keyword at the beginning of the title tag
    • Place your brand name (towards the end)
    • Keep it within the limit of 65 characters
    • Make sure it is a satisfiable summary of your content – much like how a book’s title or subtitle tries to capture the essence of the book

title tags and meta descriptions

You can check out how we did the title tag for one of our clients, Dynamiqes for their keyword ‘SAP Business One’ here.

  • Meta Descriptions:
    • What will the reader get out of your page?
    • Keep it within the limit of 155 characters
    • Support the title tag’s promise to the reader
    • End it with a call-to-action (click here, learn more, etc.)

SEO-optimized content contains a balanced number of keywords all throughout its headings and body. A good rule of thumb is to have a keyword density of at least 1%. Make sure that you have at least one keyword placement in the introduction, H2 heading tag, and in the body of the content.

Tip: Remember not to overdo it as this can result in ‘keyword stuffing’ that could affect your site’s ranking.

Look for variations or synonyms of your keyword as this can help with your article’s readability, depth, and SEO. Try checking out the ‘People Also Ask’ and ‘Related searches’ features from Google as this shows how people really search on the web. You can indirectly use these questions as a guide in looking for the variations of your main keywords.

And lastly, take advantage of linking strategies. Many copywriters disregard link building. But this, in fact, is a critical part of your overall SEO strategy.

This will help boost your website’s authority when you link to other websites as sources or even to your own website as you install relevant internal links. Also note that you should be building links only from reliable and credible sources, as you don’t want your website to be linked from low authority or low trust, questionable domains.

Ending with an Uncompelling Message

SEO copywriting all goes down to achieving that one goal, whether it may be selling your product and service, or simply convincing readers to subscribe to your email list. Your writing must be persuasive in order for you to achieve that goal – and that’s why you should always end each copy very strongly coupled with a “call-to-action.”

People shy away from hard selling techniques, such as absurd claims and overpromises, you do not want to sound like a salesman who’s blasting a product or service at your audience’s faces right?

But, how can I sound so persuasive without being pushy?

Think, act and sound like a consultant. People don’t like the feeling of being sold to but they love the feeling of someone assisting them in answering their life’s pressing questions.

From the introduction of your copy all the way to the call-to-action, you should be considering your reader’s point of view. Assure them that you understand their pain points and that you can help them in making those concerns go away.

Let me give you an example.

You just finished writing your article and you would want them to subscribe to your email list. Instead of bombarding them with a “SIGN UP NOW!” button, explain to them how your article has helped them and how your future articles can further help them improve their lives.

Key Takeaway

I hope that by pointing out these common SEO copywriting mistakes you are able to avoid committing them in your next article. It’s not difficult to be very good at SEO copywriting but it takes a lot of intentionality and practice.

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Ultimate Guide To SEO Copywriting https://seo-hacker.com/seo-copywriting/ https://seo-hacker.com/seo-copywriting/#comments Thu, 08 Jul 2021 01:02:10 +0000 https://seo-hacker.com/?p=4333 What’s the difference between SEO Copywriting and Copywriting? Is there a difference in Content Strategy? A difference in the style of writing? And ultimately, what makes each one significant? In this course for SEO School, I will teach you how to differentiate SEO Copywriting from the usual copywriting. These lessons will teach you about the […]

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SEO Copywriting

What’s the difference between SEO Copywriting and Copywriting?

Is there a difference in Content Strategy?

A difference in the style of writing?

And ultimately, what makes each one significant?

In this course for SEO School, I will teach you how to differentiate SEO Copywriting from the usual copywriting. These lessons will teach you about the little differences that can make your writing both powerful and critical.

Let’s begin!

Copywriting is an art and science combined. To be a good copywriter, you need to ensure that you have all these three SEO skills intact – Writing, Marketing, and Technical Knowledge.

You will need to learn how to write for both searchers and the search engine. How can you do that? It’s all about finding that sweet spot.

Remember, Google’s number one goal is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” This means that in order for your article to rank (and to rank well), you will need to give people the answers they are looking for.

In this SEO Copywriting course, you will be going through 3 chapters. Each one is designed to hone a specific skill to help you become the best SEO writer.

First, we start with research.

Chapter 1: Art and Science

The Art And Science Of SEO Copywriting

SEO copywriting is all about giving answers to people in a format that can be understood by Google’s algorithm.

In chapter 1 of this SEO Copywriting course, you will learn about how to find your audience, what they’re looking for, and the keywords you need to target for your article to reach them.

Finding Your Audience

One of the best tips when it comes to SEO writing is to know your audience. Who are you writing for? What type of writing style or tone do they gravitate the most towards? And more importantly, what type of help do they need?

Keep these questions in mind as you think about what type of article to write.

If they’re looking for help learning about a certain task, they may prefer a detailed post that explains an intricate step-by-step process. A good example would be detailed recipes such as the one found below.

Snippet Of Recipe Instructions

Or if they’re looking for information about a certain topic that they need quickly, then they may prefer a page that is straight to the point such as this one.

Snippet Of The Definition Of The Word "Keyword"

Finding Your Intent

With Google’s algorithm growing and learning at a rapid pace, some old SEO practices have become obsolete.

Black hat SEO practices of keyword stuffing and invisible text especially will not work against Google’s advanced Artificial Intelligence.

To dominate the rankings, your article has to fit the intent of the keyword you are targeting. Meaning, you must create content that can answer people’s problems and pain points.

At the end of the day, people go on search engines for help. Your job as an SEO copywriter is to give them the solutions that they’re looking for.

Here are the four types of search intent for SEO that you need to know:

  1. Informational: people looking for information (e.g. how-to articles)
  2. Transactional: people looking to purchase a product (e.g. e-commerce shops)
  3. Navigational: people already looking for a certain website (e.g. brand websites)
  4. Commercial: people looking to buy in the near future (e.g. product reviews)

Finding Your Keywords

To make sure that your article will find its way to the search results of your chosen audience, you have to make sure that it is Search Engine Optimized. One of the most important ways you can ensure that your article ranks are through keywords.

When choosing a keyword, put yourself in the searcher’s shoes. What type of keywords would they put into Google to find the best results? At the same time, how would they phrase it?

Let’s say you were looking to learn about aggregate rating schema for the first time. You could use keywords such as “what is aggregate rating schema” or “aggregate rating schema definition.” They’re short and straight to the point.

Featured Snippet of The Definition of Aggregate Rating Schema

However, let’s say you already know about aggregate rating schema and instead you want to learn how to integrate it onto your site. Then, you could use the keyword “how to add aggregate rating schema with coding”. It’s longer, but that extra info is needed for Google to understand what you need.

If you want to learn more about this, check out our chapter on SEO Copywriting: Art and Science.

Chapter 2: Wordsmith vs. Wordplay

SEO Copywriting And Being A Wordsmith

Now that you’ve figured out your audience, search intent, and keyword, you’re ready to write. As I mentioned earlier, SEO copywriting is all about finding a balance between what searchers need and what search engines are looking for.

Writing Your Content

First, let’s talk about your content. How long it will be should depend on your target audience. Let’s say you want to target people needing help with an overheating engine. They won’t have time to sit and read through a 2,000-word article. You need to give them tips that they can digest as fast as possible, in a format that they can read easily.

Featured Snippet Of A How-To Article

At the same time, you have to take note of your tone. In this situation, you wouldn’t want to read an article written like a scholarly essay, would you? You want something straight to the point. With short sentences. And that is conversational and easy to read.

Writing Your Headings

Speaking of formatting, let’s talk headings. Header Tags are used to help Google understand the hierarchy of information on a page.

The H1 is usually the title, which in this case could be “What To Do When Your Car Overheats”. The H2 are your subheadings, these can be used to help feed searchers information faster. These could be points such as “Pull Over”, “Add Coolant”, and “Call For Assistance”. H3s, H4s, H5s, H6s, and so on will be used for additional information. For example, your H3 could be a section about “How To Add Coolant To An Overheating Car”.

Writing With Keyword Integration

Lastly, but definitely not least, we have keyword integration. Keywords are one of the most important factors in a page. It tells Google exactly what your page is about. That’s why it has to be integrated seamlessly into your content.

Make sure you have your keyword on your title. Then, as a rule of thumb, try to place your keyword in 1% of your content. This is called keyword density. You also want to make sure that these are spread evenly throughout your content.

Want to learn how to become a better writer? Check out our chapter on Wordsmith vs. Wordplay.

Chapter 3: User Experience

SEO Copywriting For User Experience

The next step after writing SEO-friendly articles is to publish them. To increase your website’s engagement rate, there are certain factors that you should optimize.

Take note that it’s not just the writing style that you should plan meticulously. You should also visualize how you want to present the information to searchers.

Optimizing Your Design

First thing’s first — be interesting. Don’t just settle for long blocks of text. Instead, learn how to break it up into shorter paragraphs and sentences. Play around with the formatting and layout to find the most appealing one for your audience.

Ensure that the colors of your background, font, and images all work well together. In terms of font size, make sure that it’s big enough for searchers to be able to read it easily.

Optimizing Your Images And Alt Text

Throw in some strategically placed images into your article, and you’ve got yourself an interesting read.

An Image On With Optimized Alt Text

In terms of images, use them to break the monotony of paragraphs full of text. Make sure it’s engaging and, most importantly, related to your topic. Don’t forget to put in alt text to help Google understand what it’s about.

Optimizing Your Interlinks

One other way you can get your readers to be more engaged is through Internal Linking SEO. Chances are, if they enjoy reading your content, they may want to read more of it.

Interlink related articles with the proper anchor text for readers to be able to explore more of your content and the topic they’re interested in.

Optimizing Your Meta Data

Lastly, let’s talk about your meta data. Is it SEO-optimized? Meta data is one of the most important pieces of content, as it is what will affect the searcher’s ultimate decision — will they click on your website or not?

Meta data is comprised of three factors: title tags, meta descriptions, and the URLs.

In terms of the title tag, make sure that you make it short and engaging. A good rule of thumb is to make sure that it only has a maximum of 60 characters.

For your meta description, your goal is to summarize your article in under 150-160 characters. Think of the shortest and most direct way to encourage someone to click on your page versus its competitors.

For the URL, try to put your keyword in it to help improve its rankings.

If you want to write articles better curated for users, check out our chapter on SEO Copywriting for User Experience.

Want To Be A Better SEO Writer? Take Our SEO Copywriting Course!

Our SEO Copywriting course is HIGHLY recommended for those who want to be a full-fledged SEO in no time. I just also want to point out that the notion “SEO Copywriting is writing for search engines” is definitely not true. You are still writing for people but are MINDFUL of the search engine’s favor of optimized content. There’s a huge difference between those lines – which will be uncovered as we go through each lesson.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on July 27, 2012. This was updated on July 8, 2021 to give a more comprehensive tutorial on SEO Copywriting.

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How To Make Search Intent Optimized Blog Content https://seo-hacker.com/search-intent-optimized-blog/ https://seo-hacker.com/search-intent-optimized-blog/#respond Thu, 28 Jan 2021 10:27:35 +0000 https://seo-hacker.com/?p=19332 Search intent is one of the most important factors to consider when you’re trying to rank for any keyword on Google. Besides learning how to utilize search intent for keyword research, you should also know how to develop your articles around it. Take note that the more relevant your content is to a user’s search […]

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How To Make Search Intent Optimized Blog Content

Search intent is one of the most important factors to consider when you’re trying to rank for any keyword on Google. Besides learning how to utilize search intent for keyword research, you should also know how to develop your articles around it. Take note that the more relevant your content is to a user’s search intent, the higher you can rank on the SERPs. To help you do just that, today I will be showing you how to make search intent optimized blog content.

Give Advice For Informational Queries

Users who search for keywords with an informational search intent are looking for answers to their questions. These answers can vary depending on their needs, but Google’s algorithm can detect the context of their search and bring up the most relevant pages. For example, the keyword “barley grass” brings up informational articles that talk about its health benefits rather than pages created to sell barley grass products.

Information Search Intent Keyword: Give Advice For Informational Queries

To make informational search intent optimized blog content, give your readers good advice. Here are a few ways that you can do just that:

Share Tips Through Lifestyle Content

The best way to create content for a keyword with an informational search intent is by simply answering the user’s query. That’s it. Take a look at the knowledge graph our team created for the keyword “refrigerator cleanings tips”. It’s simple, relevant, and informational.

Informational Search Intent Sample: Share Tips Through Lifestyle Content

Suggest Relevant Products

If the user’s search query is looking for product options to address a need they have, your blog content should focus on suggesting relevant products to them. Make sure that instead of promoting your products, you focus more on promoting their benefits. Here’s a sample from a blog that we created for people looking for anti-aging supplements:

Informational Search Intent Sample: Suggest Relevant Products

These types of blogs can also be utilized for keywords with transactional or commercial search intent. All you need to do is focus on the right parts that can address the user’s needs.

Provide Details For Transactional Queries

Keywords with a transactional search intent are there to help searchers looking to purchase an item. They already know what product they want to buy, the question is where they can get it. The right way to optimize your blog content for keywords with a transactional search intent is to prove how your product can benefit them. Here’s how you can do it:

Show How Your Product Works

One way you can showcase a product is by writing about how it works. For example, if someone searches “kitchen flooring philippines”, you can come across one of the landing pages that our team wrote. Since the keyword has a transactional intent, we wrote about the client’s product and how it can benefit possible customers.

This can show the customer why out of all of the options online, they should choose to invest in your product.

Transactional Search Intent Sample: Show How Product Works

Show Alternatives For Commercial Investigation Queries

The last type of search intent that I’ll be teaching you how to write for is for commercial investigation queries. Commercial investigation search queries are for those who are thinking of purchasing a product in the near future. They want to know more about their options before they make their final decision.

One way you can create commercial investigation intent optimized blogs is by creating product comparisons.

Product Comparisons

If a product has left a searcher unconvinced, chances are they’re going to search for alternatives online. This is where you come in. Product comparisons can highlight the advantages of your product or service over your competitors. The goal is to win the customer over by showing them what they’re missing.

Here’s a short clip from an article we made:

Commercial Investigation Search Intent Sample: Product Comparisons

Key Takeaway

The key to getting searchers to click on your blog is to ensure that you satisfy their search intent. If they have more of an informational query, it’s best to give them useful advice. If they have more of a transactional query, make sure you highlight the best and most helpful product details. If they have a commercial query, make sure that you provide them with product comparisons for their future purchase.

Now you know how to make search intent optimized blog content. Use these tips when writing to create relevant content that can dominate the SERPs.

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How-to Use Pop-Ups Without Negatively Affecting Your SEO https://seo-hacker.com/pop-ups-negatively-affecting-seo/ https://seo-hacker.com/pop-ups-negatively-affecting-seo/#comments Thu, 01 Jun 2017 08:59:07 +0000 https://seo-hacker.com/?p=12179 Google’s devaluation of intrusive pop-ups and other invasive interstitials to heighten mobile user experience has affected the overall use of the traditional pop-up. SEO experts have constantly questioned if they should still use the pop-feature or not. At any rate, advertising through pop-ups really do work. That is why a great number of businesses have […]

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Using Pop-Ups Without Negatively Affecting Your SEO

Google’s devaluation of intrusive pop-ups and other invasive interstitials to heighten mobile user experience has affected the overall use of the traditional pop-up. SEO experts have constantly questioned if they should still use the pop-feature or not. At any rate, advertising through pop-ups really do work.

That is why a great number of businesses have expressed dislike on the devaluation of one of their main marketing components. So, what do you do if you still need to use pop-ups or interstitials while not negatively affecting your overall SEO campaign? Well, there are still ways in which pop-ups can be effective. Here are tips that can help you use them without risking your SEO.

Know Which Interstitials Should Not Be Used

 The term “interstitial” could mean a variety of things; it mostly applies to pop-ups, modals, and overlays. Google’s penalties are specifically directed to the intrusive interstitials in the mobile platform, but not all interstitials are intrusive.

Essentially, interstitials are spammy, difficult to close, and they lessen the user’s experience on your website. Regarding these group of facts, if you are the webmaster of a site that is riddled with interstitials, then your page might be penalized. At the same time, Google announced that indexing now focuses on the mobile platform, it will considerably affect you search engine results page (SERP) rankings. Here are the examples of intrusive interstitials:

  • Pop-ups that cover the content of your page, and forces the users to close the pop-up just to continue reading.
  • Standalone interstitials that show up before the user can access the content.
  • Pages wherein the layout make the upper portion look like an interstitial.

In the first phone, it is a standard intrusive pop-up. For the second and third phones, it highlights standalone intrusive interstitials. Notice that all of these disrupt your experience while reading the content – which effectively makes them intrusive.

On the other hand, there are also advertisements wherein Google has explicitly shown dislike, and has penalized in the past. They are as follows:

  • New window pop-ups that open when a user clicks on your page.
  • Classic interstitial and splash advertisements that interrupt the user when they are navigating through your pages on their way to the homepage.
  • Overlay modals that are difficult to close, and easily redirect users when they clicked.
  • Intrusive lightbox advertisements and pop-ups.
  • New window pop-ups, welcome mats, and other intrusive advertisements.

However, Google’s John Mueller confirmed that interstitials triggered by an intent to exit are still allowed. However, it is not good to rely on these types of interstitials because nothing good comes out of annoying your visitors.

Continue the Use of Non-Intrusive Interstitials

As mentioned above, non-intrusive interstitials are still tolerated by Google. These normally include any interstitial that you are legally required to display to restrict content or to simply inform your visitors of anything vital that they may need to be informed about.

Examples of these are cookies use notifications and age verification interstitials.

Other kinds of pop-ups such as slide-ins, inlines, banner ads, and tabs, that take up an understandable amount of the display space are also allowed – as long as they do not. Also, it is important to remember that the preferred space that pop-ups should take up on the page is 15% or less.

If you do not have the sufficient knowledge to determine whether an interstitial is intrusive or not; you should focus on using these specific kinds: top banners and slide-in boxes that allow for continuous viewing while still being able to be closed easily; it also does not ruin the user’s experience. Similarly, full-screen overlays, advertisement modals, and welcome mats should be avoided at all costs.

If you cannot help but depend on the use of pop-ups and other interstitials, you should make it a point to redesign them to be less intrusive as possible. One of the primary changes that you can make is to the timing of each and every interstitial. Instead of showing a pop-up every time a user accesses your page, you can time it to show up at the estimated time when your visitor finishes reading the content.

You can also limit the time wherein a pop-up stays on a page. Always remember that a pop-up that disappears after 3 seconds of inactivity is better than one that does not close automatically. Obviously, these kinds of pop-ups are only as effective as your content. So, if your content cannot make the user stay on the page, they will not be able to see your advertisement. If you notice that this happens regularly, you should first focus on content marketing rather than filling the page with advertisements.

If you notice that this happens regularly, you should first focus on content marketing rather than filling the page with advertisements.

Be Cautious of Ambiguous Interstitials

Yes, they exist. Ambiguous interstitials are the kind that gets penalized without you having the knowledge that they are not allowed. One such example is the language selection pop-ups for international websites because they are still considered as pop-ups; no matter how useful they may be.

You should make it a habit to constantly check the performance of your page if you are using these interstitials: related posts, sticky sidebars, live chat boxes, share buttons, and coupon pop-ups. While they are not proven to negatively affect your SEO campaign, it is always better to be safe than to regret it later on.

Exercise Caution When Using Approved Pop-Ups

Take note that pop-ups are essentially intrusive, however, there are still certain types of interstitials that are tolerated by Google. But, even though they are permitted, they might be penalized in the near future when Google finally decides to get rid of the existence of pop-ups. Examples of permitted pop-ups are:

  • Interstitials Triggered by Exit Intent – This was mentioned above, so when you are using this kind of pop-up; you should make sure that you have put a no-index tag in your code to avoid getting penalized.
  • Page-to-Page Interstitials – It was mentioned that Google only devalues the interstitials that show when you go from the SERPs to a site page. On the other hand, interstitials that show up when you navigate from site page to another page are still allowed. However, it is common knowledge that Google focuses on improved user experience, so it is not impossible for them to devalue page-to-page interstitials in the near future; because it still lessens user experience.

That is why it is important for you to exercise caution when you use these kinds of interstitials.

Desktop Interstitials are still Allowed

The solution that most webmasters have come up with in regards to the interstitials devaluation is to hide the pop-ups for the mobile platform, but still, retain it in the desktop version. There exists a variety of pop-up plugins that you can use to target only specific kinds of platforms. Also, there are website plugins wherein you can hide all intrusive pop-ups for mobile platforms.

Even if this is the case, it is still better to turn away from the use of pop-up advertisements since Google’s goal is to bring about the best user experience. At this rate, interstitials will eventually be devalued and penalized because they are usually associated with giving people a bad user experience.

If you cannot turn away from the use of interstitials, you should find other permanent ways wherein you do not need to hide the pop-ups. Look for other alternatives that you could advertise your website or brand on, other than pop-ups.

Another way in which you can exploit is to put pop-ups in pages that can be accessed through other sources other than from the search results page of Google. This is because Google’s aim is to reduce the pop-ups that show up when you are directed from their results to a certain site’s page.

However, pop-ups that show up when you came from other sources is still allowed. As long as it is an action between the user and the webmaster, Google will not devalue or penalize anything. They only devalue features that are related to them, so other than the process of going to a website from the search engine results, Google will not do anything.

On the other hand, if your website is dependent on organic searches, and it is an effective way to generate leads, then switching is not a necessity. Just remember that incorporating one or two interstitials is fine, but if you fill your site with numerous pop-ups, you will eventually get penalized.

Key Takeaway

 This update regarding the devaluation of pop-ups has been active since early January, so if you did not know about this update; take note of the things mentioned here. Pop-ups are crucial for the advertising or marketing of a certain brand/website, but they sometimes get abused and are disruptive to a visitor’s experience to your website. Hence, if you are dependent of pop-ups and other interstitials, this article will help you.

Can you now “safely” use pop-ups in your mobile SEO strategy? Do you know anything else about the devaluation of interstitials for the mobile platform? Let’s talk about it in the comments below.

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Your Rankings Won’t Improve Until You Try These Techniques https://seo-hacker.com/rankings-improve-techniques/ https://seo-hacker.com/rankings-improve-techniques/#comments Tue, 30 May 2017 09:52:14 +0000 https://seo-hacker.com/?p=12155 This happens more often than a seasoned SEO practitioner would think: They exert all their efforts into making sure that their strategy is top-notch, white hat, and is used by many; only to garner little, to no results. Why does this happen though? Many businesses that dabble on SEO are mystified when they do everything […]

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Steps to Take When Your Search Rankings Do Not Improve

This happens more often than a seasoned SEO practitioner would think: They exert all their efforts into making sure that their strategy is top-notch, white hat, and is used by many; only to garner little, to no results. Why does this happen though?

Many businesses that dabble on SEO are mystified when they do everything correctly, but their search rankings just would not improve. It is discouraging, to say the least; because you use up a lot of your time, energy, and even money; only to see it wasted.

However, I am here to tell you that this is perfectly normal; this is just the natural ‘progression’ of the ever-changing mountain that is SEO. There are still ways in which you can still improve your search engine results page (SERP) rankings; even if your current strategy does not work.

This surely will not be easy, but if you put in the necessary effort, time, and money, you will see your desired results. So, there is no need to be worried about your search engine rankings not improving. Here are techniques that you can use when your SERPs rankings just won’t improve.

 

Your Rankings Won't Improve Until You Try These Techniques

More often than not, the SEO strategy you are using is definitely imperfect This happens because SEO’s landscape is broad, and the topics that it encompasses are manifold; from content creation to robot.txt files, SEO can be a difficult task to undertake. Which is why you should first analyze the SEO strategy that you are currently using.

To peruse your SEO strategy, you must know the different components that are essential to an effective SEO strategy. Fortunately, Moz published an 8-step SEO strategy guide, here are the steps:

  • Step 1: Define Your Target Audience and Their Need
  • Step 2: Categorize Keyword Research
  • Step 3: Finding Gaps and Opportunities
  • Step 4: Define Competitors
  • Step 5: Spying On (And Learning From) Your Competitors
  • Step 6: Customized SEO Strategy & Recommendations
  • Step 7: Must-have SEO Recommendations
  • Step 8: Prioritize and Summarize

It is important to remember that your SEO strategy should have all these components.

If you have examined your current SEO strategy, and you are sure that it is complete, it is time to apply these techniques to ensure the improvement of your search rankings:

Optimize and enhance your HTTP

Recently, Google has started releasing changes to their algorithms that wanted to ensure a better user experience. A big part of user experience is site security, and that is what you need to improve upon. It is highly noticeable that the letters “HTTP” is at the beginning of every site URL. However, having “HTTP” at the start of a site’s URL means that it is unsecured, and is generally not trustworthy.

On the other hand, sites that have “HTTPS” means that they are secure, and is generally trusted by the search engines. If you are a Google Chrome user, you would have probably noticed that when you visit a site, and it has “HTTPS”; the text on the left side of the URL bar turns green, and has a padlock symbol. This means that the site is secure, and is trustworthy. Take a look at our site’s URL:

As you can see, if the text on the left side is green and has a padlock symbol beside the word “Secure”. This occurrence can be considered as Google’s certificate of authenticity; thousands – or even millions – of people use this function to determine if the site that they are visiting is legitimate or not.

Aside from proving that your website is secure, Google also gives improved rankings to sites with “HTTPS”. While it does not give an immense boost in ranking, it still helps. All of these are enough reasons to make you want to convert into HTTPS. Also, it has been reported that Google will penalize sites that are unencrypted. So, it is better to upgrade to HTTPS than to get penalized.

Additionally, you can also consider upgrading to HTTP/2. Aside from making your website secure, it also helps increase the site’s speed, which in turn, can positively impact your SEO.

Ensure that you are mobile friendly

This is practically common knowledge, but some people still disregard the importance of making their websites more mobile friendly. There are numerous sites that claim they are mobile friendly, however, they are only semi-mobile friendly. They can be considered as just a shrunken version of the desktop page. And it never looks good.

So, make sure that your website is really mobile friendly. Just take a look at the mobile friendly website of SEO-Hacker:

mobile friendly website of SEO-Hacker

It is clear that the site is optimized for mobile users because it shows that same content with the desktop version, but is the overall look is for the mobile platform. By optimizing your website to a more mobile friendly version, you will be catering to too much more people; because the general public mostly uses their mobile decides to explore the internet.

Also, by making your mobile-friendly site more responsive will increase user engagement by a considerable number.

Aside from making the website more mobile friendly, you should also make sure that every aspect of your site is really mobile friendly – especially the content. Most webmasters create content without even thinking about the mobile users; which is a grave mistake. Think about it: today, most people are browsing the internet through their smartphones, what happens if your website’s content is not mobile friendly enough? You will be effectively losing visitors in the long run because of your below average content management.

It sounds radical, but mobile should be a big part of your life as an SEO practitioner. It should be one of your utmost priorities whenever the design of a website is in the works. So, always make sure that your website is really mobile friendly; remove any flaws or errors that you have found while examining the mobile version of your site.

How to utilize technical SEO

Whenever a practitioner hears the term “technical SEO”, it often leaves them scared and nervous. However, even if it is daunting, it is one of the primary helpers in increasing a website’s ranking. Sometimes, when people do SEO, and they do it correctly, but they do not get the results they wanted; it oftentimes is because of they lack the incorporation of technical SEO. There are three main categories for technical SEO, namely:

three main categories for technical SEO

On-page and off-page are more commonly known by practitioners. While the technical aspect is often left out and disregarded. It is unrelated to the actual content of the website, but it deals with mobile friendliness, site speed, and HTML/XML sitemaps.

Structured Data

Also known as schema markup, incorporation of structured data on your site can give you a definitive advantage over other websites; because it is the one that helps the search engine robots understand what everything in your website means.

Basically, when search engine robots cannot read the data inside your website, you have to be the one to tell them. Integrating structured data is not as hard as it sounds, Google has its Structured Data Markup Helper to do the job for you:

Structured Data Markup Helper

You just need to select your structured data type, input your URL, and start tagging.

Avoid duplicate content

It is common knowledge that Google does not like duplicate content. However, some have the notion that re-posting their old content is considered as duplicate content. It’s not. An instance of duplicate content is when two different URLs lead to the same

An instance of duplicate content is when two different URLs lead to the same web page. Here’s an example:

two different URLs lead to the same web page

This is Zalora’s page when you click on Men’s Shoes. Now, take a look at following URL:

other example of two different URLs leading to the same web page

Notice that the URL is very different from the first photo. It is the same page, however, their URLs are far from being the same. The second photo was opened from an email campaign that Zalora sent out. That is why there is “EmailCampaign” inside the URL of the second photo. This is basically considered as duplicate content.

This is not an issue for casual visitors, however, Google can penalize this occurrence. It does not mean that email marketing, campaigns, and other strategies that might produce duplicate content should stop. There are actual ways on how you can preserve your site’s SEO ethics. You first need to find duplicate content for your site, you can use Siteliner for this:

Siteliner

Siteliner will be the one doing all the work, and will eventually show you a detailed results page on how much duplicate content your site has and where it is located.

Siteliner showing duplicate content

If you have duplicate content, you can use something called the canonical tag. It does not require a decent amount of coding knowledge, even ordinary people can use it. If you have spent enough time in the SEO scene, you might have encountered this tag, it is rel = “canonical”.

If you attach it to a link, search engine crawlers will know that the link is the preferred URL. For instance, you might have a web page with the URL called https://example.com/blog. While other users might also access the same web page using https://example.com/blog&6996.

If you incorporate the canonical tag into the https://example.com/blog, that specific link will be known as the preferred URL to navigate to. Basically, the link that has the canonical tag will be the one shown in the SERPs. Now that the search engine knows that there are multiple links for the same webpage, they will not consider the other links as duplicate content.

Google provides everyone with a support page that helps them use the canonical tag properly.

Google support page

They also provide webmasters with steps that they can take to make sure they do not have any duplicate content.

Google's rules on duplicate content

Avoiding duplicate is not that hard – only if you really are adamant on preventing it. If there are times when you cannot help but use duplicate content, use the canonical tag from the very start to avoid forgetting.

How to achieve easier crawling and indexing

Crawling and indexing are basically the search engine’s way to assess a website, which means it is crucial to the entire SEO scene. It should be a webmaster’s responsibility to ensure that the search engine should be able to quickly and easily look at their respective websites.

However, it is unbeknownst to most people on how they can influence the process of crawling and indexing. Here’s something surprising: you can actually submit your content to Google for indexing. You are basically submitting your content for faster indexing, although this is not always the case. This function allows you to submit all kinds of content:

submit your content to Google for indexing

Normally, you will use the “Add your URL” function to alert Google about a new page/content on your website.

Using Add your URL to show Google your new page/content

This procedure will alert Google that you have a new page and a request for indexation. This feature is best used on brand new pages, but how will you Google’s attention to old links? Well, you can actually request Google to re-crawl your pages. This does not mean an immediate improvement in the SERPs rankings, but it will help. You can do this by using Google’s Search Console.

Here how to do it:

  1. In the left-side bar, press “Crawl” and go to “Fetch as Google”
  2. Choose between what would be fetched if it is the “Desktop” or “Mobile” version
  3. Then, enter the URL you want to be fetched into the box
    1. If you want your homepage to be fetched, just leave the box blank
  4. Click Fetch
  5. Click Request Indexing
  6. Choose if you want Google to just recrawl the specified URL or to recrawl the specified URL and all of the links on the web page.
  7. Press Go

Google states that it would take a few days for them to successfully recrawl the page. It may sound like a long time, however, it is much faster than other methods.

Another way in which you can make crawling and indexing easier is by removing errors. You can do this by again using Google Search Console. Just go to “Crawl” and choose “Crawl Errors”. The most common errors that you might experience are DNS, 404, and server errors. Moz published an article that details on how you can fix these problems. Once you are done, go back to the “Crawl Errors” page, and mark the URLs as “fixed”.

Key takeaway

Oftentimes, practicing proper SEO is not enough to improve your rankings. Hopefully, you apply everything that was included in this article, so that you will have the results you worked hard to obtain. These techniques – or even SEO – is never an easy task to undertake.

You will need dedication, passion, and the will to obtain your desired results. As mentioned, these techniques will help you improve your rankings, but this will not be enough. If you start using these techniques, you will need to constantly apply these, because if not, then you would have just wasted your time, energy, and money.

Were these techniques helpful? Do you know other ways on how to improve your rankings if your current SEO strategy is not working? Tell me in the comments below, and let’s talk.

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Advanced SEO Techniques to Improve Your Site Traffic https://seo-hacker.com/advanced-seo-techniques-improve-site-traffic/ https://seo-hacker.com/advanced-seo-techniques-improve-site-traffic/#comments Thu, 25 May 2017 10:05:10 +0000 https://seo-hacker.com/?p=12139 Understanding and meeting your target audience’s needs can considerably increase your site’s traffic and your overall conversion rate. Evidently, there are thousands – or even millions – looking for your website, even if you do not know it. It is your job to help them look for your site in an easier and more efficient […]

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Advanced SEO Techniques to Improve Your Site Traffic

Understanding and meeting your target audience’s needs can considerably increase your site’s traffic and your overall conversion rate. Evidently, there are thousands – or even millions – looking for your website, even if you do not know it.

It is your job to help them look for your site in an easier and more efficient manner, and the only way that you could help them is to learn SEO. Becoming an expert in this online field is actually easier than most people make it out to be, and you can save a lot of money by not having to hire an SEO service provider.

Based on B2B marketing, every month, Google’s search engine goes through an average of 10.3 million searches. In the U.S., an estimate of 78% of the population uses the internet to search for products and services.

Consequently, if your website is highly ranked in Google, you will notice an increase in revenue because of the increase of clicks that you receive. Similarly, people have short attention spans, and want to find the right website at the first page of the organic search results; that is why the sites that are ranked in the first page of Google searches receive higher traffic than those located in the other pages.

It is common knowledge that a website’s traffic primarily comes from search queries, which only necessitates the need for high-quality search engine optimization. So, here are advanced SEO techniques that you should implement immediately to increase the rate of visitors you receive, search traffic, and your conversion rate.

Audit Your Site Structure

audit your site structure

Auditing is more commonly known as a systematic process wherein you assess, examine, and determine which areas are underperforming in events, results, concepts, and financial matters. After auditing, you can make smarter decisions regarding the area that you audited. In SEO terms, auditing is a technique that can help attract and retain a handful of customers. Basically, auditing a site structure is done to discover why a website is not getting enough search traffic and sales.

When you audit, you should examine your site’s performance as closely as you can, and proceed to implement a new set of goals that are based on your assessment. This will enable you to have an increase in profit while still having the same workload as before.

If you are knowledgeable enough, you can conduct the auditing yourself, but if you do not have any knowledge whatsoever of auditing your site’s structure, here are some simple steps:

  • There are websites that can assess your web page, and one of them is Quicksprout. Go to the website and input your page URL into the search box
  • Click the “Log in with Google” button to start the assessment
  • Analyze the results from Quicksprout

The analysis that Quicksprout provides includes your website’s SEO score, speed score, errors, warnings, load time, page size, and requests. The great thing about Quicksprout is that it gives you details on the problems of your site. By taking into consideration what Quicksprout gives, you can already remove or improve the page elements that are deemed as red flags.

The common warnings that webmasters experience are related to the heading tags; because the optimal heading tags should only contain 15 to 65 characters, but most of us create heading tags that are more than 70 characters.

SEO experts might tell you that this simple change in one element will not improve the overall page rankings, but it will definitely get you more clicks, and more clicks mean improved traffic. This is all due to the fact that heading tags and meta descriptions are important SEO elements and should be created properly.

Google expects to see them in pages because they are a basic, standard-compliant HTML element. That’s how you can gain more traffic when you properly create heading tags and meta description. Similarly, properly created headings can give your visitors a much better experience because the subheadings and the body stand out, which will enable your readers to understand and better enjoy your content.

Data Research from End-User Value

data research from end user value

Essentially, Google is a data company which makes every platform, tool, or algorithm that they send out primarily for one purpose: to get data from users and use it to improve and build a stronger system called the search engine. Similarly, you need to use the data that comes from your target audience. The feedback that your ideal users of a product or service give will help you create content that is in accordance with their own tastes and standards.

Basically, the public is responsible for the sharing, funding, or production of a certain idea or concept. Obtaining that relevant data can be hard, but if you know which social media platform your target audience spends the most time in, you can already assess what their preferences are. Here are some basic steps that you can use to collect data from your desired users (Quora is the social media platform that will be used as an example):

  • Go to Quora., and input your primary keyword in the search box
  • Click search
  • Assess which of the results has the most answers, or click on the most relevant headline and read the answers that the users provided for that certain thread.
  • Extract the ideas, brainstorm on how you can convert the ideas into an SEO-worthy content, create the content, and publish it.

The important thing to remember is that data research is only useful if it is applicable to your users. Also, as long as you can create content that can answer user queries, your site’s search traffic and conversion rate will significantly improve.

Creating More Optimized Landing Pages

Creating More Optimized Landing Pages

Most B2B companies do not regard the importance of having landing pages that are in search results. They do not know that by creating more high-quality landing pages can improve and open their doors for improved search traffic; because a well-made, optimal landing page can improve sales and lead generation.

A considerable amount of clicks in a B2B company’s website direct the user to the homepage, and not a landing page. Obviously, homepages are important, but the landing pages are where you try to build a relationship with each and every visitor.

Unbeknownst to most webmasters, optimal landing pages can generate more income than other pages in a website. Take Moz for example, Conversion Rate Experts made $1M from a single, optimized landing page and some email promotions. This only necessitates having more optimized landing pages for business websites and having quality link building can definitely help as well. The goal is to create more clickable pages with an impressive value proposition.

Here’s a simplified version on how you can optimize your landing pages:

  • Choose a long-tail keyword, and create a landing page for it so that you can gain results from search engines
  • Add title tags, meta tag description, and keywords
  • Use the keywords as naturally as you can, so that you can avoid keyword stuffing.
  • The content of the landing page should be 2000+ words because that is the standard on how you can prove to Google that your page is more valuable than others, and that it deserves to be ranked higher.
  • Your landing pages should be useful.
  • Write the landing page to persuade visitors to take the next step
  • Always remember that the perfect landing page contains a headline, secondary headline, bullet points, and CTA’s (call-to-actions)

The primary purpose of your landing pages is to engage with your audience without ever having to meet them. When your landing pages start to rank up for their main keywords, you can tweak the content, or add more CTA’s to increase your conversion rate; while also improving your skills in SEO.

Also, having a beautiful design will help your landing page succeed, because if you have a well-written landing page, but your design is not up-to-par, then the whole landing page will downright fail. This is because the design of your landing page is as important as the content itself. It makes your page unique, and it gives your readers a different experience than just reading the content.

Lastly, build link in your landing pages. Links are an essential part of Google’s ranking factors. Without links, your page will not rank – even if it is full of quality content and unique designs. So, always incorporate a link to all your pages!

Site Responsiveness and Being Mobile Friendly

Site Responsiveness and Being Mobile Friendly

The growth rate for mobile search queries has unexpectedly multiplied over the last couple of years; which will entail more traffic if you make your website more mobile friendly. Since the introduction of smartphones, people have begun to use their mobile gadgets to access and scour the world wide web.

Similarly, mobile users are more passionate shoppers because of the fact that they can buy anything from anywhere; which is impossible to do when you are a desktop user. Again, there is unlimited potential for gaining more search traffic when you make your website more mobile-friendly.

Improve Your Infographics

Improve Your Infographics

Using infographics is one of the simplest ways that you can increase your site’s search traffic. Infographics have so much potential when it comes you increasing your web traffic. You can imagine for yourself that when you create high-quality content that is visual in nature. However, most people do not focus enough on the information part, while wasting their time on the graphics part. That is why you have to make sure you have a balance between the two whenever you make an infographic.

You may ask yourself: Why do people prefer infographics? Well, the simplest answer is that the human brain processes visual information faster than just plain text. Also, research has concluded that 90% of information that enters the human brain is purely visual.

Generating Increased Search Visitors through infographics is something that most people do not know. Here’s something that can help you:

  • Create an infographic through thorough research about trending ideas or topics.
  • Couple your infographic with fresh, high-quality content that introduces your audience to a more detailed discussion of the “information” part of the infographic.
  • Submit your infographic to infographics directories.
  • Focus on building quality links because it is never about the quantity.

Use Latent Semantic Indexing

Use Latent Semantic Indexing

Through the years, SEO has evolved to adapt to the regular algorithm updates made by Google. One factor the Google uses to determine the rank of a page is Latent Semantic Indexing or LSI. It is essentially an indexing and retrieval technique that makes use of mathematical formulas to identify any patterns in specific parts of a text.

Simply put, LSI constantly finds the synonyms of keywords. It helps your website rank higher because it aids Google in understanding the topic that your content is talking about, and how relevant it is to the search query every user inputs.

Here’s an example: Whenever you use the word “Apple”, through LSI, Google determines that “Apple” is the company that Steve Jobs headed, and not about the fruit. Also, always avoid keyword stuffing in your content to avoid being penalized. However, if you LSI keyword, which is basically the synonyms of your chosen keywords, then it will not be regarded as keyword stuffing.

Here are a few reminders when you use LSI keywords:

  • Always look for LSI keywords that are synonymous to a specific keyword, but has different spelling and structure.
  • Never overstuff your content with LSI keywords. Only use them when they flow naturally within a certain paragraph.
  • Write naturally. Avoid making the LSI keywords become more important than the keyword that you are trying to rank.
  • Always remember that the LSI keyword is there to provide additional meaning to your content, and help Google understand the topic at hand.

Essentially, Google always looks for these key terms in your content. If they find these keywords, Google believes that the readers will benefit from them as well; which will enable you to have higher rankings.

Your Competitor’s Keywords

Your Competitor’s Keywords

Researching your competitors is a move that is widely acted out in the business industry, and it is also common in the online business platform. You can research your competitor’s keywords that they are ranking for, then you create much better content for those keywords that will be published in your own website. Also, knowing which keywords that your competitors are using is easy, here’s how:

  • Go to SEMrush
  • Input your competitor’s site URL
  • Set the country to wherever you are located in, or the country your target market is in
  • Click search
  • Analyze the live keywords that pop-up
  • Verify the ranking of the keywords by doing a quick Google search, and inputting the keywords that you have researched

After doing all of these, you can now create much better content for the keywords that you have researched, and you should also build link in that particular page to boost its capability to rank. Also, it would be helpful if you research the sites that link to your competitor’s site.

Then, contact the sites that you have found, and tell them about your article that is closely related to your competitor’s. There is a high possibility that they will link to your page as well, which will give you additional referral traffic. One site that you can use to find the pages that link to your competitor’s pages is Backlinkwatch.com.

Being Active on Authoritative Platforms

Being Active on Authoritative Platforms

You can get ranked better in Google, generate more traffic, and build a new following, by simply being active on an authoritative platform. Authoritative platforms are websites wherein millions of users visit, and sites that rank for whatever keyword they target.

Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are not authoritative platforms but are helpful in user engagement rather than being direct ranking factors. Examples of authoritative sites include: Quora, Slideshare, Blogger, and Docstoc; these websites helps you engage your followers while directly affecting your ranking factors. Here’s an example of how you can improve your rankings using authoritative sites, in this instance, Slideshare is what we are using:

  • Find a trending topic or idea that you can use as your presentation topic
  • Create an outline for your intended presentation
  • Find images that you can use to support your content
  • Study and use successful Slideshare presentations to improve your own presentation
  • Finally, create your Slideshare presentation

Another thing that can help you establish your authority in search rankings is to share your presentation to websites like Docstoc, scribd, and animoto. You will attract fresh, younger audience, and boost your link through the use of SEO service tools.

Deep Linking To Internal Pages

Deep Linking To Internal Pages

Deep linking is basically the act of creating anchor texts that link to other pages in your website. This helps Google determine the depth of your web pages. Most people directs their focus on acquiring visitors for their website, but they fail to regard the importance of having to rank their internal pages. Unbeknownst to people, their older landing pages, and blog posts can actually pull in a lot more traffic; which is why it important to link to those internal pages frequently. Interlinking to your pages will not only help you improve the SEO value of those pages, but will also help those pages rank – even for tough keywords.

However, before you start creating links to your internal pages, you should first assess the rate of inbound links for your homepage, you can do this by:

  • Going to Moz’s OpenSiteExplorer
  • Input your site URL into the search box and click search
  • Click on the “Top Pages” in the top-left menu
  • Examine the inbound links
    • If you have more inbound links on your homepage, you will have a higher bounce rate; which is where deep linking helps.

Here are additional reasons why you should deep link to your internal pages

  • It improves page authority
    • Google has an inkling for fresh content because recent information is more beneficial to the users.
    • So, when you link to your internal pages, you give them more authority.
    • It is important that you work towards improving the page authority of internal pages – and not just your homepage.
    • Google give a “freshness score” for content based on the date that it was published. This score can decay over time, but when you link to it and give it additional traffic, it will help stop the ranking decay of the specific page.
  • Your internal pages will be indexable
    • Constantly linking to your internal pages will help search engine crawlers find and index your landing pages
    • Then, you can ping high authority search SEO service directories like Weblogs and Newsgator. These pages are easily found by search crawlers because they are in the same space and they use similar backend codes.

Lastly, it is important to remember that when you link to internal pages from other blogs, the ideal action that you should take is to use your brand name + keyword or use LSI keywords.

Your Archive Pages

Your Archive Pages

If you have been blogging for a considerable amount of time, you should revisit your archives to re-use them for great results. Some of the content that you have written are still generating organic traffic even if you do not monitor them on a regular basis. You can improve these pages and use their authority for higher search rankings.

Start by identifying which of your archive pages performed best, and from there, create a much better content that is based on recent trends and ideas; which will significantly improve your search traffic. Here’s how you can know which of your archive pages performed best:

  • Log in to Google Analytics
  • Click the Behavior tab on the left side
  • Go to Site Content, then All Pages
  • Look for the best-performing pages from 3 to 6 months ago

From there, you can double your search traffic by:

  • Writing a shareable headline
    • The most crucial part here is to generate a headline that will persuade people to share your archive page
    • It should give viewers a sense of curiosity, while still retaining the clarity of the page
  • Back it up with some facts and statistics
    • Always include research or experiments conducted that are related to your topic.
    • If the viewers only have you as the only one making an assertion, they might not open your page, but if you have supporting data and statistics; there will be a higher chance that they open the page.

Key Takeaway

Your content pages, or blogs, are powerful marketing tools that can help you significantly improve sales, lead generation, and conversion rate. However, it is not easy to produce content on a regular basis, and you may even have the urge to give up at times.

But, the most important thing to remember is that nothing ever comes easy – especially when it comes to the online landscape of your business. Knowing these advanced SEO techniques will significantly help you gain traffic, and in establishing your brand.

Can you now implement these advanced SEO techniques to your own website? Do you have other advanced techniques that will help improve the SEO scene? Let’s discuss.

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Finding Problems in your Google Analytics Data (And How to Fix Them) https://seo-hacker.com/finding-problems-google-analytics-data-fix/ https://seo-hacker.com/finding-problems-google-analytics-data-fix/#comments Thu, 18 May 2017 10:45:49 +0000 https://seo-hacker.com/?p=12119 Ever since the creation and distribution of Google Analytics, several people have used it to track and report on their website’s traffic. Tracking through the use of Google analytics can help you learn some valuable information on who is visiting your website, the rate of visitors on your website, what the visitors do, and whether […]

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Finding Problems in your Google Analytics Data (And How to Fix Them)

Ever since the creation and distribution of Google Analytics, several people have used it to track and report on their website’s traffic. Tracking through the use of Google analytics can help you learn some valuable information on who is visiting your website, the rate of visitors on your website, what the visitors do, and whether the website does its intended objective.

However, tracking through the Google Analytics requires constant attention and upkeep; without these, you’ll only be blindly depending on the data that you gather, or you will likely be not using it at all.

The data that you gather through Google Analytics is truly helpful, to say the least, especially for websites that are for businesses. This is due to the fact that the data you receive will help you formulate and make smart business decisions that can help you move forward. But, data will always remain as an object that is prone to errors if you are not careful.

But, you should not worry about the errors that can occur because they can be easily avoided. You just have to know what the common problems are with the Google Analytics data, and how you can fix them. Let’s get started.

 

#1. Self-Referrals

Google defines self-referrals as referral traffic that originates from pages within your own domain. This is a big problem that most people would not know how to detect and fix.

 

  • The Effect
    • When a self-referral happens to a user, it means that their current session has been broken and has restarted without them leaving your website. Then, Google Analytics interprets your domain as the referrer, which will affect and overwrite the actual acquisition information.
  • The Cause
    • This happens because of some errors in your tracking implementation; examples of which include: improper cross-domain tagging, missing tracking code, internal link tagging with UTM parameters, untagged landing pages, and much more.
  • Finding Out

    • Within Google Analytics, go to the Referrals report. Then, scan the report to find out if your web properties are involved. Properties that are interpreted to be self-referrals include your domain (e.g. yourwebsitename.com) and other pages related to your website (e.g. contactus.yourwebsitename.com).
  • Fixing It

    • The first thing that you should do is to report this to the person handling your tracking implementation. Self-referrals can be easily addressed by configuring tracking on an untracked company web property. Basically, if people can be redirected from your site to the untracked web property, it should be tracking. If this does not work, you can do adjustments to your cross-domain implementation, or you can even remove UTM parameters on internal website links, to see if it still does not work.

 

#2. Referral Spam

Referral spam is basically fake traffic sources that dirty your Google Analytics data. This will mess with the data that Google Analytics gives you, and will eventually affect the decisions you make based on the data.

  • The Effect
    • Referral spam can affect metric calculated based sessions such as bounce rates, average session duration, pages per session, and much more. This is due to the ability of referral spam to send fake data to your Google Analytics page which results to non-genuine inflated sessions.
  • The Cause
    • This could be a result of fake data or commonly known as “ghosts” being sent to the servers of Google Analytics through the Measurement Protocol. It can also be caused by people that use bots to crawl websites without bothering to block their actions from Analytics.
  • Finding Out
    • The main way to track if you are experiencing “ghost” spam is that it will be sent from a made up hostname – or no hostname at all. Since it actually was not directed to your site, you’ll find out that the traffic has a 100% bounce rate, an average of 1 page per session, and 0.00 seconds for average session duration.
    • You can also try navigating to the Hostname report, then if you see a hostname that you do not recognize or is not listed, there is a high chance that this is “ghost” or referral spam.
    • You can also check out the Referrals report, then look for sources that you do not recognize. One thing to take note of is that Referral spam is seldom new. Use your knowledge of the results and known traffic sources to discern if that unrecognized traffic source is genuine or not.
  • Fixing it
    • If you have encountered Referral spam sources, you can simply arrange for Google Analytics to exclude it through the “Filters” settings. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

 

  1. Directly head to the Filters setting
  2. Select “Add Filter” to create a new one
  3. Click on “Custom”
  4. Select the “Include” option
  5. From the drop down, choose “Hostname”
  6. Specify all Hostnames that should send data to Google Analytics
  7. Finally, apply it to relevant views of your data

 

  • For the “crawler” type of Referral spam
  1. Follow steps 1-3
  2. Select the “Exclude” option
  3. From the drop down, choose “Campaign Source”
  4. Enter the name of the source
  5. Finally, apply it to relevant views of your data

 

#3. Personal Identifiable Information

As the name suggests, PII is anything related to the personal details of a user that can be used to identify them. The details may include name, address, personal phone number, credit card information, and social security number.

  • The Effect
    • PII is something that can effectively shut down your account because Google has a policy that prohibits PII inside the data from Google Analytics.
  • The Cause
    • PII is commonly incorporated in the Google Analytics data through URL strings. The use of search fields and form bars that users enter their personal details into are passed through the URL without any encryption, which leads to the existence of PII in the data.
  • Finding Out
    • To check if there are PII in your data, you should go to the pages report, then begin an advanced search by pasting one of these expressions in the field provided:
      • For physical addresses: \?.*\b(St(reet)?|Ave(nue)?|B(ou)?le?v(ar)?d|(High)?Way|Ln|Lane|Road|Rd)\b
      • For credit card information: \?.*([=:,!]|%2[1C])(4[0-9]|5[1-5]|2[2-7]|6[05])(([\s+.,-]|%2[0B1C])*\d){12}($|[&#:,!%])
      • For social security number: \?.*([=:,!]|%2[1C])d{3}-?\d{2}-?\d{4}($|[&#:,!%])
      • For zip code: \?.*([=:,!]|%2[1C])\d{5}(\s|\+|%2[0B])*-(\s|\+|%2[0B])*\d{4}($|[&#:,!%])
      • For phone numbers: \?.*([=:,!]|%2[1C])(\(|%28)?\d{3}([\s+.,)-]|%2[0B1C9])*\d{3}([\s+.,-]|%2[0B1C])*\d{4}([\s+]|%2[0B])*($|[&#:,!%])
      • For email addresses: \?.*(@|%40)
  • PII can also be sent to Google Analytics through custom and event dimension values. It is important to check your tracking data and implementation to avoid this.
  • Fixing it
    • If you successfully found PII, contact your developer immediately. Share the parameters you’ve found sending the information into Google Analytics and request values that pass with PII are encrypted.
    • If it does not work, you can try using Google Tag Manager to remove parameters from the URL before it even makes it to Google Analytics. The steps are as follows:
  1. Make a custom javascript variable in Google Tag Manager named “Pageview URL – Custom”
  2. Make a test Google Analytics property. This will allow you to verify your solution before using it at your active Google Analytics property
  3. Make a test pageview tag directing to a test UA property. Within it, set the “page” field with the variable that you created.
  4. Test and publish the tag in #3
  5. Review the URLs in Google Analytics to determine whether or not your solution is working as intended.
  6. If working successfully, finish the configuration for your active pageview tag, then publish.

 

Key Takeaway

Today, Google Analytics is an integral part of monitoring your website’s performance, which is why you should do what you can to attend, maintain, and oversee the status of your Google Analytics page. Experiencing a problem on your page may have detrimental results, which is why you should avoid the problems highlighted here; and if you ever experience it, the solutions included here will help you.

Can you now take care of your Google Analytics account? Do you know of other problems that were not included here? Let’s talk about it in the comments section below.

 

 

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Combining SEO and PPC as a Strategy and their Pros and Cons https://seo-hacker.com/combining-seo-ppc-strategy-pros-cons/ https://seo-hacker.com/combining-seo-ppc-strategy-pros-cons/#comments Tue, 16 May 2017 10:16:04 +0000 https://seo-hacker.com/?p=12109 Search Engine Optimization has been in existence for a number of years, and with it came other alternatives that practitioners can use. There is no doubt that SEO is at the top of the list when ranking a website is the topic at hand. Using SEO as a marketing strategy, however, also has its setbacks […]

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SEO and PPC

Search Engine Optimization has been in existence for a number of years, and with it came other alternatives that practitioners can use. There is no doubt that SEO is at the top of the list when ranking a website is the topic at hand.

Using SEO as a marketing strategy, however, also has its setbacks and problems that numerous people have often encountered. One main problem that SEO gives to people that use it, is that when it is conducted by a newly-established business.

The alternative for such businesses is to do PPC or Pay-Per-Click, which could give them immediate traction in the world of search results. Similarly, the availability of PPC will definitely give the people with low rankings in SERPs a chance to move up the results page ladder.

Surely, these two marketing strategies help websites rank higher, but the question still remains: which of the two is better than the other? Let’s find out.

The Advantages of SEO

The Advantages of SEO

  • Recognition

    • Your targeted keywords help with your website’s visibility in search engines, and it allows your business to be seen by potential customers as much as paid advertisements; which also helps develop brand awareness.
  • Brand Identity

    • Being visible in commercial searches and queries regarding the field of your business can considerably benefit your brand. Eventually, if you are still visible in the search results, you will become associated with informational queries regarding the field, and you will become a trusted brand; which will definitely affect your brand’s overall exposure.
  • Brand Credibility

    • Many people try to avoid ads as much as possible because of biases and general distrust. Conversely, there is a higher chance for people to click on organic results, so if your website shows up naturally in the SERPs, then you’ll be perceived as trustworthy; therefore establishing a sense of credibility with your audience.
  • Traffic

    • Using SEO will definitely give a considerable amount of traffic to your website, which will give you a chance to imbue the people that visit your website a sense of awareness regarding your website. Also, having increased traffic in your website will help you drive up sales or conversion rates; just as long as you have the capabilities to convince the visitors to buy or avail of your products and services.
  • Little to No Cost

    • Receiving traffic from organic searches, essentially, does not have any cost. But, if you are conducting SEO to develop your visibility in SERPS, you will have to spend a lot of time, effort, and money, to get to the first pages of the search results, but there is absolutely no cost for each click that you receive.
  • Improved Return on Investment (ROI)

    • Being in organic search results can provide some improvements in your return on investments (ROI) when compared to the old and traditional forms of paid advertisements, even more so than PPC
  • It is Sustainable

    • Unlike other marketing strategies, traffic through organic searches will not stop even if you stop spending money on it. That is the reason why SEO and organic searches are the preferred way to rank higher in the SERPs. Also, it will give you the chance to spend less while still being visible in organic results.
  • Enhanced Click-Through Rate (CTR)

    • As mentioned earlier, organic results get clicked more often than paid advertisements. While there are still minor exceptions, it is still an undeniable fact that you will get a higher CTR when you have a high organic listing than having a highly placed paid advertisement.
  • Scope

    • There are countless queries each and every day by people which will give you a higher CTR only if you have a strong organic visibility. By knowing facts like this one, you won’t have to pay for every click that you receive, and you also don’t need to advertise every content that your website has.
  • A Strategic Advantage

    • Being visible in organic search results will never be quick and easy. But, when you do reach a high rank in your SERPs, your competitors would not be able to immediately ‘buy’ their way to a higher rank than yours. This will definitely give you a strategic advantage over your competitors that only rely on PPC, or paid advertisements.

The Disadvantages of SEO

The Disadvantages of SEO

  • Traffic is Hard to Come By

    • It’s not always a sunny day when you’re conducting SEO. Oftentimes, organic traffic is hard to come by, and you will be encountering numerous competitors. Let’s say, for example, the nature of your business is a car manufacturing and sales, and your target keywords are led by car powerhouses like Honda, Toyota, and Ford; obviously, you will be having a hard time, and you might need to rethink your strategy.
  • Content Development

    • By using SEO as a marketing strategy, you will have to develop content for your website to increase your rankings; and you will be needing the necessary resources to give your website numerous quality content that your audience will enjoy.This will definitely be a problem for the people that cannot gather the resources needed. Similarly, mastering tactics like proper and sustainable link building will take up a lot of your precious time.

The Advantages of PPC

The Advantages of PPC

  • Positioning

    • Availing a paid advertisement will often place your advertised content on the first page of the search results. It does not matter what platform the user is on, the advertisement will always see the paid search ad (as long as their inputted keyword matches the one your advertisement has) even if they scroll past it.
  • Control

    • PPC ads are still advertisements, no matter how different they look. This entails that you’ll have more control on what to put in the ad, and you’ll have more space to input your marketing messages.
  • Visual Aid

    • If the essence of your business is selling goods, using PPC can definitely help you gain an increase in your website’s overall click-through rates. This is precisely because, in Google, you have the choice to include a picture of the product that you are selling in the advertisement.This is commonly known as product listing ads or PLAs. If you did not know, having a picture in your ad will considerably increase the rate of people that click on it. And this is a feature that is not available through organic search; which is a sure advantage.
  • Targeting

    • PPC is the definite way to reach your desired audience. This is due to the fact that PPC works based on search keywords, time of day, day of the week, language, the devices used, geography, and audiences based on past visits.It is obvious that organic search and traffic has a wider and broader scope than PPC, but is not specific on the target audience.
  • Speed

    • As mentioned, organic visibility takes a lot of time and hard work. But, a PPC ad can be done in a few days, and it only takes a few weeks to build up. This is one of the fastest ways to get noticed by users, and will also potentially help your business gain more sales.

The Disadvantages of PPC

The Disadvantages of PPC

  • Costs

    • PPCs can use up a lot of your money. Of course, there are exceptions to this but if you are not aware on the costs of availing these ads, it will most definitely spiral out of control – especially when you are trying to spread your ad to a larger scale.
  • Bidding Wars

    • It is a common occurrence for advertisers to get into a bidding competition to avail certain high-value ad space. Being a part of these bidding competitions can increase your spending rate, and will definitely cost you a lot of money.
  • Imitation

    • Essentially, putting up ads is very easy to do. So if a competitor sees that you are running ads in search engines, they can just do the same and potentially ruin your chances of gaining more customers.

The Verdict

SEO and PPC both have their own good and bad sides. Honestly, using any of these marketing strategies depends on your situation. If you are running a local business and only need a few leads per week, then a smaller-scale SEO strategy can help you become more visible on your local SERPs.

If you are a newly-established online retail store that cannot avoid going up against Amazon or eBay, then the fast-paced, immediate-results marketing campaign of PPC is the one for you.

Bear in mind, however, that a clear digital marketing strategy, and a list of your short-term and long-term goals are the quintessential must-haves in deciding on using SEO or PPC..or both?

Combining SEO and PPC as a Strategy

Looking at both SEO and PPC, their cons can be removed when they are used together, and their synergy when supporting one another is top-notch. By using both SEO and PPC, you will achieve greater results when compared to using them individually.  Here are some of the benefits that you can have when you use them both:

  • The data from keywords and conversion rates from PPC can be used in organic search.
  • The amount of traffic that your website receives will increase because of the clicks through the paid advertisements and CTRs through organic results.
  • High-cost keywords can be transferred to organic search, as to lessen your spending.
  • You can test your keywords in PPC before using it in your long-term SEO strategies.
  • Increases overall brand marketing and awareness in SERPs because of organic and paid visibility.

Key Takeaway

 For businesses, a unified strategy that uses both SEO and PPC is the optimal approach. The results that you might have garnered while only using one of these will definitely be doubled if you unify and use their strong advantages to your benefit. It is important, however, to keep in mind that this might not necessarily be true for every business or situation. This unified approach is best for those businesses that are looking for high-growth through aggressive marketing.

Can you now elevate your business and take the next big step with SEO or PPC?

Do you still need a little help?  Send us a message! We’d be happy to hear from you.

The post Combining SEO and PPC as a Strategy and their Pros and Cons appeared first on SEO Services Agency in Manila, Philippines.

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