How To Optimise Content For The Questions People Ask On Google

By Peter Brittain on October 1, 2020 in Website Content

If you have been following developments in SEO, and in particular what direction Google has been heading in determining the rankings of websites, you will have seen that ‘user experience’ has become one of the primary factors they apply.

For Google, it is no longer enough for a website just to have good information; it also needs to meet the needs of and provide a better experience for those who have searched and then landed on that website.

There are lots of complex solutions as to how a website might achieve these aims, however, there is one simple, and highly effective, method you can try, and that is to answer questions.

Questions, Questions, Questions

When we say answer questions, we mean the questions that get typed into Google’s search bar. When searching, what many people do is, instead of simply typing in a search like ‘SEO Sydney‘, they will instead type ‘what is the best way to get SEO done on my Sydney website?’, or ‘how can I do SEO on my Sydney website?’.

Within your niche or business sector, you will hopefully have ideas as to what questions your potential customers might ask on Google, and if you do, you are even closer to taking advantage of this.

What Is Mobile-First Indexing?

By Peter Brittain on September 15, 2020 in Mobile SEO

In recent times, Google has made a number of announcements about mobile-first indexing. It had planned to roll out mobile-first indexing for the entire worldwide web in September 2020 but at the time of writing that has now been postponed until March 2021.

No doubt, it brought a collective sigh of relief for those who have no idea what mobile indexing is and, therefore, no clue how to prepare for it. The other group who may be relieved are those who knew what to do but hadn’t bothered to take any action yet.

In truth, mobile-first indexing is nothing to be alarmed about, although if you have no idea what it is, it might serve us well if we explain it to you.

Why Is Mobile-First Indexing Happening?

As a business owner, It can’t have escaped your notice that more and more of your customers are interacting with your online properties via their mobile devices. By properties, we mean not just your website but your social media pages as well.

It has also not escaped Google’s notice either, but for them, the trend is not just with regards to people going online via their mobile devices, but them also searching whilst on their mobile devices too.

This has developed to the point whereby we have crossed the point there are now more searches carried out on Google via mobile devices than there are via desktop computers or laptops.

As such Google has determined that it needs to change how it presents search results to take account of this, and that change is called mobile-first indexing.

How Do I Know If My SEO Is Working?

By Peter Brittain on July 21, 2020 in SEO

The fact is that even if you know absolutely nothing about the SEO process, the means should be in place for you to be able to measure the success of any SEO campaign created for you. If not, then alarm bells should be ringing.

From the outset, if you ever come across an SEO agency or consultant that does not give you any way to check what they’ve done is working, be very, very wary of working with them. After all, if they were that good, would they not be putting their results front and centre for you once their SEO campaign has been implemented?

Let us assume you have employed an SEO agency whose previous results and testimonials indicate they can get you results, how are those results going to manifest themselves, in terms of measuring success?

One way could be to micro-manage so that you check every single piece of data. However, for most business owners, especially those who value their time, that might be regarded as overkill.

By that, we mean if you want to check hourly for how much traffic you are getting, you can, but it is not necessary, or indeed useful. Checking data to that degree is not an effective use of your time, and in fact, even the SEO experts do not check data that often…well most of the sane ones do not.

There are basically three result areas that will give you a strong indication as to whether an SEO campaign is achieving its objectives, and they are rankings, traffic, and leads/sales.

Google’s Top 10 Ranking Factors In 2020

By Peter Brittain on June 15, 2020 in SEO Rankings

It is hardly surprising that many website owners who do their own SEO often feel like their head is spinning trying to keep up with Google’s ranking factors. Truth be told, many seasoned SEO experts often feel the same way.

Hopefully, we will not make you feel too dizzy as we highlight Google’s top 10 ranking factors for 2020.

#1 Content still rules as Google continues to reward websites that publish quality content over those that produce sub-standard content.

#2 Mobile over desktop is how the world has moved in terms of consuming online content and that is why Google now indexes mobile sites first. That means if your website is not mobile optimised its ranking is going to continually drop

#3 Page load speed has become more important due to mobile indexing and it means that websites that load quickly have a distinct advantage over clunky websites that take ages to load.

#4 Freshness is a ranking factor that many are blissfully unaware of, so their old, stagnant content does nothing for their ranking. If, instead, they updated it, and even included the present year, Google will look upon it a lot more favourably.

How To E-A-T Your Way to The Top Of The Search Engines

By Peter Brittain on June 5, 2020 in Ranking Factors

Hopefully, you will have already realised we are not talking about eating food to help your SEO, much as that might appeal to us all. Instead, the acronym E-A-T stands for Expertise – Authority – Trustworthiness. Given that E-A-T is something that Google’s algorithms are focused on, it is something every website owner needs to understand.

Those three words mean that Google has moved on from just looking for quality content. A quick point to make here is that does not mean that you should let your standards drop and stop producing quality content. That requirement has not been abandoned, however, Google are taking things a step further.

Google is continually striving to make its search engine results as close to the user’s intention as possible. Taking that stage further means they want the destination that users arrive at to give them the best user experience possible.

Put yourself in Google’s shoes for a moment and imagine you had to determine what websites are going to achieve that goal, and which are not. How about fake news websites, or websites with lots of content, but otherwise full of affiliate offers for sale?

What about those with misleading sales messages or hyped up claims? And, how about websites that look like they offer content, but it is really just sales copy dressed up as content?