For many SEOs, a website migration can be an incredibly stressful and yet important time – ensuring that you migrate a website effectively can help to improve or can potentially cost you a lot of hard earned work.
Getting a website migration right is critical for SEO because it can have a significant impact on a website’s search engine rankings, traffic, and overall performance. A poorly executed migration can lead to a variety of issues, such as broken links, missing pages, duplicate content, and other technical problems that can cause search engines to devalue or penalise your website.
When you migrate a website, you essentially create a new version of the site with a new URL structure, page hierarchy, and potentially new content. If this process is not managed carefully, search engines may not be able to properly index and rank your new site, leading to a drop in traffic and visibility.
To ensure a successful website migration, it’s important to carefully plan and execute the process, including redirecting old URLs to new ones, updating internal links, submitting a new sitemap to search engines, and monitoring the site closely for any errors or issues that may arise.
By getting a website migration right, you can help ensure that your site remains visible and competitive in search engine results, while also providing a positive user experience for your visitors.
Below we’ve listed important steps to take both prior and after website migration to ensure that you are maximising SEO performance.
Prior To Migration
Compile full list of existing pages
We would recommend compiling a full list of all pages on the website in the form of a sitemap, this will help to ensure that all appropriate redirects are in place & is a good benchmark for evaluating relevancy trends on the website moving forwards
Map page level redirects
We would recommend mapping page level redirects for each page across the website, this will ensure that any page level relevancy is carried across which can help the website rank for its existing long-tail terms.
No-index development website
Prior to migration it’s crucial that both the new domain & any associated development websites are no-indexed with a robots meta tag “no index, no follow” – this ensures that the content isn’t indexed by Google prior to launch thus preventing the website from incurring a penalty from Google due to duplicated content
Indexation
Evaluating website indexation prior to website migration is important to ensure that all the existing pages on the website are correctly indexed by search engines and that the migration process does not negatively impact the website’s search engine rankings. One way to evaluate website indexation is to use the Google Search Console, which provides valuable insights into how your website is performing in search results. By analysing the index coverage report in Google Search Console, you can identify any indexing issues, such as pages that are not being indexed or pages that are indexed but should not be. You can also use other SEO tools, such as Ahrefs or SEMrush, to check for any duplicate content or canonicalization issues that could negatively affect the website’s indexation. Additionally, it is important to ensure that all the website’s sitemaps are up to date and accurately reflect the current website structure
Keywords
We would recommend identifying the number of traffic referring keywords to your website through a tool such as SEMRush & evaluating these across Google geo-locations (i.e. Google.co.uk/Google.com) this will allow us to evaluate the migration & also ensure that new geo-based landing pages are appropriately targeted.
Incoming Links
Create a full list of current in-bound links to all pages on the website. This can then be compared to a full list post-migration to ensure that all in-bound link equity is preserved across the website.
Analytics & Webmaster Tools
Ensure that any new Analytics/Webmaster Tools properties are in place & that these are appropriately verified across the new website
Goal Tracking
You should set up Goal Tracking prior to the migration taking place, this will allow you to track any new goals and existing goal completions from the get-go, to ensure there is no drop off. To set up goal tracking, you need to define the goals that you want to track, such as completing a purchase, submitting a contact form, or subscribing to a newsletter. Once you have defined your goals, you can set up tracking using tools such as Google Analytics or Tag Manager. To test goal tracking, you can use the preview mode in Google Tag Manager to ensure that the tracking tags are firing correctly on the website’s pages. Additionally, you can use Google Analytics’ Real-Time reports to confirm that your tracking is working as intended. Testing should include a full range of user interactions on the website, such as completing a transaction, submitting a form, or clicking on links. It is also important to test the tracking on multiple devices and browsers to ensure that it works correctly across all platforms
Internal Linking Structure
This should be evaluated against the new website to ensure that key pages retain strong internal linking. A loss of internal linking can lead to a reduction in page authority & as a result this could cause a page to lose rankings.
Evaluate current site speed
Run a check of current site speed across key internal pages to evaluate load time. This should then be compared against the load time of the same page on the new domain to ensure a similar or quicker load time.
Spider Website
Spidering a website prior to website migration is important to ensure that all the existing pages on the website are accounted for and that any potential issues are identified before the migration process begins. Website spiders or crawlers are automated tools that can browse your website and collect data on all the pages, including their URLs, titles, meta descriptions, and other key elements. By spidering the website prior to migration, you can identify any broken links, missing pages, or duplicate content that could affect the user experience and search engine rankings. This information can be used to create a detailed plan for the migration process, ensuring that all the existing pages are correctly migrated to the new site structure without any negative impact on SEO performance. Spidering the website can also help to identify any technical issues, such as broken redirects or canonical tags, which can be fixed before the migration process
Measure Core Web Vitals
There are several tools available that can help you measure your website’s speed and Core Web Vitals, such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and WebPageTest. These tools provide detailed information on your website’s loading speed, time to first byte, and other key metrics that impact user experience. To measure Core Web Vitals, these tools provide specific metrics, such as Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). These metrics are important for ensuring that your website loads quickly and responds to user input promptly
After Migration
Creation & Submission Of A Sitemap
Setting up a sitemap after a website migration is important to ensure that search engines can quickly and easily discover and index all the pages on your new website. A sitemap is an XML file that contains a list of all the pages on your website, along with important metadata such as when they were last updated and their priority level. By submitting your sitemap to search engines like Google, you can help them understand the structure of your website and prioritise crawling and indexing the most important pages
To set up a sitemap after a website migration, you can use a sitemap generator tool or plugin, such as Yoast SEO or Google XML Sitemaps, to create the sitemap file. Once the sitemap file is generated, you can upload it to your website’s root directory and submit it to Google Search Console. This will help search engines understand the new structure of your website and index all the pages on your website more efficiently
In addition to improving indexation, a sitemap can also help with SEO by providing search engines with additional information about your website’s pages. This includes information about the frequency of updates, priority level, and any alternative language versions. By setting up a sitemap after a website migration, you can ensure that your new website is properly indexed by search engines, leading to better search engine visibility and improved organic traffic.
Modify External Links
We would recommend modifying any controlled external links including directory listings to ensure that the new domain is listed within any in-bound links.
Submit a “Change of Address” Through Google Search Console
To submit a change of address through Google Search Console, you need to log in to your account, select the website property that you want to update, go to “Settings” and then “Ownership,” and click on “Request a Change of Address” under the “Change of Address” section. Then, enter the new website address and follow the prompts to verify the new address. Once the new address has been verified, Google will update its search results to reflect the change.
Note that Google recommends using the change of address tool only if you’re moving your entire website to a new domain. If you’re just updating your website’s address within the same domain, you don’t need to use this tool.
Spider Website/Google Webmaster Tools
Run a spider over the website & monitor Google Search Console to capture & quickly address any 404 errors or broken links on the new website which may have happened as the result of incorrect or missed 301 redirects.
Remove No-index Tag On New Website
Remove the no-index tag which was placed on the website during development to ensure that Google can quickly & easily crawl your website.
No-index Existing Website
Place a no-index tag on the previous domain ONLY once the domain has been crawled & Google has found the redirects to index the new domain – this will encourage Google to de-index the website, but remember to let it keep crawling, this is important so that Google can easily access the no-index tags on the pages.
Evaluate Indexation
Indexation levels of the old site & new site should be measured within Google Search Console to ensure that the new website is being effectively indexed.
To effectively check indexation on a website after a website migration, you can follow these steps:
Use the site: operator in Google Search to see how many of your pages are currently indexed. For example, type “site:yourdomain.com” into Google’s search box to see a list of all pages on your website that are currently indexed
Check your Google Search Console account for any indexing errors. Navigate to the Coverage report, which will show you any pages that have been excluded from the index, as well as any errors or warnings related to indexation
Use a website crawling tool, such as Screaming Frog or DeepCrawl, to crawl your website and identify any pages that may have been missed during the migration process.
Check your server logs to see which pages are being crawled by search engine bots. If any important pages are not being crawled, it may indicate that there are technical issues that need to be addressed.
Monitor your website’s search performance over time, looking for any fluctuations in traffic or rankings that may indicate indexing issues.
By following these steps, you can effectively check indexation on your website after a website migration and ensure that all of your pages are being properly indexed by search engines.
Fetch As Googlebot
Utilise this function to submit key pages of the new website to Google quickly.
Check Analytics
Check that Analytics is working correctly across the new website & that it is firing goals where needed.
By adhering to a solid SEO migration checklist you can ensure that you are putting your website in the best possible position for a successful website migration. To find out more about how to undertake an SEO migration get in touch!
On Wednesday I had the pleasure of speaking at Brighton SEO’s Online PR Show, along with a great line up of speakers, talking about all things Online PR and beyond!
My deck, entitled “Using Digital PR To Enhance Your E-E-A-T Signals” was designed to explore how Digital PR can and should be utilised to enhance those all important E-E-A-T signals that Google is looking for on a website, in addition to looking through some case studies of where we had used it effectively, with great impact.
This deck is particularly useful for clients who sit within the YMYL industry (of which we have quite a few!) where the importance of key trust and expertise signals become even more important due to Google holding the website to a much higher quality standard.
Some key takeaways from the talk include:
👻 Use your client’s expertise to generate great outreach ideas – focus on the key strengths of your spokespeople to understand the types of publications and areas you might want to cover & what they might be best suited to (and also most likely to be seen as an expert for!)
👻 Use Reverse Digital PR as a way of getting clients to come to you, rather than having to go to them, this is also a great way to establish yourself as a credible resource and it’s the gift that keeps on giving as journalists will continue to find and use this source over time.
👻 Think outside the box, if you can’t get any real life ways to showcase your expertise then innovate – look at soaps or fictional situations where you can demonstrate your expertise and still build those key signals
👻 Get your news listening right – digest news, as much as you can and get your news listening set up so that you are ready to jump on topical trends – this will help you to be first to the conversation when you need to be.
It was a great day with a range of great speakers & for anyone who missed the event you can catch it online again in the next couple of weeks or in the Brighton SEO vault! You can also view my slide deck here
Local SEO is a term that gets used frequently in regards to SEO optimization for local businesses and if you have a physical store or offer a product to people within a certain area, then chances are it will be at the top of your radar – so here’s a short guide to what local SEO is, how it works and how you can get started.
What Is Local SEO?
Local SEO refers to the practice of optimizing a website and its content to increase visibility and rankings in local search results. Local search results are the organic search results that appear in response to location-specific search queries, such as “restaurants near me” or “plumbers in San Francisco.”
Local SEO focuses on optimizing a website’s content, on-page elements, and off-page signals to increase its relevance and prominence for local search queries. This includes optimizing the website’s meta tags, content, and images for local keywords, as well as building local citations, listings, and backlinks to establish the website’s authority and relevance in the local market.
Local SEO is particularly important for businesses with a physical presence or those that serve a specific geographic area, such as local service providers, restaurants, retailers, and healthcare providers. By optimizing their website and online presence for local search, these businesses can improve their visibility and attract more local customers.
How Important Is Local SEO?
Local SEO is incredibly important for businesses that operate in a specific geographic area or have a physical location, as it can directly impact their ability to attract and retain local customers. Here are some reasons why local SEO is important for businesses:
⚡️Increases visibility: Local SEO can help businesses appear in the top results for relevant local searches, making it easier for potential customers to find and contact them.
⚡️Improves credibility: A strong local SEO presence can help establish a business’s credibility and authority in the local market, which can help build trust with local customers.
⚡️Enhances user experience: Local SEO can help businesses optimize their website and online presence for local users, providing them with the information they need to make informed decisions about where to shop or do business.
⚡️Boosts website traffic: By appearing in the top results for local searches, businesses can attract more website traffic and increase their chances of converting website visitors into customers.
⚡️Increases conversions: Local SEO can help businesses target customers who are actively searching for their products or services, increasing the likelihood that those customers will convert into paying customers.
Local SEO can be incredibly important for websites who are looking to attract a local audience or for businesses where the search intent is deemed to be local.The approach can be quite different to normal SEO as well, so it’s always worth evaluating client need and situation before determining which approach is best for them.
How Does Local SEO Differ From Normal SEO?
One of the main differences between local SEO and normal SEO is the focus on local keywords. This requires businesses to conduct extensive keyword research to identify the most relevant and profitable local keywords for their industry and location.
Another important aspect of local SEO is optimizing a business’s Google My Business profile. Google My Business is a free listing service provided by Google that allows businesses to manage their online presence across Google, including search results and maps. Optimizing a Google My Business profile involves providing accurate and up-to-date information about the business, including its name, address, phone number, and hours of operation. This can help improve a business’s visibility in local search results and increase its chances of attracting local customers.
In addition to optimizing for local keywords and Google My Business, local SEO also involves building citations. A citation is any mention of a business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) on the web. Building citations can help improve a business’s visibility and authority in the local market, as well as improve its rankings in local search results. This involves submitting the business’s NAP information to local directories, review sites, and other relevant websites.
Normal SEO, on the other hand, is focused on optimizing a website and its content for broader, non-location-specific search queries. This may involve optimizing for industry-specific keywords, improving website structure and navigation, creating high-quality content, building backlinks, and more. The focus of normal SEO is to improve a website’s visibility and rankings in organic search results, regardless of location.
It’s important for businesses to understand the differences between local SEO and normal SEO to develop an effective marketing strategy that meets their specific needs and goals.
What Is NAP?
In the context of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), “NAP” refers to the consistency of a business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) across all online directories, listings, and citations.
Search engines, such as Google, use NAP information as a signal of a business’s legitimacy, accuracy, and trustworthiness. Therefore, it is essential for businesses to ensure that their NAP information is accurate and consistent across all online platforms where it appears.
Inconsistencies in NAP information can confuse search engines and potential customers, which can negatively impact a business’s search engine ranking, local search visibility, and online reputation. Therefore, businesses should regularly audit their online presence to ensure that their NAP information is consistent and up-to-date.
How Do I Build Effective Citations For Local SEO?
When it comes to local SEO, building effective citations is essential. Citations are mentions of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) on other websites. The more consistent and accurate your citations are, the higher you are likely to rank in local search results. Here are some tips to help you build effective citations:
Firstly, ensure that your NAP information is accurate and consistent across all directories and platforms. This means checking your name, address, and phone number for accuracy and ensuring that they match exactly across all platforms.
Secondly, claim your business listings on popular directories such as Google My Business, Yelp, Bing Places, and Facebook. This will allow you to manage your listings and keep them up-to-date.
Thirdly, optimize your business listings by filling out all the available fields, including your hours of operation, website URL, and other relevant information. This will help to provide users with all the information they need to know about your business.
Fourthly, focus on building citations on high-quality and authoritative websites that are relevant to your industry. These citations will carry more weight and help to improve your local search rankings.
Fifthly, use local keywords in your business descriptions and on your website. This will help search engines understand where your business is located and what services you offer.
Finally, regularly monitor your citations to ensure that they remain accurate and consistent. If you find any inconsistencies or errors, make sure to correct them as soon as possible. By following these tips, you can build effective citations that will help to improve your local SEO rankings and drive more traffic to your business.
How Do I Optimise Google My Business For Local SEO?
Optimising your Google My Business (GMB) account plays an important part in developing your local SEO performance – so it’s important that we optimise this as best as we can. Here are some of the best ways to optimise your GMB profile for local SEO:
⚡️Complete your business profile: Ensure that your GMB profile is complete and accurate, including your business name, address, phone number, website, hours of operation, and business description. Add photos and videos of your business to showcase your products, services, and location.
⚡️Choose the right categories: Select the most relevant categories for your business to help Google understand what your business is about and what services you offer. You can select primary and secondary categories to give Google more context about your business.
⚡️Get more reviews: Encourage your customers to leave reviews on your GMB page. Reviews can help improve your business’s visibility and credibility in search results. Respond to all reviews, both positive and negative, to show that you care about your customers’ feedback.
⚡️Use local keywords: Incorporate relevant local keywords into your business name, description, and posts. This will help your business show up in local search results when people search for products or services in your area.
⚡️Post regularly: Post regularly on your GMB page to keep your page fresh and engaging. Share updates, promotions, events, and other relevant information about your business. This will also help improve your business’s visibility in search results.
⚡️Monitor insights: Use the insights tab in your GMB account to track your page’s performance, including how many people viewed your profile, clicked on your website, and called your business. Use this data to optimize your GMB strategy and improve your local SEO.
It’s always worth focusing on GMB as a way of driving additional traffic to your website from a local SEO perspective – it can help to generate additional traffic to the website while also allowing you to collate valuable information like user reviews which can also help to boost authority and trust around your brand.
What Are Some Top Tips For Ranking In The Map Pack?
In addition to ranking well in the general SERPs, another key aim of local SEO is ranking in the map pack – the map pack is a feature on Google that displays a map with three local business listings related to a search query. Optimizing for Google Map Pack can help increase visibility for local businesses.
Ranking in the Google Map Pack, also known as the Local Pack or 3-Pack, requires a combination of various factors that impact local search visibility. Here are some tips to improve your chances of ranking in the Google Map Pack:
⚡️Create and Optimize a Google My Business (GMB) Listing: GMB is a free tool that allows businesses to manage their online presence across Google, including Google Maps. To rank in the Map Pack, create a GMB listing, verify your business information, and optimize your profile by adding photos, business hours, and other relevant information.
⚡️Get Reviews and Ratings: Reviews and ratings are an important ranking factor in Google’s algorithm. Encourage your customers to leave reviews on your GMB listing, and respond to them promptly and professionally.
⚡️Ensure Consistency in NAP Information: As I mentioned earlier, consistency in your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) is crucial for local search ranking. Make sure your NAP information is accurate and consistent across all online platforms where your business is listed.
⚡️Build Local Citations: A citation is a mention of your business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) on other websites or directories. Building local citations from reputable websites can improve your local search ranking.
⚡️Optimize Your Website for Local SEO: Optimize your website for local SEO by including relevant keywords, location-based content, and schema markup. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly and has a fast loading speed.
⚡️Get Backlinks from Local Websites: Backlinks from reputable local websites can also boost your local search ranking. Reach out to local bloggers, news websites, or other businesses in your area to see if they would be willing to link to your website.
Remember, local search ranking is an ongoing process, and it may take time to see results. Stay patient and persistent, and continue to optimize your online presence for local SEO.
Do I Need Local SEO?
If your business operates a local presence then local SEO is a great way to optimize for visitors to your store and people who are looking for your product within your area. If you are a place of interest or restaurant, bar or activity then this can be even more important as it can help to put you on the map when people are out searching.
Even if you aren’t directly local, having a GMB listing and optimising for local can help you to gain extra space within the search results, which is always valuable from an SEO perspective.
To find out more about local SEO or for help with implementation, get in touch!
Delighted to kick off the week by announcing that we have been nominated for 12 European Search Awards, it’s great to see everyone’s hard work rewarded over the last 12 months & to be recognised for some of the great client achievements we’ve had in this time!
Some of our nominations include:
🍉 Best SEO Agency 🍉 Best Use Of PR In Search 🍉 Best Use Of Search (Finance) 🍉 Best SEO Campaign 🍉 Best PPC Campaign
Looking forward to seeing everyone at the event in Lisbon in May! ☀️ 🍷🍹 You can find a full list of nominations here
Link acquisition has been around in many forms for years and has often been seen as one of the most important elements within an SEO campaign. Links are a great way to showcase to Google that people trust your website and find it useful – after all they are linking to it – and they’re also a great way to drive referral visitors to your website, in addition to building a great neighbourhood for your website to be in – but it’s not enough to just build links into your website and leave it at that, you need a strategy to maximise the impact of link building by looking at which pages you are directing your links into.
Many people focus exclusively on building links to the homepage, but in many instances this misses out a lot of value that can be created from deeper page linking.
Deeper page linking is something that has been discussed widely – but in practice it’s something that we need to actively incorporate into our campaigns. We can help to guide this by developing effective/thematic strategies to target specific sections of our website with targeted campaign to help grow authority within these sections and improve overall performance.
Why Is Deeper Page Linking Important?
So you might be asking – is it not enough for me just to build great links into my website? While building great quality links into a website definitely helps performance, if we look at the mechanisms of link flow and equity we can see why targeting these campaigns to specific sections can help to add value.
Think of your website as one entity – any link juice that comes into that entity is received by the page the link is pointing to – as such, if 80% of your links point into your homepage then this will likely be one of the strongest pages on your website. This is great if you want your homepage to rank well, but in most instances, the pages with the best user intent match and the pages we want our users to go to sit further within our website, usually on product or service pages – and these are the areas we really want to give an equity boost.
With so many pages often on your website and usually some form of navigation to link all your key pages to the homepage, by the time you get to these pages a lot of link equity has been lost along the way and therefore the value from these links can often be heavily deprecated from what it was when it initially reached the website – as such, the value of getting link equity from the homepage to your sub-pages is far less than getting value directly from the source – hence deeper page linking is a popular option. By building the link directly to the page you are maximising the equity that you are passing to this page and helping to give that sub-section a boost.
Building links to deeper pages on your website can provide several benefits for your SEO strategy. One of the most significant advantages is the improved visibility and authority of individual pages on your site. When you build links to deeper pages, you signal to search engines that these pages are valuable and relevant, which can boost their rankings in search results.
This is especially important for websites with a large number of pages, as it can be difficult for search engines to identify and prioritize the most important pages on the site. By building links to deeper pages, you can help to ensure that these pages are given the attention they deserve.
Another benefit of deeper page link building is the potential to increase traffic, conversions, and revenue. When you improve the rankings of individual pages on your site, you make it more likely that people will find and visit those pages. This can lead to increased engagement with your content, more leads or sales, and ultimately a stronger bottom line.
How Do I Know Which Pages To Target?
If you aren’t sure which pages to target then a good start is to look at the pages that you are trying to rank/optimise or the pages that are the most valuable/important on your website.
There are several techniques and tools that you can use to identify which pages on your website to build links to for SEO. Here are a few:
💡 Analyze your website’s analytics data: One of the best places to start is by analyzing your website’s analytics data to identify which pages are already receiving the most traffic. By building links to these pages, you can help to improve their rankings and drive even more traffic to your site. Tools like Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics can provide you with detailed information about your website’s traffic, including which pages are the most popular.
💡 Use a backlink analysis tool: Another option is to use a backlink analysis tool like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush to identify which pages on your site are already receiving links from other websites. These tools can help you to identify the most authoritative and relevant pages on your site, as well as opportunities for building additional links.
💡 Conduct keyword research: Conducting keyword research can also be helpful in identifying which pages on your site to target with link building. By identifying the keywords that are most relevant to your business and your audience, you can create content that targets those keywords and build links to the pages that contain that content. Tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, and SEMrush Keyword Research can help you identify relevant keywords.
💡 Conduct a content audit: Conducting a content audit of your website can also be helpful in identifying which pages to target with link building. By reviewing your existing content and identifying gaps or opportunities for improvement, you can create new content that is optimized for search engines and build links to those pages.
Overall, there are many techniques and tools available to help you identify which pages on your website to target with link building for SEO. By taking a strategic approach and focusing on building links to your most authoritative and relevant pages, you can improve your website’s search engine rankings and drive more traffic, leads, and revenue.
What Tools Can I Use To Evaluate Which Pages I Should Build Links To?
There are several tools you can use to evaluate which pages you should build links to for SEO. Here are a few options:
💡 Ahrefs: A popular SEO tool that allows you to analyze the backlinks of your competitors and see which pages are getting the most links. You can also use it to analyze your own website and identify pages that are lacking in backlinks.
💡 SEMrush: Another popular SEO tool that allows you to analyze backlinks and identify the most important pages on your website. You can also use it to track your rankings and monitor your competitors.
💡 Moz: This tool provides a backlink analysis feature that allows you to see which pages on your site are getting the most links, as well as identify opportunities for new links. You can also track your rankings and monitor your competitors.
💡 Majestic: This tool has a comprehensive backlink analysis feature that allows you to see which pages on your site are getting the most links, as well as identify opportunities for new links. You can also track your rankings and monitor your competitors.
💡 Google Search Console: This free tool from Google provides insights into your website’s performance, including which pages are receiving the most traffic and which pages are linking to your site. This can help you identify pages that are important for SEO and prioritize them for link building efforts.
Ultimately, the best tool for evaluating which pages to build links to will depend on your specific needs and preferences. You may want to try out a few different options to find the one that works best for you.
How Do I Get Started?
It’s not hard to get started with deeper link building, with a couple of quick steps. Firstly, identify the pages on your website where you need to build internal authority, secondly create effective digital PR campaigns to drive links into these and finally, outreach your great campaigns. In no time you’ll be building authority into the website and reaping the rewards of it.
We’re delighted to announce that our Director Amanda Walls will be speaking at the April Brighton SEO event in front of an audience of thousands talking everything SEO & Digital PR.
Amanda will be speaking on the Wednesday afternoon at the Online PR Show with her talk discussing “Using Digital PR To Enhance Your EEAT Signals” – a great talk for anyone looking to use digital PR to enhance their overall SEO – or for anyone who particularly works in a YMYL industry, where this is held to an even higher standard – to get a better understanding of how they can utilise digital PR in this way.
The talk will have:
💥 Lots of great Case Studies which show how digital PR can help boost your SEO
💥 Great ideas on how to think outside of the box when it comes to newsjacking & thought leadership
💥Insight into why digital PR matters for EEAT
💥 Ideas on how to get journalists to come to you!
So if that sounds of interest get yourself booked on or check the talk out online when an online version of the conference day is released the week after.
Digital PR is probably one of the most popular services that we offer at Cedarwood and we were early to market with this product – starting our offering back when our business began around seven years ago. Back then, Digital PR was referred to as “link building” (they are very different!), certainly wasn’t the buzzword it was today and it was a rare occurrence in a world of paid for link acquisition.
Today, thanks to the rise of Google tightening its link spam algorithms and a number of agencies (and SEO experts) championing the values of Digital PR, we find that EVERYONE is talking about it (even John Mueller!) – but we still find that in many situations when we are approached by clients they can be a little unsure as to what it is and how it differs from traditional PR.
So let’s take a look at what Digital PR is, how it differs from traditional PR and how you can combine tactics from both to deliver a great link acquisition campaign.
What Is Digital PR?
Digital PR is an online form of PR, which essentially looks to promote visibility and awareness for your business through digital platforms and online. Digital PR takes a lot of the elements from traditional PR and puts an online spin on them – so that still includes coverage for your clients, increasing brand awareness and making sure that you land all important links, but with digital PR you really have to consider what is going to land in the online space.
Digital PR is a slightly different skill set because it’s really focuses on online only with offline being a secondary consideration. It’s widely used for businesses that are online first and are looking to gain traction amongst their target audience as well as build those all-important links back to their website.
What Is Traditional PR?
By contrast, traditional PR has more of an offline focus or as you could say a combined focus, think events activation, newspapers, integrated campaigns, tv, radio, newspapers, billboards – everything that you have come to associate with this timeless form of PR. That’s not to say that you can’t combine elements of this for a very effective Digital PR campaign – it’s more that these are what you would traditionally associate with a Digital PR campaign.
Traditional PR doesn’t necessarily focus on attracting a digital presence and as such, for businesses that are online only it can often be seen as missing their target demographic. That said, there is no reason why traditional PR techniques can’t be used effectively to help drive success across Digital PR campaigns.
What Is The Biggest Difference?
The biggest difference between traditional and digital PR is the platform that it’s generally targeted at, with traditional PR focused on a more traditional offline audience, whereas digital PR being targeted at a predominantly online audience. It’s this targeting strategy that also contributes to whether or not one is more effective than the other for your ideal audience.
There are many other differences between traditional and digital PR including:
Feedback & engagement – due to the advent of online “comment” posts it’s a lot easier to get feedback on your content through Digital PR than it is through traditional PR, this can give you a good insight as to how your content has performed and also inspire you if you are to continue with that type of content in the future
Audience sizes – although traditional PR can give you a good audience size, the digital world is infinitely larger and digital campaigns can reach an international audience at a much greater scale than a traditional campaign.
Intent & Interest-Based targeting – one of the main differences between digital and traditional PR is the ways you can target your audience. With Digital PR you have the option to choose between interest and intent-based audiences – that’s the option to actually put your product in front of the user at the time they are searching for it, whereas with traditional PR this is mostly limited to the user’s interest by placing it within a specific magazine or publication
Purpose – the purpose of the two campaigns is often very different. In a lot of instances, Digital PR is designed to drive visitors and awareness to a website – and in many cases to support SEO through effective and targeted link acquisition. By contrast, traditional PR can be more about brand awareness and driving visibility – it can also be used as a direct sales platform but this is often slightly more difficult to attribute.
Measurement – Last but not least, one of the main differences between digital and traditional PR is the way that you measure it. Digital PR is in most instances a little easier to measure – you can rack based on link and link quality as well as reach and various other key metrics, traditional PR by contrast is just that little bit more difficult to measure – but it can still be done by coverage, reach etc…
Does This Change The Skill Set?
Many people think that you need a completely different skill set for traditional digital PR and this isn’t entirely true – but it definitely helps to have the online connections and contacts when you are trying to run a digital PR campaign. Digital PR is also incredibly fast paced and there are elements like newsjacking which do require experience and also an understanding of where to go to seek out an effective story – as a result this can become an important skill set to develop if you are looking to make the transition from traditional through to digital PR.
Are Traditional PR Skills Transferable to Digital PR?
100% you can transfer many traditional PR skills over to digital PR very effectively, but it’s important as with any campaign to take the time to understand what the client is trying to achieve with their campaign – and it might be that with digital PR that differs from what a standard traditional PR client is looking to achieve.
There are also a number of super valuable skills that traditional PRs can bring over to digital PR, in particular established journalist relationships – many of whom may now work for digital publications in addition to traditional offline publications and many of whom will have stories that they have written for print published online. In addition, an eye for a good story/angle in addition to a strong press release hook and timing for outreach are all important skills for digital PR which are carried across from traditional PR.
Is Digital PR More Popular Than Traditional PR?
I wouldn’t say that one type of PR is necessarily more popular than the other, but it would be fair to say that digital PR has seen a significant rise in interest over the last 24 months mainly due to its support for SEO and also that it has a proven track record of helping businesses to grow particularly in the online space.
The trend of digital PR took off massively during COVID-19 when businesses were forced online due to physical stores and properties being closed. At this time, people were looking for ways online to market their products and services – predominantly as this is where the audience was – and as such, digital PR took off.
We can see how the growth of digital PR has evolved over time, so it’s not that traditional PR is necessarily less popular, I would rather say that digital PR has evolved to be even more popular than it was before.
Is Digital PR Or Traditional PR Right For My Business?
Choosing the right type of PR for your business plays an important role in getting the most out of your campaign and it’s important to ensure that you understand your target market and which type of PR might be most effective.
If you are looking to attract a traditional audience and grow offline brand awareness and visibility then traditional PR is a great option. By contrast, if you are looking to grow your business online then digital PR is a great choice. To find out more about digital PR and how it could work for you get in touch!
We’re delighted to announce that we have been nominated for four awards in the PR Moment Awards 2023 for our work across Digital PR.
Digital PR has been the biggest growth area of Cedarwood over the last 12 months so we are delighted to have our work recognised by the PR industry, in addition to the work we undertake for SEO!
We’ve been nominated in:
🎀 Best Digital PR Campaign Of The Year:
Cedarwood Digital & Little Loans – Driving Digital PR In A Competitive Vertical Cedarwood Digital & Patient Claim Line – Building E-A-T Links Cedarwood Digital & Hayes Garden World – Building Visibility Through Effective Digital PR
🎀 Low Budget Campaign Of The Year:
Cedarwood Digital & EZ Shopper – Driving Ecommerce Success Through PR & Referral Sales
Looking forward to seeing everyone at the ceremony next month 🍹
In my opinion, log file analysis is one of the most underrated pieces of SEO analysis you can conduct – a fairly bold statement for sure – but if you have the ability to see how Google is actually crawling and understanding your website, as opposed to “emulating it” through tools like Screaming Frog, then this data is one of the most valuable insights that you can have to really understanding how Google views your website and more importantly how it sees the different sections connecting together.
Now I’m not saying there isn’t value in emulation tools, there’s a lot, and over the years I’ve used them significantly to help uncover potential technical issues across websites with great success – but in recent years I’ve really come to understand the value of Google’s direct crawl data and how when used properly, it can really help you to uncover potential blockers, issues and challenges on the website, in addition to understanding how to overcome these – that’s why I think that log file file analysis is an essential element of any complete technical audit.
What Is Log File Analysis?
Log file analysis for SEO is a process of examining the server log files to gain insights into how search engine crawlers and bots interact with a website. When a search engine crawls a website, it records the activity in the server log files, which can provide valuable information about how the site is being crawled, what pages are being visited, and how often. By analyzing these log files, SEO professionals can uncover issues that may be hindering the site’s performance in search engine results pages (SERPs) and identify opportunities to improve it.
Log file analysis involves a range of tasks, including identifying the search engine bots that are crawling the site, analyzing the frequency and duration of their visits, and monitoring the crawl budget allocated to the site. Additionally, log file analysis can help identify crawl errors, such as broken links or pages that return a 404 error, and ensure that search engine bots are able to access and crawl all of the site’s important pages. By using log file analysis to optimize a website for search engines, SEO professionals can help ensure that the site is easily discoverable by search engines and ultimately improve its visibility and rankings in SERPs.
Why Do I Need Log File Analysis?
Log file analysis is valuable for SEO for several reasons:
💡 Discovering crawl issues: Log files can help SEO professionals identify crawl issues that may be preventing search engine bots from discovering and indexing important pages on the site. This includes identifying broken links, pages returning a 404 error, or pages that are too slow to load, among other issues.
💡 Understanding crawl behavior: By analyzing log files, SEO professionals can gain insights into how search engine bots are crawling the site, such as which pages are being crawled most frequently, how often the site is being crawled, and which bots are crawling the site. This information can help inform SEO strategies and optimize the site for better search engine visibility.
💡 Improving crawl efficiency: Log file analysis can help optimize crawl budget by identifying pages that are being crawled unnecessarily or too frequently. This allows SEO professionals to prioritize the crawling of important pages, ensuring that they are crawled and indexed by search engines.
It provides valuable insights that you can’t get elsewhere and as a result, can help you uncover errors which might have previously been missed.
What Do I Need For A Log File Analysis?
To perform log file analysis, you will need access to the server log files that record the activity on your website. There are different types of log files that can be used for log file analysis, depending on the server and the software used to generate the logs. The most common types of log files are:
💡Apache log files: Apache is a popular web server software, and Apache log files are commonly used for log file analysis. Apache log files are typically stored in a plain text format and contain information such as the IP address of the user, the timestamp of the request, the requested URL, and the status code of the response.
💡NGINX log files: NGINX is another popular web server software, and NGINX log files are similar to Apache log files. NGINX log files typically contain information such as the IP address of the user, the timestamp of the request, the requested URL, and the status code of the response.
💡IIS log files: IIS is a web server software developed by Microsoft, and IIS log files are commonly used on Windows-based servers. IIS log files typically contain information such as the IP address of the user, the timestamp of the request, the requested URL, and the status code of the response.
Regardless of the type of log file, it is important to ensure that the log files contain the necessary information for log file analysis. This typically includes the user agent string, which identifies the search engine bots that are crawling the site, and the referrer, which identifies the source of the request (such as a search engine results page or a backlink).
What Should I Use For Log File Analysis?
There are several log file analysis tools available that can help you efficiently and effectively analyze your server log files. The choice of which tool to use will depend on your specific needs and preferences. Here are a few popular options:
💡Google Search Console: Google Search Console provides a range of SEO tools, including log file analysis. The log file analysis feature allows you to upload your server log files and view reports on how Google crawls your site. You can see which pages are being crawled most frequently, identify crawl errors, and optimize your crawl budget.
💡Screaming Frog Log File Analyzer: Screaming Frog Log File Analyzer is a desktop application that allows you to analyze log files from multiple sources, including Apache, NGINX, and IIS. The tool provides detailed reports on crawl behavior, including the frequency and duration of bot visits, and allows you to identify crawl issues and optimize crawl budget.
💡Logz.io: Logz.io is a cloud-based log management platform that offers log file analysis as part of its suite of features. The tool allows you to collect and analyze log data from multiple sources, including web servers and applications, and provides advanced analysis and visualization features, such as machine learning-powered anomaly detection and customizable dashboards.
💡ELK Stack: ELK Stack is an open-source log management platform that includes Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana. The platform allows you to collect, analyze, and visualize log data from multiple sources, including web servers, applications, and network devices. The ELK Stack offers advanced analysis and visualization features, such as machine learning-powered anomaly detection and real-time data monitoring.
These are just a few examples of the many log file analysis tools available. When choosing a log file analysis tool, consider factors such as your budget, the size of your log files, the complexity of the analysis you need to perform, and the level of technical expertise required to use the tool.
Can I Use Excel To Analyse Log Files?
Yes, Excel can be used to perform log file analysis, although it may not be the most efficient or scalable solution for large log files. Excel can be used to open and sort log files, filter data based on specific criteria, and perform basic calculations and analysis.
To get started with log file analysis in Excel, you can open the log file in Excel and use the “Text to Columns” feature to separate the data into different columns based on delimiters such as spaces or tabs. You can then use Excel’s filtering and sorting features to isolate specific data, such as search engine bot activity or crawl errors.
However, keep in mind that Excel has some limitations when it comes to handling large log files, such as performance issues and the potential for data loss or errors. For larger log files, it may be more efficient to use specialized log file analysis tools that are designed for handling large amounts of data and providing more advanced analysis and visualization features.
What Are The Main Things I Should Look For In Log File Analysis?
When analyzing server log files, there are several key metrics and insights that you should look for to optimize your website’s SEO performance. Here are some of the main things to look for in a log file analysis:
⚡️ Crawl frequency: Look at how often search engine bots are crawling your site, and which pages are being crawled most frequently. This can help you identify pages that are being crawled too frequently or not frequently enough, and optimize your crawl budget accordingly.
⚡️ Crawl errors: Identify any crawl errors or issues that search engine bots are encountering when crawling your site. This can include broken links, server errors, or blocked pages.
⚡️ Internal linking: Analyze the internal linking structure of your site by looking at which pages are linking to each other and how often. This can help you identify pages that may need more internal links to improve their SEO performance.
⚡️ Response codes: Look at the response codes in your log files to identify any pages that are returning errors or redirects. This can help you identify pages that may need to be fixed or redirected to improve your site’s user experience and SEO performance.
⚡️ User agents: Identify the user agents in your log files to see which search engines and bots are crawling your site. This can help you optimize your site for specific search engines and understand how different bots interact with your site.
⚡️ Referrers: Look at the referrers in your log files to see where your traffic is coming from, such as search engines, social media, or other websites. This can help you identify which sources are driving the most traffic to your site and optimize your marketing efforts accordingly.
These are just a few examples of the main things to look for in a log file analysis. Depending on your specific needs and goals, you may also want to analyze other metrics, such as page load times, click-through rates, or conversion rates.
How Much Time Does It Usually Take?
The time it takes to analyze log files for SEO purposes can also vary depending on various factors such as the size of the log files, the complexity of the website or application, the level of detail required, and the tools and methods used.
For smaller websites, log file analysis for SEO purposes may only take a few hours or a day. However, for larger and more complex websites or applications, the analysis may take several days or even weeks.
In addition, the level of detail required in the analysis will also affect the time it takes to complete. A high-level analysis that provides a general overview of website traffic and user behavior may take less time than a detailed analysis that requires deeper insights into specific user actions and behavior.
It’s also worth noting that log file analysis for SEO is an ongoing process that requires regular monitoring and analysis. As such, the time it takes to complete the analysis may depend on the frequency and extent of analysis required for your specific needs.
How Many Files Do I Need?
The number of log files you need for log file analysis for SEO will depend on the size of your website or application, the volume of traffic and user interactions, and the level of detail you require in your analysis.
Ideally, you should analyze all the log files generated by your web server to get a comprehensive view of user behavior and traffic on your site. However, this may not be practical or necessary for all websites.
In general, it’s recommended to analyze at least a few weeks’ worth of log files to get a good understanding of user behavior and traffic patterns. This will help identify any issues or opportunities for improvement in your website’s SEO performance.
You can also consider filtering the log files to focus on specific sections of your website or specific types of user behavior, which can help reduce the volume of data you need to analyze and make the analysis process more manageable.
Ultimately, the number of log files you need for log file analysis for SEO will depend on your specific needs and goals. It’s important to work with a knowledgeable SEO professional or use reliable SEO tools to help you determine the best approach for your website or application.
How Do I Get Started?
If after reading the above you want to get started on log file analysis then get in touch with your web developers (or your clients!) to get the files you need and get started. This valuable insight can really help you to identify any potential issues within the crawl and most importantly help to ensure that Google is crawling the website in an efficient manner – and getting to the pages that you need it to!
To find out more about log file analysis or for help with your SEO get in touch!
If you have an ecommerce store, then chances are that SEO will be close to the top of your priority list. After all, getting traffic – and more importantly, high intent traffic to your website plays an important role in driving sales and the success of your store.
Tackling SEO for ecommerce websites, particularly those with thousands of individual products can be a challenge especially when you add in elements like filters, faceted navigation and infinite scroll – so if you are looking to put your best foot forward and get ahead of your ecommerce SEO, we’ve put together a handy checklist for you below to help you improve your SEO performance and drive those all important sales to your website.
Here are the top things that you need to review to ensure that your ecommerce website has the best possible chance at SEO performance:
Crawl & Indexation
Effective crawl and indexation is one of the most important elements of an ecommerce SEO strategy as if your website or its content isn’t in Google’s index then it won’t be found by users who are searching. Ensuring that your website is indexed and then checking that Google can effectively crawl your pages is important to ensuring that your content is available to Google and has the best possible chance of returning in the search results. To help with this you can use the following:
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a really effective way to check on the indexation of your website and it has a super easy to use interface which can show you how your website is being indexed in the eyes of Google.
The “Page indexing” functionality shows how many pages are indexed and any potential indexation issues for the website, this can include pages which are excluded by “noindex” tags, pages which are canonicalised any other potential indexation issues.
The report can be a great way of understanding any potential indexation issues or evaluating why pages haven’t appeared within Google’s index – in particular, the “Crawled – currently not indexed” column highlights pages which Google has accessed but not indexed as it has chosen to exclude these pages from the index – this is often valuable insight for an ecommerce store as in many cases product variations such as colours, flavours, sizes etc… can be seen as duplication so by reviewing this you can identify the best way to index this content.
Log File Analysis
Log File Analysis is a great way to evaluate how Google is actually crawling your website and to identify any potential pain points or areas that Google can’t crawl (alternately also looking at which pages Google is crawling too frequently) – it can also help you identify if you have any orphaned content or content which has become unlinked from your main website and could therefore be problematic.
To do a thorough log file analysis we recommend at least 2-4 weeks of log files and to do them over several months to really understand how Google is crawling your website. Spider data is useful, but log files will really allow you to see what’s going on.
Crawl Analysis
In addition to log file analysis we’d also recommend undertaking a crawl analysis to evaluate how Google is crawling and indexing the website through an external tool such as Screaming Frog. By undertaking crawl analysis you can emulate the Google crawl, understanding how it reaches different pages and also the internal link value and structure of these pages – this approach can also help to identify any dead ends or issues where the Googlebot might not be able to get through.
Crawl analysis through a tool like Screaming Frog will help you to understand how effectively your website is being crawled and if there are any potential crawl issues which could be hampering your website from being effectively indexed and returned within the search results. It can also give you a good insight into the website’s crawl behaviours and if there’s any updates that you need to make to the internal linking to help improve the crawl path.
2. Page Titles & Headings
Page titles and headings are a hugely important part of your on-site SEO as they play an important role in signposting what content is on your website and what the content is about – think of them as a synopsis of the page. If you are trying to rank for “SEO agency” on Google then having a page title “SEO agency” with the heading “SEO agency” will definitely help to showcase to Google that that page exists on your website.
Page titles and headings should be clear and only focus on 1-2 keywords max – and there’s no harm in creating new pages for products that have reasonable search volume – in fact this is a great approach, especially when it comes to having a super-targeted page for specific categories or products. Undertaking fresh keyword research to identify where there is the opportunity to target new pages, and also undertaking research to evaluate if you are targeting the right keywords (i.e. should it be a cashmere “hat” or “beanie” based on product and search volume) will allow you to maximise the reach of your website and also ensure that you are gaining as much visibility as possible for your brand.
3. Page Copy
Page copy is incredibly important as it tells Google and the user about your products, brands or even your services. Ensure your copy is unique but also make it as helpful as possible – put yourselves in the shoes of the user to understand what it is that the user is looking for – have you answered their questions? Have you given them the chance to compare products? Have you given a guide to help them buy a particular product? These are all questions that the user will likely have so ensure that you are on hand to help them out.
As Google says in section 3.2 of the Page Quality Rater Guidelines, the “quality of the MC (main content) is one of the most important considerations for PQ (page quality) rating. Put simply, content is king and the quality of the content that you are putting onto your website, in addition to the reputation of the writer and the website that it’s published on, all play a key role in ensuring that your website is seen as trustworthy in Google’s eyes.
Google recently updated its Page Quality Rater Guidance to introduce the concept of E-E-A-T and at the centre of it all, was trust. Well-written content which is factually accurate and links out to good sources is a key component of trust on a website, so take the time to invest in creating effective content which is well-researched and factually backed, to ensure that you are giving yourself the best possible chance of adhering to strong on-page E-E-A-T.
4. About Us / Clear & Satisying Website Information
In the Page Quality Rater Guidelines one of the things that Google encourages raters to do is to look at a company’s “About Us” page to find out more about the company and the people who are behind the content on the website. Customer service is also an important aspect – particularly for an ecommerce website – and when it talks about “clear & satisfying website information” that means ensuring that a user can contact you if they need to – do you have a clear way for users to contact you? (either through a clear Contact Us page on the website or through a phone number in the top right hand corner) – are they able to get in touch if they need help or to return a product? Being able to offer effective customer service plays an important element in the trust of an ecommerce store, so ensuring that you offer “clear and satisfying website information” isn’t important only to Google, but also to your users.
5. Returns & Shipping Information
Which brings me onto the next point about returns and shipping information. While this is a staple on many ecommerce websites, ensuring that your returns & shipping information is clear and easily digestible is an important part of giving the user what they need.
Do you offer international shipping? Let your users know. What is your returns process like? By showcasing the information to Google and users you are not only giving them the “helpful” information that they need, you are also helping to build trust in your brand. Make sure this information is displayed clearly and easily accessible from both the main navigation of your website and also on specific product pages – pop outs can also help to detract users away from their user journey and this can also play an important role in boosting conversion rate.
6. Internal Linking
In our opinion one of the most under-rated SEO optimisation opportunities, internal linking, plays a key role in telling Google about your most important pages and ensuring that the Googlebot can effectively crawl through your pages, in addition to linking your content together semantically so that Google can understand what your pages are about and any supplementary content that you might have around them.
Internal linking is important to creating content clusters and pillar posts which help to group together your content themes – allowing Google to see that you have a depth of knowledge and trust about a particular topic when it comes to ranking you for it. Additionally, given that ecommerce websites often contain such a large amount of pages, internal linking can help to indicate which of these pages are most important, so if you are selling garden benches for example, linking different content such as bench buying guides, product launches and brand information into your key garden benches page, plays an important role in helping you to showcase your expertise around garden benches.
You can utilise Screaming Frog and other tools to help you gather a list of pages where there are internal linking opportunities – often blog content or category pages where you mention particular products, brands or categories but don’t link – and utilise this to pull together a linking strategy to help boost your internal navigation and link signals.
7. Schema Mark-up
Another invaluable SEO technique for ecommerce stores is the use and implementation of Schema and structured data mark-up, particularly product mark-up across products that are for sale in your store. The utilisation of schema helps Google to understand what is on your page and the implementation of key schema such as product mark-up and FAQ mark-up can also help you to pull key information about your products and services through to the search results.
FAQ schema is one of the most popular types of schema implementation and involves marking up questions or FAQ content on your pages. Including FAQs across category and product pages is a great way to give users additional information about your product or category range while also providing effective “helpful content”, by marking these up with FAQs you can also give Google the opportunity to present them within the search results as such:
By allowing you to see the FAQs within the search result you can get an understanding of the level of experience of a particular brand and their expertise.
Product schema is another great option if you are an ecommerce store or if you are selling a product online and in addition to giving valuable information to the user, this can also help to advise Google around important information pertaining to your products, this can include:
Price
Availability
Offers
Reviews
By implementing schema correctly, Google can pull this information through into the SERPs which can allow it to be displayed effectively and help to encourage users through to your website – especially if you are competitively priced and they have a price in mind.
Schema implementation can be relatively straightforward but it plays an important role in helping Google and users to understand more about your website and can be a real value add.
8. JavaScript & Code
Understanding how Google sees the JavaScript and code on your website plays a really important role in ensuring that your website is correctly indexed and that both Google and the user can understand what the page is about
In particular there have been a number of situations with JavaScript that has been incorrectly implemented has caused problems for Google across both crawl and indexation, most specifically this happens when JavaScript is implemented in a way that it blocks Google’s crawlers from effectively accessing the content therefore leading to Google not being able to see the content and therefore not valuing it as part of the page.
If you are unsure how Google is viewing the JavaScript on your website there are a number of ways that you can evaluate this in particular one very effective way is through using a tool to fetch and render your website in the way that Google would so that you can see if there are any render-blocking resources within your JavaScript which might be blocking the Googlebot from accessing your website. JavaScript can play an important role in the function of your website so it’s important to consider the impact that might have on your SEO when utilising it within the code, by using fetch and render it allows you to understand how Google sees this and allows you to ensure that your content can be effectively crawled and indexed.
9. Site Speed
Site speed plays an important role in your user experience and as such it plays a very important role and how effective the SEO on your website is. Google has for many years spoken about how important site speed is and in many cases it used to be true that if a website took over three seconds to load 50% of users would leave, this obviously isn’t ideal if you’re looking to attract and retain users on your website.
If you aren’t sure how your site speed currently performs then you can use the Google page speed insights tool to really understand how your website stacks up and a number of different speed metrics. The pagespeed insights tool also explains how your website performs on the core web vitals test, this is an important metric to Google and they have an algorithm update which specifically looks at how well websites perform against the core web vitals – we’ll talk about this a little bit more in next section.
Ultimately site speed plays a key role in user satisfaction so it’s important that you try and make your website as fast as possible so you’re delivering a good user experience as well as adhering to Google’s guidelines.
10. Core Web Vitals
Core web vitals playing important role in understanding how Google sees your website from a user experience perspective. There are three key considerations – LCP – that is how long it takes the largest element on your website to load CLS – that is looking at any images or areas of content on the website which is subject to shift when the user moves throughout the page and FID – that’s looking at how long it takes for the website to load from the first point of load.
A number of years ago Google introduced an algorithm update which was designed to ensure that websites performed well on the core web vitals test. The main purpose behind this algorithm was to encourage webmasters to create websites that drove a good user experience, had decent page speed and also ensured that when a user moved throughout the website the experience was seamless.
Although initially the majority of websites failed the core web vitals test, we are starting to see more and more websites take this seriously and as such, a higher percentage of websites pass this test than ever before. As a result, if you are building a new e-commerce store or you’re simply looking to upgrade your existing e-commerce store, then looking into core web vitals and how you can optimise to pass this test is an important SEO consideration
11. Image SEO
Image SEO is an important but often overlooked facet of effective SEO performance. This involves looking at the imagery in on your website and understanding how we could optimise this to appear within the Google image search and can be particularly useful if the product that you’re selling is driven by great image or if users are often searching for images on your website subject or topic.
To optimise for image SEO, one of the most important elements is the image alt text, this piece of code that often sits behind the image is the one descriptor that enables you to tell Google what that image is about. remember Google doesn’t always understand what an image is so we need to tell it in plain text form. The image alt text is a great way to tell Google what the image is about so make sure that you make your alt text as keyword rich and clear and concise as possible.
Another way that you can improve your Image SEO is through the naming of the images that you upload to your website. This doesn’t often have a huge impact but it can add to your Image SEO optimisation. As a result, when you’re uploading an image to the website we do recommend that you name the image with a keyword friendly format that again is clearly descriptive in plain text form of what is inside the image.
12. Sitemap
Sitemaps play an important role in helping Google to understand the structure of our website which can be very important when it comes to delivering an effective crawl. By creating an XML sitemap we are able to submit the sitemap to Google Search console and have Google effectively crawl the sitemap that we have created.
Submitting an XML sitemap to Google can also help us to identify where there are pages within the sitemap that haven’t been indexed or even pages in the sitemap which shouldn’t be indexed – this is really valuable in enabling us to give Google a really effective crawl and making sure that we maximise our crawl budget.
A sitemap will usually be created dynamically by the webmaster or the website itself and if you have an e-commerce store where you are frequently changing products or products might be going in and out stock, we would recommend setting up a dynamic type which refreshes at midnight each day, to ensure that the information that you’re sending to Google is relevant and correct.
13. Robots.txt
The robots.txt file on a website is one of the most important files that you can have to give guidance to Google and how you want it to crawl your website. within this file you can give guidance to the Googlebot to understand how it needs to crawl your website, this can include files and folders that you would like it to avoid crawling, or it can include areas of the website that you would like to block from the crawl altogether.
This particular file is very valuable for e-commerce stores who may have a filtering system in place such as faceted navigation – in this instance Google will naturally crawl every link that is created and that could be thousands and thousands of variations of a product such as size, colour, shape etc… and this could lead to a significant waste and crawl budget and it may also mean that Google doesn’t reach the most important pages on your website as frequently as it should. In this instance we would recommend implementing a robots.txt file to ensure that Google is crawling the right areas of your website and to prevent it from wasting crawl budget in areas that you would prefer it to avoid.
14. Product Information
Your product information pages are some of the most important pages that you’ll have on an e-commerce website. these pages give your users the information that they need to understand what type of product you’re selling, what the particular features of that product are and also important elements like what that product is made of and what size it is available in.
It’s important to be clear and concise with your product information and to make sure that you make as much information available as possible to the user to help them to make an informed decision. At the end of the day we want the user to purchase the products when they are on our website, rather than going to a competitor, so it’s important that we are giving them all of the information that they need to make an informed purchase.
Where possible try and make your product descriptions unique as this can help to add value to the user and avoid the duplication of many other retailers who will be selling the same products. Although we do understand that in many instances it’s difficult to do this and in some cases you will need to use the manufacturer’s copy on your website. If this is the case then try to add a unique element to your website in another way, this could be looking at implementing FAQs or pulling in some USPs of using your shop against a competitor.
15. FAQs
We mentioned FAQs in the last point as one of the most important ways to add unique content onto your website, but more than this they have the ability to answer your user’s questions and easily match your user purpose and intent, this is an important element in Google’s quality rater guidelines and something that you should be looking to add to your e-commerce store.
If you aren’t sure where to start with FAQs then looking at the types of questions that people are searching for using keyword research tools to understand conversational queries is a great place to start. In addition, you could look at the people also ask section at the bottom of the Google Search results to get an idea of what other users have been searching for related to your specific product or category group.
Once you have an idea of the questions that people are asking, you can then start to generate great copy that answers those questions directly and put it into faq format to fit into the website. We also recommend implementing FAQ schema which can help Google to understand that your content is in FAQ format and also that it’s answering a user’s question which is always super valuable to the content of the page.
16. Clear Titles & Headings
Clear targeting plays an important role in helping Google to understand what your e-commerce pages are about, this means ensuring that all product and category pages are clearly labeled with clear titles and clear headings telling the user what is on that page. We generally recommend that you only focus each page with one or two maximum keywords to ensure that those pages are seen as super relevant for that term and additionally this helps Google to understand that you are relevant for that term and may help you to perform better in the search results.
If you aren’t sure where to start with titles and headings then undertaking keyword research to understand what uses are searching for and the types of search volumes around those keywords can help you to choose the right keyword for that page. In many instances we see the e-commerce pages are set up to target the wrong keyword and in this instance they could be missing out on a great deal of opportunity. An example of this could be targeting a cashmere sweaters page with the keyword cashmere knitwear – on review we might find the cashmere sweaters has a higher search volume than cashmere knitwear, but as we have chosen to target it with the latter we are missing out on the opportunity to capitalise on that search volume. This is a great example of a situation where looking at how we are targeting the page and page title is important to ensure that we’re maximising the visibility for our website.
17. Product Information
Most e-commerce stores will have a mega nav or a main menu with very clean navigation and this allows Google to understand what the main pages on that website are and when it usually lands on the homepage, it helps to direct Google through the website to ensure that it lands on some of the most important pages on the site first.
This is one of the main reasons why having a good main navigation is so important – and much time and detail should be put into researching the right pages to go into the navigation, to ensure that you’re really maximising the opportunity here both from the user and an internal link equity perspective.
If you aren’t sure where to start with evaluating your navigation and your crawl, then a great place to start is with a log file analysis. Log file analysis allows you to understand how Google is crawling through your website and to identify which pages are most frequently called and which pages perhaps aren’t getting much of a visit at all. Once you’ve undertaken a log analysis you can have a really good idea of where you might need to improve the internal navigation of your website. If some of the most important pages aren’t being reached very frequently or there are a number of pages which are being repeatedly crawled perhaps indicating that Google is stuck on those pages, then updating your main navigation will help to ensure that Google can continue one it’s way and that the appropriate pages on your website are getting indexed as they should be.
18. Internal Linking
Internal linking plays a very important role in allowing Google to move through your website. Connecting your pages together and allowing the Googlebot to move effectively throughout the website without getting stuck in a particular area or without missing out on key pages plays an important role in ensuring that your website is effectively crawled and indexed giving it the best possible chance to return well within the search results. Internal linking also helps Google to understand what the most important pages on your website are, and building an effective internal linking structure can help to send positive page signals to ensure that Google understands which pages they need to consider as most significant on your website.
19. E- E-A-T
Last but not least we have the concept of expertise authority and trust, these words are perhaps some of the most mentioned words when we talk about SEO and the three of the most important elements when it comes to Google evaluating how your website performs in the search results. Google has told us time and time again how important it is for websites to showcase expertise, authority and trust through everything that they do both on-site and off-site and it’s no different for e-commerce stores which are often held to a higher standard due to the transactional nature of the website.
E-A-T can come in a number of different formats and there’s a number of things that you can do on your website to really push and exude these key signals, but in general on e-commerce stores there’s two areas that we focus on the most, these are the About Us page and the Contact Us page – as they both showcase important information to the user and to Google regarding who is behind the website and how they can be contacted if an issue arises.
Your About Us page should do what it says on the tin and that is it should tell people about you, it should tell people about your brand, your background, your expertise and why they can trust to make a purchase from you. This is also a place to talk about any achievements, awards, accreditations or other recommendations that you’ve had that can help to add to that trust side of the business. It’s also nice to include a meet the team page so that people can understand the names and faces behind the brand that they are purchasing from.
Your Contact Us page is also important – this provides your customers with the ability to connect with you if there’s a problem with the order or if they need to ask a question and this plays an important role in matching user purpose and intent and allowing the users to make an informed decision before they make their purchase. It gives them peace of mind if they do make the purchase and there’s an issue with it that they are able to resolve it quickly and easily so having a clearly visible contact us page with a number of ways to communicate with you effectively is always a bonus here. From an SEO perspective this is a big tick in both the authority and the trust boxes as it helps to build trust with the user knowing that they can communicate with you if there is an issue.
20. Mobile Optimisation
Mobile optimisation is critical, as the majority of e-commerce traffic often comes from mobile devices. Ensure that your website is mobile-friendly, has a responsive design, and is optimised for mobile search. Check the mobile usability report in Google Search Console to identify any issues and ensure a smooth user experience.
21. Canonical Tags
E-commerce websites often have multiple URLs for similar or identical content (e.g., product variations). Use canonical tags to avoid duplication issues and tell search engines which version of a page to prioritise. Proper implementation of canonical tags can help consolidate link equity and avoid keyword cannibalisation.
22. Breadcrumb Navigation
Breadcrumb navigation is a great way to help both users and search engines understand the structure of your website. It aids user experience by providing a clear path back to previous pages, and search engines can better grasp your site’s hierarchy. Implement breadcrumb navigation, especially on category and product pages, to improve crawlability and SEO.
23. User-Generated Content
Encourage and showcase user-generated content, such as product reviews, testimonials, and ratings. This not only builds trust with potential customers but also creates fresh, unique content that Google values. Ensure that reviews are crawlable and well-structured, potentially using review schema markup.
24. HTTPS For Security
If you haven’t already, make sure your website uses HTTPS. Google prioritises secure websites, and customers are more likely to trust and complete transactions on secure sites. An HTTPS certificate improves your SEO and provides a safer experience for your users.
25. Pagination
E-commerce sites with large product ranges often require pagination. Make sure your paginated pages are properly indexed and optimised. Use the rel="prev" and rel="next" tags to inform Google about paginated content, and ensure that the most important category pages are easily accessible by both users and search engines.
26. Optimised URLs
Ensure your URLs are short, descriptive, and keyword-rich. Avoid dynamically generated URLs with lots of unnecessary characters. Instead, opt for clean, static URLs that describe the content of the page, such as www.example.com/mens-sneakers instead of www.example.com/category?id=123&product=456. This improves click-through rates and SEO visibility.
27. Content Silos
Group your e-commerce content into silos by creating well-organised categories and subcategories. This not only helps users navigate the site but also allows search engines to understand the relationship between your products and categories. A well-organised silo structure can improve your site’s relevance for specific search queries.
28. Alt Tags For Images
Ensure that all images on your website, particularly product images, have relevant and descriptive alt tags. Alt tags help search engines understand the context of the image, improving your chances of appearing in image search results. Descriptive alt text also improves accessibility for users with disabilities.
29. Local SEO For Ecommerce
If your e-commerce store has a physical presence or if you offer local services (e.g., store pick-up), consider local SEO optimisation. Create a Google My Business profile, ensure your NAP (name, address, phone number) details are consistent across the web, and optimise product listings for localised keywords to capture local search intent.
30. Social Proof Integration
Integrate social proof, such as customer testimonials, influencer endorsements, and social media engagement, into your product pages. This not only increases trust with potential customers but also contributes to SEO by encouraging users to engage with your site and share content, which can generate backlinks.
Summary
SEO is hugely important for e-commerce websites but in order to get the most out of your website it’s important to follow the right guidance and to understand what you need to do to get the most out of the search engine results. So if you are working with an e-commerce store or if you’re planning to launch one in the near future, take time to invest in understanding how you can get SEO to work for you and it will pay off in the long run. If you’d like to know more about how we can help you with your SEO for an e-commerce store then please get in touch!
Alternately if you are looking to approach ecommerce with a more immediate return then you may want to consider looking for a Google Shopping agency to support you with your product listing ads.
2023 has got off to a busy start for our Paid Media team and we are delighted to have been nominated for three awards at the UK Paid Media Awards.
The UK Paid Media Awards recognise the contribution that paid advertising delivers to engagement, clicks, leads sales and ultimately profit, shining a light on the work being undertaken by paid media agencies which is best in class.
We’ve been nominated in the following categories:
📢 Shopping Ads Campaign Of The Year with Hayes Garden World
📢 Best Use Of Data with Patient Claim Line
📢 Best Small Paid Media Agency
The award nominations top off a busy month with January being our busiest month ever for new business and we welcomed five new clients into the fold at the start of February.
The new clients come off the back of our wins at the European Paid Media Awards where we took home:
📢 Retail Campaign Of The Year with Hayes Garden World
📢 Best Small Paid Media Agency
Look forward to seeing everyone at the awards night in London on March 15th and you can see the full list of nominations here
2023 is just three days in and already we are welcoming new clients to the Cedarwood fold. The end of 2022 saw us drive even stronger campaigns for our clients, while also taking home a number of UK Search Awards and we are now delighted to welcome some new clients onto our books for 2023, starting with our new paid media client, Cycle SOS.
Cycle SOS the cyclist’s national helpline is made up of a highly trained team of specialist personal injury lawyers, that has recovered millions of pounds for cyclists, through cycle accident claims over the past thirty years. Their specialists will support and advise you throughout the cycle accident claims process.
We’ll be working with Cycle SOS across Paid Media to help grow, develop and create new campaigns in their vertical, aimed at targeting cyclists who may have a compensation claim, or who may have been the victim of an accident through no fault of their own.
Our extensive experience across the legal paid media landscape and effective use of PPC puts us in a strong position to help build and grow the brand along with the challenging targets that have been set.
Paid Media Manager Anna Simpson said “We’re delighted to have Cycle SOS on board, our unparalleled experience in the legal sector means that we have the structure and knowledge to really take this business to the next level and we are look forward to working with the team to achieve their goals.”
Director Of Marketing at Cycle SOS, David Burke said “I was extremely impressed with how professional, well structured, and easy the onboarding process with Cedarwood. In a competitive market it is vital to be able to hit the ground running and generate leads and working with Anna, James and the team allowed us to do just that with minimal disruption or time needed from our internal teams.”
We look forward to working with Cycle SOS throughout 2023!
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