All posts by : Marcy Jones

When it comes to driving traffic to your website, increasing your organic click-through rate is essential. If your website is ranking highly on the SERPs, that’s great, but if users aren’t clicking through then your SEO efforts may be wasted. In this blog, we will be discussing five ways to increase your organic click-through rate (CTR) so that users will click through and you can increase your traffic. 

What Is Click-Through Rate? 

Organic click-through rate (CTR) is the number of users who click on your website in the SERPs. You can calculate your organic click-through rate by dividing the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions. 

Organic click-through rate is extremely important for SEO because the higher your CTR is, the more traffic you will receive. Boosting your CTR will mean more visitors, more engagement, and ultimately, more conversions. 

5 Steps To Increase Your Click-Through Rate:

1. Optimise Your Title Tags With Descriptive Keywords 

The title of your webpage will be the first thing users see in the SERPs and it can play a significant role for users deciding whether they’ll click through to your site or not. A well optimised title tag can grab attention and communicate relevance at the same time, both of which are essential for increasing CTR. 

When creating title tags you should focus on your most important keywords. For example, if you’re targeting “wooden garden furniture”, your title tag should reflect that phrase. Using your target keywords within your title helps you to match the search intent closely and show users that the content and products on your page is relevant to what they are searching for. 

Your title tag will obviously very much depend on what your web page is, if it is a product/ category page, it should clearly state what those products are, if it is blog style content it may be more of a longer title such as, “How To…” or “The Ultimate Guide to…”. When optimising title tags, as a general rule you should use between 50 and 60 characters for your title – as long as it tells the user exactly what is on your page, and it matches the user intent, users will be more likely to click through. 

2. Optimise Your Meta Description 

Meta descriptions can play a significant role in driving clicks. A meta description is the short description of text that appears below the title in the SERPs, it gives users a brief overview of what they can expect if they click through to your site.

Like title tags, meta descriptions should also contain your target keywords that are relevant to search intent to confirm to users that this page is going to provide them with what they are looking for. 

Your meta description should be between 50 and 160 characters and it should describe exactly how your website is going to provide the user with valuable information that they are looking for to solve their problem. Make it clear to users why they should click onto your webpage rather than a competitor’s page by highlighting your unique selling points (USPs) within the description, this could be free next day delivery, expert advice or 5 star review – whatever makes you stand out from your competition should be included here alongside what the page is offering. 

3. Optimise Your URLs

Although it may seem obvious, your web page’s URL can play a significant role in increasing click-through rates. When creating and optimising our URLs, keep it short and descriptive. Avoid long, complicated URLs. 

Again, you should use your target keywords within our URL to give users and search engines a clear understanding of what your content is about.  

You should also ensure to utilise subdomains within your URL structure to device your site into logical sections. For example, if you are targeting wine glasses, it is likely that they will sit underneath the main glassware category, so your URL will read as follows: www.example.com/glassware/wine-glasses.com.  

A logical, easily readable URL that contains keywords relating to the search intent reassures users that they are clicking on the correct page. 

4. Use Structured Data 

Adding structured data, also known as schema markup, to your website can help search engines better understand your content. It allows search engines, such as Google to display rich results and enhance your SERP listings with reviews, prices and more information to make them more interactive for users. 

Structured data is coded using in-page markup on the page that the information applies to. The structured data should describe the content of that page and this will help Google to further understand what the page is about. 

As previously mentioned, implementing structured data can help to display rich results in the SERPs and this can attract more clicks for your web page because your site is more likely to appear at the top of the SERPs, particularly if you have the featured snippet, it is more interactive than a plain URL and it gives the user more information when they see your site in the URL so they can clearly see that the content on your page is going to match their search intent. 

Types of structured data you can implement can include: 

• ➡️ Product markup – for e-commerce sites, including product markup including price, availability and ratings can attract shoppers more effectively. 
• ➡️ Review schema – displaying user reviews and ratings directly in the search results can showcase credibility and attract more users to click through. 
• ➡️ FAQ schema – answering commonly asked questions and including FAQ schema can help your content appear as featured snippets or people also asked and can help to attract more traffic to your site.

Implementing structured data can be extremely beneficial to increase your organic click-through rate – to have a look at what structured data you currently have implemented on your site, you can use the Rich Results Test tool to see what is currently found on the page as well as any errors or suggestions for your structured data. 

5. Create Fast Loading Pages 

Site speed is a very important part of click-through rate – if a user clicks on your site and the web page doesn’t load quick enough, the chances are that they will click off and go to a competitor site and your bounce rate will increase a lot. Page speed is also one of Google’s ranking factors so if your page is too slow, it can have an impact on rankings.  

There are many different ways you can optimise your site speed including: 

• ➡️ Optimising your images – reduce your image size without compromising the quality 
• ➡️ Reduce any unused JavaScript 
• ➡️ Make sure all images have an explicit height and width set 
• ➡️ Eliminate render-blocking resources 

How you can optimise your site speed will vary depending on your website, in order to find ways of making your site speed faster, use PageSpeed Insights. This tool will allow you to enter your URL and it will provide you with diagnostics and opportunities on how to improve the overall site speed for your website. You can also do this on a page by page basis if there are particular pages which you would like to improve. 

Summary 

Increasing your organic click-through rate is a combination of many different strategies. By optimising and following these five steps, you can increase your click-through rate bringing in more traffic, better engagement and potentially higher conversion rates. 

It is important to consistently refine all of the above elements to ensure your website is always targeting and meeting the needs of your users – make sure to stay up to date and constantly optimise your website for SEO purposes and you can make sure your website brings in relevant traffic through the SERPs. 

If you need help increasing your organic click-through rate and aren’t sure where to start, get in touch with our team of SEO experts today and we can help you maximise the traffic coming to your website by optimising your website to increase organic click-through rate. 

If you have experienced a loss in organic traffic, it can be a worrying and frustrating challenge. Whether your website is for a personal blog or a large e-commerce site, a drop in organic traffic can potentially mean a drop in rankings and can affect your visibility, engagement, conversions and ultimately your revenue. If you have noticed a drop in your organic traffic, don’t panic as there are steps you can take to find out what has happened and how you can recover your rankings and traffic in order to increase conversions. 

In this blog, we will discuss why your organic traffic could have taken a drop, how to identify the cause and actions you can take to regain your traffic.  

Initial Analysis 

Understanding the causes behind your drop in traffic is essential in order to know how to address these causes, so the first step if you have noticed a drop in organic traffic is to conduct an initial analysis. 

Use tools such as Ahrefs, SEMrush, Google Analytics and Google Search Console to review traffic decreases – you can identify which pages of your website have been affected and look at specific dates to see if you can find any information about a potential cause. 

There can be many potential reasons as to why you’re organic traffic has dropped including: 

• ➡️ Google algorithm updates – Google releases hundreds of search algorithm updates every year. While some are minor, some core updates can significantly affect search rankings. These updates can impact how Google evaluates website content and ranks pages and if your website is not providing the most helpful and relevant content, you may experience a loss in traffic. 

• ➡️ Technical SEO problems – technical issues can prevent Google and other search engines from properly crawling and indexing your pages which can in turn affect your rankings, visibility and traffic. If Google cannot effectively crawl your website, it may not be able to index it and it therefore won’t appear in the SERPs. 

• ➡️ Content issues – personally, I would say that content is the backbone of SEO and it is a huge part of SEO overall. If your content is outdated, irrelevant or thin, it is likely that it won’t rank highly and you can lose out on a lot of potential organic traffic. 

• ➡️ Competition – another reason you may lose traffic is simply because your competitors are actively improving their SEO strategies. If a competitor has updated their content, built backlinks and are providing optimised content, they may increase their rankings and could push your content further down the page, potentially reducing clicks and traffic.

• ➡️ SERP intent change – SERP intent is vital when it comes to optimising your website – it is so important that your website is giving the users what they want. This means that if the user intent changes, and your website is not providing users with the information they are looking for, you’ll probably lose rankings so that Google can provide users with the most helpful and relevant content. 

How To Figure Out The Cause Of Your Traffic Loss 

There are many ways in which you can figure out the causes of your traffic loss: 

Google Search Console

• ➡️ Analyse the performance report to understand which pages have experienced traffic drops. 
• ➡️ Review the search results report to analyse which search queries are bringing in traffic and which queries have dropped off.
• ➡️ Analyse the page indexing report to look through any crawl errors and any technical issues that could be preventing Google from crawling and indexing your site. 
• ➡️ Utilise the page experience report to ensure your website is providing a good page experience. 

Google Analytics

• ➡️ Identify which pages have seen the biggest traffic drop off in the user acquisition report – comparing current data to historical data is a good idea to see what has dropped off. If it is applicable, make sure to factor in seasonality.  
• ➡️ Look at the highest revenue driving pages to uncover which pages are having the biggest impact due to the loss in organic traffic. 
• ➡️ Analyse user behaviour metrics such as engaged sessions, engagement rate, engagement time and bounce rate to see if there are engagement issues on particular landing pages.

Ahrefs 

• ➡️ Review which pages have seen decreases in rankings for specific keywords. 
• ➡️ Check keyword volumes to analyse any trends or decreases.
• ➡️ Look into search intent for target keywords and review whether or not your landing pages are matching the intent. 
• ➡️ Analyse your backlink profile against competitors. 
• ➡️ Review how competitors are ranking for target keywords and if they have seen similar decreases or increases. 

Algorithm Updates 

• ➡️ Research whether there have been any algorithm updates – check what these updates were regarding and align the dates of the update with your loss to see if you have been impacted. 

Review Website Changes 

• ➡️ Identify any recent website changes; content, design, or technical to see if there are any issues with these changes or if these could have negatively impacted your SEO performance. 
• ➡️ Check your robots.txt file and sitemap to ensure there are no issues.

Conduct A Competitor Analysis 

• ➡️ Analyse your competitors’ sites to see if they have made any significant changes that could be impacting your rankings.
• ➡️ Check their content, backlink and on-page efforts to see if they are actively updating and refreshing their website for SEO purposes. 

Ways To Increase Organic Traffic 

Once you have identified the cause of your traffic drop, you can now start to take actionable steps to improve your rankings and traffic so that you can increase conversions and revenue. 

Technical SEO 

Start by addressing any technical issues that could be preventing your site from being crawled and indexing. There are many different technical fixes but below are some of the key areas to ensure they are working correctly and are optimised for SEO. 

• ➡️ Crawl Errors 

Use Google Search Console to identify crawl errors and ensure you fix all issues that are preventing Google from crawling your site. Errors such as 404, page not found or any other 4xx issues should be resolved to ensure Google can crawl your website correctly. 

• ➡️ Indexing Errors

It is important to make sure that Google is indexing all of the important pages from your site so firstly, review your sitemap to ensure that there are no errors and all necessary pages are included. Secondly, review your robots.txt file and make sure there are only pages that shouldn’t be indexed in there. If there are urls in your robot.txt file that you want to be indexed, make sure to remove these and optimise them for search engines. 

• ➡️ Site Speed 

Site speed is important for user experience and search engines so optimising it is highly recommended. Using PageSpeed insights, you can assess your site speed and look for areas for improvement. Consider compressing images and minimising JavaScript to improve page loading times. 

• ➡️ Mobile Friendliness

Google uses mobile-first indexing, and with the majority of users using their mobile device to conduct searches, it is extremely important that your website is mobile friendly. Make sure to check that your site is responsive on all devices and make sure to make any necessary improvements – you can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check your website’s mobile usability and from there, you can see if you need to make any changes to your site. 

Content 

Once you have identified areas of your website that have seen a decrease in traffic, you can update your content accordingly. Outdated and thin content can cause traffic losses over time as they are not providing users with helpful information, so it is important that you are regularly updating your content to ensure it is satisfying the user intent by staying relevant and providing informative content. 

To update your content, you should conduct a content audit to evaluate the quality of your content and identify which pages are a priority to update. When updating your content, ensure to carry out the following steps:

• ➡️ Keyword research 
• ➡️ Content updates 
• ➡️ Internal Linking 

It is important to make sure your content is relevant, unique and helpful to users. By improving your content you can increase rankings and engagement and recover lost traffic. 

Backlinks 

Backlinks are an essential part of any SEO strategy and a high quality backlink profile can have a large impact on your website’s organic rankings. A drop in the quality of backlinks to your site can therefore have a large impact on your organic traffic. Focus on acquiring high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites to improve the quality of your backlink profile. Continuously work on strengthening your backlinks by creating high quality Digital PR campaigns and by creating high quality content that can naturally attract links. Gaining high quality backlinks can increase the authority of your site and can have great impacts on your SEO performance.

User Experience 

User experience is highly important when it comes to engagement, so make sure you are optimising your site for your users first. Google’s primary goal is to help users, so optimising your site for your users is therefore essential. When improving user experience, make sure to optimise the following: 

• ➡️ Meta title and description 
• ➡️ Readability 
• ➡️ Design elements 
• ➡️ Navigation 
• ➡️ Engagement 
• ➡️ CRO analysis 

By creating a good user experience throughout your site, you can improve engagement and conversion rates. 

Optimising Your Site For SEO

The above information can be extremely helpful if you have experienced a drop in organic traffic. However, the main thing to remember is to make sure your SEO strategy is ongoing. Focus on creating high quality content, ensuring your website is in good technical stance, conducting regular audits and keeping up to date with industry news and updates. This will allow you to proactively stop your traffic from decreasing in the first place.

By staying informed, you can make sure your website is optimised at all times and adapt your SEO strategy accordingly. 

Experiencing a drop in  traffic can be difficult but by navigating it carefully and carefully analysing what has happened and how you can fix it, you can work to regain any lost traffic. 

If you have noticed a loss in your organic traffic and you need help understanding what has happened and how to regain this traffic, make sure to get in touch with our team of SEO experts. We can help you create a targeted SEO strategy and increase your organic traffic in order to meet the goals of your business, whether that be engagement, conversions, or revenue – we can help.

In the world of SEO, we all know that content is king and creating engaging, informative content for your website is extremely important. However, it doesn’t just end there and one aspect that can often be overlooked but can significantly impact your E-E-A-T signals is author pages. Even though author pages are not a direct ranking factor, they can play a significant role in building trust and credibility and can enhance your website’s overall SEO performance. In this blog, we will discuss what an author page is and why it is important that you include them on your website.

What Is An Author Page? 

An author page is a dedicated page on your website that showcases the expertise and credentials of the people who have contributed to your website, whether they have written a blog or reviewed a service page, an author page should be created. The author page will highlight the author’s background, experience, expertise and knowledge for a certain topic or field. 

What Should Be Included On Your Author Page 

In order to maximise the impact of your author pages, you should include the following: 

• ➡️ Name – clearly identify the author at the top of the page. 

• ➡️ Role/ title – include their role so users know where their expertise lies. 

• ➡️ Image – including a high quality image/ headshot will help to humanise the author and give the author page a more professional look.

• ➡️ Bio and expertise – provide an overview of the author’s background, experience and different areas of expertise, this should all be relevant to your website. 

• ➡️ Qualifications – include a list of relevant qualifications to showcase the author’s expertise within the industry.

• ➡️ List of articles written – include a list of articles that the author has previously written to further showcase their knowledge and expertise. 

• ➡️ Links to other profiles – if relevant, provide a link to the author’s other profiles, such as LinkedIn, to build a strong online presence. 

• ➡️ Contact information – include an email address/ phone number so that users can get in touch with the author. 

By including all of the above information, you can truly showcase the expertise and knowledge of the author and provide those all important E-E-A-T signals for search engines and users. 

Below is an example of an author page with all of the relevant information showcasing expertise and experience signals which will provide users with trust. This author profile is linked to throughout the website so that users can see the expertise behind the website easily and they can then build trust with the people behind the brand. 

Why Are Author Pages Important To Have On Your Website?

Creating author pages does involve an extra step when creating content, however they can offer significant benefits for your website. By including author profiles on your website and showcasing the expertise and experience of your authors, you can easily improve your website’s E-E-A-T signals, which Google heavily favours in their search quality guidelines. Google actually mentions the term ‘E-E-A-T’ 116 times in the Search Quality Rater Guidelines, therefore emphasising the importance of establishing trust and authority throughout your website. 

It also states the following as one of the guidelines: “Assess how trustworthy the page is. Experience, Expertise and Authoritativeness can help with your assessment of Trust. Some types of pages require a high level of Trust.” 

Building E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) signals is one of the main benefits of author profiles and this is extremely important for SEO because it will contribute to quality content that can go on to perform well in the SERPs. Even though E-E-A-T is not a confirmed direct ranking factor for Google, it is important to showcase these signals throughout your website to show that you are meeting Google’s requirements relating to quality and trustworthiness. 

Author pages can significantly help strengthen your E-E-A-T signals. By showcasing to Google and other signals that your content is written by knowledgeable people who have relevant expertise and experience, you are demonstrating that your content is trustworthy and that it will be providing users with factual, helpful information. 

However, as well as building E-E-A-T signals for your website and showing to search engines that you are providing trustworthy content, you can also build trust and credibility for your users. One of the most important reasons to have author pages is to build that trust with your audience, particularly if your website falls under the YMYL category. Building trust with your website users is crucial for any online business – trust can significantly contribute to user engagement, brand loyalty and conversions so building this on your website is key. 

If a user trusts your website and the content you are providing them, they are more likely to engage with your content, share their personal information and become a return user who may purchase from your site. If a user does not trust the site, or the content that is written, it is likely that they will not engage with the website and they will leave the website and go onto a competitor’s site who is showcasing their trust signals clearly. 

By incorporating author profiles into your website and including these on your blogs, service pages and other pages throughout your website, you are showing your users that your content is written by experts who know what they are talking about and they can trust that the information they are being provided with is true. 

Summary 

Author pages can often be overlooked for websites but they can be a key component of a successful website. By creating thorough, informative and engaging author profiles, you can easily enhance your website’s credibility and build trust with your users. In doing so, you will be able to improve your E-E-A-T signals which can help to build your overall SEO performance – remember that even though E-E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor, it is still a crucial element of organic search and the addition of author pages on your website can significantly contribute to these signals. 

If you are looking to find out more about E-E-A-T and author pages and how these can contribute to a successful SEO strategy, make sure to get in touch with us today and our team of SEO experts can help provide you with the information you need to build strong E-E-A-T signals through author pages. 

In any aspect of digital marketing, understanding user behaviour is crucial and that is no different for SEO. One of the key components of a successful SEO strategy is to understand search intent and in this blog, we will discuss everything you need to know about search intent – what it is, why it is so important for SEO, how you can identify it and how you can optimise your content to match search intent. 

What Is Search Intent?

Search intent, also known as user intent, is the purpose behind a user’s search query. It encompasses what a user is trying to achieve when they are searching for a specific query. Whether the user is looking to buy something, looking for a specific website, searching for an answer to a question or they are just looking for more information surrounding a particular topic, understanding the intent behind their search is highly important. 

What Are The Four Main Types Of Search Intent? 

Generally, search intent can be grouped into four main categories:

Informational Intent 

Informational intent is when a user wants to learn more about a particular topic and they are seeking information. Informational intent searches often include questions containing how, what and why. 

Examples of informational intent keywords include: 

• ➡️ What is SEO
• ➡️ How do you make pancakes 
• ➡️ What are the benefits of drinking green tea 
• ➡️ How old is Taylor Swift 
• ➡️ Why is my sunflower not growing

The most common returned pages for informational intent keywords will be blogs and even though informational intent keywords may not lead to conversions, they can be very beneficial for your online business because they can:

• ➡️ Increase visibility – creating blog content and ranking for informational keywords that are very relevant to your product or service will massively increase your visibility for your target market. 

• ➡️ Build trust – ranking for relevant keywords will also help to build trust with your target audience as they will see your name as a reputable source who has helped them gather information that they needed.

• ➡️ Target the user journey – by creating blog content and targeting informational queries, you can create helpful content that will guide your target audience through the user journey. By creating the awareness and then guiding those users down the user funnel, you will be able to take those users from the awareness stage all the way down through consideration and then to conversion. If users have all of the information they need on your website, they will be more likely to convert on your site as well. 

Navigational Intent 

Navigational intent occurs when the user wants to visit a specific website or page, the user already knows what they are trying to find in the SERPs and they do not want additional information, they just want to see what they are looking for at the top of the SERP. 

Examples of navigational intent keywords include: 

• ➡️ YouTube 
• ➡️ Facebook login 
• ➡️ Prettylittlething returns policy

The majority of navigational intent keywords will be brand focused as the user knows what page they want to land on. For navigational keywords, it is important that your customers/ target audience can easily find the page that they are looking for.

Commercial Intent 

Commercial intent includes keywords that users are searching for when they are conducting research before purchasing a product or service. They are in the stage of considering a purchase and they want to research their options. 

Examples of commercial intent keywords include: 

• ➡️ Best hair dryer for curly hair 
• ➡️ Iphone 15 pro review 
• ➡️ Gousto vs Hello Fresh

Commercial intent lies between informational and transactional as the user will likely be looking for information that is very closely related to their future transaction. 

Transactional Intent 

Transactional intent occurs when users are looking to complete a specific action, this could be to make a purchase, download a software, or sign up to a newsletter for example. 

Examples of transactional intent keywords include: 

• ➡️ Sign up to Netflix 
• ➡️ Buy a coffee machine 
• ➡️ Purchase a railcard online

When a user is searching with a transactional intent keyword, it is likely that they already know that they want to convert and they are going to do it off the back of this search query. These keywords are targeted at your customers when they are ready to convert.  

Why Is Search Intent So Important For SEO? 

Understanding the search intent behind different queries and keywords is extremely important for SEO as it allows you to optimise your website specifically for your target audience so that they are satisfied when they land on your website. Below are some of the reasons why understanding search and user intent is so important for organic search:

1. Enhances the user experience 

User experience can be considered one of the most important aspects when it comes to SEO and search engines like Google prioritise user experience. If your website and content aligns with the intent behind certain queries, then it likely means that you are providing users with the information that they are looking for and enhancing their user experience as they are satisfied that their search query has been fulfilled. Satisfied users that are experiencing a good user experience are also more likely to stay on your site for longer periods of time and engage with your content more, they will also be more likely to convert. 

2. Improves rankings and visibility 

Google’s algorithms are extremely sophisticated when it comes to interpreting the search intent behind certain queries so by understanding the search intent and optimising your website accordingly, you can increase the likelihood of better rankings in the SERPs. 

3. Increases click through rate

Once you have understood the search intent behind your target keywords and queries, you can optimise your content and metadata accordingly. By optimising your metadata specifically for your target audience, they will be able to easily see that your content matches their search intent and they will be more likely to click through to your site. This increased click through rate can lead to increased traffic and conversions but it can also signal to search engines that your content is relevant and valuable for users. 

4. Drives targeted traffic 

Optimising your website to match the user intent of your target audience will ensure you are driving the right traffic for your specific product or service. When optimising your website for organic traffic, it will always be more valuable to bring in targeted traffic at lower levels than traffic that is not relevant to your niche and that will likely not convert. By targeting the search intent of your target keywords, you can ensure that high intent users are going to be landing on your site. 

5. Reduces bounce rate

If your content doesn’t match the user intent, then the likelihood is that your bounce rate will be high as users will leave your site quickly. By matching the specific user intent, you can keep users engaged on your website for a longer period of time.

Understanding search intent is absolutely essential for SEO so that you are able to satisfy the user’s needs. Google’s primary goal is to provide users with the most relevant, valuable and helpful information, so if you are accurately targeting the search intent, then it is likely that you will be providing the user with whatever it is they are looking for and you will be able to rank higher in the SERPs, increase your visibility and ultimately increase conversions and revenue for your business. 

So, if you want to be ranking in the top 10 positions of the SERPs, you need to thoroughly understand the intent behind your target keywords and optimise your content and web page accordingly. Overall, understanding the user intent and aligning your content with that intent can help you attract more relevant traffic and increase engagement levels, which in turn can lead to having more conversions and leads. 

How Can You Identify Search Intent For Different Queries?

Because identifying search intent is so important for SEO, you’re probably wondering how you can identify the intent of different search queries. Well, this is where Ahrefs comes in. Ahrefs has an Identify Intents tool which is designed to help understand the intent behind different queries. 

The tool uses AI to analyse each result in the SERP and describes what people are looking for when they are typing in that particular keyword. It will give you a percentage for each intent and this is the estimated traffic share for each of the results associated with each intent. 

For example, when we look into the search term “what is seo”, which has a search volume of 6,800 in the UK, 61% of the traffic share is attributed to “Definition and Explanation of SEO – Users are looking for a clear definition and a thorough explanation of what SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is.” This is then followed by a 26% traffic share of “SEO Best Practices and Guidelines”, 13% traffic share of “SEO Fundamentals for Beginners”, and a 2% traffic share for “Need for SEO Services”. 

As you can see above, the tool gives you a clear understanding of what the search intent is. By searching for your desired query/ keywords and clicking the “Identify Intents” button, the tool will give you clear information about the exact intent users are looking for when they are using those specific keywords. 

This information is extremely valuable and it can be used to form the strategy when optimising your website for SEO. By knowing exactly what your users are searching for and what search intent Google is returning, you will be able to know what content you need to include on your landing page in order to rank for relevant keywords. By using the Identify Intents tool and incorporating this into your SEO strategy, you can ensure that your content will satisfy the user intent which can ultimately lead to better rankings, more traffic and increased conversions. 

How To Optimise Your Content To Match Search Intent

In order to match user intent, it is important to optimise your web page accordingly. 

To optimise your content to match search intent, you should: 

• ➡️ Conduct keyword research – use tools such as Ahrefs, SEMrush and Google Keyword planner to identify keywords that are related to your site and what users could potentially be searching for. 

• ➡️ Identify the search intent – once you have compiled a list of target keywords, you need to identify the search intent behind all queries to see what your users are looking for when they are typing in relevant keywords. 

• ➡️ Analyse the SERPs – conduct a thorough analysis of the SERPs to see what type of content is appearing in the top results. This can give you insight into what type of content is ranking well and what you need to do in order to reach the top positions of the SERPs for your target keywords.

• ➡️ Create content that matches the search intent – once you have fully understood the search intent and what the user is looking for, you need to create unique and helpful content that will match their needs. If the search intent is informational then you will need to provide comprehensive content that will fully answer the user’s query. If the intent is transactional, you need to ensure your product pages contain detailed information and product descriptions and CTAs. 

• ➡️ Optimise metadata – title tags and meta descriptions should always match and be relevant to the search intent so that users can see that your content meets their needs. 

• ➡️ Use structured data – implementing structured data to your web pages can help search engines to understand the intent behind that specific page. This can help enhance visibility in the SERPs and will also allow you to target featured snippets.

• ➡️ Regularly monitor and update content – SEO is an ongoing process and user intent may change. It is therefore imperative to constantly monitor the search intent for different queries and adjust your content accordingly. It is not enough to look at the user intent once and then forget about it, you should always keep up to date with changes in user behaviour in order to match the needs of your target audience. 

Summary 

Understanding search intent is absolutely essential for SEO. If you are not giving users what they are looking for then your visibility will be extremely low. If you want your site to rank organically in the SERPs, understanding search intent is crucial. Make sure that you are providing users with exactly what they are looking for and you will build a solid SEO strategy. 

If you are looking for help with understanding search intent for organic queries, get in touch with our SEO experts who will be able to help you identify exactly what it is your target audience are looking for when they want to purchase your product or service. 

When carrying out SEO keyword research, you’ll probably start with high search volume, low-competition keywords – and that’s great because these are popular keywords covering topics that users want to know about. So why should you bother targeting low volume keywords? 

Zero volume keywords can often be overlooked in your SEO strategy, however targeting these low volume keywords can be very strategic and beneficial. In this blog we will be discussing what zero volume keywords are, why you should be targeting them within your SEO strategy and how to effectively incorporate them.

What Are Zero Search Volume Keywords?

Zero search volume keywords are search terms that, according to keyword research tools, have little to no monthly search volume meaning these particular keywords are not frequently searched for by users. However, despite their apparent lack of popularity, they can be highly valuable for your SEO strategy. 

Why You Should Target Zero Volume Keywords 

According to Google, 15% of searches that they see every day are brand new searches, never seen before. There are trillions of searches on Google every year so 15% is an extremely high number, and all of these keywords will have zero search volume but could still be extremely valuable to target and here’s why: 

• ➡️ Less Competition 

One of the biggest benefits of targeting zero volume keywords is the significantly reduced competition. A large proportion of zero volume keywords will be low competition as well as low volume meaning you will be more likely to rank highly for these terms.

• ➡️ High Intent 

Often, low search volume, low competition keywords are long-tail keywords that are more specific and relevant to users. For example, the term “garden furniture” has a monthly search volume of 141,000 and is deemed ‘hard’ to rank for. However, if you take this keyword and make it more specific, for example “brown wooden garden furniture” which has a monthly search volume of 0-10, you are targeting a much more specific item and the user is more likely to be a high intent user if they are searching for that term rather than a generalistic term. 

While “garden furniture” has a lot more search volume, and you will likely gain more traffic, if you are selling brown wooden garden furniture, you will want to be targeting users who are looking for that specific product. With the right high intent keywords, you could see your conversion rate and revenue increase even with less traffic. 

Zero volume keywords often do reflect very specific queries with high intent, and users searching for these terms are often looking for very particular information, products or services. It is likely that these users are going to be further down the sales funnel and by targeting these keywords, you can attract a highly targeted audience that is more likely to convert. 

• ➡️ Future Trends 

Zero volume keywords can sometimes indicate emerging trends and as new topics gain popularity, search volumes will naturally increase. By targeting these keywords early, before any of your competitors, you can use your expertise and position yourself as an authority in your niche before your competitors catch on. By creating authoritative, helpful content and getting it to rank well before search volume increases, you can have already gained valuable traffic and be in the best position when more users start searching for the same queries. 

How To Find Low Volume Keywords

The first step in utilising zero volume keywords in your SEO strategy is to find them. Below are some tips for conducting keyword research for these low volume search terms: 

• ➡️ Use keyword research tools

Keyword research tools such as Ahrefs, Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush can help you to identify zero search volume keywords. These tools allow you to filter keywords based on their search volume and keyword difficulty and can help you to identify potential zero volume keywords to target in your SEO strategy. 

• ➡️ Look for long-tail keywords 

Long-tail keywords are more specific than broad search terms and they can often have lower search volumes but be extremely relevant to your target audience. Looking for these long-tail keywords will allow you to target your content to match high intent keywords.

• ➡️ Analyse your website’s search queries 

Analysing queries that are driving traffic to your website will be a great way to find keywords that are extremely relevant for your users. You can use Google Search Console to look at queries that are driving traffic to your website and you can then look for the queries that have low search volume but drive a high click through rate to find relevant, high intent, low volume keywords that you should be targeting within your SEO strategy.  

• ➡️ Conduct a competitor analysis 

Analyse your competitors’ websites to see what keywords they are targeting and look for any gaps or opportunities where you can target zero volume keywords that you may have missed. 

Once you have compiled a list of zero volume keywords, you can then start optimising your website to target these keywords and bring in high intent traffic to your website. 

How To Incorporate Zero Volume Keywords When Optimising Your Website For SEO  

Now that you have a thorough list of zero volume keywords that are extremely relevant to your offering, you can incorporate them into your SEO strategy. 

The following tips will help you when optimising your website for targeting zero volume keywords: 

• ➡️ Use keywords in your content 

In order to target the zero volume keywords from the previous list you have created, you should use these keywords naturally throughout your content. You can create blog posts answering specific queries, or include keywords in product descriptions. Including zero volume keywords naturally in your content will help you to target and rank for these highly relevant and targeted keywords, just ensure you don’t keyword stuff. 

• ➡️ Optimise meta data

Incorporate your keywords into your page titles and meta descriptions to help Google and other search engines understand the relevance of your content for specific keywords, queries and topics. 

• ➡️ Focus on quality content 

When creating content that is targeting zero volume keywords, it is important to create high quality content that is helpful for your users. While it is likely going to be easier to rank for low volume keywords because they do typically have a lower keyword difficulty, it is still vital to create quality content that is answering your users questions and meeting their needs. 

• ➡️ Use internal links 

Use internal linking to connect content throughout your website. This can be particularly useful when you are creating blog content that is targeting long-tail keywords that are giving users further information about your product or service – linking these blogs to the main service or category page can not only act as a great CTA for users but it will also help distribute link equity to your important pages.

• ➡️ Monitor performance 

Once you have optimised your website and targeted your list of zero volume keywords, you should regularly monitor the performance of how these keywords are performing. Use tools like GA4 and Google Search Console to track traffic, engagement, conversions and revenue to see how your webpages are performing and which zero volume keywords are bringing in high intent, converting traffic. This will help you to adjust your strategy based on the data to continuously improve your SEO performance. 

Summary

Targeting zero volume keywords can be a game changer for your SEO strategy. By focusing on low volume, low competition, high intent keywords, you can attract targeted users and potentially increase conversions and revenue for your business. Targeting zero volume keywords shouldn’t be your entire SEO strategy but by incorporating them in your strategy and focusing on only relevant keywords, you can easily boost your overall SEO performance. 

To find out more or to receive help with incorporating zero volume keywords into your SEO strategy, get in touch with us today and our team of SEO experts can help take your SEO game to the next level. 

Creating blog content has many benefits when it comes to SEO including providing E-E-A-T signals, increasing organic traffic, generating brand awareness, and increasing engagement. However, another extremely important reason is to increase conversions. Creating blog content that not only attracts customers but also converts them, is therefore a skill that is definitely worth mastering. After all, according to HubSpot, more than one in three marketing leaders cite conversion rates as a top KPI that they prioritise tracking. 

In this blog, we will explore how to create SEO blog content that converts your users. 

Understanding The User’s Buying Journey

The first step when creating blog content that converts is understanding your user’s buying journey. This is a crucial step and will likely consist of the following stages: 

1. Awareness – during the first stage, the user has become aware of a problem or need that they have and they are looking for information and solutions.

2. Consideration – the next stage is consideration, and during this stage the users are evaluating different options and looking at the benefits and drawbacks of potential solutions. They are researching products and services that would meet their needs. 

3. Purchase – during this stage, the user is ready to make a purchase, they have narrowed down their options and are now looking to convert. 

Understanding each stage of the buying journey will help you tailor your SEO blog content to meet the needs of your users at every stage. By providing valuable information, addressing concerns and offering support throughout the whole process, you can address all the needs of your customers and therefore increase the chance of conversions. 

Within understanding the user’s buying journey, it is also important to understand your target audience and who is going to be buying your products or services. Think about demographics, struggles and pain points, knowledge gaps, and objectives. This will allow you to create a persona that you are writing for and every piece of content that you create can be completely targeted to your audience who will likely have a high intent. 

Keyword Research 

Once you have figured out the user’s buying journey, you need to see what they are searching for when they are looking for your product/ service. Keyword research forms the foundation of all successful SEO strategies, but in order to create content that resonates with your users at each stage of the buying journey, you must categorise your keywords into the buying journey. 

1. Awareness – these keywords will be informational keywords that users are typically searching for when they are in the awareness stage. For example: “how to solve…”, “tips for …”, “what is a…” and “what are the benefits of…”.

2. Consideration – these keywords will be focused on helping users weigh up their options. For example: “what are the best…”, “reviews of…” and “what are the differences between…”.

3. Purchase – these keywords will be much more specific and will have a strong purchase intent. For example: “buy….” and “… near me”.

By sorting your keywords into categories, you can make sure that your blog content is tailored to your users and it will be addressing their needs and preferences at every stage of their buying journey. Keyword research can be done in a variety of ways and you can read our guide to keyword research here to find out how you can effectively carry out keyword research for SEO. However, as well as the traditional ways of carrying out keyword research, it can also be extremely valuable to speak to your customer service team and find out what your actual customers are asking, because the chances are, other users will want the same information and you will be able to provide extremely valuable information, and this could make users more likely to convert if they have that important information easily available to them. 

Competitor Research

Another important step when creating blog content that converts is to research what your competitors are writing about. Researching and analysing your competitors’ blog strategy can provide you with valuable insights and inspiration for your own blog content. It is important to identify competitors within your industry and have a look into the following: 

• ➡️ What topics they are covering 

• ➡️ How they are targeting keywords that are closely related to the buying journey 

• ➡️ What sorts of content formats they are using (guides, reviews, tips…)

• ➡️ If there are any gaps or opportunities that you can capitalise on

Competitor research and analysis can provide you with inspiration on what you should be focusing your content on, but it can also allow you to see areas where you can outperform your competitors. If there is an area of need that you have identified your users are looking for but your competitors are not writing about it, this does not mean that you also shouldn’t write about it, you absolutely should! These can be niche areas that can bring in valuable, high intent traffic and can give you that edge over your competitors. 

Using tools such as Ahrefs and SEMrush can be extremely helpful when conducting competitor research and can give you plenty of actionable insights for your SEO blog content strategy. 

Internal Linking 

If you are creating blog content that you want to convert, internal linking will be your best friend and you need to ensure you do not abandon it. Internal linking plays a crucial role in SEO and can be instrumental to your blogs. You should always incorporate internal links to your blog content to guide users to relevant pages or resources within your website, and to establish a logical hierarchy and structure for your content. 

Including CTAs 

Including Calls to Action (CTAs) in your blog content is essential, particularly when your goal is to convert readers into customers. Including CTAs can: 

• ➡️ Guide user behaviour: CTAs provide a clear direction to your users, guiding them towards a desired action, whether that action is making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or contacting your company. Without a CTA, users may be unsure of what steps to take next or how to navigate to the next step, potentially leading to a missed conversion opportunity. 

• ➡️ Create a sense of urgency: effective CTAs often include persuasive language that can create a sense of urgency or excitement for users, potentially increasing the likelihood that users will act more promptly. 

• ➡️ Increasing conversion rates: ultimately, well-crafted CTAs can significantly impact conversion rates by encouraging users to take action. By strategically placing CTAs throughout your blog content, you can encourage users to move further down the sales funnel and ultimately convert users into customers. Strategic CTAs coupled with helpful content can be the best way to convert your blog content. 

Utilising AI

When creating blog content, AI can be extremely helpful, and although I do not believe you should get AI to write your blog content for you, I do believe that it can help with the process of creating blog content that converts. In fact, according to HubSpot, 43% of content marketers report using AI to help them generate ideas and one in two writers use AI tools to boost the performance of their content. These statistics show that AI can be a positive tool in the online industry and below are some of the ways you can use AI effectively: 

• ➡️ Generate content ideas based on trending topics 

• ➡️ Gain insights into how to optimise your content’s structure and readability

• ➡️ Automate tasks including meta title creation   

Be Authentic, Honest And Unique 

When creating blog content, it is important to create content for the benefit of your users. Authenticity, honesty and uniqueness are qualities that will resonate with your users and create a sense of trust. When you are creating blog content for SEO, it is important to be genuine and transparent within your content and avoid overly promotional or salesy language. Make sure you are providing content that is offering valuable insights, expertise or solutions that are genuinely helpful for your audience and will address their needs or challenges. By creating this type of content, you will actually be helping your users address their issues and needs, and they will be more likely to convert if you have answered an issue that they are experiencing. 

Measure, Learn And Refine

Effective blog content creation is a process that requires ongoing monitoring, analysis and refinement. There are many different analytic tools that you can use when tracking your blog content including GA4 and Ahrefs. Key metrics to monitor include: 

• ➡️ Users 

• ➡️ Bounce rate 

• ➡️ Session length 

• ➡️ Engagement 

• ➡️ Conversions

Based on your analysis, you can find any areas for improvement and optimisation and this can really help to improve your content and ultimately gain more traffic and conversions.

Be Patient

The final point I am going to suggest is to be patient. Patience is so important when it comes to SEO blog content creation because, as I’m sure you’re aware, SEO is a long-term strategy that takes time to see results. Be patient and consistent in your efforts, knowing that you are creating high quality content that will gradually acquire traffic and conversions as you increase your visibility in the SERPs. 

Summary

To conclude, creating SEO blog content that converts requires a strategic approach that will be informed by an understanding of the user’s buying journey, keyword research, competitor analysis, content planning, internal linking, authenticity, measurement and patience (just a few things…). But, by implementing these best practices discussed above and continuously improving and refining your content, you can elevate your blog’s performance, attract qualified leads and actually drive conversions that will contribute to your business’s growth and success. 

If you need any help with your SEO blog content strategy, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us today and our SEO experts can provide you with insights on how to create blog content that will actually convert. 

When it comes to search engines, Google wants to return the most relevant pages for its users so that those users are getting the most relevant and accurate answers to their queries. This is especially apparent when it comes to YMYL and in this blog we are going to be discussing the concept of YMYL and why it is important that webmasters understand it for SEO purposes.

What is YMYL?

YMYL stands for “Your Money or Your Life” and it refers to web pages that cover any topics that have the potential to impact a user’s future happiness, health, financial stability or safety. Google introduced the YMYL category in 2014 to indicate how seriously it takes the importance of factual correctness on websites which have the ability to impact a person’s life.

Source: Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines

YMYL is extremely important when it comes to SEO because Google holds these websites to a higher standard when reviewing their quality. Optimising your YMYL content and making sure that it is accurate and up to date, in addition to backing it up with external linking, showcasing authoring and generally demonstrating the expertise of the article, will all help to ensure that you’re giving off the right signals to Google. As a result, Google may look more favourably on your website for matching user intent and purpose, therefore helping it to perform better in the search results. 

People are often using Google to research information on a wide range of topics including health queries and financial questions. It is important that the information they are finding on the SERP is accurate and up to date because if it is not then it could have extreme consequences for the user. This is why Google finds it so important to ensure these YMYL pages are of high quality.

Examples of YMYL pages: 

• ➡️Finance pages – eg. investing or banking pages 
• ➡️News and current events pages
• ➡️Health and safety pages 
• ➡️Legal pages
• ➡️Shopping pages that allow users to make online purchases 

How to know if your web page is a YMYL topic

Many topics do not come under the YMYL bracket but it is important to know whether the content on your website is a YMYL topic because if it is, Google will hold your website to a higher standard so that it is fully meeting the users needs and not causing any harm to their wellbeing. It is therefore important that you understand what YMYL topics are, to see if you are discussing them on your webpage. 

Google will not explicitly tell you if they are viewing your web page as a YMYL page so it is important that you ascertain whether or not it falls within any of the YMYL categories. 

When determining whether your website covers a YMYL topic, you need to think about whether you are creating content that can directly impact a person’s health, financial stability, or safety or the welfare or well-being of society.

Source: Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines

If your web page contains YMYL topics, then it is important that your content will help and inform the user and, you need to ensure that there is no content on your web page that could cause the user any harm. 

Within the Quality Rater Guidelines, Google also gives us some clear examples of what does and doesn’t fall into the YMYL category, so if you aren’t sure it’s worth checking out the QRGs as they can give some helpful insight!

YMYL Guidelines

When it comes to YMYL content, it is ranked differently to content that is not YMYL. Google explained this in their ‘How Google Fights Disinformation’ blog: “For these “YMYL” pages, we assume that users expect us to operate with our strictest standards of trustworthiness and safety. As such, where our algorithms detect that a user’s query relates to a “YMYL” topic, we will give more weight in our ranking systems to factors like our understanding of the authoritativeness, expertise, or trustworthiness of the pages we present in response.”

In 2022, the YMYL guidance was updated by Google in order to give clarity on what they are looking for when it comes to quality on YMYL web pages:

• ➡️Content – the main content of the webpage is extremely important if you fall into the YMYL category, it is important that your webpage has a good amount of high quality content 
• ➡️E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust) signals – enhancing E-E-A-T signals for YMYL pages is especially important because the information needs to be completely accurate because any misinformation on these pages could potentially cause harm to the users.  
• ➡️Keep the user in mind – Google wants to ensure that you are creating a website that has the best intentions for the user, so that they are gaining the best user experience.

Best SEO practices for YMYL content 

Due to the fact that Google ranks YMYL pages differently, it is important that you understand the best SEO practices to take for your YMYL web pages:

1. Create user-focused content 

As we have seen, content is one of the most important factors for Google when they are ranking YMYL web pages and Google will often look at your content to make sure that it is accurate information and that it is of high quality. 

In order to rank well for YMYL content:

• ➡️Make sure that your content is always up to date
• ➡️Ensure the content is useful for the user
• ➡️Have organised content that is easy for the user to understand 
• ➡️Make sure there is enough content so that the web page fully covers the topic and satisfies the user intent

Content is extremely important for YMYL pages, you need to make sure that your content is fundamentally benefiting the users and not giving them any information that could have consequences for their future. 

When you are creating content, making sure that it is user-centred is of the utmost importance but this will also benefit you when ranking because Google wants content that is helpful to the user – matching user intent and purpose plays a key role across YMYL websites – and this doesn’t always mean adding large amounts of content either – make sure that you review the way that your website answers the user’s queries. 

2. Optimise your E-E-A-T signals 

As we have seen from Google, E-E-A-T plays an important role when Google is ranking YMYL web pages. 

Experience, Expertise, Authority & Trust are key signals for Google, especially when they are examining the quality of YMYL websites. Below, we will discuss the concepts of E-E-A-T and the diagram above also shows what each concept means. 

Experience – when it comes to experience, it is important to showcase that the author of the content has firsthand or real life experience for the topic and subject that they are discussing. 

Expertise – expertise refers to the amount of knowledge that exists behind the content and behind your website as a whole. Particularly for YMYL websites, Google wants to ensure that whoever is creating the content for your website is an expert in the field, so you need to ensure that you are showcasing this on your website. 

Authority – this focuses on making sure that your website is seen as an authoritative source, so instead of proving yourself to be an expert, authoritativeness focuses on others showcasing you as an expert. This can be done through gaining high quality backlinks and where Digital PR will be extremely valuable. 

Trust – according to Google, trust is the most important aspect of E-E-A-T: “Of these aspects, trust is most important.” Providing trust signals across your whole website is imperative so that Google can know that your website and the content that you are providing to users is trustworthy and it will be providing factual information to users. 

When optimising your YMYL web page, optimising all four aspects of E-E-A-T is highly important to prove to Google that your content is valuable to users and that it is providing accurate information that will not have the potential to harm users. 

You can optimise your E-E-A-T signals for YMYL pages by:

• ➡️Including the author’s basic information and credentials 
• ➡️Adding an About Us page on your website including information about the people behind the website, including achievements etc… – this also helps to provide “clear and satisfying information” that Google looks for on YMYL websites, mainly focusing on the About Us page and also the information that is available on a Contact Us page
• ➡️Including a reviews page from real customers 
• ➡️Gaining high quality backlinks from other credible websites linking to your webpage

3.  Add external links to your content 

Including external links to your content is very important, a link is a clickable object on your webpage that leads from one page to another, they can appear as text, images or buttons and they will link from your website to a different website. When including external links, ensure that they appear naturally throughout your website and make sure that they are going to another high quality, authoritative web page so that Google knows your resources are trusted and will give users the correct information. 

You should add in external links whenever you are quoting someone, using information from another website or making a big statement. When linking to a credible source, you are showing Google that your information is accurate and it will also back up your level of topical expertise.

4. Make sure your website is well built with a user-friendly design

It is important to make sure that your YMYL website has a user-friendly design, this includes optimising the page speed, making sure there are no broken links and making sure it is optimised well for both mobile and desktop browsers. This will show Google that you are keeping your website well maintained and making the site easy to use for your users. 

Using Google’s Page Speed Insights and other free online tools can help you to keep an eye on your page speed and see where improvements need to be made, it’s also worth being aware of Core Web Vitals and the impact this can have – so definitely two things to be keeping an eye on from a YMYL perspective.

Summary

YMYL refers to any topics on a website that can have real word effects for the user. When it comes to SEO, it is extremely important to understand what YMYL is because if you have content on your website that falls in to a YMYL category, Google will hold your website to a higher standard, therefore meaning that it will be harder to rank on the SERP and that you need to make sure that the quality of your website is extremely high. 

Google holds YMYL web pages to a higher standard because of the potential impact that they can have on a user’s life. If you have a website that sits within the YMYL category, as you will be held to a higher standard, it is highly important to optimise your website for SEO by following the above steps so that you can increase your visibility within the SERPs and ultimately increase conversions and sales to your website. 

If you have got YMYL content within your website then it is important that you optimise your content for SEO and hopefully this blog has helped you with ways in which you can optimise your website for YMYL. If you want any additional support when optimising your YMYL website for SEO, get in touch with us today and we can help!

In the fast paced digital landscape, staying ahead of your competition is a constant challenge when striving for organic online visibility. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) plays a vital role when it comes to online visibility, and one effective strategy to increase your visibility and improve rankings is to conduct a competitor audit. Understanding what your competitors are doing can provide you with valuable insights and can help to inform your own SEO strategy. 

In this blog, we will be discussing the importance of competitor audits for SEO and we will also delve into how you are able to conduct one. 

What Is An SEO Competitor Audit? 

An SEO competitor audit is a strategic process that involves analysing and evaluating your competitor’s website and their online presence in order to gain valuable insights for your own SEO strategy. 

The Importance Of Competitor Audits In SEO

Staying ahead of the competition can be a difficult task in the online world, however conducting a competitor audit will allow you to have a clear understanding of the organic landscape so that you can know where you currently stand, and what you need to do to progress and improve rankings so that you see better SEO results. 

Understanding who your competitors are and analysing how they are performing organically is an integral part of any SEO strategy. You may be wondering why this needs to be part of your strategy. Well, there are likely many websites that have very similar content to the content that is on your website, and they too will be fighting for the top spots in Google. Conducting a competitor analysis will allow you to stay one step ahead of those competitors, and will allow you to know where you need to improve. 

Conducting a competitor audit will allow you to do many different things including: 

Benchmark Performance

When conducting a competitor audit, you will be able to benchmark your own website’s performance against others in your industry. By analysing your competitors website’s and their online presence, you can identify areas where you are excelling, but the really valuable information that this will provide you with is where you can improve. By seeing what your competitors are doing well and where they are ranking, you can uncover opportunities for your SEO strategy which you can then work on with the aim of improving your rankings and overall SEO results. This benchmarking process will help you to see where you currently are against your competitors, and will also allow you to set realistic goals for your SEO strategy. 

Identify Keywords and Content Gaps 

By analysing your competitors keywords and content, you can reveal valuable insights into what works in your industry. By looking into keywords that your competitors are ranking for but you are not, you can uncover keywords that can then be included in your SEO strategy. 

Analysing your competitors keywords will also allow you to see any gaps in their content strategy and will allow you to create unique, valuable content that will set your website apart. This can improve your chances of ranking higher, but will also enhance the overall user experience on your website by providing your users with the most valuable and relevant information. 

Understand Your Competitors Backlink Profiles 

Backlinks are a crucial aspect of SEO and can influence your rankings as Google will use backlinks as a key signal of trust. During a competitor audit, you should definitely be analysing your competitor’s backlink profiles as it will help you to identify any high-quality backlinks that you might be missing and where your competitors are performing highly. By understanding competitors’ link building strategies, you can understand where you have any link gaps and then develop your own approach to acquiring authoritative and relevant backlinks.

Evaluate User Experience (UX)

Evaluating your competitors user experience is important because it will allow you to determine how top performing competitors are using on page elements to provide the best experience for their users. This will allow you to adjust your on page elements so that you are providing the most helpful user experience, which in turn can increase engagement rate and potentially conversion rate. Google openly states that user experience is vital: “You should build a website to benefit your users, and gear any optimization toward making the user experience better.” This therefore shows how important it is to keep up to date with what is working well in terms of UX and how to improve the user experience on your own website. 

Stay Informed About Industry Trends 

SEO is a dynamic and ever changing field, with search engines constantly updating their algorithms. By regularly conducting competitor audits, you can stay informed about the latest trends and innovations; you will be able to see what Google is returning and adapt your website accordingly. This knowledge will ensure that your SEO strategy remains adaptive, therefore keeping you ahead of the curve. 

How To Conduct An SEO Competitor Audit

Now that we know how important a competitor audit is for your SEO strategy, we need to know how to actually do it. Below are the steps needed to conduct a thorough and successful SEO competitor audit: 

• Identify your competitors – firstly, you need to identify your main competitors in the online organic space. These are the businesses that are competing for the same target audience. Ahrefs is one of the many tools that can be used to identify your organic competitors by heading to the “Organic Competitors” section. This will show you who your main competitors are and how you are performing in comparison to them which will give you a good overview before diving deeper into the particular sections which we have discussed. 

• Keyword analysis – you will then need to conduct thorough keyword research for both your website and your competitors which can be done in many different tools such as Ahrefs and Google Keyword Planner. Identify the keywords that they are targeting and compare them with your own to see how you can improve your SEO strategy. Conducting a content gap analysis in ahrefs will allow you to see any keywords that you are not currently ranking for and what your competitors are ranking well for, and this can be a great starting point to inform your future content strategy. 

• Content evaluation – you should analyse the content on your competitors’ websites. Look into the type of content they are producing, the quality, length, and how it is engaging users. Then look into how you can improve your content strategy based on what your competitors are doing. Also, identify any gaps in their content strategy based on previous keyword research and you can then provide valuable content on your website that your competitors are not offering. 

• Backlink analysis – evaluate the backlink profiles of your competitors. Identify the websites that are linking to them, the DR and quality of those backlinks. Then perform a link gap analysis for your own website and in your new strategy, be sure to target those backlinks for your website. To look at competitors’ backlink profiles, head to the Ahrefs backlinks profile which will give you all of the information needed to analyse your competitors including the referring domains, amount of referring domains and the DR of each one. This will give you valuable insight to then perform a link gap analysis. 

• User experience evaluation – you should evaluate the user experience of your competitors by assessing factors such as navigation, formatting and overall design. A positive user experience can have huge impacts on SEO performance so it is important to monitor how your competitors are providing a good user experience so that you can implement better UX strategies throughout your site. 

• Monitor changes over time – competitor audits or not a one off task, they should be conducted regularly and you should keep track of changes in your competitor’s websites to see what effects the changes are having on their overall SEO performance so that you can adapt your website accordingly. 

By following these steps, you should be able to conduct a successful SEO competitor audit and inform your SEO strategy to gain organic visibility, which in turn can lead to more organic traffic and conversions (which is every SEOs dream). 

Summary Of SEO Competitor Audits 

In the ever-changing world of SEO, competitor audits are indispensable for gaining that competitive edge. By understanding what is working for your competitors, and where you can surpass them, you can adapt and improve your SEO strategy in order to achieve higher rankings, increased online visibility and in turn more organic traffic and conversions. But, it is important to remember that when you are conducting an analysis of your competitors, it is important not to imitate and copy, but to innovate and set your website apart in the SERPs. Use what your competitors are doing well as a base, and then improve upon this for your own website. 

Regularly conducting competitor audits will help to position your website and business as a leader in the SERPs and will allow you to be ready to adapt to changing trends and emerging opportunities in the SEO landscape. If you require any additional support when conducting a competitor analysis, don’t hesitate to contact us and our team of SEO specialists will be happy to assist in order to help with your organic visibility.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a fundamental aspect of your digital marketing strategy, it involves many different techniques and strategies that are aiming to improve your visibility in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). However, implementing these strategies is only half of the battle. To successfully implement an SEO strategy, you need to constantly monitor and track your SEO performance. 

In this blog we will be discussing the most important aspects to track, how to track and monitor them over time and why it is so important to track and monitor your SEO performance. 

Why Is Monitoring Your SEO Performance So Important? 

Tracking and monitoring your SEO performance can be important for many reasons: 

1. It allows you to monitor your progress 

Monitoring your SEO performance will allow you to assess the impact of your SEO strategies and efforts. Are you moving in the right direction, increasing your rankings and organic traffic? Or, have you regressed and you need to adjust your strategy? Either way, it is important to know what is working and what isn’t so that you can plan for the future of your SEO performance. 

2. It allows you to identify opportunities 

By analysing and monitoring your organic performance data, you will be able to identify new opportunities, keywords to target and areas that need improvement. 

3. It allows you to benchmark against your competitors 

When analysing your performance, it will allow you to see how you are performing against your competitors and understand where you sit in the market. You will then be able to analyse what your competitors are doing better than you and where you can improve to compete with them in the SERPs. 

4. It allows you to see the effects from algorithm updates 

As SEOs, we know that search engines, like Google, frequently release algorithm updates and these can affect the performance of your website, and can therefore affect organic traffic. Monitoring your SEO performance will allow you to see if you have been hit by an update, and you can then see what you need to improve based on the update that has affected your site. 

Now that we understand why tracking and monitoring SEO performance is so important, let’s get into how you can do it.

Monitoring and Tracking Your SEO Performance 

When you are tracking your SEO performance, there are many different metrics which you can look into, and it is important that you look at a combination of metrics so that you are getting an overall picture of your SEO performance. In this blog, we will be discussing the 6 metrics that are extremely important to constantly monitor in order to stay on the top of your SEO game! 

Keyword Rankings 

One of the first things to consider when tracking your SEO performance is keyword rankings, where is your website ranking in the SERPs for the keywords that you are targeting? 

A keyword ranking is where your website is positioned in the SERPs for a specific keyword. However, rankings can often change for a number of reasons. This could be due to an algorithm update, a change in user intent, a competitor updating or publishing new content or many other reasons. It is therefore essential to track your keyword rankings. 

Monitoring your rankings is extremely important because the position of your website in the SERPs can have a significant impact on your organic traffic. According to Backlinko, the lower you are in the SERPs, the lower your Click-Through Rate will be. 

Source: Backlinko 

The graph above shows the full Click-Through Rate for Google’s organic results, it shows that if your website is organically ranking in position 1, it will get a 10x higher CTR compared to if your website was in position 10, therefore showing the importance of ranking in those higher positions. 

It is extremely likely that your keyword rankings will significantly affect your CTR and organic traffic, it is therefore vital to keep track of these rankings so that if you do lose rankings and drop down to a lower position in the SERPs, you can figure out why and put your efforts into regaining those rankings. 

So, how do you actually monitor your rankings in the SERPs? Well, there are many different tools to use including SEMRush, Moz and Google Search Console, but the tool we will be looking at today is Ahrefs. Ahrefs is a tool that easily allows you to track your rankings for all of your targeted keywords. 

Above is an example of how Ahrefs displays their keyword rankings. When you first start tracking your website in Ahrefs, you will enter all of the keywords you wish to track for your website. Ahrefs will then display all of your targeted keywords alongside the position that your website is ranking in for that particular keyword. It will give you a thorough overview of the volume, traffic and keyword difficulty of the keyword, alongside this will be the particular URL of your website that is ranking for that keyword. It will give you information about whether your rankings have improved or declined, what the SERP is currently returning for that keyword and how you have ranked for that keyword over the past 12 months.

All of this information is truly vital when you are monitoring your SEO performance as it will give you insights into the history of your rankings, therefore allowing you to further look into what has caused your website to either gain or drop rankings. This can then help to inform your future SEO strategy and how you can maximise your organic traffic. 

Monitoring and tracking your keyword rankings should be a daily occurrence due to the volatility of the SERPs. The SERPs are constantly changing and it is important that you are staying up to date with this so you can focus your SEO efforts effectively. 

Organic Traffic 

Another key metric to track for your SEO performance is organic traffic. Organic traffic refers to the number of users that are visiting your website from the search engines organically (without clicking on an ad).  

Organic traffic can be one of the main ways to monitor and track your SEO performance as you will be able to see exactly how many users are landing on your website organically. 

In order to measure your organic traffic, you can use Google Analytics 4. 

By navigating to the User Acquisition Report within GA4, you will be able to see how many new organic users have visited your website and which particular page they have landed on. In GA4, you are able to change the date range, compare time periods and add filters so you can thoroughly see how your website is performing organically. 

This will give you a clear overview of how your overall website is performing in the SERPs, which pages are performing well, which pages need improvement and how your organic traffic has changed over time. This can be extremely insightful for informing your SEO strategy and seasonal changes in data will also allow you to spot trends and how you can cater to your users. 

Impressions and Click-Through Rate

Impressions and Click-Through Rate (CTR) are also two metrics that are important to measure when you are monitoring your SEO performance. 

An impression is counted every time you show up in the SERP for a keyword or search query. 

Click-Through Rate is the percentage of impressions that resulted in a click. 

To track the amount of impressions and clicks your website is getting, you can use Google Search Console (GSC) which is a free tool which lets you monitor your sites total clicks and total impressions and will give you a percentage of your website’s average CTR.

GSC will also give you a breakdown of the queries that users are searching for and how many clicks and impressions those particular queries are getting. You are then able to look into your average click-through rate for your overall website and individual click-through rates to see how well you’re performing in the SERPs. This will give you an insight of how many users are seeing your website on the SERPs and then actually clicking through. 

It is a good idea to monitor your CTR as part of your SEO performance because when users are seeing your website on the SERPs, they will be looking at your Title Tag and Meta Description for that page. This will be the only thing enticing users onto your page and if your CTR is low for certain pages, it can show that you may need to edit these in order to improve the amount of clicks to your website.

Engagement rate 

Engagement rate is also extremely important to monitor, this measures the percentage of users that are interacting with your website and this will be based on whether they have stayed on your website for more than 10 seconds, clicked on a link within your website or submitted a form. 

Engagement rate is extremely important as it shows whether users are interacting with your website and finding it helpful, or if they are just clicking off your website as soon as they land on the page. If there is a low engagement rate, it shows that the users have not found your website helpful, and they did not feel as though their intent was satisfied. 

A low engagement rate can potentially affect your position in the SERPs and is therefore an extremely important metric when you are measuring your SEO performance. If you have a low engagement rate, it is important to analyse your website and see how you can improve the experience so that user engagement improves. One of the ways to do this would be to review your website against competitors who are performing well and update your website to better match the user intent and increase the engagement rate. 

To monitor your engagement rate, you can again use the User Acquisition Report in Google Analytics 4. This will provide you with the amount of engaged sessions that have occurred and the engagement rate for your overall website and also individual pages. This will provide you with a great insight for which pages need improving.  

Conversion rate 

Conversion rate is the percentage of users who complete a desired action, this can include subscribing to a newsletter, completing a form, adding a product to the basket, or making a purchase. 

Monitoring the conversion rate for your website can give you valuable insights into the behaviour of your users. It can tell you which pages are performing well and driving conversions, the demographics of the users which are converting and what you can do to better serve your users and improve the amount of conversions. 

Conversion tracking also ensures that you know where conversions originated from, which pages your users landed on in order to complete the user journey, this will help you to determine the quality of your landing pages, and which ones need optimising in order to help the user journey lead to conversions. 

In order to track the amount of conversions you are receiving organically, you can go to the User Acquisitions Report in GA4 and filter by ‘Organic Search’ and ‘Landing page + query string’. This will then give you the amount of conversions that each landing page has received. You can also compare this to different time periods in order to see whether your conversion rate has increased or declined, this will then help you to inform your future SEO strategy. 

Key Takeaways 

Tracking and monitoring your SEO performance using the above is an ongoing process. It is important to regularly review your metrics and adjust your SEO strategy accordingly. Remember that SEO is not a one-off project, it is an ever evolving process that will need adapting regularly. By following the steps outlined throughout this blog and utilising the right tools, you can ensure that your website remains competitive and visible in the ever changing landscape of the SERPs. 

By consistently monitoring your SEO performance and staying committed to improvement, you will see the long term benefits of tracking your SEO. If you require any assistance with monitoring your website for SEO and coming up with a suitable SEO strategy, get in touch with us today and our team of SEO experts will be able to help.

In January 2023, I entered the world of SEO when I became a Junior SEO Executive at Cedarwood Digital, and it’s safe to say that I have learnt a lot. In this blog, I will be sharing all of the valuable things that I have learnt in the exciting world of Search Engine Optimisation, ways to learn and how I will move forwards. 

What I Have Learnt: 

SEO Takes Time

One of the most important things that I have learnt is that SEO is a long-term process. Building organic visibility and improving search rankings will take time, it will not happen overnight. SEO takes time, patience and consistent effort, and it is crucial to set realistic expectations. By focusing on longer term strategies, producing high quality content, optimising your website structure and gaining authoritative backlinks, you can steadily improve your website’s performance in the SERPs and establish a solid foundation for long term success. 

Keeping Up To Date Is Vital 

Staying up to date with any SEO news is extremely important for SEO professionals. SEO is constantly evolving and search engines like Google frequently release algorithm updates which can significantly impact website rankings and visibility. By staying informed about the latest updates and news, you are able to adapt your strategies accordingly and anticipate any potential changes. Having a good understanding of algorithm updates and what they mean for SEO allows you to make necessary adjustments to your website and content and ensure that your website is aligning with the current ranking factors and guidelines. Failing to keep up with the latest SEO news and updates can result in missed opportunities and potentially a decline in the SERPs, therefore resulting in a loss of organic traffic. Ultimately, staying up to date is extremely important as it allows SEO professionals to stay ahead of the curve and achieve long term success.

Keyword Research 

Keyword research is the foundation of SEO and without it, you can not expect to gain organic visibility. SEO is about finding opportunities online and gaining relevant traffic to your website through visibility in the SERPs. Keyword research is at the heart of helping you to capitalise on any relevant traffic. 

Keyword research is the process of finding words and phrases that users are searching for. This is so that you can then optimise your website according to keywords that are relevant to your service/ product. By optimising your website and including the correct keywords, Google will be able to understand what your website is about and that it is related to the keywords users are searching for. If your website is matching user intent for those keywords, Google will then rank your website accordingly. 

One of the first things I learnt was that effective keyword research is essential for all SEO strategies. Without it, it will be extremely difficult to know what your users are searching for and it also plays a key role in ensuring that you are not targeting keywords that users are not searching for. By conducting keyword research, and then optimising your website accordingly, you are more likely to rank for relevant keywords and gain the right type of organic traffic to your website. 

Content Optimisations 

Content is key. Content optimisation plays a vital role in SEO as it can directly impact a website’s visibility, relevance and user experience. Without content, search engines like Google, will not be able to understand what your website is about, and therefore will not be able to rank your website on the SERPs. This means that your website will not be seen organically. By optimising the content on your website, you can ensure that all of your web pages align with what users are looking for. When done effectively, content optimisation can help search engines understand the context of your website, and this can help lead to improved rankings. Additionally, having optimised content will likely increase the engagement of your users; providing them with valuable information will increase the likelihood of them staying on your website for longer. It can also help Google to draw links between different themes on your website and different pieces of content, which helps to establish and showcase your E-E-A-T signals which is one of the most important elements of trust for Google. Fundamentally, content optimisation ensures that your website is providing valuable and helpful content for users and search engines, with the hope of increasing rankings and organic traffic.

On-Page Optimisations

On-page optimisations are a crucial part of SEO as they can also directly impact a website’s visibility and overall ranking potential. On-page optimisation refers to the process of optimising various different elements on a webpage in order to improve the user experience. This includes optimising title tags, URL structures, page structure and internal linking, as well as optimising the content on the web page. By implementing effective on-page optimisations, websites can provide search engines with clear signals about the content’s relevance and importance, therefore, potentially increasing the likelihood of higher rankings in the SERPs. Plus, these optimisations will also enhance the user experience by making the content more accessible, readable and engaging, which is also important for rankings as Google prioritises websites that are made for the user first. Overall, on-page optimisations are fundamental to SEO strategies; ensuring that your website is well structured, user friendly and easily discoverable will likely result in improved organic visibility and an overall better SEO performance. 

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is a fundamental part of any SEO strategy and it involves focusing on the technical aspects of a website that can affect the visibility and performance in the SERPs. By optimising the technical elements of your website such as website speed, mobile-friendliness, and indexing, you can ensure that search engines are crawling your website effectively and ranking it accordingly. Technical SEO plays a crucial role in improving website usability and user experience. Ignoring technical SEO can result in poor website performance and decreased visibility, and in some instances, great content optimisation and link building approaches can be lost because there is a fundamental crawl issue on the website, therefore meaning that Google isn’t seeing the content it needs to return – in most cases, a simple fix can have substantial consequences for the website. It is extremely important to have the fundamentals in place and have your website working properly in order for the on page optimisations to be effective. It is therefore extremely important to prioritise technical SEO in order to maximise your website’s potential for ranking highly in the SERPs, and for improving the overall user experience. 

How You Can Learn About SEO 

Learning new things about SEO is an ongoing process that requires a continuous effort. I have learnt a lot of things in my first 6 months in SEO but there is still so much more to learn. There are so many ways to expand your knowledge and stay updated in the ever evolving industry. One of the ways that I have learnt is through reading various different blogs. There are many websites that regularly publish valuable information and updates on SEO practices and it is a great way to find out new information. Following reputable SEO experts on social media platforms can also provide you with a wealth of information and keep you informed about all of the latest trends. Participating in webinars and online courses that are led by experts can also deepen your understanding of SEO and help you to acquire new skills. Attending SEO conferences and networking events will help you to deepen your knowledge and it enables you to connect with other SEO professionals and gain outsider insights that can broaden your knowledge.Listening to podcasts can also be extremely beneficial and there are quite a few across the SEO sector, these podcasts can be extremely handy for SEO professionals who are commuting to work. Finally, experimenting with different SEO techniques and conducting your own research can massively contribute to learning new things.

I have used all of the above methods to expand my SEO knowledge and I can safely say that they all work. By combining all of these approaches, you can continuously learn and improve your skills and stay up to date in the dynamic world of SEO. 

Moving Forwards

6 months on from when I first entered the world of SEO, I have learnt an enormous amount of different SEO techniques and stayed up to date with all of the latest algorithm updates. I have delved into many different SEO projects including both on-page optimisations and technical SEO. Overall, my journey in SEO has been an invaluable learning experience which has equipped me with a diverse set of skills and the ability to optimise websites for better search engine visibility and organic growth. SEO is a very wide topic and I am excited to continuously learn more and more every day by staying up to date and learning new skills.