Posts in category: SEO

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 September 2023, Google ran its helpful content update, focused on improving the ranking of high-quality content. In preparation for the update we undertook an audit of our clients’ websites to ensure they were all meeting the mark. We analysed just how helpful the content was and where improvements could be made. So what were we looking for? And how can you make sure your content adheres to the ‘helpful content’ guidelines?

What is ‘helpful content?’

Helpful content can be summed up as content that is created for the user, not for the search engine. Humans are typing queries into search engines,  so the answers should be written for humans. If the answers have been written to serve an algorithm or a search engine, then the average user isn’t going to find that helpful or enjoyable. When done correctly, helpful content will boost your SEO because the information you provide will demonstrate that your pages put people first, not crawlers.

What did the 2023 helpful content update add?

A year after the helpful content update was launched, Google made some further changes. It’s important to have a clear understanding of what was added, to inform your SEO strategies. Whilst nothing too dramatic was introduced, there are a few things to be aware of:

• ➡️ The 2023 update demonstrated more of an openness to AI-written content, as long as it’s still providing value. Google specifically removed the words “written by people” and just wrote “helpful content created for people in search results.”
  
  So, no more is AI-generated content an absolute no-go. Go ahead and use it to support your content strategy, but proceed with caution and ensure the writing remains well-written and informative.
  
• ➡️ The update had an emphasis on User Experience, placing more focus on things like mobile-friendliness and website design. For Google to deem your site helpful, it might therefore be a good idea to give it a quick technical audit.

• ➡️ We saw a crackdown on third-party hosted content with Google warning against placing low-quality content on subdomains to try and improve search ranking. They said: 
  
  “if that content is largely independent of the main site’s purpose or produced without close supervision or the involvement of the primary site, we recommend that it should be blocked from being indexed by Google.”
  
• ➡️ And finally, the update targeted the popular practice of updating content with minor changes and a recent date to appear fresh in search results. No shortcuts allowed I’m afraid guys.

Why is Google bothered?

Search has come a long way since the simple days of keyword stuffing. 45% of people using their mobiles online now use voice search and it’s no wonder. A whole generation has grown up with search engines as an everyday tool and we are now moving towards using search much more naturally than ever before. Google wants to make searching and finding what we want even easier, and is striving to understand meaning, context and intent far beyond a few keywords. 

The helpful content update is part of Google’s Natural Language Processing (NLP) masterplan. Essentially, Google wants to give users what they want rather than users having to guess which words to type to get the best results. The helpful content update ensures that websites and pages are providing the best, most informative content possible.

How to write helpful content

The easiest way to target this mammoth subject is to break it down into key areas:

• ➡️ The User
• ➡️ E-E-A-T
• ➡️ Semantics
• ➡️ Copy

1. The user (you, me, them, us)

No matter what you are writing about, always (I repeat always) remember who you are writing for. Understanding your audience is key to writing content that will be helpful to them. There is no use writing about the quality and composition of a leather dog lead if your client’s target market is price focused. To make that point clearer, here is how I would approach user intent when setting out writing content:

Industry/product/service: what does your client sell and what are the typical pain points when selling that product? Our client in the gardening industry sells high end garden furniture. People searching for garden furniture are likely to be concerned with quality, price and maintenance. So I would structure my content around these pillars:

Demographic: Our gardening client has an affluent target market and wants to hone in on the quality of their product rather than the final price. Therefore, their customer is less likely to be typing price related queries and more likely to be considering longevity and overall value. 

Possible queries: Now that you’ve broken down your user you can consider what they might actually be searching for. Tools like alsoasked or answerthepublic are great for researching real queries that real users are regularly typing into search engines. Even a basic Google search on something like ‘garden furniture sets’ can give you some direction.

This approach can be applied to all clients. Understanding the nuances of the end user enables you to write content that helps them find answers even if they don’t not know exactly what they are searching for.

2. E-E-A-T (aka friends don’t lie)

Much is made of E-E-A-T, or experience, expertise, authority and trust, not being a ranking factor. Not that I’d argue with Google, but the concept of E-E-A-T is intrinsic to helpful content so, for me, it follows that if you are creating expertly written, authoritative and trustworthy content you are being more helpful and, ergo, you will likely rank higher. 

When I set about integrating E-E-A-T into copy, I think about three key areas:

Bullet points and numbering 

This helps you to clearly set out your content and improve the user experience. The information held in these lists can be some of the most valuable on the page, allowing for featured snippet opportunities and, on a more basic level, setting the content apart so the user can easily identify it (remember what we said about writing for the user). It can be something as simple as a list of Do’s and Don’ts, but having these distinct sections of information demonstrates that you know what you are talking about and aren’t afraid to show it. 

Linking 

Linking is the pat on the back of the digital world. It shows search engines that you have mates vouching for you and it helps users to understand and trust what you are saying. Adding internal links to your content can direct traffic through a clear marketing funnel and allows you to utilise content pillaring effectively. Linking related articles together will form one big picture on your pillar topic and signal that you have plenty of expertise and authority in your subject.

And what about external linking? This is when you point to a website outside of your organisation and say ‘look they can back me up.’ It shows that you aren’t pulling information from thin air and can corroborate your points. In some instances, for example, Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) industries, external linking can be especially helpful because the subject matter requires an extra degree of expertise and trust. When researching your content, keep a list of any useful links and weave them into your final piece where relevant and appropriate.

But remember, with the 2023 update’s emphasis on user experience, it’s super important that these links are all working correctly. Tools like Google’s Lighthouse will assess the mobile-friendliness of your links, while Screaming Frog or Ahrefs will quickly identify any broken links.

Hard facts and figures 

Firstly, don’t make stuff up! This might be obvious but we’ve all been there – convinced we remember something only to find out it wasn’t quite right. For instance, if I’m writing an About Us page, I make sure to have an in-depth list of facts on the client to hand, so that my content has gravitas. 

Second to this, I always look to see where I can add value into my content with social proof, like reviews, featured articles or any accreditations. This might be a simple banner at the footer of a blog but it shows users and SERPs that the page, and therefore the site, can be trusted. Author profiling is another great way to double down on the information you provide so, where possible, include an author bio.

3. Semantic SEO (hey Bert)

Semantic SEO goes back to meeting your users needs. In short, it’s the use of keywords and phrases that relate to your chosen topic. Think of it as a natural way of speaking. If you were talking about your morning routine, you would naturally mention breakfast, showering and leaving the house. You wouldn’t veer off on a tangent and start talking about putting your pyjamas on. This is what Google refers to as salience.

In 2019 Google launched BERT, an algorithm which impacted 10% of all search queries straight away. BERT is an AI demo that will tell you how salient, and therefore relevant, your content is to your intended topic. So, as we touched on in the morning routine example, you should be using lexis that is relevant to your subject matter and shows your audience that what they have landed on is exactly what they’re looking for. Start off with some keyword research to identify your core keywords for your topic and don’t be afraid to use common sense as well! 

For example, if I was writing category copy for a piano retailer, I would use the top tier keywords around that specific piano brand but also talk about keys, pedals and soundboards to effectively demonstrate what the content was about. This is useful for content pillaring too, and those all-important linking opportunities. You can then run your content through BERT and get a salience score to see how it stacks up against other similar content.

BERT will also show you if it is a positive, negative or neutral piece of content. This doesn’t refer to its state of mind but rather its relevance to other similar articles. If you were writing content about the best apps for 2024, BERT should give you a neutral score as it isn’t an emotive subject. Or, if you were writing about how to be more motivated in the mornings, your copy may need to have a more positive sentiment score. Carefully consider the value your content offers, who it is targeted at and what needs they are trying to meet in searching for that content. This will help you achieve the right level of sentiment.

4. Copywriting (your English teacher would be proud)

Given half the chance, I’d talk about the virtues of good grammar and syntax all day long. Don’t underestimate the importance of simply writing well when it comes to helpful content. Readers don’t want to read overly long sentences with no clear end point. Think of every piece of content as a conversation. If you were asking someone for directions and they digress into how they used to live nearby, you would quickly forget the valuable information. So stick to the point and set out a clear beginning, middle and end before writing anything. I never start any article without drafting a brief first. Then, when I do come to actually crafting the content here are some of the basic rules I live by:

• H2 & H3 headings – long blocks of content are off putting and make it harder to find the info you are looking for so always separate with headings.

• Short simple sentences – ideally a sentence should be no longer than 20 words. If it is then commas are your friend.

• Follow questions with an answer – even if the answer is ‘it depends’ – give a definite answer first and then follow up with any variables.
  
• Use simple language – the average reading age for the UK is 9 years old. Of course, this can change depending on the topic and who you’re writing for (a professional audience might require more jargon). But the golden rule is to keep your content clear and understandable. Simple synonyms are a copywriter’s best friend.

In summary

Google will definitely thank you for setting your content out clearly and using good English. They will high five you if you have some good E-E-A-T signals and they will get down on one knee if you are meeting the needs of your users (sorry I got carried away).

Writing helpful content is mainly about matching user intent, and the 2023 helpful content update is just part of making search engines as effective as possible for the people using them – us. So perhaps the biggest takeaway when writing for humans is to be human. Don’t try to trick an algorithm into trusting you, just be trustworthy. There are SEO specialists and data analysts who can take care of the technical aspects of SEO, but as a content writer you should be focused on creating content that is enjoyable, valuable and genuine. So, to summarise, as a content writer, here are  the basic steps to get you started with writing helpful content: 

– Define your user and their needs

– Find opportunities for bullet or number lists

– Include internal and external links

– Fact check your content and ideally include evidence or social proof

– Research keywords and optimise for salience and sentiment 

– Use good English and grammar

– Write for your audience not a search engine (you should have figured that out by now)

If you need a hand writing SEO optimised helpful content, get in touch with us. 

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. 

Metadata – that stuff that makes up the bulk of what we see when scrolling the SERPS. Is it still important? How long should a meta title be? Is there such a thing as metadata optimisation? What does this all mean for SEO and, ultimately, my business’ sales?

These are questions that we’ll be tackling in today’s blog, which will run you through what meta titles and descriptions actually are, how to view and edit them and the impact they have on users and your SEO rankings.

But if you’re short on time, here are the key takeaways:

➡️ Spoiler, meta titles and descriptions are crucial for SEO! They help search engines understand your content and can significantly improve click-through rates

➡️ Search engines won’t always use the metadata you provide, but to make sure they do, ensure they meet the suggested character lengths, and accurately reflect precisely what’s on the page

➡️ You can optimise meta data, and you should! Target the right keywords, create a sense of urgency, and remember to always make each tag unique

Firstly, what are meta titles and descriptions?

Meta data is the snippets of text that appear in search engine results pages – in simple terms, what users read and click on to be taken to your website. As a result, they’re pretty important – first impressions count and they play a crucial role in how users perceive your site (and how likely they are to visit it).

So, let’s begin with the meta title. This is like a headline, or title, for your page. Displayed in bold font, it’s the first thing users will see. It’s also important for the search engines who use it to understand your page.

Then, the meta description appears just below the meta title; it’s a brief overview of what the page is about and can significantly improve CTR by grabbing users’ interest.

As you can see in the screenshot below, the meta description is the section beginning ‘protect yourself from the sun…’, whilst the blue text above is the meta title.

These days, search engines are very sophisticated, considering a wide spectrum of factors when ranking websites, and metadata is just one of them. But whilst not as important for ranking as it once was, this doesn’t mean your titles and descriptions don’t matter. A lot of people underestimate their importance but they do in fact still have a huge role in SEO. But why is that….

Why is metadata so important for SEO?

As we discussed above, metadata increases your click-through rate by providing an engaging summary of what your page offers. It allows users to make an informed decision about whether to click on your link, and often will include action words like ‘free delivery’ or ‘shop now’  to spark interest. So, why does this matter to you? Because the more clicks, the more traffic and potential customers!

High CTR is great not only for your conversions but also because it signals to Google that your page is valuable. Whilst there is no explicit confirmation that it directly affects search rankings, a consistently high CTR for a specific keyword might suggest to Google that your page is particularly relevant for that search term. Equally, a lower CTR is a red flag for Google, indicating that the content on your page isn’t matching user intent.

But that’s not all – meta titles and descriptions can boost your organic visibility because of keywords. Including the right, relevant terms in your metadata helps signal to search engines that your page is addressing these topics. It’s essentially a blueprint for the algorithms, giving them that extra bit of help needed to understand and rank your content.

How long should a meta description and meta title be?

It’s important not to get too carried away in your meta tags – keep them short, sweet and to the point, otherwise they’ll be cut short! 

Whilst meta descriptions can technically be any length, Google tends to snip them short between 155 and 160 characters. This advice is given by Google: 

It’s best to keep meta descriptions long enough that they’re sufficiently descriptive, so we recommend descriptions between 50 and 160 characters.

So, there’s your answer – but what about meta titles? Here, you’ve got less room to play with. Meta titles have a maximum length of just 60 characters and it’s generally agreed that the ideal length is between 50 and 60. 

Do search engines always use your meta descriptions?

No; I’m afraid that search engines can ultimately use whatever they see fit for your description. They prioritise providing the most relevant information to users, so, in some cases, this might mean generating their own title and description for your page.

You can avoid this happening by making sure that what you write is well-aligned both with the user’s search query, and the content on the page itself. Otherwise, Google will simply create a more fitting description for you.

How to optimise your meta titles and descriptions

In light of this, you may now be asking the valid question, “how can I make my metadata better?”  Here are our tips and tricks to write tags your copywriter would be jealous of:

💻Make your titles and descriptions super relevant. They need to be tailored carefully to the specific content on each page, so avoid using the same generic description across your entire site.

💻In fact, avoid duplicate content all together as this could get your pages penalised by search engines. It may be far less hassle to use identical meta titles across your website, but creating unique titles for each page will avoid this penalty.

💻Target the right keywords, but incorporate them naturally. Carry out in-depth keyword research to make sure you’re going for the most relevant terms, but remember the main aim of the tags is to tell readers what your page is about – not to see how many times you can fit ‘dog food’ into 60 characters.

💻Don’t just describe your content. Highlight its benefits and use these tags to clearly communicate what the users have to gain by clicking on your link. It can be good to incorporate a bit of urgency in the copy and there are a number of ways you can do this:

-> Time-sensitive language like ‘ends tonight’ or ‘limited-time offer’

->Use of action verbs, ‘start your free trial now’, ‘unlock your discount today!’

->Use of numbers – e.g. ‘only 10 spots left!’

->Using the seasons to say something like ‘last chance for summer deals’

So, the bottom line is, meta titles and meta descriptions do matter. They’re far more than just a button for users to click – optimised right, they’ll give a substantial boost to your site traffic, and help you rank for those important keywords.

If thinking of 30 different ways to say ‘shop now’ isn’t your strong point, why not leave it to the experts. Cedarwood Digital is an award-winning SEO agency, who’ll handle all the ins and outs of your SEO strategy, letting you focus on your business. If this sounds right up your alley, drop us a message at [email protected].

SEO has changed; long gone are the days of keyword stuffing working like magic, now search engines prioritise content that actually understands what people are looking for. Context is key, and a comprehensive, thorough understanding of topics will get you noticed by Google. In other words, SEO really is a matter of semantics these days.

But what does this all mean in practice for us SEOs and content writers? Maybe you’re aware of the notion ‘semantic SEO’ but don’t have a clue how to action it. I have good news for you, this blog will cover exactly that – practical tips and pointers to get you optimising your site with semantic SEO in mind. We’ll begin by giving you a quick dummy’s guide to semantic SEO, before explaining why it’s quite so important to increase your conversions and lastly, providing you with our practical guidance on how to do it.

Who’s this blog useful for? If you’re struggling to get your small business noticed online, writing blogs but failing to rank on page 1, or simply want to increase your company’s conversions, you won’t want to skip out on semantic SEO.

However, we know that time is of the essence, and if you don’t have a whole five minutes to listen to us rant about semantics, here are the key takeaways in advance:

🌐Post ‘Hummingbird’, ‘RankBrain’ and the Helpful Content Update, Google is prioritising understanding what users are really searching for. Your content needs to anticipate their questions and address a topic comprehensively.

🌐Create high quality, long, in-depth content that gives the user everything they’re after. This will keep them and Google happy, reducing your bounce rate and improving conversion rates.

🌐Don’t be afraid to enlist the help of tools like Salient to assess content relevance, or Answer The Public to accurately discover what users are asking.

What is Semantic SEO?

Semantic SEO, in a nutshell, is the practice of optimising content for meaning, not just keywords. As SEOs, it’s about adjusting our process a bit, considering what users are searching for, and thinking about the overall context of a page. It’s a smarter and more comprehensive approach that goes deeper to ensure that Google understands our content and that it meets user intent.

Now I’m not here to give you a full lecture on search engine history, but there are a handful of developments to be aware of that might just help clarify semantic SEO.

➡️In 2013, the ‘hummingbird algorithm’ was launched, changing the way Google worked. It was a major deal, ushering in an era of prioritising user experience and actually understanding the meaning behind search queries. No longer was Google only looking for keywords, now it was also understanding the relationships between words.

➡️Then, 2015 saw another major leap with the introduction of RankBrain, a machine learning model that could analyse vast amounts of search and user behaviour data. Like Hummingbird, it was looking to understand the intent behind what they type into the search bar.

➡️The last update relevant to semantic search is BERT, arriving in October 2019 and using a new machine to better understand the relationship between words.

➡️So, fast forward to today, Google is in its prime of understanding queries. With the rise of Siri and voice search, the algorithm now delivers pages of relevant results from just a couple of idiomatic words said into a phone. And when it’s scanning our sites, it’s specifically looking for content that addresses a topic comprehensively. In response, our content needs to match the algorithms’ human-like understanding of meaning – foreseeing and answering all the related questions people will have.

What’s in it for you (and your business)?

We get it, this might all seem like a bit of a faff, and chucking a few keywords into your blog is far less complicated. But, we promise that it pays to put the time and effort into semantic SEO. Here’s why:

✅The biggest advantage of focusing on semantic SEO is that it’s a proven way to rank in the search results! From the algorithm history you just endured, it should be clear that drumming down on this semantic approach gets you in Google’s good books.

✅Not only will you rank high, but you’ll end up ranking high for more keywords. By covering a topic in-depth, you naturally weave in related keywords, making your content show up for lots more searches, and therefore reaching a wider audience of potential buyers.

✅Semantic SEO is also the secret to the coveted ‘People Also Ask’ spots at the top of the SERPs. With a semantic strategy, you’re anticipating user questions by covering all angles of a certain topic. This hugely increases your chances of appearing in those answer snippets.

✅Once the users have found your page, you want them to stay. And yes, you guessed it, semantic SEO also works in your favour here. Content that tackles a topic comprehensively keeps users engaged, so you’ll see a lower bounce rate. Consider this, if you’re answering every question they have and providing everything they need, they won’t be bothered about clicking off to go elsewhere.

✅Plus, this also sends positive quality signals to Google. With the recent Helpful Content Updates, Google knows if your content is helpful and you can’t trick the system I’m afraid. By focusing on semantics, you show Google that our content is not only relevant to the search query but also informative, engaging and worthy of those top positions.

✅But techy waffle aside, all this matters because increased user traffic, and lower bounce rate leads to… (drumroll please) conversions and sales! And that’s what you’re all ultimately after, right?

How to actually do semantic SEO

You work in marketing so I can already tell that you love your actionable takeaways – do not worry, the next section will be painfully practical. Let’s crack on with what your SEO team should be tackling day to day to tick the semantic boxes.

1. Work on understanding user intent

Not to be dramatic but if you don’t understand your target audience’s search intent, you might as well throw in the towel now. Google prioritises addressing user intent as closely as possible so, essentially, you need to become a mind reader. Put yourself in their shoes, picture your target audience, what do they wear, what do they eat for breakfast. Seriously though, what problems are they trying to solve and what questions might they have after reading your content. 

Let’s say you’re targeting the keyword ‘how to grow tomatoes’ for your greenhouse business. Not only will they be searching this question and similar semantically-related terms, but also:

~Ideal planting conditions for tomatoes. 

~Tips on watering and fertilizing tomato plants.

~Common tomato plant pests and diseases, and how to control them.

~Information on harvesting and storing homegrown tomatoes.

~Recipes that use fresh tomatoes.

You need to provide content tackling all of these areas of the topic, or the user will simply click off and find the answers elsewhere!

2. Create high-quality, in-depth content

Semantic SEO means creating in-depth, detailed and complex content. I hate to break it to you, but a 500 word, blog post is just not going to cut it. You’re likely going to need a couple thousand words to cover the topic comprehensively. I promise it’s not as scary as it sounds – begin with a substantial brief to ensure you’re addressing every angle, and to get a digestible structure planned. It might even be worth hitting up ChatGPT for some help here (gasp), just to help you spot anything you’ve missed. But please leave the actual writing to the humans in your team, quality trumps quantity and a long but AI-generated blog post is not going to do you any favours. 

3. What you should and should’t be including in this content

Focus on creating comprehensive content that incorporates related terms naturally but don’t sweat worrying about every long-tail variation. With Semantic Search, the algorithms recognise connections between similar long-tail keywords (like ‘how to tell when tomatoes are ripe’ and ‘are my tomatoes ready to be picked’). Google gets that these terms fall under the same topic.

Prioritise in-depth content that meets users’ needs and don’t forget to answer those People Also Ask questions. According to a study of 2.5 million search queries, this feature now shows up for almost half of all search queries, and this is often above position 1!

4. Schema

Schema, also known as structured data markup, acts like a translator, providing Google with a better understanding of your content. With schema, you’re essentially labelling the different elements to make it easier for search engines to understand the context. This could include things like ‘brand name’, ‘location’, ‘price’. 

It paints a clear picture for search engines; semantic SEO focuses on the meaning behind the words on your page, but search engines still rely on code to interpret information. Schema bridges this gap by providing a structured way to communicate the meaning of your content.

Tools to help you out with Semantic SEO

There are a number of tools out there that come in handy with semantic SEO. Here are our tried and tested top 3:

• Salient

This tool measures the relevance of your content for certain target keywords, using a technology that replicates search engine algorithms, to show you what they’re likely to be picking up. It analyses the use of synonyms, related terms, and concepts within your content to assess if it comprehensively addresses the topic. Plus, the text comparison tool lets you see how edits impact your content’s relevance score. So, instead of relying on what you ‘think’ might work, this tool is your best bet to get a realistic idea of how relevant your content is.

• Answer The Public 

Answer The Public compiles data from search engines to show you the most searched questions around your topic or keyword, usefully grouped into categories like ‘prepositions’ and ‘comparisons’. This is great for semantic SEO because it lays the user’s intent out plain to see, allowing you to tailor your content to directly answer their questions and provide the most informative page for them. It will also help with showing you long-tail, less competitive keywords and by incorporating these, you can reach users who might be using different phrasing but have the same intent.

• Also Asked

Similar to Answer The Public, Also Asked pulls together data directly from Google searches to show you themost asked questions around a topic – all presented in an easily digestible mind-map format. Understanding your audience’s issues and questions is essential not only for semantic SEO, but for any successful marketing strategy – you won’t regret giving this tool a go.

So there we have it, your ultimate guide to semantic SEO that should leave you prepped and ready to create comprehensive, contextual, and converting content. Google won’t know what’s hit it.

Cedarwood Digital is an award-winning SEO agency with a proven track record of boosting online traffic and conversions for both small companies and large corporations. Want to leave it to the pros? We don’t blame you – drop us a line at [email protected]. 

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. 

For us SEO professionals, it’s well known that Google notoriously loves a good algorithm update, throwing rankings up into the air and sending everyone on LinkedIn into a frenzy. Whilst in the early days, Google only made occasional updates, they now make thousands of changes each year – and recently it’s felt as if new algorithms are rolling out practically every other day. This, understandably, can be stressful for those responsible for maintaining client rankings or their own website’s performance. With so many updates, it’s easy to feel lost in the sea of changes and unsure how to maintain strong SEO.

This blog post will break down the key updates implemented in recent months, explaining their impact on your SEO strategy and offering actionable tips to keep your rankings climbing amidst the algorithm shifts.

What is a Google Algorithm Update?

Google’s search engine relies on complex algorithms to sift through its massive index and deliver the most relevant results for every user query. These algorithms consider a multitude of ranking factors to determine which web pages deserve the top spots on SERPs. While Google constantly tweaks these algorithms, most changes are so subtle they go unnoticed.  However, Google occasionally rolls out major updates that significantly impact the SERPs.

These major updates, referred to as core updates, are designed to improve the overall quality and user experience of search results. So, they may be irritating but they come from a good place! However, because they often involve significant changes to how Google evaluates websites, this can cause fluctuations in rankings across the board. Even the biggest and most established websites are affected by core updates, experiencing shifts in their ranking positions and visitor traffic.  

Why you should care:

So, we’ve established that Google algorithm updates can significantly impact your website’s traffic and ranking – bringing new visitors or temporary dips. Understanding each update and how it impacts your SEO strategy allows you to adapt and adjust your strategy to regain lost ground. It’s crucial to keep up with the updates so you can align your content accordingly if necessary. This proactive approach will ensure you keep your website visible to its target audience.

2024 updates

Without further ado, let’s take a look at the updates we’ve seen in the past 6 months. We’ll work through them in reverse chronological order and provide some pointers for dealing with each one.

⚙️The March 2024 Core Update

You must be living under a rock if you’ve missed this huge update; as the longest-ever core update, it only finished rolling out on April 19th and was said to reduce unhelpful content by 45%! It marked a big shift in Google’s ongoing fight against low-quality content and signalled strong recognition of the wave of AI-generated content that’s hit the web in the past year. The update further refined Google’s ability to identify and penalise content deemed unhelpful, particularly targeting unoriginal AI content.

What did Google have to say? A spokesperson said this update has refined how it understands which webpages are “unhelpful, have a poor user experience or feel like they were created for search engines instead of people.” This “could include sites created primarily to match very specific search queries”. As a result, websites with content that lacked value, originality, or depth may have seen ranking declines.

What does this mean for you?

This just means more of what we already know – we need to be writing helpful content for people, and not just to rank in search engines. There are no big new changes you should implement, or secret hacks to rank well in this update – just more of what you’re (hopefully) already doing.

The algorithm update also means that you should see better quality results when you’re using search engines. The web has recently seen a surge of AI content that lacks accuracy and authenticity. This update should cut down on that and improve the overall quality of what we see on the SERPs.

Been hit by this update? Approach recovery by, first and foremost, working on the quality of your content. If you’re experiencing a traffic loss for queries you used to rank for, there’s probably an issue with your content (if you’ve already confirmed there’s no technical problem). Look at the competitor pages now ranking for this content and work out why Google’s seeing it as preferable. Is it more relevant? Longer-form? Demonstrating expertise through author profiles? Video or image content rather than written?

Whilst Google hasn’t given us a lot of new advice in the aftermath of this new update, it might also be useful to look at their previous list of questions to consider if your site is hit by a core update. Work your way through and identify the areas where your content could be improved.

⚙️The March 2024 Spam Update

At the same time as we faced the March Core Update, Google also rolled out a hefty Spam Update, taking 15 days to complete. It took action against new types of spam, particularly scaled content abuse and expired domain abuse, which we’ve been seeing an increasing prevalence of.

Scaled content abuse is a tactic where spammers create vast amounts of AI content aimed at manipulating search rankings and tricking Google into thinking they have the answers to popular searches. Whilst Google has always fought against this practice, the advancements in AI have called for a revamp of their strategy.

Then, expired domain abuse is where someone exploits the reputation of an expired domain. They purchase the domain and repurpose it to boost the rankings of their low-quality content. It misleads Google and users into believing that the new content is associated with the older, more reputable website. 

It goes without saying that if you’ve seen a change to your traffic or rankings after this update, ensure you’re not violating any of Google’s spam policies, even accidentally.

Other recent updates

⚙️November 2023 Core Update: This was the final core update of 2023, beginning on November 2nd and completing on November 28th. Like most core updates, it resulted in many sites seeing ranking volatility – particularly in ‘Your Money, Your Life’ verticals.

⚙️October 2023 Core Update: With this core update, Google began handling backlinks differently. The reputation and relevance of the linking site was more important than ever before and a single link from a high-authority site now carried much more value than lots of lower-quality links.

⚙️October 2023 Spam Update: October also saw the release of a spam update, designed to clean up several types of spam that Google community members reported in Turkish, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Hindi and Chinese.

Are any more updates heading our way?

In the past week, we’ve seen the beginning of a site reputation abuse update rolling out. This will target something often referred to as “parasite SEO”; sites found to be practicing site reputation abuse will face drops in rankings and even deindexes of pages. 

But what exactly is site reputation abuse? This is when websites with significant authority exploit their trust to push low-quality, irrelevant content. According to Google, the update will be going after “third-party content produced primarily for ranking purposes and without close oversight of a website owner to be spam.” They used the example of a third party publishing payday loan reviews on a trusted educational website to gain ranking benefits from the site:

“Such content ranking highly on Search can confuse or mislead visitors who may have vastly different expectations for the content on a given website.”

Has your site been hit? We can help

Cedarwood Digital is an award-winning SEO agency based in Manchester and we have extensive experience helping our clients to prepare for and recover from algorithm updates. Our team of experts has an advanced understanding of what Google wants to see, and possesses the strategies to help you rank in the top positions, and stay in them.

Get in touch with us today to learn how we can optimise your SEO for long-term success.