Posts in category: SEO

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.

Link building has long been a popular part of SEO campaigns and is the process of building links from other highly authoritative websites to your own to highlight to Google the value and authority that your website represents, and to build your own authority. 

Why does it matter?

Links can significantly improve your website’s performance as they contribute to your key E-E-A-T signals, which can play a crucial role in search engine rankings across many sectors. In some instances, they are seen as a vote of trust and are a way of building your reputation and showcasing your expertise. This can potentially lead to higher rankings for your target keywords which means more traffic and more conversions – the good stuff. 

The benefits stretch beyond SEO. Link-building will also directly increase your site traffic by sending visitors your way, and improve brand awareness by exposing your site to a wider audience. Essentially, it’s gold dust if you want to give your site a boost in visibility. But, link-building hasn’t always looked like this. It’s undergone a drastic transformation in the past 5-10 years, driven largely by Google’s efforts to combat dodgy tactics. 

A quick link-building history

In the early 2010s, when ideas of SEO were just beginning to be thrown around, marketers focused on securing as many backlinks as possible, regardless of their quality. Building a large backlink profile was pretty easy – anyone could boost their ranking by buying links or using techniques like blog commenting.

Google’s Penguin Update in 2012 put a stop to all this, penalising websites with a suspicious link profile. This forced SEOs to shift their focus to acquiring high-quality backlinks through creating valuable content. 

Now, in 2024, it’s more important than ever to have a solid strategy for link building to support SEO – and – it’s important that these links have direct relevance to your clients. This is because:

🔗Google’s algorithms are getting scarily good at identifying high-quality content. As you’ll know, it feels like they’re undergoing updates every other day, and their recent ‘helpful content updates’ place a huge priority on relevant and trustworthy sources, over merely the number of backlinks.

🔗It’s getting harder and harder to stand out. If you know about link-building, that means all your competitors probably do too. Your strategy now needs to be bigger and better if you want to win those backlinks over your competitors.

🔗Online brand awareness is playing an increasingly vital role. A strong brand presence helps you cut through the noise and establish yourself in a crowded marketplace. Plus, social media platforms are now a key place for consumers to discover new brands. For the first time, online content has the power to not just grab readers’ attention, but also nudge them directly towards a purchase.  Consumers are way more receptive to positive online influences that guide their buying decisions.

The different types of Link Building

Deeper linking

Building links to your website is a crucial SEO strategy, but simply acquiring links isn’t enough. To maximise the impact, you need a strategy focused on where those links land. Many people prioritise building links to the homepage, but this often misses out on valuable opportunities.

In most cases, the pages with the best user intent match and the ones you truly want users to visit, reside deeper within your website. These are typically product or service pages – the areas that directly impact conversions and revenue. Link equity passed from the homepage to these sub-pages can be valuable, but it’s far less effective than linking to them directly.

This is where deeper page linking comes in as a popular solution. By building links directly to these relevant sub-pages, you signal to search engines that these pages are valuable, boosting their rankings in search results. Improved ranking can in turn lead to increased organic traffic, conversions, and ultimately, revenue.

E-E-A-T link building

Google has over 200 ranking factors but the increasingly most important factor is E-E-A-T or ‘expertise, experience, authoritativeness and trustworthiness’. For Google to see your site as valuable and send organic traffic your way, you need to be sending out these signals. This is especially important for websites falling into the ‘Your Money, Your Life’ category, which deals with topics that can significantly impact users’ lives. For YMYL sites, building strong E-E-A-T signals is extra important to establish credibility in the eyes of Google.

The good news is that E-E-A-T link building is not rocket science! If you’re already utilising Digital PR tactics to acquire links, you’re likely on the right track. By nature, effective Digital PR generates genuine, high-quality links that showcase your website’s expertise. However, there are specific link-building tactics for building E-E-A-T friendly links and maximising their impact on your site’s organic traffic….

1. Newsjacking to put your client at the centre of the conversation

Newsjacking offers a great approach to building external E-E-A-T signals and driving organic traffic. This technique involves capitalising on trending news stories and offering fresh insights from your in-house expert. This valuable content can then be pitched to journalists for inclusion in their articles, or used to create a standalone piece showcasing your client’s expertise. 

By providing authoritative commentary on a trending topic, you position your brand as a thought leader in the field, attracting high-quality backlinks that boost your website’s SEO and signal trustworthiness to Google.

For example, we recently newsjacked the Easter tablescaping trend, outreaching expert tips on decking out your table from our spokesperson at Alliance Online. This content was then distributed to relevant journalists, resulting in backlinks from authoritative outlets. Each of these links sent a positive signal to Google, indicating that our client’s website deserves a higher ranking in search results.

2. Thought-leadership to showcase expertise 

Similarly, thought-leadership content is a powerful tool to build trust and add organic value to your site. It’s pretty straightforward; leverage in-house experts from your client’s business to share their expertise through interviews. Having readily available bios that highlight their credentials and experience is also crucial to demonstrate their authority to journalists and Google alike.

Beyond reactive approaches like newsjacking, a proactive strategy is essential. Stay informed about upcoming events and special days for opportunities to strategically position your client’s experts in front of the media. This can lead to features in high-profile publications, generating valuable backlinks that significantly help out your website’s E-E-A-T signals and organic reach.

Another thought-leadership tactic is guest blogging on relevant sites within your client’s industry – this involves creating informative and valuable content for other established blogs or publications. The blog post would ideally include a bio of the author and a link back to their website. This not only establishes credibility, boosting your SEO, but also drives valuable referral traffic.

3. Analysing data for expert content

By gathering your own data, or analysing publicly available datasets, you can create valuable content that demonstrates your client’s expertise and understanding of the field. This data-driven approach not only positions your client as an expert but also generates valuable resources that journalists are likely to reference. Combine your data analysis with clear visualisations to make your piece super linkable for journalists who want to provide their readers with reliable and engaging information.

Beyond individual data pieces, consider employing a Reverse Digital PR strategy. This involves creating content hubs on your client’s website –  comprehensive resources fit to burst with data and analysis. These content hubs are the gift that keeps on giving, becoming valuable destinations for journalists seeking information. They have the potential to attract numerous backlinks over time that significantly boost both E-E-A-T signals and on-site SEO. Plus, a well-designed data-hub will not only drive traffic by attracting backlinks, but also through boosting your on-site SEO.

Let’s wrap up with some key takeaways:

➡️Link-building matters more than ever in 2024, if it’s not prioritised in your SEO strategy, it should be! It’s a golden ticket to build a strong online reputation and help Google understand why it should rank your website.

➡️Within your strategy, focus on building links to deeper, user-focused pages like product or service pages.

➡️And to get those links? Implement E-E-A-T link-building practices:

->Newsjacking: offering expert insights on trending topics

->Thought-leadership: share expertise through interviews, guest blogs and data-driven content

->Data-hubs: build resources rich with data to attract valuable backlinks

Need a hand getting started? Cedarwood Digital are an award-winning Link Building Agency with the media contacts and techniques to land you top tier, 100% earned links. Drop us a line today.

Six months ago, I entered the marketing world as a slightly terrified graduate who thought engagement was something that happens before a wedding and long-tail was a type of monkey. These days, I like to think I’m a bit of a copywriting whizz (on a good day). If, like me, you’ve entered your first SEO copywriting role with little marketing experience, I’m here to help. I spend an inordinate proportion of my life putting words onto paper and have picked up some tips along the way. 

So, without further ado, let’s get into the SEO copywriting lessons I’ve learnt in my first six months that’ll make your content impress your manager and Google.

1. SEO copywriting is unlike anything else you’ll have ever written

Something I gathered days, if not hours, into my new role is that SEO copywriting is unlike anything you’ll have ever written. It’s drastically different from academic writing and pretty dissimilar to press releases and journalistic style content. It requires a far more analytical approach and is definitely a skill that has to be developed. But I think, 6 months in, I’m getting there… just.

It will all feel like a foreign language at first, and you’ll spend many hours removing jargon and complex sentence structures. But practice makes perfect, and it’s crazy how quickly SEO copywriting becomes second nature.

2. It’s all about the prep

There’s a lot more to copywriting than just getting the words down. A vast proportion of my time is spent doing the necessary research required for SEO content – scouring search volumes, analysing the SERPs, determining user intent, and deciding on headings and subheadings. 

Take your time for keyword research and SERP analysis before you even think about writing. You need to get inside the target users’ heads – what are they searching for and what are they clicking on? What do I need to address to make sure I’m producing genuinely useful content that answers their queries? It can be easy in the content world to lose track of what really matters – the customers and what they need. Remember that blogs aren’t just for brand awareness, and product descriptions are more than just a keyword dump. 

3. Copywriting is hard and some days it just won’t happen

SEO copywriting is tricky! Alongside the analytical skills required in the research process, the actual writing requires a lot of creativity – and it’s impossible for us to be creative 24/7. Every day will be different. Some days I can knock up a thousand words in an hour, and on others it will take me all day to get a mere couple of hundred out.

On those days, don’t push it – move over to research tasks and leave the more creatively demanding work for another day. It’s a good idea to take this into account when structuring your time. Give yourself plenty of time for a big piece of writing, to allow for those writer’s block days where it’s just not flowing.

4. Write for humans

When you do get down to the actual writing, write for humans. I know everyone says it but it’s so important if you want to produce content that’s engaging and SEO-effective.

Ask yourself, would you enjoy reading this piece of content? Would you find it useful? Would your best friend? It’s easy to get lost in all the technical details of keyword research and search volumes but at the end of the day, what is your average Joe going to want to read? Write for humans and Google will reward you as a side effect.

Something I learnt that really stuck with me is that the average reading age in the UK is 9! And remember that your audience will have different levels of reading ability – ensuring that your content is accessible is crucial. Not everyone is a copywriter like you; in fact, the vast majority won’t have read a book in the last year. As much as it’s fun to add in niche vocab and fun sentence structures, your content needs to be digestible and readable. Use short words, sentences, and paragraphs and save the rambles for your Instagram captions.

5. Make use of AI! (It’s not out to steal your job)

I’ll admit, I used to be a real ChatGPT hater – rolling my eyes when people raved about what it could do. “There’s no way writing can be automated, and why should it be?” But I confess, it’s been growing on me. AI can be super useful as a little personal assistant. It’s great for giving you alternative words or phrases if you can’t remember exactly what you’re after – and super useful if you need a more concise header.

However, be careful not to rely on it too much! The capabilities of these tools may well be very impressive but do not rely solely on AI to write your copy – as tempting as it might be. Everyone can see through it, and it will kill off your creativity; you got this job for a reason, keep exercising and developing that skill.

My favourite tools for SEO copywriting 

There are so many tools and software now for all things SEO and when you’re new to the scene it can be tricky to work out which to choose. Lucky for you, I’ve narrowed down my favourites over the last six months:

📍Ahrefs

A jack of all trades, Ahrefs should really be your go-to as an SEO copywriter. Keyword research, content gap analysis, user intent, it does it all.

📍AlsoAsked

You’ll have seen the ‘People Also Ask’ list that appears in Google’s search results – it shows you the, often amusing, top queries the population are asking. Well, AlsoAsked puts all that data in one place. You enter a topic or question and receive a full mind-map of the most asked queries. This is a goldmine for writing FAQ sections, coming up with headings, or simply to get a better sense of what the target audience is wanting to know.

📍Salient

This tool emulates Google, showing you what’s being picked up as the most important features of the page. It’s helpful to show you if your copy is successfully targeting the relevant topics, giving you a clue into how Google will rank it.

📍Grammarly

An absolute classic, and a must for copywriters. Add this extension to your browser and it will make sure every piece of work, every email, and every LinkedIn caption is error-free and perfectly punctuated. Because is there anything more icky than a copywriter with incorrect grammar?

📍Gemini

ChatGPT’s lesser known cousin, Gemini is Google’s own AI assistant and I find it to be a better alternative. One thing it’s great for is proofing. Simply insert your piece of work and it shows you any errors, places for improvement and even some ‘what went wells’. Got to love some validation from a chatbot. 

How to upskill in SEO copywriting

If you’re new to marketing and SEO, you’ll want to be catching up fast. There’s a lot to learn so here’s how I got up to speed:

> Consume lots of writing, and make it good writing. Follow copywriters on LinkedIn, subscribe to newsletters, rediscover the joy of reading that got sidelined at university. If you want to write great content, you need to read a lot of great content.

> Attend webinars and marketing events. There’s so much going on, particularly here in Manchester, and many of these events are free! There’s no one better to learn from than the leaders in our industry – and the free pizza never goes amiss.

> Want to feel slightly more productive on your commute? Choose an educational podcast rather than your favourite Made in Chelsea Stars. Here are some of my faves:

• ‘Always Take Notes’ = each episode interviews a diverse range of established novelists, journalists and publishers. They have fascinating conversations and it’s a great place to mine writing tips and seek inspiration.

• ‘MozPod’ = with the tagline ‘learn best practices from real SEOs’ this is a podcast focused on sharing lessons from SEO experts.

• ‘Girls in Marketing’ =  a fun one for women new to the industry, offering advice to help you get started.

My top tips for SEO Copywriting

I’ll finish with some quick-fire top tips to send you on your way into the world of SEO copy:

1. Want to be a good copywriter? Competitor analysis is essential. I spend so much time on competitor sites I’m probably responsible for half of their page views – try to really work out why they’re ranking and how you can do the same but better.

2. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. If you haven’t been given a style guide by a client, ask! This will save you all time in the long-run.

3. Study the client’s work closely, immerse yourself in it and know their tone of voice inside and out. You need to be able to mimic their style exactly, no matter how niche it may be. I like to make a document of ‘stock phrases’ and general comments on tone for each client, to refer back to every time I write.

4. You will receive criticism, and some of it might hurt, but try to reframe it as a learning opportunity. It’s easy to take feedback on our writing personally but just see it as a chance to improve and get closer to writing exactly what the client wants.

5. Sleep on it… then proof. For every piece of work, I’ll schedule a quick proof the morning after. With a fresh outlook I’m able to spot errors I completely overlooked the day before, and can often think of additional points to add.

So there we have it, the diary of an amateur copywriter who knows slightly more than she did six months ago. Hopefully these tips can help you to avoid the rookie mistakes and get you creating top-tier content.

Need some help with your SEO strategy? We’re happy to assist. Get in contact today to find out how we can help you improve your online visibility.

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

What is YMYL?

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

Source: Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines

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

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

Examples of YMYL pages: 

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

How to know if your web page is a YMYL topic

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

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

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

Source: Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines

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

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

YMYL Guidelines

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

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

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

Best SEO practices for YMYL content 

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

1. Create user-focused content 

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

In order to rank well for YMYL content:

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

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

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

2. Optimise your E-E-A-T signals 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3.  Add external links to your content 

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

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

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

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

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

Summary

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

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

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

Did you know that 97% of users search online to find a local business? And that a huge 78% of these local searches result in an offline purchase? If your Manchester-based business isn’t optimised for local search, you could be missing out on a significant portion of potential customers.

But what is local SEO? This blog will delve into what it is and how it differs from your standard SEO practices. Put simply, local SEO is a targeted approach to search engine optimisation that improves your website’s visibility when people use search terms with local intent. E.g. ‘agencies near me’, ‘Manchester marketing firms’ etc. 

Local SEO is more important than ever and an essential tool enabling you to reach high-intent users and convert them into paying customers. Stay tuned for a run-down of what local SEO can do for your business and our tips and tricks to ensure you’re maximising its potential.

What Is Local SEO?

Through analysis of user behaviours, Google worked out that searches for certain businesses (like plumbers, restaurants, and yes – digital marketing agencies) are often local in nature. For this reason, search results now take location into account when you search for one of these ‘local terms’. You don’t even need to specify a location, Google’s clever algorithms sense what you’re after and show you the best utilities near you. But how can you make sure that Google sees your business as one of the ‘best’ in Manchester and puts it at the top of the SERPs? The answer is local SEO.

Local SEO goes beyond traditional SEO by focusing on optimising your online presence for a specific geographic location. It involves claiming and optimising your Google Business Profile listing, strategically using local keywords throughout your website content, and encouraging positive customer reviews. 

These steps send strong signals to search engines that your business caters to a specific area. The result? When people in your city or town search for products or services you offer, your business is more likely to appear prominently in search results, leading potential customers right to your doorstep. So, local SEO isn’t just about ranking well; it’s about attracting users who are actively looking for what you offer in their local area.

What Are The Benefits Of Local SEO?

By now it should be clear that local SEO is a powerful tool for driving sales and boosting your business. But let’s go over the three areas where local SEO can make the most significant impact.

Traffic and visibility

Local SEO done right will get your business seen by the right people at the right time. A robust strategy will significantly boost your visibility, attracting a flood of highly relevant local searches. This is because local SEO helps your business rank higher in search results for relevant local keywords – and this translates to more targeted traffic. 

Credibility

Building trust with potential customers is key to any business’s success, and local SEO plays a significant role in establishing your website’s credibility. An accurate Google Business Profile, and consistent contact details across your website create a sense of reliability for potential customers. Equally, local SEO’s emphasis on online reviews act as social proof – building trust and encouraging purchases.

Sales and revenue

Realistically, your number one priority is to get paying customers through the door (or new clients brought in). Local SEO is your key to achieving this; it’s a cost-effective way for your business to build trust, reach more customers and ultimately drive sales. 

Let’s face it, the whole point of getting more website traffic, being seen online, and building trust is to boost sales, right?  Ranking high in local searches puts your business in front of potential customers who are already interested and ready to buy what you offer.

Tips For Improving Local SEO For Your Manchester Business

🐝 Google Business Profile

The first step to improving your local SEO is setting up a Google  Business Profile. This is a free tool that lets you manage how you’ll appear in Google Searches and Google Maps. Within this profile, you can highlight good reviews, include contact details and directions to your business, and link to key pages on your website. If a user searches for your business, this profile will appear on the right-hand side and it’s up to you to make sure they’ll want to click through.

🐝 Google Map Pack

This is the term used to describe the real top spot in Google’s local search results. If a user makes a search with local intent, the first thing they see is a set of businesses and a map identifying their locations. This appears above the traditional search results and is reserved for the very best businesses. For example, if we were to search for recruitment agencies in Manchester, the map pack looks like this:

Under each business is a condensed version of their Google Business Profile, and this pack has become a key factor in consumers’ buying choices.

So, how can you utilise this? Well, to get into the map pack results make sure to:

>>Claim your Google Business Profile 

>>Generate authentic online reviews

>>Link-build (but more on this later)

🐝 Reviews

You’ll notice that the three agencies in the coveted spots above had a good review average. Reviews really are crucial because the more high-rated reviews, the more chance of appearing in front of your target users, and providing the credibility they need to press ‘buy’. You’ll know that it’s within our nature to trust something that’s been peer-reviewed. Good reviews give you that extra bit of confidence to purchase. 

So, how can you encourage reviews? You need to make it easy for the customer – include a link to your Google   Business Profile on your website and a ‘leave a review’ button on key landing pages. Plus, following up with your customers via email is a good idea, politely asking them to leave a review. It can also be good to add an incentive here, although note that Google’s policy states that you cannot pay for reviews.

🐝 Address / contact details included on website

Including your business’ address, phone number and email address on your website is an important element of local SEO for a few reasons:

🡺Consistent contact information in multiple places shows Google that you’re a legitimate local entity

🡺Including these details is a clear signal to Google that you’re a local business – this will improve your ranking for relevant local keywords

🡺Aside from anything else, it’s really useful for the customer! People need to be able to contact you quickly and easily. And, don’t forget that Google takes UX into account too. This is particularly important now that most searches happen on mobile devices – users want to be able to call a company to find out more with one click.

Many companies integrate this into the header or footer of their website so that it’s easily accessible.

🐝 Optimise on page content for Manchester-related searches

This simply includes carrying out some keyword research to see what your local customers are searching for, and then naturally implementing these terms. As well as using tools for this, think about putting yourself in the customers’ shoes. What would your ideal clients be looking for and what words would they be using to search?

Of course, remember that high quality, useful content is a top priority so make sure your pages still read naturally. But it can be good to include terms like ‘Manchester’ for example, in your page URLs, title tags, headings, and image alt tags.

🐝 Local link building

Link building, the process of gaining backlinks from other websites, plays a vital role in off-page SEO. These links act as endorsements, signifying to Google that your website is an authority. But did you know that it can be tailored to local SEO too? Look for ways to attract links from locally-focused websites and prioritise this in your Digital PR strategy.

Local news outlets, industry blogs within your area, and websites of local businesses can all be valuable sources of backlinks. Share stories with a local site or perhaps write a case study about a local client in exchange for a link from their website. This will all work to strengthen your local online presence, increasing visibility and conversions.

How Cedarwood Digital can help with your local SEO strategy

Local SEO is done best with the help of SEO professionals. Here at Cedarwood Digital, we have a track record of boosting business’ sales through local SEO. If you’re a local business in Manchester, we can help you with your strategy; get in touch today to see how we can help you thrive in the Manchester market.

2.71 billion people worldwide are expected to shop online in 2024. This is more than ever before, but with over 5.6 million merchants now active on Shopify, how can you get noticed? You’ll be happy to know that the answer is not spending hundreds of thousands on Google ads. With the right SEO strategy, you’ll have traffic flying in in no time. Stay tuned for our four ultimate tips to get visitors onto your e-commerce site.

1. Internal Linking

Internal linking refers to hyperlinks pointing from one page to another on the same website. When a user clicks on an internal link they are taken to a different page on your website – it’s as simple as that. For example, we often place internal links in our blogs to our case studies page so users can get a better understanding of our work. Or, more often than not, we’ll include an internal link to a topically relevant blog or service page to support the user journey and build topical relevance.

It has a whole host of benefits, helping to increase traffic, improve indexability, and boost sales. Internal linking is crucial for any website, but especially so for e-commerce sites. Let’s get more into why this is…

Why Is Internal Linking Important For E-commerce Sites?

Internal linking is a massive help when it comes to improving user experience. As a user yourself, think back to a recent experience with e-commerce. It may not even occur to you that online shopping is quite so easy (often too easy!) because of the ease of use provided by things like internal links. No one wants to be searching high and low for that red v-neck top they’re after. Internal linking greatly improves the site’s navigation and helps your customers move between pages. Of course, this is especially important for e-commerce websites which often have a vast number of product pages and category pages.

Just look at this screengrab from Next’s website; they stock over 10,000 women’s clothing items but their combination of image and textual internal links here makes things nice and easy for the user.

Internal linking doesn’t just  help out the user, it’s also super beneficial for search engine crawlers. Through internal links, Google can better understand the structure and hierarchy of your website and connect topically-related pages, helping the algorithm to discover and crawl each page. Why should you care about indexability? Well, the more pages crawled, the more traffic and potential conversions!

Another element contributing to getting those pages ranked is link equity. This term refers to the value passed between pages within a website. Essentially, internal linking spreads the love – ensuring that all those little product pages get the attention they deserve from search engines.

Lastly, internal linking can be deployed to highlight key features on an e-commerce website. I’m talking sales, promotions, reviews, new collections etc. With effective graphics and copy, these links will draw attention and prompt users to click through.

2. Content Marketing

When developing an SEO strategy for any domain, the importance of content cannot be underestimated. Get your content marketing right and the merits are endless: backlink potential, boosted traffic, increased click-through rates, improved customer experience – the list goes on.

If you’re dealing with an e-commerce site you should focus first and foremost on your product and category pages. These have the most impact on customer experience, and the most value for revenue. Despite this, many online stores tend to neglect these pages, adding minimal content because it is a time-consuming task for a big e-commerce site. 

However, prioritising your product and category page content is a great way to get a leg up against the competition. Researching and implementing your keywords  onto these pages is a hugely effective way to scale the SERPrankings. Below you’ll see the content on a product page from Hayes Garden World – who knew there was so much to write about a garden bench!

Once your product and category pages are updated and optimised with useful text and quality images, turn now to strategic content. This is your longer-form content such as buying guides and blog articles, covering topics like ‘how to use’ your product, or ‘aftercare for’ your product. 

This is a great place to target related long-tail keyword traffic for raising brand awareness; providing additional insight could also help to sway your customers’ buying decision. It showcases the site as an expert in its field which, if we consider Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines, cannot be overlooked! By developing this two-part content strategy you’ll successfully target different levels of the funnel and boost sales. To return to tip 1, strategic content is also a fab place to stick your internal links. Lure users in with helpful blog content then send them over to your key conversion pages.

As an example, here’s how we’ve been implementing industry blogs into New Millenia’s content strategy to target relevant long-tail keywords, and drive engagement that’s useful to their users.

3. Focus On User Experience

User experience is critical for e-commerce SEO because Google prioritises websites that offer a satisfying and accessible experience to users – leading to higher rankings and increased organic traffic. UX and SEO truly go hand-in-hand; here are a few boxes to tick to ensure users have the best time possible on your site.

• ☑️How is your loading speed holding up? You’ll know first hand that there’s nothing more infuriating than a slow-loading website – there are only so many hours in the day! To make sure users stay on your site once they’ve clicked through, improve your loading speed by optimising images or reducing code. For a more in-depth guide to help you brush up on technical SEO, head over to our ‘5 Steps For Conducting A Technical SEO Audit’.

• ☑️Does your website have a user-friendly navigation menu? This makes it easier for people to find what they’re looking for and helps Google out too.

• ☑️How does your site look on mobile? Google has been prioritising the mobile version of domains for indexing since 2019. This means your e-commerce website must be mobile-friendly to even think about ranking! 

4. Acquiring Backlinks To Deeper Pages

A final point is the importance of building links to your e-commerce site to help drive organic traffic. Digital PR links are recognised as a good indicator of your site’s trustworthiness, but we’re not just talking about links to your homepage – it’s really worthwhile to secure links to specific landing pages. Pick out key, high-return pages and develop a targeted digital PR campaign to help grow authority within these sections. This will boost the authority of the individual page and bring in more conversions over time. Plus you’ll benefit from link equity again here. The deeper page being linked to will receive a boost in authority, and this will then be passed to connecting pages. Looking for a few top tips to build natural backlinks? See our guide here.

Get Expert Help With Your E-commerce SEO

In the competitive landscape of e-commerce, where copious online stores will be offering similar products, enhancing your visibility in search results is critical. Cedarwood Digital is an award-winning e-commerce agency with extensive experience driving online traffic for large, and small, retailers. If you fancy a chat about our ecommerce SEO services please don’t hesitate to get in touch!