Posts in category: SEO

Recently, Universal Analytics has been transitioning into GA4 and from 1st July 2023, you will no longer be able to collect data with Universal Analytics. If you work in SEO, then I’m sure you are aware that Universal Analytics uses goals to track conversions, whereas GA4 uses events which can be marked as conversions. In this blog, we will be discussing how to set up conversion tracking in GA4 and the different types of conversion tracking that you can set up in GA4. 

About GA4 Conversions 

According to Google “A conversion is any user action that’s valuable to your business; for example, a user purchasing from your store or subscribing to your newsletter are examples of common conversions.” 

A conversion in GA4 is what you consider to be an important action that you want your users to complete on your website. Any action or engagement that happens on your website can be tracked in GA4 as a conversion event. Examples of these events can include: 

• ➡️Scroll depth 
• ➡️Form submissions 
• ➡️Clicks 

You are also able to custom create events in your GA4 account to ensure that you are tracking any conversions that are important for your business. 

In GA4, conversion tracking is achieved by setting up conversion events; these are automatically collected, recommended, or custom events and any of these can be marked as a conversion. By setting up conversions in your GA4 account, you will be able to see the actions that are most important to your business by using the Acquisition, Engagement, and Advertising reports. This will allow you to then optimise your website for SEO purposes. 

Tracking your conversions will let you see the total number of times that important actions have taken place on your website, and with custom events, you are able to track whatever is important specifically for your website. GA4 uses a flexible data model and this will allow you to send a wide variety of information to your reports. And once you have your events in GA4, you can easily track these events as conversions. 

How Is Conversion Tracking In GA4 Different From Universal Analytics? 

Google states that “In Universal Analytics, you measure conversions by setting up goals and e-commerce transactions. In Google Analytics 4, there is no distinction between goals and ecommerce; you measure all conversions via GA4 events.” The events in GA4 will be triggered when a user interacts with your website. 

Conversions were known as goals in Universal Analytics and both are ways of tracking user interactions that are very valuable to your business, however, there is alot to like about conversion events in GA4; they are easy to set up, you are allowed up to 30 conversion events per property and they offer a lot of flexibility in what you are able to track as a conversion event. 

Below, we will discuss the different ways to set up conversions within GA4. 

Toggling Existing Events As Conversions 

In order to mark an existing event as a conversion, go to the Events page and this will list all of the existing events that are being collected on your site, to mark these events as conversions, you can simply click on the toggle on the right hand side of the page under ‘Mark as conversion’. 

Once you have clicked this toggle, you can go to the Conversions page and your new conversions will be listed there. 

Creating Custom Events To Use As Conversions 

If you want to create a custom event to use as a conversion, you will firstly need to make sure you have administrator permission for the GA4 property, otherwise, you will not be able to create new events or mark any conversions. If you do have administrator permissions, you can follow the below steps in order to create custom events to use as conversions: 

1. Go to Configure – Events and click Create Event 
2. Click create 
3. Enter a custom event name (for example sign_up, page_view or generate_lead)

4. You then need to add some conditions, when the conditions have all been met, your event will then trigger. The first condition is “event_name equals page_view” (the value can be changed depending on the condition, for example, if it was based on a click, it would be “event_name equals click”

5. Click Add Condition, the second condition will indicate that the event should only trigger for a specific page. This condition should be “page_location – contains – part of the URL” for example “page_location contains /contact/thank-you”

6. Select ‘Copy parameters from the source event’

7. Click Create in the top right-hand corner 

You have now created your custom event, however it may take up to 24 hours for it to appear on your events page meaning you will not be able to toggle it as a conversion yet, however there is another way to add this new event to your conversions. 

1. Go to Configure – Conversions 
2. Click New conversion event 
3. In the New event name box, enter the name of the custom event that you created earlier, for example “generate_lead” 
4. Click Save 

Your custom event will now be tracking any conversions in your GA4 property!

Different Types Of Conversions You Can Track In GA4 

In Google Analytics 4, there are many conversions that can be tracked in order to gain valuable insights into user behaviour and website performance. GA4 uses a flexible model with a wide range of tracking capabilities, therefore allowing businesses and websites to measure and track many different types of conversions across both websites and apps. 

Within GA4, there are micro and macro conversions – micro conversions measure the important steps that lead to completing a macro conversion. A macro conversion measures important interactions that will directly impact the success of your business. 

Examples of micro conversions: 

• ➡️Subscribing to a newsletter 
• ➡️Scrolling to 90% of a blog post or article 
• ➡️Completing a registration form 

Examples of macro conversions: 

• ➡️Registering for a service 
• ➡️Purchasing a product

As already discussed, GA4 is extremely flexible and allows businesses to track conversions that are valuable to their business. By providing the ability to track automatically collected, recommended and custom events as conversions, it is giving businesses and websites the ability to track and measure conversions that align with specific goals and objectives and therefore giving insight into how to improve their website. GA4 provides comprehensive tracking capabilities allowing businesses to gain deep insights into its customers’ user journey. 

Why Is Conversion Tracking Important For SEO?

Now that you have set up your conversions, you will be able to look at your conversion data in GA4 reports. By going to Reports – Engagement – Conversions, you will be able to see your conversion data over time. 

The Conversions report in GA4 will show you which conversion actions that you have are most common, how many users are performing each action and how much revenue is associated with each action. 

By tracking conversions in GA4, it can help you to gather meaningful data and insights into how your users are behaving on your website. By tracking the actions that are most valuable to your business, you will be able to then optimise your website for SEO purposes which can help to improve user experience and engagement. Conversions are very valuable to your business and tracking your conversions will help you to connect your SEO and sales processes. 

In GA4, you will be able to customise your conversion report and this will give you more insight into what your organic visitors are doing on your website and what is driving sales. By seeing the users conversions, you are able to determine the user journey and see which areas of your website need optimising for SEO. 

Summary 

Conversion tracking in GA4 can be extremely useful for SEO purposes, by tracking actions that are important to your business such as scroll tracking, page views and clicks, you are able to see how users are interacting with your website and this will then help to understand where to optimise the website and create a better user experience. By tracking these actions, you are able to better support SEO performance. 

In this blog, we have discussed how to mark events as conversions and how to create custom events and mark those as conversions. By following these steps in your GA4 property, you will be able to start tracking the actions that are important to your business and optimise your website accordingly. 

On-page SEO, sometimes referred to as on-site SEO, refers to the practice of optimising your website in order for it to improve your user’s experience, rank higher in the SERPs and to gain more organic traffic. On-page SEO can include many different aspects including updating content, updating the structure of your page, using internal links and many more. When you are optimising your on-page SEO, you are aiming to improve the user experience by providing valuable and relevant content to your visitors, in addition to improving the page’s relevance and salience and showcasing your expertise on a given topic. By improving your on-page SEO, it will help to improve your visibility and traffic. In this blog, we will be discussing tips that you can use to improve your on-page SEO. 

What Is On-Page SEO?  

On-page SEO is an extremely important aspect of search engine optimisation and it involves optimising your web pages in order to rank higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs) so that you can attract more traffic to your website. Unlike off-page SEO, which involves external factors such as gaining backlinks into your website, on-page SEO is about making improvements directly on your website. There are many elements of on-page SEO that can help you to improve your rankings by creating a better user experience. 

Why Is On-Page SEO So Important?

Improving your on-page SEO is incredibly important because it will help to improve search visibility and increase the amount of traffic to your website. According to a study by Backlinko who analysed the click through rate data across 1,312,881 pages and 12,166,560 search queries, it found that the website in position 1 in Google’s organic search results has an average click through rate of 27.6%, this was the highest click through rate by far, a sharp drop off then started on the 2nd page of the results. 

Source: Backlinko

This shows that being on the first page of the SERPs will help you to gain more traffic. Another statistic that further implies this, is that only 0.63% of Google searchers clicked on a link from the second page of the SERPs.

Source: Backlinko

The figures and statistics above show the importance of improving your website’s rankings, and improving your on-page SEO will play a key role in helping Google to recognise what your website is about and the value of it, therefore putting you in a better position to rank. So, now that we know the importance of improving on-page SEO for your website, let’s dive into how you can do this. 

1. Review the salience and relevance of the content on your website

In the world of SEO, the content that is on your website is extremely important. The content is what drives traffic to your website, what engages your users and what can also convert users into customers. It is therefore essential to regularly review the salience and relevance of the content on your website. 

Salience refers to how relevant the content on your website is, relating to your target audience. If the content on your website is not relevant to your users, they will be unlikely to engage with it or even visit your website in the first place. It is therefore important to regularly ensure that the salience of your content is to a high level to ensure you are providing users with the most relevant helpful content. It is also important to make sure that your content aligns with what users are searching for because, if your content is not relevant to keywords that users are searching for in Google, it is unlikely that your website will appear in the SERPs, therefore meaning that you could be missing out on a significant amount of organic traffic. 

By regularly reviewing the salience and relevance of the content on your website, you will be able to identify gaps that you have within your content and then make any necessary changes and amendments. By updating your content, you will be able to improve the salience of your content and make it more useful to users, and more visible in the SERPs.

In order to review the salience of the content on your website, you can either do it manually or with a range of tools that are available on the web. These tools use machine learning powered Natural Language Understanding technology and they will measure the relevance of your content. They can also see how relevant your landing pages are for your target keywords and you can measure the impact of any content changes by using a text comparison tool to understand how any changes that you have made to your content have impacted its relevance. 

Using salience tools will allow you to see how relevant your content is, and because they use machine learning, they will also be able to show the way that search engines are understanding your content. By seeing the relevance of your content, you are able to know, as a website owner, if the content on your website is relevant to your target audience, you will then be able to improve your content and see how the salience has improved. Once you have reviewed the content, you will be able to come up with a content strategy which will help to improve user experience, improve rankings and increase the traffic to your website. 

2. Optimise your on-site content for SEO

Once you have reviewed the salience and relevance of your content, it is now time to improve the content on your website. Updating the content on your website can have many benefits, it can improve the users overall experience, by creating high quality content, you will be providing users with the information that they want. Another benefit is that you will be able to target your specific keywords by including them in your content, meaning that you will increase your likelihood of being featured highly in the SERPs and therefore will likely increase your organic traffic, therefore also increasing your online visibility. If you are creating high quality content for your users, it is more likely that Google will place your website higher up on the SERP. So, how do you create this high quality content? 

Firstly, you need to make sure that you are targeting your keywords, it is important to carry out keyword research so that you know what users are searching for, you then need to include these keywords naturally within your content so that Google knows what your web page is about. It is also important to include words that are semantically related to your targeted keywords to improve the salience of your page. You also need to ensure that the content is valuable and engaging for your users, this can be done by using subheadings, bullet points, short paragraphs and other formatting techniques to make sure that the content is easily readable for the users. 

Overall, your content should be helpful for your users, Google’s helpful content update states that if content doesn’t meet a visitor’s expectations, it will not perform as well. It is therefore extremely important that your content is predominantly made for your users, as this is the best way to improve your rankings and therefore increase your visibility. According to Google “People-first content creators focus on creating satisfying content, while also utilising SEO best practices to bring searchers additional value.” 

3. Review the structure of your webpage 

Reviewing the structure and layout of your webpage is crucial for user experience, and therefore is crucial for SEO. The structure of your webpage refers to how your content is organised and presented on your page. Having a well structured web page can improve your user’s experience and can make it easier for those users to navigate through your website and find the information that they are looking for. This can also be beneficial for search engines, as having a well structured website will make it easier to crawl your web pages and find the important information. The layout of your website therefore matters if you want to ensure that you are gaining a high level of traffic from organic searches. 

When you are reviewing the structure of your web pages there are certain things you can do to improve user experience and engagement: 

• ➡️Use headings and subheadings 
• ➡️Put the most important information at the top of the page 
• ➡️Include features such as bullet points and infographics 
• ➡️Include images throughout the page 
• ➡️Include internal links and a call to action if relevant
• ➡️Include reviews to promote E-E-A-T signals 

By ensuring that you are including these bullet points, it will make sure that your website is user friendly, by providing clear headings and subheadings, it will indicate to users what they are going to find on the page. By optimising your website so that it is user friendly, it is likely that your user engagement will increase, you can boost your traffic and potentially convert more leads. Additionally, by creating a better user experience on your website, you can create a positive brand image and create return users. Making sure that you are reviewing the structure of your webpage is therefore extremely important and should be an integral part of your SEO strategy. 

4. Create a strong internal linking profile

Another aspect of improving your on-page SEO is to create a strong internal linking profile. An internal link is any link that is pointing from one page on your website to another page on your website. Internal linking can help to improve the user experience as it can make it easier for users to navigate through your website and find the information that they are looking for. Additionally, it also helps to distribute link equity throughout your website and establish the importance of particular pages. 

As well as improving the user experience, having a strong internal linking profile can help improve the crawlability and indexability of your website. By linking from one page to another page, you are creating a clear path for search engines to follow when they are crawling and navigating your website. This is extremely important as it will help to ensure that all of your pages are getting crawled, and they are easily discoverable. If search engines can not crawl your pages, they will not be indexed and will therefore not end up in the search results. By having a strong internal linking profile, your pages are more likely to be crawled and indexed so that they can then rank. 

Another benefit of having a strong internal linking profile is that it can help to establish the importance of your web pages. By linking from lower level pages, such as blogs, to higher level pages, you can signal to search engines which pages are the most important and which pages you want to be returning in the SERPs. By sending internal links to the more important pages of your website, you can improve the ranking potential of these pages.  

Overall, internal linking can be extremely impactful for SEO purposes, it can help search engines to crawl and index your pages, and it can help to improve the user experience by making it easier for users to navigate your website. Also, by linking to related pages and content, you are more likely to keep your users engaged and spend more time on your website. 

5. Undertake a competitor analysis 

Undertaking a competitor analysis can be a valuable way to improve your on-page SEO, by researching your main competitors, you will be able to gain inspiration and leverage the competitive landscape to your advantage. 

To conduct a competitor analysis, you should start by identifying your main competitors in the market (ideally ones that are ranking relatively well), you can then analyse their website structure, their content and the keywords that they are targeting. If they are incorporating things into their website that you do not have, this could be something that you can then improve. For example, if they are including related articles and reviews on their page and you are not, this could show that they are portraying better E-E-A-T signals than you and could be a reason as to why they are ranking higher. Or, if they have a lot more useful content and information for their users, it could mean that you need to include more helpful content relating to your topic on your website. 

You can then use NLP tools to evaluate your content against your competitors to understand where they might be outperforming you and where you might need to improve the content on your website.

By undertaking a competitor analysis, you are able to continuously improve your on-page SEO and stay ahead of your competitors. But keep in mind that whilst it is important to learn from your competitors, it is just as important to keep your brand values and USPs at the forefront of your SEO strategy. You should use the insights that you have gained from the competitor analysis to improve your on-page SEO whilst ensuring that your website is remaining authentic to your brand. 

Summary 

When improving your on-page SEO, you will be optimising your web pages in order to improve user experience, and to increase your visibility and traffic. Improving your on-page SEO can involve various elements including optimising your page structure, internal linking profile and content, all of these improvements will help to make your website more user friendly and will therefore have an impact on the websites rankings and visibility. 

To find out more about how you can improve your on-page SEO or for help with implementing these improvements, get in touch today!

Last month myself and the SEO team attended Thursday and Friday events at BrightonSEO. For me, this was my first time attending the event in person and actually my first time ever visiting Brighton! 

Having attended the online conferences previously, I already knew that the talks would be super insightful and full of useful tips that can be integrated into our SEO strategies and inspire us to think outside the box. The in-person talks did not disappoint and I came away with my knowledge of SEO enhanced. 

For those who might be interested, below, I have outlined the 3 talks that stood out to me the most and have listed some of the key takeaways and actionable insights from these: 

Entity SEO – Genie Jones

Genie gave such an interesting (and entertaining) talk on the power of using the SameAs tag in your schema. Genie talked us through how to mark up entities within schema using the SameAs tag and how topical authority can be achieved through using these. 

Throughout the talk Genie linked schema back to psycholinguistics to provide outside context to better describe entities and schema (which, as a Linguistics graduate, was really useful to contextualise this!)

We learnt that creating entities through schema helps to disambiguate information, helping crawlers to better understand what the site and its pages are about and the connections between these pages to help build up a Knowledge Graph filled with all of this information. 

Genie recommended using the SameAs tag to clearly demonstrate entities on your pages. This could be marking up a specific element/entity and providing a link to a clear definition of what that element/entity is. For example, for a page about farm animals, you might want to provide a SameAs tag to show that you are talking about an animal and this is the exact animal that you are talking about. E.g., marking up ‘pig’ with a link to ‘https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig’ to tell a crawler that the pig you are talking about is the same as the animal described on Wikipedia. 

This is definitely something that I will be exploring further within our strategies to provide clarity on different entities that might appear ambiguous and are therefore not being viewed or ranked well as a result. 

The SERP Multiverse – Jon Earnshaw 

Talking about SEO success and the future of SEO, Jon’s talk surrounded how to optimise for the ‘SERP multiverse,’ looking at intent on the SERP landscape, leveraging competitor analysis and looking into what the future of SEO might look like. 

Jon looked at the different SERP landscapes of what would appear to be two related queries at face value were actually completely different when we looked deeper into the pages returned, showing the importance of user intent when considering the keywords that we are targeting. 

My key takeaways from this talk were as follows: 

⭐️ The future of SEO could look more into voice search so, in some cases, it could be a good idea to target the answer card or featured snippet so that virtual assistants such as Siri will be more likely to return information from your site.

⭐️ When looking at a competitor analysis, take your keywords and assess who was on the SERPs 12 months ago, are they still there or have they dipped? Why? 

⭐️ You can use ChatGPT as a resource when considering voice search to optimise for these queries. Jon suggested asking AI to return a list of potential voice queries for a certain keyword. You can even ask the AI to take on different personas depending on your target audience.

This was certainly an interesting talk that allowed us to look outside of just search engines and consider the future of SEO, where things could be changing and how to optimise your content to better match this intent where relevant.

Featured Snippets – Niki Mosier 

In this talk, Niki explored the value of featured snippets and how we can structure our SEO efforts to be better positioned to win these in the SERPs. This is an area that is important when it comes to trying to gain enhanced visibility within the search results. 

Featured snippets are the results that you sometimes see on a search results page that aims to answer your search query as soon as possible by taking the most relevant content from a ranking page.

Here are my key takeaways from Niki’s talk: 

⭐️ To be in with a chance of winning a featured snippet, it’s important that you already rank within the first few results on page 1 for that specific search query.

⭐️ Appearing in multiple featured snippets for related search queries can help to increase your authority on the subject matter. This is particularly important for sites covering YMYL topics. 

⭐️ 77% of search results with featured snippets come from search queries that start with ‘Why’ and using Google Search Console is a great way of helping you to find these question-type queries that you already perform well on and could be targeting ‘Position 0’ (the featured snippet).

For some more tips and tricks picked up from this talk and a dive into some other insightful talks, check out Marcy’s BrightonSEO review! 

As you can see above, there were some really valuable takeaways from very experienced SEOs and it was great to learn it all in person.  

We really enjoyed our time at BrightonSEO and would recommend it to anyone in the world of search marketing who wants to learn more, no matter your experience level there will be something that you can takeaway. With SEO, there is an abundance of information and things to learn and it’s great to hear and learn from other professionals who have their own case studies for issues that haven’t yet experienced on your site!

What’s more, you’ll also get to visit sunny Brighton and whilst you’re there I’d definitely recommend trying the Belgian fries!

If you are working within the world of SEO then you are probably very familiar with Google Analytics, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of Google’s web analytics platform. It was first introduced in October 2022 and on 1st July 2023, Universal Analytics will no longer process data, all new data will be processed through GA4.

Google states that “GA4 is a new kind of property designed for the future of measurement” and it has several new features and improvements compared to Universal Analytics. GA4 is an essential tool for monitoring website traffic and user behaviour and provides valuable insights that can help businesses to optimise their online presence. In this blog, we will be discussing and exploring five great features of GA4 that can benefit Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

1. Enhanced Measurement

Enhanced measurement is one of the many great features of GA4 that allows you to collect more out of the box data. It automatically tracks events and lets you measure interactions with your content by enabling events in the Google Analytics interface, and you do not have to make any changes to your code, as soon as you enable the options in your GA4 interface, your Google Analytics tag will start sending these events straight away. 

If you go to Admin, then Data Streams and select the web data stream, you will be able to see a section called Enhanced measurement and this will show you all of the events that you have set up for your website. You can then filter these based on your specific website needs. 

Enhanced measurement is a great feature of GA4 that can be extremely beneficial for SEO purposes. By using the enhanced measurement feature, website owners can effectively track user engagement, such as video engagement and scroll tracking, this feature can then help businesses to optimise their website and create a better user experience, which is therefore supporting SEO performance. 

Below are the events that can be measured in GA4:

• ➡️Page views – this event is triggered each time the page loads of the browser history state is changed by the active site. This event is collected automatically and cannot be turned off in GA4. 
• ➡️Scrolls – this event is triggered when a user scrolls down more than 90% of the page for the first time.
• ➡️Outbound clicks – this event is triggered each time a user clicks a link that is leading away from the current domain.
• ➡️Site search – this event is triggered each time a user is presented with a search results page, as indicated by the presence of a URL query parameter, this enables you to see how users are searching your site. It lets you understand the extent to which users are using your site’s search function, which search terms they entered and how effectively the search results gave the user a deeper site engagement. 
• ➡️Video engagement – for videos that are embedded within your website that have JS API support enabled, when the video starts playing, when the video progresses past 10%, 25%, 50% and 75% duration time and when the video ends will all be triggered in GA4. 
• ➡️File downloads – this event will be triggered when a user clicks to a file which contains a common file extension (these include documents, text, executable, presentation, compressed file, video and audio). 
• ➡️Form interactions – this event will be triggered for two occasions – form_start will be triggered the first time a user interacts with a form in a session and form_submit will be triggered when the user submits a form.  

One of the great benefits of enhanced measurement is the ability to track scroll tracking, which can give website owners insights into how users are engaging with their content. By measuring if a user is scrolling to over 90% of their web page, website owners can use this data to understand which sections of the content on their website are more engaging and therefore optimise their content accordingly. This data can be used to see how many users are scrolling to the bottom of the page and can therefore identify any areas where content needs improvement and can help businesses create content that is providing a better user experience. This can also help to ensure that users are not missing any key information on the page and can help to inform the placement of conversion actions. 

Another great feature of enhanced measurement is video engagement tracking, this feature allows website owners and businesses to measure how users are engaging with the video content that is embedded within their site. By tracking play rate, engagement rate and completion rate, you are able to determine which videos on your website are most engaging for users and then optimise your video content to improve user engagement and retention on your site. 

Overall, the enhanced measurement feature in GA4 provides website owners with a better understanding of user engagement across their site which will therefore allow you to devise a stronger SEO strategy by optimising your website based on data from your real users. By tracking user behaviour more accurately and precisely, you are able to make informed decisions about your content and web page and create an overall better user experience for your visitors. This can ultimately lead to more traffic, better engagement and therefore, better SEO results.  

2. Better cross-device tracking  

In GA4, cross-device tracking is a feature that allows you to track your users’ interactions with your website across different devices. This means that as website owners, you are able to better understand how users are interacting with your website and what devices they are using. This feature provides website owners with data that gives valuable insights that can help to optimise website design and content for different devices. 

GA4 can measure activity across platforms with User-ID and this feature lets you provide your users with your own identifiers so that you can connect their behaviour across different sessions and on multiple devices and platforms. GA4 will then interpret each user ID as a separate user and can provide you with more accurate user counts and a more holistic story about a user’s relationship with your business. When a user logs into your website, for example, GA4 will track and combine the user’s behaviour across all of their devices, therefore giving website owners a more complete picture of how individual users are interacting with their website. 

Another feature that GA4 uses for cross-device tracking is Google signals, Google signals are session data from sites and apps that Google associates with users who have signed into their Google account. This data that is provided from GA4 enables cross-device reporting, remarketing and conversion export. For example, if a user started their buying process on their laptop and then completed their purchase on their mobile device logged into the same Google account, GA4 tracking would see this as one user. 

For SEO purposes, better cross-device tracking can provide website owners with valuable insights into how users are interacting with their website, regardless of the device that they are using. This is providing you with a more complete picture of your user’s behaviour and by tracking the types of devices that they are using and how they move between them will allow you to see the full picture rather than just the interactions on one device. This can then help you to understand your users’ behaviour and optimise your website accordingly. 

As well as understanding your users’ behaviours, cross-device tracking can also help website owners identify any areas of their website that are not performing well on different devices. By seeing how users are engaging with your website on different devices, you are able to optimise your website to provide a better user experience based on what devices users are using your website through. For example, if most of your users are converting on mobile devices rather than desktop, it is extremely important to optimise your website so that it is mobile friendly. 

Overall, cross-device tracking is an extremely important feature in GA4 for SEO because by understanding how users interact with your website across different devices, website owners can optimise their website design and content to provide a better user experience on all devices and this could potentially lead to more traffic and better engagement which will in turn help your website rank highly. 

3. Creating custom reports 

Another of the many great features of GA4 is that you can customise detail reports to make them more relevant to your business. 

To create a new detail report, from the left hand menu click Reports, then Library (if you don’t see Library, it means that you do not have permission to create a report as you have to be an editor or an administrator), then click Create new report, Create detail report. You can then either create a blank report or start from a template, then click save. 

When you are customising a detail report, you are able to: 

• ➡️Change the metrics
• ➡️Change the charts
• ➡️Save a filter to the report 
• ➡️Create a summary card
• ➡️Link or unlink the report 
• ➡️Delete the report   

Each property in GA4 can have up to 150 custom reports and these can be extremely beneficial for SEO purposes. By customising a detail report in GA4, businesses are able to focus on the metrics that are most important and most impactful for their business. They are then easily able to gain accurate insights into their users’ behaviours and identify where the website needs improving in order to boost their SEO. 

Creating a customised report can also help website owners to measure and track the success of their SEO efforts, by tracking specific metrics in one report, it will be very clear to see any changes that have occurred in user behaviour and this will show the impact that their SEO practices have been having over time. This also allows you to drill down to align your reporting with your client’s business goals, which is important to proving a strong ROI on your SEO campaigns.  

4. Behavioural modelling for consent mode

Another great feature of Google Analytics 4 is that it is able to interpret data without solely relying on cookies. Cookies are small text files that are sent to your browser by the website that you visit in order to collect information about their website behaviour. However, with increasing privacy concerns, there are more users that are now blocking cookies and this is making it difficult for website owners to collect data about their users. 

GA4 has incorporated a feature called behavioural modelling for consent mode and this uses machine learning to model the behaviour of any users who have declined cookies. This data will be based on the behaviour of any similar users who have accepted analytics cookies. This modelled data allows you to gain useful insights about how your users are interacting with your website while still respecting their privacy. 

There are many benefits of behavioural modelling for consent mode for SEO, firstly, by predicting how users would behave if they had given their consent, website owners are able to gain insights into their users’ behaviour that would have otherwise been lost due to data protection regulations. This means that you are able to get a complete overview of user behaviour and then tailor your SEO strategy accordingly. 

The insights that you will be able to gain from GA4 due to behaviour modelling can be used to optimise your website based on your customers as a whole. By gaining insight on all of your customers, you are able to understand more accurate insights which can then be used to create a website that has improved user experience. 

5. Advanced Analysis reports 

The final feature of GA4 that we will be discussing is explorations. Explorations is a collection of advanced techniques that are much more detailed than standard reports and they will help you to uncover deeper insights regarding your customers behaviour. 

To access explorations, click Explore on the left hand navigation of your GA4 property. 

The default reports in Google Analytics will help you to monitor your key business metrics, however explorations will give you access to data and analytical techniques that are not available in those standard reports. You can use explorations as a tool that will allow you to explore your data in depth and answer complex questions about it. Once you have created an exploration there are many aspects that you can add/ change to provide in depth insights:

• ➡️Add techniques – techniques will control the way in which the data is analysed, you are able to add tabs with many different techniques 
• ➡️Add dimensions, metrics and segments to variables – the term variable refers to the dimensions, metrics and segments that come from your Google Analytics account. You are able to add more variables to make them available for use and to preload the data for faster visualisation 
• ➡️Adjust the time frame – by default GA4 properties retain 2 months of data, you are able to adjust this so that you can see either a wider or smaller time frame
• ➡️Share and export your exploration – when you create an exploration, you are able to share your insights with colleagues so that they can also view the insights

The explorations feature is an extremely powerful tool that can have great benefits for allowing you to improve your website’s SEO. One of the main benefits of using this feature is that it allows you to perform ad-hoc analysis on your website data. This means that you are able to quickly and easily explore your data and answer specific questions or identify patterns and trends in your users’ behaviours. 

Another benefit of explorations is that you are able to create custom metrics and dimensions which can be extremely useful for tracking your organic traffic for SEO. For example, you can create a custom metric that measures the engagement level of your users or you can create a custom dimension that tracks the organic performance of specific landing pages on your website. By creating custom dimensions and metrics that are specific to your website, you are able to more easily and accurately gain insights into your website’s performance and from this you can identify any opportunities to improve your SEO performance. 

Summary 

Universal Analytics changing to GA4 may be daunting however, there are many great new features that are coming with this change. By utilising GA4, you will be able to track and monitor your website and users and specifically for SEO, it will give great insights into your users’ behaviours. This will then allow you to optimise your website for SEO purposes which can help to improve user experience for your visitors and therefore increase your traffic, improve website visibility and lead to higher rankings in the search engine. It is therefore very important to understand GA4 and how it can help you to monitor and form your SEO strategy. 

On Wednesday 19th April, the SEO team from Cedarwood Digital travelled down south to attend BrightonSEO – the world’s largest search marketing conference, and we had a great time learning all things SEO. One of the sentences that I found extremely interesting was by Claudia Higgins who said that SEO is like “looking through a dark house with a torch”. SEO is an extremely vast field and it encompasses a wide range of topics, techniques and strategies. 

Here are the biggest takeaways that I took from the 2 days at BrightonSEO: 

The Value of Featured Snippets 

Featured snippets, also known as “Position #0” results, are a type of search result that appear at the top of the SERP and they provide a response to certain queries. Niki Mosier did a talk on the value of featured snippets and there are many benefits that can come by having featured snippets on the SERP:

• ➡️Click through rate increases
• ➡️It is a quick win 
• ➡️Increased share of voice
• ➡️Increased authority 
• ➡️Brand awareness 
• ➡️Increased direct traffic – users are more familiar with the brand 

During the talk, Niki shared some data surrounding featured snippets which show just how much of an impact they can have:

• ➡️19% of the SERPs include featured snippets 
• ➡️If there is a featured snippet, 50% of the mobile screen will be covered with that featured snippet 
• ➡️70% of featured snippets were published no longer than 2-3 years ago

She also shared how you should build a featured snippet strategy which is extremely important as the value for your business is so high. 

• ➡️Building a featured snippet starts with keyword research, you should be carrying out research for keywords that you are already ranking in positions 2-5 for and keywords that have a high search volume – if you are already ranking highly, you are more likely to have a featured snippet on the SERP
• ➡️You should be focussing on question searches as the majority of featured snippets start with the 6 W’s and 70% of featured snippets are “Why” questions
• ➡️You should always use SEO best practices, keeping the user intent as the most important aspect
• ➡️Use schema markup – 66% of featured snippets use schema markup 
• ➡️Engagement – make sure that there is high engagement surrounding the topic
• ➡️Format your content – use header tags and lists, and make sure it is easily readable 
• ➡️Ask and answer early within the content 
• ➡️Use images within your content as they do show up in featured snippets

The talk by Niki was extremely insightful and showed just how valuable featured snippets are – they can increase a website’s visibility, traffic and credibility. When a website’s content appears as a featured snippet, it can drive more clicks and traffic to the website. Additionally, it can establish the website as an authoritative source of information, which can help to build trust with the users and improve the website’s brand visibility. To optimise your website for featured snippets, it is important to follow Niki’s tips and to provide high-quality content that directly answers common queries,this can have many benefits for websites. 

Internal Linking 

Another great talk was by Kristina Azzarenko and she showcased all of the smart internal linking tricks that big brands are using and how these tricks can be used by all sized businesses and online stores and why they are so important. 

The role of internal links are to determine the importance of the page that the internal link is pointing to, they also help Googlebot discover and re-discover website pages and index them timely. Internal links also improve user experience and provide context about what your content is about via anchor text. Here are the steps that were recommended from the talk: 

• ➡️Break down your pages in templates 
• ➡️Build logical relationships between these page templates
• ➡️Create link blocks for scalability 
• ➡️Make sure your internal links are pointing to the canonical URLs 
• ➡️Make sure your internal links are pointing to the 200 HTTP pages 

Internal linking is an essential aspect of SEO and if implemented correctly throughout your website, it can help Google understand the structure of your website and the relationship between different pages. As discussed in this talk, this can help search engines determine which pages on your website are most important and this can help to boost visibility of these important pages in the SERPs. Overall, the talk showed just how important internal linking is for online businesses and that it should be incorporated into all effective SEO strategies. 

GA4

As we all know, Universal Analytics is soon changing to GA4 and the 1st July 2023 is creeping up on us quickly, so it was great to hear a talk by Nitesh Sharoff talking about hacking GA4 for SEO. Nitesh gave 8 great tips for using GA4 for SEO purposes: 

1. Enable search console report collections within GA4 
2. Customise your GA4 navigation to suit the needs of your business 
3. Enrich data with event parameters 
4. Setup custom alerts for traffic changes within GA4
5. Track speed metrics with Google Tag Manager 
6. Monitor your conversions in your content funnel with automated events 
7. Improve your channel groupings – this has improved for organic search 
8. Use free GA4 exports to play with your data 

GA4 is quite daunting for a lot of us, but the talk from Nitesh showed that there are alot of improvements coming with the new analytics platform that can be extremely beneficial for SEO purposes and by utilising these eight tips, GA4 will enable you to create a successful SEO strategy and will help to inform you on how you can optimise your website to improve user experience.  

Shelter Hall

During our time in Brighton, we heard many insightful talks about SEO that were all extremely helpful and informative, we also visited a few places for some amazing food, one being Shelter Hall. If you are ever in Brighton, I would definitely recommend it, the food and drinks were amazing, and I would highly recommend the Pizza, it was extremely tasty! 

For many SEOs, a website migration can be an incredibly stressful and yet important time – ensuring that you migrate a website effectively can help to improve or can potentially cost you a lot of hard earned work.

Getting a website migration right is critical for SEO because it can have a significant impact on a website’s search engine rankings, traffic, and overall performance. A poorly executed migration can lead to a variety of issues, such as broken links, missing pages, duplicate content, and other technical problems that can cause search engines to devalue or penalise your website.

When you migrate a website, you essentially create a new version of the site with a new URL structure, page hierarchy, and potentially new content. If this process is not managed carefully, search engines may not be able to properly index and rank your new site, leading to a drop in traffic and visibility.

To ensure a successful website migration, it’s important to carefully plan and execute the process, including redirecting old URLs to new ones, updating internal links, submitting a new sitemap to search engines, and monitoring the site closely for any errors or issues that may arise.

By getting a website migration right, you can help ensure that your site remains visible and competitive in search engine results, while also providing a positive user experience for your visitors.

Below we’ve listed important steps to take both prior and after website migration to ensure that you are maximising SEO performance.

Prior To Migration

Compile full list of existing pages

• We would recommend compiling a full list of all pages on the website in the form of a sitemap, this will help to ensure that all appropriate redirects are in place & is a good benchmark for evaluating relevancy trends on the website moving forwards

Map page level redirects

• We would recommend mapping page level redirects for each page across the website, this will ensure that any page level relevancy is carried across which can help the website rank for its existing long-tail terms.

No-index development website

• Prior to migration it’s crucial that both the new domain & any associated development websites are no-indexed with a robots meta tag “no index, no follow” – this ensures that the content isn’t indexed by Google prior to launch thus preventing the website from incurring a penalty from Google due to duplicated content

Indexation

• Evaluating website indexation prior to website migration is important to ensure that all the existing pages on the website are correctly indexed by search engines and that the migration process does not negatively impact the website’s search engine rankings. One way to evaluate website indexation is to use the Google Search Console, which provides valuable insights into how your website is performing in search results. By analysing the index coverage report in Google Search Console, you can identify any indexing issues, such as pages that are not being indexed or pages that are indexed but should not be. You can also use other SEO tools, such as Ahrefs or SEMrush, to check for any duplicate content or canonicalization issues that could negatively affect the website’s indexation. Additionally, it is important to ensure that all the website’s sitemaps are up to date and accurately reflect the current website structure

Keywords

• We would recommend identifying the number of traffic referring keywords to your website through a tool such as SEMRush & evaluating these across Google geo-locations (i.e. Google.co.uk/Google.com) this will allow us to evaluate the migration & also ensure that new geo-based landing pages are appropriately targeted.

Incoming Links

• Create a full list of current in-bound links to all pages on the website. This can then be compared to a full list post-migration to ensure that all in-bound link equity is preserved across the website.

Analytics & Webmaster Tools

• Ensure that any new Analytics/Webmaster Tools properties are in place & that these are appropriately verified across the new website

Goal Tracking

• You should set up Goal Tracking prior to the migration taking place, this will allow you to track any new goals and existing goal completions from the get-go, to ensure there is no drop off. To set up goal tracking, you need to define the goals that you want to track, such as completing a purchase, submitting a contact form, or subscribing to a newsletter. Once you have defined your goals, you can set up tracking using tools such as Google Analytics or Tag Manager. To test goal tracking, you can use the preview mode in Google Tag Manager to ensure that the tracking tags are firing correctly on the website’s pages. Additionally, you can use Google Analytics’ Real-Time reports to confirm that your tracking is working as intended. Testing should include a full range of user interactions on the website, such as completing a transaction, submitting a form, or clicking on links. It is also important to test the tracking on multiple devices and browsers to ensure that it works correctly across all platforms

Internal Linking Structure

• This should be evaluated against the new website to ensure that key pages retain strong internal linking. A loss of internal linking can lead to a reduction in page authority & as a result this could cause a page to lose rankings.

Evaluate current site speed

• Run a check of current site speed across key internal pages to evaluate load time. This should then be compared against the load time of the same page on the new domain to ensure a similar or quicker load time.

Spider Website

• Spidering a website prior to website migration is important to ensure that all the existing pages on the website are accounted for and that any potential issues are identified before the migration process begins. Website spiders or crawlers are automated tools that can browse your website and collect data on all the pages, including their URLs, titles, meta descriptions, and other key elements. By spidering the website prior to migration, you can identify any broken links, missing pages, or duplicate content that could affect the user experience and search engine rankings. This information can be used to create a detailed plan for the migration process, ensuring that all the existing pages are correctly migrated to the new site structure without any negative impact on SEO performance. Spidering the website can also help to identify any technical issues, such as broken redirects or canonical tags, which can be fixed before the migration process

Measure Core Web Vitals

• There are several tools available that can help you measure your website’s speed and Core Web Vitals, such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and WebPageTest. These tools provide detailed information on your website’s loading speed, time to first byte, and other key metrics that impact user experience. To measure Core Web Vitals, these tools provide specific metrics, such as Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). These metrics are important for ensuring that your website loads quickly and responds to user input promptly

After Migration

Creation & Submission Of A Sitemap

• Setting up a sitemap after a website migration is important to ensure that search engines can quickly and easily discover and index all the pages on your new website. A sitemap is an XML file that contains a list of all the pages on your website, along with important metadata such as when they were last updated and their priority level. By submitting your sitemap to search engines like Google, you can help them understand the structure of your website and prioritise crawling and indexing the most important pages
  
• To set up a sitemap after a website migration, you can use a sitemap generator tool or plugin, such as Yoast SEO or Google XML Sitemaps, to create the sitemap file. Once the sitemap file is generated, you can upload it to your website’s root directory and submit it to Google Search Console. This will help search engines understand the new structure of your website and index all the pages on your website more efficiently
  
• In addition to improving indexation, a sitemap can also help with SEO by providing search engines with additional information about your website’s pages. This includes information about the frequency of updates, priority level, and any alternative language versions. By setting up a sitemap after a website migration, you can ensure that your new website is properly indexed by search engines, leading to better search engine visibility and improved organic traffic.

Modify External Links

• We would recommend modifying any controlled external links including directory listings to ensure that the new domain is listed within any in-bound links.

Submit a “Change of Address” Through Google Search Console

• To submit a change of address through Google Search Console, you need to log in to your account, select the website property that you want to update, go to “Settings” and then “Ownership,” and click on “Request a Change of Address” under the “Change of Address” section. Then, enter the new website address and follow the prompts to verify the new address. Once the new address has been verified, Google will update its search results to reflect the change.
  
• Note that Google recommends using the change of address tool only if you’re moving your entire website to a new domain. If you’re just updating your website’s address within the same domain, you don’t need to use this tool.

Spider Website/Google Webmaster Tools

• Run a spider over the website & monitor Google Search Console to capture & quickly address any 404 errors or broken links on the new website which may have happened as the result of incorrect or missed 301 redirects.

Remove No-index Tag On New Website

• Remove the no-index tag which was placed on the website during development to ensure that Google can quickly & easily crawl your website.

No-index Existing Website

• Place a no-index tag on the previous domain ONLY once the domain has been crawled & Google has found the redirects to index the new domain – this will encourage Google to de-index the website, but remember to let it keep crawling, this is important so that Google can easily access the no-index tags on the pages.

Evaluate Indexation

• Indexation levels of the old site & new site should be measured within Google Search Console to ensure that the new website is being effectively indexed.

To effectively check indexation on a website after a website migration, you can follow these steps:

• Use the site: operator in Google Search to see how many of your pages are currently indexed. For example, type “site:yourdomain.com” into Google’s search box to see a list of all pages on your website that are currently indexed
  
• Check your Google Search Console account for any indexing errors. Navigate to the Coverage report, which will show you any pages that have been excluded from the index, as well as any errors or warnings related to indexation
  
• Use a website crawling tool, such as Screaming Frog or DeepCrawl, to crawl your website and identify any pages that may have been missed during the migration process.
  
• Check your server logs to see which pages are being crawled by search engine bots. If any important pages are not being crawled, it may indicate that there are technical issues that need to be addressed.

• Monitor your website’s search performance over time, looking for any fluctuations in traffic or rankings that may indicate indexing issues.
  
• By following these steps, you can effectively check indexation on your website after a website migration and ensure that all of your pages are being properly indexed by search engines.

Fetch As Googlebot

• Utilise this function to submit key pages of the new website to Google quickly.

Check Analytics

• Check that Analytics is working correctly across the new website & that it is firing goals where needed.

By adhering to a solid SEO migration checklist you can ensure that you are putting your website in the best possible position for a successful website migration. To find out more about how to undertake an SEO migration get in touch!

If you’re a user of Google Analytics (GA), you’ll be very aware that the latest version of GA, Google Analytics 4 (GA4), is set to take over the current version – Universal Analytics (UA) – in the upcoming months. The countdown to July 1st is on and it’s important to have an understanding of what GA4 is, how the new version compiles data and how to use the data. 

You might have set up your GA4 properties as soon as it was announced back in 2020 and be a pro by now. Or, you might be ignoring the alert warning you of the impending migration to GA4.

If you relate more to the latter, it would be a good idea to sort this sooner rather than later. In the article below, we have picked out the key elements of GA4 that are important to know ahead of time. 

What Are The Key Differences Between Google Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4?

There are some key differences between Universal Analytics and Analytics 4 that you should be aware of and consider when using the data. Most likely, the first difference that you’ll notice is that GA4’s interface appears much more user-friendly and simple to navigate than UA’s. 

Moving past the initial interface, there are several key differences that we have seen with the newest version of Google Analytics. 

Broadly, these key differences include: 

📌 Differences in data collection methods

📌 Updated metrics such as engagement rate

📌 Easier cross-domain tracking and consolidated web and app data on GA4

📌 Improved integration with Google Ads

📌 User-centric focus with GA4

📌 Doesn’t rely on cookies 

Below, we explain what these differences mean and how to navigate these when using GA4. 

Data Collection

The biggest difference between UA and GA4 is that GA4 collects and processes data differently from UA. 

To explain the difference between data collection in its simplest form – UA uses a sessions-based data model which essentially tracks interactions on a site within the given timeframe whereas GA4 uses an events-based model in which it tracks user interactions as events which allows for a more detailed view of user behaviours. Events can include page clicks, views, scrolls, video views and other actions that users may do on your site.

GA4 collects data in a variety of ways. Behaviour can be tracked on an individual basis and across devices using unique identifiers such as User IDs and Device IDs. 

GA4 also uses Google Signals to collect data from signed-in Google accounts across devices – although you must comply with Google’s policies for data collection and use which include GDPR so it’s important to check compliance before tracking Google Signals

Another feature of GA4 is that it has the ability to predict data using modelling and predictive analytics. For example, if a user declines cookies, modelling will allow GA4 to fill in gaps by using data from similar users. 

Metrics

With these different data models comes a difference in the metrics that are recorded and used. Some of the notable metric alternatives include: 

📈 Bounce Rate vs Engagement Rate: GA4 uses Engagement Rate in place of Bounce Rate. Engagement rate shows the percentage of engaged sessions which refers to sessions in which a session lasts 10 seconds or more, has a conversion event or has at least 2 pageviews.

📈 Goal Completions vs Conversions: GA4 now automatically records some events as conversions meaning that you no longer have to set up goals based on a limited criteria.

📈 Sessions vs Engagement: GA4 uses Engagement as a primary metric which records all user interactions even if this is across multiple sessions. 

Cross-Domain Tracking

The newest version of Google Analytics offers a simplified way of measuring a user’s behaviour across domains and this just needs to be configured within the settings of your GA4 property. For example, if you have a website where a user may start on one domain and will eventually navigate towards a second domain – GA4 will be able to track behaviour of a user across these two domains. To find out more, Google Support has a helpful article on setting up cross-domain measurement.

Setting Up A GA4 Property

Now that you know how GA4 collects data and some of the ways in which GA4 differs from UA, now would be a good time to learn more about how to set up a GA4 property so that you can familiarise yourself with how to navigate the new Analytics. 

It’s fairly simple to set up a GA4 property in your Analytics account, you just need to take the following steps:

1. Firstly, in the lower left hand side of the page, select ‘Admin’ and click ‘Create Property’ under ‘Property.’ Then you can add in a property name. This can be anything but it would be best to add your business or account name here.

At this stage, you can also fill in the details related to your business. Then simply click create.

2. Then, you will need to go to the ‘Data Streams’ section in the Admin folder and you will need to add your website as a data stream. 

Here, you can also add in app details if you have an app for your business. For our purposes, we will just be focusing on adding a web stream. 

Simply click on the ‘Add Stream’ button, select ‘Web’ and input your site’s URL into the ‘Website URL’ section. You can also give the stream a tailored name here.

There is also the option to configure settings and tailor the measurements to your personal preferences here. For example, you might want to untoggle ‘Video Engagement’ if your site doesn’t have videos or you don’t want this data. These will all be selected as default, however, you can easily edit and save your individual preferences. 

3. Once this is set up, a unique GA4 measurement code will be created which will allow GA4 to collect and track data. This tracking code will need to be added to every page of your website and can be done through adding to the code of your site or can be added in Google Tag Manager. 

4. Check that the property is set up correctly and is collecting data. You will be able to see this in the ‘Real Time’ report in GA4. You can also use the site https://tagassistant.google.com/ to check that your tracking code is on a certain page. 

Using GA4 Reports

As mentioned earlier, GA4 appears easier to navigate and is supposedly more user-friendly than UA but does this extend to the reports? We think so! 

The default report options on GA4 look something like this:

The reports give clear insights into performance and are split into focused reports which give some really helpful data visualisations. 

A summary of each default report can be seen below:

📊 Acquisition – Gives insight into how users find and use your website, which channels drive traffic and the user behaviour in each of these channels.

📊 Engagement – Provides insight on how users interact with the website and the content they come across. This report will show data on user behaviour on reports on metrics such as pageviews, session duration and events. 

📊 Monetisation – Provides insight into revenue generated by the website and includes metrics such as items purchased, revenue, average purchase revenue and items added to cart. This is particularly important for Ecommerce websites. 

📊 Retention – Provides insight into user engagement rates and retention, measuring retention rates over time using metrics such as new users and returning users. 

📊 Demographics – Provides insight into demographic data such as age, gender and provides information on different user types.

📊 Tech – Provides insight into devices used by website users with information on device type, device models and operating systems. 

The great thing about GA4 reports is that you can edit collections in the Library folder to make the dashboard customisable to your needs as a business and what reports might be most handy for you.

Navigating GA4 Reporting For SEO

In terms of using GA4 reports for SEO purposes, there are a few easy ways that you can navigate the reports to find metrics and figures that can help you to report on performance and also to spot areas for improvement. 

The main report for monitoring performance related to organic channels is the Traffic Acquisition report. This can be found under Life Cycle → Acquisition → Traffic Acquisition. 

To monitor organic traffic in this report you can filter to show Organic Search results by typing Organic Search into the search bar function. This will give you an overview of overall organic performance. To view on a more granular level to monitor individual page performance, you can add a secondary dimension by pressing the ‘+’ symbol, selecting Page/Screen and then selecting Landing Page + Query String. You will then see the performance of individual landing pages. Here, you will be able to monitor metrics such as Users, Engagement Rate, Conversions, Total Revenue and other metrics that may be useful to know. 

Another way that you can use GA4 for your SEO reporting is by integrating Google Search Console which creates a report that allows you to analyse your organic search performance. Here, you will be able to see keyword queries that led users to clicks, landing pages that engage users and see where your site ranks in the SERPs. Google Support offers a handy article on integrating Search Console with GA4.

It can be daunting to use a new tool when you don’t know too much about it but hopefully after reading this introduction to GA4 you can feel more confident in understanding the benefits of the new Analytics as well as knowing how to set up a property and navigate through GA4 to use the reports. If you haven’t set up your GA4 properties yet, we would recommend getting this done as soon as possible ahead of the cut off. 

As discussed above, GA4 offers a thorough and user-friendly way of reporting on key metrics and allows you to analyse performance on a more granular level focusing on individual channels of traffic.

Knowing how these reports work and how data is collected, we are confident in using the platform to report on website performance for our clients and analysing reports to highlight organic opportunities to improve the user experience which can help to drive more revenue or more leads for your business. If you think that this is something that we could help you and your business with, why not check out our SEO services page or contact us to find out more.

When auditing a website for SEO purposes, it can sometimes be the case that internal linking and site navigation are taken for granted and are given little credit or less credit than backlinks. In reality, these signals are some of the most important. They allow Google to effectively crawl your website, allow you to signpost the most important pages on your site and support users on their journey to finding core pages as well as helping users to find supporting information and additional resources that could enhance their experience. 

Internal linking strategies can be really effective campaigns to boost your SEO efforts. So, let’s look into what an effective internal linking strategy for SEO looks like and how you can go about creating one for your website.

What Are Internal Links?

Internal links are hyperlinks that point from one page to another within the same domain. They usually appear within content on a page or in the main navigation menu and footer as clickable links that take you through to another page on the same website.

How Can Internal Links Help My SEO Efforts?

Internal links can help your SEO efforts as they are crucial to signposting important pages for both users and search engines. They can help search engines such as Google to crawl through your site efficiently and understand the relationship between your pages which will help them to get indexed and ultimately ranked better. 

Clear and relevant internal links also help to create a greater overall user experience and can even improve user engagement if you provide links to useful and relevant resources. For example, providing clear and clickable links to buying guides or related articles for a product or service that you offer.

Why Should You Create An Internal Linking Strategy?

Creating an internal linking strategy is important as effective internal links can: 

💡 Help search engines to find and crawl new pages to rank your content better

💡 Improve user experience by providing a clear navigation through related content

💡 Disperse link equity between pages and around the site

💡 Outline the importance of a page on a site and establish hierarchy 

💡 Create hubs that display topical authority by linking between related pages and content

What Are The Use Cases of Internal Linking Strategies?

The strategy that you choose to create can depend on what your goal is and what you want your outcome to look like once the recommended internal links are in place. 

For example: 

Creating An Effective Internal Linking Strategy

Once you have decided what the goal of this strategy is for your individual website, you can start to look at opportunities for internal links. 

It is always good practice to take a step back and evaluate the state of your current internal linking strategy before suggesting new links are added. 

There are several housekeeping steps you can take to audit your site’s existing internal linking. 

Below, I have outlined the 3 most important initial steps to take:

❕ Check For Orphaned Pages

❕ Evaluate Existing Anchor Text

❕ Tidy Up Broken Internal Links

To check these on your site, I would recommend using a crawling tool such as Screaming Frog.

Check For Orphaned Pages

Orphaned pages are pages that exist on your website but they are not linked to from within the same domain, are not included in the sitemap and do not have any external links or backlinks pointing to them. In essence, these are standalone pages that would struggle to be found by a user or a search engine. 

To check for orphaned pages on your website, you can use Screaming Frog’s guide and follow the steps on How To Find Orphaned Pages.

You can also use Screaming Frog’s Log File Analyser together with the main crawling tool to compare data sets and identify orphaned pages easily. Here, you will also be able to see which of these pages are being accessed but not linked which may be causing issues. 

Evaluate Existing Anchor Text

Anchor text is the visible text that a hyperlink is attached to. On a page, this text is usually formatted to be underlined, bold or italicised to signal a clickable attribute. 

If the goal of your strategy is to perform some housekeeping on your existing internal links, you can simply assess anchor text across your site. Here, it would make sense to focus on the pages that are most important for SEO first.

If you have a list of priority pages that you are looking to boost through your internal linking strategy, it would be a good idea to audit the existing internal links that point towards this page. Here, you should review what the anchor text for these internal links looks like as there may be opportunities for improvement here.

In terms of best practices for anchor text, Google has recently released guidelines on writing good anchor text which should be followed. This includes examples of bad anchor text which includes text such as ‘Click here,’ ‘Read more.’ 

Tidy Up Broken Internal Links

Broken internal links are links to pages that cannot be found by the user or pages that no longer exist.

Using free tools such as Google Search Console can help you to identify any broken links or 404 error pages. Alternatively, using an effective paid tool like Screaming Frog will crawl all internal links on your site and highlight those that are broken. With any broken links, you can look to update these to a similar new page, another similar relevant page or remove the link if there is not a suitable alternative. 

Clearing up these broken links can help to improve user experience and also help ensure that crawlers don’t end up on a broken page which could waste crawl budget.

Methods To Find Relevant Internal Links

If your goal for this strategy is to boost the importance or authority of certain pages, you will want to highlight opportunities to link to relevant pages. 

To find suitable internal links within your site there are several ways to do this. Below I have outlined the two methods that we have found are most effective for this: 

Method 1: Site Search

The first method is one that can be done by anyone and is free. This would be best for smaller sites with less pages or could be used alongside Method 2 for larger sites.

This simply involves using the search bar to conduct a search for your chosen keyword and should be searched for using the following command: ‘site:yourdomain “chosen keyword” or as pictured below. 

This method will help you to see pages that mention or are related to your chosen keyword that Google has indexed. This would be great for smaller sites that have limited content as you will be able to easily see all related pages. When shortlisting these related pages, just make sure that they don’t already include an internal link to your chosen page!

Method 2: Screaming Frog Custom Search

For this method, you will need the paid version of Screaming Frog to get all of the results. This method is better for larger sites and will provide a larger dataset for you to work with. 

In this method, we will use the Custom Search function in Screaming Frog to search for keywords that are utilised within pages on the site to spot linking opportunities to relevant pages. For example, if one of my priority pages for this strategy was our SEO service page,  I would want the crawler to search all pages on my site that include the anchor text ‘SEO’ within the page content. 

Steps To Take For Method 2:

1. Set up Screaming Frog to run a crawl as usual but take an additional step to set up Custom Search by selecting the following pathway ‘Configuration → Custom → Search’ from the top menu as imaged below. Select ‘Search.’

Once the below image has popped up, you can start to input your selected keywords in the section marked ‘Enter search query.’

2. Input your list of keywords based on your priority pages. In the example below I have chosen to create custom searches for the service pages that we have at Cedarwood Digital. To add more searches, simply click ‘Add’ in the bottom right of the pop up. 

Here, you should also instruct the crawler to focus on ‘Content Area’ by selecting this option in the dropdown.

3. Once you’re happy with the keywords that you have input, press OK and start the crawl. The Screaming Frog crawler will then crawl the site to identify pages that show instances of the individual keywords you have entered and will return these for each of the keywords.

4. Check the results of this crawl by selecting ‘Custom Search’ in the drop down as pictured below. In the left hand corner dropdown entitled ‘All’ you will be able to filter between each of your keywords with specific results.

5. Export your results for each keyword into an Excel spreadsheet and create a new tab for each focus keyword.

6. At this stage, I would suggest an additional step of also exporting all Inlink data from the crawl. You can do this by following the pathway: ‘Bulk Export’ → ‘Links’ → ‘All Inlinks’ in the top menu. 

This will allow you to evaluate which of the Custom Search pages already include an internal link to your chosen page. To cross reference your Custom Search results against the Inlink data, add a tab to your spreadsheet that includes the copied Inlink data and simply filter by the chosen page and cross reference using a formula such as VLOOKUP. 

Tip: Inlink data will also include internal links from the main navigation menu so I would suggest that you filter the data just to include links found in the content. 

7. After cross referencing your data, you should now be left with a list of pages that include the relevant anchor text and do not currently include an internal link to your chosen page. These are the key opportunities to update and include internal links that point back to the page that you want to boost. 

As an additional step, you may also want to combine efforts and use Method 1 to highlight any additional opportunities.

As you can see, reviewing internal linking and creating a strategy for this can be really beneficial in terms of elevating your SEO efforts and there are a number of ways in which you can do this. Above, we have outlined some actionable recommendations on how to create or improve an effective internal linking strategy. 

Whatever your goal is, improving link signals throughout your website might just be the perfect place to start when thinking about your next SEO strategy. Above all, a focus on user experience and how they navigate through your website should be at the core of your strategy. 

To find out more about how an effective internal linking strategy can boost your website or help with your SEO,  we’d love to hear from you! 

Local SEO is a term that gets used frequently in regards to SEO optimization for local businesses and if you have a physical store or offer a product to people within a certain area, then chances are it will be at the top of your radar – so here’s a short guide to what local SEO is, how it works and how you can get started.

What Is Local SEO?

Local SEO refers to the practice of optimizing a website and its content to increase visibility and rankings in local search results. Local search results are the organic search results that appear in response to location-specific search queries, such as “restaurants near me” or “plumbers in San Francisco.”

Local SEO focuses on optimizing a website’s content, on-page elements, and off-page signals to increase its relevance and prominence for local search queries. This includes optimizing the website’s meta tags, content, and images for local keywords, as well as building local citations, listings, and backlinks to establish the website’s authority and relevance in the local market.

Local SEO is particularly important for businesses with a physical presence or those that serve a specific geographic area, such as local service providers, restaurants, retailers, and healthcare providers. By optimizing their website and online presence for local search, these businesses can improve their visibility and attract more local customers.

How Important Is Local SEO?

Local SEO is incredibly important for businesses that operate in a specific geographic area or have a physical location, as it can directly impact their ability to attract and retain local customers. Here are some reasons why local SEO is important for businesses:

⚡️Increases visibility: Local SEO can help businesses appear in the top results for relevant local searches, making it easier for potential customers to find and contact them.

⚡️Improves credibility: A strong local SEO presence can help establish a business’s credibility and authority in the local market, which can help build trust with local customers.

⚡️Enhances user experience: Local SEO can help businesses optimize their website and online presence for local users, providing them with the information they need to make informed decisions about where to shop or do business.

⚡️Boosts website traffic: By appearing in the top results for local searches, businesses can attract more website traffic and increase their chances of converting website visitors into customers.

⚡️Increases conversions: Local SEO can help businesses target customers who are actively searching for their products or services, increasing the likelihood that those customers will convert into paying customers.

Local SEO can be incredibly important for websites who are looking to attract a local audience or for businesses where the search intent is deemed to be local.The approach can be quite different to normal SEO as well, so it’s always worth evaluating client need and situation before determining which approach is best for them. 

How Does Local SEO Differ From Normal SEO?

One of the main differences between local SEO and normal SEO is the focus on local keywords. This requires businesses to conduct extensive keyword research to identify the most relevant and profitable local keywords for their industry and location.

Another important aspect of local SEO is optimizing a business’s Google My Business profile. Google My Business is a free listing service provided by Google that allows businesses to manage their online presence across Google, including search results and maps. Optimizing a Google My Business profile involves providing accurate and up-to-date information about the business, including its name, address, phone number, and hours of operation. This can help improve a business’s visibility in local search results and increase its chances of attracting local customers.

In addition to optimizing for local keywords and Google My Business, local SEO also involves building citations. A citation is any mention of a business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) on the web. Building citations can help improve a business’s visibility and authority in the local market, as well as improve its rankings in local search results. This involves submitting the business’s NAP information to local directories, review sites, and other relevant websites.

Normal SEO, on the other hand, is focused on optimizing a website and its content for broader, non-location-specific search queries. This may involve optimizing for industry-specific keywords, improving website structure and navigation, creating high-quality content, building backlinks, and more. The focus of normal SEO is to improve a website’s visibility and rankings in organic search results, regardless of location.

It’s important for businesses to understand the differences between local SEO and normal SEO to develop an effective marketing strategy that meets their specific needs and goals.

What Is NAP?

In the context of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), “NAP” refers to the consistency of a business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) across all online directories, listings, and citations.

Search engines, such as Google, use NAP information as a signal of a business’s legitimacy, accuracy, and trustworthiness. Therefore, it is essential for businesses to ensure that their NAP information is accurate and consistent across all online platforms where it appears.

Inconsistencies in NAP information can confuse search engines and potential customers, which can negatively impact a business’s search engine ranking, local search visibility, and online reputation. Therefore, businesses should regularly audit their online presence to ensure that their NAP information is consistent and up-to-date.

How Do I Build Effective Citations For Local SEO?

When it comes to local SEO, building effective citations is essential. Citations are mentions of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) on other websites. The more consistent and accurate your citations are, the higher you are likely to rank in local search results. Here are some tips to help you build effective citations:

Firstly, ensure that your NAP information is accurate and consistent across all directories and platforms. This means checking your name, address, and phone number for accuracy and ensuring that they match exactly across all platforms.

Secondly, claim your business listings on popular directories such as Google My Business, Yelp, Bing Places, and Facebook. This will allow you to manage your listings and keep them up-to-date.

Thirdly, optimize your business listings by filling out all the available fields, including your hours of operation, website URL, and other relevant information. This will help to provide users with all the information they need to know about your business.

Fourthly, focus on building citations on high-quality and authoritative websites that are relevant to your industry. These citations will carry more weight and help to improve your local search rankings.

Fifthly, use local keywords in your business descriptions and on your website. This will help search engines understand where your business is located and what services you offer.

Finally, regularly monitor your citations to ensure that they remain accurate and consistent. If you find any inconsistencies or errors, make sure to correct them as soon as possible. By following these tips, you can build effective citations that will help to improve your local SEO rankings and drive more traffic to your business.

How Do I Optimise Google My Business For Local SEO?

Optimising your Google My Business (GMB) account plays an important part in developing your local SEO performance – so it’s important that we optimise this as best as we can. Here are some of the best ways to optimise your GMB profile for local SEO:

⚡️Complete your business profile: Ensure that your GMB profile is complete and accurate, including your business name, address, phone number, website, hours of operation, and business description. Add photos and videos of your business to showcase your products, services, and location.

⚡️Choose the right categories: Select the most relevant categories for your business to help Google understand what your business is about and what services you offer. You can select primary and secondary categories to give Google more context about your business.

⚡️Get more reviews: Encourage your customers to leave reviews on your GMB page. Reviews can help improve your business’s visibility and credibility in search results. Respond to all reviews, both positive and negative, to show that you care about your customers’ feedback.

⚡️Use local keywords: Incorporate relevant local keywords into your business name, description, and posts. This will help your business show up in local search results when people search for products or services in your area.

⚡️Post regularly: Post regularly on your GMB page to keep your page fresh and engaging. Share updates, promotions, events, and other relevant information about your business. This will also help improve your business’s visibility in search results.

⚡️Monitor insights: Use the insights tab in your GMB account to track your page’s performance, including how many people viewed your profile, clicked on your website, and called your business. Use this data to optimize your GMB strategy and improve your local SEO.

It’s always worth focusing on GMB as a way of driving additional traffic to your website from a local SEO perspective – it can help to generate additional traffic to the website while also allowing you to collate valuable information like user reviews which can also help to boost authority and trust around your brand.

What Are Some Top Tips For Ranking In The Map Pack?

In addition to ranking well in the general SERPs, another key aim of local SEO is ranking in the map pack – the map pack is a feature on Google that displays a map with three local business listings related to a search query. Optimizing for Google Map Pack can help increase visibility for local businesses.

Ranking in the Google Map Pack, also known as the Local Pack or 3-Pack, requires a combination of various factors that impact local search visibility. Here are some tips to improve your chances of ranking in the Google Map Pack:

⚡️Create and Optimize a Google My Business (GMB) Listing: GMB is a free tool that allows businesses to manage their online presence across Google, including Google Maps. To rank in the Map Pack, create a GMB listing, verify your business information, and optimize your profile by adding photos, business hours, and other relevant information.

⚡️Get Reviews and Ratings: Reviews and ratings are an important ranking factor in Google’s algorithm. Encourage your customers to leave reviews on your GMB listing, and respond to them promptly and professionally.

⚡️Ensure Consistency in NAP Information: As I mentioned earlier, consistency in your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) is crucial for local search ranking. Make sure your NAP information is accurate and consistent across all online platforms where your business is listed.

⚡️Build Local Citations: A citation is a mention of your business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) on other websites or directories. Building local citations from reputable websites can improve your local search ranking.

⚡️Optimize Your Website for Local SEO: Optimize your website for local SEO by including relevant keywords, location-based content, and schema markup. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly and has a fast loading speed.

⚡️Get Backlinks from Local Websites: Backlinks from reputable local websites can also boost your local search ranking. Reach out to local bloggers, news websites, or other businesses in your area to see if they would be willing to link to your website.

Remember, local search ranking is an ongoing process, and it may take time to see results. Stay patient and persistent, and continue to optimize your online presence for local SEO.

Do I Need Local SEO?

If your business operates a local presence then local SEO is a great way to optimize for visitors to your store and people who are looking for your product within your area. If you are a place of interest or restaurant, bar or activity then this can be even more important as it can help to put you on the map when people are out searching. 

Even if you aren’t directly local, having a GMB listing and optimising for local can help you to gain extra space within the search results, which is always valuable from an SEO perspective.

To find out more about local SEO or for help with implementation, get in touch!