Google has released a new report illustrating the latest industry benchmarks for mobile page speed. How does your site stack up?
The post Google: New Industry Benchmarks for Mobile Page Speed by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Yoast SEO, a WordPress plugin with over 3 million installs, has received updates to both its free and premium versions. Here’s what’s new in each.
The post Yoast SEO Version 4.4 Now Available: Here’s What’s New by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google Assistant has been updated with a slang dictionary, a beer guide, and men's fashion advice.
The post Google Assistant Can Now Tell You About Slang, Beer, and Men’s Fashion by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
These tips outline the correct way to temporarily shut down a site without affecting its search presence.
The post Google: How to Properly Close a Site For a Day by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google has revealed plans to release Google Assistant, the company's AI-based voice assistant, to all smartphones running Android 6.0 and above.
The post Google Assistant Coming to All Android Phones Running 6.0 and Above by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Join the UK Biddable Media Awards 2017 at the Montcalm Marble Arch, London, on May 25 2017. Send your entries now!
The post UK Biddable Media Awards 2017 Open for Entries by @sejournal appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
As a brand or business, it's important to leverage Instagram's growth to create an engaged community. But if you're struggling to get started or need inspiration to boost your efforts, then we've got a webinar for you! Join SEJ ThinkTank for a free webinar and Q&A session that will help you gain more engagement on Instagram.
The post How to Get More Engagement on Instagram [Webinar] by @rinadianewrites appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
It’s no secret that social media has become an important and necessary tactic within most digital marketing strategies. Social media helps build brand awareness, and also provides a space for brands to engage their audience outside of their company website or brick and mortar facilities. In fact, 92% of companies consider social media an important part of their business.
Of course, with nearly every brand using social—as well as frequent tweaks to platform algorithms—the competition to stand out in news feeds has never been more fierce, with brands fighting for visibility and engagement.
As a result, many brands and marketers are looking for creative ways to up their social media marketing efforts. But while being creative is a must, some opportunities may be right in front of you.
There are several social media marketing mistakes that are easy to make, but also easy to remedy.
With that said, below we dive into some common social media marketing mistakes, as well as tips for helping you avoid them.
Creating a social media marketing strategy will help you think critically about your goals, how you’ll execute tactics, and how you’ll measure success. In addition, your strategy can be used as a handy guide to keep you on track with posting and engaging regularly.
Tip: Get started by asking yourself some of the following questions:
Chances are you’re using multiple social media channels to share content and engage with your audience. But writing one message and cross-posting it to each channel is not an effective use of your time.
Tip: Use data and insights to understand the type of content and messaging style that resonates with your audience on each platform. This will allow you to tailor your content to make a better impact.
The type of content your post as a big impact on reach and engagement. These days it’s pretty clear that audiences are looking for relevant, well-rounded content and discussion—so posting links to your website or blog content can’t and won’t get you the results you’re looking for
Tip: Embrace social media as a way to connect with your audience, encourage discussion, show your value and build a rapport. Set aside time—whether it’s daily, weekly or bi-monthly—to curate content that is relevant and interesting to your audience.
Audiences are looking for relevant, well-rounded content & discussion. @CaitlinMBurgess #socialmedia
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Generally speaking, posts that are short, sweet and creative are the most effective—especially on platforms where users are most likely using a mobile device to read, share and interact.
Tip: Keep your character count to between 90 and 100 for Facebook, LinkedIn Google+ and Twitter. For Instagram and Pinterest, aim to stay under 175 and 200 characters, respectively. In addition, use active voice to encourage action from your audience.
Hashtags have different relevance and utility on every social media platform. As a result, under or over-hashtagging your content could have a negative impact on your social efforts.
Tip: Research hashtag best practices for each platform to understand if and how to use them. In addition, make sure you understand what hashtags actually mean, so you can use them in the appropriate way for each platform. Use the native search box within social platforms, as well as tools such as Hashtagify.me or Hashtags.org.
#Hashtags have different relevance and utility on every #socialmedia platform.
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Mentioning and tagging other pages and users in your content is one of the best ways to amplify your posts. Not only do those you tag and mention get notified when you do so, but they’ll be more compelled to engage on your post or share your post with their audience.
Tip: Create a master list of the accounts or handles that you regularly curate content from to make it easy to mention or tag them in your posts.
The whole point of social media is to provide a space for people to engage in sharing and discussion. For brands, it’s important to have a voice, but it’s also important to encourage others to have one, too.
Tip: Ask your community engaging and thoughtful questions to get the conversation going and tap into their insights. If you’re on Twitter, consider posting a weekly poll on a relevant topic to inspire engagement.
While this one seems pretty obvious, it’s a good reminder. Crediting the work of others is not only the right thing to do, but also sends good signals to the original creators and your audience.
Tip: Just don’t do it. Take the extra time to include a credit in any of the content you produce.
It’s pretty safe to say that all marketers understand that video is an increasingly important marketing tool for capturing audience attention, showing value and encouraging engagement.
But when it comes to social media, specifically Facebook, you may just be sharing links to a YouTube video or an embedded video on your website, which requires your audience to take an additional step to watch it.
Tip: Consider uploading some of your video content natively to Facebook. Native video can eliminate a barrier to that interaction, keep people engaged with your brand in that very moment and make your video easy to share.
Humans are highly visual creatures. In fact, research shows that an estimated 90% of the information that comes to our brains is visual. So, if you’re not using images as part of your social media strategy, you’re doing your brand a disservice.
Tip: Research image sizing best practices for each platform to ensure any images you share will render properly. In addition, use tools such as Canva to create professional and compelling images.
If you’re not using images as part of your #socialmedia strategy, you’re doing your brand a disservice.
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This is something that many large enterprise companies may struggle with, but even small- to mid-size companies see the need for multiple pages on a single social platform. While each of their divisions may provide unique content, it could be confusing for audiences to see multiple branded accounts.
Tip: For LinkedIn specifically, take advantage of Showcase pages to highlight special divisions or companies under your parent umbrella. For other platforms, take time to perfect your on-page content to make it easy for your audience to understand who you are. In addition, make sure your company website details and links to all pages.
With so many brands and marketers on social media and decreased organic reach thanks to algorithm tweaks, the competition for your audience’s attention is stiff. As a result, social media advertising is becoming a necessity for many brands.
Tip: When starting a social advertising campaign, ask yourself the following questions:
As with any type of marketing, the best results will come from campaigns with one specific goal and/or action to be taken.
Once you launch your social media strategy, it can be easy to fall into a routine of simply executing that strategy. However, if you don’t take the time to understand what is and isn’t working, all your execution efforts will be for nothing.
Tip: Use Google Analytics or your preferred analytics tool to uncover how much referral traffic each social platform is sending to your website, top pages, time on page and average number of pages visited, and conversions. This will lend more context to the traffic you’re receiving and help you draw conclusions about whether or not your efforts are driving the results you’re looking for.
In addition, use the analytics and insights available on each platform to get more insights into the type of content that is resonating with your audience, as well as how they are actually engaging with that content.
The truth is, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to achieving social media marketing success. Furthermore, a tactic that’s working great now may not get the same results in a few months. As a result, you should always be testing and experimenting with new ideas.
Tip: Choose one social media channel to launch your test. While each channel is unique, starting with just one will help you understand what is and isn’t working, so you can roll out something similar on your other channels later on.
All social media platforms contain their own search engines and many of them can be indexed by Google, Bing and other third-party search engines, making SEO an important component of any campaign or contest.
Tip: Compile a list of targeted keywords and topics, as well as any relevant hashtags, that you’d like to rank for socially. Once you have your list, conduct native query searches for the terms to discover who or what kind of content is coming up in searches. Theses insights can help you refine your keyword list, ensure relevancy, and potentially get a glimpse of the competition.
Social media community management is all about nurturing your social audience to make it stronger, larger and more engaged.
Tip: Intertwine your tactical social media marketing efforts with community management to build a larger, more engaged community of followers.
Intertwine your tactical #socialmedia marketing efforts with community management. @CaitlinMBurgess
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What social media marketing tactic is working great for your organization? What’s not working so well? Tell us in the comments section below.
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2017. | Social Media Marketing Checklist: 16 Common Mistakes to Avoid | http://www.toprankblog.com
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Avoid these bad practices when incorporating ads into your website. If not done properly it could result in SEO issues.
The post Bad Ads Usage Practices That Can Hurt Your SEO by @AdamHeitzman appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Cody Cahill of Page One Power joined SEJ ThinkTank on February 22nd to discuss link building metrics and how to effectively manage them. Check out this webinar recap for takeaways from his presentation, including a full video and slides.
The post Link Building Metrics: Managing Projects and SEOs [Webinar Recap] by @rinadianewrites appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Since I’ve been monitoring the topic of “influencer marketing” through BuzzSumo Alerts, the number of articles surfaced has gone from a few per week to 5 or 10 per day. Out of that rising wave of expression from industry websites and blogs is a mix of news, tips, trends and 100% pure B.S. Rising popularity makes things shiny and as influencer marketing enters the shiny object phase, it’s more important than ever to separate the facts from the fake. Whether it’s practices that will get you in hot water with the FTC or the waste of a perfectly good budget on micro-influencer wannabes promising viral hits galore, there are plenty of distractions from realizing true influencer marketing ROI. We’ve been working with influencers in earnest since 2011 and the lessons learned have been invaluable. A big part of what I get to do with our agency is to test ideas and approaches over months and even years in order to bring data-informed recommendations to our clients. I’ll tap into that experience for this post. A BS-free approach to influencer marketing starts with this important understanding: The most practical and useful way to engage influencers in a way that creates value for everyone involved is through content. In fact, 80% of marketers say content marketing is what working with influencers has the greatest impact on. Accept that truth and your path to influencer marketing ROI will be much shorter, painless and enjoyable. In a marketing context, influence is the ability to affect action - not attract 1,000, 100,000 or a million fans, friends and followers. To create action you need content and relationships. Therefore, my definition of influencer marketing is: Developing relationships with internal and industry experts with active networks, to co-create content that helps drive measurable business goals. Let’s break that down: Developing relationships: Most influencer marketing involves the completion of a task. It might be an exchange of money for the creation of video posted to YouTube or occasionally replying via email to a quote request for a roundup blog post. These are both transactions and a transactional approach is not what wins hearts and minds. Companies that approach influencer marketing with relationships in mind, will use co-creation of content to help build those relationships. The stronger the relationships, the better the content and the more actively involved the influencer will be in collaboration and promotion. That means allocating time to connect the dots with influencers and your longer term content and social media plans, monitoring, engagement and communications. Not just an email when you need 50 words for a post on Wednesday. Internal and industry experts: Influence is not limited to one type of person and brands can benefit greatly if they expand their view to include a mix of influencer types. That means looking internally at subject matter experts and executives that, with a little training, could contribute in a very meaningful way. Beyond the professional influencers and industry experts are members of the media, customers, prospective customers and members of any communities that the brand is active in. All must be considered when developing relationships to grow your brand's influence and the influence of those you work with. Active networks: Expertise is not rare. A community of people that are actively paying attention and influenced by a person with knowledge and an opinion is less common and far more valuable for marketing. That means internal and external influencers that publish and engage to attract a network are often better collaboration partners because they have channels of distribution for their work. Co-create content: Without content there is no communication and no influence. It's fine to engage someone with creative talent and a large audience to create media without the brand's proactive involvement. That's less about influencer marketing than hiring someone to make and promote media. An influencer that collaborates with the brand is investing something meaningful into the project and that investment often brings inspiration to make it successful. When a brand is able to pull together a highly relevant group of influencers and has inspired them to see the greater good of the project, it's amazing what can happen with the content and promotion of it. Brands need to find a way to make influencers care about the content and the project's success. If they don't care, they won't share. Drive measurable business goals: Benchmarks and goals are essential for any marketing program and influencer content is no different. Influencer collaborations that are evaluated purely on participation, social shares or advertising equivalency fall short of meaningful ROI. Mapping marketing to business goals is especially important with influencer marketing because the value of influencer collaboration can extend far beyond marketing to PR, customer success, and even talent acquisition. Make sense? A relationship and content-focused approach to influencer marketing makes it a dynamic, responsive and proactive asset that grows in momentum and value over time.
By the way, Amisha and I are teaching an influencer strategy workshop at Content Marketing World on September 5th from 1-4pm. Check it out. Going into an influencer marketing effort with an understand that you’re building something of value over time, not spending value on short term, disconnected campaigns, will make a world of difference in how successful the investment will be. Let’s play a game of calling out influencer marketing B.S. - I’m going to list 5 statements that seem to be making their rounds and you can tell me if you feel they are legit or if they are B.S. 1. Influencer Marketing is best for B2C 2. It’s better to pay influencers for quicker results 3. Influencer Marketing is mostly for big brands 4. Only the famous and socially connected are influential 5. Tools are optional for Influencer Marketing Do you agree with all of these statements? Or just a few of them? Any of them? Please let me know in the comments or on Twitter / LinkedIn / Facebook. Better yet, chime on during the free webinar Ann Handley and I are giving on this very topic Tuesday February 28th at 12pm ET. You can get more information and register here. Ann and I are going to share our perspectives as an influencer marketing practitioner and influencer to help marketers separate the “fake facts” and B.S. from what’s really going to help companies achieve positive ROI. We’ll play a little influencer marketing B.S. Bingo plus we’ll dig into the most practical and B.S.-free advice we have on implementing successful influencer content programs. I will also share a 3 step approach I’ve used many times over with great success. Webinar Details: The No BS Guide to Influencer Marketing ROI With Lee Odden & Ann Handley Tue, Feb 28, 2017, 12pm ET“When the brand and influencer relationship is mutually beneficial, both parties are going to get the best results out of the engagement.” Amisha Gandhi, Senior Director of Influencer Marketing, SAP
The post The No BS Approach to Influencer Marketing appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
Are you an SEO agency or consultant looking to serve a few more verticals to grow your business? Unsure how you'll be able to manage several clients in different industries? We polled the SEJ Twitter community.
The post 44% of SEOs Serve Many Different Industries [POLL] by @rinadianewrites appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google’s messaging app Allo, along with its built-in virtual assistant, is coming to desktop.
The post Google Allo Chat App and Virtual Assistant Coming to Desktop by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google’s flagship app for iOS can finally surface AMPs in search results.
The post Google’s iOS App Returning Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs) in Search Results by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google has issued a public response to assure users their accounts have not been compromised.
The post Google Responds to Users Being Unexpectedly Signed Out of Their Accounts by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Adobe Analytics reveals AMPs account for 7% of traffic to top US publishers. This data is accurate as of December 2016
The post Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Account for 7% of Traffic to US Publishers by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google will cease sales of its Google Site Search product on April 1, 2017. Current customers will still be able to use it until their license expires.
The post Google Site Search to Shutter on April 1, 2017 — Here Are Some Alternatives by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Eric Kuan, Webmaster Relations Specialist at Google, joined #SEJLive this week, giving advice on the steps to take to secure your website. Eric also shared online tools and resources to keep track of website security issues, and shed light on what the future holds for SEO.
The post Google’s Eric Kuan on How to Secure Your Website by @rinadianewrites appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Here's what happens to your SEO efforts when your IA sucks, some common SEO IA mistakes, and helpful tips on how to make your IA and SEO work together.
The post How to Make Information Architecture & SEO Work Together by @MrDannyGoodwin appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Too many people publish their content and cross their fingers hoping for thousands of shares that never come. The key stage that most people forget is intelligent promotion, and this post tells you exactly what you need to do before you hit publish to maximise your content's reach...
The post The One Tip That Will Help Your Blog Posts Get 100x More Views by @seo_travel appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
SEO is a difficult profession. Learn from past mistakes and common pitfalls SEO professionals have fallen into so you do not do the same.
The post 9 Surefire Ways to Get Fired in SEO by @Visiture_search appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Your Guide to Email-Open Statistics on Mobiles [Infographic] Well over half of all email users are opening their email on mobile devices. It's important that marketing emails are mobile friendly, because although a majority of emails are being opened on mobile, most conversions are coming from desktop. MarketingProfs YouTube Kills 30-Second Unskippable Mobile Ads for Shorter and More Interactive Formats Beginning on January 1, 2018, YouTube will kill the unskippable 30-second ads users see on mobile videos. Brands can still buy 20-second and 6-second bumper ads. YouTube has reportedly made this change as part of their 'commitment to providing better ad experience'. AdWeek 73% Of Execs See Internet Of Things Impact On Business A recent study showed that 73% of business executives said the Internet of Things had at least some impact on their business, while 21% said it has a major impact. However, there are a number of obstacles in the way - high cost of investment, concerns about security and regulation among others. MediaPost Reports: Digital, especially mobile, driving trillions in offline retail spending Digital media contributed to a reported $1.26 trillion in local retail sales in 2016, according to a recent report from Forrester. This is a large section of the overall $4.5 trillion local retail sales last year. Forrester predicts that in 2021, mobile devices will influence $1.4 trillion in local retail sales. MarketingLand 
Google to sunset Google Site Search by end of 2017 Search Engine Land reports: "Google has confirmed with Search Engine Land that they are discontinuing support for the Google Site Search product. Google said they are directing those consumers to either the ad-powered product named free custom search engine or the new cloud search product." Search Engine Land Google fights online trolls with new tool The Washington Post reports: On Thursday, [Google] publicly released an artificial intelligence tool, called Perspective, that scans online content and rates how “toxic” it is based on ratings by thousands of people." That 'toxicity score' will help users determine whether or not they want to participate in the conversation. The Washington Post On Snapchat’s Ad Performance, in Comparison to Industry Benchmarks A recent report was published that showed around 69% of SnapChat users either always or often skip ads. That figure increases to 80% among their top audience - 18 to 24-year-olds. But those numbers are far less shocking when compared to other media giants like YouTube and Facebook. Social Media Today Google Reduces Star Rating Threshold: Why Businesses Should Take Notice Google has lowered the threshold of reviews it takes for your 'stars' to show up next to your company's business listings from five reviews to one. To combat the potential negative effects of one bad review, Search Engine Journal has a few tips, like following up with an email, and asking your customers for reviews. Search Engine Journal What were your top online marketing news stories this week? We'll be back next week with more online marketing news stories! Have something to share? Tweet it to @toprank or share in the comments.
The post Online Marketing News: Mobile Email Stats, YouTube Kills 30-Second Ads and Execs on IoT appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
In this pilot episode of Search Engine Nerds, Kelsey Jones is joined by Zeph Snapp to talk about best practices for creating Spanish versions of websites. Zeph and Kelsey discuss what you need to do before getting started, whether translating content is better than creating new content, and what to keep in mind when it comes to international SEO.
The post What Are The Best Practices in Creating Spanish Versions of Websites? [PODCAST] by @rinadianewrites appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
HTTPs pages on the front page of Google search results could reach 50% by late May/early June 2017.
The post HTTPS Pages on Front Page of Google Could Reach 50% by June 2017 by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
According to new Google My Business (GMB) guidelines, it is not acceptable for a service-area business to use a virtual location.
The post New Google My Business Guidelines State Virtual Offices Not Allowed for Service-Area Businesses by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
New cards have been spotted in Google Now which display recipe suggestions based on search history and previously read articles.
The post New Google Cooking Cards Spotted in Google Now by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Gboard, Google's alternative mobile keyboard, has been updated on iPhone with support for voice typing, new emoji, and new languages.
The post Google Upgrades Gboard for iPhone with Voice Typing, New Emoji, and More by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google has released a new API for publishers which uses machine learning to filter out hurtful comments online.
The post Google Releases Tool to Help Filter Out Hurtful Comments Online by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Tired of coming up with new content ideas? Just replicate your successes! Here's how to repurpose your most successful content like a champion.
The post How to Repurpose Your Content Like a Champion by @MrDannyGoodwin appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Having an organized website structure is incredibly important for SEO. Without creating something that makes logical sense, your other SEO efforts may be for nothing.
The post How Website Structure Affects SEO by @MaddyOsman appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
There are many powerful SEO tools in today’s marketing world. Most SEO tools can be highly beneficial, but often come with a cost associated with it. However, there are some tools that smart marketers can leverage to assist with the variety of tasks needed on a given day.
One tool that smart marketers can leverage for SEO is Google Search Console. This free tool provided by Google is a great way to gain insights about your site in one main platform. Google Search Console is often underutilized by search marketing teams. To help you get the most benefit from Google Search Console, we outlined the four main areas within the tool to help you reach your search marketing objectives. Before we get into the four main areas within Google Search Console, let’s discuss what the tool even is.
Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) is a free web-based SEO tool for webmasters to track both the indexing and crawling stats from Googlebot while also providing metrics to help optimize a website for organic visibility. This SEO tool is useful to monitor metrics and discover new insights to help increase your organic footprint.
Google states that anyone with a website should use Google Search Console. One great thing about Google Search Console is that it is easy to use for whoever has access to the property.
The first step to using Google Search Console is the setup and verification process. You will want to create a Google Search Console property for each version of your site including:
You will get the complete view by setting up all the versions of your domain. Besides setting up properties for each version, you can also setup properties for an individual subfolder on your site. By setting up a property for a subfolder, you will be able to see metrics for a specific section of your site, which can be beneficial for large sites.
After you created your property, you will need to verify the site. There are multiple ways to verify your property within Google Search Console, including:
We recommend the verification method that would be the easiest and most efficient for your site. The most common verification methods we recommend are either via Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager. Otherwise, we typically recommend adding the HMTL tag to the site’s header.
One of the first main sections of Google Search Console is the “Search Appearance” section. This section is important for webmasters to understand how their website is currently setup and how it may potentially show up on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Within the search appearance section is information regarding structured markup, rich cards, HTML improvements (metadata information), and Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) setup.
Each area within this section is important to track monthly, but the HTML improvements area provides insights that is helpful when optimizing a website. This area can surface insights regarding duplicate meta descriptions and title tags. It also states when content is non-indexable, which can make a significant difference when prioritizing your optimization efforts.
The next section in Google Search Console is the “Search Traffic” section. This section provides insights regarding the keywords your site is showing up for, linking metrics from external and internal sources, any manual actions, international targeting metrics, and the mobile usability of your website.
Each area within the Search Traffic section is important, but the majority of your time will most likely be found analyzing the Search Analytics tab. The Search Analytics tab shows the keywords that your site is showing up for. You can break down the tab into multiple subsections between clicks, impressions, CTR, and position. If that isn’t enough for you already, you can then dive deeper into the metrics by individual pages, keywords, countries, devices (desktop, mobile, tablet), search type (web, images, videos), search appearance (AMP or rich snippets), and the date range (within 90 days).
The search analytics tab is a very powerful SEO tool. You can analyze your site for keyword opportunities on a page or a section of your site. You can also drill down into how your mobile keywords are performing compared to your desktop keywords. At TopRank Marketing, we use this tab to identify SEO strategies to help increase organic visibility by re-optimizing content that has multiple keywords ranking on the bottom of page one or the top of page two. We also use the tab to guide the creation of our content plans for different SEO campaigns.
The second tab you should spend more time on is the mobile usability tab. This tab outlines if your website is mobile friendly or not. It is important to stay on top of any mobile usability issues so that your site renders correctly for all types of devices, especially with Google moving to the mobile-first index.
The third section in Google Search Console is the “Google Index” section. This section is useful to understand how many pages are included Google’s index and if there are any blocked resources on your site. The index status tab is useful when analyzing if Google is indexing all the pages you want included in the SERPs. It is good to check the pattern of the index status of your website so that the number of pages is growing consistently or not dropping off quickly randomly.
The blocked resources tab is a great way to easily identify if certain pages are blocked from Googlebot. Make sure you check this tab to optimize the crawling of the pages/resources that you want being crawled by Googlebot.
You can also remove URLs temporarily from the Google index with the remove URLs tab. This tab is useful when you need to remove a page quickly. As a note, the tab only removes the page temporarily (around 90 days) and you still will need to update your site to permanently remove the page.
The last main section of Google Search Console is the “Crawl” section. This section provides smart marketers information regarding broken pages or files on the website, crawl stats from Googlebot, and URL parameter information. The section also provides tools to submit your content to Google, test your robots.txt file and submit your sitemap to Google.
The crawl errors tab is one of the more important areas within Google Search Console. This tab shows the URLs that might be broken from both internal and external sources. At TopRank Marketing, we often recommend implementing 301 redirects for the crawl errors that actually were pages at some point. It is important to audit the list to make sure you are not implementing redirects that are not needed.
Another useful tab is the sitemaps area, because you can submit your sitemap to Google to make it easier for your site to be crawled and indexed. Similarly, you can also submit individual pages to Google with the fetch as Google tool. The fetch as Google tool is a great way to get your updated content indexed quickly.
Google Search Console is a very powerful SEO tool for multiple reasons. We recommend using Google Search Console when running SEO campaigns to maximize your visibility and to plan the overall strategy. To increase your organic visibility for other search engines, make sure you use Bing Webmaster Tools as well to gain more insights.
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2017. | The QuickStart Guide to Using Google Search Console to Increase SEO Visibility | http://www.toprankblog.com
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