A Beginner’s Guide to Google Analytics

Are you making the most out of the data you can get about your website from Google Analytics (GA)?

The free tool gives you valuable insights into metrics like conversion rates, traffic sources, engagement, audience demographics, and more.

Let’s learn what GA is and how to use it to improve your website’s metrics.

What Is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a free tool to track user behavior on your website. With a range of metrics to explore, you can start to get a picture of how people use your website and how you can make changes to increase sales.

On a basic level, you can track how many visitors you have, how they found you, the number of views a page receives, and more.

In many ways, Google Analytics is the portal giving you insider, back end, and real-time access to what your users want.

Why Should You Use Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is the most powerful tool to track website metrics, and it comes from the king of search engines. On top of that, it’s free.

Although it takes some work to get set up, there are plenty of online tutorials and resources to walk you through the process. Once you get Google Analytics connected to your site, you can head to the Google Analytics dashboard and start checking things out. It can’t go back in time, though, so you will have to wait for data to gather.

Google Analytics can free you from relying on gut checks and intuition and instead tell you what pages and which content hit the mark or fall short. In this way, you can make informed choices.

The Basic Google Analytics Interface

Once you set up your Google Analytics account, you can connect different URLs and choose which one to explore from the drop-down.

The first thing Analytics shows is basic traffic data, including dates. You can alter the dates based on your needs.

On the left side of the screen, Google Analytics provides a list of report options. This is where you can start to get into the details.

On the far right, there’s a blue box with real-time metrics showing how many people are on the site, how many pages are viewed per minute, and the most popular pages to view. You can then click on the blue box to learn more about the data.

If you’re looking for something specific, just type it into the handy search bar.

As you scroll down, you can check out different analytics, including where your users come from and what devices they use.

Common Metrics Tracked With Google Analytics

There are many metrics you can track using Google Analytics.

No matter which type you focus on, you need to choose a time frame for your data. This way, you can check a specific timespan against prior spans to see what’s changing and if what you’re doing is working.

As you analyze the data, try to remember what your marketing goals are. Otherwise, you may get overwhelmed by the whirlwind of numbers.

Let’s look at some of the most popular metrics just to get you started.

Tracking Visitors With Google Analytics

Tracking visitors shows who’s visiting, how many visitors you have, and what they’re doing on your website. This includes factors like bounce rates and session durations.

These metrics are anonymous and vague. You can’t gather personal details for specific visitors to your website.

To dig deeper, you can go to the “Audience” section of Google Analytics.

Tracking Traffic Sources With Google Analytics

Another powerful metric Google Analytics can provide is traffic sources. It answers the question, “how are people finding my website?” You can find this information under the “Acquisition” tab.

For instance, you can find out how much traffic comes from social media, Google Ads, and the Google Search Console. Knowing where your visitors are coming from and what they do once they get to your site can help you know where to focus your marketing efforts.

Tracking Content With Google Analytics

Google Analytics can help you understand how well different pieces of content perform by tracking user behavior. For example, are they visiting certain pages more often than others? Is on-page time higher on some types of content? This can help you determine what works and what doesn’t, which you can use to inform future content creation and marketing choices.

You can find this information under the “Behavior” section.

Tracking Conversions With Google Analytics

Let’s get down to brass tacks here. Are people buying (or doing whatever else you want them to do) once they land on your website? That’s what conversion metrics on Google Analytics can tell you.

These metrics are not automatically generated like the previous ones. Instead, conversion analytics requires you to set goals, typically using the pages visitors are directed to once they convert. Telling Google Analytics to follow users to these final pages can provide more specific information about how people are getting there, how many are converting, and more.

Track Mobile Performance

As mobile use becomes the norm, you may want to see how well your website performs on mobile devices.

These metrics can be found in the “Audience” section under “Mobile.” Here, you can see website metrics broken down by device categories. For example, if you find certain device users are spending less time or money on the site, look into how your site looks and behaves on that type of device.

Creating Custom Reports

As you get a handle on following your website’s metrics, you may find you need custom Google Analytics reports. Custom reports can help you check specific metrics more efficiently, using apples-to-apples comparisons between periods, campaigns, and more.

These custom reports may help when presenting information to your department, organization, leadership, or investors thanks to the hard numbers you can compare and the visual reports you can run. Of course, not everyone may fully understand what you do, but many are likely to understand the basics of what these numbers and graphs mean.

Other Common Google Analytics Functionality and Uses

Google Analytics is constantly rolling out new features that may help you meet your marketing goals. Let’s dive into a few.

Learn What People Are Searching for on Your Site

If you have a lot of content on your website, you may have a search function available to users. Knowing what people type into that search function can help you understand why visitors are on your site, allowing you to plan for and create more relevant content.

Under the “Behavior” area, click “Site Search” to view this information.

Identify Your Worst Performing Pages

Is there content on your website that’s just not performing? Then, you may benefit from optimizing those pages for SEO, deleting useless content, or creating entirely new work.

To learn which pages are not performing, go to “Behavior,” then “Site Content.” From there, click on the arrow to reorder the pages by popularity. This shows which pages get the fewest views. Do with that information what you will—though perhaps consider finding a cause before throwing the page into the abyss.

Find Where People Abandon Their Shopping Carts

People abandoning shopping carts while shopping is a typical e-commerce problem. If you can find where visitors are dropping off your website, you can make improvements to help convert them.

First, set up your goals using a sales funnel. Include each step of your check-out process, including cart, check-out, shipping, and confirmation, in the pages you plan to monitor. Then, click to “visualize your funnels” to see how people behave as they move through the funnel.

You may see a pattern regarding when people abandon carts begin to emerge and make updates accordingly.

See Your Most Important Analytics First

As we talked about above, Google Analytics places many of the most common analytics on the dashboard. However, you can set up a custom dashboard to see exactly what you need. Under the “Customization” tab, find the link for “Dashboards.” You can use a dashboard template or create your own.

How to Create Custom Reports in Google Analytics

Google Analytics makes it easy to create custom reports for your own use or presentations.

First click on “Customization,” then click on “Custom Reports
Click on “+ New Custom Report” to get started
You can name your custom report, as well as each tab you want to create if you want different variables in the same report.
Choose what you want to create the custom report to report on, including overarching metrics you can choose from a dropdown, more specific dimensions, and filters to fine-tune your data thoroughly.
If you scroll over the question mark in the dropdown, you can learn more about each choice.
Click on whether you want to see all views or limit them.
Start with all, if you’re not sure. Now click “Save.” You’ll be taken to a page with the data automatically. From here, you can save, export, share, or edit the report.
If you save it, you can find this report under “Saved Reports.”
To rerun this custom report, go to “Custom Reports.”

Google Analytics Basics FAQs [wp editor: add schema]

What are some basic things you can do with Google Analytics?

Google Analytics can give you information about who visits your website, how many views your website receives, which content is the most popular, and more.

What is the best way to learn Google Analytics?

You can learn more about the basics of Google Analytics from Google themselves.

What is a Google Analytics tracking code?

Google Analytics uses a tracking ID, which you place in the code of your website or a plugin to allow Google to receive information about your website.

How much does it cost to use Google Analytics?

Most of the benefits of Google Analytics are free, though you can choose to purchase upgrades.

What is the benefit of using Google Analytics?

Google Analytics provides in-depth information on how well your website is performing.

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Basics of Google Analytics Conclusion

Google Analytics provides nearly endless amounts of information about your website’s data. Once you set up Google Analytics on your website, you can access metrics covering nearly every part of your customers’ journeys.

You can create custom reports to analyze how well your strategies work. This may help you make informed changes to your website, which may, in turn, draw even more people to your brand and via your analytics-driven marketing strategy.

What’s your favorite Google Analytics feature?

5 Actionable Tips to Get Your Website Added to Google News

You can get thousands of clicks to your site from Google News.

And, you don’t even have to be a journalist.

Smart bloggers, news publishers, and digital content marketers are already tapping into this huge resource for targeted traffic and better search engine visibility.

Google News is reserved for sites and blogs that publish timely, topical articles. You don’t necessarily need to be a news site but if you are consistently posting newsworthy content it’s possible to get accepted.

Danny Sullivan once said: If you aren’t a news site, Google News and its web crawlers won’t likely show you love.

But that isn’t a guarantee.

What is News?

A major search engine like Google defines news as “newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent or important events.”

If you’re at the forefront of your industry and reporting information that’d be of interest to your audience on a timely basis, then you’re a news publisher.

Google News is a content syndication platform that Google introduced to help organize the world’s news in many ways and to make it more accessible to its users, like a news XML.

Google News sends 6 billion clicks per month to publishers all over the world. Even if you get just 0.0001% of these clicks to your web site, that’s huge. Do the math.

That said, it’s a challenge in many ways to get your website indexed as a news publisher by the Google News sitemap file crawler and your articles indexed and ranked in Google News.

Let’s look at some of the best practices for getting added to Google News XML sitemap and how you can get real-time traffic.

Adhere to the Principles of Good Journalism

If you look at recent additions to the Google News sitemap syndication platform, you’ll notice that Google, for the first time, is no longer 100% focused on news-related “current events”- type content. You can tell that just from looking at the meta tags.

It’s evolved over the years as a news sitemap, leveling the playing field for bloggers, content creators, and news publishing experts. This evolution may not be obvious from the search term headlines but the content reveals this expansion.

However, the principles of good journalism haven’t been discarded by this major search engine. Google still cares about the style and substance of articles, especially as part of its XML. Good journalism is all about being honest and as objective as possible.

Why do you think the Google XML sitemap crawls, indexes, and publishes third party website content from CNN, BBC, Techcrunch, The Wall Street Journal and others in its search results?

One of the reasons is because these sites are true news publishers and adhere to strict standard journalism practices. They’re transparent and they adhere to the same professional standard. Just take a look at their search history and you can see they take their news seriously.

To be included in news XML’s your reporting must be original, honest, and well-structured with quality anchor texts, meta tags, and an authoritative voice.

Standard journalism is all about investigation and not just about search engine optimization. So, you should be able and ready to investigate a story and authenticate it, before reporting it.

For your story to strike a chord with editors, who will in turn syndicate it at Google News, PBS recommends that you present information from the most to the least important content points.

There’s an established application process to get your stories featured on the XML sitemap of Google News. But, before you apply, follow these guidelines:

1. Don’t copy from other sites. Write original news articles.

First and foremost, you need to make sure that your stories are original.

A major search engine like Google doesn’t want to syndicate the same piece of content verbatim and it’s search algorithm will pull you up. You’ve got to make your story original with accurate data points from credible sources. Wherever you got your information from, whether it’s trawling through search history, sitemap files, or exploring web pages – make sure your sources are trustworthy.

Take a look at the Google News homepage. All of the featured stories are original content with credible sources. And, no site is ranked more than once for its stories.

Google is a credible company, a major search engine that is trusted by millions all around the world. Imagine Google reporting a story that’s false, it would be a metasearch engine disaster!

What do you think would happen to its credibility?

And, speaking of credibility, Google is equally concerned with Author Rank.

There’s no better way to become a reputable author than to write for other news and magazine sites. If you’ve never written for trusted news web sites, such as Forbes, Inc. or Business Insider, you need to begin.

Google knows that reputable authors and columnists don’t copy news stories from other sources which is why they get included in their XML sitemaps.

Instead, they go all out to get an original story. Famous authors who publish original stories over a period of time are given credit so that they can build “rank” and improve their reputation, no matter what online publication they choose to write for.

One way to get your story added to Google News quickly is to use a co-author who has a high Author Rank.

In Google’s view and when looking for inclusions on their news XML sitemap file, such an author brings a higher level of authority to your site and the resulting story is more likely to be original and credible.

To get started reporting news, you need original stories. The resource guide below will give you more guidance:

The Origin of Stories: How Journalists Find and Create News in an Age of Social Media, Competition and Churnalism

2. Write keyword-rich headlines that communicate the story topics.

Your headline makes a promise to the reader. If you get it right, your news story will likely be picked up by Google and other journalists who can amplify the content’s reach.

According to Poynter, you should “try to keep your headlines straightforward and unadorned. Use concise and familiar words, if possible.”

You may be tempted to use numbers in your news story headlines. After all, users love numbers. But, if you’re going to use a “listicle” headline type, it should provide specific insights and steer clear of “linkbait” territory. There is no way that linkbait and lousy anchor texts are going to get you placed on Googles news XML sitemap file.

I’ve noticed that authority sites that report stories daily rarely use the listicle format or “numbered” headlines.

They simply write an accurate, clear and compelling headline. Let’s take a cue from Search Engine Land.

Just like blog posts, your news story headline determines whether your story will be syndicated by Google or not.

Here are some tips to help you write newsworthy headlines that are sure to appear in the search results and remember the same approach can be taken with your meta tags:

i). Don’t repeat words: The purpose of getting your website or story added to Google News XML sitemap is to get clicks and views from the huge user base. You don’t have to repeat words or keywords in the headline, as though you’re actively doing search engine optimization.

Here’s a weak news headline:

“How experienced investors can mentor about-to-quit investors”

Avoid this repetition of words like the plague.

ii). Use active voice: A news headline is a quick way to demonstrate what’s inside the story and will catch the eye of the search engine.

Don’t bore users or discourage journalists from picking your story. Avoid using a passive voice.

In the passive voice, the subject is receiving the verb. For example:

Passive voice: Mary was hit by a car.
Active voice: The car hit Mary.

An active voice starts with the subject. With an active voice, you can say more with fewer words from the very first time. Brevity is an essential news publisher tactic that captivates the audience.

Using active voice in your news headline also helps to trim down unnecessary words. If you check Digg’s homepage, you’ll see that most of the syndicated stories have headlines written with an active voice.

Here’s an example:

The passive-voice version of the above news headline is obviously weaker:

An Episode of ‘Top Chef’ Was Produced with Help From the CIA

iii). Write in the present tense: This is another important point to keep in mind when writing a story headline with the hope of getting it syndicated on the Google News XML sitemap file.

Even if the story itself or content is written in the past tense, the headline should indicate what’s happening right now. After all, that’s why it’s called “news”, and that’s what the XML sitemap is looking for.

Several stories on the Google News homepage are written in the present tense. Take a look:

iv). Know which words to capitalize: Have you noticed that not all words in a news story headline are capitalized? As a rule of thumb, capitalize the first word of the headline. You must also capitalize proper nouns.

On the Google News homepage, both title case and first word/proper noun capitalization standards are used.

If you use title case, don’t capitalize articles. So, for example, “Judge Rejects Kesha’s Last Effort to Free Herself From Dr. Luke” is correct, but if “to” were capitalized as well, that would be incorrect.

3. Write news-related articles, not evergreen content.

In adding sites to Google News, remember that a major search engine like Google can only include sites that follow their Webmasters Tool Guidelines.

If there’s nothing timely about your topic or story, it’s not news. It’s as simple as that. In journalism, “timing is everything.” Timely content makes it to the top, others get lost in the pages of the search history.

For your site to be accepted, you’ve got to write news-related articles consistently. Evergreen content just won’t work with Google News.

Aside from that, the major search engine Google also has specific types of content that they accept. In Google’s words:

“We generally do not include how-to articles, advice columns, job postings or strictly informational content such as weather forecasts and stock data.”

In the world of blogging, creating evergreen content is your guarantee for sustainable organic traffic. And Google rewards such content in its organic results.

But, that kind of content isn’t news, so a search engine like Google won’t syndicate it.

When you look at the Google News homepage, you’ll notice that the stories are timely – mostly as the events unfold:

4. Write at least 2 news articles each day.

Are you the only one managing your site? If you want to get added to Google News, you may need to make a change.

The majority of the news media sites that are syndicated on Google News are multi-authored. In other words, more than one person writes for the site.

Think about CNN, BBC, Bloomberg, New York Times, Huffington Post, and so forth.

These sites are updated every minute of the day, by a crop of prolific writers who are transparent and accurate in their reporting, it’s why they are so popular in the search engines.

You need more writers who can source for fresh stories, write about them and submit them within hours.

You may find you have to train good writers. You could start by hiring freelance writers, then train them on the journalistic approach that Google News and other media platforms and search engines require for every story.

You should also work to teach your writers how to follow your brand guidelines, especially if they are writing for you for the first time. Let them know the elements that should be present in a news story – the headline, the appropriate voice, the requirement for sources and the rules of citation.

Ideally, create an author page on your site, where you introduce each writer on your team.

Google will ask you for a list of authors who report stories on your site. In fact, you’ll be required to submit contact details for each author, when you apply.

5. Establish authority with your blog.

Google is understandably strict about the content it considers to be news. Not every article is news-related.

Most of the time, it’s not about the story, but the context or angle by which the author covered it, this is why lamestream media can be so popular.

Since Google is passionate about timely, up-to-date stories, you need a way to prove to Google that you’ve adhered to its guidelines.

You need to establish authority with your blog. Authority, on the web, boils down to how many user-friendly sites and web pages link back to yours. Webmasters tool can help you check where you stand.

Let’s say that your 3-month old blog has been reporting timely, up-to-date stories as they unfold.

Another site (say, Mashable) has more authority than your blog and established search history.

Now answer this question:

If your blog reported the same trending story as Mashable, and both news stories followed the news-writing standard, which of the stories do you think that Google would crawl first, index, and offer a high pagerank?

Did I hear Mashable?

You’re 100% correct.

The reason why is obvious: Mashable has more authority in the search engines than your 3-month old blog.

Mashable publishes more timely content because it’s got the budget for a sufficient number of authors. If you’re a small business, you can’t beat that.

Building authority with your blog isn’t a straightforward thing. And, it definitely will not happen overnight.

You need to get off of your site. You should be everywhere.

While you’re building your Author Rank, by contributing to other trustworthy sites, always reference your story in a natural way. Ideally, use your branded keyword or story headline as anchor text to link back to your site.

The more authority sites you contribute to and get links from, the more authority your blog will get and the more you will show up in the search results and the search history. Your blog will build momentum gradually. Be patient!

Social media is equally vital, so spread the love. Get active on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.

Don’t try to copy or mimic another author’s writing style. Find your own voice. Stick to it. That’s the only way to stand out from the crowd and get your news-related articles added to Google News.

When your content is unique and compelling, more people will click your headline, visit your site and take action.

But, when your news is like everyone else’s, you’re not making an impact. To the audience, there’s nothing in it for them. Consequently, they’ll leave.

Conclusion

Now that you’ve seen the possibility of getting your website and news articles added to Google News, it’s time to take action and apply.

Don’t be too quick to do this. You first need to create a path, on your blog, that a Google News bot or spider can follow to crawl your fresh stories as they’re published.

Google suggests that you add a Google News Sitemap to make this easier. If your blog is hosted on WordPress CMS, you can find Google News sitemap plugins in the WordPress repository.

Once you’ve installed one of the plugins, you can apply to Google News here. This will connect with your Google Console account, thus making it easier to add several of your sites to Google News. Be sure to use the webmaster tool to check your indexing status.

Does your site meet the Google News requirements? If yes, why aren’t you tapping into Google News for real-time traffic?

: Google faces fresh antitrust suit from states targeting Play Store

The lawsuit builds on complaints from app developers about Google Play Store for Android devices.

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: Google faces fresh antitrust suit from states targeting Play Store

The lawsuit builds on complaints from app developers about Google Play Store for Android devices.

The post : Google faces fresh antitrust suit from states targeting Play Store appeared first on WE TEACH MONEY LIFE SELF DEFENSE WITH FINANCIAL GOALS IN MIND.

The post : Google faces fresh antitrust suit from states targeting Play Store appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.

5 Surprising Things the Top Ranked Sites on Google Have in Common

What separates the heavyweights of the search engine rankings from everyone else? That’s a question every good SEO constantly asks themselves as they look to outrank sites that seem to dominate Google for every relevant keyword (like Wikipedia or WebMD).

Unsurprisingly, these sites have more than a few things in common. It’s not just their age or authority either—factors that other sites can’t hope to match. There are plenty of similar qualities that help top sites stand apart from their competitors that you can copy and improve today.

Let’s review five of the most important and surprising factors and explain what you can learn from them and how you can use that to improve your own site.

1. Backlinks Reign Supreme

Let’s get the least surprising commonality out of the way first. The top-ranked sites on Google all have a serious number of backlinks. As we all know, high-quality backlinks almost always mean high rankings.

Research from Backlinko finds the first result on Google has an average of 3.8 times as many backlinks as the rest of the results on the first page.

The big boys have it made when it comes to acquiring more backlinks, too. They continue to get more backlinks over time as a result of their position in Google.

Research by Ahrefs finds that the top three results generate more new referring domains than the rest of the pages on Google. Pages ranked first and second get significantly more new referring domains. Those pages ranking first get between backlinks at a faster rate of between five percent and 14.5 percent per month.

It’s not just a large number of backlinks that are important. They need to be high quality, too. What does a quality backlink look like? It comes from an authoritative domain, is placed within its content, and has topical relevance to your website.

Let’s say you have a car blog. A link from another high-ranking car blog carries more weight and is of higher quality than a link from a major health website because it’s much more relevant to your niche.

You shouldn’t discount internal links, either. The biggest websites (and news outlets in particular) almost always put a lot of effort into making sure every new piece of content links back to several previous posts.

Great internal linking makes it significantly easier for Google to crawl your website and index your information. The easier your site is to crawl, the more likely Google will find and rank your content. They may not have the same power as backlinks, but internal links can still result in higher rankings.

All this is to say that you need to build backlinks in a scalable way if you want your site to compete with the biggest brands in your industry.

2. Provide High-Quality Content

Most top-ranking websites are well known for the quality of their content. Okay, some major sites don’t publish high-quality content all of the time, but every high-ranking site does produce exceptional content, at least some of the time.

Don’t forget, high-quality content doesn’t necessarily mean it’s longer or more detailed than everyone else’s. It might contain unique research that other companies can’t hope to copy. Or it could break a story. Or it could be designed better. Or it could go viral. There are lots of ways to create amazing content.

Doing so matters when it comes to SEO because high-quality content helps boost several ranking factors. It’s a magnet for backlinks, it reduces your bounce rate, and it should result in a higher clickthrough rate (CTR).

The top-ranked sites don’t just rely on the objective quality of their content, though. They also take steps to optimize it to perform better in Google. That means including keywords in header tags, throughout the content, in the page title, and in the URL.

Creating high-quality content isn’t easy, especially when there’s no objective way to determine how good your content is. That’s the job of your users. That being said, there are still steps you can take to make it more likely your users think highly of your content.

The first is to make sure it’s written by an expert. This is a pretty simple task for some top-ranking sites like media outlets. Journalists, by default, are experts on certain topics. However, there’s nothing stopping you from writing about your expertise or hiring expert writers, either.

You could even use a strategy adopted by some health websites, where content is written by a professional writer and then fact-checked by a medical professional. Doing so has the double benefit of having content written by an excellent writer while also being medically accurate.

3. Focus on User Experience

Top-ranking sites on Google put a premium on the user experience and do everything they can to keep customers coming back. This means having a great design, high-quality content as discussed above, an intuitive layout, and a great browsing experience in general. Yes, some of the highest-ranking sites may serve up ads on their pages, but they don’t ruin your browsing experience with them or use intrusive popup ads, either.

A great user experience is one of the reasons these sites are top of Google, after all. Google announced that user experience metrics would be used to rank sites, beginning in 2021. How your site loads, what it looks like, and how users interact with it contribute to your rankings, along with other factors like HTTPS, safe browsing, mobile friendliness, and the presence of interstitials.

Google puts such a big emphasis on your site’s user experience because it aligns with its goal of giving customers the best possible browsing experience. The search giant finds over half (52 percent) of users will be less likely to engage with a brand after a bad mobile experience. So why would it rank you if you have a high bounce rate?

Improving your site’s user experience and aligning it with the experiences provided by the top-ranking sites won’t just improve your rankings; it also makes commercial sense. Ad network Ezoic generated a 186 percent increase in earnings per 1000 visitors by improving the UX of a publisher.

4. Make Sure Your Page Speed Is Competitive

You’ve never had to wait for the New York Times to load, have you? That’s because top-ranking sites know the importance of delivering content as fast as possible. Page load speed has been a ranking factor for desktop searches since 2010, and Google announced it was also a ranking factor for mobile searches back in 2018.

Say it with me: A slower site means lower rankings.

You need to optimize for page speed if you want to mix it with the highest-ranking sites. It’s not so much about getting the edge over your competitors and making your site 0.1 seconds faster, however. It’s about having a site that’s fast enough to not impact the user experience negatively.

Research by Google finds over half (53 percent) of visitors abandon a mobile site if it doesn’t load in three seconds.

If you have a slow site, you won’t just get penalized for a poor load time. You’ll also get penalized for having a high bounce rate as users get fed up with waiting and choose a different site instead.

The easiest way to check your page speed is by using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. It will let you know how fast your site is, give it a score out of 100, and suggest improvements.

If you want to have a seriously fast-loading page, read my advice on getting a perfect score with Google PageSpeed Insights.

5. Consider User Intent

Have you noticed how some top-ranking sites have several pieces of content that all seem to approach the same topic from a slightly different angle? That’s because they understand the power of user intent and the value Google places on it.

Google wants to serve up the best and most appropriate content for each query. A big part of that is understanding what the user is trying to achieve from their search. Are they trying to learn something? Research a topic? Make a purchase? Google delivers different results for each intent.

For instance, Google shows e-commerce pages where it thinks the user is trying to make a purchase, but it serves up blog articles for information-related queries.

Knowing what type of content Google thinks users want to see is key to becoming a top-ranked site, because you’re much more likely to get ranked if you create content that matches the user intent for each target keyword. This is why so many top-ranking sites have similar content targeting the same topics: to catch every user intent.

It’s not simply a matter of informational vs. commercial, either. There are dozens of types of informative content that users may want to access. In some cases, it’s a listicle. For other queries, a video may be more appropriate.

Taking time to understand the user intent for each keyword or topic you’re targeting can yield serious results. Marketing SaaS CoSchedule saw a 594 percent increase in search traffic when they aligned content with user intent.

Top Ranked Sites: FAQs

What do the top-ranking sites have in common?

They all have a lot of high-quality backlinks, great content, an excellent user experience, a fast-loading website, and content that matches the user’s intent.

Why do the top sites have so many more backlinks?

This is partly because of the quality of content but also due to the fact that they sit at the top of Google. This makes them an easy target for people trying to link to an authoritative source.

How can better content improve my rankings?

Better content can improve your rankings in several ways. High-quality content attracts more backlinks, but Google also rewards in-depth content and results in users spending a long time on the page.

Why does user experience matter?

Google wants to provide the best experience to its users. Part of that means sending them to sites that are easy to browse. It’s why user experience factors are now ranking factors.

How can I check my page speed?

Use the Google PageSpeed Insights tool.

How can I gauge user intent?

Google the keyword you want to rank for and look at the pages that appear in the results. If all of the content has the same format, that’s the type of content you should create.

Conclusion: What You Can Learn From the Top Ranked Sites

You can’t turn your website into a top-ranking site overnight. However, you can learn a lot from them and implement tactics they use to improve your site’s Google ranking. There are more than a few things they do in common, as you’ve learned.

Make sure you have a scalable system for generating backlinks, create high-quality content, focus on the user experience, ensure your site loads fast, and consider user intent when you create content.

Do these five things, and you could be well on your way to having a top-ranked site in the future.

What are you going to work on first?

How to Score a Perfect 100% on Google PageSpeed Insights

When it comes to building a conversion rate and search engine optimized website, speed is crucial.

If you don’t have a fast website, people will bounce faster than you can say “conversions.”

However, speeding up your website is no easy task.

Your problem could be anything from code that’s written poorly to images or large page elements.

You need to fix those issues fast, because Google will ding your website if you don’t.

The faster your site loads, the lower the bounce rate. If your site is fast, you have a better chance of ranking on Google over slow sites that drive high bounce rates.

Thankfully, Google offers the PageSpeed Insights tool to find out what you need to fix.

Unfortunately, they don’t give you the best instructions on getting your score to 100%.

Here’s how to score a perfect 100% on Google’s PageSpeed Insights and why you need to accomplish this feat.

Why Page Speed Matters

Page speed is a critical factor in ranking your website higher on Google’s search engine results.

If your website isn’t on par with the top 10 organic pages, you won’t rank on the first page.

So focusing on page speed is paramount to having a successful company and a website that converts.

Backlinko recently conducted a study where they analyzed over eleven million search engine results pages (SERPs) on Google.

They wanted to figure out which factors were the most common among sites ranked in the top 10 results.

Surprisingly, they found page speed and ranking don’t seem to be correlated. However, the average load time of a site on the first page is 1.65 seconds, which is decently fast.

However, Google says page speed does matter. There was even an entire update about it.

That connection is backed up and supported by Google’s new PageSpeed industry benchmarks.

They found that as page load times go up, the chance of someone bouncing from your site increases dramatically:

That means that if your page takes 10 seconds to load, the likelihood of someone leaving your site before it even loads increases by more than 120 percent!

But according to a recent study of more than 5 million sites, the average website takes 10.3 seconds to load fully on desktop and 27.3 seconds to load on mobile.

This means almost all of us are missing the mark when it comes to having a fast-performing website.

In another study, BigCommerce found that conversion rates for e-commerce websites average somewhere in the one to two percent range.

Portent found page speed can increase conversion rates drastically.

Getting your speed to under two seconds can increase traffic and revenue.

So, what causes a page to load slowly?

The most common causes of slow pages are bulky images and poorly-designed coding.

If you look at any website in the modern era, it’s likely filled to the tipping point with images.

If you aren’t optimizing your images, you could have pages that take up multiple megabytes of space.

Page size and weight are often measured by page weight bytes. Simply put, page weight bytes show the total size of a web page measured in bytes.

Google’s benchmark data shows that the best practice for page size or weight is under 500KB:

But again, most of us are missing the mark here. We are vastly exceeding the recommended weight.

One of the concepts that stood out to me the most from the Google report comes from this short yet impactful quote:

“No matter what, faster is better and less is more.”

No matter how well your site is doing, there’s a good chance you have serious room for improvement.

How to Use PageSpeed Insights Tool

Most sites run slowly due to large images that take up too much space.

But that’s not always the case for every website.

You need to know exactly what’s causing your slow site speeds before you can make the necessary changes to score 100% on the PageSpeed Insights tool.

To get started, open up the PageSpeed Insights tool and enter your website URL into the bar:

Click “Analyze” to have Google run a quick test on your site.

The finished report will tell you everything you need to know about your site and what might be hindering its performance.

Here’s what my report looks like:

It’s an 87/100.

It’s not great. It’s not terrible either, though.

There’s almost always have room for improvement. My goal here is to get you to 100% by the end of this article as we take this journey in page speed together.

First, let’s look at the items that I have optimized and perfected:

Now, notice how there are only a few items on this list compared to my “Possible Optimizations” list:

This information tells me that the items on “Possible Optimizations” are a little less impactful than those I have already optimized.

Obviously, you’ll need to take care of every element to hit 100% on the Page Speed Insights tool.

You’ll want to start with the top priority items (more on this later).

Next, we want to test our mobile site separately.

You can use the mobile site tester on the PageSpeed Insights tool, but Google released an updated, more accurate version of this.

Head over to Test My Site to try it. Input your website URL and hit enter:

Google will take a few minutes to run this report, but it will give you a detailed look at how your mobile site performs compared to industry standards.

It will even tell you how many visitors you could be losing because of a lower page speed.

Here’s what my data looks like:

My load time on mobile is four seconds.

Remember: The recommended load time is three seconds or less.

That means that my speed isn’t up to par with industry standards.

Due to that, I am losing up to 10 percent of my visitors simply from poor speed performance!

Here’s what my mobile test looks like when I compare it to the industry standards:

While still in the top-performing section, I am not where I should be if I want to maximize the effectiveness of my website or drive more traffic and conversions.

Scroll down even further and Google will give you an estimate on what your top fixes could do for your website:

page speed insights how to improve speed

Google says that with a few fixes I could reduce my load times by around three seconds.

That means that I could potentially get my website to load at the one-second mark!

That’s amazing. Trust me, to save 10 percent of your visitors or more, it’s something that you need to do.

Run your website through this mobile site test to get data on what fixes you need for your website.

In this next section, I’ll walk you through fixing the top page speed problems to help you score a 100% on the PageSpeed Insights tool.

4 Ways to Land a Perfect PageSpeed Insights Score

Getting a perfect 100% on Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool is no easy task.

It’s not going to happen overnight, either. You’ll have to do some legwork and spend some hours at the grindstone.

But if you want to save traffic, drive more conversions, and bring in more revenue, you need to do it.

It may be tedious and tiresome, but you need those conversions. You can’t be lazy and risk leaving traffic and profit on the table.

Here are the top four ways you can speed up your site and score a perfect 100% with Google.

1. Compress Your Images

The biggest cause of slow pages and low scores is large images.

When I fixed this on my own site, I found a huge impact on speed.

One of the top optimization techniques for fixing image size is compression.

You can save an average of 50 percent or more on image size by using simple compression tools.

If you use WordPress, one of the best ways to do this without spending much time is to use a plugin, like WP Smush Image.

how to improve page insight speed using smush image

WP Smush has tons of awesome features for free.

You can smush images automatically by adding the plugin. It will scan your media library on WordPress and detect images that it can compress:

improve page speed insights score wp smush

If you want to smush tons of new images for your site in bulk, you can upload them directly into the plugin.

You can smush up to 50 images at a single time, making it one of the fastest tools on the market:

bulk smushing google pagespeed insights tool example

If you head to the settings for this plugin, you can turn on the setting to automatically smush images on upload.

bulk smushing google pagespeed insights automatic

If you enable this setting, you’ll never have to worry about compression again. And if you compress all of the existing images on your site, then you don’t have to worry about it every time you upload.

WP Smush is an excellent, free tool for the everyday WordPress user.

But, if you don’t use WordPress, what do you do?

If you run a Shopify-based store and site, you can use Crush.pics:

page speed insights crush pics shopify tool

Crush.pics says that you can expect a big jump in PageSpeed Insights scores using their tool:

PageSpeed score before compression: 75/100. PageSpeed score after compression: 87/100

If you aren’t familiar with plugins or don’t like to use them for your site, you can use free tools online like Compress JPEG or Optimizilla.

Both are fast, free tools that allow you to compress up to 20 images in a single upload.

Check out this example image that I compressed to give you an idea of how impactful these programs can be:

pagespeed insights optimize image example

I reduced the file size by 68 percent in just two seconds using Optimizilla. It reduced the size from 380KB to 120KB with almost no quality difference!

You can use all of these tools for free and you should definitely implement them if you can’t use a plugin.

2. Use Browser Caching

Browser caching works by “remembering” the previously-loaded resources so that it doesn’t have to reload them upon every single visit.

When a website visitor travels to a new page on your site, all of your data, like logos and footers, won’t need to load again.

That will result in a big increase in speed when people land on your site.

How do you implement it? Thankfully, there’s a plugin for it. You don’t need to be a coding expert to do it.

Try using W3 Total Cache for WordPress sites. It’s got over one million active installs and is the most popular caching plugin on the market:

W3 Total Cache claims that it can give you at least a 10x improvement in overall site performance.

On top of that, they claim (and back up) that this plugin will help you achieve higher results on Google’s PageSpeed tools.

The tool also helps you minify HTML (which we will dive into next), JavaScript, and CSS, giving you up to 80 percent bandwidth savings.

Try using W3 Total Cache today to give your website a fast, easy boost in speed even if you don’t have coding experience.

3. Minify Your HTML

Minimizing the space your HTML coding takes up is another big factor in getting a perfect score from Google.

Minification is the process of removing or fixing unnecessary or duplicated data without impacting how a browser will process the HTML.

It involves fixing code, formatting, removing unused code, and shortening code when possible.

Once again, thanks to the awesome plugin options of WordPress, you don’t need to be a coding genius to fix this.

One of the best tools to do this is HTML Minify.

You can download this plugin for free directly from their site and install it to your WordPress account in seconds.

You can also install it directly from this plugin page.

Once you install the plugin, you only need to take a few steps before you see an instant impact on your site.

Head to the settings tab on your Minify HTML plugin and enable all of the following settings:

You can effectively kill multiple birds with one stone.

Google’s PageSpeed Insights recommends that you minify HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.

Enable the “Minify HTML” + “Inline JavaScript” settings.

Next, be sure to select yes for “Remove HTML, JavaScript and CSS comments.”

The great thing about this plugin is that it will tell you what the recommended action is under each setting.

Follow these actions if you are unfamiliar with how these settings work.

Minify your coding today and you should see an instant impact on your insights report.

4. Implement AMP

AMP is short for Accelerated Mobile Pages.

It’s a project implemented by Google to help mobile pages load faster.

It works by making an open-source format that strips away tons of unnecessary content, making your mobile pages load nearly instantly.

It gives users a more streamlined experience on mobile without any clunky features that don’t work well on mobile devices.

If you browse the Internet on your mobile phone, you probably have clicked on an AMP-based article.

Here’s what they look like:

They are often relegated to the “Top Stories” section of Google search results and they load up instantly.

They don’t have much formatting, which helps them load quickly and deliver the content that the mobile user wants to see.

When a searcher on Google clicks one of these AMP articles, they see the content like this:

It’s a simplified version of the real website that allows a user to scroll between different stories without leaving the web page and clicking on the next.

This feature streamlines the user experience on mobile.

Gone are the days where you had to wait 10 seconds for a site to load, then click back to the search results page, and wait another 10 seconds for the next site to load.

Here you can access the content of multiple articles without clicking the back button once.

It’s extremely effective at speeding up your site and reducing the likelihood that someone will leave.

Tons of companies are taking advantage of AMP.

The company WIRED started implementing AMP to do a better job of reaching their customers.

They were finding that their mobile user experience was too slow. Conversions were simply not happening because of the speed issues and visitor retention problems.

Deciding to invest time into AMP made a huge impact for WIRED.

They increased their click-through rate from organic search results by 25 percent.

They found a 63 percent increase in CTRs on ads in AMP stories, too.

They also were able to add AMP stories to over 100k articles on their site.

Gizmodo also hopped on the AMP train and saw huge improvements on their mobile site.

They were getting over 100k AMP page visits every single day with load times that were 3x faster than standard mobile pages.

Conversions increased by 50 percent, too.

It’s safe to say that AMP can significantly increase conversions and mobile speed, giving you a massive opportunity to score higher on Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

If you want to start using AMP on your own site, there are a few ways to do it.

If you’re familiar with HTML, you can follow AMP’s detailed tutorial here.

For those who are less technologically savvy or have no experience in HTML, try using a WordPress plugin.

One of the most popular plugins is AMP for WP.

AMP For WP google pagespeed insights guide

It has over 80,000 active installs and has constant support and updates.

The plugin includes an AMP page builder that you can easily drag and drop page elements on:

It’s one of the easiest ways to create AMP-friendly content.

All you have to do is download and install the plugin on your WordPress dashboard and activate it.

From there, you can use the page builder on each new post that you upload.

These pages will then create an AMP-friendly version that will show up in mobile search results.

AMP is a proven way to speed up your mobile site and reduce your speed to under one second–and tons of companies are finding success with it.

Google PageSpeed Insights FAQs

Why is page speed important?

Google uses page speed as a ranking factor because it affects user experience. It may affect your ability to rank higher in SERPs.

How does bounce rate correlate to page speed?

Studies have shown that sites that load faster have a lower bounce rate. This means the user is likely having a better experience.

What industries have the slowest sites?

On average, technology and travel sites load the slowest, where local and classified sites load the fastest.

How fast should a site load?

The best practice for page speed load time is three seconds.

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Google PageSpeed Insights Conclusion

When you’ve spent countless days, weeks, and months building a new website, you want every image, element, and icon to be top-notch.

However, that often results in a site that is slower than Google recommends.

When it comes to driving conversions on your site, speed will always play a big role.

People don’t want to wait 10 seconds for your site to load when they can click back to Google and select the next result.

Scoring well on the PageSpeed Insights test should be one of your main priorities when trying to perfect and optimize your site.

To get started, you first need to diagnose what issues are plaguing your site.

Is it images, page elements, too much text, bad coding, or all of the above?

Use the Google PageSpeed Insights tool to see where the problem lies, then work through their suggestions. You’ll also want to minify code, compress images, add browser caching, and implement AMP.

These are proven steps that can have a big impact on your PageSpeed Insight score.

Scoring a perfect 100 percent on Google’s PageSpeed Insights can give your website the boost that it needs to succeed.

What are the best ways you have found to increase your site speed?

How to Use Google Discovery Ads

Google discovery ads are changing the game by implementing a more powerful AI to take a lot of the guesswork out of paid advertising on Google. Instead of manually optimizing your ads over time, Google AI will take care of it for you using its massive amounts of data.

How?

That’s what we’re going to cover in this article. If you’ve never tried Google discovery ads, now is the time to dive in with both feet and take them for a spin.

What Are Google Discovery Ads?

Discovery ads allow you to take advantage of the AI that Google has created to deliver the most accurate and interesting ads to the people who want them the most. It’s essentially a newsfeed on the Google app that is catered directly to the user’s search intent.

Google discovery ad example from The Office

In addition to being a standard “Google ad,” there’s also a visual aspect now. Instead of a title tag, meta description, and slug, you’re also getting a vibrant image at the top of the display to help draw the attention of the user.

There’s one major difference here.

Instead of the ads being driven by a query, they’re driven by Google AI. This means that the goal of the discovery ads page is to solve the user’s problem or answer their question before they even have to type anything into the search bar.

As the user engages more with the Google discovery page, the AI will pick up on their interests and provide a more accurate representation of what they want to know and what they’re looking for.

In the event that the discovery page isn’t accurate, you can toggle based on what you want or don’t want to see. You can even break it down to exact keywords that you want to see less of.

controlling your Google discovery ad results example

Using the show “The Office” as an example, you can tell Google that you’re not interested in the specific story. You can also say you’re not interested in anything to do with the keyword “The Office,” or you can ask Google to stop displaying content from the media source “NME.” Either way, it puts you in the driver’s seat so you can gradually optimize the newsfeed to see more and more of what you want.

Benefits of Google Discovery Ads

Let’s shift gears now to an advertiser standpoint. You understand the benefits to the user, but what about advertisers on Google? The process of creating these ads is simple and effective. Plus, just like for the user, the advertiser can take advantage of Google AI as well.

Running this ad to test out a new product or spread awareness of something makes the most sense. The goal is for people to “discover” things they might not have known or seen before.

Since Google AI is deciding who to display the ad to, this is also great for retargeting. As users see more and more of your ads, they’ll become more familiar with your brand, and that will build trust.

Here are some of the benefits of this ad type:

Farther reach with one campaign: With one single campaign, you can reach up to three billion people per month. This is because Google discovery ads don’t stop at the Google app. You also advertise on the YouTube homepage, Watch Next, and the Gmail promotions and social tab.
Utilize more relevant advertising: Google is taking the need for user intent out of your hands and putting it into its own. The goal is to deliver the most meaningful and powerful content to the exact people who want it. You don’t need to do your own research anymore to determine what is most relevant because Google AI can take care of it for you.
Drive engagement with visually rich ads: The goal of Google discovery ads is for you to “discover” new things and take an interest in the information and content you find on Google. One great way to do this is with visuals to spark interest and create action. According to Google, 76 percent of people enjoy making unexpected discoveries while shopping. That sounds about right!
Use automated bidding: Choosing your bid is one of the most challenging aspects of managing your ad budget. Google takes this out of your hands with maximized conversion bidding and target CPA to help optimize your campaign. Many of us are putting a lot of trust in Google with this advertising, but what better person than Big G to handle it for us?
Advertise consistently: One of the greatest features of Google discovery campaigns is the fact that your ad will almost always align with the people you reach. There’s no more testing or guessing. Since 85 percent of people take action in 24 hours after discovering something, you’ll stay fresh in their mind if your ad continues to display.

3 Tips for Creating Great Google Discovery Ads

As with any type of digital marketing, be it SEO or paid ads, the right way and wrong way to do it aren’t so clear cut. However, here are some helpful tips to get you closer to the right side of the scale:

Use your best images: These are visual ads that demand high-quality photos and images. You can’t expect anyone to want to click on a low-quality image or an obvious stock photo. The image needs to also create interest and intrigue.
Limit text in images: The goal of these images is not to give it all away so the user never clicks through. By limiting text in the images and reserving all that space for imagery, you’re telling a story that will make them wonder what is happening on the other side.
Build trust right away: Remember that most of the people that see these ads have no idea who you are or what your business is. You’re meeting them for the first time, and like any other newsfeed, they can keep on scrolling pretty quickly. You need to build trust, so use the text space to qualify yourself and tell them why they should click through.

Examples of Google Discovery Ads

Take a look at the Google discovery ad example below.

You’ll see a really interesting headline paired with an interesting image as well. The image is of two men eating pizza while they both look at their laptops. Plus, the headline and body text are both very interesting.

If I were applying for jobs or trying to get the career of my dreams, I might want to know what makes me look like a narcissist in my resume.

That said, I’m not looking for a job, so this is actually a situation where the ad doesn’t apply to me. One great thing about Google discovery is that you can optimize it. Right above the image, it asks you if the card is useful. In this case, it’s not, so I would want to get rid of that ad and not see ones that are similar, even though it’s an interesting topic.

The next example is one from the YouTube homepage, advertising health supplements. My favorite thing about this ad is how direct and clear it is. There’s nothing hiding behind this image. It’s transparent, clear, and straight to the point, which is something that Google looks for in advertisers.

Once you tap through, you can shop for some of the new nootropics mentioned and enter the promo code. They even provide a bit of scarcity in the body text by telling you that the promotion runs out on Saturday.

How to Create Google Discovery Ads

Before we dive into the actual steps you’ll take, there are some things you’ll need to get together first. Make sure you have many different headlines, descriptions, images, and logos because Google AI will play around with these for you to determine what converts the best.

Be sure that the images are extremely high-quality and optimized properly for mobile use. You’ll also want to test out a variety of messaging based on whatever it is you’re selling.

Enabling sitewide tagging and conversion tracking are the final pieces. These make sure your ads are eligible for conversions and help you keep track of every hit you get.

1. Set Up the Campaign

To get started, sign in to your Google Ads account and click the Campaigns tab on the left. Click the Plus button and select a new campaign.

You’ll need to choose an objective such as website traffic, leads, or sales. You can also select “no goal,” but I recommend choosing one because it will give Google a better idea of what you want to accomplish.

Select the discovery campaign type of either a single image ad, carousel, or both, and then click continue. From there, you’ll choose your demographic and target language, as well as a variety of other audience information.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll set up your daily budget and bidding strategy. Save and continue.

2. Set Up Single-Image Ad

If you’re using a single-image ad like many of the examples featured above, you’ll want to go to your discovery ad and click “Ads and Extensions” from the left panel. Click the Plus button, choose the discovery ad, and then enter all the variable information.

Some of these include:

headline
description
images
business name
logos
URL
call-to-action text

None of this is out of the ordinary, but I have plenty of resources available to help you write the best headlines and descriptions.

3. Set Up Carousel Ad

If you’re using a carousel ad, you’ll follow a lot of the same steps by going to ads and extensions, but you’ll choose “discovery carousel ad” this time.

For this one, you’ll need to choose somewhere between two and ten different card images. They each have their own unique shape and size requirements, so you’ll want to pay attention when doing this. With carousel ads, you can also choose two different URLs: one for mobile and one for desktop.

4. Allow Ramp-Up Time

When you have all your assets and messaging together, you need to give the campaigns a little time. Set the budget for high volume but realize no matter what your budget is, it will take some time for Google to identify your ideal user. Be sure you have enough budget for at least two weeks and wait to see at least 40 conversions before making any adjustments.

The good news is, Google AI handles a lot of that for you here, and you shouldn’t often have to make adjustments unless you entirely missed the mark with your advertising copy and images.

5. Use Automatic Targeting

By choosing automatic targeting, you’re letting Google discovery decide for you how you want to display the ads and who you want them to go to.

To do this, you need to go into your discovery ads panel and choose audiences from the navigation menu. Click the pencil and choose Edit Ad Group Targeting. Here you can choose how far you want Google to expand your audience. When you’re satisfied, click Save.

Google Discovery Ads FAQs

I’ve answered the question, “What is Google Discovery?” Now, let’s take a look at some of the other most frequently asked questions.

How Much Do Google Discovery Ads Cost?

Google Discovery works with cost per view (CPV), so that’s how you’ll pay for your ads. A view is counted when someone interacts with your ad. In the case of a video ad, the view is counted when someone watches at least 30 seconds of your ad.

The average CPA for Google Ads discovery campaigns is about $12, so it’s a great way for businesses and marketers with small budgets to get started in paid advertising.

Where Do Google Discovery Ads Appear?

Google discovery ads appear on the Google app homepage, YouTube homepage, Watch Next feed, and Gmail promotions and social tabs.

What Does a Google Discovery Ad Look Like?

A Google discovery ad looks different based on its location. The example below is from the Google discovery newsfeed in the app. google discovery ads example

How Are Google Discovery Ads Different From Google’s Other Ad Types?

There are two main differences. First, Google AI takes control of a lot of things for you. The AI plays around with your headlines, images, and messaging to determine what converts the best. You don’t have to manually do it if you don’t want to.

Second, these ads are more visual than most Google ads. Instead of just having text, you can display a high-quality image to go along with it.

Google Discovery Conclusion: Discover Your Potential

Google discovery ads are a great way to take advantage of everything Google has to offer. It’s offered a way to make advertising even easier with the implementation of AI. I expect to see more of this happening with search ads as well as display ads.

Have you tested out Google discovery ads yet? What has your experience been?

How to Use Google Alerts for PPC Research

With over 267 million individual visitors, Google is undoubtedly America’s most popular search engine. Why does this matter?

If Google is the most popular search engine, you should be listing your PPC ads on it. What’s more, you should be tracking the most popular topics and keywords in your industry to better inform your PPC research.

How can you do this? Well, there are a few analytics tools available, including my own Ubersuggest. However, did you know you can use the well-known Google Alerts service to inform your PPC campaigns, too?

If you didn’t, don’t worry. When you think of digital marketing and Google, Google Alerts might not be the first tool that comes to mind over, say, Google Ads itself. Let me show you how Google Alerts work and how they can help you run your PPC campaigns more effectively.

What Is Google Alerts?

Google Alerts is essentially a notification tool. You can use the service to track when people use certain keywords or keyphrases online.

For example, you can ask Google to send you an alert whenever someone mentions your or your company’s name online, or you can use it to track what keywords your competitors are using most frequently.

The best part? It’s free to set up a Google Alert, and it’s easy to get going. If you’re a marketer, then it’s worth giving Google Alerts a try.

All that said, is there anything you can’t monitor through Google Alerts? Yes.

You won’t see any analytics details, like how often your brand is mentioned online or if your mentions are increasing. Meaning, you’ll still need tools like Google Analytics to help you measure KPIs and other significant metrics.

What’s more, you can’t track social media posts this way, so you’ll need an alternative tool if you want to track how often you’re mentioned on social media.

In other words, Google Alerts are handy, but they’re not the only tool you should use to track your brand presence online, track keywords, or monitor trends for PPC campaigns.

How to Set Up a Google Alert

It takes no more than a few minutes to set up a Google Alert. Let’s work through the steps together.

First, go to google.com/alerts. If you haven’t already done so, sign in with the Google account you want to receive alerts.

Next, decide what you want to be notified about and type the search term onto the top bar. Let’s use the search term “influencer marketing” as an example:

How to Set Up Google Alerts - Decide which sources you want to track

Then, decide which sources you want to track. Remember, Google Alerts can’t monitor social media posts for you, but you can choose from other sources like books, videos, and blog posts.

Next, decide how often you want to receive Google Alerts. You can opt for instant alerts, meaning you’re notified the moment a relevant post appears, or you can get updates once a day or once per week. It all depends on what works for you.

If you want to tweak your alerts even further, you can. For example, if you only want to receive Google Alerts for posts in a certain language, simply select the language you’re tracking from the drop-down menu. Or, if you only want to monitor posts relevant to a certain country, you can limit the search to this one territory.

Next, choose between receiving “all” results or just the ones Google deems most relevant to your search query. For example, if you’re using a really broad keyword, you might want to restrict alerts to the highest-ranking results only.

Here’s what the best results for “influencer marketing” look like:

How to Set Up Google Alerts - Sample Preview

Then, choose where you want to receive your alerts. You can either direct them to an email address or an RSS feed.

Once you’ve set your parameters, simply click “Create Alert” to complete the process:

How to Set Up Google Alerts - Finalizing the process

Now you’ll start receiving Google Alerts for this search term! If you want to set up any other alerts at this time, just repeat the steps. You can run up to 1,000 Google Alerts simultaneously, which is probably more than enough for you to track. However, if you need more Google Alerts, you can always set up a second account to run them through.

Want to update or delete a Google Alert? No problem. Simply go back to google.com/alerts, select the live alert you want to amend or remove, and click the relevant option from the menus available.

How to Use Google Alerts for PPC Ads

OK, so that’s what Google Alerts are, but can you use them for your PPC ads? Absolutely. Here are the five key ways you can harness the power of Google Alerts for your next PPC campaign.

1. Find Out What’s Trending in Your Industry

Sure, evergreen content matters, but trends are hugely important to every industry. Ideally, then, you want to quickly identify what these trends are and how you can incorporate them into your PPC ads.

How can Google Alerts help? Well, you can use it to monitor blogs and authoritative websites in your niche for new content. You can scan new posts to identify possible trends and capitalize on them before your competitors do.

To set up Google Alerts like these, simply set alerts for “[company name] + blog.” For example, you could track “Forbes blog,” “Shopify blog,” and so on.

Or, if you’re interested in general trends in a broader niche such as email marketing, you can use a wide search term like “email marketing trends,” ask Google to show you the most relevant results only and see what comes up.

2. Identify Topics to Target

While it’s not primarily a keyword research tool, Google Alerts can nevertheless be used to help you identify new keywords and search terms to target through your PPC ad campaigns.

An example might be helpful here.

Say you sell exercise supplements, and you’re launching a new product to help people recover after tough sessions. You can set up Google Alerts to help identify whether people are typing in search queries like “exercise recovery supplements” and “vitamin water.”

To get started, just set up an alert for these search terms. Here are some examples of how you might write out your keywords:

“vitamin water” exercise recovery
“vitamin water” supplement
“exercise recovery supplements” vitamin water

Using quotation marks around certain words ensures you’ll see results containing that exact phrase, plus any other words you’ve added on.

If no one’s searching for these keywords, you should rethink which keywords you’re targeting for your PPC ads. On the other hand, if they’re popular keywords, it might be worth spending the money to have your ads show up for these search queries.

Like I said, Google Alerts isn’t a keyword research tool as such, but you can use it to support your other keyword research strategies.

3. Receive Alerts About Yourself or Your Brand

When you’re creating PPC ad campaigns, it’s crucial you understand who your target audience is. Who is talking about your brand, and what demographics are you reaching? Once you know the answers to questions like these, you can craft targeted, more effective PPC ads.

How can Google Alerts help? By allowing you to track whenever someone mentions you or your company online. Once you start tracking your mentions, you can learn more about who is engaging with your brand and what they expect from you.

Again, these are simple Google Alerts to set up. Simply set up two individual alerts: one for your business name, and one for your personal name.

Use what you discover to decide which demographics to target with your PPC ads going forward.

4. Monitor Your Competitors

It matters what people are saying about you and your brand. However, it’s just as crucial to know:

what your target audience is saying about your competitors; and
how your competitors are performing online

Why does competitor research matter when you’re building a PPC campaign? By understanding your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, you can distinguish your own brand and build the most effective PPC ads possible.

You can monitor competitors’ mentions more generally, or you can search for announcements using search phrases like “competitor name + product announcement.” Use your findings to inform your product launch campaigns and PPC ads and stand out from the crowd.

5. Track and Manage Negative Reviews

No business likes getting negative reviews, but let’s face it: they’re a commercial reality. What’s important, though, is how you handle those reviews and use the feedback to improve your business. In fact, 96 percent of consumers read company responses to negative reviews, so your answers matter.

Why does this matter from a PPC perspective? Even if people click through your PPC ads, they won’t buy from you if all they’re doing is seeing multiple negative reviews and no feedback from you or the customer services team.

Can Google Alerts help you track and manage negative reviews, though? Sure. Here’s how.

First, you can just monitor for brand mentions. However, there’s a chance you’ll miss negative reviews tracked this way, especially if you’re a popular brand with multiple mentions.

Next, then, you can set up a special Google Alert for reviews only. It looks like this:

[brandname] + intitle:review

For example, if your company is called “Coffee King,” your alert looks like this:

How to Use Google Alerts for PPC Ads - Track negative reviews

Seventy-two percent of customers read reviews before taking action, like making purchases, so even if you’re running great PPC ads, reviews still matter, and it’s crucial you stay ahead of them if you want to get the most from your PPC campaigns.

Google Alerts FAQ

Let me quickly recap some of the key points we touched on.

What are Google Alerts?

Google Alerts is a notification tool. You can use the service to track who is talking about certain keywords you’re interested in and what they’re saying.

How do I set up Google Alerts?

Set up Google Alerts by going to google.com/alerts. Select your keywords, choose your notification frequency, and click “Create Alert” to go live. You can opt to receive notifications to your email address or an RSS feed, whichever you prefer.

What is the best way to use Google Alerts?

There’s no single “best” way to use Google Alerts. However, it’s ideal for checking out what people are saying about your brand and, importantly, performing crucial keyword research to better inform your PPC ad campaigns and ensure the right audiences actually see your paid ads.

Are Google Alerts free?

Yes, they’re totally free to set up and use. They’re worth trying out as part of your wider digital marketing strategy and PPC research.

Is there a limit to how many Google Alerts I can set up?

You can run up to 1,000 Google Alerts at one time. If this isn’t enough for you, then you could always set up some Google Alerts on a separate work account.

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Google Alerts for PPC Conclusion

If you plan on running a PPC campaign, you’ll know how important it is to research your target audience and choose the right keywords. As we’ve seen, Google Alerts can help, whether you’re sussing out popular keywords or researching popular trends within your industry.

Is a Google Alert the only tool you should use to track your PPC performance? Probably not. However, since it’s free to get started and it’s simple to set up an alert or two, I suggest trying them for yourself to see if they align with your company’s unique marketing strategy.

Do you need more help with your overall PPC marketing campaign? Reach out to me and discover more about how I can help you on your digital marketing journey.

Have you set up Google Alerts yet? What are you using them for?

How to Create a Free Google Website For Your Business

A web presence is essential for getting found online, especially these days. According to Statista.com, nearly a third of consumers in the United States look online for a local business every day. It’s simple: websites are essential for attracting new customers.

A website proves invaluable in other ways, too, like showcasing your products and increasing leads. However, your website doesn’t need to cost a fortune and include the latest features. If you’re a small business that just wants to let customers know who you are and what you do, a free Google website may be just what you’re looking for.

What is Google’s Free Website Builder?

Google’s free website builder is part of Google My Business and helps customers discover you online.

When creating your website, Google takes the information in your GMB business profile and uses it for the building blocks of your website. Aside from some customization, you’re pretty much good to go from there.

Although there’s no cost, free Google websites are professional-looking and offer a selection of contemporary themes.

Google’s website builder is suitable for everyone, even for beginners. There’s no need for technical expertise with a free Google website and no worries regarding extensive backups.

Additional benefits with a free Google website are:

You don’t need to rely on social media: Not every potential customer is on social media, and many may not be on the platforms you like best. Having a website of your own, where people can Google your name or what you sell and find your information without signing in to Facebook or Twitter, can bring in those customers.
Ease of use: One of the main benefits of a free Google website is its simplicity, and it delivers great-looking websites. For instance, even the free version of WordPress can seem overwhelming for the absolute beginner, with menus, pages, sub-menus, etc.
It provides the essentials: If you’re not looking for the whole e-commerce experience, then a free Google website is all you need for reaching out to a broader audience.

Here are some more reasons why you should use a free Google website for getting online.

Why Should You Build a Website Using Google’s Free Tool?

Only 64 percent of small businesses have websites. Meanwhile, 70 percent of potential customers are more likely to buy from a business with a website.

This means 36 percent of businesses may be missing out on 70 percent of buyers.

Websites make businesses seem more legitimate, particularly if the website looks professional. Google websites, which take almost no time to set up and require minimal maintenance, can look like you spent hours of time and thousands of dollars to make it look great.

If Google’s free website gets you found, why not take advantage of its ease of setup and free features?

Google Website Builder Features

The number one thing that sets Google’s business websites apart from others is that it automatically makes the site for you. You can alter things as you need, but if you have a Google My Business account and select the website option, it automatically populates the information on a site for you using a template you choose.

Don’t let its simplicity fool you. A Google My Business free website offers you plenty in the way of features.

For instance, it provides you with built-in optimization so customers can:

contact or message you
place orders
get quotes for services
book your services or arrange deliveries

Additionally, a free Google website allows you to “showcase what makes your business special” via:

images
stories
posts

Other features worth mentioning are:

integration with Google Maps and Calendar
image carousel and video links
connection with Google Drive

Besides the above, Google gives you automatic updates, advertising, and it’s mobile-friendly too.

As you can see, a free Google website offers a lot to the new business owner, but how does it compare with others?

Google Website Builder Versus WordPress and Other Similar Tools

The Google website builder one-page format beats many other options in the simplicity stakes.

Additionally, it creates a website with almost no effort on your side, which is where Google’s product stands out from similar tools. It also lets you import images with a few clicks, and you can track analytics, so all in all, it offers you the essentials.

The other main advantage over its rivals is you’re not starting from scratch, and you aren’t making all the decisions yourself.

Although it may seem basic to some, Google gives you a functional, great-looking website, and with some imagination, it delivers impressive results.

For inspiration, look at what Steel Mailbox did with theirs. This Google business website starts with the basics that could be pulled in from their business information (e.g., the directions function).

Free Google Website - Steel Mailbox example

If you click the “hamburger” in the upper left, you see options the company chose to add, which jump you to different page areas. One cool feature they added was a list of mailbox types with brief definitions of each one. This allows people shopping for mailboxes to understand what type they need without having to dig through Steel Mailbox’s non-Google site.

Free Google website - Steel Mailbox links to main site

If a customer clicked on one of those blue links, they would be taken directly to the type of mailbox they’re looking for. If they went through the main site—and you can have both a simple Google business site and a more in-depth one—they would likely have to do more digging to find precisely what they need.

What a great feature for customers on the go.

When it comes to this type of website, perhaps its weakest area is ongoing SEO optimization, but you can use a free or paid-for tool to find keywords and include them in your descriptions and posts.

WordPress

While bloggers, Fortune 500 companies, and small businesses use WordPress to build their websites, it’s actually a content management system.

You’ve two options for getting started. WordPress.com gives you the free version, while WordPress.org offers a paid one.

At the free level, the most significant difference between Google and WordPress is that you can create multiple pages within your site, while Google has a one-page format.

Free Google website - competitor WordPress price levels

When you get to the paid levels, you can add additional functions.

While WordPress offers many more functions than Google websites, no matter which level you use, you have to start from scratch. Nothing is auto-populated. Nevertheless, there are plenty of tutorials online if you’re just learning, and you won’t need to do any coding.

Wix

Wix is another free website builder, although it also offers premium and e-commerce plans too. Getting started is simple. Just sign up or log in with Facebook or Google to get started.

Like WordPress, the free level is relatively limited in functionality. If you’re willing to pay, though, you can access hundreds of templates, additional types of analytics, and more.

Wix provides 500 different templates, and its drag and drop feature means beginners can use it without needing technical expertise.

Other features include:

media galleries
mobile optimization
unlimited fonts
a personalized SEO plan

Wix also provides coding for visitor tracking, while its analytics tool shows your sales, traffic, and visitor behavior.

How to Customize Your Free Google Website

After you have set up your Google My Business page (detailed steps are in the next section), you’ll be able to see your site free google website in a standard setup. You can then start customizing from there.

Free Google website - Google my business

The list nearest your sample site includes things you can do right now, like add photos, text, and themes. The one furthest left includes:

home
posts
reviews
messages
products
insights

Take some time to get to know these options and which each one does.

From the home page, you can also:

finish your profile by adding opening hours, descriptions, and logos
update customers on news and events
create a custom @yourbusiness email address
launch virtue tours and create adverts

You can see the themes, add pictures with a photo gallery, and edit your site’s categories from the other menu.

Free Google website - Tony's SEO Shop website example

To best set up your site, follow these steps:

Choose your theme: For customizing, the most obvious starting point is by looking at the themes. There are ten to choose from, all with different colors and styles of text. Click on them one by one to see which theme most closely matches your business’s style and the image you want to convey.
Add Photos: Click on the top right-hand corner of the header picture, drag your photo, or upload one from your computer. To add other images, click on “photos” on the left-hand side.
Editing: Edit text by clicking the blue “Edit” button under photos.
Additional changes: Click “More” to change settings, publish, or for advice on getting customers.

It’s that easy! You’ve finished building your free Google website, and you should be ready to start getting noticed online.

How to Build Your Free Google Website

Before building your website, set up your Google my Business Page, if you haven’t already. Here’s how to do just that.

Go to Google’s website builder.
You’re looking for the “website” heading. It’s the third one along at the top.
Add your business name and click the blue arrow.
Add your business category.
If your service or industry isn’t clear cut, add the class representing your company the best. Click “Next.”
Select your location preferences.
Now, Google asks if you want your business location to appear on your website. Either select “Yes, I want it to appear on my website” or “No, I prefer not to.” Depending on the type of business, you may need to include an address. Choose the appropriate option and click “Next.”
Choose if your business provides deliveries or services.
Choose if your business provides deliveries or services. This step is optional.
Add your region and click “Next.”
Add your phone number.
Add your business address details, including country and zip code.
Verify your accout.
Do this by clicking on the “Home” page, which you’ll find at the top of the menu on the left, and following the “Verify” link.

You’re ready to start building your free Google website!

Create a Free Google Website FAQs

What Is the main benefit of a free Google website?

Unlike its rivals, you’re not starting from scratch, and you aren’t making all the decisions yourself. Although it may seem basic to some, a Google site gives you a functional, great-looking website, and with some imagination, you’ll get impressive results.

How do I set up a Google My Business Page?

Google provides step-by-step instructions.

Do I Need Technical Expertise to Build a Free Google Website?

No, a free Google website creates a professional-looking website with minimal input from you.

How Does a Free Google Website Compare With Its Rivals?

While other options offer additional features, Google outshines its competitors regarding simplicity and ease of use.

Conclusion

Having an online presence is a necessity these days. If would-be customers can’t find your website, you’re likely missing out on clients.

However, building a website doesn’t mean spending a lot of money or needing technical expertise. Instead, you can begin by starting with a free Google website and set it up in a few easy steps.

Once you’re online, you can start benefiting from additional leads, more customers, and increased conversions—all the things you need for increasing your business success rate and growing a thriving enterprise.

How has using a free Google Business website affected your business?

How to Claim Knowledge Panels in Google For More Organic Visibility

If something is written about your brand online, you want to know about it, right?

That’s even more true if it’s an authoritative source speaking about your brand and giving information to the public about what you sell, where you’re located, your hours, your website, and more.

When Google shares information about your brand in what is called Google Knowledge Panels, you don’t want to just know about it—you want to claim it.

Why do you want to claim knowledge panels? You get to control the narrative. When you tell Google you’re the owner of that brand, you can make sure the information is accurate and up to date.

This is a critical step when you’re using SEO to build your brand.

To claim knowledge panels for your brand is relatively simple and something you want to get on top of to keep customers coming through your doors or to your website with consistency, arming them with the right information.

What Are Google Knowledge Panels?

You don’t have to use too much imagination. Remember the last time you googled anything? The information you were looking for just popped up, towards the top of the screen, with relevant data all in one place.

Enter Google Knowledge Panels. You don’t have to know what they’re called to know what they are. They are the boxes of information you see near the top of a Google search for anything from a person to a brand.

Knowledge panels can include:

a brand or entity name
descriptions
details about the person or brand
history
contact information
featured images

According to Google, it uses different factors to decide what goes in that panel. As you start to look around, you’ll start to notice some information seems gathered from other sources, such as Wikipedia or other online websites.

In addition, Google uses its data involving keyword searches and questions people tend to ask regarding that particular entity or item, and it pulls those questions and answers in.

It’s all based on Google’s Knowledge Graph. Google uses all that data to build the knowledge panels you see when you search for something. These aren’t necessarily generated by the person who has claimed their Google knowledge panel.

Now, let’s look at a couple of examples.

claim knowledge panel watermelon example

This one is about watermelons. It’s not specifically owned by anyone in particular and therefore not claimable.

Here is an example of a knowledge panel associated with a person. She could go in and claim it using the button on the bottom left.

We’ll discuss more about how this works.

Why Should You Claim Knowledge Panels in Google?

Is it worth taking the time to claim knowledge panels in Google? If you’re the owner of a brand with a knowledge panel, you can verify your relationship to that entity and at least influence some of the information provided in the panel.

There are several reasons why you should consider taking the time to claim knowledge panels:

increase control over what’s being highlighted about your brand
ensure accurate and up-to-date information
keep social media profile links up to date
choose which featured images are used
have a more engaged relationship with what Google is showing about your brand

While you don’t have direct access to the panel to make changes, by claiming your knowledge panel, you have Google’s ear, so to speak. You can send in a suggestion or request an update with your Google account associated with that knowledge panel so when Google receives your request, it knows it’s coming from an authoritative source.

Steps to Claim Knowledge Panels in Google

ow you’re ready to claim knowledge panels that relate to you, your brand, or entities that you represent in Google. Here are some steps to get you started:

1. Sign in to Your Google Account

You need to have a Google account to be able to claim knowledge panels. If you have a Gmail address or other Google product where you’ve set up an account, then you are good to go. If not, go ahead and set one up. To continue, you’ll need to be logged in.

Now log in to your preferred Google account. If you use a specific account for your brand or your related business needs, sign in to that one.

2. Search for the Knowledge Panel Topic

Once you’re logged in, use Google to search for yourself, your brand, your entity, or your organization. It may seem self-explanatory, but you need to actually type in the entity for which knowledge panel you’re looking for.

The goal here is to pull up the knowledge panel like any other searcher on the internet would see it. There is no back-end way to see the knowledge panel, like the development or content end of your website.

The nice thing about this is you’ll be able to see what users see. Maybe since you’re sitting down to work on this anyway, you may think of related topics you want to check out. You can do that from here by performing a search for that knowledge panel.

Now that you’ve searched for it, you should see the brand or other name at the top of the knowledge panel. If not, search again. Many brands or organizations have similar or even identical names, so make sure you see yours before continuing. You don’t want to accidentally claim someone else’s—or get stuck not being able to claim your own.

3. Click the Claim Knowledge Panels Link

Look for the link on the bottom that says, “Claim This Knowledge Panel.”

The button is located at the bottom of the box surrounding the knowledge panel. The size may vary, but all are surrounded by a thin line.

Go ahead and click the link. If you don’t see it, the knowledge panel may already be claimed by another entity. Make sure you’re looking at the right panel.

Here you will be able to review the available features. As we mentioned above, knowledge panels are not created by those who claim or verify them. Google uses various algorithms and machine knowledge to pull what it deems to be relevant information into these panels.

4. Look for Profiles You Can Use to Claim Knowledge Panels

Google uses a number of different connections on other web platforms that you can sign into to prove your identity or relation to the knowledge panel you want to claim. You can choose from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and more. Once you sign in to one of these, you’ve claimed your knowledge panel and can make updates or changes as available.

5. Give Others Access

Once you’ve gone through all the work to claim your knowledge panel, you may want to make sure other people on your team have access to your brand’s knowledge panels as well.

To do this, you need to be logged in to the same Google account you used to claim the panel. Go to Google’s Manage User page.

Click to add people and then add the email addresses of those you want to give access to your knowledge panels. Choose which levels of permission you want to give them. Every level has the option to go in and suggest changes to your knowledge panel, which we will discuss in more detail below. However, an owner or manager can add or delete others from access.

7 Steps to Update Your Google Knowledge Panel

Now that you have verified yourself and have claimed your knowledge panel, you can begin the work of actually managing it.

This won’t eat up all your time or require constant maintenance, but you may want to check in every once in a while. If you do see an error in your Google knowledge panel or if one has been reported to you, you can take certain steps to make necessary updates. It’s at Google’s discretion, however, so it may take some time and patience.

Sign In
Make sure you’re logged in to the Google account you used to claim your knowledge panel, or the one someone used to gain you access to the knowledge panel. Otherwise, Google won’t recognize you as someone related to that account.

In addition, you need to turn on “Web and App Activities” under Google’s Activity Controls in your Google account. Essentially, this helps track your steps as you are moving around your searches and helps Google ensure you have access to the knowledge panel.
Search for the Knowledge Panel
Just as when you claimed your knowledge panel, you need to use Google Search to look for the entity whose knowledge panel you want to update. Googling your brand’s name is probably the best and easiest way to get there, but remember to look carefully at the knowledge panel and make sure it’s referencing the entity you intended. If not, keep searching until you find the right one.
Click Suggest Edits
If you are logged in to the correct Google account and are looking at the associated knowledge panel, you should see a link at the top of the knowledge panel that says “Suggest Edits” or a similar iteration. If you don’t see it, verify you are signed in correctly and are looking at the right knowledge panel.

When you are, go ahead and click it. This is your portal for suggesting updates.
Choose What You Want to Update
Click the area you want to update. You will be doing each one separately, so if you have more than one change you would like to see, just start with one, and you can continue with more changes later.

Areas you want to update might include images, descriptions or titles, social media profile links, and more.

Here is an example using Boden’s knowledge panel. You can see how each bit of information is broken into different options. You can choose which section you want to suggest an update for.
Write Out Your Suggested Updates
Because this is Google’s product and not one you can directly control yourself, you can’t just go in and make updates on the areas you would like.

You can, however, ask Google to go in and review your suggestions.

When you click on the area you want to update, a small text box will open where you can enter your suggested update.

Be as specific as possible and provide as much background as you can. This helps the reviewer on Google’s end have as much context as possible to understand the logic behind the suggested change. You can also provide links to any websites or pages to verify your requested change.
Wait
This isn’t the easy part, but you will have to wait for your review to be accepted. Google will manually review your suggestion and check for verifiable information online to back up your update for accuracy. That’s why providing the specifics and URLs as mentioned above is important.

When Google accepts your updates, you will be contacted via email.
Create More Suggestions
You should send each update as a separate request. In other words, if you want to see the image updated as well as social media profile links, you should do these separately.

This keeps the review process clean and easy to follow. It also allows you to be specific and detailed without muddling your requests.

Get in there and make suggestions for updates whenever you deem necessary.

Conclusion

Knowing what people are learning about you and your brand is key to understanding how the public perceives you. If the information at the top of a Google search isn’t accurate or isn’t reflective of what you want to project, you need to claim knowledge panels and request those updates are made.

Claiming knowledge panels can give you at least a little more control over how your brand appears in a Google search, but it’s not the end. In fact, it’s just one step in building an online brand and SEO. There’s so much you can do to improve your SEO and stay in front of your customer base with the knowledge they need to interact with your brand well.

Have you claimed your brand’s Google knowledge panel yet?