Tag: Google

February 2020 SEO News Updates – Google says URL Length is Not a Ranking Factor

Google said URL length is not a ranking factor and there’s a claim my business option despite having already claimed the Google My Business listing? The start of February sees some pretty confusing news, so let’s get into it. Google Announcements 5/2/2020 – URL Length is not a Ranking Factor? Google’s John Mueller has said …

How I Generate 18,800 Visitors from Google Without SEO or Ads

If you want to get traffic from Google, how would you go
about it?

Chances are you are either going to leverage SEO or pay for
some ads.

But what if there was another way to get traffic from Google? A way that didn’t take as long as SEO and didn’t cost money like paid ads. And no, I’m not talking about Google News… there is actually an easier way.

It’s so effective that it drove 18,800 visitors to my site in the last 3 months. Just look at the screenshot above.

So, what is it?

Google Discover

Similar to how you have feeds on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, did you know Google has a feed for you.

It’s called Google Discover.

If you mainly use Google on your laptop or desktop computer, chances are you haven’t seen it. But if you have the Google mobile app or the Chrome mobile app, you probably have already seen it.

Here’s what it looks like on an iPhone:

This is Google’s version of a social feed.

Here’s how it works… Google Discover results, which appear below the search box on the Google mobile app and Chrome mobile app, show a summary of web pages as cards. These cards are a scrollable list of topics, almost like a social feed, that you can browse on your mobile devices.

Tapping one of these cards from Google search home will send
you directly to the page you just clicked on.

And if you are wondering why you are seeing certain stories
that others may not be, it’s because the recommendations are based on search
history, interactions with Google products, and who you choose to follow
directly via Google Discover.

But here is where it’s getting interesting…

Google Discover is everywhere, you just don’t know it

Discover results for some topics also appear within the
search engine results under the label “Interesting finds.”

If you click one of these stories, it’ll take you directly to that web page, or, if you click to see “more stories” at the bottom of the Interesting Finds card, it’ll bring you to a new Google Discover user interface where you can follow that topic, follow related topics, and explore related Discover listings.

Now if you have a Pixel phone, you’ve seen Discover a lot, but again you just haven’t realized it.

By simply swiping right on your Pixel phone home screen you
get a customizable and personalized feed just like the image above.

Now, you may be wondering, how is this different than just
using Google News? Because they have a top stories section which is kind of
like a feed, right?

Unlike top stories, Discover doesn’t limit rankings to what’s published most recently.

If Google thinks a user would find earlier content
interesting, then Discover might show it. Discover also features videos, sports
scores, entertainment updates such a movie, stock prices, event info for things
like a music festival, and much more.

Google is positioning Discover as a content hub for all of your interests just like Facebook is doing with their feed.

In other words, this is Google’s version of your Facebook
feed.

Similar to following a hashtag on Instagram, you can follow
a topic of interest on Discover. Also, similar to Instagram’s Explore Page, you
don’t need to follow anything to get content you might like. Discover is aiming
to show you content you’d be interested in before you even know you want
it.

The key is “before you knew about it.” Just like how Facebook and Instagram do the same thing.

So, why should you care about Google Discover?

Because it can drive you a ton of traffic.

Just check out one of the clients of my ad agency, Neil Patel Digital. Look at their Discover traffic.

They generated 3.64 million impressions in the last 28 days
and 79,000 clicks to their site.

That’s a ton of traffic. In addition, all of those impressions help with branding.

Now you may not care about branding but the larger your
brand, the easier it is to rank on Google. Brand search volume is more correlated
with rankings than links or domain authority.

And as Google’s ex-CEO stated:

Brands are the solution, not the problem. Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.

So, all of those impressions you can generate from Discover are great because they will help put your brand out there. It helps with the concept called the Rule of 7, in which when someone sees or interacts with your brand 7 times, they are much more likely to become a loyal customer.

This can also help with Google’s E-A-T algorithm updates. It is the best way if you want to build up your expertise and credibility as an author. Discover is a simple way to help you get there.

So, how can you get more traffic from Discover?

How to optimize for Google Discover

Luckily, it’s not as complicated as SEO and the results happen
much faster. Still not instant, but over time you should see your Discover
traffic continually rising.

Here are 3 simple tips that will help:

  1. Be sure to use high-quality images. Images appear with every Discover result, so relevant and high-quality images that accompany your content is important. And just like with your headlines and titles, try to choose images that are more likely to entice clicks. Images that are shocking or evoke curiosity will do the trick.
  2. Content is king, but if you don’t write about the right stuff then you won’t show up. Check which topics Google suggests following inside of Discover to see if those topics align with your website. If it does, consider using their suggested topics as a guide to what people are interested in and write similar content. Of course, you don’t want to copy others, you want to go above and beyond so you can one-up your competition. Use Brian Dean’s skyscraper technique to do this.
  3. Hopefully, when you’re creating your website content, you’re already taking some time to think about maximizing your content. What do I mean by that? Maximizing your content means thinking about your website as an API for your content. So yes, your content lives on your site, but hopefully, you’re creating it keeping in mind how it can be posted or promoted in other areas so you can secure backlinks and attract social engagement across other relevant channels. To do this you need to focus on topics with shareability, topics that are trending, topics with growing interest, and also focus on leveraging clickbait and enticing titles and headlines. Remember that Google Discover is like a social feed. If you’re only trying to make your content work hard for you on your site, you’re not getting enough out of it.

Once you make a deliberate effort to go after Discover
traffic, it’s time to measure how you are doing.

Analyzing your traffic

Chances are, you use Google Analytics. But to see how well you are doing on Discover, it’s easier if you use Google Search Console.

Head over to Search Console and log in.

Now, on the left side, you’ll see a navigation menu.

I want you to click on “Discover.” (You’ll only see this option if you hit a minimum threshold in Discover traffic)

You’ll now see a report that looks something like this.

Compared to the screenshot I showcased earlier, I barely get
any Discover traffic.

Why you may ask?

Do you notice a trend with my chart? Well, I tend to publish content every Tuesday and that’s the day I get Discover traffic.

Similar to any other social network (and unlike traditional SEO), you mainly see traffic as you post new content. It’s not long-term traffic that is consistent, instead, you keep getting quick bursts of traffic.

I only blog once a week, but if I write multiple pieces of
content a day, my Discover traffic would skyrocket.

Conclusion

Whether you are a fan of Discover or not, it doesn’t matter. As a marketer, you need to look at it as another channel.

Data has already shown that it is popular and as long as
Google keeps pushing it, people will use it.

So why not leverage it to your advantage and harness it to drive traffic and sales for your site?

Plus, you should never rely on traffic from just one channel alone because the moment an algorithm change happens, it can crush your traffic. That’s why you need to take an omnichannel approach and leverage any relevant channel out there.

So, what do you think of Discover? Do you use it on your
phone? Have you thought about leveraging it for traffic to your site?

The post How I Generate 18,800 Visitors from Google Without SEO or Ads appeared first on Neil Patel.

How to Check if Google Manually Reviewed Your Site

Do you know how Google decides what website should be ranked number 1, 2, 3 and so on for any given keyword?

Well, they have an algorithm for that.

But as you know, algorithms aren’t perfect. That’s why Google continually tries to improve it.

One way that they try to improve their algorithm is through Search Quality Raters.

What’s a Search Quality Rater?

Google knows that they can always make their search results
better. And one way is to have humans review their listings for any given
keyword.

So, all around the world, Google has
people who manually review websites. And they review each website based on these
guidelines.

It’s kind of long and extensive, but it is important that the Quality Raters don’t directly impact rankings.

Instead, they give feedback to the engineers who code up the algorithm so they can make it more relevant to searchers.

Now, the real question is, how do you know your site is
being reviewed?

First, I want you to log into your Google Analytics account and go to the audience overview report.

Then click on “Add Segment.”

Your screen should look something like this:

Then click on “+ New Segment.”

Your screen should look like the image above.

I want you to click “Conditions,” which is under the “Advanced” navigation label. Once you do that, fill out everything to match the screenshot below and click “save”.

Just make sure that when you are filling out the table you are clicking the “or” button and not the “and” button. And make sure you select “Source” for the first column.

Now that you’ve created the new segment, it’s time to see if
any Quality Raters have viewed your site.

How to spot Quality Raters

When you are in Google Analytics, you’ll want to make sure
you select the segment you just created.

If you copied my screenshot, you would have labeled it “Search Engine Evaluators.” And when you select it, you’ll probably see a graph that looks something like the image below.

You’ll notice that no Quality Raters have been to my site
during the selected date period, which is common as they don’t visit your site
daily and, in many cases, they don’t come often at all.

The other thing you’ll notice is that next to the “Audience Overview” heading, there is a yellow shield symbol. If your symbol is green, then that’s good.

Yellow means your data is being sampled.

If you see the yellow symbol, reduce your date range and you’ll eventually see a green shield next to “Audience Overview” like the image below.

In general, it is rare that Quality Raters view your site each month. But as you expand your time window, you’ll be able to spot them.

And once you spot them, you can shorten the date range so the data isn’t sampled and then drill down to what they were looking at on your website.

The key to analyzing what Quality Raters are doing on your site is to look at the “Site Content” report in Google Analytics and that will help you produce results that look like the screenshot above.

To get to that report, click on “Behavior,” then “Site Content,” and then “All Pages.”

What do I do with this information?

The goal of a Quality Rater is to help improve Google’s
algorithm. And whether they have visited your site or not, your goal should
be to make your site the best site in the industry.

You can do so by doing the following 3 things:

  1. Follow the quality guidelines that Google has released. It’s 168 pages long but, by skimming it, you can get a good understanding of what they are looking for.
  2. Always put the user first. Yes, you want higher rankings, but don’t focus on Google, focus on the user. In the long run, this should help you rank higher as Google’s goal is to make their algorithm optimized for user preferences over things like on-page SEO or link building.
  3. Check out Google’s advice for beating algorithm changes. In that article, you’ll find a breakdown of what Google is really looking for.

Conclusion

If you have Quality Raters browsing your site from time to time,
don’t freak out. It doesn’t mean your rankings are going to go down or up.

And if you can’t find any Quality Raters visiting your site,
don’t freak out either. Because that doesn’t mean that you won’t ever rank well
in Google.

As your site gets more popular, you’ll notice a higher chance of Quality Raters visiting your site over time. This just means that you need to focus more on delighting your website visitors. Create the best experience for them and you’ll win in the long run.

So, have you spotted any Quality Raters in your Google Analytics?

PS: Special shoutout to Matthew Woodward who originally brought the Google Quality Raters segmentation to light.

The post How to Check if Google Manually Reviewed Your Site appeared first on Neil Patel.

Google Adwords Qualified Company Certification: Do Ppc Customers Learn About This Certification?

Google Adwords Qualified Company Certification: Do Ppc Customers Know About This Certification? There are several methods and also programs readily available to individuals that have an interest in Internet advertising in this day as well as age. Hereof, you might be asking yourself if PPC clients understand about Google AdWords Qualified Company qualification. Via this … Continue reading Google Adwords Qualified Company Certification: Do Ppc Customers Learn About This Certification?