Search Engine Optimization – Vertical Web Hosting, Design Marketing: Recent Episodes

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Maximizing Website ROI with Google Analytics 4: Essential Insights for Business OwnersIn today’s digital landscape, having a website is the first step but should not be the last step. Understanding how that website performs and contributes to your business goals is what separates successful online ventures from those that struggle to gain traction. At Vertical Web, we frequently encounter business owners who have invested thousands in web design, SEO services, or SEM campaigns but have no idea whether that investment generates returns. This week’s Internet Marketing Clinic focused on implementing Google Analytics 4 (GA4) correctly and using it to determine your website’s true ROI.

The Foundation: Choosing the Right PlatformBefore diving into analytics, we need to address a critical decision that affects everything else: your website platform. While builders like Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify offer convenience, they often limit your ability to optimize for search engines and implement proper tracking.

WordPress remains our recommended solution for most businesses. Despite what some may perceive as a steeper learning curve, WordPress provides:

• Superior customization options
• Better search engine visibility
• More robust analytics implementation
• Greater control over your digital assets

As we often say at our clinics, “You can’t fix what you can’t measure,” and many website builders simply don’t allow for proper measurement.

Setting Up Google Analytics 4 CorrectlyGoogle Analytics 4 represents a significant shift from previous versions, focusing more on user journeys and engagement rather than simple pageviews. Proper setup involves two critical components:

1. Google Analytics 4 code – This needs to be added to your website header
2. Google Tag Manager – No longer optional, this must be implemented alongside GA4

The Site Kit plugin, made by Google, significantly simplifies this process for WordPress users. However, it’s essential to verify that both components are working correctly after installation. Many businesses we’ve worked with had Analytics installed but were missing Tag Manager, resulting in incomplete data collection.

Understanding Engagement Metrics vs. Vanity MetricsOne of the most powerful insights from GA4 is the distinction between engaged users and total users. In our clinic, we demonstrated this using Vertical Web’s own analytics data:

According to our metrics, approximately half of our traffic consisted of engaged users—those who visited multiple pages during their session. This engagement metric has become increasingly important for two reasons:

1. Google’s ranking algorithms now prioritize sites that keep users engaged
2. Engaged users are significantly more likely to convert into customers

When we analyze client websites, we often find they’re focused on total traffic numbers (a vanity metric) rather than engagement metrics (actionable data). A website with 1,000 monthly visitors and a 5% engagement rate is performing worse than one with 500 visitors and a 20% engagement rate.

The Value of Search Console InsightsAnother invaluable tool we demonstrated was Google Search Console, which reveals exactly which search queries bring visitors to your site. Using Vertical Web as an example, we analyzed search impressions and clicks for various keywords:

• “Web development services” generated 7,000 impressions
• “Unlimited web hosting” showed 3,879 impressions with click-throughs despite being ranked 30th

This data provides actionable intelligence about what potential customers are searching for and where you have opportunities to improve your visibility. It helps answer crucial questions like:

• Which keywords are actually bringing in business?
• Where are we visible but not getting clicks?
• What content should we create to capture more relevant traffic?

Tracking Actual Conversions, Not Just TrafficThe most significant insight from our clinic was the importance of tracking conversions—the actions that translate into actual business revenue.

For e-commerce sites, this is relatively straightforward: you can track purchases and their value. For service businesses, tracking becomes more nuanced, focusing on:

• Form submissions
• Phone calls (using call tracking)
• Chat interactions
• PDF downloads
• Time spent on key pages

During our session, we shared a revealing anecdote about a business that discovered 90% of their conversions came from a single keyword (“web hosting”) despite spreading their efforts across dozens of terms. This insight allowed them to reallocate resources more effectively and significantly increase their ROI.

The Direct Traffic AdvantageAn often-overlooked metric is direct traffic—users who type your URL directly or have bookmarked your site. In our analytics review, we found that direct traffic often indicates:

• Brand recognition and strength
• Repeat customers
• Word-of-mouth referrals

While organic search traffic typically represents new potential customers, direct traffic often indicates existing relationships. Both are valuable, but direct traffic is usually more likely to convert and costs less to acquire. Building a business that generates substantial direct traffic takes time but creates a significant competitive advantage.

As we demonstrated with Vertical Web’s own metrics, a substantial portion of our new business comes from direct traffic—people who know us by reputation or referral—which has taken years to develop but now provides a steady stream of qualified leads.

Evaluating Web DesignersOne of the most practical segments of our clinic focused on how to evaluate web designers and SEO professionals before hiring them. The simple approach: ask to see websites they’ve worked on, then examine:

• Do title tags include relevant keywords (not just “Services” or generic terms)?
• Is the content naturally written for humans while still being SEO-friendly?
• Does the site structure make logical sense for both users and search engines?

Many business owners come to us after spending thousands on websites that were built without SEO considerations, requiring complete rebuilds. By examining a designer’s past work through this lens, you can avoid this costly mistake.

The ROI Bottom LineAt the end of the day, website ROI comes down to a simple calculation:

ROI = (Revenue Generated – Cost of Website) / Cost of Website

The challenge lies in tracking that first number accurately. By implementing GA4 properly and focusing on the metrics that matter, you can:

1. Identify which keywords and content drive actual business
2. Understand user journeys that lead to conversions
3. Allocate marketing resources more effectively
4. Measure improvements over time

Next Steps for Your BusinessIf you’re not currently tracking your website’s ROI effectively, here’s what we recommend:

1. Ensure both Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager are properly installed
2. Connect Google Search Console to your analytics
3. Set up conversion tracking for important actions (forms, calls, etc.)
4. Begin regularly reviewing engagement metrics rather than just total traffic
5. Test different approaches and measure their impact on actual conversions

At Vertical Web, we’ve helped hundreds of businesses transform their websites from expenses into revenue-generating assets through proper analytics implementation and data-driven optimization. The insights from this approach don’t just improve your website—they can reshape your entire marketing strategy.

Remember, the most beautiful website in the world is worthless if it doesn’t contribute to your bottom line. Start measuring what matters today.

Want to learn more about maximizing your website’s ROI? Join our weekly Internet Marketing Clinic every Wednesday at 1 PM. Subscribe to our channel to get notifications when we go live!

Related posts:1. Ultimate Guide to Recovering from Google Algorithm Updates and Penalties 2. What To Do When A Google Update Affects Your Website 3. 8 SEO Tips That Can Contribute to Better Google Rankings

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Unexpectedly, the SEO community was gifted a leak. Just as everyone was wringing their hands and lamenting SEO is dead (it’s not), here came a blueprint for SEOs.

I have just begun soaking in all the information contained in this document. By way of background, Rand Fiskin, founder of MOZ, was contacted about the Google API being accidentally uploaded. But as I read through this, in many ways, it’s not telling me things I didn’t already know, but I feel very vindicated because it backs a lot of what I think but could never prove.

From the Desk of an SEO Expert – A Look BackSo why should you trust my insights as an SEO Expert? The Google leak, in many ways, validates things I’ve been saying for years. I’ve always maintained that Google lies and misleads SEO companies, and this leak seems to confirm that. But let me define why I am an SEO expert so you can evaluate the podcast, video, and this post. I have 28 years of experience in SEO. My company was formed seven months before Google. Since my very first client, I have been navigating the ever-changing landscape of SERPs.

Back in those days, it was easy. How much keyword stuffing is needed? How many pop culture references can I add to my title tag? Or, best of all, I could type in the same color of the background and feed the search engine but not making apparent to the visitor. There were a lot of these ‘tricks’ back in the day. Do them now and do so at your peril. This is not a thing anymore and hasn’t been for many years.

Our SEO journey began when the search was still rudimentary before there were 14,000 data points. As the industry evolved, we adapted and built our knowledge. In a nutshell, we have been a part of every change Google has ever made, giving us a unique skill set and vantage point. While there are others like me, we are few and far between. Some, like Danny Sullivan, have even gone to work for Google. But others, like myself or Bill Hartzer, continue to fight the good (Google) fight in the trenches.

It’s all about the Algorithm. So What is the Google Algorithm Anyway?It all starts with the algorithm and the quest to understand it. The Google algorithm has always been as complex as it is simple. For those who don’t know for sure what an algorithm is, let me define it for you. An algorithm is a set of mathematical computations that solve a problem. In the case of Google, it’s the equivalent of a scoring system ‘grades’ web pages (and websites) and then putting them in numerical order, with the best page being listed in the first position. For years, I said there were 29,000 ‘things’ we had to know to get a page to work/rank within the Google algorithm. The number is 14,040. But what’s a few thousand data points between friends?

What we don’t know is the value of each of the items we are going to discuss below. What is the amount each item adds or subtracts from the score? Some may argue that predicting the outcome without those values is hard. But this is where the SEO expert part comes in. I believe I can tell with pretty good accuracy what is more important than other things. It is probably a companion piece I need to write that puts them in order and assigns the BG (Beth Guide) scale of Google Values to them.

So, what IS the Google Algorithm based on?

What have we learned from this Google data leak? Learned is subjective in this application. Me, I haven’t learned much. It’s all the stuff I already knew. For me, I used the word validated and vindicated. The first thing I’ve long said is that it is my opinion that Google lies to and tries to mislead SEO companies. I mean, why would they tell everyone how to game their system? It makes perfect sense. I have to say that I laugh when people tell me about the Google raters guidelines as if they are gospel. I have long said follow it to the letter and see how far you get.

Google Misdirection #1 – Page RankIt’s 2024, and I’m about to type the word Page Rank for those of you who have not been around for the last decade. When Google first arrived, it had a delimiter called page rank. It lived in the Google toolbar, and you could always see how Google ranked your website. From my SEO perspective, it was always time for a party when you increased page rank. How do you move up in page rank? Links links and more links. For several years now, coming out of Google links were no longer relevant. Surprise! They are still relevant. Color me shocked. At least up until the time of this leak, which is arguably as early as Sept 2023 and could be as late as March 2024, links are important. (10:34)

So what is a small business to do? Links really are important. Well, some of these things your business should be doing already. You should be participating in your community. You should be helping others. And you should learn how to identify situations that may gain you a link. There are other reasons to do this, and I’ll talk about branding and authorship in a minute. But for now, you have to learn how to identify an opportunity. (18:56)

Google Misdirection #2 – Chrome Data is Not Part of the AlgorithmEvery year, the expression is that there is nothing free in this life. As you know, everything about Google is accessible to the end user. Chrome and Gmail, to name a few. Why is that? Is Google possibly using that data to scrap and feed into their algorithm? Gmail helps with trends and what people are talking about. It’s not that it says anything specific about Gmail in the code anywhere. What it does say, however, is it talks about what is a good click and what is a bad click. I feel compelled to insert a pithy WOZ reference here, but I won’t. However, it could be argued that Glenda and Google sound somewhat similar.

Part of the page you are reading is one of the ways we send signals to Google. I don’t know if you are reading down this far or started watching the video but in either case you have had to be on this page for a while, making this into a good click. People stay on the pages associated with the Houston Internet Marketing Clinic Class. So, I am, in effect, sending a signal to Google. And I am not forcibly holding you back from the page, which is good.

Google Misdirection #3 – What is Spam Anyway?We all know what spam is. Nigerian Princes, Russian Brides. But Google is ever vigilant against spam. They define pages that could be better written, not well sources and sometimes just keywords stuffed and stuffed. Now I agree that keyword stuffing and the pages written over and over again just to simply say the same thing in hopes of moving a needle on a secondary keyword. But are all things spam? Or is the person just not a good writer? Is there the use of AI content?

The absolute truth is to act as an expert in your field, so yes, I am an SEO expert. I am a local SEO Expert. I would put my knowledge up against anyone out there and feel confident. Yes, I have my own opinions, and I’ve also been fortunate enough to grow up in this industry, so on-page and technical SEO to me are the same thing in many, many ways. I can fix technical SEO issues. I can fix semantic SEO issues. I know how to gain natural links for my website rather than resorting to buying them, as many others do.

But most of all, Google knows that I do not spam because when they see my name, I have built my name as part of our brand, and they know it’s a name that can be trusted. Just as when they see my company name they know it too can be trusted. They know I have been involved in SEO and Web Design for nearly three decades now. In addition, they see my involvement with organizations like SCORE, HCC, and the SBDC as a validation of my credibility. These relationships are extremely important to your overall success. So, what are you doing to increase your credibility? In a nutshell, they are grading my website based on my relationships and affiliations.

So How do Small Company’s Keep Up with SEO

The tenants of all of this are still the same. Good quality content will always win the day and is the fundamental building block. But how does a small business owner keep up or even get these ideas? Every time I open my email there is a treasure trove of content ideas. For example, how do you decide to use medical device or medical plastics. What is the right term, and what are the steps necessary to determine which is correct? What do you need to tell someone to get an SEO quote? (0:35)

Google Misdirection #4 – There is no SandboxIs there a Google Sandbox? So, this one is interesting because, in 2024, the answer is No-ish. In the truest sense of the word and using the historical application, no, not really. There was a hardcore sandbox back in the early 2000s. I don’t care what you did with a new domain; it was not going to rank for at least a year. But in the modern era, it’s not as arduous, but domains that are newly registered will usually sit for a year or two with low traffic. You will get some traffic. But not a lot. Now, most businesses won’t notice this because they will have localized traffic and weren’t expecting much. But if you are looking for SERP wins, and your domain is new, you have a distinct problem.

So what is the remedy to this? There are domains that are after-market, and those domains seem to be impervious to any restriction unless the domain has been completely banned (yes, they ban domains). My experience tells me that there are a few break points in this, meaning the older the domain the less issues you will have. In my opinion any domain that has maintained a continuous since the early 2000 is much less likely to be sandboxed. I’m not going to see it. I’ve never seen an old site have trouble, but I think I can count it on two fingers over the last 28 years. (40:46).

SEO Isn’t Magical Voodoo

I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard the terms voodoo or magic when describing SEO. It really is not. We now know that 14,000+ data points are strung together to help derive the best possible answer. I’m not a magician; I just understand how Google thinks. Doing that makes your site far more likely to rank on a given term. I can see the mistakes people make with their own sites, but most of all, I feel vindicated by this data dump because up until this all came out, everything we always said was theoretical.

Related Posts* Basic SEO Maintenance: Five Simple Things Site Owners Can Do to Improve SEO * How To Get Started in SEO: A Small Business Survival Guide * SEO Hacks: Easy Ways to Win at SEO * Ultimate Guide to Recovering from Google Algorithm Updates and Penalties

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SEO Hacks: Ways to win at SEO SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a crucial aspect of digital marketing, and understanding how to navigate it can significantly impact the online visibility of your business. In this class we will explore the basics of SEO so that you can compete in this world and understand the do’s and don’ts and if you’re paying someone you can understand that they’re doing what they need to do.

Google and SEO: Two Sides of the Same CoinGoogle’s relationship with SEO is constant and ever-changing so it’s important to stay on top of their updates and requirements as they roll out. Since September of 2023 Google started the “Helpful Content Update” and has been aggressively rolling out new fixes in an attempt to combat the use of AI for content creation. In March of 2024, the latest roll out will alleviate 40% of the content that is currently sitting on the internet, because google reads it as written with AI. This is also designed to go after marketers using tactics to gain Google’s System.

What does this mean for business owners? For business owners and content writers, this update means that they will have to ensure that no content used is created with any AI tool. Content must be written by a human, as organically as possible, and with as much helpful information as possible. If you’re not being helpful, they’re not ranking your website.

No mixed signals with SEOGetting fancy with your words has its uses in marketing, but when it comes to your website and its content the messaging must be clear and concise. Google operates on a set of signals that help it understand the content and relevance of web pages. These signals are crucial for ensuring that your website ranks well in search results. One important aspect to note is that Google is literal and specific, how you communicate information on your website needs to align with how Google interprets it. Using the right keywords and structuring your content effectively are essential for signaling to Google what your website is about. A reoccurring issue with some websites and their signals, is that a website will change, which causes the signal to break.

The Role of Keywords for Great SEOKeywords play a pivotal role in SEO as they help Google identify the relevance of your content to user queries. It is significant to understand your business’s keywords and how to find them and use them effectively. Using plug in tools like Keywords Everywhere can provide valuable insights into search volume, competition, and the potential value of specific keywords. The search volume of a keyword is how many people are looking up this or adjacent terms. The competition is how many other people are attempting to rank using that same keyword. Remember, higher competition keywords may be harder to rank for, so it’s essential to prioritize and strategize accordingly. The potential value of the term is how much it would be for you to purchase specific search terms, but this won’t be necessary to start.

Local SEO and the “Near Me” TrendAn interesting trend highlighted is the growing importance of local SEO, especially with terms like “near me.” Google’s algorithms are increasingly favoring localized search results, making it crucial for businesses to optimize their online presence for local searches. Incorporating location-specific keywords and ensuring consistency across online directories and platforms can greatly improve your visibility to local customers.

In some instances, your business name can be a keyword, but often the business name is a more abstract concept than what your business does, so it’s good to ensure your support keywords are strong enough. For example, if your business name is “TreeCutting.com”, Tree Cutting would be a keyword because it would be something someone googles. But if you’re business name is something abstract like “Jose’sCutters.com” you would then have to set up a good amount of keywords in your website like “tree cutters” and variations such as “tree cutting” “landscaping” and many more.

Using the suggested tools you can verify the value of these keywords and in turn find other keywords that may be more valuable than what you may already be using. Remember it is important to be specific and clear but not so specific that you become too niche and not easily found.

SEO Success: Takeaways and StrategiesSEO is essential for improving online visibility for your business. With the basics provided in this class and understanding Google’s updates and staying on top of them, there is a great starting point to begin implementing these improvements.

Remember, it is essential that the messaging remains clear and concise, with effective keyword usage for Google to pick it up and rank. Use the available tools, like Keywords Everywhere, to optimize your strategy by identifying valuable keywords.

By applying these principles and techniques, you can enhance your website’s visibility and drive more traffic, ensuring your content meets both user needs and search engine criteria.

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WordPress is one of the internet’s most powerful engines, as something like 40 percent of all sites run on WP. Millions of those sites are professional or e-commerce in nature, and from the get-go, they must be configured properly to succeed.

That means integrating the right tools into WordPress during and following the initial WP install. If you’re partnered with a reputable web hosting company, these tools may be included with your install package – a major convenience for site owners who don’t know where to begin.

Here, we’ve got a list of every important tool to consider for site owners just getting started with WordPress, along with some helpful information about WP management fundamentals.

For SEO purposes, it’s WordPress or bust – stay away from site building platformsIf you haven’t launched a site yet, build it in WordPress. If you’ve already launched a site that’s not in WordPress, prepare to move it to WP. And if you’ve already launched a WordPress site, congratulations – you’re on the right track.

The truth is, there’s no good reason whatsoever for business owners to pick anything other than WordPress for their online presence. WP is the gold standard for several reasons, including:

• Google prefers WordPress websites (better SEO) – The downside with site builder platforms is that they’re built using bloated code that search engines cannot interpret well. Wix, Weebly, Squarespace and other drag-and-drop builders may be easy to use, but that simplicity means sloppy code on the backend. If you’re serious about ranking on Google, this bloated code is a fatal problem.
• WP is well-supported by an active, open source community – WP is an open-source engine, so anyone can access the codebase and contribute to it. The benefit of an open source engine is that it’s constantly being improved upon by the community, so WordPress users are always coming up with new and better tools.
• There are hundreds of thousands of plugins that can expand WP’s functionality – Speaking of tools, there’s an endless list of additional features and plugins to choose from. Each one adds to the site’s capabilities, so if there’s something that your site needs to do, but currently can’t, there’s a good chance that a solution already exists. It just needs to be installed on the site.
• WordPress allows people to maintain ownership of their domain and assets – If the site is created through a standalone installation (WordPress.org), you’ll have complete ownership over all the site’s assets and domain. With site builders like Wix and others, the site is contained inside the builder’s ecosystem. That means if the platform goes down, so does your site. Further, if you want to move or make major changes to the site, that may be impossible if it’s hosted on a platform.

In short, WP’s feature-rich, SEO-compatible code makes it the undisputed leader among site creation engines.

WordPress.com or WordPress.org? Here’s the differenceThe first hurdle business owners may run into when getting started with WordPress is whether to publish through WordPress.com or WordPress.org. We strongly recommend going with WordPress.org, but here’s a quick guide to both:

• com – WordPress.com is WP’s version of the site builder. While it utilizes the same WP dashboard and publishing process, the site itself is hosted on WP’s own servers and is therefore functionally identical to sticking the site on another self-contained platform. Further, by opting for WP’s own platform, site owners may be responsible for additional fees related to “premium plugins” and other features.
• org – WordPress.org is the standalone version of WP that we recommend. With wordpress.org, site owners have access to all of the software’s base files and user-friendly dashboard. In addition, owners have complete freedom to host the site with the hosting company of their choosing, and may make any changes they wish without interference.

​Now that the site’s installation is underway, it’s time to establish its layout and general design.

Once the site’s install is complete, the first thing to do is pick a themeWith a fresh WP installation in place, site owners have the equivalent of a blank canvas to work with. From here, the first step is to select a theme, as this will set the course for the site’s design and layout.

Themes are available through the WP dashboard, along with thousands of other plugins and tools. There are plenty of themes to pick from, but we recommend (and include) Astra for every new install. Astra is a versatile, lightweight option that provides a superior combination of usability and performance.

Whether it’s Astra or another theme, users can customize the theme’s universal settings (such as typeface and top image) to quickly establish a consistent style across all pages.

Next, pick a design template to work fromAh, but we’re not done selecting the top-level design details. Inside every theme are dozens, sometimes hundreds of design templates to choose from. Each one is like a pre-built website with the layout and blocks (text and image elements) already placed.

We recommend picking a template that’s close to what you’re looking for design-wise and working from there. Most have filler text and images already included, and these can be easily switched out for your own content. Don’t be afraid to experiment and see which one inspires.

WordPress pages and posts – what site owners need to know about bothWordPress was originally developed to be a blogging platform, and so the distinction between “pages” and “posts” remains. When publishing a new piece of content, users can choose to publish it as a page or post. Here’s the difference:

• Pages – Pages are like the “evergreen” content on a website. They’re the permanent pages on the site that aren’t date or category-defined. They still require proper SEO practices to perform well, however, so relevant keywords, internal links, navigation elements are a must.
• Posts – Posts go on the site’s blog, so this content is categorized by date and topic. As a blog’s primary feature is timeliness, all posts are eventually cycled out and replaced with fresh content. This content must be SEO optimized to output the right signals to Google – help Google better crawl and index the site, in other words.Every business or professional website should have an active blog, if only to remain relevant to Google and other search engines. A well-written, regularly updated blog, though, can establish a voice for the brand and build trust in potential customers – a powerful advantage when attempting to earn conversions.

Ready to build a page? Elementor provides everything people need to create a page quickly and with best SEO practicesWordPress makes it pretty simple to start building a new page, and Elementor makes the actual designing even simpler. Over the years, multiple WP page builders have had their time in the sun. For example, WP Bakery was a popular page layout plugin for a long time, but when Google pushed over its Core Vitals update about 18 months ago – a performance-based update – sites built in WP Bakery were no longer fast enough for Google.

Elementor is the new king of WordPress page design, partly because it works well with Google, partly because it creates pages that perform quickly, and partly because it’s easy to use.

It’s also a block-based, drag-and-drop builder that requires no coding knowledge to fully utilize. Users can start from scratch or from their chosen template. And in both cases, Elementor allows people to make detailed, quick adjustments, so they can nail that perfect look without spending hours on a single page.

20 more plugins that your web host should be providing with your WordPress installSome site owners think of web hosting like it’s a commodity, but it’s absolutely not. A reputable web host works hard to remain in good standing with search engines. Further, the quality of your web host will influence the site’s reliability and performance, so choose wisely.

And if your web hosting service has experience with business clients, they may assist with installing WordPress and providing a “starter kit” with important plugins included. This head start can save site owners a lot of time and confusion.

What should a site starter kit include? Here’s 20 plugins your web host should include in their hosting packages:

Advanced Editor ToolsThe default page and post editing box on WordPress’s backend is threadbare and lacks some of the common features we’ve all come to expect from a word processing function.

The Advanced Editor Tools plugin corrects this and adds in the standard word processing features (text attributes, formatting, etc.) that you would find in a Word-like piece of software.

Akismet Anti-Spam: Spam ProtectionWithout some form of spam protection on your website, it won’t be long before random spam comments start piling up. Akismet Anti-Spam protects against this, as it can detect spam comments as they are submitted and block them.

It wasn’t too long ago that sites benefitted from any activity – including spam comments – on their pages and posts. Unsurprisingly, the internet took advantage of this and spawned an army of spambots. Now, those spam comments will damage a site’s ranking, so an anti-spam plugin is recommended.

BackupBuddyBackupBuddy makes it simple for site owners to back up their site’s content and quickly restore everything should something disastrous happen. Ideally, your site is backed up in multiple locations (another advantage to picking a reputable web host), including a physical backup on your computer. If the site isn’t backed up and it’s lost, you’ll have to build it all over again.

BackupBuddy prevents this from happening and is extremely user friendly, as well.

Better Search ReplaceEvery now and then, you’ll need to update or replace a term on the site. This could involve changes to hundreds of pages, so the Better Search Replace plugin is recommended. With it, site owners can make those changes across all of their site’s pages at once.

Blog2SocialWe recommend pushing every blog to all social media channels when it’s published. Blog2Social greatly streamlines this process, simultaneously pushing out the post to every linked social media account. This includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Medium and a ton of other, lesser-known social media platforms.

There are a number of social media plugin options that provide similar functionality, but we like Blog2Social because it does an admirable job of avoiding issues with Facebook and others, ensuring posts aren’t demoted as soon as they’re posted.

CMS Tree Page ViewCMS Tree Page View gives site owners a visual representation of their site’s page and how they’re organized from a hierarchy standpoint. It’s critical for websites to establish a content hierarchy, with the home page up top, category pages sitting just below it and a cascade of subcategory and product pages descending below those.

With CMS Tree Page View, you’ll know exactly where every page sits in this hierarchy, so it’s clear what changes (if any) need to be made to develop it.

Custom PermalinksBy default, WordPress creates URLs using gibberish that doesn’t help users or Google understand what’s on the page. That’s an SEO problem.

The Custom Permalinks plugin allows site owners to create their own URL slugs, preferably formatted and written so users and Google understand where they’re located on the site.

Duplicate PageSometimes, it’s easier to duplicate an existing page and work from that, rather than starting a new page from scratch. The Duplicate Page plugin allows site owners to do this instantly.

Gravity FormsThere are numerous form plugins that make it simple to create custom text fields, polls and more. Gravity Forms is one example and the one we prefer for its usability and security. The free version is sufficient for most site owners, too.

iThemes Security ProJust like every site needs a forms plugin, every business site absolutely requires a security plugin. The iThemes Security Pro plugin is our choice, as it detects suspicious activity, blocks attacks and can take additional measures on its own, like identifying attacking IP addresses and rejecting them. The Pro version adds several more features, like implementing reCAPTCHA and recognizing trusted devices.

JetpackJetpack is a versatile plugin that adds in a bunch of fundamental features that every site can benefit from. Examples include a contact info widget, social media widgets, a related posts feature, some image optimization functions and a WordPress plugin management dashboard, which makes it easier for people who have multiple WP sites to manage.

Litespeed CacheWhile Apache remains the market leader for web server software, we recommend Litespeed as an alternative, as Litespeed servers are faster and therefore more likely to meet Google’s Core Vitals standards.

Litespeed Cache is a plugin that fully leverages Litespeed’s velocity with several features. Some examples include lazy loading, utilizing CDNs, minifying CSS and JS files, image optimization and database optimization. As soon as Litespeed Cache is enabled, it will provide an out-of-the-box speed boost to sites on Litespeed servers.

MailOptinMailOptin is a lead generation and e-mail automation plugin that streamlines many e-mail related tasks that business owners are expected to engage in.

On the lead generation side, MailOptin can be used to deliver calls-to-action in one of several formats, such as a lightbox popup or slide-in box. These have become extremely popular for e-commerce sites, as they start the communication between site and user.

MailOptin can also be used to automate e-mails and newsletters when certain events are triggered. For example, when a new blog is published, MailOptin automatically sends an e-mail alert to everyone signed up for the brand’s newsletter or mailing list. This saves site owners a ton of time.

Page Categorization pluginBy default, WordPress does not categorize pages like it does blogs. With the Page Categorization plugin, though, it’s possible to add this function for published pages. It’s a simple addition, but one that can add a slight SEO edge to the site’s permanent content.

Rank MathSEO plugins are worth their weight in code and allow site owners much better control over SEO-related tasks. There’s been a few worth considering over the years, and currently Rank Math is our favorite.

Rank Math is a warehouse of SEO-friendly features. The top-line feature is the Rank Math’s AI assistant, which points out where SEO improvements can be made to each page. For digital marketing experts, some of these suggestions are a bit superfluous, but for those who are unfamiliar with SEO, they can be valuable.

Rank Math also automatically generates schema, integrates Google Analytics, tracks keyword rankings and does a whole lot more. It’s our go-to SEO plugin.

Google Site KitGoogle’s Site Kit is a WP-focused plugin designed to get WordPress sites fully integrated with the search engine’s analytical tools. Available for free through Google and simple to set up, Site Kit is a must-have first stop plugin for WP site owners who intend to keep an eye on their site’s Google analytics – a must for anyone who’s serious about SEO.

StarboxEvery post should include an author box at the bottom of the blog. Google considers this to be an important piece of authoritativeness – a vital part of the E-E-A-T content quality standard.

Starbox allows site owners to quickly customize their own author box and add it to all published posts.

WP RocketWP Rocket is another optimization-focused plugin that offers many of the same functions as Litespeed Cache. However, it can also be used with Apache server software.

Some of WP Rocket’s features include browser and page caching, GZIP compression, file minification, cache preloading, lazy loading and excellent compatibility with e-commerce pages. For sites running on Apache or non-Litespeed server software, WP Rocket is a popular, proven optimization plugin.

WP StagingWP Staging also offers backup functionality, but what really makes the plugin valuable is its ability to create a backup copy that can be used for staging purposes. It’s highly, highly recommended that site owners never make changes to the live version of their site. If something goes wrong while doing this, it may break something that wrecks the site’s rankings.

WP Staging allows site owners to make their changes to a staging site. Once those changes are made, they can be pushed to the live version of the site.

Related posts pluginThere are several related posts plugins worth considering, such as Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. A related post plugin is valuable and simple to use. They take whatever post the user is currently reading and use it to identify other blogs on the site that share the topic. These are placed in a special block at the bottom, so users can quickly jump to another post.

Related posts plugins improve the user experience (UX) and boost your site’s UX metrics at the same time – an important SEO consideration for Google and other search engines.

Building a business website can be intimidating, but it’s possible with the right toolsWordPress is the internet’s leading website creation engine, especially for business and e-commerce sites. It’s powerful, reliable and accessible, though it may not feel that way at first.

That’s why reputable web hosting and web services companies work to simplify the process for their clients. One way to do that is to provide site owners with the plugins, themes and other tools they need to get started. Few web hosting companies are willing to do this, but it’s a gesture that business owners should look for from their web host. It could save months of WordPress research and ensure the site is built for future digital marketing and SEO efforts.

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During the early days of the web – which weren’t that long ago – web services each required a specialized set of skills. Business owners needed a specialist to develop site. They needed a specialist to design a site. They needed a specialist to market the site. They needed a specialist to host it and maintain it.

The natural effect of this was to segment the web services industry into a cluster of silos. Early on, it was nearly impossible to find someone – or at least a team – that could do it all.

That’s no longer the case. Today, there are full-service firms that can manage every part of the website creation process. That includes web development, design, hosting, webmastering and marketing.

For business owners, working with a full-service firm offers critical advantages, including:

• Convenience – In the past, site owners were forced to work with several professionals or companies to launch their site. That’s multiple points of contact, and the site owner typically had to be the communication hub between them.With a full-service firm, there’s one point of contact for business owners. Site owners aren’t required to act as their own project managers.
• Cost – Full-service firms can offer significantly lower rates than a group of unaffiliated web professionals. The resulting cost savings can be reinvested into success-boosting tasks like ongoing web marketing.

And there’s another major advantage: Full-service firms integrate important web concepts together. For example, a full-service firm can ensure that every step of the website creation process supports future marketing efforts.

Web design and search engine optimization are not in separate silosAutomotive makers source their parts from many suppliers, but they assemble them at one facility. Imagine how unreliable they would be if one facility built half the car, another facility built another half, and then a third team slapped those pieces together. You would expect additional failure points, and therefore more manufacturing issues.

In this way, websites are like vehicles. They are extremely complex machines that involve hundreds (maybe thousands) of interacting parts. Inside a full-service web firm, several people are responsible for putting the site together, but they do so with unified communication, unified project management and a unified vision. Nothing is outsourced. Even with multiple people contributing, every layer of the website works seamlessly together.

What does this mean? If the site’s design isn’t formatted to work with its navigation, its architecture, its marketing or its overall conversion-enhancing mission, then the site will have serious issues ranking on Google and other search engines.

Search engines prefer websites that combine cohesive SEO and web designThe web is moving away from siloing design, marketing and other web-related processes. And by web, we mean search engines like Google. Search engines have an outsized effect on how sites are managed, for obvious reasons. Don’t do what Google wants, and earning those high-value SERP (search engine results pages) rankings will be impossible.

And what Google wants is SEO that’s baked deep into the website’s foundation – all the way down into the site’s architecture and design.

There’s only one way to ensure that: Pick a web designer that also understands SEO. With an SEO-experienced designer, your website’s main elements will be optimized for better search. That includes:

• The site’s information architecture
• The site’s navigation
• The site’s usability and readability
• The site’s mobile friendliness
• The site’s technical performance, including loading speeds
• And a host of other SEO-improving elements

We’ll go into each in depth.

Information architecture: How your pages are designed will influence indexibility and the user experienceA website’s information architecture (IA) describes how the site’s content is organized into pages. Clearly, it’s a bad idea to stick all of your site’s content on a single page. And clearly, it’s a bad idea to spread out five pages’ worth of content over 50 pages. Well-considered IA strategizes how content pages are grouped together, for the benefit of search engines and for users.

If a web designer understands SEO, they’ll know how to structure the site so high-value content and conversion pages are prioritized. In fact, they should wireframe the site so a clear page hierarchy emerges. Modern website design relies on a hierarchal approach to IA, with main content section pages coming right off of the home page. For example, an industrial equipment supplier might create a content section for each industry they service, and each one is clearly linked to from the home page.

This pattern continues down from the main category pages to subcategory pages and so on, all the way down to individual product pages. Navigation, which we’ll address next, should reinforce this hierarchal IA from top to bottom.

There are two SEO-related advantages to this approach:

1. Google can crawl and index hierarchal IA more efficiently – You may have heard that Google “crawls” websites with a fleet of “spiders.” These spiders are bots designed to read a page, interpret its content and categorize it for indexing purposes. When a page is indexed, that means it is eligible for one of Google’s SERPs – the primary goal for every site owner.Google’s spiders are designed to efficiently read a hierarchal IA format, so they can index more pages on your site and more accurately categorize them for indexing.
2. Visitors will find what they want, faster – An SEO-focused IA has the excellent side effect of also supporting a better UX. That’s not a coincidence – Google wants the same things that users want. With a descending hierarchy to work with, your site’s traffic will be able to find everything they want with minimal hassle. A clean UX like that will reduce the bounce rate on your site’s pages and keep potential customers glued to the site longer.

Web designers with a background in SEO will gravitate to this approach, ensuring their sites are compatible with what Google wants, and what the site’s traffic wants.

Navigation: SEO-focused navigation helps Google prioritize the right pagesNavigation is closely related to IA. If a website is like a city, IA is focused on where traffic is going, while navigation is focused on how they get there. Like with a city, there may be plenty of interesting places to see (your site’s content), but getting to those places (your site’s navigation) may be a terrible chore. Navigation issues – missing links, missing nav menus, unclear nav menus, confusing redirect – have a deleterious effect on a site’s SEO and ranking potential.

Web designers are responsible for putting navigation elements in place, and given navigation’s impact on SEO, it’s important for the designer to know what SEO-friendly nav looks like.

Here’s what it looks like:

• Nav menus where they’re expected (top and side)
• No orphan pages
• No unresolved 404 errors (redirect or at least add a custom 404 page)
• A clear, easy to read URL structure (slugs should reflect page hierarchy)
• Intelligently placed internal links

Here’s the ultimate mark of SEO and UX-compatible navigation: On every page inside your content silos, are there navigation elements that can take the user up or down a level? These could be top or side menus, or a breadcrumb menu that sits close to the page title. Are there internal links marked with context-appropriate anchor text?

These navigation elements don’t just help search engines get around your site, they help search engines understand which pages are important and which ones are secondary. This will be reflected in those pages’ rankings.

Usability and readability: Proper web design fundamentals improve UX metrics and SEOUsability and readability are at the heart of what web designers are concerned about. These are largely concerned with how visual elements are arranged and what their visual attributes look like. They’re also tightly correlated with UX quality, which itself has a major impact on a site’s SEO.

These tend to be design basics like:

• Sizing and coloring text so that it’s easy to read.
• Laying out text blocks so they flow.
• Providing supporting media like images, videos or infographics.
• Using readable typefaces.
• Being reasonable with the number of hyperlinks present.
• Ensuring high-value elements (contact us fields, CTA buttons) attract enough attention.

These are SEO-friendly because they’re user friendly. Google pays close attention to user behavior, assuming that high bounce rates indicate low quality content or design. The above elements, if designed with usability and readability in mind, will align with best SEO practices.

Mobile responsiveness: Search engines insist on mobile-friendly designsUsers expect businesses to provide a responsive, fast and readable mobile version of their website. And while Google’s insistence in this area has been exaggerated in the past, there’s no doubt that a mobile website is necessary for SEO purposes. In fact, Google recently announced that many websites will pass through a mobile-first form of indexing going forward, so it’s definitely one of the search juggernaut’s priorities.

The primary goal with mobile design is responsiveness. A responsive mobile design in one that resizes and reorganizes elements for every possible mobile device. In other words, there’s a particular layout dedicated to a certain iPhone model, a certain Samsung phone model and so on. The idea is to always provide an optimal viewing experience for visitors, no matter what device they’re using.

It’s generally simple for web designers to add responsive designs to a website, but it does take additional effort and time. An SEO-aware web designer will know that such a time investment is worth it, and will ensure it’s made.

Page speed and image optimization: Faster loading times correlate with better search engine rankingsEvery now and then, Google pushes over an update that prioritizes technical performance. The last major one was its Core Vitals update, which added extra emphasis to a trio of technical performance metrics – ones considered “vital” for UX.

Web designers have some influence on all three – Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). LCP and CLS, in particular, rely on optimizing image sizes, picking the right image formats and leverage some technical tricks like lazy loading to bring in the most important elements first. CLS can be improved by preloading web fonts (sudden font changes are notorious for pushing other elements around) and by setting size attributes for images. These methods are well-known among designers who prioritize SEO readiness in their work.

Tags, metadata and proper keywords usage: SEO-focused design checks off the little, but important, detailsWeb designers spend most of their time manipulating individual pieces of content until they look just right. That means managing an array of attributes and spending a lot of time on the website’s backend. While they’re there, SEO-aware designers can ensure elements are properly tagged and that there’s keyword-rich metadata attached to everything. Web designers aren’t usually responsible for writing headers, but if they know SEO, they can at least identify headers that could benefit with more or less keyword saturation, or from the use of higher value keywords.

There are a ton of small SEO-focused tasks that someone will eventually have to handle, if the website is properly search optimized. Web designers with digital marketing experience will be aware of those tasks and either perform them, or guide clients in their completion.

Web design and SEO are thoroughly linked, so web designers with SEO experience are in demandWeb services are consolidating. Website owners need more from their web designers, because layout design is only one part of a highly complex web creation process. Well after the visual elements are set in place, there’s still plenty to do that’s related to site success. That includes SEO, which works best when it’s integrated deep into the site’s design – whether that’s effective IA, effective navigation, better readability, better usability, faster page loading or one of many other factors that affect search engine optimization.

With so much at stake for website owners – a website that Google is willing to rank – it’s critical to partner with a web designer who understands why SEO is so important.

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If you’ve just launched a business website – or are about to launch one – your work is just beginning as the site’s owner. With millions of e-commerce and professional sites already online, it’s a real fight to get new websites noticed. In fact, it’s impossible to gain traction online without an effective SEO plan in place. That’s because search engines are picky when determining which pages to rank – those with better SEO fundamentals are much more likely to snag those coveted top spots.

But that only raises another question – how can business owners get started with effective SEO? That’s what we’re addressing this time. With these following tips, any business owner in any industry can get a competitive start with SEO and build a steady stream of traffic.

The right engine means everything when starting a website, and that means WordPressIf you already have a website, it is hopefully built in WordPress. If it’s not, we’ve got some bad news – you’ll likely need to migrate it to WP. That includes sites built in Squarespace, Wix, Weebly and other stripped-down website builders. If you haven’t built a site yet, WordPress is the engine of choice.

Why? Compared to site building platforms, WP’s backend is far more compatible with Google’s site discovery and indexing process. In other words, Google understands WordPress sites better than others, so it’s more likely to fully crawl, index and properly categorize a website. In general, the more confused Google’s spiders are when crawling a website, the less likely that site will rank. WP ensures minimal confusion between the website and Google.

Make your title tag count – with high impact keywordsEvery page on your website has to explain itself to Google, and title tags and headers are an important part of that mission. Each page gets one title tag (an H1), and you should treat it like a proper title – it should explain the content’s primary focus. And for Google, every title tag should also include relevant keywords that send the right content signals to search engines. These keywords are essentially clues that tell Google how to judge, locate and categorize the content.

It is extremely important to locate the most relevant keywords (i.e., the product you’re selling) as high up on each page as possible. This will maximize the chances that Google’s spiders will find them.

Additional headers are used with content subsections, and they act just like title tags. Each section header should describe what’s in the following section while including high-relevance keywords for Google.

Localize your headers, copy and images for your business’s service areaMost small businesses have a tight service area that’s near their operating facilities. It’s this area that your SEO should be targeted toward.

Local SEO is the branch of digital marketing focused on targeting users in a particular service area, and it’s a slightly different game than general, national SEO. When users punch in a local search query (“Houston Mexican restaurants,” for example), Google returns a local SERP in response. This local SERP includes additional high-value spots like the map pack, so engaging local SEO comes with additional rewards.

But local SEO also takes a slightly different approach. One part of this approach is to localize the content on your site’s pages, so Google understands where your business is located and what areas it serves.

In practice, that means mentioning where the company is located in titles, headers and inside the body copy. The city it’s located in, the neighborhoods or regions it services, the names of nearby landmarks and major roads – these are all useful clues for Google.

It goes further than that, too. Every image published on your website has metadata associated with it. This metadata includes where the photo was taken, so consider taking your own photos and publishing them with that metadata intact. It will be yet another signal for Google to utilize.

Silo and support your main content pages with secondary feeder pagesHow your site’s content is organized is also of interest to Google, and therefore an SEO consideration. Ideally, it’s organized in a hierarchical fashion, with major content sections coming off the home page, and content subsections coming off of those, all the way down to your individual product pages. If you were to visualize this structure, it would like a cascade flow chart, with the home page at the top and the product pages at the bottom.

Each one of these content sections can act like a standalone site within your primary website. For example, if your site sells clothing, then each content section could be dedicated to “winter clothing,” “summer clothing,” “shoes,” “accessories” and so on. Each of these sections has a top level content page that links right off the home page and includes links to all of the subsections that are categorized below it.

This approach offers two major advantages to site owners. One, it helps Google interpret the site’s structure and navigation, so it can better understand where to place each page – and your site in general. Two, by reinforcing the primary content pages in each section, Google is more likely to rank those pages for relevant queries. When a user clicks on one of those listings, instead of being taken to your home page (which may be too far away from where the user wants to be), they’re linked directly to the right sections on your website. It’s far easier to convert users into customers if they don’t have to push through your website to find what they’re looking for.

Establish a blog on your site that’s regularly updatedEvery business, no matter its industry or size, should have a blog on its website. Blogs are a primary means of publishing fresh content, and Google will look at what’s published on your blog (and how often) as part of its crawling and indexing process.

As an irreplaceable content marketing tool, your blog cannot be neglected. It should link right off the home page, should be featured in the top navigation menu and should be updated at least once every couple weeks, though once a week is better.

To optimize your site’s success, you’ll need to optimize it for search enginesGone are the days of launching a website and waiting for customers to roll in. That just doesn’t happen in today’s hyper competitive world of e-commerce. The most successful online businesses tend to be the ones most invested in their digital marketing initiatives, but doesn’t always mean capital investment.

Time is also a valuable resource in this regard. The more time you spend on creating high quality content and organizing the site’s structure, the better your site’s SEO impact will be. And that’s the not-so-secret secret to online success – the more effort you put into digital marketing and content creation, the more visibility your site is likely to attain.

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If you want to keep a car in good condition, invest in basic car maintenance. And if you want to keep a website in a good position, invest in basic SEO maintenance. Like every other complex machine, websites degrade with time if they aren’t taken care of. That includes the website’s marketability, as effective SEO relies on constant upkeep.

But what does that upkeep include? That’s the obvious question, and where we’ll start.

What ongoing SEO maintenance includes: A top-down lookThe truth is, every website requires a unique, customized search engine optimization strategy to succeed. There are hundreds of factors that go into every page ranking on your website, but the vast majority of them are related to content or the page’s technical configuration. High quality content hosted on a secure, fast website is what we’re aiming for.

That’s the goal. Basic SEO maintenance is designed to further that goal across time, so pages don’t age out of relevance as competitors add better and better content to their own sites.

Here’s what a basic SEO maintenance plan may (and probably should) consist of:

• Reviewing analytics to determine which pages are performing and which ones are falling.
• Expanding on existing content silos to improve their discoverability.
• Adjusting existing content so that it better matches Google’s changing content standards (if necessary – sometimes it’s best to leave well-performing content alone).
• Building internal links between existing and new content.
• Jumping on new content or keyword opportunities as the market develops.
• Carefully experimenting with headers, title and meta descriptions to see which ones perform best.
• Regularly canvassing the site for any indexing errors.
• Maintaining a site’s information hierarchy when publishing new pages.
• Running performance checks and correcting any issues related to slow loading times.
• Adding supplemental content (videos, podcasts) to existing content pages.
• Adapting the site’s SEO strategy as search engines make changes (and they do – a lot).

If it looks like SEO is too big of a job for one person, you’ve got the right idea. As the overall quality of SEO increases across the web, site owners must adapt by optimizing more and more of their site’s elements.

But as overwhelming as digital marketing can be, there are a handful of steps that every site owner can take to improve their visibility.

1) Write at least one expert-level blog every two weeks (though one every week is better)Some site owners create their own content and some outsource their content marketing to an outside party. In either case, every piece of content should sell your company’s expertise and knowledge in its chosen field. Google – and people – place a high priority on expertise. In fact, expertise is one of the “Es” in its E-E-A-T formula – quality guidelines that every content marketer should be familiar with.

One of the best things a business owner can do for their online visibility is to communicate this expertise as often and as thoroughly as possible. That means crafting at least one in-depth, expert-level blog or article every couple of weeks. That’s the minimum. Aiming for one a week is more effective, but that may be too ambitious for particularly busy business owners.

There are a few benefits of taking a hands-on approach with your content in this way. Again, expert-level content (spiced with relevant keywords) sends the right signals to Google and other search engines. Google has aggressively adapted its ranking algorithm in recent months to raise content standards, and well-researched, well-organized and well-written pages on complex topics are its favorite.

Another benefit is that regular writing will establish your writing voice as part of the company’s brand. This can be a critical advantage for professional services companies, where the company’s owner is often its face, as well. With time, Google and potential customers will associate your name with expertise – a great place for business owners to be.

2) Expand on your content with easy-to-create videos and podcastsSearch engines also insist on including images, videos, podcasts and other forms of content with written blogs and articles. Google insists on this because users insist on it. There’s a pattern forming here – Google wants what users want. They want a positive user experience (UX), in other words. And part of building a positive UX is by publishing a variety of content types. This captures a larger spread of users that arrive to your pages, boosting those oh-so-important user metrics (like bounce rates and dwell time) that factor into those oh-so-important search results.

Setting up a video or podcast? What business owner has the time for that? Luckily, making supplemental video or audio content is simple. It also requires nothing more than a webcam, a decent microphone and video conferencing software like Zoom.

All modern video conferencing solutions can record a call with a single click. Start the call and start talking to the camera like you would as if you were explaining the topic to people in the call. It may take a little practice and some very light video editing, but once you’re comfortable with the process, it only takes a few hours to put everything together – blog, video and podcast.

Diversifying your content production reinforces the brand-building benefits that come with developing a customer-facing expert voice. If potential customers can see you, hear you and read what you think upfront, they’re more likely to trust your business. That’s another one of Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines – trust. If Google notices that users engage with and respond well to your content, they are more likely to boost your content’s rankings.

3) Integrate a proven SEO plugin into your site and get familiar with itSEO has become more accessible over the years and there are now plugins that can assist with much of it. WordPress – which we highly recommend above all other web builders – has plenty of its own. Our favorite is Rank Math, as it allows site owners to make meaningful adjustments without being an SEO expert.

With Rank Math, users can quickly edit the titles, headers and meta descriptions of any page, or many pages at once. Users also have access to Google analytics, and can track important metrics like keyword performance or ranking histories. Users can even generate schema for targeting rich results on SERPs.

There are plenty of other plugins that can help with site building or maintenance. Elementor is our favorite page building plugin and it plays well with modern SEO methods. WP Rocket is a page speed optimization plugin that offers an array of caching and loading features. There are also several plugins developed by SEO companies (Hubspot, SEMRush, Yoast) that can help with tracking various SEO-related metrics, like keyword rankings.

SEO plugins keep SEO simple for site owners, which means digital marketing maintenance is easier and faster for the inexperienced to handle.

4) Check for any indexing errors and identify their causesBefore Google can list a page on its SERPs, it must first index that page. Put briefly, Google’s discovery process looks like this:

• The search engine sends “spiders” to any new URLs, mostly by using existing links to find them.
• The spiders “crawl” the site in an attempt to understand its content and structure.
• While crawling, the spiders will follow any links to map out the site’s navigation. If there are too many pages to fit into the site’s “crawl budget,” then the entire site will not be crawled.
• If there are no errors or anything else preventing indexing, the crawlers will index the page according to the nature of that page’s content.

It’s common – practically guaranteed – that Google’s spiders will run into at least one indexing error while crawling a website. For large e-commerce sites, don’t be surprised if there are dozens or hundreds of indexing errors. Sometimes, these errors aren’t a big enough deal to consider, but some indexing errors will make it impossible for Google to properly analyze and categorize the page. That means Google won’t make it eligible for its search results pages.

Given the stakes involved, it’s worth knowing whether there are any indexing errors burdening your site. To do that, you’ll need to check Google Search Console – which should be integrated into your site if you have a decent SEO plugin.

One of the many helpful bits of information that GSC offers is indexing status. You can find it in the “Pages” tab in the Index section of your GSC. This section lists all of your site’s pages and whether there are any indexing errors present. If there are, your GSC will identify the nature of each indexing error, so you or your SEO team can make the necessary adjustments. For example, Google Search Console can point out if a page isn’t indexed because of the following:

• A noindex or canonical tag is interfering
• Missing, moved or deleted pages
• Bad redirects
• Connection issues
• Missing server files
• Inaccurate sitemap URL listings
• Insufficient content
• Blocking due to unauthorized requests
• Server timing out during loading

There are plenty more indexing errors on top of those, but until they are identified, they cannot be addressed. Most site owners will probably need help to resolve some of these errors, but gathering information on them can speed up the maintenance process for your SEO people.

5) Track page and keyword ranking performanceValuable insights can be distilled from all of that valuable analytical data. If site owners keep up with it, they can identify what types of content to pursue and which pages to support – in short, where the site’s user experience is strong and where it’s weak.

One way to keep an eye on your site’s general performance is to track the ranking position for your important content pages and for its important keywords. If a page is climbing up the ranking, consider it a good example for what content angles to pursue next – or at least an opportunity to double down on what you’re doing right. If a page is tumbling, that’s a sign that users aren’t interested in the content. Whether it’s an issue with the blog’s concept or its execution, knowing where the weak links are in your content chain is the first step in making adjustments.

Keyword rankings can also provide pleasant surprises in the form of new content angles. New marketing opportunities are constantly popping up across many industries, and these new opportunities sprout new keywords to optimize for. Monitoring your site’s keyword rankings is one way to remain aware of those potential opportunities as they emerge.

6) Identify and correct any content-related issuesWhile running an SEO audit, you’ll likely encounter plenty of content pages that could use a little support. On some sprawling e-commerce sites, for instance, it’s common for product descriptions to be duplicated across dozens or hundreds of product pages. Google doesn’t like this.

Another common content issue is thin content. Essentially, that’s content that lacks sufficient depth to be of use to readers. Google obviously doesn’t like this, either.

When duplicate or thin pages are spotted, they should be corrected as soon as possible. Otherwise, they’ll drag the entire site down – not just the offending page. If a lot of pages are in this state, professional help will likely be needed to quickly bring the site’s content standards up. However, site owners can make meaningful upgrades to thin and duplicate content by merely taking the time to write something better and more detailed to replace the poorly performing pages.

Site owners don’t need years of digital marketing experience to perform basic SEO maintenanceIt’s absolutely true that modern SEO is a complex undertaking. There are many, many factors that go into every page’s ranking, and optimizing them is beyond the scope of what one person can do, in most cases.

That said, website owners still have a major role to play in how their digital marketing efforts are managed. Specifically, site owners have a great deal of influence over their site’s content and, with minimal digital marketing training, can perform a range of basic SEO tasks. There’s plenty more than the five listed above, but if site owners just do the above, they’ll be well ahead of many of their competitors.

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For anyone who has been around the Internet Marketing Clinic for a while, knows we always try to stay ahead of where the road goes. AI tools have turned 2023 on its ear, and it is not even March. In this episode of the IMCH, we are taking an in-depth look at how to balance AI tools like ChatGPT and your website, content or SEO efforts. There is a lot of very dangerous misguided implementations ideas so we wanted try and stay ahead of it and let you know what we think you should be doing and how to used this very powerful tool, but do it in a manner that you don’t blow yourself up.

Do not copy AI-generated content and paste it into a websiteBefore you run off to ChatGPT and generate your entire website from scratch – stop. In our practice, we’ve already seen business owners attempt this with disastrous results. And that is what I keep seeing and hearing. It feels like, right or wrong everyone things they found the secret to creating mass pages to place on their website and that is just not true.

Google has upped the useful content penalty possibly taking aim at cut-and-paste AI-generated content, and the search engine is getting better and better at detecting it. There are hundreds of AI writers out there, but it’s unlikely that any of them could evade Google’s AI detection for long.

Why is Google seeking and destroying AI-generated pages? Because AI can’t produce a page that’s as well-written, organized and detailed as a human expert-created page. At least for now, human experts provide more value with their writing than ChatGPT or other AI tools.

This is because AI content generators work by scraping and distilling what’s already on the internet. Google doesn’t want a web full of copycat content – it wants originality. And it wants original thinking because that’s what users want. From Google’s perspective, AI content generators have the potential to pollute the internet with identical pages and damage the user experience.

On the other hand Google also is okay with AI content if they add to the web. If there is solid new information it more than likely won’t get dinged. But you have to committed to making sure the information is not just spun and put out on the website.

There are a few more problems with AI content generation, that you need to be aware of to avoid a penalty.

• Superficial reasoning and knowledgebase – ChatGPT and AI writers can spit out tons of information with every prompt, but because this information is sourced from thousands of sites – many of them low quality – the information tends to be superficial. This problem is more pronounced for niche topics and industries, where there are fewer inputs for AI to work with.
• Confusing conceptual linking and writing flow – AI also has trouble determining which pieces of information link together and how they should link together. Us humans do this naturally when we speak, because our communication is predicated on exchanging and responding to information provided by other people.That’s why AI writers tend to go off-track with topics or repeat themselves throughout an article. You won’t find an AI linking an insightful first-hand experience with the topic at hand. That kind of web-like conceptual thinking is still beyond the reach of AI.
• Difficulty with proper punctuation and grammar – Curiously, AI writers also seem to have the occasional issue with word order, sentence structure or punctuation. The longer the content, the more likely these mistakes are to emerge in a piece of AI content.

It may not be long before these kinks are hammered out, but for now, the above should give business owners pause before they go all-in on AI. Doing so could wipe out your traffic now or in the future, when Google retroactively applies penalties for AI content-generation methods.

All of this is subject to change as Google implements GoogleBard, its own AI ToolEverything in this article could become obsolete overnight – thus is the nature of AI development. The technology is evolving extremely fast and no one (not even industry experts) knows how Google intends to leverage AI for search ranking purposes.

What we do know is that Google has its own AI in development named Bard, and it’s planned for release “soon.” In Google parlance, “soon” could mean months from now or minutes from now. When it is released, it will likely shake up the digital marketing industry even more.

What can AI tools like ChatGPT paired with Jasper AI and then paired with a Human do for content marketing?Okay, now that we’ve laid out the risks of AI content, we’ll address how to minimize those risks and make the technology work for business owners. After all, while Google doesn’t want AI cut-and-paste jobs, it has admitted that it’s okay with AI content, as long as it provides value and meets the search engine’s content standards.

Getting AI content up to that standard, though, that’s the trick.

We’ve experimented a bit with ChatGPT and AI content writers like Jasper, and there’s an opportunity here to create high quality, expert level content using both. Specifically, ChatGPT can be used to develop outlines for your content pages, while Jasper can do some of the actual writing. The emphasis is on the word “some,” however. At this point, we recommend an 80/20 mix between human-created and AI-created writing on any particular page.

A recommended step-by-step guide on using AI to generate content for your website So there’s room for AI in your content generation processes, but you’ll need to be careful. First, we’ll create an article outline in ChatGPT. Here’s how to do that:

• Go to the OpenAI website, where ChatGPT is the featured piece of software.
• Create a free account – there is a premium account option, but it only provides faster answers from the chat bot.
• Now, you should be in the chat app and ready to provide ChatGPT with a prompt. First, ask it to list the keyword you’ll need for your page. For example, “tell me the keywords I need for a page about small business accounting services.” ChatGPT will instantly spit out the high value words to place in your content.
• You’ve got the keywords, now you need the outline. Ask ChatGPT what topics should be included in your article. For example “what should be included in an article about small business accounting services?” ChatGPT will list the high-level ideas that should be addressed in your article.
• You can continue this process to go further in depth. Once ChatGPT suggests the high-level topics that should be in your article, you can ask follow-up questions to dive deeper into those ideas. For example “compare accrual accounting and cash-based accounting for small businesses.” By asking more and more detailed questions, you’ll be able to create a more focused, thorough outline.

Once you have this outline in hand, you can stop here with the AI and start writing your page. For many, the outline is the tough part, and just getting that worked out can speed things along. However, if you want, you can take this outline and develop it into content.=

You’ll need a high quality AI writing tool to begin with. We recommend Jasper because it’s the best we’ve found, but it can be expensive for small business owners. If you do invest in Jasper, you can use it like ChatGPT by entering a prompt.

Using the example from above, you could enter “write about the differences between accrual account and cash-based accounting.” Jasper will immediately generate an answer, which could be several paragraphs long.

Don’t take this copy and paste it into your website!

Your job, as the subject matter expert, is to review the content and do the following:

• Identify and correct any errors – and there will likely be some
• Update any outdated information – and there will likely be some
• “Humanize” the content and add your own original experiences and insights
• Reorder and link the content sections, if necessary
• Fix any grammatical or punctuation errors and there will be plenty

My page on Google Penalty Repair is a great example of how to mix the balance or mix mentioned above, and we recommend starting and ending the page with from-scratch content that you write. In effect, you’re “massaging” the content so that it doesn’t read like an AI wrote it, or flow like an AI thought it up. Your voice as the writer and expert should still clearly come through. The article I produced was 80/20 in favor of human touch despite using AI to build the entire page.

AI will be the focus for digital marketers in 2023, so stay up to date here on any developments All of this is still developing in real time, and it’s possible that this article will be completely off the mark by the end of the year. For now, though, the above practices are what we consider to be the best practices for using AI in your content marketing.

If the AI picture changes, and boy will it, we’ll record our findings and report them here. Check in with us throughout the year to ensure your content remains in lockstep with Google’s standards.

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Understanding and Recovering from Google Algorithm UpdatesIf you’re a business owner with a website, it’s important to understand how Google’s algorithms work and what you can do if your site is hit with an update or penalty. In this blog post, we’ll cover everything you need to know about Google’s algorithm changes and how to recover from them. Keep reading to learn more!

The True Cost of Bad SEOSEO practices can be tricky to navigate, especially with Google regularly rolling out updates to its algorithms. But let’s state this fact; to be penalized, you have to work very hard to get penalized, or you really worked hard at breaking Google Webmaster Guidelines. Chances are you or your SEO company were too aggressive in manipulating Google’s algorithm to your favor and consequently ended up with this problem. These changes can sometimes result in penalties for websites previously ranking high and seeing a lot of traffic. Depending on the severity of the penalty, a website could experience anywhere from a slight drop in visibility to total deindexing from Google search results. In either case, it’s important to understand why Google has imposed these penalties, what was done improperly and then what you are going to do to recover Typically involves issues like thin content or generating poor quality content, which may involve generating massive amounts of AI pages, bad link building strategies, as well as the types of penalties they come in – manual action or algorithmic penalty. Understanding this information is essential since SEO mistakes can have costly consequences if not dealt with accordingly.

Types of Google Penalties1. Manual Action Penalty: A manual action penalty is when Google manually penalizes a website for violating its quality guidelines. 2. Algorithmic Penalties: An algorithmic penalty is when a website’s rankings drop as the result of a change in Google’s algorithm or indexing methodology. 3. Link-based Penalty: A link-based penalty occurs when an excessive number of spammy links pointing to your site causes your rankings to drop in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). 4. Unnatural Links Penalty: This type of penalty is triggered by links that appear unnatural, such as paid links or link networks designed to manipulate PageRank or increase search engine visibility without permission from webmasters who own content linked from other websites Penalties and Manual Actions 5. Technical SEO/Mobile Penalty: Technical SEO penalties, Non-SSL and mobile penalty targets sites that are not optimized for mobile devices, not using SSL (yes, there are still some out there) or use bad Technical SEO, causing them to be ranked lower than those with better mobile optimization.

Google has these penalties because it wants to ensure that only sites with high-quality content are ranked in its search results. Google penalizes websites that violate their webmaster guidelines by using tactics such as generating low-quality content, keyword stuffing, cloaking, link spam, and hidden text or links. These all negatively impact the user experience and can ultimately result in lower rankings for a website if Google detects them. Additionally, if a business is found to be using black hat SEO tactics like buying links and engaging in other manipulative practices such as redirecting traffic from competitors’ websites without permission, it may also face serious penalties from Google. Ultimately, Google’s goal is to provide accurate search results for its users; therefore, any behavior that attempts to game the system is discouraged.

Comparing Manual Actions vs. Algorithmic Penalties. Manual Action Penalty and Algorithmic Penalty are the two most destructive Google Penalties. Both of these penalties can have a significant negative impact on a website’s rankings, traffic, and reputation. The main difference between the two penalties is how they are imposed. Manual Action Penalties are imposed by humans at Google who review websites for violations of their quality guidelines. A website may receive a manual penalty if it is found to be using black hat SEO tactics such as buying links or redirecting traffic from competitors’ websites without permission. On the other hand, Algorithmic Penalties are imposed by an algorithm that updates regularly as Google updates its algorithms to detect and punish any malpractices. These updates can result in sudden drops in visibility for websites previously ranking highly as well as new penalties for sites breaking webmaster guidelines.

Regarding severity, Manual Action Penalties often have more severe consequences than Algorithmic penalties. They can also be very difficult to correct. But, most sites receiving manual actions usually have significantly exploited Google’s Guidelines

Algorithmic penalties, however, tend to cause less drastic effects, such as a slight drop in visibility or ranking for certain keywords or phrases instead of total deindexing from search results. They are also easier to clean up for an SEO expert than a manual action. The one caveat is that you understand what caused the problem so you can take the proper corrective action. In the past few months, however, Google has compounded algorithms changes making it hard for business owners or even some SEO companies to properly diagnose the issue. Honestly, if you have a solid SEO company that does not push the envelope but does their job well, it is rare a business will have either of these problems.

When it comes to how each penalty is triggered, Manual Action Penalties are typically triggered by violations of Google’s webmaster guidelines, such as generating low-quality content, keyword stuffing, cloaking or hidden text or links, whereas Algorithmic Penalties tend to be triggered by changes in Google’s algorithm and how it indexes pages. In recent months poorly written content or thin content has been in the algorithm cross-hair, following closely behind an excessive number of spammy links pointing to your site. Older penalties include or not optimizing your website for mobile devices, having poor core vitals or having a bad user experience. In all cases, action must be taken immediately to avoid further damage and loss of rankings and organic traffic.

Overall, even though both Manual Action Penalty and Algorithmic Penalty can cause serious harm to a website’s online presence, it is important for anyone that calls themself an SEO company be familiar with them. Knowing how to spot them early on so appropriate measures can be taken quickly before further damage is done is crucial

Causes of Google Penalties:Google penalties can often be complex and difficult to understand. But it is important to understand the common reasons why a website might receive a Google penalty, so you can take steps to avoid this issue in the future. Here are some of the most common reasons why websites may receive a Google penalty:

Thin Content:Thin content refers to web pages that offer very little useful information or value to users. Google values websites that provide quality content that is relevant and useful; if your website’s content is thin or lacking in substance, then it may be penalized by Google. Additionally, keyword stuffing – cramming excessive keywords into the content – can trigger an algorithmic penalty from Google for spammy content.

Link Building:Link building is an important part of SEO, but if done incorrectly or excessively, it can lead to a penalty from Google. If you are using link-building tactics such as paid links for link networks created solely for SEO purposes, then this could result in a manual action penalty from Google. Additionally, if your website has been linked from sites with poor quality or irrelevant content, this could also result in penalties from Google due to unnatural links pointing back to your site.

Technical Issues:Technical issues like slow page load times or websites not optimized for mobile devices may also lead to penalties from Google. Additionally, if your website does not have SSL security installed, then this could also result in lower rankings and traffic losses due to non-secure warnings on browsers when people visit your site. It’s important to ensure your website is up-to-date with technical requirements set by Google.

Cloaking & Hacking:Cloaking refers to techniques spammers use to show one version of their web pages (filled with keywords) when indexed by search engines and another version when humans view them directly in a browser window. If discovered by Google, cloaking will most likely result in severe penalties imposed on the given website as well as manual actions taken against it. Additionally, hacking sites through malicious code injections can also lead to major losses in rankings if identified by search engine algorithms; therefore, it’s important that you secure all aspects of the website, including third-party plugins and scripts used on it regularly.

How To Determine If Your Site Was Hit By a Google PenaltyIf you are experiencing lower traffic than you think you should be, you should first ask your SEO company their thoughts. Personally speaking, we let customers know when we see trouble. Obfuscation of that often damages the trust between the company and the client. You can use the following as a guide to correcting the issue, or you can use this to check on your SEO company to make sure they are taking the proper steps and have good answers to the problem.

Checking whether a website has been penalized by Google can be a tricky process. But, the issues should show themselves very quickly so work can repair the problem.

First, you’ll want to review your website in relation to Google’s quality guidelines. Are there any obvious violations? Are there any signs of manipulative practices like keyword stuffing or hidden text or links? If anything looks suspicious, then it may be worth further investigation.

Next, you’ll want to analyze your backlinks profile. Check out the types of websites linking to your site as well as their quality and quantity. High-quality backlinks from reputable sources like educational institutions and government websites are key for SEO success, while low-quality backlinks from spammy directories or link networks often lead to penalties. Additionally, if you notice an increase in new links over a short period (particularly those with exact-match anchor text), this could indicate that someone is trying to manipulate search engine rankings on your behalf – another practice that will result in hefty penalties if detected by Google.

Thirdly, you should track your organic search traffic and look out for any sudden drops in visibility. While sudden changes can also be caused by algorithm updates or seasonality effects, they could also indicate that your website has been hit with a penalty – particularly if there are other factors such as poor quality content/backlinks at play here too.

Some of the evaluation tools and steps you can use are listed below: 1. Check Google Search Console: The first step is to log in to Google Search Console and check for any manual actions against the website. Manual actions are penalties imposed by Google’s webspam team, and they will be listed in the Manual Actions section of the Search Console. 2. Check the website’s search engine rankings: If the website’s search engine rankings have significantly dropped, this could be an indication that the website has been penalized by Google. You can use a rank-tracking tool to monitor the website’s search engine rankings over time. 3. Check Google Analytics: If the website has experienced a sudden drop in traffic, you can check Google Analytics to see if there was a sudden drop in organic search traffic. This can be an indication of a Google penalty. 4. Check for duplicate content: Duplicate content can trigger Google penalties. You can use a tool like Copyscape to check if the website’s content has been copied or duplicated on other websites. 5. Check for unnatural links: Unnatural links can also trigger Google penalties. You can use a tool like Ahrefs or Majestic to check the website’s backlink profile and look for any unnatural links. 6. Use Google Penalty Checker Tools: There are several Google Penalty Checker tools available online that can analyze a website and provide information on whether the website has been penalized by Google or not.

Finally, if all these checks don’t answer whether your website has been penalized, it may be worth running a manual investigation using one of the many available online tools such as SEMRush and Moz Pro. Getting the right versions of these tools has a cost but they are usually well worth the money spent if you understand how to use them. These platforms allow users to monitor not just their sites but also competitors’ sites and analyze their performance over time so that potential issues can be identified more easily than when working manually.

Whether checking for yourself or on behalf of a client, understanding when and how sites have received Manual Actions vs Algorithmic Penalties is essential for SEO companies.

How to Recover from A Google PenaltyNow that we understand how to diagnose if a penalty has occurred. The question is, what do you do next?

1. Fix the issue: As simple as it sounds, take the necessary steps to fix it. For example, if the penalty was caused by thin content, you can add more high-quality content to the website. If the penalty was caused by unnatural links, you can disavow the links and remove any spammy links pointing to the website. Although great care should be taken when disavowing links.
2. Submit a reconsideration request: If your website received a manual penalty, you could submit a reconsideration request through Search Console after you are sure you have fixed the issue. The reconsideration request should include a detailed explanation of the steps you have taken to fix the issue and a plan to prevent the issue from happening again. Know that reconsideration requests can take a long time to hear back on. In addition, if it is incomplete, it can be kicked back to you and you will have to start the process again. Make sure you do it right the first time and if you don’t know or aren’t sure you should consult and SEO expert like Vertical Web to help you.
3. Follow Google’s guidelines: Make sure that your website follows Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to the letter and uses best practices for SEO. This will help to prevent future penalties and ensure that your website complies with Google’s guidelines. And if you take this step first, you will not get caught up in a penalty in the first place.
4. Monitor your website: After you have fixed the issue and submitted a reconsideration request, monitor your website’s search engine rankings and traffic to ensure it has fully recovered from the penalty. You can also use Google Search Console to monitor any manual actions and ensure that your website complies with Google’s guidelines.

Prevention is the Best Corrective Action for a Google PenaltyOne of the best ways to prevent Google penalties is to ensure that your website follows Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and uses best practices for SEO. This means staying up-to-date with the latest trends and advancements in search engine optimization, such as using appropriate keywords and meta tags, keeping your content fresh and relevant, and avoiding any tactics that might be considered manipulative or deceptive. Additionally, it’s important to create high-quality content that provides value to readers. Content should be well-written, informative, and original; anything copied or duplicated from other sites should be avoided.

Regarding link building, we are not advocates of buying links. Rather it’s essential to build natural links that are relevant to your website instead of trying to manipulate the system by buying backlinks or participating in link schemes. To avoid potential penalties from Google, focus on creating quality content and earning natural links from authoritative websites in your industry.

It’s also important to regularly check for unnatural links pointing to your website so you can identify and disavow any suspicious ones before they trigger a penalty.

A quick primer on Google Webmaster GuidelinesGoogle webmaster guidelines cover many areas, but this is a brief list of what you should be worried about. Our Internet Marketing Clinic teaches about these in the most up-to-date and current context.

1. Quality content: Google emphasizes providing high-quality, useful, and relevant content for visitors. Websites should aim to create unique, valuable content that meets the needs of their audience.
2. Technical optimization: Websites should be technically optimized for search engines, including having a clean and crawlable site structure, optimized URLs, and properly using HTML tags.
3. User experience: Websites should prioritize user experience by ensuring fast page load times, easy navigation, and mobile-friendliness.
4. Links: Websites should focus on obtaining high-quality, natural links from reputable sources and avoid using spammy or manipulative tactics to acquire links. Link schemes, buying links and guest posting should be avoided. Doing it right takes hard work. We get that, but getting penalized by Google is far more costly and can be far more damaging to your brand in the long run.
5. Security: Websites should implement proper security measures, such as using HTTPS and protecting against malware and hacking.

When To Ask For Help Solving a Google PenaltyWe have outlined a full set of items to be considered if you are worried your site has received a penalty from Google. There are very few companies that truly know how to solve these problems. Most of these issues are caused by an SEO company that does not use up-to-date methodology. Sometimes, the business owners themselves try to do the work. Or sometimes they take the receptionist and have them multitask and ‘do SEO’ when they know very little about it but can Google the topic.

Honestly, you did not get a Google penalty or have this happen by accident. And this should not be confused with people with no traffic because they have zero SEO.

In the 25 years we have worked on websites, we have never had a website get penalized or have action taken against it. Rather we are always cleaning up other people’s messes. And the conditions the sites arrive in are all pretty similar, and I’m listing them in order.

1. Sites are under-optimized. This is usually because the business owner thought it was as easy as adding a title tag and filling in the keyword section of his website builder.
2. Sites are over-optimized. This is caused in a few ways. One, a person doesn’t know, reads a few blog posts from 2005 and doesn’t realize the world has changed. Sometimes keywords are just spammed on a page. Sometimes they are written in the same color text on the page (so 1998). Just over to the top repetitive behavior that worked 20 years ago but not today.
3. Someone hired a link-building company, but the link-building company had no clue what they were doing. Often when we see this, we find links from all over the internet that are anchor text heavy on money terms. Or better yet, they participate in a link scheme that cross links websites or spam in anchor text.
4. Someone doesn’t understand the true cost of SEO and finds the cheapest person that cuts corners and uses out-of-country web developers or bad writers or AI modules putting up very thin content. Often changing your SEO company can cause this as well. If you are doing well with SEO, don’t look for a cheaper alternative. It often ends in a disaster. And if you change companies, look for drops in traffic. Don’t just assume the old guy wasn’t doing something and the new guy made it better. People who know SEO are not cheap, and the cost of doing business with a bad one can far exceed the money you save.
5. Site flips gone wrong. We often see people that flip their website over to a new circumstance. Either an upgrade of a site with a reskin. A Platform change (WordPress to Wix/Shopify particularly horrific). There is so much damage done to a website when you do not know how to flip a site and do not keep its link profile intact and although it’s not an algorithm-specific situation, it can look like one and be misdiagnosed.

Overall there is a lot to consider when you’re talking about Google Penalities and Algorithm. But the best advice I can ever give anyone caught in this is not to go it alone and find a company that understands how to recover from a penalty and can do it relatively quickly because time is of the essence.

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Buckle up 2023 is going to be one for the ages. Every year brings a new set of challenges for the digital marketing industry, but 2023 may bring more upheaval than normal. Multiple content-related updates in late 2022 appear to be targeted at identifying and deranking pages with low quality (potentially AI) content. Google has also made recent updates to its Search Rater Quality Guidelines – with added emphasis on communicating expertise and experience in content.

Additionally both Google and Bing are rolling out chat modules for search that have the potential to upend digital marketing, especially for small businesses. Over this year as this rolls out we will address and work to find strategies that will work inside that framework. It may be a big deal. It may be a fad, no one knows yet. It’s in part why I have been running these classes since 2007.

Google is clearly raising the bar on what constitutes a high-ranking website. Quality content, quality performance, quality navigation and linking – there’s no more cutting corners for business website owners.

That’s why we’re focusing on cleanup this week. The little things matter more than ever for digital marketing, and so we’re addressing some of the little things you can do to improve your standing on Google.

Optimize your online presence with the right platform, plugins and patches First, if your site isn’t on WordPress, move it to the WP ecosystem. More than 40 percent of the internet is built on WordPress, so Google thoroughly understands it – and prefers it. If your site is built on any other platform – Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, etc. – then you’re at a major SEO disadvantage from the start.

Assuming your site is built on WP, there is a plenty of plugin available. Many of these are useful for optimization purposes, whether performance or search engine optimization.

A favorite of ours is Rank Math. Rank Math is an SEO plugin for WordPress that provides broad functionality. It offers deep insights, like tracking your position history for a particular keyword. It also integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics 4 and offers centralized control over many SEO functions, like configuring headers or metadata.

And if you’re wondering just how entangled Google and WordPress are – Google has an official WP plugin called Google Site Kit. With Site Kit, your Google Analytics are available through your WP backend and through a single dashboard.

Verify that your business is properly listed online Google uses your company’s location for local SEO purposes, which can be a problem if your actual location doesn’t match Google’s own data. It’s a problem that a lot of businesses have.

If your company’s address or phone number have ever changed, there’s a good chance that your older addresses or numbers are listed somewhere on the internet. If there are many such outdated NAP citations out there, Google may place your business in a different market.

The goal is to monitor your NAP citations and correct any that are inaccurate. Our clients have a tool to make these easy – one available through Yext. With Yext’s Optimize Location tool, business owners can get a status update on all of their NAP citations scattered around the web. This includes Google itself, along with Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, Bing, Yelp and a score of directory sites. If there are any NAP inaccuracies, it’s made obvious here, so website owners can correct the citation.

To do that, you’ll need access to the account associated with the citing website. Businesses are in a constant state of flux, so it’s common for brands to lose control of certain accounts as employees are turned over and changes are made. If you do lose access to a citing account, you may able to correct the citation by submitting your company’s information to a major data aggregator like Acxiom or Localeze.

Set up Google Analytics 4 so there’s no interruption in data tracking Google is overhauling its analytics platform and releasing a new version in July. Termed Google Analytics 4 – or GA4 – the new platform will use AI to provide advanced reporting. For example, GA4 will notice when certain products are in greater demand, or predict when a customer is likely to churn. This is another example of Google’s reliance on machine learning. Over time, the platform will “learn” customer behavior based on previous actions.

That’s a major departure from the current system, which will be sunset in July. If you haven’t migrated to GA4 or integrated it into your website, now is the time. We recommend you run Google Universal Analytics until it’s discontinued, but bring on GA4 now so you can start building data for your website. If you wait until Universal is shut down, you’ll have zero recent historical data to make digital marketing decisions from. You’ll be in the dark for months regarding your site’s performance.

Get to know your online competitors, so you can produce better content than them Before your site can grow in a productive direction, you’ll first need your bearings. In other words, how does your company compare with its competitors online? This is a critical piece of information, because if you target the right competitors, you can leapfrog them with better content. If you target the wrong competitors, you’ll either grow your business slower or not at all.

One way to do this is through Semrush. Semrush has a deep digital marketing toolkit, including a helpful organic research tool that can be used to analyze potential competitors. Using Semrush’s organic research tool, you can reference a company’s website and get a list of all the keywords they rank for and where they rank.

You can use this tool to determine which of your competitors are positioned better on Google. The ones that are just ahead of you in important keywords – those are your targets. Once you have your competitors sized up, you can visit their content pages and determine how you could make a better version of what they’ve produced.

That doesn’t mean copying and pasting. It means taking their blog topic and writing it in your own words, using your own expertise. Write longer on the subject, with additional examples and discussion that reveals your authority on the matter. This is what Google is looking for with its push for helpful content – an internet that’s constantly producing (better and better) answers to every possible query. If you take on this mission by producing content in your own niche, Google will be more likely to rank your site higher for more valuable keywords.

Business owners are in for a wild ride this year, so ensure your fundamentals are in place There are a lot of digital marketing unknowns as we head deeper into 2023. To what extent will Google roll out additional AI functionality? Just how high is the content bar going to go this year? How will business owners prepare for the changes to come?

We’re have answers soon enough, but one thing that business owners can do now is lock down their site’s fundamentals. NAP citations, updating WordPress, integrating useful plugins and getting ready for GA4 – all of these little things add up to a more effective online presence.

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Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the primary components of digital marketing and is foundational to a successful website. Proper SEO gives your website the best possible chance at securing favorable search engine listings, and those top listings are valuable. In fact, the top 3 organic listings in Google gets an estimated 80 percent … Episode 217: SEO Basics Read More »

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When it comes to search engine optimization, people often overlook the value of basic SEO in their website and digital marketing operations. And some honestly may not even understand what to do or how to get started. It is never too late to make basic SEO an integral part of the website. As the owner … Episode 205 -A Beginners Guide to SEO: What is SEO? Read More »

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This is the time of year that I hear the phrase SEO is dead. This morning I went to a networking event to kick off the year. Now I’m with a new company so in discussing that, the feedback was that SEO in a company name has outlived its usefulness, because after all, Google doesn’t … How Technical SEO Impacts How Your Site Rankings Read More »

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There is a lot of confusion about how to handle blogs in 2021. From should I be running a blog down to how should I be running it. As a business owner, your website (notice I said website) needs to have a blog. That is not really optional anymore. And the blog needs to be … Blogging vs Podcasting Episode 124 Read More »

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I hear a lot of different opinions on keywords and how relevant they are. I even had someone tell me that Google says there is not published keyword density and if Google says it we know it’s the truth. While it is true there is no published keyword density, the density of the keyword presence … Keyword: Why They Are STILL Important Today! Read More »

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In last week’s Score class I got a a question about adding content to keywords after you wrote a page. In essence, what is an SEO content strategy.  I answered the question no that I do not do that, but upon further reflection it got me thinking about the process I do use when I … SEO Content Strategy : Dissecting the Process Read More »

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It may be helpful to think of general search engine optimization as a large umbrella under which more specific types live, one of which is technical SEO.  If SEO is the umbrella, technical SEO is the handle.  So, let me ask you this: how well does an umbrella work without a handle?  The answer is … Technical SEO: The Foundation of SEO Success Read More »