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The Current State of Google PageRank & How It Evolved

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The Current State of Google PageRank & How It Evolved

PageRank (PR) is an algorithm that improves the quality of search results by using links to measure the importance of a page. It considers links as votes, with the underlying assumption being that more important pages are likely to receive more links.

PageRank was created by Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1997 when they were at Stanford University, and the name is a reference to both Larry Page and the term “webpage.” 

In many ways, it’s similar to a metric called “impact factor” for journals, where more cited = more important. It differs a bit in that PageRank considers some votes more important than others. 

By using links along with content to rank pages, Google’s results were better than competitors. Links became the currency of the web.

Want to know more about PageRank? Let’s dive in.

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Google still uses PageRank

In terms of modern SEO, PageRank is one of the algorithms comprising Experience Expertise Authoritativeness Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T).

Google’s algorithms identify signals about pages that correlate with trustworthiness and authoritativeness. The best known of these signals is PageRank, which uses links on the web to understand authoritativeness.

Source: How Google Fights Disinformation

We’ve also had confirmation from Google reps like Gary Illyes, who said that Google still uses PageRank and that links are used for E-A-T (now E-E-A-T).

When I ran a study to measure the impact of links and effectively removed the links using the disavow tool, the drop was obvious. Links still matter for rankings.

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PageRank has also been a confirmed factor when it comes to crawl budget. It makes sense that Google wants to crawl important pages more often.

Fun math, why the PageRank formula was wrong 

Crazy fact: The formula published in the original PageRank paper was wrong. Let’s look at why. 

PageRank was described in the original paper as a probability distribution—or how likely you were to be on any given page on the web. This means that if you sum up the PageRank for every page on the web together, you should get a total of 1.

Here’s the full PageRank formula from the original paper published in 1997:

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PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + … + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

Simplified a bit and assuming the damping factor (d) is 0.85 as Google mentioned in the paper (I’ll explain what the damping factor is shortly), it’s:

PageRank for a page = 0.15 + 0.85 (a portion of the PageRank of each linking page split across its outbound links)

In the paper, they said that the sum of the PageRank for every page should equal 1. But that’s not possible if you use the formula in the paper. Each page would have a minimum PageRank of 0.15 (1-d). Just a few pages would put the total at greater than 1. You can’t have a probability greater than 100%. Something is wrong!

The formula should actually divide that (1-d) by the number of pages on the internet for it to work as described. It would be:

PageRank for a page = (0.15/number of pages on the internet) + 0.85 (a portion of the PageRank of each linking page split across its outbound links)

It’s still complicated, so let’s see if I can explain it with some visuals.

1. A page is given an initial PageRank score based on the links pointing to it. Let’s say I have five pages with no links. Each gets a PageRank of (1/5) or 0.2.

PageRank example of five pages with no links yet

2. This score is then distributed to other pages through the links on the page. If I add some links to the five pages above and calculate the new PageRank for each, then I end up with this: 

PageRank example of five pages after one iteration

You’ll notice that the scores are favoring the pages with more links to them.

3. This calculation is repeated as Google crawls the web. If I calculate the PageRank again (called an iteration), you’ll see that the scores change. It’s the same pages with the same links, but the base PageRank for each page has changed, so the resulting PageRank is different.

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PageRank example of five pages after two iterations

The PageRank formula also has a so-called “damping factor,” the “d” in the formula, which simulates the probability of a random user continuing to click on links as they browse the web. 

Think of it like this: The probability of you clicking a link on the first page you visit is reasonably high. But the likelihood of you then clicking a link on the next page is slightly lower, and so on and so forth.

If a strong page links directly to another page, it’s going to pass a lot of value. If the link is four clicks away, the value transferred from that strong page will be a lot less because of the damping factor.

Example showing PageRank damping factor
History of PageRank

The first PageRank patent was filed on January 9, 1998. It was titled “Method for node ranking in a linked database.” This patent expired on January 9, 2018, and was not renewed. 

Google first made PageRank public when the Google Directory launched on March 15, 2000. This was a version of the Open Directory Project but sorted by PageRank. The directory was shut down on July 25, 2011.

It was December 11, 2000, when Google launched PageRank in the Google toolbar, which was the version most SEOs obsessed over.

This is how it looked when PageRank was included in Google’s toolbar. 

PageRank 8/10 in Google's old toolbar

PageRank in the toolbar was last updated on December 6, 2013, and was finally removed on March 7, 2016.

The PageRank shown in the toolbar was a little different. It used a simple 0–10 numbering system to represent the PageRank. But PageRank itself is a logarithmic scale where achieving each higher number becomes increasingly difficult.

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PageRank even made its way into Google Sitemaps (now known as Google Search Console) on November 17, 2005. It was shown in categories of high, medium, low, or N/A. This feature was removed on October 15, 2009.

Link spam

Over the years, there have been a lot of different ways SEOs have abused the system in the search for more PageRank and better rankings. Google has a whole list of link schemes that include:

  • Buying or selling links—exchanging links for money, goods, products, or services.
  • Excessive link exchanges.
  • Using software to automatically create links.
  • Requiring links as part of a terms of service, contract, or other agreement.
  • Text ads that don’t use nofollow or sponsored attributes.
  • Advertorials or native advertising that includes links that pass ranking credit.
  • Articles, guest posts, or blogs with optimized anchor text links.
  • Low-quality directories or social bookmark links.
  • Keyword-rich, hidden, or low-quality links embedded in widgets that get put on other websites.
  • Widely distributed links in footers or templates. For example, hard-coding a link to your website into the WP Theme that you sell or give away for free.
  • Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature.

The systems to combat link spam have evolved over the years. Let’s look at some of the major updates.

Nofollow

On January 18, 2005, Google announced it had partnered with other major search engines to introduce the rel=“nofollow” attribute. It encouraged users to add the nofollow attribute to blog comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists to help combat spam.

Here’s an excerpt from Google’s official statement on the introduction of nofollow:

If you’re a blogger (or a blog reader), you’re painfully familiar with people who try to raise their own websites’ search engine rankings by submitting linked blog comments like “Visit my discount pharmaceuticals site.” This is called comment spam, we don’t like it either, and we’ve been testing a new tag that blocks it. From now on, when Google sees the attribute (rel=“nofollow”) on hyperlinks, those links won’t get any credit when we rank websites in our search results. 

Almost all modern systems use the nofollow attribute on blog comment links. 

SEOs even began to abuse nofollow—because of course we did. Nofollow was used for PageRank sculpting, where people would nofollow some links on their pages to make other links stronger. Google eventually changed the system to prevent this abuse.

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In 2009, Google’s Matt Cutts confirmed that this would no longer work and that PageRank would be distributed across links even if a nofollow attribute was present (but only passed through the followed link).

Google added a couple more link attributes that are more specific versions of the nofollow attribute on September 10, 2019. These included rel=“ugc” meant to identify user-generated content and rel=“sponsored” meant to identify links that were paid or affiliate.

Algorithms targeting link spam

As SEOs found new ways to game links, Google worked on new algorithms to detect this spam. 

When the original Penguin algorithm launched on April 24, 2012, it hurt a lot of websites and website owners. Google gave site owners a way to recover later that year by introducing the disavow tool on October 16, 2012.

When Penguin 4.0 launched on September 23, 2016, it brought a welcome change to how link spam was handled by Google. Instead of hurting websites, it began devaluing spam links. This also meant that most sites no longer needed to use the disavow tool. 

Google launched its first Link Spam Update on July 26, 2021. This recently evolved, and a Link Spam Update on December 14, 2022, announced the use of an AI-based detection system called SpamBrain to neutralize the value of unnatural links. 

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The original version of PageRank hasn’t been used since 2006, according to a former Google employee. The employee said it was replaced with another less resource-intensive algorithm.

They replaced it in 2006 with an algorithm that gives approximately-similar results but is significantly faster to compute. The replacement algorithm is the number that’s been reported in the toolbar, and what Google claims as PageRank (it even has a similar name, and so Google’s claim isn’t technically incorrect). Both algorithms are O(N log N) but the replacement has a much smaller constant on the log N factor, because it does away with the need to iterate until the algorithm converges. That’s fairly important as the web grew from ~1-10M pages to 150B+.

Remember those iterations and how PageRank kept changing with each iteration? It sounds like Google simplified that system.

What else has changed?

Some links are worth more than others

Rather than splitting the PageRank equally between all links on a page, some links are valued more than others. There’s speculation from patents that Google switched from a random surfer model (where a user may go to any link) to a reasonable surfer model (where some links are more likely to be clicked than others so they carry more weight).

Some links are ignored

There have been several systems put in place to ignore the value of certain links. We’ve already talked about a few of them, including:

  • Nofollow, UGC, and sponsored attributes.
  • Google’s Penguin algorithm.
  • The disavow tool.
  • Link Spam updates.

Google also won’t count any links on pages that are blocked by robots.txt. It won’t be able to crawl these pages to see any of the links. This system was likely in place from the start.

Some links are consolidated

Google has a canonicalization system that helps it determine what version of a page should be indexed and to consolidate signals from duplicate pages to that main version.

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Canonicalization signals

Canonical link elements were introduced on February 12, 2009, and allow users to specify their preferred version.

Redirects were originally said to pass the same amount of PageRank as a link. But at some point, this system changed and no PageRank is currently lost.

A bit is still unknown

When pages are marked as noindex, we don’t exactly know how Google treats the links. Even Googlers have conflicting statements.

According to John Mueller, pages that are marked noindex will eventually be treated as noindex, nofollow. This means that the links eventually stop passing any value.

According to Gary, Googlebot will discover and follow the links as long as a page still has links to it.

These aren’t necessarily contradictory. But if you go by Gary’s statement, it could be a very long time before Google stops crawling and counting links—perhaps never.

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Can you still check your PageRank?

There’s currently no way to see Google’s PageRank.

URL Rating (UR) is a good replacement metric for PageRank because it has a lot in common with the PageRank formula. It shows the strength of a page’s link profile on a 100-point scale. The bigger the number, the stronger the link profile.

Screenshot showing UR score from Ahrefs overview 2.0

Both PageRank and UR account for internal and external links when being calculated. Many of the other strength metrics used in the industry completely ignore internal links. I’d argue link builders should be looking more at UR than metrics like DR, which only accounts for links from other sites.

However, it’s not exactly the same. UR does ignore the value of some links and doesn’t count nofollow links. We don’t know exactly what links Google ignores and don’t know what links users may have disavowed, which will impact Google’s PageRank calculation. We also may make different decisions on how we treat some of the canonicalization signals like canonical link elements and redirects.

So our advice is to use it but know that it may not be exactly like Google’s system.

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We also have Page Rating (PR) in Site Audit’s Page Explorer. This is similar to an internal PageRank calculation and can be useful to see what the strongest pages on your site are based on your internal link structure.

Page rating in Ahrefs' Site Audit

How to improve your PageRank

Since PageRank is based on links, to increase your PageRank, you need better links. Let’s look at your options.

Redirect broken pages

Redirecting old pages on your site to relevant new pages can help reclaim and consolidate signals like PageRank. Websites change over time, and people don’t seem to like to implement proper redirects. This may be the easiest win, since those links already point to you but currently don’t count for you.

Here’s how to find those opportunities:

I usually sort this by “Referring domains.”

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Best by links report filtered to 404 status code to show pages you may want to redirect

Take those pages and redirect them to the current pages on your site. If you don’t know exactly where they go or don’t have the time, I have an automated redirect script that may help. It looks at the old content from archive.org and matches it with the closest current content on your site. This is where you likely want to redirect the pages.

Internal links

Backlinks aren’t always within your control. People can link to any page on your site they choose, and they can use whatever anchor text they like.

Internal links are different. You have full control over them.

Internally link where it makes sense. For instance, you may want to link more to pages that are more important to you.

We have a tool within Site Audit called Internal Link Opportunities that helps you quickly locate these opportunities. 

This tool works by looking for mentions of keywords that you already rank for on your site. Then it suggests them as contextual internal link opportunities.

For example, the tool shows a mention of “faceted navigation” in our guide to duplicate content. As Site Audit knows we have a page about faceted navigation, it suggests we add an internal link to that page.

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Example of an internal link opportunity

External links

You can also get more links from other sites to your own to increase your PageRank. We have a lot of guides around link building already. Some of my favorites are:

Final thoughts

Even though PageRank has changed, we know that Google still uses it. We may not know all the details or everything involved, but it’s still easy to see the impact of links.

Also, Google just can’t seem to get away from using links and PageRank. It once experimented with not using links in its algorithm and decided against it.

So we don’t have a version like that that is exposed to the public but we have our own experiments like that internally and the quality looks much much worse. It turns out backlinks, even though there is some noise and certainly a lot of spam, for the most part are still a really really big win in terms of quality of search results.

We played around with the idea of turning off backlink relevance and at least for now backlinks relevance still really helps in terms of making sure that we turn the best, most relevant, most topical set of search results.

Source: YouTube (Google Search Central)

If you have any questions, message me on Twitter.

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The Most Engaged YouTube Fans For NCAA Basketball Teams

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The Most Engaged YouTube Fans For NCAA Basketball Teams

Imagine that you head up digital marketing at Turner Sports or CBS Sports, which have the exclusive rights to license NCAA marks, tickets, and taglines in commercial promotions.

Or suppose that your social video agency was just invited to pitch AT&T, Capital One, or Coca-Cola, which are official NCAA corporate champions.

And you have an assignment to identify the most engaged YouTube fans for the NCAA Division 1 Men’s and Women’s basketball teams.

I realize that you probably don’t work at one of those sports media and entertainment companies and it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be asked to pitch one of those brands in the foreseeable future.

So, why should you care about what makes engaged NCAA fans on YouTube?

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Keep reading, there is method in the madness.

Cognitive, Emotional, And Behavioral Metrics

As mentioned previously, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has identified 30 metrics – 7 cognitive, 4 emotional, and 19 behavioral – that brands or agencies can use to measure the “engagement continuum.”

Image from IAB, March 2024

But fan engagement can fluctuate depending on whether a college basketball team is on the bubble, makes it to the Big Dance, or goes deep into the Sweet 16, Elite Eight, and Final Four.

Fan engagement can also vary depending on the number of logo 3s, buzzer beaters, or overtime wins.

That’s why this hypothetical assignment is so hard.

Nevertheless, exploring various video engagement metrics from several video intelligence sources can help you better understand the most engaged YouTube fans for NCAA basketball teams and how to apply what you’ve learned to your brands or clients.

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Here are three cognitive metrics that you should explore when measuring engagement:

  • Change in Brand Awareness/Familiarity: You can use surveys to measure the extent your brand is recognized by potential customers before and after this year’s NCAA tournaments.
  • Change in Brand Consideration: You can also use pre- and post-March Madness surveys to measure your brand’s inclusion in a set customers would select from.
  • Change in Purchase Intent: You can also use Brand Lift surveys to measure the delta in customers’ plans or willingness to purchase your brand in the future.

Here are three emotional metrics that you should look at using to measure engagement:

  • Change in Baseline Brand Perception: Surveys enable you to measure the pre-post delta in what potential customers think and feel about your brand.
  • Change in Baseline Brand Favorability: Surveys also enable you to measure what potential customers like and value about your brand before and after the Big Dance.
  • Change in Baseline Brand Loyalty: Surveys enable you to measure customer loyalty in terms of weight and frequency of usage – as well as likelihood to switch – from Selection Sunday, March 17, to the women’s NCAA championship game on Sunday, April 7, and the men’s NCAA championship game on Monday, April 8, 2024.

Here are six behavioral metrics worth exploring to measure engagement:

  • Watch Time: The total amount of time viewers spend watching a video, including any replays or rewatches, should be a key metric. Since it’s only available if you have access to your brand or client’s YouTube Analytics, digital marketers and social video agencies use “views” as a metric to compare videos across other YouTube channels.
  • Applause Rate: The number of likes a YouTube video gets.
  • Amplification Rate: The number of shares a YouTube video gets.
  • Conversation Rate: The number of comments a YouTube video gets.
  • Engaged-View Conversions (EVCs): In Google Analytics 4 (GA4), an engaged-view conversion (EVC) indicates that someone watched a YouTube video for at least 10 seconds and then converted on your website or app within 3 days of viewing the video.
  • Economic Value: This is the monetary value of visitors from YouTube to your site who go on to complete micro conversions like subscribing to a newsletter or initiating a chat with your business, as well as macro conversions like purchasing a product or registering for a service.

In addition, here are some of the video intelligence sources you should evaluate:

  • Official Team and Conference Channels: Many NCAA Division 1 teams and major conferences, like the ACC, Big 10, and SEC, have their own YouTube channels. These channels feature highlights, interviews, and behind-the-scenes content. Comparing their metrics can provide you with insights.
  • Media and NCAA Basketball Channels: YouTube channels like CBS Sports and March Madness upload video content about various college basketball teams, allowing you to compare fan engagement based on comments and viewership.
  • Third-Party Tools: Tubular Labs, a social video intelligence company that provides data on social video audiences, and Pixability, a company that helps brands monitor their YouTube and CTV campaigns, can provide deeper insights into engagement, but they require paid subscriptions.

For this article, I contacted Matt Duffy, the company’s CMO, and Sean Alie, the head of its insights team, to see if they had any critical data or strategic insights worth sharing.

They did – and it appears below.

There are four sections: men’s team views, women’s team views, year-over-year (YoY) data for men’s and women’s teams + men’s vs. women’s teams, and lastly, views by popular players (such as Caitlin Clark, the NCAA Division I all-time leading scorer of the Iowa Hawkeyes in the Big Ten Conference).

Here’s what the men’s NCAA basketball views look like.

They are filtered to sports videos only, and each video includes the keywords “*team name*,” “basketball,” and “men” somewhere in the metadata.

The timeline is February only.

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Men’s Basketball

Houston, the #1 ranked team, earned 7.5% more views than the next leading team, Kansas (21M vs 19.6M). Kansas did rank first in engagements, though, earning 13% more engagements than Houston (442K vs 391K).

Duke ranked 3rd in views (16M) and engagements (389K). One thing to note is Houston is the #1 ranked team and the most viewed team on YouTube.

However, Kansas was ranked 14th and Duke 9th, yet they were able to rank 2nd and 3rd in views. This is a testament to the brand awareness these programs hold.

Men's basketball engagement dataImage from Pixability, March 2024

Women’s Basketball

This data uses the same methodology as the men’s data except with “women” as a keyword instead of “men.”

Iowa, home of star Caitlin Clark, earned 51% more views than the next leading program, LSU (12.4M vs 8.2M). This makes sense as Angel Reece plays for LSU and is widely considered the second most popular player in women’s college basketball, after Caitlin.

The individual stars may influence views for women’s programs more than the team’s fan base. Iowa earned 9.5% more engagements than LSU (178.5K vs 162.9K). Indiana ranked 3rd in views, followed by UConn.

Women's basketball engagement dataImage from Pixability, March 2024

Men’s Vs. Women’s Teams And YoY Stats

  • The top 16 men’s teams earned a combined 130.8M views in February 2024, which is 157% more than the top 16 women’s teams have earned (50.8M). Men’s teams earned 247% more engagements (2.4M) than women’s teams (690K).
  • YoY, the top 16 ranked men’s teams earned 61% more views this year compared to the top 16 ranked teams last year in February (130.8M vs 81.2M).
  • YoY, the top 16 ranked women’s teams earned 147% more views this year compared to the top 16 ranked teams last year in February (50.8M vs 20.5M). This means that views for women’s college basketball are growing faster than the men’s. A large part of this was due to the rise of Caitlin Clark.

Views By Popular Basketball Players

The stats below are based on players participating in the tournament: Caitlin Clark earned 17.5M player mention views in February, which is more than any other player in the men’s and women’s tournaments.

Caitlin earned 10.6x more views in February than the highest male player (Kyle Filipowski) views polled in February (17.5M vs 1.6M).

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The second most viewed player was also a woman, Angel Reese, who plays for the LSU Tigers in the Southeastern Conference. Angel earned 3.9x more views than Kyle Filipowski, who plays for the Duke Blue Devils in the Atlantic Coast Conference (6.4M vs 1.6M).

The rivalry between these two women stars has fueled incredible engagement on YouTube.

Again, men’s teams are more popular than women’s teams, but at the individual level, women players are outperforming men by a large margin.

Although the USC Trojans of the Pac-12 Conference won’t make the tournament this year, LeBron Raymone “Bronny” James earned 32M views, which is 87% higher than Caitlin Clark’s views.

This is still incredibly impressive for Caitlin as she is putting up numbers that compete with someone as well-known as Bronny James.

Engagement Data for PlayersImage from Pixability, March 2024

Of course, you could figure out who are the most engaged YouTube fans for NCAA basketball teams without using third-party tools.

But that might take so much time that you’d miss some of the games that make March Madness worth watching and create highlights worth sharing on YouTube.

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Hey, you make the call.

How Marketers Can Use Insights Into The Most Engaged Fans

So, how can digital marketers use these insights about NCAA basketball’s most engaged fans?

Well, I can think of three key ways to apply what we’ve just learned.

First, as I mentioned in “39 Emotions Digital Marketers Can Use In Advertising,” people share videos that elicit “high-arousal” or intense emotions twice as much as ones that elicit “low-arousal” or moderate emotions. And March Madness elicits several intense emotions.

For example, the Big Dance triggers nostalgia, a sentimental longing or wistful affection for some past period or irrecoverable condition. How do you make use of this insight?

Watch Continental Tire’s “Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, and the Smart Choice!” Basketball legends Grant Hill and Christian Laettner of Duke not only tell us about the importance of making smart choices but also remind us of “The Shot” during the 1992 NCAA tournament.

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During a game between East Region #1 seed Duke and #2 seed Kentucky in the East Regional Final to determine a spot in the Final Four, defending national champion Duke trailed 103–102 with 2.1 seconds remaining in overtime.

That’s when Hill threw a pass three-quarters of the length of the court to Laettner, who faked right, dribbled once, turned, and hit a jumper as time expired for the 104–103 win. In 2004, Sports Illustrated called it the greatest college basketball game of all time.

Second, college athletes can now make money from their name, image, and likeness (NIL). So, brands like State Farm Insurance can now feature players like Caitlin Clark in YouTube videos like “Shoot! (feat. Caitlin Clark, Jimmy Butler, Reggie Miller) :30 | State Farm Commercial.”

It’s worth noting that State Farm uploaded this video on Nov. 21, 2023, almost three months before Clark broke “Pistol” Pete Maravich’s NCAA Division I scoring record on Feb. 15, 2024. Kudos to the brand and their agency for being ahead of the curve.

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Third, the line between creators and their audiences is blurring.

At last year’s Brandcast, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan told advertisers, “The universe of ‘creators’ is growing every day as more people make videos on their phones.

This limitless access means the world of creation is changing. Fans used to engage with a like or subscribe. But now, you can see a trend and easily jump in with your own video.”

For an example, check out “Meet the New Face of March Madness – Robbie Avila #collegebasketball #indianastate #sports #funny.” BenchwarmerBran, the online alias of Brandon Carney, a sports content creator who makes jokes about teams, players, and fantasy leagues, uploaded this video on March 7, 2024. And it currently has 405,000 views and 63,500 engagements.

If you use Tubular Intelligence, then you will see that 1,536 accounts in the U.S. uploaded 3,208 videos about “March Madness” to YouTube in the last 90 days.

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And influencers uploaded 2,359 of these videos (73.5%), while media and entertainment companies uploaded 602 (18.8%), and brands uploaded only 224 (7.0%).

Now, these 3,208 YouTube videos about March Madness got a total of 11.6 million views and 455,000 engagements.

So, targeting affinity segments, people who already have a strong interest in relevant topics, may be a much smarter option than targeting placements, specific YouTube channels or websites and apps on the Google Display Network.

How SEO Pros Can Use This Information, Too

So, how could an SEO specialist use this information to make actionable decisions?

Well, I’m sad to say that some won’t.

Why? As Captain Spock (Leonard Nimoy) said in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn”,

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“He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.”

In other words, some intelligent SEO specialists think their job is to work with text, not videos. And they also think that the content that their optimizing is to help people make rational decisions, not emotional ones.

But YouTube videos have been appearing in Google’s search results since May 2007. And as I mentioned in “Customer Personas Can Transform SEO, PPC and Content Marketing,” Google has talked about emotions driving search intent since May 2019.

As Justin De Graaf, Head of Ads Research and Insights at Google, observed back then,

“The truth is, decision-making is not a rational process, but one driven mainly by how people feel. The rational brain layers on reasons for our choices only after they’re made.”

So, if SEO specialists continue to focus on optimizing text to help people make rational decisions, then their pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.

Now, they may continue to be somewhat successful, especially if they can answer “yes” when asked: “After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they’ve learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal?”

But, as Google has said,

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“The helpful content update aims to better reward content where visitors feel they’ve had a satisfying experience, while content that doesn’t meet a visitor’s expectations won’t perform as well.”

So, SEO specialists who can’t create (and optimize) video content that tells a good story and makes a visitor feel something emotionally may struggle to provide a satisfying experience.

In conclusion, this is why it’s worth dreaming about getting a starring role in a Cinderella story.

I realize that you probably won’t get a job at one of those media and entertainment companies and it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be asked to pitch one of those brands in the foreseeable future.

But, if and when your opportunity presents itself, then you will be ready to take your best shot at the buzzer.

More resources:


Featured Image: adriaticfoto/Shutterstock

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7 Easy SEO Tips for Small Businesses

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7 Easy SEO Tips for Small Businesses

If you’re a small business owner, people are searching for what you do on Google. Unless you show up, you’re missing out on customers or clients.

SEO is how you do that, and the basics are quick and easy.

Follow these tips to rank your small business higher in no time.

If you only do one thing as a small business owner, make it to claim and optimize your GBP.

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A Google Business Profile helps users find and learn about your business in Google search and maps. It’s free to set up and lets you share important details about your business with customers, like its phone number, opening times, and offerings.

But here’s the real beauty of Business Profiles: People don’t have to search for your business to see your profile. They can appear for broader searches like “pizza restaurant near me.”

Example of a Google Business Profile in the 'map pack ' resultsExample of a Google Business Profile in the 'map pack ' results

This makes them a powerful way to attract new customers searching for what you do.

Here are the basics of optimizing your profile:

  • Set the right business category and type
  • Add opening hours (and keep them up to date!)
  • Add contact details
  • Add photos
  • Add your products or services

Learn more in our 30-minute Business Profile optimization guide.

People don’t always turn to Google to find small businesses. They also search popular business directories and trusted review websites.

Even if they do search Google, they’ll often end up browsing a popular directory anyway because that’s often what ranks.

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For example, I was recently searching for a cat sitter for an upcoming vacation. I started my search by typing “cat sitter near me” into Google. But I soon ended up browsing a niche directory because that’s what all the top results were.

Local directories and niche sites rank for "cat sitter near me"Local directories and niche sites rank for "cat sitter near me"

In fact, I even ended up booking a cat sitter through one of these websites:

Booking I made on a local niche site after finding it in GoogleBooking I made on a local niche site after finding it in Google

Long story short, if you’re not listed on popular niche or local directories, you’re losing out on second-hand search traffic and customers.

Let’s look at a couple of ways to find the best directories to get listed on.

Search Google

Head over to Google and search for “[what your business does] in [location]”, then add your business to directories that rank on the first page.

For example, if you’re a cat sitter in Seattle, you’ll probably want to get listed on:

  • Meowtel
  • Rover.com
  • Yelp
  • Care.com
Local niche sites and directories ranking in Google searchLocal niche sites and directories ranking in Google search

Find the directories your competitors are listed on

Most directory listings also link to your website, which means you can use your competitors’ backlink profile to find relevant directories.

Here’s how to do it in Ahrefs:

  1. Go to our Competitive Analysis tool
  2. Select the “referring domains” mode
  3. Enter your site in the “Not linking to target” field
  4. Enter the sites of a few competing businesses in the “But linking to these competitors” fields
  5. Hit “Show link opportunities”
Finding local and niche directories in AhrefsFinding local and niche directories in Ahrefs

You should see a list of domains that link to your competitors but not you. Eyeball this list for sites that look like relevant directories and add your business to them.

Examples of local directories linking to competitorsExamples of local directories linking to competitors

Not sure who your competitors are?

Search Google for “[what your business does] in [location]” and go to Maps. Follow the website links on their profiles to find their domains, then copy and paste them into Ahrefs.

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How to find competitorsHow to find competitors

Having technical SEO issues can hurt your rankings, so it’s worth checking that your website is technically sound and fixing any major issues.

The easiest way to do this is with an SEO audit tool like Ahrefs’ Site Audit. You can use this free of charge with an Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT) account. Just sign up, follow the steps to crawl your site, then filter the All issues report for Errors:

How to find website errors in Ahrefs' Site AuditHow to find website errors in Ahrefs' Site Audit

For advice on what the issues mean and how to fix them, hit the tooltip:

How to find advice on fixing the issuesHow to find advice on fixing the issues

For example, Site Audit found eight 404 pages on our blog during a recent crawl:

Example of a 404 page issueExample of a 404 page issue

To fix this issue, we can either reinstate, redirect, or remove internal links to the pages.

If you also schedule regular crawls in Site Audit, you’ll get alerts about new SEO issues so you can fix them before they cause problems.

Email alert from Ahrefs' Site AuditEmail alert from Ahrefs' Site Audit

People often search for specific products or services rather than what your business does. For example, they might search for “bathroom remodel near me” instead of “plumber near me.”

If they do this, Google tends to show pages about that service, not plumbers’ homepages.

Google tends to service pages rather than homepages when searching for specific servicesGoogle tends to service pages rather than homepages when searching for specific services

You might struggle to rank for these terms unless you have these pages.

But you might be thinking, “I offer lots of services. I don’t have enough time to create pages for all of them.”

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Keyword research is the answer. This is the process of discovering what words and phrases your customers are typing into Google. You can use it to find the products or services they’re searching for the most and then prioritize creating pages about them.

Here’s how to do it:

  1. Brainstorm all the products or services you offer
  2. Paste them into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer (make sure to select the country you’re in)

You’ll see the keywords sorted by their estimated monthly search volumes from high to low:

Plumbing keywords sorted by popularity, via Ahrefs' Keywords ExplorerPlumbing keywords sorted by popularity, via Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer

This should give you a good idea of relative interest in the products or services you offer and the pages you should prioritize creating.

Sidenote.

These are national volumes, but that shouldn’t really matter. If a service is more popular than another nationally, it’s probably more popular in the local area where your business operates, too. The only caveat is if you offer something like HVAC services and the climate in your country differs greatly from region to region.

For example, it would make sense to have a page for boiler servicing if it’s something you offer.

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Having pages about your products and services is one thing, but you also need to make sure they tell searchers what they want to know. If you know your customers well, you can probably get halfway there easily. But it’s always best to do a bit of research.

For example, I was recently searching for someone to repair our boiler…

My process went a little like this:

  • Searched Google for “boiler repair near me”
  • Had a quick look at the reviews and websites of the top-ranked businesses
  • Called the most promising ones

I knew that our boiler brand isn’t very common, so I was specifically looking for engineers who mentioned working with our brand on their websites. Out of a dozen sites I checked, only one mentioned this:

Example of a site giving searchers what they wantExample of a site giving searchers what they want

As a result, this was the first company I called.

If the other engineers had only done a bit of keyword research, they’d have known this is something customers care about and included it on their pages.

Here’s how you can do that in Ahrefs:

  1. Go to Keywords Explorer
  2. Search for your product or service (e.g., “boiler repair”)
  3. Go to the Matching Terms report
  4. Go to the “Cluster by terms” tab
Use term clustering in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer to find what customers care aboutUse term clustering in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer to find what customers care about

From here, skim the list for similar terms that might indicate the kind of information searchers are looking for.

For example, the highlighted terms below are all boiler brands:

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Customers searching for boiler repair care about boiler brandsCustomers searching for boiler repair care about boiler brands

I also see mentions of different types of boilers, like oil, gas, and electric:

Customers searching for boiler repair care about boiler typesCustomers searching for boiler repair care about boiler types

From this quick skim alone, it’s clear that searchers are looking for engineers who can repair their type and brand of boiler.

If you’re a local boiler engineer, having this information not only helps searchers but also saves wasted time answering the phone to give your “Oh… I don’t work with that brand of boiler, sorry!” response.

Can this also help you rank higher?

In all likelihood, yes.

For example, had I searched Google for local engineers who work with our brand of boiler, the engineer’s website that actually mentions the brand ranks in position #3:

Giving searchers what they want seems to pay offGiving searchers what they want seems to pay off

Backlinks are a known ranking factor. The only problem is that high-quality backlinks are far from easy to get. (This is what makes them such a good ranking factor.)

For small businesses, taking advantage of existing relationships is a good starting point.

Here are a few ideas:

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  • Give suppliers testimonials. These often get featured on their sites along with a link.
  • Publish client spotlights. For example, if you’re a plumber who recently helped renovate your local church, write it up and ping them about it. They might feature it on their website.
  • Pitch stockist pages. For example, if your store stocks a local craft beer, see if the brewery lists its stockists on its website. If its does, you can usually get featured just by asking.

I would also recommend trying to replicate your competitors’ best backlinks. To find these, plug their site into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and check the Backlinks report.

How to find your competitors' backlinks in Ahrefs' Site ExplorerHow to find your competitors' backlinks in Ahrefs' Site Explorer

Sidenote.

If there is a lot to go through, toggle the “Best links” filter to narrow things down.

For example, this local plumber has two links from sites listing small businesses that offer discounts to health and other key workers:

Example of easy-to-replicate backlinks to a plumber's websiteExample of easy-to-replicate backlinks to a plumber's website

Both of these would be pretty easy links to replicate (assuming you’re happy to offer this discount!)

Google itself advises small business owners to remind customers to leave reviews and reply to them to build trust:

Google's advice on reviews for small businessesGoogle's advice on reviews for small businesses

As Google says, the easiest way to do this is to create and share a link to your Business Profile with customers. You can do this in “thank you” emails, at the end of customer support interactions, or simply by including a link or QR code on receipts.

This is also likely to help with your “map pack” rankings, at least according to BrightLocal’s survey. It states that 17% of SEOs deem reviews to be the most important ranking factor.

17% of SEOs think reviews is the most important ranking factor for the 'map pack'17% of SEOs think reviews is the most important ranking factor for the 'map pack'

But don’t limit yourself to asking for and replying to reviews on your Google Business Profile. Many customers also trust other websites. If you’re wondering which review sites matter most for your small business, Google its name and look for other review sites in the results.

For example, reviews on TripAdvisor are clearly important for my favorite pizzeria:

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TripAdvisor is an important place to get reviews for restaurantsTripAdvisor is an important place to get reviews for restaurants

For my favorite local craft bottle shop, niche review sites like RateBeer and Untapped seem more important:

Untappd is an important place to get reviews for bottle shopsUntappd is an important place to get reviews for bottle shops

FAQs

What is small business SEO?

Small business SEO is the process of improving your online presence to get more customers from Google and other search engines. It almost always revolves heavily around optimizing for local searches.

What are the benefits of small business SEO?

There are three main benefits of doing SEO for your small business:

  • More brand awareness. Showing up in more places online means more people will become familiar with your business.
  • More traffic. Ranking higher in Google and other search engines leads to more traffic.
  • More customers. As long as your traffic is targeted, it’ll bring in more customers or clients.

What’s the difference between small business SEO and local SEO?

Unless you sell products or services beyond your local area, not much.

If your small business sells products nationally or internationally, check out our guide to ecommerce SEO or our guide to international SEO.

If your small business sells services in multiple locations (e.g., car hire), read our guide to local keyword research to learn how to optimize for that.

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A Comprehensive On-Page SEO Checklist for 2024

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A Comprehensive On-Page SEO Checklist for 2024

If you’ve invested time and effort writing an epic piece of content, don’t forget about on-page SEO. It helps google to understand what your page is about and show it to as many people as possible in the search results.

Even better, many on-page improvements are super quick and easy to do.

Follow this checklist for perfect on-page SEO every time:

If you’re looking for a reusable interactive checklist to use time and time again, here are a few other formats

Let’s run through everything real quick.

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Google says it’s best to use words that are relevant to your content in page URLs, so you don’t want random gobbledygook urls like domain.com/734/834753956756 if you can avoid it. It’s better to use something short and descriptive like domain.com/mens/shirts.

Short, descriptive URLs are best for SEOShort, descriptive URLs are best for SEO

It only takes a few seconds to change this in most content management systems:

You can change URL structures in most CMS's in secondsYou can change URL structures in most CMS's in seconds

If you’re not sure what words or phrases to use, the main keyword you’re targeting is usually a good bet. That’s what we do on the Ahrefs blog 90% of the time.

For example, our target keyword for this post is “on page SEO checklist,” so that’s what the post’s URL is:

Using the target keyword is never a bad idea for a URL slugUsing the target keyword is never a bad idea for a URL slug

Few best practices to keep in mind:

  • Avoid repeating words. If your page is about mens shirts and it’s nested in the /mens/ subfolder, you don’t need to repeat the word “mens.” domain.com/mens/shirts/ is better than domain.com/mens/mens-shirts/
  • Avoid dates. If a searcher comes across domain.com/blog/2020/fashion-tips/ in 2024, they’re going to assume it’s out-of-date even if you updated the content yesterday. So domain.com/blog/fashion-tips/ would be better.
  • Avoid being too specific. If your URL is domain.com/blog/20-best-fashion-tips/, it’s going to look weird if you add more tips to your post later on. Using the less specific domain.com/blog/best-fashion-tips/ gives you more future freedom.

Google says that title tags are often the main piece of information searchers use to decide which result to click on. If yours is boring and dull, you’re probably not going to get as many clicks as you could—even if you rank.

It’s the same story for meta descriptions, which Google often uses for the descriptive snippet.

Pages with compelling title tags and meta descriptions get more clicksPages with compelling title tags and meta descriptions get more clicks

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach for title tags, but the ABC formula is a decent starting point for blog posts:

Use the ABC formula to craft more compelling title tagsUse the ABC formula to craft more compelling title tags

For your meta description, my best advice is to try to expand on your title tag to give searchers more detail and context.

If you’re struggling or just want a fast solution, give our free AI title tag generator and meta description generator a shot. Tell the tools what your page is about and your desired writing tone and they’ll generate a few options.

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Use Ahrefs' free AI and meta description generators to craft compelling copy in secondsUse Ahrefs' free AI and meta description generators to craft compelling copy in seconds

Remember to keep them both short and swee, too. If they’re too long, they’ll get cut-off in search. This looks odd and makes them less compelling. You can use a free tool like this one to check for truncation before publishing, or Ahrefs’ Site Audit to find all the issues on your site.

Google recommends using one H1 tag per page. It makes sense to use this for your page title as H1 is the highest level heading there is.

Most content management systems do this automatically, but you can double-check your title is indeed a H1 for free using Ahrefs SEO toolbar. Just click the Content tab:

Use the Ahrefs SEO Toolbar to check the structure of your contentUse the Ahrefs SEO Toolbar to check the structure of your content

If the copy you’d expect to be wrapped in a H1 tag isn’t, hit up your developer!

People want what you promised them in your title and meta description, so don’t kick things off with a load of fluff. Get straight to the point and give the reader what they came for in the first sentence.

There’s no one-size-fits-all way to do this. It all depends on what searchers are looking for.

For example, when people search for “toxic backlinks,” they’re overwhelmingly looking for a definition above all else. That’s why I made the very first paragraph of my article the definition:

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People have short attention spans; get to the point fastPeople have short attention spans; get to the point fast

But when people search for “best snow blower,” they just want a recommendation—so that’s what Wirecutter gives them in the first paragraph:

Wirecutter is great at getting to the point in their introsWirecutter is great at getting to the point in their intros

Sidenote.

I think Wirecutter’s opening paragraph could be even better because there’s no point in that first sentence. If you’re searching for “best snow blower,” you already know the benefits of the product. You just want to know which one is best!

Google’s John Mueller said that the search giant uses headings to help better understand the content on a page. This is why you need to make sure they’re clear and descriptive.

It’s easy to miss the mark here. We’ve even been guilty of it ourselves.

For example, look at these two subheadings from our list of blogging tips:

Some of our rather cryptic subheadings from our list of blogging tipsSome of our rather cryptic subheadings from our list of blogging tips

Do you have any idea what those mean at first glance?

Me neither. And many of the other subheadings in our post were also unclear.

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If you suspect the same might be true for your subheadings, try this: ask ChatGPT to rewrite them for clarity.

Asking ChatGPT to rewrite subheadings for clarityAsking ChatGPT to rewrite subheadings for clarity

This is exactly what Sam did for our post, and it made them much clearer in seconds.

For example, “Create a ‘Do 100’ project” became “Start a ‘write 100 blog posts’ project”:

Example of a subheading rewritten by ChatGPTExample of a subheading rewritten by ChatGPT

Make sure your subheadings have proper hierarchy, too. It helps Google to understand the structure and makes it easier to skim for readers.

Headings improve user experience by creating hierarchyHeadings improve user experience by creating hierarchy

Search intent is the reason behind the search. Unless your page aligns with intent and gives searchers what they’re looking for, your chances of ranking high are slim to none.

To show just how important this is, look at this graph:

Our rankings for "backlink checker" shot up after we matched search intentOur rankings for "backlink checker" shot up after we matched search intent

This shows our ranking position for the keyword “backlink checker” over time. You can see that in late 2018, we suddenly went from struggling to rank higher than position #5 to consistently ranking #1.

How? By optimizing our page for search intent.

Here’s what the page looked like before:

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Our original "backlink checker" landing pageOur original "backlink checker" landing page

Here’s what it looks like now:

Our current "backlink checker" landing pageOur current "backlink checker" landing page

Minor design tweaks aside, there’s one important difference: there’s now a free backlink checker embedded. Before it just asked visitors to start a trial of our SEO software.

By catering to what searchers actually wanted, we improved the page’s rankings and its estimated search traffic from ~18K to ~215K monthly visits. That’s a 12X improvement!

Traffic increased by 12X when we improved search intent. That's huge!Traffic increased by 12X when we improved search intent. That's huge!

But how did we know what searchers wanted?

Back then, we had to do a manual analysis of the top search results. While you can still do that, it’s much easier just to click the “Identify intents” button in Keywords Explorer:

Use the "Identify intents" button in Keywords Explorer to quickly understand what searchers are looking forUse the "Identify intents" button in Keywords Explorer to quickly understand what searchers are looking for

This uses the power of AI to analyze the top search results and tell you what searchers are looking for.

Broadly aligning your content with search intent isn’t enough. It should also cover the topic in full to tell searchers everything they want to know. This can help it rank for more keywords and bring more traffic as a result, too.

To find what searchers are looking for, look for common subtopics among top-ranking pages.

There are a few ways you can do this.

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Manually check the top-ranking pages

Search for your target keyword in Google, open a few top-ranking pages, and eyeball them for commonalities.

For example, many top results for “best running shoes for flat feet” give a budget option:

Many first-page results for "best running shoes for flat feet" talk about the best budget option
Many first-page results for "best running shoes for flat feet" talk about the best budget option

Check the keyword rankings of top-ranking pages

Pages often rank for keywords related to the subtopics they cover. If you see many top pages ranking for these keywords, it’s probably an important subtopic to cover.

Here’s how to find these keywords:

  1. Go to the Competitive Analysis tool in Ahrefs
  2. Enter your page’s URL in the “This target doesn’t rank for” field. (If you haven’t published your page yet, enter the URL you plan to use.)
  3. Enter the URLs of a few similar top-ranking pages in the “But these competitors do” fields
  4. Look for keywords that represent subtopics

For example, the top three results for “best running shoes for flat feet” also rank in the top 10 for many keywords related to men and women’s shoes:

Keyword rankings for top-ranking pages often reveal important subtopicsKeyword rankings for top-ranking pages often reveal important subtopics

This tells you that the best picks for men and women is an important subtopic to include.

Find subtopics with the help of AI

It’s currently in beta, but the new AI Content Grader in Ahrefs finds “missing” subtopics. It does this by comparing the content of the three top-ranking pages for your target keyword to your content.

To use it, just enter your target keyword and your page’s URL. (If you haven’t published your page yet, enter the URL you plan to use).

For example, here’s one of its suggestions for the keyword “best running shoes for flat feet”:

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AI suggestions for subtopics to include, via Ahrefs' Content GraderAI suggestions for subtopics to include, via Ahrefs' Content Grader

Information gain is a measure of how unique your content is. Google describes a mechanism for scoring this in a patent granted in June 2022.

Two months later, in August 2022, Google launched the helpful content update, which they described as “part of a broader effort to ensure people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.”

Are these two things related? Nobody knows. But what we do know is that Google cares about the originality of your content, and almost certainly has mechanisms in place for identifying it. 

This means that covering what other top-ranking pages cover isn’t enough for a well-optimized page. It also needs to bring something new and valuable to the table.

For example, my colleague Chris collected data on how folks deal with low-quality backlinks for his post on removing backlinks:

Research Chris did for his post on removing backlinksResearch Chris did for his post on removing backlinks

Ryan interviewed three B2B marketers for unique insights for his post on B2B content marketing:

Research Ryan did for his post on B2B content marketingResearch Ryan did for his post on B2B content marketing

And I worked with Patrick Stox to create an interactive workflow and template for my content audit guide:

Template I made for my post on how to do a content auditTemplate I made for my post on how to do a content audit

None of these posts are completely unique. They contain plenty of information that you can probably find elsewhere—and that’s fine. What matters is that we’re bringing at least something new to the table.

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Google’s algorithms are designed to surface content that demonstrates E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust.

If you’re an expert in your field or crafted your content from personal experience, your page already has E-E-A-T. But searchers aren’t going to know that without reading it, so you should try to showcase it as obviously as you can on the page. Let’s look at two ways to do this.

Flash your credentials

Healthline does this extremely well. The very first thing you see on their page about rheumatoid arthritis is that the content was reviewed by a rheumatologist:

Healthline flashes author's credentials right in the introHealthline flashes author's credentials right in the intro

Put your uniqueness front and center

If you’ve put time and effort into adding “information gain” to your content, don’t bury it. Make sure searchers see it right away so they know they can trust you.

For example, to curate our list of the best Facebook groups for SEOs, we asked the 12K+ members of our customer-only group to vote for their favorites. Instead of burying this fact deep in the post, we highlighted it in the very first paragraph.

Always put your uniqueness front and centerAlways put your uniqueness front and center

For a page to earn backlinks (which are a strong ranking factor) and shares, people have to actually consume the content. This isn’t going to happen if the copy is hard to read.

You can use free tools like Hemingway and Grammarly to fix this.

For example, Hemingway gives my recent guide to toxic backlinks a reading grade level of 7:

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Use tools like Hemingway and Grammarly to improve readabilityUse tools like Hemingway and Grammarly to improve readability

Given that 54% of Americans lack literary proficiency (essentially reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level), this means we’re alienating at least 46% of readers. If we could bring the reading grade level down, more people would be able to read it.

Sidenote.

This isn’t absolutely necessary for every topic. It depends on who your audience is. If they’re technical folks, don’t worry about it. But if you’re publishing content for the masses, accessibility matters.

Here are a few more tips to improve readability:

  • Use short sentences and paragraphs
  • Use bulleted lists
  • Use images

Featured snippets give searchers a short answer right in the search results.

Featured snippets in search resultsFeatured snippets in search results

But here’s the cool thing: Google pulls the snippet from one of the top-ranking pages. This means that if your page already ranks in the top 10 for keywords where Google shows a featured snippet, there might be an opportunity to steal it without much effort.

This is exactly what I managed to do a couple of months ago, which led to a ~38.9% jump in estimated search traffic to our page:

Traffic improvement of 38.9% by optimizing for featured snippetsTraffic improvement of 38.9% by optimizing for featured snippets

Here’s what happened:

In Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, I used the Organic Keywords report to find the page’s top 10 keyword rankings with featured snippets we didn’t own.

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How to find featured snippet opportunitiesHow to find featured snippet opportunities

Right away, I noticed a trend: many of the keywords were people searching for the most searched thing in Google (singular) rather than a list of top searches (plural):

Example of an obvious opportunity to optimize for featured snippetsExample of an obvious opportunity to optimize for featured snippets

After searching for a few of these keywords in Google, I saw that the snippet was pretty much always pulled from this very short paragraph in a competing post:

Example of copy Google was using for a featured snippetExample of copy Google was using for a featured snippet

So… I added a similar paragraph to our post (using our data instead):

The copy I added to our page to optimize for featured snippetsThe copy I added to our page to optimize for featured snippets

This quick big of on-page SEO won our page 163 more featured snippets:

Results of optimizing - 163 more featured snippetsResults of optimizing - 163 more featured snippets

Images on your page can rank in Google Images and send you more traffic. There are three things you need to do to optimize them.

Filenames are descriptive

Google says that these give clues about the subject matter, so avoid random file names like IMG_5497.jpg in favor of something short and descriptive like brown-dog.jpg.

How to name image files for SEOHow to name image files for SEO

Alt text is present and descriptive

Google also says that image alt text helps them understand subject matter, so the same rules apply as filenames: keep them short and descriptive.

How to write alt text for SEOHow to write alt text for SEO

Most content management systems have a place to add alt text in the UI, so there’s no need to mess around with HTML:

Most CMS's make it easy to add alt textMost CMS's make it easy to add alt text

Images are compressed

Compressed images are smaller and faster to load. Some platforms like Shopify claim to do this automatically, but the results aren’t always great. It’s generally better to employ the help of a plugin like TinyIMG or Shortpixel.

Internal links are links from one page on your site to another. They help Google understand what a page is about and boost its authority, which can lead to higher rankings.

For this reason, when you publish a new page, it pays to internally link from there to other relevant pages. This won’t help the new page’s rankings, but it might help the rankings of the pages you internally link to.

To find relevant opportuntities, use Ahrefs’ Site Audit:

  1. Go to the Internal Link Opportunities tool
  2. Enter the URL of your newly-published page in the search box
  3. Choose “Source page” from the dropdown
How to find internal linking opportunitiesHow to find internal linking opportunities

Sidenote.

Site Audit needs to have crawled your site since you published the new page, otherwise this won’t work.

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Pay attention to these columns:

  • Source page → your newly-published page, where you will add the link
  • Keyword context → where on the page to add the link
  • Target page → where to link to

For example, here the report is suggesting that I link from my post on toxic backlinks to our bad links guide:

Example of an internal linking opportunityExample of an internal linking opportunity

Citing valuable resources is helpful for readers. Even Google says so.

Does that mean it’s a “ranking factor?” No. But it does improve your content’s credibility with readers, and that can impact things that do matter like links and shares.

This is something we regularly do on the Ahrefs blog:

Example of us linking to sources on the Ahrefs blogExample of us linking to sources on the Ahrefs blog

If you’re trying to boost the rankings of the page you’re optimizing, you’ll want to add internal links to it from other pages on your site.

To find relevant opportunities, use Ahrefs’ Site Audit:

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  1. Go to the Page Explorer tool
  2. Enter your target keyword (or part of it) in the search box
  3. Choose “Page text” from the dropdown
How to find internal linking opportunities on other pagesHow to find internal linking opportunities on other pages

This will find pages on your site that mention your target keyword, which may be good places to add internal links.

For example, it tells us that our guide to removing backlinks mentions the word “toxic”:

Example internal linking opportunityExample internal linking opportunity

If we search that page, this is the mention:

Perfect place to add an internal linkPerfect place to add an internal link

That looks like the perfect place to internally link to our guide to toxic backlinks.

Schema markup is code that helps search engines understand the information on a page. It also powers many rich snippets you see in Google, which can lead to more clicks.

What rich results look likeWhat rich results look like

If you’re not sure whether schema markup is worth prioritizing for your page, search for your main target keyword in Google and look at the top results. If all or many are rich results, it’s probably worth adding it.

Most of the results for this term show rich snippets, so it's probably worth optimizing for themMost of the results for this term show rich snippets, so it's probably worth optimizing for them

If you use WordPress, you can easily add schema with a plugin like Yoast or RankMath. Alternatively, use a tool like Merkle’s Schema Markup Generator to generate the JSON-LD code yourself and add it manually.

Keep learning

Check out even more of our on-page SEO resources:

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