Connect with us

SEO

10 Optimization Tips to Build a Mobile-Friendly Site

Published

on

10 Optimization Tips to Build a Mobile-Friendly Site

A majority of all website visits worldwide are attributed to mobile devices. Optimizing your website for mobile has never been more important in SEO.

In this article, I’ll kick things off by explaining what mobile SEO is and why it’s important. I’ll then get to the core focus of this article, sharing my top 10 tips for effective mobile optimization.

Mobile SEO is the process of optimizing the mobile version of a website to drive organic traffic from search engines. Mobile optimization is focused on providing the best experience on mobile devices where technical implementations, such as using responsive design, play a key role.

Why is mobile optimization important?

Advertisement

According to Statista, mobile devices generated 59% of worldwide mobile traffic in the final quarter of 2022.

It’s not just users that predominantly view your site from a mobile device, but Googlebot too.

In 2016, Google announced mobile-first indexing. As a result, Google predominantly crawls the web via the Googlebot smartphone user agent. This means that Google will primarily use the mobile version of content for indexing and ranking. 

Mobile-first indexing began rolling out in 2018. By 2021, a majority of sites moved over to the new format of crawling. 

For many years, this was a hot topic among SEO professionals. However, mobile-first indexing is now “part of life,” as put by John Mueller from Google.

10 tips to make your website mobile-friendly

So now we know why mobile optimization is so crucial, here are my top 10 tips to ensure you effectively optimize for mobile.

Tip 1. Use responsive design

When it comes to picking your approach to serving content to different devices, you have a few options to choose from.

Responsive design (recommended)

With responsive design, you serve the same HTML file regardless of the device. CSS then alters the rendering of the page to suit the dimensions of the device’s viewport. This also means that you use a singular URL to serve all versions of your content.

Responsive design ensures you can effectively load the same piece of content, oriented to suit your device.

Advertisement
Page content adapts responsively to viewport

Responsive design is the recommended choice, not just among SEOs but in Google guidance too.

Back in 2019, John took to Reddit to state, “At some point all of these sites with separate mobile URLs should just move to a responsive design.” 

Ultimately, there’s no SEO gain by using responsive design. However, it is much easier and cleaner to maintain. For example, you won’t have to worry about canonical issues or Googlebot misunderstanding which URL to serve in the mobile/desktop rankings.

Separate domain/URL structure (not recommended)

An approach used commonly in the past is to serve the mobile version of a page via a separate URL or domain structure. A common example of this is the m. structure.

Desktop: example.com/page

Mobile: m.example.com/page

When a user loads your page, the server will have to determine which device the user is using and then direct them to the appropriate URL.

Advertisement
Separate m. URL structure for mobile sites

This approach is not recommended, as using multiple URLs for a single page leads to a messy scenario of URL management. 

Even with the correct signals in place, there is the added risk of Googlebot not interpreting these signals appropriately. This can lead to indexation issues or even Google identifying the pages as duplicate content.

If you currently work with this setup, you should ensure you follow the below canonical tag structure.

Desktop: Self-referencing canonical tag

Mobile: Canonical tag to target desktop URL

You’ll also want to implement a rel=”alternate” tag on the desktop version.

<link rel="alternate" media="only screen and (max-width: 640px)" href="https://m.example.com/">

Advertisement

That said, the best solution in the long term is to move to a responsive design setup.

Dynamic serving (not recommended)

Similar to responsive design, with dynamic serving, you’ll be serving content suited to different devices via a singular URL.

However, the main difference with dynamic serving is that you’ll serve different HTML files pre-defined to suit the respective device.

Dynamic serving serves separate HTML files by device

This approach certainly trumps the separate URL/domain structure option, as you have the advantage of serving content to multiple devices via a single URL.

However, dynamic serving is not recommended. History teaches us that this approach is renowned for technical issues.

With dynamic serving, it’s up to your web server to determine which device the user is browsing on. Quite often with dynamic serving setups, the desktop version of the page is accidentally shown to users on a mobile device.

Tip 2. Optimize for page speed on mobile devices

In the era of Core Web Vitals, you could argue that strong page speed performance has never been more sought after by SEO professionals.

Advertisement

In fact, when Google first rolled out Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor in 2021, it focused solely on mobile performance. Google then waited until February 2022 before using desktop Core Web Vital performance as a ranking factor. It’s clear to see which device Google prioritizes.

Google applies mobile and desktop Core Web Vital ranking signals to the respective search results. So for mobile search results, Google will focus on Core Web Vital performance from mobile devices.

A great starting point to see how your site performs against Core Web Vitals is to head to the dedicated report in Google Search Console (GSC). You can navigate to this report via left-hand navigation under the Experience section.

CWV performance graph

Clicking into the mobile report, you can see how your site has been performing against each Core Web Vital metric over the past three months. This data is gathered via CrUX (Chrome User Experience Report) from real users on your site who used a mobile device.

CWV issues segmented by issue type and category of performance

What’s great about this report in GSC is that the issue URLs are bucketed together into groups of similar pages. This means you can note down a list of key page templates that you need to work on.

Search Console bucketing similar page types

For a more detailed insight into issue areas and potential fixes, PageSpeed Insights is always worth a check.

PageSpeed Insights is simple to use. Just enter in the URL of the page you wish to test and hit “enter.” By default, the tool will automatically review the mobile version of your page.

Selecting mobile view in PageSpeed Insights

You’ll initially be presented with some insights under the heading “Discover what your real users are experiencing.” This report is the main one I focus on, to start with.

This report utilizes real user data via CrUX. Not only is it important to understand the experience of real users as opposed to bots, but Google also uses this data source within its ranking algorithm.

Here, we can see that Ahrefs’ homepage has passed all three Core Web Vital metrics.

Advertisement
Passing all three Core Web Vitals

Further down the report, you can also find some actions under the “opportunities” and “diagnostics” sections. These make for some great starting points when having conversations with developers about improving Core Web Vital performance.

Page Speed Insights actionable page speed opportunities

When using PageSpeed Insights, don’t forget to test the URLs of multiple page templates within the tool. Page speed performance often varies considerably across different page types.

We’re only scratching the surface here, though. GSC and PageSpeed Insights are only great starting points for auditing page speed.

Check out Patrick Stox’s dedicated guides on page speed and Core Web Vitals to take your page speed knowledge, analysis, and action plan to the next level.

Tip 3. Test and monitor your site for errors

It’s good practice to regularly test your site for key mobile usability errors.

There are multiple tools for this, but a great place to start is via GSC with a dedicated “Mobile Usability” report. You can find this report under the Experience section of the left-hand navigation.

Here, you can keep track of the number of URLs with mobile usability issues. GSC provides a three-month velocity graph. This is handy for identifying spikes in errors, allowing you to correlate them with development releases.

Mobile usability graph comparing usable and not usable URLs

By scrolling down, you can see the exact mobile usability issues that occur on your site. By clicking through to the individual reports, you’ll also be able to see which URLs are affected.

Summary of mobile usability issues

Outside of Search Console, you can also use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to uncover mobile usability issues. 

This is especially useful if you don’t have GSC access to the site you wish to review. Gaining access is recommended though, as you’ll automatically have a wider range of URLs covered.

Advertisement

To use the Mobile-Friendly Test, simply enter the URL (or code) for the page you wish to test to see if your page is deemed as mobile-friendly.

In this case, the tools show that the Ahrefs homepage has passed the test.

Page passing the Mobile-Friendly Test

On the other hand, if your tested page isn’t mobile-friendly, you’ll be hit with a message saying it’s not usable on mobile with a list of reasons why.

Issues for page failing the Mobile-Friendly Test

Keen to read more about specific mobile usability issues and how you can address them? Google has some great documentation that goes into more detail.

Tip 4. Make your content mobile-friendly

Making sure your website is optimized for mobile isn’t all about technical foundations. You’ll want to ensure your content is produced with mobile users in mind too.

Many SEOs prefer to use shorter paragraphs and sentences. This aligns nicely with mobile optimization practices.

This approach ensures that your content is readable on mobile devices. Who lands on an article and wants to read a big wall of text? Not me.

As a general guide, aim for a maximum of three sentences per paragraph. If a paragraph naturally just has one sentence, that’s OK too.

Advertisement
Example of a short sentence in a single paragraph

When proofing copy drafts, it’s good practice to break long sentences into shorter sentences where possible.

The same rule applies to introductions. In fact, you should apply these rules most strictly here. These should be short, snappy, and to the point.

Example of a short and snappy article introduction

To further enhance readability, you’ll want to break your copy up by including various elements and media.

These can include:

  • Bullet points
  • Numbered lists
  • Quotes
  • Images
  • Videos

See what I just did there?

When using different types of media, you’ll want to make sure these display correctly on mobile devices. It’s so frustrating for users when an image loads way out of proportion.

Tip 5. Optimize for mobile SERPs

Mobile SERPs (search engine results pages) can vary quite considerably between the mobile and desktop versions.

When browsing the SERPs for a chosen keyword, it’s important to manually check both the desktop and mobile results.

Here’s an example. Let’s take this wikiHow search result for the query, “how to fry an egg.”

Advertisement

On the desktop search results, we have a pretty standard search result. 

Basic desktop search result

On the mobile results, however, we can see that Google has included the how-to images rich result.

Mobile search result with how-to rich features

SERP estate is crucial. Gaining rich features like in the example above helps your result stand out from the crowd. 

This shows how important and relevant schema markup is for mobile optimization. In this example, wikiHow did a nice job by including how-to schema.

Looking to switch device in the search results but don’t want to grab your phone? With Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar, you can load the results from another device directly in your desktop browser.

Selecting a device, via Ahrefs' SEO Toolbar

Tip 6. Include mobile-friendly navigation

One of the biggest considerations when optimizing your site for mobile devices is the choice of implementation for the header navigation.

This is quite easily one of the most complicated areas of the site to get right for a mobile device.

The hamburger menu has become a popular option in the mobile-first world. It gets its name because the button often looks like a hamburger (apparently).

Here’s an example of the hamburger menu in action on Amazon.

Advertisement
Hamburger menu icon on Amazon

Once you click on the “hamburger” icon, usually located at the very top of the page, the menu will then open out.

In this case, the menu opens out from the left-hand side with options to further expand into navigation subcategories.

Amazon hamburger menu expanded from the left

Hamburger menus are hotly debated among SEOs and UX professionals. In my opinion, however, you can’t beat the hamburger navigation when it comes to optimizing for mobile.

Not only is this approach clean and compact, but users are also becoming more accustomed to these types of menus on mobile.

It’s OK to go with the “mega menu” approach for your desktop site and switch to the hamburger menu for your mobile site. 

The number #1 rule is to ensure that the links within both menus are the same. You’ll want to make sure that you include the exact same links on both your desktop and mobile navigation.

Here, we can see that Apple displays the mega menu on desktop.

Apple navigation on desktop

And on its mobile site, it uses the hamburger menu but shows the exact same links seen on the desktop version.

Apple navigation on mobile

For e-commerce websites, faceted navigation is a big consideration too. 

Let’s take a look back at Amazon. It has tons of filter options on its product listing pages.

Advertisement

To keep the faceted navigation compact for mobile users, it uses a similar approach to the hamburger menu.

Faceted navigation on Amazon

Allowing the faceted navigation to expand on a simple button click keeps your page neat and compact. Perfect for mobile users.

Keen to learn more about site navigation? Be sure to check out Sam Underwood’s article on mastering website navigation

Tip 7. Keep your content the same

Parity between your site’s mobile and desktop versions is essential. As we mentioned earlier, Google will predominantly crawl the mobile version of your website. 

If you were to remove content from the mobile version of your page, you’d run the risk of weakening your content in the eyes of Google.

This rule should be applied to all types of content, from the copy itself to imagery. This rule also applies to technical items, from canonical tags to internal linking.

A great way to test mobile parity is to run a crawl on your mobile site and compare it against a crawl on the desktop version of your site.

Advertisement

Setting up a crawl via Ahrefs’ Site Audit, you have the option to switch between the mobile and desktop user agent. 

You can locate this setting under the “Robots instructions” section of the crawl settings.

Selecting user agent, via Ahrefs' Site Audit crawl settings

To test mobile parity via Site Audit, start two separate crawls. One with the user agent set to “AhrefsSiteAudit (Desktop),” and the other with “AhrefsSiteAudit (Mobile).”

You can then compare these crawls in the project history side by side to check for parity between the desktop and mobile crawls.

Comparing Ahrefs' Site Audit crawl results

Notice significantly more errors on the mobile crawl compared to the desktop crawl? This can indicate that your technical elements aren’t being implemented correctly on mobile.

In Site Audit, it’s well worth comparing the HTML source code between your mobile and desktop crawls. This allows you to easily identify any unexpected differences between the mobile and desktop code of your page.

In the example below, we can see that the header menu code has changed between the mobile and desktop crawls. Luckily in this case, this code difference is expected.

Comparing HTML source code, via Ahrefs' Site Audit crawl comparisons

You should also consider rendering JavaScript in the crawl settings for websites that heavily rely on that. You can then compare the rendered HTML between the crawls with different user agents. Check our guide to JavaScript SEO for more information.

Tip 8. Avoid intrusive interstitials

Interstitials (also known as pop-ups) that are intrusive and distracting are frustrating for users. This is often an even stronger frustration for mobile users, as pop-ups often take up an even bigger portion of the screen.

Advertisement

Not only could you be decreasing your conversion rate with annoying and intrusive pop-ups, but you’d also get a thumbs-down from Google.

As part of Google’s Page Experience set of ranking signals, Google approves more subtle interstitials as opposed to the large interstitials that cause great frustration.

Acceptable interstitial practice

The big exception to the rule here is that the interstitial may be required by law. Common examples include cookie consent and age gate pop-ups.

For example, on alcohol-related content, the supplier could land in hot water if they didn’t force a user to enter their date of birth before accessing the content.

Age gate on alcohol website

Tip 9. Review mobile performance

It’s good practice to regularly review the devices that drive your website’s organic traffic.

Starting off with GSC, you can filter by device type in the search performance report.

Simply add a new filter by clicking the “+ new” button above the report and select “Device…”

Filtering by device in Google Search Console's Performance report

Here, you can filter your organic performance report via device, allowing you to see just how much organic traffic you’ve acquired via mobile devices. You also have the option to compare traffic by device.

Comparing traffic by device in Search Console

Similar to the “Mobile Usability” report in GSC, it’s worth keeping an eye out for any unexpected fluctuations and traffic drops in mobile traffic. This can be a sign of mobile optimization issues that need further investigation.

You can also view traffic by device in Google Analytics 4. Head to the “Device Category” report by loading Reports > User > Tech > Overview. 

Advertisement

Here, you’ll want to click “View platform devices” for the full analytics by device.

GA4's Device Category report

You’ll then be presented with data tables, charts, and graphs based on traffic by device type. Don’t forget to add an organic traffic filter to ensure you’re looking purely at “SEO traffic.”

GA4 table comparing traffic by device category

Tip 10. Track rankings on a mobile device

When it comes to tracking keywords, it’s easy to forget that rankings can vary between the desktop and mobile SERPs.

Luckily, switching between desktop and mobile on Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker is simple, making it super easy to see how your site is ranking on either SERP.

What’s also great about Rank Tracker is that you don’t need to specify a device as a setting when you first track your keywords. Keywords are automatically tracked within both the mobile and desktop SERPs.

Simply load your keyword report and switch between mobile and desktop reviews in the top left corner.

Switching between mobile and desktop rankings in Ahrefs' Rank Tracker

Final thoughts

You may be wondering, “Should I just ditch the desktop version of my site and focus on mobile optimization?”

Steady on. It’s true that mobile is now the dominant device, but you won’t want to completely disregard the desktop experience. 

Not only will some of your users visit your site via desktop, but Googlebot will also crawl via a desktop user agent from time to time (just not as frequently as the mobile version).

Advertisement

In fact, many websites continue to predominantly drive traffic through users on desktop. This is particularly the case for SaaS companies and many B2B-focused websites in general. For example, the Ahrefs Blog has over 70% of organic traffic coming from users on desktop devices.

High organic traffic to Ahrefs via desktop devices

To sum it up, the key takeaways are to:

  • Show the same content on your mobile site as you would on your desktop site.
  • Understand that responsive design is the way to go.
  • Prioritize your mobile pages for page speed optimization.
  • Not be afraid to use the hamburger menu for mobile devices.
  • Regularly monitor and track mobile usability and mobile traffic/rankings.

Have any questions? Ping me on Twitter and let me know.



Source link

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address

SEO

Content Pruning: Why It Works, and How to Do It

Published

on

Content Pruning: Why It Works, and How to Do It

Content pruning sounds pretty appealing: delete a ton of content and see your organic traffic improve. But pruning has risks (like deleting useful pages and useful backlinks), and benefits are not guaranteed: So how does pruning actually work? And when

Read more ›



Source link

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

SEO

8 Free SEO Reporting Tools

Published

on

8 Free SEO Reporting Tools

There’s no shortage of SEO reporting tools to choose from—but what are the core tools you need to put together an SEO report?

In this article, I’ll share eight of my favorite SEO reporting tools to help you create a comprehensive SEO report for free.

Price: Free

Google Search Console, often called GSC, is one of the most widely used tools to track important SEO metrics from Google Search.

Most common reporting use case

GSC has a ton of data to dive into, but the main performance indicator SEOs look at first in GSC is Clicks on the main Overview dashboard.

Advertisement

As the data is from Google, SEOs consider it to be a good barometer for tracking organic search performance. As well as clicks data, you can also track the following from the Performance report:

  • Total Impressions
  • Average CTR
  • Average Position
gsc-performance-overviewgsc-performance-overview

Tip

If you’ve signed up for AWT using Google Search Console, you can view your GSC performance data in Ahrefs by clicking “GSC Performance” from the main dashboard.

But for most SEO reporting, GSC clicks data is exported into a spreadsheet and turned into a chart to visualize year-over-year performance.

organic-traffic-graph-showing-clicks-year-over-yearorganic-traffic-graph-showing-clicks-year-over-year

Favorite feature

One of my favorite reports in GSC is the Indexing report. It’s useful for SEO reporting because you can share the indexed to non-indexed pages ratio in your SEO report.

google-search-console-indexed-pages-reportgoogle-search-console-indexed-pages-report

If the website has a lot of non-indexed pages, then it’s worth reviewing the pages to understand why they haven’t been indexed.

Price: Free

Google Looker Studio (GLS), previously known as Google Data Studio (GDS), is a free tool that helps visualize data in shareable dashboards.

Most common reporting use case

Dashboards are an important part of SEO reporting, and GLS allows you to get a total view of search performance from multiple sources through its integrations.

Advertisement

Out of the box, GLS allows you to connect to many different data sources.

Such as:

  • Marketing products – Google Ads, Google Analytics, Display & Video 360, Search Ads 360
  • Consumer products – Google Sheets, YouTube, and Google Search Console
  • Databases – BigQuery, MySQL, and PostgreSQL
  • Social media platformsFacebook, Reddit, and Twitter
  • Files – CSV file upload and Google Cloud Storage

Sidenote.

If you don’t have the time to create your own report manually, Ahrefs has three Google Looker Studio connectors that can help you create automated SEO reporting for any website in a few clicks

google-looker-studio-partner-connectorsgoogle-looker-studio-partner-connectors

Here’s what a dashboard in GLS looks like:

ahrefs-seo-audit-dashboardahrefs-seo-audit-dashboard
Ahrefs Google Looker Studio integration

With this type of dashboard, you share reports that are easy to understand with clients or other stakeholders.

Favorite feature

The ability to blend and filter data from different sources, like GA and GSC, means you can get a customized overview of your total search performance, tailored to your website.

Price: Free for 500 URLs

Screaming Frog is a website crawler that helps you audit your website.

Advertisement

Screaming Frog’s free version of its crawler is perfect if you want to run a quick audit on a bunch of URLs. The free version is limited to 500 URLs—making it ideal for crawling smaller websites.

screaming-frog-user-interface-screenshotscreaming-frog-user-interface-screenshot

Most common reporting use case

When it comes to reporting, the Reports menu in Screaming Frog SEO Spider has a wealth of information you can look over that covers all the technical aspects of your website, such as analyzing, redirects, canonicals, pagination, hreflang, structured data, and more.

Once you’ve crawled your site, it’s just a matter of downloading the reports you need and working out the main issues to summarize in your SEO report.

Favorite feature

Screaming Frog can pull in data from other tools, including Ahrefs, using APIs. 

If you already had access to a few SEO tools’ APIs, you could pull data from all of them directly into Screaming Frog. This is useful if you want to combine crawl data with performance data or other 3rd party tools.

screaming-frog-api-accessscreaming-frog-api-access

Even if you’ve never configured an API, connecting other tools to Screaming Frog is straightforward.

Price: Free

Ahrefs has a large selection of free SEO tools to help you at every stage of your SEO campaign, and many of these can be used to provide insights for your SEO reporting.

Advertisement
when-to-use-ahrefs-free-tools-across-the-seo-process-illustrationwhen-to-use-ahrefs-free-tools-across-the-seo-process-illustration

For example, you could use our:

Most common reporting use case

One of our most popular free SEO tools is Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT), which you can use for your SEO reporting.

With AWT, you can:

  • Monitor your SEO health over time by setting up scheduled SEO audits
  • See the performance of your website
  • Check all known backlinks for your website
ahrefs-overviewahrefs-overview

Favorite feature

Of all the Ahrefs free tools, my favorite is AWT. Within it, site auditing is my favorite feature—once you’ve set it up, it’s a completely hands-free way to keep track of your website’s technical performance and monitor its health.

If you already have access to Google Search Console, it’s a no-brainer to set up a free AWT account and schedule a technical crawl of your website(s).

Price: Free

Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar is a free Chrome and Firefox extension useful for diagnosing on-page technical issues and performing quick spot checks on your website’s pages.

Most common reporting use case

For SEO reporting, it’s useful to run an on-page check on your website’s top pages to ensure there aren’t any serious on-page issues.

Advertisement
ahrefs-seo-toolbar-overviewahrefs-seo-toolbar-overview

With the free version, you get the following features:

  • On-page SEO report
  • Redirect tracer with HTTP Headers
  • Outgoing links report with link highlighter and broken link checker
  • SERP positions
  • Country changer for SERP

The SEO toolbar is excellent for spot-checking issues with pages on your website. If you are not confident with inspecting the code, it can also give you valuable pointers on what elements you need to include on your pages to make them search-friendly.

If anything is wrong with the page, the toolbar highlights it, with red indicating a critical issue.

severity-highlight-ahrefs-seo-toolbarseverity-highlight-ahrefs-seo-toolbar

Favorite feature

The section I use the most frequently in the SEO toolbar is the Indexability tab. In this section, you can see whether the page can be crawled and indexed by Google.

indexability-tab-ahrefs-seo-toolbarindexability-tab-ahrefs-seo-toolbar

Although you can do this by inspecting the code manually, using the toolbar is much faster.

Price: Free

Like GSC, Google Analytics is another tool you can use to track the performance of your website, tracking sessions and conversions and much more on your website.

google-analytics-screenshotgoogle-analytics-screenshot

Most common reporting use case

GA gives you a total view of website traffic from several different sources, such as direct, social, organic, paid traffic, and more.

Favorite feature

You can create and track up to 300 events and 30 conversions with GA4. Previously, with universal analytics, you could only track 20 conversions. This makes conversion and event tracking easier within GA4.

Price: Free

Google Slides is Google’s version of Microsoft PowerPoint. If you don’t have a dashboard set up to report on your SEO performance, the next best thing is to assemble a slide deck.

Advertisement

Many SEO agencies present their report through dashboard insights and PowerPoint presentations. However, if you don’t have access to PowerPoint, then Google Slides is an excellent (free) alternative.

google-slides-screenshotgoogle-slides-screenshot

Most common reporting use cases

The most common use of Google Slides is to create a monthly SEO report. If you don’t know what to include in a monthly report, use our SEO report template.

Favorite feature

One of my favorite features is the ability to share your presentation on a video chat directly from Google Slides. You can do this by clicking the camera icon in the top right.

share-video-chat-google-slidesshare-video-chat-google-slides

This is useful if you are working with remote clients and makes sharing your reports easy.

Price: Free

Google Trends allows you to view a keyword’s popularity over time in any country. The data shown is the relative popularity ratio scaled from 0-100, not the direct volume of search queries.

Most common reporting use cases

Google Trends is useful for showing how the popularity of certain searches can increase or decrease over time. If you work with a website that often has trending products, services, or news, it can be useful to illustrate this visually in your SEO report.

Google Trends makes it easy to spot seasonal trends for product categories. For example, people want to buy BBQs when the weather is sunny.

Advertisement

Using Google Trends, we can see that peak demand for BBQs usually happens in June-July every year.

bbq-google-trends-graphbbq-google-trends-graph

Using this data across the last five years, we could be fairly sure when the BBQ season would start and end.

Favorite feature

Comparing two or more search terms against each other over time is one of my favorite uses of Google Trends, as it can be used to tell its own story.

google-trends-comparison-examplegoogle-trends-comparison-example

Embellishing your report with trends data allows you to gain further insights into market trends.

You can even dig into trends at a regional level if you need to.

regional-trends-via-google-trendsregional-trends-via-google-trends

Final thoughts

These free tools will help you put together the foundations for a well-rounded SEO report.

The tools you use for SEO reporting don’t always have to be expensive—even large companies use many of the free tools mentioned to create insights for their client’s SEO reports.

Got more questions? Ping me on X 🙂

Advertisement



Source link

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

SEO

Study Reveals Potential Disruption For Brands & SEO

Published

on

By

Study Reveals Potential Disruption For Brands & SEO

A new study by Authoritas suggests that Google’s AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE), currently being tested with a limited group of users, could adversely impact brand visibility and organic search traffic.

These findings include:

  • When an SGE box is expanded, the top organic result drops by over 1,200 pixels on average, significantly reducing visibility.
  • 62% of SGE links come from domains outside the top 10 organic results.
  • Ecommerce, electronics, and fashion-related searches saw the greatest disruption, though all verticals were somewhat impacted.

Adapting to generative search may require a shift in SEO strategies, focusing more on long-form content, expert insights, and multimedia formats.

As Google continues to invest in AI-powered search, the Authoritas study provides an early look at the potential challenges and opportunities ahead.

High Penetration Rate & Industry-Wide Effects

The study analyzed 2,900 brand and product-related keywords across 15 industry verticals and found that Google displays SGE results for 91.4% of all search queries.

The prevalence of SGE results indicates they impact a majority of websites across various industries.

Advertisement

The research analyzed the typical composition of SGE results. On average, each SGE element contained between 10-11 links sourced from an average of four different domains.

This indicates brands may need to earn multiple links and listings within these AI-curated results to maintain visibility and traffic.

The research also suggests that larger, well-established websites like Quora and Reddit will likely perform better in SGE results than smaller websites and lesser-known brands.

Shifting Dynamics In Organic Search Results

With SGE results occupying the entire first page, websites that currently hold the top positions may experience a significant decrease in traffic and click-through rates.

When a user clicks to expand the SGE element, the study found that, on average, the #1 ranked organic result drops a sizeable 1,255 pixels down the page.

Even if a website ranks number one in organic search, it may effectively be pushed down to the second page due to the prominence of SGE results.

Advertisement

New Competition From Unexpected Sources

The study revealed that SGE frequently surfaces links and content from websites that didn’t appear in the top organic rankings.

On average, only 20.1% of SGE links exactly matched a URL from the first page of Google search results.

An additional 17.9% of SGE links were from the same domains as page one results but linked to different pages. The remaining 62% of SGE links came from sources outside the top organic results.

Challenges For Brand Term Optimization & Local Search

The study reveals that SGE results for branded terms may include competitors’ websites alongside the brand’s own site, potentially leading to increased competition for brand visibility.

Laurence O’Toole, CEO and founder of Authoritas, states:

“Brands are not immune. These new types of generative results introduce more opportunities for third-party sites and even competitors to rank for your brand terms and related brand and product terms that you care about.”

Additionally, local businesses may face similar challenges, as SGE results could feature competing local brands even when users search for a specific brand in a regional context.

Advertisement

Methodology & Limitations

To arrive at these insights, Authoritas analyzed a robust dataset of 2,900 search keywords across a spectrum of query types, including specific brand names, brand + generic terms, brand + product names, generic terms, and specific product names. The keywords were distributed across 15 industry verticals.

The study utilized a consistent desktop browser viewport to quantify pixel-based changes in the search results. Authoritas also developed proprietary “alignment scores” to measure the degree of overlap between traditional organic search results and the new SGE links.

While acknowledging some limitations, such as the keyword set needing to be fully representative of each vertical and the still-evolving nature of SGE, Authoritas maintains that the insights hold value in preparing brands for the new realities of an AI-powered search ecosystem.

Why We Care

The findings of the Authoritas study have implications for businesses, marketers, and SEO professionals. As Google’s SGE becomes more prevalent, it could disrupt traditional organic search rankings and traffic patterns.

Brands that have invested heavily in SEO and have achieved top rankings for key terms may find their visibility and click-through rates diminished by the prominence of SGE results.

SGE introduces new competition from unexpected sources, as most SGE links come from domains outside the top 10 organic results. This means businesses may need to compete not only with their traditional rivals but also with a broader range of websites that gain visibility through SGE.

Advertisement

As Google is a primary source of traffic and leads for many businesses, any changes to its search results can impact visibility, brand awareness, and revenue.

How This Could Help You

While the rise of SGE presents challenges, it also offers opportunities.

Taking into account what we’ve learned from the Authoritas study, here are some actionable takeaways:

  • As SGE favors in-depth, informative content, businesses may benefit from investing in comprehensive, well-researched articles and guides that provide value to users.
  • Incorporating expert quotes, interviews, and authoritative sources within your content could increase the likelihood of being featured in SGE results.
  • Enriching your content with images, videos, and other multimedia elements may help capture the attention of both users and the SGE algorithm.
  • Building a strong brand presence across multiple channels, including social media, industry forums, and relevant websites, can increase your chances of appearing in SGE.
  • Creating a trustworthy brand and managing your online reputation will be crucial, as SGE may feature competitors alongside your website.

Looking Ahead

While the long-term impact of SGE will depend on user adoption and the perceived usefulness of results, this study’s findings serve as a valuable starting point for businesses and SEO professionals.

By proactively addressing the challenges and opportunities SGE presents, you can increase your chances of success in the new search environment.


Featured Image: BestForBest/Shutterstock

Source link

Advertisement
Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

Trending

Follow by Email
RSS