SEO

A Step-by-Step Strategy (Based on Updating 50+ Posts)

Published

2 years ago

February 25, 2022

A Step-by-Step Strategy (Based on Updating 50+ Posts)

Content refreshing is one of the best ways to increase traffic of your existing content, and it’s also a great way to keep the information on your website fresh and up to date.

However, the content refreshing process isn’t always straightforward. For example, some people worry about tanking their organic traffic if they update the content (a valid concern). Other people find that it just doesn’t bring the dramatic traffic increase that some marketing experts promise.

Fortunately for you, I’ve been both of those people.

I’ve updated probably more than 50 blog posts in the past 12 months, and I’ve made a lot of mistakes. However, I’ve also seen outstanding results, such as content that drives 10 times more traffic and soars in rankings.

That said, I really wanted to know why some posts perform dramatically better post-update than others.

So I did a data study on what makes some content dramatically more successful post-update and why others continue to flounder. Using this data, I’ve come up with a content refreshing strategy that has significantly improved my content refreshing success rate. Today, I want to share that strategy with you.

Contrary to popular belief, not all blog posts are worth updating. This is one of the single most impactful realizations that has improved my content refreshing success rate. In fact, I only recommend prioritizing updates for old content that earned 20+ monthly visitors at peak performance.

In the data study mentioned above, 45% of the updated posts had fewer than 20 visitors per month pre-update. Unfortunately, this 45% of updated posts only contributed 15% of the total traffic increase (of a 96% total organic traffic increase).

That means blog posts that already had 20+ monthly visitors before the update contributed the majority of the total organic traffic increase.

My guess is posts with more traffic pre-update already rank for some keywords in positions #5–10. Therefore, it’s much easier to go from positions #5–10 to first than zero to first.

So what should you do with blog posts that have fewer than 20 monthly visitors?

Assuming these posts are targeting keywords that are valuable to your business or contain important thought leadership ideas, it’s definitely worth updating them. In addition, a smaller blog will generally have a lot more blog posts with fewer than 20 monthly visitors simply because it needs time to gain traction.

Therefore, it’s still worthwhile to update them, but prioritize posts with the most potential first.

Once you know which posts to update, how do you actually update them? I’ve found that a lot of companies give freelance writers a process that looks like this:

Update old statistics, facts, quotes
Add additional paragraphs for keywords the posts are missing
Remove sections that are no longer relevant

However, I’ve found that the above strategy isn’t the best approach to refreshing content. It makes the content more up to date but doesn’t consider how the post is (or is not) fulfilling the search intent.

In other words, you have to ask why your content isn’t as useful as the posts ranking well on Google. (I’m willing to bet it’s not just because there’s an outdated statistic in the third paragraph.)

From the content refreshing research I’ve done, your post probably isn’t ranking because there is another post that:

Is more current.
Provides actionable advice (or more relevant details).
Offers an excellent user experience.
Is a better fit for the searcher’s intent.

To address these issues, here are the action steps you need to take while updating your content.

1. Update outdated information

I know I just said that refreshing content is much more than just updating outdated information—but it is a part of the process.

In addition, I’m talking about more than just updating old statistics and quotes. Often, you’ll have to update (or completely change) the examples to improve how they match the search intent.

For example, this is one of my most successful content refreshing examples ever. It was generating about 4,000 monthly visitors when I first updated it in 2019. At its peak performance, it generated about 20,000 monthly visitors.

When I started updating it, I realized that most of the examples in the post were outdated and many were TV productions. This was a problem for two reasons:

TV commercials themselves aren’t really a great fit for someone searching “digital marketing campaigns.”
Most of the people Googling this term don’t have the budget for a TV campaign.

Therefore, I replaced all 31 examples with 31 new examples of recent SEO, content marketing, YouTube, and podcasting successes.

Excerpt of blog post that shows one of the 31 examples

Sidenote.

In retrospect, I wish I had focused on a specific campaign rather than the brand’s entire strategy. This is as the searcher’s intent is a digital marketing campaign, not a digital marketing strategy. I bet the post would have performed even better if I had done that. But we’ll get into searcher intent a little later.

Key Takeaway

Is the information you provide up to date with the current trends in your industry? This includes not only quotes and statistics but also examples that you use.

2. Add actionable advice/cut irrelevant detail

How often have you read a post that vaguely describes what you should do and lacks examples or the action steps needed to execute the advice?

On the other hand, have you ever read a post that has the answer to your question somewhere in it? But then there is so much unnecessary information that you can’t find what you want.

Both are equally problematic and, unfortunately, common in content marketing.

First, let’s discuss posts that lack depth. Unfortunately, there is no specific metric you can check to see if the content has depth. Though, there are a few signals that can clue you in, including:

Few to zero examples.
A significantly shorter word count than what’s ranking.
Generic tips with no actionable information.

You can also use content optimization tools like Clearscope, which shows the subheadings that commonly appear in other top-ranking posts. While I recommend that you take these keyword tools with a grain of salt (don’t try to sprinkle in all of the keywords), they can help you uncover topics you may have overlooked.

For example, if you’re writing a guide to “medical SEO,” the tool may show that the word “backlinking” is commonly used in other posts. Given that backlinking is a key element of SEO, this is a helpful insight because you’ll definitely want to create a section on that topic.

Beyond this, the best advice I can give you is to put yourself in your target audience’s shoes (ideally, you’ve already done extensive market research and talked to several customers).

Ask yourself: If they read this content, could they implement the advice given and see results?

To drive this home, let’s look at an example where the post lacked depth. This post, “13 Ways to Market Your Business Online,” is the very first post I ever updated. It was originally just 930 words long and drove between 30 and 50 monthly visits. The final product is 1,700 words. It now drives over 600 monthly visits.

However, I didn’t just decide to make it longer to accomplish this. Instead, I added relevant, actionable advice to support my argument.

For example, in the excerpt below, you can see that I supported my argument (building a brand is important) with a quote from Google CEO Eric Schmidt. I also added an actionable tip to make the tip less vague.

Excerpt of blog post that includes quote and actionable tip

Everything highlighted was added or changed when updating the post.

That said, adding more depth isn’t always the best solution, as it can make content unnecessarily long-winded.

For example, let’s say you’re writing a post on “how to change a tire.” In this case, the reader really doesn’t want a 2,000-word guide—they just want to change their tire as quickly as possible!

So instead of writing about the mechanics of changing a tire and statistics on how many people know how to change tires, just give the reader the steps they need to change the tire.

While that may be a rather obvious case, I see this all the time when I update content (especially if it’s an ultimate guide). For example, here’s the table of contents of a post I’m preparing to update:

As you can see, the content is too long and repetitive. For one, it talks about the ROI of influencer marketing twice. Sure, it’s an ultimate guide. But even those reading an ultimate guide only want to consume the necessities to get them on their way.

Another example of how this content is too long-winded is in chapters 2 and 7, where both discuss tactics on reaching out to an influencer. Sure, they discuss slightly different tactics. But I’d rather read one concise section on the 80/20 of influencer outreach than several sections containing every possible way you could reach out to an influencer.

Key Takeaway

When you’re writing, include the 80/20 action steps your reader needs to know, along with examples (hypothetical or real) to prove your point. However, don’t write any more than that. The reader doesn’t necessarily need to know every single possible way to do something or the exact science behind every topic. Get to the point.

3. Improve the user experience

Google has always stressed the importance of optimizing for user experience. Much of this takes place at the site level (HTTPS, page speed, etc.). But there are things you can do to improve content on a post-by-post basis.

First, if your post is particularly long, consider adding a sticky table of contents to help the reader find exactly what they are looking for.

Second, pay a designer to create attractive, branded graphics. This will go a long way in both keeping users on your page and establishing your blog as an authority.

Third, break up your paragraphs (ideally none longer than three to four sentences) and use bullets to keep the reader’s attention. Remember that most people are looking for fast answers and are, therefore, skimming. So contrary to popular belief, making your content skimmable will actually increase the time readers spend on your page.

As simple as these things may sound, they’re super effective in my experience.

Key Takeaway

Don’t discount the importance of a blog post that is clean and easy to read. Sometimes, long blog posts are too frustrating for users, so be sure to format your blog posts appropriately and hire a designer to help you.

4. Fulfill the searcher’s intent

Search intent is basically the reason behind the search. Does the searcher want to learn something or buy something? Are they looking for a detailed guide or skimmable listicle? Do they just want a quick answer or lots of knowledge?

If you fail to understand the answers to these questions, you’ll be at risk of misaligning your content with search intent. Consequently, it’ll be much harder (sometimes impossible) to rank the content.

This is quite a complex topic, as there are many ways you may misalign content with search intent. But here are three of the main ways I’ve noticed:

A. Post style is incorrect

Before you write your blog post, Google the main keyword to better understand what kind of blog post the reader wants.

For example, if you’re about to write a how-to guide for a term like “best CRM for small businesses,” you’re wasting your time because the searcher’s intent is clearly a simple list of tools:

In this case, they don’t want to read a guide about it. They just want to see some solutions!

If you notice that your blog post is in the wrong format for that keyword, you’ll probably have to rewrite it altogether.

B. You have too much information irrelevant to the reader’s pain points

Another issue I often find when updating content is there are sections of content that just aren’t relevant to the reader’s pain points.

For example, a post on “content marketing KPIs” shouldn’t have a header with the words “what is content marketing.”

While that’s a rather extreme example, I often see subtler cases.

For example, I recently updated a post targeting the keyword “examples of storytelling marketing.” When I looked at the search results for the term, all of them were list posts that had introductions around 100–200 words. The post then dove into examples.

However, when I looked at the post I was updating, there were several sections before the “examples” section that totaled 1,800 words. In fact, here is what the post’s structure looked like:

What is storytelling?
Science behind storytelling
Why is storytelling important for marketing?
Five principles of storytelling
- Principle 1
- Principle 2
- Principle 3
- Principle 4
- Principle 5
(Finally!) Example 1

In this case, the searcher’s intent is a list of examples. So if the searcher has to scroll past 1,800 words to read what they want, they’ll likely leave. This behavior is a signal to Google that your content isn’t very good.

To update it, I cut that intro and added a few extra relevant examples (most of the other posts had 11–12, so I made the post fit that range). As of this writing (a few weeks after my updates), the post is ranking second for “examples of storytelling marketing.”

Here’s a screenshot of its traffic trajectory:

C. You aren’t speaking at the reader’s knowledge level

Finally, there are plenty of blog posts that miss the search intent because they speak above or below the reader’s knowledge level. Hence, they’re deaf to the reader’s pain points and desires.

Let’s walk through an example.

Imagine you are selling a SaaS marketing tool to content marketing managers, and the keyword you’re targeting is “content marketing KPIs.”

Here’s an example of an introduction that is below their level:

Content marketing is a great way to increase your traffic and generate more leads for your business. In fact, anyone that performs a Google search is looking for blogs like yours to provide the answer to their questions. However, some content is more effective than others. Therefore, to make sure that your content is on track, you need to measure KPIs (key performance indicators).

This is inappropriate for two reasons:

Content managers already understand the value of content marketing, so explaining that is redundant.
Given that they are searching for KPIs, there’s no need to explain why they need KPIs. They were already convinced before they landed on your post.

In contrast, here’s a much better introduction for the very same keyword and scenario:

Tracking the performance of content marketing campaigns is tricky as the ROI often takes months or even years to realize. Therefore, most people measure their content strategy’s success by the traffic it’s generating.
While traffic can correlate with better business results, this isn’t always the case. For example, you may be driving traffic that isn’t ready to buy or from a parallel industry.
Therefore, traffic shouldn’t be your only measure of success. Instead, this post will detail which KPIs you should measure to ensure your content is driving an ROI and how to track them.
Advertisement

Notice the introduction above also speaks to a more experienced audience (content marketing managers). It touches on their pain points and relates to how they are (most likely) already tracking content marketing. Now, it’s probable they’ll keep reading.

However, the issue of speaking above or below an audience’s level doesn’t just apply to introductions. As you’re updating the content, ask yourself if each paragraph resonates with the audience’s pain points.

Key Takeaway

First, Google your keyword before you start writing to make sure you are using the right blog post structure (how-to, listicle, etc.). Then ask yourself if each section within the post is relevant to the searcher’s pain points. Finally, ask yourself if the writing is at the searcher’s knowledge level.

5. Make final optimizations

Now that you’ve done the hard part of actually updating the blog post, make sure that you do these last few optimizations, as they can mean the difference between a 2X and 10X ROI.

First, take a look at your average click-through rate (CTR) in Google Search Console. According to a study done by Databox, a good organic CTR is 3%-5%. Therefore, if your post isn’t hitting that benchmark, consider updating your title tag and meta description.

If you really want to improve your organic CTR, you can also use a tool like ClickFlow to run A/B tests on your title tags and meta descriptions.

Another easy way to improve your refreshed content’s performance is by building internal links to it from other posts that are relevant and powerful (have plenty of external links from high-quality sources).

If you have the resources, building external links to your refreshed content is also a great strategy. While most outreach tactics are overused, here’s one to consider: offering to update the content for the people whom you’re reaching out to (instead of just offering a guest post).

Here’s an exact pitch I’ve used before with success:

Hi Sam,
I read your post about the best marketing agency tools for 2022 and just signed up for [Service] based on the post. So thanks for the rec!
Advertisement

However, I noticed that some of the recommendations are a little dated.
For example, you recommend [Tool A], but I’ve found that there are now cheaper tools like [Tool B] and [Tool C], which do essentially the same thing.
I also think that if you had 10 tools rather than 5 tools, the post might rank higher. Would you like me to update it for you for free? I’d also love to include a (non-promotional) section on our analytics tool, which a lot of agencies use.
If you don’t love my new version, no pressure to post it.
Thanks,
Megan

You don’t have to use this exact template. But hopefully, this can get you started. If you have examples of posts you’ve updated that later performed better, you may want to include that somewhere in the pitch.

Key Takeaway

Once you’ve updated your post, the last few optimizations include improving your title tag and meta description to drive more clicks, adding a few relevant internal links to the post, and building some external links to the post (if you have the resources).

Final thoughts

Content refreshing is still an underused tactic that a lot of blogs can benefit from. If you tried it before and it didn’t work, there could be another underlying issue, e.g., a poor user experience, an irrelevant section in the beginning, or a poor search intent match.

At the end of the day, not every blog post will perform better. Sometimes, search engines just don’t approve of certain posts. But if you make refreshing content a priority, follow the steps above, and add the updated content to your editorial calendar, you’ll have some posts that’ll take off post-update. This more than makes up for all of the time invested in posts that didn’t succeed.

Got questions? Ping me on Twitter.

Related Topics:Based posts StepbyStep strategy Updating

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SEO

2024 WordPress Vulnerability Report Shows Errors Sites Keep Making

Published

7 hours ago

April 18, 2024

Max

2024 Annual WordPress security report by WPScan

WordPress security scanner WPScan’s 2024 WordPress vulnerability report calls attention to WordPress vulnerability trends and suggests the kinds of things website publishers (and SEOs) should be looking out for.

Some of the key findings from the report were that just over 20% of vulnerabilities were rated as high or critical level threats, with medium severity threats, at 67% of reported vulnerabilities, making up the majority. Many regard medium level vulnerabilities as if they are low-level threats and that’s a mistake because they’re not low level and should be regarded as deserving attention.

The WPScan report advised:

“While severity doesn’t translate directly to the risk of exploitation, it’s an important guideline for website owners to make an educated decision about when to disable or update the extension.”

WordPress Vulnerability Severity Distribution

Critical level vulnerabilities, the highest level of threat, represented only 2.38% of vulnerabilities, which is essentially good news for WordPress publishers. Yet as mentioned earlier, when combined with the percentages of high level threats (17.68%) the number or concerning vulnerabilities rises to almost 20%.

Here are the percentages by severity ratings:

Critical 2.38%
Low 12.83%
High 17.68%
Medium 67.12%

Authenticated Versus Unauthenticated

Authenticated vulnerabilities are those that require an attacker to first attain user credentials and their accompanying permission levels in order to exploit a particular vulnerability. Exploits that require subscriber-level authentication are the most exploitable of the authenticated exploits and those that require administrator level access present the least risk (although not always a low risk for a variety of reasons).

Unauthenticated attacks are generally the easiest to exploit because anyone can launch an attack without having to first acquire a user credential.

The WPScan vulnerability report found that about 22% of reported vulnerabilities required subscriber level or no authentication at all, representing the most exploitable vulnerabilities. On the other end of the scale of the exploitability are vulnerabilities requiring admin permission levels representing a total of 30.71% of reported vulnerabilities.

Permission Levels Required For Exploits

Vulnerabilities requiring administrator level credentials represented the highest percentage of exploits, followed by Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) with 24.74% of vulnerabilities. This is interesting because CSRF is an attack that uses social engineering to get a victim to click a link from which the user’s permission levels are acquired. This is a mistake that WordPress publishers should be aware of because all it takes is for an admin level user to follow a link which then enables the hacker to assume admin level privileges to the WordPress website.

The following is the percentages of exploits ordered by roles necessary to launch an attack.

Ascending Order Of User Roles For Vulnerabilities

Author 2.19%
Subscriber 10.4%
Unauthenticated 12.35%
Contributor 19.62%
CSRF 24.74%
Admin 30.71%

Most Common Vulnerability Types Requiring Minimal Authentication

Broken Access Control in the context of WordPress refers to a security failure that can allow an attacker without necessary permission credentials to gain access to higher credential permissions.

In the section of the report that looks at the occurrences and vulnerabilities underlying unauthenticated or subscriber level vulnerabilities reported (Occurrence vs Vulnerability on Unauthenticated or Subscriber+ reports), WPScan breaks down the percentages for each vulnerability type that is most common for exploits that are the easiest to launch (because they require minimal to no user credential authentication).

The WPScan threat report noted that Broken Access Control represents a whopping 84.99% followed by SQL injection (20.64%).

The Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) defines Broken Access Control as:

“Access control, sometimes called authorization, is how a web application grants access to content and functions to some users and not others. These checks are performed after authentication, and govern what ‘authorized’ users are allowed to do.
Access control sounds like a simple problem but is insidiously difficult to implement correctly. A web application’s access control model is closely tied to the content and functions that the site provides. In addition, the users may fall into a number of groups or roles with different abilities or privileges.”

SQL injection, at 20.64% represents the second most prevalent type of vulnerability, which WPScan referred to as both “high severity and risk” in the context of vulnerabilities requiring minimal authentication levels because attackers can access and/or tamper with the database which is the heart of every WordPress website.

These are the percentages:

Broken Access Control 84.99%
SQL Injection 20.64%
Cross-Site Scripting 9.4%
Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Upload 5.28%
Sensitive Data Disclosure 4.59%
Insecure Direct Object Reference (IDOR) 3.67%
Remote Code Execution 2.52%
Other 14.45%

Vulnerabilities In The WordPress Core Itself

The overwhelming majority of vulnerability issues were reported in third-party plugins and themes. However, there were in 2023 a total of 13 vulnerabilities reported in the WordPress core itself. Out of the thirteen vulnerabilities only one of them was rated as a high severity threat, which is the second highest level, with Critical being the highest level vulnerability threat, a rating scoring system maintained by the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).

The WordPress core platform itself is held to the highest standards and benefits from a worldwide community that is vigilant in discovering and patching vulnerabilities.

Website Security Should Be Considered As Technical SEO

Site audits don’t normally cover website security but in my opinion every responsible audit should at least talk about security headers. As I’ve been saying for years, website security quickly becomes an SEO issue once a website’s ranking start disappearing from the search engine results pages (SERPs) due to being compromised by a vulnerability. That’s why it’s critical to be proactive about website security.

According to the WPScan report, the main point of entry for hacked websites were leaked credentials and weak passwords. Ensuring strong password standards plus two-factor authentication is an important part of every website’s security stance.

Using security headers is another way to help protect against Cross-Site Scripting and other kinds of vulnerabilities.

Lastly, a WordPress firewall and website hardening are also useful proactive approaches to website security. I once added a forum to a brand new website I created and it was immediately under attack within minutes. Believe it or not, virtually every website worldwide is under attack 24 hours a day by bots scanning for vulnerabilities.

Read the WPScan Report:

WPScan 2024 Website Threat Report

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Ljupco Smokovski

SEO

An In-Depth Guide And Best Practices For Mobile SEO

Published

1 day ago

April 18, 2024

Max

Mobile SEO: An In-Depth Guide And Best Practices

Over the years, search engines have encouraged businesses to improve mobile experience on their websites. More than 60% of web traffic comes from mobile, and in some cases based on the industry, mobile traffic can reach up to 90%.

Since Google has completed its switch to mobile-first indexing, the question is no longer “if” your website should be optimized for mobile, but how well it is adapted to meet these criteria. A new challenge has emerged for SEO professionals with the introduction of Interaction to Next Paint (INP), which replaced First Input Delay (FID) starting March, 12 2024.

Thus, understanding mobile SEO’s latest advancements, especially with the shift to INP, is crucial. This guide offers practical steps to optimize your site effectively for today’s mobile-focused SEO requirements.

What Is Mobile SEO And Why Is It Important?

The goal of mobile SEO is to optimize your website to attain better visibility in search engine results specifically tailored for mobile devices.

This form of SEO not only aims to boost search engine rankings, but also prioritizes enhancing mobile user experience through both content and technology.

While, in many ways, mobile SEO and traditional SEO share similar practices, additional steps related to site rendering and content are required to meet the needs of mobile users and the speed requirements of mobile devices.

Does this need to be a priority for your website? How urgent is it?

Consider this: 58% of the world’s web traffic comes from mobile devices.

If you aren’t focused on mobile users, there is a good chance you’re missing out on a tremendous amount of traffic.

Mobile-First Indexing

Additionally, as of 2023, Google has switched its crawlers to a mobile-first indexing priority.

This means that the mobile experience of your site is critical to maintaining efficient indexing, which is the step before ranking algorithms come into play.

How Much Of Your Traffic Is From Mobile?

How much traffic potential you have with mobile users can depend on various factors, including your industry (B2B sites might attract primarily desktop users, for example) and the search intent your content addresses (users might prefer desktop for larger purchases, for example).

Regardless of where your industry and the search intent of your users might be, the future will demand that you optimize your site experience for mobile devices.

How can you assess your current mix of mobile vs. desktop users?

An easy way to see what percentage of your users is on mobile is to go into Google Analytics 4.

Click Reports in the left column.
Click on the Insights icon on the right side of the screen.
Scroll down to Suggested Questions and click on it.
Click on Technology.
Click on Top Device model by Users.
Then click on Top Device category by Users under Related Results.
The breakdown of Top Device category will match the date range selected at the top of GA4.

Screenshot from GA4, March 2024

You can also set up a report in Looker Studio.

Add your site to the Data source.
Add Device category to the Dimension field.
Add 30-day active users to the Metric field.
Click on Chart to select the view that works best for you.

A screen capture from Looker Studio showing a pie chart with a breakdown of mobile, desktop, tablet, and Smart TV users for a site

Screenshot from Looker Studio, March 2024

You can add more Dimensions to really dig into the data to see which pages attract which type of users, what the mobile-to-desktop mix is by country, which search engines send the most mobile users, and so much more.

How To Check If Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly

Now that you know how to build a report on mobile and desktop usage, you need to figure out if your site is optimized for mobile traffic.

While Google removed the mobile-friendly testing tool from Google Search Console in December 2023, there are still a number of useful tools for evaluating your site for mobile users.

Bing still has a mobile-friendly testing tool that will tell you the following:

Viewport is configured correctly.
Page content fits device width.
Text on the page is readable.
Links and tap targets are sufficiently large and touch-friendly.
Any other issues detected.

Google’s Lighthouse Chrome extension provides you with an evaluation of your site’s performance across several factors, including load times, accessibility, and SEO.

To use, install the Lighthouse Chrome extension.

Go to your website in your browser.
Click on the orange lighthouse icon in your browser’s address bar.
Click Generate Report.
A new tab will open and display your scores once the evaluation is complete.

An image showing the Lighthouse Scores for a website.

Screenshot from Lighthouse, March 2024

You can also use the Lighthouse report in Developer Tools in Chrome.

Simply click on the three dots next to the address bar.
Select “More Tools.”
Select Developer Tools.
Click on the Lighthouse tab.
Choose “Mobile” and click the “Analyze page load” button.

An image showing how to get to Lighthouse within Google Chrome Developer Tools.

Screenshot from Lighthouse, March 2024

Another option that Google offers is the PageSpeed Insights (PSI) tool. Simply add your URL into the field and click Analyze.

PSI will integrate any Core Web Vitals scores into the resulting view so you can see what your users are experiencing when they come to your site.

An image showing the PageSpeed Insights scores for a website.

Screenshot from PageSpeed Insights, March 2024

Other tools, like WebPageTest.org, will graphically display the processes and load times for everything it takes to display your webpages.

With this information, you can see which processes block the loading of your pages, which ones take the longest to load, and how this affects your overall page load times.

You can also emulate the mobile experience by using Developer Tools in Chrome, which allows you to switch back and forth between a desktop and mobile experience.

An image showing how to change the device emulation for a site within Google Chrome Developer Tools

Screenshot from Google Chrome Developer Tools, March 2024

Lastly, use your own mobile device to load and navigate your website:

Does it take forever to load?
Are you able to navigate your site to find the most important information?
Is it easy to add something to cart?
Can you read the text?

How To Optimize Your Site Mobile-First

With all these tools, keep an eye on the Performance and Accessibility scores, as these directly affect mobile users.

Expand each section within the PageSpeed Insights report to see what elements are affecting your score.

These sections can give your developers their marching orders for optimizing the mobile experience.

While mobile speeds for cellular networks have steadily improved around the world (the average speed in the U.S. has jumped to 27.06 Mbps from 11.14 Mbps in just eight years), speed and usability for mobile users are at a premium.

Best Practices For Mobile Optimization

Unlike traditional SEO, which can focus heavily on ensuring that you are using the language of your users as it relates to the intersection of your products/services and their needs, optimizing for mobile SEO can seem very technical SEO-heavy.

While you still need to be focused on matching your content with the needs of the user, mobile search optimization will require the aid of your developers and designers to be fully effective.

Below are several key factors in mobile SEO to keep in mind as you’re optimizing your site.

Site Rendering

How your site responds to different devices is one of the most important elements in mobile SEO.

The two most common approaches to this are responsive design and dynamic serving.

Responsive design is the most common of the two options.

Using your site’s cascading style sheets (CSS) and flexible layouts, as well as responsive content delivery networks (CDN) and modern image file types, responsive design allows your site to adjust to a variety of screen sizes, orientations, and resolutions.

With the responsive design, elements on the page adjust in size and location based on the size of the screen.

You can simply resize the window of your desktop browser and see how this works.

An image showing the difference between Web.dev in a full desktop display vs. a mobile display using responsive design.

Screenshot from web.dev, March 2024

This is the approach that Google recommends.

Adaptive design, also known as dynamic serving, consists of multiple fixed layouts that are dynamically served to the user based on their device.

Sites can have a separate layout for desktop, smartphone, and tablet users. Each design can be modified to remove functionality that may not make sense for certain device types.

This is a less efficient approach, but it does give sites more control over what each device sees.

While these will not be covered here, two other options:

Progressive Web Apps (PWA), which can seamlessly integrate into a mobile app.
Separate mobile site/URL (which is no longer recommended).

Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

Google has introduced Interaction to Next Paint (INP) as a more comprehensive measure of user experience, succeeding First Input Delay. While FID measures the time from when a user first interacts with your page (e.g., clicking a link, tapping a button) to the time when the browser is actually able to begin processing event handlers in response to that interaction. INP, on the other hand, broadens the scope by measuring the responsiveness of a website throughout the entire lifespan of a page, not just first interaction.

Note that actions such as hovering and scrolling do not influence INP, however, keyboard-driven scrolling or navigational actions are considered keystrokes that may activate events measured by INP but not scrolling which is happeing due to interaction.

Scrolling may indirectly affect INP, for example in scenarios where users scroll through content, and additional content is lazy-loaded from the API. While the act of scrolling itself isn’t included in the INP calculation, the processing, necessary for loading additional content, can create contention on the main thread, thereby increasing interaction latency and adversely affecting the INP score.

What qualifies as an optimal INP score?

An INP under 200ms indicates good responsiveness.
Between 200ms and 500ms needs improvement.
Over 500ms means page has poor responsiveness.

and these are common issues causing poor INP scores:

Long JavaScript Tasks: Heavy JavaScript execution can block the main thread, delaying the browser’s ability to respond to user interactions. Thus break long JS tasks into smaller chunks by using scheduler API.
Large DOM (HTML) Size: A large DOM ( starting from 1500 elements) can severely impact a website’s interactive performance. Every additional DOM element increases the work required to render pages and respond to user interactions.
Inefficient Event Callbacks: Event handlers that execute lengthy or complex operations can significantly affect INP scores. Poorly optimized callbacks attached to user interactions, like clicks, keypress or taps, can block the main thread, delaying the browser’s ability to render visual feedback promptly. For example when handlers perform heavy computations or initiate synchronous network requests such on clicks.

and you can troubleshoot INP issues using free and paid tools.

As a good starting point I would recommend to check your INP scores by geos via treo.sh which will give you a great high level insights where you struggle with most.

INP scores by Geos

Image Optimization

Images add a lot of value to the content on your site and can greatly affect the user experience.

From page speeds to image quality, you could adversely affect the user experience if you haven’t optimized your images.

This is especially true for the mobile experience. Images need to adjust to smaller screens, varying resolutions, and screen orientation.

Use responsive images
Implement lazy loading
Compress your images (use WebP)
Add your images into sitemap

Optimizing images is an entire science, and I advise you to read our comprehensive guide on image SEO how to implement the mentioned recommendations.

Avoid Intrusive Interstitials

Google rarely uses concrete language to state that something is a ranking factor or will result in a penalty, so you know it means business about intrusive interstitials in the mobile experience.

Intrusive interstitials are basically pop-ups on a page that prevent the user from seeing content on the page.

John Mueller, Google’s Senior Search Analyst, stated that they are specifically interested in the first interaction a user has after clicking on a search result.

Examples of intrusive interstitial pop-ups on a mobile site according to Google.

Not all pop-ups are considered bad. Interstitial types that are considered “intrusive” by Google include:

Pop-ups that cover most or all of the page content.
Non-responsive interstitials or pop-ups that are impossible for mobile users to close.
Pop-ups that are not triggered by a user action, such as a scroll or a click.

Structured Data

Most of the tips provided in this guide so far are focused on usability and speed and have an additive effect, but there are changes that can directly influence how your site appears in mobile search results.

Search engine results pages (SERPs) haven’t been the “10 blue links” in a very long time.

They now reflect the diversity of search intent, showing a variety of different sections to meet the needs of users. Local Pack, shopping listing ads, video content, and more dominate the mobile search experience.

As a result, it’s more important than ever to provide structured data markup to the search engines, so they can display rich results for users.

In this example, you can see that both Zojirushi and Amazon have included structured data for their rice cookers, and Google is displaying rich results for both.

An image of a search result for Japanese rice cookers that shows rich results for Zojirushi and Amazon.

Screenshot from search for [Japanese rice cookers], Google, March 2024

Adding structured data markup to your site can influence how well your site shows up for local searches and product-related searches.

Using JSON-LD, you can mark up the business, product, and services data on your pages in Schema markup.

If you use WordPress as the content management system for your site, there are several plugins available that will automatically mark up your content with structured data.

Content Style

When you think about your mobile users and the screens on their devices, this can greatly influence how you write your content.

Rather than long, detailed paragraphs, mobile users prefer concise writing styles for mobile reading.

Each key point in your content should be a single line of text that easily fits on a mobile screen.

Your font sizes should adjust to the screen’s resolution to avoid eye strain for your users.

If possible, allow for a dark or dim mode for your site to further reduce eye strain.

Headers should be concise and address the searcher’s intent. Rather than lengthy section headers, keep it simple.

Finally, make sure that your text renders in a font size that’s readable.

Tap Targets

As important as text size, the tap targets on your pages should be sized and laid out appropriately.

Tap targets include navigation elements, links, form fields, and buttons like “Add to Cart” buttons.

Targets smaller than 48 pixels by 48 pixels and targets that overlap or are overlapped by other page elements will be called out in the Lighthouse report.

Tap targets are essential to the mobile user experience, especially for ecommerce websites, so optimizing them is vital to the health of your online business.

Prioritizing These Tips

If you have delayed making your site mobile-friendly until now, this guide may feel overwhelming. As a result, you may not know what to prioritize first.

As with so many other optimizations in SEO, it’s important to understand which changes will have the greatest impact, and this is just as true for mobile SEO.

Think of SEO as a framework in which your site’s technical aspects are the foundation of your content. Without a solid foundation, even the best content may struggle to rank.

Responsive or Dynamic Rendering: If your site requires the user to zoom and scroll right or left to read the content on your pages, no number of other optimizations can help you. This should be first on your list.
Content Style: Rethink how your users will consume your content online. Avoid very long paragraphs. “Brevity is the soul of wit,” to quote Shakespeare.
Image Optimization: Begin migrating your images to next-gen image formats and optimize your content display network for speed and responsiveness.
Tap Targets: A site that prevents users from navigating or converting into sales won’t be in business long. Make navigation, links, and buttons usable for them.
Structured Data: While this element ranks last in priority on this list, rich results can improve your chances of receiving traffic from a search engine, so add this to your to-do list once you’ve completed the other optimizations.

Summary

From How Search Works, “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

If Google’s primary mission is focused on making all the world’s information accessible and useful, then you know they will prefer surfacing sites that align with that vision.

Since a growing percentage of users are on mobile devices, you may want to infer the word “everywhere” added to the end of the mission statement.

Are you missing out on traffic from mobile devices because of a poor mobile experience?

If you hope to remain relevant, make mobile SEO a priority now.

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

SEO

HARO Has Been Dead for a While

Published

1 day ago

April 17, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Every SEO’s favorite ~~link-building~~ collaboration tool, HARO, was officially killed off for good last week by Cision. It’s now been wrapped into a new product: Connectively.

I know nothing about the new tool. I haven’t tried it. But after trying to use HARO recently, I can’t say I’m surprised or saddened by its death. It’s been a walking corpse for a while.

I used HARO way back in the day to build links. It worked. But a couple of months ago, I experienced the platform from the other side when I decided to try to source some “expert” insights for our posts.

After just a few minutes of work, I got hundreds of pitches:

So, I grabbed a cup of coffee and began to work through them. It didn’t take long before I lost the will to live. Every other pitch seemed like nothing more than lazy AI-generated nonsense from someone who definitely wasn’t an expert.

Here’s one of them:

Example of an AI-generated pitch in HARO

Seriously. Who writes like that? I’m a self-confessed dullard (any fellow Dull Men’s Club members here?), and even I’m not that dull…

I don’t think I looked through more than 30-40 of the responses. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It felt like having a conversation with ChatGPT… and not a very good one!

Despite only reviewing a few dozen of the many pitches I received, one stood out to me:

Example HARO pitch that caught my attention

Believe it or not, this response came from a past client of mine who runs an SEO agency in the UK. Given how knowledgeable and experienced he is (he actually taught me a lot about SEO back in the day when I used to hassle him with questions on Skype), this pitch rang alarm bells for two reasons:

I truly doubt he spends his time replying to HARO queries
I know for a fact he’s no fan of Neil Patel (sorry, Neil, but I’m sure you’re aware of your reputation at this point!)

So… I decided to confront him 😉

Here’s what he said:

Shocker.

I pressed him for more details:

I’m getting a really good deal and paying per link rather than the typical £xxxx per month for X number of pitches. […] The responses as you’ve seen are not ideal but that’s a risk I’m prepared to take as realistically I dont have the time to do it myself. He’s not native english, but I have had to have a word with him a few times about clearly using AI. On the low cost ones I don’t care but on authority sites it needs to be more refined.

I think this pretty much sums up the state of HARO before its death. Most “pitches” were just AI answers from SEOs trying to build links for their clients.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not throwing shade here. I know that good links are hard to come by, so you have to do what works. And the reality is that HARO did work. Just look at the example below. You can tell from the anchor and surrounding text in Ahrefs that these links were almost certainly built with HARO:

Example of links build with HARO, via Ahrefs' Site Explorer

But this was the problem. HARO worked so well back in the day that it was only a matter of time before spammers and the #scale crew ruined it for everyone. That’s what happened, and now HARO is no more. So…

If you’re a link builder, I think it’s time to admit that HARO link building is dead and move on.

No tactic works well forever. It’s the law of sh**ty clickthroughs. This is why you don’t see SEOs having huge success with tactics like broken link building anymore. They’ve moved on to more innovative tactics or, dare I say it, are just buying links.

Sidenote.

Talking of buying links, here’s something to ponder: if Connectively charges for pitches, are links built through those pitches technically paid? If so, do they violate Google’s spam policies? It’s a murky old world this SEO lark, eh?

If you’re a journalist, Connectively might be worth a shot. But with experts being charged for pitches, you probably won’t get as many responses. That might be a good thing. You might get less spam. Or you might just get spammed by SEOs with deep pockets. The jury’s out for now.

My advice? Look for alternative methods like finding and reaching out to experts directly. You can easily use tools like Content Explorer to find folks who’ve written lots of content about the topic and are likely to be experts.

For example, if you look for content with “backlinks” in the title and go to the Authors tab, you might see a familiar name. 😉

Finding people to request insights from in Ahrefs' Content Explorer

I don’t know if I’d call myself an expert, but I’d be happy to give you a quote if you reached out on social media or emailed me (here’s how to find my email address).

Alternatively, you can bait your audience into giving you their insights on social media. I did this recently with a poll on X and included many of the responses in my guide to toxic backlinks.

Me, indirectly sourcing insights on social media

Either of these options is quicker than using HARO because you don’t have to sift through hundreds of responses looking for a needle in a haystack. If you disagree with me and still love HARO, feel free to tell me why on X 😉