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RT @HYPEBEAST: #MacOS Big Sur includes a completely new UI. #WWDC20 https://t.co/0oEEjzRUVC

RT @chelsienunezz: Alright I’m going outside should I wear my google docs or google slides https://t.co/2Jrsn8ibUX

"It’s possible LinkedIn inadvertently removed itself from Google’s index by removing the HTTP version of its site in Search Console." https://t.co/zLQ2dC0jGn

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We get asked about the tools we use for our client projects, and we use many different tools for different aspects of SEO. After years of trying over 50 tools, here&#8217;s our winners across 6 categories. Our Choices Tool Category Monthly Cost Best Overall SEO Tool $99 / Free Trial Best Keyword Ranking Tool $99 / Free Trial Best SEO Tool $99 / Free Trial Best Local SEO (1) + Best Small Business Option $29 / Free Trial Best Local SEO (2) Pay per use Best Free SEO Tool $0 Best Technical SEO Audit £149.00 / year Best WordPress SEO Plugin Free SEO Tools &#8211; An overview SEO tools and apps are built to tell you: Where your keywords rank on Google How many links you have pointing to your site If there are technical improvements to be made 1. SEMRush &#8211; Best Overall SEO Tool Sign up here 7 day trial $99 / month If you need only one tool, SEMRush is a great option. It’s got SEO, PPC, content, reporting, social media scheduling and linkbuilding all in one platform. All-in-One Tool SEMRush became famous in the digital marketing industry for its PPC research features and data. They are, after all, called SEMRush. PPC research is still a major strength, but over the years they’ve built in very helpful additional features. If you’re only investing in one or two tools to run your digital marketing campaigns, this is a great option.&#160; Quick Technical Audits &#8211; Try Here You can find any real glaring errors immediately with a site by running an audit. It generally only takes 3 or 4 minutes on a small site. When it’s done you can get a real sense of whether there are enormous blockages to ranking well. The technical audits aren’t perfect. If you have an embedded social media module on your site, they may see the code in that and flag it as something to improve. In that specific case, it could be Facebook’s code that they’re worried about and you can’t exactly pick up the phone and tell Zuckerberg to minimize his .js files. It’s a robot’s audit that requires a human eye. The Features We Use The Most: PPC research Display ad research SEO keyword research SEO audits Link disavows Social media posting SEMRush already won our Best SEO Tool, but it&#8217;s worth specifically mentioning their technical audits. These technical audits are fast and great. You can usually get one spit out for you in 2 minutes, but it depends on the size of the site. Speed As an SEO agency, we require speed. We need to generate reports quickly in order to diagnose issues and fix them to get results. SEMRush’s audits only take a few minutes and provide you with 90% of what you need from a code perspective. There will be elements that require a manual review, but being able to get a full technical audit right away is a lifesaver. Detail It has enough detail to single out what’s wrong and why. It will provide either an overview snapshot of the issues or you can select the more detailed version of every error. Website: semrush.com 2. AccuRanker &#8211; Best Organic Keyword Ranking Tool Sign up here 14 day trial $99 / month We’re huge fans and use the AccuRanker tool 100 times a day. It’s simple to use, very fast, and has everything you need for keyword ranking reporting. Speed We first signed up with AccuRanker because of its speed. A few other ranking tools were unable to automatically provide keyword rankings, and we’d have to wait a day for the result to come back. With AccuRanker you can drop in cities, devices, keywords and get their rankings back in less than a minute.&#160; Simplicity Many other tools try to add a lot of features on, which is great if you’re only looking for one tool. In the case of an SEO agency, we’re just looking for one extremely solid tool to provide us with detailed keyword ranking reports per city when we need them. We can log in, check out the numbers and do something about them. There&#8217;s also competitive reporting and the Share of Voice metric which is very helpful. Website: accuranker.com 3. Ahrefs &#8211; Best Organic SEO Tool Sign up here 7 day trial $99 / month If you’re looking to focus specifically on organic SEO, this is a top option. Link Index Links have always been a crucial part of SEO. Having strong referring websites link to yours is one sure way to convince Google that the referred page is worth ranking highly. Ahrefs has built the most robust link index of all of the SEO tools out there. They know about 3 trillion links, so you&#8217;ll be able to immediately look up your competitor&#8217;s links and see what they have. Ease of Use Once you plug in your domain, Ahrefs does a lot of the work for you. Since it has much of the web indexed, it can immediately know which keywords you have opportunity for. An example of this is their organic movement tool. You can hit Organic Search &#62; Movements and see your new keyword rankings, positions, and areas of opportunity in a few seconds. No exporting or sorting required. Features We Use The Most: Referring domains tool Broken links Organic research Link intersect Competing domains Content gap Website: ahrefs.com 4. BrightLocal &#8211; Best Local SEO Tool + Small Business Option Sign up here 14 day trial $29 / month BrightLocal is primarily a platform used for Local SEO. Its toolset is geared towards generating better results for local businesses where their physical location matters to their customers. Local Signal Building The strength of BrightLocal is in the screenshot above. It tracks local citations by strength, type and cost. This is important for newly launched businesses because citations are key. Citations are the name, address, phone number, link and info about your business. They&#8217;re so important because they help [&#8230;]
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We&#8217;re all Redditors here at The Status Bureau. We love it, and it&#8217;s a great place for marketing if it&#8217;s done correctly. I mean, the Vancouver subreddit has 157,000 members so that&#8217;s that worth consideration. It&#8217;s also a brutally honest and open conversation, so brands beware. Here&#8217;s our top 10 picks from the last year on Vancouver&#8217;s subreddit. 1) Duck Shoes There&#8217;s a lady in town that puts shoes on her duck. Original video on Reddit. 2) Transit Strike Fashion As the transit strike first kicked off in November, the union employees began refusing to wear uniforms. This truly worked out for everyone. 3) Worst Cab Ride Ever The Reddit user NoMoreSecretsIsMyPwd tracked their cab ride that was only seven blocks away. Original post on Reddit 4) Dog Orca Photo of the year in Vancouver, no question. Instagram user kferls posted this which made its way everywhere, including Reddit. Original Reddit post 5) Great day at work A dashcam caught this guy living life. Maybe it stopped raining for twenty minutes. Original post on Reddit
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SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s the practice of manipulating content and links to get a website higher up in the search engine results. Local SEO is search engine optimization focusing on the rankings on a neighbourhood or city level. Example Simone is looking for a bakery in West Vancouver. She gets out her phone and googles “bakery west vancouver”. The map results show three bakeries closest to her. These bakeries showed up because Google knows where they are in proximity to Simone, and that they offer baked goods. Address, type of business, reviews, links and more has given Google enough information to make the connection. Why Local Matters A software or app company such as Slack would only care about their website ranking on Google across a country. Their business is not dependent on the location of someone buying it. In contrast to that, a dry cleaner would only care about ranking in their city and neighbourhood. A local business that serves people at their location must have a strong Local SEO presence in order to show up when people are near them. How Does Local SEO Work? In Moz’s 2018 Local Search Ranking Factors study the #1 factor of where a website shows up is the Google My Business signals. This explains that the most important element is the proximity of the user to the business. Google My Business Google My Business allows people to claim their business location and add information beneficial to a user such as address, phone number, and reviews. Optimizing the listing means adding as much information as possible and keeping that info updated. At The Status Bureau we have seen a direct correlation between rankings and an actively updated listing. Google Getting Local For years Google has been integrating and improving their results for local. 2005, launches Local Business Center 2006, merges Local Business Center and Maps 2010, integrates Maps results into search pages by introducing Places 2012, algorithm update Venice starts prioritizing local businesses 2014, algorithm update Pigeon helped improve the local rankings For more, check out our SEO services and Local Listing Management pages.
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Apparently Canadians are using Craigslist a lot more than we thought. Out of the most popular googled terms in Canada that have the word “vancouver” in it, “craigslist vancouver” is number one. Here’s the top ten list of the most googled phrases. Googled Phrase Times Googled Per Month craigslist vancouver 872,000 vancouver weather 666,000 weather vancouver 256,000 vancouver 188,000 vancouver canucks 170,000 vancouver sun 143,000 vancouver craigslist 111,000 craigslist vancouver bc 66,000 vancouver news 51,000 kijiji vancouver 42,000 That’s right, folks. People use Craigslist, a lot. They also want to know the weather, read the news, and use the other Craigslist, Kijiji. The News It appears that CTV Vancouver beats CBC Vancouver by a wide margin. “ctv vancouver” is googled 51,000 compared to “cbc vancouver” which is googled 12,000 times per month. Here’s a list of the most popular Vancouver-y things on Google by category: Category Top Googled Organization Times Googled Per Month Sports Team Vancouver Canucks 170,000 Job Site Indeed 32,000 Attraction Vancouver Aquarium 30,000 News Site CTV 23,000 Forum / Discussion Reddit 21,000 Movie Theatre Scotiabank Theatre 17,000 Store MEC 16,000 Rideshare Uber 8,500 Post Secondary Vancouver Community College 7,700 Car Site Autotrader 7,500 Hotel Brand Fairmont 6,400 Clothing Store Nordstrom 6,300 Electronics Store Best Buy 5,900 Destination Vancouver to Toronto 5,000 Neighbourhood Gastown 4,600 Food Delivery Skip the Dishes 4,400 Car Share Car2go 4,400
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In our digital marketing for healthcare work, we have come across dozens of projects where doctors need more bookings. Physicians of all practices already understand the need for SEO. The amount of people in need of health professionals googling &#8220;doctor seo&#8221; is only going to bet bigger. See also: The Definite Guide to Digital Marketing for Healthcare Contact Us for an estimate on your SEO Why would a doctor need SEO? Because their potential new patients are: Googling for their next provider (but doesn&#8217;t know names) Googling the doctor&#8217;s name (this happens a lot) Googling treatments for ailments Not only do people look for healthcare providers, but once they find the provider, they google the doctor&#8217;s name. It&#8217;s very much a reputation management game. We explain what we do for online sentiment management here: Reputation management agency The reputation management angle of this has given rise to the major players in doctor ratings and review sites such as RateMDs, Vitals, and Healthgrades. These review sites serve as a bit of a necessity given the search volume for the names of doctors. They allow previous clients to leave their feedback and reviews. It&#8217;s a no brainer for health professionals – they want to keep a close eye on their reviews. Starting the SEO Process When looking at any search engine optimization project, you start looking for what people search for and how often. The below chart explains there&#8217;s millions of searches for just a small sample of &#8220;doctor&#8221; terms. &#8220;Doctor&#8221; Keywords Annual Googles in US eye doctor 3,612,000 doctor 2,952,000 eye doctor near me 1,980,000 foot doctor 594,000 orthopedic doctor 594,000 family doctor near me 486,000 doctor salary 397,200 ent doctor 397,200 diet doctor 325,200 do doctor 325,200 We can see the terms &#8220;eye doctor&#8221; as a major search term in the United States. So, what&#8217;s next? How do we capitalize on it? Pump the breaks before diving into what to do as there&#8217;s more research to expand on. You&#8217;ll want to dig a bit deeper and concentrate on the practice to make it more relevant if possible. Zooming in on &#8220;eye doctor&#8221; searches: &#8220;Eye Doctor&#8221; Keywords Annual Googles in US eye doctor 3,612,000 eye doctor near me 1,980,000 my eye doctor 325,200 walmart eye doctor 217,200 pediatric eye doctor 79,200 eye doctor name 64,800 kids eye doctor 64,800 eye doctor near me that accept medicaid 52,800 what is an eye doctor called 52,800 kids eye doctor near me 43,200 From this list we can already start seeing some fantastic optimization opportunities for ophthalmologist and optometrists. If you&#8217;re an office that specializes in pediatric ophthalmology, those keywords are where you should focus your attention. Start with the most specific and obvious search queries that have ample search volume. On-Page SEO Let&#8217;s imagine we need to optimize one page on a website for a kids&#8217; eye doctor. Most on-page SEO checklists will include optimizing the basics: page title meta description url h1 site speed There&#8217;s a million other optimization items, but it would be a fantastic start to include the term &#8220;kids eye doctor&#8221; in each one of these elements. Local Listings for Doctors How and where a doctor shows up online (Local SEO) is crucial. Medical professionals get googled constantly, and the best way to navigate those waters is to comprehensively support upkeep on major listings like Google My Business, Yelp, RateMDs amongst others. Googling &#8220;doctor seattle&#8221; doesn&#8217;t bring up necessarily the best doctors. It will show the user the best closest doctor. The number one takeaway here is to ensure your local listings are air tight. There&#8217;s more to doctor SEO that this, but this is a great start for any medical practice. To inquire about our work on SEO for doctors, contact us or check out our digital marketing agency for healthcare page.
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.statusbureau.com/seo-for-doctors/">SEO for Doctors: A Quick Guide on What Works in 2020</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.statusbureau.com">The Status Bureau</a>.

A call-to-action (CTA) is a prompt that encourages visitors to take a specific action. The action could be anything from applying for a job to signing up for a newsletter. They can be represented by items like buttons, links or images and can appear on your website, emails, ads or pretty much anywhere else you reach your audience from. CTAs are the next step in the conversion path after good, persuasive content. Let’s say you finish reading an email about a Black Friday sale, or a blog post about the initiatives of a charity organization. You might be interested in buying a pair of shoes you saw in the email ad or maybe you’re genuinely impressed by the work the charity does. Lead conversion is about driving that interest into action, and that’s where CTAs come into play. Having a CTA in either example (“Shop now” or “Donate here”), will make it easier and more enticing for the visitor to take the course of action you want them to.&#160; What makes a good CTA? Goal setting CTAs are directly related to specific marketing goals. First, you need to determine what you’re trying to achieve. Get a form filled out Sell a product Increase email subscribers It’s common to have multiple CTAs on a web page.  For example, Uber has two blue Sign up buttons in different locations to ensure the user can see them. Netflix has two, as their two objectives are clear. Join or Sign in. The purpose of your CTA, and whether or not there are other CTAs on the page can affect its look and placement on your page.&#160; Good CTA traits Some characteristics of good, compelling CTAs include… Invoking a sense of immediacy  Words and phrases like “Join now”, “Don’t miss out!” or “Get started now” urge the visitor to click on your CTA right away.&#160; Immediacy plays a large role in lead conversion. Even if you capture your visitor’s attention, they’re a lot more likely to convert if they feel inclined to do so immediately compared to bookmarking your page and forgetting about it later.&#160; Clear, actionable text CTAs don’t contain too much copy, so it’s important to make your words clear and impactful. Vague verbs like “Click here” or “Submit” don’t tell your customers want they’re getting into after clicking on your button. Instead, go for straightforwardness. Join now Subscribe to our newsletter Give X a try Get my free X Start your free trial Learn how to X Get a quote Or, you can add a bit of creative flair to your CTA. These might be a bit more general, but you can include supplementary copy on your page to explain what you’re offering.&#160; Start your journey Yes, sign me up! Let’s talk The important thing about CTAs is that you can test and measure them. Low commitment Most visitors browsing your website aren’t looking to put their money down right away. Offering free trials, free resources or any other action that doesn’t require payment right away will garner more clicks than CTAs that explicitly ask your visitor to buy something. Even if you’re promoting a certain product, CTAs such as “Add to cart” or “Add to wishlist” may be more likely to convert compared to “Buy now.” CTA placement Where your CTAs appear on your web page mostly depends on what type of page you have. If you have a blog post, putting your CTA at the bottom after you’ve made your case makes more sense than putting it at the top before your reader has any idea of what you do. But for a landing page, you probably don’t want visitors to scroll down to find your CTA, so you would put it at the top.&#160; Additionally, you could put CTAs in your top menu or footer so that they appear across your whole website. This is effective if you have a universal CTA that applies to all pages, such signing up for an account.
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We did some research on Seattle&#8217;s keywords. The top 10 list below isn&#8217;t surprising. In almost every major North American city you&#8217;ll see Craigslist, weather, sports, news and hotels as the top 10 most searched for keywords. Keyword Searched for Per Month in US craigslist seattle 1,830,000 seattle weather 1,000,000 seattle seahawks 823,000 seattle 450,000 seattle mariners 450,000 seattle times 450,000 seattle hotels 246,000 seattle sounders 90,500 things to do in seattle 90,500 seattle news 74,000 Where People Are Looking From Most Seattle searches come from the state of Washington. One would assume that there&#8217;d be a concentration of Seattle searches in Oregon or Idaho, but that might not be the case. In Canada, a majority of the Seattle searches come out of British Columbia and the West Coast, which makes a lot of sense. Top Sports Teams Searches in Seattle For sports, it looks like the Seahawks searches completely eclipse other teams. The Seattle Supersonics are still getting searches despite leaving Seattle in 2008. Sports Keywords Searched for Per Month in US seattle seahawks 5,594,200 seattle mariners 680,240 seattle sounders 114,250 seattle supersonics 50,310 Top Local News Outlet Searches in Seattle For dailies, The Seattle Times beats everyone else by a long shot. News Keywords Searched for Per Month in US seattle times 573,810 the stranger 67,000 seattle pi 68,960 west seattle blog 52,600 Top Tourism Searches in Seattle If you do any travel / tourism digital marketing, you&#8217;ll know that the keyword &#8220;things to do in cityname&#8221; is always going to be #1. We&#8217;ve excluded that category and pulled out the top attractions people search for in Seattle. Keyword Searched for Per Month in US pike place 194,850 seattle art museum 70,020 seattle space needle 60,040 seattle aquarium 58,310 seattle underground tour 28,130
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Last updated Jan 14th, 2020 Google has come a long way since its inception in 1998. While its appearance has changed a lot over the years, the purpose of the universally-recognized search engine has remained the same: to help users find the information they’re looking for. To do that, Google has had to make multitudes of updates (and continue to do so, pretty much every day) to their algorithm so they can sift through websites and content more efficiently and provide searchers the most useful and relevant results. From an SEO standpoint, it’s useful to monitor how Google changes their ranking signals with each new update. Here are some of the major Google algorithm updates. January 2020 Core Update (Jan 14, 2020) Announced by Google Search Liason. More to come on this as it we haven&#8217;t seen any chatter or changes on the update. Maverick Update (July 12 2019) Announced by Barry Schwartz of SEO Roundtable. It was called Maverick because of the Top Gun trailer was released close to when people started seeing a lot of fluctuations in rankings. June 2019 Core Update (June 3, 2019) Announced by Danny Sullivan of Google’s Search Liaison.&#160; Broad changes to core algorithm is released. After the roll out there has been two high authority websites, The Daily Mail and CCN.com, that reported lost traffic and rankings. Google’s guidance on Core Algorithm Updates was authored by Danny Sullivan to consider 4 areas of content for web publishers: 1. Content and quality questions, 2. Expertise questions, 3. Presentation and production questions and 4. Comparative questions. March 2019 Core Update / Florida 2 (March 12, 2019) Confirmed by Danny Sullivan of Google’s Search Liaison.&#160; Release of a global broad core algorithm update. Broad core updates are overall upgrades to Google’s algorithm to better understand search queries and user intent.&#160; Valentine’s Day Update (February 13, 2019) Unconfirmed In early February, WebmasterWorld forum members noted changes to SERPs in the UK, and then in the U.S and other parts of the world closer to Valentine’s Day. Effects of the update varied, but most SEO specialists agree that the update targeted content quality and user intent, as most updates in the past year did. Halloween Update (October 31, 2018) Unconfirmed WebmasterWorld forum members discussed changes to rankings of long-tail keywords and other SERP changes in October, but there was little evidence of any significant updates. Some hypothesize the ranking changes were caused by Google’s increasing usage of its Neural Matching algorithm. A &#8220;Small&#8221; Update (September 27, 2018) Confirmed by Danny Sullivan of Google’s Search Liason&#160; Significant changes in website traffic were reported by SEO specialists on September 27, Google’s 20th birthday. Website owners noticed both spikes and drops in traffic. Unnamed Broad Core Algorithm Update (August 1, 2018) Confirmed by Google Search Liason This update has been nicknamed “Medic” by some web specialists as it was believed to have targeted health, medical and YMYL (Your Money Your Life) sites. Google said on Twitter that it was a general algorithm update. Websites owners saw their rankings drop, but Google confirmed that the shifts in rankings were not caused by low quality sites, but changes in relevance as they continue to better understand user’s search intent.&#160; Broad Core Algorithm Update (April 16, 2018) Confirmed by Google Search Liaison. On April 16, Google announced another broad core algorithm update that focussed on content relevance.&#160; Broad Core Algorithm Update (March 9, 2018) Confirmed by Google Search Liaison. On March 9, Google launched a broad core algorithm update and later confirmed it on Twitter on March 12. The update focused on improving query relevance. Websites who experienced drops in rankings were not necessarily low quality, but losing relevance to their users, said Google’s John Mueller.&#160; Maccabees (Fred) Update (December 12, 2017) Confirmed by Danny Sullivan of Google’s Search Liaison. Website owners reported changes to search result rankings between December 12 to 14. Google confirmed they had made minor adjustments to the core algorithm during this time. In a Search Engine Roundtable post, Barry Swartz gathered and reviewed over 100 sites that were hit by the update and found a pattern with landing pages that had heavy amounts of keyword permutations.&#160; Fall Flux (September 8, 2017) Unconfirmed SERP volatility and changes in traffic were reported on September 18, 25, 29 and October 4, 8, and 12 by Glenn Gabe, president of G-Squared Interactive. Google has not confirmed any updates during this time. Quality Update (August 19, 2017) Unconfirmed Between August 19 to 20, webmasters noticed swings with SEO visibility and traffic, though Google has not confirmed any updates. In a post by G-Squared Interactive president Glenn Gabe, websites with aggressive advertising, thin content and other low quality user experience elements were the most common sites to take a hit to their rankings during this update.&#160; June 25 Update (June 25, 2017) Unconfirmed SEO tracking tools reported significant fluctuations in page rankings on this date. Significant shifts in rankings were detected between positions 6-10, according to an analysis by RankRanger. Quality Update (May 17, 2017) Unconfirmed SEO tracking tools detected shifts in SERP rankings from May 17 until May 24. Glenn Gabe of GSQi cited distracting advertisements and low quality content as common factors that websites that suffered during this update showed.&#160; Fred – Major Update (March 7, 2017) Confirmed by Gary Illyes on March 24. Fred encompassed multiple algorithm updates that were not confirmed until March 24. Google has not released any further details about Fred but the general consensus is that these algorithm changes targeted low-quality content meant to generate revenue. The name “Fred” was coined jokingly by Gary Illyes as a blanket term for any unnamed, unannounced algorithm update that Google released.&#160; Intrusive Interstitials Update (January 10, 2017) Confirmed by Google on August 23, 2017 Google announced an update in August 2016 that would devalue pages with aggressive interstitials (pop-ups) for mobile devices. The update rolled out on January 10, 2017. Penguin Update 4.0 &#38; Core Algorithm Integration (September 23, 2016) [&#8230;]
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Introduction to SEO You’ve probably crossed paths with the term SEO a couple of times. Maybe you know a thing or two about it, or maybe you’re already spiralling deep into the SEO marketing universe.&#160; Regardless of what you know about SEO, there’s always more to learn. The world of SEO is constantly evolving as Google and other search engines continue to update their algorithms to provide the most relevant and useful results to searchers. But fundamentally, it all boils down to one element: the users. Search engines are simply the means to an end, albeit a complex and ever-changing one. Understanding what consumers are searching for, the words they use and what kind of content they’re clicking on is just as important as any technical implementation you do on your website. By optimizing the content and structure of your website so that Google can find and index your website more easily, you’re making yourself more visible and accessible to the consumers who are looking for you. And that’s what SEO is all about!&#160; This guide is made up of many of the concepts and tactics we use at The Status Bureau, and will give you an overview of what SEO is and all the bits and pieces that make it up. Let’s get into it. What is SEO? SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” Search engine optimization is the process of improving the quality and quantity of traffic on your website by increasing its visibility on search engine result pages (also known as SERPs). This usually means bumping up your website’s ranking on search engines, most popularly, Google. SEO can involve a plethora of practices, but the mainstays are: Fixing your website’s HTML Building links from other websites to yours Telling search engines where your business physically is By applying these processes, Google will be more likely to find and list your website for relevant queries.&#160; How Search Engines Work When a user searches for something on Google, the search engine combs through trillions of web pages to find an answer for the query. Think of it as a super efficient librarian who runs around the library (the Internet) to find books that contain some possible answers to your question. They don’t spit out any random answer though. The librarian has a system of reading, understanding and indexing every single book in the library so they can extract the most useful and relevant information, in order, according to their criteria. Their criteria in our case, would be referred to as &#8216;the algorithm&#8217;. Search engines rank the answers in a hierarchy based on a variety of factors, including the location of the searcher, the relevance to the query, quality of content and a whole slew of other things. SEO is about improving each of those areas so that we can be higher up in the librarian’s stack of books. But we’ll get into that later. First, a search engine starts off by “crawling.” Step 1: Crawling Crawling is the process of gathering new and updated web content for Google Search results.&#160; Search engines use specialized software called crawlers or spiders to find and retrieve content automatically. Content can range from text, images to videos to PDFs, but all of it is found via links. Crawlers follow links from site to site to discover new URLs, downloading new content as they go and adding it to their index to be retrieved later on. Step 2: Indexing After the Googlebots have done their scouring, they store and organize the content in a process called indexing. Google is constantly indexing new and updated pages. You can check which pages have been indexed from your website by typing in site:domain.com into Google.&#160; Here&#8217;s a few of ours: When you search on Google, you’re not searching on the live web. You’re actually searching on Google’s index of web content called Caffeine. Like the index list in the back of a book, Google uses their index to pinpoint exactly what you need. Once a page is in the index, it’ll be able to be displayed as a result to relevant queries.&#160; If Google can’t crawl and index your website properly, you’re basically invisible. Your website won’t appear on search engine result pages, or some of your webpages might be missing.&#160; Step 3: Ranking Every time someone searches for something on Google, the search engine goes through its index and presents the most relevant results in ranked order. Using various criteria aka algorithms, the search engine checks the query against billions of websites to find the most relevant and useful results. There are literally hundreds of factors that play into your website’s ranking, but some of the more important ones include: Physical location of the searcher Quantity, quality and relevancy of links that point to your website Content relevancy and quality Website speed Moz’s 2018 rank factors study is a good place to understand the most important ones. Google is constantly updating its algorithms to improve overall search quality for its users, but fundamental factors like quality content and backlinks still hold true. Step 4: Response Google’s algorithm has a feedback loop built in to understand the quality of a website. These behavioural signals may include: a high ratio of clicks on the results page, how many people stay after they visit the first landing page, as is the time a user spends on your website. This means you’ll want to attract more users to your website and keep them from immediately hitting the back button. Abandoning a page for another results is a sign the page’s content did not meet the needs of the user. Search Intent Search intent is a popular topic amongst SEO professionals because Google has been focusing on showing different types of content for different types of searches. For example, my search query best accounting software brings up three pages.&#160; This Hubspot comparison page&#160; This Businessnewsdaily comparison page This Financesonline comparison page The goal here is obvious. Google is trying to [&#8230;]
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A landing page is the first page people see when they enter a website. It’s where they “land”, typically the home page or a lead acquisition page. You could arrive on a landing page from either clicking a link featured on another website (ex. google search) or typing in the url directly. Compared to other pages on a company’s website, landing pages are usually simpler in terms of design and content. The simplicity of a landing page is an intentional design decision in order to get the user to complete a desired action. The desired action is referred to as a Call to Action. Common Calls to Action are: Signing up for an account&#160; Signing up for an email newsletter Downloading a resource Purchasing a product Getting an estimate or quote Landing pages are built with the goal of leading users to complete the call to action. When to use a landing page, example 1: When you need to focus When you need a page that has a clear goal. This can be within the context of a marketing campaign or a new site build, if you find that current navigation may be overwhelming to users, you may want to make specific pages intuitive to use and have a goal for the user to accomplish. A goal driven landing page is a perfect tactic for otherwise complex websites. When to use a landing page, example 2: When pages aren’t performing Landing pages are often used when the performance metrics of an important page are behind expectations. The performance metrics generally looked at in order to know this are: Conversion rate Bounce rate Dwell time Page speed Page errors Keys to making a great landing page The key to an effective landing page is simplicity and clarity. The more you clutter your landing page design, the more diverted the visitor’s attention becomes. The landing page is not about promoting your brand or explaining your work, which can be explained by other pages. The hierarchy of a landing page is important. If a user has to scroll down to the bottom of a page to enter their information on your form, chances are they won’t make it that far. Prioritize your Call to Action over supplementary content like testimonials. Message-matching is another key characteristic of a good landing page. If your Google Ad says “Valentine’s Day Sale: 50% Off Chocolate” and the link leads to the homepage of your online chocolate delivering website, the visitor will be confused and click away, not having fulfilled their initial query. If the ad leads to a landing page with the 50% Off Valentine&#8217;s Deal, the customer is much more likely to proceed with their shopping. Examples of Landing Pages Uber Landing Page Uber’s landing page is simple and gets straight to the point. You’re presented with a sign up form right when you arrive at the page with some short, impactful copy on the left. They further emphasize their “earn on your schedule” statement below the sign up form by explaining the support they offer and the flexibility of being an Uber driver.= Another smart design element Uber included is the blue topbar that appears as you scroll down to read more information. If you click on the “Sign up to drive” button, it redirects you back to the sign up form above so that the CTA is still right in front of you even when you scroll down to continue reading. Zoho Landing Page Zoho’s CRM software landing page is clean, but packs a lot of relevant information. The headline avoids any marketing jargon and tells you, in its simplest form, what the software can do for you. The sign up form is right at the top and they prove their credibility by showing the logos of some of their big name clients. They include some more information about their CRM software below the headline but don’t over explain their product. Zip Recruiter Landing Page Instead of a sign up form, ZipRecruiter asks its landing page visitors a question right off the bat. The copy tells you exactly what ZipRecruiter does and their call-to-action is right below. The landing page also includes testimonials and official partners in a muted gray section under the CTA, showing good visual hierarchy.&#160; Airbnb Landing Page Airbnb’s landing page drives conversions by immediately allowing visitors to interact with their interface. This simple calculator feature compels people to apply to be a host by answering a common question: How much could I make as an Airbnb host? They do the math for you, and just like good SEO should do, your query is solved.&#160; Good copy and attention-grabbing visuals definitely up your landing page game, but sometimes, solid numbers do the trick.&#160; Square Landing Page Square’s minimalistic, but eye-catching video takes up a good half of their landing page and shows the diversity of businesses it serves. They have two, non-contradicting CTAs right at the top for visitors to sign up. They supplement the video with more information about their product below. Also, their headline pun is pretty sweet. Know of any other great landing page examples? Leave any questions, comments or examples below!
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