Opace Digital Agency

Reviews and SEO [UPDATED]

Adam Bullas — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:25:26 +0000

Reading Time: 14 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: March 20, 2025

Do Reviews Help SEO? Understanding Their Impact on Visibility

Online reviews have become an integral part of online search, influencing not just customer decisions, but also a business’s visibility in search results.

Whether they appear on a Google Business profile, Trustpilot, Facebook, or other platforms, online reviews serve as a trust signal for both potential customers and search engines.

But, do reviews help SEO? In this updated guide, we’ll explore how Google Reviews and other online review platforms contribute to rankings, local search visibility, and click-through rates, and ultimately how they help businesses gain a competitive edge in search.

Editor’s Note [12.02.2005]: Do reviews help SEO? We first addressed this question when we published our original article covering reviews and SEO in December 2020 and the article underwent some minor updates again in 2023. Google never rests when it comes to algorithm changes, trust signals, and ranking factors, so in this update, we wanted to look again at the link between Google Reviews, reviews in general and their impact on SEO.

What are Google Reviews and what is their role in SEO?

There are many types of reviews and review platforms online, but Google Reviews are specifically written by users online for others to see on any given Google Business profile.

You can find more about Google Business (formally Google My Business) optimisation below.

Google My Business – Optimisation

Google Reviews (and online reviews in general) are a form of social proof that can improve the trustworthiness of businesses in the eyes of customers and within the context of Google’s algorithm.

For potential customers, a business’s average review score will be listed within Google Maps listings along with other key business information as shown below.

Google Reviews are crucial for improving local SEO and click-throughs from Google Maps listings. Photo by henry perks on Unsplash

In addition to being a critical factor for customers deciding which business to use for a product or service, Google Reviews also play a significant role in SEO.

For those who understand the basics of SEO, reviews can be thought of as another signal to Google (a vote of confidence), similar to backlinks which help to demonstrate “trust”. Among other factors, they help Google determine where a business should appear in local search results and maps based on their Google Review score. The quality, quantity, and star rating of the Google Review also influence a business’s ranking position in Google’s Local Pack.

How do Google Reviews help SEO?

A common question we hear is — Do Google Reviews help to rank in search engines?

The short answer is, yes. Google Reviews can have a big impact on local SEO regardless of whether the business is part of a large chain or just a small independent store. Anything that helps customers assess the quality of a service/product is likely to be carefully considered by Google when deciding how to rank them.

You can view a more detailed overview of the Google and Bing algorithm factors most likely to impact SEO below, but much like quality content, authority backlinks, and social signals, reviews do play a role in SEO:

Bing SEO vs Google SEO [UPDATED]

Let’s dive in a bit deeper to understand the what and the how.

Do only positive reviews help SEO?

To answer the question “Do reviews help SEO”, we need to consider the review sentiment and what they are saying as a whole about a product or service. Are they entirely positive or negative, is there a natural balance of positive, neutral and negative reviews, etc.

Positive reviews build trust in your brand and boost SEO

While we can’t know the exact mechanics of Google’s ranking algorithm, it’s logical to conclude that if reviews impact SEO, then the overall review rating/score also has an impact.

First, let’s break each section down and explain how reviews and SEO are linked, and how you can capitalise on them to improve search performance.

Local Pack Rankings

Google prioritises businesses with regular, favourable reviews and includes them in the top three results in local search rankings.

This is called “Local Pack” or “Map Pack” listings. The Local Pack is important as it’s where most users look for trusted businesses relevant to their search query.

Reviews play a key role in ranking Google Maps and Google Business listings.

Businesses located in the Local Pack are more likely to receive enquiries and business as a result.

Keywords

The words contained within reviews can also help Google to understand the type of business you are, and what services you offer.

Keywords can be established from within the content of reviews, helping Google determine relevance. If customers frequently include relevant keywords such as “This is a fantastic place for Indian food in Birmingham”, it gives the Google algorithm more ‘confidence’ in these being relevant and accurate terms.

Engagement

Google has always favoured engagement and reviews are no different.

A business that receives not only positive reviews, but frequent reviews will be a big positive in the eyes of the search engine.

Click-Through Rates

The impact of abundant reviews shouldn’t be ignored.

Imagine you are looking for a service — Are you more likely to use one with one thousand reviews averaging 4.7 stars, or a service with just six 5-star reviews?

This is another instance of social proof influencing the perceived trustworthiness of a product or service based on reviews.

Do negative reviews impact SEO?

It’s sometimes easy to overthink SEO and the impact that factors play when ranking in search.

Google understands that businesses aren’t always perfect, and negative reviews are an inevitable part of running any business. However, being able to engage with customers and respond to negative feedback constructively is not just beneficial for improving your service, it also shows Google that you are constantly active and engaging with users online.

Being active online also assures potential customers that should they encounter any difficulty or trouble, some time will be on hand to deal with it promptly.

Remember, showing other customers how you deal with negative reviews and issues can have just as much of an impact as a glowing 5-star review.

“89% of consumers are ‘highly’ or ‘fairly’ likely to use a business that responds to all of its online reviews”

— Brightlocal

Negative reviews that appear now and again shouldn’t be daunting — it’s a chance to improve the future operations of your business and show customers that you can be trusted with their custom.

However, it’s only logical then that an overwhelming number of negative reviews that aren’t properly managed will have the opposite impact.

Again, put your self in the mind of a potential visitor who sees these reviews, the whole effect will be reversed and they will distrust your product or service. This is likely to send negative signals to Google and therefore negatively impact SEO.

Can fake reviews harm my SEO?

You, like many website owners before you, might be thinking that the process of getting reviews is too risky, too hard, or your customers simply won’t leave them.

We’ve heard all of these reasons in the past, but it simply isn’t true. As long as you invest both time and effort into the process and the reviews are correctly managed, it will pay off in the long run.

However, the trap some website owners fall into is that they want a quick win. This could either be positive fake reviews that attempt to make a product or service look more trustworthy, or negative fake reviews against a competitor to try and harm their credibility.

Fake reviews can take many forms, including AI-generated reviews, buying fake reviews, and so on. There are plenty of providers out there that will provide fake reviews and attempt to pass their service off as “real reviews” by “real people”. In many cases, the reviews will be added by real people, but they will use fake accounts set up to simply post fake reviews and these accounts will stand out like a saw-thumb as being fake.

Also, Google might raise an eyebrow when it sees multiple reviews that arrive from an identical IP address. This could be completely innocent. Perhaps multiple service users from the same business were impressed with your offering and wished to leave positive feedback. All the same, it can also resemble fraudulent, fake reviews and feedback. Google will notice this and might take action.

Google’s algorithms are designed to pick up on certain red flags, with the more common ones being plagiarised or duplicate content, link spamming, etc. Much like other “black hat” SEO techniques, Google is likely to spot fake reviews and consider this as “black hat” as well.

Google has a nose for fake reviews. Ensure any feedback on your site is genuine

Chances are that anybody trying to game reviews will be detected and penalised by Google.

We’ve covered fake reviews in detail below, including the topic of AI-generated reviews in detail, so be sure to give this a read:

The Rise of AI-Generated Reviews: How to Spot Fake Reviews Easily & Deal With Them

What are the benefits of reviews for SEO?

Anybody with an online business will at least be partially aware of SEO and Google’s ever-changing algorithm:

Algorithm Updates

The days of spamming keywords and artificially building links to gain SEO traction have long passed in favour of natural organic signals.

Now, Google places a greater emphasis on user experience and helpful content. This means that reviews and SEO are more intrinsically linked than ever before.

Using reviews for SEO will help to boost overall authority, reputation and traffic quality. While receiving a Google Review is one thing, harnessing online reviews correctly can significantly boost search visibility and even increase conversions.

Conversions, Google reviews and SEO. Photo by Myriam Jessier on Unsplash

Reviews correlate with rankings

A study by Bright Local in 2020 demonstrates how reviews and various other factors correlate with local SEO, with reviews overtaking backlinks as being the second most important factor for Local Pack rankings:

Local Pack	Local Organic
1. Google My Business (33%)	1. On-page (32%)
2. Reviews (16%)	2. Links (31%)
3. On-page (15%)	3. Behavioral (10%)
3. Links (15%)	4. Personalisation (7%)
5. Behavioral (8%)	4. Google My Business (7%)
6. Citations (7%)	6. Citations (6%)
7. Personalisation (6%)	6. Reviews (6%)

This seems to be backed up by a previous 2018 study undertaken by Moz.com which shows a similar pattern:

Reviews have 15.44% impact on Local Pack

Reviews have 6.47% impact on organic rankings

Click-Through Rates & engagement signals

It is important to understand that Google will track how often your business is clicked within search results compared to your competitors. It will use this metric as a signal for search engine rankings.

This is often referred to as a CTR or Click-Through Rate. Businesses with a higher CTR are more likely to outrank competitors, as Google sees this as a strong engagement signal.

So the question then comes, how can we increase Click-Through Rates to help improve SEO? Well, one method is to encourage online reviews and manage them properly. As a general rule of thumb, the more reviews you have with positive sentiment, the more click-throughs you can expect from visitors interested in your product or service.

Structured data and schema markup for enhanced organic listings

Structured data, specifically schema markup, is a crucial element in improving organic search visibility.

Google uses structured data to understand and categorise content, and one of the most effective ways businesses can leverage this is through Product Schema, which allows businesses to display star ratings in organic search results, rather than just in local business listings.

This means that if you run an eCommerce store or sell products online, adding structured data markup to your pages can enable Google to show rich snippets that include star ratings, price, and availability.

It goes without saying that users are naturally drawn to search results that stand out from the crowd. A search result featuring star ratings, review count, and price information immediately grabs attention and increases trust.

For example, a standard search result might look like this:

Example without schema markup:

“Best Running Shoes | XYZ Sports” www.xyzsports.com/running-shoes Find the best running shoes for every need.

Example with schema markup:

“Best Running Shoes | XYZ Sports” www.xyzsports.com/running-shoes Find the best running shoes for every need.

⭐ 4.8 (234 Reviews) – £89.99 – In Stock

Clearly, the second result which uses product schema is more engaging and provides more information at a glance, making it more likely that users will click through.

As can be seen in our SERP features guide here, when marked up correctly using schema, reviews can have a significant impact. Put your self in the mind of a potential visitor who sees these reviews – it goes a bit like this:

If other users have positively reviewed this website, I can also trust them
If Google has decided to show these reviews, that means I can trust them more (improves SERP presence)
Other websites don’t have reviews, so I will click this one (improves Click-Throughs)
I like this site and they have good reviews, so I will read more (improves Engagement Rate)
Everything looks good so I will make contact (improves Conversions)

The whole process here plays perfectly into the hands of Google’s E-E-A-T framework (coming up next) and sending the right signals to help improve your SEO.

Studies have even shown that rich snippets can improve CTR by 20-30%, leading to higher organic traffic.

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness)

Remember the important term used earlier, “trust”? E-E-A-T (“Experience”, “Expertise”, “Authoritativeness”, and “Trustworthiness”) is a framework that Google uses to evaluate the quality and credibility of content and is an essential part of Google’s Search Quality Rater and Helpful Content Guidelines.

Therefore, simple reasoning means that if reviews are one of the best ways to demonstrate “trust”, and “Trustworthiness” is an important part of Google’s E-E-A-T framework, then they must have a role in SEO and Google’s ranking algorithm.

We won’t go into detail here about E-E-A-T as it’s a significant topic in its own right, but you can find out more information below:

Why Good Content Matters: SEO Content Creation Guidelines [UPDATED]

To try and piggie back off the E-E-A-T framework to reviews, we’ve come up with our own term named “T.A.R.V”. This stands for “Trust,” “Abundance”, “Ratings”, and “Visibility”, which again ties in the “trust” element and focuses solely on Google Reviews and their impact on search ranking.

T.A.R.V – How reviews help SEO – an infographic from Opace

Remember, your online reviews should be used to spread the word about your service while showcasing customer satisfaction.

Google Reviews, and most other online reviews, can be embedded on your website and shared on social media. Potential customers will see the quality of your service, the abundance of reviews, and how you are committed to solving problems.

The SEO impact of properly managing and responding to reviews

Responding to reviews is an important part of running a business for many reasons and is valued by the Google search algorithm. Interacting with reviews and solving customer complaints is integral to generating trust which helps to attract new customers.

Google has been clear about the impact of responding to customer reviews. and the impact this can have on local rankings.

In the words of Google:

“when you reply to reviews, it shows that you value your customers and their feedback”.

This should be capitalised on by businesses looking to improve their SEO and trustworthiness.

The role of keywords in reviews

You may be surprised to learn that keywords play an important role in reviews. This doesn’t mean you should be flooding your reviews with keyword stuffing and spam, but it should be an important consideration when replying to feedback. This is another factor that can help with your position within search listings.

For example, you may be a local coffee shop and receive generic feedback such as:

“Great experience and quick service”. — Customer770

Although this is good feedback to receive, it doesn’t tell Google anything about who you are and what you do. T

his is a good opportunity to dive in and reply with something along the lines of the following:

“We appreciate your feedback! At (Business name) we are proud to serve the best coffee in Birmingham”. — Business name

This allows Google to recognise that you are a coffee shop located in Birmingham, and also includes the keyword phrase “Best coffee in Birmingham”.

The benefits of this approach are clear to see:

Specifies business name and type — Google now knows you are a coffee shop.
Includes a local keyword — “Best coffee in Birmingham” helps with your local SEO
Natural language — Doesn’t contain keyword stuffing, is an authentic reply

Don’t forget that Google has increasingly sophisticated tools that can easily detect when you are trying to mislead their algorithms. Be sure to remain authentic above all else, while including elements that help Google detect what your business is, and the type of service you provide.

The more detailed and specific customer reviews can be regarding your service the better!

Always optimise your reviews and content for keywords on Google Search. Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

Of course, it’s no good to implement a strategy that helps to establish reviews for SEO if you ignore everything else needed.

Other areas of critical consideration include understanding search intent, regular planning, reviewing and measuring your efforts, building Topical Authority and optimising for website speed. But when combined, these activities can have a powerful effect on improving your overall Google ranking.

What number of reviews are needed to improve SEO?

While there’s no exact number of reviews that can be considered “enough” to impact SEO, aiming for 10-15 reviews as a minimum is a good start.

Having 4 or 5 reviews isn’t enough to give customers confidence or Google enough data to be considered reliable.

It’s not just the number of reviews that is important, but how recent your reviews are. Google values regular fresh content and reviews are no different — this is why it is so important to be active in replying to all of your reviews while naturally including keywords at the same time.

Businesses with more than 50 reviews tend to stand a better chance of ranking within the local pack in search listings. Remember — a large volume of gradual but frequent reviews (particularly positive) is a strong trust signal that can be used by search engines. Online reviews shouldn’t be looked at as a one-time activity you can focus on part-time. Making the most out of online reviews for SEO requires a consistent approach to maximise results.

Finally, having many positive reviews and increasing buyer confidence will help with your CTR as potential customers feel there is less risk involved in buying from a trusted source with many recent reviews available. This leads to more engagement, clicks, and consequently better SEO rankings.

Where can you get reviews for better local SEO?

Quality reviews matter and Google Reviews isn’t the only place where reviews can help your SEO efforts.

Here are a few more review sites that you can utilise to improve your search position. Diversifying the review platforms you use will help generate trust when potential customers are reading about your product or service. This provides a wider variety of reviews and platforms, most of which will probably be detected and shown on your Google Business profile anyway.

Not only that, but some users may distrust Google Reviews for one reason or another, but favour Trustpilot for example. By diversifying where you get reviews, you’re more likely to ensure customers find a platform they trust, which in turn will help with sending “trust” signals to Google.

Here are some of the popular online review platforms worth considering:

Facebook Reviews

Facebook is another platform that can be leveraged for social proof and trust.

Facebook Reviews can help to further increase brand awareness and reputability while providing SEO benefits indirectly. This can improve your position in search.

Facebook pages can even rank in search if the page in question meets certain criteria and is well-managed and frequently reviewed and updated.

TrustPilot

Another platform known for trustworthiness is TrustPilot.

Reviews within Google often appear from TrustPilot in branded searches and provide an easily embeddable button that can be used on your website.

This displays your review score and can help drive conversions due to increased trust generated.

Yelp

If you have a service-based business such as a cafe or a restaurant, then Yelp is a worthy consideration when it comes to reviews.

Yelp reviews are able to rank within Google and even increase your local search visibility if harnessed correctly.

Be sure to abide by Yelp’s guidelines as they can be strict when it comes to reviews and incentivising reviews from your customers.

Feefo

Similar to TrustPilot, Feefo is another verified review platform that provides a trustworthy source of feedback from customers.

This means that search engines such as Google can safely trust reviews listed on the site and utilise the data for star ratings within rich snippets. Integrating Feefo widgets can further reinforce buyer confidence and trust which in turn increases conversions.

Platforms such as Feefo can also improve your listings within Google Shopping via Google Seller Ratings. This is always a nice bonus if you are selling products online.

Final thoughts: online reviews and SEO go hand-in-hand

Online reviews, and in particular Google Reivews, are crucial for customers to gain a better understanding of the quality of your business, but they also serve as a reliable indicator for Google and wider search algorithms.

The more frequent the reviews and the quality of the review score, the higher the chances are of ranking in the local pack in search. Additionally, these reviews lead to increased buyer confidence and function as social proof, improving CTR, and can be the difference between a customer using your service, or a competitor’s service.

The importance of search position in a competitive market is illustrated below by Backlinko:

“the #1 result in Google has a 10x higher CTR compared to the #10 results”

Source Backlinko

So, be sure to stay on top of your online reviews and SEO strategy as a whole. Remain dedicated to responding to customer feedback on an ongoing basis to succeed within search, and maximise your existing SEO efforts.

If you need the services of an SEO agency, free to get in touch to see how we can help.

What are your experiences with online reviews and SEO? Be sure to drop us a comment below or on any of our social media profiles.

SEO Planning Template & Strategy [UPDATED]

Scott C — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 12:13:13 +0000

Reading Time: 15 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: February 17, 2025

SEO planning: how to create a successful SEO plan

Benjamin Franklin memorably claimed that: “failing to plan is planning to fail“. This is never more prevalent than in SEO. No website finds success through blind luck. SEO planning is pivotal to driving traffic to your online presence, and in this guide, we’ll discuss how to draw up a successful 6 to 12 month SEO plan for your website.

Editor’s Note [13th November 2023]: Our original guide was created back on 27th October 2020 and while the fundamentals of SEO planning remain the same, the tools and ingredients that make up SEO have changed. In this latest update, we’ve given the original guide a fresh new update to include additional information, new data, and an up-to-date view on what it takes to create a successful SEO plan.

What is an SEO plan?

Before jumping straight into what an SEO plan is, we would encourage readers to check out our comprehensive no-nonsense guide to simple SEO below:

SEO Basics: The Simple SEO Guide for Website Owners [UPDATED]

Ok, so what is an SEO plan? This is a process sometimes also referred to as an SEO strategy or SEO template.

Both refer to a carefully prepared set of activities outlining how you intend to attract visitors to your website through organic search results.¹

If you do not carry out adequate SEO planning, your site will struggle to attract visitors

It is no secret that traffic is the lifeblood of any website. After all, what is a website without visitors? The more visitors a site attracts, the more you are likely to achieve your desired goals. SEO planning, with a focus on Google, is more important than ever today.

But, an effective SEO plan isn’t just about getting any traffic, it’s about attracting the right kind of visitors, those who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. This means aligning your website’s content with what your audience is searching for and targeting the right keywords.

This is particularly significant as search engine algorithms continue to evolve, meaning it’s essential to stay updated and adapt your strategies accordingly.

Which search engines need to be included in SEO planning?

As can be seen below in the chart from Statista, Google has an 83.49% share of the entire search engine market worldwide.²

Although down a few percent from the time our original guide was created, Google is still the world’s most popular search engine by a long shot.

SEO plans need to consider various search engines, but Google is King

Also not to be ignored is Bing, showing the most significant growth, climbing to 9.19% thanks to Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI and Bing Chat.

Bing SEO vs Google SEO [UPDATED]

Since the original 2020 article, AI has taken the world by storm and Microsoft has been at the forefront with its AI-first search initiatives.

Others shown on the chart include Yahoo! at 2.69%, Baidu at 0.6%, YANDEX at 0.59%, and DuckDuckGo at 0.83%,

Find more statistics at Statista

What SEO factors are most important?

If you are going to draw up a successful SEO plan, you first need to identify your goals and understand what matters most to your business and SEO.

We’ve covered SEO goals and KPIs in our guide here:

From UA to GA4, Top Google Analytics Tips to Measure SEO Results [UPDATED]

It’s important to view SEO as a part of your overall business and marketing strategy, so any SEO goals should be traceable back to what you are trying to achieve as a business.

Once you have identified your business goals, cross-check what matters most to your website as part of your SEO plan.

To build a successful SEO plan, follow these steps:

1. Core Web Vitals

When originally producing this guide we listed “Web Vitals”³as the number one factor, mentioning that Google had claimed that these core vitals were not deal-breakers. In the short space of time since web.dev announced Core Web Vitals as a subset of Web Vitals, with a focus on real-world user experience.

Search Engine Journal discussed Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor⁴and then the Page Experience update was rolled out on June 15th 2020⁵, making it very clear that having good Core Web Vitals is important.

Core Web Vitals in SEO plans – the importance of speed and user experience

A large part of what Core Web Vitals aims to address is the real-world experience your visitors have on both desktop and mobile devices. Just consider for a moment that you may be using your website on a super-fast fibre broadband connection, using an Apple Mac with a large screen resolution. Actually, the large majority of visitors these days are mobile users on the go, and tend to browse the web from their phones – this means smaller screens with slower internet connections (3G and 4G).

A key ingredient here is site speed and page load times. A slow site or bad user experience on mobile will harm your SEO, especially given Google’s mobile-first indexing.

Mobile v desktop website traffic share 2012-2023 – source oberlo

So this one gets a revived number 1 position in our list of factors to include in your SEO plan.

2. Target market, search intent and keywords

Put yourself in the shoes of potential visitors who want to find your website. Understand search intent and carry out thorough keyword research to determine what your visitors are looking for and the most suitable keywords to generate traffic.

Here are some helpful tips:

- Search intent: Consider the search intent of your visitors and what will drive them to your website. Imagine you’re a detective trying to solve the mystery is your visitor’s desires. What are they really looking for? What problems do they want to solve? How can you best help them?
- Brainstorm keywords: Start by brainstorming the keywords you believe your visitors would type into a search engine, but always keep in mind their search intent.
- Test keywords: Enter the queries you expect visitors to pose, then enter them into Google and check the results. Find niches (gaps) that have not yet been covered.
- Competitor research: Note the keywords and pivotal search terms used by your competitors. It’s like deciphering enemy codes. Once you’ve gathered the above intelligence on competitors, it’s time to use the Skyscraper technique.
- Build SEO skyscrapers⁶: The Skyscraper technique means taking what your competitor has done and building upon it, e.g. if they offer 8 tips on a particular topic, write 10 and provide more value. If they have a dense block of text, explain things more succinctly using videos and graphs to your site. If these sites are topping the Google rankings, they are doing something right with their SEO and you may be able to improve upon this.
- Check search volumes: Using everything you have identified above, check the average search volumes using a tool like Google Keyword Planner. This will help to confirm that the keywords you’ve selected are the right ones. Remember, keywords with zero search volume have no real value, but at the opposite end of the spectrum, keywords with hundreds of thousands of monthly searches may be difficult to compete with.

But, for more in-depth help and advice, read our essential guides below:

Search Intent for SEO

Keyword Research for SEO

SEO Keyword Analysis & Planning: How to Choose the Best Keywords For Your Website

3. Navigation and accessibility

Consider your overall site navigation, architecture (menu), and accessibility. Is the menu easy to access and follow? Can visitors easily find your pages? Do you have a sitemap for users who get lost? Can users with different accessibility needs use the website? The list goes on, but the number one rule here is KISS (“Keep it simple, stupid!”).

Consider your menu and overall navigation when SEO planning

Once you’ve answered these questions, revise your navigation as needed to make sure this reflects your keyword research. Look for any prominent gaps that your website can fill and make sure these are included within your website. This may be a service that nobody else is providing or a popular blog topic that’s not been covered before.

When structuring your menu, consider the following:

Use a logical hierarchy of parent and child relationships for pages, e.g.
- /homepage
- /homepage/main-service
- /homepage/main-service/child-service
Use SEO-friendly meaningful URLs and include your keywords
Use simple HTML for menus that can be easily rendered by browsers and devices of all kinds – the goal is compatibility

Finally, make sure you have an XML sitemap, submit this to Google Search Console, and as an added precaution, add this to your robots.txt file.

4. Content

The next step is to think about your content:

Create high-quality content tailored to your target audience and keyword research.
Think about where this content should be placed within the site navigation.
Consider how to improve upon your competitor’s content.
Build in long-tail keywords within your content.
Divide your SEO content into a range of clusters, pages and sections, to build Topical Authority. This helps to ensure your content will be answering specific queries, something that Google’s search algorithms will be looking for, e.g.

1. Hummingbird (August 2013): Enhanced understanding of search queries’ context, making it more effective for long-tail keywords.
2. RankBrain (October 2015): AI-based part of Google’s algorithm that helps process search results, prioritising content that matches the user’s intent, beneficial for topical authority.
3. BERT (October 2019): Improved understanding of the nuances in language in search queries, aiding in matching long-tail keywords and context-rich content.
4. Helpful Content Update (August 2022): Aimed to promote content written for people first, rather than for search engines, favouring user-focused content that thoroughly addresses specific queries.

Be prepared to refresh your content regularly and schedule this activity in advance. Remember that two can play the skyscraper game. If you overtake a competitor in the Google rankings, it will not go unnoticed. They will review your site as part of their own SEO planning activities, just as you did theirs. The aim of a successful SEO plan is not to match the performance of others but to improve on it.
Get creative when planning and creating content. It’s one thing to have well-optimised pages but you will lose your visitor’s attention if they find the content dull. Coming up with creative ideas and strategies will encourage others to share and link back to your content and perhaps even go viral.

And, make sure you review our SEO content creation guidelines below.

Why Good Content Matters: SEO Content Creation Guidelines [UPDATED]

5. Internal linking and broken links

Review your internal links (i.e. the hyperlinks added within the content on your pages) and ensure you link up related content using sensible keywords and anchor text. A part of this will include keeping an eye out for those 404 “page not found” errors and fixing any broken links.

Make sure your pages are internally linked

This will help to keep visitors on your site for longer and improve the user experience as a result. It will also ensure search engine bots (spiders) will have an easier job crawling your website and finding content.

6. Aesthetic appeal, design, and user experience

Evaluate the design and aesthetic appeal of your content, the ‘look-and-feel’, mobile responsiveness, and overall user experience.

Web design is often an overlooked part of SEO, but it’s absolutely fundamental to user experience and therefore impacts SEO. Look for ways to add visual interest using images and video content, space your content out so that it’s easily digestible, include a table of contents for longer content, add ‘calls to action’ and ‘unique selling points’ within your content, etc.

A good user experience improves dwell time, converts well, and encourages social sharing and link acquisition, all of which can help improve your ranking and traffic.

SEO Quick Wins, Tips & Techniques [UPDATED]

It’s essential to consider mobile SEO and responsive design. This is not just for SEO, but having a great mobile experience plays into a range of different factors listed, including Core Web Vitals, navigation, accessibility, and content.

7. On-page optimisation, structure, and technical SEO

Check the structure of your content to achieve good on-page SEO. This means:

Clean, well-structured HTML code
Well-defined meta tags and heading tags – visitor and keyword-focused meta titles, descriptions, H1 tags, H2-H5 sub-headings, etc.
Image file names, ALT tags and captions
Schema makeup (structured data)

The golden rule here is to not overdo the keywords. Google’s Helpful Content update makes it very clear that the goal is to create a “people first” experience, so if keywords can be included naturally and relevantly, that’s great. Otherwise, think twice.

Check over your previously created content for technical SEO errors, e.g. broken links, images not loading, missing ALT tags, basically another that may harm the user experience.

8. Links back to your site

Good quality links back to your content will help to boost the authority of your pages and their ranking in Google.

Consider the following:

Create interesting and unique content that will attract natural links back to your site, e.g. research, analysis, infographics, etc.
Carry out engaging marketing campaigns and promote your site as far and wide as you can, always keeping your target audience in mind.
Make your site as appealing to share as possible.
Generate traffic through social media and pro-actively sharing your content.
Consider PR and speak to journalists, magazines and newspaper editors if you have something newsworthy to share.

Getting creative will help enormously but for other strategies that you may like to consider, review our link building guide below on how to backlink your way to success:

Backlink Your Way to SEO Success: An Up-To-Date Link Building Guide

Our top 8 list is by no means final

These are just some of the basic ingredients that need to be considered when creating a successful SEO plan. Ideas are the easy part, execution requires more care and attention.

So plan these tasks one at a time so as not to overwhelm yourself. Be methodical. A successful SEO plan cannot be put into place quickly and overnight. It’s a strategy that is carefully considered and reviewed, ensuring that every I is dotted and every T is crossed.

How do I create an SEO plan?

At the very minimum, load up Excel and start by defining your plan. If you don’t have Excel, consider using Google Sheets.

The first step is to consider the duration – we typically recommend 3, 6, or 12 months plans.

SEO planning template

As a basic guide, here is a rough SEO planning template that we often follow internally:

Phase	Activity	Who	When	Why (Goal)	KPIs	Estimated time or Cost
Phase 1 (Months 1-3)	Check content against keyword research and revise accordingly	John Smith	October 27^th 2028	Improve ranking for the homepage	Improved organic rankings	3 hours
…	…	…	..	…		…
…	…	…	..	…		…
…	…	…	..	…		…

Consider breaking up your activities into phases, such as Months 1-3, Months 3-6, Months 6-9, and Months 9-12.

There is a problem with following SEO templates to the letter, though. If everybody follows the same plan, how can you hope to stand apart?

A big part of devising a successful SEO plan is creating something different from your competitors and thinking outside of the box for new ideas to attract users to visit your site and share your content.

Keep on top of your SEO plan but always think outside of the box

Should I create a 6 or 12 month SEO plan?

When it comes to deciding between a 6 or 12 month SEO plan, it largely depends on your business goals, resources, and the nature of your industry.

A 6-month SEO plan is great for businesses that need to see quick results and have the agility to adapt rapidly to changes. It’s suitable for industries that are fast-paced or for businesses that are in the initial stages of their SEO journey but also gives a long enough period to plan ahead and be strategic.

On the other hand, a 12 month SEO plan is ideal for businesses with long-term objectives. It allows for a more in-depth approach, where strategies can be fine-tuned and results analysed and adapted over time. This is particularly advantageous for industries that require a steady growth pattern or for established websites aiming to maintain and enhance their market position.

No matter whether you chose a 6 or 12 month SEO plan, just remember it can be broken down into small phases, e.g. 3-month segments to make it more achievable.

You may even decide that planning one month at a time is best for your business.

What about a monthly SEO plan?

For maximum agility, a rolling monthly SEO plan can be useful. It allows for regular check-ins, adjustments, and helps to ensure your SEO tactics remain relevant and effective. This approach has the benefit of allowing businesses to keep more in tune with search engine algorithms and market trends.

Monthly SEO plans are also perfect for monitoring performance against set KPIs, making quick adjustments based on analytics, and keeping ahead of the competition.

The main disadvantages of monthly plans are that it’s easier to lose sight of the overall strategy and goals and it requires dedication to ensure that new plans are created each month.

In summary, the choice between a 6 month, 12 month, or monthly SEO plan should be influenced by your business needs and the nature of your industry. No matter which you choose, make sure monthly check-ins are built into your strategy to allow for ongoing adaptability and optimisation.

How do I deliver the plan once created?

Once you’ve completed your SEO planning template and you’re ready to execute the plan, you need to focus on the most important task of all – you need to deliver on what you have devised. This is the part that needs discipline and dedication.

If you are involved in SEO, chances are that you are a marketing manager or SEO executive. For smaller businesses, perhaps you are a business owner where SEO is just one of your many hats. Either way, chances are that you will need to juggle SEO activities along with various other tasks. This is not easy, and for many of us, it can seem impossible.

Ensure a robust foundation

Comprehensive Planning: Ensure your SEO plan covers all aspects, from keyword research to technical SEO and content strategy.
Plan SMART – Set aside an hour or so each day but whatever you decide, make sure this is realistic and achievable. If needed update the ‘When‘ and ‘Time‘ columns of your SEO plan to reflect how much time you’ve allocated and revise the dates of other activities accordingly.
Align with Business Objectives: Your SEO plan should support and enhance your overall business goals.

Execution and discipline

Assign Responsibilities: Clearly define who is responsible for each task. This helps in maintaining accountability and ensures that every aspect of the plan is given the attention it deserves.
Set Realistic Deadlines: Avoid over-ambitious deadlines. Set achievable timelines for each phase of your plan to ensure quality execution without undue pressure.
Regular Progress Checks: Schedule periodic reviews to monitor the progress of your SEO plan. This is crucial to stay on track and make necessary adjustments.

Flexibility and adaptation

Stay Agile: The world of SEO is ever-changing. Be prepared to adapt your strategies in response to new search engine updates, changing market trends, and competitor activities.
Feedback Loop: Encourage feedback from your team and stakeholders. This will help you identify areas for improvement and refine your strategies.
Measure and re-plan – Don’t create the plan and then forget about it. Make sure you measure your SEO results and revise your plan if needed. It should be a living breathing business tool, which means that it needs to grow and change with time.

Utilising resources effectively

Leverage Tools and Technology: Make use of SEO tools for keyword tracking, competitor analysis, and performance measurement. Tools like Google Analytics, SEMrush, or Ahrefs can provide valuable insights.
Resource or outsource – Remember, you don’t need to do it all yourself and may not actually be best placed to do this anyway, so think about the ‘Who‘ column carefully. Spend your personal time where you can add the most value to the business and consider using other team members or even outsourcing elements of your SEO plan to specialists. Consider outsourcing, there are lots of fantastic SEO agencies and freelancers out there who can help. This could range from content creation to technical SEO.

Sustained growth

Long-Term Vision: Focus on sustainable SEO practices that yield long-term benefits, rather than quick fixes.

How do I know if my plan has been successful?

Measuring the success of your SEO plan is critical. It involves evaluating various metrics to determine if your objectives have been met.

Take a look at the KPIs or goals that you wrote when you first started to consider your strategy. Have they been reached – and hopefully breached expectations?

If so, you are on the right track to a successful SEO plan.

Check your KPIs and analytics. This will confirm if you devised a successful SEO plan

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Rankings: Monitor changes in your website’s rankings for targeted keywords.
Traffic Metrics: Analyse the quantity and quality of traffic. Look at metrics like page views, engagement rate, and time on site. Are visitors to your site staying put for at least a few minutes, or clicking/bouncing off within seconds? Are visitors from the same IP addresses returning for more information, or are the visits one-and-done? Is traffic coming from your preferred locations (i.e. the correct visitors)?
Conversion Rates: Measure the effectiveness of your SEO strategy in achieving desired actions, such as leads, sales, sign-ups, purchases, or downloads.

Continuous improvement

Analyse and Adjust: Regularly review your SEO performance. Use the insights to fine-tune your strategies and address any areas that aren’t performing well.
Stay Updated: SEO is dynamic. Keep abreast of the latest trends and algorithm changes to ensure your plan remains relevant and effective.

The answer to whether you have devised a successful SEO plan lies within the response to questions such as those above.

If not, start again, think about the KPIs, and look for ways to improve results. If yes, be prepared to update and reconsider anyway. SEO moves quickly. There is no room for complacency, and nobody stays at the top by stagnating. Start preparing your next successful SEO plan at least one month before the current plan ends.

Conclusion: How to deliver better results with good SEO planning

A good SEO plan is the backbone of a successful online presence and will provide your business with the growth it deserves.

It’s about understanding your target market, aligning your strategies with business goals, and continuously adapting to your industry and competitive landscape.

Think of SEO as building a house. The plan is your foundation. Once this has been arranged, you can focus on the walls and ceiling. If you devise a successful SEO plan, your building will grow and that ceiling will keep getting higher. Laying these foundations correctly is essential.

Once you have an SEO plan tailored to the unique requirements of your business, you will attract an ever-increasing number of visitors to your site.

For further ideas about SEO tasks and activities to consider in your plan, check out our guide here. If you need extra help creating an SEO plan, consider making use of online tools, such as Google, ChatGPT or Bing Chat to assist you. You will find no shortage of templates on how to create a plan or SEO strategy online.

From consultancy to implementation, the SEO agency team here at Opace are happy to assist with any advice or support that you may need. For help or support, please get in touch.

By following these guidelines, you can create a successful SEO plan that not only increases your visibility online but also supports the growth and development of your business.

References and further reading

Image Credits – www.pixabay.com/FirmBee; www.pixabay.com/khamkhor; www.pixabay.com/StockSnap

Bing SEO vs Google SEO [UPDATED]

Scott C — Sat, 14 Oct 2023 11:43:20 +0000

Reading Time: 26 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: March 1, 2025

Bing SEO vs Google SEO: The Ultimate Comparison in 2023

Since the early days of the internet, Google has been a driving force in search engine optimisation (SEO). However, recent developments, including Microsoft’s collaboration with OpenAI to introduce Bing Chat, have started causing a shift in the balance of powers and the question of Bing vs Google for SEO is more important today than ever.

Find more statistics at Statista

The chart above clearly shows Google in the lead, but its dominance is on the decline with Bing notably growing in popularity. Others shown on the chart include Yahoo, Baidu, YANDEX, and DuckDuckGo. So, if you’re a business owner or marketer and have been following these advancements, you may be wondering about the potential of Bing as a competitor to Google. Is Bing worth considering? How does Bing SEO compare to Google SEO?

Our focus in this guide will be to deliver actionable knowledge that can help you tailor your SEO strategy, whether you’re experienced in SEO or just starting out.

We’ll cover several key topics:

The historical evolution of Bing and Google, from their early days to their current positions in 2023.
An in-depth look at the algorithms of Bing and Google, uncovering the factors that influence search rankings.
A detailed comparison of keyword strategies between Bing and Google.
An examination of the role of backlinks in Bing and Google’s SEO strategies.
An analysis of the impact of social signals on SEO and how Bing and Google perceive them.
Insights into user engagement and its influence on SEO performance on Bing and Google.
A forward look into the future trends and predictions in SEO for the year 2023.

Editor’s Note [14.11.2023]: Our original article, which was published on 6th March 2019, discussed the competition between Bing vs Google. The world has changed significantly since then, with major changes affecting SEO, search engines, technology, and business as a whole. While maintaining the core ideas of our original article, this update offers a detailed comparison of Bing SEO and Google SEO as of November 2023. In this latest update, we’ll examine these two search engines, their search algorithms, and we’ll highlight the distinct features, similarities, and differences between each. So without further ado, let’s jump in.

Do you know what the key differences are between Bing and Google when it comes to SEO?

Introduction: The Clash of the SEO Titans – Bing vs Google

Let’s take a look at Bing vs Google’s SEO strategies for 2023. We’ll compare and contrast the two leading search engines to help explain their unique approaches to online search and SEO. We’ll cover practical insights into their algorithms, keyword strategies, and the role of backlinks and social signals in SEO, but first, we’ll start by exploring the historical developments behind Bing and Google.

The Evolution of Bing and Google: A Retrospective

Let’s step back in time to trace the origins and growth of Bing and Google. Their stories reflect a blend of competition and innovation, shaping the current landscape of search engine technology. This section looks at the fascinating history of these two tech giants.

The Birth of Giants

The story starts in the 1990s, with the early days of the World Wide Web. Google emerged in 1998, transforming the search engine market with its user-friendly interface, fast search results, and pioneering algorithms for deciding which websites to show. Google’s approach quickly set a new standard for search engines.

Bing entered the scene in 2009, launched by software giant Microsoft. It distinguished itself with its visually appealing homepage and a focus on a comprehensive search experience, even though it was a latecomer compared to Google and even others like Yahoo.

The Evolution of Search

Both Google and Bing have evolved significantly over the years, constantly working to enhance user experience and deliver more accurate results, but it’s important to remember that they weren’t the first search engines. Google only really started to take off in the early 2000s.

Chart showing the search engine market share in the early 2000s. Source: History of SEO: The Evolution of SEM (1950s – Today)

In recent years, Google has introduced the Knowledge Graph and Google Now, offering direct information and personalised recommendations. Bing responded with features like the “snapshot” and integrated with Microsoft’s Satori knowledge engine to improve the accuracy of its search results.

The Battle of Algorithms

The competition between Bing and Google extends to their algorithms. Google is known for its effective AI-driven algorithm, which has evolved over time to meet global search demands and combat spam and black-hat SEO techniques. This includes the introduction of spam-combatting algorithm updates like Panda and Penguin to refine search results and weed out poor-quality websites.

Bing, though smaller in market share, has made notable improvements in its algorithm, focusing on relevance, context, and user intent to provide meaningful results.

The Impact of Other Search Engines

The evolution of Bing and Google hasn’t occurred in isolation.

Yahoo vs Google

Before Bing, Yahoo was one of the biggest rivals to Google, with Yahoo being the market leader during the late 1990s and into the early 2000s, During this time, Yahoo was considered a leading internet portal and search engine, and often the first choice for many internet users.

Google surpassed Yahoo in market share in terms of search engine usage very early into the 2000s, with Google’s rapid growth and development of more efficient search algorithms allowing it to quickly gain traction and become the market leader. By focusing on providing relevant and speedy search results, along with a clean and simple user interface, Google appealed to an increasing number of internet users.

This marked a pivotal moment in the history of search engines and led to Google becoming the household name we know today.

Yahoo vs Bing

You might wonder why we bring up Yahoo vs Bing given Bing was created in 2009, long after Google had taken over Yahoo.

Well, it’s actually a very important question for those who still want to optimise for Yahoo. As seen on the very first chart above, Yahoo is not quite dead. It might only have 2.69% of the market share but that still makes it the third largest.

Previously owned by Verizon Communications from 2017 to 2021, Yahoo is now owned by Apollo Global Management with Verizon retaining a 10% stake in the new group. What’s more is that Jim Lanzone, former CEO of Tinder, has now been named the CEO of Yahoo.

What this means for the future of Yahoo is unclear but for those who still like Yahoo and want to optimise for Yahoo, it’s important to realise that there was a significant partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo related to search. In 2009, Yahoo and Microsoft entered into a partnership agreement known as the “Yahoo and Microsoft Search Alliance.”

Under this agreement, Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, became the exclusive search technology provider for Yahoo’s search results. Yahoo officially started using Bing’s search algorithm and technology to power its search engine starting in August 24, 2010.

This makes life somewhat easier for those of us in the SEO world as we only need to focus on the differences between Bing and Google.

The Ghosts of Search Engines Past

As well as Google and Bing, a host of other search engines paved the way. Here are some of the key players that have since largely faded into the annals of Internet history:

WebCrawler (1994): The oldest search engine that is still active today, WebCrawler started as a desktop app before launching its web version. It initially had its own database but now aggregates results from Google and Yahoo.
Lycos (1994): Born out of Carnegie Mellon University, Lycos was one of the first search engines to receive significant venture capital funding. It still operates today and owns several nostalgic internet brands, including Angelfire and Tripod.
AltaVista (1995): Known for its no-frills interface and fully searchable, full-text database, AltaVista was one of the most popular search engines in the 1990s. It was acquired by Yahoo in 2003 and went offline in 2013.
Excite (1995): Excite was one of the first search engines to offer more than just search, providing news and weather portals, an email service, and more. It famously passed on the opportunity to purchase Google for $750,000 in 1999.
Yahoo (1995): Despite several rocky periods, Yahoo is still a tech giant today, with services like Yahoo News, Yahoo Mail, and Yahoo Finance attracting millions of views per day.
Dogpile (1996): Dogpile was created out of frustration with the inconsistency of results from other providers. It was one of the most comprehensive search tools at the time, pulling queries from multiple search engines.
Ask Jeeves (1996): Known for its unique question-and-answer format and memorable mascot, Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com) allowed users to get answers using natural language.
JumpStation (1993): Often considered the first “modern search engine,” JumpStation used document titles and headings to index web pages but did not provide any form of ranking.

Other Players in the Game Today

While Google and Bing dominate the search engine market, several other players are also making their mark:

Yandex: The most widely used search engine in Russia, Yandex has many quality indicators or badges it can display alongside search results. It also takes into consideration whether or not a user’s query has local intent and will display regional-dependent results.
DuckDuckGo: Touting itself as “The search engine that doesn’t track you,” DuckDuckGo doesn’t track, collect, or store any information. It’s slowly gaining steam in the search market.
Baidu: China’s largest search engine, Baidu is a good option to consider if you have an interest in appealing to the Asian market. However, it censors certain images and blocks pro-democracy websites.
Ask.com: Ask.com is a search engine designed to answer questions. Unlike Yahoo, which is powered by Bing, Ask.com is its own standalone search engine.
Naver: South Korea’s second most popular search engine, Naver is a localised search engine, meaning it does not crawl and catalogue the entire Internet.
Ecosia: Ecosia is “the search engine that plants trees.” For every search a user makes with Ecosia, Ecosia will plant trees in vulnerable areas with the profit the company makes from its searches.
AOL: AOL, formerly known as America Online, is both an online media company and a search engine. Most of AOL’s traffic is generated from the United States.
Internet Archive: An Internet Archive is a free archive of books, movies, software, music, websites, etc. Users can sign up for a free account and can upload their content to the archives.

The Impact on Bing and Google

The evolution of Bing and Google was significantly influenced by these other search engines. For instance, AltaVista’s fully searchable, full-text database likely influenced Google’s emphasis on comprehensive search results. Similarly, Ask Jeeves’ question-and-answer format may have inspired Bing’s focus on understanding user intent.

The failures of these search engines also provided valuable lessons for Bing and Google. For example, Excite’s missed opportunity to purchase Google highlighted the importance of recognising potential and making strategic acquisitions.

Today, search engines like Yandex, Baidu, and DuckDuckGo, while small in their overall market share, continue to push Bing and Google to innovate and adapt, ensuring the ongoing evolution of these tech giants.

Unveiling the SEO Algorithms: Bing vs Google

Ever wondered what makes Bing and Google tick and why you see different results in each search engine?

We’re pulling back the curtain on these search engines and unveiling their respective SEO algorithms and will look at factors such as ranking signals, page authority, backlinks, and much more. Of course, nobody really knows the exact algorithms and formulas that Google and Bing use, but we can make educated guesses based on experience and research.

The table below provides a breakdown of what we consider to be the top 25 algorithm ranking factors for Google and Bing, followed by a comparison of each.

Top 25 Google SEO Algorithm Ranking Factors

Factor Name	Description	Weighting
Quality Content	Content that is in-depth, covers a broad spectrum of its respective subject, and provides real value to the user.	High
Content Length	Longer, more comprehensive content typically achieves higher rankings. However, the optimal word count varies per subject.	Medium
E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)	Google uses E-A-T to evaluate search rankings. It refers to the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of the content, the author, and the website publishing it.	High
Mobile-Friendliness	Websites need to be optimised for mobile devices as Google uses mobile-first indexing.	High
Secure Sites (HTTPS)	Websites should use HTTPS protocol for security. Google has warned webmasters about using the HTTP protocol with sites where users are required to enter data.	High
Page Speed	Websites with slow page speeds have a harder time ranking at the top of the SERPs.	High
User Experience (UX)	Websites should provide a good user experience, including easy navigation, user-friendly design, and high-quality content.	High
Backlinks	The number, and most importantly the quality, of backlinks to a website play an important role in determining the ranking of a website.	High
Schema Markup	Schema markup code helps search engines get a better understanding of specific texts such as recipes, reviews, FAQs, events, job posts, local businesses, and more.	Medium
Social Signals	Social signals such as shares, comments and re-tweets from platforms like Facebook, Twitter (X), Reddit, and other social networks also correlate with search rankings.	Medium
Domain Age	Older domains have a higher chance of ranking well as they are seen as more trustworthy.	Medium
Keyword Optimisation	Keywords should be used appropriately in the content, title, meta description, and URL.	High
Freshness of Content	Google prefers fresh and updated content.	Medium
User Engagement	Metrics like bounce rate, click-through rate, and time spent on site can affect rankings.	High
Image Optimisation	Images should be optimised with alt text and relevant file names.	Medium
Structured Data	Structured data can help Google understand the content of your page and can result in rich snippets in search results.	Medium
Brand Power	The more traffic a website gets from branded searches, the more it will be recognised by the algorithm.	Medium
Local SEO	Local search results are ranked by relevance, prominence, and distance.	High for Local Businesses
User-generated Content	Reviews and other user-generated content can impact rankings.	Medium
Site Architecture	A well-structured, logically organised website helps search engines crawl and index pages more efficiently.	High
Internal Linking	Proper internal linking helps distribute page authority throughout the site and enhances user navigation.	Medium
Content Variety	A mix of content types (text, images, videos, infographics, etc.) can enhance user experience and engagement.	Medium
Site Accessibility	Websites should be accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.	Medium
Core Web Vitals	Core Web Vitals measure the loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability of a page.	High
No Intrusive Interstitials	Google penalises sites with intrusive interstitials that make content less accessible to a user.	Medium

Top 25 Bing SEO Algorithm Ranking Factors

Factor Name	Description	Weighting
Page Load Time	The speed at which a page loads is a critical factor for Bing.	High
User Location	Bing considers the location of the user and the web page’s hosting country and language.	High
Mobile-Friendliness	Bing checks if a website is optimised for mobile devices.	High
Backlinks	Bing considers backlinks as a sign of content’s credibility and overall quality.	High
Freshness	Bing prefers content that is regularly updated and relevant.	High
User Engagement	Metrics like click-through rate (CTR) are considered by Bing to evaluate content relevance and quality.	High
Social Signals	Bing considers the performance of content on social media platforms.	Medium
Keyword Usage	Bing prefers exact matches of search keywords in content, meta tags, alt text on images, etc.	High
Domain Age	Older domains are considered more trustworthy by Bing.	Medium
Click-Through Rate	The rate at which users click on a page when it appears in search results.	High
Social Media Integration	Bing considers the integration of social media into a website.	Medium
HTTPS	Bing prefers sites that use HTTPS over HTTP.	Medium
Content Quality	Bing prefers high-quality, unique, and relevant content.	High
Site Structure	A well-structured site with a clear hierarchy is preferred by Bing.	Medium
User Experience	Bing considers the overall user experience, including site navigation and design.	High
Site Performance	The performance of the site, including uptime and speed.	High
Relevance	How relevant the content is to the search query.	High
Local SEO	Bing considers local SEO factors, especially for local businesses.	High
Meta Tags	Bing considers the use of meta tags in ranking.	Medium
Anchor Text	The use of relevant anchor text in internal and external links.	Medium
Image Optimisation	Bing considers the optimisation of images, including alt text and file size.	Medium
URL Structure	Bing prefers URLs that are easy to read and include keywords.	Medium
Domain Authority	Bing considers the overall authority of the domain.	High
Site Security	Bing considers the overall security of the site, including the use of HTTPS and secure protocols.	High
Use of Keywords in Domain Names	Bing prefers domains and URLs that include relevant keywords.	High

Google vs Bing Algorithm Comparison

Now, let’s take a comprehensive look at Google SEO vs Bing SEO in terms of their respective search algorithms.

Factor Name	Google SEO	Bing SEO	Google Priority	Bing Priority
Quality Content	Google values in-depth, broad, and valuable content.	Bing also values high-quality, unique, and relevant content.	High	High
Content Length	Google prefers longer, more comprehensive content.	No evidence yet to show this makes much impact.	Medium	N/A
E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)	Google uses E-A-T to evaluate search rankings.	E-A-T is not explicitly mentioned by Bing, but quality and authority are important.	High	N/A
Mobile-Friendliness	Google uses mobile-first indexing, so mobile optimisation is crucial.	Bing also checks if a website is optimised for mobile devices.	High	High
Secure Sites (HTTPS)	Google prefers websites using HTTPS protocol for security.	Bing also prefers sites that use HTTPS over HTTP.	High	Medium
Page Speed	Google penalises websites with slow page speeds.	Bing also considers the speed at which a page loads as a critical factor.	High	High
User Experience (UX)	Google values easy navigation, user-friendly design, and high-quality content.	Bing also considers the overall user experience, including site navigation and design.	High	High
Backlinks & Link Penalties	Google uses backlinks as a sign of a page’s popularity and relevance.	Bing also considers backlinks as a sign of content’s credibility and overall quality. But Bing prefers fewer, more authoritative backlinks and doesn’t penalise buying links as long as it’s not manipulative.	High	High
Schema Markup	Google uses schema markup to better understand specific texts and the structure of a page.	No evidence yet to show this makes much impact, but schema markup is generally considered good practice.	Medium	N/A
Social Signals	Google doesn’t officially consider social signals as a ranking factor.	Bing considers the performance of content on social media platforms.	Medium	High
Domain Age	Google tends to rank aged domains better, partially because they tend to have a greater natural authority.	Bing considers older domains more trustworthy.	Medium	High
Keyword Optimisation	Google prefers content that uses keywords naturally and in context.	Bing prefers exact matches of search keywords in content, meta tags, alt text on images, etc. Bing also considers meta keywords tag which Google ignores.	High	High
Freshness of Content	Google prefers fresh and updated content.	Bing also prefers content that is regularly updated and relevant.	Medium	High
User Engagement	It’s believed that Google uses user engagement signals like CTR and dwell time but this hasn’t officially been announced by Google.	It’s widely accepted that Bing considers metrics like CTR to evaluate content relevance and quality.	Medium	High
Image Optimisation	Google considers image optimisation, including alt text and file size.	Bing also considers the optimisation of images, including alt text and file size. Bing has a stronger emphasis on multimedia content.	Medium	High
Brand Power	Google values the amount of traffic a website gets from branded searches.	No evidence yet to show this makes much impact.	Medium	N/A
Local SEO	Google uses local SEO factors for local searches.	Bing also considers local SEO factors, especially for local businesses.	High for Local Businesses	High
User-generated Content	Google values reviews and other user-generated content.	No evidence yet to show this makes much impact.	Medium	N/A
Site Architecture	Google prefers a well-structured, logically organised website.	Bing also prefers a well-structured site with a clear hierarchy.	High	Medium
Internal Linking	Google values proper internal linking for distributing page authority and enhancing user navigation.	Bing also values internal links with relevant anchor text.	Medium	Medium
Content Variety	Google values a mix of content types for enhanced user experience and engagement.	No evidence yet to show this makes much impact.	Medium	N/A
Site Accessibility	Google values websites that are accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.	No evidence yet to show this makes much impact.	Medium	N/A
Core Web Vitals	Google uses Core Web Vitals to measure loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability of a page.	Core Web Vitals is not explicitly referenced by Bing, but page load speeds are considered important.	High	N/A
No Intrusive Interstitials	Google penalises sites with intrusive interstitials that make content less accessible to a user.	No evidence yet to show this makes much impact.	Medium	N/A
Social Media Integration	No evidence yet to show this makes much impact, but social media can drive traffic and indirectly benefit SEO.	Bing considers the integration of social media into a website.	N/A	Medium
Domain Authority	Google uses a complex measure of domain authority.	Bing considers the overall authority of the domain.	High	High
Site Security	Google uses site security as a ranking factor, including the use of HTTPS.	Bing also considers the overall security of the site, including the use of HTTPS and secure protocols.	High	High
Use of Keywords in Domain Names and URLs	Google gives a minor boost to domains that contain keywords, but it’s a small part of the overall algorithm.	Bing prefers domains and URLs that include relevant keywords.	Low	High
URL Structure	Google prefers URLs that are easy to read and include keywords.	Bing also prefers URLs that are easy to read and include keywords.	Medium	Medium
Meta Tags	Google uses meta tags for understanding content and generating snippets.	Bing considers the use of meta tags in ranking. Bing also considers the meta keywords tag which Google ignores.	Medium	High
Anchor Text	Google uses anchor text as a ranking signal.	Bing also considers the use of relevant anchor text in internal and external links.	Medium	High
Relevance	Google considers the relevance of the content to the search query.	Bing also considers how relevant the content is to the search query but relies a lot more on meta data.	Medium	High

Significant Algorithm Differences Between Google SEO and Bing SEO

The most notable SEO algorithm differences when comparing both Google and Bing are:

Bing considers social signals as a key ranking factor, while Google doesn’t officially consider them.
Bing prefers exact matches of search keywords and considers the meta keywords tag, which Google ignores.
Bing prefers fewer, more authoritative backlinks and doesn’t penalise buying links as long as it’s not manipulative.
Bing favours exact match keyword usage in domain names and URLs and treats this as a high priority.
Google favours content that uses keywords naturally and in context, whereas overuse of keywords (keyword stuffing) can cause a penalty.

Overall, our experience is that Bing still relies on what many would consider to be old-school SEO techniques, whereas Google is much more nuanced in regards to determining content relevance and quality. In many respects, it’s easier to rank on Bing as the ranking factors are better understood and easier to apply. Google is far more likely to penalise or de-elevate rankings based on factors like buying links and keyword stuffing than Bing, whereas Bing clearly prefers favours keywords in domain names.

A Case Study: Let’s Compare Google and Bing SERPs

The below example is just a random local search but it really highlights the differences and similarities. When searching for “mobile mechanic birmingham”, we can see some common results, such as Yell.com and WhoCanFixMyCar. It would be surprising not to see these sites, given their popularity and relevance to the search. In addition, both would share many of the algorithm ranking factors that Google and Bing have in common, such as backlinks, internal links, keyword optimisation and domain authority.

Bing vs Google search results

The outlier which ranks number 1 in BIng is “mobilemechanicbirmingham.co.uk”. The domain name contains all of the search keywords exactly and in the same order. This is a common theme when using Bing compared to Google, but it begs the question, is it a good site and should it be number 1? Let’s explore…

Firstly, does the domain also rank well on Google? Well, it’s not on Page 1 but it’s not far off ranking at the top of page 2. This is actually quite uncommon as many exact match domains don’t rank well in Google.
Secondly, is it well-designed and relevant to the search? The design is basic but adequate. The homepage is clearly for an individual mechanic rather than a directory or company, but the call-out fee is clear, and it’s easy to navigate and make contact. The site doesn’t appear to adopt a responsive design but it is mobile friendly.
Thirdly, does it inspire confidence? This is where the site really falls short. The homepage has next to no content (less than 150 words), there are very few pages on the site and despite stating “Integrity, Honesty and Quality”, there are no visible testimonials, reviews, links to third-party online review sites, or mention of social media.
Finally, does it appear to be optimised for SEO? Depending on your perspective, there doesn’t appear to be any SEO undertaken on the site. The meta title hasn’t been optimised for anything other than the exact match keywords, there’s very little content, no blog, and it has a low Moz Domain Authority of 6/100. On the plus side, the domain is five years old, first registered in 2018 and has 47 linking domains and 554 total backlinks from high-authority news and directory sites.

Moz domain factors

So, should it rank position 1? Most SEOs would probably say, no. Despite having some backlinks, the site doesn’t tick many of the boxes considered necessary for a high-ranking domain. Looking at Google for the same search results, the equivalent sites are “peterdeemobilemechanic.co.uk” and “jrmotorsmobile.co.uk”.

Both of these share the following characteristics that separate them from “mobilemechanicbirmingham.co.uk”:

Keyword optimised meta data
More content (although admittedly still only 200-300 words)
Testimonials clearly displayed
Older domains (registered in 2010 and 2015)
Fewer backlinks

It’s an interesting case study as the keyword “mobile mechanic birmingham” has a good average monthly search volume of 720 but low competition.

The Keyword Conundrum: Bing’s Precision vs Google’s Context

As any SEO knows, understanding search intent and keywords is the lifeblood that fuels the visibility of a website. However, Bing and Google, have different approaches when it comes to keyword interpretation. This divergence creates a fascinating conundrum for digital marketers: should they optimise for Bing’s precision or Google’s context?

Bing’s Precision: The Power of Exact Match Keywords

Bing SEO places a significant emphasis on exact keyword matches. This means that Bing’s algorithm is more likely to favour websites that include the exact keywords or phrases that users type into the search bar within their text. This approach is particularly noticeable in Bing’s treatment of a website’s meta data. Bing pays far more attention to the presence of exact match keywords in places such as the domain name, page titles, meta titles, and meta descriptions.

For instance, if a user searches for “best Indian restaurants in birmingham,” Bing’s algorithm is more likely to favour websites that have this exact phrase in their domain name, URL, content or meta data. This precision-focused approach can make it easier for SEOs and marketers to optimise for Bing, as they can target specific keywords and phrases with a higher degree of certainty.

Google’s Context: The Art of Semantic Understanding

Google SEO takes a more nuanced approach to keywords. Google’s algorithm, especially since the RankBrain and BERT updates, has become adept at understanding the context and intent behind a user’s search query. This means that Google is less reliant on exact keyword matches and more focused on the overall relevance and quality of the content, and how well that content matches the user’s search intent.

Using the same example, if a user searches for “best Indian restaurants in birmingham,” Google’s algorithm will not only consider websites with this exact phrase but also those that provide high-quality content about Indian restaurants in Birmingham. This could include reviews, blog posts, and other forms of content that may not necessarily include the exact keyword phrase but are still highly relevant to the user’s query.

Striking the Balance: Bing SEO vs Google SEO

While Google continues to dominate the search engine market, understanding Bing SEO is also important.

Microsoft’s unique audience and its partnership with OpenAI has provided Bing with an unparalleled opportunity to offer something new and target users with a unique search experience. Tools like Bing Chat and Bing Image Create have brought OpenAI’s impressive AI capabilities to the masses.

The data backs this up. It’s clear that Google has been losing market share to Bing since it took this stance and started to innovate using AI, which highlights the importance of a balanced SEO strategy that takes into account both Bing vs Google SEO.

This means that the keyword conundrum between Bing’s precision and Google’s context presents a challenge for SEOs and digital marketers. The key is to strike a balance that caters to both search engine algorithms. This means creating content that includes targeted keywords for Bing’s precision, while also ensuring the content is high-quality, relevant, and contextually rich to cater to Google’s semantic understanding.

Delivering SEO in 2023 and future years will mean understanding the nuances between Bing SEO vs Google SEO. It’s understanding these nuances that will make the difference between a website that dominates search and one that doesn’t.

The Backlink Battle: Quality vs Quantity

Bing and Google’s Stance on Backlinks

Backlinks still remain one of the key factors in establishing a website’s authority. However, as with keyword usage, Bing and Google have different perspectives on the importance and value of these links.

Google has always placed a significant emphasis on backlinks, viewing them as votes of confidence from one website to another. The more high-quality backlinks from high-authority domains, the higher a website tends to rank on Google’s SERPs. However, Google’s algorithms are also complex and emphasise natural link building and penalise manipulation.

Bing values relevance and context in backlinks the same has Google but has simpler algorithms. It’s also somewhat more lenient in terms of penalising manipulative practices. Research shows that Bing also shows a preference for more official top-level domains such as .gov or .edu.

Quality vs Quantity

The battle between quality and quantity is a long-standing one in the world of SEO.

Google’s algorithm, with its focus on backlinks, seems to suggest that quantity matters. Generally speaking, the more backlinks a site has, the better its authority and therefore the higher it will rank. However, it’s not just about the number of backlinks, the quality of those links play an even more important role.

Links from spammy or low-quality sites can harm a site’s SEO rather than help it. With major algorithm updates like Penguin penalising low-quality links, businesses have had their livelihoods impacted and it’s completely changed how the industry approaches SEO for Google. Penguin ran in one form or another between 2012 and 2016, but link spam updates are still commonplace today with Google and can even be rolled out individually or as part of Google’s core updates.

Bing, on the other hand, values backlinks from high-authority, relevant sites, especially those with .gov or .edu domains. This means that a site with fewer but higher-quality backlinks may rank better on Bing than on Google. It’s also far less likely that a website will get penalised on Bing for adopting link-building strategies that Google would consider questionable.

What Does This Mean For SEO?

The key to winning the backlink battle, as with keywords, is to strike a balance between quality and quantity.

While it’s important to have backlinks to rank well on Google, it’s equally important to ensure that these links are from high-quality, relevant sites, and acquired naturally.

Similarly, having backlinks will help Bing SEO as well, although it’s less likely to penalise your efforts. In essence, adopting a link-building approach that works for Google is the safest option. This will help to avoid penalties and ensure you rank well on both search engines.

If you can attract links from .gov or .edu domains, perhaps through unique research or analysis, it’s a win-win for everybody.

Social Signal: Bing’s Emphasis vs Google’s Disregard

Social signals, such as likes, shares, and comments on social media platforms, have become an important part of digital marketing and also SEO. They indicate user engagement and can help search engines understand which content is valuable and relevant to users.

However, Bing and Google view these signals differently.

Ranking Factor vs Influence

Bing considers social signals as a direct ranking factor. It believes that pages that have earned a greater number of likes, shares, comments, and re-tweets are more likely to be relevant and valuable to users. The concept here is very similar to how both Google and Bing consider backlinks as a vote of confidence. Therefore, social sharing and being active on social media is far more likely to result in higher rankings on Bing.

Google, on the other hand, has stated that it does not use social signals as a direct ranking factor. While it acknowledges that social media can help spread content and increase its visibility, it does not consider likes or shares when ranking pages.

Leveraging Social Signals for SEO

Despite Google’s stance, it’s still beneficial to leverage social media within your marketing and SEO strategy.

Social media can help increase a site’s visibility, drive traffic, and build brand awareness. Plus, while Google may not consider social signals as a direct ranking factor, it does consider user engagement and relevance, which can be influenced by social media activity.

For Bing, the strategy is clear: increase your social media engagement – the more likes, shares, and comments your content receives, the better it will rank on Bing.

It’s really a no-brainer to use social media if it makes sense for your business. It’s a great way to supplement SEO with another form of digital marketing. It opens your business up to new channels, audiences, possibilities, and it can have a direct impact on user engagement factors, which we will cover below.

User Engagement: Bing’s Active Users vs Google’s Passive Users

User Engagement in SEO

User engagement is a critical factor in any form of digital marketing and SEO. It refers to how users interact with a website and its content. High user engagement indicates that users find the content valuable and relevant, which can improve a site’s SEO.

Bing’s Active Users vs Google’s Passive Users

Bing users are generally more actively engaged than Google users. They spend more time on sites, view more pages, and are more likely to convert. This means that sites with high user engagement are more likely to rank well on Bing.

Google has a larger user base, but these users tend to be more passive. They may visit a site but not interact with it as much, which can impact a site’s SEO.

Improving User Engagement for SEO

Improving user engagement is beneficial for both Bing and Google SEO. For Bing, the more engaged users are, the better a site will rank. For Google, while user engagement may not be a direct ranking factor, it can still impact SEO by increasing a site’s visibility and driving more traffic.

To improve user engagement, focus on creating high-quality, relevant content that users will find valuable. Think about the type of content being created, for example, would an image or video be better than text? Also, ensure that your site is user-friendly and provides a good user experience. Overall, this will be seen as a positive sign by both Google and Bing.

Our Future Forecast: SEO Trends in 2024

From algorithm updates to AI, we’ve already covered some of the major changes in recent years, but what does the future hold for SEO in 2024?

The Rise of AI and Machine Learning

As we move into 2024, the competition between Bing and Google will continue to heat up. Both platforms are investing heavily in AI and machine learning, and aiming to deliver even more personalised and relevant search results:

ChatGPT vs Bard vs Bing: The Future of AI Search Engines

AI has played such an important role in 2023, we can only expect this to heat up in 2024. In fact, we’ve gone as far as saying that with the introduction of ChatGPT, 2023 has been an inflection point for AI and technology as a whole, something we’ve not seen since the advent of the Internet itself.

If we think about this for a moment, this means ChatGPT is likely to have an even bigger impact on our lives than Google search, or even search as we know it.

ChatGPT: A 2023 Tipping Point To Rival the Internet in 1983, but is OpenAI’s ‘o1’ Model the Largest AI Inflection Point Yet ? [UPDATED]

The comparison between Bing SEO vs Google SEO will be more relevant than ever, as the market share gap reduces between each search engine and businesses strive to optimise their websites for both platforms.

Bing has made significant strides in recent years, integrating with various Microsoft products and advancing in AI and machine learning, but Google’s only a few footsteps behind.

With each taking steps to become the “AI-first search engine” (read more below), this could mean potentially some of the biggest changes for SEO that we have ever encountered.

AI Means The Death of SEO? Not So Fast – Let’s Look At How AI is Shaping The Future of SEO

The Importance of Speed and User Experience

User experience continues to be a critical factor in SEO. Even a 1-second delay in mobile load times can reduce conversion rates by up to 20%.

The 2-second rule is an important one. Despite the average load time of websites on mobile devices being around 5 seconds or more, it has been proven repeatedly that the average user will only wait around 2 seconds before bouncing and going elsewhere.

How long users wait on their mobile device for a site to load – source Statista

The impact of a slow website is the frustration it causes for your visitors, potentially leading to them dropping off and not returning, but it can also cause issues for search engines trying to crawl your website.

This is one of the main reasons Google released Core Web Vitals as part of its wide Web Vitals and then later the Page Experience update – the goal being to ensure the best-ranking websites are those that load quickly and display properly on a range of devices, allowing for a smooth user experience.

This will only continue to play a more significant role in SEO and ranking algorithms as more websites turn to alternative technologies for fast loading times.

For example:

Headless: Separating the content management system from the front-end, allowing for more flexible and efficient content delivery.
AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages): A framework for creating fast-loading mobile web pages, reducing complexity and prioritising speed.
PWA (Progressive Web Apps): Utilising modern web capabilities to deliver an app-like experience, designed to be fast and reliable.
Single-Page Applications (SPAs): Loading a single HTML page and dynamically updating content as needed, reducing the need for reloading.
Server-Side Rendering (SSR): Rendering pages on the server before sending them to the browser, improving initial load times.
Client-Side Rendering (CSR): Rendering web pages in the browser using JavaScript, useful for interactive sites but requiring optimisation for speed.
Static Site Generators: Pre-building pages at deploy time, resulting in faster load times as the browser doesn’t need to run complex server-side code.
Jamstack Architecture: Combining JavaScript, APIs, and Markup for faster, more secure, and easier to scale websites.

As website owners move away from the traditional style of web development, this will pose new challenges for SEO in both Google and Bing.

The Evolution of E-A-T to E-E-A-T

In December 2022, Google introduced a modification to its E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, Trust) algorithm, incorporating an additional ‘E’ for Experience. The revised E-E-A-T algorithm will now take into account the experience of the author or creator when assessing the quality of content.

This alteration stresses the significance of unique insights and firsthand experience when creating content. Whether that content be created with unique data, unconventional viewpoints, or steered by subject matter proficiency, these insights are expected to remain important to SEO through 2024 and beyond.

The Emergence of New SEO Challenges and Opportunities

Keeping up with algorithm changes will remain a top challenge for marketers and SEO.

In just one year (2021), Google made more than 4,000 changes to search (source – Hubspot). The key is to respond to these changes strategically, staying on top of industry news and waiting until the dust has settled after an update before making the next move.

We can expect new opportunities to emerge. As well as AI, voice and mobile search are becoming more commonplace. By 2026, it’s expected that more than half of internet users in the US will use a voice assistant (source – Statista).

Therefore optimising your site for mobile search and reworking your content to include common questions and answers that users may ask will become even more important.

Conclusion: Is It Even a Question of Bing SEO or Google SEO?

The future of SEO is certainly is shaping up to be an exciting one, with the rise of AI and machine learning, the importance of user experience and accessibility, the evolution of E-A-T to E-E-A-T, and the emergence of new SEO challenges and opportunities.

The choice between Bing SEO and Google SEO is really no choice at all!

On the one side, Google with its sophisticated algorithms, comprehensive search results, and vast user base, clearly has the market share (at the moment). Google’s emphasis on relevance, context, and user intent has set the standard for search engine optimisation. Google’s commitment to delivering high-quality, relevant content makes it the ideal choice for website owners who wish to reach a broad, global audience.

However, Bing is closing that gap and innovating with its new partnerships, AI capabilities, and has proven itself to be a worthy adversary. Bing offers a compelling alternative to Google and has shown that it is committed to delivering personalised and relevant search results, making it a strong choice for businesses targeting specific demographics or regions.

This means that both search engines need to be taken seriously and the comparison between Bing SEO vs Google SEO is more relevant than ever moving forward.

Both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses, and the best choice depends on your specific needs, goals, and personal preferences.

In conclusion, the choice between Bing and Google is not a zero-sum game. The most effective SEO strategy in 2024 will involve optimising your website for both platforms, leveraging the unique strengths of each to reach a broader audience and achieve your marketing goals. Whether you choose Bing, Google, or a combination of both, the key to success in SEO is staying adaptable, keeping up with the latest trends, and continually refining your strategy based on data and results.

Just remember, SEO requires patience and a long-term strategy. Making sure you have a clear understanding of your target audience, goals, and KPIs is critical. Having a solid SEO plan is critical. So is the dedication and hard work it takes to make your SEO plan a success.

If you put in the work and take the right steps, you’ll benefit your SEO regardless of the search engine. Never stop learning, the future of Bing SEO vs Google SEO awaits!

Multi Channel Marketing

Opace Digital Agency — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 13:47:24 +0000

Reading Time: 4 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: October 3, 2024

Switching Channels – What Is Multi Channel Marketing & How Does It Help You Find New Customers?

Heading into 2023, many businesses will be thinking about their digital marketing for the next 12 months and beyond. While digital marketing will continue to be the weapon of choice, businesses need to get more creative and versatile in terms of their approach – and this means understanding what multi channel marketing is.

For quite some time, marketers were told to pick a platform and stick to it for the best results. However, this advice is now outdated and multi channel marketing will be vital for brands that are determined to find new customers and drive traffic to their businesses. The question is where start?

Multi channel marketing – which channel to choose – Image Credit: Pixabay / Quimono

What is multi channel marketing?

As the name suggests, this marketing model involves spreading your marketing efforts across a number of different channels in order to reach your audience.

These channels can include:

Website
Social media
Search engines
Email
Television
Direct mail
Blogging
PR (online and traditional)
Bricks-and-mortar stores
Online shops
Radio
And so much more…

Omnichannel vs. multi channel – are they the same?

The differentiation here is quite difficult to understand as different sources will provide different explanations.

The simplest definition is that multi channel marketing uses more than one marketing channel to communicate your message to customers.

Omnichannel marketing is subtly different and involves using all available channels, media and devices to deliver your message.

Why adopt a multi-channel approach to marketing?

Great question. In ‘the olden days’, the thinking was that a particular audience would stick to one particular channel – and it, therefore, made sense to focus your marketing in the same way. These days, users are flipping from channel to channel at lightning speed as they attempt to consume huge amounts of content in as short a time as possible.

Without a proper multi-channel marketing strategy, reaching these customers can seem like a game of Whack-a-Mole and will rarely produce the required results.

A multi channel marketing strategy is therefore essential and enables businesses to reach customers wherever they may be.

Which channels are the most critical to your marketing strategy (US vs. UK) – Image Credit: Inbox Insight

How’s it done?

Creating a multi-channel strategy is by no means a one-dimensional task. In order to make this work for you, your strategy needs to be comprehensive and forward thinking and, so, the following is our guide to the perfect multi channel marketing strategy:

The profile pick

I’m sure we don’t need to lecture you on the importance of audience profiling – but we’re going to, anyway.

With multi channel marketing, you’ll be creating audience profiles for each different channel and platform and then conducting proper testing to see if your messaging is hitting home for each channel. During this exercise, you’ll also be researching the actual channel itself to figure out the kind of content which works.

‘Always on’ content and messaging

The next step of the strategy is to pay close attention to your ‘Always On’ messaging – this is the automated or pinned content on each of your channels. Here, you’ll be figuring out how effective this messaging is and, how you can improve it for optimum results.

Cracking the content code

On the back of your ‘Always On’ content comes your published content. This is a pivotal part of your strategy as, although it may be possible to use the same content across numerous channels, this will need to be tweaked and formatted for each in terms of length and depth.

…… And engage

Just as your content needs to be different for each channel, so too does your method of engagement. For example, while short, conversational dialogue may work brilliantly on Twitter, your email audience will require more in-depth, personalised communication.

The Funnel

When thinking about your multi-channel funnel, the following is a good rule of thumb:

PLAN – This is the bit where you decide which channels your campaign will include.
REACH – Here, you’re figuring out how many people you’ll reach on each channel and what the ROI of each channel is likely to be.
INTERACT – This is the part where strong and steady engagement is necessary for keeping the attention of your audience.
CONVERT – If you’ve done your job with the first three stages, this final stage is your ‘payday’ whereby you convert visitors into customers.

The process here is very similar to the RACE model, which is covered in depth here.

RACE planning framework – Image Credit: Smart Insights

Multi channel marketing is so much more than just slapping your content onto a load of different platforms and hoping for the best. To make it work, you need to do your research on both your audience and the channels you plan to use, and then work on your engagement strategy to make sure that your message is strong and relevant for each and every touchpoint.

Conclusion

If you came across this guide asking the question ‘what is multi channel marketing’, we hope you’ve found what you were looking for. As you’ve probably gathered from this guide, multi channel marketing can be a complex and time-consuming endeavour. Many marketers may feel that they simply don’t know where to start. At Opace, digital marketing is our ‘thing’ and we’ve created some pretty special strategies for our clients in recent months. To find out how we can take your business to the next level, get in touch with our team.

SSL and SEO

David Bryan — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 12:05:03 +0000

Reading Time: 5 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: September 3, 2024

Why SSL and SEO are essential for your website security and digital marketing

In this guide, we will explore why SSL and SEO are essential considerations when it comes to website security and digital marketing.

For many years, the internet was akin to the Wild West. There was little regulation and even fewer rules. Making use of online services was a matter of personal choice. Users had to weigh up whether they were prepared to accept the risks to personal data involved.

The march of technology has changed this. The UK Government launched the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in 2016 to protect businesses and individuals¹. As a result, SSL security began to play a significant role in establishing trust in a domain and therefore SEO.

Is SSL security important to SEO?

It is no secret that Google regularly update algorithms to manage page ranking. One of the most seismic of Google’s algorithm updates in recent years unfolded in 2018 with E-A-T. This stands for:

Expertise,
Authoritativeness and
Trustworthiness².

It is the latter that matters most in SSL and SEO. For the uninitiated, SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. An SSL certificate is sometimes referred to as simply a digital certificate. Whatever we call it, the purpose remains identical. SSL certificates create an encrypted connection between a user’s computer and the website that it visits.

Cyber-security is hugely important if you wish to retain the trust of users – and Google

This encryption is essential for building trust, both for the user and Google.

Consumers are shopping online more than ever due to the events of 2020 and COVID-19, which naturally means handing over credit card data. Encryption prevents this data from being accessed by malevolent hackers, meaning for eCommerce, SSL and SEO are absolutely essential. Even if a purchase is not made on a visit to a site, data can be harvested.

The absence of an SSL will damage user confidence and harm user experience

If a site lacks an SSL certificate, both your browser and Google will let the user know. This will typically result in a warning that the site is not safe, and provides the option – a recommendation, even – for the user to leave post-haste. 85% of customers will heed this advice and do so³. If you don’t follow this advice, it means that your site is not only missing out on a potential sale, but it will be experiencing a high bounce rate. That will greatly impact your page ranking.

All of this means that you need an SSL certificate installed on your website. While this is only legally mandatory for websites that handle financial data, it is no longer just a “nice to have” for everybody else. Any online presence that lacks this level of encryption will ultimately damage user confidence and your site will suffer from an ever-plummeting page ranking.

How do I know if I already have an SSL certificate?

Firstly, check that you do not already have one. All websites launched from around 2016 should have an SSL certificate as standard.

It is easy enough to check. Copy-and-paste the URL into your address bar. Secure sites that have an SSL certificate will begin with HTTPS://. Those that lack an SSL certificate will simply read HTTP://. As you have probably guessed, the “S” stands for secure.

The site will also often feature a green padlock to denote encryption and security. Your browser will also warn users that attempt to access an insecure site. Google Chrome, for example, displays the words Not Secure in the address bar. Most browsers also warn users of insecure connections though a pop-up before granting access to the site.

A lack of SSL certificate is the online equivalent of a, “No Entry” sign – most users will immediately walk away

How can I obtain an SSL certificate for my website?

With this in mind, most hosting sites will include an SSL certificate in their package as standard. If you build a site using a hosted service like Wix or Squarespace or use a service like Shopify, SSL will be included by default at no extra cost. For those of you who have websites using platforms like WordPress and Magento, your hosting provider will allow you to install an SSL certificate.

If you would prefer to acquire an SSL certificate, you can purchase one from a Certificate Authority (CA). This is expensive though, especially as the certificate must be renewed each year, and potentially needless. Services such as Let’s Encrypt offer free SSL certificates⁴.

Free SSL certificates for your website and SEO

Let’s Encrypt is a free, non-profit service set up by the Internet Security Research Group⁵. If you’re wondering why Let’s Encrypt would offer a service free that others charge for, it’s simple. This body has a mission statement to make the internet safer for all that use it – whether that’s a business or a user.

A free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt is identical in protection to one purchased from a CA. The only difference is that a paid SSL certificate provides information about the business that hosts the website – if the user researches this in their browser. Paid certificates can gain that data automatically. A free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt will not.

Some users may feel more secure in dealing with a company that shares this data. It suggests they have the financial might to pay for an SSL certificate. Again, though, this does not have any impact on the security protocols or level of encryption of the site. It’s purely a matter of personal preference and the image that you wish your business to present.

How will SSL security boost SEO and page ranking?

A website that lacks an SSL certificate will be a red flag to Google’s E-A-T algorithm. This will inevitably be bad news for your SEO and page ranking. Even the greatest and well-thought-out SEO strategy will fall by the wayside if you appear on Google’s radar as an insecure and untrustworthy website.

Ever since 2015, Google has been showing a preference to secure websites over insecure alternatives when it comes to page ranking⁶. There are more SEO benefits than simply avoiding Google’s wrath, though.

Secure websites build the trust of users. As more and more people use the internet for essential daily tasks, such as banking and paying bills, digital safety is at the forefront of everybody’s mind. What’s more, there is a greater understanding of the data stored by websites. There is no excuse to leave a site unsecured in 2020. This will automatically be viewed with suspicion.

A user would not leave their wallet unattended – why would they use an insecure website?

Finally, an SSL certificate is essential to qualify for Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). This is a controversial practice that not all webmasters are fond of. Ultimately, AMP strips a site down to make it more accessible on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. This speeds up loading times, though – another major ranking factor for Google. If you do intend to take advantage of AMP, you will need an SSL certificate.

Conclusion: SSL and SEO are intertwined

Hopefully, by now, you can see how SSL and SEO are intertwined. This guide has explained the importance of an SSL certificate and reassured you that it will not cost the earth to install. In fact, it could cost you nothing. If you are interested, please read here for more information on website security and compliance. If you have any further queries with regards to SEO or your digital marketing, feel free to get in touch. Opace offers expertise in website hosting and security to ensure that your SEO and page ranking is not impacted by security concerns.

Image Credits – https://pixabay.com/photos/ecommerce-selling-online-2140603; https://pixabay.com/photos/do-not-enter-sign-traffic-road-600755; https://pixabay.com/photos/credit-squeeze-taxation-purse-tax-522549

References and further reading –

Website speed and SEO

Scott C — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 12:50:10 +0000

Reading Time: 7 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: September 3, 2024

Website speed and SEO: How improving site speed and page load times can benefit SEO

Website speed and SEO are intrinsically linked

Firstly, page load times are a key ranking factor in Google’s algorithms and therefore website Speed and SEO are intrinsically inked. Google is always looking to promote websites that provide the greatest possible user experience and slow-loading web pages and sites will only frustrate users. This, in turn, will also impact how well a website ranks.

Your SEO strategy should be built around getting users the information they need, as quickly as possible. To do this you will need to meet their search intent, but if a page takes too long to load, users will lose patience and bounce. This, again, will see your site demoted by Google.

How much does page speed impact SEO?

Page speed is a clear and obvious ranking factor for Google and applies to both desktop sites and their mobile counterparts.

In fact, in our experience of delivering SEO, improving site speed and page load times is one of the simplest and most effective things a website owner can do to improve their search rankings.

Ideally, this should be factored into your web design and UX during the site development but it is possible to come back to this as an SEO activity at a later stage and optimise for speed. Mobile use, on smartphones or tablets, now accounts for over half of all global web traffic¹ and these tend to have the slowest web connections and download speeds. If a site lags on a portable device, Google will potentially demote your site and your ranking will drop.

Why you must not ignore page load times

You will have spent a long time perfecting your SEO strategy. Unfortunately, this will be for nothing if your website experiences slow page load times. Users are not famed for their patience. If your site is slow to load, they will bounce and find an alternative.

Patience is a virtue that internet users lack. Avoid making people wait for your site to load

Even Amazon, the undisputed king of online retail, found that sales dropped by 20% for every 0.5 seconds of delayed loading time². The same logic will apply to website speed and SEO. Your visitors are coming to your site because they have a question, and they want a rapid answer. If your site does not provide this, they will look elsewhere.

Ultimately, slow site speed is anathema to user satisfaction. This, in turn, means that slow page speeds and SEO are mutually exclusive concepts. If your SEO strategy is to be a success, you must ensure that your site is loading at a pace that users deem acceptable.

There are many ways that you can increase the speed of your website loading. This, in turn, will see a boost to your SEO – which also leads to a higher page ranking.

Test page speed using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix

Your first step should be to check the speed of your site using online tools, as these will provide recommendations to help you improve your website speed and SEO.

The first port of call will be Google’s own PageSpeed Insights³. Just enter the URL of your website into this tool, and you will be provided with a score out of 100. Anything about 80 is considered to be Google-approved, leading to agreeable site speed and SEO results.

Do not be a slave to PageSpeed Insights, though. While you should strive for the highest score possible on this tool⁴, and follow any advice provided, a 100% score will not automatically rocket to you to the top of any page rankings⁵. In addition to this tool, investigate other options. These include:

GTMetrix – GTMetrix, in particular, is very powerful and provides a massive amount of data, insight and technical recommendations for improving your website speed and SEO
Pingdom – Pingdom Tools also allows you to test site speed remotely from across the world and provides useful data
Google Lighthouse – similar to Google PageSpeed Insights, this will audit your website performance, including the page speed and SEO results linked to this. For more information, we also have a guide dedicated to improving your website speed using Google Lighthouse.

Another option is to use the Inspect Tools element of your browser. For example, in Google Chrome, you can right-click on your page, select “Inspect”, then click the “Network” tab and finally reload your page. Google Chrome will then show how each element of your page loads in a waterfall fashion and will confirm the load times. This is very useful for obtaining realistic localised page load times.

Of course, you could also use the old-fashioned eye test. Launch your site on a range of devices and browsers. Count to five. Is your homepage fully loaded after this time? If so, you will likely enjoy a 70% increase in the length of the user’s visit⁶. Having good page speeds will appeal to Google and boost your SEO stats. If not, expect bouncing – and associated penalties.

For more information how to check your website using speed tools, please see: https://opace.agency/guide/how-to-check-website-speed-using-tools

Some fundamental steps to improve your website speed and SEO

Clean up and optimise your code

Slow, outdated code can slow down a website. Unnecessary code means slow page speed and SEO results will suffer.

To combat this, ask your developer to take a look at the coding of your website and recommendations being made by the speed tools listed above.

Anything not needed can, and should, be removed.

In practice, however, this can be challenging and needs a degree of ‘trial and error’ especially when using modern CMS platforms like WordPress that use many plugins.

Check the code of your website. Is it as efficient as it could be?

Equally, ensure that the code is written in the most efficient way possible. Bloated JavaScript code is a speed-killer, as is an over-reliance on HTTP requests. Embedded videos can slow a site down considerably, too. We’ve discussed YouTube at length here. It is still a very popular and powerful platform for hosting video content, just make sure you add it to your website in the most efficient way for website speed. A common technique is to an image thumbnail which then loads the video content after the page loads.

Steer clear of using Adobe Flash too. This comparatively cumbersome platform has never been supported by Apple. This means you are immediately alienating 50% of mobile users by attempting to force loading of content they won’t be able to enjoy. All of these tools get in the way of your SEO and impacting your page ranking.

Finally, make sure you minify and compress your style sheets (CSS) and JavaScript as this will help to reduce the page size and number of HTTP requests. A CDN like Cloudflare can often be a very powerful tool to aid you in doing this.

Compress images and think about page structure

A picture is worth a thousand words, but not if it takes thirty seconds to load. Compress your images without compromising on quality. Users will not have the patience to wait for an image to fill the screen line-by-line, especially when using mobile devices. This will cause unwelcome flashbacks to the era of dial-up internet.

There are many tools out there to help compress images but here are a few:

You image editing software, e.g. PhotoShop – https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/key-concepts/compression.html
Online tools such as https://tinyjpg.com or https://kraken.io
Plugins or extensions for your website – both of the above tools have plugins available for WordPress that can bulk compress images and also ‘on the fly’ during upload

Whilst not necessarily a huge impact on page load times, think about your copy and page structure, too – most notably, your use and placement of keywords. These are what make or break an SEO strategy. Users find your website based on your use of keywords, so ensure your copy is optimised efficiently for these search terms.

Don’t add important copy below large images or media. If users need to wait for relevant information to arrive, they will quickly lose patience and bounce off your site.

How to achieve faster page load times using tools

If the above suggestions don’t help you to see the improvement in website speed and SEO required, you may need to use tools to enhance performance.

Popular tools for improving page speed, and SEO by default, include:

Server-side caching, e.g. Redis (database caching), Varnish (web application accelerator) and Memcached (memory object caching system), all open source
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), e.g. Cloudflare CDN (to shorten the distance between your server and that of a visitor) and other platforms like KeyCDN
CMS or eCommerce plugins or extensions, e.g. for WordPress and WooCommerce our favourites plugins are LiteSpeed Cache (works best on a LiteSpeed Web Server), WP Rocket and Swift Performance
Online code compression tools like Refresh-SF

These tools will each help in their own ways to improve website speed and SEO as a result.

Server and hosting

A huge improvement in website speed can be made by analysing your site and applying the correct techniques and tools to improve page load times.

However, your server or hosting provider may also be a bottleneck and potentially the greatest barrier to achieving optimal page speeds.

Here at Opace, we specialise in hosting our WordPress and Magento clients using LiteSpeed as opposed to more traditional Web Server platforms, like Apache or Nginx.

Given the importance speed has for SEO, we’ve trialled many different hosting providers, platforms and plugins over the years and will share some of our top recommendations below:

Find a reputable UK based hosting provider – location matters, so if you are a UK business, choose a UK hosting provider
Opt for a dedicated server if your budget permits this – failing that, there are some good Virtual Private Server (VPS) and Cloud hosting packages available
Request a server with enterprise-grade SSD disks as opposed to SATA
Make sure you have dedicated server resources and understand how much disk space, CPU and memory is entirely yours
Choose LiteSpeed in conjunction with the LS Cache plugin if you can. You can see our page here or search Google for comparison data that compares and benchmarks LiteSpeed against Apache and Nginx.
If LiteSpeed is not an option, the next best configuration we’ve found is an Apache or Nginx server using the WP Rocket plugin for WordPress

Getting help

If you need more assistance with increasing your page speed for greater SEO results, get in touch with Opace.

We are always available to share further advice and offer our expertise. Together, we will bolster your website speed and SEO results.

References and further reading –

Image Credits – www.pexels.com/photo/melancholic-woman-watching-video-on-laptop-at-home-3808012; www.pexels.com/photo/abstract-business-code-coder-270348

SERP Features

Scott C — Fri, 13 Nov 2020 12:30:02 +0000

Reading Time: 9 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: February 12, 2025

What are the best SERP features for SEO in 2020 and how to get them?

Gaining organic traffic through SEO can feel like a long, arduous and confusing process.

To make matters more complicated, Google’s algorithms will typically spot – and potentially penalise – a website that attempts to take shortcuts and gain quick wins unnaturally.

This does not mean that there are no quick wins available for SEO in 2020, though. Used correctly, SERP features can be a great way to boost your SEO performance.

What is a SERP?

A SERP is a colloquial acronym that stands for Search Engine Results Page.

When a search term is entered into Google, the SERP will be the page that you then see. This will follow the usual formatting that we have all grown to know and love.

The front page of a Google search follows an unmistakable and consistent format

What is a SERP feature?

Over the years, search engines have evolved to understand what users are really searching for and how they expect information to be presented. We’ve covered this in our guide here:

Search Intent for SEO

A knock-on effect is that the good old traditional style of search results are long gone! Going back a couple of decades, our search results page main consisted mainly of something which looked much like below, i.e. a clickable title, short description and the web address for the result.

How a Google SERP used to look

You may think that things haven’t changed very much?

However in 2020, depending on what you search for, the SERP will typically contain any combination of many different available SERP features. Ranging from images, videos and news (all of which have been there in some shape or fashion from the start) to Featured Snippets and Knowledge Panels (more on these below), there search results page is now far richer and more geared towards what the end-user needs.

Which SERP features deliver the quickest wins for SEO in 2020?

Here are our Top 12 SERP features to understand in 2020:

Sponsored results – Advertising purchased through Google AdWords, Bing Ads, etc., where the highest bidder on a particular keyword is usually assigned the top search result using PPC (Pay Per Click) methods. These results are preceded by the word Ad. and typically appear at the top and bottom of the page.
Featured snippets – This is the large box (referred to as a featured snippet) that sometimes appears high up on the SERP to try and match the user’s search query perfectly and provide an immediate answer to the question
People also ask – also known as Frequently Asked Questions, these are similar to featured snippets but provide an expandable list of questions and answers related to the user’s search
Local results – Maps, local businesses (via Google My Business) and even weather information in geographical queries
Reviews – reviews can appear in two places, both in the form of star ratings:
1. against businesses showing in the Local results
2. against organic search results related to a product (usually lower down on the SERP)
Sitelinks – Sub-pages of a high-ranking website, these usually show just below the title and title and description, often containing pages such as Contact Us, About Us, etc.
Media – Depending on the search term, images and videos will often be returned from websites that match the users’ query
Shopping results – these only show whether the user’s search intent is e-commerce related and they are looking to view/buy products
News and top stories – Recent news stories for trending topics related to the search
Knowledge panel – These are boxes to the right of the page, offering a summary or key information relating to the search. These are common when searching the name of a public figure or major business and often pull information from sources like Wikipedia and Google My Business
Breadcrumbs – These show the menu/navigation trail for where the suggested result is located on the site being returned
Related or suggested searches – These take many different forms and will show other queries which Google believes are related to the one entered, e.g. these are useful to give other ideas, or perhaps because they are a better match for the search intent

The list here is by no means definitive and there are many other SERP features available and other variations of the ones mentioned, but these would be our top 12 to understand in 2020.

SERP Features shown visually

Featured snippet

An example showing a Featured Snippet

Local results

An example showing local results and Google My Business listings

Reviews

An example showing organic reviews as a result of schema mark-up

For further reading on reviews, read more below:

Reviews and SEO

Sitelinks

An example showing sitelinks or sub pages

Media

An example showing image media in search results

News and top stories

An example showing news and top stories

Knowledge Panel

An example showing the Knowledge Panel

SERP is also known as “enriched search results” or “interactive rich results”

As a side note, SERP is not a term officially recognised by Google. Instead, Google will refer to SERP features as enriched search results or interactive rich results¹.

Bear this in mind when researching SERP features to utilise on your website.

Are SERP Features always a good thing?

Short answer, “no”, but mostly “yes”.

The SERP features mentioned above appear together with the more traditional style of organic search results. This means that, while SERPs can provide a huge benefit to SEO in 2020, they can also hinder and much as help. For example:

If multiple competitors have paid for SERPs using AdWords or Bing Ads, organic results will be pushed down the first page, meaning PPC results may “steal” traffic away from the organic ones
Showing in the “people also ask” box is great for gaining visibility on Google but it may actually mean fewer clicks to your website if the user finds an answer without leaving Google

These are just two examples.

Top Tip – When it comes to SERPs, make sure you fully understand the techniques and implications of using them. Keep a close eye on your website analytics to make sure they are having a positive impact on your overall marketing strategy.

Are these easy to get?

Probably the simplest SERP feature to acquire in 2020 is a paid result using AdWords.

If you meet the criteria laid out by Google², this can be a quick win in terms of driving traffic to your website. Your site will usually appear above organic search terms and the results are almost instant.

However, weigh up the cost implications of utilising this SERP feature. Is the financial outlay – bearing in mind that you’ll be bidding against competing sites that may have deeper pockets – justified by the net gains? You may prefer to gain SERPs without spending money forever.

The other important note to consider is that paid results will often generate a completely different type of traffic to organic. Based on our experience of delivering both paid and organic (SEO) services for over 10 years, the quality of organic traffic is nearly always better. That’s not to say, paid advertising doesn’t have a role to play – for many, it may be the only viable solution, especially where new businesses are considered.

Top tip – Carefully weigh up your options (both short-term and long-term) before deciding whether to pursue paid or organic SERP features. Quite often, the best results come from a mixture of both.

The ease of obtaining popular organic SERPs, in order, is:

Local / Maps / Knowledge Panel – Having a local geographical focus, makes this SERP feature relatively east to obtain. By simply signing up for a Google My Business account and making the most of the fields/features available to describe your organisation will take you a long way
Reviews and ratings (if applicable) – Just seek out reviews from customers using Google My Business, request reviews from other reputable sites or add the correct schema mark-up to show reviews on your own website. With a minimal amount of effort, the rewards can be ten-fold
Sitelinks and website sub-pages – Simply having a clear and focussed structure to your site and main menu makes this an easy one to achieve
Media (videos and images) – Another quick win is simply giving your media keyword-focused file names and making sure any text you add when embedding them, e.g. ALT text for images, captions, video titles/descriptions contains those keywords
Shopping results (if applicable) – There are different ways to show shopping results or products in SERPs but one of the easiest is to just add them to your Google My Business listing and configure your site/AdWords account to show them in paid results
News – The easiest way to get visibility via News SERPs is to submit a story or news article to a Google News approved publisher – there are many online PR providers out there who offer this service, just make sure you select a good quality provider who moderates content to avoid spam

These are some of the easier SERP features to gain in 2020. Featured snippets and “people also ask” are two of the more difficult SERP features to obtain as they rely on a degree of technical SEO know-how. These are worth pursuing though, as they can be worth their weight in gold when it comes to SEO.

Top Tip – Keyword research can also help. If a particular keyword (search query) is packed with SERPs from competitors, use a synonym for your SERP features. This will help prevent your content from getting lost in the shuffle.

What steps can I take to get SERP features?

1. E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritative, and Trustworthiness

The fastest way to see effective results on your SERP features is to appeal to Google’s E-A-T algorithm update⁵. Ensure that your web page meets user search intent, speak with authority on your chosen subject and – above all – fill your site with relevant, superior content.

Top tip – Impressing the E-A-T algorithm is one of the best ways to enjoy a superior SEO ranking on Google in 2020. This, in turn, enhances your chances of qualifying for a high-ranking SERP. As with most quick wins, you’ll need to roll up your sleeves and put the work in first. Eventually, however, the results will speak for themselves.

2. Structure your content for snippets

It’s important to understand that snippets are assigned by Google based on keywords perfectly matching a user’s search intent. This is why so many sites utilise numbered lists and bullet points. For this reason, think very carefully about how you structure your content and what questions you are answering. This includes the use of sub-headings, lists and tables.

3. Use schema and structured data

Adding schema or structured data to your website⁶ will help to enrich your content with other useful information to help guide Google, e.g. you can inform Google that your content is related to the following:

Creative works e.g a book, movie, recipe, etc.
Event
Organisation
Person
Place, local business, restaurant, etc.
Product, service or offer
Review

Or any of the other schema types available.

4. Rank well

If a user enters the search term, “10 best places to see the Northern Lights”, Google clearly understands what the user wants to know. Google will then create a snippet from a site with a high CTR deemed authoritative and trustworthy. It’s rare for a site ranked outside the top 5 to qualify for a Featured Snippet³ so it’s important that you already have or build up a strong natural SEO profile.

Gain traction by acquiring high-authority backlinks and getting your site mentioned on as many external resources as possible will help to boost your overall authority. Wikipedia, for example, may have a reputation for not always being reliable, but its popularity means that it plays a significant role in gaining a knowledge panel SERP.

5. Skyscraper technique

To boost your chances of gaining this SERP feature, alter your search term. Consider using the skyscraper technique⁴ to provide 12 or 13 options in your list and create additional value to the user. Alternatively, use synonyms in your keywords to work within a narrower field of search queries.

If your site qualifies for a featured snippet, you’ll enjoy a captive audience. Many users on Google will gravitate to the first site that answers their question. By utilising this SERP feature successfully, you’ll attract more clicks and traffic than your competitors. This will continue to bolster your website’s ranking under the E-A-T algorithm.

Conclusion: How to use SERP features to boost your SEO

SERP features can be a great SEO advantage in 2020. If you’re utilising SERPs, chances are that you will gain more overall visibility than your competition Google’s first page. This greatly enhances your chances of being seen and gaining traffic to your website. Final thought… in many respects, SERP features are a chicken-and-egg arrangement. Improving your SEO and ranking enhances your chances of gaining SERPs, while SERPs will, in turn, continually boost your overall SEO.

For more help and advice on how to make the most of SERP features or SEO in general, please feel free to get in touch with Opace.

References and further reading

semrush.com/blog/serp-features-guide
support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722087?hl=en-GB
unamo.com/blog/SEO/definitive-guide-googles-serp-features
jeffbullas.com/skyscraper-technique
SEO-plus.co.uk/google-e-a-t-algorithm-update
neilpatel.com/blog/get-started-using-schema

Search Intent for SEO: Understanding Search, User & Keyword Intent [UPDATED]

Scott C — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 09:03:46 +0000

Reading Time: 6 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: March 3, 2025

Search Intent SEO: What do users really want when browsing Google?

What is Search Intent? A definition

You would be forgiven for assuming that search intent has a simple definition.

To make matters worse, different but similar names are used to mean the same thing, e.g.

User Intent
Keyword Intent
Query Intent

The principle is this: If your content doesn’t align with what users genuinely want, you won’t rank well in search engines, no matter how well optimised your keywords are. Search intent is important because Google ranks pages based on how well they satisfy a user’s query.

Browsing Google is rarely a passive experience – most users have a specific search in mind

Where does Search Intent fit into SEO?

Search intent is at the core of SEO.

SEO Basics: The Simple SEO Guide for Website Owners [UPDATED]

We can think of SEO a bit like this, broken down into two distinct subsets:

On-Page SEO
1. Search Intent
2. Keyword Research
3. Keyword Planning
4. Keyword Analysis
5. Content Planning
6. …
Off-Page SEO
1. Blog Outreach
2. PR & Inbound Marketing
3. …

Obviously, SEO is a broad field, and while search intent is central to it, it most closely relates to keyword research, content planning, and overall on-page optimisation. Google prioritises relevance, engagement, and user satisfaction over keywords alone.

What is the difference between Search Intent and User Intent?

Search intent and user intent essentially mean the same thing.

When a user asks a question while browsing Google, they want an answer, keeping things as plain as possible.

In reality, things are slightly more complicated.

To flourish in the world of SEO, your site will need to marry search intent with keyword research and keyword analysis.

Keyword Research for SEO [UPDATED]

SEO Keyword Analysis & Planning: How to Choose the Best Keywords For Your Website [UPDATED]

Of all Google’s many and varied algorithm updates over recent years, 2015’s RankBrain has been one of the most prominent.

RankBrain started to grade – and rank – websites based on their ability to meet user intent.

By this, we mean that a website was promoted correctly in search results where it accurately answered a user’s query. This took precedence over other factors that were previously assumed to be most significant.

This has taken on a new dimension since the arrival of the E-E-A-T framework and its focus on helpful, people-first content.

In modern SEO, Google is placing more and more emphasis on the user’s intent as well as the signals such as Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness..

This means what the user really wants is being taken into greater consideration than more traditional elements of SEO, i.e. keywords.

Simply matching content to keywords is no longer sufficient on its own.

What is a user really looking for when they search?

An example comparing two websites: Search Intent vs no Search Intent

Assume that a user is browsing Google and enters the term, “How do I bake a loaf of bread in my oven?”

This suggests the user wishes to bake bread at home and they are looking for instructions for how to do this.

Now, look at the table below to see how two different websites may tackle this query.

Website A	Website B
100-word introduction, using essential keywords	500-word introduction that discusses the author’s favourite breads, how their spouse is allergic to poppy seeds, and reminiscing about the first time they baked bread
Heading – Ingredients Required to Bake Bread in Your Oven A bulleted list of ingredients the user will need	Heading – Different Types of Bread Descriptions of the endless different types of bread that can be baked in an oven
Heading – How to Bake Bread in an Oven Bulleted instructions on the process, broken up with images	Heading – Is it Easy to Bake Bread in an Oven? Discussion about the common pitfalls associated with this task
100-word conclusion that once again uses essential keywords relating to the search intent	Heading – Does Oven-Baked Bread Taste Better Than Shop-Bought? Discussion about baking your own bread versus purchasing from a supermarket
	Heading – How to Bake Bread in an Oven Bulleted instructions on the process, broken up with images
	300-word conclusion discussing how delicious the loaf of bread the author made was and how it was sold at a church bake sale

Which site do you think best matches the user intent in this scenario?

The benefits of having a Search intent-focused approach

It’s most likely that Website A will rank higher and achieve greater SEO results. This is because it matches the user’s expectation in terms of search intent by staying relevant and answering the question clearly and concisely.

This ensures that the user will leave the site having achieved their aim, and they will know how to bake a loaf of bread in their home oven. No more, no less.

Website A answers this question using relevant keywords to attract attention. Website B does the same eventually, but it meanders off-topic first, burying SEO terms amidst thin content¹ and failing to satisfy a user’s primary intent.

What’s more, the vast expanse of irrelevant content on Website B would make mobile browsing a frustrating experience. The visitor would potentially give up and go elsewhere.

Website A married search intent with SEO by following this simple formula:

Understanding what question the user is asking
Making it clear that the website can answer this question
Demonstrating authority on the subject at hand
Providing simple instructions to answer the question

Users are interested in having their needs met quickly and efficiently. Most visitors to a website will lack the patience to wade through hundreds of words of irrelevant content. This will lead to a high bounce rate.

So, think first about user intent and focus your keyword research around what the user is searching for. Your visitor wants a fast and authoritative answer to their query without having to search for it or click through multiple pages.

Users are relying on you to provide expertise, negating the need for hours of painstaking research

Keeping everything clear and on a single page should help to improve your search intent and SEO.

Why is Search Intent important in SEO?

It’s essential to understand Search Intent in SEO because it directly impacts rankings, user engagement, and website performance.

Google evaluates whether a page genuinely satisfies a search query, prioritising content that delivers clear, relevant, and useful answers.

Like our example above, a webpage that aligns with search intent will attract the right visitors, keep them engaged, and reduce bounce rates. These are all key factors in search engine rankings. Content that fails to meet search intent, even if keyword-optimised with all the bells and whistles, risks being ignored or ranked lower.

By focusing on what users genuinely want to find, businesses can create content that not only ranks well but also builds trust and authority in their niche.

What is keyword intent? How does this impact content and other SEO activities?

When creating content and carrying out keyword optimisation activities, you will need to consider the following questions:

What is the user searching for when they type in a keyword or phrase?
How can you make it clear that you can resolve the user’s query?
What is the most efficient way to meet the user’s needs?
How does the user want these needs to be met?
How can you best communicate your answer (e.g. using text, images and video)?

Again, referring back to our example above, Website B uses more keywords than Website A, but these are buried in the content and it goes off on tangents.

Some users, for example, might be looking for a video over written instructions. The same applies to images and infographics.

Therefore, optimising content isn’t just about keywords. It’s about delivering information in the format that best serves the user. This means considering keyword intent, i.e. the. thought process when somebody searches for a specific keyword or phrase.

Understanding the psychology, thought process and keyword intent behind a search

If a keyword or query is best answered with a step-by-step guide, a bulleted list or instructional video might be more effective than a lengthy paragraph.

Google prioritises content that provides a seamless, valuable experience. This means structuring your content so that key information is easy to find, using headings, images, or even interactive elements where appropriate.

To maximise SEO impact, focus on the psychology behind the keyword, the relevance of your content, and the way it’s presented.

For more information, visit our content creation guide below.

Why Good Content Matters: SEO Content Creation Guidelines [UPDATED]

Final thoughts: Aligning SEO with user expectations

It is easy – and often tempting – to find yourself getting sidetracked when creating content for a website. This must be avoided, so train yourself to think first and foremost about the end-user, their thought process and expectations.

Search intent should be used to guide your SEO strategy and shape your content structure, format, and presentation.

When a user lands on your page, they expect a clear and relevant answer to their search. If they have to dig through unnecessary content to find it, they’ll leave, hurting both engagement and rankings. Keeping content focused, authoritative, and easy to digest ensures better visibility in search results and a better experience for your audience.

Want to refine your approach with the help of a professional SEO agency? Our team is here to help you build content that works.

Image Credits – pexels.com and pixabay.com

Keyword Research for SEO [UPDATED]

David Bryan — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 14:56:56 +0000

Reading Time: 10 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: February 19, 2025

How to carry out keyword research for SEO?

When it comes to search engines, keywords (also referred to as search phrases, terms or queries) are at the beating heart of any successful SEO project, so it’s absolutely essential to understand how to carry out keyword research for SEO.

But, before diving into keywords, please check out our guide below to make sure you are familiar with all of the fundamentals:

SEO Basics: The Simple SEO Guide for Website Owners [UPDATED]

Keywords are so important that embarking on a keyword research project is usually one of the very first things you need to do when it comes to SEO. Keyword research is vital both for identifying your keywords in the first instance and improving your ranking in search engines like Google over time.

This guide will discuss how to find the perfect SEO keywords for your website using a range of keyword research and analysis techniques and tools.

Editor’s Note [14.02.25]: The following guide titled Keyword Research for SEO was written in 2020. As with all things related to SEO, the fundamentals remain, but this 2025 update aims to give the tutorial a new lease of life with additional useful information and up-to-date tools and methods, which you will find invaluable to your SEO endeavours.

What is a keyword? Is this the same as a search query?

To be successful in SEO, you’ll need to ensure that users can find your content on Google ¹. It might sound obvious but for those wondering what a keyword is, it’s best to first explain what a search query is, i.e. a word or phrase (collection of words) that users will enter into a search engine like Google.

Searching for a keyword in Google

Keywords for SEO are simply the words or phrases that website owners optimise their websites for so that they can be found for the matching search query.

Quite often a keyword is exactly the same as a search query. For example, a website owner looks at their Google Search Console data (a free tool and a must for any website), then realises that they received a single click for the search query “fashional watches for sale”. They then decide to use this search query as their SEO keyword to optimise the page further.

Search engines like Google and Bing crawl the web looking for websites to index and re-index in their search results. As a part of this process, they crawl every page and every word used on those pages. Using clever algorithms, they then decide which web pages in their index match a user’s search query.

One of the ways they do this is by looking at the words (keywords) on the page to determine whether it’s a good fit and then displays them according to relevance, i.e. their ranking position in search results.

Algorithm Updates

Bing SEO vs Google SEO [UPDATED]

What is search intent?

Successful keyword research for SEO isn’t as simple as the above example though.

Quite often, tools like Google Search Console will reveal that a significant amount of traffic is irrelevant and for the wrong keywords. This is nearly always due to the absence of a keyword strategy, but the process should first start with understanding the ‘search intent‘ before diving into keyword research.

Remember, the goal of a search engine is to deliver the most accurate and valuable match to the user. They do this by trying to provide websites that match the user’s search intent.

In other words, search intent is the reason behind a user’s query, reflecting what they hope to achieve or find when searching online.

For a more detailed explanation of search intent for SEO, see our guide below:

Search Intent for SEO

What is keyword research for SEO?

Keyword research is largely what it sounds like. It’s the process of discovering the relevant keywords that apply to your site ² and understanding whether they are worth pursuing.

Optimising your website for these keywords will help people find you, thus boosting your organic rankings in Google and traffic.

If you are unsure how to conduct effective keyword research, ask yourself the following questions.

What common searches are users adding to Google and are these relevant to my website?
How can my website help them answer those searches?
Does anybody else already answer these searches? If so, are they good answers? Can they be improved?
Is the competition for these searches too great, i.e. are those ranking on the first page global publications or retailers that would be impossible to compete with?
How popular are these searches and how often do people search for them (search volume)?
What keywords can I use to make it clear that my website can answer these searches?
Are there other ways to answer them, e.g. using different words, phrases or angles?

Essentially, keyword research involves understanding what questions or queries your target audience are searching for.

Keyword research is not the only way to improve your rankings on Google, but it is one of the most important tools.

Is this the same as keyword analysis?

Keyword research simply provides you with a list of keywords that will benefit your SEO. You are unlikely to be able to use all of them without sacrificing quality in your copy, though.

Once you have a list of suitable keywords, the real work starts. You then need to understand which of these will benefit your website and SEO strategy most.

Keyword analysis is a deeper dive into these keywords and the impact they will have on your site ³.

Keyword research is only ‘step one’, keyword analysis is just as vital.

Examples of how keyword analysis can be used include checking:

Which keywords are searched most often?
Which keywords convert to the most clicks?
Which keywords attract the most attention at particular times? “Wimbledon Tennis Final”, for example, will be much more active in July than November
Which keywords yield the greatest return in advertising and marketing campaigns?
Which keywords are easier or less competitive? A keyword like “dog” will always attract more attention than “canine”

Keyword analysis is an essential SEO practice upon completing your keyword research.

Why is keyword research so fundamental to SEO?

Simply spamming a single page with relevant keywords surrounded by copy will have a detrimental impact on your ranking.

Gone are the days when a website owner could stuff a page with keywords and see improvements in Google. Believe it or not, this used to work. These days, you are more see your page penalised due to Google’s algorithms. Therefore, it’s essential to consider keywords in a natural way so that your content is readable and adds value to your visitors.

You must ensure that your keyword research is used to answer specific questions.

This will appeal to the latest AI algorithm updates that prioritise search intent and accurately match questions with answers that demonstrate Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T), a framework Google uses to rank content. Your content must be relevant and fresh!

Content Refresh

Google is placing greater emphasis than ever on user behaviour too⁴. By undertaking appropriate keyword research and understanding the user’s intent, visitors are likelier to click through to your site – and stay put. This means identifying what a user could be searching for and how best to match their search with an answer.

Some typical examples are below:

Informational searches – “What is”, “How to do”, “What are”, “Examples of” – typically where a user’s intent is to find an answer to a question
Transactional searches – “Buy a”, “Sell my”, “Purchase a”, “Shop for” – typically where a user’s intent is transactional e.g. relating to buying/selling products or eCommerce
Visual searches – “Show me”, “View a”, “Present a” – these searches are normally where a user’s intent is to view something visually

How do you know if you’ve chosen the right keywords?

In theory, you will notice as search engines re-index your site and crawl the keywords.

The assumption here is that you’ve selected relevant keywords, used them naturally on your web page and have checked that they have a reasonable search volume.

However, it can take much longer in practice to see results due to other factors including the age/reputation of the website, authority and promotional work undertaken. Sometimes it can take anything between 3-12 months to know for sure.

But once you do know, it’s time to see what tools like Google Search Console, Analytics and Rank Trackers tell you about the the keywords.

Keyword ranking analysis

The first thing to check is your ranking positions. There are a vast array of paid tools available to help you do this, including:

Google Search Console – A free tool that provides insights into your website’s performance in Google Search, including average keyword positions, impressions, and click-through rates.
SEMrush – A comprehensive SEO platform offering keyword tracking, competitor analysis, and site audits. Pricing starts at $139.95/month.
Ahrefs – Known for its extensive backlink analysis and keyword research tools, Ahrefs provides detailed rank-tracking features.
Moz Pro – Offers keyword tracking, site audits, and backlink analysis.
SE Ranking – Provides keyword rank tracking, competitor analysis, and site audits.

You can also use Google Analytics in conjunction with Google Search Console to check keyword positions and landing page and various other metrics that are useful to SEO.

How to check the search queries and clicks your website gets using Google Search Console

It’s always nice to see rankings improve for keywords, but this won’t tell you very much without seeing traffic as a result.

When you see your traffic improve using a tool like Google Search Console, you will know that your keyword research is working.

Keyword traffic analytics

However, it doesn’t end with Google Search Console and rank trackers.

Just because you have received traffic doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good-quality traffic. You need the ‘right kind’ of traffic and user engagement.

This is where tools like Google Analytics come in, as they will help you to check important metrics related to user behaviour, such as ‘engagement time’ and ‘engagement rate’.

If you have a poor ‘engagement time’ or low ‘engagement rate’, there’s a good chance that you have the wrong keyword or have made an error elsewhere in your SEO strategy.

If your keyword is ranking well (typically positions 1 to 5 depending on the other results), but it’s not generating any traffic, this is another indicator that you don’t have the right keyword strategy.

Keyword research for SEO and traffic analysis are the building blocks of SEO

By undertaking the keyword analysis that we previously discussed, you’ll gain a better understanding of the impact of your keywords.

You can learn all about this here:

From UA to GA4, Top Google Analytics Tips to Measure SEO Results [UPDATED]

And, for more advanced AI-driven SEO keyword analysis, check out below:

How to use ChatGPT with Google Search Console CSV Data to Uncover SEO Analytics & Hidden Insights

From UA to GA4, Top Google Analytics Tips to Measure SEO Results [UPDATED]

What SEO keyword research tools can you use?

As well as Google Search Console and Google Analytics for checking search traffic, there are many other SEO keyword research tools available.

If you’re keen to learn how to use keywords effectively, you should investigate some – or even all – of these tools:

There is no shame in getting help with your keyword research. These tools will help – and, naturally, the SEO team at Opace are ready to assist whenever necessary.

How do I carry out keyword research for SEO?

To conduct the most impactful SEO keyword research and analysis, first refer to our search intent article above. Together, these two articles will act as the ultimate how-to guide to keyword research and understanding your target audience.

We’ve given some ideas above, but if you’re unsure how to practice effective keyword research, try these top tips:

Think of relevant words and questions that relate to your business
Ask others to brainstorm their keyword ideas
Research related terms and synonyms, i.e. other ways people may search
View the sites of high-performing competitors, noting their use of keywords
Take inspiration from Google’s “People also search for” and “People also ask” boxes
Group and cluster your keywords around relevant, relatable themes and questions – this will help you to form part of your content creation strategy and develop Topical Authority.

For more help and advice on these tips, make sure you visit below. Together, these guides will help you to understand what is meant by Topical Authority and how to use AI tools like ChatGPT to come up with keyword ideas and undertake research.

Topical Authority in SEO

Using AI For SEO: “Mind Blowing” ChatGPT SEO Guide [UPDATED]

A Guide to ChatGPT SEO Prompts and Prompt Engineering

Understand broad vs longtail keywords

You should also master the difference between broad and longtail keywords ⁵.

The main difference here is that broad keywords are usually more competitive words or phrases and tend to generate more traffic. Longtail keywords, as the name suggests, are longer multi-word phrases and tend to be more specific to your business. This makes your site likelier to rank well as a result of algorithm updates like Hummingbird and RankBrain.

With longtail keywords, users are more likely to stay on your site longer as you will have been able to answer their search directly.

Here are some examples of how broad and longtail keywords can attract similar visitors:

Long Tail	Broad
“What time is the new James Bond movie showing at my local cinema?”	James Bond Movie Cinema
“How to bake a loaf of bread using yeast in an oven”	Bake Bread Yeast Oven
“Are size 42 running shoes a size 8 in the UK?”	Running Shoes Size UK
“How to carry out keyword research and improve my SEO performance?”	Keyword Research SEO

As you’ll see, the longtail keywords answer a very specific question and are far more likely to provide the answer needed.

The broad keywords may do so, too – but equally, they could take a visitor down an unrelated rabbit hole of content that results in poor user behaviour metrics. The visitor will quickly leave the site and your SEO is likely to be impacted as a result.

If a user is searching through Siri or Alexa, they are likelier to use longtail SEO terms

A successful website needs to strike the balance between using these twin techniques – especially in the age of voice assistants, where more users may conduct Google searches verbally rather than through typing.

What do I do once completing my SEO keyword research?

Once you have completed your keyword research for SEO, it’s time to move on to keyword analysis and use this to perfect your SEO strategy.

But what next? Following your keyword research and analysis, you’ll need to put them to work.

This means taking the time to carefully consider the meta tags to accompany each page and each keyword:

How to Write the Perfect Meta Title and Description Tags for SEO [UPDATED]

You’ll then need to write keyword-optimised content while focusing on providing useful and helpful information:

Why Good Content Matters: SEO Content Creation Guidelines [UPDATED]

Finally, you’ll need to review the performance of your SEO keywords, plan and re-plan your SEO efforts to capitalise on what’s working well and tackle areas that offer opportunities for improvement.

SEO Planning Template & Strategy [UPDATED]

This completes our guide to keyword research for SEO, but remember, keywords are just one part of the SEO puzzle. For more SEO quick wins and advice, check out below:

SEO Quick Wins, Tips & Techniques [UPDATED]

Conclusion: make your SEO a success story with keyword research

The key to success in SEO is taking the time to master the art of SEO keyword research and analysis.

Once you understand how to do this, you will see your rankings improve, traffic increase and overall SEO performance grow. With search engine algorithms changing all of the time, getting your keywords right is more important than it has ever been.

Opace are specialists in the field of keyword research and SEO management. Our team is are always on hand to help, so if you are struggling to see results feel free to get in touch.

Just remember, identifying keywords is not sufficient on its own, you need to also understand how to use them.

References

Image Credits – www.pexels.com/fauxels; www.pixabay.com/tumisu; www.pixabay.com/mohamed_hassan

Topical Authority in SEO

Scott C — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 16:45:22 +0000

Reading Time: 11 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: February 17, 2025

Topical Authority in SEO? Does Word Count & Critical Mass Impact Rankings in 2020?

If your website is to rank highly in search engines for specific keywords, topics or subjects, you will need to build something called Topical Authority.

I’ll let you into a secret, Topical Authority is probably one of the most important but least known aspects of SEO, so understanding this and being able to implement a content strategy that incorporated the elements above will do wonders for your SEO.

In this article, we will explore a range of topics related to Topical Authority, including those mentioned in the Table of Contents above.

Why is content important to SEO?

At its most basic level, SEO is built around content.

For a website to flourish in search engines, it needs content and copy (words), both of which are related but not necessarily the same.

This includes the content on a website and content published external to the website which results in backlinks.

Naturally, this means that the copy on your website needs to be of a superior standard. Hiring a low-cost copywriter may seem appealing, but it can backfire¹ and we’ve seen this happen countless times with new SEO clients who come to us with doubts over their SEO existing strategy.

The dangers of substandard content

Whilst hiring a cheap copywriter may seem sensible, it is unlikely to help you achieve good Topical Authority and this will in turn negatively affect your SEO and ability to be found in search engines like Google.

The problem is that many writers prefer to work – and bill – according to a set word count.

This means, the more words, the more they earn, but the volume of content alone should never be the overriding priority in SEO.

How does Google view word count and does this impact rankings?

Word count has long sparked debate and contention among SEO professionals.

Ask a dozen experts about the optimum word count to boost rankings with Google and you’ll receive numerous disparate answers.

Some will say a page needs 400 words, 500 words, 1,000 words or more. Others will say word count isn’t important at all.

In this case, it is perhaps best to go straight to the horse’s mouth. John Mueller, the Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, confirms:

“word count is not a factor that impacts rankings”²

Subject closed? Not quite.

Word count and volume of content can have a sizable impact on achieving Topical Authority and improving rankings.

Getting this balance right is at the heart of what we do at Opace and we’ve seen it have some amazing results for clients.

It’s just that the number of words and volume of content aren’t the only factors which impact SEO. Google conducts regular algorithm updates, which are used to promote, demote or penalise a site’s ranking on the search engine.

Much like The Matrix, Google’s algorithms are a form of a supercomputer that controls more of your day-to-day lives than we realise.

An early example of an algorithm update was Panda, which unrolled in February 2011 and targets:

thin content
plagiarism and duplicate content
low-value content (e.g. of no value to reader, content that doesn’t answer the topic and is full of spelling and grammatical errors)
non-verified content (e.g. not quoting sources)
content which is full of advertising and affiliate links

Sites that take advantage of these shortcuts in an attempt to improve their SEO in 2020 are unlikely to get the results they want. Numerous, equally impactful algorithm updates have since followed.

Google Penguin rolled out in April 2012 addressed the issue of keyword stuffing. This occurs when a page uses keywords and key phrases repetitively to “game”/manipulate ranking results. Until this time this “black hat” approach had been successful (to some extent) but from this point onwards never has been effective as an approach.

2013’s Hummingbird, for example, placed further emphasis on content, with a heavy emphasis on content matching the user’s intent through semantic searches. 2015’s RankBrain completely changed the SEO game³. This algorithm, especially in conjunction with 2018’s E-A-T⁴ (aka Medic⁵) updates, remains highly relevant in 2020.

Top Tip – Set aside some time to understand search engines and the various algorithm updates to get an idea about what makes good content. Algorithm updates such as Panda, Hummingbird and Medica (E-A-T) are worth investigating.

What is critical mass in SEO and do the number of pages matter?

The term critical mass has its origin in particle physics. Critical mass in SEO has a slightly less scientific definition.

In a nutshell, critical mass can be considered in terms of ‘words’ and ‘pages’, i.e. unique URLs which contain a collection of related words.

Critical mass in SEO involves packing your site with relevant inter-related content

It is the art of expressing what needs to be said within an appropriate word count. But imagine that your website is built around corporate branding. If the word count of your site totals 100,000 words, and just 500 of those words are related directly to ‘corporate branding’, do you think Google would consider the site to be an authority on the topic?

Ways in which some writers attempt to achieve critical mass and longer pieces of content are:

Good

Researching keywords and competition to identify new content topics and gaps
Producing and publishing content that will add value to the visitor
Identifying which topics need to be explored and written about in detail to demonstrate expertise
Architecting content correctly, e.g. a set of related but shorter interlinked pages may work much better than a single detailed page

Bad

Surrounding keywords and search terms with irrelevant tangents in an attempt to bolster the volume of content
Adding lengthy, unconnected deviations from the website’s core topic
Repeating the same content in different ways or duplicating text
Plagiarising other, more successful websites
Writing in a long-winded fashion or adding ‘fluff’ to create additional words

Clearly, getting this right can have a positive impact on SEO but getting it wrong can have an equally negative affect.

Emphasising quantity over quality is a common SEO mistake. The notion that more words + more pages = better SEO, is outdated at best.

Google will place greater emphasis on E-A-T metrics such as Expertise, Authority and Trust, rather than the simple magnitude of content.

Top Tip – Always try to add value and provide something new. Look at what has already been published online and produce something better.

What about long-form content?

More words will not necessarily impact rankings for the better, especially in 2020.

Don’t get me wrong, creating detailed long-form content such as a whitepaper can be one of the best SEO strategies you can apply to gain Topical Authority and exposure in search engines but ONLY if done correctly.

The key to making this work is having a well thought out strategy and creating high-quality relevant content that will demonstrate Expertise, Authority and Trust.

What about thin content?

Long-form content is one common term used in SEO, but thin content is another. In some ways, thin content is the polar complete opposite to long-form content as it describes a page which provides little value to the user and typically contains zero or minimal content⁶.

One reason people add thin content is to try and achieve critical mass, where they mistakenly believe more pages will give them more authority.

On the other hand, there are lots of innocent reasons why thin content may be added, sometimes these are the result of CMS or platform being used. WordPress, for example, can automatically create pages that could be considered as thin content, such as archives, tags and categories. It’s arguable as to whether these pages should be set to no-index to discourage indexing in Google but this is another topic.

On the plus side, Google can spot thin content without difficulty, but it is usually clever enough to spot whether this has been done intentionally or not.

Top Tip – Audit your website content and try to identify areas of thin, duplicate or low-value content. Make an executive decision whether to keep and update/improve the content or remove the content. If you are going to remove content, consider 404 (page not found) errors and how to manage these. Usually, a 301 redirect to a similar or related page will provide a user-friendly method of dealing with 404s.

What is Topical Authority?

Topical Authority can be considered the same as demonstrating Expertise.

Remember 2013’s Hummingbird and 2018’s E-A-T (Medic) updates mentioned above, Topical Authority is one of the key elements of these updates.

With Hummingbird, Google started to really understand the user’s intent when carrying out a keyword search. From this point onwards, we started to see a greater emphasis on Google ranking answers which demonstrated expertise.

Hence, sites with good Topical Authority would tend to rank better in Google and generate more organic traffic.

Is Topical Authority the same as Domain Authority?

Domain Authority (or DA) is a far more common and understood metric, which we have explored here along with other metrics like Trust Flow and Alexa Rank.

Many SEO tools and specialists will talk in terms of Domain Authority to describe how much “authority” your site has as a whole, but this is different to Topical Authority.

If we think about cause and effect, Topical Authority is one of the key drivers (or causes) in achieving a good Domain Authority, but this is along with other factors like domain age, backlinks and so on.

Where the two relate, is that having expert on-site content along with high-quality backlinks pointing to your site, usually means you will have a good Domain Authority and Topical Authority. Therefore, it’s usually (but not always) the case that your site will also be ranking well.

It’s well known that the simplest formula for SEO (when done correctly) is keywords + links = good SEO, but Topical Authority adds another dimension to this equation.

How does Topical Authority relate to word count and critical mass in SEO?

Very simply, to gain Topical Authority, a website needs to have an adequate amount of meaningful content to demonstrate expertise.

Given the level of competition and expertise already available online, this usually means saying something new, in a greater level of detail than explained before.

Hence more words and more pages (critical mass) relating to a topic.

The caveat again is that the content must add value, be high-quality and relevant.

How to develop an SEO strategy around Topical Authority

Forget about keywords and think about topics

It sounds obvious but think in terms of topics.

Most SEO specialists will suggest starting with keywords. This is all well and good if thinking about a page in isolation, but to build Topical Authority you need to demonstrate expertise.

Quite often, this isn’t possible with a single standalone page.

So, think about search intent and topic opportunities:

Make a list of potential topic opportunities
Can each topic be broken down into related sub-topics?
Research keywords and think about how these fit with your topics – don’t forget about longtail keywords as these can provide some of your quickest wins
Do those sub-topics all belong one page as sections or sub-headings, or are they separate pages that interlink with one another
Research competition to see what is already being said online about the topic and how you can add additional value
Consider what your website already says and perhaps carry out a gap analysis
Consider how long each new section and/or page should be to demonstrate expertise

Once you are done, you should be able to draft a mini sitemap for the topic.

Consider search intent when planning your topic

What are Topic Clusters?

The above image shows an illustration of a Topic Cluster around selling a house.

Topic Clusters are exactly that, a cluster or grouping of related sub-topics, which in web design or SEO terms would be a collection of related interlinked pages usually connected by a Pillar Page⁷.

Clusters are a great way to build authority – and impact ranking accordingly – without overwhelming a visitor to your site. The data is dispensed in smaller, bite-sized chunks. This is an ideal SEO strategy for 2020.

Use the Hub and Spokes strategy

Here at Opace, we’ve taken the notion of Topic Clusters and developed a strategy which we call ‘Hub and Spoke’.

We’ve been implementing this strategy for clients for several years as a mechanism to help them build a meaningful critical mass of content and Topical Authority.

So, what is meant by Hub and Spoke?

Generally, the Hub would be the long-form content, i.e. a master page so to speak with detailed in-depth content on a topic which demonstrates E-A-T. In Topic Cluster speak, this is a Pillar Page.

It’s easy to think about a Hub and Spoke strategy in terms of related topics/keywords and levels of competition.

The overarching topic will usually have the highest competition and keyword search volume.

Then as we consider individual sub-topics (generally associated with less competitive longer-tail keywords) these will be Spokes.

It’s good practice to interlink the Hub and Spokes but to do this we need content. This means the Hub will often have multiple sections which allow us to briefly talk about and link to each Spoke.

As a result, these Hubs virtually always have a greater word count.

What’s even better is that often topics (or Topic Clusters) can be interlinked with each other using a Hub and Spoke strategy.

Topic Clusters can be interlinked within a Hub and Spoke strategy

For example, this very article is a Hub and a Spoke, interlinked and nested within other Hubs and Spokes, i.e.

We have defined a Hub (or Topic Cluster) called How to Improve Google Rankings in 2020
This article (Topical Authority in SEO? Does Word Count & Critical Mass Impact Rankings in 2020?) is one of our Spokes
At the same time, this Spoke is also a Hub linking to other pages related to Topical Authority, such as

Hopefully, now, it’s all starting to come together.

Strategies such as Topic Clusters and Hub and Spokes can be pivotal to achieving Topical Authority and this often requires a critical mass of content.

Sorry to bore you with this, but the caveat again is that the content must add value, be high-quality and relevant.

Will a detailed article or cluster always outrank a short article?

Not necessarily. You will rarely do your website any harm by providing as much information as possible as this will strengthen your site’s claim to provide expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.

Long-form content has a history of outranking shorter copy⁸ as a lengthier word count often provides more opportunity to show expertise.

This is especially the case if you back up your data with high-authority backlinks. It suggests that you have compiled dedicated research and your site can be trusted, which will appeal to Google’s algorithms and impact your ranking accordingly.

This is why Wikipedia ranks so well in Google.

All that said, you will occasionally see a short article or page outrank longer in-depth content.

We normally see this where the site in question has accrued a large amount of Domain Authority, perhaps because they have been around for a long time and attracted high-quality backlinks, engagement and social shares from users. In cases like this, the overall DA outweighs the Topical Authority and Google decides to rank them above sites which show greater levels of expertise and in-depth content.

High word counts are fine, as long as you back up the copy with appropriate expertise.

We’ve said it before, but a greater volume of content does not always equal superior SEO.

Sometimes, less is more. Some readers have short attention spans⁹ and content with a lower volume of words is more suitable.

Twitter, a communication platform built around brevity, is popular for a reason.

As well as the reasons mentioned above, there could be several other reasons why lengthy articles are outranked by shorter competitors. These include:

Visitors growing overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information
The site loading slowly due to the high volume of copy
Visual learners prefer images and videos to walls of text
The density of copy being illegible on a small screen, such as a smartphone
The high word counts lead to a range of unrelated tangents
Topical Authority in SEO has not been reached

If you have increased the volume of content on your site but it’s not had the desired impact, consider why.

Top Tip – Take a look at competitors who are ranking well. If you take 2,000 words to express what they say in 500, this won’t necessarily help you. Factor this into your content creation policy and consider whether it’s time for a content refresh.

Conclusion: How to improve rankings by building Topical Authority

Impact your ranking by gaining Topical Authority. This means increasing your word count if necessary and boosting the number of pages (critical mass) where it makes sense to do so.

More importantly, though, you must marry this quantity of content with relevance and quality.

Review your site and assess which topics look thin. Bolster these with informative and trustworthy content.

If you need further help with this, Opace is always on-hand to assist with your SEO. Feel free to get in touch and see how we can help.

References and further reading

inkhouse.org.uk/cheap-copywriter
seroundtable.com/google-word-count-is-not-a-ranking-factor-27994.html
moz.com/learn/SEO/google-rankbrain
SEO-plus.co.uk/google-e-a-t-algorithm-update
exposureninja.com/blog/what-is-medic-algorithm-update
yoast.com/what-is-thin-content
blog.hubspot.com
impactbnd.com/blog/long-form-content-vs.-short-form-content
forbes.com/pictures/ekig45j/write-short-pithy-posts

Image Credits – Pexels/MarkusSpiske; Pexels.com/JEShoots

Content Refresh

David Bryan — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 13:11:27 +0000

Reading Time: 7 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: September 3, 2024

How a Content Refresh Can Boost Your SEO

A website is nothing without content.

Unfortunately, many site owners underestimate the importance of this in their SEO and digital marketing efforts. A regular content refresh can be key to remaining on page one of a Google search.

Simply applying thousands of words to a site will not necessarily boost your SEO ranking. Google will simply discount or even penalise irrelevant or nonsensical copy that lacks substance. If your site has seen a sharp drop in traffic, it may be time for a content refresh.

Why is content important to SEO?

There are countless benefits to good content on your site ¹. By filling a website with high-quality, authoritative content, you can boost your SEO results.

The reasons for this include:

Good, relevant content will attract more visitors, which means a higher click-through rate. This will improve your Google ranking.
A content update will enable greater opportunities for authority backlinks. This, in turn, is a quick and easy way to boost your SEO providing the links are gained naturally.
Superior content helps you organically include keywords in your text. This, in turn, prevents the likelihood of keyword-stuffing that would see your site penalised in a Google algorithm update.

Once you have the best possible text in place, you can focus on other elements which are important to SEO. This includes backlinks, keywords and meta tags.

Top Tip Good, readable content should form the skeleton of your website. You should consider updating content ahead of many other marketing activities to ensure that you are meeting Google’s high standards. This will keep you on the front foot when it comes to search engine ranking.

What is a content refresh?

A content refresh, as the name suggests, involves rewriting and amending the existing copy on your website.

This content update can boost your SEO, especially if you place greater emphasis on what Google is seeking. Familiarise yourself with relevant algorithm updates to fully understand how to appeal to Google and avoid being penalised. Consider what users want most of all and what they will find useful.

Regularly review the content of your website, performing a refresh if necessary

A content refresh does not involve completely erasing and rewriting your entire web presence. It is effectively a content update, not a complete replacement.

It remains important that you review the performance of your site, though. Check your key analytics and look for any changing patterns. This will enable you to take the appropriate action to boost your SEO or react to any potential negative side effects. Remember, updating content doesn’t always mean you will see an improvement in rankings.

Top Tip Think first about the user. Provide them with new insights, ideas and additional value. Remove content if necessary. Rankings can go up as well as down when content is removed. Whether adding or removing content, the key is to ensure the page stays relevant and informative.

There are particular occasions when updating your website content becomes critical ². These include:

A sharp drop in traffic. Something about your copy is not appealing to users, Google or both. This must be addressed as a priority.
Your content is no longer relevant. Facts surrounding a situation may have changed, or perhaps your site is now targeting a different audience. Either way, updating content is required to maintain relevance.
A lack of authority. Google’s E-A-T and Medic algorithm updates placed a great deal of emphasis on expertise. Mere opinions or speculation are no longer sufficient or desirable. Update content to ensure that your site speaks with confidence and weight to improve your Topical Authority.

Refreshing content isn’t as simple as hitting search and replace or replacing common keywords with synonyms. Take a moment to think about how you can boost your SEO. Look at high-ranking competitors and see what they are doing differently to you.

How to do a content refresh

If you are wondering how to refresh your content, consider the following 6 options:

Make outdated content new again – Look for old, outdated content. These could be yearly or seasonal topics that you’ve written about or where you’ve provided recommendations in previous years. Make sure the content is up-to-date and relevant. Don’t forget to re-date your page, so that users can easily see that it has been updated. Consider adding an “Editor’s Note” providing the modified date and a brief summary of the changes.
Consider search intent and your keywords – Does your content reflect what a user would be searching for, i.e. their search intent? If not, think about your target user and their mindset. How would they search and what keywords would they use? Take this as an opportunity to re-optimise your content or fix any issues where old content wasn’t optimised correctly. If you’ve ever outsourced your copywriting, check that your content hasn’t been over-optimised for keywords and fix this. Tools like this one can be very handy in identifying high or unnatural keyword density in text.
Make your content more visually appealing – Could you replace words with more visually appealing media such as videos or images? Does your site lack easily digestible structured data such as lists or tables? Are your sentences running long? If so, consider converting old lengthy content into a simpler, more visually appealing format.
Improve grammar, spelling and readability – Is your content riddled with spelling or grammar issues? Use a tool like Grammarly to make sure you don’t have spelling and grammatical errors and improve the readability of your text.
Fix any broken links and references – While checking your spelling and grammar, check whether you have any broken links and fix these. This can also be a great opportunity to remove old, outdated links or references and change them to link to newer, more relevant pages.
Improve the overall appearance and mark-up of your content – Having a page which simply contains lots of plain text can be immediately off-putting and not very appealing to the end-user. Consider the use of whitespace, break up your text into easily digestible sections with sub-headings. Improve your SEO by applying correct use of HTML tags, e.g. a single H1 for your main title, H2-H5 tags for sub-headings, etc. Add captions and ALT tags to images where these are missing.

All of the above issues can be resolved with a content update activity. Finally, don’t forget to promote and share your content following a refresh.

What does the data say? Does updating content really work?

All website owners are keen to boost SEO. A content refresh is often held up as a method of achieving this, but does it work?

It can take a lot of work to update content. Additionally, if you are bringing in external copywriters and content creators, expenses will be incurred. You’ll be keen to ensure that you see a return on your investment.

Time is money, and good copywriters are not always cheap. Ensure that your refresh is fiscally prudent

Adding fresh, new content can see an immediate boost in SEO, as updating content will be acknowledged by Google ³. Over time, your content will become increasingly dated. This will be reflected in your site’s search ranking.

As a rule, all content has a twelve-month lifespan on Google ⁴. Once your copy is over a year old, some consider it to have moved past peak maturity and you may find your ranking start to decline. The belief is that the content is considered stale, and potentially irrelevant. Whether this is strictly true or not, without any attempt to update content, expect your site to follow a life cycle similar to this over time.

Months 1 – 2	Slow build in traffic, sporadic visitors
Months 3 – 6	Steady build in traffic, especially if your content goes viral
Months 6 – 12	Peak traffic, with plenty of visitors investigating your site
Months 12 – 15	Traffic starts to slow and eventually drop off as your copy is past its peak maturity
Month 15 onward	You may see a continued drop in traffic where users are no longer interested, and your ranking is impacted by the lack of freshness

Please note – While the above table provides a useful guide, it’s not always true. We have seen this with many of our own SEO clients where their content continues to grow from strength-to-strength over time without any updates being made. That said, refreshing your site content will restart the process if you have seen a decline and will help you to slowly but surely build traffic again.

Top Tip When publishing a key article or page, set calendar reminders to revisit the content around the 12-month mark to see what improvements can be made.

What about evergreen content?

To truly achieve your aims with a content refresh, retain your evergreen content ⁵. This means maintaining popular subject matter and keywords that will never go out of date.

We all hope that the search terms, “COVID-19” and, “Coronavirus” will drastically reduce in popularity in the months and years to come. The pandemic has wreaked enough havoc on our industry. Content which is written around “How to improve health”, however, will always be in vogue. Build your content around these perennial topics and you maximise your opportunities to boost SEO.

Conclusion: How to elevate your SEO by updating existing content

A content refresh is essential to boost SEO, but it will only be as effective as your existing material. Ensure you are working from a solid base of superior copy ⁶.

If your existing copy is engaging and authoritative, updating your content will require less work

This will make it easier to update content as you go along. You’ll be applying changes, rather than reinventing the wheel.

A boost to SEO is not the only advantage of a content refresh, though. You will also ensure that your copy remains relevant, cutting edge and engaging. This will appeal to Google’s algorithms and increase your chances of remaining close to the top of any searches.

Contacting Opace for help

If you need help, Opace can assist you with this, ensuring that your entire content strategy, including refreshing your content is a smooth and painless process.

For further assistance, please get in touch here.

References and further reading

Image Credits – Pexels/Burst; Pexels/Lukas; Pixabay.com/Kaboompics

Algorithm Updates

David Bryan — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 13:57:27 +0000

Reading Time: 8 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: September 3, 2024

Which Google Algorithm Updates are Having the Most Influence on SEO in 2020?

Google algorithm updates are a red-letter day for anybody in the SEO industry. Algorithms can set a website’s traffic soaring – or see it tumble from a metaphorical cliff. There is little middle ground when Google update their algorithms, ensuring that such adjustments are awaited with a combination of anticipation and dread.

What is an algorithm update?

The dictionary describes an algorithm as, “a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer.” The search rankings on Google – alongside the unending quest for that golden slot at the top of page one, and the traffic that invariably follows – are a result of regularly updated algorithms. Essentially, Google uses data to decide which websites, blogs and articles are most reverent for a user’s search term.

Google update their algorithms daily, which means there are regular changes to what qualifies a web page for high search results. Major updates typically shake out two or three times a year, though. It is during these major algorithm updates that a website can experience significant changes to its fortunes. It’s quite possible for Google to completely move the goalposts during an algorithm update.

Where a previous update may have promoted a site for the use of short, punchy and informal language, an update can send traffic plummeting as the algorithm searches for lengthy, authoritative content written in an authoritative tone. This is why makes it critical for anybody that uses an advertising-based financial model online to remain au fait with the ever-changing landscape of Google.

Google is the go-to search engine for most users. Does your content outrank that of your competitors?

At the time of writing, 2020 has seen three significant algorithm updates from Google¹. On January 13^th, a core update was announced. This was followed on the 22nd of the same month by a Featured Snippet De-duplication. This meant that any URL with a text snippet as a featured search result would not be found elsewhere on page 1. Finally, May 4^th saw a second – seismic – Google algorithm update.

Significant algorithm updates of the past

Google’s previous algorithm updates have a storied history. Oftentimes, these updates are provided with a name². Significant examples of previous algorithm updates include:

Panda (2011)	Sites that plagiarise or duplicate other content from often successful sources and apply irrelevant keyword stuffing are penalised. See here for more info.
Penguin (2012)	Penalises sites that act as link farms and those which apply ‘black hat‘ or natural link building techniques. See here for more info.
Hummingbird (2013)	Related to Penguin is as far as this update is largely focussed around the use of content and keywords, providing improvements in semantic search and understanding search intent. Hummingbird relates to Topical Authority. See here for more info.
Pigeon (2014)	Boosts search results based on the unique geography of a user.
Mobile (2015)	Codenamed “Mobilegeddon”, this was first of a series of “mobile” updates, prioritising sites that make content easily readable and accessible to smartphone and mobile users in search results.
RankBrain (2015)	Ensures that content only ranks highly if it focusses on the question asked by a user. Irrelevant, off-topic tangents are penalised.
Fred (2017)	Designed to target black-hat tactics and overly aggressive monetisation by targeting sites with excessive ads, low-value content or that offer very little user benefit.
Medic & E-A-T (2018)	This was a “broad core algorithm update” which had a significant impact across the Web, impacting sites primarily in the health and wellness sectors.

Do these still have an impact and how?

While Google regularly reviews their algorithms, these critical updates remain evergreen. Penguin, in particular, continues to work in real-time and penalise sites that flout its regulations.

Using an appropriate use of high-authority backlinks can make a big difference to SEO. However, these links must be surrounded by appropriate, original content. The Penguin algorithm can detect a link farm without difficulty, and Google will not hesitate to penalise a site for indulging in this questionable practice.

Backlinks, affiliate links and keywords can all have a powerful influence on SEO. Just use them wisely, avoiding saturation.

Be mindful of your use of keywords, too. The Hummingbird algorithm remains active in 2020 and will notice if you are using keywords inappropriately. These terms must be used correctly, as part of a standard, flowing sentence. Shoehorning keywords to the point that a sentence makes no sense is a fast-track to penalisation.

Mobile is also particularly important. It is believed that 40% of all online traffic now comes from mobile devices³. With the increased use of smartphones among younger generations, the number of people using mobile devices to surf the web is likely to increase over time, not reduce. This means that mobile SEO is more important than ever.

Which google updates have the most influence on SEO in 2020?

COVID-19 and the Coronavirus

It cannot have escaped your attention that the world changed almost beyond recognition in 2020. The onset of COVID-19 moved the goalposts in terms of web traffic. During the core update of January, Coronavirus was still a relatively niche search term. A conversation about the virus was centred almost exclusively on the impact in China, and while the outbreak was discussed in worldwide new reports, COVID-19 was not considered a domestic concern.

Naturally, by May, this was no longer the case. Google announced they had never received as many searches in a single day for just one topic as the entire world focussed its attention the global pandemic.

COVID-19, while not an algorithm update, massively impacted search behaviour. Topics that were previously hugely popular, such as live events, restaurant recommendations and travel, were down significantly. Put simply, they were redundant. With the nation in lockdown, everything was closed, social gatherings were verboten, and planes were grounded.

Even previously evergreen topics for search traffic, such as pet health, were drastically impacted and pushed down the search rankings. Such topics were engulfed in a cloud of perceived irrelevance. It appears that people were less concerned by the finest cotton bedding for a hamster while their neighbours and friends were fighting over toilet roll in supermarket aisles.

Coronavirus had a significant impact on the way we live and work, leading to some erratic behaviours.

In essence, there was nothing to search for but updates on the pandemic. The rising number of cases, updates on a potential vaccine, the ever-changing rules and regulations being laid down by the government, discussion of symptoms … these were the topics on everybody’s lips – and fingertips. As you can imagine, this had a significant impact on sites that discuss human health and lifestyle.

Google’s 2018 Medic update and E-A-T

The 2020 Google updates have come hot on the heels of 2018’s Medic update⁴. The Medic update had no relation to COVID but primarily directed toward human health sites. The impact of Medic was seismic in the third quarter of 2018, not least because many were left frustrated by the results. It was initially unclear by particular content was being penalised or pushed. Upon deeper study, it became clear that the Medic update could be considered an extension of RankBrain. The algorithm update promoted sites that worded headings almost to the letter to what a user was searching for – while also demonstrating expertise and trustworthy knowledge on the subject at hand. This worked in conjunction with the E-A-T update, which we will discuss shortly.

The Google algorithm updates of 2020 became a double-edged sword for those that conduct business online in 2020. While SEO traffic pertaining to COVID-19 shot through the roof, advertisers wanted nothing to do with the pandemic. This posed a challenge for content creators – especially those within the news industry. SEO web content pertaining to Coronavirus was certain to drive traffic during the peak of the crisis and will likely continue to do so. In an ideal world, traffic leads to advertising revenue. With advertisers pulling the plug and demonetising COVID-centric content, however, this was not always the case. It remains to be seen how many news and media outlets will survive the impending recession and inevitable cull that follows.

Outside of the Coronavirus pandemic, the May Google algorithm update had an additional impact on SEO traffic. It is worth noting that core web vitals⁵ were placed under greater scrutiny during this update. Google’s biggest priorities on this subject are the speed at which pages load, the option of interactivity for a visitor, and the structure of any content and copy. These factors all have a noteworthy influence on SEO.

Monitor your website performance. If traffic has dropped sharply, you may have fallen foul to a Google algorithm update.

A statement from Google insists that priority will still be placed upon the excellence of content. If a site boasts relevant, high-quality copy and visuals, this should supersede any underperforming web vitals. All the same, it is advisable to check reports on your site’s performance. As we will discuss now, Google’s definition of excellence may rely upon user behaviour.

E-A-T – Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness⁶ – was another priority during the May 2020 algorithm update. On paper, this should not have had any significant impact on web traffic. E-A-T was first rolled out in 2018, causing significant rumblings throughout the blogosphere as a result. The truth remains, though; SEO is only impactful when paired with appropriately authoritative content. If you have enough time to do so, it is advisable to read Google’s guidelines on meeting E-A-T expectations⁷.

Do I need to be an SEO expert to deliver good SEO?

There is an elephant in the room when it comes to SEO. Google is a large search engine. No matter how many staff the corporation employs, they cannot possibly read every piece of content posted on the web, assess it for relevance, and cross-reference any claims found within for accuracy – although steps are being taken to combat so-called, “fake news.” Keyword identification is fine, but not infallible. This begs the question – just how does a Google judge E-A-T?

One suggestion is that Google algorithm updates will begin basing rankings upon visitor behaviour. Previously, common wisdom dictated that word counts were key to ascending the Google search ranks. The more content created, the more helpful information visitors would glean from a blog or article. This will be reflected in a website’s ranking following any Google updates.

Following the May 2020 update, this appears to be an outdated thought process. Content of 500 words that holds the attention of visitors will be ranked higher than a 3,000-word opus that drifts off-topic and experiences a high bounce rate. Thin content that holds limited value or relevance continues to be the biggest challenge facing many websites. It is critical that, to make the most of any SEO opportunities, priority is placed upon excellence in delivery.

Top Tip You don’t need to be an SEO expert to create interesting and engaging content! Dull or irrelevant copy will lead to disengaged users and a high bounce rate. This, in turn, will impact your Google ranking. So think outside-the-box and put yourself in your visitor’s shoes.

Conclusion: How to influence your SEO by understanding algorithm updates

This base understanding of SEO is essential to ranking highly in a Google algorithm update. However, the emphasis should always remain on delivering high-quality, relevant content. All the traffic in the world will mean nothing if visitors do not stick around to read what is found on your website. When it comes to copywriting, the old adage of, “buy cheap, pay twice” rings true. SEO can be learned and improved, especially if you follow the advice of professionals such as Opace. This will mean nothing without appropriate content, though. There may be a flood of low-cost content creators vying for business in 2020, but hiring such individuals can prove to be a false economy.

Ultimately, the May 2020 Google algorithm update provides a potential boon to SEO experts. Now, more than ever, it is critical to understand how Google operates – and how to scale the heights of page one during searches.

A Google algorithm update can make or break your advertising revenue. Do not take any chances, and always remains one step ahead of the game. Retaining the status quo and hoping for the best will eventually see your website’s stock plummet, potentially irrevocably.

COVID-19 has changed the way we all work, including Google. Now is the time to move with the times and adjust SEO practices to avoid being left behind in a world that is growing increasingly unrecognisable. Study up on previous and current Google algorithm updates and learn the patterns of when to expect a further amendment. This aid you in maintaining a healthy position within the search engine’s rankings.

Image Credits – Pixabay/FirmBee; Pixabay/FirmBee; Pixabay.com/Alexas_Fotos; Pixabay/PhotoMIX-Company; Pexels/AndreaPiacquadio

References and further reading

searchenginejournal.com/google-confirms-may-2020-core-algorithm-update-rolling-out-today/365974
searchengineland.com/8-major-google-algorithm-updates-explained-282627
broadbandsearch.net/blog/mobile-desktop-internet-usage-statistics
seroundtable.com/google-medic-update-26177.html
blog.chromium.org/2020/05/introducing-web-vitals-essential-metrics.html
mariehaynes.com/eat
static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

SEO Quick Wins, Tips & Techniques [UPDATED]

David Bryan — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 17:03:30 +0000

Reading Time: 19 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: February 20, 2025

SEO Quick Wins, Tips & Techniques to Improve Google Ranking

The way you optimise a website can really help improve Google ranking and lead to more traffic, but there are of course both simple and difficult aspects of SEO to consider.

Before we jump into our SEO quick wins, be sure to check out our SEO basics guide below. If you do this right, it can help increase your visibility online and drive significant improvements in Google rankings, traffic and sales.

SEO Basics: The Simple SEO Guide for Website Owners [UPDATED]

Editors Note [13.02.25]: Our SEO Quick Wins for improved Google Ranking guide was first published in 2020. Five years later, the basics are still the same, but things have moved on, particularly in areas like AI. Other areas of the article became a bit dated, mentioning old terminology and dates. Today, we’ve given the article an update to improve readability, replace any outdated data, and provide a more modern take on SEO.

While SEO can be broken down into simple concepts, there are literally thousands of different algorithm factors that search engines use to determine rankings. These algorithms are ever-changing and each search engine has its own set of rules.

For more information on the difference between Google ranking factors and Bing, read below:

Bing SEO vs Google SEO [UPDATED]

Why Google?

Our top SEO quick wins to improve your Google ranking

In recent years, Google has been playing a very important role in the development of AI algorithms for sentiment analysis and trying to really understand what visitors are looking for. This can be seen by the long list of algorithm updates and new developments in the design of its SERP (Search Engine Results Pages).

Algorithm Updates

Google has become the most popular and well-known search engine in the world.

Bing SEO vs Google SEO [UPDATED]

As such, Google wants to improve the quality of its search results by helping website owners produce better quality websites using freely available tools, including Google Analytics, Search Console, Keyword Planner, PageSpeed Insights and much more.

These tools are incredibly helpful when used in conjunction with SEO techniques to improve the quality of your website and ranking in Google.

How to improve your Google ranking position?

Whilst the goal of this article won’t provide a full and detailed SEO strategy, it is based on our many years of experience delivering SEO and provides our top SEO Tips and Quick Wins to improve your Google ranking now and in the future. So here goes…

Plan your SEO gradually

For small most business owners, time is limited. Consider starting small by planning your SEO tasks in phases and tackling them in logical groups.

To help with this, our SEO quick wins can be ordered into a series of steps you can easily follow.

When putting your plan together, spread each phase over a sensible period of time, so that the work can be completed. Allocate no more than two hours per day. This way, your SEO efforts won’t become overwhelming and you’re more likely to commit to the task and see it through to completion.

For more on SEO planning, please read:

SEO Planning Template & Strategy [UPDATED]

📌 Top Tip – plan your SEO activities into small manageable phases, deliver gradually and revisit as needed.

Consider search intent

Search intent (or user intent) is the final goal of a user searching for a particular phrase in a search engine.

For example, what does the user really want to find when browsing Google – is the goal to buy a product, find information, answer a question or gain “how-to” instructions via video? There are many reasons why somebody might carry out a search online.

This is essentially what determines a good search engine from a bad one. They need to accurately determine what the user needs and then provide the correct results.

Therefore, it’s essential to consider the search intent of your visitors before even thinking of keywords or content.

If you get this wrong, you could end up attracting unwelcome or irrelevant traffic, which will ultimately cause visitors to drop off and devalue your SEO efforts. Worse, you could end up getting bad reviews on external sites, which can be extremely hard to remove.

Consider search intent

As part of considering search intent, think about relevant modifiers and suffixes.

Some typical examples are below:

Informational searches – “What is”, “How to do”, “What are”, “Examples of” – typically where a user’s intent is to find an answer to a question
Transactional searches – “Buy a”, “Sell my”, “Purchase a”, “Shop for” – typically where a user’s intent is transactional e.g. relating to buying/selling products or eCommerce
Visual searches – “Show me”, “View a”, “Present a” – these searches are normally where a user’s intent is to view something visually

For more reading, see:

Search Intent for SEO

📌 Top Tip – consider what you provide as a business or organisation, what information is most relevant to your users, how are they likely to be searching for this, and what type of content will they want to find (information, product, image, video).

Research and analyse keywords

Your main goal is to drive traffic, and driving targeted traffic is only possible if you are targeting the right audience and giving them what they are looking for.

To achieve good rankings in search engines, you will need to consider keywords and include these within your content.

By doing this, you are helping not only visitors to find you but also search engines. This is important because most of the major search engines like Google need to crawl and index your website in order for it to be found in search results. When they do that, they pick up on your website’s keywords and index your content based on those keywords.

The starting point is always keyword research. To find out what keywords work best for you, there are various methods you can use:

Consider user intent and what your visitors will be looking for – brainstorm any keyword ideas
Use tools to assess whether those keywords are worth pursuing – a good keyword research tool will allow you to conduct a quick and easy keyword search, as well as generate lists of related keywords to use. One of the most important SEO tools available for site owners is Google’s keyword planner tool, which gives you the ability to see how many searches there have been for a given keyword over a given period of time.
Search Google for the keywords you’ve identified – see what results come up and how relevant they are to your business
Review all search engine features available to you, e.g. featured snippets, questions and answers and related topics. At the top of Google, you will see “People also ask” and at the bottom, you will see “Searches related to…” – use everything available in order to come up with relevant keyword ideas.

After identifying your keywords, you then have to determine the most appropriate keywords for your business, content and user. Keyword selection is essential to the success of an SEO strategy. If you are using a keyword research tool, you can narrow down the keyword list to one or two terms per page or create clusters of content based around related keywords.

Carry out keyword research using the Google Keyword Planner

Some people prefer to use the most popular keywords first, but this will only work if your site is either established with a lot of trust and authority already gained with Google or you operate in a niche which has little competition. One way to determine your authority is to check your website’s Domain Authority (DA).

Less popular or lower search volume keywords (e.g. longtail phrases) often provide a quicker ranking and opportunity to start delivering traffic to your site.

Finally, try to implement those keywords in your website’s content.

For more on this topic, check out below:

Keyword Research for SEO [UPDATED]

SEO Keyword Analysis & Planning: How to Choose the Best Keywords For Your Website

📌 Top Tip – get as many ideas as possible from as many different places as you can, use data and insights that already exist, then assess the relevance and worthiness of those keywords. Bear in mind that keyword data changes frequently, so it’s very important to do research on a regular basis. Keyword research is also to give you an idea of what your competitors are doing and how you can best get ahead of them.

Define your site structure and internal linking strategy

There are different ways of thinking about site structure. Business owners will normally think in terms of their menu design, whereas web developers and technical people will often think in terms of sitemap creation and flow diagrams.

In an ideal world, the site structure would be established at the same time as any keyword research. This way, the sitemap, menu and corresponding content will all be aligned to the keyword research you have undertaken.

Another important factor that will help you to be found in Google, is where and how to use different keywords across your website.

You shouldn’t use the same keyword on every single page, but instead, use different keywords or phrases on different pages throughout the site. Flow diagrams can often help with designing how you would like these keywords to interlink/relate to each other throughout the website. This is especially useful when creating related content or clusters of content.

Define your site architecture linking strategy

Having a well-architected site structure is essential to SEO regardless of whether you are building a new website or updating an existing one. Getting this right can help search engines crawl and index your site and have a positive impact when trying to improve Google ranking.

📌 Top Tip – map your chosen keywords (or keyword groups) to corresponding pages within a sitemap or menu. Use Excel or Google Sheets to do this before writing any content.

Produce great content

The goal here is to produce content that people can find, enjoy (i.e. they stay on your page) and then share. The most common way for businesses to improve Google ranking is by creating a website that contains relevant quality content.

Why Good Content Matters: SEO Content Creation Guidelines [UPDATED]

Naturally, most website owners will write and create content that contains relevant keywords. We do this without even thinking about it most of the time. This alone will help to get your website and content found in Google, but the websites which have the best chances of being found are the ones that include relevant keywords that people are searching for.

Of course, it’s not all about keywords. As covered when discussing search intent, relevance is key. It’s also essential to have well-written content, that can be easily read and understood by your intended users. If your content is hard to understand, it could cause many people to leave your site (known as ‘bounce rate‘) because they feel that it’s not something that they want to read. Having a poor bounce rate can lead to a negative impact on your search rankings.

It is important to consider word count and length when producing content. There is also an aspect of critical mass when it comes to content creation.

A website with 1,000 pages of well-written, meaningful content, each with 600 or more words, is likely to provide a better Google ranking than a site with 10 pages, each with 200 words.

Adversely, having lots of duplicate content, poor quality or meaningless content will do far more harm than good. This is the kind of content that was heavily devalued and penalised under Google’s Penguin updates back in 2016.

Providing users with content in a form they can best digest is important. For most of us, we take in information visually, so an image or video really is worth 1000 words most of the time. Don’t forget the shareability factory, having content that is useful, interesting and easy to digest will make it more likely that the user shares it with their friends, family or co-workers.

There are great tools to help with producing content, such as brainstorming tools for ideas, title generation websites, keyword optimisation aids and language correction tools.

One of my favourite free tools is grammarly.com, which can be installed as a browser extension to help you improve aspects such as grammar, spelling, and punctuation; consistency; fluency; clarity; engagement; and much more.

Check your content using Grammarly

📌 Top Tip – having a well-devised content strategy is key. Ensure any content produced has a sensible keyword density. You don’t want to end up spamming your content or website with keywords. Also, consider your metadata (title and description), use of heading tags (H1, H2 etc.), keyword anchor text and image ALT tags.

Keep your website fresh and your content refreshed

Keeping your website fresh with new content is a well-known SEO quick win:

Content Refresh

Adding a blog is a great way to do this and should be done as quickly as possible since your competition will almost certainly have a blog of their own site.

Typically, you will see websites which have a ‘Blog’ section; however, sometimes this can take the form of ‘News’, ‘Tips’, ‘FAQs’, etc. All of these can be set up using the features of a Blog and they all serve a similar dual purpose, i.e. adding relevant meaningful information AND keeping the website fresh with new content.

WordPress is a popular choice for creating a blog and can be added to an existing website with relative ease. For informational websites and even more complex sites, such as eCommerce, WordPress is a great choice to build the entire site with its global community of users and a massive choice of freely available and premium themes/plugins.

WordPress is a great CMS for keeping your website fresh

With platforms like WordPress, it’s easy to upload and schedule blog posts so that they are published on an ongoing basis.

The Best Future-Proof CMS-Powered Open Source Websites & eCommerce Development Platforms

To avoid the website appearing stale, a minimum recommendation of one new post per month would be sensible, but the more you can commit and post on a regular basis, the more search engine crawlers will be keen to come back. This will also help with the critical mass dilemma raised above.

The other advantage of CMS platforms like WordPress is that it’s straightforward to revisit old content and give it a refresh.

For example, most content will have a timeliness element, e.g. current trends, products, data, insights, services, etc. It’s very rare that content can’t be refreshed and updated based on the latest information available. What’s not so well known is how quickly this kind of activity can revive your content and improve Google ranking. It’s even relatively simple with platforms like WordPress to refresh your entire website and give it a fresh new look and feel which shows Google that you actively maintain your site and care about UX.

📌 Top Tip – don’t set up a blog and let it die, create a schedule within your SEO pan to ensure it’s a living breathing machine. Add new content often and interlink your new content with existing content on your site and elsewhere on the Web where relevant. Remember to promote and share your blog posts.

Optimise your website and existing pages to improve Google ranking

Optimising your website is a vital part of its success and ensuring potential users can find you when searching online. Website optimisation can take many different forms, including technical tuning, UX and design, optimising content for keywords, site structure and much more.

We’ve covered some of this already but to stress the point again, one of the most important aspects of SEO is keyword research and content, because this helps to determine how relevant your site is to users and search engines. The part not covered in detail is how to carry out keyword optimisation. This is an article in its own right, but it is important to state that the most important elements (in priority order) to consider when optimising each page of your site for keywords are as follows:

Meta title, also known as your page title
Page URL or address
H1 or Page Title
Other heading tags (H2, H3, etc)
Page content, including text, internal links and image ALT tags
Meta description

It is widely recognised that if your website is not well organised or contains very little relevant information, then your search engine ranking will suffer. Therefore, when you create or update your website, you need to ensure that it is easy to navigate, contains enough relevant information and it engages the user.

If your website fails to meet these basic criteria, you’re your Google rankings will struggle.

There are also various other more technical optimisation techniques that will be covered further below, including good UX design, site speed and applying structured data. Some of these can provide the greatest SEO quick wins when implemented correctly.

📌 Top Tip – there’s no need to add the meta keywords tag. Do the keyword research and then try to write the content as naturally as possible, not forgetting to structure the content correctly into sections separated by sub-headings.

Focus on good UX and site speed

It is also possible to improve your Google ranking by having a good web design and providing visitors with a great User Experience (UX). Part of having a good UX means having a well-designed site structure and easy-to-use navigation as covered above.

Next to this, our top five recommendations for a good UX include:

Having a mobile-friendly responsive design so that your site loads well on different devices and screen resolutions
Adding clear calls to action throughout your site to make it easy for users to find what they need
Ensuring simplicity – often the best website designs are the simplest
Having a site which has been optimised for speed using tools and loads quickly
Security – ensure your site is loaded from a secure “HTTPS” URL which uses an SSL certificate. SSL certificates are freely available through the Let’s Encrypt initiative and you should be able to set this up fairly easily via your web host.

Based on our experience with SEO over the years, site speed is probably the fastest and most effective SEO quick win that you can undertake.

Why speed and page load times are an important factor in improving Google ranking

Having an efficient, fast-loading website will benefit you both as a business owner and your users.

Google understands that a slow website which leaves the user hanging provides a poor UX, and frustration and they are unlikely to come back. This can result in them leaving your website. It is important to keep in mind that users are impatient and want what they want right away.

They do not want to wait for your page to load. Worse, if they can’t access a page, they may turn their frustration into a complaint. On the other hand, having a fast-loading website removes this issue and is often rewarded by Google. Some of the quickest SEO improvements we have seen have come about by getting this part right.

In the fiercely competitive world of eCommerce, poor page load times can create another issue. Users are looking for the best deals and often have the same product open from various websites. Having a site which loads quickly and provides the latest pricing information is essential.

Some useful tools for evaluating site speed are listed here:

Website speed and SEO

📌 Top Tip – reducing image/media size and enabling suitable caching solutions are two of the fastest ways to improve site speed. A more expensive solution is to choose a faster hosting supplier and our top recommendation is always to choose Litespeed due to the massive speed benefits over standard Apache Web Servers. For this reason, we have recently launched our own fully managed and super fast LiteSpeed hosting service.

Apply structured data and take advantage of SERP features

We won’t go into detail on technical mark-up as we’ve covered structured data here:

Structured Data (Rich Snippets)

However, doing this correctly can help you to take advantage of SERP features.

The list here is growing all of the time, but suffice to say, long gone is the time when only your website content or paid ads dominated the search results pages. Now we have SERP features in Google such as:

Google Ads / Sponsored Results
Related Questions (also called Answer Box Results or ABRs)
Featured Snippets
Local Pack (Google Maps & Business listings)
Image and Video Packs
Knowledge Panel
News Results
Shopping Results
Events Results
Recipes
Related Searches
And more…

We’ve covered what Featured Snippets are here:

Featured Snippets (Google Questions)

Another point worth commenting on is Google’s ‘Knowledge Panel’ as this allows you to showcase information about your business or brand, including reviews.

The Knowledge Panel will pull information about your business from various different sources and it provides an excellent way to spread the word about your business, especially if you are selling online. People love to see reviews on your business and will want to read what others think about it.

Take advantage of SERP features like Google’s Knowledge Panel

As you can imagine, these SERP features like these are taking up an ever-growing amount of Google real-estate space and it’s essential to take advantage of this in order to gain visibility and clicks via Google.

📌 Top Tip – install a suitable structured data plugin on your website and configure this for your business. Don’t forget to create or enhance your Google My Business listing.

Optimise your Google Business listing

Following on very closely from above is Google Business. Google Business, previously Google My Business (GMB) is a tool which allows anyone to post their company details so that they have a unique presence within the SERP results and Google Maps for local or brand-related searches.

There are many SEO benefits in using Google Business and it’s one of our most effective SEO quick wins given it’s so simple to set up and works as soon as your listing is approved.

For those who do not know, it’s a free service to help Google users locate your business across search, Google Maps and more.

Google Business displays information such as:

Business name and description
Logo, images and maps
Contact details and web address
Pricing information
Opening hours
Reviews
Questions and answers relating to your business
Updates and posts from your business
Appointment booking

You can also gain insights when logging into your GMB account about clicks and engagement.

Content-rich Google Business listing for Opace

This can present a huge opportunity to attract visibility and generate traffic over and above what your organic website rankings will provide.

Here we have provided various tips covering how to optimise your Google Business listing:

Google My Business – Optimisation

However, the ability to promote your business doesn’t end there. In the past, Google released Google+ (Google Plus) as its social network. This was closely aligned with Google Business but has now been discontinued. However, Google Business profiles still provide a form of social networking, allowing posting and sharing content similar to the basic features of platforms like Facebook and X such as:

Post and share content (messages, links, pictures and videos)
Ask and reply to each other’s questions
Receive direct messages from users
Post special offers
Gain followers who would like to receive notifications

This often unknown or under-utilised feature provides a great way of driving more local business and enhancing engagement with potential users or customers.

Google Business is so easy to use and is an excellent tool for promoting your business, no matter what type of business you’re in.

📌 Top Tip – build your keyword research into your Google Business account when describing what you do (make use of the title and description fields). Ensure you keep your profile up-to-date and regularly post new content.

Engage potential users and promote your site

As well as designing, building and optimising a great website, you will need to promote it to potential new users.

While all of the above points provide relative SEO quick wins, the last part of the puzzle is the more time-intensive and expensive part.

Promoting your website, can’t be done as a one-off activity, it’s an ongoing process that requires correct planning and resourcing. It also doesn’t yield results as quickly as the other activities but it’s still an essential component in attracting new users and building authority online.

There are so many different ways you can promote your site, but selecting the right method of marketing or advertising always depends on the objective.

For example, if the goal is sales then the method may be different from that of generating traffic and would almost certainly be very different to that of generating engagement or buzz.

Promote your site with targeted marketing strategies

Here we cover push and pull marketing strategies:

Push & Pull Marketing

In a nutshell, Push marketing places your business in front of users when they are not actively looking. One of the best and most effective examples of Push marketing is Facebook advertising. By creating well-designed and targeted ads you can quickly get in front of potential users, attract their attention and push them towards your website.

Another popular choice is sending out email newsletters to people who are connected to your target market and may be interested in your business. Newsletter marketing can be effective as it gives them a way to find out more about the products and services that you provide, as well as providing valuable information about you and what you are selling, so they can feel a connection with you.

The other option is Pull marketing which allows you to entice a user who is actively looking for your website. Popular examples of Pull marketing include SEO (organic) and Pay Per Click or PPC (sponsored) advertising.

For a detailed comparison of the two, please see our SEO vs PPC guide here:

PPC vs SEO

You can also consider remarketing as a means to use PPC to remind previous visitors about your website and attract them back again. This is a great way to reinforce sales messages and make sure your business is not forgotten.

PR and social media are two of the more unusual examples as they both fall somewhere between Push and Pull depending on how it’s used.

With digital PR and social media marketing, business owners generally want to grow brand visibility and interact with followers (often existing customers or potential users), rather than generate sales. That said there are case studies that show where social media has been used as an excellent tool for generating sales.

For a wealth of information on social media platforms and uses, please see our guide on using social media for B2B marketing:

Social Media for Business: Is This an Effective B2B and B2C Marketing Tool?

Generally considered part of SEO (or link building), but social media to some degree, is blogging and content marketing.

This method of marketing can be effective in a number of different ways:

establishing you as an authority on your subject matter, also known as Topical Authority
promoting your business to unknown users or potential customers using online PR or blog outreach strategies and building links back to your site
attracting more users/visitors by publishing new keywords and content
keeping your site up-to-date and fresh with relevant content
providing new and interesting things to say and share on social media

For those interested, here you can find a detailed link building guide, which covers all of the various strategies involved in earning high-value backlinks.

Backlink Your Way to SEO Success: An Up-To-Date Link Building Guide [UPDATED]

There are many advantages to digital marketing so if you want a targeted, fast and cost-effective method to promote your business or to increase engagement with users, make sure you take it seriously.

Digital Marketing

📌 Top Tip – this is a large area and too much to cover here, so make sure you plan for this separately and allocate a reasonable amount of time and budget to make it work.

Deliver continual improvements and consistency

It may sound obvious but don’t forget to track your efforts and measure the success of your SEO and digital marketing on an ongoing basis.

Sadly, the process of improving your Google rankings is a never-ending one and needs continual improvement especially as algorithms change, new search features are introduced and competitors try to get ahead.

The good news is that tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console help a lot! For more useful SEO quick wins using these tools, read below:

From UA to GA4, Top Google Analytics Tips to Measure SEO Results [UPDATED]

And for some AI-powered insights, make sure you visit our ChatGPT guides below:

SEO Analysis Using ChatGPT Google Analytics Data Exports (Advanced ChatGPT Analytics)

How to use ChatGPT with Google Search Console CSV Data to Uncover SEO Analytics & Hidden Insights

Creating an SEO plan and then forgetting about it is probably the most common and understated error you can make.

Once you have published your keyword-researched content and your site is optimised, you will need to keep checking how well your work is performing.

The trick is to monitor, continue to change, enhance and even potentially remove work you’ve done based on the results. Refreshing previous content is an excellent strategy to drive further improvements, especially as your content starts to disappear in Google’s search results and needs a new lease of life.

Consistency is also key. Delivering an SEO plan and then walking away will only mean that your competition will seize the opportunity to overtake your efforts. As well as revisiting old plans, it’s important to deliver continual improvement by adding new keywords, content and SEO strategies over time.

Consistency is key to delivering continual improvement

Luckily, with the EU regulations, search engines like Google and Bing are required to provide greater transparency around how they rank content.

As the world continues to change and adapt, businesses need to find ways to enhance their SEO and remain competitive. Therefore, businesses must stay on top of their game and remain consistent when it comes to their SEO practices.

📌 Top Tip – make sure you take advantage of Google Analytics and Search Console when analysing and measuring the success of your SEO efforts. Research rank tracking tools as these will become invaluable when measuring how well your keywords are ranking in Google.

Final thoughts

These are just some of the tips and SEO quick wins we’ve identified over the years to help improve your Google ranking.

There are many more things you can do in order to get ahead in SEO, but it all begins with assessing where you are within the SEO journey and selecting the best methods to help you along the way. That said, by following the SEO tips covered in this guide, you can expect to see a dramatic improvement in your SEO and digital marketing.

As a small business or perhaps even a one-man band, you will need to consider what resources you have available and the time you can spare.

A strong online presence is what you need in order to be successful in business and we hope these SEO quick wins will go a long way to helping you achieve this. It’s always possible to make time for SEO, but don’t forget there are SEO agencies out there like Opace, freelancers, marketers and SEO tools to help assist you.

While these methods can be a little more expensive than trying to do everything on your own, the additional support often pays off in the long run.

Best of luck!

Video Marketing Suggestions for YouTube

Scott C — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 09:32:43 +0000

Reading Time: 9 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: September 3, 2024

How to Carry out Effective Video Marketing on YouTube

Editor’s Note: We wanted to revisit this blog for those looking to start utilising YouTube and video into 2020. The original content is still as relevant as it was when it was first published, so you can find the original blog below. We hope after reading through this post you will have a better understanding of how to achieve success with your video marketing efforts on YouTube and stand out from your competitors.

YouTube offers some very rewarding SEO benefits as well as reaching a huge audience. Do you know how to carry out the most effective video marketing?

2018 was a big year for the Google owned online video sharing company, YouTube, when it was reported that the social platform was growing at a rate almost twice as fast as Facebook.

With around 1.8 billion users logging in on a monthly basis, this video-sharing community is now the second largest social media site in the world. Not only does it offer some amazing opportunities to reach new audiences but an effective strategy of video marketing on YouTube can also increase social signals on other platforms, improve search rankings and engage your existing customer base.

So, what are the ingredients for effective video marketing on YouTube?

What to Configure on YouTube?

As with any strategy, the key stages of successful video marketing on YouTube are self-evident and apply to any digital marketing campaign, irrespective of the platform, namely:

Set your goals
Research your audience
Research your subject
Create exciting and shareable content
Cross promote your material
Include Calls-to-Action
Measure success

Set Your Goals

Firstly, you need to know what you trying to achieve before you can ever hope to achieve it. Sounds like useless advice along the lines of not teaching grandmothers to suck eggs, right? Well, you’d be surprised at how many people jump into web video creation projects without a clear idea of what it is they want.

Decide up front whether your aims are about increasing traffic to your website, improving your conversion rates or driving brand awareness. Set down your current position and make sure you have a measurable benchmark against which you can compare the success of your video marketing campaign.

Decide what you want to achieve through your video marketing on YouTube before you plan your content.

Research Your Audience

Before you create any digital content, whether this is a blog, news article or simple message on social media, it is imperative that you understand your audience. Knowing what it is that they want to learn about or what entertains them will inform the kind of video marketing on YouTube that you should be creating.

You can use some tools to help you achieve this and YouTube competitor analysis is included in a lot of the main social media monitoring applications. Social Insider is one but others include:

Vaizle also offers a basic tool for free which can help you compare your own YouTube channel with that of your competition.

Research Your Subject

Once you know what kind of content you are creating and the angle you want to take now is the time to do some keyword research. All videos uploaded to YouTube need to have relevant keywords to help users find the video. Some clever keyword selection can help you maximise on any trending topics whilst accurately describing the video’s content.

Create Exciting And Shareable Content

Now comes the exciting part, creating your video.

Creativity and originality are two key ingredients for designing your video marketing campaign.

The style and format of your video will largely be defined by your brand image and a consistent approach to this is recommended.

However, the five key ingredients to any successful video on YouTube are the same (irrespective of the message), which means that your content should be:

Useful
Entertaining
Engaging
Valuable
Relevant

‘How-To’ videos are particularly successful on YouTube and addressing common questions that your customers may have but in a creative way might provide you with highly shareable content.

Don’t forget to make sure that you choose a high-quality image as your thumbnail. All audiences judge a clip by its preview graphic so it should be clear, enticing and relevant to the content.

Cross Promote Your Material

It goes without saying that promoting your video is key to the success and can make the difference between a video that reaches a smaller audience and one that ‘goes viral’.

Yes, anyone who produces a web video strives to achieve the ‘Holy Grail’ of exponential shareability but this can only ever be achieved if you actively cross promote your content on other social media platforms.

You can do this on your own pages but don’t forget the importance of other YouTubers who can do this for you, and sometimes far more effectively. Just like blogger outreach can help your written content perform better, by networking (or collaborating) with influential YouTubers you could help guarantee your content to achieve more mileage.

Include Calls-To-Action

YouTube allows you to include annotations and cards which are clickable links that can be inserted (or overlaid) into your video. Coupled with the traditional method of finishing off your video with a Call-To-Action and ensuring the notes beneath the video have all of your contact information, you will be able to drive your audience to your website or social media accounts for more information.

Likewise, if you are simply looking to grow your channel then don’t forget to ask people to subscribe to your account. Quite simply, if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

All marketing campaigns need to be measurable to determine their success.

Measure Success

Lastly, it is important that you monitor the performance of your campaign by using analytics. Depending on the goals that you initially set at the beginning of the project, you can measure this success via YouTube’s own analytics or via Google Analytics.

Remember that video marketing on YouTube is not a ‘set-and-forget’ method and the beauty of digital media marketing is that you can tweak as you go. By regular monitoring you can adapt aspects of your video to see what is working well and what isn’t.

Editor’s Note: Update below as of November 2019

—– Our 2019 and into 2020 Update on YouTube video marketing —

In 2019 and heading into 2020, it’s not enough anymore to just fit the basic criteria and follow a bullet-pointed list of ‘things to include’ in marketing material, particularly when it comes to video.

It’s such an over-saturated and competitive area that your content needs to really stand out and be unique while still being informative if you want your video marketing campaign to be a success. If you’re looking to create something successful and even potentially viral, then you need to really think outside the box to stand out from those that think within it.

If we look at the video marketing successes of recent years, we see that many stand out by being quirky and unconventional in their approach. I’ve written previously about how Blendtec started blending the latest smartphones to show how durable and strong their product was. This channel has been popular for over a decade by continuing to stick to their own formula/brand of marketing and being sure to use other ‘trending’ products to feature alongside their own in order to capture a secondary audience.

We’ve seen other slightly different examples such as the Hydraulic Press Channel where a viral video was created first via a wacky idea and later developed into a full brand branching out into other areas like a video games and merchandise.

Brainstorming video ideas

There are many ways that you can start to brainstorm some ideas following a similar route from the previously mentioned viral videos. There are many ways you could go with this but If, for example, you make protective cases for smartphones, think of how to put them through an extreme test that the average user would never encounter. Dropping the cases from an extreme height or attempting to smash them to pieces using unconventional methods – as long as you have confidence in your product and it’s of a high quality it’s definitely recommended to experiment with quirky unique ways to show your audience just how good your product is. Many business owners might think this undermines the product or gives an unprofessional image but it’s simply not the case – marketing has evolved and so have audiences that will be buying your products or services.

Video can be a great way to generally engage with your audience and customers. We’re starting to see a lot of businesses utilising other social networks and then concluding with video per campaign. For example, many businesses would encourage user questions to be submitted via Twitter (even with the inclusion of Twitter polls) and then create a video when the results are in. The video would be used to answer questions in a ‘live’ type of setting and if questions were asked about a product, demonstrating / carrying out a task that the users enquired about. It’s a more effective way of engaging with your customers via visual content that is user-submitted.

Creating Micro-Video Variants

Additionally, once you have a solid idea to base your campaign around, you can make a micro variant of the content either by taking a snippet from your main video or alternatively making an entirely separate video with the idea of making it suitable for tiktok and Instagram.

This really isn’t as time consuming as you might think as you can simply export a condensed version of the video whilst editing your main YouTube video. It’s an easy way to cover additional bases as some of your audience will prefer shorter duration video content that can be viewed on 3G/4G with minimal data usage – most people won’t want to load a full YouTube video on their mobile phones if connected to a cellular network too.

Although we have seen many variations and attempts at creating micro video hosting platforms, micro video is here to stay and is worth your time. Through Vine (Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and more recently TikTok we are seeing short sub 10 second videos generating millions of views in a very short amount of time if utilised correctly and are becoming more widespread the last few years.

Micro Video Sites like TikTok are here to stay (video screen capped from TikTok.com

When it comes to separate ideas for micro video, there are tons of ways you could utilise the network to really showcase your product or services. For example, if you are a cosmetics and make-up company, you could create time-lapsed sped up videos of the before and after shots of your make-up. Not everybody is going to want to watch a video like that in real-time so this is where micro video and time-lapsed content can really shine for you. That is just the first example that came to me while writing but I’m sure you can see the potential here to really trim the fat from your content and get straight to the point increasing the chances of keeping your audience engaged.

In addition to being a great addition to your current marketing efforts, video and micro video can be utilised to compliment your other content such as articles, blogs and general social media announcements. It has been said that viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text, so it makes sense to cover all bases in addition to enhancing your content via the use of video and visual content.

Live videos and streaming

We have also seen a huge increase in the amount of people utilising Facebook video and Facebook Live Video. This opens the possibility of live-streaming your presentations or events for those that can’t make it to see you in person – ideal for businesses with an international customer base. There are of course many other usage scenarios for Facebook videos and you are only limited by your creativity and ideas so get some ideas down, even throw a brief draft together and share it with your team the next time you have a marketing meeting – combining ideas from multiple angles will nearly always enhance the appeal and success of your videos.

Editor’s Note: Our original post is listed above. We hope you find the tips and information provided to be useful when it comes to creating engaging video for your business, product or service. If you found the article interesting, be sure not to miss out our recent blog post on the uncertain future of YouTube,

Opace & Video Marketing on YouTube

Opace is a forward-thinking digital design agency that offers a range of services designed to help clients achieve the maximum online visibility. As well as web video creation, we also provide a diverse selection of marketing methods including social media management which includes YouTube.

To find out more about video marketing on YouTube for your business, call to speak to one of our team today.

Image credits: kreatikar/Pixabay, kaufdex/Pixabay, geralt/Pixabay and typographyimages/Pixabay.

WordPress Basics for Beginners

Scott C — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 14:00:09 +0000

Reading Time: 8 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: October 7, 2024

WordPress Basics for Beginners in 2019 and Beyond

Editor’s Note: We wanted to revisit our WordPress Basics for Beginners guide and expand on it as we are approaching 2020. Our original post was created in earlier in the year so we wanted to take another look at the topic and give WordPress users new answers to some frequently asked questions.

What exactly is WordPress and what is a Content Management System?

Gone are the days when WordPress was just a simple blogging platform, it has constantly reinvented itself over the years to a point where there’s really nothing that WordPress can’t do.

WordPress can now be thought of as a modern and powerful platform that you can utilise to manage your website and your content in a very simple intuitive and creative way. Content Management Systems (also know as CMS platforms) are exactly that – there are two big ones that we use here at Opace, Joomla, WordPress and Umbraco. They all do similar things but in different ways and sometimes using slightly different technologies.

WordPress somewhat removes the requirement of being a coder in order to make a website and manage it on an ongoing basis. Although WordPress utilises the PHP programming language to shift data around to different sections of your website, with the advent of the Gutenberg update for WordPress it’s now all done through a very easy to use drag and drop style user-interface.

Out of the box WordPress comes with basic settings allowing you to moderate comments, posts (blogs), pages, basic appearance settings and just about everything you’d need to get started – especially with the infinite possibilities that are offered by the plugins section.

A Content Management System like WordPress is installed onto your webspace or hosting account and installed similarly to how a regular software application would be installed on a PC. The old method where users needed to upload individual HTML webs pages via FTP in order to create a website are long in the past. These days, you very rarely have to use an FTP as most of the site’s updates, content and settings can be managed via the CMS directly.

Photo by Web Hosting on Unsplash – ‘’WordPress has grown to be a powerful platform’’

Getting the Most Out of WordPress While Knowing Very Little

WordPress is frequently chosen because to newcomers, it isn’t that daunting when it comes to getting great complex websites created by simply using the visual tools that come with the CMS by default. Even installing the CMS is very step-by-step and beginner friendly asking you for information that is provided to you by your host so that it can automate the installation process to your domain.

We often recommend to clients that they install themes and plugins like Divi and Elementor, as tools like these takes the ‘drag and drop’ method to a whole new level and allow very specific changes to take place to the website without having to edit CSS or any coding at all. They are both drag and drop type interfaces that allow for some very powerful and slick features to be added to your website with very little knowledge required which is ideal for beginners or none-coders

For more information about plugins and which ones to try out for newcomers, check out our plugin section listed later on in the article which lists a few great ones to get things started.

How to Know if WordPress is for You

You may be wondering ‘how do I know if WordPress is for me and what I want to achieve with my website?’. It’s a sensible question but WordPress is so versatile and flexible that it’s ‘jack of all trades’ while also being the master of nearly all of them.

From corporate sites to large e-commerce websites, WordPress ticks all the boxes whether you just want a simple personal website or something much more complex that is able to scale as your requirements and user-base grow.

This is made possible by the sheer number of high-rated plugins available (some of which are free to use) which are constantly expanding what WordPress is able to do. If you can think of a useful feature, chances are someone has made a plugin for it that extends the functionality of WordPress to be able to do more things.

Will I Need to Know How to Code at All?

This question comes up a lot when it comes to WordPress and CMS platforms in general. The answer to the question is highly dependant on what you are trying to achieve. As a rule of thumb, before setting out to get anything set up as a functioning website you should familiarise yourself with basic HTML and CSS in order to not encounter roadblocks that can be easily overcome by understanding the basics.

With that being said, WordPress in particular is so user-friendly and intuitive these days with its powerful tools that you will rarely need to edit anything when it comes to code. If you want something very specific, then you may need to edit code and of course if you are creating your own plugins and functionality you will need to be a coder. Aside from that though, for the most part you shouldn’t worry and should just get stuck in and see for yourself just how easy it is to create and maintain a website in WordPress.

What About Hidden Fees and Cost?

WordPress and many other CMS are completely free to use and install. Obviously when it comes to fees, you will have to pay for your hosting and domain registration but the actual CMS itself is free to use.

You may encounter certain plugins which extend the functionality of WordPress that require purchasing but these are rare as a lot of great powerful plugins are free to install.

If you wish to pay for a WordPress specialist to install, set up and design your website, that would of course incur a cost. However, if you are looking to get started on your own, you won’t have to spend anything other than your domain and hosting fees.

Editor’s Note: Our original post was created earlier in 2019. Here we take another look at the topic and add a few additional thoughts on the subject for those looking to get started with WordPress.

— Our original ‘WordPress Basics for Beginners in 2019 and Beyond’ guide —

If you are just getting started with WordPress then find out more about the basics in this brief overview.

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems in the world and hosts almost one in three active websites on the internet. From its origins as a pure blogging platform in 2003, WordPress now offers a sophisticated, but user-friendly, way for people to create and manage websites and their content.

In this feature, we take a look at some of the basics of using WordPress for beginners including pages, posts and plugins.

WordPress Hosting

There are plenty of companies that offer WordPress hosting, some of which we have used and can confidently recommend are Guru, tsoHost and Simple Servers. In our experience, LiteSpeed hosting is always preferable for performance reasons and we would normally recommend a dedicated or virtual dedicated hosting option over shared for enhanced security. The other option is to register directly with WordPress.com or WordPress.org; the former is the company’s own hosting platform whilst the latter simply allows you to download the software and install this to your own servers.

The choice of how you want to host your site and whether you want this to be managed will come down to factors such as security, cost and time.

The benefits of having a managed WordPress site mean that the host company will automatically update software for your website and provide you with reports when there are things that need addressing. However, managed hosting doesn’t always give you the same degree of flexibility or security that self-hosting can provide.

The Dashboard

All WordPress sites, no matter how or where they are hosted all share a common dashboard.

When you first log in, this screen gives you an at-a-glance overview of all the pages, posts and plugins on your website along with important information settings, tools and users.

This is where you will manage comments and other interactions as well as publish your site’s content, manage the media library and undertake important maintenance such as updating plugins and themes.

All WordPress sites share a common dashboard design.

WordPress Themes

As an open source content management system, WordPress has plenty of templates that are free to use to quickly and simply design a website.

This makes it an ideal platform for users who have no experience of programming and just want to create a stylish and functional website that offers good SEO management and flexible ways to publish content.

Themes can be changed even once you have started publishing content and most of these will dynamically convert your existing site to the style of your new theme.

Posts vs Pages

As WordPress started life as a blogging platform, some of the same nomenclature has been inherited in the site’s structure.

Pages

Pages, quite simply are the permanent parts of your website that largely will remain static e.g. your home page, your contacts page or a page which tells visitors more about your company.

Pages can be tiered so that sub-pages can be found through a parent page. For example, you may have a page called ‘Products’ and under this you could have pages that are sub-categories such as ‘Furniture’, ‘Electricals’ ‘Beauty’ etc. Beneath this, you could further diversify your pages.

Publishing new, or updating, old content is easy with pages and posts.

Posts

On the other hand, posts are treated like news or blog updates and are usually published to one specific page (usually called ‘Blog’ or ‘News’) in chronological order.

Although a summary of each post may appear one specific page, it is important to note that they are treated as individual pages when it comes to search engine results. In fact, each page will have its own URL address.

Menus, Headers & Sidebars

Your pages can be supplemented either by page or universally across the design of your site with fixed navigation and information panes.

Menus, often displayed at the top and/or bottom of a page, allow users to switch between pages.

Headers and sidebars can serve a number of functions from displaying contact details, search tools or advertising banners to offering ways to share the site content across Social Media.

WordPress Plugins

Another benefit of being an open source system means that WordPress has an active community of designers, programmers and companies who have produced useful tools that can be bolted on to your website and which deliver specific functionality.

WordPress plugins give your site functionality and flexibility without having to be an expert coder.

These are called plugins and range from those that offer contact forms (e.g. MailMunch) and image sliders (e.g. Soliloquy) to security enhancements (e.g. All In One WP Security & Firewall), speed optimisation (e.g. W3 Total Cache) and SEO management (e.g. Yoast).

WordPress has over 50,000 plugins available to be used with its software and each comes with a user review rating to help you decide whether they are suitable. WordPress even tells you before you install and activate a plugin whether it is compatible with the theme you are running.

Opace & WordPress

Opace is an innovative web design agency based in Birmingham that has experience in providing clients with creative and responsive WordPress sites. As well as offering full design services, we can also fully manage everything from security updates and theme upgrades to the creation, publication and marketing of content.

To find out more about how we can help you build a WordPress site to meet your business needs or train you with the skills to manage your own, contact us today.

Image Credits: formstellar_de/Pixabay, Amit Agarwal/Flickr, pxhere and MaxPixel.

eCommerce Comparison

Scott C — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 15:25:46 +0000

Reading Time: 6 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: October 3, 2024

eCommerce Comparison – WooCommerce vs Magento Open Source

If you are trying to reach a decision which eCommerce platform to choose then your research will probably have led you to the ultimate choice; WooCommerce vs Magento.

Both are immensely powerful solutions for creating flexible, easy-to-use and responsive online stores, there is little to separate these two powerhouses of the open source eCommerce world…. but we’re going to try.

WooCommerce vs Magento: The Basics

Both WooCommerce and Magento are open source eCommerce platforms which allow you to create an online shopfront which can take orders, manage payments and provide additional features such as:

Inventory management
Email marketing and lead generation
Shipping services integration
Live Chat customer support
Testimonials and product reviews
Google Analytics
SEO

WooCommerce is designed for use with WordPress whereas Magento is a self-hosted platform. Both can be customised using a huge range of templates and themes and are well-supported by a global network of developers and designers.

Between them, they occupy the top two spots in terms of market share for global eCommerce platforms and, according to builtwith, power over half a millions stores worldwide.

So, how can you separate these two big hitters?

Ecommerce Platforms Popularity, May 2015: Two Platforms Take Half

Ease of Use: WooCommerce vs Magento

If you are just starting out with your eCommerce site then it is unlikely you a technical wizard with programming. You will probably be looking at implementing a platform that is relatively straight forward to manage on an ongoing basis, even if you commission a developer to initially design the base site for you.

Even the most technically proficient bods prefer to use a system that is easy to manage rather than a complex one that can take to implement even the simplest of tweaks.

So, which platform is the easiest to use?

Ease of Use: WooCommerce

WooCommerce is relatively easy to use, particularly if you already have experience of working with WordPress. If you don’t then the learning curve for using both platforms will be a little steep.

Installing the software to work within WordPress is straightforward but if you opt for a specialist hosting provider then they will often do this for you. WooCommerce has a handy wizard that will take you through the setup process which includes setting up your products, creating pages and getting the basics of currency, payments, shipping and tax in order.

Additional plugins and extensions to add features to your site are very easy to install and each comes with their own walk-throughs and support mechanisms directly from the developers who created them.

Ease of Use: Magento

By contrast, Magento takes a little more of an advanced approach to both set-up and ongoing management. In fact, the software is geared far more to developers than to end-users.

There is no doubt that the platform presents a far steeper learning curve in order to get started than with WooCommerce and you will need to learn some basics before moving on to customisation and installing extensions. There are help files available but, again, most of these are tech-centric and not intended for entry-level users.

So, whilst there are some exceptionally powerful features to Magento, accessing them and setting them up is not for the faint-hearted.

Flexibility and Adaptability: WooCommerce vs Magento

Both WooCommerce and Magento comes with a lot of built-in features but to truly unleash the power of what these two eCommerce platforms can deliver you will need to incorporate some third-party extensions, plugins and tools.

Both WooCommerce and Magento have a great selection of additional plugins including many that are free and thousands that aren’t. Ultimately WooCommerce (as part of the WordPress stable) has access to more of these plugins yet Magento, built from the ground up as a dedicated eCommerce solution has, arguably, some of the most powerful.

Scalability: WooCommerce vs Magento

If you are just starting out with your eCommerce ambitions, it can be a heady thought to imagine a stage when traffic spikes are a problem your online store may have to deal with. However, future-proofing your investment in an eCommerce site is essential to consider at the development stage to save you time and money later on.

Both WooCommerce and Magento are more than capable of providing scalability and both already power some very large online stores. With both platforms you will need to consider the peripheral aspects of where you are hosting your site, how secure these are and what kinds of firewalls and DDOS protection is provided. You will need to consider how backups are managed and how you can optimise your store for caching as well as other technical challenges. All of these things can be scaled well with Magento but do come with additional costs.

The same is true of stores built using WooCommerce and along with scalability comes a commensurate rise in other costs.

Price: WooCommerce vs Magento

Price is an important factor to consider when setting up an eCommerce site, particularly as a startup when budgets are a huge influence in decision making. When looking at the costs associated with WooCommerce vs Magento, you need to bear in mind the initial set-up fees, design costs and monthly costs for hosting plus ongoing fees for add-ons and any other services you need.

Costs: WooCommerce

Built to run with WordPress, WooCommerce is available to use for free so, as long as you have a domain and WordPress hosting account then, there is no cost to the software at all.

If you don’t already have a domain name and a hosting service then there are some specialist WooCommerce hosting companies that offer full services from under £10 per month. However, this is only to host your domain and does not include any site development costs.

As far as extensions, plugins and themes go, the WooCommerce community has stepped up to the plate and there are thousands of free services and products to use that are ready to go.

Costs: Magento

By contrast to WooCommerce, Magento is a self-hosted platform that is available to host yourself or comes complete with cloud hosting via a paid plan with Magento. The cost of the plans vary depending on the size of your business and ranges from Small Business to Mid-market and Enterprise editions; this means the license is revenue-based.

Each package comes with varying levels of features and includes full support direct from Magento. None of the options of paying for a license with Magento are cheap and can cost from £350 per month. You can access the community edition of Magento for free but you will need to host the core software somewhere. This means paying for this service directly with a hosting provider.

On top of this, you will also need to factor in the costs of any add-ons and extensions that you wish to run, each of which are priced individually.

Lastly, if you use a developer to help you build your Magento site then this should be added along with any ongoing monthly management costs.

WooCommerce vs Magento: Summary

When it comes to price and ease of use, WooCommerce just about wins the battle. Both hosting and ongoing running costs are more affordable (and readily available) than those for Magento plus, the platform is exceptionally easy to use.

This is particularly true if you are already using WordPress and users will feel comfortable using this simple bolt-on software. Offering a good degree of scalability, WooCommerce is therefore seen as a good choice for small businesses and start-ups.

However, Magento, with its ultimate scalability and powerful features is seen to be more suited to medium-sized and larger businesses, particularly if they already use a developer or in-house team to take responsibility for their online store.

Opace and eCommerce Solutions & Services

Opace is a specialist digital agency that has extensive experience in providing some of the slickest, quickest and most stylish eCommerce website designs around.

Combining creative and technical knowledge with business acumen, we deliver good-looking online stores that are memorable as well as being functional and secure. Not only that but our core service delivery is in marketing and SEO services so we can not only deliver the store, we can help deliver the customers too.

To find our more about our eCommerce solutions and digital marketing services, contact us today.

Bulk Redirects

Scott C — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 09:23:15 +0000

Reading Time: 5 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: July 7, 2021

How to Add Bulk Redirects in WordPress – htaccess vs a Redirects Plugin

WordPress plugins can make bulk redirects an easy task but using the htaccess file is more efficient.

Redirects are an essential way to avoid losing vital link juice needed for SEO and to ensure that visitors to your website continue to be able to find the right pages.

Bulk redirects in WordPress can be achieved easily via two methods; one for those people who have some technical confidence and one for those who prefer to keep things simple.

What is a Redirect?

Also known as URL forwarding, a redirect is a method for making a page of your website accessible through more than one URL address. It is an automatic technique used to ensure that traffic attempting to reach a page via an old URL or different link can still do so. This can occur if you change the name of your page, move your domain or create a new website.

Redirects are important to ensure SEO continuity as out of date links that exist across search engine results may no longer be valid without a redirect. As a result, your ‘new’ page will have to start from scratch when it comes to building authority and you could be losing out on that all-important link juice that you’ve built up.

How to Add Bulk Redirects in WordPress

Adding bulk redirects in WordPress is easy and can be done in one of two ways; either using a plugin or via the .htaccess file.

WordPress has some easy to use redirect plugins which automate the process.

Bulk Redirects in WordPress Using a Redirects Plugin

As an open source platform, WordPress users have access to thousands of plugins that extend the features of your base website with modular add-on services. There are quite a few developers who have produced redirection plugins including the popular ‘Redirection’ tool created by John Godley. Redirection has over a million installs worldwide and has a good reputation for the ease of its service as well as being simple and offering great compatibility.

Once installed, you will need to create a spreadsheet of all those old URLs that you wish to redirect along with the new pages that you want to point traffic to.

The first column of this spreadsheet should contain the address of the original page without the domain name and protocol. For example, if you were redirecting the URL then you would only need to insert the address as /historic-pages/.

The second column should have your new (or target) URL in the same format (i.e. without the protocol and domain name).

Save your spreadsheet as a .csv file and head over to your WordPress plugin. The Redirection module has an import/export tab where you can now upload the spreadsheet that you have just created.

Once uploaded, you should receive a message saying that this has been successful and, that’s it, your URLs should now be redirected.

It’s worth testing a sample of these to make sure that they are being applied correctly and, if there are any errors, go back and check your original file for any spelling errors. Failing this, you may need to utilise the htaccess file method (see below).

Whichever plugin you use, the benefits of using these automated services are that they are easier for non-technical users to manipulate and are therefore simpler and faster. However, the resulting redirection process is slightly more drawn-out when it comes to the way search engines use this information to redirect your pages. This means that page loading times can be affected which, ultimately may affect your SEO in a negative way…albeit marginally.

Bulk Redirects in WordPress Using htaccess

By contrast with the plugin method, using the htaccess file is a little more complicated and requires some technical knowledge but produces a much faster redirect for search engines.

To start with, you will need to create a similar spreadsheet to the one detailed above; however, you must include the full URL address in column one (old URLs) and column two (target URLs).

Once you have created this list in a spreadsheet, you will need to copy and paste the information into a notepad (or text-only) document in order to remove any formatting. From here, you need to take a copy of this list and paste it into a .htaccess rule generator.

There are lots of these available to use online such as this one by Donat Studios. It’s free to use and is able to handle those bulk redirects in WordPress. The tool will generate the relevant rules that you will need to use for your .htaccess file and you should make a copy of the results.

Next, you will need to locate your .htaccess file for your WordPress site, download it and open it up ready for an edit. Some plugins, such as Yoast SEO, actually let you edit the .htaccess file directly in WordPress itself.

At this stage, we would always recommend saving a copy of the original file so you can return it to its current state in the event of any issues resulting from your edits.

Now you are ready to paste your generated rules for redirects directly into the .htaccess file. Once you have uploaded your edited .htaccess file or saved your changes within the FileEditor plugin then you should perform a couple of checks and tests to ensure that these redirects have been implemented correctly.

If there are any issues then you may need to go back to your .htaccess file and look for a line in the file that says ‘RewriteEngine On’ and move your rules directly underneath this piece of code instead. If there is a line that says ‘RewriteEngine Off’ then change this to reflect ON instead of OFF.

Understanding how to add redirects in WordPress is a consideration in SEO but there is a whole lot more to think about. For those interested, here you can find a detailed guide providing our most essential SEO tips to boost your Google ranking, covering aspects ranging from ‘search intent’ to website promotiont.

Opace and WordPress

Opace is an innovative digital design agency that has plenty of experience in working with WordPress. From designing a bespoke website from scratch to managing digital marketing and SEO implementation, we offer technical and creative flair.

To find out why our clients are happy to recommend us, get in touch today.

Image credits: Matt Brown/Flickr, WordPress and Wikimedia Commons.

Digital Marketing vs Direct Marketing [UPDATED]

Scott C — Fri, 05 Jul 2019 14:46:34 +0000

Reading Time: 6 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: December 10, 2024

Pros and Cons of Digital Marketing vs Direct Marketing

Similar but with subtle, and important, differences, do you know what kind of marketing approach gets the best results?

Closely related, but direct and digital marketing are two terms that refer to similar methods of achieving greater brand awareness and delivering more customers, but there are some subtle differences.

We take a quick look at what separates these two techniques and find out some of the benefits that digital marketing has over the more traditional approach of direct marketing.

Editor’s Note [10.12.24]: First written on 5th July 2019 and previously updated on 3rd September 2024, this article has undergone another refresh to incorporate new insights on aligning digital marketing and direct marketing. These additions tie into our latest article on micro-moment marketing, using strategies such as “I want to buy” or “I want to go” and offer a deeper dive into pivotal customer touchpoints. The updated content aims to provide clearer, more actionable advice while remaining relevant in the fast-paced world of marketing.

What is Direct Marketing?

Also known as direct response marketing, direct marketing is a method in which the customer gets communicated with directly.

Usually, this is via targeted television adverts, text messaging, cold-calling or through mailshot promotions.

Advertising agencies can also use traditional print media in newspapers and magazines or physical display advertising such as posters, banners etc.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing refers to the practice of using any form of marketing in which the principal media is digital.

This primarily relates to online marketing using the Internet but can also incorporate mobile phones and other formats.

Digital marketing can take the form of targeted (and direct) marketing through the use of Pay-Per-Click (PPC advertising), geo-targeting for display adverts, and pop-ups.

Digital marketing also covers the very specific methods of capturing traffic through search engine optimisation (SEO), content marketing, and social media.

Digital marketing is a powerful and instantaneous way to reach your audience.

What Makes Digital and Direct Marketing Effective?

Both digital and direct marketing have their own strengths, but success lies in using the right approach for your goals.

Digital marketing thrives on online platforms like social media, search engines, and websites. It enables businesses to connect with target audiences through precise segmentation and tailored messages. Meanwhile, direct marketing relies on more personal approaches, like direct mail campaigns or email marketing, where messages are crafted for specific individuals.

When implemented properly, both direct marketing and digital strategies can drive sales, build brand awareness, and create direct interaction with potential customers. However, digital channels often provide more measurable results, letting businesses track conversion rates and optimise their marketing campaigns accordingly.

Benefits of Digital Marketing over Direct Marketing

Digital marketing offers businesses and organisations a fast and effective way to reach large audiences.

Not only that but the success (or failures) of any digital marketing is far easier to quantify using powerful analytics to accurately measure performance.

Digital marketing not only offers the traditional benefits of increasing brand visibility, generating additional customers and creating loyalty and trust but it can also help you to:

Engage directly with your audience and develop relationships.
Help build credibility within your industry.
Keep your customers informed.
Provide extra value to your customers.

The reporting that comes along with digital marketing is also exceptionally powerful to be able to keep track of your performance with the competition.

Together with other management reporting, these insights can inform critical decisions that could gain you a significant advantage in the marketplace.

Digital Marketing: A Strategy for Success

Delivering a powerful and impactful digital marketing strategy is all about research and planning.

Establish Business Objectives and KPIs

The first thing that your business must do is to identify the objectives you want to achieve and establish some KPIs by which you can monitor the progress of your campaigns.

Collect Existing Customer Data

Next, you will need to take stock of any existing customer data you have on previous campaigns and marketing exercises so you can learn from your successes and avoid making any of the same mistakes again (if there were any!).

Get your message heard by more people using digital marketing.

Identify Needs and Wants (Consider “Micro-Moments”)

Now for the important part; identifying your audience and understanding what they want.

Market analysis is a vital step in achieving the highest levels of success for your digital marketing campaign. Those businesses that remember the customer is at the heart of what they do will fare far better than those that forget this rule.

Understanding customer intent is crucial—whether it’s an “I want to buy” moment or an “I want to go” decision—allows you to tailor your messaging to the specific stage of the customer journey. These micro-moments are critical touchpoints where consumers turn to their marketing channels or digital platforms for quick answers and solutions.

Aligning your marketing strategy with these moments will help to ensure your campaigns resonate with your target audience and lead to immediate action.

Planning and Implementation

Then comes the nitty gritty stage; how much money and time you can commit to your endeavours and where this will be spent.

Forming the meat on the bones of your strategy will take time and potentially specialist knowledge from a digital marketing agency that can support you with tasks such as:

On-Page and Off-Page SEO
Content Marketing
PPC & Paid Advertising
Local & International SEO
PR and Blogger Outreach
Multimedia Marketing such as YouTube videos, Infographics, etc.
Social Media Marketing

Finally, once you have your plan in place, be prepared not to stick to it. One of the key ingredients to success in this field is being adaptive and responsive to change.

The Important Role of Social Media in Marketing Strategies

Social media marketing has become a staple ingredient in online communication. Platforms like Facebook, X, Instagram, and LinkedIn offer unique opportunities for businesses to connect with both B2B and B2C target customers

Unlike traditional communication channels and direct marketing, social media marketing enables direct interaction with prospective clients and allows for real-time feedback which offers advantages over other forms of digital marketing like organic (SEO) and paid search (e.g. Google Ads).

That said, businesses using social media marketing can also benefit from PPC advertising (e.g. Facebook and Instagram ads), content marketing, and viral campaigns.

Strategies such as these are cost-effective and provide access to customer segments that might be harder to reach through traditional marketing efforts.

Does Direct Marketing Still Matter in the Digital Age?

While digital dominates modern marketing strategies, direct marketing campaigns still offer a personal touch that’s hard to replicate online.

Tactics like business cards, brochures, and direct mail can create lasting experiences for customers. These approaches often achieve an immediate response, making them effective for time-sensitive offers or promotions.

Think of networking events, for example; these are all about people, and the sharing of physical business information is still the most effective way to make a personal connection and drive a follow-up after the event.

Unlike digital exchanges that can be easily forgotten or lost in a sea of emails or websites, these physical touchpoints have a way of lingering—whether on a desk or in a wallet—keeping your brand top-of-mind for prospective clients.

As with digital, the secret to success with direct marketing lies in understanding customer data to craft personalised messages that communicate on an emotional level with recipients. Whether it’s a thank-you letter or a personalised promotion, these efforts show both existing and potential customers they’re valued.

Leveraging Customer Data

Data has become the backbone of effective marketing. Businesses that prioritise customer data can create personalised messages and more precise marketing strategies. For example, analysing shopping habits allows brands to tailor their marketing efforts and recommend products that align with customers’ interests.

This approach works across various direct and digital channels, from promotional flyers to social media marketing and email newsletters. It also enhances content marketing, ensuring messages feel relevant rather than generic.

A good strategy involves continuous improvement, using data to refine and adjust marketing campaigns for better outcomes.

Combining Traditional and Digital Marketing Channels

To maximise reach, brands often combine traditional channels with digital platforms. This mix ensures they can engage with diverse customer segments, catering to both tech-savvy customers and those who are more old-school and prefer tangible interactions.

For instance, a business might promote products via paid advertising on search engines while sending direct mail to loyal customers. This dual approach strengthens brand awareness and creates multiple touchpoints, improving the likelihood of conversions.

Consider different media formats, including both long-form and short-form content based on the message you are trying to convey.

At its core, marketing is about creating connections. Whether you’re using digital channels or direct mail campaigns, the goal is to increase reach, foster trust and build loyalty.

By focusing on the needs of your target audience and delivering value, you create long-lasting relationships that benefit both your customers and your business.

Opace and Digital Marketing

Opace is a specialist digital agency based in Birmingham and we work with clients of all shapes and sizes to help establish and deliver digital strategies that drive measurable results.

From digital content creation and SEO services to PPC management and social media marketing, we offer some of the most effective strategies and services to guarantee your business stays ahead of the competition while achieving tangible growth and stronger customer relationships.

To find out how we can help, contact Opace today.

Image credits: Pixabay/typography images, Pexels, and Mohamed_Hassan/Pixabay

eCommerce Using Open Source

Scott C — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 09:14:00 +0000

Reading Time: 3 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: September 3, 2024

How Can Open Source be Used to Create a World Class eCommerce Website

Open source software powers some big name brands but can offer world class solutions at low costs to small businesses too.

When it comes to open source software (OSS) and eCommerce websites, the partnership is a match made in heaven. Offering low costs, huge opportunities for customisation, security, flexibility and scalability, more than half of all the top online stores are powered by OSS.

In this feature, we take a look at the stats behind this claim and give you some of the reasons why an open source eCommerce site can be world-class.

Market Share & Stats: Open Source eCommerce Website Platforms

According to data compiled by the web technology firm, BuiltWith covering over one million eCommerce websites for 2018, the market share is dominated by open source solutions:

WooCommerce – 22% (OSS)
Shopify – 19% (Commercial)
Magento – 12% (OSS)
PrestaShop – 3% (OSS)
Big Commerce – 4% (OSS)
Other – 40% (includes OSS platforms such as ZenCart, osCommerce and Drupal Commerce)

The WordPress based platform, WooCommerce, is the leading choice for millions of online stores and, along with other open source technologies, is free.

Wait, but you don’t get something for nothing, right?

Wrong. That is exactly what many OSS providers give you; something for absolutely nothing. You can download Magento, WooCommerce and PrestaShop for free, customise it to your heart’s content and extend it using any of the huge range of add-ons and features without it costing you a penny.

Of course, most plugins and extensions come with premium versions which do attract a subscription fee plus you will need to pay for your eCommerce site to be hosted.

It’s easy to try and correlate this with the old adage ‘cheap isn’t always better’ but the simple fact is that open source platforms turn this idea on its head.

Why Choose Open Source for Your eCommerce Website

Open source platforms offer significant benefits over traditional software, including lower software and hardware costs. This flexibility when it comes to cost means that scalability is more affordable.

The fact that there is no vendor lock-in means that customers are totally free to use the software as they like. It also means that you are not tied in to updates on your software at the whim (and ransom) of a developer.

However, one of most significant benefits is the abundant number of additional features which are developed by their respective communities. Offering a range of diverse and high-quality functionality, open source platforms offer incredible opportunities for customisation. Tailoring your eCommerce site with an open source system is usually pretty easy if you have standard requirements but bespoke tailoring is also available.

It is the culture of collaboration within this community of developers, peers and users which creates higher quality software and can help increase security. Lastly, most open source offerings (WooCommerce and Magento in particular) are easy to use and offer many clients a simple and fast way to launch their sites. The benefits of quick access to market are essential for many small businesses. Combined with all of the above reasons and when you consider how much support is available for development, it is little wonder why open source platforms are so popular.

Can an open source eCommerce solution be world class?

As for whether they offer a ‘world class’ solution…check out some of these big names businesses that trust OSS to power their online stores:

Helly Hansen
Seat
Canon
Ripley’s Believe It or Not
Jack Daniel’s
JCB
New Zealand All Blacks Official Store
HP Inc

There are thousands of specialist retailers with a vested interest in selecting a platform that can enhance and protect their precious online brands. You can’t argue with that!

Opace and Open Source eCommerce Web Design

Opace is a specialist eCommerce solutions provider and offers an accredited agency developing websites for customers using open source technology or via a bespoke build. Not only do we support two of the biggest platforms (WooCommerce and Magento) but we also develop sites using Joomla and VirtueMart.

To find out more about developing a world-class eCommerce website through Opace, contact one of our team today.

Image credits: Mohamed_Hassan/Pixabay, WooCommerce and MaxPixel.

Digital Marketing

Scott C — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 10:10:17 +0000

Reading Time: 3 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: February 14, 2025

What is Digital Marketing & Why is it Important?

Digital marketing is a powerful way to promote your business online but covers a huge rage of techniques and methods for delivery.

Direct marketing is an essential part of achieving your business goals and means employing a range of techniques to generate traffic for your website. From simple SEO strategies to advertising campaigns and regular content marketing, your online visibility relies on the reach that this method offers.

Here, we take a quick look at exactly what this method of marketing is and why it’s so important.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is the name given to any form of marketing in which the main method is via digital delivery. This can be anything from display screen advertising and mobile phone messaging to email marketing. However, the term is generally used to describe online methods deployed via the internet.

Examples of Digital Marketing

When you use the web, you are exposed to many different forms of digital marketing whether you use social media, a search engine or go directly to a company’s website. This method is also used when you simply collect your emails.

The most common forms of digital marketing are:

Affiliate Marketing
Content Marketing
Email Marketing
Inbound Marketing
Marketing Automation
Online PR
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Social Media Marketing

Digital marketing comes in many forms.

Why is Digital Marketing Important?

Without some form of digital marketing strategy in place, any business (or organisation) with an online presence relies mostly on direct traffic (users who already know what and who they are looking for and who enter the URL of your domain) for their incoming audience.

Organic traffic will be severely limited without any SEO practices, content or social media marketing being employed.

Benefits of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing offers companies an extremely effective and instant way to reach large audiences to deliver messages that are highly targeted to key demographics. This can be down to a local level or you can use targeted PPC advertising to reach a specific audience defined by metrics such as age, gender, income level etc.

In addition, feedback from any campaigns that are launched is instantaneous due to the availability of powerful analytics that are designed to measure performance, objectives and other metrics.

Digital marketing is an essential component to boost sales, raise awareness and engage with your customers directly. In short, it is the online equivalent of increasing your sales team and adding an effective PR division for your company.

Combined with a robust marketing strategy, it can also additional benefits which can help:

add value to your existing customers.
develop relationships, build loyalty and create trust.
create an authoritative profile and build credibility within your industry.
educate, inform and entertain your target audience.

Another major benefit is that it is much more cost-effective than traditional marketing methods. The internet is a great leveller and digital marketing can even the playing field when it comes to competing with bigger businesses.

Your marketing strategy needs some good planning, preparation and assessment.

Strategy

As with any strategy, it’s all in the planning and to deliver the best results you will need to:

Identify your business objectives.
Set your budget.
Establish your audience.
Choose the channels for delivery.
Optimise your website for SEO.
Deploy your plan.

Once you have put your plan in action, the last stages are to evaluate and amend your strategy as you go. The beauty of a marketing campaign like this over a traditional one is the ability to analyse live data and to respond quickly.

Depending on your initial objectives (more traffic, increased sales, greater engagement etc), you can access many online tools to help you judge the success of your campaign. Google Analytics will provide you with some useful data to evaluate traffic, and the behaviour of visitors, to your website whilst social media engagement, can be assessed using suites like Sprout Social.

Opace and Digital Marketing

Opace is a digital agency based in the West Midlands that offers a full complement of digital services from SEO to content marketing and PPC advertising.

To find out how our digital marketing services can deliver exceptional results for your business, contact us today.

Image credits: mohamed_hassan/pxhere, wynpnt/Pixabay and PhotoMIX-Company/Pixabay

Website Requirements

Scott C — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 10:07:33 +0000

Reading Time: 5 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: September 3, 2024

Strategies for Defining Your Website Requirements

Designing a website takes some key strategic skills. Do you know how to approach the task?

Starting the design process before defining your website requirements is the digital equivalent of putting the cart before the horse; it makes no sense. Before you can even engage the services of a software developer and creative designer, you need to know in advance exactly what you want your online presence to achieve. Only once your website requirements are established can you then decide on how, and what skills you need to source, to achieve them.

What is Strategic Design?

Strategic design is about tying up all aspects of your project and fusing these together with an end-product that is not only aesthetically pleasing and supports your brand but can also help you achieve your business goals.

We can probably all think of some great examples of stylish websites that ‘look the business’ which sadly fail to deliver on a number of levels This could be pure functionality, speed and performance or are just not reaching an audience because the design didn’t include any SEO features.

When it comes to designing a website, strategic design is essential to prevent your website from becoming another casualty to the category of ‘all fur coat and no knickers’.

Strategic Design to Define Your Website Requirements

1. Decide What Your Goals Are

It may sound redundant to some and obvious to others but, to be clear, you need to lay out your goals for your website before you can start working on the design.

Are you simply looking to offer a digital marketing brochure or an online business card or do you want to provide your customers with an interface they can use for a practical purpose?
Is your website intended to drive sales or boost brand awareness?
Are you looking to capture contact information for lead generation or build an online database of content?
Are you trying to drive traffic to another website for affiliate marketing or keep customers for as long as possible on your own site? Are you educating or entertaining?
Are you selling or buying?

Your website requirements must be clearly identified in advance if you have any chance of these being successful.

First order of the day? Set your goals.

2. Define Your Target Audience

Again, this is ‘Back to School Basics’ for developing any strategy but you would be surprised just how many websites are designed without a clear understanding of the target audience.

If you know your business then you should already have some market intelligence about the demographics your business, service or products are appealing to. If you don’t have this data then you need to do some research.

Only by knowing who your audience are can you hope to define your website requirements. Age, gender, background, educational level, income level, family size, occupation, interests, marital status etc. can all play a vital role in key aspects of the design of your site.

If your audience are likely to be highly educated academics then the Flesch-Kincaid score (ease of readability) of your content will be very different to a site aimed at teenagers. Likewise, a more informal tone might be appropriate for the latter vs a more formal one. Tech savvy millennials will expect a certain amount of functionality without much guidance whilst customers of an older generation may not be as competent in this area.

Every element of your website’s design should be tailored to suit your target audience and not just be chosen at whim because it’s ‘trendy’ or because the design is appealing to your Sales Director. From choice of fonts, colours and layout to graphics, media and written content, the design choices should be influenced by your intended users.

3. Determine Your Brand

Your online brand is an important extension of your company’s image and should wholly represent your business. Brand marketing is proven to be influential in establishing trust with your customers and should be consistent with the core values of the company.; in short, your brand makes the first impression with a new customer so should be consistent with the design and tone of your website.

4. Designate a Designer

Once you’ve reached some decisions about your website requirements, you need to appoint a web designer who can interpret this information and produce a deliverable that meets these aims.

If you don’t know any website designers then get some recommendations from people and organisations you can trust. Ask to see examples of their work and look very closely to see how different these designs are. Websites are not pieces of art and should not have a ‘signature style’ that identifies it as one specific designer’s piece of work. Each website should be unique to the company who commissioned it and, most importantly, should be judged against that customer’s original objectives.

Finding the right website designer is key and should be someone with business intelligence and not just technical know-how.

Oh, and remember, whilst a creative website design may make your business memorable this should not come at a cost of sacrificing functionality and abandoning the intended purpose of your website.

5. Deploy and Dissect

Once your designer has interpreted your website requirements and turned these into an end-product you are pleased with, the next step is to launch and get ready to analyse performance.

You should go back to your original objectives and use these to establish a method for evaluating the success of your website. This should include key milestones and targets by which you can measure performance.

6. Develop and Adapt

Using analytics data, you should make it a key part of your strategy to revisit your design and make any adjustments needed to help you achieve your goals. Whilst your business objectives may not have changed, your website requirements may have.

Be prepared to make your web design strategy an ongoing role in your company that requires regular monitoring and good housekeeping. It has a hugely influential part to play and is not a ‘set and forget’ measure.

Opace and Web Design

Opace is a specialist web design agency based in Birmingham. As well as delivering technical expertise and creative solutions, we offer an intelligent service where we aim to carefully match our client’s business objectives to unique and functional web design.

To find out more about the professional digital solutions we can offer, contact one of our team today.

Image credits: kreatikar/Pixabay,Gabrielle_cc/Pixabay and Firmbee/Pixabay.

XML Sitemap

Scott C — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 09:44:14 +0000

Reading Time: 5 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: September 3, 2024

How to Create a Successful XML Sitemap and Website Structure for SEO

An XML sitemap provides a structured plan of your site for humans and search engines.

Website structure is an essential part of good housekeeping for your website. It ensures that your content is easy to find for humans and is able to be accurately indexed by search engines. An XML sitemap does both these jobs and can boost the SEO performance of your URLs.

In this quick guide, we tell you more about the importance of website structure when it comes to creating a successful XML sitemap.

What is an XML Sitemap?

XML (or Extensible Markup Language) is a type of coding that is readable by both humans and machines.

Sitemaps are written using this kind of programming language and are a ‘plan’ which details all of those URLs that you want to be listed for access on your website.

XML Sitemaps are therefore designed to act as guidance for both search engine crawlers and human visitors to your website in order to direct them to the important parts of our website.

Why Do You Need a Sitemap?

As well as letting search engines like Google know about the existence of your website along with the details of those pages you’d like to be crawled and indexed, an XML sitemap is essential if you want to:

Help search engines crawl your website more effectively.
Ensure sites with a vast number of pages remain well indexed with an organised web-structure.
Get dynamically created pages instantly indexed.
Boost the visibility of a new website that has weak internal linking or a poor external link profile.
Speed up indexing, particularly if some pages on your website are buried deep within the web structure.

So, if you want the pages of your website to be updated in Google’s database on a regular basis using dynamic and accurate information then you need an XML Sitemap.

Website structure is important for SEO and indicates the interrelation and importance of your domain’s pages.

Why are XML Sitemaps Good for SEO?

Let’s go back to the basics of exactly what an XML Sitemap does. This powerful indexing tool basically informs search engines, like Google about:

WHAT to crawl on your website and, just as important, what NOT
WHEN your content is updated and how often this is being done.
The detail of the content included on your website and HOW IMPORTANT it is.

These three factors are key when it comes to SEO. Firstly, it enables your content to be found via a search engine’s database.

Secondly, the frequency and ‘freshness’ of your content updates are an important factor in the SERP algorithms employed by Google. If your URLs are regularly updated then this could give you a more favourable position in search results.

Lastly, by using your sitemap to indicate the importance of your webpages you can help boost the visibility and authority of one page over another. Taking control over this can be an important step in ensuring visitors to your website reach the highest-converting landing page for example.

Customising Your Website Structure

So, we’ve established the necessity for having an XML sitemap in order to improve SEO but how important is your website structure in all this? Do you need to include all of your pages in your XML sitemap?

Firstly, your website structure should be designed around the user and be an aid to efficient and intuitive navigation. After all, once they locate your website via a successful search through good website optimisation, don’t you want your visitors to be able to easily find further information through your pages?

Organise your website in a clear and logical way with the user first in mind.

In addition, a good website structure makes it easier for crawlers to find subpages and to index your content more effectively, faster and accurately. Parent pages and subpages should be organised in relevant groups and linked internally using good anchor text. This is crucial on your website’s homepages which should have a good number of links to those pages that have the most important content.

The larger your website, the more vital a sitemap is in organising all those URLs.

You also need to decide on those pages not to include in your XML sitemap. Yes, there are lots of reasons why you might not want a crawler to index a particular URL for your domain. Certainly, if some of your subpages are near-duplicates of one another (such as similar products with similar technical specifications and descriptions) then you may not want each individual page to be crawled.

Likewise, media files and images do not commonly need to be included in your sitemap unless you are a photographer or designer for instance.

Choosing a noindex_follow tag or using a robots.txt can help you exclude those URLs you deem less relevant. Though they will still be crawled and, through other links, indexed by Google, they won’t have the prominence of other more relevant pages in search results.

How To Get Your XML Sitemap Listed

Simply creating an XML Sitemap is not enough; you must make sure that you submit the map of your website structure to Google Index in order to set the Googlebot crawler in motion.

You can find out more about how to do this in another of our Glossary Features under ‘Google Index’.

Who Needs an XML Sitemap?

Google recommends that XML sitemaps are used for those websites that:

are really large or have large archives.
are new with limited external links.
use rich media content.

If you do have a particularly large website with many thousands of individual URLs then you may need multiple sitemaps.

If you have a small site where the internal pages are well-linked then Google’s web crawlers should easily be able to understand your website structure but an XML sitemap can certainly do you no harm and will only improve a search engine’s understanding of your site.

Opace and Technical SEO

Creating an XML sitemap and strong website structure is a critical part of SEO, but it’s still only a part of the puzzle. For those interested, here you can find a more detailed guide providing our SEO top tips to boost your Google ranking, covering aspects ranging from SEO planning to continual improvement.

Opace is a specialist digital design agency offering a range of SEO related services to help businesses achieve greater online visibility. From off-page and technical SEO to active content marketing, responsive web design and more, we create and deliver successful online marketing strategies.

To find out more about how we can help you achieve your SEO goals and improve traffic to your website, contact one of our team today.

Image credits: Fumingli/Pixabay, 200degrees/Pixabay and mohamed_hassan/Pixabay.

Online Brand – Design Tips

Scott C — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 09:41:06 +0000

Reading Time: 4 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: September 3, 2024

5 Design Tips for Creating a Successful Online Brand

Use these design tips to create a positive and memorable first impression.

Your online brand is the face of your business and is the first thing that your customers will connect with. Get the design right and you will find that most of the hard work is done for you when it comes to conveying what it is about your business that makes you unique. Let’s face it, first impressions count so why settle for second best when it comes to the design of your digital calling card?

Here, we give you our five best tips for helping you build a successful online brand.

What is Your Online Brand?

Just like your headed paper, business cards, company livery, uniforms etc, your online brand should be a recognisable and relatable design concept that creates a unique impression of your business. However, it is the impression of that brand (the recognition) that is actually the brand itself.

Confused? Don’t be. You can employ various methods to suggest what your brand should be but, by definition, your brand is actually just a concept that exists in the minds of the people that recognise it.

Your design strategy to create this recognition should be used with consistency across all of your digital content and reflect the personality, core values and services of your company.

The main place where an online brand is made prominent is on a company website but can also be seen across social media accounts such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and all of those places your business is represented online including advertising.

When in Rome…

Known as the capital of the world, all roads are said to lead to Rome and you should consider your website in the same way as the ‘Eternal City’.

Just like the beautiful city of Rome, your website should evoke emotion, be memorable and be built with the kind of quality that stands the test of time.

Remember that all aspects of your web design have the power to influence a person’s subconscious so make your choice of colours, fonts and images just as important as the content itself. There are plenty of design tools to help you achieve this as well as appropriate style advice that can be applied to your business, service or products.

It’s worth remembering that colour can increase brand recognition by as much as 80%. Did you know that blacks and golds are universal colours associated with luxury, whilst blue is considered a calming or peaceful hue? Or that a comic sans font is not considered ‘professional’? Black and white images are often more thought provoking and moody whilst abstract images can be considered contemporary but may also be misinterpreted.

Colour can evoke a strong subliminal and emotional response.

However you come to your design choices for your website and however you want to promote your online brand, invest in a quality design that is both responsive and functional. Don’t forget the golden rules of modernist design; form follows function.

Just remember, that Rome was famously not built in one day; your website is where you want to lead your customers and you should take your time to make it worth their while.

Be Original and Show Personality

With few exceptions, your online brand should offer more than just a clinical representation of their business. Whilst our first tip is all about the ‘look’, strong conversion figures are achieved by offering your visitors some personality; after all, beauty is only skin deep, right?

Businesses that lay down their core values, principles and show some character in their online brand appeal far more to customers than those that simply go over the motions.

This doesn’t mean sacrificing professionalism to follow the latest ‘wacky’ trends or promoting your business in a false light.

Be true to your business ethos but don’t be afraid to show who you are; it’s known as anthropomorphism and allows your customers to connect with your company as a living thing rather than a faceless corporation. Even a formal tone can reflect a personality; sure, it’s an authoritative one which may well suit your approach to branding but consider exactly what you want your online ‘voice’ to sound like.

Trust is Built With Consistency

According to many marketers, one of the most damaging impacts you can have on a brand is inconsistency.

It’s not rocket science when you think about it. A successful brand is one that is memorable and an inconsistent design across your online platforms can be confusing and lead to mistrust.

Whether this is your logo, colour design, style or the tone of ‘voice’ of your content you should focus on creating consistent actions, messages and visuals in order to achieve consistent results.

Successful online brands start with good website design.

Less is More

There’s a lesser known quote by the Serbian poet, Dejan Stojanović, that minimalism is not about deprivation but about intentionality; this applies to the design choices you make for your online brand. Being concise, using brevity and making your design simple and clean is an effective way to add to your user’s experience and not deprive them in any way.

Websites that are overtly ‘feature-rich’ busy with images, videos and slick functionality can sometimes be confusing and may result in visitors bouncing from, instead of engaging with, your site

When it comes to designing a memorable and impactful online brand sometimes the minimalist approach can deliver far more than you think.

Opace and Digital Marketing

Opace is a digital marketing agency that offers a range of design and strategy development services to help your business achieve success online. From helping you create a memorable brand that delivers consistent content with original design to working with you to achieve your business goals, our customers trust us to deliver their online brand.

Forward-thinking, honest, creative, flexible and with a no-nonsense approach, you can find out more about why we should be working together by contacting one of our team, today.

Image credits: MaxPixel, and Mukesh Yadav/Pexels.

CMS Comparison

Scott C — Thu, 13 Jun 2019 09:38:02 +0000

Reading Time: 6 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: September 3, 2024

An Open Source CMS Comparison – WordPress vs Drupal vs Joomla

WordPress vs Drupal vs Joomla? Which CMS offers the best flexibility, scalability, security and ease of use? We find out in this comparison.

Not all content management systems are created equal and there are dozens of choices out there when it comes to the kind of platform you use to support your digital content publication. However, the three most popular, WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, each offer significant benefits over much of their competition. According to data monitored by W³Techs, these three powerhouses of the CMS world, host almost 70% of the market when it comes to content.

So, what makes these platforms so popular and just what are the main differences between them?

WordPress

Okay, so our first contender in the battle between WordPress vs Drupal vs Joomla is without doubt the big brother of this trinity and, of the 70% market share statistic, 60.6% of websites that use a content management system do so with WordPress. Whilst we are on the subject of stats, let’s get the flattery out of the way:

WordPress powers more than 32 % of the web with traffic figures of 409 million users visiting 15.5 billion pages per month!
WordPress.com itself receives more than 640 million visits each month.
The latest version of WordPress 5.1 has been downloaded more than 24.6 million times. Known as ‘Betty’, the software was released on 21^st February 2019 – that’s more than 13,486 downloads per hour since it was launched!

There is no doubting the dominance of the number one CMS platform but does it deserve its status, and is it truly a universal system for all online businesses?

The market leader of CMS platforms, WordPress is globally popular.

Pros and Cons of WordPress – WordPress vs Drupal vs Joomla

The main benefit of WordPress is its simplicity and ease of use. It is a novice-friendly CMS platform and you do not need any experience of coding in order to get started. Even a total beginner can achieve a functional website without much help.

However, WordPress can also provide a more technically advanced environment for more experienced developers. Quite simply, WordPress offers flexibility as well as security, high performance and good SEO solutions.

One of the best parts of working in WordPress is the extensive community that you have access to. This makes collaboration and customisation a simple process plus offers a great deal of diversity in the development of tools and support; all of which adds up to more choice and some great cost savings. Speaking of which, running a WordPress CMS is relatively cheap and the only real expenses you will face are premium extensions and some technical support.

Being the launch platform for the popular WooCommerce, WordPress also offers great functionality for eCommerce operations.

But, one of the downsides of the platform is the fact that it is not easy to scale up your site and does lag behind Joomla and Drupal when it comes to performance metrics like site speed. Security has also been an issue in the past but this may be largely due to the fact it is a larger target. Whatever the reasons, it is recommended that you bolster the out-of-the-box security with premium add-ons.

Drupal

Drupal has been around a lot longer than either WordPress or Joomla and, although it has a pretty diminutive share of the CMS market by comparison, it is the third largest system of its kind in use worldwide.

However, for Drupal, its not the quantity of websites that it powers which gives it and edge, it’s the quality.

Drupal is perhaps more technically advanced that its closest and biggest rivals and powers a lot more of the most popular websites in the world than the other two do.

A powerful CMS that may be smaller than the other two but packs a punch.

Pros and Cons of Drupal – WordPress vs Drupal vs Joomla

Drupal offers more extensive features than the other two CMS platforms and is best suited for building huge sites that are required to be fully bespoke and offer more (sometimes unique) functionality.

Most importantly, Drupal is designed to deliver performance and offers superior speed, some powerfully enhanced SEO features and high security. In fact, it is this last feature which puts Drupal head and shoulders above both WordPress and Joomla.

However, the software is not for the faint of heart and does require a lot of technical expertise in order to get started and to be able to maintain the platform.

It’s a pricey but fully customisable and powerful solution which needs some serious attention to your budget to include the cost of a developer and designer to get the system set-up and running. This is not an ‘off-the-peg’ package.

Joomla

The second largest (and most second most popular) provider of CMS globally, Joomla is another open source platform that is largely maintained by a community of volunteers.

Their share of the market is sizably smaller than WordPress but is still the CMS of choice for an estimated 58 million websites worldwide. The platform has been downloaded 93 million times and is similar in lots of ways to WordPress.

Joomla is the second most popular CMS and offers the a compromise between WordPress and Drupal.

Pros and Cons of Joomla – WordPress vs Drupal vs Joomla

Joomla offers a kind of middle ground between the simplicity and user friendliness of WordPress and the performance of Drupal.

It’s a solid CMS platform that has plenty of big-name users who can attest to its security, flexibility and scope for customisation. Like Drupal, Joomla is also fast and comes with lots of performance-enhancing tools.

The cost of operating a Joomla CMS is similar to WordPress and is not prohibitive or extortionate depending on the size and complexity of what you are designing. Development costs can be a little more expensive simply because there is less choice but given the relative simplicity of working with the software is not generally that much more expensive.

Joomla also has a good reputation for its social networking and eCommerce features. Lastly, it’s not as SEO friendly as the other two platforms and is slightly trickier to master in this regard.

So, Joomla is not quite as straight-out-of-the-box as WordPress and does require some technical expertise to master its features.

WordPress vs Drupal vs Joomla – Key Comparison

When it comes to comparing WordPress vs Drupal vs Joomla it’s easiest to start with what is similar about them.

All three are open source platforms utilising PHP as the main architecture of their technology. They are each community driven platforms and rely heavily on the development of others to produce a more diverse market with extensions, add-ons and plug ins.

Remember, as open-source projects, this is also the pool of expertise from where you get your support from. WordPress, undoubtedly, offers the largest community but both Joomla and Drupal have active groups, forums and well-documented help files.

As for what’s different…let’s summarise with a quick recap:

WordPress is a great CMS for the beginner. It’s easy and cheap to use plus offers the largest community of developers for customisation and support. SEO is built-in and the platform has good basic security but you can upgrade to premium features for even better solutions. It’s ideal for those on a budget and/or with limited technical knowledge but can offer challenges when it comes to scaling up. It is also not the fastest CMS option available nor has the same built-in performance features as Drupal.
Joomla is a more scalable but easy-to-use CMS with great social networking and eCommerce tools. Offering great security and powerful performance it may be slightly harder to master and be a bit more limited when it comes to SEO but Joomla is a great middle ground if you want the best of both worlds.
Drupal is perfect for huge sites and offers powerful features and unlimited customisation. Backed with robust security, enhanced performance and extensive SEO options, it’s an ideal choice if you have the budget and technical know-how to help support this choice.

Opace and CMS Web Design

Here at Opace, we know that choosing and designing a CMS platform is about more than we can squeeze into this small feature. Offering intelligent CMS web design based on platforms like WordPress and Joomla, we think the decision between WordPress vs Drupal vs Joomla should be one you consider with the experts.

To find out more about the key differences between the most popular CMS systems and which one is right for you, contact one of our team today.

Image credits: WordPress/Drupal/Joomla, MaxPixel, Wikimedia Commons and Wikimedia Commons.

Responsive Web Design Tips

Scott C — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 10:32:11 +0000

Reading Time: 7 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: October 3, 2024

5 Responsive Web Design Tips for Building a Mobile-Friendly Website

Responsive web design is good for SEO as well as user experience.

With mobile-first indexing prioritising responsive web design for SEO, now is the time to ensure your site is mobile-friendly. Since the beginning of 2017, mobile devices have accounted for around half of all web traffic worldwide and sites that don’t take this statistic into account ultimately pay the price with their SERP rankings. Not only that but, according to a survey undertaken by RedEye, 62% of companies that designed a website that was optimised for mobiles reported an increase in sales.

To help you get the best out of your responsive web design strategy, we’ve summarised the top five tips to help you build a mobile-friendly site. First of all, there are lots of ways to optimise your web design to make a site more responsive but, in our experience, these five are the most crucial, the easiest to implement and can make the most amount of difference when it comes to SEO and overall user experience.

Optimise Your Images

Always make sure that you compress images to ensure faster load times without reducing the resolution quality. In addition, the images for responsive web design should be optimally sized to prevent scaling, preserve quality and reduce bandwidth. It is best to use GIF. JPEG or PNG-8 formats to do this and never PNG; this format is notorious for ‘image bloating’.

Utilise the Viewport Meta Tag

Responsive web design relies on building a site with a layout that adapts to suit the screen size that is being used to access it. This can only work if you enable the viewport meta tag.

A simple piece of code that needs to be added to the HTML on each page, it signals to browsers that they should fit the width of your page to the device’s screen.

Adding this code will make sure your pages are dynamically resized:

Responsive web design should make accessing your website intuitive for both mobile and desktop users.

Speed is of the Essence

Loading times are one of the main barriers to the success of responsive web design and can negatively affect user experience and have an impact on bounce rates.

As well as optimising your images for faster loading times (see above), make sure your site is not overloaded with an excess of unnecessary elements.

You can use services like Google Lighthouse to give you some insights into improvements you can make to speed up your site.

Go Big or Go Home

Accessing a website via a mobile device used to mean navigating fonts and buttons that were designed for desktop users and were notoriously difficult to access on smaller screens.

Responsive web design for mobile-friendly sites should mean that buttons are sized appropriately and that fonts are sized at least 14pts or larger.

Also, it is worth ensuring that your font choice is standard as any requirement to download a non-standard font is likely to result in a bounced session.

Order Off Menu

Responsive web design has seen an evolution in many components of the traditional layout of a website including the navigation menu.

With most mobile devices being used in a portrait orientation, the trend is now for hamburger menus which open up as side menu or overlay. Taking up far less screen space, this kind of navigation is less ‘fussy’ on screen and is more adaptive than a static menu.

Testing 1…2…3…

And finally, you should always make sure that any responsive web design changes you make to your site are tested. There is no greater approach to performing this task than actually pulling out your phone or tablet and actually browsing your own site.

Ask colleagues and employees to do the same across a range of device types and use their feedback to help you optimise your design.

A fresh pair of eyes is essential on design projects like this and you can even hire professionals to test your site for you.

Responsive web design is essential in a world of mobile-first indexing.

Opace and Responsive Web Design

Opace is a multi-disciplined responsive web design agency that offers its customers the benefits of high customer retention rates, improved user experience and enhanced SEO and marketing. Not only that but our designs future-proof your website and give your online business a competitive edge.

To find out more about our web design services including bespoke sites and open source solutions, contact us today.

Image credits: Templune/Pixabay, MRafizeldi/Wikimedia and Pixnio.

5 Responsive Web Design Tips for Building a Mobile-Friendly Website

Responsive web design is good for SEO as well as user experience.

Optimise Your Images

Utilise the Viewport Meta Tag

Responsive web design relies on building a site with a layout that adapts to suit the screen size that is being used to access it. This can only work if you enable the viewport meta tag.

A simple piece of code that needs to be added to the HTML on each page, it signals to browsers that they should fit the width of your page to the device’s screen.

Adding this code will make sure your pages are dynamically resized:

Responsive web design should make accessing your website intuitive for both mobile and desktop users.

Speed is of the Essence

Loading times are one of the main barriers to the success of responsive web design and can negatively affect user experience and have an impact on bounce rates.

As well as optimising your images for faster loading times (see above), make sure your site is not overloaded with an excess of unnecessary elements.

You can use services like Google Lighthouse to give you some insights into improvements you can make to speed up your site.

Go Big or Go Home

Accessing a website via a mobile device used to mean navigating fonts and buttons that were designed for desktop users and were notoriously difficult to access on smaller screens.

Responsive web design for mobile-friendly sites should mean that buttons are sized appropriately and that fonts are sized at least 14pts or larger.

Also, it is worth ensuring that your font choice is standard as any requirement to download a non-standard font is likely to result in a bounced session.

Order Off Menu

Responsive web design has seen an evolution in many components of the traditional layout of a website including the navigation menu.

Testing 1…2…3…

Ask colleagues and employees to do the same across a range of device types and use their feedback to help you optimise your design.

A fresh pair of eyes is essential on design projects like this and you can even hire professionals to test your site for you.

Responsive web design is essential in a world of mobile-first indexing.

Opace and Responsive Web Design

To find out more about our web design services including bespoke sites and open source solutions, contact us today.

Image credits: Templune/Pixabay, MRafizeldi/Wikimedia and Pixnio.

Research Blog Topics

Scott C — Fri, 07 Jun 2019 09:28:49 +0000

Reading Time: 5 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: September 3, 2024

How to Research Attention Grabbing Blog Topics and Get New Ideas

Attention grabbing headlines are no accident; they require a lot of planning and research to get right.

If you research blog topics on a regular basis then you will understand the importance of planning in order to produce content that stands a chance of being read and of ranking well in SEO. It’s a competitive world and an audience won’t waste time on blog posts that don’t directly and succinctly address their needs…nor does bad content win you any favours when it comes to Googe’s search algorithms.

In this feature, we give you some simple ways to research blog topics that can help you grab attention as well as improve your SEO.

Ask The Audience

It sounds like a simple enough suggestion but, believe it or not, asking your target audience the question ‘What do you want to hear about?’ is largely ignored by many online bloggers.

It’s a no-brainer and should form the very core of your content strategy by making your blog relevant and useful to the people you are targeting.

To research blog topics that will get the most mileage:

Ask your customers what they want to know more about.
Look back over your highest performing posts and ask readers why they found it relevant.
Ask your sales staff what potential customers are asking them.
Ask your customer service teams what issues are raised most frequently by existing customers.
Follow the blogs of industry experts and market peers to see what they are talking about.

And, finally, listen to what your competition is being asked by following their social media accounts and their own blog pages. Which moves us quite nicely on to our next suggestion…

Research the Competition

Whilst, generally speaking, there is little benefit in reinventing the wheel, of course you cannot simply reproduce the most popular content of your competitors but you can harness the interest in it and improve it.

By applying the two principles or ‘What Worked Well (WWW)’ and ‘Even Better If…(EBI), you can improve the content of your competitors to capture some of the inbound traffic that has worked for them.

Implementing competitive blog post analysis you can identify those posts that are being shared the most, getting the most views and eliciting the most interaction from an audience.

How?

Online tools like Ahrefs offer an easy way to identify those blog pages of your competitors websites that are performing well.

There’s nothing wrong with checking out the competition and seeing what works well.

There are other SEO tools for competitive analysis which will also help you research blog topics including:

Analyse Past Performance

As well as looking outwardly, it pays to look inwardly when you research blog topics to write about.

The historical performance of your own content is a great indicator of what can work well and, just as importantly, what doesn’t.

Look at your existing blog posts and rank the performance of all of your content. See if you can find any clues as to why those posts that gained a number of views performed so well vs those that didn’t.

Look for any patterns or links between them and let this inform your research. Blog topics that performed really well should be the focus of your efforts and you can look for ways to expand these posts or rewrite them from a different perspective. Perhaps if you wrote a well performing post of ‘Top 10 Ideas…’, you could write up those ten items in more detail or apply a similar format to a new set of ideas?

Don’t forget to go back to your original post and add backlinks to your own site. Oh, and always include any comments made by your readers when you perform this kind of analysis as your audience should help guide your efforts.

Harness the Power of Google

Google is the undisputed search engine of choice still for many millions of internet users and the company has gone to extreme lengths to make its service a responsive and intelligent one.

As a result, Google itself offers some great free information to inform us about how to research blog topics.

For example, Autocomplete works by optimising long tail keywords along with current trends to predict a user’s search enquiry. We’re not suggesting you manually input keywords in to Google but rather let tools like the Answer The Public do it for you. A powerful and simple site to use, all you need to do is input a keyword (or phrase) that is relevant to your business and it will return the most popular ‘Questions’, ‘Prepositions’ and ‘Comparisons’. Presented as easy to read, visual charts or in a list format, these are all pulled from Google’s current trending search data.

Answer The Public is an incredibly useful tool for turning keywords on their head for useful headline ideas.

Of course, Google itself is a good way to research blog topics and simply entering some keywords in their search engine will quickly show you what blog posts are ranking well.

Lastly, Google’s AdWords Keyword Planner is a great tool to mine for useful keywords from existing posts that have performed well.

Media Monitoring

Media monitoring is an essential tool for keeping on trend with the latest developments in your industry and should help you research blog topics that are on the pulse of what your customers want more information.

There are some immensely powerful media monitoring tools available which can help you keep track of where and how your business, products and services are being mentioned online as well as keeping you informed about trending keywords.

Also known as ‘Social Listening’ tools, these are some of the more popular tools being used online:

The benefit of using Media Monitoring is that you can get fast notifications of current events which can be useful when it comes to ‘newsjacking’.

Get Some Help

It might seem like the lazy man’s option but blog post headline generators are actually quite useful to spark ideas.

If you broadly know the kind of blog posts you want to write about but are struggling to come up with a focus or a headline then these tools can help give you some new ideas which just might give you a prod in the right direction. The reason many people don’t use them is because they are usually pretty generic and are often based on well-used phrases; however, this is often the exact same criteria which can make a search term more popular, precisely because it is well-used.

Here are some of the most popular tools being used:

Opace and Content Curation

Opace is a digital design agency that specialises in optimised digital content creation including blog posts, social media management and inbound marketing. We know that to research blog topics that are impactful with the potential to ‘grow legs’ is about understanding your business, your customers and your competition. We offer an intelligent service that focuses our efforts, not just on your SEO success but, on the success of your business.

To find out more about our services, contact one of our team today.

Image credits: Mohammed_Hassan/Pixabay, Kaboompics/Pixabay and AnswerThePublic

Lighthouse Tool from Google

Scott C — Mon, 03 Jun 2019 09:18:12 +0000

Reading Time: 4 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: August 11, 2020

How to Improve Page Load Times & Website Speed Using Google Lighthouse?

Google Lighthouse offers fast analysis of your website’s speed.

Google Lighthouse offers web developers the chance to analyse page speeds across their website in order to help improve SEO and reduce bounce rates. But why do you need to and what is so important about website speed? Research has shown that the bounce rate of any webpage increases as page loading times increase. According to Think Google, the probability of a bounce increases by 90% when page load times of one second are compared with five seconds. In fact, Google itself has established benchmarks that indicate the average Time to First Byte should be 1.5 seconds or faster.

In this feature, we take a look at the importance of page load times and how you can improve these using Google Lighthouse.

Why is Page Speed So Important?

The loading speed of your website is one of the most important factors that influence the customer experience of your online business. Not only that but Google has indicated that site speed is an important factor in their SERP algorithms.

Website speed is one of the most crucial factors that affect bounce rates, user experience and your SERP ranking.

According to research compiled by Unbounce, websites that load within five seconds experience a 70% increase in the length of an average session (compared to those that load in 19 seconds). Not only that, but data published by Akamai shows that for every 100-millisecond delay in loading time, conversion rates drop by as much as 7%. Time is money!

The simple fact is, websites that load slowly have a higher bounce rate (where users abandon a visit without navigating beyond a single page) and can seriously affect how well you rank in search engines like Google.

So, it’s a given that page speed is a vital component of the success of your website’s performance but what can you do about it?

Enter ‘Google Lighthouse’…

What is Google Lighthouse?

Lighthouse is an open-source tool developed by Google that allows users to run a series of audit reports against any pubic web page or authenticated pages within your account.

As with all Google DevTools, the tool is easy to access and offers cross functionality with all of Google’s other web development apps.

Data provided by Google Lighthouse is easy to read and simple to action.

How to Improve Website Speed Using Google Lighthouse

The functionality of Google Lighthouse can be implemented using shell scripts, as a node module or, more commonly, as part of Google’s ChromeDev tool platform.

If you don’t already have Google Chrome for Desktop installed then it is recommended that you do so. Once installed, simply head to the URL you want to analyse and:

Select Google Settings
Select ‘More Tools’
Select ‘Developer Tools’
Select the ‘Audits’ tab

Once you have opened the ‘Audits’ tab, you can select to run a report on either the mobile or desktop version of the URL and from up to five different analytical reports:

Performance
Progressive Web App
Best Practices
Accessibility
SEO

You can also choose whether to apply simulated (or applied) throttling through 3G.

This example of a Lighthouse audit on a BBC URL shows a quick set of results.

Once you run the audit, results are returned in a useful series of actionable performance metrics accompanied by diagnostics. These recommendations come with estimated potential savings on page load times along with reference documentation with full details of how to fix the identified issues.

In addition to the automated checks run by Google Lighthouse, the audit also produces a handy list of manual checks that should be performed to ensure optimum performance of your URLs.

Opace and Website Speed Optimisation

Opace is a specialist digital media agency that understands the importance of speed and page load times in web design and SEO. Offering a range of services that focus on optimising both the performance and content of your online business, we put user experience and SEO at the forefront of our design strategy.

To find out how you can improve your SEO by optimising your website performance, contact one of our team today.

Image credits: Google Lighthouse, Mohamed_Hassan/pxhere and simulated Google Lighthouse Audit test of BBC page.

Structured Data (Rich Snippets)

Scott C — Fri, 31 May 2019 09:12:12 +0000

Reading Time: 4 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: September 3, 2024

What is Structured Data and How Does it Impact SEO?

Sounds complex but this is a relatively simple way to enhance the SEO potential of your digital content.

Structured data is one of the latest coding languages that is being used by web developers to parse out information to search engines. Used correctly, it is a powerful way to boost the visibility of your digital content and can even get your website a ‘Featured Snippet’.

In this feature, we take a quick look at what structured data is, how it impacts SEO and how you can harness the benefits of this powerful coding.

What is Structured Data (Rich Snippets)?

The result of a collaboration between the online search giants Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Yandex, structured data, also known as Schema, is a very specific format of code which is designed to be more easily read by search engines.

The project was started in 2011 and continues to be maintained as a universal ‘language’ by all four companies. However, vocabularies are developed as an open community process using GitHub’s Public Schema mail.

Structured data essentially works to translate the content you have produced to be read by humans into a format that is easily understood by search engines.

It works by pairing common data together with universally agreed, and therefore understood, values so that information your website can be indexed at a greater depth.

Basically, structured data enriches the content of your pages to offer a more detailed return on a set of results or, put another way, rich results. This kind of code format is what powers rich snippets which are prioritised by search engines like Google.

This example of a featured snippet uses structured data to mark up the relevant text.

As a result of using structured data correctly, your content has a far better chance of being featured by sites like Google and of ranking more highly in SERPs…. irrespective of which search engine’s spider is crawling you.

How Does Structured Data Impact SEO?

Structured data is hugely important for SEO, not only because you could get additional places in Google’s search results by using structured data, but you can also increase your visibility and click-throughs.

This kind of result can trump position 1 and can result in far more clicks.

It’s a win-win situation as more clicks mean increased traffic which, overall, helps boost your organic chances of ranking for other keywords.

Which Search Engines Use Scheme Mark-Up?

Schema was originally designed (and is maintained) by Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and Yandex.

There is no data available as to whether other search engines are utilising this markup language within their own systems but there is evidence to suggest that the format is recognised by other search engines.

Using structured data isn’t always that complex particularly with simple automated plugins.

How To Use Structured Data

You can add schema to your website in a number of ways and you don’t need to learn any new kind of coding.

Structured data is basically an extension of the existing HTML language but there is some additional vocabulary which needs to be added to mark up your content.

If you are already familiar with marking up content such as adding H1 heading tags or other metadata then you should find Schema easy enough to incorporate into your microdata coding. This can also be done using RDFa of JSON-LD.

However, sites like WordPress offer an easier solution with plenty of companies (like Yoast) providing user-friendly plugins.

There are even specific plugins such as WooCommerce, Local SEO and News.

Of course, understanding what is structured data is important but there is much more to consider when it comes to SEO. For those interested, here you can find a detailed guide providing our top SEO quick wins to improve your Google ranking, covering aspects ranging from ‘search intent’ to engaging potential users.

Opace & SEO

Opace builds structured data into our web design and SEO solutions os that your business benefits from an optimised online presence. The combination of an active, managed SEO strategy and intelligently designed website with optimised on-page and technical SEO means we can provide your business with a competitive edge.

To find out why our customers rate us 5/5 for our SEO services, contact one of our team today.

Image credits: Pixabay/Markusspiske, Google and Pixabay/Kreatikar.

Google’s Search Index

Scott C — Mon, 27 May 2019 10:03:49 +0000

Reading Time: 4 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: September 3, 2024

How to Check Whether Your Web Page is Indexed in Google

If you’re not in Google Index then how can your customers find you?

A key component to ensuring the visibility of your website with the world’s largest search engine, being included in the Google Index is imperative if you want to achieve any kind of organic growth in SERPs.

In this quick feature, we explain why Google Index is so important and show you how to check if your web pages are included plus we give you some ways you can make sure that Googlebot indexes more of your content.

What is the Google Index?

As the name would suggest, the Google Index is the database used by this search engine to record all of the information required to produce its service.

In short, if the pages of your website are not included within this database then the chances of your content being returned in a search enquiry are next to 0%.

It’s that simple.

Whilst Google uses web crawlers to gather information from billions of pages across the internet, it can only do this accurately if webmasters and developers submit their sitemaps directly to Google.

Whilst crawling alone can produce some ‘titbits’ of information which are added to Google’s Search database, your whole site and its content will be invisible without being properly indexed.

How to Check if Your Web Page is in The Google Index

There are several ways to check if your website (or specific URLs) have been included in the Google Index.

Firstly, you can use the Google Search function itself. By entering the phrase ‘site:’ as a prefix to your website’s domain name (i.e. ‘site:opace.agency’) Google will return a full list of all pages that have been indexed including the details of any Meta Tags.

Alternatively, you can use the Google Search Console to run an Index Coverage Status report. Google will run a quick analysis of those URLs that have been indexed and return a useful set of results which includes any errors, excluded pages or those which have issues. The benefits of using this particular report means that Google gives you further details about the reasons why any particular page is not being indexed. This can be as a result of a specific ‘NoIndex’ tag, duplicate content or 404 errors plus other crawl issues.

Google Search Console lets you check if your site is in the Google Index.

You can also use some free tools offered by sites like Spark Logix, Small SEO Tools (Google Index Checker) or IndexChecking.

How to Get Web Pages Indexed in Google

If you find that some of the pages of your website are not included in the Google Index then there are a number of ways you can have individual pages indexed by Google.

Use Google Search Console to submit your sitemap. Ensure the page you want indexing is included before you submit it.
Use internal links. The Google crawlers navigate through your website using internal links and you can help improve the ‘authority’ of one page by linking it with another. In this way, you can share the equity built up in one to boost the SEO potential of an additional page. You should only do this with pages that are related and using relevant anchors.
Build some high-quality backlinks. Just like with your own website, Google Index uses any html links to produce its database of information and backlinks on sites with a good domain authority will give your URL greater visibility.
Share the page. In the same way that backlinks and internal links can produce results in Google Index, sharing your URL across sites with high traffic such as Twitter, Reddit or Quora can help boost indexing. You should only do this where the links are relevant and always avoid spamming.
Block low quality pages. The frequency that Google craws (and indexes) your website is thought to be determined by the quality of your content so it is important that you regularly ‘prune’ the index of your website to ensure that Google is only indexing those pages that boost your domain authority. A good SEO audit should include setting pages to ‘NoIndex’, deleting 404s, using 301 redirects properly and blocking crawlers with a robots.txt file where appropriate.
Use a Ping. A website pinger notifies search engines that content has been updated and that they should recrawl a URL. The quality of the results from a pinger can vary and not all tools update all search engines. Some useful ping tools are Ping-o-Matic, Twingly and AddUrl.

Make sure your pages are in the Google Index to improve search visibility.

Opace & Achieving Online Visibility

Opace is a specialist digital marketing agency that offers a range of services to help businesses achieve maximum online visibility. From intelligent and responsive web design which boosts SEO to content creation and social media management all of our efforts are made to bring your online message to a wider audience.

To find out more about how Opace can help you achieve your goals for SEO success, contact our team today.

Image credits: JoeTheGoatFarmer/Flickr, Google Search Console and Templune/Pixabay.

Social Media Competition

Scott C — Thu, 23 May 2019 09:59:11 +0000

Reading Time: 5 minutes -

Post written by: Opace Digital Agency . Last Modified: September 3, 2024

How to Run a Successful Social Media Competition Facebook & Twitter

Competitions on social media offer a great way to engage with audiences and raise brand awareness but do you know how to run a successful one?

A social media competition is a great way to promote your business and to reach a new audience. As well helping you retain existing, and secure new, customers a successful campaign can also achieve many other goals such as increasing your followers, build brand awareness and improve engagement across your social media channels.

In this quick feature, we give you the ingredients to a successful social media campaign, specifically on Twitter and Facebook.

The Basics

First off, it is essential that you identify your goals for running a social media competition. Only by knowing what it is that you hope to achieve can you determine whether or not the exercise has been successful once it’s over.

For most businesses, the ultimate goal for online marketing will be an increase in sales, raised brand awareness or something similar.

However, with a campaign like this, the goals are often perceived as part of the overall SEO strategy and may be linked more to steps along this pathway such as increasing the number of followers, securing x number of emails or newsletter signups.

Once you have set your goals for your social media competition, you will need to address the five key components of any project like this…some of which have legal implications so they are important to get right!

The Prize – the reward for the winner of your social media competition should be exciting and appeal to the target demographic audience that matches your customer base. There is little point setting a prize of one ticket to an over 18s event if your business is geared towards families. Make it relevant and make it as enticing as possible.
The Method of Competition – decide what your audience is required to do in order to be in with a chance of wining the prize. Perhaps it will simply be answering a question about your product, the detail of which could be hidden inside some well-written sales copy or maybe they should comment with reasons about why they should be considered the ‘biggest fan’ of your product. The general rule of thumb is that the easier the mechanism of entry, the more entrants you are likely to get but the more sophisticated (and relevant), the better the quality those leads are likely to be.However, both Facebook and Twitter have set rules on what you can and can’t do when it comes to running a social media competition. You are not allowed to ask people to share a post or tag friends as a means to enter a competition. Likewise, on Twitter, it is against the platform’s rules to declare the winner as the person who retweets a message the most. Check the current guidelines on both Facebook and Twitter before launching your social media competition.
Promotion – decide how and where are you going to promote your competition. Whilst this is going to be on Facebook and Twitter, you may also need to get the ball rolling with a PPC advertisement or by partnering with another ‘vehicle’ to promote your campaign. A quick ‘flash’ competition could boost a nice bit of engagement just when you need it most but a more extended, and grander, competition could be a highly rewarding way to go. It depends on your budgets and, again, your overall goals.
Timescales – you will need to be clear in all of your online campaigning for your social media competition about the deadline for entries and when the winner will be announced. If you are intending to run your competition a regular basis then make sure your entrants know when the next draw is being held.
Terms & Conditions –most competitions of this kind which are run in the UK are exempt from the Gambling Act (2005), however you must take care to ensure that your prize draw or competition does not accidentally fall into the category of an ‘illegal lottery’. For these reasons, it is important that you familiarise yourself with the guidance provided by the UK’s Gambling Commission.

Don’t forget that if you are asking for competitors contact details then you will need to ensure that your data collection method complies with data protection regulations, including GDPR.

Make sure your competition abides by the law as well as the Ts & Cs of the platform.

Engage Your Audience

The key to all promotions being run on Facebook and Twitter is to keep up an active level of engagement with your audience. Respond quickly to comments, questions and entries and try to maintain a sense of urgency and excitement. You could keep players involved by declaring a target number of entrants to release a bonus prize. What about rewarding the 100^th entrant? Whilst this does not explicitly contravene the rules laid out by Twitter and Facebook, it does encourage people to share your post/tweet.

Be Bold with your Design

The fact is that images are key to the success of a good social media competition and are far more likely to be noticed in a feed than those without.

In addition, a creative and fun approach to your design can make your content more sharable and give your campaign the best chance of reaching a wider audience.

Get more ‘Likes’ by keeping your competition prominent.

Create a Buzz

The combination of an exciting prize with creative design for your promotional material plus an active engagement strategy should help you keep an air of anticipation about your competition.

Combine this with a hashtag so that all of your posts are grouped; this is particularly important for competitions being run on Twitter but also a good idea for Facebook too.

Use any influence you have with other partners and groups to help you promote your competition and deliver some extra ‘buzz’.

Make the Most of Having a Captive Audience

The momentum of a social media competition slows down pretty quickly once the dust settles on the entry closing date and many companies fail to capitalise on the opportunity that this kind of campaign can have.

Whilst there is a buzz around your competition and entrants are reading up on how to enter, what they will win along with all of the accompanying Ts and Cs, this is the ideal opportunity to speak to them directly about your business, service or products.

Make sure that all of your promotional material includes your website details and some information about who you are, what you do and what you sell. This should also include any automated emails that thank them for submitting their entry. These are all potentially powerful touch points for communicating directly with your target audience.

Don’t be one of those businesses that gives away something for nothing.

Opace and Social Media Management

Opace is a digital marketing agency with a specialism for social media. We understand the importance of creating impactful content that both maximises SEO but also engages an audience. With a track record of highly successful social media competitions and customised online strategies to convert traffic, we know we can help you deliver a competition that, well, stands out from the competition.

To find out more about how we can help you improve your social media strategy by creating quality engagement and building relationships to achieve your business goals, contact us today.

Image credits: Mohamed_Hassan/Pixabay, Alexas_Fotos/Pixabay and Public Domain Pictures.