It seems like no matter what you do, you can’t improve your rankings for your most important keywords. 

While you were able to outpace websites of a similar size and stature, the big boys have you shaking in your boots. 

These are competitor websites with impeccable link profiles, sky-high authority, and scores of loyal fans flocking to their web pages daily (think Amazon, Wikipedia, NY Times, etc.). 

How can you ever hope to compete with these juggernauts?

We’ll deliver the bad news first: you can’t.

However, that’s if you try to beat them at their own game by going after super-popular keywords. 

Now it’s time for the good news. 

If you rethink your strategy and target more obscure, long-tail keywords that don’t get much search volume, you’ll have a FAR easier time ranking in a #1 spot – possibly for multiple keywords at a time. 

Even better, these types of keywords boast higher conversion rates, and they bring in higher-quality traffic than ‘head’ keywords (which have high search volume). 

If you’re ready to corner your niche and start generating more qualified traffic, then long-tail SEO is perfect for you – so read on to learn more.

What the Heck are Long-Tail Keywords?

You may be wondering what long-tail keywords are in the first place. 

Who knew that keywords had ‘tails’ anyway? (What are they, lizards?)

Well, whenever a search term is highly specific (usually containing three or more words, but not always), it’s considered long-tail. 

The ‘tail’ terminology refers to where these keywords land on the search demand curve (more on this in a second). 

Shorter, more general keywords with high search volume are referred to as ‘short-tail keywords.’ They’re also called head keywords because they tend to pertain to entire categories. 

Here are a few examples of each:

• Short-tail keywords (head terms): SEO, gardening, digital marketing, home renovation, accounting, etc. 
• Long-tail keywords: ultimate SEO guide, DIY gardening aprons, digital marketing strategies for eCommerce, home renovation for basements, mobile accounting services, etc.

As you can see, long-tail keywords are more specific and provide more details than general head terms. 

Another key difference is that long-tail keywords have a much lower search volume than short-tail head terms. 

It’s for this reason that some SEOs falsely assume that long-tail keywords aren’t worth pursuing.

After all, why would you want to target keywords that don’t have high search volume?

The reason becomes crystal clear once you take a peek at where these keywords appear on the search demand curve.

How a keyword gets its tail 

While head terms are immensely popular, they only account for less than 20% of all search traffic. 

So, if you target head terms exclusively, you’re leaving more than 80% of total search traffic on the table. 

Take a peek at the search demand curve for this concept to make more sense. 

Short-tail keywords make up the ‘fat head,’ which are general, all-encompassing terms that have extremely high search volume. 

Around 11% comes from the ‘chunky middle,’ which contains terms that lie somewhere in between short-tail and long-tail. 

Last but certainly not least, long-tail keywords account for 70% of all search traffic. These are literally billions of search queries with only a small amount of monthly searches.

The true value of long-tail keywords shines through by crunching the numbers in this way. 

If you’re able to focus on highly specific long-tail keywords that relate to your products and services, you’ll begin to generate vetted, high-quality traffic that’s more likely to convert. 

Keyword length is irrelevant 

Now it’s time to dispel a common myth about short and long-tail keywords. 

At first glance, it seems logical to assume that the length of a keyword’s tail directly relates to the number of words contained in a search phrase, but this isn’t true.

As shown in the search demand curve, a keyword’s tail depends on the search volume it receives and little else. 

The proof?

There are plenty of one-word keywords that get less than 100 searches per month, which would make them long-tail. 

Conversely, the opposite is also true. There are keywords that contain five or more words that get hundreds of thousands of searches per month, making them short-tail. 

To summarize, go by a keyword’s search volume to determine if it’s short-tail or long-tail, not the number of words contained in the phrase. 

Understanding Supporting and Topical Long-Tail Keywords 

Now that you know the difference between short-tail and long-tail keywords, your education isn’t over yet. 

Bummer, right?

Well, there are two distinct types of long-tail keywords, and it’s worth taking the time to know the difference. 

Supporting long-tail keywords are close variants of head terms, whereas topical long-tail keywords are distinct, standalone queries that bear little to no similarity to head keywords. 

Content-wise, you should include supporting long-tail keywords in existing posts focused on related head terms. 

Topical long-tail keywords, on the other hand, are unique enough to be the center of a brand-new piece of content. 

Make sense?

Probably not, so let’s look at a few examples to make the distinction more obvious.

Supporting and topical long-tail keyword examples 

Using our free keyword planner tool, we can see that the keyword digital marketing strategy has a search volume of 8,100. Since it’s in the thousands, it qualifies as a head term or short-tail keyword. 

Alt tag: A screenshot of keyword search results for the term digital marketing strategy. 

Heading over to Google, here’s what the top results for digital marketing strategy are at the time of writing this post:

Heading over to Google, here’s what the top results for digital marketing strategy are at the time of writing this post:

Going back to our keyword tool, we can see that the keyword ‘what is a digital marketing strategy’ only has a search volume of 260, so it’s a long-tail keyword.

However, since it’s so similar to the head term digital marketing strategy, it’s likely a supporting keyword. 

To confirm this, we can head back over to Google and type in what is a digital marketing strategy. If the results are practically the same, it’s confirmation that the top-ranking sites included it as a supporting keyword in their post focusing on the primary keyword ‘digital marketing strategy.’ 

Sure enough, the results are nearly identical to the head term:

Is it a supporting or topical keyword, though?

Let’s head back to Google to find out:

The results are completely different, making this one a topical long-tail keyword. 

In other words, you’d want to create a new piece of content centered around Ecommerce digital marketing strategies instead of including it as a supporting keyword for your piece on general digital marketing strategies. 

How to Find Long-Tail Keywords 

Okay, now that you’ve officially graduated keyword school, how can you find long-tail keywords to use in your content strategy?

While most articles online will tell you that using Google autocomplete is a fantastic way to find relevant long-tail keywords, this isn’t really true. 

Don’t get us wrong, we love Google autocomplete for uncovering short-tail keywords and head terms, but it’s not very effective for finding genuine long-tail keywords. 

Why is that?

It’s because the keywords that pop up in Google’s auto-suggest feature almost always have a high search volume. 

While this makes perfect sense from Google’s perspective (after all, suggesting obscure, highly specific terms wouldn’t be of much use), it effectively makes the feature long-tail proof. 

As you know, a long-tail keyword MUST have a low search volume; otherwise, it won’t appear on the ‘tail’ of the search demand curve. 

Here are some far more effective ways to find authentic long-tail keywords. 

HOTH keyword planner 

As demonstrated earlier, you can use our free keyword planner to uncover relevant long-tail keywords. 

Just pop a few general head terms related to your niche into the search bar, and wham! You’ll have a wide range of keyword options at your fingertips. 

Here are a few pointers on which metrics to look out for:

• Remember that true long-tail keywords receive low search volume, so look for keywords with a volume of 200 or less. 
• The trend graph on the side is extremely important, as it represents the level of interest a keyword has over time. If the line points up, the keyword is gaining popularity, which is what you want (avoid keywords that are trending down). 

When a long-tail keyword checks both these boxes, it’s worthy of making your list. From there, separate the supporting keywords from the topical ones into different columns. Trust us, taking this step will make content creation a lot easier down the line.

HOTH keyword extraction tool 

Besides researching keywords on your own, it’s also wise to check which long-tail keywords your competitors are using. 

This is beneficial for two reasons. 

For one, it can help you identify valuable long-tail keywords that you might not have found otherwise. 

For two, you can pinpoint which long-tail keywords to avoid by finding the ones top-ranked competitors are using (think the legacy websites we mentioned before that have impossibly high DA scores). 

By knowing what to target and what to avoid, you’ll enjoy an airtight keyword strategy. 

But how can you find long-tail keywords used by your competitors?

It’s effortless to do so using our completely free keyword extraction tool. Simply enter the URL of your competitors into the tool, and it’ll work its magic. In no time, you’ll have an organized list of all the head terms, short-tail keywords, and long-tail keywords a competitor is currently using. 

Your audience’s online hangouts 

Another way to find long-tail keywords is to check out the websites that your audience frequents the most. 

These are the places that your audience hangs out online, such as social media groups, forums, and sites like Reddit and Quora. 

This tactic will help you get inside the minds of your target customers, as you’ll get to read their thoughts, opinions, and most importantly … their questions and hassles. 

When browsing Reddit and Quora pages, pay close attention to common questions and pain points that keep popping up, as these are prime long-tail keyword/topic ideas. 

Using Long-Tail Keywords in Your Content Strategy 

Once you have a beautiful list of long-tail keywords that are sorted by supporting and topical queries, you’re ready to start creating content. 

The most CRUCIAL thing to consider when creating new pieces of content around topical long-tail keywords is to understand their search intent. 

To keep it short, search intent refers to the reason why a user conducted an online search in the first place. 

In general, search intent falls into one of these four categories:

• Informational. The intent behind these keywords is to learn something. ‘What is a digital marketing strategy’ is an example of an informational keyword. It’s clear the user wants to learn about digital marketing strategies, so a blog post breaking down the topic will satisfy their intent. 
• Navigational. These queries are meant solely to navigate to a certain website or web page. An example would be ‘Ahrefs login page.’ 
• Commercial. A keyword has commercial intent when it’s focused on researching a purchase. An example would be ‘Is ClickUp better than Trello?’ Product comparisons and buyer’s guides are perfect types of content for commercial keywords. 
• Transactional. Whenever a user is ready to make a purchase, they search for transactional keywords, such as ‘buy coffee mugs in bulk.’ Your product pages, landing pages, and paid ads should focus entirely on transactional keywords. 

You should carefully examine your list of keywords to determine the intent behind each one. As soon as that’s done, it’s time to start creating some stellar content that satisfies your users’ search intent.  

Diversify Your SEO Strategy with Long-Tail Keywords 

Remember that if you only target head terms, you’re leaving out a massive amount of search traffic that you can easily capitalize on with long-tail keywords. 

In fact, one of the best ways to dominate a niche is to use a calculated long-tail keyword strategy. 

Not only do they provide high-quality traffic that’s more likely to convert, but they’re also easier to target than their short-tail counterparts. 

If you need help devising a long-tail keyword strategy for your website, don’t wait to check out HOTH X, our managed SEO packages (featuring your own dedicated SEO guru).   

The post How to Drive More Traffic With Long-Tail Keywords appeared first on The HOTH.

For instance, if you aren’t aware that your server is blocking crawler bots from accessing your content – you won’t appear in the SERPs at all. 

That’s why it’s crucial to conduct regular technical SEO checklist audits to ensure everything is running smoothly behind the scenes. 

How often you conduct audits will depend on a few factors, including the age of your website. If you’re running a brand-new site, running SEO audits every few weeks is a good idea to prevent any issues from affecting your progress. 

For older websites, you should still run a mini-audit each month and an in-depth audit each quarter to keep any potential indexing errors or page speed issues at bay. 

If that sounds excessive, it’s better to be safe instead of sorry. 

After all, 55.6% of SEOs agree that too little importance is placed on technical SEO, primarily because of how much of an impact it can have on SERP rankings. 

That means technical SEO audits are well worth your time, even if you don’t uncover any issues. 

The only problem is that technical SEO is so comprehensive that it’s easy to forget things during the audit. 

To remedy this, read on to check out our in-depth technical SEO checklist that’ll ensure you cover all the bases. 

The 4 Most Important Factors of Technical SEO 

To make the checklist easier to digest, we’ve split it into four main sections that represent the most important aspects of technical SEO. 

They are:

1. Crawlability 
2. Indexability 
3. Security 
4. Page Speed 

Each of these factors encompasses countless technical tweaks, so let’s take a closer look at each one. 

#1: Crawlability Optimizations 

The first part of our technical SEO checklist is to ensure that search bots are able to successfully crawl your website.

Why is that?

It’s because these search bots need to crawl your website to gather more information about it, such as your site architecture and the keywords placed within your content. 

Not only that, but the crawling process is when search engines decide what to save in their index – which is what will appear in search engine results. 

So if a search engine’s bots can’t crawl your most important pages, they won’t appear in the SERPs. 

Here’s a look at the optimizations you’ll need to make to improve your website’s crawlability. 

Be aware of your crawl budget 

It’s crucial to know that search bots won’t index every single page on your website, as that would risk overwhelming your servers. 

Search bots use ‘crawl budgets’ to preserve bandwidth, which refers to the maximum number of web pages a search bot can crawl on a website without putting too much strain on the servers. 

What determines your crawl budget?

There are a few factors, one of which is crawl health. 

Basically, if your site responds quickly to the crawling process, your crawl budget goes up. 

So if you optimize your website for crawlability, search engines will be able to crawl more of your website. However, if certain factors slow down the crawling process, your crawl budget will decrease. 

Besides not wanting to overwhelm web servers, Google also has restrictions on how many web pages it can crawl due to technical limitations. 

There’s also crawl demand, which creates bigger crawl budgets for sites that are extremely popular to keep their content fresh in Google’s index. 

Here are some tips to get the most out of your crawl budget:

• Use noindex tags for pages that you don’t want to appear on search engines (i.e., login pages, admin pages, thank you pages, etc.). 
• Get rid of outdated content that won’t generate any new traffic. 
• Make sure you aren’t blocking search bots on your most important pages. 
• Replace or redirect any broken links. 
• Remove or canonicalize duplicate pages (i.e., multiple colors/sizes of the same product)

Create and upload an XML sitemap

An XML sitemap makes it easier for search bots to crawl and index all your web pages, as well as make sense of your site architecture. 

That’s especially true if you have a larger website containing millions of URLs. 

Even if you have a smaller website, it can be beneficial to create and upload a sitemap to Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools, respectively. 

How can you create a sitemap?

The quickest and easiest way is to use a website crawler like Screaming Frog. 

Once the tool completes an initial crawl of your website, you’ll be able to generate an XML sitemap automatically. 

Before you export the sitemap, don’t forget to check the configuration settings. You’ll be able to customize your sitemap here, including the ability to include/exclude pages by response codes, images, last modified, etc. 

As long as each URL has a singular version and a 200 status (2xx), you should be good to go. 

Optimize your site architecture

Next, you need to organize your web pages to make them easy for search bots to find, crawl, and index. 

If your website doesn’t feature a logical architecture, lots of web pages can get lost in the fray – leading to orphan pages and indexing errors. 

A page is considered orphaned when it doesn’t have any internal links pointing to it. That makes it near impossible for search engines or users to find, which is bad news if the page contains valuable content that you want to rank. 

The guiding principles of sound site architecture are A) to group related pages together and B) to use a flat architecture. 

By flat, we mean that each page should only be a few clicks away from the homepage (typically no more than three or four). 

That’s because the distance to your homepage matters in terms of SEO. The closer a piece of content is to your homepage (and the more high-quality inbound and outbound links point to it), the more clout it will receive on search engines. 

A typical site architecture looks something like this:

• Level 1: Homepage 
• Level 2: About Us, Services, Resources, Products, etc. 
• Level 3: Service Pages, Blog Posts, Product Pages, etc.  

Choose a URL structure 

Also, your URLs need to follow a logical structure in the same way. Since the website is yours, it’s entirely up to you to determine the type of URL structure you’ll use. 

The only rule is to stick to the structure you choose across your entire website. 

You’ll get to choose from subdirectories or subdomains; just remember to stay consistent after you select one. 

If you’re conducting an SEO campaign on Bing, then you’ll want to add your target keywords to your URLs – as that’s a significant ranking factor. You can do the same for Google, although it won’t have as much of an impact on your search performance. 

It’s also a good idea to keep your URLs short and sweet, and you should always use lowercase characters. For URLs that contain more than one word, use dashes to separate them (i.e., www.yourblog.com/blog/how-to-train-your-dog)

#2: Indexability Optimizations

There are a separate number of optimizations you need to make to ensure search bots can properly index your most important web pages. 

Once one of your web pages is saved in a search engine’s index, it becomes eligible to rank on search engine results pages. 

If you’ve optimized your site properly for your target keywords, search engines will pull up your content from their index whenever users search for those keywords. 

However, if your content isn’t in a search engine’s index, it’ll never appear in user searches, even if it’s perfectly optimized for the keywords they use. 

Here’s what you’ll need to do to make your content easy for search bots to index. 

Ensure mobile-responsiveness

Google has used mobile-first indexing for a while now, meaning their search bots will index the mobile version of websites first. 

Why did they make the change?

It’s because mobile devices dominate the search engine market and have for some time. Mobile devices account for 56.9% of all search traffic, outdoing desktop searches and other alternatives combined. 

The best way to set up your website for desktop and mobile devices is to use a responsive design. This method is preferred by website owners because you only have to manage one version of your website, as it will automatically adjust to the user’s device. 

If you aren’t sure if your website is mobile-friendly, you can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to find out (if your site needs some work, you can check these descriptions of possible errors). 

Address any indexing errors 

Google Search Console is an invaluable tool for SEOs to use, particularly for technical SEO. 

That’s because it gives you exclusive insights into how Google views your website. You’ll be able to tell if Google is able to index your website, as well as if there are any errors. 

The Page Indexing report gives you a full overview of all the URLs Google has indexed and the ones it does not (including reasons why). 

Not only that, but it’ll even let you know if there are any issues with pages that are already indexed but could use some optimization to perform better on the SERPs. 

For pages that have indexing errors, clicking on the lens icon on each web page will let you know specifics about what went wrong. 

Here’s a look at some of the most common indexing errors:

• Submitted URL marked ‘noindex.’ This occurs whenever you’ve marked a page with a noindex tag, meaning you don’t want it to appear in Google’s index. If this appears on a page that you want to appear in the SERPs, you need to remove the noindex tag. 
• Soft 404. A soft 404 occurs whenever a page has a 200 OK response, but Google still isn’t able to find the content. This tends to happen when content moves, and you can solve it by using a 301 redirect to a new address. 
• Blocked due to an unauthorized request. If you see this error, it means that you’ve blocked search bots from crawling the page – so you’ll need to change your settings to allow them access. 
• Indexed without content. This happens whenever a page is indexed but has too little content to appear in the SERPs. The fix is to simply add more content to the page. 

#3: Security Optimizations 

You need to make sure that your website is secure, especially if you use contact forms to collect users’ personal information. 

If you run an eCommerce store, then security is even more important – as you want your customers to know that their financial information stays encrypted. 

Use HTTPS 

HTTPS is an absolute must for modern websites, as it means you have an SSL certificate that encrypts all data transmitted to and from your site. 

This is doubly important if you sell goods on your website, as you’ll want to encrypt your customer’s sensitive financial information. 

If your website uses HTTPS, you’ll see it in your domain (i.e., https://www.yourwebsite.com). Also, you’ll see a tiny padlock next to your website, which lets users know that your website is secure. 

To make the switch, you’ll need to buy an SSL certificate and install it on your web hosting account. 

#4: Page Speed Optimizations

Lastly, your website needs lightning-fast load times to rank high on search engine results pages. 

That’s especially true for Google, as their Core Web Vitals test will see if your web speed is up to snuff. 

Here’s how to improve your website’s loading speed. 

Consider using a CDN (content distribution network) 

CDNs are great for loading speed because they store multiple copies of your website in different geographic locations. 

From there, they choose the version of your site that’s closest to a user’s location – which causes the website to load extremely quickly. 

• Don’t use too many plugins 

Does your website have a ton of outdated plugins? If so, they could be slowing down your site speed, and they can also be a security risk. 

• Compress images and videos 

Videos and images take up a ton of bandwidth, especially if they’re high resolution. To minimize their impact on your site speed, use a compressor on all your images, videos, CSS, and Javascript files. 

Final Thoughts: Technical SEO Checklist

Technical SEO can make or break your performance on search engines, so it’s not something to overlook. 

As long as you carefully cross off each item on this checklist, you’ll enjoy airtight technical SEO, allowing your on-page efforts to truly shine. 

Do you need help with technical SEO for your website?

Then don’t wait to check out HOTH X, our managed SEO services. Our digital marketing experts know what it takes to conduct winning SEO campaigns, so don’t wait to get in touch today.      

The post An Extensive Technical SEO Checklist for 2023 & Beyond appeared first on The HOTH.

Headings, subheadings, font size, spacing, bold, italics, and graphic design are all ways of getting the most important information to stand out. 

That way, you’re able to digest the most important parts of a blog post without having to sit and fully read through it all. 

This is known as a content hierarchy, which refers to placing more emphasis on the most crucial information in a piece of content than the rest. 

It’s a timeless technique that’s used in not only website content but also newspapers, magazines, and print ads. 

Why does this matter?

It does because the average internet user’s attention span is notoriously short. 

That means your content hierarchy needs to be on point, with the most pressing information standing out the most. That way, a user will instantly be able to tell if your content sparks their interest or not. 

Besides hooking your readers right off the bat, an effective content hierarchy provides a sleek, cohesive look for your website and can help boost conversion rates. 

Does your website currently lack an effective content hierarchy?

If so, you’ve come to the right place. Read on to learn more about why content hierarchy matters, as well as how to form one for your website. 

What’s Content Hierarchy All About?

Formally defined, a content hierarchy is a way of arranging a piece of content where the most relevant, important, or pressing information is the focal point. 

In most scenarios, that means placing the most important information at the top of the page and less important information toward the bottom. 

Besides the location of the content, design elements also come into play. For instance, you can highlight an important fact by formatting it in bold. 

Headings and subheadings are also critical components of content hierarchy. 

Your primary header (H1) needs to outline the topic you’re going to discuss, as well as why your users should care. In other words, what’s in it for them? How can reading your post solve one of their problems? 

If your post is about learning SEO, an effective header will look something like this:

• How to Learn SEO for More Leads and Conversions

Not only does this heading outline the topic, but it also lets your readers know what they’ll get out of it (more leads and conversions). 

Each subheading following the H1 should use the same template – with the most important subheadings appearing further up the page. 

Other web design features that influence hierarchy include:

• Typefaces 
• Fonts 
• Bold/italics 
• Spacing 
• Colors 
• Boxes 
• Call-to-action buttons 
• Images and infographics 

These are all ways to separate the most important content from everything else on the page. 

Generally, most websites place the most pertinent information at the top of the page while using boldface and other techniques to highlight CTAs and other crucial content that’s further down the page. 

Why is your content hierarchy important?

All the written content you release on your website isn’t worth much if nobody reads it. Online content is oversaturated today, including blogs, ads, emails, videos, images, and infographics. 

That’s led the average internet user to become a bit jaded when it comes to actually sitting down to read articles online. 

Unless you want a sky-high bounce rate and dismal dwell time, you need to make sure your content has scannable text. 

According to research by the Nielsen Norman Group, 79% of users scan a web page before deciding if it’s worth their time to read it all – and they bounce if it doesn’t catch their interest.

So if your content hierarchy is all out of whack, readers won’t be able to scan your articles, which will likely cause them to bounce immediately. 

Yet, if your content contains the most important information at the top and contains scannable text elements, users will scan your article to see if it sparks their interest. If it does, they’ll stick around and read the entire post, boosting your dwell time. 

Here are some examples of scannable text elements you can use in your hierarchy:

• Highlighting essential keywords (hyperlinks, bold, italics, colors, and typeface variations)
• Bulleted lists 
• Including only one idea per paragraph 
• Meaningful subheadings (avoid being clever here, get straight to the point) 
• Shorter word counts than competitor articles 
• Short paragraphs that contain no more than three sentences 
• Inverted pyramid style – starting with the conclusion first 

These elements will enable readers to scan your articles in just a few seconds, which will improve your user experience. 

Internal Linking and Content Hierarchy 

Besides the hierarchy of content on an individual page, you should also consider the hierarchy of your website as a whole. 

In other words, your most important/valuable pages should hold more link value than less important ones.

How do you achieve this?

You can by using a logical internal linking structure to your website. That will help Google establish a clear picture of the hierarchy of your pages. 

First, begin by creating a list of all your web pages, and rank them in order of importance. Your most essential pages should be your landing pages with the highest conversion rates, product pages, and educational blogs. 

To assign more link value to one page over another, you need to provide more internal links for it. 

To Google (and other search engines), the more links a page has pointing to it, the more authoritative it appears. 

For the pages you want to have the most link value, make them your top priority for internal links. In other words, these are the web pages you should link to the most in your other content. Link to them on your blogs, homepage, about page, and other types of content. 

That way, they’ll accrue more ‘link juice’ than your less important pages, forming a content hierarchy for your entire website. 

Tips for internal linking structure 

Visualize your entire website as a pyramid to make organizing your web pages into a hierarchy easier. 

At the very top of the pyramid is your homepage, which is the hub where users can access all the content on your site (or they should be, you definitely don’t want to have orphan pages). 

Beneath the homepage are sections and categories, such as:

• Landing pages 
• Blog posts 
• FAQ section 
• About Us 
• Service pages 
• Product pages 

Think back to the web pages that you determined were the most valuable in the previous step. That’s your cornerstone content, and it should be directly beneath your homepage in the pyramid. 

Less important pages, such as your About Us page, can occur at the bottom of the pyramid.

Using contextual links  

You should also make use of contextual linking. 

What’s that?

It’s where you link articles discussing the same topic together. That will convey to Google and to your readers that the articles are all topically related. 

Doing so is also how you show Google which articles are your cornerstones on each topic. These are the posts that contain the most detailed information on a subject which serve as the parent page for the related articles. 

To point out a cornerstone article, link back to all your related articles within it (while also including links pointing back to it in the related articles). 

Here’s an example using HOTH articles on link building:

• Parent page/cornerstone article: Link Building: The HOTH Guide to Getting Backlinks!

Related articles: 

• What Is Link Building? (And Why Is It Important?)
• 4 Common Link Building Myths Explained
• Link Building for CBD SEO: Tactics to Get High-Quality Backlinks
• Local Link Building for SEO (5 Strategies for 2022) 

As you can see, the cornerstone article contains detailed, general information about link-building techniques – and the rest of the articles go into more depth on specifics like link-building for local SEO and CBD SEO. 

Google will notice this structure, and it will rank the cornerstone article the highest as a result. 

Content Hierarchy & Visual Hierarchy: What’s the Difference?

You may hear the terms content hierarchy and visual hierarchy used interchangeably, but there is a difference. 

Visual hierarchy refers to using visual elements to establish a hierarchy, such as text size, typefaces, colors, images, and other design features. 

Content hierarchy is only focused on written content, such as including the most important information at the top of the page. 

You’ll likely combine both techniques whenever you establish a content hierarchy, which is why the terms are so closely related. 

Content and visual hierarchy techniques in action 

An example of when the two converge is the primary header of a page. 

The writer will include the most crucial message in the heading, and the designer will make it larger and a different color than the rest of the article, making it a focal point. 

With the way our brains work, we’re trained to read the largest text first because it’s the easiest. Reading the fine print takes a lot more effort, especially if it’s lumped into large paragraphs containing more than five sentences. 

That’s taxing on readers, which is why you want to write in shorter paragraphs with brief, concise sentences. 

That way, users can quickly scan your web pages without missing anything important. If you have any important information on your website that’s written in a tiny font, you aren’t doing your content any favors, so make it larger. 

Always consider your users’ needs when constructing a new web page by asking yourself the following:

What’s the most crucial message this post needs to get across? How can you make the copy easier to read? If you only want readers to retain one thing from your post, what would that be?

Knowing the answers to these questions will make it a lot easier to develop a content hierarchy that provides the most value to your users. 

Google is watching, too

Remember that search engines also pay attention to the hierarchy on each page, not just to readers. 

Just as Google can pick up on the hierarchy of your website as a whole due to your internal links, it can also infer which information is most important on each page due to its layout. 

The better your content hierarchy, the easier it is for Google Bots to crawl and index your web page – all while understanding what your content is about and which information is most important due to the hierarchy’s structure. 

The good news?

That means perfecting your content hierarchy will also positively impact your SEO and digital marketing efforts. 

The Benefits of a Strong Content Hierarchy 

Now that you know more about how to construct a winning content hierarchy, let’s learn more about the benefits of implementing and optimizing one. 

Besides your website, you should strive to include a hierarchy for all the content you release outside of your site as well – such as social media posts on LinkedIn, paid advertisements, promotional emails, and other forms of content marketing. 

A content hierarchy will not only help hold your users’ attention, but it can also provide the following benefits. 

Improved dwell time and bounce rate 

Two essential metrics for SEO (or finding success online in general) are bounce rate and dwell time. 

What are those?

Bounce rate refers to how often users visit a landing page but take no further action before clicking away – which is known as a bounce. A high bounce rate means users aren’t interacting with your website beyond reading information on one page. 

To increase conversion rates, you need to lower your bounce rate – and content hierarchy is a great way to do that. 

With an effective content hierarchy in place, users will be able to clearly see CTA buttons and internal links to other pages, which will increase the chances of them continuing to explore your site. 

It’s crucial to note that bounce rate does NOT include how long a user spends on your page. That’s a separate metric called dwell time. 

A lengthy dwell time means that users are engaging with your content, especially if they’re informational/educational blogs. A short dwell time means that your content isn’t resonating with your audience, so it needs work. 

With a proper content hierarchy, readers will be able to scan your article to see if they want to read it. According to the previous statistic, a whopping 79% of users do this. Once they finish the scan, they will decide to read if it’s intriguing, which will improve dwell time. 

Builds a sense of trust and loyalty amongst readers 

Implementing the traditional content hierarchy used by newspapers and magazines for centuries will build trust amongst your readers. 

Strange as it sounds, we’ve become conditioned to trust brands that use this type of content format, as it’s heavily associated with newspapers and journalism – which most people consider trustworthy. 

It adds a level of professionalism to your content that will reflect well on your brand. After all, who wouldn’t prefer to read a blog with a slick visual design that’s effortless to scan and read over an unstructured, incoherent mess?

There’s also a familiarity that comes with this type of hierarchy, which some readers may find comforting. It looks like all the professional pages they’ve read before, leading them to trust your content more than they would otherwise. 

It creates a cohesive, universal look for your site

Today’s internet users are looking for a pleasant experience whenever they visit a new website. They don’t want to get bogged down by large clumps of text, slow loading speeds, and confusing interfaces that they struggle to navigate. 

Using a logical content hierarchy will mitigate all those potential issues while providing a stellar user experience. 

It will also help you refine your internal linking structure and main navigation bar. 

If your content has a logical, cohesive flow, users will have an easier time retaining your content. It will also be easier for them to spot call-out boxes and CTA buttons, which can help expedite the sales process.

Developing future content is a breeze 

Another perk of using a content hierarchy is that creating new content is easier. If you’ve ever started a blog post only to get hit with a severe case of writer’s block, this benefit will help you out a lot. 

Instead of scratching your head in confusion, your content hierarchy will provide a guide/outline of sorts. 

The framework will already be there, which types of headings and subheadings to use, as well as images, call-out boxes, and fonts – which removes a lot of the guesswork and can make it easier to write new posts. 

It boosts conversion rates 

All the benefits we’ve covered so far lead to better conversion rates. Since your content is scanner-friendly, readers that prefer to scan will give your content a shot, which can lead to them converting. 

Not only that, but the cohesive layout will make it easier for users to spot CTA buttons and call-out boxes, making it easier for them to make a purchase. 

Also, the heightened content output due to how easy it is to make new posts will help you generate more leads and conversions. 

Final Thoughts: Content Hierarchy 

A logical content hierarchy will make any web page, from e-commerce sites to standard blog posts, easier to read. 

By using visual techniques to point out crucial information and including it at the top of the page, you make it easier for your users to scan your content, engage with it, and convert. 

As such, implementing a content hierarchy should be part of your marketing strategy if it’s not already. 

Do you need help developing a content strategy for your business?

Then don’t wait to check out our outstanding content creation services at HOTH Blogger. Our SEO gurus will help you reach the top of the SERPs, so make sure to book a call today.     

The post Why You Need to Use Internal Links to Build Content Hierarchy appeared first on The HOTH.

There’s no shortage of debates to choose, from, either. 

Is bounce rate an official ranking factor recognized by Google? Is a low bounce rate always more desirable than a high bounce rate? Does bounce rate factor in how long a user spends on a page? Does a higher bounce rate mean that your copywriting is no good?

These are all hotly debated questions within the SEO community, and many sources will provide different answers. 

It turns out there are a few reasons why bounce rate is such a polarizing metric, as there’s far more to it than meets the eye. 

According to the experts, a rate of 26 – 40% is considered a reasonable bounce rate, with rates over 70% being seen as bad – but is that always the case?

In this article, we’re going to clear up all the confusion surrounding bounce rates once and for all. That way, you’ll know how to optimize your bounce rate in the most effective way possible for your business. 

Read on to learn how important bounce rates are for SEO, as well as how you can improve your rates if they aren’t in the optimal range. 

What are Bounce Rates?

A bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors that only view a single page on your website before leaving, without making a purchase, filling out a form, or interacting/engaging with anything beyond the page they landed on. 

Therefore, if you have a high bounce rate, it’s a sign that lots of users are engaging in single-page sessions. 

To many digital marketers, a high bounce rate is always a bad thing. It means that customers aren’t engaging with your content or the products/services you’re offering. As such, they go to great lengths to lower bounce rates. 

Yet, are high bounce rates and single-page sessions always a bad thing?

Here’s where the topic gets a bit more complex, as it will depend on the site content on each page. 

For example, a high bounce rate on an e-commerce site is typically a sign that your copy, call-to-action, and product images/videos need work. That’s because the goal of e-commerce sites is to encourage user engagement, either by purchasing a product or entering their contact information. 

However, there are certain types of web pages where engagement beyond a single page is necessary.  

Understanding bounce rates for different types of webpages 

Here’s something that a lot of SEOs don’t realize – bounce rates DO NOT include how long a user spent on a page. 

An educational or informational webpage is bound to have a higher bounce rate due to its nature. Theoretically, a user could spend three hours consuming the content on one of your pages before leaving, and it would still count as a bounce.

While you may automatically perceive that as unfavorable, the user may have had a wonderful user experience and might eventually make a purchase based on what they learned from your website. 

That’s why some website owners have difficulty interpreting their bounce rates. 

Misinterpreting bounce rates: an example 

If your goal is to have the lowest bounce rate for ALL your web pages, regardless of their nature, you may wind up shooting yourself in the foot. 

How’s that?

Let’s say that one of your web pages is informative in nature and serves to educate users on a topic that relates to your products and services. 

As such, users tend to land on the page, consume its content (don’t forget; they may spend hours doing so, and you won’t know by bounce rate alone), and then bounce. 

Since ‘high bounce rate bad’ is the mantra shared by most SEOs, you want to lower the bounce rate, so you split it up into two pages – which forces interaction on behalf of the user. 

While that will lower your bounce rate, it’s more inconvenient for your visitors and can hurt your user experience. 

So if you notice some individual pages with high bounce rates, consider the nature of the content first before trying to lower it. A higher bounce rate isn’t that big of a deal if it’s an informative or educational page. 

If it’s a landing page intending to increase conversion rates, however, a high bounce rate is definitely a cause for concern, and you should do what you can to lower it. 

Are Bounce Rates an Official Google Ranking Factor?

Another hotly debated topic involving bounce rates is whether Google includes them as one of its ranking factors for SEOs. 

Matt Cutts (former head of Webspam at Google) publicly denied Google’s use of bounce rates in their ranking algorithms, which put the topic to bed for most. The consensus then became that bounce rates don’t affect SERP rankings. 

Yet, some experts refuse to believe that bounce rates have no impact on SEO, but they can’t seem to agree on how. 

Backlinko once famously stated that they found lower bounce rates directly correlated to higher search engine rankings – despite not being an official factor. However, in-depth tests from Rand Fishkin (Moz’s founder) were inconclusive. 

He experimented with a group of different websites by intentionally increasing the bounce rate to see the effect it had on SERP rankings. The results were split down the middle, with half of the websites seeing changes in rankings while the other half neither went up nor down. 

Due to the conflicting results of the research, it’s hard to say whether bounce rates impact SEO or not – yet one thing is undeniable – bounce rates are NOT an official SEO ranking factor for Google. 

That’s not to say that improving your bounce rates on certain pages won’t have a highly positive impact on your search traffic and revenue; you just need to know what to look for (more on how to improve your rates in a bit). 

What are some average bounce rates?

When analyzing the data, you’ll quickly notice that different industries and different types of websites have varying bounce rates. 

Once again, this is due to the fact that bounce rates don’t include how long users spend on an individual page. 

With that in mind, here’s a breakdown of the average bounce rates for various types of websites:

E-commerce and retail sites

On average, these websites have a bounce rate of 20 – 45%. Notice that the averages are on the lower side, which has to do with the nature of the content (to encourage interaction to make a sale or generate a lead). 

B2B sites

The average bounce rate for business-to-business (B2B) websites jumps up a bit to 25 – 55%. The higher average is due to how the B2B sales process works, which is more educational and informational than e-commerce (due to the longer sales cycle). 

Lead generation websites

The average bounce rate hovers between 30 – 55% for web pages geared at generating leads only. 

Landing pages

General landing pages have a higher average bounce rate of 60 – 90%. This is due to the nature of some landing pages, as some aren’t always designed to convert. If your informational landing pages have a high bounce rate, that’s not always a cause for concern. 

Blogs, portals, and dictionaries

These web pages have the highest average bounce rate, coming in at a whopping 65 – 90%. Yet, as we’ve discussed before, it’s only natural for these page visits to end in a bounce since their primary purpose is to inform, educate, and entertain. 

You can use these averages as benchmarks for your different web pages. 

If you notice that your e-commerce pages are higher than 45%, you should strive to lower them. Yet, if your blogs have a bounce rate of 70%, you’re well within the average. 

In short, a high bounce rate isn’t always a bad thing, so it’s crucial to consider the context for higher bounce rates if you run into them. 

The difference between exit rate and bounce rates 

Before we move on, it’s essential to distinguish the difference between two similar metrics that you’ll find on Google Analytics; bounce rate and exit rate. 

While they have very similar-sounding names, they refer to two very different user actions. 

Bounce rate refers to users that land on a page and then leave without performing any actions. 

Exit rate is the overall percentage of users that left that page, even if they didn’t land on it. 

Thus, the key distinction between a bounce and an exit is if the user landed on the page or not. 

Let’s consider an example to make this concept clear. Say that a user searches for your website and lands on page A, your homepage from Google. After hanging out for a few seconds, they hit the back button on their browser and returned to the SERPs. 

Would this be considered an A) bounce or B) exit?

If you guessed A), you’re correct. It’s a bounce because the user landed on your page from a search engine and then left without taking any further action. 

In scenario two, the user lands on your homepage from Google but doesn’t immediately back off. Instead, they click through to page B, one of your product pages, and take a quick look around. After a brief moment, they close the window and leave. 

In this instance, that would count as an exit for your product page, not a bounce. It won’t be considered a bounce for your homepage either since the user clicked through to another page. 

Why Doesn’t Google View Bounce Rates as an SEO Ranking Factor?

Now that you know bounce rates AREN’T one of Google’s 200 SEO ranking factors, why is that?

Is there a specific reason why they chose to exclude this metric from their algorithm?

It turns out there are more than a few reasons why Google doesn’t bother including bounce rate as an SEO metric, even though it’s measured by Google Analytics (GA). 

Here are the four primary reasons why your overall bounce rate that appears on GA won’t affect your rankings. 

#1: Bounce rates don’t accurately measure the quality of a website 

We’ve already gone over the different average bounce rates for e-commerce, B2B, and blogs – and you’ve seen how widely they vary. 

As such, it’s next to impossible for Google’s algorithm to determine the purpose of each page to account for its bounce rate. As an example, if Google DID use bounce rates as a ranking factor, almost all blog pages would immediately get punished for simply doing what they intended to do. 

The problems with bounce rates don’t end there, though. 

Beyond the varying averages, image pages also cause issues when using bounce rates as an official metric. 

Why is that?

It’s because websites that have a lot of images that show up on Google searches will have some of the highest bounce rates. It makes sense if you think about it – a user searches for an image on Google, clicks on it to view it or save it, and then backs out of the window. 

That would cause the bounce rates for those pages to skyrocket, leading Google to punish them if the bounce rate was a ranking factor. 

Thankfully, bounce rates don’t affect SEO, as their unreliability would wreak havoc on many websites, even well-optimized ones. 

#2: Google doesn’t use Google Analytics data 

Many hold the false assumption that Google looks at GA data when ranking websites, which isn’t the case. 

While some may claim that Google gives preferential treatment to users of Google products (such as GA, GSC, and others), there’s no evidence to back this up. 

Moreover, if it was true that Google was favoring users of its products, that could place them in hot water legally. 

Not only that, but Google Analytics is exclusively for website owners and marketers, not for Google itself. 

After all, where do you think the data found in GA comes from? The fact is that Google already has the tools it needs to crawl, index, and rank websites without having to look at the data found in GA. 

Matt Cutts put this issue to bed when he claimed that Google Analytics data has no bearing on Google search results. 

That’s why it’s best only to use GA data to inform your SEO and marketing strategy, not as a way to get inside the head of Google’s algorithms – as they don’t pay attention to it. 

#3: Google Analytics is easy to manipulate 

There’s another reason why Google ignores GA – it’s inherently unreliable and easy to manipulate. 

In particular, it’s quite easy for users to filter out bot behavior and manipulate other statistics within the application. 

With such a volatile nature, it’s no wonder that Google excludes all GA metrics from its search algorithms. Otherwise, it would be too easy for anyone to manipulate search data directly affecting rankings. 

#4: Not all websites use Google Analytics 

Last but not least, not every website uses GA, which is another big reason why Google ignores it. 

That may seem surprising to digital marketers, but the reality is that only 54.3% of sites use GA – leaving over half the internet unrepresented. 

Not only that, but there are also sites out there that use analytics tools, just not from Google. Other popular analytics apps include:

• Clicky 
• New Relic 
• Amplitude 
• Heap 
• Yandex Metrica 
• WordPress Jetpack 

If Google were to use GA metrics for their search algorithms, they’d be excluding all the websites that use these other platforms. 

The Pogo-Sticking Algorithm 

All this isn’t to say that Google’s algorithms don’t have a way to determine how many users are interacting with your site vs. how many up and leave immediately – they do. It’s just that they have a more accurate metric than bounce rates to do it. 

Enter Google’s Pogo-Sticking Algorithm, a metric similar to bounce rate but different in that it’s far more accurate. 

It’s how Google measures user pogo-sticking – which refers to users who view a site for a few seconds, then ‘pogo-stick’ back to the SERPs. 

What’s the benefit of this?

It’s more accurate than a user’s bounce rate, which, as we’ve already discussed, can be either good or bad. Yet, pogo-sticking is always considered bad, as it’s a clear indicator that the user is dissatisfied with your content. 

Whenever the algorithm notices that a specific page has pogo-sticking AND a high bounce rate, then and only then will Google count it as a negative toward search rankings. 

Even then, Google doesn’t look at the same type of bounce rate that you see on GA. Instead, they have an improved bounce rate that considers long clicks and short clicks. 

A long click is when a user stays on the page for a while, and a short click is when they immediately leave. As such, this version of the bounce rate DOES factor in how long a user spends on a page, which is why Google uses it. 

How to Improve a Bad Bounce Rate 

Even though Google doesn’t pay attention to the bounce rate you see in GA, that doesn’t mean that it’s still not a useful metric for both marketing and SEO purposes. 

As stated before, you just need to know when a high bounce rate is a cause for concern and when it isn’t (see the section on average bounce rates). 

For instance, a high bounce rate on an e-commerce page designed to convert is cause for concern. Users could be leaving due to a slow page load time, the lack of a convincing CTA (call-to-action), or a variety of other issues. Here are some candid suggestions on how to improve faltering bounce rates. 

Use bucket brigades 

A reason many users bounce on a website is if the copy is too drawn out or boring. If the copy on your website features long, unbroken paragraphs, this is bound to happen. 

That’s where bucket brigades come in to save the day. 

A bucket brigade is an isolated, short snippet that hooks readers in to learn more. In fact, you can find them strewn throughout this article. Examples include:

• Why is that?
• What can you do?
• Fun fact:
• The truth:
• How does that help you?

These are incredibly effective for keeping readers on your page because they encourage users to continue consuming your content. So if you notice large gaps in your content, bring in a bucket brigade to bridge them. 

Improve page speed 

A notorious cause for users to split from a page before taking further action is slow loading speed. 

Fast internet speeds have spoiled us in recent years, and the average user is very impatient when waiting for a site to load. If it takes longer than three seconds, don’t expect anyone to stick around. 

Page speed also matters to Google, as you’ll have to pass the Core Web Vitals test to rank high in the SERPs. 

How can you find out if your page is loading properly?

Try using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool, which will give you a score of 1 – 100 based on how quickly your website loads. What’s even more useful are the recommendations it makes for improving your speed, so pay close attention. 

You should also ensure that your web pages load quickly on mobile devices as well. 

Cater to search intent 

The most important tip for improving bounce rates is to ensure you fully cater to user search intent. 

In other words, you need to provide precisely what users are looking for if you want them to stay on your page. 

If you’re only optimizing your content for search engines and not real people, your bounce rates will suffer as a result. That’s because people are looking for answers to their questions, not vague reiterations of existing content that uses keywords and internal links to rank higher. 

With every piece of content you create, ensure that you satisfy the user intent behind it. That’s the best way to improve your bounce rate and rank higher in the organic search results. 

To find the most effective version of your content, try implementing a/b testing and go with the version that generates more traffic and has a lower bounce rate. 

Final Takeaways: How Important are Bounce Rates for SEO?

By now, you should better understand bounce rates and how they affect your SEO. While the bounce rate you see on GA isn’t an official ranking factor, it’s still a valuable metric if you know how to interpret it properly.

Remember that bounce rate DOES NOT include how long a user spends on a page, which is why certain types of webpages will have higher bounce rates than others. 

As long as you factor that into your strategy, you shouldn’t have problems lowering your bounce rates. 

Do you need help forming a winning SEO strategy at your company?

Then don’t hesitate to try out our five-star managed SEO service, HOTH X. Our SEO experts will help you devise a strategy to get you to the top of the SERPs in your field and improve your bounce rates, so don’t wait to reach out.   

The post How Important are Bounce Rates for SEO, Really? appeared first on The HOTH.

By leveraging the right tools, you can access and analyze a plethora of data. But focusing on the wrong ones can make you lose sight of the bigger picture or lead you astray.

So how do you know what’s actually working and what’s not? How can you ensure that your efforts are generating a return?

With the right metrics and SEO tracking tools.

In this article, we’ll explain what SEO tracking is and why it’s important. We’ll also look at the key metrics you should track and how you can use them to improve your campaign.

What Is SEO Tracking?

SEO tracking is the process of measuring the progress and performance of a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign. It helps you evaluate the effectiveness of your SEO and SEM efforts.

So, what makes SEO tracking so important?

When you track the right metrics, you get a clearer picture of what’s working. This lets you uncover valuable insights that you can leverage to inform and refine your SEO campaign.

However, the key to deriving these insights lies in selecting the right metrics — not easy when you consider that there’s no shortage of metrics you can track.

SEO Tracking Metrics To Monitor SEO Performance

Knowledge isn’t always power. With SEO tracking, it’s easy to get lost in a wealth of information and lose sight of the bigger picture.

Here we’ll look at the most important metrics you should measure to monitor and evaluate your SEO performance.

Keyword rankings

Keyword rankings are where you rank in the search results for a keyword. They’re an early sign that your SEO efforts are working.

You want to aim to rank in the top positions for your target keyword. That’s because the top three organic search results account for 62.5% of all clicks.

While rankings tend to fluctuate, a sudden drop could indicate a bigger issue. You can track your keyword rankings manually or use our free Google Rank Checker Tool to check for existing rankings.

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Organic traffic

Organic traffic refers to how much traffic you’re getting from Google. It’s another metric that helps you measure your SEO campaign’s effectiveness.

Backlinks and referring domains

Backlinks continue to be one of the most important ranking factors. Think of them as a vote of confidence as they signal to Google that your content is useful and valuable.

The more backlinks you have, the higher your page will rank. One study found a strong correlation between backlinks and rankings.

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In addition to tracking backlinks, you’ll also want to track referring domains. These are the number of unique domains that you have backlinks from.

You can use The HOTH’s Backlink Checker Tool to track your backlinks.

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This tool is also a great way to conduct link research on your competitors.

Clickthrough rate (CTR)

Clickthrough rate or CTR is the percentage of searchers who see and click one of your pages in the search results.

For example, if 100 searchers see your listing on Google and five people click through, your CTR would be 5%.

This metric tells you how effective your pages are at grabbing your visitors’ attention. One way to improve this metric is to optimize your titles and make them more enticing.

Domain Authority

Domain Authority (DA) is a metric developed by Moz that predicts how well your site will rank in search results. It’s based on factors like the quality and quantity of your backlinks.

The score ranges from 0 to 100 and is based on a logarithmic scale, meaning that going from DA 0 to 10 will be much easier than going from DA 70 to 80.

DA isn’t an official ranking factor, but it can help you gauge the impact of your SEO strategy and measure how authoritative your site is.

You can use our Domain Authority Checker Tool to measure your DA.

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Organic conversion rate

Organic conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who find your site through Google and take a desired action (e.g., signing up for a trial, filling out a form, making a purchase, etc.).

Tracking this metric tells you the quality of the traffic you’re getting. If you’re getting a high volume of traffic, but your conversions are low, you may be targeting the wrong search terms.

Here are the average organic conversion rates by industry:

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If your numbers are below these benchmarks, consider revisiting your keyword research.

Bounce rate

Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who visit only one page on your site without taking any other action and “bounce” or exit the page.

Here are the average bounce rates for different industries:

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A high bounce rate isn’t always a bad thing as users could be looking for quick answers (e.g., phone numbers, addresses, etc.). However, it can indicate that users aren’t finding your content relevant.

Dwell time

Dwell time is an indicator of the quality and relevance of your content. It refers to how long a visitor spends on a web page before clicking back to the search results.

The industry benchmark for average dwell time is between two to four minutes.

Indexed pages

Indexed pages are the pages of your site that Google has added to its database. This metric is important because if your pages aren’t indexed, you’re not getting any SEO value from them.

You can check how many pages are indexed from the Coverage report in Google Search Console.

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The report shows you the number of pages that are indexed along with any indexing errors.

Technical SEO health

Google is increasingly focused on delivering better user experiences. Page experience is now officially a ranking factor.

It’s important that you monitor the three main factors of the Core Web Vitals — load times, ease of interaction, and visual stability. Monitor and address any issues that could impact these elements to ensure good technical SEO health.

The Top SEO Tracking Tools

With the right SEO tools, you’ll be able to see how your efforts are paying off and uncover valuable insights to inform your search engine marketing strategy.

Here are the top SEO tools you can use to measure your site’s performance.

1. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the best SEO tools you can use to monitor your SEO performance. You can track metrics like new users, bounce rates, average session durations, and even traffic sources.

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With Google Analytics, you can set up conversion tracking for goals that are important to your business (e.g., purchases, newsletter sign-ups, and form submissions).

The best part? Google Analytics is completely free. If you’re not already using this tool, you’ll want to get it installed sooner rather than later.

2. Google Search Console

Google Search Console is another tool that Google offers. It allows you to monitor your overall site health and gives you more control over how your site appears in the search results.

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With Google Search Console, you can see which search queries are bringing visitors to your site and other useful information like your organic CTR. What’s more, you can receive alerts if Google identifies any indexing or crawling errors.

Google Search Console is free, but you’ll need to add a snippet of code to your site before you can start using it.

3. Google Rank Checker Tool

Our Google Rank Checker Tool lets you easily check the keywords that your website is currently ranking for.

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Simply enter your URL and click “View Google Rankings.” Then you’ll get a list of the top keywords that are driving traffic to your site and their rankings.

The tool also displays:

• Ranking changes since last month
• Estimated site traffic for each keyword
• Average monthly searches
• Number of search results

Our Google Rank Checker Tool is completely free. We also offer Hoth Rank Tracker — let us know what keywords to track and we’ll send daily updates of their rankings.

4. Backlink Checker Tool

Our Backlink Checker Tool lets you see the top backlinks pointing to a domain or specific URL.

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Simply enter a URL, specify whether you want a report for the entire domain, subdomain, or exact URL, and click “View Backlinks Report.”

The tool will display:

• Total external backlinks
• Total referring domains
• Percent of dofollow backlinks
• Referring IPs
• Anchor text

Want to see how your competitors are ranking? Enter a URL that ranks high for your target keywords and this tool will show you a list of its top backlinks. Then you can reach out to those sites to try to get a backlink.

Our Backlink Checker Tool is free to use, so you won’t have to spend hundreds of dollars a month for similar services.

How To Track the Performance of Your SEO Campaigns (With a Combination of Tools)

Now that you know what metrics you should track and the tools you can use, let’s look at how you can monitor the performance of your SEO campaigns.

Organic traffic from search engines

Ultimately, you want more organic traffic. This type of traffic is from people who have entered a search query and clicked through one of your pages. It’s an effective indicator of your overall SEO strategy.

You can track organic traffic in Google Analytics. Simply navigate to Acquisition and click on Overview. Then click Add Segment, select Organic Traffic, and click Apply.

The resulting report will display your site’s organic traffic for the previous week, but you can also adjust the time frame.

Of course, don’t just look at organic traffic in isolation. You also want to compare it against other metrics like conversions to measure the quality of that traffic.

Keyword ranking movements

Tracking your keyword rankings can help you evaluate your SEO strategy and determine what’s working. For example, if using blogger outreach helped a page move up in rankings, then you know that those efforts were worthwhile.

One way to track your rankings is to simply search for your target keyword, see where your site ranks, and mark it down in a spreadsheet. However, tracking rankings manually is incredibly time-consuming.

Another option is to use our HOTH Rank Tracker, and you’ll get daily updates like this:

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Simply tell us what keywords you want to track, and we’ll take care of the rest.

User engagement

User engagement refers to how people behave on your site. Are they interacting with your pages and reading your content? Or are they leaving after only a few seconds?

The user signals you’ll want to pay attention to include:

• Bounce rates
• Dwell time
• Organic CTR

Google Analytics can track bounce rates and dwell time (average time on page). Simply click on Behavior and click All Pages.

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You can view total clicks and your average CTR in Google Search Console.

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Keeping an eye on these metrics can help you measure and improve user engagement. For example, if your dwell time is only a few seconds long, one way to improve this metric is to match your content to search intent — the “why” behind a search query.

Making sense of it all

Before you start improving your SEO, you need to establish some baseline metrics first. Use the tools covered here to understand the current state of your site’s SEO. Establish baselines for metrics like keyword rankings, organic traffic, and backlinks.

Then define specific and measurable SEO goals. For example, you could set a goal of increasing your organic search traffic by 20% by the end of the year. That’s much better (and more motivating) than simply saying that you want to “increase traffic.”

Continue to track your SEO efforts against your baseline data. This will help you measure the impact of any changes you make and determine whether you should adjust your strategy.

Get Managed SEO Services

SEO tracking is an essential aspect of search engine optimization. It helps you gauge how well your SEO strategy is working and determine which areas need additional work.

Of course, you don’t have to go it alone.

Whether you need help scaling your content creation efforts or managing other aspects of your SEO strategy, we’re here to help. Schedule a free call with one of our experts, and we’ll be happy to discuss your marketing needs.

The post SEO Tracking: How To Track and Measure Your SEO Performance appeared first on The HOTH.

Its user-friendly interface and drag and drop editor-style make it an ideal platform for beginners. Wix also has a free plan, which is a great way to get started building a website without having to put any money down. 

Yet, creating a website is only half the battle. A fancy new Wix site won’t mean much if you aren’t showing up on search engines – as that’s the primary way new prospects will find you. 

In fact, more than 1/4th of all the traffic Wix’s website gets is from search queries – with the keyword ‘Wix’ typed into Google more than 6.8 million times. 

Search engine optimization (SEO) is integral for generating organic traffic to any website, and Wix’s sites are no different. While Wix has caught some flack for its SEO capabilities in the past, the platform has made some vast improvements. 

Namely, the Wix SEO Wiz is invaluable for generating an SEO plan for your site. 

With the right strategy, you can double your traffic by optimizing your Wix site for search engines – which is why we put together this guide. 

So if you want your Wix website to get found on Google, you’re in the right place. Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about Wix SEO.

Understanding the Wix Platform

The best thing about Wix is that you can use it without any coding experience. Wix uses an intuitive drag and drop editor combined with customizable templates. That way, users can create everything from a menu for their restaurant to a list of products for an online store. 

You can also get started using Wix’s free plan – where you can build a website without having to pay a membership fee. The catch is that you’ll have to display ads on your website – but it’s worth it if you’re a startup on a shoestring budget. 

In a nutshell, Wix is the perfect website builder for small businesses, startups, and simple online stores. By using its editor and features, you can create a competent and visually appealing website in a few hours. 

Yet, if you’re familiar with coding and desire more advanced builder features and SEO options, other platforms like WordPress or Squarespace are better choices. 

Is Wix bad for SEO?

In the past, there was a bit of a negative stigma surrounding Wix and its SEO features due to its simplicity. Wix has since put new features and settings in place, largely addressing these criticisms. 

In particular, the team at Wix resolved the following issues affecting Wix sites in the results pages:

• You can now add alt tags to images (crucial for letting the Googlebot know what your images show and how they relate to your content).
• You can now optimize meta descriptions and title tags for blog posts. 
• You can use structured data markup (it wasn’t available in past iterations).
• Pages are no longer defined by a #, which improved the URL structure.

Fixing these problems was gigantic for the platform, as SEO is far less of a challenge for website owners now.

In 2019, Wix even started an SEO Battle to prove that Wix websites can and do rank at the top of search engine results. The winners (Marie Haynes Consulting) were able to rank #1 for the query ‘Wix SEO’ on Google. 

As such, there’s no reason why you can’t dominate the website rankings and generate a ton of organic traffic using a Wix website. 

Listing Wix’s SEO Features 

For more proof that Wix is indeed SEO-friendly, here’s a rundown of the SEO tactics you can employ using a Wix blog or website:

Mobile-friendly templates

Your website must work on mobile devices to rank on search engines, especially Google – which uses mobile-first indexing. Wix has mobile-friendly templates you can use to make this easy. 

Editable title tags and meta descriptions

In the past, there was no way to optimize these. Now you can create keyword-rich title tags and meta descriptions to enhance your on-page SEO. 

Alt tags for images

An alt tag describes what an image shows, and it serves two purposes. It’s an accessibility feature for sight impairments – and it lets crawlers know how your images relate to your content. 

Editable header tags

If you’re familiar with SEO basics, you know how integral your header tags are to your blogs. Distinguishing H1s from H2s and H3s is great for readability and SEO. (Also, don’t forget to use your targeted keywords in your headers) 

HTTPS

If you run an eCommerce store through Wix, HTTPS is a must-have to keep your customer information safe. Google also likes to see safe and secure websites. 

XML sitemap

While you can’t edit your sitemap in Wix, you still receive one, which is handy. You can upload it to Google Search Console to ensure Google has visibility of your website.

Google Analytics (GA) and Google Search Console (GSC)

The team at Wix knows how crucial it is to monitor metrics for your SEO campaign. That’s why they’ve made it effortless to connect GA and GSC to your Wix website for easy monitoring. 

Canonical tags

Duplicate content is a massive no-no for SEO, and canonical tags are the remedy. Wix lets you place a ‘canonical tag’ on your preferred version of each web page. That way, you won’t wind up ranking two identical pages on Google, which will confuse the crawler and tank your SEO. 

Decent PageSpeed scores

Wix sites used to struggle with PageSpeed scores in the past. The average Wix website now features a high PageSpeed score, thanks to some new updates. That’s great for SEO and your bounce rate.

301 redirects

404 Not Found pages are not the best for SEO. Now that you can use 301 redirects on Wix, you should replace all your 404 Not Found pages with them. Google and other search engines prefer 301 redirects (permanent), so use them instead of 302s (temporary changes only). 

Begin with the Wix SEO Wiz 

Everyone that builds a website on Wix gains access to their SEO Wiz.

It’s a remarkable tool for devising an SEO strategy – especially for beginners. 

If you don’t know much about SEO, this tool will help you understand what you need to do to rank higher on Google and other search engines. 

The Wiz is user-friendly and works by providing a step-by-step 

checklist for connecting and verifying your site with Google. That way, you’ll know for sure that Google was able to discover, crawl, and index your site. 

Beyond making sure that your site gets indexed, the Wix SEO Wiz is designed to help you develop ways to improve your SEO, so you rank higher in the search results. It will ask you a series of questions about your business that it will use to develop an SEO strategy for you. 

Setting up the SEO Wiz in Wix 

Once you sign in to your Wix dashboard, navigate to the section dedicated to Marketing and SEO – as that’s where you’ll find the SEO Wiz. 

Later on, it’s worth checking out the Analytics & Reports, Finances, and Customer Management sections so you can become a wizard at managing your online business. 

If you’re well versed in advanced SEO techniques, your knowledge may be a bit beyond the capabilities of the SEO Wiz. It’s an SEO tool intended for beginners only, as is the entire Wix platform. 

Part 1: Connecting and verifying your site 

There are two parts to the SEO Wiz process. The first part involves adding essential information to your homepage that you need to connect your website to Google. 

What kind of information do you need to include?

In general, the Wiz recommends that you have:

• A website that works on mobile devices
• A title for your homepage
• Targeted keywords in website content
• Meta descriptions

To include all this information, you’ll have a checklist and a detailed guide. 

Part 2: Creating an SEO plan for your business

Once part one is complete, you’ll know for sure that you’re indexed and will show up on Google. Yet, you don’t simply want to show up on search engines; you want to rank high in the results. 

That’s where part two of the process comes into play. 

Here, the SEO Wiz will ask you to answer three questions about your business. Once you provide an answer, it will create a detailed SEO plan for your business. 

All you need to do is answer these three questions:

• Do you have a physical business, or are you 100% online?
• Which three keywords do you feel best describe your business and what you offer?
• How would you describe your business, and what makes it unique?

That’s all the information Wix needs to create a customized SEO plan for your business. 

The plan will provide suggestions on keyword usage, blog content, internal and external links, and more. That’s why it’s such an invaluable tool for those new to the world of search engine optimization. By using Wix’s SEO Wiz, you can gain a fundamental understanding of the basics of SEO and how to use them to generate organic traffic. 

Keyword research and long-tail keywords

While the SEO Wiz is undoubtedly helpful, you’ll still need to do a bit of keyword research to come up with the three keywords you’ll choose for your business. 

To help out with that, you can use our free Google Keyword Planner Tool to discover the keywords that relate most to your business and have low competition with high search volume. 

If the competition for a particular keyword is too steep, you’ll have difficulty ranking for it. Instead, seek out keywords that have lower competition yet are still popular. 

Pro tip: You should also mix long-tail keywords with your short-tail ones. 

What’s the difference?

A long-tail keyword uses a long phrase instead of a short one. For example, ‘new shoes’ is a short-tail keyword, but ‘new shoes that fit perfectly’ is a long-tail keyword. Make sense?

An ideal keyword strategy makes use of both short and long-tail keywords. While long-tail keywords have lower search volume, they’re highly targeted and are more likely to convert. In fact, the average conversion rate of long-tail keywords is 36% – so it’s well worth using them. 

Maintaining Your SEO Strategy 

Okay, so by now, you should have an SEO plan put in place by Wix’s SEO Wiz. 

What now?

It’s time to start checking the boxes off your SEO checklist. In other words, you need to make tweaks to your existing website and start using the keywords you researched.

The good news is that most of these steps are straightforward and only require basic copywriting skills. 

The first steps include:

• Updating the homepage title, so it’s SEO-friendly
• Write a description for your homepage using your keywords
• Optimize all your web copy with your keywords
• Make sure you have a responsive site that works on desktop and mobile
• Link your website to Google Search Console and sync Google Analytics for metrics

Technical SEO optimization

After that, you’ll need to do some technical tweaks:

• Write alt tags for all images
• Make sure website contact info is up-to-date
• Update all your social media links
• Set up hyperlinks on your homepage
• Rinse and repeat for Book Online, Services, and Products pages

SEO is a game that doesn’t end, so you shouldn’t complete this checklist and call it quits. Instead, you’ll want to regularly analyze your metrics to see what’s working and what isn’t. 

If you have trouble keeping up with all these tasks yourself, you can always contact our SEO experts at The HOTH. 

For now, let’s focus on how you can improve your Wix SEO. That includes optimizing your domain, tweaking your metadata, uploading a sitemap, and acquiring backlinks. 

Select a ‘Good’ Domain Name

Is the name of your domain as important as the name of your business?

In many ways, it is, especially in the eyes of Google and other search engines. The strength of your domain name will play a large part in your SEO. 

Wix’s editor allows you to create a secure domain name. That will make your entire website look professional and help your SEO. 

If you don’t currently own a domain name, you can purchase one through Wix. Click on Main Menu > Settings > Domain to get to the menu. 

Your domain name should be short, memorable, and easy to type into a browser. Also, do your best to include your business name or something about what you provide. 

Don’t Forget Your Metadata

All too often, website owners forget about and neglect the metadata on their websites. This is a fundamental flaw because your metadata is one of the first things crawlers will view. 

In other words, your metadata is how Google understands what your pages are about. 

If you know anything about how search engines work, you know that’s a huge deal. Google’s goal is to match the most relevant, highest quality content with a user query. 

So if Google can’t tell what your website is about from your metadata, your chances of ranking on page one diminish greatly. 

That’s why each of your web pages MUST have a title tag and meta description. 

Your title tag should not exceed 60 characters and should contain your target keyword. Your meta description should be no more than 150 characters and should contain your target keyword and a few others if you can fit them in. 

To add title tags and meta descriptions, go to Wix ADI. From there, select the page you want, click the gear icon, and click on Page SEO. That’s where you’ll be able to enter your metadata. 

Once you add a title tag and meta description to your homepage, rinse and repeat the process for every page on your website. 

Upload Your Sitemap to GSC

An XML sitemap will help search engines discover, crawl, and index your site. You can think of it as a literal geographic map for navigating your website. 

You’ll want to upload your sitemap to Google Search Console. That way, you’ll know without a doubt that Google has visibility of your website. 

How do you submit your sitemap?

It’s real easy – all you have to do is go to GSC and click Sitemaps on the left-side navbar. Next, type out ‘sitemap.xml’ next to your unique domain name. Once you’re done, hit ‘Submit,’ and voila! Google now has visibility of your website. 

If you’re using the SEO Wiz from earlier, you don’t have to worry about that step. As long as you connect your domain name there, it will automatically link it to GSC. 

Generate Backlinks for Your Site 

The last step is one of the most crucial aspects of SEO and the most difficult. Yet, backlinks are necessary for any website that wants to rank higher on search engines. 

The more quality backlinks (emphasis on quality) you have pointing to your site – the easier it will be to rise through the rankings. 

Are you not sure how to generate backlinks for your website? If so, you need to check out our post on how to get over 100 backlinks in 30 days. 

Here are a few quick tips for acquiring backlinks:

• Publish consistently great content on your Wix blog
• Reach out to bloggers in your field for guest blogs 
• Outdo top-ranked content in your niche and ‘poach’ their backlinks
• Reach out to social media influencers and develop a business relationship 

These are all ways you can pick up some reputable backlinks without spending any money. 

Concluding Thoughts: Wix SEO Secrets

That’s how you can improve your SEO on Wix to rank on page one of Google and other search engines. 

But do you know how to create stellar content that will establish you as a thought leader in your field?

At The HOTH, our experts provide top-tier content that audiences crave. Whether you need videos or blog posts, our team does it all – so don’t wait to sign up now.

The post Wix SEO Secrets for Doubling Your Traffic appeared first on The HOTH.

What Is Page Authority vs. Domain Authority

Page authority is based on data from Moz‘s web index and takes into account many different factors such as DA. 

Moz uses an AI machine learning model to identify Google’s algorithm that best correlates with rankings across a ton of different SERPs that Moz predicts against. It’s a metric created by Moz with Open Site Explorer and it’s a pretty common substitute for Toolbar Page Rank (which Google officially discontinued.)

In addition, you can always use The HOTH’s Domain Authority Checker to keep an eye on your DA score. 

What is domain authority?  

Domain authority measures the strength of a website by combining multiple link metrics into one (number of links, power of links, etc).

Whereas DA measures the overall strength of the domain, page authority measures the strength of just that page such as a subpage. 

Let me give you a simple example: yourwebsite.com/sub-page/

Sometimes you can get a link from a high authority domain, but the link doesn’t do much. 

Let me explain, here are a couple of scenarios on why that would happen:

Many sites get backlinks from blog posts or guest posts. When the post is published, it goes on the main homepage of the site, where most of the juice is.

After that, Google finds it, displays it on search engine results pages, and highly rewards you. Because the page authority of the homepage (where your link is when it first gets published) is very high. 

What is Domain Authority

How to Get High-Quality Backlinks with High Page Authority

First things first, not only do you need SEO, but if you want to rank on the first page of Google, you will first need to begin your link building journey and build backlinks from authority sites such as news outlets, high-traffic blogs, and even social media posts. 

Your main focus should be on external links but optimizing the content on your entire website with relevant inbound links is just as important. That will help you create a good link profile for your website, not just a specific page.  

Here are some great tips for getting backlinks from high page authority sites:

• Publish high-quality content
• Publish ultimate guides and how-tos
• Become a source for your business niche (case studies, statistics, etc.)

It would be best to publish content that produces backlinks. That may be easier said than done, so let me give you a few examples of what type of content generates the most backlinks. 

These are:

• Guides
• How-Tos
• Videos
• Infographics

If you’re able to analyze data or perform case studies then you are definitely eligible to become a reliable source for backlinks. Case studies and statistics do well and show not only your audience that you can be trusted, but also prove to Google that your content holds value.

How To Increase Page Authority and Ranking Power

There are a number of ways you can increase a page’s authority and ranking power, like building internal links via interacting on the site you have you link on (commenting, liking, etc), but the easiest way is to just build backlinks to your backlinks!

When you boost your backlinks with 2nd tier links, Google crawls them and gives you more credit for the link on that page.

These are called 2nd tier links because they don’t point directly to your main site.

The great thing about 2nd tier links is you can be more aggressive with them since we’re not sending these directly to our site.

On top of that, big authority properties like directories, Youtube, Facebook, etc. already have tons of links, so they can handle these types of links, where your site probably doesn’t have millions of backlinks already.

Let me give you some examples of successful link building and the results you can expect:

1. Increases the power of the links 
2. Ensures that the pages will get indexed & spidered more often
3. Ensures the pages don’t lose value as they roll off the homepage
4. Helps rank these properties so you can get referral traffic

For instance, The HOTH has used the power of 2nd tier links since the beginning, they work great to increase the page authority and ranking power.

How To Boost Your Backlinks

If you aren’t sure where to start with gaining backlinks, here are a few places to start:

• Find backlink opportunities
• Outreach and form partnerships
• Spy on your competitors
• Find broken links and request a backlink
• Buy Backlinks

You may want to begin by looking at the top sources for your website. These are websites that are linking to your content or content that is like yours. 

By finding out what kind of websites link back to you and the type of content they prefer, you can then begin to find new opportunities and create more content that your audience likes. 

Outreach is an important step to getting backlinks. You can then send an email to websites and begin to network and build relationships with other businesses that are in your niche. 

You can mention that you’re looking for a type of partnership opportunity and perhaps work on content collaboration such as case studies. If your outreach works then you can get a new backlink along with organic traffic, a relationship, and a new audience. 

Google Search Console can also be a big help when trying to find opportunities for high-quality backlinks. The free tool provides good data that you can then use to improve your rankings. Among them is the top linking sites report. 

These are basically just websites that have linked back to you in the past. You can then reach out to them and see if they would be interested in giving you another backlink. 

Don’t forget to spy on your competitors and see what type of content they are creating that earns them backlinks. Don’t copy your competitors, just do it better than them! Tools like SEMRush or The HOTH Backlink Checker Tool can help you perform this task and find out what your competitors are doing that you can build on. 

In addition to the above steps, you can use the broken link method for gaining backlinks. What you can do is search through websites that are based on your niche, and find broken links in different pieces of content, then contact the webmaster and suggest your link as a replacement. It’s always best to be transparent about your goal to the website owner. 

Only 40% of business revenue on average is gained by organic search. That means more businesses are banking in on PPC (paid ads) and bought white-hat backlinks. So, if you decide to buy backlinks, make sure you’re buying the right kind. 

As an alternative, you can use our awesome service HOTH Link Outreach if you want to leave the hard work to the professionals. 

Here’s how it works:

Our premium guest post and blogger outreach service can provide awesome, in-content white hat links through manual blogger outreach. All done for you so you don’t have to! =

• Place your order

Just give us your URL and anchor text and that’s all we need. Our team will then review the order, confirm it, and begin our in-depth research and outreach process.

• Writing and Distribution

What we do is complete a manual outreach, we then secure a guest post on a high-quality website and include your link. We will then write and publish your written article on the guest blog with links back to your landing page.

• Recieve your White-Hat Label report

After your guest post is published, we will then provide you with a 100% white-label report for you to use. 

As Google crawls these 2nd tier links – It creates higher page authority for the page your targeting and you get massive power from these backlinks.

Over time (usually 2-3 months) you’ll see other link checking services pick it up too. For instance, your Moz PA will increase after a few months.

Remember: You have to be really patient when checking Moz stats. It takes a few months for Moz to recalculate. (Remember Moz has to crawl the entire internet and recalculate, it doesn’t happen immediately!) What matters most is that Google actually picks up the links.

Let Us Help You Out!

Building page authority and domain authority is a long, time-consuming process that can take months before you see any results. That’s a long time to wait if you don’t know if your results will even work in the long run. 

So, we put together this solution to bring you the best price and value possible. 

If you want to boost your backlinks and page authority, try out HOTH Link Outreach.

Don’t forget to check out our other SEO tools and resources.

Sign up now and schedule a call with one of our experts today!

The post What Is Page Authority & How To Improve It appeared first on The HOTH.

SEO for dentists has become essential in a world where most users look for answers online, including for search queries like “dentists in [AREA]” or “dentist near me.”

Most dentists have no clue about dental SEO since their primary focus is on patient care rather than marketing expertise.

To help dentists understand SEO, we’ve prepared a handy guide that covers all the important points, including a primer on SEO, signs you need it, and SEO best practices for your dental website.

What Is Dental SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website content to achieve higher rankings on relevant search engine results pages (SERPs).

When a patient searches for the term “San Jose dentist” or “dentist near me” on Google, the search engine lists several clinics. Here’s an example:

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Ideally, when you do this search for your area or city, your clinic appears within the first few results. If not, dental SEO can take you there, and bring in more patients as a result.

There are three key core SEO components – on-page, off-page, and technical.

SEO for a dental website might start with updating on-page elements, such as the web page copy, optimizing content for specific target keywords, fixing meta tags, and altering URL slugs to boost organic search rankings

It also includes technical optimization, where the SEO specialist makes sure your website has the right architecture, loads quickly, is mobile-friendly, and is crawlable by search engines.

Off-page SEO refers to anything done away from your website to boost search rankings. It involves guest posting, social media promotion, and building backlinks.

Given all these elements, SEO for dental websites can take time. Exactly how much time depends on the required optimizations and your dental marketing strategy.

Why Is SEO Important for Dentists?

Dentists don’t always prioritize SEO for a variety of reasons. For one, it’s well outside their field of expertise, and many don’t understand its benefits. To show why it’s worth investing in, we’ve highlighted some benefits below:

Rank higher in SERPs

You may not know it, but search engine rankings are crucial if you want more patients. When users look for a dentist, they are much more likely to pick one of the top search results instead of one at the bottom or another page entirely. (In fact, the first result gets 11.4x more clicks than the 10th result.)

So, you need to rank on the first page and, ideally, within the top three. SEO, and in particular Local SEO, can help you get a piece of the pie.

Boost website traffic

When you rank high in search results, users looking for dental services can find you easily. So, you get more visitors to your website. This boosts your lead generation rates, meaning there are more opportunities for you to turn visitors into prospective patients.

Build credibility

Being among the top search results also adds to your credibility. It acts as social proof of your expertise since a typical patient assumes that the top results must provide excellent treatment. It lets potential patients know that they can trust your dental practice.

Improve your website’s user experience

An SEO audit will also expose any flaws on your website that negatively impact your user experience. For example, an audit can reveal that your website is hard to navigate on mobile or loads slowly. These factors turn potential customers away from your practice, even after they land on your site.

Get more patients

The higher your search ranking, the easier it is for new dental patients to find you. Ranking at the top of “dentist near me” or “dentist in [AREA]” search terms will drastically boost traffic since everyone that is searching for these terms will see your website first, over that of your competitors.

On-Page SEO Factors For Dentists

SEO strategies vary depending on the company, competitors, and industry. But, there are a few vital universal considerations for dental SEO. Onsite SEO makes your website more search engine friendly. Search engines “crawl” through your website content to collect data and determine if your page is credible.

The more detailed and precise your information is, the greater the chances of a high ranking. The most critical onsite SEO components are:

Keyword research & usage

A keyword is a word or phrase that indicates what a user is looking for on a search engine. Relevant dental search terms could just be one or two words like “dentist” (a short-tail keyword), or a phrase like “best dentist in [AREA]” or “painless retainers in [AREA]” (long-tail keywords).

Your SEO strategy should involve keyword research that identifies the best terms to target for your clinic and indicates how you can rank for these terms.

Once you have found a target keyword, you need to use it and related semantic keywords within your web copy, meta titles, meta descriptions, headers, and more.

Header hierarchy

Headings within your content help search engines understand the structure and relevancy of each section of a web page or blog.

Your headings must be logically arranged. Typically, Your H1 is the title, H2s cover the most critical topics, and H3s act as sub-headings under the H2s. You could also use H4s for minor sub-topics. This hierarchy also helps readers quickly scan the page and easily find the content they’re looking for.

Internal links

Adding links to related content, service pages, and products in your blog posts and landing pages leads users from one topic to another, keeping them on your website for longer and leading them closer to booking an appointment.

External links

Linking to third-party, high-authority sources shows readers that your information is well-sourced and credible. Citing data to back up your points also improves your own content’s authority. Crucially, they also add SEO value as search engine crawlers see your site as trustworthy.

Website content

All the copy on your landing pages and the content within your blogs needs to be up-to-date, engaging, and clear. It should represent your brand, include the correct keywords, and convince users to visit your clinic.

Poorly-written web content turns users off and reduces your standing as an authority figure in your industry. Keyword-stuffed, filler content also increases the chances of search engines ignoring your page.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the back-end of your website. It includes things like sitemaps, which help search engines crawl through your site and index your content easily. Optimizing technical SEO involves using the correct URL structure, improving page load times, and removing broken links, among other things.

Local SEO

Local SEO aims to increase website reach within a specific town or city. This is crucial for in-person businesses, like dental clinics, since most potential customers live or work in the area around them. Local SEO aims to get you ranked on the “Local 3 Pack” business listings and Google Maps searches and garner more user reviews. You can learn more about it in our Local SEO guide.

Off-Page SEO Factors for Dentists

Offsite SEO consists of activities outside your website that affect your dental clinic’s SEO rankings. However, they are equally important in SERP results. Here are five key offsite factors to consider:

Google Business Profile verification

Google Business Profile, formerly known as Google My Business (GMB), lets you claim your company and edit the information that customers see.

Here’s an example:

Getting this verification lets you update company information, respond to user reviews, and increase your chances of a higher search ranking. Here’s a breakdown of how to get your dental clinic verified.

Google Maps verification

As part of the GMB verification process, you’ll also need to verify your company’s actual location so that customers can easily find it. They can see how far away it is and decide convenient times to visit.

Without this information, potential patients will have to manually find your address. They might also skip this hassle and opt for a verified and easily accessible competitor instead.

Local directories

Since your clinic’s patients will be, for the most part, local residents, it’s vital to get your dental website and service listed on local online directories. People don’t necessarily Google for dentists. They might look for it on authoritative medical sites in your city or go through a dental society.

Listing on local directories also establishes you as a trusted practitioner in your town or city and can help your local SEO.

Patient reviews

Reviews prove how great your patient care really is. Encouraging these reviews, especially on Google, is great for SEO as potential visitors get proof of your capabilities and are more likely to click on your website. Plus, Google prefers to list locations with high average ratings in local search results.

High-quality backlinks

Backlinks are links to your web pages from external websites. When reputable websites post links to your content or landing pages, it increases your domain authority. Search engines value these pages more, which will increase your ranking.

Link building is vital as it adds SEO value and is an effective marketing tool to increase brand awareness and even lead generation.

These are just some factors that affect SEO for dentists. Since most dentists lack the expertise to strategize and implement these SEO strategies, it’s best to work with an agency that has dental SEO experts.

3 Signs You Need Dental SEO Services

How does a dentist know when it’s time to hire an SEO expert for your dental practice? Here are three signs to look out for:

#1. Poor search engine rankings

You can check where your website and its service pages rank by simply searching for them. Start with the simplest keywords, such as “[AREA] dentist,” and then check out longer ones. Scroll until you find your website or page.

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If your web pages fail to rank on the first page of Google results for their relevant keywords, it’s time for dental SEO. It also shows that your competitors are taking dental SEO seriously. So, you need to find a way to outrank your competitors or risk losing out on patients.

You can also use competitor keyword analysis tools to see what keywords your competitors are ranking for that you aren’t.

#2. Not capitalizing on existing traffic effectively

Your website should effectively tell users what you offer, and lead them further down your sales funnel. But many practices fail to capitalize on their existing websites and let potential patients go.

Some standard website SEO mistakes include:

• Not creating landing pages for your main services.
• Making it hard to navigate through your site to a page where they can sign up for an appointment.
• Not implementing technical SEO.

All of these can mean you get few or even zero new patients via your website.

#3. Website attracting the wrong demographic

In some cases, your dental website could have good organic traffic numbers, but all the visitors are from the wrong demographic.

For example, if your primary service is dental veneers and implants, but all your website-related visitors are coming in for general teeth cleaning, it’s time to revamp your SEO approach. With a targeted SEO strategy, you can attract the right customers.

SEO For Dentists FAQ

Still confused? We’ve answered some common SEO-related questions for dentists to help you understand the practice better.

Do dentists need SEO?

Yes. Dental SEO is essential for increasing your local reach, attracting new patients, and ensuring your customers match your services.

SEO for dentists makes your practice easier to find and gives prospects all the information they need to go from website visitors to regular patients.

What is the ROI for dental SEO services?

The return on investment (ROI) for dental SEO varies on a case-by-case basis, but you can use this general formula to calculate it:

ROI = (Revenue generated – Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment

You can also use tools like Google Analytics to discover the added value of your SEO campaign, such as the number of leads or an increase in organic traffic.

How long does dental SEO take to show results?

Your SEO efforts can take six months or more to show results. It depends on what you’re working with, and which keywords you’re targeting.

If you start with nothing, your SEO specialist will need to create content from scratch. And search engines can take a while to notice your efforts and accurately rank new pages.

What is the cost of SEO for dentists?

The cost depends on who you work with. It can range from $1000 to $5000 or more per month, depending on whether you’re working with a consultant or marketing agency. A dedicated dental SEO package from a reputable organization is your best bet.

Dental SEO Done Right

SEO for dentists can help you expand your practice and boost profit by targeting local customers that match your services. A dental SEO strategy will help potential patients discover your practice ahead of its competitors, so there’s a higher chance they will book an appointment with you instead.

Get a customized SEO strategy for dentists executed by a team of experts by getting in touch with us today!

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