Pipes Feed Preview: Feed not found & SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies & COLORPEAK Web Design & Marketing & Colorpeak Web Design & Marketing Blogspot & Colorpeak Ltd & Lucas Hawro's articles on Inoreader

How to Win the Google Answer Box → The Ultimate Guide

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 08:50:38 -0000

Ranking number one on Google is great. But ranking in a Google answer box, on position zero, is even better. Google answer boxes might be a blessing for both users (they get the desired info instantly) and webmasters (their website is in the foreground, above the top ranking websites).   But what steps do you […] The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/17398/google-answer-box/">How to Win the Google Answer Box → The Ultimate Guide</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.

Ranking number one on Google is great. But ranking in a Google answer box, on position zero, is even better. Google answer boxes might be a blessing for both users (they get the desired info instantly) and webmasters (their website is in the foreground, above the top ranking websites).   But what steps do you need to take to make sure you get featured in Google’s rich answer box? Everything you need to know about answer boxes, from what they are to how to win them, is thoroughly detailed below in a step by step guide.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-23835" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/How-to-Win-the-Google-Answer-Box.jpg" alt="How to Win the Google Answer Box" width="1024" height="538" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/How-to-Win-the-Google-Answer-Box.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/How-to-Win-the-Google-Answer-Box-300x158.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/How-to-Win-the-Google-Answer-Box-768x404.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   <ol class="summaryext"> <li><a href="#1">What Is a Google Answer Box?</a></li> <li><a href="#222">Search in 2026: From Answer Boxes to AI Overviews</a></li> <li><a href="#2">Why Are Google Answer Boxes Important?</a></li> <li><a href="#22">Google Answer Box Takeaways – TL;DR</a></li> <li><a href="#3">How Does the Google Answer Box Work?</a></li> <li><a href="#4">What Types of Google Answer Boxes Exist?</a></li> <li><a href="#5">How to Optimize for Google Answer Box?</a> <ol> <li><a href="#6">Step 1. Identify Keywords That Google May Provide Answers for</a></li> <li><a href="#7">Step 2. Segment Keywords Based on Current Answer Box Relevancy</a></li> <li><a href="#8">Step 3. Write Website Content for the Google Answer Box</a></li> <li><a href="#9">Step 4. Quick Tips to Rank in Google Answer Boxes on Position Zero</a></li> </ol> </li> <li><a href="#10">How to Check Your Google Answer Box Rankings</a></li> <li><a href="#11">Google Answer Box Strategy & Statistics – A Research on 10k Keywords</a> <ol> <li><a href="#12">Unique Domains Used by Google for Answers</a> </li> <li><a href="#13">Top 10 Ranking Position Distribution for the Answer Box</a> </li> <li><a href="#14">Title vs. No-Title in Google’s Rich Answer Boxes</a></li> <li><a href="#15">Trusted Sites Distribution in Google Answer Boxes</a></li> <li><a href="#16">Website Extraction vs. Website Definition in Answer Boxes</a></li> </ol> </li> <li><a href="#17">Can I Advertise in the Google Answers Box?</a></li> <li><a href="#18">Can Any Site Appear in Google’s Direct Answer Box?</a></li> <li><a href="#19">Does Google Answer All Questions?</a></li> <li><a href="#20">How Do You Delete an Answer Box?</a></li> <li><a href="#21">Is Google Ever Wrong? Google Answer Box Failures</a></li> <li><a href="#24">Does a Google Answer Box API Exist?</a></li> </ol>   <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='1' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>What Is a Google Answer Box?</h2>   <blockquote> Google’s answer box is a type of result that is usually displayed at the top of the search engine results page. </blockquote>   You may have noticed that when you use Google to search for a certain answer to a question, a lot of times you actually get some sort of answer and not just a series of search results.   Google Answers Boxes are a SERP feature powered by the knowledge graph or scraped from different sites that provide fit answers to a specific query. Other terms used for Google’s rich answer box are position zero, direct answers, instant or quick answers or featured snippets.   For instance, if you’ve just recently made a terrible decision about changing your go-to barber’s shop and would like to find out how soon the damage will fade away, you might ask Google “how fast does hair grow”, to which the famed oracle of wisdom will give an actual answer, in what we will refer to as an answer box. Of course, it hasn’t come up with the answer on its own, but knowing what to look for is pretty cool in itself.   Answer boxes can contain text, graphs, maps, images or even videos.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-23799" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/how-fast-does-hair-grow-answer-box.png" alt="how fast does hair grow answer box" width="687" height="364" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/how-fast-does-hair-grow-answer-box.png 687w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/how-fast-does-hair-grow-answer-box-300x159.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 687px) 100vw, 687px" />   So it’s not just showing up in the results, it’s showing up in the answer box, which has a different status in the mind of the searcher. Being there can get a lot of SERP “landscape”, especially if you own some important keywords in your niche.   Thanks to the Google Hummingbird algorithm from 2013 and the <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/23379/google-bert-update/">Google BERT</a> update from 2019, Google is a lot savvier when it comes to interpreting things in context. And if it doesn’t have enough information to figure out what you actually want, like when we’re simply searching for “hummingbird”, it displays the most likely result, with an answer box containing text and images, but also a feedback option, right below the answer one, just in case you were thinking about something else. This is all pretty smart and very much related to the knowledge graph concept Google has been toying around with for a while. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='222' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Search in 2026: From Answer Boxes to AI Overviews</h2> While traditional Google Answer Boxes and Featured Snippets still exist, search has rapidly evolved toward AI-generated answers.   Today, users increasingly receive responses from Google AI Overviews, AI-powered search engines, and conversational assistants instead of clicking through a list of blue links. Rather than extracting information from a single webpage, these systems generate answers by analyzing and synthesizing information from multiple sources across the web.   In the era of Answer Boxes, strong on-page SEO and well-structured content could often help you secure Position Zero. In 2026, AI systems evaluate much more than a single page or website. They assess the overall authority, credibility, and reputation of a brand across the entire digital ecosystem.   This is exactly why monitoring your online presence has become essential. <blockquote> As an AI visibility and social listening platform, the <a href="https://brandmentions.com/">BrandMentions software</a> tracks real-time global conversations and analyzes brand sentiment, helping you strengthen the signals that AI-powered search engines use to identify trusted sources. </blockquote> Technical SEO remains important, but it is no longer sufficient on its own. AI engines are increasingly influenced by what the web collectively says about your brand: mentions in articles, discussions on social media, reviews, industry publications, forums, and other third-party sources. <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-24876" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AI-overviews.png" alt="AI overviews" width="692" height="385" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AI-overviews.png 692w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AI-overviews-300x167.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 692px) 100vw, 692px" /> To earn visibility in AI-generated answers, brands need to build and maintain a strong digital presence beyond their own domains. The more consistently your brand is referenced, discussed, and trusted across the web, the more likely it becomes that AI systems will recognize it as an authoritative source.   As search continues its transition from traditional search engines to answer engines, success is no longer measured solely by rankings. The new challenge is becoming a trusted entity that AI systems choose to reference when generating answers. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='2' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Why Are Google Answer Boxes Important?</h2>   <blockquote> Being on the Google’s answer box will do you a big favor, making you appear on Google’s first page in the limelight. </blockquote>   From an SEO perspective, being listed within Google’s rich answer boxes will offer you a lot of SERP “landscape”. If you “own” answer boxes on the important keywords in your niche, you will most likely dominate your business field, from an SEO point of view.   Being number one in searches no longer means the best position you can have. Sure, being number 1 in the results for a search is still good. Yet, in a time where the number of ads on page have increased, to make sure your site is the one Google gets the answer for its answer box is very beneficial for you. So no need to highlight the strong connection between Google answer box and SEO.   You’ve probably got it: the SERP landscape has changed and having the chances of getting listed within an answer box can get you serious traffic to your site.   <img class="center aligncenter wp-image-24215 size-full" title="SERP Landscape Google Answer Boxes" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/answer-box-a-lot-of-serp.png" alt="answer box SERP coverage" width="727" height="628" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/answer-box-a-lot-of-serp.png 727w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/answer-box-a-lot-of-serp-300x259.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 727px) 100vw, 727px" />   While knowing the <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/13519/seo-facts/#2">SEO fact</a> that only 2 of the top 10 most popular sites on the web are content sites, there is no need to advocate why ranking on position zero is more important than ever. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='22' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Google Answer Box Takeaways – TL;DR</h2>   <ul> <li>Google’s answer box is a type of result that is usually displayed at the top of the search engine results page.</li> <li>Being on the Google’s answer box will do you a big favor, making you appear on Google’s first page not once, but twice.</li> <li>The content in an answer box does not necessarily come from the first result on the page, but from the result which Google considers that it answers the question best.</li> <li>Google answer boxes are a certain type of rich answers and can come in many shapes and sizes.</li> <li>Three tactics that will help you rank on position zero & perform Google answer box optimization: identify keywords that Google may provide answers for, segment keywords based on current answer box relevancy and write website content optimized for the Google answer box</li> <li>The easiest and fastest way to check if you’re ranking in an answer box is to go straight to your Google Search Console.</li> <li>According to Google, you cannot advertise on answer boxes as their purpose is informational and not commercial. </li> <li>Any site can appear in Google’s answer box if it offers a fit answer for the query and if it’s considered to be a topical authority in the field.</li> <li>The percentage of search results with answer boxes out of the total number of search results is fairly small.</li> <li>You can opt out of Google’s special boxes by preventing snippets on your page.</li> <li>While the algorithm is quite impressive, it’s not 100% reliable yet.</li> </ul>   <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='3' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>How Does the Google Answer Box Work?</h2>   <blockquote> Google actually “gets” you. It knows “what you’re saying’”. </blockquote>   The content in an answer box does not necessarily come from the first result on the page, but from the result which Google considers that it answers the question best.   But how does Google decide which answer deserves to be listed within the direct answers?   Here comes the technical SEO part: according to some patents from Google, it assumes that one element of the search query will be an entity, and the other will be a certain attribute of the said entity.   For instance, if I were to search “Ukraine’s GDP”, “Ukraine” would be my entity and “GDP” would be the attribute. This is what the algorithm would identify as a “E’s A” type of query . It works similarly with a series of other phrasings, such as “what is the A of E”, “who is the A of E” (e.g.: “who is the husband of angelina jolie”) , “the A of E” or “who is the E’s A”.   Google has a database of entities with their potential looked for attributes. This means that you won’t find an answer for every question, but you should find answers for the most popular questions.   <img class=" wp-image-6163 align center aligncenter" style="text-align: start;" title="Extracting Entities from Queryies Google" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/extracting-entities-from-queryies-google.jpg" alt="Extracting Entities from Queryies Google" width="894" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/extracting-entities-from-queryies-google.jpg 894w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/extracting-entities-from-queryies-google-269x300.jpg 269w" sizes="(max-width: 894px) 100vw, 894px" />   Similar patents are in place to further searches about specific facts. Google has patents for <a href="https://www.google.com/patents/US8005842?dq=8005842+B1&hl=en&sa=X&ei=g666U6_bA8yv7AbJoIDoCQ&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAA" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">extracting entities from queries</a> (US80058524 B2) , <a href="https://www.google.com/patents/US8655866?dq=US+8655866+B1&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Oa-6U_3mBab07AbYwoDACQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">returning factual answers in response to queries</a> (US8655866 B1) or for <a href="https://www.google.com/patents/US8719244?dq=US+8719244+B1&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-a66U9biE8LY7Aak_IDgCQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">retrieval of information items</a> (US8719244 B1). And although they look hard to digest, we will try to simplify the process and explain them.   The key elements in these are selecting the representative phrase/search fragment to then match with information and determining whether a certain fragment of the search query is, in fact, a fact query. Google then identifies potential results and ranks them according to an unknown scoring system, presenting to you the highest scoring results in the answer box.   <img class="center aligncenter wp-image-6131 size-large" title="Google Patent Why is the Sky Blue - Answer Box Extraction" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/how-much-does-a-gallon-of-milk-cost-1-1024x828.jpg" alt="Google Patent Why is the Sky Blue - Answer Box Extraction" width="1024" height="828" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/how-much-does-a-gallon-of-milk-cost-1-1024x828.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/how-much-does-a-gallon-of-milk-cost-1-300x242.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/how-much-does-a-gallon-of-milk-cost-1.jpg 1436w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   So, when we asked the classical question “why is the sky blue”, we got an answer not from Wikipedia, as one might expect, but from a page on the Department of Mathematics, University of California, Riverside website (sometimes, an answer from NASA Space Place is also listed within Google’s instant answers).   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-23801" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/why-is-the-sky-blue.png" alt="why is the sky blue" width="954" height="540" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/why-is-the-sky-blue.png 954w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/why-is-the-sky-blue-300x170.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/why-is-the-sky-blue-768x435.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 954px) 100vw, 954px" />   At least one of the things that this site did well to get the highest score was having the question in the title of an article and the answer in the very first paragraph. Belonging to a .edu domain probably helped as well.   While researching this Google feature, an interesting thing caught our attention and we thought it was interesting enough to share it with you. For certain queries, attributes extraction is based on user location.   In the screenshot below, we can see that for the search query “how much does a passport cost”, using a USA IP we’ll have a different answer box than for the same search query with a UK IP. We cannot extrapolate this situation and use it as a general rule regarding how Google extracts the answers but it’s important to mention this:   <blockquote> Google seems to take into consideration the user’s location. </blockquote>   <img class="center aligncenter wp-image-6127 size-large" title="Attributs Extraction Based on Search IP Location" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/attributs-extraction-based-on-search-ip-location-1024x561.jpg" alt="Attributs Extraction Based on Search IP Location" width="1024" height="561" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/attributs-extraction-based-on-search-ip-location-1024x561.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/attributs-extraction-based-on-search-ip-location-300x164.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/attributs-extraction-based-on-search-ip-location.jpg 1364w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> Furthermore, we’ve found another interesting example that enforces this matter. If I search for a conversion from Colombian pesos into dollars (“transformar pesos colombianos a dolares”), Google takes into consideration my IP and local search so it displays the result adapted to that knowledge.   Only now it’s adapted the result so much that it doesn’t really answer my question. It is indeed evidence of the highly advanced technology that Google uses but as long as it doesn’t provide an answer for my query it is not much of a help.   Yet, it is important to mention that Google keeps on updating its algorithm constantly, and some of the examples provided within this article might have changed meanwhile.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-6192 size-large" title="US UK Search Google Answer Box Transfomartion" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/us-uk-search-google-answer-box-transfomartion-1024x496.jpg" alt="US UK Search Google Answer Box Transfomartion" width="1024" height="496" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/us-uk-search-google-answer-box-transfomartion-1024x496.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/us-uk-search-google-answer-box-transfomartion-300x145.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/us-uk-search-google-answer-box-transfomartion.jpg 1454w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />     So, where do all these answers come from? A variety of places, really. Two factors seem important:   <ol> <li>that the page selected for the answer contains the question in a very similar (if not exact) form, along with the answer, at a short distance from the question (repeating at least some of the words from the question) and</li> <li>that the page selected for the answer belongs to a trustworthy website. So, most of the times, if it’s not Wikipedia, it will be a site that it can consider a non biased third party, such as is the case with a lot of “.edu” sites, or news organization websites.</li> </ol>   That, of course, changes if you are purposefully looking for specific brand information, in which case the most trustworthy information might come straight from that brand’s site. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='4' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>What Types of Google Answer Boxes Exist?</h2>   <blockquote> Google answer boxes are a certain type of rich answers and can come in many shapes and sizes. </blockquote>   To better understand what type of instant answers appear more often in SERP, a few years ago we made a research based on answer boxes generated by approximately 10,000 queries. From the total data we received, we wanted to see what types of answer boxes were most common.   <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6268 aligncenter" title="Extracted Google Answer Box Types" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2-extracted-google-answer-box-types.jpg" alt="Extracted Google Answer Box Types" width="835" height="496" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2-extracted-google-answer-box-types.jpg 835w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2-extracted-google-answer-box-types-300x178.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 835px) 100vw, 835px" />   In the chart above, you can see the results of the research we made.   It seems that most of the answer boxes included definitions or descriptions that were the result of various website extractions. From the total of answer boxes we got, content extracted from websites summed up 69% of the answer boxes. All the other types of answer boxes – Web Definitions, Video Widgets, Google Widgets (conversions, maps) or Google Dictionary Definitions – taken together amounted for less than a third of the answer boxes.   This is good news for SEO. This means that if your content is relevant and very well structured, it has lots of chances to appear in answer boxes. If the answers only consisted of Google widgets, Google definitions or web definitions, you would have little to contribute to the landscape. As things are now, your website could be the source of a definition or description for the vast majority of the answers in the box. We’re not going to list all the content types of answer boxes there are out there; however, below we’ll highlight the most common and interesting ones.   <h3>Google Dictionary Definition</h3>   Google Dictionary was an online dictionary service of Google, originating in its Google Translate service. The Dictionary website was <a href="http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/08/05/google-closes-its-dictionary-site-wants-you-to-search-for-definitions-instead/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">terminated</a> on 2011 but after that, part of its functionality was integrated into Google Search and now it looks like it’s integrated in the paragraph snippet.   When it provides the direct answers from the Google Dictionary, you won’t see any URL near the generated content. It answers the question and it kind of gives you the feeling that Google “knows for sure” that the info is accurate and doesn’t need to give any extra explanation. <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6269 aligncenter" title="Google Dictionary Definition" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/1-1-google-dictionary-definition.jpg" alt="Google Dictionary Definition" width="688" height="563" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/1-1-google-dictionary-definition.jpg 688w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/1-1-google-dictionary-definition-300x245.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 688px) 100vw, 688px" /> <h3> </h3> <h3>Google Answer Boxes with No Source</h3>   Google has quite an impressive and helpful number of widgets, including translating, weather, driving directions or currency converter services. These widgets really improve the user’s experience, sparing them lots of clicks and time invested.   For instance, if a user needs to find out how much 300 meters mean, reported to kilometers, they don’t have to go on several sites to find out how much one meter means and multiply it by 300. All they have to do is “ask” Google “how long is 300 meters” and they will get an answer instantly. <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6270 aligncenter" title="Google Widget Definition" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2-2google-widget.jpg" alt="Google Widget Definition" width="676" height="459" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2-2google-widget.jpg 676w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2-2google-widget-300x203.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px" /> <h3> </h3> <h3>Google Video Widget</h3>   If you want to impress your friends with some new move dances or you are looking for a particular type of moves that you want to reproduce, Google understands this need and gives you a video result directly in the answer box.   <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6271 aligncenter" title="Google Video Widget Definition" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/3-3google-video-widget.jpg" alt="Google Video Widget Definition" width="683" height="693" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/3-3google-video-widget.jpg 683w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/3-3google-video-widget-295x300.jpg 295w" sizes="(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" />   <h3>Google Web Extraction</h3>   The definitions provided in the answer box from web extractions usually come from sites that have high authority and also include the search query on their site. For instance, in the example below, if we want to find out what an atom is composed of, the answer box extracted the information from education.jlab.org/qa/atom.html. As we follow this site, we will see that on the landing page we will have a dedicated content to this matter, with the matching title “What is an atom? What are atoms made of?”   <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6273 aligncenter" title="Google Web Extraction" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/5-5google-web-extraction.jpg" alt="Google Web Extraction" width="687" height="438" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/5-5google-web-extraction.jpg 687w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/5-5google-web-extraction-300x191.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 687px) 100vw, 687px" />   <h3>Google Answer Boxes with Real Time Results</h3>   There are many instances where Google provides real time results for many events or competitions. From sports to concerts or any other important event happening in the world, most likely the answer box gets you covered. Usually, the results are updated and on time so that the searcher may not need any additional info. From an SEO point of view, that’s not necessary good, because if you want to get people to your website, you have a few options, under the high quality info from the direct answer.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-23803" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/google-answer-box-up-to-date.png" alt="google answer box up to date" width="668" height="785" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/google-answer-box-up-to-date.png 668w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/google-answer-box-up-to-date-255x300.png 255w" sizes="(max-width: 668px) 100vw, 668px" />   <h3>Google Answer Boxes with Company Information</h3>   Far will be the days when you’ll have to browse through a company’s website, looking for the about page to find out info about how or when that company was founded. A searcher can found out instantly mostly anything about a business. And even if a specific piece of data is not listed on the business’s site, most likely the most relevant piece of information that will answer that query will be listed.   Let’s take for instance the first case. From the “about” page from cognitiveSEO we get the info about when the tool took birth. When it comes to the second example, Google decided that the most relevant data for the BrandMentions tool was not the site’s “about” page, but a third party website that made a review on that tool. The founding data of BrandMentions can be found on its site as well, yet, Google found it easier probably to extract it from another source.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-23808" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/when-was-cognitiveseo-founded.png" alt="when was cognitiveseo founded" width="674" height="338" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/when-was-cognitiveseo-founded.png 674w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/when-was-cognitiveseo-founded-300x150.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 674px) 100vw, 674px" /> <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-23809" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/BrandMentions-founded.png" alt="BrandMentions founded" width="654" height="361" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/BrandMentions-founded.png 654w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/BrandMentions-founded-300x166.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px" /> <h3>Google Answer Boxes for Stocks</h3>   Google, Yahoo, and MSN have the authority for the time being when it comes to Google stocks info. What is particularly interesting when it comes to this answer widget is that it is highly complex, offering in-depth info that can be sorted by time, including an interactive chart.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-23805" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/google-answer-box-stock.png" alt="google answer box stock" width="664" height="688" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/google-answer-box-stock.png 664w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/google-answer-box-stock-290x300.png 290w" sizes="(max-width: 664px) 100vw, 664px" /> <h3> </h3> <h3>Google Answer Boxes with Multiple Sources</h3>   There are instances where Google consults multiple sources to offer an answer. For instance, in the example below, both Eurostat and Bureau of Labor Statistics (highly authoritative sources) are mentioned as sources for the unemployment rate in the UK. What is interesting is that once you check out the mentioned sources, none of them offers the rate mentioned in the answer box on their landing pages. If you dig into the data on those sites, you’ll get the info; yet, it is not listed “one click away” on their site. Therefore, a bit of research work has been made here to offer this kind of data.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-23806" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/UK-unemployment-rate-google-answer-box.png" alt="UK unemployment rate google answer box" width="679" height="599" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/UK-unemployment-rate-google-answer-box.png 679w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/UK-unemployment-rate-google-answer-box-300x265.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 679px) 100vw, 679px" /> <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-23807" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/google-multiple-sources-842x1024.jpg" alt="google multiple sources" width="842" height="1024" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/google-multiple-sources-842x1024.jpg 842w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/google-multiple-sources-247x300.jpg 247w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/google-multiple-sources-768x934.jpg 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/google-multiple-sources.jpg 1002w" sizes="(max-width: 842px) 100vw, 842px" /> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='5' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>How to Optimize for Google Answer Box?</h2>   <blockquote> Ranking in position zero, on the top of Google search results, is the best position one can have. </blockquote>   It is the holy grail of the search engine optimization, it is the position that tells Google your content is useful and answering users’ direct questions. There’s no doubt about that. Therefore, you might want to appear there by all means.   Of course, there are a lot of other ranking factors that can influence an answer box result (social media; backlink profile; no. of referring domains, etc. ). Yet, these steps are <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/11646/45-traffic-hacks-boost-website/">a traffic hack</a> that will surely help you create a Google answer box strategy that will help you win the answer box.   So, here there are, four tactics that will help you rank on position zero. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='6' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Step 1. Identify Keywords That Google May Provide Answers for</h3>   As we’ve seen in the examples above, the keywords that are ranking in the instant answers category are usually queries that answer a direct question or solve an immediate need; for example: why did my organic traffic drop, does more traffic increase SEO or list of digital marketing tactics.   Answer boxes are a certain type of rich answers and can come in many shapes and sizes; there are some special featured snippets. Most of the times, Google selects what info considers to be relevant for a specific query.   <blockquote> The really good news is that most of the answer boxes include definitions or descriptions from website extractions. </blockquote>   First things first, identify the keywords that have the potential to have a dedicated answer box.   The easiest way to do this is by using the <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/keyword-tool/">Content Optimizer and Keyword Tool</a>. Let’s say that we are in the cooking industry (restaurants, cooking blogs, you name it). And let’s say that we want to rank as high as possible on topics related to “rice”. We want to be the “rice queens and kings” (and of search marketing, of course). Trying to rank for the keyword “rice” itself might not be the greatest idea; most likely, it’s a very competitive keyword and it would be very hard to rank on position 0 for it. But we can find “rice-related” keywords that we can rank for, just like in the example below:   <a href="https://keywords.cognitiveseo.com/?k=rice&locale=en-US#section/1"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-17924" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/rice-flour-receipe.png" alt="rice flour recipe" width="1000" height="434" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/rice-flour-receipe.png 1315w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/rice-flour-receipe-300x130.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/rice-flour-receipe-768x333.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/rice-flour-receipe-1024x445.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></a>   “Rice flour recipes” is not only a keyword that you can think about ranking in Google’s answer box but it is also a keyword that is highly searched (it has a monthly search volume between 1,000 and 5,000 and a cost-per-click of $0.23 – in case you’re interested in paid search marketing).   You might wonder, if you own a restaurant or you are a rice producer, how this might be helpful for you or for your targeted keyword rankings. Let me tell you that it is highly beneficial. <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/16966/context-is-king/">Content is king</a>, no need to insist more on that, as you’ve probably heard it thousands of time. So, even if you have a rice factory or you are into the rice agriculture, that doesn’t mean you cannot get creative and directly answer to the users with awesome pieces of content.   <blockquote> Google Answer Boxes provide mostly information content. </blockquote>   Therefore, don’t create content that will be beneficial only for you; instead, create content that might actually help your users. Once you offer them something valuable, once you bring them to your website, they might reward with a purchase afterwards. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='7' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Step 2. Segment Keywords Based on Current Answer Box Relevancy</h3>   It probably happened to you as well to be served by Google with irrelevant or incomplete info in the answer box. I know but, as striking as this might seem, just like anything else in life, Google is not perfect. But can we “take advantage” of these small imperfections and use them in favor of our own Google Answer box strategy?   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-17927" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/google-answer-box-mistakes.png" alt="google answer box mistakes" width="1000" height="437" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/google-answer-box-mistakes.png 1090w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/google-answer-box-mistakes-300x131.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/google-answer-box-mistakes-768x335.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/google-answer-box-mistakes-1024x447.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" />   Yes, we can. And we can do it not only for our own benefit, but for the search community as well.   As you can see in the screenshot above, the Google answer box mixed things up (as the search engine is updating all the time, this answer box may change at the moment you perform a similar search). But the big G is aware of the search imperfections that can appear from time to time and this is why it allows us to offer feedback if the results are inaccurate.   So, what’s left for you to do? (except improving the search community by offering feedback).   <blockquote> Search the answer boxes from your own niche that offer inaccurate or incomplete responses and try to create the proper content to rank with. </blockquote>   A simple way to find answer box opportunities is with the help of our best friend, the cognitiveSEO’s Keyword Explorer. We are not saying that the examples below are offering inaccurate answer box responses, or offer a bad user experience; we are just showing you a way to identify answer box opportunities.   <a href="https://keywords.cognitiveseo.com/?k=how%20to%20figure%20out%20sales%20tax&locale=en-US#section/1"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-17935" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/how-to-figure-out-sales-tax.png" alt="how to figure out sales tax" width="1000" height="543" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/how-to-figure-out-sales-tax.png 1300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/how-to-figure-out-sales-tax-300x163.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/how-to-figure-out-sales-tax-768x417.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/how-to-figure-out-sales-tax-1024x556.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></a>   Being in your niche, you (should) know everything that is being said or talked about your niche and the topics you are most interested in. If not, there are <a href="https://brandmentions.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">monitoring tools</a> that can help you out with this matter.   cognitiveSEO’s content tool gives you info on the frequently asked questions from Google as well as the most popular users questions so you can find adapt your SEO strategies and find new answer box ideas.   We know that it’s easier said than done, but what you should to at this point is try creating the content that will actually rank on the position zero. Which led us straight to step three. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='8' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Step 3. Write Website Content Optimized for the Google Answer Box</h3>   Google likes content to be arranged neatly and in order. Keep in mind that you need to create content for the user but also to be on the top of the SERP. You need to <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/21096/how-to-write-for-seo/">write for SEO</a>. So, structuring your content is highly important. The tidier you write content, the higher the chances to rank to the very top.   As you can see in the examples below, Google likes bullets, numbers, structured data and very straightforward answers. So, when aiming for your position zero and you optimize your site, always keep that in mind. In our case, almost all the answer boxes we’re ranking for have very clear steps, definitions, ordered lists and simple to follow instructions.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-17929" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/google-answer-boxes-examples.jpg" alt="google answer boxes examples" width="1000" height="363" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/google-answer-boxes-examples.jpg 1299w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/google-answer-boxes-examples-300x109.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/google-answer-boxes-examples-768x278.jpg 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/google-answer-boxes-examples-1024x371.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /> Therefore, if you want to get featured in Google’s answers, try to write clearly, easy to understand and on the subject. As much as possible, try creating numbered lists or steps that respond directly to a query. And also try optimizing your content as much as possible so you can make sure you’ll rank right on the top. You can use our <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/keyword-tool/">Content Assistant</a> for this job.   Let’s say that we want to have direct answers in the SERPs for the query: “how to figure out sales tax “. Add the piece of content that you want to rank high with (arranged neatly and in order, just like Google likes it) and let the tool tell you what keywords you should use in your content to get a big chance of ranking to the very top.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-17936" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/how-to-figure-out-sales-tax-optimization.png" alt="how to figure out sales tax optimization" width="1000" height="545" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/how-to-figure-out-sales-tax-optimization.png 1217w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/how-to-figure-out-sales-tax-optimization-300x163.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/how-to-figure-out-sales-tax-optimization-768x418.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/how-to-figure-out-sales-tax-optimization-1024x558.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='9' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Step 4. Quick Tips to Rank in Google Answer Boxes on Position Zero</h3>   <ul> <li>When creating content with the purpose of targeting Google Answer Boxes, make sure it is using the <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/16148/structured-markup-penalty/">correct markup</a>.</li> <li>Try to use the query that a user would search to find the Google Answer Box within your title or meta description.</li> <li>Try to earn links or to some link building to your Google Answer Box content using anchor text that matches the Google Answer Box call to action.</li> </ul>   If the answer box has accurate information, they provide the user with better usability by sparing them another click or providing a shortcut to the final action they need to do. Not to mention that being there can get a lot of SERP “landscape”, especially if you own some important keywords in your niche. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='10' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>How to Check Your Google Answer Box Rankings?</h2>   <blockquote> The easiest and fastest way to check if you’re ranking in an answer box is to go straight to your Google Search Console. </blockquote>   You might be inclined to say that a manual check among the search engines is the way to figure out if your website is listed in an answer box. We are not saying that this wouldn’t be a way to do things, but it takes way too much time and energy.   Two clicks away and there you are, face to face with your best rankings. So, let’s see the exact steps you need to take in order to identify your winning keywords and to see if you appear in Google’s answers.   <h3>Step 1. Filter the Data You Need in Google Search Console </h3>   Google Search Console –> Performance –>Queries –>Filter CTR & Position   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17806" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Search-Console-Filter-Data.png" alt="Search Console Filter Data" width="926" height="545" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Search-Console-Filter-Data.png 926w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Search-Console-Filter-Data-300x177.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Search-Console-Filter-Data-768x452.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 926px) 100vw, 926px" />   Starting with January 2018, Google released the beta version of its tool to all users of Search Console. Not all the features have been added in the beta version of Search Console yet, for our current needs, this version works wonders. So, once you’ve logged in within your Search Console (we used the beta version), you need to filter the data so you can find the much desired answer box search results rankings.   First things first, go to the Performance Section. Once you’re here, you’ll see a list of queries, along with data such as Total Clicks, Total Impressions, Average CTR (click-through-rate) and Average Position. What we are interested in are the last two elements: Average CTR and Average Position. The bigger these two, the higher chance of ranking in an answer box.   <blockquote> If you are having a click-trough-rate of 60 and you’re ranking on position one or two, it’s very likely that for that query you are ranked in an answer box. </blockquote>   Therefore, we filter the data so that we’ll see only the queries that have an average CTR greater than 30 (let’s say) and an average position smaller than 3. If these two conditions meet, chances are that those queries will rank in an answer box.   <h3>Step 2. Instantly Identify Your Answer Box Rankings</h3>   After the filtering was done, all you need to do is check those queries, look and enjoy the results, just like in the screenshots below. Appearing in Google rankings never felt better, right?   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17809" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/list-of-digital-marketing-strategies222.png" alt="list of digital marketing strategies" width="909" height="237" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/list-of-digital-marketing-strategies222.png 909w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/list-of-digital-marketing-strategies222-300x78.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/list-of-digital-marketing-strategies222-768x200.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 909px) 100vw, 909px" /> <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17810" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/list-of-digital-marketing-strategies.png" alt="list of digital marketing strategies SERP" width="667" height="901" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/list-of-digital-marketing-strategies.png 667w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/list-of-digital-marketing-strategies-222x300.png 222w" sizes="(max-width: 667px) 100vw, 667px" />   Indeed, considering Google Algorithm updates, the knowledge graph, it’s very likely that you’ll see different boxes results than your neighbor living next door, who might be seeing different answer box displays. This is why we always recommend using a <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/ranktracker/">rank tracker</a> when monitoring your keywords.   But besides the fact that it’s time and money consuming, the personalized results issue is another reason why we don’t recommend doing a manual search to check for the keywords ranking on position zero. Peeking at the data coming straight from the Search Console, we can do a bit of keyword research and look at those queries which we know for sure that have a well-performing CTR (click-through rate) and positions. Just like in Shakira’s most famous song, data don’t lie.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-17812" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/can-google-read-text-in-images2.png" alt="can google read text in images" width="909" height="147" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/can-google-read-text-in-images2.png 1370w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/can-google-read-text-in-images2-300x49.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/can-google-read-text-in-images2-768x124.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/can-google-read-text-in-images2-1024x166.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 909px) 100vw, 909px" /> <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17814" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/can-google-read-text-in-images.png" alt="can google read text in images SERP" width="663" height="681" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/can-google-read-text-in-images.png 663w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/can-google-read-text-in-images-292x300.png 292w" sizes="(max-width: 663px) 100vw, 663px" />   The examples can continue but we think you got the main idea and we wouldn’t want to get you bored you with examples from our own SEO tips blogspot. We recommend you to discover your own Google rankings on position 0 and enjoy the feeling of seeing your piece of content within any type of answer box. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='11' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Google Answer Box Strategy & Statistics – A Research on 10k Keywords</h2>   As mentioned before, to figure out what it takes to get your website on position zero and perform an efficient Google answer box optimization, we set out to find out more about the issue, with a more scientific outlook on things.   This is how, a few years ago (in 2015 to be more precisely), we came up looking at about 10,000 queries. We looked for phrases such as “what is…” and “who is…”, adding just one letter after the phrase ( “what is a”, “what is b”, and so on up to “what is z”) and taking into account the autocomplete suggestions (since those are supposed to be most popular searches, therefore the ones most likely to elicit answer boxes).   To have a standardized cutoff point, we only took into account the first 10 autocomplete suggestions for each generated keyword. Using this method to extract the keywords, we selected a sample of keywords that are most likely to return answer boxes. In the following lines you can read the most interesting findings of this research.   To be able to implement an efficient Google Answer Box strategy, we first need to understand some communalities between the rich answers. And all these because position zero in SERP hilghly higher improves CTR (click through rate), which increases traffic to your website. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='12' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Unique Domains Used by Google for Answers </h3>   It seems that in the world of the search engines the rich get richer. When we analyzed the answers that were extracted from websites, we found out that they only came from 342 websites. So, on average, about 3.6 answers per website. But averages can be deceiving and in this case they actually are. Of those 342 websites (mainly, Wikipedia, dictionaries or Glossary) not all got the lion’s share.   <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6289 aligncenter" style="text-align: center;" title="Unique Domains Used For Data Extraction Google Answer Box" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/3-unique-domains-used-for-data-extraction-google-answer-box.jpg" alt="Unique Domains Used For Data Extraction Google Answer Box" width="842" height="512" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/3-unique-domains-used-for-data-extraction-google-answer-box.jpg 842w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/3-unique-domains-used-for-data-extraction-google-answer-box-300x182.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 842px) 100vw, 842px" /> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='13' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Top 10 Ranking Position Distribution for the Answer Box </h3> <h3> </h3> Of the many factors that might influence the “distribution”, one that comes to mind almost instantly is the SERP ranking. So we split the websites according to this criterion, and look and behold, websites that were found on the first position (or position zero) in the organic results accounted for a third (33%) of all answer box information. The top 5 pages accounted for more than three quarters (77%) of the answers.   <blockquote> There was just 1 answer box out of the total 1,236 that came from a page not in the top 10 (statistically, that’s less than 0.1%). </blockquote>   So, rankings matter. You would be right to suggest that the relationship implied by this correlation may be more complicated here than what we are seeing from the numbers. Yet, you’d be taking a pretty serious chance to bet on being that 1 case in 1,236 that doesn’t need to be up high in the rankings to make it to the answer box. Or, to quote XKCD scienc-y web comic creator Randall Munroe, “Correlation does not imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing ‘look over there.’”   <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6274 aligncenter" title="Answer Box Extraction URL SERP Distribution" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/4-answer-box-extraction-url-serp-distrbituino.jpg" alt="Answer Box Extraction URL SERP Distribution" width="858" height="515" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/4-answer-box-extraction-url-serp-distrbituino.jpg 858w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/4-answer-box-extraction-url-serp-distrbituino-300x180.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 858px) 100vw, 858px" /> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='14' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Title vs. No-Title in Google’s Rich Answer Boxes</h3> <h3> </h3> As you’ll go around searching for different queries on Google, you’ll probably notice that there are two types of answer boxes, if we take into consideration the title: answer boxes which have a title and answer boxes which don’t have one. Just like in the case of any piece of content, the title can make a great difference. Let’s take a look at the screenshot below!   <img class="align center size-large wp-image-6294 aligncenter" title="Title vs no TItle Google Answer Box" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/title-vs-no-title-google-answer-box-1024x442.jpg" alt="Title vs no TItle Google Answer Box" width="1024" height="442" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/title-vs-no-title-google-answer-box-1024x442.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/title-vs-no-title-google-answer-box-300x129.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/title-vs-no-title-google-answer-box.jpg 1362w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   We are not talking only about the title’s purpose to garner attention and entice people to start reading your content, but about the basic purpose of titles: functionality.   Beyond all, people need to know what the content is about. From all the analyzed answer boxes, about 30% have a title, while the rest provide the information directly in the box, without any other introductions. Is a title beneficial? It definitely is, as it highly improves user’s experience.   With a majority of “no title” answer boxes, it has been clear since then where Google was heading with this matter. We are almost in 2020 and things have changed a lot. Having titles in answers box is more of a scarcity these days.   <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6277 aligncenter" title="Google Answer Box Characteristic Title vs No Title" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/7-google-answer-box-characteristic-title-vs-no-title.jpg" alt="Google Answer Box Characteristic Title vs No Title" width="912" height="541" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/7-google-answer-box-characteristic-title-vs-no-title.jpg 912w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/7-google-answer-box-characteristic-title-vs-no-title-300x177.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 912px) 100vw, 912px" /> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='15' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Trusted Sites Distribution in Google Answer Boxes</h3> <h3> </h3> In all fairness, we are inclined to cut you some slack and say that it’s not necessarily the SERP rankings that matter. But that’s only because the SERP positioning might simply be an indicator of some other measure of your website’s quality: referring domains. This is a case where more is actually more and better.   <blockquote> Sites with 10k referring domains are more likely to have content appearing in answer boxes. </blockquote>   Interestingly enough, a lot more answers (twice the number) come from domains with between 1 and 5,000 referring domains than from domains with between 5 and 10,000 referring domains. That may very well be, though, due to the arbitrary split or due to a lot of the values being around the cutoff point.   Despite this, however, the 1 K mark is a fairly good predictor: more than 80% of all answers come from places that have 1,000 referring domains or more. But that means there’s still a reasonable chance of popping up in answer boxes even with less than that.   However, if you drop under 100, it seems that you are on your own: less than a 3% chance of hitting the jackpot. Or at least this is how things used to be around 2015 when this research was conducted.   <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6275 aligncenter" title="Trusted Sites Distribution Google Answer Boxes" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/5-trusted-sites-distribution-google-answer-boxes.jpg" alt="Trusted Sites Distribution Google Answer Boxes" width="867" height="543" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/5-trusted-sites-distribution-google-answer-boxes.jpg 867w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/5-trusted-sites-distribution-google-answer-boxes-300x187.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 867px) 100vw, 867px" /> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='16' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Website Extraction vs. Website Definition in Answer Boxes</h3>   I invite you to take a look at another interesting finding, regarding the Website Definitions.   As we analyzed other answer boxes extracted from different sites, we find out that a lot of them seemed to be low quality and sometimes even unrelated.   Things have changed a lot along the way and Google has fine-tuned its algorithm and for sure answers are more reliable now. Yet, allow us to share some findings from a few years ago that raised two legit question: <ul> <li>how can a site that Google doesn’t consider worthy to be listed in the first 10 results be given as a resource in the answer box?</li> <li>shouldn’t we worry about the quality of the information found in the answer box, given this situation?</li> </ul>   It was an interesting example that we found then, the query “what is a 360 link”. Even if the web definition provided by the answer box came from Wikipedia (where 51% from all web definitions came from), it cannot be found in the top 10 results. Even more, the content provided is unrelated and has a commercial flavor (it refers to a product from the ProQuest company).   Nevertheless, mysterious are the ways of Google but equally determined are the people from cognitiveSEO to find out answers. As we browsed so many queries with answer boxes, we identified a pattern in the web definitions extraction. It looks like the majority of definitions that are not coming from Wikipedia have a similar URL pattern using the words “glossary” or “dictionary” (and other variations).   <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6278 aligncenter" title="Google Website Definition Characteristic Patternable Words" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/8-google-website-definition-characteristic-patternable-words.jpg" alt="Google Website Definition Characteristic Patternable Words" width="915" height="541" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/8-google-website-definition-characteristic-patternable-words.jpg 915w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/8-google-website-definition-characteristic-patternable-words-300x177.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 915px) 100vw, 915px" />   Thereby, having issues, answer boxes generated from Web Definitions didn’t look very reliable. Yet, in the case of website extraction things were more settled and we didn’t encounter the same problems. Judging by the fact that the data are shown differently, we assumed that the extraction from web definitions vs. Entity Extraction done using the Knowledge Graph was made totally different.   The Website Extraction seemed more precise, while the Website Definition seemed more basic. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='17' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Can I Advertise in the Google Answers Box?</h2>   <blockquote> According to Google, the short answer is no, you cannot advertise on answer boxes as their purpose is informational and not commercial. </blockquote>   Here’s what John Muller from Google <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r3IIPCHt0E#t=31440" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">said</a> about “branding” the answer boxes:   <table class="author-quotes" style="width: 100%; height: 132px;" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr class="author-quote-row" style="height: 76px;"> <td class="author-text" style="height: 76px;" colspan="2">We need to watch out […] so it doesn’t turn out to an advertisement for a web site but rather that it brings more information to the search results about this general topic.</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 31px;"> <td class="author-image" style="height: 56px;" rowspan="2"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-16873 size-full" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/johnmu-seozrh_400x400.png" alt="John Mueller SEO" width="50" height="50" /></td> <td class="author-name" style="height: 31px;">John Muller</td> </tr> <tr class="author-description-row" style="height: 25px;"> <td style="height: 25px;">Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google / <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnMu?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">@JohnMu</a></td> </tr> </tbody> </table>   <iframe width="100%" height="615" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8r3IIPCHt0E" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>   Yet, as one might assume, advertising in answer boxes is something that any business would crave to. Just imagine the opportunities that it may bring. But as long as there is another online advertising platform developed by Google (Google Ads), most likely advertisement in answer boxes is something that belongs (perhaps) to the future.   Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that there are no debatable situations on this matter.   Let’s take an example: if you look, for instance, on how much does a dental implant cost. The answer box I got contains a link to an agency that provides brokerage for dental plans & more. As you can see, the Spirit Dental & Vision Company takes a lot of the search engine ranking page landscape. And although the answer box is not linking directly to a pricing page of a dental office, it does link to a company that sells dental services to a targeted audience, which is pretty much the same. For this business, showing up in the answer box is most likely more valuable than showing up first in the search results when it comes to traffic and conversions. <img class="center aligncenter wp-image-23819 size-full" title="How Much Does an Abortion Cost answer Box" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/how-much-does-a-dental-implant-cost-cognitiveseo.png" alt="how much does a dental implant cost cognitiveseo" width="685" height="566" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/how-much-does-a-dental-implant-cost-cognitiveseo.png 685w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/how-much-does-a-dental-implant-cost-cognitiveseo-300x248.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 685px) 100vw, 685px" />   Yet, we need to understand that the search engine works on advanced AI algorithms. Even in this case, Google ranked on the position zero an article that is a very informative blog post. It informs the searchers about the cost, giving them lot of additional data on why it costs so much, how much should they expect to pay, what other costs are involved, etc. The blog-post is “answer box friendly”, it has the information well structured, and firstly, it responds to the query; after reading the article, you’ll have a price in mind when thinking about implants.   <div id="attachment_23821" style="width: 652px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23821" class="wp-image-23821 size-full" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/spirit-dental-website.png" alt="spirit dental website" width="642" height="670" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/spirit-dental-website.png 642w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/spirit-dental-website-287x300.png 287w" sizes="(max-width: 642px) 100vw, 642px" />Screenshot taken from https://www.spiritdental.com/blog/individuals/the-cost-of-dental-implants-broken-down</div>   It’s true that other URLs ranking for how much does a dental implant cost have well structured data as well, a fact that leads us to the conclusion that most likely Google is testing and showing several sites within its direct answer section for the mentioned query.   <div id="attachment_23822" style="width: 794px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23822" class="size-full wp-image-23822" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/authorithy-dental.png" alt="authorithy dental" width="784" height="325" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/authorithy-dental.png 784w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/authorithy-dental-300x124.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/authorithy-dental-768x318.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 784px) 100vw, 784px" />Screenshot taken from https://www.authoritydental.org/dental-implants-cost</div> There is another interesting situation when it comes to answer boxes and advertising that caught my attention, and that is the dedicated boxes for pricing.   If you’re interested in finding out “how much does a passport cost”, be advised that the information in the answer box comes from the website of the UK government. We’re not sure whether this is because of the language settings, the IP, the fact that this was the most popular query, or some other factors as well, but even though the source may vary depending on the language settings, it will very likely remain governmental.   <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6156 aligncenter" title="How Much Does A Passport Cost" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/how-much-does-a-passport-cost.jpg" alt="How Much Does A Passport Cost" width="675" height="393" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/how-much-does-a-passport-cost.jpg 675w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/how-much-does-a-passport-cost-300x174.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 675px) 100vw, 675px" />   So, the landscape is fairly clear for generic products: how much does a gallon of milk cost, how much does a gallon of gas cost, etc., most likely you’ll get answers coming from statistics institutes, news publications or governmental sites.   But what about products of really big brands?   For instance, if you’re giving into the electric car craze and want to find out just “how much does a Tesla cost”, you will get your answer right at the top, in a special box. You will actually get a price in the answer box, alongside with info about their stock.   <blockquote> When it comes to pricing, the information is provided from third party sites, magazines, news websites and not the official selling car lot. </blockquote>   This fact alone says a lot about Google’s position when it comes to advertising in answer boxes.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-23825 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/how-much-does-a-tesla-cost1-1024x387.png" alt="" width="1024" height="387" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/how-much-does-a-tesla-cost1-1024x387.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/how-much-does-a-tesla-cost1-300x113.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/how-much-does-a-tesla-cost1-768x290.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/how-much-does-a-tesla-cost1.png 1213w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> Whether we are looking for an iphone 5’s price, a google ad or garcinia cambogia weight loss pills, we can get an idea of this item’s prices, though not in a direct marketing-selling approach but from some third parties authorities.   What is Google actually doing here?   <blockquote> Google provides the users with a good experience by trying to offer an answer to the question, while keeping them away from the official advertising sites of these products. </blockquote>   None of the sites we are sent to are selling the products in question nor have a direct connection to the marketing strategy of these items.   Not even when we ask Google how much a Google ad costs, we are not directed to the AdWords page as expected, but to a unbiased blog post that talks about this matter. This “politically correct” Google attitude makes us have a better understanding of the saying “more catholic than the Pope himself”. Yet, Google doesn’t have the price list for all the products as it gets confused when it is asked “how much a nexus 5 costs” (to be mentioned that Nexus is a Google product) or “how much a macbook costs” (a very well-known product).   <img class="center aligncenter wp-image-6169 size-large" title="Google Answer Boxes Provide Mostly Informational Content" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/google-answer-boxes-provide-mostly-informational-content1-980x1024.jpg" alt="Google Answer Boxes Provide Mostly Informational Content" width="980" height="1024" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/google-answer-boxes-provide-mostly-informational-content1-980x1024.jpg 980w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/google-answer-boxes-provide-mostly-informational-content1-287x300.jpg 287w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/google-answer-boxes-provide-mostly-informational-content1.jpg 1281w" sizes="(max-width: 980px) 100vw, 980px" /> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='18' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Can Any Site Appear in Google’s Direct Answer Box?</h2>   <blockquote> Any site can appear in Google’s answer box if it offers a fit answer for the query and if it’s considered to be a topical authority in the field. </blockquote>   Let’s dig a bit more into the topical versus generic sites for a better understanding of this matter.   It’s reasonable to assume that when it can’t find its answers on an already trusted-and-verified site, Google will try to take some extra precautions by looking for authority sites or sites that it can trust.   Let’s look at the examples below and try to understand the way Google is making use of topical authority sites and the Generic ones.   If we try to figure out what a quantum computer or back pain is, Google will quote from a generic site (Wikipedia), giving us an overall idea about the computation device or the unpleasant but yet so common back pain.   But what happens when we try to find some info about a headache or a sciatica pain (a condition akin to back pain)? Apparently, we are led to more specialized sites, to some pages that Google considers to be high authority pages. It is well known that Google’s goal is to return the best possible results that match not just based on the exact match query but on the intent of the user doing the query, boosting sites that offer a more in-depth topic covered than a simple article about the problem.   <img class="align center wp-image-6135 align center aligncenter" title="Topical Authorithy vs Generic Authorithy Sites Answer Boxes" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/topical-authorithy-vs-generic-authorithy-sites-answer-boxes-1024x549.jpg" alt="Topical Authorithy vs Generic Authorithy Sites Answer Boxes" width="924" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/topical-authorithy-vs-generic-authorithy-sites-answer-boxes-1024x549.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/topical-authorithy-vs-generic-authorithy-sites-answer-boxes-300x160.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   There’s a special note to make here, namely that medical terms seem to be filtered. For example, for sensitive terms searches, you are very likely to be instructed by Google to “Consult a doctor if you have a medical concern”. It is possible that the big G may have a self-medication monitoring system, giving different results in the answer box according to the severity of the health condition.   Furthermore, the size of a business card or the date of the next solar eclipse are considered to be specific questions that need to be answered by topical sites with high authority in the field. With the risk of redundancy, I am bringing back in discussion the fact that sites which bring “additional value” to the web are considered to be topical authority and promoted as such, whether it comes to SERP or answer boxes.   Therefore, it seems like that for more specific queries, content based Topical Authority Sites are quoted more in answer boxes compared to sites that only cover the topic briefly (even if the site covering the topic briefly has a lot of generic authority).   More articles written on the same topic increase the chances for the site to be treated as a “Topical Authority Content Site” on that specific topic and be listed in the answer box. But what Google considers to be high-quality content might remain a legit question. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='19' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Does Google Answer All Questions?</h2>   <blockquote> The percentage of search results with answer boxes out of the total number of search results is fairly small. </blockquote>   According to Google results, the short answer is no. There is a dedicated featured snippet with this exact answer coming from Quora. It’s true that the answer does not refer to answer boxes, but to answers in general. However, even when we’re talking about Google’s rich answers, the answer remains the same, no.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-23828" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/can-google-answers-all-questions.png" alt="can google answers all questions" width="690" height="424" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/can-google-answers-all-questions.png 690w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/can-google-answers-all-questions-300x184.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 690px) 100vw, 690px" />   On the research we made a few years ago, research mentioned in a chapter above, we found out that only a small percentage of queries have dedicated answer boxes. We are in 2020 already and it’s very likely that those numbers increased.   <blockquote> Out of 10,353 queries, only 1,792 returned answer boxes, which is roughly only 17% of the total number of searches. </blockquote>   We can say that this claim is true in general, since our sample size of 10,000 is enough to extrapolate for a population of pretty much any size with a high confidence level. While this may sound pretty unbelievable, that’s just how <a href="http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">statistics works</a>. Admittedly, we haven’t really been using a perfectly random sample, so let’s just say that the claim we made earlier is true of all searches that could potentially yield an answer box: off all that could, rather few actually do.   <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6267 aligncenter" title="Google Answer Box Appearance Ratio" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/1-google-answer-box-appearance-ratio.jpg" alt="Google Answer Box Appearance Ratio" width="845" height="497" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/1-google-answer-box-appearance-ratio.jpg 845w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/1-google-answer-box-appearance-ratio-300x176.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 845px) 100vw, 845px" /> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='20' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>How Do You Delete an Answer Box?</h2>   <blockquote> There is no such thing as “delete answer box” button. </blockquote>   If Google considers that a piece of content is relevant enough for a specific query, it can choose to show it within the direct answer box.   Yet, you have the possibility to <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6229325?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">opt out of direct answer section</a>.   You can opt out of Google’s special boxes by preventing snippets on your page using the <meta name=”googlebot” content=”nosnippet”> tag on your page. This will remove all snippets on your page, including those in regular search results.   However, let’s say that you don’t want to opt out of all snippets but you want to remove just one answer box where the information is inaccurate.   You have two possibilities: check out exactly where the content is extracted from and correct the piece of content; or let Google know that it’s a piece of information that is not accurate or not appropriate to be shown in the special box due to different reasons, even legal ones.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-23833" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/fedback-featured-snippets-1024x693.png" alt="fedback featured snippets" width="1024" height="693" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/fedback-featured-snippets-1024x693.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/fedback-featured-snippets-300x203.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/fedback-featured-snippets-768x520.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/fedback-featured-snippets.png 1046w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='21' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Is Google Ever Wrong? Google Answer Box Failures</h2>   <blockquote> Technically speaking, Google is never wrong. Because all Google does is matching the query with an answer that it considers to be the best one. </blockquote>   However, this doesn’t mean that there isn’t mismatching in SERP in general, as well as in the direct answers section.   Of course, you could make the case that not getting an answer box might be preferable to getting one with wrong or misguiding information. And you might be right.   Since we are an SEO blog, let’s look at a couple of examples from our very own field. Again, we need to mention that the search is an ever evolving industry and some of the examples given below might have been corrected meanwhile.   If you’d like to know, for instance, “what is an SEO company”, the information you’ll get in the definition is about SEO in general. Close enough in this case, but not what I asked.   <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6142 aligncenter" title="What Is A SEO Company Failure Google Answers" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/what-is-a-seo-company-failure-google-answers.jpg" alt="What Is A SEO Company Failure Google Answers" width="672" height="476" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/what-is-a-seo-company-failure-google-answers.jpg 672w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/what-is-a-seo-company-failure-google-answers-300x212.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 672px) 100vw, 672px" />   Things get worse down the road if we ask “what is seo company india”. That, you’ll quibble, doesn’t make much sense now, does it? How could we possibly expect to get an answer box for that? Well, we didn’t. But we did get the box anyway. A nonsensical definition from a shady website. In fairness, the definition was nonsensical because it kind of looked like keyword stuffing. And the site looked shady because… well, it was.   <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6143 aligncenter" title="What Is A SEO India Failure Google Answers" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/what-is-a-seo-company-india-wrong-google-answers.jpg" alt="What Is A SEO India Failure Google Answers" width="697" height="547" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/what-is-a-seo-company-india-wrong-google-answers.jpg 697w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/what-is-a-seo-company-india-wrong-google-answers-300x235.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 697px) 100vw, 697px" />   That wasn’t very fair, we’ll admit, but let’s try a query that does make sense: “what is an seo keyword”. Not only does this make sense, but there should be plenty of reasonable, unbiased definitions lying around. And yet Google picked another slew of stuffed keywords from a shady website. There’s probably a bit of irony in there.   <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6144 aligncenter" title="What Is A SEO Keyword Failure Google Answers" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/what-is-a-seo-keyword-wrong-google-answer-box.jpg" alt="What Is A SEO Keyword Failure Google Answers" width="666" height="424" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/what-is-a-seo-keyword-wrong-google-answer-box.jpg 666w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/what-is-a-seo-keyword-wrong-google-answer-box-300x190.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 666px) 100vw, 666px" />   One last try: “what is an seo tool”. Again we get an incorrect definition (this one at least is an actual sentence, but not the answer to our query) from a somewhat shady site – or, at the very least, one whose presence in the answer box is shady.   <img class="align center size-full wp-image-6145 aligncenter" title="What Is A SEO Tool Failure Google Answers" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/what-is-a-seo-tool-incorrect-google-answer-box.jpg" alt="What Is A SEO Tool Failure Google Answers" width="685" height="507" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/what-is-a-seo-tool-incorrect-google-answer-box.jpg 685w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/what-is-a-seo-tool-incorrect-google-answer-box-300x222.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 685px) 100vw, 685px" />   There are other examples as well, from a variety of fields, which highlight the fact that the Feedback button at the bottom right of the search box is not merely a courtesy, but a potentially crucial tool, in a community-effort-buildup kind of way, for the development and improvement of the search box.   Therefore, the answer box algorithm understands almost all of the 5 Ws: “why”, “who”, “what”, “when” and “where”. It doesn’t always get the right interpretation in the context though. For instance, if you’ve become nostalgic and you’re wondering “when the iPhone was released”, you’ll get June 29, 2007 as the date the iPhone was originally introduced, which is correct. Same if your question is about the latest model.   If, however, you’ve suddenly become a more practical, future-oriented person, and want to know“ when the iphone 6 is released”, you’ll only be reminded of the June 29, 2007 date for the introduction of the first iPhone. That’s not very helpful, but maybe Google doesn’t know the exact release date, so it’s understandable. Only that’s not the issue here.   If you were to search “when is the new iphone to be released”, you’ll actually get useful results about the iPhone 6 (which is the new one) release date speculations. Does Google not know that the newest version of the iPhone will be the iPhone 6? It is entirely possible. Further testing the search engine by inquiring about iPhone 8 or iPhone 10 seems to greatly confuse the big G and cause it to return incorrect or misguided results.   <img class="center center aligncenter wp-image-6133 size-large" title="Iphone Release Dates Google Answer Box" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/when-iphone-release-dates-google-answer-boxx-1024x800.jpg" alt="Iphone Release Dates Google Answer Box" width="1024" height="800" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/when-iphone-release-dates-google-answer-boxx-1024x800.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/when-iphone-release-dates-google-answer-boxx-300x234.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/when-iphone-release-dates-google-answer-boxx.jpg 1366w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   If people are searching for some iphone models that are not yet released, the search engine gets confused and doesn’t logically answer to the query. It offers info on some other versions of the phone or worse, for a totally different product.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-23831 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/answer-box-failures-1024x325.png" alt="answer box failures" width="1024" height="325" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/answer-box-failures-1024x325.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/answer-box-failures-300x95.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/answer-box-failures-768x244.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/answer-box-failures.png 1243w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   There are a lot of questions that simply go unanswered.   <blockquote> While the algorithm is quite impressive, it’s not 100% reliable yet. </blockquote>   Which is probably why we can assume that Google presents you with an accurate answer box if the questions are specific enough. It’s a “question and answer” game, where both need to be as specific as possible to be worth for a rich result.   If you’re wondering “how much gold is worth”, you’ll get some search results but no preferred answer. If, however, you’re asking “how much gold is worth per ounce”, then you’ll at least get an estimate in the answer box.   The same goes for the price of milk. If you’re simply asking “how much milk costs”, you’ll get a bunch of results, but no preferred answer in the answer box. This changes, however, if you ask “how much does a gallon of milk cost” as this time you get a preferred answer from a page on a news organization website. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='24' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Does a Google Answer Box API Exist?</h2>   <blockquote> There is no official Google answer box API available. Yet, there are some workarounds that may help you on this matter. </blockquote>   There were some discussions around the Google answer box API matter in the past, and even if there seemed to be some solutions, they are now deprecated. There is an instant answer API available from the DuckDuckGo search engine, yet, the responses aren’t as robust as Google’s.   To retrieve the information returned from the answer box you can try using the <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/api/">cognitiveSEO API</a>. The API allows you to accurately track all the keywords you or your competitors are ranking on, while also giving you the possibility of “hunting” position zero ranking opportunities.   One of the main factors of your website’s performance is the ability to track its keyword rankings accurately. Once you put a Google answer box strategy to work, you need to see how well your SEO efforts translate into rankings and continue doing the things that work best to keep the progress growing.   Seeing the correlation between your rankings and your Google answer box optimization and SEO efforts will let you easily see which changes have a positive effect (so you can focus more on these areas) and which may have a negative one.   <h3>Conclusion</h3>   A pretty famous computer scientist said that “the question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.”   Answer box is indeed, as Google stated: much of the work on language, speech, translation and visual processing relies on Machine Learning and AI that raises deep scientific and engineering challenges.   Everyday, Google search finds more “humane” ways to interact with its users and provide more direct answers. With all the strings attached, appearing in the answer boxes is a way new level in the search industry and understanding them shouldn’t be just a recreational hobby but a must if you want your site to be known and ranked the best possible.   SERP landscape has changed a lot, you can see that just by looking at some SEO stats, and mostly because of the highly technological progress, Artificial Intelligence included, of course. Of course, advanced SEO tools like ours and other <a href="https://www.movingtrafficmedia.com/free-seo-tools/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">free SEO tools</a> can help out in this situation. The artificial intelligence process suggests that the line between intelligent machines and people blurs most when a puree is made of that identity. No matter how much we’d like everything to be standardized, in the search industry results are not based directly on exact rules.   Rich snippets might be quite controversial as the Google Search user interface lets Google’s users view and copy content without visiting the content provider’s website. It can also has a big impact on <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/14012/dwell-time/">dwell time.</a> In addition to losing organic traffic, webmasters or content marketers might be also a bit “upset” with the fact that their perfectly well-functioning website doesn’t appear in the answer box while some broken site that doesn’t exist anymore is taking up the space . Double ouch for Google answer boxes!   Answer box results are highly important these days, and the steps to get your site ranking in the answer boxes queries should appear in all SEO training as well as advanced and beginners guide to SEO. Proving Google that your site is trustworthy and deserves to be on the top of the SERP it’s way harder to be done than to be said. Of course, advanced tools like cognitiveSEO can make your life easier. But it pays off on the long term. Moreover, following the tips that we came up with in this post on how to optimize for the Google Answer Box might be also really helpful. The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/17398/google-answer-box/">How to Win the Google Answer Box → The Ultimate Guide</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.
How To Identify & Best Optimize for User Search Intent. The Step by Step Guide

Tue, 05 May 2026 14:12:37 -0000

Why did the chicken cross the road? We’ll likely never find out. But if you type this into a search engine, I’m pretty sure I can predict what the top results might return. Not only because I’ve searched for this myself, but also because of something called search intent, which basically means that search engines […] The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/22986/search-intent/">How To Identify & Best Optimize for User Search Intent. The Step by Step Guide</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.

Why did the chicken cross the road? We’ll likely never find out. But if you type this into a search engine, I’m pretty sure I can predict what the top results might return. Not only because I’ve searched for this myself, but also because of something called search intent, which basically means that search engines are trying to give you what you want by first understanding (or guessing) what it is exactly that you want and – more importantly – why you want it.   If you understand what your users want and what their intent is when they are searching for a specific query, half of the job for ranking on that keyword is done. Of course, there is still a lot of work to do (like knowing what are the 3 types of intent and what type of content to write for each type of keyword and search intent). The good news is that this article will let you know everything you need to know about search intent, from A to Z: from how to understand user intent to how to best optimize for it and rank to the top for the keywords that interest you most.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-23079" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/How_to_Optimize_for_Each_Type_of_Search_Intent-1024x538.jpg" alt="How_to_Optimize_for_Each_Type_of_Search_Intent" width="1024" height="538" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/How_to_Optimize_for_Each_Type_of_Search_Intent.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/How_to_Optimize_for_Each_Type_of_Search_Intent-300x158.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/How_to_Optimize_for_Each_Type_of_Search_Intent-768x404.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   <ol class="summaryext"> <li><a href="#1">What Is Search Intent? </a></li> <li><a href="#222">The Shift from Keyword Intent to AI-Driven Contextual Intent</a></li> <li><a href="#2">What Is User Intent in SEO?</a></li> <li><a href="#3">What Are the Types of Search Intent?</a></li> <li><a href="#4">How to Optimize for Each Type of Search Intent</a></li> <li><a href="#5">Why & How to Optimize for Informational Search Intent</a> <ol> <li><a href="#6">What Type of Content Do You Need to Create for Informational Queries?</a></li> <li><a href="#7">How to Create Relevant Content for the Informational Keyword Intent</a></li> </ol> </li> <li><a href="#8">How to Optimize for Navigational Search Intent </a> <ol> <li><a href="#9">What Type of Content Do You Need for Navigational Queries?</a></li> <li><a href="#10">How to Create Relevant Content for the Navigational Keyword Intent</a></li> </ol> </li> <li><a href="#11">How to Optimize for Transactional Search Intent </a> <ol> <li><a href="#12">What Type of Content Do You Need for Transactional Queries?</a></li> <li><a href="#13">How to Create Relevant Content for the Transactional Keyword Intent</a></li> </ol> </li> <li><a href="#14">The Challenge of Matching Search Intent </a></li> <li><a href="#15">What Type of Search Intent Should You Start Optimizing For</a></li> </ol> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='1' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>1. What Is Search Intent? </h2>   Search intent or keyword intent is the reason why people conduct a specific search. Why are they searching? What are they trying to achieve through their search? Are they trying to figure out the answer to a question or do they want to reach a specific website?   Over the years, Google has become more and more able to determine the search intent of people. The whole Google SERP now is trying to best fit the search intent and not the exact searched keyword. There are situations when the exact searched term is not even included in the Google search results page. And this happens because Google has become better and better at determining the search intent of people.   Google wants to rank high the pages that best fit the user’s search intent. And lately, it has managed to do that pretty well.   Going back to the riddle from the beginning of the article, it’s true that we might not find out why did the chicken cross the road; yet, what we will find out (if you haven’t googled it already) is what this riddle is all about. And we’ll get videos about it and even a featured snippet explaining what’s all about. And this happens because the search engine understands my intent when searching for this query.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-23087" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-road.-1024x590.png" alt="why did the chicken cross the road." width="1024" height="590" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-road.-1024x590.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-road.-300x173.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-road.-768x442.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-road..png 1155w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='222' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>2. The Shift from Keyword Intent to AI-Driven Contextual Intent</h2>   Search intent has always been one of the most important ranking factors in SEO.   In the past, search engines mainly relied on keywords to understand what users wanted. If someone searched for “best running shoes,” Google would analyze the query and return pages that matched that specific intent.   Today, things are becoming more complex.   With the rise of AI-powered search engines and generative AI platforms, understanding intent goes beyond matching keywords. Modern AI systems analyze context, sentiment, entities, and the overall reputation of a brand across the web to determine which sources deserve visibility.   <blockquote> In other words, it’s no longer just about what your website says about your brand. It’s also about what the rest of the internet says about it. </blockquote> This is why contextual brand intent is becoming increasingly important. AI systems don’t simply evaluate a page based on a target keyword. They try to understand how a brand is perceived within a specific topic, industry, or purchasing journey.   To better understand this context, you need to monitor your brand’s digital footprint beyond your website.   <blockquote> As an AI visibility and social listening platform, <a href="https://brandmentions.com/">BrandMentions app</a> allows you to track online conversations, and sentiment websites, news outlets, forums, and social media channels. </blockquote>   This gives you a clearer picture of the trust and authority signals that both search engines and AI-powered systems use when evaluating your brand.   As search continues to evolve, optimizing for keywords alone is no longer enough. Building a strong, trustworthy presence across the web has become an essential part of SEO, Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and visibility in AI-powered search experiences. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='2' style='height:50px'> </div>   <h2>3. What Is User Intent in SEO? </h2>   User intent to SEO is like a moth to a flame. Putting it simple, if you want to rank high in Google, you have to offer content that best fits the users’ search intent. If you’re not able to do so, chances are that you’ll not be able to be on Google’s hall of fame, meaning its first page of search results.   There are about 3.5 billion searches per day. And according to <a href="https://moz.com/blog/state-of-searcher-behavior-revealed" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">statistics</a>, a searcher uses around 3 words in a search query.   <blockquote> Google has to figure out what exactly do they want, so it can offer them the search engine page results they need. And your job is to create content that is relevant to the Google users and matches their search intent. </blockquote> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='3' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>4. What Are the Types of Search Intent?</h2>   Let’s say, for instance, that your search is related to sunglasses. Based on the keywords you use, the search engine might interpret your query as having different intents behind it:   <ul> <li>informational (if you search for “sunglasses polarized meaning”);</li> <li>navigational (if you search for the name of a particular brand of sunglasses);</li> <li>transactional (if you search for “cheap sunglasses” or “buy sunglasses”);</li> </ul>   If you’re wondering which search intent is the most popular, you need to know that <a href="https://faculty.ist.psu.edu/jjansen/academic/pubs/jansen_user_intent.pdf" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">studies</a> showed that more than 80% of the total search intents are informational, 20% being almost equally split between navigational and transactional.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-23094" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/search-intent-classification.png" alt="search intent classification" width="842" height="503" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/search-intent-classification.png 842w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/search-intent-classification-300x179.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/search-intent-classification-768x459.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 842px) 100vw, 842px" />   The concept of search intent was first coded way back in 2002 by <a href="http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~nenkova/Courses/cis430/p3-broder.pdf" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Andrei Broder</a>, and consisted of the first 3 categories illustrated above. These 3 categories also seem to be matching Google’s quality guidelines on understanding different types of queries. They call them:   <ul> <li>Know (informational),</li> <li>Do (transactional),</li> <li>Go (navigational).</li> </ul>   By now you might be thinking: OK; that’s great. But how will I recognize a type of search intent when I see it? In the following lines, I’ll highlight the characteristics of each type of search intent so you can better understand them.   Wouldn’t be great if there was a tool that automatically classifies the search intent for you?   <blockquote class="yellow"> Did you know?   <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/keyword-tool/">The Content Optimizer & Keyword Tool</a> from cognitiveSEO automatically classifies the search intent for you. You just need to type in the keyword you are interested in optimizing for, and the tool does most of the job for you. The tool performs keyword research, it will tell you what is the user search intent, how popular is that keyword, how difficult it is to rank on it, and cream of the crop: what it takes to rank on that keyword, meaning, what are the exact keywords and links that boosted that page in the top of the search results.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-23100" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/user-search-intent-cognitiveseo-1-1024x957.jpg" alt="user search intent cognitiveseo" width="1024" height="957" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/user-search-intent-cognitiveseo-1-1024x957.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/user-search-intent-cognitiveseo-1-300x280.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/user-search-intent-cognitiveseo-1-768x718.jpg 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/user-search-intent-cognitiveseo-1.jpg 1174w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </blockquote> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='4' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>5. How to Optimize for Each Type of Search Intent</h2>   Even if most of the searches have an informational intent, we believe that all three categories of search intent need your attention as they can be seen as a cycle in the buyer’s decision and not individual searches. And that’s why it’s very important to understand how to tackle each type of internet search and <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/21096/how-to-write-for-seo/">how to best optimize your content</a> for them. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='5' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>6. Why & How to Optimize for Informational Search Intent </h2>   Informational search queries are queries that cover a broad topic for which there may be thousands of relevant results: how tall Jennifer Aniston is, how to peel a pomegranate, steps to apply mascara, etc. Aside from these questions, the main question is how to make your website stand out and respond to the user’s need.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-23095" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/examples-of-informational-search-intent-1024x403.jpg" alt="examples of informational search intent" width="1024" height="403" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/examples-of-informational-search-intent-1024x403.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/examples-of-informational-search-intent-300x118.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/examples-of-informational-search-intent-768x302.jpg 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/examples-of-informational-search-intent.jpg 1346w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   You might say that informational queries are hard to monetize so, what’s the point in optimizing for them?   While that remains true, optimizing for them is totally worth it. Google has a “special treatment” for these types of queries: Featured Snippets (also known as answer boxes, knowledge graphs or Google direct answers). If you’re searching for something like “how many calories does an apple have”, you’ll get a direct answer, highlighted within a box, just like in the examples below. We did a really cool <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/6266/decoding-google-answer-box-algorithm-serp-research-10-353-keywords/">research on answer boxes</a> a while ago; you should check it out.   <blockquote> Being on the Google’s answer box will do you a big favor, making you appear on Google’s first page not once, but twice. </blockquote>   So it’s not just showing up in the results, it’s showing up in the answer box, which has a different status in the mind of the searcher. For more info on answer boxes, you can check out this research we performed some time ago.   Now that we hope we’ve convinced you of the importance of optimizing for informational search queries, here are some tips on how to do it.   Most of the time, informational search queries contain question words like:   <ul> <li>How can I</li> <li>What is</li> <li>How to</li> <li>What are the benefits of</li> <li>How do/does</li> <li>Ways to</li> <li>Guide</li> <li>Tutorial</li> </ul>   This means that your content has to answer these questions, requirements the searcher has. The question remains: how should your content look like to make sure your content is optimized for these type of search queries? <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='6' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>6.1 What Type of Content Do You Need to Create for Informational Queries?</h3>   The users want to “know” something so they will use words that will help them learn more about a topic.   The “formula” you should target is informational query + your industry term.   Let’s take the sunglasses niche for instance; in this case, you might want to optimize for “what are the benefits of sunglasses” or “how to clean sunglasses”. You have the informational query (what are, how to, what is, etc) + your industry term (in our case, sunglasses).   Below you can see a screenshot on how the Google SERP looks like for the “what are the benefits of sunglasses” query. As you can see, the very first result, on position zero is a direct answer with a list of benefits wearing sunglasses have. That piece of content responds directly to the user search intent; as you can see in the screenshot below, on the right side there is the website. Its content is simple, yet it responds perfectly to the user’s need.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-23098" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/what-are-the-benefits-of-sunglasses-google-first-result-1024x513.jpg" alt="what are the benefits of sunglasses google first result" width="1024" height="513" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/what-are-the-benefits-of-sunglasses-google-first-result-1024x513.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/what-are-the-benefits-of-sunglasses-google-first-result-300x150.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/what-are-the-benefits-of-sunglasses-google-first-result-768x385.jpg 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/what-are-the-benefits-of-sunglasses-google-first-result.jpg 1079w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   <blockquote> You need to create content that meets the user’s need and will also rank high on Google. </blockquote>   The most effective content types for informational search intent should include: <ul> <li>blog posts with tips, lists</li> <li>how-to videos</li> <li>infographics</li> <li>step by step guides</li> <li>checklists</li> </ul>   Your main goal should be to create high-quality content that is useful and provides helpful information relevant to the query. Keep in mind that the users want hands-on info and direct answers. And through the content you create you can both meet your users’ needs plus drive traffic and leads to your site. To have added value, create content optimized for search intent. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='7' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>6.2 How to Create Relevant Content for the Informational Keyword Intent</h3> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='steps' style='height:50px'> </div> Step 1. Perform a quick Google SERP analysis   Every keyword research or content optimization process should start with a SERP analysis together with competitor analysis. The Ranking Analysis from the Content Optimizer Tool gives you tons of insights related to the analyzed keyword. Quick and easy, you get to know the search volumes, what type of content ranks on that keyword, how difficult it is to rank on that query (by following keyword difficulty), as well as how popular that keyword is among searchers. Also, the tool lets you know the exact keywords and links that boosted that page in the top Google results to easily optimize your content.   <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/keyword-tool/"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-23105 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ranking-analysis-content-optimizer-and-focus-keywords-1024x486.jpg" alt="ranking analysis content optimizer and focus keywords" width="1024" height="486" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ranking-analysis-content-optimizer-and-focus-keywords-1024x486.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ranking-analysis-content-optimizer-and-focus-keywords-300x142.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ranking-analysis-content-optimizer-and-focus-keywords-768x365.jpg 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ranking-analysis-content-optimizer-and-focus-keywords.jpg 1447w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>   Step 2. Create relevant & optimized content   Remember when I told you that the <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/keyword-tool/">Content Optimizer</a> does most of the job for you? I know I’m biased and I don’t want to praise the tool too much, but the reality is that it does most of the job for you. Once you performed the ranking analysis, what you need to do is start writing a new piece of content or optimize the existing one and the Content Assistant will let you know the exact keywords you need to use so your content will be relevant for the informational search intent.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-23106" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/how-to-clean-your-sunglasses-informational-search-intent-1024x767.png" alt="" width="1024" height="767" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/how-to-clean-your-sunglasses-informational-search-intent-1024x767.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/how-to-clean-your-sunglasses-informational-search-intent-300x225.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/how-to-clean-your-sunglasses-informational-search-intent-768x576.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/how-to-clean-your-sunglasses-informational-search-intent.png 1169w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   Step 3. Get new keywords & rankings opportunities   You can also use the cognitiveSEO Content Optimizer to discover other queries that your users might be interested in. Searchers have more than one question when it comes to products from your business. Take the opportunity and offer them relevant content for most of their questions. You can use the same Content Optimizer for this task. The tool has two sections that will automatically let you know what other questions are related to your search query:   The Keyword Explorer – this section is great for keyword analysis and discovering new keyword opportunities. It also gives you the possibility of seeing only the question suggestions. Get inspired by the list of questions, check out the relevancy of the question, its volume, CPC (cost per click), and choose the one that is the most suitable and profitable.   The People Also Ask section – the Content Assistant will let you know the exact keywords you should use in your content, what are people searching, but it will also offer you a set of questions that relate to your original search query. You should consider answering these questions in your content or create new content starting from these questions.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-23109" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/keyword-explorer-1024x505.png" alt="" width="1024" height="505" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/keyword-explorer-1024x505.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/keyword-explorer-300x148.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/keyword-explorer-768x379.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/keyword-explorer.png 1179w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   By being a topical authority in your niche, you’ll boost not only your brand awareness but your ranks as well. As mentioned above, back in 2007, which we know is a lot of time in the years of the Internet, a very interesting study suggested that from a total of one million analyzed queries, 80% were informational. That’s an impressive percentage. And even if time has passed by and user’s search queries types might have changed, it is clear that the informational search is the most common type of search. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='8' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>7. How to Optimize for Navigational Search Intent </h2>   With a navigational query, the user is looking to reach a particular website or product/service that they already know about. In this case, there is probably only one likely website that they’re looking to reach.   Most likely the user is searching for brand terms or names of products or services already known: facebook login, amazon, adidas, etc. You might be thinking why is this a search and why isn’t the user accessing the website directly? One reason could be that the user doesn’t know the exact brand or because it’s easier to type “youtube” within the search bar, instead of typing the whole URL.   For the cases when the user is not accessing the URL directly, you need to know that navigational search queries include:   <ul> <li>Brand name</li> <li>Service/Product name</li> <li>Brand Login </li> <li>Reviews</li> <li>Location of</li> <li>Directions to</li> <li>Near me</li> <li>Hours of</li> <li>Cost of</li> <li>Testimonials</li> </ul>   Once again, you might be thinking what’s the point in optimizing for these types of queries since the user knows exactly what they’re searching for and Google will list the brand name searched by the user to the very top of the SERP.   While it’s true that you don’t stand much of a chance targeting a navigational query (unless you happen to own the site that the person is looking for), there might be some room for optimizing for navigational queries. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='9' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>7.1 What Type of Content Do You Need for Navigational Queries?</h3>   The “formula” you should target is your own brand name or navigational search query + brand name.   for example: Ray Ban Sunglasses, Ray Ban Sunglasses Presentation Video, etc.   To make sure you meet your user’s needs, these types of content should be suitable when it comes to navigational search intent:   <ul> <li>Clear landing pages and <a href="https://paperform.co/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">online forms</a></li> <li>Product demo videos </li> <li>Case studies</li> <li>E-books</li> <li>Presentation pages</li> <li>Product and service lists</li> <li>Webinars</li> <li>or any type of content that relates to your navigational keywords</li> </ul>   Let’s take the search “brand mentions”, for instance. As the Content Optimizer already tells us, this is a navigational query, as the user might want to access brandmentions.com. Yet, as you can see in the search results, there are many other pages that are ranking well for this query by targeting “brand mentions” as a topic users might want to find more about.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-23110" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/brandmentions.png" alt="brandmentions" width="699" height="529" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/brandmentions.png 699w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/brandmentions-300x227.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 699px) 100vw, 699px" />   Just by taking a look at the SERP analysis you can easily understand how the whole picture look like for this query. And while you won’t be able to overthrow the main brand ranking for its brand name, you might find yourself a place on the first page.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-23112" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/brandmentions-serp-1024x627.png" alt="brandmentions serp" width="1024" height="627" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/brandmentions-serp-1024x627.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/brandmentions-serp-300x184.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/brandmentions-serp-768x470.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/brandmentions-serp.png 1178w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> Another important aspect here: make sure you own your own brand’s navigational query. Although it sounds surreal, there might be situations where the brand itself is not ranking first for their navigational query. Also, make sure you optimize for all “versions” of your brand (different spelling, common typos, brand name adjustments in different countries, etc.)   Furthermore, we mentioned above that the search intent types must be seen more as a cycle than an individual search. And here’s what we’re talking about: remaining in the sunglasses area, if someone, by searching “how to clean sunglasses” found a specific product that helps with the cleaning (let’s say Windex), most likely they will search for Windex.   <blockquote> Therefore, it may happen that an informational search will be followed by a navigational one. </blockquote> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='10' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>7.2 How to Create Relevant Content for the Navigational Keyword Intent</h3>   As mentioned before, as you might say that you don’t stand much of a chance targeting a navigational query (unless you happen to own the site that the person is looking for), there is still room for improvement. Therefore, we recommend you to <a href="#steps">follow these steps</a> to create relevant and optimize content. (the steps are elaborated above). <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='11' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>8. How to Optimize for Transactional Search Intent </h2>   With a transactional search query the users are looking to buy a product; are connected to commercial intents. This is a query that indicates an intent to complete a transaction, such as making a purchase, finding a place to make a purchase, or completing a task. For example: iphone x, where to buy Saeco coffee machine, Metallica tickets for sale, etc.   To get to pages where they can make a purchase, searchers use buyer or transactional intent keywords that can include:   <ul> <li>Buy</li> <li>Where to buy</li> <li>Discount</li> <li>Apply</li> <li>Purchase</li> <li>Coupons</li> <li>Schedule appointment</li> <li>Reserve</li> <li>Deals</li> <li>For sale</li> <li>Order</li> <li>Download</li> </ul> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='12' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>8.1 What Type of Content Do You Need for Transactional Queries?</h3>   As these are exactly the kind of queries that are mostly likely to deliver ROI in search (organic or paid), you need to know what type of content you should write for transactional search queries.   The formula you should target should be: transactional keywords + brand/product/service name/industry terms.   for example: discount ray ban sunglasses or where to buy ray ban sunglasses.   <blockquote> You can easily target transactional queries with many types of optimized content or even blog posts or pages optimized for local SEO. </blockquote>   We recommend you should consider optimizing these types of content for your transactional queries:   <ul> <li>Product pages</li> <li>Pricing pages</li> <li>Sign up pages</li> <li>Live demos</li> <li>Appointments pages</li> <li>Free consultations</li> <li>Sales pages</li> </ul>   Now more than ever, Google is focused on offering a personalized experience for each user and their search intent, thus local optimization plays a crucial part in the play. When it comes to transactional search intent, you might want to keep in mind that local optimization is highly important. People are looking for places to buy things, they want to schedule appointments so being there, in the top results when they are searching for suck queries is what interest you.   Therefore, try optimizing as well at a local level. The same Content Optimizer can be used for precise locations so choose the exact location you want to rank on, and see what it takes to rank be in top Google results.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-23113" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/where-to-buy-ray-ban-1024x726.png" alt="where to buy ray ban" width="1024" height="726" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/where-to-buy-ray-ban-1024x726.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/where-to-buy-ray-ban-300x213.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/where-to-buy-ray-ban-768x544.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/where-to-buy-ray-ban.png 1061w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   Of course, offering relevant & optimized content at a local level is just one of the strategies when it comes to transactional search intents. Perform SERP analysis and check what your competitors are doing. See what it take to rank on the top and understand the user’s need. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='13' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>8.2 How to Create Relevant Content for the Transactional Keyword Intent</h3>   keep in mind that In this stage of user intent – transactional search queries – the user is ready to buy, is ready to take action. And most of the search results that show up with this query are from online stores that are selling the product the consumer wants to buy. Make sure that your existing content supports user intent. What you will need here will be product pages. Analyze your competitors, see what it took for them to rank and follow <a href="#steps">the three steps of creating relevant content for the transactional keyword intent</a>. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='14' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>9. The Challenge of Matching Search Intent </h2>   It’s important to keep in mind that search intent is not static. Think about searching for “amazon” – 9 times out of 10, this will probably be navigational, but during the past week or two, quite a few of the searches may have been informational, an effort to better understand news snippets or social media posts about wildfires in the Amazonian forest.   SERP answer boxes also seem tailored to the intent – you might get a definition for an informational query and a list of shopping pages for a transactional query. If there is a “people have also asked” section on display, it will make it even clearer how Google, for instance, interprets the intent for a particular keyword.   <blockquote> Some keywords tend to be associated more consistently with a given intent than others. </blockquote>   It’s likely that “facebook”, for instance, will always be associated with the social network and, on its own, will always have a mainly navigational intent behind it. Other keywords, however, tend not to be consistently associated with a singular intent. This can be exactly the kind of opportunity that might appeal to someone who is working in the SEO industry.   <blockquote> If the keywords you want to rank for have clear and consistent intent behind them, you can tailor your content format and structure to be the best possible match for that intent. </blockquote>   A search for “how to make tiramisu” already has the clue in the title – it’s likely going to be a “how to” type of article that’s going to draw attention and given the context, a blog is probably the best type of page to host this content. On the other hand, with a search like “iphone 10 vs samsung galaxy 10”, you would fully expect for the first page of results to be filled with comparative review type pages from specialized review websites.   But aside from the format and structure of the page holding the content, there might also be an “angle” to it, which is similar to the USP (unique selling proposition) in marketing.   <blockquote> You might be looking for how to make tiramisu, but wouldn’t you prefer to know how to make the best one? or the most original one? Sure, you’re looking for headphones, but are you interested in the best quality headphones or the cheapest headphones? And the list goes on. </blockquote>   When it comes to format and structure, you want to go with the flow and do what everybody else does, because that is what has been proven to get results (search results, to be more exact). However, when it comes to the angle, that’s your time to be original. Format and structure land you on the front page. Angle can influence which position in the rankings you’ll show at. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='15' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>10. What Type of Search Intent Should You Start Optimizing For</h2>   People are no longer only following a linear path from awareness to consideration to purchase. Google revamped this mental model, adding the Zero Moment of Truth (<a href="https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/micro-moments/zero-moment-truth/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">ZMOT</a>) which takes account of the fact that purchasing decisions are now heavily led by self-directed online research. To optimize for search intent, we need to look for what customers are trying to achieve.   Know which rules to follow and which to break. <blockquote> Search intent should dictate the type of content you create. </blockquote> If the keyword has informational intent, write a blog post. If it has transactional intent, create a product page. Google rankings aren’t static. They fluctuate and change over time. Given that you’re relying on the nature of the current top-ranking pages to infer search intent, that can be a problem. Reason being, what you’re actually doing is judging search intent based on a single snapshot in time. If you were to analyze the top-ranking pages next month, or the month after, your understanding of search intent may be different. For that reason, it also pays to constantly check your targeted keywords and constantly update your content to make it as relevant as possible.   Understanding search intent and adapting to it can yield numerous benefits. To mention just a few:   <ul> <li>It can reduce your bounce rates</li> </ul>   Only the people who are interested in what you’re offering are going to land on your pages – and stay for more.This, however, does not mean reduced visits; on the contrary, you are more likely to show up further up in the rankings when there is a consistent match between the demand (the need for the searches) and the offer; You are also likely to get a wider audience, as Google often finds matches between related types of queries, so ranking high for a series of keywords will likely open up new possibilities for related ones.   <ul> <li>Understand what you are offering and how it matches with the intent of the users </li> </ul>   Firstly, you need to figure out what your page stands for – is it mostly informational or transactional? If you want both, you might have to use different formats (website and blog) and very different structuring for your posts. You should also consider how to best link the two so that, on the one hand, it’s easy to slide from one into the other, but on the other hand, Google doesn’t think you’re trying to pull a fast one on the users and offer them transactional content when all they wanted was informational content.   <ul> <li>Use this knowledge to look for opportunities & niches</li> </ul>   Do research on keywords and how they are associated with intent. Try to see if the keywords you’re interested in have stable or fluctuating intent associated with them. Get really familiar with the vocabulary for a particular intent, whether it’s informational, transactional or investigative. See what other keywords might be associated with not only the same query but also the same intent. Try to identify competitor gaps, and create content that fills in those gaps. Be aware that intent can be both active and passive and it is a lot more difficult to predict passive intent. A search might not include any of the traditional words related to buying or pricing, but still hide a transactional need.   Behind every Google search, there is an intention. If you want your business to be discovered by users on the web, you need to figure out that intention. And if you find it hard to figure it out, no worries as this is why tools like the <a href="https://keywords.cognitiveseo.com">Content Optimizer</a> exist on the market, to help you increase what matter most for your business: traffic and therefore, sales.   The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/22986/search-intent/">How To Identify & Best Optimize for User Search Intent. The Step by Step Guide</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.
How Page Speed Affects SEO & Google Rankings | The 2026 Page Speed Guide

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 07:39:36 -0000

Speed is very important for a website. It’s so important that Google has made it an actual ranking factor. Over time, Google has taken action to improve the loading speed of websites by providing a set of tools for developers and webmasters. One of these tools is Google Lighthouse.   But how does this PageSpeed […] The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/22865/page-speed-seo/">How Page Speed Affects SEO & Google Rankings | The 2026 Page Speed Guide</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.

Speed is very important for a website. It’s so important that Google has made it an actual ranking factor. Over time, Google has taken action to improve the loading speed of websites by providing a set of tools for developers and webmasters. One of these tools is Google Lighthouse.   But how does this PageSpeed Insights Tool from Google actually work? And, more importantly, does page speed affect SEO? You’ll find everything you need to know in this article. <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-22964" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/how_page_speed_affects_google_ranking-1024x538.jpg" alt="how_page_speed_affects_google_ranking" width="1024" height="538" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/how_page_speed_affects_google_ranking.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/how_page_speed_affects_google_ranking-300x158.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/how_page_speed_affects_google_ranking-768x404.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   The PageSpeed Insights Tool didn’t use to be very good in the past. Most of the information there could be found relatively easy elsewhere and it didn’t quite indicate speed itself. However, Google has recently updated the tool and it’s a lot better. Unfortunately, it’s also a lot harder to understand.   However, this tool has became popular among SEOs through PageSpeed Insights, which is, in fact, powered by Lighthouse, but provides the information in an easy to follow format, on a web page.   <ol class="summaryext"> <li><a href="#1">What Is Google PageSpeed Insights?</a> <ol> <li><a href="#2">Mobile vs. Desktop</a></li> <li><a href="#3">What is page speed actually?</a></li> </ol> </li> <li><a href="#4">Does PageSpeed Insights Affect SEO? Is 100/100 Score Essential?</a></li> <li><a href="#333">Why Brand Authority Matters Beyond Technical SEO</a></li> <li><a href="#5">PageSpeed Insights Metrics</a> <ol> <li><a href="#6">Field & Lab Data (Performance Metrics)</a></li> <li><a href="#7">Opportunities & Diagnostics</a></li> </ol> </li> <li><a href="#8">How Is the PageSpeed Insights Score Calculated?</a></li> <li><a href="#9">Key Points in Improving the PageSpeed Insights Score</a> <ol> <li><a href="#10">Server response time</a></li> <li><a href="#11">Image compression</a></li> <li><a href="#12">HTML & CSS Structure</a></li> <li><a href="#13">Minification & Script Compression</a></li> <li><a href="#14">Cache Policy</a></li> <li><a href="#15">Lightweight Theme & Plugins</a></li> </ol> </li> <li><a href="#16">How to Bulk Check the PageSpeed Insights Score</a></li> <li><a href="#17">Other Tools for Measuring & Improving Site Speed</a> <ol> <li><a href="#18">Pingdom</a></li> <li><a href="#19">GT-Metrix</a></li> <li><a href="#20">mod_pagespeed</a></li> <li><a href="#21">Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)</a></li> </ol> </li> </ol> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='1' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>What Is Google PageSpeed Insights?</h2>   PageSpeed Insights is an online tool provided by Google which is used to identify web performance issues on sites. Although mostly related to <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/17963/technical-seo-checklist/">technical SEO issues</a>, the tools also analyze the site from a User Experience and accessibility point of view.   You can access PageSpeed Insights by visiting <a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/</a>.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22902" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pagespeed-insights-seo.jpg" alt="PageSpeed Insights Home" width="786" height="565" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pagespeed-insights-seo.jpg 786w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pagespeed-insights-seo-300x216.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pagespeed-insights-seo-768x552.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 786px) 100vw, 786px" />   You can enter the URL there and after a few seconds the tool will return a page with some results regarding your website’s performance. At the top, there will be a general score, which is an average of multiple factors. Below you will see detailed information about what actually affects your speed.   However, it isn’t the only PageSpeed tool provided by Google. There also is mod_pagespeed, a server module used to solve these speed issues, and the full fledged Lighthouse (the site analysis tool that powers everything), available in Chrome itself. There are also a number of Chrome Extensions related to Google’s PageSpeed Insights.   We will discuss briefly about all of them throughout this article, but we will focus mainly on PageSpeed Insights as it seems to be the handiest tool most SEOs use when checking a website. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='2' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Mobile vs. Desktop</h3>   When you insert a page to test it, Google will give two scores: one for the mobile version and one for the desktop version.   Initially, the PageSpeed Tool only gave one score, for the Desktop version. But recently, mobile usage has became more and more popular. As of 2018, more than 50% of search engine users search on mobile devices. As Google moved to a <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/18350/mobile-first-index-mobile-seo/">mobile first index,</a> it also made sense for them to test mobile versions for speed first.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22909" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pagespeed-mobile-desktop.png" alt="PageSpeed Mobile vs Desktop" width="1220" height="437" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pagespeed-mobile-desktop.png 1220w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pagespeed-mobile-desktop-300x107.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pagespeed-mobile-desktop-768x275.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pagespeed-mobile-desktop-1024x367.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1220px) 100vw, 1220px" />   However, if you have a responsive design, you might think that these versions are mostly identical.   If so, why do they have different scores?   Mobile: When you use the PageSpeed Insights tool, the first result you’ll get is for mobile speed. This means that your website has been tested on a mobile connection, probably with a 4G connection, as it seems to be the most common speed around the US at least.   <div id="attachment_22906" style="width: 666px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22906" class="wp-image-22906 size-full" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/3g-vs-4g-coverage.png" alt="Mobile Network Coverage" width="656" height="491" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/3g-vs-4g-coverage.png 656w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/3g-vs-4g-coverage-300x225.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 656px) 100vw, 656px" />https://www.uscellular.com/coverage-map/voice-and-data-maps.html</div>   However, keep in mind that many mobile users around the world still get only 3G signal and, although they have a slower connection speed, they still expect the website to load really fast.   And here’s the problem. It’s not always about your site, it’s more about the connection’s speed. It might seem like your site is slow when, in reality, the connection speed is slow.   Desktop: On desktop, the score is higher because the connection speed is higher. That’s just the thing with light and fiber optics. Unless you live in the UK, of course, and still have cups and string internet.   So the website goes through the same testing, but it’s mostly the connection speed that differs.   That’s why mobile comes first, as mobile devices usually have slower connections. Things might change with 5G but, until then, make sure you focus on improving your site speed for mobile devices. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='3' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>What exactly is Page Speed?</h3>   OK, so we know what the tool does: it gives a score based on how fast it thinks your site is. But what exactly is page speed?   <blockquote> Page Speed is the speed at which an individual page loads on your website. Different pages can have different speeds due to factors such as images and scripts. </blockquote>   But speed is relative. It depends on so many factors such as the website’s performance, the server’s performance, the particular web page you’re on, the connection type, the user’s internet service provider, the internet package, the device’s processing power, the Browser, what the user is doing at that point, how many apps are running and so on.   However, we can only work with what we can work, which is our website and our server. We don’t really have control over the rest.   <blockquote> Just to get things straight, page speed isn’t a score, like PageSpeed Insights presents. It’s a web page’s loading time and it is measured in seconds. That’s what matters. </blockquote>   That’s why Google PageSpeed Insights wasn’t so good in the past. It didn’t quite give you information about how fast your website is actually loading. Just scores.   And that’s why this new version is just so good. It tells you everything you need to know about actual loading speed while also keeping the good stuff from the old version.   There are, of course, different points of interest in the loading time. For example, you may want to run some scripts towards the end because they don’t need to be used initially.   They might take a lot to finish loading, so the total loading time could be higher. But if the site is usable until then, it isn’t such a big problem.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22904" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/fast-website-loading-speed.jpg" alt="Fast Website Loading Speed" width="800" height="537" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/fast-website-loading-speed.jpg 800w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/fast-website-loading-speed-300x201.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/fast-website-loading-speed-768x516.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   For example, let’s say you want to run an exit intent pop-up script. That script takes a hypothetical 5-10 seconds to load. However, you want to show it to the user only after about 20-30 seconds.   If you start running your script immediately, you might postpone loading other important elements, such as the first thing the user should see: the above the fold content. This would be very bad, especially since you’re not going to use that script until about 20-30 seconds in the future.   So you can postpone loading the script after everything else that is vital loads in order to give the user a better experience.   However, if you have a script that makes the menu work or something vital to the usability of the website, you might not want to load it towards the end. This would ruin the experience as the user would not be able to access that function before everything else is loaded. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='4' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Does Page Speed Affect SEO? Is 100/100 Insights Score Essential?</h2>   The simple answer is that page speed does affect SEO. Page speed is a direct ranking factor, a fact known even better since Google’s Algorithm Speed Update. However, speed can also affect rankings indirectly, by increasing the bounce rate and <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/14012/dwell-time/">reducing dwell time</a>.     At Google, users come first. Studies by Google show that average 3G loading speed is very slow. They also show that users leave the site after about 3 seconds. This means that their experience is bad and Google doesn’t like ranking sites which provide bad user experience.   <img class="aligncenter" src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/site-speed-study1-1024x528.jpg" />     What you must remember is that speed is measured in seconds, not in points from 0 to 100. While PageSpeed Insights is a tool that helps you improve speed, the score there doesn’t necessarily mean anything in the real world.   <blockquote> Even so, it is important to improve the Page Speed Score. </blockquote>   Why?   Because with Google we don’t know for sure whether the score there is or is not used as a ranking factor. Does Google use seconds? Does it use the score? Who knows…   However, I’ve seen sites with perfect pagespeed score ranking poorly and websites with a score lower than 50 that rank very well (#youtube).   However, you have to take into account how Google makes these tests. We don’t know where the tests are performed from. Is your server from Romania and Google tests it with a 3G connection in the US? Well then, you can obviously expect low speeds.     But just for the user’s sake, put the loading time first. And don’t use only PageSpeed Insights to test that. Stick to the end and I’ll show you a couple of tools which you can use to test the speed at which your website loads from different locations.   <blockquote> Sometimes, Google contradicts itself! </blockquote>   For example, Google PageSpeed Insights considers the Google Analytics script render blocking, which means you should load it later, in the footer. However, Google Analytics specifies it pretty clearly that the script must be placed in the <head> section of your website, otherwise it won’t work properly and won’t initially be accepted as a valid install.   So you get a small score hit in PageSpeed Insights… by doing what Google says… just to be told that you shouldn’t do it like that… by Google. You get the point.   Also, you can’t cache the script properly unless you store the analytics.js file on your server. That’s obviously something Google Analytics doesn’t recommend. It’s also a hell for maintenance, as every time Google Analytics JavaScript file gets an update, you would have to update it on your site as well.   <blockquote> This, of course, doesn’t happen only with Google tools and scripts but with any 3rd party script you don’t have control over. </blockquote>   In our defense, even YouTube, which is owned by Google and should theoretically set an example, has a pretty slow PageSpeed Insights score, at least at the time of writing this article.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22913" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/slow-youtube.jpg" alt="Slow YouTube PageSpeed" width="813" height="646" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/slow-youtube.jpg 813w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/slow-youtube-300x238.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/slow-youtube-768x610.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 813px) 100vw, 813px" />   But that doesn’t mean that the site loads slow. You can see that the field data (for which there is plenty of, as it’s YouTube) says the site loads in pretty much 4 seconds, which isn’t actually bad, considering that recently YouTube provides video previews in the thumbnails.   You can also test your site with <a href="https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-gb/feature/testmysite/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-gb/feature/testmysite/</a> to get a more simple explanation of how fast your site loads!   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22907" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/thinkwithgoogle-mobile-speed-test.png" alt="ThinkWithGoogle Test Mobile Speed" width="1037" height="773" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/thinkwithgoogle-mobile-speed-test.png 1037w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/thinkwithgoogle-mobile-speed-test-300x224.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/thinkwithgoogle-mobile-speed-test-768x572.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/thinkwithgoogle-mobile-speed-test-1024x763.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1037px) 100vw, 1037px" />   Our other business’s website, BrandMentions loads in under 2 seconds on a 4G connection, as you can see above. We would see it as pretty good. Sure, there’s always room for improvement. By Google standards… it’s average.   However, Google seems to consider cognitiveSEO’s website speed slow, even though it loads in a little over 3 seconds, which is still pretty fast considering the amount of 3rd party tools we’re using.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-22947 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/slow-site-speed-e1567059103978-1024x489.png" alt="CognitiveSEO" width="1024" height="489" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/slow-site-speed-e1567059103978-1024x489.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/slow-site-speed-e1567059103978-300x143.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/slow-site-speed-e1567059103978-768x367.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/slow-site-speed-e1567059103978.png 1043w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> Note that you’ll have to go under 1 second to be considered fast! To do so, you’ll probably need a very simple site with no 3rd party plugins or fancy pop-ups. Not easy if you actually want to do some digital marketing.   So yes, loading speed is important for SEO, but a perfect PageSpeed Insights score is not. As long as your website loads in around 3 seconds, you should be fine with most users.   <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='333' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Why Brand Authority Matters Beyond Technical SEO</h2>   Core Web Vitals are important for creating a fast and reliable website. However, technical SEO is only one piece of the puzzle.   Modern search engines and AI-powered answer engines evaluate more than website performance alone. They also look for signals of trust, authority, and credibility across the web. Even if your site loads quickly and achieves excellent PageSpeed scores, it may struggle to earn visibility if your brand lacks a strong presence beyond its own domain.   This is especially important as AI systems increasingly rely on external sources, mentions, reviews, and online discussions when deciding which brands and websites to reference in generated answers.   💡 Pro Tip: To better understand and strengthen these signals, many marketers rely on a dedicated AI visibility platform like the <a style="color: #ff6600;" href="https://brandmentions.com/">BrandMentions software.</a>. While you optimize your code, the BrandMentions platforms acts as your continuous external defense perimeter. As a dedicated AI visibility platform, it outperforms standard PR trackers through real-time velocity monitoring. If your brand faces a sudden PR crisis or negative review spike, the platform’s advanced alerting system notifies you instantly, allowing you to mitigate reputation damage before it affects your algorithmic trust scores. Remarkably simple to use yet enterprise-grade in its data extraction, BrandMentions provides the definitive digital footprint analysis required to protect the traffic your technical SEO efforts work so hard to generate.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-24903" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/page_speed_authorithy_signals-1024x559.png" alt="page_speed_authorithy_signals" width="1024" height="559" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/page_speed_authorithy_signals-1024x559.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/page_speed_authorithy_signals-300x164.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/page_speed_authorithy_signals-768x419.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/page_speed_authorithy_signals.png 1408w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   Combining strong technical SEO with a trusted digital reputation creates a more sustainable foundation for long-term search visibility. While technical improvements help users access your content faster, brand authority helps search engines and AI systems understand why your content deserves to be surfaced in the first place. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='5' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>PageSpeed Insights Metrics</h2>   Since so many things can affect site speed, Google breaks everything up in different categories in the PageSpeed Insights Tool, for a better understanding of the issues.   This is helpful as Google also provides some sort of prioritization, showing you what exactly affects speed the most. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='6' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Field & Lab Data</h3>   These are the new metrics that are actually useful. They are split into two categories: field and lab data.   Field data is what’s important in the real world, as it’s the data extracted by Google from real users, either through Chrome or other data providers.   Sure, it’s an average and if Google doesn’t yet have enough data it will let you know.   Origin Summary shows an average of the site’s speed as a whole. This way you can have an idea on how your page compares to the site and how the site compares to other sites in the Chrome User Experience Report.   Lab data, although still useful, could be considered less important as it is collected from a controlled environment. This means that it’s tested through a single connection and it doesn’t aggregate data from multiple users.   <blockquote> The lab data is what actually generates the Google page speed score. </blockquote>   Due to the fact that Google doesn’t always have field data, it uses the lab data which is performed on the spot to analyze your site.   First Contentful Paint represents the moment when the users sees something on your web page for the first time. If you look at the series of images you can actually spot how it looks:   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22951" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/first-contentful-paint.png" alt="First Contentful Paint" width="738" height="138" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/first-contentful-paint.png 738w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/first-contentful-paint-300x56.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 738px) 100vw, 738px" />   As you can see, the page has not fully rendered, something has displayed there.   First Meaningful Paint is the second step, let’s say, if we take the results above as an example. It represents the point at which the user can actually understand the first piece of content. For example, some readable text or an image displays, instead of just colors and backgrounds.   Speed Index is a more complex metric. It measures how quickly elements on your website are visibly populated. The faster they start to appear, the better. You’re looking for a lower score here, as it’s also measured in seconds.   First CPU Idle represents the point at which the site has loaded enough of the information for it to be able to handle a user’s first input. For example, if the site has not loaded enough relevant information, the user might tap elements or scroll down but nothing will happen.   Time to Interactive is the next level, the one at which the website is fully interactive. This means that everything has loaded in the device’s memory and is now ready to be used.   Max Potential First Input Delay is the delay a user experiences from the point at which they interact with the browsers to the point at which the browser responds. This is the only performance metric which doesn’t affect the page speed score. <div class="lh-column"> <div id="max-potential-fid" class="lh-metric lh-metric--fail"> <div class="lh-metric__innerwrap"> <div class="lh-metric__value"> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='7' style='height:50px'> </div></div> </div> </div> </div> <h3>Opportunities & Diagnostics</h3>   The opportunities section provides information on what you can improve on your site. It also tells you an estimate of how much each issue affects your load time and how you should prioritize your tasks.   Going through each and everyone of them would be overkill. However, under each metric you’ll have a small arrow which you can use to expand the section.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22950" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/page-speed-opportunities.png" alt="PageSpeed Opportunities & Diagnostics" width="719" height="479" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/page-speed-opportunities.png 719w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/page-speed-opportunities-300x200.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 719px) 100vw, 719px" />   There you will find information about each and every recommendation and how to fix the issue to improve your site’s speed. You will notice that the elements which cause the biggest issues are, in general, images and 3rd party scripts.   The Passed Audits section is the list of things that you already do well on your web page. Basically, it will show elements from both the Opportunities and Diagnostics sections that fit within Google’s parameters.   The more you have in this list, the better! <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='8' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>How Is the PageSpeed Insights Score Calculated?</h2>   Although you might see so many things in the PageSpeed Insights Tool, the score is actually calculated using only the seconds in the Lab Data section. If you read closely, you’ll actually be able to see the message “These metrics don’t directly affect the Performance score.” under Opportunities & Diagnostics.   The metrics in the Lab Data are called performance metrics. There are 6 of them and we’ve presented them above. Each metric gets a score from 0 to 100. Each metric has a different weight in calculating the score.   3 – First contentful paint 1 – First meaningful paint 2 – First cpu idle 5 – Time to interactive 4 – Speed index 0 – Estimated input latency   By order of importance, they are listed as such: Time to Interactive, Speed Index, First Contentful Paint, First CPU Idle, First Meaningful Paint and Estimated Input Latency, which actually has no effect on the score.   The scores are based on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Log-normal distribution</a> algorithms so let’s not get too deep down the rabbit hole. If you want to learn more you can read <a href="https://github.com/GoogleChrome/lighthouse/blob/d2ec9ffbb21de9ad1a0f86ed24575eda32c796f0/docs/scoring.md#how-are-the-scores-weighted" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">this page</a>.   Google has also put a Sheet file which you can use to see how the score is actually generated. If you know Excel functions, you can reverse engineer how everything works. You can download this file <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Cxzhy5ecqJCucdf1M0iOzM8mIxNc7mmx107o5nj38Eo/edit#gid=283330180" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">here</a>, but you have to make your own copy (File -> Make your own copy) before you can edit it. There’s also a <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1up5rxd4EMCoMaxH8cppcK1x76n6HLx0e7jxb0e0FXvc/edit#gid=0" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">version for Lighthouse v5</a>.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22942" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/page-speed-score-calculator.png" alt="PageSpeed Score Calculator" width="992" height="427" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/page-speed-score-calculator.png 992w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/page-speed-score-calculator-300x129.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/page-speed-score-calculator-768x331.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 992px) 100vw, 992px" />   To put it in simple terms, the First Contentful Paint impacts the score more than the First Meaningful Paint, and so on.   Why? Well, probably because if nothing displays on the screen, the user is more likely to leave your website. If you display… something, you’ll win some time to get the rest of the thing delivered.   The scores are ultimately divided into 3 categories, Slow (0-49), Average (50-89) and Good (90-100). Then an average is generated as a final score for your website.   <blockquote> Generally, if you’re under 50, you do have some issues that need fixing! But again, don’t sweat it if your site loads in about 3 seconds. </blockquote> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='9' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Key Points in Improving the PageSpeed Insights Score</h2>   Everything up there might be a little big hard to digest. We get it. Most probably, you won’t be able to solve everything! We’ve ruled out that it’s not important to get a 100% score. However, here are the key elements that will noticeably make your site load faster.   Warning: perform a backup of both your files and your database before engaging in these improvements. They can mess up your website and you have to make sure you can return to a previous version! <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='10' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Server response time</h3>   The server is something you can’t really improve yourself. You either have a good one or a bad one. To improve it, you would either have to reduce load on it significantly, or improve its hardware, both of which you don’t have control over, unless you own the physical machine.   So it’s important to have a good server in the first place. But how do you <a href="https://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-reviews/#choose" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">choose a good server</a>?   Well, any hosting company that ranks well on Google should provide decent services. However, it’s up to you to test. Best advice? If you’re mostly focused on local SEO, choose a local server. For example, if most of your audience lives in Italy, choose a server with the datacenter in Italy.   If the datacenter is all the way in the US, the information will have to travel a big distance before reaching your target audience.   You can always test the hosting provider’s own website with PageSpeed Insights and look for their TTFB (Time To First Byte) or Server Response Time. If it’s in the Passed Audits section, you know you have yourself a good hosting provider.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22911" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ttfb-fast-server.png" alt="Fast Server TTFB" width="774" height="687" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ttfb-fast-server.png 774w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ttfb-fast-server-300x266.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ttfb-fast-server-768x682.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 774px) 100vw, 774px" />   However, it’s better if you know someone that is an actual client of the hosting provider so you can test the speed there.   Realistically, the host’s own website will probably be on a dedicated server, while your site will be on a shared hosting package. This means that you will share the computer’s CPU and internet bandwidth with other websites.   If you can test a real site from a client, that’s great. You might be able to look through the reviews and find clients or ask the support team to provide one. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='11' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Image compression</h3>   In general, images are the biggest problem with websites. They are big and take up a lot to download.   There are two types of issues with the images. The first one is the screen size vs. the actual image size in pixels and the second one is the disk size.   Disk Size: The more physical space an image takes on a hard disk or SSD, the more it will take to download. 100 KB will download a lot faster than 1000 KB (1MB). If you have 10 images like that on your blog post, expect your site to load very slow.   You can use <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-smushit/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">WP Smush</a> to optimize your images. It’s a plugin that will compress the images without losing any quality. This means that you can shrink a 1000×1000 pixels image from 200 KB to 150 KB without noticing the difference in quality, therefore making it load 25% faster.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-22914 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/smush-wp-faster-images-1024x617.png" alt="WP Smush" width="1024" height="617" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/smush-wp-faster-images-1024x617.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/smush-wp-faster-images-300x181.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/smush-wp-faster-images-768x463.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/smush-wp-faster-images.png 1993w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   Screen Size: Screen size is the size at which an image is displayed. For example, the image below is being displayed at 300×300 pixels.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22915" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/300x300.png" alt="300x300" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/300x300.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/300x300-150x150.png 150w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />   To make images load faster, you first have to make sure you’re not using an image bigger than it’s going to be displayed. For example, if you have an HTML section that styled with CSS at 300×300 pixels, but you load an 1000×1000 pixels image in the source, you’re losing load time for that 700×700 pixels.   That’s because the Browser has to download the 1000×1000 pixels image and then shrink it to 300×300 pixels. This takes more time for both the download and the shrinking process. You can fix this by uploading your images with the same width and height that they will be displayed at.   WordPress does this automatically by creating multiple instances of the image when you upload it. That’s why you’ll see that 300×300 or 150×150 suffix at the end of an image file path. That’s why you can choose sizes (Large, Medium, Thumbnail). Although it’s not perfect, especially if you manually resize the image with click and drag, and it takes up more space on your server on the long run, it does help with load speed.   Deferring the images is another thing that you can do to improve the load time. This means that you can download them later as the user scrolls down on the web page. There will be a brief moment when the images won’t be visible but they will eventually show up, one after another.   This helps the Browsers focus on the important part, the one which the users is viewing at that point.   <img class="aligncenter size-thumbnail wp-image-22919" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/deffer-images-150x150.png" alt="" width="150" height="150" />   There are a multitude of plugins that can help you do that. However, many have bugs or only defer images in certain situations, for example if they are created by WordPress or WooCommerce, but not when created or inserted by less popular plugins.   There are certainly plugins for other CMS, such as Joomla or Magento. Just perform a Google search for them. If you’re not on a popular CMS, such as WordPress, deferring images can be done with jQuery, but you’ll most certainly <a href="https://mobilunity.com/blog/hire-javascript-developer/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">need a developer</a> for it, if you’re not one yourself.   Next gen image formats are recommended by Google. They are very useful, especially when loading a website from a mobile device. However, there’s a reason not many people use them yet.   <blockquote> Next gen image formats are not yet supported by all major browsers. This means that you’ll need to dynamically serve different formats for different browsers. </blockquote>   If you can use a plugin on your CMS that might be easy, but if you’re on a custom platform, you’ll need to develop everything from scratch, which costs a lot. Here’s a list of which browsers support the WebP format.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22918" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/webp-next-gen.png" alt="WebP Next Gen Image Format" width="1286" height="430" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/webp-next-gen.png 1286w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/webp-next-gen-300x100.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/webp-next-gen-768x257.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/webp-next-gen-1024x342.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1286px) 100vw, 1286px" />   If you size and optimize your images properly, the savings you’ll get by also converting them to next gen image formats such as JPEG2000 or WebP might not be worth the cost in time and money.   However, if you have the time and budget, by all means, go do it. You can use this tool to check if the browsers your users spend most time on are supported. Search for either WebP or JPEG2000. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='12' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>HTML & CSS Structure</h3>   The HTML structure of your web page dictates the way it loads. Browsers read a page from the top to the bottom and they load the elements the same way. This means that if you want something to load first, you have to put it higher in your page.   Generally, the issues are not with HTML but with CSS. If you write your CSS chaotically, it will result in a slower loading time and a bad user experience.   Let’s take an example. Most websites, if not all, follow this HTML structure: head > body > footer.   If my CSS file styles the footer first, then the footer will receive the styling, although it is before the fold. Meanwhile, the header and body might remain plain.   It’s also a good idea to add your mobile styling first, as mobile devices are the slowest ones. You might need at least a basic <a href="https://www.udemy.com/topic/css/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CSS training</a> to get the idea of this hierarchy and be able to identify problems with code on your own   The same goes with renderblocking JavaScript. Postpone scripts that are not vital. Add them to the footer so that they will be loaded last.   However, if you have important scripts such as Analytics which should run as soon as possible, then by all means keep them in the header and make sure they fire and run properly, even though this might result in a lower PageSpeed score. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='13' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Minification & Script Compression</h3>   Minification is a process of making a file smaller by removing unnecessary information from it.   For example, when writing JavaScript and CSS, most, if not all coders, like to use spaces in order to keep their code clean and easy to read. However, those extra spaces add up, especially if you have a long piece of code.   <div id="attachment_22925" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22925" class="wp-image-22925 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/css-minification-1024x371.png" alt="CSS Minification" width="1024" height="371" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/css-minification-1024x371.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/css-minification-300x109.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/css-minification-768x279.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/css-minification.png 1177w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />cssminifier.com</div>   Another way of minifying code would be by combining similar elements.   For example, if my head and footer sections were identical, instead of writing them like this:   <code>body { </code><code>font-size: 16px; } footer { font-size: 16px; }</code>   I could write:   <code>body, footer { </code><code>font-size: 16px; }</code>   Compression is the process of shrinking files by replacing recurring sequences of information with a single reference to that particular sequence.   So, for example, if I have the following code: 123 4 123 123 123 4 123 123, I could replace 123 with a 1 and get a compressed version like this one: 1 4 1 1 1 4 1 1. Of course, it’s far more complex than what I’ve presented.   This generally happens on the server side and the most common one is called Gzip compression. The server sends a compressed version. After the browser receives the compressed file, it decompresses it by reversing the process, to read its actual contents.   This works pretty much like WinRAR; we probably all know it, because we’ve been using it for free since forever!   If you’re on a popular CMS, you will definitely find a plugin for both compression and minification. For example, the <a href="https://ro.wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">W3 Total Cache</a> plugin does a lot of things including both of these, if you set it up properly.   <blockquote> Remember that compression is dependent on server setup. If your server does not support Gzip, you won’t be able to compress files. If you have an Apache server, make sure you have mod_deflate installed. </blockquote>   You can ask your server provider if your hosting supports it. 99.9% of the time they will say yes. If it’s not already installed, they should do it free of charge, as it’s something pretty basic.   If you’re not on a popular CMS you can also enable Gzip compression via the .htaccess file (Apache servers) by adding the following code, as long as mod_deflate is installed.   <pre class="crayon-plain-tag">&lt;IfModule mod_deflate.c&gt; # Compress HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Text, XML and fonts AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-opentype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-truetype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml # Remove browser bugs (only needed for really old browsers) BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html Header append Vary User-Agent &lt;/IfModule&gt;</pre>   Sometimes, you can also combine the scripts. There are plugins that do this, such as Autoptimize, which I’ve presented before. Combining scripts is exactly what it says. Instead of having two files, you combine them into one. This way there’s only one request made to the server, instead of multiple ones.   However, combining scripts can many times causes bugs, so make sure you back up everything before. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='14' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Cache Policy</h3>   Caching is the process of storing files in a client’s browser in order to be able to quickly access them at a later time.   For example, if a user comes to your website for the first time, your logo will have to be downloaded. However, if you have an effective caching policy, that file will be stored in the user’s browser. When the user accesses your site a second time, it won’t have to download that file again as it will be instantly loaded from their computer.   Dynamic Elements (short cache policy): Dynamic elements are elements on your website that change frequently. For example, you might keep adding new posts in a slider on the Homepage.   In this case, the HTML is the dynamic element, so set a short caching policy if this fits you. 30 minutes might be enough, just in case the user returns to that page in the same session.   In some cases, you might not want to cache those elements at all, if promptitude is what matters for your users, such as on news websites.   Static Resources (long cache policy): Static resources are files that rarely change. These are usually images and CSS or JS files, but they can also be audio files, video files, etc.   You can set a longer cache time for images and CSS files since you know you will not be changing them very frequently. You can even go up to one year, but 3 months is usually enough.   Third Party Tools: You don’t really have control over 3rd party tools, so if you feel like a tool that is hosted elsewhere makes your website run very slow, better find an alternative or give up on it.   A solution would be to host the files on your own server and cache them. However, this might not be very productive and it’s not recommended, as you’ll have to constantly update those files as soon as new versions come out, otherwise the tool or app won’t work properly.   Cache Plugins: There are a lot of plugins that will properly handle the cache protocols required for a good user experience. If you’re on WordPress, one of these plugins is W3 Total Cache. However, if you want to go for a better option, <a href="https://wp-rocket.me/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">WP Rocket</a> is also pretty popular, but it will set you back a couple hundred bucks.   Just search for cache plugin / extension / module + your platform on Google to find what you need. Look at the reviews to pick the best one.   .htaccess file cache: You can also set a cache control header from your .htaccess file on an Apache server, if you don’t run your website on a popular CMS.   There are multiple ways:   <code>## EXPIRES CACHING ## <IfModule mod_expires.c> ExpiresActive On ExpiresByType image/jpg "access 1 year" ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access 1 year" ExpiresByType image/gif "access 1 year" ExpiresByType image/png "access 1 year" ExpiresByType text/css "access 1 month" ExpiresByType text/html "access 1 hour" ExpiresByType application/pdf "access 1 month" ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access 1 month" ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access 1 month" ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access 1 year" ExpiresDefault "access 1 month" </IfModule> ## EXPIRES CACHING ##</code>   Or you can also use this code:   <code># One year for image files <filesMatch ".(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|ico)$"> Header set Cache-Control "max-age=31536000, public" </filesMatch></code> <code># One month for css and js <filesMatch ".(css|js)$"> Header set Cache-Control "max-age=2628000, public" </filesMatch></code>   The numbers in the max-age attribute are in seconds, so 3600 would mean one hour, 86400 one day and so on.   Resetting the cache: When you make modifications to a web page, you want to reset the cache if an older version has been cached previously. However, you can only reset the cache on your server.   This means that users who have downloaded a previous version of a certain file will still load that old version from their computer when they access the website again. The file will be refreshed after the set amount of time in your caching policy or if the user manually resets their browser cache.   If you have a critical error in your web design or code, you can change the filename of your file. This way you can be sure that the cache for that particular file will be reset.   Sometimes, Chrome’s cache can be difficult to reset. Sometimes, routers and datacenters between the client and the server might also cache files so, if you don’t see the modifications, give it a couple of hours. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='15' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Lightweight Theme & Plugins</h3>   The more you load your website with plugins, the heavier it gets and the slower it runs.   A website’s theme is the biggest ‘plugin’ the site has. Most themes out there come with heavy 3rd party builders and huge libraries of plugins which all make the site run slower.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-22921 size-full" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/lightweight-theme-template-e1566888335225.png" alt="Lightweight Theme & Plugin" width="360" height="262" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/lightweight-theme-template-e1566888335225.png 360w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/lightweight-theme-template-e1566888335225-300x218.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px" />   For example, slider plugins generally add the slider JS code to all pages, although it will probably be used only on the homepage or a landing page. That’s some heavy code to be loading on every page! Not to mention that nobody likes them and they lower the conversion rate.   So when you’re looking for a theme, try to find one without too much animations, sliders, functions and so on. If you look at the big websites you’ll see that, in general, they’re pretty simple.   A good theme which I recommend is <a href="https://generatepress.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">GeneratePress</a>. It’s lightweight and will load very fast. You can enable or disable elements to keep your site as clean as possible.   Combining it with an optimization plugin such as WP Rocket (paid) or a combo of free plugins such as Autoptimize + Fastest Cache will make it blazing fast! You can also use W3 Total Cache, a plugin which does almost everything listed above pretty well.   When you install new plugins, think about how important they are to your website. After you install them, test your score and loading speed. Does the plugin make your site run slower? If yes, is it critical to keep the plugin? Maybe look for a better alternative or remove it completely. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='16' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>How to Bulk Check the PageSpeed Insights Score</h2>   The annoying part about PageSpeed Insights is that it checks only one web page at a time. It would take an eternity to check all the pages on your website, depending on its size.   However, there’s a way of bulk checking the PageSpeed Insights Score. Have you guessed it yet?   It’s the <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/site-audit/">CognitiveSEO Tool Site Audit</a>. Once you set up the technical SEO analysis with the Site Audit, go to your Campaign -> Site Audit -> Performance -> PageSpeed.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-22932 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/bulk-check-page-speed-1024x549.png" alt="Bulk Check Google PageSpeed Insights Score" width="1024" height="549" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/bulk-check-page-speed-1024x549.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/bulk-check-page-speed-300x161.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/bulk-check-page-speed-768x412.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/bulk-check-page-speed.png 1324w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   Of course, you can do a lot more with the tool, from improving your technical SEO and content to monitoring your rankings and link building efforts.   There’s also a somewhat free alternative which is a Chrome Extension. However, what it will actually do is ask for a list of URLs and then just open them as new tabs in the online PageSpeed Insights tool.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22900" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/bulk-check-pagespeed-extension.png" alt="Bulk Check PageSpeed Extension Chrome" width="976" height="41" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/bulk-check-pagespeed-extension.png 976w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/bulk-check-pagespeed-extension-300x13.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/bulk-check-pagespeed-extension-768x32.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 976px) 100vw, 976px" />   This means that the process is OK for about 10-20 tabs, if you have a medium to high end computer CPU. Anymore than that and the browser could crash or you’ll grow old waiting. It’s still pretty inconvenient. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='17' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Other SEO Tools for Measuring & Improving Site Speed</h2>   Of course, Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool isn’t the only tool to check and improve page speed. For once, we don’t really know where the tests are being performed from. If your site is hosted on a server in Europe and Google performs its tests from the US, it’s natural that the site will be slower.   However, there are tools which specify where the test is being performed from. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='18' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Pingdom</h3>   Pingdom Speed Test is a great tool which measures the speed at which your web page loads. Once the test is done, you’ll get some results which are similar to the ones on Google’s tool, at least visually.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-22933" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pingdom-speed-test-1024x597.png" alt="Pingdom Speed Test" width="1024" height="597" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pingdom-speed-test-1024x597.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pingdom-speed-test-300x175.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pingdom-speed-test-768x448.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pingdom-speed-test.png 1190w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   What’s interesting about it is that you can select where the test is going to be performed from. Sure, the options are limited, but it’s still better than not even knowing it.   If you focus on local SEO, choose the location closest to your server. If you don’t know where it’s actually hosted, ask your hosting provider and you’ll find out.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-22934" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pingdom-location-1024x449.png" alt="Pingdom Data Center Location" width="1024" height="449" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pingdom-location-1024x449.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pingdom-location-300x131.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pingdom-location-768x336.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/pingdom-location.png 1089w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   It’s also a good idea to make multiple tests from different locations, just in case you have an international audience.   You can find more<a href="https://hostingpill.com/pingdom-alternatives/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> similar tools to Pingdom</a>. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='19' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>GT-Metrix</h3>   GT Metrix has been one of my favorite speed testing tools out there. Although it tests only from Vancouver, Canada, the insights it gives are very useful.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-22935" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/gt-metrix-speed-test-1024x609.png" alt="GT Metrix Speed Tool" width="1024" height="609" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/gt-metrix-speed-test-1024x609.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/gt-metrix-speed-test-300x178.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/gt-metrix-speed-test-768x456.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/gt-metrix-speed-test.png 1410w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   Quick tip: If you create a free account with them, you won’t have to wait so much for the test to be performed. To reduce load on their servers, they add you in a queue when there are too many requests. However, registered users have priority. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='20' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>mod_pagespeed</h3>   The mod_pagespeed is a server addon from Google. Its purpose is to fix any page speed related issues at a core level, directly on the server side. This means that even if you add unoptimized images, mod_pagespeed will automatically compress, optimize and convert them to next gen image formats.   <blockquote> However, installing mod_pagespeed is definitely more technical than just dealing with everything in WordPress. </blockquote>   If your server already has it or you know what you’re doing go ahead and install it. However, it’s always a better idea to have a fast site in the first place instead of trying to cover things up.   Any way, this mod will increase load on your server as every time you upload an unoptimized image, it will have to use processing power to convert it. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='21' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)</h3>   If you want your site to be really fast on mobile searches, you can always <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/14245/google-amp-rank-better/">implement Google AMP</a>.   Google AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages is a special type of HTML, stripped of heavy, slower loading elements.   More than that, AMP pages will preload in Chrome mobile browser as the user scrolls through the search results, resulting in an instant load of the page when the user taps the title.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22948" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/google-amp.jpg" alt="Google AMP" width="400" height="168" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/google-amp.jpg 400w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/google-amp-300x126.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" />   There are also disadvantages, of course. You’re limited from every direction, although things are getting better and better every day. Also, your site’s design has to suffer and will pretty much look like any other site that uses AMP. Bummer.   The URL isn’t yours either, because Google loads a cached version of your site, on their URLs. However, Google developers have promised to bring native URLs into AMP.   On WordPress and other CMS, you can add AMP to your website through a plugin. For custom websites, you’ll need to get in touch with your developer and give them <a href="https://amp.dev/documentation/guides-and-tutorials/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">this link</a>.   <h3>Conclusion</h3>   Improving your site speed is important for better search rankings. PageSpeed Insights provides a set of best practices and possible improvements, prioritized by their impact on your site’s speed.   While the score itself shouldn’t concern you too much, it’s a good idea to try and get it at least over 50. However, focus on load time, which is measured in seconds. A good website should load in about 3 seconds. A really, really fast one should load in about 1.   Having a good server, compressing images and keeping things clean and simple in your code will benefit you the most when it comes to website speed. While smaller sites will benefit most from a shared server, if you are a larger business, hosting your site on a <a href="https://www.novatech.co.uk/server/tower-server/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">custom tower servers</a> would be a recommended choice. Allowing the businesses to edit and maintain their site, a private server would offer flexibility and reliability when they need it most.   What’s your PageSpeed Insights Score? Have you seen better rankings after improving the loading speed of your website? Share your experience with us in the comments section below! The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/22865/page-speed-seo/">How Page Speed Affects SEO & Google Rankings | The 2026 Page Speed Guide</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.
Are Web Directories Still Relevant for SEO in 2026?

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 10:18:41 -0000

Web Directories have been the norm for the world wide web and for search engine optimization for a long time. But are they still relevant in this age of advanced AI Google Updates?   Well, as Head of Web SPAM at Google John Mueller said, “in general, no”. But the key words in that answer […] The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/21291/web-directories-seo/">Are Web Directories Still Relevant for SEO in 2026?</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.

Web Directories have been the norm for the world wide web and for search engine optimization for a long time. But are they still relevant in this age of advanced AI Google Updates?   Well, as Head of Web SPAM at Google John Mueller said, “in general, no”. But the key words in that answer are “in general”. That’s the usual answer we get from John and, as much as we’d like to say we will dissect it, the truth is that we can only be speculating and interpreting things based on own knowledge and experience.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-24909 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/web-directories-still-relevant-1024x532.jpg" alt="web directories still relevant" width="1024" height="532" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/web-directories-still-relevant-1024x532.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/web-directories-still-relevant-300x156.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/web-directories-still-relevant-768x399.jpg 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/web-directories-still-relevant.jpg 1277w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   Let’s jump to it and find out whether web directories are still useful for SEO in 2022.   <ol class="summaryext"> <li><a href="#1">What Are Web Directories Really?</a> <ol> <li><a href="#2">Why Directories Were Created</a></li> <li><a href="#222">The Evolution of Citations: From Web Directories to Modern Brand Mentions</a></li> <li><a href="#3">Why Directories Died</a></li> <li><a href="#4">The Web Directory Legacy</a></li> </ol> </li> <li><a href="#5">Do Web Directories Still Work for SEO in 2022?</a> <ol> <li><a href="#6">The Problem With Today’s Directories</a></li> <li><a href="#7">Local SEO & Directory Listings</a></li> <li><a href="#8">Directories That Are Still Good</a></li> <li><a href="#9">Why Do We Still Have Web Directories?</a></li> </ol> </li> <li><a href="#10">Should You Disavow Directory Links?</a></li> </ol> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='1' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>What Are Web Directories Really?</h2>   In order to better understand why directories work or not in 2022 we have to create a background for them. Like an introduction.   Most people probably think of directories as just sites that list other sites. While that’s true, the reality is that they’re much more.   <blockquote> Before modern search engines, such as Google, web directories were THE INTERNET. </blockquote> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='2' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Why Web Directories Were Created</h3>   In the very early days of the internet, only a few people had websites. Internet connections were uncommon and there wasn’t much profit to be made out of it. Still, different websites emerged, in different niches.   However, you had to actually remember the domain names in order to access those websites, as there was no Google.   But, as the internet grew, more websites started showing up. Soon enough, people couldn’t remember all those names. But some clever guys from Yahoo! had the brilliant idea to store the best website into something they called a web directory.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-21393" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/yahoo-directory-old.jpg" alt="yahoo web directory seo" width="553" height="456" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/yahoo-directory-old.jpg 553w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/yahoo-directory-old-300x247.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 553px) 100vw, 553px" />   At first, only a few websites were listed, the most ‘popular’ ones or the ones that they thought were worthy of being listed. This way, you would only have to remember one website (Yahoo!) if you wanted to find all the other good sites.   At first, the sites were listed alphabetically but, as the number grew, they started getting listed under categories and subcategories. This way it was easier for users to find what they needed.   Web directories made money out of selling advertising space or boosting certain results in exchange for a fee. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='222' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>The Evolution of Citations: From Web Directories to Modern Brand Mentions</h3>   The era of mass-submitting websites to low-quality web directories ended over a decade ago. These obsolete citation methods are now actively penalized as link schemes.   Today, search algorithms and advanced AI response models validate a business not by its directory listings, but by natural, unlinked brand mentions occurring in reputable blog posts, news publications, and social media discussions. These modern citations are the true currency of digital trust.   💡 Pro Tip: To discover, manage, and leverage these modern citations, professionals rely on the <a style="color: #ff6600;" href="https://brandmentions.com/">BrandMentions platform</a>.   Shifting the focus from link quantity to reputation quality, the BrandMentions software operates as an industry-leading social listening tool. It differentiates itself from generic backlink checkers by executing comprehensive searches for unlinked brand citations across the darkest corners of the web. Its sophisticated dashboard is engineered to be highly advanced yet remarkably simple to use, providing granular data on competitor mentions, brand reach, and historical sentiment evolution. By converting scattered web noise into a measurable KPI of brand authority, BrandMentions provides the ultimate framework for scaling modern digital PR.   <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='3' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Why Web Directories Died</h3>   Unfortunately, when the number of sites started getting way too high, people soon realized it wasn’t so convenient to browse through all those categories. It would take too much time and, ultimately, the best results were mixed up with the less good ones.   This is how search engines appeared. It was by far more convenient to type in a keyword and get a list of top results than to browse through categories trying to figure out which website is the best.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-21394" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web-directories-died-1024x539.png" alt="web directories died" width="1024" height="539" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web-directories-died-1024x539.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web-directories-died-300x158.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web-directories-died-768x404.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web-directories-died.png 1175w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   The search engines worked on algorithms, just as they do now (although not as complex). Depending on the keywords in the title and other factors, some sites would rank better than others.   Yahoo! had its own search engine. However, it is no secret that Google took the lead because of their improved algorithm, but this isn’t the only reason why Google eventually took the lead. Yahoo! was a giant back then, in the days of Yahoo! Mail, News, Answers and Messenger, but a number of bad decisions made them fade out. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='4' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>The Web Directory Legacy</h3>   Even though web directories dropped dramatically in popularity, people still used them. But not for what they were supposed to used them.   <blockquote> As much as people say that web directories are still useful, the truth is that people have been using them merely for link building and online marketing for a long time. </blockquote>   I’m 25 now and I’ve been using a computer since I was 6. My first contact with the internet was in 2002 and I can’t recall ever browsing on a web directory. I remember Yahoo! and Google. I remember ODC ,DC++ and other popular hubs. I remember Floppy disks with drivers. But I don’t remember web directories.   In fact, my first contact with web directories was back in 2013, when I first started learning about SEO. I had probably ended up on similar websites before, but not solely for searching a specific website.   Although the truth was that web directories weren’t of interest to the general public, new web directories kept popping up.   <blockquote> There were of course, useful directories, such as business listings (Yellow Pages), which people visited if they wanted to search for a particular business (name, phone, address, legal details, etc.). </blockquote>   There were also niche directories, which only listed websites in a particular field. Those might have got some organic traffic and potential customers when people searched for things like “list of XYZ websites”.   But the truth is that, most of the time, web directories were only there because links brought better rankings. People found ways to get listed on as many directories as they could, therefore destroying the purpose of a directory. Even paid directories were full of SPAM.   Fees were usually low, ranging from $5 to $20 if you wanted to get a listing on the homepage. However, most of the time that wouldn’t bring much more traffic to your site, since most of the users visiting web directories were SEOs trying to build links.   I’m not afraid to say that I only visited web directories for link building purposes. Everybody was doing it and it worked. It was easy and convenient.   But the question is… do they still work now? <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='5' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Do Web Directories Still Work for SEO in 2022?</h2>   In a local SEO social media group somebody tried to prove a point by showing us a #1 result for a keyword, claiming that he had only built 2 directory links to that page and it’s now #1.   He was trying to attack us “white hats” that always state web directories don’t work when, in fact, he had proof that they do. Only problem was the keyword he was ranking for had virtually 0 searches and the competition was basically inexistent.   Did the web directory links actually helped him to rank better in Google’s search results? Probably… Did he prove any points? Definitely not.   Web Directories probably still have a small impact on your rankings, just like any other site that links to you and passes Page Rank. However, because they’ve been abused as an SEO tactic over the years, Google penalizes people that use web directories. With the rise of Penguin 4.0, many of them are probably ignored.   Or, as John Mueller (the current Head of Web SPAM @ Google) said:   <blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center"> generally no. — ? John ? (@JohnMu) <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnMu/status/835480412109619210?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 25, 2017</a></blockquote>   Bu that answer can be interpreted in very many ways. Let’s see first why web directories got such a bad reputation in SEO. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='6' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Web Directories’ Main Issues for SEO</h3>   I’ve already discussed how web directories don’t really provide much value as users don’t really use them for anything other than SEO.   However, the story doesn’t end there:   Web directories got spammy & tricky: As people always want the quick way, they started automating processes. With more automation, more SPAM came along. These types of things are inconvenient for Google because they waste a lot of resources. Don’t you just hate spam comments? I know I do.   Google eventually figured out that the best way to deal with this was to penalize people that would use directories as a way of improving their rankings. So when important updates such as Penguin started to roll out, web directories had the perfect opportunity to make money.   Although some websites were listed for free, now that Google was penalizing websites for spammy link profiles, some web directories <a href="seroundtable.com/link-removal-fees-16529.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">asked for removal fees</a>.   Web directories are not managed anymore: Even if you do find a good web directory, chances are that nobody is going to answer you.   A couple of years ago, I was in the process of building links for someone. Advertorials were too expensive for his budget and all their competitors had the directory links. Without exception. They ranked well, so I thought I’d better try it at least.   After a few days of efforts, it was pretty clear that it won’t work. Not because Google penalized me or anything, but because the directory sites either had errors on their submission forms or nobody replied/approved my sites.   Since they don’t make as much money as they used to, people have stopped putting effort into managing them.   Web directories are not efficient: Even if you manage to get some business directory listings, they will probably have a very little impact, if not none at all.   Your time is better spent creating content and engaging with your audience. 1-2 links won’t help at all and scaling this is risky and can result in penalties.   Google penalizes you: Of course, the biggest issue with web directories these days is that your website can get penalized if it tries to trick the Google algorithms.   <blockquote> Building links in mass, be it through web directories, blog commenting, article submission, guest posting, you name it, is risky and can get your site in trouble. </blockquote>   Now I’m not saying that you’re going to be penalized if you submit your site to a directory. By all means, if you find an interesting site that also happens to have a list of other interesting sites, go for it!   But it’s a good idea to check their background a little bit. What’s their domain authority? Is their backlink profile spammy? Are they linking to quality websites or a bunch of phishing potholes full of malware?   In other words, does that website bring any value at all to the internet or for any users? Is it in any way relevant to your site? If the answer is no, then you should definitely stay away from it. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='7' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Local SEO & Directory Listings</h3>   <blockquote> When it comes to local, it’s probably the only field where people actually still visit renowned “directories” to find a good location. </blockquote>   For example, Google My Business is considered to be a web business directory. To some extent, it is. It lists businesses. However, it’s turning more and more into a search engine itself. The rankings are done based on algorithms.   <div id="attachment_21395" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-21395" class="wp-image-21395 size-full" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/google-my-business-directory.jpg" alt="google my business directory" width="600" height="246" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/google-my-business-directory.jpg 600w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/google-my-business-directory-300x123.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Local Search Listings | Google My Business</div>   People do browse and look for reviews, but most of them just stick with the top businesses (the ones that get listed first by Google My Business on local search and Google Maps) because they are, usually, the best results.   When it comes to local SEO, it does help if your NAP details (name, address, phone) are listed on multiple websites. However, title, distance from the user and reviews probably play a more important role.   <blockquote> The key thing with NAP is consistency. Google might have some issues if you keep having a mixture of different names, phones and addresses all over the place. </blockquote>   However, let’s all be honest that citations here and there aren’t the key to <a title="Local SEO Myths" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/18819/local-seo-myths/#4">local search SEO success</a>. It’s not that they don’t help (they do, you get brand visibility) but whenever you have a citation, you should accompany it with a backlink.   Local business directories are a great start. For example, you might find sites such as “yourcitynews.xyz” that have a section called “Great Locations in Our City”. If you can list your local business there, that’s great because the relevancy comes from the local orientation of the website itself. Most news will be about your city, which means your business should be there to rank better in that particular city.   If you can’t find a local business directory, you can also find these types of backlink opportunities with <a title="BrandMentions" href="https://brandmentions.com">BrandMentions</a>. This tool monitors when your name/brand is mentioned on the web. You can then engage with people and build relationships (and also ask for a backlink in case they haven’t made one). <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='8' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Directories That Are Still Good</h3>   Now obviously you’re probably asking “Hey, where can I still find good web directories if all are bad?”   Well… there are some. This isn’t really the purpose of this article, but I’ll only list a few so that you get an idea how modern, useful web directories actually look like.   White Hat SEOs will probably jump and say “How can you recommend profile link building or any sort of web directory link?”   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-21386" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web-directories-bad-for-seo.jpg" alt="web directories bad for seo" width="506" height="500" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web-directories-bad-for-seo.jpg 506w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web-directories-bad-for-seo-300x296.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 506px) 100vw, 506px" />   The key word here is RELEVANCY. If the listing is relevant to your site, it is going to help you.   <blockquote> I don’t want you to take “web directories are bad” for granted and miss an opportunity that might actually be helpful to you. </blockquote>   Many search engine optimization experts react badly to blog commenting or forum posts, because they know it doesn’t work. However, blog comments are still the fuel of blogs. Forums are still popular in industries such as music, automotive, health and even fashion.   Matthew Woodward built <a href="http://matthewwoodward.co.uk" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">an award winning blog</a> and much of his direct and organic traffic was thanks to the posts he made in the BlackHat Forums. Just don’t spam. Be relevant. Be useful.   An example of good directories were the local sites that might have listings. I can’t really give a specific example, but I hope you get the point. If they have an active social media account, post from time to time and bring in some traffic, you can try to list your local business there.   <blockquote> It all comes down to relevancy. Is the listing relevant to your scope/niche? If yes, go for it! </blockquote>   Here I can give a specific example. SoundCloud is a directory for musicians, for example. If you’re a musician, you can get a profile backlink from your SoundCloud profile. Another similar example is last.fm.   Is this spammy? It could be if you just create a profile and leave it like that. But if you’re a musician, maybe it also makes sense to post on your SoundCloud account from time to time, build an audience there and actually send some traffic to your site through that link and maybe even get some potential customers.   Other good local listing sites are Yelp or maybe Yellow Pages. Although Google has heavily bashed them because they’re evil, it’s still a good place to list your business. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='9' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Why Do We Still Have Web Directories?</h3>   Most businesses, such as Moz or Yahoo, have closed their directories (Dmoz and Yahoo Directory).   <blockquote> The truth is probably that the web is still full of directories because of low maintenance costs (hosting and domain). </blockquote>   Many directories if not all lack moderators (which actually cost money), but still probably make some small amounts of revenue from advertising.   This whole article idea started from us observing these weird anchor texts such as “.2523765 yourdomain.com” in our tool for multiple clients. You might see these anchor texts in your <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/">cognitiveSEO dashboard</a> as well.   They’re generated by The Globe network, a sort of directory that crawls and indexes websites by simply linking to them on pages which contain thousands of external links. The network is owned by Ascio Technologies Inc (a domain registrar). Luckily, I’ve looked at their backlink profile and they also have the spammy anchor texts, so at least it’s fair.   Their model is different. They want to sell the entire network of sites for millions of dollars. They present it as some sort of world wide web, the most visited site on the planet (which obviously, it isn’t). I’m not sure how old this thing is or how it started, but there’s a BlackHat Forum <a href="blackhatworld.com/seo/majestic-and-todays-automated-spam-blogs.964842/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">thread</a> about the network where you can read more about this. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='10' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Should You Disavow Directory Links?</h2>   One thing that people rush in to do is disavow links that they think Google might consider spammy or that might get their websites penalized.   This is an entire topic to discuss and I really recommend that you read my <a title="Google Disavow Tool When to use" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/5328/when-not-to-use-the-google-disavow-tool/">article about disavowing links</a>.   However, just to give you a short answer, in general, it’s a good idea not to play with the disavow tool unless you’re sure your site has been penalized and you have isolated the reason to be the link profile, after you’ve checked and excluded everything else.   For example, most of The Globe network, the site I’ve mentioned above, isn’t even indexed in Google, so it doesn’t really make any sense disavowing those links, since Google already doesn’t count those links in any way.   <h3>Conclusion</h3>   Generally, you should avoid them, but sometimes web directory submissions might be useful, especially when it comes to local businesses and local SEO. Before you submit your links, make sure that the online directory is relevant to your niche and has a good link profile.   What do you think about web directory submissions? Have you ever used them? Do you still use them? Do they still work? Let us know in the comments section (but be careful with the links if you’re a WhiteHat SEO as you might get penalized!)   The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/21291/web-directories-seo/">Are Web Directories Still Relevant for SEO in 2026?</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.
Content Marketing Services | The Complete List for a Successful Digital Strategy

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 10:04:46 -0000

As your online business grows, it becomes obvious how important content marketing is for your business. And even if you’re the one working on your business’ strategy or you hire an agency to help you out, one thing is clear: you need to know the full list of content marketing services your company needs.   […] The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/24549/content-marketing-services/">Content Marketing Services | The Complete List for a Successful Digital Strategy</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.

As your online business grows, it becomes obvious how important content marketing is for your business. And even if you’re the one working on your business’ strategy or you hire an agency to help you out, one thing is clear: you need to know the full list of content marketing services your company needs.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-24636" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Content_Marketing-services-1.jpg" alt="Content_Marketing services" width="1024" height="538" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Content_Marketing-services-1.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Content_Marketing-services-1-300x158.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Content_Marketing-services-1-768x404.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   Before saying that you don’t need to bother with this because you will hire a specialized digital agency to take care of all this, take this scenario: You get a great offer for a freelance or an agency, saying that they will take care of everything content related for you. That sounds appealing, yet, how can you hire them if you don’t know what they are supposed to deliver? Once you know what a complete list of content marketing services looks like, you’ll be able to set expectations, measure the efforts of the company you hired, and better understand the results.   Quick Summary: This guide outlines the five essential content marketing services required for business growth in the modern search landscape: Strategy, Creation, Distribution, Constant Updates, and Analytics. It emphasizes a shift from traditional SEO to a holistic approach that incorporates Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and AI visibility. Key highlights include the use of advanced keyword research to identify semantic opportunities, the importance of long-form, share-worthy content creation, and the necessity of multi-channel distribution to earn organic backlinks.   By integrating specialized tools for content optimization and social listening, companies can establish the industry authority needed to earn citations in AI-powered search results. This resource serves as a strategic blueprint for business owners and marketing managers to set clear expectations, measure agency performance, and drive measurable business value through content-led growth in 2026 and more.   So, here are the top content marketing services business owners should be aware of: <ol class="summaryext"> <li><a href="#1">Content Marketing Strategy</a> <ol> <li><a href="#11">Use Keyword Research Tools</a></li> <li><a href="#12">Check the Top-of-mind Keywords</a></li> <li><a href="#13">Look for Seed Keywords</a></li> <li><a href="#14">Prioritize the Keywords You Want to Rank For</a></li> <li><a href="#15">Select Top Keywords</a></li> <li><a href="#222"> Track the Real ROI of Your Content Marketing</a></li> </ol> </li> <li><a href="#2">Content Creation</a></li> <li><a href="#3">Content Distribution</a> <ol> <li><a href="#31">Link Building</a></li> <li><a href="#32">Social Media</a></li> <li><a href="#33">Community & Relations</a></li> </ol> </li> <li><a href="#4">Constant Content Update</a></li> <li><a href="#5">Content Analytics Reporting</a> <ol> <li><a href="#51">Organic Search Traffic</a></li> <li><a href="#52">Keyword Rankings</a></li> <li><a href="#53">Social Shares</a></li> <li><a href="#54">Backlink Volume</a></li> </ol> </li> </ol> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='1' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Content Marketing Strategy</h2>   <blockquote> A good content marketing strategy should respond to the question why. </blockquote>   Why do you want to create content? For whom? Why will your content be different than what already exists?   Content marketing strategy means more than a content strategy. This last one is focused more on content creation, which we are going to talk about later.   <blockquote> First thing first, you need to clarify what do you want to achieve with content marketing: Increased traffic? More leads? Educate customers? Increase online presence? </blockquote>   If you’ve been watching the trends lately, you’ve seen articles piling up about content marketing and how it’s changing the SEO game forever.   It seems that Google is dead set on providing visitors with pages that have the most relevant content to their search and the trend of creating quality content to be more relevant to your target audience seems to become more of a need than a game played only by the cool kids.   More and more SEO professionals are boarding this train and it’s no longer to be believed a hype and a way to reinvent the so-called “dead SEO”.   Once you got the “why” question responded, you can go to the next step within any content marketing strategy, the keyword research. You don’t want to write just for the sake of writing, right?   You want to create good content that will reach your audience. But to do so, you need to know what topics to tackle and what keywords you can create content for. So, check out the next steps, which are foundation stones for all the other content marketing services. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='11' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Use Keyword Research Tools</h3>   Finding keywords shouldn’t be hard, yet it’s not a walk in the park either. In the modern SEO landscape, a keyword research tool is not just a passing trend but a must.   The <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/keyword-tool/">Keyword Tool and Content Optimizer</a> is an awesome helper on this matter. It’s like your best buddy you can call in the middle of the night to get you out of trouble. You can find new topic ideas and keywords related to the one you are targeting.   You’ll be able to make an idea of how difficult it is to rank for those particular keywords. It also shows you how relevant other keywords are compared to the current ones.   When you perform the market research, it’s best if the keywords you’re trying to rank for have a high search volume and a low difficulty. High search volume means the phrase is popular and many people are typing it in their browsers. Low content and links difficulty means that it is fairly easy to rank on that keyword without many links or highly competitive content. Combining these three metrics will result in profitable phrases that are easy to rank for.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-24639" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/best-shoes-for-running-1024x597.png" alt="best shoes for running" width="1024" height="597" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/best-shoes-for-running-1024x597.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/best-shoes-for-running-300x175.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/best-shoes-for-running-768x448.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/best-shoes-for-running.png 1283w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   Why any analysis should start with a keyword research? Because if you don’t know the keywords you want to target, you can’t possibly know your true SEO competition. This step will also determine what level of difficulty you wish to perform the analysis at.   For example, let’s assume that we’re performing online marketing in the shoe business and wish to open a web store. Depending on our budget, we can either start targeting very high search volume keywords or lower search volume keywords. Keep it realistic.   <blockquote> It either takes money or time to get there. In fact, it takes time in both cases given you’re working with organic search. </blockquote>   <table class="author-quotes" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr class="author-quote-row"> <td class="author-text" colspan="2">Without a strategy, content is just stuff, and the world has enough stuff.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="author-image" rowspan="2"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-21102 lazy-loaded" src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Arjun_7992-min.jpg" alt="Arjun" width="46" height="46" data-lazy-type="image" data-src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Arjun_7992-min.jpg" data-srcset="" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Arjun_7992-min.jpg 2397w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Arjun_7992-min-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Arjun_7992-min-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Arjun_7992-min-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Arjun_7992-min-1024x1024.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 46px) 100vw, 46px" /></td> <td class="author-name">ARJUN BASU</td> </tr> <tr class="author-description-row"> <td>Award-nominated author</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>   The trick with ranking is not to force it. When everybody’s trying to rank for the same keywords, there’s not much room for long-term development. This is where you can improve and find keywords semantically related to your niche, but not necessarily used by your competitors. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='12' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Check the Top-of-mind Keywords</h3>   Top-of-mind keywords are phrases that pop up in your head right away when you think about a niche. It’s like a brainstorming process. They are also frequently called seed keywords.   You can use the Google search engine to get real-time suggestions. Simply go on Google and start typing your keywords, and new ideas will appear right under the search bar. A highly competitive keyword would be, in this case, “buy shoes online”.   Phrases with the word “buy” in them are called buyer’s keywords or transactional keywords. They are usually the most competitive, as we know from the phrase itself that people are already set to buy the product. Ranking for those keywords practically guarantees that some sales will indeed be made. Where sales are guaranteed, big players come.   A lower competition keyword can be “best shoes for …”.   More niched phrases tend to be less competitive. One reason might be the fact that they are untapped, meaning that not many people actually discovered them. They are called longtail keywords. Review and comparison sites often try to rank here. People are still inclined to buy, but for he moment, they might just be looking to compare products or find ideas. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-14141 size-large lazy-loaded" src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/topofmindcompetitors-1024x402.jpg" alt="Add top of mind competitors" width="1024" height="402" data-lazy-type="image" data-src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/topofmindcompetitors-1024x402.jpg" data-srcset="" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/topofmindcompetitors-1024x402.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/topofmindcompetitors-300x118.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/topofmindcompetitors.jpg 1326w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='13' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Look for Seed Keywords to the Keyword Explorer or Google Keyword Planner to Get New Ideas</h3>   Use the seed keywords you acquired from the previous step to generate a list of keywords.   You can go classic and use the <a href="https://adwords.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Google Keyword Planner</a>, though data is limited if you don’t have a paying PPC management account. You can try multiple keywords here, export the data as CSV, sort the keywords, and add some to your list.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-14147 lazy-loaded" src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/googlekeywordplanner-1024x449.jpg" alt="Make use of Google Keyword Planner" width="1024" height="449" data-lazy-type="image" data-src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/googlekeywordplanner-1024x449.jpg" data-srcset="" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/googlekeywordplanner-1024x449.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/googlekeywordplanner-300x132.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/googlekeywordplanner.jpg 1674w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   cognitiveSEO’s Keyword Tool can give you tons of keyword opportunities. It works like a content marketing agency that will work on most of your marketing plans, your pieces of content…you got the idea your whole marketing effort in general. You can check out for questions people are looking for an answer on Google. You can filter the keywords ideas by volume, relevancy and so on, so you can find the best keyword opportunities for you.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-24640" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/best-shoes-ideas-1024x513.png" alt="best shoes ideas" width="1024" height="513" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/best-shoes-ideas-1024x513.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/best-shoes-ideas-300x150.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/best-shoes-ideas-768x385.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/best-shoes-ideas.png 1144w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='14' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Prioritize the Keywords You Want to Rank For</h3>   Now comes the more difficult part.   For which of those keywords can you realistically rank in top Google search?   After you’ve determined a list of keywords you’ll go after, you have to take a look at two things:   Content Performance and Domain Performance.   You can use the Ranking Analysis section of the <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/keyword-tool/">Content Optimizer Tool</a>. Let’s take as example the keyword this article is talking about: content marketing services.   You can easily see a lot of important metrics, just one click away:   <ul> <li>how many links would this article need to be competitive?</li> <li>what is the monthly search for this keyword and how’s the searching trend for it? </li> <li>who is ranking in top 10 and how do their content looks like?</li> <li>how old/fresh is the content already ranking?</li> <li>what focus keywords did my competitor use within their content?</li> </ul>   <img class="lazy-loaded aligncenter wp-image-24641 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/content-marketing-services-content-tool-1024x572.png" alt="content marketing services - content tool" width="1024" height="572" data-lazy-type="image" data-src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/keyword-tool-seo-content-strategy-e1591187674368-1024x648.png" data-srcset="" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/content-marketing-services-content-tool-1024x572.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/content-marketing-services-content-tool-300x168.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/content-marketing-services-content-tool-768x429.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/content-marketing-services-content-tool.png 1329w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   While the Content Performance is something that we have control over and will improve in a future step, backlinks aren’t something we have that much control over.   So, you want to see websites with as few referring domains as possible compared to your site (which you can check with the <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/site-explorer/">Site Explorer</a>).   Of course, if you see a lower content score and/or word count, those are also good indicators that it will be easier to create content for or improve existing content. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='15' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Select Top Keywords Based on Relevancy and Search Volume</h3>   For the purpose of this analysis example, we’ll just stick to these keywords: “buy shoes online” and “best shoes for”. One is broader and the other is narrower, but both are attractive in terms of relevance and search volume. Let’s assume that we start from the bottom (narrower keywords), but leave room for expansion in the future (broader keywords).   From these two keywords, we can observe that the broader ones tend to return root domains as results, while narrower ones return pages from websites. This is a good indication of what our homepage should be targeting, and what we should target with pages.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-14180 lazy-loaded" src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/broadkwvsnarrowkw-1024x503.jpg" alt="Broad keywords vs narrow keywords" width="1024" height="503" data-lazy-type="image" data-src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/broadkwvsnarrowkw-1024x503.jpg" data-srcset="" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/broadkwvsnarrowkw-1024x503.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/broadkwvsnarrowkw-300x147.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/broadkwvsnarrowkw.jpg 1467w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   The final list should include keywords around your general niche and some current or possible (future) sub-niches. You can group them into separate sheets. This way you’ll be able to select top competitors from multiple sub-niches easier. The more keywords you’re willing to analyze, the better you’ll understand what you’re dealing with in the long run. You can use the Google Search Console to easily determine the keyword you’re already ranking for. (the below screenshot is taken in June 2020).   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-24318 lazy-loaded" src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/search-console-queries.png" alt="Search Console Queries" width="830" height="615" data-lazy-type="image" data-src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/search-console-queries.png" data-srcset="" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/search-console-queries.png 830w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/search-console-queries-300x222.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/search-console-queries-768x569.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 830px) 100vw, 830px" />   Can you improve this existing content? Or should you target new keywords? These are questions you should ask yourself when putting together your SEO content marketing strategy. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='222' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Track the Real ROI of Your Content Marketing</h3> Whether you hire a content marketing agency or manage services in-house, measuring success by page views alone is a flawed strategy. Content marketing success isn’t measured solely by rankings, impressions, or pageviews. <blockquote> Effective content marketing doesn’t just sit on your blog; it gets shared, debated, and referenced across the web. </blockquote> To evaluate the real ROI of your content, you must measure its external impact: how often it is cited, who is amplifying it, and the overall sentiment it generates in your industry. Modern content marketers should also monitor visibility beyond traditional search engines. As AI-powered search platforms and answer engines become more influential, tracking brand mentions, citations, referral traffic, and AI-generated references can provide a more complete picture of content performance. <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-24930" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/content-marketing-roi-brandmentions.png" alt="content marketing roi brandmentions" width="1012" height="552" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/content-marketing-roi-brandmentions.png 1012w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/content-marketing-roi-brandmentions-300x164.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/content-marketing-roi-brandmentions-768x419.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1012px) 100vw, 1012px" /> To track this off-site content amplification, you need specialized social listening tools rather than traditional web analytics. BrandMentions functions as a comprehensive social listening software that tracks where content campaigns are discussed across social networks, news outlets, and niche communities. By providing real-time sentiment analysis, it allows brands and agencies to quantify the value of their content services, showing how a single article elevates brand visibility and establishes the industry authority required for AI search engine citations and AEO. <blockquote> Ultimately, the real ROI of content marketing is not just attracting visitors, it’s turning visibility into business value. </blockquote> By regularly measuring both SEO metrics and business outcomes, you can identify which topics, keywords, and content formats generate the highest return. This allows you to invest more resources in strategies that drive measurable results while eliminating efforts that fail to contribute to your marketing objectives.   <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='2' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Content Creation</h2>   No worries, comparing to the previous section, content creation will feel like a breeze among the content marketing services list.   First, consider that it’s always best to consider landing page optimization for a single main keyword and a single search intent per page. You can sometimes combine very similar keywords, but try as much as possible to stick to one main keyword and one search intent. Feel free to find out <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/22986/search-intent/">more about search intent here</a>.   A great way to do this is to write content about questions that are very often asked in your industry, or case studies.   For example, this article about <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/19066/meta-description-affects-seo/">meta descriptions affect SEO or not</a> has been linked to multiple times by other SEO blogs trying to make a quick point without getting into too much detail.   <blockquote> Write content that stands out and is share worthy. </blockquote>   While doing so, also make sure to: <ul> <li>Have great Titles, Headlines and Descriptions.</li> <li>Optimize your titles with keywords for SEO, but also keep them catchy for Social Media.</li> <li>Use the Open Graph property to set different titles for SEO and Social Media.</li> </ul>   Longform content tends to perform better in organic search results. Yet, look at what type of content your competitor have. Is it long, short? What type of content is Google serving within its first page for the type of content you want to rank?   <blockquote> You keep on hearing: write content having readers, but also SEO in mind. But what does this really mean? </blockquote>   We can spend a lot of time on debating that, or we can use a tool that will help us write that exact type of content. As time is so precious these days, I’ll choose the second option.   <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/keyword-tool/"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-24643 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/content-marketing-services-content-optimization-1024x763.png" alt="content marketing services - content optimization" width="1024" height="763" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/content-marketing-services-content-optimization-1024x763.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/content-marketing-services-content-optimization-300x223.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/content-marketing-services-content-optimization-768x572.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/content-marketing-services-content-optimization.png 1094w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>   Open the Content Assistant section from the cognitiveSEO’s content optimizer and hit Start Optimizing. Once you do so, you’ll get everything you need there:   <ul> <li>the keywords you should use in your content</li> <li>the content score you should reach</li> <li>keywords ideas to use in your content</li> <li>the focus keywords that might help your content with ranking</li> <li>the keywords you shouldn’t use that much to avoid stuffing</li> </ul>   Basically, you’ll get all the resources you need to write content that is relevant for your users first of all, but also SEO oriented.   <blockquote> The idea is to think of the recommended keywords as subtopics or areas of interest that you should cover in your content. </blockquote>   When people search for something, you already know they are interested in it. That’s why SEM has such a high conversion rate and people spend time reading in-depth articles.   Regardless of the tools you’d be using, keep in mind that the best tool you have at your disposal is your own knowledge.   <blockquote> You should keep in mind that writing naturally is the best way to go. </blockquote>   I know: writing original content regularly might not be easy. Moreover optimized content. Even if you’re a marketing expert that wants to improve brand awareness, an account manager or a search engine optimization, <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/21096/how-to-write-for-seo/">writing with SEO in mind</a> is never easy. There are no perfect marketing guides that will drive results in no time. And copywriting implies extra marketing costs, video content creation costs, maybe website design, content promotion and so on. Yet, when creating your monthly reporting, you’ll check the return on investment and you’ll see that those marketing efforts did pay off. That monthly content and those business goals you struggle with, those SEO audits, they all bring great results. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='3' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Content Distribution</h2>   The journey shouldn’t stop when the article goes live. On the contrary, you should carry on with the process of boosting your content. You need to understand that content distribution isn’t a single technique or a one-time thing. It incorporates an umbrella of multiple unique techniques you need to follow in order to get better results.   We all had that moment when we gave our soul into a post and made it so shiny, with thorough research, relevant visuals but nobody read it. And then you start wondering what went wrong. What in the name of God happened? Or why did it happen to you? And the questions could go on.   But there is something that you missed. And that “something” could be content distribution and amplification.   Content distribution is a powerful method to reach a wider audience.   <blockquote> Amplifying your content should be mandatory if you want people to know about it and increase your website traffic. </blockquote>   You can look at the distribution process as a way of strengthening the signals of your post. And here are some channels to do so: <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='31' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Link Building</h3>   If, in the past, the traditional ways of building links meant to meaninglessly spread out all over the internet, without thinking of relevance and essence, through the help of web directories, blogrolls, keyword stuffing and others, now we need to think of our target audience.   <blockquote> Things have changed now, but links are still an important ranking signal and they are very helpful when trying to rank high in the search engines. </blockquote>   It’s a harsh reality but link generating through content marketing will surely become harder and harder. Yet, harder doesn’t mean impossible. Use blog posts, videos, infographics, eBooks and so on. Create resources that are valuable and that will earn links.   Also, don’t forget about <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/18796/internal-linking/">internal linking</a>.   <blockquote> If you’re looking for an SEO move that can quickly boost the position of your website, then internal linking is the move you want to make. </blockquote>   A proper internal linking strategy can really boost your ranking power because it does two things:   #1: It helps search engines understand the structure of your website, how different pages interact with one another and which pages are truly important withing the structure of your website.   #2: It helps users navigate the website and it keeps users on the website by providing relevant content through links that can be followed. This ultimately sends search engines another signal that your website is great, because it provides a good user experience.   If you’re interested in some valuable link building lessons, wrote from experience, <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/19318/ling-building-lessons/">check out this article</a>. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='32' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Social Media</h3>   I know it and you know it. The internet has become so fed up with marketing strategies, that people become immune to content in its mediocre form. Influencers from all marketing channels are no longer impressed so easily, and in order to put your brand “in their mouth” you need to do some wheel greasing.   So that’s why super important to create content that it’s worth sharing; content that “has something to say”, that brings added value. Invest in social media marketing as much as you can. Get dedicated account managers or marketing manager if possible. There are many social content marketing companies that are offering good services, just make sure to get the right one to grow your business.   There a lot of tips and tricks on how to perform better on social media. You can consult <a href="https://brandmentions.com/blog/">blogs like BrandMentions</a>‘ one for this.   <blockquote> Promote your content as much as possible but on the right social media channels for your niche. </blockquote>   Use paid media and social media advertising (like Twitter or Facebook advertising) if needed. Make use of partner programs, press releases, custom content, go for influencer marketing if needed. Yet, it is highly important to make yourself visible on social media. Even if this implies some graphic design activities or video production to steal your potential customers’ attention. Here’s a video production <a href="https://clipchamp.com/en/video-editor/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">tool</a> you can check it out. Social media management is as important as writing optimized pieces of content when it comes to building your brand. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='33' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Community & Relations</h3>   When I think of content marketing, a line from the movie Jerry Maguire comes to mind – Help me, help you!   We’ve seen common outreach methods of content marketing like guest blogging being abused in the past, because people misunderstood the idea behind it. <blockquote> Generating links through content marketing is not about trying to beg for them, it’s about creating relationships with other businesses and people that reside in the online medium. </blockquote>   You can no longer strive for the number one spot in Google’s eyes if you can’t create new pals that are willing to talk about you and share your content or vice versa.   <blockquote> “Link begging” your way out of a situation will do you more harm than good so we don’t recommend that. </blockquote>   There’s one way out of it and that’s creating content that others might find interesting enough to share it with their audience. Organic Links are a “hard to get” commodity these days and you’ll be happy to find and keep connections with influencers that like and distribute the content that you create.   In order to help yourself, you need to attend to the needs and interests of others first!   <blockquote> When you can’t create engaging content on your side of the street, try going to the place where the discussion is currently happening. </blockquote>   It may sound like a cheesy tactic but I assure you it’s not a laughing matter. You may include comments in your content marketing strategy as you can generate links and help the community at the same time, in real time.   Comments are a great way to:   <ul> <li>create meaningful content</li> <li>connect and engage with your target audience</li> <li>create links pointing to your site in a natural manner.</li> </ul>   Comments can prove to be a blade with two edges and you need to treat it with care.   Try and find the most important forums in your niche and where the discussions are taking place. Look at what people are asking and what questions they have. As long as you stay on topic and your comments are not only meant for link building, then you won’t have nothing to worry about.   Above are just a few content distribution ideas. For even more ideas for amplification, <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/13363/content-amplification/">check out this article</a>. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='4' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Constant Content Update</h2>   What if I were to tell you there’s another way, besides tapping into that creative juice barrel?   Nobody expects you to create original and engaging content all the time.   You just can’t create quality content on an assembly line and everybody knows that, and no, you shouldn’t resort to gimmick techniques to win your target audience’s attention.   <blockquote> What you can do is to recycle outdated content that may still be of interest to your target audience. </blockquote>   Some content has been geniously created in the past and widely distributed, but that doesn’t mean you cannot use that already developed interest to your advantage.   Those infographics that were widely distributed and shared, which created a lot of discussions over the internet can be refurbished using the same layout and the same structure but with fresher and more relevant data.   <blockquote> You can also improve old content by adding more information and thus more value for the viewer. </blockquote>   While this might be appealing for those looking for a shortcut method of generating content, it should be part of a balanced diet. It seems easily exploitable, but if done improperly, you might end up feeding your site with low quality content.   We’ve done an interested experiment some time ago: We’ve updated 40 blog posts with fresh, updated information. The result? 70% SEO visibility increase. So, it could be a tactic that could work for you to. You can <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/16542/improve-website-rankings/">check out the case study here</a>. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='5' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Content Analytics Reporting</h2>   You know the saying. No job is done until the paperwork is done. In our case, not literally paper, but reporting the results. This is an equally important part of the content marketing services list.   So, you’ve created a content marketing strategy; you’ve written awesome content or updated the existing one, you’ve highly distributed.   Now, what’s to do?   Check out the result!   But what should you check?   Measuring content marketing and SEO efforts is often easier said than done. Yet, here are some metrics you should definitely look at. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='51' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Organic Search Traffic</h3>   Organic search traffic refers to website visits that originated from search engine results and not through ads. Organic search traffic is a highly effective indicator of overall success. When a website’s content includes keywords that frequently match what users are searching for, that website is likely to appear in a larger number of search engine results pages (SERPs) than competing websites.   Using <a href="https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Google Analytics</a>, open the Acquisition menu. From there, select All Traffic, then select Channels.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-15523 lazy-loaded" src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/google-analytics.png" sizes="(max-width: 412px) 100vw, 412px" srcset="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/google-analytics.png 412w, https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/google-analytics-149x300.png 149w" alt="google analytics" width="412" height="827" data-lazy-type="image" data-src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/google-analytics.png" data-srcset="" />   You’ll now be presented with a view of a website’s sources of traffic, which are sorted by channel. Select the Organic Search channel for a useful report that displays a site’s organic traffic stats.   This report is a versatile one. It gives SEO practitioners the ability to uncover critical information such as:   <ul> <li>Which landing pages are the most effective at attracting traffic</li> <li>Which keywords are delivering the highest amounts of traffic</li> <li>Which of the search engines are directing the highest amount of organic traffic to a website</li> <li>What pages are frequently the biggest exit pages (or the last page a visitor views before leaving the website)</li> <li>And many other vital stats</li> </ul> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='52' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Keyword Rankings</h3>   Keyword Ranking is how well or how poorly your content ranks in SERPs for a given search term.   Google analytics isn’t as helpful as some SEO practitioners would like it to be as far as tracking keyword rankings. Its keyword tab (within the campaign tab) often displays the phrase “not provided.”   Instead of Google analytics, consider the <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/ranktracker/">rank tracker provided by cognitiveSEO</a>. One of its advantages is that it allows you to track keywords at a universal level as well as at a local level. It also allows you to analyze the keyword performance of competitors.   So, add your keywords you created content for within the Rank Tracker and constantly check out the evolution.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-24649" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/rank-tracking-1024x516.png" alt="rank tracking" width="1024" height="516" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/rank-tracking-1024x516.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/rank-tracking-300x151.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/rank-tracking-768x387.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/rank-tracking.png 1448w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='53' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Social Shares</h3>   Social shares can be defined simply as the sharing of your content by social media users. While it’s generally thought that Google does not take social signals and shares into consideration when ranking SERP results, social shares are still very important to your SEO efforts.   Tracking your social shares is beneficial because of the important impact social media plays in content marketing strategies. As more people share your content with their followers, the higher the chances that more people will view it and ultimately migrate over to your website. More visits to your website means a boost in organic search ranking. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='54' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Backlink Volume</h3>   Useful for measuring the authority and popularity of your website, <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/13937/assess-backlink-quality/">backlinks</a> (often referred to as inbound links) are links to your website that originate from someone else’s website. Backlinks to your site can also originate from other pages on your own site.   Measuring this performance indicator will go a long way in helping you rank higher. By tracking it, you’ll always know where you stand with what some in the SEO industry view as the most important ranking factor used by Google. When you know whether you’re succeeding with your backlinks, you know how much you need to improve by.   Using Google Analytics, open the Acquisition menu. From there, select All Traffic, then select Referrals. You can now look at your referral traffic, which is Google’s way of saying “backlinks.”   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-15530 lazy-loaded" src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/referrals-googla-analytics.png" sizes="(max-width: 342px) 100vw, 342px" srcset="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/referrals-googla-analytics.png 342w, https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/referrals-googla-analytics-126x300.png 126w" alt="referrals googla analytics" width="342" height="814" data-lazy-type="image" data-src="https://cdn.cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/referrals-googla-analytics.png" data-srcset="" />   Also, for a <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/backlinkanalysis/">comprehensive backlink analysis tool</a>, cognitiveSEO aggregates backlink data from trusted link databases and analyzes the links on demand for each of their clients.     I know, there are a lot of information from the digital marketing area to deal with. But even if you’re one the one who’ll be implementing all the content marketing services above, even if you’re hiring marketing agencys, it’s important to know what’s all about.   If you or your marketing team are out of breath after reading this post (or worse yet, discouraged,) don’t be overwhelmed! Take heart, force a smile, and accept the fact that victory never comes easy. I know, lots of things are involved: technical SEO, marketing budget, web design, content calendars or advertising costs. But it does pay off in the attempt of building brand that is strong and competitive.   Success and competitiveness are for those who are willing to work harder and get their hands dirtier. The bottom line here is that you can do this, and it will be worth it. The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/24549/content-marketing-services/">Content Marketing Services | The Complete List for a Successful Digital Strategy</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.
40 Rarely Used SEO Techniques That Will Double Your Traffic & AI Citations

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 09:35:59 -0000

This article provides a comprehensive roadmap of 40 advanced SEO techniques designed to exponentially increase organic traffic and improve search engine visibility. Key strategies include leveraging Wikipedia link rot for authoritative broken link building, utilizing semantic synonyms to capture broader search intent, and benchmarking competitor link profiles to identify high-value opportunities. The guide emphasizes the […] The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/10830/seo-techniques-double-traffic/">40 Rarely Used SEO Techniques That Will Double Your Traffic & AI Citations</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.

This article provides a comprehensive roadmap of 40 advanced SEO techniques designed to exponentially increase organic traffic and improve search engine visibility. Key strategies include leveraging Wikipedia link rot for authoritative broken link building, utilizing semantic synonyms to capture broader search intent, and benchmarking competitor link profiles to identify high-value opportunities. The guide emphasizes the integration of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) through structured data and content curation, while highlighting the importance of E-E-A-T signals like expert roundups and original research.   The primary benefits of these methods include significantly higher click-through rates, improved domain authority, and increased citation potential by both traditional search algorithms and generative AI models. This resource serves as an essential toolkit for digital marketers seeking to move beyond basic SEO and dominate competitive search landscapes in 2026 and beyond. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-24925 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/top-SEO-techniques-1024x537.png" alt="top SEO techniques" width="1024" height="537" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/top-SEO-techniques-1024x537.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/top-SEO-techniques-300x157.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/top-SEO-techniques-768x403.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/top-SEO-techniques.png 1424w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   <h2>The Comprehensive List of Advanced SEO & AEO Strategies for 2026</h2>   <ol> <li><a href="#wikipedia_link_rot_a_goldmine_for_broken_link_building">Wikipedia Link Rot – A Secret Goldmine for Broken Link Building</a></li> <li><a href="#222">The Overlooked Traffic Technique: Harvesting Unlinked Mentions</a></li> <li><a href="#boost_your_traffic_using_the_syonyms_ranking_technique">Boost Your Traffic Using the Synonyms Ranking Technique</a></li> <li><a href="#benchmark_your_competiors_broken_links">Benchmark Your Competitors’ Broken Links</a></li> <li><a href="#use_the_adwords_campaigns_to_inspire_your_keyword_usage">Use the Adwords Campaigns to Inspire Your Keyword Usage</a></li> <li><a href="#use_content_curation_to_create_indepth_articles_that_engage">Use Content Curation to Create In-depth Articles that Engage</a></li> <li><a href="#get_ahead_of_the_game_by_diversifying_your_link_profile">Get Ahead of the Game by Diversifying Your Link Profile</a></li> <li><a href="#diversify_your_rankings_with_youtube_descriptions">Diversify Your Rankings with Youtube Descriptions</a></li> <li><a href="#engage_extra_audience_and_gain_traffic_with_the_skyscraper_technique">Engage Extra Audience and Gain Traffic with the Skyscraper Technique</a></li> <li><a href="#use_long_tail_keywords_to_target_specific_audiences">Use Long Tail Keywords to Target Specific Audiences</a></li> <li><a href="#get_keyword_ideas_from_wikipedia">Get Keyword Ideas from Wikipedia</a></li> <li><a href="#publish_information_rich_cotent">Publish Information-rich Content</a></li> <li><a href="#use_internal_links_to_spread_your_page_authority_sitewide">Use Internal Links to Spread Your Page Authority Sitewide</a></li> <li><a href="#turn_evergreen_content_into_a_constant_traffic_source">Turn Evergreen Content into a Constant Traffic Source</a></li> <li><a href="#rank_better_in_search_engines_by_creating_your_own_keywords">Rank Better in Search Engines by Creating Your Own Keywords</a></li> <li><a href="#create_an_expert_roundup_to_generate_awareness_about_your_blog">Create an Expert Roundup to Generate Awareness about Your Blog</a></li> <li><a href="#keep_track_of_competitors_strategies_with_indepth_link_audits">Keep Track of Your Competitors’ Strategies with In-Depth Link Audits</a></li> <li><a href="#improve_conversion_rates_optimize_your_landing_pages">Improve Conversion Rates – Optimize Your Landing Pages</a></li> <li><a href="#create_a_mobile_friendly_site_to_increase_rankings">Create a Mobile Friendly Site to Increase Your Rankings</a></li> <li><a href="#use_infographics_to_increase_visibility">Use Infographics to Increase Visibility</a></li> <li><a href="#build_a_robust_profile_on_authoritative_social_media_platforms_to_boost_rankings">Build a Robust Profile on Authoritative Social Media Platforms to Boost Rankings</a></li> <li><a href="#help_your_page_authority_and_indexing_with_internal_deep_links">Help Your Page Indexing with Internal Deep Links</a></li> <li><a href="#get_more_traffic_by_updating_old_content_and_sharing_it_on_social_media">Get More Traffic by Updating Old Content and Sharing It on Social Media</a></li> <li><a href="#try_guest_blogging_to_increase_exposure_and_consolidate_your_brand">Try Guest Blogging to Increase Exposure and Consolidate Your Brand</a></li> <li><a href="#optimize_your_website_fot_better_page_indexing">Optimize Your Website for Better Page Indexing</a></li> <li><a href="#be_creative_in_your_outreach_and_link_building_strategy">Be Creative In Your Outreach and Link Building Strategy</a></li> <li><a href="#use_influencer_marketing_to_frame_your_content_marketing_statements">Use Influencer Marketing to Frame Your Content Marketing Statements</a></li> <li><a href="#associate_photos_with_your_brand_by_asking_websites_to_give_image_credits">Associate Photos with Your Brand by Asking Websites to Give Image Credits</a></li> <li><a href="#engage_with_influencers_who_recently_mentioned_you_on_the_web">Engage with Influencers Who Recently Mentioned You on the Web</a></li> <li><a href="#use_comment_marketing_to_generate_leads">Use Comment Marketing to Generate Leads</a></li> <li><a href="#improve_brand_management_use_press_releases_when_youve_got_something_big_going_on">Improve Brand Management – Use Press Releases When You’ve Got Something Big Going On</a></li> <li><a href="#target_one_keyword_per_page_to_avoid_cannibalization">Target One Keyword Per Page to Avoid Cannibalization</a></li> <li><a href="#make_multimedia_part_of_your_content_and_increase_engagement">Make Multimedia Part of Your Content and Increase Engagement</a></li> <li><a href="#link_out_use_appeal_to_authority_to_back_your_statements_gain_credibility_boost">Link Out – Use Appeal to Authority to Back Your Statements & Gain Credibility Boost</a></li> <li><a href="#create_tabels_of_contents_to_improve_user_experience">Create Tables of Contents to Improve User Experience</a></li> <li><a href="#use_heatmap_tracking_to_optimize_your_call_to_actions_display">Use Heatmap Tracking to Optimize Your Call to Actions Display</a></li> <li><a href="#minimize_bounce_rate_with_friendly_404_pages">Minimize Bounce Rate with Friendly 404 Pages</a></li> <li><a href="#rank_better_get_rid_of_the_unnatural_links_prevent_negative_seo_attacks">Rank Better – Get Rid of the Unnatural Links & Prevent Negative SEO Attacks</a></li> <li id="wikipedia_link_rot_a_goldmine_for_broken_link_building"><a href="#show_social_proof_of_your_popularity">Show Social Proof of Your Popularity</a></li> <li><a href="#use_diacritics_to_perform_to_a_specific_level_in_terms_of_serps">Use Diacritics to Perform to a Specific Level in Terms of SERPs</a></li> </ol> <h3>1. Wikipedia Link Rot – A Secret Goldmine for Broken Link Building</h3> Not having a lucrative profile makes Wikipedia one of web’s most trusted sources when it comes to delivering impartial, objective information to its readers. Getting a link from it sparks the interest of anyone, since it’s authority is sky high. That is why promoting yourself through its means isn’t an easy job.   There is, however, one way of associating yourself or your brand with Wiki – and that’s spotting opportunities of link building from broken sources on their articles. Finding the broken links isn’t hard to do, as they have a dedicated <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:All_articles_with_dead_external_links" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">page</a> for it.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10840" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wikipedia-Broken-Link-Building-Technique.jpg" alt="Wikipedia Broken Link Building Technique" width="850" height="781" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wikipedia-Broken-Link-Building-Technique.jpg 1000w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wikipedia-Broken-Link-Building-Technique-300x276.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px" />   After finding the links that used to serve as sources for the Wikipedia articles that interest your professional area, it’s not enough to just write something sloppy hoping you’ll get to replace the initial source. The editors, who are dedicated to providing the most qualitative information there is, will do anything to make sure that the article you’ve written is at least as good as the previous one.   Now the question remains, how can you see the content of a dead link/broken page? The <a href="https://archive.org/web/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Wayback Machine</a> is the solution to your problem here. Inserting the URL of the former Wikipedia source, you’ll be able to browse through that link’s history and see what it once used to look like. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10841" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wikipedia-Broken-Link-Example-Original-Content.jpg" alt="Wikipedia Broken Link Example Original Content" width="850" height="752" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wikipedia-Broken-Link-Example-Original-Content.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wikipedia-Broken-Link-Example-Original-Content-300x265.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px" />   Now you’ve got a sense of what the encyclopedia editors believe is a solid piece of content that’s worth being mentioned as a source to their articles – and this has got to count for something. All that remains for you to do is to actually replicate a dedicated page on your website on that specific topic and make sure that’s more thorough and useful to the reader. Then submit it and wait. <a id="222"></a> While the answer rate isn’t quite 100%, it can get <a href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/8825/wikipedia-broken-link-building/">up to 50%</a> and, if you’ve done the documentation right (and if your website doesn’t scream out ‘spam’) you have a good chance of being approved.   <h3>2. The Overlooked Traffic Technique: Harvesting Unlinked Mentions</h3> Many marketers try to increase website traffic by publishing more content, optimizing pages, or building new campaigns. While these strategies are important, one of the fastest ways to generate qualified traffic and improve search visibility is often overlooked: unlinked brand mentions. Every day, customers, bloggers, journalists, creators, and industry experts mention brands, products, and services across websites, forums, news publications, podcasts, and social media platforms. However, many of these mentions do not include a link back to the company’s website. These unlinked brand mentions represent valuable opportunities for both SEO and referral traffic generation. When a publisher adds a link to an existing mention, businesses can gain: <ul data-start="998" data-end="1251"> <li data-section-id="1y9vqgb" data-start="998" data-end="1045">More referral traffic from relevant audiences</li> <li data-section-id="v7dgtb" data-start="1046" data-end="1105">Higher-quality backlinks that strengthen domain authority</li> <li data-section-id="1bgc0yi" data-start="1106" data-end="1146">Increased visibility in search engines</li> <li data-section-id="ndp1d8" data-start="1147" data-end="1186">Stronger brand signals across the web</li> <li data-section-id="9uev4d" data-start="1187" data-end="1251">Better discoverability by AI-powered search and answer engines</li> </ul> To identify these opportunities at scale, businesses need real-time brand monitoring. This is why top growth marketers rely on BrandMentions. <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-24895" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/BM-Dashboard-1024x577.png" alt="BrandMentions Dashboard" width="1024" height="577" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/BM-Dashboard-1024x577.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/BM-Dashboard-300x169.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/BM-Dashboard-768x432.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/BM-Dashboard.png 1213w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> Engineered as an advanced AI visibility tool, BrandMentions continuously crawls the internet in real-time to find every instance where your business is discussed. Its advanced monitoring technology tracks mentions across news sites, blogs, forums, reviews, and social media channels, helping businesses uncover conversations that would otherwise go unnoticed. <blockquote> Unlike traditional alert tools that often generate large amounts of irrelevant data, BrandMentions uses AI-driven analysis to surface the most relevant and contextual brand mentions. This enables marketing teams, SEO professionals, and digital PR specialists to focus on high-value opportunities instead of manually filtering noise. </blockquote> By identifying unlinked mentions as they happen, businesses can quickly contact publishers and request a backlink to the original source. This simple outreach strategy can increase referral traffic, improve backlink profiles, strengthen organic search performance, and enhance overall online visibility. For organizations looking to improve both search engine rankings and AI search presence, monitoring and reclaiming brand mentions remains one of the most effective and scalable link-building tactics available today. <a id="boost_your_traffic_using_the_syonyms_ranking_technique"></a> <h3>3. Boost Your Traffic Using the Synonyms Ranking Technique</h3>   The wording of your search query matters a great deal when it comes to the returned results. This is because, since Hummingbird (Google update algorithms), we know for sure the search engine is trying its best to contextualize semantic meaning in order to understand the intention behind the search query. Moreover, introducing conversational search, Google aims to provide answers that are to-the-point and accurate.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10842" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/And-SEO-Expert-Walks-Into-a-Bar.jpg" alt="An SEO Expert Walks Into a Bar" width="800" height="446" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/And-SEO-Expert-Walks-Into-a-Bar.jpg 800w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/And-SEO-Expert-Walks-Into-a-Bar-300x167.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   However, the explanation for this phenomenon is as it follows: whenever I search for a term, the search engine will understand that there’s a need behind my search query and will try to answer to that instead of the textual wording. Partial synonyms work great as well.   For instance, if I’m searching for the term ‘SEO consultant’, among the first results on the first page will be ‘SEO expert’, ‘SEO services’, ‘SEO company‘, as the meaning behind the wording doesn’t differ that much.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10843" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/SEO-Consultant-SEO-Expert-Synonym.jpg" alt="SEO Consultant SEO Expert Synonym" width="800" height="520" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/SEO-Consultant-SEO-Expert-Synonym.jpg 1617w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/SEO-Consultant-SEO-Expert-Synonym-300x195.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/SEO-Consultant-SEO-Expert-Synonym-1024x666.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> <a id="benchmark_your_competiors_broken_links"></a> And although we risk being a little redundant as to what a synonym is, in this case it doesn’t necessarily refer to the lexical identical meanings we were taught in school, but rather a contextual, broader meaning. Many times, the synonym will be an association that we make, a logical path that we follow in our thought processes, hence the differences in meaning from our screenshot above.   <h3>4. Benchmark Your Competitors’ Broken Links</h3>   Even the most popular and authoritative sources on the web have to constantly deal with the issue of broken links. While redirecting or repairing them is a solution when you’re the admin of the site, there are other perspectives of this issue as well.   From a competitive point of view, if one of your competitors has broken links with a large number of link juice coming from many referring domains, there’s no reason why you wouldn’t turn this in your favor.   After finding the number of broken links, you can export the links to see which one best suited the style of your own website. Of course, there are a few very tempting moments when you are willing to replicate the content of whichever page that used to have 100 k links and 5 k referring domains. However, the challenge is to create something even better, more in-depth, but equally relevant. After saving the broken pages that are most linked to, you can run a separate analysis with the Site Explorer to check the backlinks of each URL that you’re interested in. Our <a href="http://explorer.cognitiveseo.com/">Site Explorer</a> runs a quick backlink analysis, showing you a number of relevant stats on the page that interests you. One of its features is that allows you to have a clear picture of who linked to the specific content. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10844" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Identify-Broken-Links-cognitiveSEO-Site-Explorer.png" alt="Identify Broken Links - cognitiveSEO Site Explorer" width="800" height="447" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Identify-Broken-Links-cognitiveSEO-Site-Explorer.png 1655w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Identify-Broken-Links-cognitiveSEO-Site-Explorer-300x167.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Identify-Broken-Links-cognitiveSEO-Site-Explorer-1024x572.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> This way, you can transform the badly managed situation of your competitor’s into an advantage. <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10845" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Site-Explorer-Export-Links-from-URL-Analysis.png" alt="Site Explorer - Export Links from URL Analysis" width="820" height="712" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Site-Explorer-Export-Links-from-URL-Analysis.png 820w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Site-Explorer-Export-Links-from-URL-Analysis-300x260.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /> As it generally happens in digital marketing, content comes first. Make sure its quality is indisputably better than the former one. Then, you can contact the webpage’s owners to let them know they may be interested to replace a broken link with something of value that you’ve written.   To have a better idea of what quality looks like for the owners of the pages linking to the content of your competitor, you can use the Wayback Machine to access the page as it used to be when it was live. <blockquote> After you’ve pictured a clear image of how the former content looked like, it’s time you started working on something even better – significantly better, to increase the chances of getting links from authority sources. Then, you can email them about the broken links and suggest your newly created piece of content to replace the initial one. </blockquote>   While some of the admins will be reluctant at first and will believe you’re only in for the links, the better you document the article and the more information-rich it is, the bigger the chances to get a good link.   <h3>5. Use the Adwords Campaigns to Inspire Your Keyword Usage</h3>   Because Keyword Planner doesn’t always suggest the most innovative keywords, it’s always best to look over the fence and see how people in your industry promote their products and/or services. It’s clear that, while they’re paying for them, the keywords are very relevant for the targets, so all you have to do is get a fresh perspective on what seems to perform best on the SERPs. <blockquote> If you remember the semantic associations and the synonym using discussion earlier, the reason why these long tail keywords seem to work although they’re not necessarily very to the point is that people often search for solutions. </blockquote> It’s enough to identify the concept behind a search query to associate with anything semantically related to it. And, if you’re out of ideas, the AdWords campaigns are always there to give you a hand. For instance, supposing you own a cat food blog, just type ‘cat food’ into Google and you’ll find these results: <ul> <li>cat food analysis</li> <li>optimize cat food production</li> <li>get free food</li> <li>find a neighborhood food pantry</li> </ul> <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10846" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Cat-Food-USe-AdWords-Campaign-to-Identify-Keywords.png" alt="Cat Food - Use AdWords Campaign to Identify Keywords" width="800" height="712" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Cat-Food-USe-AdWords-Campaign-to-Identify-Keywords.png 997w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Cat-Food-USe-AdWords-Campaign-to-Identify-Keywords-300x267.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> <a id="use_content_curation_to_create_indepth_articles_that_engage"></a>   All you have to do now is incorporate these newly found long tail keywords in your further blog posts on your website. Needless to say, this SEO tip is only complementary, so it’s probably best not to rely on just this method for your SEO endeavors.   <h3>6. Use Content Curation to Create In-depth Articles that Engage</h3>   Before any other discussion, publishing duplicate content brings little or no value to readers, which is why it’s not only Matt Cutts who find it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi-wkEeOKxM&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">useless</a>, but also the search engine and any publisher who is preoccupied of creating something better for the readers’ needs. Curating content starts from a huge challenge – writing rich information without oversimplifying the facts. Give your audience credit, while at the same time offering systematized information that’s really easy to access and actionable. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10902" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Curate-Content-Psychology-Studies.png" alt="Curate-Content-Psychology-Studies" width="800" height="281" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Curate-Content-Psychology-Studies.png 966w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Curate-Content-Psychology-Studies-300x105.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10901" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Curate-Content-Psychology-Studies-Visual2.png" alt="Curate-Content-Psychology-Studies-Visual2" width="818" height="642" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Curate-Content-Psychology-Studies-Visual2.png 818w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Curate-Content-Psychology-Studies-Visual2-300x235.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 818px) 100vw, 818px" /> There are different ways in which you can curate content. The best way is to elevate the content that currently exists on the web on that specific topic. You can find the best sources with the most documented examples and, before writing about them all in an organized manner, maybe running an analysis of your own would be a great idea. <a id="get_ahead_of_the_game_by_diversifying_your_link_profile"></a> <blockquote> What’s most important in content curation is to try and transform the content you’re approaching as opposed to just imitating it. </blockquote> <h3>7. Get Ahead of the Game by Diversifying Your Link Profile</h3>   Making constant efforts to be memorable in your industry may have got you good quality links from a few trusted sources. However, while it’s not recommended to center your SEO efforts around the search engines but around being useful to the reader, there’s a catch.   The more diverse the (preferably deep) links pointing to your content, the more the search engine will be inclined to believe you’re making efforts to keep a natural profile of your website.   A huge volume of links means nothing compared to a robust link profile coming from authority sources and – when possible – a diverse profile. While it’s perfectly fine to have a majority of links coming just from one webpage type, it’s also recommended that it’s not the only source of your backlinks. Your strategy can focus on getting links from just one source, but exclusiveness is a sign of an unnatural profile. The example below shows a well implemented natural strategy. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10925" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Webpage-Type-Diversify-Your-Link-Profile1.png" alt="Webpage Type - Diversify Your Link Profile" width="900" height="220" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Webpage-Type-Diversify-Your-Link-Profile1.png 1606w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Webpage-Type-Diversify-Your-Link-Profile1-300x73.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Webpage-Type-Diversify-Your-Link-Profile1-1024x251.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" />   However, diversifying your link profile shows adaptability, especially if it follows a specific strategy and isn’t randomly done.<a id="diversify_your_rankings_with_youtube_descriptions"></a>   <h3>8. Diversify Your Rankings with Youtube Descriptions</h3>   It’s a fact that Youtube videos come up in search results on the first page very often. And the video mammoth isn’t going to lose any of its popularity and influence any time soon, which gets me to the following point – why not turn this fact into your little advantage?   Video content gets a lot of popularity – and so can you. Ranking for keywords when it comes to it isn’t that much of a chore as it seems. Whenever uploading a new tutorial you can update the description of its content, which has a significant contribution to your ranking success. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10848" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Youtube-Description-Ranking-for-Keywords-with-Video-Content.png" alt="Youtube Description - Ranking for Keywords with Video Content" width="800" height="580" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Youtube-Description-Ranking-for-Keywords-with-Video-Content.png 867w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Youtube-Description-Ranking-for-Keywords-with-Video-Content-300x218.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   Shortly after the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfXH6WPUkKc" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">video</a> was published, with under 6 k views, Brian Dean ranked 4th under the ‘link building’ Youtube search. You may think that 4th isn’t such a great performance, but given how mature the SEO niche is and how fierce the competition, this little SEO tip got him very far with small resources and investment. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10849" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Brian-Dean-Ranking-4th-in-Youtube-for-the-Keyword-Link-Building.png" alt="Brian Dean - Ranking 4th in Youtube for the Keyword Link Building" width="800" height="595" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Brian-Dean-Ranking-4th-in-Youtube-for-the-Keyword-Link-Building.png 1168w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Brian-Dean-Ranking-4th-in-Youtube-for-the-Keyword-Link-Building-300x223.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Brian-Dean-Ranking-4th-in-Youtube-for-the-Keyword-Link-Building-1024x761.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> Aside from being popular on Youtube, assuming that the generic SEO efforts of people in this niche don’t necessarily focus on videos, a well described Youtube post can get you to appear on the first page of Google results. You can’t expect this to work instantly, it’s a process – but the investment-result ratio states this strategy is a gold mine. <a id="engage_extra_audience_and_gain_traffic_with_the_skyscraper_technique"></a>   <h3>9. Engage Extra Audience and Gain Traffic with the Skyscraper Technique</h3>   Let me clarify a misconception. People often correlate the ranking of a website with its content efforts, believing that what’s on the second page of Google results may as well be a top secret confession – because nobody gets to read it anyway. The skyscraper technique is about creating a piece of content that’s not only better than any other one on the topic, but than all of the articles indexed on the web put together. Chances are, treated correctly and updated constantly, this will be an evergreen goldmine. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10904" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Identify-Competitors-Evergreen-Content-Skyscraper-Technique.png" alt="Identify-Competitors-Evergreen-Content - Skyscraper Technique" width="800" height="444" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Identify-Competitors-Evergreen-Content-Skyscraper-Technique.png 1585w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Identify-Competitors-Evergreen-Content-Skyscraper-Technique-300x167.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Identify-Competitors-Evergreen-Content-Skyscraper-Technique-1024x569.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   While in terms of ranking it’s true – the websites getting over 99% of the popularity are the ones on the first page, the second part of the statement is hugely mistaken. Being on the second page of Google results doesn’t say ‘I don’t care and I have crappy content and little to say to the world’; it says ‘I’m desperately trying to get to the first page and I’m doing all the effort that I can to achieve this, regardless of the very competitive industry’.   You can exploit this situation from an SEO perspective – find the best content out there, make the arithmetic average of the opinions on a topic and create the most complete article there is. This technique, copyright Brian Dean, the owner of <a href="http://backlinko.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Backlinko</a>, works every time if you don’t just skim through content and actually research it thoroughly. <a id="use_long_tail_keywords_to_target_specific_audiences"></a>   <h3>10. Use Long Tail Keywords to Target Specific Audiences</h3>   Quick concept. A lexical construction containing three or four words addressing a specific topic is what we call a long tail keyword. We call it so because of the traffic graphic. Contrary to popular belief, most of the traffic doesn’t come from the <a href="http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">very generic keyword</a> representing a brand or a topic – it comes from small parts composed of more specific keyword groups containing the brand or topic keyword. <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10905" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Use-Long-Tail-Keywords-in-Your-Subtitles.png" alt="Use-Long-Tail-Keywords-in-Your-Subtitles" width="579" height="259" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Use-Long-Tail-Keywords-in-Your-Subtitles.png 579w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Use-Long-Tail-Keywords-in-Your-Subtitles-300x134.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 579px) 100vw, 579px" />   This means one thing, above all else – that your content efforts (as well as your link building ones) should be diverse and address more than just the generic audience. Generally, ‘breaking’ the traffic into smaller pieces of content for audiences interested in specific sub-topics will give us a better chance of ranking higher, due to the distinct interests of all the personas we’re targeting. <h3>11. Get Keyword Ideas from Wikipedia</h3>   When it comes to finding anything on the web, however specific, Wikipedia is the place to go to get a first impression on a topic. Let’s face it – it’s one of the most comprehensive content sources there are, and the result of a collaborative effort of keeping it objective and relevant. It almost sounds like there’s no better place to look for new keywords, doesn’t it? <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10850" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wikipedia-Search-Page.png" alt="Wikipedia Search Page" width="800" height="445" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wikipedia-Search-Page.png 1643w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wikipedia-Search-Page-300x167.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wikipedia-Search-Page-1024x569.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   The reason why you may find it very useful is that being information-centric instead of keyword-centric allows the articles to be written in a very natural manner, thus providing you with fresh keywords with organic relevance on the topic that you’re researching. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10851" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wikipedia-Find-Keyword-Ideas.png" alt="Wikipedia - Find Keyword Ideas" width="800" height="449" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wikipedia-Find-Keyword-Ideas.png 1658w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wikipedia-Find-Keyword-Ideas-300x168.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wikipedia-Find-Keyword-Ideas-1024x575.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   It’s the style that doesn’t seem to abide to the rules of content writing as we apply them today that makes Wikipedia a hot source to freshen your perspective on the words and concepts you should start using more in your articles. <a id="publish_information_rich_cotent"></a>   <h3>12. Publish Information-rich Content</h3>   There is more than just one criterion to take into consideration before outlining your content marketing strategy. One of the points that we have always found crucial is deciding the amount of information that’s specific enough to be relevant and concise enough to be readable. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10906" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Site-Explorer-cognitiveSEO-SEO-Visibility1.png" alt="Site-Explorer-cognitiveSEO-SEO-Visibility" width="800" height="400" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Site-Explorer-cognitiveSEO-SEO-Visibility1.png 1643w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Site-Explorer-cognitiveSEO-SEO-Visibility1-300x150.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Site-Explorer-cognitiveSEO-SEO-Visibility1-1024x512.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> It’s not enough to think of content as a complex of information that has to be read in a specific number of minutes. Instead, here are some valid criteria that make a good article:   <ul> <li>the purpose of the content – depending on the informational need that it satisfies, content will have to take various shapes. Something news-related, for instance, can be easily treated in a short article, while a case study will aim at painting an in-depth picture of an entire situation with its consequences;</li> <li>the complexity of the topic – it wouldn’t be fair to approach something very knowledge-specific in a 1k words article, because it wouldn’t be relevant enough and it would fail to provide all the necessary explanations;</li> <li>how savvy your primary audience is – tech-oriented, knowledgeable people won’t need an entire novel to get the idea of a specific strategy you’re proposing, for instance, while beginners in a niche will always make good use of all the explanations you’re willing to give;</li> <li>the content depth – it seems like all we read is how everything has to be in-depth in order to have a legitimate audience. In fact, this isn’t always necessary – depending on the type of audience, the media that enhance the communication process etc. content can be to the subject and concise. However, in case you’ve decided to write something substantial with a sensitive acuity and only addressed to a specific niche, you shouldn’t be expeditious and superficial.</li> </ul>   While these are all valid criteria we should take into account before writing a piece of content, it’s also true that – especially on a blog – any article of under 1500 words will be considered as too thin for the search engines and specialized audiences, excepting the once-a-year, news-related articles that sometimes can be summarized well in 800 words. <a id="use_internal_links_to_spread_your_page_authority_sitewide"></a>   <h3>13.Use Internal Links to Spread Your Page Authority Sitewide</h3>   One of the lessons we all learned when entering the content marketing industry was that internal links can also be a great asset for our site. And although this is true, it’s also essential to understand the process through which we can transform them into an instrument that helps building a hierarchy into our website architecture. Additionally, you will have to keep an eye on the performance of every page of your website, in case strategy changes are required. For instance, if one page performs better than you expected, you may want to take into consideration boosting it through meaningful deep internal links, as well, to give it a push in the ranks. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10912" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/search-data.jpg" alt="search-data" width="800" height="564" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/search-data.jpg 1225w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/search-data-300x211.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/search-data-1024x721.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> Anchor texts are one main character in this story, and the way we use them sometimes decides whether we’ve helped our on-page SEO or not. Let us be redundant yet again – it’s in Google’s best interest to deliver relevant results. Tricking the search engines is something that not only seems to rarely work, but is short timed as well. This is why we’re going to suggest the no-tricks policy – use the anchor texts naturally to keep them relevant – just like you would if there were no Big Brother to establish your rankings.   The second main character in this complex internal linking story are the deep links. Usually, the more contextually you’re linking, the more relevant that internal link is. And it’s not only good for the search engine, but for the readers as well. Keeping the links natural gives the readers a positive, meaningful experience. Correlate the content to other relevant articles on the topic or – when necessary – on a closely complementary topic that completes a perspective. <a id="turn_evergreen_content_into_a_constant_traffic_source"></a>   <h3>14. Turn Evergreen Content into a Constant Traffic Source</h3>   Without doubt, there are endless types of <a href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/9578/evergreen-content-types-boost-traffic/">content that doesn’t date</a>. Since investing in creating relevant, information-rich articles that satisfy the readers’ needs is something that always takes a lot of time and research, it’s unfair to see how after you’ve published it you’ll only get traffic from that specific blog post for a few hours. <blockquote> Content doesn’t have to be generic and superficial to be evergreen. And if so it happens that you create a piece of content that is, let assume, a retrospective for 2015, update it the following year and maintain your content’s relevance, while also generating information-rich articles. </blockquote> <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10852" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Evergreen-Content-Evolution.jpg" alt="Evergreen Content Evolution" width="800" height="359" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Evergreen-Content-Evolution.jpg 1004w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Evergreen-Content-Evolution-300x135.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   The secret of evergreen content is being constantly preoccupied to find something that will maintain its relevance for your audience in time. Once you did this, taking time to do serious documentation is crucial since otherwise the entire idea of creating something that stays actual loses its purpose. <a id="rank_better_in_search_engines_by_creating_your_own_keywords"></a>   <h3>15. Rank Better in Search Engines by Creating Your Own Keywords</h3>   Let’s see what happens when you’re dealing with a mature niche. Instead of being easy to rank for the most popular keywords in your industry, it’s actually a work of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Sisyphus</a> even trying to get to the (not first, not second) third page of Google results.   How come we’re so bold as to say this? It’s easy – you can replicate this theory of ours yourself. Find a mature industry that’s highly competitive and the acuity of content marketing has to be spotless to make it work. Then search for a keyword in that industry. Then go to the 3rd page of Google results and open a link randomly.   I know. Shocker. It’s not only very relevant to the subject, but it’s seriously documented and very well written as well. And why does this happen? Because people are dying to rank for very popular keywords. While this endeavor is something we very much agree with as a long term strategy, it’s always smart to rank for your own keywords. <blockquote> The example of Brian Dean is perhaps the most illustrative for this point. He invented the skyscraper technique as a means to create the best article based on what was already on the web on a certain topic, after thorough documentation. </blockquote> It’s distinct from content curation by the fact that it doesn’t aggregate the existing content but it uses it as a premise to create the most in-depth piece of content that brings more relevance than reading the first pages of Google results after a search query. <a href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Google-Search-for-the-Skyscraper-Technique.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-10853" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Google-Search-for-the-Skyscraper-Technique.png" alt="Google Search for the Skyscraper Technique" width="800" height="533" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Google-Search-for-the-Skyscraper-Technique.png 1396w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Google-Search-for-the-Skyscraper-Technique-300x200.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Google-Search-for-the-Skyscraper-Technique-1024x682.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></a>   As you can see in the screenshot above, he ranks best for the keyword he created and his name is associated with the technique, all in the first page of Google results. <a id="create_an_expert_roundup_to_generate_awareness_about_your_blog"></a>   <h3>16. Create an Expert Roundup to Generate Awareness about Your Blog</h3>   The web era is the context where influencers have a lot to say – and they always seem to trigger a high response rate. Gathering them in the same place can have extraordinary results. Think of it this way – you’re organizing an event, a concert for instance. If the headline is a great band, your chances of gathering more people at your event increase. However, if you make it a festival and you get together 7 bands as popular as the headline, you’ll have a lot more participants to your event.   Of course, they won’t be exactly 7 times more than the initial number of participants – because they have some common interests, which means that you can only add to the number of readers the ones that represent a specific difference between one expert and another. However, even in these conditions, the results can be spectacular.   The following <a href="http://www.smallbusinessideasblog.com/how-to-promote-your-blog" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">example</a> makes no exception. The article gathered over 40 experts to give their opinions on content marketing and it easily made over 8 k shares. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10854" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Expert-Round-Up-Social-Media-Visibility.png" alt="Expert Round Up - Social Media Visibility" width="800" height="671" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Expert-Round-Up-Social-Media-Visibility.png 1110w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Expert-Round-Up-Social-Media-Visibility-300x252.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Expert-Round-Up-Social-Media-Visibility-1024x859.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> It’s a win for the writer of the post, who triggered a large number of pageviews, while also getting to be a little more popular after contacting the experts through email outreach. And it’s also a win for the reader, whose interest is respected in this post – giving specific, concise and valuable information on how to grow your blog. <a id="keep_track_of_competitors_strategies_with_indepth_link_audits"></a>   <h3>17. Keep Track of Your Competitors’ Strategies with In-Depth Link Audits</h3>   Running a link audit is, in many aspects, like looking directly into the soul of your competitors’ marketing strategy. Interpreted correctly, this can help you figure out the generic idea behind their publishing efforts. <blockquote> Knowing if your competitor is mostly linked by blogs, forums or news sites is vital in understanding who they’re aiming at when publishing a new piece of content, and so is knowing the webpage category in figuring out what kind of industries are most interested in their articles. </blockquote> <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10855" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Most-Shared-Pages.png" alt="Most Shared Pages" width="800" height="301" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Most-Shared-Pages.png 1582w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Most-Shared-Pages-300x113.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Most-Shared-Pages-1024x385.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   If my competitor is successful and manages to engage a community as to constantly come back on the site and read their content, you can read their articles and then see what type of information or structure style is preferred by people who own a blog in the tech industry, for instance. Then you’ll know what to do to reach that exact audience and have a real chance to succeed. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10856" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Link-Audit-Identifying-Your-Competitors-Strategy.png" alt="Link Audit - Identifying Your Competitors' Strategy" width="800" height="411" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Link-Audit-Identifying-Your-Competitors-Strategy.png 1618w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Link-Audit-Identifying-Your-Competitors-Strategy-300x154.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Link-Audit-Identifying-Your-Competitors-Strategy-1024x527.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10857" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Link-Audit-Identify-Your-Competitors-Strategy.png" alt="Link Audit - Identify Your Competitors' Strategy" width="800" height="207" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Link-Audit-Identify-Your-Competitors-Strategy.png 1617w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Link-Audit-Identify-Your-Competitors-Strategy-300x78.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Link-Audit-Identify-Your-Competitors-Strategy-1024x265.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   Popularity is 99% sweat. High quality content alone doesn’t do miracles. However, exceptional planning skills do – and being Sherlock from time to time doesn’t kill either. Online visibility is much more than the number of shares your articles have – it’s everything from planning on addressing a certain audience to understanding their needs and their reaction to topics similar to yours. <a id="improve_conversion_rates_optimize_your_landing_pages"></a>   <h3>18. Improve Conversion Rates – Optimize Your Landing Pages</h3>   The difference between a prospect landing on your page and then leaving immediately and one who will engage on your website and spend time there often lies in the way your landing page is optimized.   One of our favorite examples is <a href="http://www.monotype.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Monotype</a>. To make their activity clear – and interactive, their fully text based landing page offers the possibility to both change the font of their copy and edit the text into anything.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10927" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Monotype-Landing-Page.png" alt="Monotype Landing Page" width="800" height="401" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Monotype-Landing-Page.png 1655w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Monotype-Landing-Page-300x150.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Monotype-Landing-Page-1024x513.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   There are many things to be said about landing pages. One of the first, by far, regards their number on your site. Although many small businesses fail to see how that’s relevant, landing pages are crucial in a functional marketing strategy that converts. It’s <a href="http://assets.ioninteractive.com/storage/content/infographics/ion_Infographic_LandingPagesWork.pdf" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">not a secret</a> that <a href="http://www.dell.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Dell</a> has well over 1000 landing pages that perform 300% better if tested against website pages, or that <a href="https://www.genworth.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Genworth</a> increased lead volume by 3000% and their digital-driven revenue by 350% by changing their landing page approach. Another interesting <a href="http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33756/Why-You-Yes-You-Need-to-Create-More-Landing-Pages.aspx" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">stat</a> that you may want to take into consideration is this one: Websites increasing the number of landing pages from 1-5 to 6-10 didn’t experience any major change. However, the ones increasing their number from 6-10 to 11-15 had 55% increase. <a id="create_a_mobile_friendly_site_to_increase_rankings"></a>   <h3>19. Create a Mobile Friendly Site to Increase Your Rankings</h3>   The same keyword or topic performs distinctly on web and mobile. The fact that mobile searches are dramatically growing in popularity because – let’s face it – desktops are less dynamic than smartphones, hence the growing preference for the latter category. <blockquote> While in theory this only means that we’ve got adaptive mechanisms that help us cope with the flooding amount of information we come across every day, for SEO professionals it also means something else. Mobile optimization is a key factor in ranking mobile, especially since <a href="https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/study/2208496/72-of-consumers-want-mobilefriendly-sites-google-research" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">72%</a> of the smartphone owners believe it’s more likely to visit a website again if it’s mobile friendly. </blockquote> <a href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Mobile-Friendly-Test-Googles-Verdict-on-Microsofts-Website.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-10858" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Mobile-Friendly-Test-Googles-Verdict-on-Microsofts-Website.png" alt="Mobile Friendly Test - Google's Verdict on Microsoft's Website" width="800" height="581" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Mobile-Friendly-Test-Googles-Verdict-on-Microsofts-Website.png 1266w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Mobile-Friendly-Test-Googles-Verdict-on-Microsofts-Website-300x218.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Mobile-Friendly-Test-Googles-Verdict-on-Microsofts-Website-1024x743.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></a>   User experience has become more and more important since it’s one of the decisive factors in your traffic numbers. And because to the search engines it is equally important to provide a satisfactory experience as it is for the users to have one, the screenshot above was taken on Google Developers’ <a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Mobile Friendly Test</a>, especially since it’s one of the ranking factors of Google’s algorithm. <a id="use_infographics_to_increase_visibility"></a>   <h3>20. Use Infographics to Increase Visibility</h3>   Being concise is what often attracts an audience more than anything else. This is why infographics, while also visually pleasant, attract people through their conciseness, providing the website with a much larger engagement rate than usual content.   According to an <a href="http://neomam.com/blog/infographics-make-great-marketing-tools/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">infographic</a> published by Neomam, 99% of sensory information is filtered out by our brains due to the overstrain, meaning that only 1% of what we’re presented is actually given a proper chance, while 90% of the information we come in contact with is processed through visual stimuli.   And if what you’re thinking right now is that maybe you don’t want to hire a full-time designer to do this job, you don’t have to be an expert in Illustrator to find free websites that allow you to create your own infographics. One of these inspiring sources is <a href="https://www.canva.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Canva</a>, which provides great default layouts for infographics. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10859" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Canva-Create-Your-Own-Infographic.png" alt="Canva - Create Your Own Infographic" width="800" height="445" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Canva-Create-Your-Own-Infographic.png 1669w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Canva-Create-Your-Own-Infographic-300x167.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Canva-Create-Your-Own-Infographic-1024x570.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   Another great place to go to when you need to personalize an infographic layout in order to make it suit your site’s design is <a href="http://www.easel.ly/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Easel</a>. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10860" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Easel-Infographic-Design.png" alt="Easel Infographic Design" width="800" height="448" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Easel-Infographic-Design.png 1646w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Easel-Infographic-Design-300x168.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Easel-Infographic-Design-1024x574.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   This doesn’t mean that all your information should be delivered through the form of infographics, but that this tip should be taken into consideration given the increased memorability of visually-delivered information. <a id="build_a_robust_profile_on_authoritative_social_media_platforms_to_boost_rankings"></a>   <h3>21. Build a Robust Profile on Authoritative Social Media Platforms to Boost Rankings</h3>   Getting out of the box with your content can often prove to be highly useful when it comes to rankings. Consolidating your brand’s presence and the keywords you wish to be ranking for can be done through the means of other platforms than the ones you own and the generic social media posts.   LinkedIn is a high-quality publishing platform that grew to be the most reliable source for professionals. Depending on how much your industry is related to the presence online, it can be highly beneficial to duplicate the Twitter contacts (for instance) by LinkedIn connections. After you’ve done this, publishing an article a month can increase your brand reputation, since the platform is solely dedicated to professionals and, therefore, you no longer have to compete with posts from thousands of other entities. To further strengthen your professional presence, using a<a href="https://www.design.com/linkedin-banners" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> LinkedIn banner maker</a> helps create visually consistent branding that enhances profile credibility and supports stronger audience engagement. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10907" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/904-Percent-SEO-Visibility-Increase.png" alt="904 Percent SEO Visibility Increase" width="800" height="332" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/904-Percent-SEO-Visibility-Increase.png 966w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/904-Percent-SEO-Visibility-Increase-300x125.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   Secondly, there’s <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Slideshare</a>. Creating a presentation and uploading it on this platform can help you increase the number of leads, as well as boost your rankings due to two main reasons: <ol style="list-style-type: lower-alpha;"> <li>the diversity of sources where your name (or brand) will be connected to a series of keywords or topics and, generally to a specific area of expertise and</li> <li>the very authoritative source that will host your content, thus constituting a perfect means of promotion.</li> </ol>   Similar to the Slideshare strategy, you can start promoting your content on other authoritative platforms populated by knowledgeable people, such as <a href="https://www.quora.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Quora</a>. Aside from the ranking advantages, you can also increase and diversify your audience. <a id="help_your_page_authority_and_indexing_with_internal_deep_links"></a>   <h3>22. Help Your Page Indexing with Internal Deep Links</h3>   Everybody seems to be talking about building a solid link profile, which means both being linked to by high authority pages and linking to the same category for a change. This mechanism applies just as well when it comes to on-page SEO. Linking to a piece of content from an already indexed page that you know is popular helps your search engine marketing for more than just one reason: <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10911" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/gwt-indexation-status.jpg" alt="gwt-indexation-status" width="800" height="636" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/gwt-indexation-status.jpg 978w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/gwt-indexation-status-300x239.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> <ul> <li>It creates a bridge between a page that has good authority and one that generates leads or performs well in terms of readability;</li> <li>It improves your rankings for certain keywords, provided that you use the relevant anchor texts;</li> <li>It helps transferring not only your audience from a page to another, but the authority as well;</li> <li>It helps the crawlers index your site completely based on the internal connections you’re creating;</li> <li>It represents a powerful hook for your readers, on the condition that the content you suggest for further reading is closely related to the ones they spent time on.</li> </ul>   Thinking of thick industries where there is a lot of content to be read, such as travel or fashion, it can confuse the search engine, particularly when there are very few or none external links. This is where internal linking also pays a crucial role, creating a semantic connection between different topics, in order to help avoiding any possible confusions of the search engine. <a id="get_more_traffic_by_updating_old_content_and_sharing_it_on_social_media"></a>   <h3>23. Get More Traffic by Updating Old Content and Sharing It on Social Media</h3>   Often, it’s almost not worth it spending so much time documenting a piece of content thoroughly just to see it get lost in the content avalanche online. The first content writers who decided to update their previously documented content instead of working on another piece from scratch were clearly under the same impression as we are today. <blockquote> And it’s not only beneficial in terms of traffic – although this is the main advantage around this SEO tip – but in terms of link building as well. You’ve already worked to make a piece of content specific enough to be niche-relevant and get quality backlinks. Start from here. </blockquote> Take the example of Sugarrae below. Updating old content to match Google’s changes in algorithm is a smart move for everyone in the SEO business, especially since it can significant traffic using a smaller effort than it takes to write an article from scratch. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10861" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Refresh-and-Update-Old-Content-Link-Building-With-the-Experts.png" alt="Refresh and Update Old Content - Link Building With the Experts" width="800" height="630" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Refresh-and-Update-Old-Content-Link-Building-With-the-Experts.png 909w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Refresh-and-Update-Old-Content-Link-Building-With-the-Experts-300x236.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   The great advantage is that, having written on the topic, you know how interested people are in reading about it – which gives you leverage on updating the content that brought the most traffic when it was first published. Of course, it goes without saying that the content will also have to be relevant and up to date, while also keeping the user’s interests in mind. <a id="try_guest_blogging_to_increase_exposure_and_consolidate_your_brand"></a>   <h3>24. Try Guest Blogging to Increase Exposure and Consolidate Your Brand</h3>   Short clarification: the reason why the search engines can’t afford to make their algorithm public is that, whenever pieces of it become widely known, people try to cheat the system, abusing the specific criteria. <blockquote> This is very relevant contextualization when it comes to guest posting – a few years ago this technique was a mess. Not because people didn’t know how to do it, but because they overdid it. There were guest posts everywhere, very few of which related to the area of expertise of the guest blogger.The technique was abused because it was used as a cheap source of links. </blockquote> However, this technique has proved that it can still be highly useful when done properly. After the abusive-period there began the penalty-period because of flooding link profiles. However, writing relevant content on a specific topic in your niche can have tremendous effects on your brand recognition in the context of professional, responsible guest posting. <blockquote> Being exposed to strikingly reputable websites creates a trust and reputation transfer in a reader’s mind from the source where you published your content to your brand. </blockquote> Take this <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/5-reasons-why-audiences-only-accept-remarkable-content-and-ideas/156210/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">article</a> we published on Search Engine Journal, for instance. It had 700 shares and over 10k reads, which makes it quite popular. <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10862" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/SEJ-Guest-Post-Razvan-Gavrilas.png" alt="SEJ - Guest Post Razvan Gavrilas" width="806" height="860" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/SEJ-Guest-Post-Razvan-Gavrilas.png 806w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/SEJ-Guest-Post-Razvan-Gavrilas-281x300.png 281w" sizes="(max-width: 806px) 100vw, 806px" /> Of course, we focused on satisfying an informational need of the audience. This content-focused attitude is what builds credibility and reliability as a professional source online. It’s vital to distinguish between the services you’re promoting and the audiences you’re trying to get to.   Consequently, the article being written as a thoroughly documented piece brought us extra traffic.   Generally, a well written guest post will be a refreshing method to generate leads, provided that you take into consideration the type of platform you’re posting it on as well as the general audience of said website. <a id="optimize_your_website_fot_better_page_indexing"></a>   <h3>25. Optimize Your Website for Better Page Indexing</h3>   An important part of the SEO process, although few seem to talk about it, is the on-page strategy. The reason why it’s so scarcely approached is not due to its lack of importance, but to the fact that it’s a lot easier to implement than the off-page strategies, partly because it doesn’t involve any external factors. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10908" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Well-Organized-Website.png" alt="Well Organized Website" width="800" height="484" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Well-Organized-Website.png 1016w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Well-Organized-Website-300x182.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> These being said, use proper titles and descriptions. The more easily read these are, the more relevant they become for the crawlers as well. It’s essential that the naming process takes into consideration the topic and structure of the content, as well as the direction of the topic. The URL structure has to be clear and to use a permanent link in order to be both memorable by readers and accessible to crawlers. <blockquote> Descriptions are what’s displayed in the search results – a short 150-words summary on the content. Advertising the page properly dramatically increases the chances of accessing the page and reading as much from it. </blockquote> Because formatting is sometimes what sells the content, it’s also crucial to make it structurally clear – everything from quotes, underlines, bolds and italics can contribute to readers spending more time on your website – not to mention proper titles and subtitles with H1, H2, H3 etc. attributes.   Images are another important factor and they can be optimized as well. Starting with reducing their dimensions to make the loading smoother to using ALT tags to describe their content as to be relevant for the crawler, there’s nothing to be left out.   For instance, the image file name matters almost as much as the image itself – giving it a descriptive name that helps the bots understand what it contains increases its chances of organically appearing on Google results on the image section. <a id="be_creative_in_your_outreach_and_link_building_strategy"></a>   <h3>26. Be Creative In Your Outreach and Link Building Strategy</h3>   This is exactly what it looks like: cookies. And not your generic Oreos that you hear about everyday, but cookies from AppSumo. Now you’d ask yourself what it was that John <a href="http://okdork.com/2014/07/08/how-to-email-a-busy-vip-5-tips-for-connecting-with-a-cold-email/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">did so well</a> as to make Noah from AppSumo think: ‘That guy deserves a cookie! What’s his ZIP code?’ <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10863" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Buzzsumo-Cookies.png" alt="Buzzsumo Cookies" width="590" height="293" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Buzzsumo-Cookies.png 590w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Buzzsumo-Cookies-300x149.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 590px) 100vw, 590px" />   You guessed right. The answer is ‘great emailing technique’. He earned the cookies by convincing Noah that he can be a) relevant, b) personal (see PPPS) and c) creative, while also to the point (see subject line).   The most reliable outreach email doesn’t lack anything from sugar and spice to everything nice. <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10864" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Art-of-Manliness-Interview-Cold-Email-Outreach.png" alt="Art of Manliness Interview - Cold Email Outreach" width="677" height="467" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Art-of-Manliness-Interview-Cold-Email-Outreach.png 677w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Art-of-Manliness-Interview-Cold-Email-Outreach-300x207.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 677px) 100vw, 677px" />   <blockquote> As we’ve documented in another <a href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/10513/cold-email-outreach-boost-response-rate/">article</a>, the response rate for a cold email outreach is generally very low, because people often forget to treat it like a contextual content – one that has to persuade, to impress and to invite to action. However, the approach in the screenshot above managed to stand out because of its natural, yet pertinent tone. </blockquote> The reason why usually outreach emails have such a low response rate is the very natural law of offer-demand ratio. Since there are plenty of people emailing influencers, it’s only logical that they’ll answer to the most appropriate and to-the-point requests. <a id="use_influencer_marketing_to_frame_your_content_marketing_statements"></a>   <h3>27. Use Influencer Marketing to Frame Your Content Marketing Statements</h3>   A significant part of traffic comes from organic searches – this is why we’re so considerate about our search engine marketing. For instance, getting to have 77 comments on one <a href="http://digitalphilippines.net/link-building/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">blog post</a> is quite a performance, supported by the fact that expert opinions were shared and featured in the article. <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10913" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Digital-Phillipines-Expert-Roundup.png" alt="Digital Phillipines Expert Roundup" width="718" height="834" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Digital-Phillipines-Expert-Roundup.png 718w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Digital-Phillipines-Expert-Roundup-258x300.png 258w" sizes="(max-width: 718px) 100vw, 718px" /> However, it would be naïve and counterproductive to neglect the importance of other factors in this very complex success formula, one of which is influencer marketing. <blockquote> Micro-celebrities or, as they’re called from a marketing point of view, influencer marketers are very popular people in their micro-niche, who represent a standard of quality and professionalism. Targeting them to spread your content on social media doesn’t only bring new traffic, but also generates an implicit associative mechanism through which part of their image capital is transferred to you. </blockquote> Truth is, starting from the premise that no business can survive online without serious storytelling implication, influencer marketing can be of great help in amplifying your stories. There’s nothing easy in making an influencer want to share the wisdom you spread across social media platforms – and it’s partly because the moment they share or retweet something of yours, you automatically have a huge increase in credibility AND they are aware of this.   However, the key in impressing the influencers so much as to share your stories is to be personal and make them relate to your experiences – show a human side you think they’d like to be associated with. <a id="associate_photos_with_your_brand_by_asking_websites_to_give_image_credits"></a>   <h3>28. Associate Photos with Your Brand by Asking Websites to Give Image Credits</h3>   Reverse Image Search is a neat link building technique, especially because the cost-benefit ratio makes it more than worth your while. Now let’s suppose you wish to see whether an image of yours is being used somewhere else on the web without it being linked to your site.   Let’s take this image from one of our <a href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/604/identify-low-quality-links-easily/">blog posts</a>. It belongs to cognitiveSEO. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10865" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cognitiveSEO-Blog-Panda-Sheriff-Image-Copy-Image-Address.png" alt="cognitiveSEO Blog - Panda Sheriff Image Copy Image Address" width="800" height="608" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cognitiveSEO-Blog-Panda-Sheriff-Image-Copy-Image-Address.png 1053w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cognitiveSEO-Blog-Panda-Sheriff-Image-Copy-Image-Address-300x228.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cognitiveSEO-Blog-Panda-Sheriff-Image-Copy-Image-Address-1024x778.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   After clicking on Copy Image Address, go to Google search and paste the address in there, then press search.   You’ll be suggested to try searching by image. Click on it. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10866" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cognitiveSEO-Panda-Sheriff-Google-Search-by-Image.png" alt="cognitiveSEO Panda Sheriff - Google Search by Image" width="800" height="552" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cognitiveSEO-Panda-Sheriff-Google-Search-by-Image.png 853w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cognitiveSEO-Panda-Sheriff-Google-Search-by-Image-300x207.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> The returned results display two important categories: a) the photos on the web that are found to be similar to yours and b) the URLs of the websites where this image is featured in the posts. <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10867" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cognitiveSEO-Panda-Sheriff-Google-Results-Link-Building-Opportunities.png" alt="cognitiveSEO Panda Sheriff - Google Results Link Building Opportunities" width="668" height="935" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cognitiveSEO-Panda-Sheriff-Google-Results-Link-Building-Opportunities.png 668w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cognitiveSEO-Panda-Sheriff-Google-Results-Link-Building-Opportunities-214x300.png 214w" sizes="(max-width: 668px) 100vw, 668px" /> All you have to do now is click on each of these URLs (which didn’t stop to the first page, in our case) and see which of these don’t link to your site. Contact the admins/authors and you’re on the way of getting the well deserved credits. <a id="engage_with_influencers_who_recently_mentioned_you_on_the_web"></a>   <h3>29. Engage with Influencers Who Recently Mentioned You on the Web</h3> It’s almost physically painful to try and stay connected to everyone mentioning you on the web – it requires constant monitoring and a humongous amount of time. However, there are tools where you can monitor your brand to see instantly who’s talking about you on the web at the moment. We used BrandMentions to run the analysis, a tool we created especially for real time monitoring. <a href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/BrandMentions-Search-for-Your-Brand.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-10868" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/BrandMentions-Search-for-Your-Brand.png" alt="BrandMentions - Search for Your Brand" width="800" height="269" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/BrandMentions-Search-for-Your-Brand.png 1670w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/BrandMentions-Search-for-Your-Brand-300x101.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/BrandMentions-Search-for-Your-Brand-1024x345.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></a>   Type in your brand name and see what’s been happening on the web while you were busy writing great content – get instant feedback of how you perform and what people in the industry think of you meeting their competitive requirements. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10869" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/BrandMentions-Link-Building-Opportunities.png" alt="BrandMentions - Link Building Opportunities" width="800" height="439" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/BrandMentions-Link-Building-Opportunities.png 1679w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/BrandMentions-Link-Building-Opportunities-300x165.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/BrandMentions-Link-Building-Opportunities-1024x562.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> There were 34 mentions of our brand during the last month – many of which didn’t link to our site. Contacting the authors of the posts personally doesn’t only create a huge networking opportunity, but it also constitutes a great link building opportunity – especially because everybody appreciates a prompt professional. <a id="use_comment_marketing_to_generate_leads"></a>   <h3>30. Use Comment Marketing to Generate Leads</h3> Comment marketing is the technique by which you provide insightful comments to niche articles, without directly promoting your business, for the solely purpose to help users. For this to work you first have to get it out of your head that comment marketing is the same as randomly commenting on blog posts. It goes without saying that the strategy you should apply further depends directly on the type of objective that you’d like to accomplish through this technique. However, in order to help your reputation management strategy succeed, you will have to be specific in your approach and always address the right audience on the appropriate platform. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10914" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Different-Social-Media-Platforms-Appeal-To-Different-TRIBES.jpg" alt="Different-Social-Media-Platforms-Appeal-To-Different-TRIBES" width="800" height="395" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Different-Social-Media-Platforms-Appeal-To-Different-TRIBES.jpg 884w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Different-Social-Media-Platforms-Appeal-To-Different-TRIBES-300x148.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> Let’s assume your goal is more traffic – leads that will be interested in visiting your website just after reading your comment. <blockquote> For this to happen, make sure that they’re no more than one click away from your website. Instead of agreeing with a general opinion or posting an emoji, maybe you should write something significant – an opinion that will stand out and raise eyebrows, something that will make people curious to see what you’re about. </blockquote> Concerning the type of blog you’ll be commenting on, it will have to meet all or as many of the following criteria as possible:   <ul> <li>It’s top notch in the industry – everybody recognizes it as an authority;</li> <li>It has a frequent posting schedule (and maybe a recurring posting schedule to make people know when to get back for more content in an organized manner);</li> <li>It has a lot of traffic from competitive actors in the industry.</li> </ul>   Regardless of your purpose, you should be consistent and relevant in your endeavor, otherwise you’ll be that-annoying-guy-who-doesn’t-understand-the-industry-but-has-an-opinion-nonetheless. And that’s not an option in comment marketing. <blockquote> If your goal is exposure – becoming notorious, you’ll have to channel your efforts towards finding the pieces of content that influencers go to and start from there. Unlike the one about your traffic, the exposure objective refers to anybody who can be thought of as a prospect for your business, not just people already gravitating around it. </blockquote> Take the Search Engine Journal for instance. It is a good complementary idea if you’re trying to strengthen your authority as a professional source in the field, because of all the daily visits, the authority, etc. Writing a good comment there can be the reason for a hundred people associating your name with an authoritative opinion – and that’s the secret of being memorable. <a id="improve_brand_management_use_press_releases_when_youve_got_something_big_going_on"></a>   <h3>31. Improve Brand Management – Use Press Releases When You’ve Got Something Big Going On</h3> It doesn’t take too much experience in this industry to fully understand how difficult a process of building quality links is, there’s no need for an explanation here. However, it’s vital that the press release isn’t something boring that emphasizes your lack of personality. On the contrary, one of our favorite examples of press releases is this <a href="http://tech.co/case-study-how-one-startups-press-release-went-viral-2012-05" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Infographic</a> <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10909" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Creative-Press-Release.png" alt="Creative Press Release" width="800" height="842" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Creative-Press-Release.png 871w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Creative-Press-Release-285x300.png 285w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   <blockquote> This technique requires, first of all, a complete lack of abuse coming from an objective evaluation of your product’s most important features and releases. </blockquote> However, whenever you’re in the position of doing something great that people should know about because it benefits them objectively and it constitutes a newsworthy topic, you should consider writing press releases for the following reasons: <ul> <li>It’s a great strategy for quality, naturally gained links that will count as earned media as long as you keep the topic newsworthy; this comes along with the brand recognition benefits and the humongous exposure we could all use every once in awhile;</li> <li>It’s an important source of new traffic to your site – the press agencies finding your releases (or whichever important event you have going on) of interest for their readers are probably right. Nobody would risk publishing something that lacks value to their readers, especially from the position of a press agency. Yet, you shouldn’t leave the topic entirely up to their decision, but invest a significant amount of time in making sure the audience will be captivated instead of bored;</li> <li>It contributes a great deal not only to your link profile in itself, but to your website’s ranks as well.</li> </ul>   Of course, the immediate disadvantage is that such authoritative sources choose their employees to be skeptical and it’s a quality in their actual job description, which may make it a little harder to persuade them that your professional improvements constitute a valid press subject for them, which is exactly why this tip shouldn’t be abused. <a id="target_one_keyword_per_page_to_avoid_cannibalization"></a>   <h3>32. Target One Keyword Per Page to Avoid Cannibalization</h3>   It’s infinitely easier for the overall strategy of your site to succeed in terms of SERPs positions if you focus the efforts of internal linking towards lifting one page per keyword. Let’s assume you’ve got the keyword ‘link building’ that you want to rank for. First of all, the quality of your content may have to suffer, keyword targeting aside, if you focus on the same topic all over again and your entire website may become redundant instead of useful, in time. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10870" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Internal-Linking-Building-Website-Architecture.jpg" alt="Internal Linking - Building Website Architecture" width="800" height="419" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Internal-Linking-Building-Website-Architecture.jpg 979w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Internal-Linking-Building-Website-Architecture-300x157.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   <blockquote> Assuming you always write for the readers’ best interest, it’s still true that the search engine will find it difficult to prioritize between distinct pieces of content on the same keywords that you’re linking to so – best case scenario – this will lead to cannibalization. </blockquote> Having established that it’s detrimental to try to link for a keyword on more pages, this also constitutes the premise for great quality, well documented content on each of your pages – given that you’ll focus on different micro-topics instead of the generic theme. <a id="make_multimedia_part_of_your_content_and_increase_engagement"></a>   <h3>33. Make Multimedia Part of Your Content and Increase Engagement</h3> There are various stats supporting visual marketing particularly as part of the generic multimedia marketing trend. And as much as many marketers are still reluctant to giving into these tendencies, the numbers should at least make us take it into consideration:   <ul> <li>While generally only 10% of the information is remembered after only 3 days from reading it on the web, accompanying the content with an image increases this number to 65%, making the content strategy all the more efficient, according to this <a href="http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/visual-content-marketing-strategy" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">article</a>;</li> <li>Relevant images increase the number of views of a piece of content with 94%, as we find out in this Kissmetrics <a href="https://blog.kissmetrics.com/visual-content-you-need-to-use-in-your-marketing-campaign/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">blog post</a>;</li> <li>According to a Syndacast <a href="http://syndacast.com/video-marketing-statistics-trends-2015/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">prediction</a>, 74% of all web traffic – which is 3 quarters! – will come from videos in 2017;</li> <li>Content in infographics is shared and tweeted 3 times more in social media compared to classical content, according to this Massplanner <a href="http://www.massplanner.com/10-types-of-visual-content-to-use-in-your-content-marketing/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">blog post</a>;</li> <li>Facebook posts that have images perform 2,3 times better than the ones without images, as shown by this Buzzsumo <a href="http://buzzsumo.com/blog/how-to-massively-boost-your-blog-traffic-with-these-5-awesome-image-stats/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">article</a>.</li> </ul> Don’t be afraid to be bold when it comes to video integration – it can take you a long way. When this wireless-bungee-jumping fake experiment first appeared, only featuring it in a post could guarantee for a thousand reads. Visuals engage! <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10916" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wireless-Bungee-Jumping1.png" alt="Wireless-Bungee-Jumping" width="608" height="583" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wireless-Bungee-Jumping1.png 608w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wireless-Bungee-Jumping1-300x288.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 608px) 100vw, 608px" /> However, given that visual aids have to be the sidekick of great content, we always suggest high quality articles before establishing to what extent you’re going to be using this tip!   <h3>34. Link Out – Use Appeal to Authority to Back Your Statements & Gain Credibility Boost</h3>   It’s not wrong unless you’re doing it wrong. Generally, linking to a high authority, even with the ‘rel=nofollow’ tag, tells the search engine’s crawler that you’re mostly interested in providing quality information from reliable sources, thus keeping the readers’ interest on top of your blogging business. <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10917" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Reading-Attention-Span.png" alt="Reading Attention Span" width="642" height="438" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Reading-Attention-Span.png 642w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Reading-Attention-Span-300x205.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 642px) 100vw, 642px" /> <blockquote> In this concern, it’s highly relevant to think of the domain ownership as one of the main factors in establishing its authority (assuming you’re not using any tool to provide you with information on this matter) – a webpage .org, for instance, will give away from the TLD that it’s covering a social interest rather than just a commercial one. </blockquote> It’s not uncommon for SEO practitioners to believe that the most important source of ranking success lies in being linked to by highly performing websites with good authority. However, while this is a place to start from, the search engine marketing strategy should always dig deeper and take all the micro SEO techniques into considerations. After all, it’s the extra mile that makes all the difference. <a id="create_tabels_of_contents_to_improve_user_experience"></a> <h3>35. Create Tables of Contents to Improve User Experience</h3>   Ultimately, the entire ranking process along with the information neutrality principle have the same purpose – to serve the user as well as it’s humanly (or spiderly?) possible. With this in mind, the content strategy concerning the informational structure of the articles you publish on your blog has to start from the premise that a dissatisfied reader will immediately leave your website and never come back.   Of course, there are almost as many reasons as there are readers out there, but they can all be broken into smaller categories. One of these – and highly important – is how easily the user can find the content he clicked in for. There are more indicators that contribute to this quite generic type of satisfaction – such as having a sitemap that makes navigating through content intuitive, site-wide speaking.   <blockquote> Article-wide, it’s crucial to organize the material as to satisfy the informational need as rapidly as possible and a table of contents is the type of guidance that a user needs in order not to get bored inside a large post. </blockquote>   You’ll say that once the informational need has been satisfied, the user will leave the page, thus reading just 1 subheading of, say, 24, like in the example below. And while you’re right, the alternative wouldn’t be a user who reads the content entirely just to find what interests him, but someone who leaves the blog and never returns because of a negative experience. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10871" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cognitiveSEO-Blog-Table-of-Contents.png" alt="cognitiveSEO Blog - Table of Contents" width="800" height="538" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cognitiveSEO-Blog-Table-of-Contents.png 1226w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cognitiveSEO-Blog-Table-of-Contents-300x202.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cognitiveSEO-Blog-Table-of-Contents-1024x689.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> In the economy of decision-making processes regarding the user experience you provide on your blog, structuring the information in a friendly way improves the bounce rate dramatically on the long run, as it also increases the reader loyalty. <a id="use_heatmap_tracking_to_optimize_your_call_to_actions_display"></a>   <h3>36. Use Heatmap Tracking to Optimize Your Call to Actions Display</h3>   The user’s attention span is <a href="http://www.statisticbrain.com/attention-span-statistics/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">8.25 seconds</a> and falling. This means that informational points have to be delivered quickly and in the most appealing manner in order to improve reader loyalty (and traffic, for that matter). Heat maps are a great instrument when it comes to deciding what button to place where, as they offer you information about the consumer behavior. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10918" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/getvero-heatmap.jpg" alt="getvero-heatmap" width="800" height="800" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/getvero-heatmap.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/getvero-heatmap-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/getvero-heatmap-300x300.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> Depending on your purpose, there are more types of mapping: <ul> <li>Clicking heatmaps – concentrating on where users click more on the pages;</li> <li>Scrolling heatmaps – to help you outline the perfect moment to place the most valuable piece of idea of the articles, especially since <a href="https://www.nuvonium.com/blog/view/stop-the-above-the-fold-web-design-insanity-people-scroll-today" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Above-the-Fold design</a> isn’t a content design pillar anymore;</li> <li>Attention heatmaps – showing you where it is that people stop skimming through content and actually read it wholly; connecting eye movement with mouse movement and establishing the perfect place for a Call to Action.</li> </ul>   Although it’s best to use each of these instruments to conduct separate research and aggregate the data, if you’re in a hurry concerning your CTA positioning, the most relevant one is the attention heatmap, giving you direct insight on the best place to position a call to action that converts.   <h3>37. Minimize Bounce Rate with Friendly 404 Pages</h3>   Being a little creative and showing a sense of humor or maybe a little self deprecation whenever something goes wrong can take you very far. Of course, it all depends on the kind of audience you’ve got, on the relationship that you’re establishing with them. Is it personal? Is it highly professional? What commonalities is it based on?   Depending on the answers to these questions, you can do what <a href="http://worrydream.com/404notfound" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Worrydream</a> does. Be artistic, funny and breezy about it. Maybe reference Magritte. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10872 size-full" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wprry-Dream-404-Page-Ceci-Nest-Pas-Une-Pipe.jpg" alt="Wprry Dream - 404 Page - Ceci N'est Pas Une Pipe" width="800" height="600" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wprry-Dream-404-Page-Ceci-Nest-Pas-Une-Pipe.jpg 800w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Wprry-Dream-404-Page-Ceci-Nest-Pas-Une-Pipe-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   Or, however, be a little jovial about it, like <a href="http://www.lego.com/404notfound" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Lego</a> does. <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10873" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Lego-404-Page-Not-Found.jpg" alt="Lego - 404 Page Not Found" width="770" height="421" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Lego-404-Page-Not-Found.jpg 770w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Lego-404-Page-Not-Found-300x164.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px" />   Or be smart about it, like <a href="http://www.magnt.com/404/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Magnt</a> – use a Venn diagram. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10874" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Magnt-404-Page-Venn-Diagram.png" alt="Magnt - 404 Page - Venn Diagram" width="800" height="508" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Magnt-404-Page-Venn-Diagram.png 1367w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Magnt-404-Page-Venn-Diagram-300x190.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Magnt-404-Page-Venn-Diagram-1024x650.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> <a id="rank_better_get_rid_of_the_unnatural_links_prevent_negative_seo_attacks"></a>   In the end, keep in mind that whichever strategy you choose, it’s only meant to make a difference – to be witty and raise eyebrows. <h3>38. Rank Better – Get Rid of the Unnatural Links & Prevent Negative SEO Attacks</h3>   Rankings won’t improve naturally unless you monitor them constantly. However, it’s almost impossible to do this without a tool to guide you through the process.   Among the many dangers that come with the SEO business is the one of facing a negative SEO attack. As the very definition of it is something a competitor or somebody with bad intentions does, it’s even more difficult to prevent it.   However, fortunately we’ve got this tool to perform <a href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/3524/the-fastest-most-accurate-unnatural-link-detection-case-study/">Unnatural Link Detections</a> and the possibility of filling in a Google Disavow file to send to the search engine specialists and request not to take those specific domains in consideration. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10875" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Better-Unnatural-Link-Detection-Using-Artificial-Intelligence.jpg" alt="Better Unnatural Link Detection Using Artificial Intelligence" width="800" height="391" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Better-Unnatural-Link-Detection-Using-Artificial-Intelligence.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Better-Unnatural-Link-Detection-Using-Artificial-Intelligence-300x147.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> And, of course, because maybe there’s some personal touch we’d like to add to this analysis, it’s always best to know you can rely on a self-learning algorithm that takes into consideration any manual change that you may be making as to improve the accuracy of the overall results. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10876" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Self-Learning-Algorithm-Unnatural-Link-Detection-Tool.jpg" alt="Self Learning Algorithm - Unnatural Link Detection Tool" width="800" height="445" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Self-Learning-Algorithm-Unnatural-Link-Detection-Tool.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Self-Learning-Algorithm-Unnatural-Link-Detection-Tool-300x167.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> <a id="show_social_proof_of_your_popularity"></a> <h3>39. Show Social Proof of Your Popularity</h3>   Recently, there’s been a <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/14/5411934/youre-not-going-to-read-this" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">discussion</a> about the shareability of an article not necessarily meaning it was read thoroughly (or at all!). While this may be true, it’s also safe to say that whatever makes the first people share gets the ball rolling, transforming a piece of content into a sometimes endless or at least very long lasting slippery slope. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10919" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Backlinko-Total-Shares-Case-Study-White-Hat1.png" alt="Backlinko-Total-Shares-Case-Study-White-Hat" width="800" height="568" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Backlinko-Total-Shares-Case-Study-White-Hat1.png 1067w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Backlinko-Total-Shares-Case-Study-White-Hat1-300x213.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Backlinko-Total-Shares-Case-Study-White-Hat1-1024x726.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> <blockquote> People who see that others have shared a piece of content will be more keen to believe that that certain article is more sharing-material than an article that has no sharing buttons displayed. While it’s uncertain if this kind of attitude is nothing else but a mellow form of peer pressure, it seems to be working. </blockquote>   <h3>40. Use Diacritics to Perform to a Specific Level in Terms of SERPs</h3>   This – last, but not least – technique is not used by many people in the industry, and maybe this is exactly why it works wonders.   As we’ve already documented a detailed <a href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/6773/the-diacritics-seo-technique-a-tactic-nobody-is-using/">article</a> explaining the procedure and implementation of this tip in the form of a case study of Über, we’ll only go through the basics.<a id="use_diacritics_to_perform_to_a_specific_level_in_terms_of_serps"></a> <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10877" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Underused-Diacritics-SEO-Technique-Uber-Example.jpg" alt="Underused Diacritics SEO Technique - Uber Example" width="800" height="373" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Underused-Diacritics-SEO-Technique-Uber-Example.jpg 970w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Underused-Diacritics-SEO-Technique-Uber-Example-300x140.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> And while you’ll be tempted to believe that this specifically lingual difference in spelling shouldn’t affect the returned results of a search query, you couldn’t be more wrong. The truth is, for the keyword ‘Québec’ there are around 15 million results without diacritics and not more than 300 thousand with diacritics. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-10878" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Diacritic-Versus-Non-Diacritic-Keyword-Ranking.jpg" alt="Diacritic Versus Non Diacritic Keyword Ranking" width="800" height="652" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Diacritic-Versus-Non-Diacritic-Keyword-Ranking.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Diacritic-Versus-Non-Diacritic-Keyword-Ranking-300x244.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />   What this means in terms of rankings and why it should very much interest you is better, easily improved rankings. Targeting the diacritics version of your brand – especially when it has the bad luck of being composed of quite common words – can improve the SERPs results dramatically.   <h3>Conclusion</h3>   While there are hundreds of criteria based on which the search engines’ ranking algorithms are made, doing a little of everything while always keeping your reader’s best interest in mind is the best key to success.   However, we’re not at all implying that this list of SEO techniques is all you can do to increase your website’s performance. So what is it that makes you so creative and you’d like to share?   The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/10830/seo-techniques-double-traffic/">40 Rarely Used SEO Techniques That Will Double Your Traffic & AI Citations</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.
How to Optimize SEO Title Tags for Humans and AI Engines

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 06:29:13 -0000

Titles are among the most important things in SEO. But, although it is very basic to have your keywords inside the title, it isn’t always easy to write SEO friendly title tags. That’s why we’ve prepared this guide and set of best practices you need to follow in order to have well optimized titles on […] The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/22796/seo-friendly-title-tags-best-practices/">How to Optimize SEO Title Tags for Humans and AI Engines</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.

Titles are among the most important things in SEO. But, although it is very basic to have your keywords inside the title, it isn’t always easy to write SEO friendly title tags. That’s why we’ve prepared this guide and set of best practices you need to follow in order to have well optimized titles on all of your website’s pages.   If there’s one thing I’ve noticed during many years of practicing SEO, it’s that people heavily neglect titles. Countless times have I been told – “I’ve worked with an SEO agency before, but with no results” – just to see that the “agency” hasn’t even optimized something as basic as the title tag.   But today, the stakes are even higher. A great title tag can no longer just target traditional search engine crawlers; it also needs to signal deep contextual relevance to AI answer engines while triggering a genuine emotional response from human searchers. Let’s dive into how you can bridge that gap and master both. <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-22889" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/SEO_Titles_Guide_and_Best_Practices-1024x538.jpg" alt="SEO_Titles_Guide_and_Best_Practices" width="1024" height="538" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/SEO_Titles_Guide_and_Best_Practices.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/SEO_Titles_Guide_and_Best_Practices-300x158.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/SEO_Titles_Guide_and_Best_Practices-768x404.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> <ol class="summaryext"> <li><a href="#1">What Are Page Title Tags?</a></li> <li><a href="#222">Writing Titles Driven by Emotional Intelligence</a></li> <li><a href="#2">Why Are Title Tags Important for SEO?</a></li> <li><a href="#3">What’s the Difference Between H1 Tags and Title Tags?</a></li> <li><a href="#4">SEO Title Tags Tips & Best Practices</a> <ol> <li><a href="#5">Write the title for humans first</a></li> <li><a href="#6">Keep your titles short and to the point</a></li> <li><a href="#7">Try adding the main keyword closer to the beginning</a></li> <li><a href="#8">If possible, try optimizing the title for multiple keywords</a></li> <li><a href="#9">Try to avoid keyword cannibalization with other articles</a></li> <li><a href="#10">Make your title catchy to improve CTR</a></li> <li><a href="#11">Fill short titles with calls to action</a></li> <li><a href="#12">Make your article & title look fresh</a></li> <li><a href="#13">Back up your title tag with relevant content</a></li> <li><a href="#14">Use different titles for SEO & Social Media</a></li> </ol> </li> <li><a href="#15">How to Craft an SEO Friendly Title Tag</a> <ol> <li><a href="#16">Step 1: Choose your keywords wisely</a></li> <li><a href="#17">Step 2: Draft your title tag</a></li> <li><a href="#18">Step 3: Optimize the title tag</a></li> </ol> </li> <li><a href="#19">How To Write Bulk (Auto-generated) Title Tags for eCommerce Websites</a></li> <li><a href="#20">Why Is Google Showing a Different/Wrong Title Tag?</a></li> </ol> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='1' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>What Are Page Title Tags?</h2>   You might think that the title tag is the phrase you write in WordPress or whatever platform you use and which represents the title of your page/article. However…   <blockquote> The title tag is actually an HTML element which serves a number of key roles in browsers, search engines and on the web, in general. </blockquote>   Like any other HTML tag, the title meta tag is surrounded by angle brackets and it has a start tag <title> and an end tag </title>. The actual title is found between those tags.   The title of this particular article you’re reading right now is written as follows:   <title>How to Write SEO Friendly Title Tags | Guide & Best Practices</title>   If you hit CTRL + U on your Windows machine (I don’t know the combination for Mac OS Safari) or right click anywhere on the article and hit View Source, you will be able to spot the title tag in its true form.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22802" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/how-to-write-seo-friendly-title-tags.png" alt="how to write seo friendly title tags" width="1100" height="428" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/how-to-write-seo-friendly-title-tags.png 1100w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/how-to-write-seo-friendly-title-tags-300x117.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/how-to-write-seo-friendly-title-tags-768x299.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/how-to-write-seo-friendly-title-tags-1024x398.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" />   If you can’t see it, use CTRL + F to search for the start tag <title>.   The title tag’s contents are also displayed inside the browser tabs. You can hover over them to view the full title of a web page.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22816" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/title-tag-browser-tab.png" alt="Browser Title Tag" width="501" height="70" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/title-tag-browser-tab.png 501w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/title-tag-browser-tab-300x42.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 501px) 100vw, 501px" />   However, titles aren’t there just to look pretty. They serve a purpose, especially for search engines and SEO. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='222' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2 data-path-to-node="5">Writing Titles Driven by Emotional Intelligence</h2> Optimizing your title tags with exact-match keywords is essential for traditional search crawlers, but securing a human click requires emotional resonance. The highest-converting titles tap directly into the real-time friction, aspirations, or explicit intent your audience is experiencing right now. <blockquote> But how do you decode the psychological state of your market? You uncover this by leveraging BrandMentions. </blockquote> While standard keyword tools only provide legacy search volume metrics, this advanced AI visibility platform captures linguistic and emotional context. It differentiates itself through multi-layered NLP (Natural Language Processing) sentiment tracking, which transcends basic positive-versus-negative binaries. By executing deep, emotion-level semantic analysis across forums, blogs, and social ecosystems, it maps whether your market is experiencing “frustration,” “curiosity,” or “skepticism” around a specific topic. <img class="size-full wp-image-24944 aligncenter" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/seo-titles-brandmentions.png" alt="seo titles brandmentions" width="1015" height="552" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/seo-titles-brandmentions.png 1015w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/seo-titles-brandmentions-300x163.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/seo-titles-brandmentions-768x418.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1015px) 100vw, 1015px" /> <blockquote> Ultimately, by integrating these raw emotional insights, your title tags evolve from simple keyword strings into high-converting entity signals that capture attention across both traditional search results and AI-generated answer engine responses. </blockquote> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='2' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Why Are Title Tags Important for SEO?</h2>   The title tags are considered to be an important SEO ranking factor. There are multiple reasons why titles are important for SEO. The first one would be that it’s the main thing users see when they search something on Google or any other search engine.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22817" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/title-tag-google.png" alt="Title Tag On Google" width="811" height="527" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/title-tag-google.png 811w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/title-tag-google-300x195.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/title-tag-google-768x499.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 811px) 100vw, 811px" />   Unless specified otherwise, the title meta tag will also be used on most social media platforms when sharing a link.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22834" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/facebook-title-tag.png" alt="Facebook Title Tag" width="510" height="523" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/facebook-title-tag.png 510w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/facebook-title-tag-293x300.png 293w" sizes="(max-width: 510px) 100vw, 510px" />   You might notice a slight difference between the Google title and the Facebook title. Truth is that the original title is actually the one in the Facebook post.   Our homepage’s title tag is actually “SEO Tools to Increase Your Traffic – cognitiveSEO” but on Google it’s “cognitiveSEO: SEO Tools to Increase Your Traffic”.   Why is it different in the Google search results? Well, it’s because sometimes, Google tends to rewrite titles. It’s not something we did on purpose. Google chose to do it.   The ‘brand first’ rewrite is one of the most common title rewrites. It usually happens only with the homepage. As you can see, the pricing page has the branding at the end of the title.   We’ll talk more about title rewrites towards the end of the article, so keep reading. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='3' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>What’s the Difference Between H1 Tags and Title Tags?</h2>   Although they seem very similar and do share some similarities, there is a pretty big difference between the title tag and the H1 tag.   They are completely different HTML tags (<title></title> vs <h1></h1>) and serve different purposes.   <blockquote> The big main difference between the Title Tag and the H1 Tag is that the Title Tag does not show on the web page itself. </blockquote>   The Title Tag’s main purpose is to show on search engines and external websites that make a reference to your web page’s title.   On the other side, the H1 shows on the webpage or within the website itself.   This isn’t always the case and it depends on the CMS you’re using. However, most Content Management Systems out there tend to use the H1 tag as the on-page title.   Most of the time, the Title Tag and the H1 Tag are identical. For example, in WordPress, when you create a new blog post and write the title, you’re actually writing the H1 Tag. WordPress then pulls that information and also adds it to the Title Tag.   However, if you use an SEO plugin such as <a href="https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Yoast SEO</a>, you can specify a custom SEO Title Tag which will be different from the H1.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22836" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/custom-title-tag-vs-h1.png" alt="Custom Title Tag Yoast SEO" width="727" height="720" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/custom-title-tag-vs-h1.png 727w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/custom-title-tag-vs-h1-150x150.png 150w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/custom-title-tag-vs-h1-300x297.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 727px) 100vw, 727px" />   This means you can show something on your website but something different in the search engines. This is useful as you can add multiple keywords into your H1 tag when the Title Tag is too long and doesn’t fit.   Here’s one example of a longer H1 tag: <img class="wp-image-22837 size-full aligncenter" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/website-results-h1.png" alt="On Site H1 Tag Longer" width="759" height="290" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/website-results-h1.png 759w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/website-results-h1-300x115.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 759px) 100vw, 759px" />   And the shorter Title Tag accompanying it, that fits the SERPs:   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22839" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/short-title-tag.png" alt="Shorter Title Tag" width="608" height="121" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/short-title-tag.png 608w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/short-title-tag-300x60.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 608px) 100vw, 608px" />     Another big difference is that there can be multiple H1s on a web page, although we recommend using H2 and H3 tags for multiple subtitles and sticking with a single H1 tag.   For example, on the blog page, WordPress automatically converts all the blog posts H1s to H2s, as the H1 of the blog page is “The SEO Blog from cognitiveSEO”.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22835" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/multiple-h1s.png" alt="Multiple H1s SEO" width="1036" height="1010" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/multiple-h1s.png 1036w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/multiple-h1s-300x292.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/multiple-h1s-768x749.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/multiple-h1s-1024x998.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1036px) 100vw, 1036px" />   <blockquote> On the other side, it’s crucial that your website has only one title tag per page. Multiple title tags can negatively impact your rankings, so make sure you don’t do that. </blockquote> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='4' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>SEO Title Tags Tips & Best Practices</h2>   Before we talk about actually crafting your SEO titles, we have to make sure you’re following the best practices.   Here’s a list of things that you should try to constantly keep in mind when you’re writing your titles. Once you know these, writing an SEO friendly title meta tag should be pretty easy! <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='5' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Write the title for humans first</h3>   I’m writing this first because it’s very important. Sure, the titles are read by robots and algorithms and they’re the ones that rank your site.   However, when they finally make it to the top, titles are read by humans, who eventually dictate if they will click on it or not! If they don’t click on it, the algorithms will know your title isn’t a great one.   Try to avoid keyword stuffing and instead focus on being relevant.   User intent is also an important factor. What are your customers looking for? Are you writing your title for a commercial keyword or for an informational one?   Try to think what your target audience and customers would click on. You can always take a look at what your competition is doing. Don’t copy, but get inspired. The top positions are clearly doing at least something right. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='6' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Keep your titles short and to the point</h3>   When writing your title tag for SEO purposes, one of the first things you have to keep in mind is that the title has to be short.   Why?   If your title tags are too long, Google will make them shorter and will add […] at the end. This process is called truncation and it looks just like this:   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22818" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/google-title-truncation.png" alt="Google Title Tag Truncation" width="834" height="277" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/google-title-truncation.png 834w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/google-title-truncation-300x100.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/google-title-truncation-768x255.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 834px) 100vw, 834px" />   This won’t directly impact your SEO but it can affect your CTR, which will eventually impact positions. Generally, you want to keep your title short enough to fit the Google search results.   How long can your title be? Generally, it’s a good idea to keep the title tag lengths between 60 to 70 characters. However, Google actually has a limit of 600 pixels in which it displays the title and, because different characters have different widths, the limit number might be different.   That’s why it’s a better idea to use tools such as the Yoast SEO plugin to make sure your title fits properly.   If you don’t use WordPress or another CMS and cannot install an SEO plugin on your web host, you can always use a tool such as <a href="https://metatags.io" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">MetaTags.io</a> to quickly check if your title, URL and meta description are displaying properly in the search engine result pages.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-22840 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/meta-tags-io-1024x399.png" alt="Meta Tags Check Title Length" width="1024" height="399" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/meta-tags-io-1024x399.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/meta-tags-io-300x117.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/meta-tags-io-768x299.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/meta-tags-io.png 1322w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   You can then manually add your titles and meta tags for SEO on your website, regardless of your platform or web host.   Keep in mind that it’s also a bad idea to keep your title too short. Too short titles might not grab the user’s attention either.   Quick tip: You can use | instead of – as a separator in your title sections. | has less pixels than – and in some situations it can help you get a fully displayed title, without having to remove any words. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='7' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Try adding the main keyword closer to the beginning</h3>   Google puts more weight on the keywords that are closer to the beginning. This also boosts the click through rate, as users click more on the results which contain the keywords they have just searched for.   Sometimes, you won’t be able to add the focus keyword with the most search volume right at the beginning.   For example, the primary keyword with the most search volume for this article is “title tags SEO”. However, that’s pretty hard to get inside a title and still make it sound good and natural.   Google is smart enough to figure out what an article is about, but you have to give it some good hints. If you give the right hints, it will figure it out easier and will reward you for it with better rankings.   So, writing “SEO Title Tags” instead of “Title Tags SEO” won’t be a big problem.   Quick Tip: If you also do Google Adwords, it’s a good idea to follow the best practices offered there. Google spends a lot of time perfecting CTR, so they definitely know what users want to click. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='8' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>If possible, try optimizing the title for multiple keywords</h3>   Try to keep them in order. For example, this article is optimized for the following keywords:   “how to write seo friendly title tags” “seo friendly title tags” “seo title tags guide” “seo title tags best practices”   If you look at the title of this article, you’ll see that you can find all these phrases in order, from left to right, although there might be some other words in-between.   <blockquote> The keywords must also align with what you have to say in the article. You shouldn’t include keywords just because they have a high search volume. </blockquote>   Optimizing one article for too many keywords is a bad idea. You might try to kill two birds with a stone. For example, if you write an article entitled “SEO Guide”, don’t expect it to rank for “keyword research”, “onpage optimization”, “link building”, etc.   Take advantage of the H1 Tag as well. If you can’t fit all the keywords you find relevant into the title, you can squeeze a couple more in the H1. Make sure you keep the focus keyword in the H1 as well.   Also, don’t forget the <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/19066/meta-description-affects-seo/">meta descriptions</a>. You should add your keywords there as well, as Google tends to ignore your meta description if it doesn’t contain the keywords the user is searching for. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='9' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Try to avoid keyword cannibalization with other articles</h3>   You should take care of this before you even start writing your article. Check if your site doesn’t already have a page optimized for very similar keywords.   <blockquote> In other words, you need to have unique titles for your articles, each targeting a specific topic and set of keywords. </blockquote>   However, writing separate articles for each and every keyword is also a bad idea! You’ll end up with an issue called keyword cannibalization, when too many articles are competing for the same keywords.   For example, if I had two separate articles for “how to write seo title tags” and “seo title tags best practices” they would both compete for the keyword “seo title tags”.   Sure, you could still optimize them separately and they might even rank the way you want. However, if you start having more and more articles that target the same keywords, it might become harder and harder to rank with them.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22844" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/seo-keyword-cannibalization.png" alt="SEO Keyword Cannibalization" width="396" height="396" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/seo-keyword-cannibalization.png 396w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/seo-keyword-cannibalization-150x150.png 150w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/seo-keyword-cannibalization-300x300.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 396px) 100vw, 396px" />   So, since both of these keywords cover similar topics (regarding writing title tags for SEO) I’ve decided to try and optimize the article for both keywords.   However, for a completely different topic such as “Do Title Tags Affect SEO?” I would definitely write a completely separate article.   Cannibalization can also happen often when you publish a lot of content. When you’re writing 3 pieces a month for 2 years straight, you sometimes simply forget you’ve written about a topic before. I’ve done this mistake before.   That’s why we’re trying to cover as much of a topic as possible in a single article. Chances are that we won’t be writing something specifically for writing title tags again. We will only improve this article when the time comes.   However, that doesn’t mean you can’t add something about titles in another article. For example, you can have an H2 section about titles and how to write them in an SEO Optimization Guide. You can then use this content to improve your <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/21836/internal-linking-structure-seo/">internal linking strategy</a>. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='10' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Make your title catchy to improve CTR</h3>   The first thing potential readers see about your article when they search for a keyword on Google is your title tag. If that title tag doesn’t convince them to click, Google will observe that and consider it as a negative signal.   On the other hand, if more users click on your title, Google will see that as a positive signal and reward your website with better positions.   So, if your article is currently ranking #3 and out of 1,000 impressions, 18% of the clicks go to your article, 12% to the #2 spot and 25% to the #1 spot, you have a high change of switching seats with the #2 spot, to your benefit.   That’s why you have to make your title catchy. You can do this by adding emotion to your title or words that increase CTR such as “free”, “example” or even numbers (7, 21, 77 etc).   Here are a couple of examples:   5 Keyword Research Tips That Will Blow Your Mind   Best Free SEO Tools to Help You Improve Your Rankings in 2019   <blockquote> However, keywords have a higher priority, at least until you get your article to the top. Until you get to page 1, almost nobody except the search engines will see your article anyway. </blockquote>   Don’t bother testing the CTR by changing the title until you’re at least on page #1 of Google. Also, keep in mind that any modifications can impact your rankings negatively as well.   For example, if a no. 1 position increase on the main keyword resulted in 100 more visitors per month but the trade off in modifying your title would be to remove a set of keywords that could bring 200 visitors per month, then it’s not a good trade-off.   <blockquote> If your article is already ranking #1, you should’t make any changes until your competitors rank better than you. </blockquote>   Quick tip: You can use ▷ in front of your title to make it stand out from the crowd. You can also try <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/20067/emoji-seo-strategy/">adding emojis to your titles.</a> where it makes sense. However, don’t turn your title into a clown (no offense intended to any clown SEO readers). Keep it civil. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='11' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Fill short titles with calls to action</h3>   If your main keyword is very short and you don’t have any secondary keywords that are relevant or make sense to add into your title, add a call to action or try to make it catchy.   For example, if your title is simply “Ski Rental Prices” and there are no other keywords that have search volume or make sense targeting, then you can add “50% Discount for 1st Time Clients” or “Best Prices in the Entire Resort”.   This way, you are taking advantage of the real estate instead of wasting it. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='12' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Make your article & title look fresh</h3>   Convince your potential readers that the article is relevant by adding the current year inside your article’s title. If you have a topic that keeps changing or evolving, it’s always a good idea to keep updating your articles.   However, once you update it, make sure you let your users know about this. Here are some examples from our blog:   Are Web Directories Still Relevant for SEO in 2019? (This article was written a long time ago and updated this year).   21 Effective Low Effort & High Return SEO Techniques for 2019 (This article was written as new this year).   You can also add these keywords in the meta description if they don’t fit inside the title, although it’s better if they are in the title as well.   <blockquote> When you update articles, make sure you don’t also modify the URL. The URL should never be changed, if possible. </blockquote> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='13' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Back up your title tag with relevant content</h3>   The title is a very important ranking factor. However, there is a ranking factor more important than the title: the content itself!   That’s why it’s always a good idea to back up your title with relevant content. You can do this by adding relevant keywords in your content.   You can find these keywords easily by using the <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/keyword-tool/">cognitiveSEO Keyword Tool & Content Assistant</a>.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22851" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/content-title-tag.png" alt="Content Optimization Tool" width="1056" height="770" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/content-title-tag.png 1056w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/content-title-tag-300x219.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/content-title-tag-768x560.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/content-title-tag-1024x747.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1056px) 100vw, 1056px" />   Also, make sure you avoid what SEOs call keyword stuffing. This occurs when a particular keyword or set of keywords is found too often inside an article. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='14' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Use different titles for SEO & Social Media</h3>   If you use social media to promote your content (and you should) you can always use different titles for different platforms.   By default, social media platforms take their titles from the title meta tag. However, you can use protocols such as <a href="https://ogp.me/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Open Graph</a> or <a href="https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/tweets/optimize-with-cards/overview/abouts-cards" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Twitter Cards</a> to set custom titles for your social media posts.   This can help boost your traffic and engagement, as you can stick with using keywords on your SEO title, while using something catchy and rich on emotion on your social media posts.   If you use WordPress, you can quickly do this via the Yoast SEO plugin. You can even specify a different description excerpt and image. This comes in handy in case the thumbnail image sizes on your website don’t match the ones on Facebook.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22849" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/open-graph-twitter-cards-seo-yoast.png" alt="SEO Yoast Social Media Custom Title" width="848" height="685" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/open-graph-twitter-cards-seo-yoast.png 848w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/open-graph-twitter-cards-seo-yoast-300x242.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/open-graph-twitter-cards-seo-yoast-768x620.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 848px) 100vw, 848px" />   On a custom platform you can manually add the meta tags into the HTML:   OG example for title: <meta property=”og:title” content=” “/>. The title goes between the apostrophes under the content attribute. This title will show on Facebook instead of the title tag itself. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='15' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>How to Craft an SEO Friendly Title Tag</h2>   Once you have the best practices in mind, you can start actually creating your title. However, step one doesn’t involve any writing! <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='16' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Step 1: Choose your keywords wisely</h3>   Everything in SEO starts with <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/10236/5-keyword-research-tips/">keyword research</a>. Without it, you’re venturing into the dark. You don’t know if the keywords have any search volume, you don’t know your competition and you don’t even know if your content is relevant.   <blockquote> Make sure you pick a primary keyword to target for your article. You can then pick a set of secondary & long tail keywords if they fit. </blockquote>   For example, in an article in Romanian which I worked on for a client, we decided to write about the primary keyword “weight loss exercises”.   However, you can always have secondary keywords, especially if you’ve decided to target more long tail phrases, with less traffic and competition.   The final title ended up begin “Best & Most Efficient Weight Loss Exercises You Can Do At Home”.   This title targets multiple keywords: “weight loss exercises”, “best weight loss exercises”, “efficient weight loss exercises”, “weight loss exercises at home”, “best weight loss exercises at home”, “efficient weight loss exercises at home”.   While this article is primarily optimized for “weight loss exercises”, it will gain traction a lot slower for this keyword as it is more competitive. Meanwhile, the other long tail phrases will bring traffic as the competition is lower and they will rank high easier. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='17' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Step 2: Draft your title tag</h3>   If you’re on WordPress, there is a dedicated field for the Title. By default, what you fill there will act as both the Title and the H1 tags.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22854" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/wordpress-title-h1.png" alt="" width="855" height="259" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/wordpress-title-h1.png 855w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/wordpress-title-h1-300x91.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/wordpress-title-h1-768x233.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 855px) 100vw, 855px" />   You can use the Yoast SEO plugin as mentioned above to differentiate these two.   If you have a custom made website, ask your developer where the <title> meta tag is generated from and insert your title there.   Often times, new webmasters ask themselves if they should write the title before or after they write the article.   Well… Yes. You should write the title before the article, as well as improve it later on after the article has been written.   Writing the title first will help you outline the general idea of the article. However, the title ultimately represents the article, so until the article has been written the final title remains uncertain. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='18' style='height:50px'> </div> <h3>Step 3: Optimize the title tag</h3>   As you write your article/webpage, you might notice that there are new ideas that pop up in your head and new subtopics that you want to cover. Some of them might even be relevant enough to be included in the title as well.   <blockquote> That’s why you often have to rewrite your title tag to better fit your content. If the title tag is not relevant, it won’t be as effective. </blockquote>   Optimizing title tags isn’t always an easy task. If you want to include multiple keywords while still keeping the focus on the main one, things can get tricky.   Count in the best practice of making it catchy and you really don’t have enough space to write everything you want!   That’s why it’s a good idea to keep the SEO Title for SEO and take advantage of Open Graph and Twitter Cards to optimize your titles for social media as well.   However, one rule to keep in mind here is to try and keep things simple. Overly complicated titles might do more harm than good.   After you publish the article, you have to keep an eye on how the title is performing. We all know that <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/21834/how-long-does-it-take-to-rank-in-google/">SEO takes time</a>. At first, it won’t be ranking very high.   Monitor your article with Google Analytics and the Google Search Console to see how it performs. Once it gets to page #1 or the search results, take a look at the click through rate.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22855" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ctr-title-tag.png" alt="CTR Title Tag & Meta Description" width="1115" height="829" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ctr-title-tag.png 1115w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ctr-title-tag-300x223.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ctr-title-tag-768x571.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ctr-title-tag-1024x761.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1115px) 100vw, 1115px" />   If the article starts stagnating on the 5th or 4th spot, you can try to play with the titles & meta descriptions to improve your CTR. This will result in higher rankings if you do things well.   Keep in mind that this can also negatively impact your rankings. For example, in an attempt to gain more clicks, you remove a long tail keyword from your title which will most probably result in a drop in rankings for that query.   However, it might be a good trade-off if your CTR for the primary keyword increases and brings in more visitors than the other long tail keyword would have brought. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='19' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>How to Write Bulk (Auto-generated) Title Tags for eCommerce Websites</h2>   So now you know how to write an SEO friendly title tag for each and every page or article on your website.   <blockquote> But Adrian, what if I have thousands and thousands of pages and can’t afford to write titles for each and every one of them? </blockquote>   That’s a good question! Often times, you can’t afford to write a title for each and every post on your website. It simply takes too much time and it isn’t practical.   In this case, you have to dynamically set up your titles. This is usually done using the CMS. If you’re on WordPress, the Yoast SEO plugin can definitely help you. Just go to the Search Appearance Settings and you can set up templates for content types:   <img class="aligncenter" src="https://yoast.com/app/uploads/2018/06/search_appearance_snippet_variables_yoast_seo_7_7-600x567.jpg" alt="Image result for yoast seo appearance search" />   You can also have a template for your meta description and even <a href="https://metabox.io/add-custom-fields-to-yoast-seo-meta-tags/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">set up custom variables</a> to make the titles exactly the way you want. Maybe you want to add size or weight into your titles automatically because that’s what your users seek on your products.   Other platforms might have similar plugins. Just search the web for them. Magento, for example, already does this out of the box, as it is a platform specifically designed for eCommerce and hosting a ton of products and categories.   If you’re on a custom platform, then the variables must probably be set up into the database and called in the title tag dynamically using PHP. If you don’t know how to do that, then you should get in touch with your developer.   Here are some examples of good title structures for eCommerce sites or websites where manually writing each title isn’t an option:   <ul> <li>Product Name | Your Brand</li> <li>Product Name | Category | Your Brand</li> <li>Product Name | Call to Action | Your Brand</li> <li>Service | Location | Your Brand</li> </ul>   This way you can generate some templates that will automatically write titles for your products and category pages.   <blockquote> However, for those important pages you should spend some extra time doing the proper keyword research, analyzing the competition and crafting unique titles and descriptions. </blockquote>   If you really want to see results, the best shot is to seek out those pages with good results and traffic and to properly optimize them. This includes writing unique titles for them.   You can find those pages in your Search Console or in Google Analytics. You can also determine those pages from keyword research. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='20' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Why Is Google Showing A Different/Wrong Title Tag For My Site?</h2>   The one true answer here is because it can. However, there are multiple reasons why Google might choose a different title for your site.   The first one is obviously that your titles are simply bad. If the title of your Homepage is Homepage, then you’d probably be grateful rather than concerned anyway.   Google wants to show the most relevant title possible for the user. Here’s a quick example of how Google does that.   If I search for “do meta descriptions affect seo” this is the title we get from the SERPs:   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22857" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/example-one-normal-title.jpg" alt="" width="637" height="145" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/example-one-normal-title.jpg 637w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/example-one-normal-title-300x68.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 637px) 100vw, 637px" />   If we also add the brand to the query, “do meta descriptions affect seo cognitiveseo”, Google modifies the title tag.   This is Google trying to prove to the user that the results it is showing are the most relevant ones. They include the brand the user was searching for.   Another example was mentioned before, where the brand name inside a title was moved from the end of the title to the front for a branded search.   In these cases the keyword was in the title already. However, Google might get the required keywords from the content itself, be it from general paragraphs or headings.   This “rewriting” also happens with the meta descriptions. In fact, the very article I’ve mentioned above has a different meta description.   The original meta description is “This description might influence whether you visit our site or not. So, do meta description tags affect SEO? If you haven’t figured it out yet, click here.”   However, Google chose to show the direct answer to the question. Unfortunately, this isn’t in our best interest, as answering that question directly might result in users not clicking through to reach our website!   It is however in Google’s best interest, as the more time users spend on Google, the more ads they see and the more money Google makes.   Secondly, your titles might be taken from anchor texts of both internal and external links pointing to your pages.   This usually happens when your pages are blocked from being crawled and indexed.   Not being able to reach your page and read its title, if Google finds a URL pointing to your page on another website, it can still index it. If that URL is under an anchor text, that anchor text can be considered as a title for the page.   This case is extreme and if you’re blocking pages from being indexed, you have greater concerns than title rewrites.   Last but not least, it is possible that the Google Cache is simply outdated. If you have recently changed your title, it might take some time until Google recrawls your page and sees the modification.   You can try to rush this action from the Google Search Console by searching for the URL and hitting the Request Indexing button:   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22858" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/request-indexing-google.png" alt="Request Indexing GSC" width="922" height="190" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/request-indexing-google.png 922w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/request-indexing-google-300x62.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/request-indexing-google-768x158.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 922px) 100vw, 922px" />   Can you stop Google from rewriting your titles?   Well… yes. By rewriting them the way it wants. However, as long as you follow the best practices and include the right keywords in your titles, you shouldn’t worry about it. It’s not such a big deal if Google partially rewrites your titles in some cases, especially if you’re ranking high!   <h3>Conclusion: Balancing Algorithmic Data with AI Intelligence</h3>   Title tags remain one of the most powerful, high-leverage assets in your entire SEO arsenal. However, as the digital landscape moves deeper into the era of conversational search and AI-driven answers, the definition of a “well-optimized” title has fundamentally evolved. Years ago, it was enough to simply stack a few keywords together and hope for a high ranking. Today, success requires a dual-threat approach. By following the structural best practices we’ve discussed, front-loading your primary keywords, keeping pixel widths clean, and avoiding cannibalization, you satisfy legacy search bots. But by overlaying emotional intelligence and decoding user friction, you elevate your title tags into clear entity signals that modern AI engines love to process. When a generative AI engine builds a real-time response for a user, it looks for authoritative nodes of information to back up its answers. A title tag that perfectly balances technical keyword structure with conversational, high-intent sentiment tells both traditional crawlers and AI pipelines that your page is the definitive source worth clicking and worth citing. Optimizing your title tags doesn’t have to be a monumental hurdle. Start with the low-hanging fruit: <ul data-path-to-node="7"> <li> Fix the basic truncation and pixel errors on your top-performing pages. </li> <li> Set up dynamic, clean templates to handle the bulk lifting for your eCommerce or catalog pages. </li> <li> Use advanced sentiment tracking to inject real human emotion where it moves the needle most. </li> </ul> The search ecosystem will continue to shift, but one truth remains: the web belongs to the brands that write for the human mind while structuring data cleanly for the machine. Master both, and you’ll dominate the rankings, whether they show up as legacy blue links or a top footnote in an AI response. How do you approach your title tag optimization? Are you still relying solely on legacy search volume, or are you optimizing for AI answer engines too? Let us know your strategy in the comments section below!   The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/22796/seo-friendly-title-tags-best-practices/">How to Optimize SEO Title Tags for Humans and AI Engines</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.
The Best Local SEO Software to Optimize for AI Search & Google Rankings

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 10:38:51 -0000

Having a strong online presence is essential for every business, whether you operate from a single location or manage offices across multiple countries. In 2026, success isn’t just about ranking on traditional search engines; it’s about deploying advanced local SEO software to ensure visibility in AI-powered search experiences, voice assistants, and answer engines that provide […] The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/22393/local-seo-software/">The Best Local SEO Software to Optimize for AI Search & Google Rankings</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.

Having a strong online presence is essential for every business, whether you operate from a single location or manage offices across multiple countries. In 2026, success isn’t just about ranking on traditional search engines; it’s about deploying advanced local SEO software to ensure visibility in AI-powered search experiences, voice assistants, and answer engines that provide users with direct recommendations.   Local search optimization remains one of the most effective ways to attract nearby customers. Search platforms increasingly personalize results based on location, intent, and context, making accurate local data and strong business signals more important than ever. Businesses that invest in local SEO are better positioned to appear in Google Maps, local packs, AI-generated answers, and other discovery surfaces where potential customers make decisions.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22461" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/best-local-seo-software.jpg" alt="best-local-seo-software" width="1024" height="538" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/best-local-seo-software.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/best-local-seo-software-300x158.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/best-local-seo-software-768x404.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   In this guide, we’ll explore the best local SEO software and tools for 2026 and beyond to help you improve your local search presence, strengthen your digital footprint, and reach more customers where they are searching.   <ol class="summaryext"> <li><a href="#1">cognitiveSEO</a></li> <li><a href="#2">BrightLocal SEO</a></li> <li><a href="#3">Yext</a></li> <li><a href="#4">Whitespark</a></li> <li><a href="#5">Synup</a></li> <li><a href="#66">Respona</a></li> <li><a href="#6">Local SEO Checklist</a></li> <li><a href="#7">Reputation.com</a></li> <li><a href="#8">Moz Local</a></li> <li><a href="#9">Tribe Local</a></li> <li><a href="#10">Advice Local</a></li> <li><a href="#11">Linkio</a></li> <li><a href="#133">The Missing Piece in Local SEO: Granular Reputation Monitoring</a></li> </ol>   We’ve gathered a list of 10 local SEO tools. Each one of them has great individual features regarding analytics, effective local listing opportunities, the ability to automatically update your business information with minimum effort or reviews management. In order to test and choose the best one, you’ll have to know what your needs are and understand how local SEO works. Get to know them before you make a choice.   Local SEO has become more important than ever. It seems that <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/local-seo-stats" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">46% of all searches on Google</a> are seeking for local information. From all of that, 76% of local searches result in a phone call on the same day. Moreover, <a href="https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/12-local-seo-stats-every-business-owner-and-marketer-should-know-in-2019-i/549079/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">28% of people</a> who search on their smartphone for something nearby resulted in a purchase. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='1' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>1. cognitiveSEO </h2>   Let’s start the list with cognitveSEO and then mentioned lots of other solutions, depending on everyone’s needs. cognitiveSEO is a friend from the house so we’ll be more than glad to present it to you.   For tracking and improving your local SEO, cognitiveSEO has 2 neat features: the Rank Tracker and The Keyword Tool & Content Assistant. The <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/ranktracker/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Rank Tracker</a> has advanced options to follow the evolution of your keywords by checking local rank tracking on any device and browser you want.   <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/ranktracker/"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-22580 size-full" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/local-RT-cognitiveseo1.png" alt="local Rank tracking cognitiveseo" width="841" height="553" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/local-RT-cognitiveseo1.png 841w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/local-RT-cognitiveseo1-300x197.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/local-RT-cognitiveseo1-768x505.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 841px) 100vw, 841px" /></a>   It is as simple to use as you think: add the keywords you are interested in ranking for (or check the suggested keywords if you’re not sure what keywords to track yet), select the country, the browser and check the Local Rank Tracking box. You can check the rankings as locally as you want. You can also add the same keywords on different locations so you can compare rankings on different location afterwards.   cognitiveSEO’s Local Rank tracking tool has lots of advantages: <ul> <li>you’ll have an accurate view on your website’s performance in local SEO;</li> <li>there is a variety of countries and languages you can select from;</li> <li>it has accurate city/area precision;</li> <li>integrated mobile tracking;</li> <li>get instant alert notification whether you suffer from local changes in rankings;</li> <li>manage keywords through filters and tags.</li> </ul>   The <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/keyword-tool/">Keyword Tool & Content Assistant</a> is another tool that gives you the possibility of optimizing for local search. You can create or optimize content directly for local SERP. The tool will let you know the exact keywords your content is missing to rank within the top Google results. It’s easy to use, intuitive, saves you tons of time and what’s even more important it actually works. You can <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/15236/greenlane-content-boost-rankings/">check out the story</a> of an agency who improved their rankings from position #5 to position #2 in 24 hours using the tool.   <a href="https://keywords.cognitiveseo.com"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-22587" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/keyword-tool-local-search-cognitiveseo-horz-1024x439.jpg" alt="keyword tool local search cognitiveseo-horz" width="1024" height="439" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/keyword-tool-local-search-cognitiveseo-horz-1024x439.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/keyword-tool-local-search-cognitiveseo-horz-300x129.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/keyword-tool-local-search-cognitiveseo-horz-768x329.jpg 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/keyword-tool-local-search-cognitiveseo-horz.jpg 1258w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>   <blockquote class="yellow"> Did you know?   46% of all Google searches have local geographical parameters. That means almost a half of all searches made on Google. So keeping track of your local keywords is a must. You can use <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/ranktracker/">cognitiveSEO’s Rank Tracking</a> for this. For a better understanding of your business performance, compare your universal rankings with your local ones. The variations can be quite big so it’s important to be aware of your ranking situation. This way you can better adapt your strategies on the way, and focus more on what matter most for your business. On top of that, the tool allows you to keep an eye on all the important Google algorithm updates to see if they had any impact on your website’s rankings.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-22593 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Local-vs-universal-ranks-and-algorithms--823x1024.png" alt="Local vs universal ranks and algorithms" width="823" height="1024" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Local-vs-universal-ranks-and-algorithms--823x1024.png 823w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Local-vs-universal-ranks-and-algorithms--241x300.png 241w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Local-vs-universal-ranks-and-algorithms--768x956.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Local-vs-universal-ranks-and-algorithms-.png 1286w" sizes="(max-width: 823px) 100vw, 823px" /></blockquote> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='2' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>2. BrightLocal SEO</h2>   Founded by Ed Eliot & Myles Anderson in 2009, <a href="https://www.brightlocal.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">BrightLocal</a> has a complex local SEO feature, with which you can monitor, audit and optimize. The tool makes it easy to analyze performance data such as organic, local and mobile search rankings, local business listings, customers reviews, Google My Business (GMB) insights, Google Analytics data, and social media interactions.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-22394 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/bright-local-1024x804.png" alt="BrightLocal" width="1024" height="804" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/bright-local-1024x804.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/bright-local-300x236.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/bright-local-768x603.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/bright-local.png 1082w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   BrightLocal knows how important online reviews are. Every year, they do the Local Consumer Review Survey and in 2018, the results showed that <a href="https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">86% of consumers</a> read reviews for local businesses (including 95% of people aged 18-34) and 86% of consumers read reviews for local businesses (including 95% of people aged 18-34).   <div id="attachment_22395" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22395" class="wp-image-22395 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Do-you-read-online-reviews-for-local-businesses-age-split-1024x600.png" alt="Do-you-read-online-reviews-for-local-businesses-age-split" width="1024" height="600" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Do-you-read-online-reviews-for-local-businesses-age-split-1024x600.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Do-you-read-online-reviews-for-local-businesses-age-split-300x176.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Do-you-read-online-reviews-for-local-businesses-age-split-768x450.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Do-you-read-online-reviews-for-local-businesses-age-split.png 2026w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Source: BrightLocal</div>   The tool allows you to perform lots of actions to clean and build a reputation online, plus lots of insights to boost your local SEO, using the following features: <ul> <li>Monitor Local Citations: Get detailed NAP (name, address, phone) audit and find citations opportunities to boost local rankings by spying on your competitors.</li> <li>Grow your online reputation: Manage and generate customer feedback on key review sites.</li> <li>Optimize Google My Business listing: analyze your GMB data, follow changes and benchmark performance against your competitors.</li> <li>Local SEO audit reports: Get detailed information about local SEO metrics, fix issues and perform better reports.</li> </ul> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='3' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>3. Yext</h2>   <a href="https://www.yext.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Yext</a> is an SEO software that helps you manage and include reviews and local pages. The tool has a variety of products and features that make it easy to integrate with lots of local directories. The way it is structured will make sure your business is up-to-date and all the information is accurate.   The local SEO services provided by Yext allow you to put your business on the sight of the user through the various apps available in the Knowledge network. You can see just a few of them in the print screen below; the list is long.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22396" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Yext-Listings.png" alt="Yext Listings" width="840" height="859" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Yext-Listings.png 840w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Yext-Listings-293x300.png 293w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Yext-Listings-768x785.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px" />   The most used SEO features of this tool are: <ul> <li>Yext Listings: it puts you in contact with all the listing and gets your business displayed across 100+ digital services globally. Here you’ll find the Knowledge Network that will help you get to your customers.</li> <li>Yext Pages: it manages your landing pages to built AI-ready pages for each of your advisors, events, restaurants, menus, locations, and more to offer accurate information and optimized pages for your user. You can build them for scale and conversions.</li> <li>Yext Knowledge Manager: it is a cloud-based platform where you can find lots of insights about your audience, what information they seek, starting from locations, holiday hours and in-store promotions to parking entrances and more. You can find out more about what a knowledge manager is <a href="https://www.getguru.com/reference/what-is-a-knowledge-manager" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">here</a>. </li> </ul>   Customer behavior has changed a lot since the growth of local SEO. Yext performed a major analysis using internal data of more than <a href="https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/01/18/data-local-search-trends-from-2017-2018/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">300,000 customer business</a> locations active from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2018. The study showed that:   <blockquote> Businesses across industries saw more interactions via AI-enabled services than their own websites. Up to 2.7 times as much traffic on third-party sites. </blockquote> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='4' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>4. Whitespark</h2>   <a href="https://whitespark.ca/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Whitespark</a> started as an agency but now focuses on offering SEO software tools. It was founded by local SEO expert <a href="https://twitter.com/DarrenShaw_" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Darren Shaw</a> and it’s designed to finding citation opportunities that you might be missing so you can improve your search rankings. Beside that, you can use it to earn reviews, build high-quality backlinks, manage your local search and win more customers.   <table class="author-quotes" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr class="author-quote-row"> <td class="author-text" colspan="2">Citations are still valuable and important, you still want to build them out, and they’re table stakes now. The algorithm was simpler five years ago, so citations played a bigger role. I think if you don’t do citations, you’re hurting yourself a little bit. If you’re not accurate and listed on the important sites in your industry, you’re going to have a bad time.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="author-image" rowspan="2"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-18836" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Darren-Shaw.jpg" alt="Darren Shaw" width="46" height="46" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Darren-Shaw.jpg 416w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Darren-Shaw-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Darren-Shaw-300x300.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 46px) 100vw, 46px" /></td> <td class="author-name">Darren Shaw</td> </tr> <tr class="author-description-row"> <td> Founder of Whitespark </td> </tr> </tbody> </table>   Whitespark is known for the following tools: <ul> <li>Local Citation Finder: it gives you lots of opportunities to get new citations by spying on your competitors’ citations and find all the places where your business is listed.</li> <li>Local Rank Tracker: it tracks and localizes all your ranking data and displays your organic rankings in Google and Bing.</li> <li>Reputation Builder: it manages your negative feedback before turning into bad reviews, creates an easy and automated way to collect reviews.</li> <li>Link Prospector: it was designed to find new link opportunities. You can <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/13363/content-amplification/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">amplify your content</a> to earn more shares and links.</li> <li>Review Checker: it will check business reviews, to understand if you’re doing well or you’re receiving negative reviews. Plus you’ll get directions to resolve them.</li> </ul>   Reviews can influence the user’s decision quite a lot. The “Local Consumer Review Survey 2018” made by BrightLocal showed that positive reviews encourage users to use a business in a fairly large proportion (68%), compared to other factors, such as price and location.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-22397 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/How-do-online-customer-reviews-influence-your-decision-to-actually-use-a-local-business-1024x675.png" alt="How-do-online-customer-reviews-influence-your-decision-to-actually-use-a-local-business" width="1024" height="675" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/How-do-online-customer-reviews-influence-your-decision-to-actually-use-a-local-business-1024x675.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/How-do-online-customer-reviews-influence-your-decision-to-actually-use-a-local-business-300x198.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/How-do-online-customer-reviews-influence-your-decision-to-actually-use-a-local-business-768x506.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='5' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>5. Synup</h2>   <a href="https://synup.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Synup</a> is an all-in-one local marketing software that manages and optimizes your local business content. The tool scans your business online and gives you information on where it is listed. The management system is easy to use, it is fully automated to evaluate your listings, reputation and analytics data.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-22398 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Synup-1024x512.png" alt="Synup" width="1024" height="512" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Synup-1024x512.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Synup-300x150.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Synup-768x384.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Synup.png 1277w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   Here are the local SEO features available on Synup: <ul> <li>Local listing management: the platform crawls location data on 200+ local search engines and directories and gathers it in one place where you can easily manage your data.</li> <li>Aggregate all your interactions: you get instant notifications whenever a customer leaves reviews or interacts on social media through comments, shares. You can respond directly to reviews within the platform.</li> <li>Monitor your analytics: automatically track analytics on your business locations’ performance.</li> <li>Easy to use reporting: Export all the information you need in any format you want (pdf, excel, CSV).</li> </ul> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='66' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>6. Respona</h2> <a href="https://respona.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Respona</a> is an AI visibility and link-building platform designed to help brands identify the exact articles and domains influencing AI-generated search results. Its campaigns feature allows businesses to discover which websites are being cited by ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and other AI search engines, making it easier to prioritize placements on sources already shaping online visibility. <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-24872" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/respona.png" alt="respona" width="777" height="514" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/respona.png 777w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/respona-300x198.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/respona-768x508.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 777px) 100vw, 777px" /> Instead of relying on generic backlink prospecting, Respona focuses on citation-driven targeting. Brands can uncover which publishers, listicles, and editorial pages competitors are appearing on, identify authority gaps, and build campaigns around the websites already trusted by AI systems. Here are the key features available to help improve SEO authority and AI visibility: <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">AI visibility campaigns: identify the exact articles and domains cited by AI search engines and answer engines.</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Competitor citation analysis: discover where competing brands are earning visibility in AI-generated answers.</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Authority-focused targeting: prioritize placements on trusted, traffic-generating websites already influencing search visibility.</li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Done-for-you link building: businesses can also use Respona’s managed service for outreach, publisher communication, content coordination, and placements.</li> </ul> Pricing starts at $100 per placement depending on authority, traffic, and campaign scope.   <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='6' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>7. Local SEO Checklist</h2>   <a href="https://localseochecklist.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Local SEO Checklist</a> is a tool developed by Synup that offers something any other tool is lacking: it can fix technical local SEO issues. You can analyze on-page elements, everything related to Google, top business directories, citations, customers reviews and testimonials, website content and backlinking.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-22399 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Local-SEO-Checklist-1024x613.png" alt="Local SEO Checklist" width="1024" height="613" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Local-SEO-Checklist-1024x613.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Local-SEO-Checklist-300x179.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Local-SEO-Checklist-768x459.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Local-SEO-Checklist.png 1349w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   Based on the elements you select, you can create checklists, as the name points out, and use the platform as a guide to know exactly what parts of your site need improvements and optimization for local searches. It offers 40 different tasks that detail a specific local SEO action. Besides all the features available on the platform, you have lots of other options to optimize your website: <ul> <li>Google Checker: it checks if your Googe My Business has accurate and correct information;</li> <li>Schema Scanner: it checks if your website uses correct schema and fixes the issues;</li> <li>Audit Business Listing: it checks how your business listing data appears across 48 important directories including Google, Facebook, Yelp and more.</li> </ul> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='7' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>8. Reputation.com</h2>   <a href="https://www.reputation.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Reputation.com</a> is created for large multi-location businesses to monitor and improve their reputation, and optimize customer experience. It uses AI and natural processing languages to analyze all the data and measure and quantify your brand’s performance to give you the most accurate insights.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-22400 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Reputation-score-1024x637.jpg" alt="Reputation score" width="1024" height="637" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Reputation-score-1024x637.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Reputation-score-300x187.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Reputation-score-768x478.jpg 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Reputation-score.jpg 1424w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   The tool has one of the best features for multi-location management, in case you’re having lots of properties to take care of. You can keep your properties in order and managed. The dashboard is user-friendly and you have all the features on sight to audit business listing, publish on social media, including customer sentiment and industry benchmarking to gain ranking advantage in front of your competitors. Here are the key features available to help you improve your local search rankings: <ul> <li>Directory Management: the tool keeps all your location data accurate and helps you manage them in order to lead the customer to your online and offline store.</li> <li>Business Listing: easily claim all your listings and fix any mistakes or missing data, then submit the correct information to all the third party websites to get to your audience.</li> <li>Online Reviews: keep your reputation clean by using the tool to find out what customers are saying about you, lead them to send reviews and monitor all of them through the centralized dashboard.</li> <li>Reputation score: Based on the information it founds online, the tool will calculate a reputation score letting you know what you’ll have to improve.</li> </ul>   Reputation.com’s goal is to help businesses have all the information in one place to improve website visibility and increase rankings. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='8' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>9. Moz Local</h2>   <a href="https://moz.com/products/local" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Moz Local</a> is one of the most known local SEO tools. It can be used for both small businesses and big enterprises, especially for increasing visibility and checking listing issues. On top all of that, Moz assures business listing on all major online directories and aggregators and gets rid of all the duplicates and wrong information about your business.   It makes sure all the listings are correct and consistent. Plus it secures your relationship with your audience by having the option to get instant notifications for new reviews to offer real-time feedback.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-22403 size-large" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Moz-local-overview-1024x545.png" alt="Moz local overview" width="1024" height="545" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Moz-local-overview-1024x545.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Moz-local-overview-300x160.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Moz-local-overview-768x409.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Moz-local-overview.png 1111w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   Here are the local SEO solutions that the software offers to make your business ready, set and distributed over the web: <ul> <li>Social media verification account: make sure it has Facebook and Twitter verified account;</li> <li>Directory and aggregator submission: Moz locally shares your listing across the search distribution; plus you’ll get a distribution report to analyze the effectiveness of your published listing over time. </li> <li>Local listing distribution dashboard: setup your business listing;</li> <li>Google My Business sync: claim your business and sync the data to share accurate NAP information and more;</li> <li>Review monitoring: monitor your reviews and ratings to have an accurate view of your business. </li> </ul> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='9' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>10. Tribe Local</h2>   <a href="https://tribelocal.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Tribe Local</a> is a local SEO tool for managing listings and online reputation. Beside the other SEO softwares, Tribe Local makes it very easy to create white-label reports to your business or for local clients, export bulk data and add unlimited users and freelancers. Plus, it has even over 200 local listing sites, including premium citations.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22421" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Tribe-Local-SEO.png" alt="Tribe Local SEO" width="935" height="607" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Tribe-Local-SEO.png 935w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Tribe-Local-SEO-300x195.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Tribe-Local-SEO-768x499.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 935px) 100vw, 935px" />   Based on your results, you can get a score to see exactly what your business is lacking in local optimization: Citations score, Reviews score, Rakings score, Analytics score, GMB score. Here’s the main features of Tribe Local you can use to amplify the online presence and performance of your client’s business: <ul> <li>Business Directory Citations: Use it to check your existing local SEO citations, add it to 200+ local business directories and fix any listing you have.</li> <li>Reviews Management: Scan to check your existing online business reviews, analyze your ratings, analyze the feedback and perform multiple analysis for your business on a certain period of time.</li> <li>Local SEO Ranking: The local tracker allows you to keep track of all business metrics, have a clear picture of your present status and track local rankings to be ahead of your competitors. Plus you can generate local performance analytics and see your evolution. </li> <li>Reputation Management: Analyze sentiment of reviews posted online, create testimonial widgets to convert happy customers, send customized email campaigns to your customers, receive alerts and track all your reviews.</li> <li>Google My Business: Add your businesses in GMB and other 200+ business directory sites. Edit and fix all of your business citations.</li> </ul>   Besides all of these, the tool has lots of advantages for agencies, as they promote it as a good fit for those working with multiples accounts and users. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='10' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>11. Advice Local</h2>   <a href="https://www.advicelocal.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Advice Local</a> is the last SEO tool from our list, but not the least important. It creates competition to Yext, and it has a great advantage over Yext due to the fact you can manually build out local citations while Yext uses an API. Compared to the other tools, it has a voice search algorithm that gives you directions on how well your location is featured on voice assistants. Plus, Advice Local is a complete all-in-one local SEO solution for local optimization. They brag about the power to ensure the accuracy and visibility of your business’ location information on search engines.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22425" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Advice-Local.png" alt="Advice Local" width="921" height="614" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Advice-Local.png 921w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Advice-Local-300x200.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Advice-Local-768x512.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 921px) 100vw, 921px" />   The Data Amplifier network publishes data about your listing on strong sites like Google, Yelp, Apple Maps and Facebook to enhance your local presence online. It includes a big database of data aggregators, data accelerators, data enhancers, additional GPS accelerators, vertical directories, and other directories for legal, home services, finance, and restaurants.   Here are the local solutions proposed by Advice Local: <ul> <li>Listing Management: It uses a combination of APIs and manual submissions to claim, create and optimize listings. It has integrated GMB, Bing and Yelp local pages</li> <li>Store Locator: The dashboard allows you to manage multi-location businesses, create SEO optimized landing pages and add store locator to your client’s websites to keep them connected with their audience.</li> <li>Voice Search Readiness Test: It uses an algorithm to provide a score for you local businesses based on how easy they are found on all voice assistants (Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant).</li> </ul> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='11' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>12. Linkio</h2>   <a href="https://www.linkio.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Linkio</a> is an SEO tool created to help SEO experts in monitoring the backlinks and optimizing the anchor texts for maximum benefits and staying neutral while getting before the competitors. Maintaining a quality backlink profile with diversified anchor texts you can be sometimes very difficult and you should always use a tool made especially for that purpose.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-23132" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Linkio.png" alt="Linkio" width="827" height="441" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Linkio.png 827w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Linkio-300x160.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Linkio-768x410.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 827px) 100vw, 827px" />   With an integrated rank tracking system and local tracking you can monitor daily keyword positions and see how your backlinks influence your Google rankings.   <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='133' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>13. The Missing Piece in Local SEO: Granular Reputation Monitoring </h2>   Traditional local SEO software focuses almost entirely on directory listings, Rank Tracking, and NAP consistency (Name, Address, Phone number) within the Local Map Pack. However, modern local search algorithms have shifted. Search engines now heavily weigh contextual reputation and brand sentiment across the broader local web, including regional news sites, local Facebook groups, and independent blogs.   <blockquote> To capture critical off-site data, local businesses must run a dedicated brand monitoring tool like BrandMentions alongside their standard local software. </blockquote>   <h4 data-path-to-node="7">Why BrandMentions is Essential for Modern Local SEO</h4> AI search engines look for specific tool capabilities to answer user queries about reputation management. BrandMentions fills this gap through two core features: <ul data-path-to-node="9"> <li> Deep Sentiment Analysis: The platform goes beyond basic alert tracking by performing emotion-level analysis on customer feedback. It categorizes local chatter into specific emotional drivers like “anger” over customer service or “delight” over a product launch. </li> <li> Proactive Reputation Control: Real-time sentiment tracking allows local businesses to intercept PR crises instantly and amplify positive consumer emotions to build sustainable local authority. </li> </ul>   The bottom line is that you need to perform local optimization for your business, if it’s the case of course. There are many <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/18819/local-seo-myths/">myths around local SEO</a> so make sure you get your strategies right. In the local SEO area there are always new things to discover that can help your business get new customers, improve your visibility and get more local searches.   There is no one size fits all tool. Yet, the above tools are a great starting point and a big help for you to keep your local business going. Check them out and feel free to make additions to the list in the comment section below. The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/22393/local-seo-software/">The Best Local SEO Software to Optimize for AI Search & Google Rankings</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.
8 Reasons Your Google Rankings Suddenly Dropped (With Fixes for 2026)

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 13:46:43 -0000

A sudden drop in Google rankings can happen for many reasons, from technical errors and algorithm updates to lost backlinks or stronger competitors.   The key is to diagnose the cause before making changes. In this guide, you’ll learn the seven most common types of ranking drops, how to identify each one, and the best […] The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/4644/6-google-ranking-drops-and-how-to-deal-with-them/">8 Reasons Your Google Rankings Suddenly Dropped (With Fixes for 2026)</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.

A sudden drop in Google rankings can happen for many reasons, from technical errors and algorithm updates to lost backlinks or stronger competitors.   The key is to diagnose the cause before making changes. In this guide, you’ll learn the seven most common types of ranking drops, how to identify each one, and the best recovery strategies for 2026. <blockquote>Important: Whenever your site’s rankings start dropping, keep calm and start looking for causes and solutions.</blockquote>   Surely it’s a reason to panic, but it’s not the end of the world, and most definitely not the end of your site. It’s just like the case of Wile E. Coyote, the beloved cartoon character that ran after Roadrunner; finally, he ended falling from a cliff or something, but that didn’t stop him. <img class=" wp-image-4905 aligncenter" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/wile-coyote-google-drop-ranking.jpg" alt="Wile Coyote Falling" width="100%" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/wile-coyote-google-drop-ranking.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/wile-coyote-google-drop-ranking-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> You need to understand why your site might be bleeding. It could be either because: <ul> <li>Google penalized the site.</li> <li>The site has some issues that led to the ranking drop.</li> </ul>   The first thing you need to do is to asses the situation and understand what’s broken on your site. I’m going to cover some of the methods which could save your site from “falling off the Google’s SERPs” (these are only some of the major reasons, as it’s impossible to encapsulate every possible situation in one article). Here are 6 important reasons way you site may have lost its Google Ranking and how you should address the drop.   <h3>1. Manual Actions and Search Algorithm Penalties</h3>   <h4>1.1. How to Diagnose a Google Penalty?</h4>   This is usually a big drop in <a href="https://www.mondovo.com/blog/effectively-deal-with-lost-google-ranking-with-rank-drop-quadrant/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">search engine rankings</a>, that happens over-night. If you notice that your site drops more than 10-20 positions on a multitude of keywords, this could indicate a penalty. A big difference between algorithmic and <a href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/3674/how-google-broke-the-bank-the-famous-halifax-penalty/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">manual penalties</a> is that the first ones are automatic and are usually released with various Google Updates, while the second ones are manually applied by a Google employee. Given the fact that Google made a habit out of making updates without clearly stating it, you should constantly <a href="http://cognitiveseo.com/tour.php#6">monitor</a> for ranking changes. You know you’ve been penalized by Google if the drop is harsh and swift, and you can see that your site continues to rank on other search engines like Bing or Yahoo.   <img class="size-full wp-image-4898 aligncenter" title="Big Drop in Google Search Visits" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/big_drop_google_search_visits1.jpg" alt="Big Drop in Google Search Visits" width="616" height="265" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/big_drop_google_search_visits1.jpg 616w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/big_drop_google_search_visits1-300x129.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 616px) 100vw, 616px" /> <h4>1.2 How to Identify & <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/googlepenguin/">Recover from Google Penalty</a>?</h4>   Your best bet at identifying exactly what happened would be to first check your Google Search Console account. There you’ll have notifications from Google regarding manual actions they’ve taken against your site. First you’ll have to see if there are notifications in the Site Messages menu. Here you’ll be alerted if there are any issues that GoogleBot detected. <img class="aligncenter wp-image-24954 size-full" title="Google Webmaster Tools Manual Action Penalty" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/manual-actions.png" alt="manual actions" width="913" height="447" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/manual-actions.png 913w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/manual-actions-300x147.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/manual-actions-768x376.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 913px) 100vw, 913px" />   You should also check the Manual Actions section from Google Search Console, since that is the only place you’re going to be announced of the Google penalties that have been applied to your site. You need to accept the decision with calm and proceed to solving the issue. Identifying exactly what harmed your site is the first thing you have to do. If it is on-page, you need to reconsider your content and linking. Check for duplicate content. If it is off-page, you need to <a title="Automatic Unnatural Link Detection – A Simple Tool for a Complex Problem" href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/3068/automatic-unnatural-link-detection/">detect and remove the links</a> which were considered unnatural. For the remaining links that still point to your site and weren’t removed, you can simply disavow them. In order to recover from manual penalties, you’ll have to submit a reconsideration request. Be aware that it may take some time till you’re going to regain your position in the SERPs.     <h4>1.3 How to Prevent Being Hit by a Google Penalty?</h4>   Continuously track your links and risk of being penalized with <a title="Automatic Unnatural Link Detection – A Simple Tool for a Complex Problem" href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/3068/automatic-unnatural-link-detection/">specialized tools</a> that alert you when something starts to happen on your link profile.   <h3>2. You Got OutRanked by a Competitor</h3>   <h4>2.1. How to Diagnose This?</h4> This is usually a slight drop in ranking. You will see your competitors site that outranked you and the other sites will usually be in the same positions as before. 2.2. How a Identify a Competitor Outranking Issue? You should constantly monitor and analyze your competitors sites and social profiles to better understand what are they doing. 3.3. How a Prevent Yourself From Being Outranked by a Competitor? Tracking your main competitors and understanding their link building strategies could predict their next moves.   <ul> <li>Keep a close eye on their content tactics and link building strategies.</li> <li>If they are steadily growing it means they’re doing something right. Understand and adapt your strategies accordingly. You should try to <a href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/3742/boosting-creative-seo-through-constraints/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">be very diverse and creative</a> with your content marketing strategies if you want to differentiate yourself from the competition.</li> </ul> <h3>3. Your Site was Demoted due to On-page Issues</h3> <h4> </h4> <h4>3.1. How to Spot if the Demotion is due to an On-page Issue?</h4> This is either a big drop or your site can not grow in rankings. It may be a sign of concern when your rankings start to slowly fall behind other sites, even though you’re seriously trying your best to create content and building links.   <h4>3.2. Where to look and how to Identify & Solve an On-page Optimization Problem?</h4>   Check your site in Search Console and understand if there are any problems from there first of all.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-24955 size-full" title="Onpage Errors GWT" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/search-console-issues.png" alt="search console issues" width="888" height="557" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/search-console-issues.png 888w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/search-console-issues-300x188.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/search-console-issues-768x482.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 888px) 100vw, 888px" />   Maybe you get a lot of broken links, or bad internal linking. Use the HTML Improvements feature to detect any problems with tags. “Abuse” the PageSpeed Insights as it gives you valuable information on what problems you may have with your site and how to fix them. Or maybe your <a title="3 Black Hat Strategies that Dominate the SERPs in 2014" href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/4603/3-black-hat-strategies-that-dominate-the-serps-in-2014/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">site got hacked</a>. All of these can be found in Google Search Console.   3.3. How to Prevent On-page problems? Always track your site in GWT and have GWT notifications enabled and sent to your email address. If you do this the chances of being a victim of on-page issues will drastically decrease.   <h3>4. Your Site Dropped Because it is Losing Links</h3>   4.1. How does this Demotion look like? This is either a slight or big drop. You will see huge spikes in link velocity, as you’ll have a lot of inbound links disappearing from your link profile. <img class="align center size-full wp-image-4661 aligncenter" title="Lost Link Rank Dropping" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/lost-link-drop.png" alt="Lost Link Rank Dropping" width="635" height="385" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/lost-link-drop.png 635w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/lost-link-drop-300x181.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 635px) 100vw, 635px" /> <h4>4.2. How to Identify and Solve such a Drop due to Lost Links?</h4>   Check <a href="http://explorer.cognitiveseo.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">your site’s lost links</a> in the last 90 days. If you see a lot of lost links this might indicate the ranking drop. Check those links individually. If those links were intentionally removed by webmasters this might be a red flag to Google that those were unnatural links. I can not advise you here to ask them back, as Google may penalize you in the future. This drop might have happened sooner or later without those webmasters dropping those links.   <blockquote>You need to build more <a title="Is Manual Link Building Becoming Obsolete?" href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/4366/is-manual-link-building-becoming-obsolete/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">organic</a> and HQ links to your site.</blockquote> <h4>4.3. How to Prevent Demotions due to Lost Links?</h4>   Track your lost links actively with specialized software. When this things happen, you will be aware of the issue before it is too late. By monitoring the link velocity you can figure out if things are out of the ordinary, and act accordingly.   <h3>5. Google Just Updated Their Algorithm</h3>   5.1. How does a Google Algorithm Update look like? This is either a slight or big drop. You might be scratched a little or you might be in serious trouble. In either cases, you might suspect an update if you’re rankings are suddenly and rapidly dropping.   <img class="aligncenter wp-image-24956 size-large" title="Google Updates Timeline" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cognitiveseosignals-1024x591.png" alt="cognitiveseosignals" width="1024" height="591" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cognitiveseosignals-1024x591.png 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cognitiveseosignals-300x173.png 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cognitiveseosignals-768x443.png 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cognitiveseosignals.png 1199w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> 5.2. How to Identify a Google Update? Check the SEO news sites for news related to a possible update in that timeframe. After this is cleared apply those findings to your own site. You need to identify what’s changed in the algorithm and how your site might violate the Google guidelines.   5.3. How to Prevent being hit by a Google Update? Be as organic as possible and build a brand. Focus on your product, community and technical issues with your site.   <h3>6. Google Flux</h3>   6.1. How does a Google Flux look like? This is either a slight or big drop. One of the things that you have no power over is the Google flux. This issue is very unpredictable and volatile, so you shouldn’t be on the lookout for any signs. <img class="size-full wp-image-4180 aligncenter" title="2 Day Recovery Lastminute" src="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2-day-recovery-lastminute.jpg" alt="2 Day Recovery Lastminute" width="932" height="296" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2-day-recovery-lastminute.jpg 932w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2-day-recovery-lastminute-300x95.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 932px) 100vw, 932px" /> This is a classic example of a Google Flux that might have been interpreted incorrectly as a <a title="LastMinute Recovered from 50% Traffic Drop- Negative SEO or Unnatural Link Building?" href="http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/4110/lastminute-com-50-traffic-drop-negative-seo-or-unnatural-link-building/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">negative seo attack</a>.   6.2. How to Identify a Google Flux? This is usually harder to spot. Everything should be looking ok: <ul> <li>No on-page issues</li> <li>No linking issues</li> <li>No competitor issues</li> <li>No known update</li> </ul> It isn’t any rule of thumb on how to handle these kind of situations and you just have to hold tight. You might be back in a few days.   6.3. How to Prevent? You simply can’t! Like I’ve previously mentioned, it is out of your control and you shouldn’t spend too much time trying to find the reason. These fluxes are normal for any site. If it is a Flux you will be back up in a few days. <h3>7. Algorithmic Trust & Sentiment Drops</h3>   When a severe ranking drop occurs, SEOs immediately check for technical errors, lost backlinks, or manual penalties. Yet, in the era of AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP), there is another massive factor: Algorithmic Trust. Modern search engines evaluate brand sentiment. If your business suddenly suffers a PR crisis, a viral wave of negative reviews, or toxic social media chatter, algorithms can instantly devalue your entity, leading to a sudden drop in rankings.   <blockquote> To diagnose if a ranking drop is tied to a collapsed brand reputation, you must rely on a platform like BrandMentions. </blockquote>   Built as an enterprise-grade brand monitoring tool, it provides the most granular sentiment analysis on the market. By running an emotion-level analysis over your brand’s historical data, you can instantly see if a spike in public “disappointment” or “anger” correlates with your traffic loss. This allows you to stop fixing technical ghosts and start repairing the real-world reputation that algorithms are penalizing.     <h3>8. Technical SEO & Indexing Failures</h3>   Not every ranking drop is caused by a Google algorithm update or a competitor outperforming you. In many cases, the culprit is a technical issue that prevents search engines from properly crawling, indexing, or understanding your website. Technical SEO failures can lead to anything from a gradual decline in visibility to a sudden disappearance from search results. If several pages lose rankings at the same time—or if they stop appearing in Google altogether—a technical audit should be your first priority. Common warning signs include: <ul data-spread="false"> <li>A sharp decline in indexed pages.</li> <li>Important URLs no longer appearing in search results.</li> <li>Sudden drops in organic traffic after a site migration or redesign.</li> <li>Crawl errors or server issues reported in Google Search Console.</li> <li>Significant changes to robots.txt, canonical tags, or redirects.</li> </ul> <h4> </h4> <h4>How to Diagnose and Fix Technical SEO & Indexing Issues</h4>   Start by checking Google Search Console for indexing errors, crawl anomalies, and pages that have been excluded from the index. Compare the timing of the ranking drop with any recent changes made to your website, such as CMS updates, redesigns, migrations, or plugin installations.   Some of the most common technical issues include: <ul data-spread="false"> <li>Accidental <code dir="ltr">noindex</code> directives blocking pages from search engines.</li> <li>Misconfigured <code dir="ltr">robots.txt</code> files preventing crawling.</li> <li>Incorrect canonical tags pointing to the wrong URLs.</li> <li>Broken redirects or redirect chains after URL changes.</li> <li>Server outages or frequent 5xx errors.</li> <li>JavaScript rendering problems that hide important content from crawlers.</li> <li>Internal linking issues that make pages difficult to discover.</li> <li>Poor Core Web Vitals or performance regressions affecting user experience.</li> <li>Structured data errors that reduce search engines’ understanding of your content.</li> </ul>   Fix the underlying issue as quickly as possible, then request reindexing for the affected pages where appropriate. In many cases, rankings begin to recover once search engines recrawl and process the corrected pages.   <h4>How to Prevent Technical SEO Problems</h4>   Prevention is easier than recovery. Before launching any major website update, run a full technical audit and test changes in a staging environment whenever possible.   To reduce the risk of future ranking drops: <ul data-spread="false"> <li>Monitor Google Search Console regularly for crawl and indexing issues.</li> <li>Audit your robots.txt and meta robots directives after deployments.</li> <li>Verify redirects and canonical tags following site migrations.</li> <li>Continuously check for broken links and orphan pages.</li> <li>Monitor website uptime and server performance.</li> <li>Keep XML sitemaps up to date and submit them to search engines.</li> <li>Review Core Web Vitals and page speed metrics on a regular basis.</li> <li>Schedule recurring technical SEO audits to catch problems before they affect visibility.</li> </ul>   Even the best content can’t rank if search engines can’t crawl or index it properly. Maintaining a healthy technical foundation is one of the most effective ways to protect your organic traffic and ensure long-term search visibility.   <h3>Conclusion</h3> Sustainable search visibility belongs to website operators who prioritize algorithmic resilience over short-term gains. Avoiding high-risk, manipulative SEO tactics (webspam) and aligning content with core search updates is the most effective strategy for long-term growth. Whether mitigating a sudden traffic drop or proactively safeguarding existing rankings against volatile algorithm shifts, staying informed on search engine documentation is critical to maintaining local and global visibility.   <blockquote>Today’s top ranking sites may be tomorrow’s bottom dwellers!</blockquote>   Do you have any other demotions that you would want to add to this list? <address>Photo credits: <a href="http://www.fscinteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/google-search-algorithm-change-timeline-2012.jpg" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">1</a>, <a href="http://dubsism.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/wile-e-coyote-falling-off-cliff.jpg" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">2</a></address> The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/4644/6-google-ranking-drops-and-how-to-deal-with-them/">8 Reasons Your Google Rankings Suddenly Dropped (With Fixes for 2026)</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.
DO’s and DON’Ts on Google My Business | Tips to Get Your Listing to the Top

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 10:32:07 -0000

Owning a Google My Business page can be a great way to get your business listed multiple times on Google. It is an essential asset for any local business owner, but sometimes it can get confusing.   If you’re the only business in town, you’re always going to show up first. However, if there are […] The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/20273/google-my-business-tips/">DO’s and DON’Ts on Google My Business | Tips to Get Your Listing to the Top</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.

Owning a Google My Business page can be a great way to get your business listed multiple times on Google. It is an essential asset for any local business owner, but sometimes it can get confusing.   If you’re the only business in town, you’re always going to show up first. However, if there are hundreds of similar businesses nearby, it can get quite frustrating, especially if you’re new in the game. Incorporating the right Google My Business tips can make all the difference in standing out. <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-20333" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Google_My_Business_Dos_and_Don_ts-1024x512.jpg" alt="Google_My_Business_Dos_and_Don_ts" width="1024" height="512" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Google_My_Business_Dos_and_Don_ts.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Google_My_Business_Dos_and_Don_ts-300x150.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Google_My_Business_Dos_and_Don_ts-768x384.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> Some people pay marketing agencies a lot of money to get their local business listings to the top of search results. What they don’t realize is that these companies often use unorthodox techniques, which can lead to issues like a hard suspension, causing you to lose everything, including your photos and reviews.   Whether you manage your business profile yourself or hire an agency, it’s important to follow best practices for Google Business Profiles (formerly known as Google My Business) to ensure your listing is safe and compliant. For local search, following Google Businesses guidelines is key to maintaining visibility and a strong online presence.   <blockquote> Make sure to review a list of do’s and don’ts to keep your listing secure while avoiding risky practices. </blockquote>   This guide provides a strategic framework for optimizing Google Business Profiles (GBP) to dominate local search results and improve Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). Key recommendations include the strategic use of targeted keywords in business titles, the necessity of profile verification to unlock engagement features, and the strict avoidance of keyword stuffing to prevent account suspension.   By integrating social listening tools, local businesses can monitor sentiment across the web, resolve PR issues in real-time, and strengthen their “citation potential” for AI-powered search engines. This comprehensive approach ensures that a business not only ranks in the Local Map Pack but also establishes the credibility required to be cited as a top-tier local recommendation by generative AI models.   <ol class="summaryext"> <li><a href="#1">Listing Information Dos & Don’ts</a></li> <li><a href="#2">Reviews, Questions and Answers Dos & Don’ts</a></li> <li><a href="#3">Photos and Videos Dos & Don’ts</a></li> <li><a href="#5">NAPW (Name, Address, Phone, Website) Dos & Don’ts</a></li> <li><a href="#6">Beyond Google My Business: Managing Total Local Reputation</a></li> </ol> <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='1' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>1. Listing Information</h2>   The information you provide is the most important thing. It’s often the client’s first contact with your business and most of time time people are looking for basic information, such as your phone number, address/location or opening and closing hours.   Therefore, you should make sure you spend enough time crafting this section.   <h3>Dos:</h3>   Add accurate profile information: The first step is to have a Google My Business listing, of course. If you don’t have one, head on to <a href="https://www.google.com/business/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.google.com/business/</a> and claim your Google profile.   Sometimes, the listings might already be there, so make sure to search for your physical locations on Google Maps. If it’s there, you can claim it and start filling out your profile with key information like your name, address, and phone (NAP) to improve your local search rankings.   <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-20292" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/claim-your-local-business-google-1024x283.jpg" alt="claim your local business google" width="1024" height="283" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/claim-your-local-business-google-1024x283.jpg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/claim-your-local-business-google-300x83.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/claim-your-local-business-google-768x212.jpg 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/claim-your-local-business-google.jpg 1067w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />   After creating your business, Google will prompt you to edit crucial information such as Name, Address, Phone number, website, working hours, business category, and more. Accurate NAP and a physical address are essential to building trust with Google and attracting more customers.   Optimize your profile: One of the key criteria for ranking in local search is relevancy, which is determined by how well your business profile is filled out. Ensuring your contact details are correct, including phone calls, will help boost your profile in search engine optimization (SEO) results.   Add main SEO keyword in your title: The title should always contain the name of your business, but it’s also smart to add a targeted keyword related to your services or location for better SEO for Instagram and Google. For instance, a med spa might include “Med Spa in Miami” in its title to attract local business.   For example, if my business were simply called Arcadia LTD and it were in the hotel industry, I would put the title like this: “Arcadia: Hotel & Restaurant in London”   Verify your listing: An unverified listing risks losing edits and changes, and worse yet, someone else could claim it.   Verifying it through the Google My Business dashboard is easy—just look for the verification message, then you’ll be able to edit key sections like business profile optimizations and monitor and respond to google reviews link and google messages.   After you verify it, you should see the representative shield icon near your listing name:   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-20293" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/verified-mybusiness.jpg" alt="Verified Google My Business" width="915" height="237" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/verified-mybusiness.jpg 915w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/verified-mybusiness-300x78.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/verified-mybusiness-768x199.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 915px) 100vw, 915px" />   <h3>Don’ts:</h3>   Keyword Stuffing: Avoid cramming multiple keywords and hashtags in your title, which can lead to hard suspensions. Instead, focus on one specific keyword and leave others for your website or social profiles.   A good example of keyword stuffing which you should avoid is the following: “Arcadia: Hotel, Motel, Bed and Breakfast, B&B, Restaurant in London.”   Google doesn’t like that and will often hard suspend pages that do this, so avoid it.   List outdated information: Keep your name, address, and phone current across all locations. Outdated details not only frustrate users but can also harm your search engine optimization efforts and local business growth.   It’s even worse when the brand has multiple locations with outdated information.   Although the phone number is the most common, imagine the frustration felt when Google MyBusiness says that a shop opens at 8 AM only to get there and find out that you have to wait for one more hour.   Google doesn’t want its users to end up having bad experiences from using its site, so that’s why it’s possible to suggest changes. However, do you really want other people to suggest changes on your schedule, or do you want to manage it yourself?   If you’re a marketing professional, prepare an e-mail to ask your clients if they have any unverified listings on Google. If they do, then they (or you) should manage them.   Create fake locations: Only create listings for physical locations. For businesses offering services in different areas, select a service-area option to avoid confusion and comply with community guidelines.   I mentioned above the frustration about a business’s hours being wrong, now imagine someone going there and not finding what they were looking for at all!   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-20298" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/fake-location.gif" alt="Fake Location Google MyBusiness" width="500" height="251" />   If you have a digital store or run a company from home, you can always just select the Service-area option from the edit address section. There you’ll be able to select locations that you serve. Make sure you uncheck the “I also serve customers at my business address” box. This will prevent people from knocking on your door.   For better results, use Google Analytics, social media marketing, and social media tools to track performance and engage with accounts to build brand awareness. Incorporating social listening, customer stories, and seo hashtag strategies will enhance your marketing efforts across multiple platforms, whether you’re posting an update or using bio generator tools for more dynamic profiles. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='2' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>2. Reviews, Questions and Answers</h2>   Reviews are a critical part of your Google My Business profile success. Not only do they impact local search rankings, but they also greatly influence potential customers’ opinions about your business and your online presence.   <h3>Dos:</h3>   When managing your reviews, do the following things:   Ask clients for reviews:   When starting out, it can be tough to get reviews, but a good strategy is to ask early customers or friends to leave reviews for your business account. If customers are happy, encourage them to leave positive reviews, perhaps by offering a discount for their next purchase. This helps boost your listing in search rankings and builds trust with your audience.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-20311" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/reviews-google-my-business.png" alt="reviews google my business" width="640" height="320" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/reviews-google-my-business.png 640w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/reviews-google-my-business-300x150.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />   It’s almost guaranteed for customers to leave a review if their experience is bad. To compensate for that, try to get your happy customers to leave positive reviews. This can be achieved by asking them to do it once they make a purchase in your store or via e-mail, if it’s eCommerce. QR codes can increase your chances of getting reviews—simply turn your business page <a href="https://www.qrcode-tiger.com/qr-code-generator/link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">link into QR code</a> and place it at your counter or table so customers can scan and leave a review in seconds, with no instructions needed. You can add incentives like discounts for the next purchase in the menu, if they leave a review.   Get renowned local guides to review your place: Local guides reviews have a lot more weight into Google’s and potential customers’ eyes. They are known for visiting and reviewing places and do this on a regular basis. The higher their Google Guide Level, the better.   Getting a high level local guide to review your business can help your listing get a boost.   <img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-20301" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/local-guides-reviews-300x150.jpeg" alt="get local guides reviews" width="300" height="150" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/local-guides-reviews-300x150.jpeg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/local-guides-reviews-768x384.jpeg 768w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/local-guides-reviews-1024x512.jpeg 1024w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/local-guides-reviews.jpeg 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />   But how do you find these local guides? Well, the best way is to become a guide yourself. You don’t necessarily have to take this as a business opportunity. I’m sure you often visit places, so just take a couple of pictures and say 2-3 phrases about that location.   Then, you can meet other guides at <a href="https://www.localguidesconnect.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Local Guides Connect</a>. It’s probably a bad idea to pay them to review you. Some might accept, but others might leave you a negative review instead. However, if you invite them to your restaurant to check it out or tell them about your business when you chat you’re most probably going to get a review.   Try to make some new friends.   Incentivize clients to share photos: Encouraging customers to share photos along with their reviews adds authenticity to your Google My Business listings. Whether it’s a restaurant or retail shop, photos of your products or services can help enhance your Google Business profile and attract more customers.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-20295" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/review-with-photos.jpg" alt="Review with photo Google MyBusiness" width="812" height="623" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/review-with-photos.jpg 812w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/review-with-photos-300x230.jpg 300w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/review-with-photos-768x589.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 812px) 100vw, 812px" />   This is pretty common in restaurants, but nobody says you can’t ask your clients to review the new T-shirt they bought by publishing a photo with them wearing it.   The photos will also add to the MyBusiness photo collection. Keep in mind that people can also publish photos with bad reviews, such as flies in their soup or bad quality products!   Answer questions and reviews: Engage with both positive and negative reviews. Answering questions or replying to reviews shows you’re active and attentive. Google determines local ranking partly based on profile optimizations and user activity.   Ignoring reviews, especially negative ones, can hurt your business. A thoughtful response can help turn a negative review into a returning customer.   Learn from your negative reviews: Negative reviews provide valuable insights into your business’s weaknesses. Take them seriously and use them to improve your services, which can, in turn, enhance your business growth.   Negative reviews can be a great way of learning how customers act and what makes them angry. Try to avoid the same mistakes in the future.   <h3>Don’ts:</h3>   When managing your reviews, don’t do the following things:   Ignore clients or argue with them: Ignoring reviews, particularly negative ones, can damage your reputation. Always respond politely and offer solutions, such as discounts, to resolve any issues. This shows potential customers that you care about customer service.   Never ignore the negative reviews! Always answer them and try to turn that negative review into a happy customer. You can offer a discount for their purchase.   It’s a small price to pay because this will prove to other potential customers who are researching your business that you are active and care about your customers’ thoughts.   Add fake reviews: Creating fake reviews can lead to penalties, including being dropped in search results or getting banned.   Even worse, customers will likely detect them, leading to a loss of trust and credibility.     <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-20305" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/fake-reviews-my-business.gif" alt="fake reviews my business" width="400" height="300" />     This is even more dangerous, as they will most probably leave a review saying all other reviews are fake, which can greatly impact your business!   Also, keep in mind that people are more likely to leave a negative review than a positive one. You can create only so many accounts to keep reviewing your business 5 stars, but if your services aren’t up to the task, you’ll soon get outnumbered by the negative ones anyway.   Add negative reviews to competitors: Leaving negative reviews for competitors is not only unethical but also a waste of time.   Instead, focus on optimizing your Google Business profile, using GMB posts, and improving your service to stand out from the competition.   You can also get into trouble if people find out. You’ll ruin your business’s reputation.   Finally, verify your Google business to make sure your listing is secure, and take advantage of the Google My Business dashboard to monitor reviews, post type updates, and engage with customers. By focusing on profile optimizations and optimizing your Google business, you can boost your visibility, increase engagement, and drive more traffic to your business. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='3' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>3. Photos and Videos</h2>   Photos and videos play a critical role in your business listing. People often want to see where they’re going, especially if it’s a restaurant or hotel. High-quality visuals can also improve local rankings by helping users recognize your business location and giving them a sense of what to expect.   <h3>Dos:</h3>   Include images in every category: When creating your Google My Business listing, make sure to upload photos in each category: Interior, Exterior, Products, Menu, Team, etc. This business information enhances transparency and can build trust with potential customers.   The “Team” section is particularly important, as it shows you treat your employees well, which often correlates with better customer experiences.   Add videos: Videos are a great asset to your business profile optimizations. Whether it’s a store or a restaurant, you can upload videos of the entrance or the products you’re offering. This not only helps customers find your location but also gives them a preview of what you offer.   Videos also enhance conversion rates because they help potential customers engage more deeply with your business.   If you’re a store, you can always make a video showing the entrance. Maybe it’s a little bit hidden and not really into the view. Help them out. You can also add videos of products, even say a word or two about those products. Invite them to the store. People like to be told what to do!   Optimize Google My Business with post updates that include images or videos regularly. Posting high-definition visuals can help keep your listing fresh and encourage more interaction, improving your local ranking on Google.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-20306" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/photos-for-my-business.jpg" alt="photos for my google business" width="472" height="317" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/photos-for-my-business.jpg 472w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/photos-for-my-business-300x201.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 472px) 100vw, 472px" />   Again… it’s easy to get videos done. Everyone has a smartphone these days.   Go crazy with uploads on Google’s servers: When you upload images or videos to your Google My Business account, you don’t have to worry about file size slowing down your site.   Google’s powerful servers will handle the load. So, feel free to upload high-definition images that showcase your business in the best light.   If needed, Google will automatically resize them, helping to optimize your listing for search engines.   <h3>Don’ts:</h3>   Add fake images: Never upload images that aren’t from your business. This can hurt your credibility and may lead to copyright issues.   If you sell products like Nike shoes, don’t rely on official images from the Nike website. Instead, take your own photos of the products in your store. This keeps your local search results authentic and engaging.   Post pictures of clients without approval: Be careful about posting images of customers without their permission.   Even if someone tags your business, avoid adding those photos without consent. This can lead to potential privacy issues and affect business optimization.   <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-20308" src="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/do-not-take-my-picture.jpg" alt="do not take my picture" width="430" height="453" srcset="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/do-not-take-my-picture.jpg 430w, https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/do-not-take-my-picture-285x300.jpg 285w" sizes="(max-width: 430px) 100vw, 430px" />   I’ll share a story: there was this guy speeding on a highway. The static camera got him, so he received a ticket at home about 2 weeks later. However, his wife received the ticket first. She didn’t have any problems with the ticket, but with the location of the car. Turns out that the husband had lied about where he was going and, apparently, in the passenger seat a very pretty blonde woman could be spotted. The woman filed for divorce so the man sued the police and won the trial for them ruining his life.   I consider the man ruined his own life, but if you don’t want to take any part in ruined marriages and get yourself in a hell of a lawsuit, you’d better not post any pictures with clients in them without their approval!   In conclusion, optimizing your visual content is key for optimizing your Google business and improving your local search rankings. Regular business profile optimizations using relevant and high-quality images help customers engage more with your business, increasing your chances of showing up higher in Google searches. Be sure to include all relevant contact information, business description, and relevant keywords in your posts to make the most of your Google My Business profile. And of course, always verify your Google account with the verification code to secure your listing and boost your local rankings. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='4' style='height:50px'> </div>   <h2>5. NAPW (Name, Address, Phone, Website)</h2>   NAPW stands for Name, Address, Phone, and Website. It’s commonly referred to as NAP, but including the website (NAPW) is also important for online visibility.   <h3>Dos:</h3>   List the information on your website: Ensure the same information in your GMB profile (Name, Address, Phone) is also listed on your website. Including this in your footer is efficient, but be sure to also add your business name, business hours, and other relevant info on your contact page. This consistency is key for Google business profile optimizations and helps attract customers.   You can add those in your footer as they don’t take up much space, but on your contact page you should also add your company’s real name, opening hours and other relevant information.   Build citations: Citations are like backlinks for your Google My Business profile. They help boost local SEO and increase visibility in competitor profiles. To stay ahead of the competition, you can research their citations using tools like <a href="https://brandmentions.com/">BrandMentions</a>.   Make sure your citations are accurate and include your relevant category to ensure Google recognizes your business correctly.   Post on Google: Regularly post on Google through Google Posts to keep your profile active. Whether it’s a promotion, a blog post, or new updates, these posts help you stay relevant and attract new customers.   Use google qa to answer common questions and interact with potential clients directly through your business profile dashboard.   Optimize your business: To further improve visibility, optimize your business by enabling features like enabling messaging, which allows direct communication with potential customers.   This personal touch can improve engagement and enhance your digital marketing strategy.   <h3>Don’ts: </h3>   Be inconsistent: If your citations, business hours, or other information vary between your website and Google My Business profile, Google will get confused, negatively impacting your local SEO. Consistency is crucial.   Even if you have multiple locations, include the city name in your GMB title to differentiate listings and ensure accurate local search results.   Avoid irrelevant categories: Ensure your business is categorized correctly. Choosing an irrelevant category can confuse search engines and customers, making it harder to reach your target audience. <div class='cgn-shortcode-anchor' id='6' style='height:50px'> </div> <h2>Beyond Google My Business: Managing Total Local Reputation</h2>   While optimizing your Google My Business profile is essential for local SEO, it’s only one part of the equation. Google doesn’t rely solely on the information found in your business listing. Its algorithms also look for signals across the web to determine whether your business is trustworthy, relevant, and popular within the local community. This means that reviews, mentions, discussions, and customer feedback on other websites can directly influence your local visibility and reputation. Therefore, it’s important to monitor what people are saying about your business beyond Google itself. <blockquote> To protect and manage your local footprint across the entire internet, smart local businesses use BrandMentions. </blockquote> Operating as a highly accurate social listening tool, it monitors the web far beyond Google’s walled garden. Whenever a customer leaves a review on an obscure directory or complains about your service on social media, the software alerts you instantly. This gives you the power to resolve local PR issues quickly and maintain the flawless digital reputation required to dominate the Local Map Pack. <h4 data-start="762" data-end="771">Dos:</h4>   Monitor brand mentions across the web: Customers don’t always leave feedback on Google. They may post reviews on Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook, industry directories, local forums, or even mention your business on social media. Keeping track of these conversations helps you understand customer sentiment and identify potential issues before they affect your reputation. Respond to negative feedback quickly: One unresolved complaint can spread across multiple platforms and damage customer trust. The faster you identify and address concerns, the easier it is to prevent small issues from becoming larger public relations problems. Use reputation monitoring tools: Managing multiple review platforms manually can be difficult, especially for businesses with several locations. Tools like BrandMentions can help automate the process by monitoring online mentions, reviews, and discussions across thousands of websites and social media platforms. Whenever your business is mentioned online, you’ll receive a notification, allowing you to react quickly and maintain a positive brand image. Track local sentiment regularly: Google wants to recommend businesses that provide good customer experiences. Monitoring online conversations helps you spot recurring customer complaints, improve your services, and strengthen your overall local presence. <h4 data-start="2138" data-end="2150">Don’ts:</h4>   Focus only on Google reviews: Many businesses spend all their time monitoring Google reviews while ignoring other platforms. However, customers often research businesses using multiple sources before making a decision. Poor ratings or negative discussions elsewhere can undermine the trust you’ve built on Google. Ignore customer complaints on social media: Social media conversations are public and can spread quickly. Even if a complaint doesn’t appear on your Google profile, it can still influence potential customers who discover it through Facebook groups, local communities, or industry forums. Wait for reputation problems to escalate: Reputation management is much easier when handled proactively. If you only start monitoring online conversations after a crisis occurs, the damage may already be done. Regular monitoring helps you identify trends early and take action before they impact your business. Assume every mention is positive: Not every online mention is a compliment. Tracking both positive and negative conversations gives you a more accurate picture of how customers perceive your business and helps you make informed decisions about improving customer experience. For businesses that want to maintain a strong local presence, combining a well-optimized Google My Business profile with active reputation monitoring is one of the most effective ways to improve visibility, build trust, and strengthen long-term local search performance.   By following these tips and tricks, you can optimize your business for local SEO success. Consistent citations, accurate business information, and regular Google posts will not only help you collect customer data but also boost your visibility in search engines.   And don’t forget to verify your business for better rankings!   <h3>Conclusion:</h3>   Having your business at the top of Google Maps might take some time, which is normal for any new business types. Initially, you’ll get noticed by people searching near your physical address, but as you continue to satisfy your customers, your reach will expand. Google determines local visibility based on factors like conversion rates, customer satisfaction, and google business profile optimizations.   Improving your listing is relatively simple—avoid shortcuts and tricks. Instead, focus on filling out your profile with accurate contact details, adding a complete business description, and selecting a relevant category. Keep your GMB profile updated with correct profile information, including your business name, phone calls, and post updates. Regular google posts and gmb posts will help keep your listing active and engaging. Also, ensure that you verify your Google business and claim your Google listing to avoid issues with ownership or edits.   Engage with customers by monitoring and responding to reviews and google messages. Answering common questions and enabling enabling messaging helps build trust, improving local ranking on Google. Don’t forget to include relevant keywords in your profile for better search engine optimization (SEO), which will enhance your visibility in google searches. Tools like Google Analytics can help you track your marketing efforts and see what attracts customers the most.   If you’re running a business, or managing a client’s Google My Business account, consistency is key. Update your business profile dashboard regularly, optimize your listing with business profile optimizations, and use a variety of post types to keep your profile active. Using a google reviews link in communications also encourages customers to leave feedback, which helps boost your ranking.   Lastly, make sure to optimize your Google My Business profile by ensuring all contact information is accurate and that you’re listed in the correct business category. Use these tips and tricks to help boost your local ranking on Google, and don’t forget to verify your business with the verification code provided by Google. Focus on business optimization and good digital marketing practices, and soon enough, you’ll see results. Have you had any issues or successes with Google My Business? Leave a comment, and maybe we or other readers can help!     The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/20273/google-my-business-tips/">DO’s and DON’Ts on Google My Business | Tips to Get Your Listing to the Top</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://cognitiveseo.com/blog">SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies</a>.
How Better Visual Content Can Help You With Conversions

Thu, 03 Dec 2020 12:15:00 -0000

It's a fact that visual content helps with engaging potential <a href="https://www.wyzowl.com/video-social-media-2020/">customers on social media</a>, but did you also know that brands that use videos and other visual content can help with conversions? Whether you're just trying to get people to sign up for your newsletter, take a survey, or make a purchase, you're probably looking for sure-fire ways to build your conversion rate. Better visual content can do just that; here's how.<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/better-visual-content-colorpeak_a56887dffd4e08f815feb664b7911793_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/better-visual-content-colorpeak_a56887dffd4e08f815feb664b7911793_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="How Better Visual Content Can Help You With Conversions" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/better-visual-content-colorpeak_a56887dffd4e08f815feb664b7911793_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>How Better Visual Content Can Help You With Conversions</figcaption></figure>First of all, your conversion rate isn't necessarily how many of your site visitors end up buying something. If you're trying to get people to your website, you could have any number of goals, like trying to convert a visitor into a lead (i.e. get them to request a free quote). Conversion rates are heavily tied to the effectiveness of your marketing; effective marketing can help convince a person that they need what you're selling.Visual content can do that in a way that words often can't. Humans process <a href="http://www.t-sciences.com/news/humans-process-visual-data-better">visual images much faster </a>than a block of words, so even though good copy is critical, you can get a lot more customers through visuals (which is one of the reasons you should spend some time creating a great logo with a free tool like <a href="https://logocreator.io/">Logo Creator</a>). Couple that with more and more people spending more and more time watching videos online, and you can't afford not to create engaging content.Convincing you to boost your conversion rate by incorporating visuals into your marketing is easy enough, but that leaves the question of how? Here are five quick tips on creating engaging visual content for online marketing.<h2 id="coj21">5 Top Tips on How Better Visual Content Can Help You With Conversions</h2>1. Choose a consistent colour palette - Your visuals should align with the colour you choose for your logo, to create a consistent message for customers. Pay attention to the colours you choose, because colours elicit different emotions for people.2. Practice with design apps - You're probably not an expert on visual design, but luckily, there are free apps out there to help you. The only way you'll get better at using them is to practice and work with them on a regular basis. You also should have a basic idea of visual design, like the <a href="https://digital-photography-school.com/rule-of-thirds/">Rule of Thirds</a>.3. Stay on your brand message - Hopefully, your business is adopting a specific voice and tone, particularly in your marketing. You might adopt a more humorous voice or a serious, scholarly voice. The actual voice doesn't matter, but your visuals should capture that voice. You should also pay attention to keeping a consistent message to help your customers trust you.4. Engage your customers - Creating engaging content that people want to interact with online can help build conversions for you as well. Humour is almost always a win, but it's also important to stay on the message (see number 3). You can achieve this by being creative, incorporating animations, using stunning imagery; anything to get people to share your content and spread your message.5. Use videos - You've probably heard the statistics on videos on social media, but they keep getting more popular every year, and there's no reason to think that trend won't continue. A helpful video to help explain your product can help convince a potential customer that they want it, which will drive them to your site and turn them into a conversion. If they don't understand what you're selling, why would they buy it?<h2 id="1hpic">Conclusion</h2>Putting together better visual content is easier said than done, but it's not impossible, and it can really pay dividends in converting clicks into action. Great visuals should be a cornerstone of your marketing strategy.  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/en/how-better-visual-content-can-help-you-with-conversions?id=1256497123&type=12",title: "How Better Visual Content Can Help You With Conversions",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
Frase Review – AI for Content Writers

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 12:08:00 -0000

<h4 id="8hml1">FRASE TOOL REVIEW</h4>This review of <a href="https://www.frase.io/">Frase</a> was originally posted on <a href="https://appsumo.com/frase/">AppSumo</a>, and since it made it to the top 3 of the most helpful reviews, I thought it’s worth sharing here as well. Especially since it became our main copywriting tool since then.From an SEO Agency perspective, this is truly a no-brainer. Learning about many different workflows and content optimisation techniques over the years and using several “mainstream” content-creation tools we’ve realised that – regardless of anyone’s approach – you will arrive at the same point as everyone else – content briefs, planning and research.Frase attempts to tackle all three of them. And they’re doing an amazing job at it.<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/frase-ai-content-writing-tool-for-copywriters_1ee0e563f335df0ec921909c5f3c7909_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/frase-ai-content-writing-tool-for-copywriters_1ee0e563f335df0ec921909c5f3c7909_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/frase-ai-content-writing-tool-for-copywriters_1ee0e563f335df0ec921909c5f3c7909_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>Frase interface</figcaption></figure><h2 id="4v0mf">Frase Pros</h2><ul><li>Clean interface and no-fluff</li><li>Super intuitive and clear FAQ/Tutorials (as they should, given what the tool is for… )</li><li>I can’t see any apparent bugs and the tool looks robust – all the features I tried worked immediately</li><li>Within the first minutes of use, I already know that I will be saving 80-90% of my time on the research, planning and briefs</li><li>“Paste Brief” options – wow, just wow!</li></ul><h2 id="4bkna">Frase Cons</h2><ul><li>I am missing Google Ads scraping. You got everything you need to add “Ads Writing Assistant” feature – I hope the developers will consider it…</li><li>Same as a current one-click option “Paste Brief”, the tool should have “Paste Content” with an adjustable keyword count, where H2-H4 headers (including Questions) are all added automatically from the brief. It would be a perfect one-click article generator ready for rewriting or spin.</li></ul><h3 id="altun">Tools/workflow we’re using currently and where I see Frase replacing them:</h3><ol><li>Google (obviously…) – Frase will replace manual searches and scrapes;</li><li>Grammarly Pro – works with Frase;</li><li>CognitiveSEO – I don’t think Frase can replace that yet (CSEO is on another level);</li><li>PageOptimizerPro – same as Cognitive, not going anywhere;</li><li>Ahrefs Keyword Research – I’ll probably still use it, but Frase does a good job in providing the most relevant keywords/questions;</li><li>Keywords Everywhere/Answer the Public (for “related searches”/questions) – Frase replaces that;</li><li>Ahrefs Content Explorer (and SocialAnimal) – maybe not as good as Ahrefs but for content writing, Frase is excellent;</li><li>AutomaticScript.com – I’ll keep using it for Ads and newsletter content, I guess…</li></ol>andSEO Content Machine NEXT: SCM’s “Article Writer” comes closest to Frase but you don’t get a brief, and the scrapes are just too overwhelming in my opinion – even with filtering, provided snippets require a lot of manual sifting through. SCMN is amazing for other SEO-things, and it’s a subscription with a desktop-only application (no cloud, no extra “seats”).<h2 id="4gc0d">Use case:</h2>Last Monday I was assembling content for a solar panel company and using all tools above it took me a total of 12 hours to put together a medium-size company website with additional services, silo structure and MVP-keyword research.For fun, I’ve plugged “solar panels” to Frase’s “OpenWeb” – and right away, I can see that I could gather almost everything I need in 2-3 hours tops. That is 9-10 hours of free time I’d be getting using Frase.If you’re doing SEO and don’t see a value in this tool – you’re either using a better alternative tool or… you’re doing something wrong – in which case I recommend you trying Frase – it might be a game-changer for you. It is for us.  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/en/frase-review-ai-content-writers-copywriting?id=592326058&type=12",title: "Frase Review – AI for Content Writers",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
Spott Review - Yet another graphic design... NOPE!

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 19:31:00 -0000

Spott is very similar to <a href="https://app.storychief.io/create-interactive-websites-vistag-review/">Vistag that we reviewed by in 2018</a>, which has been shut down. Spott is already ahead offering video tagging (as opposed to Vistag, that only allowed to tag photos) and shows a lot of promise in future roadmap development.I originally posted this review of <a href="https://spott.ai/">Spott</a> on <a href="https://appsumo.com/spott/">AppSumo</a>, and if you're interested in purchasing Spott, I would encourage you to read more reviews there after you finish our take on it.<h2 id="d78kk">What is Spott?</h2>Spott is a unique tool that can change your entire e-commerce, sales landing page as well as your social media marketing strategy - to name just a few. Picture tagging and tooltips are underutilised in digital marketing, and the available tools (WP plugins) are either buggy or limited. That is why Spott stands out even harder, as there is nothing quite like it that I know of.<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/spott-making-engagement-tool_34c9dfe0c95f9d8aa62c6912b93d5a50.gif 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/spott-making-engagement-tool_34c9dfe0c95f9d8aa62c6912b93d5a50.gif 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Spott marketing engagement tool" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/spott-making-engagement-tool_34c9dfe0c95f9d8aa62c6912b93d5a50.gif" /></picture><figcaption>Spott in action</figcaption></figure><h2 id="8fsa6">Spott Pros</h2><ul><li>video tagging - wow, that opens a lot of possibilities in gamification and making your videos and ads actually producing a sale,</li><li>the tags are responsive and consistent across the board - this is a massive issue for the majority of the other "tagging" tools I've tried in the past,</li><li>tags are very flexible and allow for plenty of different info to be input in the popups or tooltips - different types of URLs and additional CSS in styles help in nailing the design - again that amount of (somewhat common-sense) flexibility has never been the case with Vistag or other similar tools I've tried,</li><li>"Asset Feed" - looks to be an extremely interesting feature I will have to dig into - for now, extra tacos for attempting to automate some of the copy-paste tasks - such an approach always strikes confidence in the founders' vision for the SaaS,</li><li>intuitive interface and enough documentation to get you up to speed in less than an hour,</li><li>reporting will help in gauging the engagement and updating clients.</li></ul><h2 id="egr9s">Spott Cons</h2><ul><li>I don't see any workarounds for the lost SEO due to hosting pictures on Spott servers... Alt tags, picture title and description - would be nice to see input fields for those in your embed code at least,</li><li>more trigger options: currently only static or hover, but it would be nice to have an option for a timed trigger, e.g. "wait for 10s and open a popup", or on exit intent, etc..</li></ul><h3 id="56unb">The future of Spott</h3>I was waiting for something like it since Vistag literally pulled DOA on all of us in the SEO industry. This time the team behind the tool is set on the development and looks much more established. Contrary to what I see in some of the startup SaaS that never invested in SEO, Spott Team brand is ranking very nice and is targeting keywords that point to their long-term commitment and outside-of-LTD growth.There is one more thing that needs to be said here - our graphic designer will have to change her processes. And our agency will have to incorporate Spott to our entire design/video/CRO strategy moving forward. And this is a lot of work and changing things around.So, if you have an established way of making images, videos and ad-clips using some tools, your process will need to encompass Spott somehow - an extra step to do for your designer, so be mindful of that.But we feel this is going to be worth it.  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/en/spott-review-yet-another-graphic-design-nope?id=33928545&type=12",title: "Spott Review - Yet another graphic design... NOPE!",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
2021 Website Design Trends

Mon, 28 Sep 2020 13:56:00 -0000

At Colorpeak, we understand the importance of identifying new and upcoming trends in our area of expertise, web design, which s why we review them every year. Heading into a very different 2021, we’ve decided to compile our list of the future trends you should be aware of to continue to innovate and expand your marketplace through your website.<h2 id="bnuan">2021 Website Design Trends by Colorpeak</h2>Rather than focus on the comeback of Dark mode in website design, we’ll be looking at the more practical aspects for 2021 website design trends, based on the knowledge your website should be first and foremost, an effective lead generation tool. The visual aspect, whilst important for branding and recognition, is far more effective when driven by data and content creation based in UX design.So why not check out our list of 2021 website design trends based on the newest design ideas and some of Colorpeak’s extensive experience-driven insights:<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/01-2021-website-design-trends-by-colorpeak_be78ca2d19845ec2901d26fe3cb99b96_800.JPG 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/01-2021-website-design-trends-by-colorpeak_be78ca2d19845ec2901d26fe3cb99b96_800.JPG 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="2021 Website Design Trends by Colorpeak" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/01-2021-website-design-trends-by-colorpeak_be78ca2d19845ec2901d26fe3cb99b96_800.JPG" /></picture><figcaption>2021 Website Design Trends by Colorpeak</figcaption></figure><h2 id="udmf">Effective, responsive design needs to be mobile-first oriented</h2>Smartphones are designed to grab peoples attention, and your website should have the same approach to make it a successful lead generation tool. Both your existing and potential customers now expect to access information, products and services through their mobile as the first point of contact. If your website isn’t designed for this type of access, you’re missing out on potential business and invaluable data insights. Delivering your information to the market on a smartphone means the navigation should keep the customer engaged, images and text will need to be adjusted to fit this format, so the user doesn’t get lost in unnecessary information. The average human concentration span is now just 8 seconds compared to 12 seconds in the year 2000. It’s vital your website delivers your message clearly and concisely, to maximise the 8 seconds of engagement you have available to you.<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/02-2021-website-design-trends-by-colorpeak_733269cf2d2169a50ac60203a0d1d94c_800.JPG 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/02-2021-website-design-trends-by-colorpeak_733269cf2d2169a50ac60203a0d1d94c_800.JPG 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Data driven content for 2021 website design trends" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/02-2021-website-design-trends-by-colorpeak_733269cf2d2169a50ac60203a0d1d94c_800.JPG" /></picture><figcaption>Data driven content for 2021 website design trends</figcaption></figure><h2 id="fqo7t">Data-driven content</h2>Accessing your customer information is key to building a successful content-driven strategy and is at the forefront of 2021 website design trends. Neil Patel (SEO Professional) defines this data as:<blockquote>“Factual information generated from experiments, surveys, or testing that is used as a basis for forming conclusions.”</blockquote>This information builds customer profiles and establishes a digital relationship built on their personal preferences and interests. By making your website a place to come for industry expertise or guidance, through things like ebooks and how-to guides, your business becomes more than just its products or services. It can start to define you as an industry leader and reputable resource, building brand recognition and ensuring returning website traffic.Especially after the recent pandemic, video content and interaction have become a mainstay of communication and engagement. Your website should recognise and deliver insightful and thoughtful video communication and content to capture valuable data and build customer relationships.<h2 id="fv56f">Simple navigation with calls to action</h2>At Colorpeak, we understand there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. A simple, effective menu with contact or cart details should be available to click at any time. The buying process should be as straight forward as possible. If it appears to be too complicated, you’re likely to lose that business.Navigation directly affects the interactions your website creates and delivers, organising your information into the most effective workflow process can maximise the potential of your website.Each website will have its own set of objectives, and at Colorpeak we’re best placed to inform your design process and to deliver your unique data and communication objectives. Although this seems like this should be standard practice, many website designs miss this critical element, which is why it’s made our list of 2021 website design trends.<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/03-2021-website-design-trends-by-colorpeak_3892bbc527db5f391178275fb5cb8ffa_800.JPG 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/03-2021-website-design-trends-by-colorpeak_3892bbc527db5f391178275fb5cb8ffa_800.JPG 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Mobile design oriented navigation" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/03-2021-website-design-trends-by-colorpeak_3892bbc527db5f391178275fb5cb8ffa_800.JPG" /></picture><figcaption>Mobile design oriented navigation</figcaption></figure><h2 id="cj8ro">Next level Lead generation solutions (chatbots and AI)</h2>Chatbots have come along way since their initial inception and can be a brilliant tool for gathering information and answering general queries. Their advancement has come from machine learning and the ability to ask questions in a more ‘human-like’ manner. Also, consumers have become more used to seeing and interacting with chatbots. If the information is delivered in the right way, more and more people will continue to utilise this type of feature. AI is moving forward and even has the ability to create advanced algorithms based on an initial set of code. More and more technology is removing the need for humans to carry out more mundane tasks such as gathering basic information. This may be a 2021 website design trend but it’s also a trend which is set to grow exponentially over the coming decades. At Colorpeak, we work with you to make sure your website has the most up to date features and capabilities. We have a proven record of our AI bot generating 6% leads within industry averaging around 1.7%. Get in touch if you want to find out how our AI technology can help your business grow.<h2 id="bksrf">E-commerce solutions do decrease cart abandon rate</h2>Our insights drive many of our approaches to website design. One of our key findings is the ease of purchasing a product or service is crucial. We make sure that ‘add to basket’ buttons are accessible from every page. This saves time searching for a specific page of an item to make the purchase, you can add it to the cart from any category page which displays multiple items. This delivers a seamless and frictionless shopping experience, which decreases the chance of cart abandonment due to customer frustration. According to a recent survey, the rate of cart abandonment of online shoppers stands at 75% across all industries. This is truly an astounding statistic. E-commerce solutions should be factored into your website design to ensure your business isn’t one of the ones needlessly losing sales and customers.<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/04-2021-website-design-trends-by-colorpeak_a8cda702d08505ad40f8ec7d22751d9e_800.JPG 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/04-2021-website-design-trends-by-colorpeak_a8cda702d08505ad40f8ec7d22751d9e_800.JPG 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="2021 web design trends" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/04-2021-website-design-trends-by-colorpeak_a8cda702d08505ad40f8ec7d22751d9e_800.JPG" /></picture><figcaption>2021 web design trends</figcaption></figure><h2 id="e8upo">Multi-language solutions</h2>We’re increasingly operating within a global marketplace, so you need to capture and inform your customers no matter where in the world they might live. Translators can be an effective tool to reach someone in their language and increase your market share. The more languages you speak, the more people you reach, and your website is the best platform to generate leads and interest across the globe. As one of 2021 website design trends communication with the wider marketplace is an easy and straightforward way to ensure your reach goes further than you ever expected.<h3 id="4faot">2021 Website Design Trends Conclusion</h3>At Colorpeak, we work with you to deliver the most effective website for your organisation’s needs. We continue to be leaders in our field as we ensure we adapt, change and utilise technology that’s delivering new and exciting insights, information and most importantly, the growth of your business.This review was originally posted on <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/2021-website-design-trends-draft/">colorpeak.co.uk/2021-website-design-trends</a>  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/en/2021-website-design-trends?id=494152310&type=12",title: "2021 Website Design Trends",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
How to Create Engaging Social Media Content

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 09:10:00 -0000

Building an engaged social media audience is one of the most rewarding marketing tasks that your business can achieve. It’s through these channels that you build a rapport with your customers and establish trust so that when you are ready to ask for a sale, they’re ready to provide.Here are some helpful tips to guide the process of creating engaging social media content.<h2 id="2vtv9">Tell a Story</h2>Social media is about storytelling, using both visual components and words. To do so effectively, you need to consider what story you’re trying to tell people about your business.When you <a target="_blank" href="https://theboostapps.com/video-maker/promo-video/">create a video</a> or graphic, consider how it ties into your brand. What thoughts and emotions do you hope to invoke when you hit post? How do you want your customers to feel and respond when they see a photo?Every good story has a beginning, middle, and end. When you write captions, start with a hook. You have one sentence to get your follower to stop scrolling and keep reading. Consider your goals for this story: are you trying to make an emotional connection or share valuable information?Every post you create should be intentional. Focus on quality over quantity to boost your engagement.<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/Create-Engaging-Social-Media-Content_b72f319ff816b6ba35ce5d9ee8ab9330_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/Create-Engaging-Social-Media-Content_b72f319ff816b6ba35ce5d9ee8ab9330_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="engaging social media" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/Create-Engaging-Social-Media-Content_b72f319ff816b6ba35ce5d9ee8ab9330_800.png" /></picture><figcaption>Engaging social media</figcaption></figure><h2 id="fvple">Create a Consistent Aesthetic</h2>Creating a consistent aesthetic goes hand-in-hand with good social media content strategy creation. Your aesthetic is what creates consistency across the various social media channels while increasing brand recognition.Your colours and tone will play a significant role when developing a brand aesthetic. For example, if your business strives to be perceived as fun, bright, and lively, your colours, photo editing, and graphics should emulate that goal. Conversely, if you’re more serious and moody, having darker images and richer colours makes sense.Planning is key when creating a consistent aesthetic across social media channels.<h2 id="7sol8">Highlight Other Users</h2>User-generated content (UGC) is when brands encourage customers to share content featuring their purchases using account tagging and hashtags. In return, the user gets featured on the brand’s page. This is a fantastic opportunity for brands to curate content without having to create it from scratch.Sharing UGC also creates social proof, showing the audience that other people are happy with your business, thus boosting engagement.In addition to sharing UGC, you can also highlight other brands and businesses you admire. This <a target="_blank" href="https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/5-ways-to-cross-promote-social-media-posts">cross-promotional approach will attract more followers</a> from other accounts.<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/engaging-social-media_d9e5f915c5da67783e15bd53bcc5dea4_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/engaging-social-media_d9e5f915c5da67783e15bd53bcc5dea4_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Highlight users on social media to engage" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/engaging-social-media_d9e5f915c5da67783e15bd53bcc5dea4_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>Highlight users on social media to engage</figcaption></figure><h2 id="cd5dr">Ask Questions</h2>Asking questions shifts the focus from your business to an individual on the other side of the screen. This focus encourages them to interact and share the spotlight. It generates a feeling of recognition and value. As a result, your engagement increases.Get creative when asking questions to see what works and what doesn’t. Mix it up with topical questions, inquiries that are relevant to your core offering, and conversation starters.<h2 id="jkma">Break Up Text</h2>One of the easiest things you can do to start improving social media engagement today is to break up blocks of text. If necessary, use a line-breaking app to prevent everything from posting in one overwhelming word jumble.You can also use emojis to intersperse visual stimulation within long-form social media content.<h2 id="4515k">Cater to Your Audience</h2>Remember that creating social media content isn’t about what you want to share; it’s about what your audience wants to see and hear. Catering to your audience will ensure that you’re providing value rather than being scrolled past every time you post an update.Take time to analyse your insights and determine which posts perform best and why. Then, shift your efforts to incorporate similar content. If you want to continuously engage your audience, you must always be open to adapting.Use this guide to start creating engaging social media content that gets your audience talking and your customers buying.  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/en/how-to-create-engaging-social-media-content?id=1189157623&type=12",title: "How to Create Engaging Social Media Content",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
Best Freelance Platforms to Grow Your Business - From Online Banking to Content Marketing

Tue, 23 Jun 2020 10:34:00 -0000

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcpWIrKi2VWDjtKjC7aGHI-IdXx0jrga5-PUXVxbDaWeR_W9ipHPFIZ8Zb8bb8QCRa3qe8DHR8MixmMnVyYdoFIJkgcrYwd1Uizp4zVzAlSOueNXjaugKuuqYAFTm3Qag-SeewPouNbsHU/s1600/featured-freelance-platforms.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="692" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcpWIrKi2VWDjtKjC7aGHI-IdXx0jrga5-PUXVxbDaWeR_W9ipHPFIZ8Zb8bb8QCRa3qe8DHR8MixmMnVyYdoFIJkgcrYwd1Uizp4zVzAlSOueNXjaugKuuqYAFTm3Qag-SeewPouNbsHU/s640/featured-freelance-platforms.png" width="640" /></a></div> Somedays, freelancing can be a struggle between trying to find new clients and getting actual work done. Using the right platforms and a standardized approach to pitching can help streamline those efforts. If you're a freelancer with goals of expanding your business in 2020, here are some expert tips and fantastic platforms to guide the process. <h2 id="cidus"> Important Considerations for Freelancers</h2> Before you start scaling your business, there are a few key areas of your business to tend to. First, plan to have your banking streamlined for your business needs. Processing payments <a href="https://amaiz.com/">through Amaiz</a> and taking advantage of the freelance-oriented set-up is one option for getting your financial ducks in a row. Another consideration is your approach to pitching potential clients. Ensuring you have consistent profiles crafted and your best work highlighted is a must. Create a standard pitch template and tracking sheet to record: <ul> <li>who you pitched,</li> <li>when you reached out,</li> <li>what platform you used, and</li> <li>when you should follow up.</li> </ul> With those core business issues in mind, here are the five best freelance platforms for growing your business in 2020. <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/freelancer_de1b93e575e3d3f6594b309e6c38d346_800.png 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/freelancer_de1b93e575e3d3f6594b309e6c38d346_800.png 1x"></source><img alt="freelancer working from home" height="306" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/freelancer_de1b93e575e3d3f6594b309e6c38d346_800.png" width="400" /></picture></figure> <h2 id="4dibh"> 5 best freelance platforms for growing your business in 2020</h2> <h3 id="99ole"> CloudPeeps</h3> CloudPeeps launched in 2015, as a response to the shift toward more remote work and freelance opportunities. The goal of CloudPeeps is to connect determined, goal-oriented freelancers with reputable businesses to form a productive working community. CloudPeeps offers a variety of freelance opportunities, ranging from content writing and social media management to <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/seo-evolution/">SEO and keyword research</a>. This broad approach allows businesses to put together a team of freelancers in one centralized platform. CloudPeeps offers a tiered subscription plus commission membership option. The free version takes a 15% commission while the top-end option costs $29 per month and takes a 5% commission. <h3 id="7hdog"> Toptal</h3> Toptal is the cream of the crop when it comes to freelancing platforms. If you manage to secure a spot on Toptal, you'll open your business to exciting and profitable new opportunities. The platform pairs freelancers with big corporations and world-renowned startups, like Airbnb and Shopify. To become a freelancer on Toptal, you'll need to go through a rigorous screening process. The platform is currently open to developers, project managers, and financial freelancers. The screening process includes everything from skills tests to interviews. If you think you've got what it takes, it's well worth applying as you can earn <a href="https://www.toptal.com/faq#toptal-cost">thousands of dollars a week</a> on certain projects. <h3 id="fjka3"> Aquent</h3> A common challenge freelancers face when using a platform for finding clients, is tagging relevant experience. The incorrect use of tags can result in mismatches or missed opportunities. Aquent aims to solve that problem using an organic AI-driven approach that takes a deep dive into your portfolio and does the tagging for you. Aquent is for freelancers in the marketing and creative sectors and allows members to set their rates and negotiate accordingly. If you're unsure how to charge a competitive rate, they provide a guide to help you ensure you're getting what you're worth. <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/freelancer-working_c6d0edf21c7adfa0b86122a16b710b0c_800.png 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/freelancer-working_c6d0edf21c7adfa0b86122a16b710b0c_800.png 1x"></source><img alt="freelancer" height="320" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/freelancer-working_c6d0edf21c7adfa0b86122a16b710b0c_800.png" width="400" /></picture></figure> <h3 id="6g3u7"> PubLoft</h3> PubLoft is a platform that focuses specifically on content marketing and freelancers who work within the B2B market. This robust platform helps you find clients, and it also helps you manage client relations in one centralized location. Additionally, PubLoft offers financial snapshots that can help you plan ahead. PubLoft handles invoicing and payments, paying freelancers biweekly. In return, freelancers pay a monthly subscription price. <h3 id="a4ru9"> SolidGigs</h3> SolidGigs takes a multifaceted approach to support freelance business growth. Their weekly roundup sends the best new freelance jobs of the week directly to your inbox for review. On the other side of things, SolidGigs offers a rotating collection of courses and templates to help you build your business. These tools cover everything from setting your rates to spreadsheet templates for tracking your progress. SolidGigs offers <a href="https://solidgigs.com/">a flat rate subscription of $19 per month</a>. You can get a free trial for $2 for the first month to give it a shot. Use these platforms and expert tips to help you grow your freelance business in 2020 and beyond. <span style="background-color: white; color: #161616; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This article was originally posted on Colorpeak: <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/best-freelance-platforms-for-business/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="-webkit-print-color-adjust: exact !important; background-color: white; cursor: pointer; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 16px; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">Best Freelance Platforms to Grow Your Business - From Online Banking to Content Marketing</a>  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/best-freelance-platforms-for-business?id=1706027748&type=12",title: "Best Freelance Platforms to Grow Your Business - From Online Banking to Content Marketing",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
How to add text below Collection in Shopify Flex Theme by Out of the Sandbox?

Tue, 19 May 2020 16:28:00 -0000

In this post, I’m going to explain how you can add some custom text below your items in any Collection Page specifically in Flex Theme by Out of the Sandbox. I will start with some explanation behind the idea, and I will talk you through simple principles to copy and amend existing collection Shopify template. Having said that, if you’re here looking for a step-by-step guide, simply jump to the end of this post.<h2 id="ddhtr">Why should you include any text below Collection page?</h2>As all SEO experts know, good content syndication is a key to promote your website on Google. This principle seems to be even more critical now after recent <a href="https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2019/08/core-updates.html">Google core algorithm update rolled out on May 4th, 2020</a> that caused quite a stir. Shopify has a high number of adjustments that allow you to optimise your content for better ranking results. And some themes like Flex enable you to design your store in no time with some additional customisations. However, there are still a few options that are essential to optimise your content that Flex is missing and one of them is the ability to add custom text underneath your items Collection.There is, of course, an option to include all your SEO tailored content with H2, H3 etc. elements in a standard page description, but you will end up with a massive block of text at the top of the page. This is not very UX friendly as your visitor is on your page most likely to view your products and not necessarily read a 1000 words description of the Collection. This is why the idea is to keep the top description short and sweet and move all the content that Google bots are after, below the collection items feed.<h2 id="ajja7">Using a custom Theme template for Collection</h2>Initially, I thought to hire somebody to code this option into Flex theme so it can be easily accessible from the Collections customisation page. After further thought, I realised that this custom code would somehow amend the collections input space (where you usually adjust your title, description and meta description). And then a custom code would have to be created to pull that information from the page and display it below items Collection feed. Although this is a more elegant solution, I have decided that since I only have several collection pages to update, a more straightforward solution can be put in place. And that’s where the idea to use Shopify theme templates came from.<h3 id="3q2jn">Collection template structure</h3>Every Collection in Flex Theme is put together from the following sections that you can adjust for your needs:<ul><li>Banner</li><li>Breadcrumbs</li><li>Collection title</li><li>Filters</li><li>Description</li><li>Sidebar area (optional)</li></ul><figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/01-intro-ul_9532ae597f96f56fac0f2c5ffd3cf985_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/01-intro-ul_9532ae597f96f56fac0f2c5ffd3cf985_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Flex theme Collection view" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/01-intro-ul_9532ae597f96f56fac0f2c5ffd3cf985_800.png" /></picture><figcaption>Flex theme Collection view</figcaption></figure><figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/02-intro-ul_491897180b06d544a3d42c6cec42e117_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/02-intro-ul_491897180b06d544a3d42c6cec42e117_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Flex theme Collection liquid code" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/02-intro-ul_491897180b06d544a3d42c6cec42e117_800.png" /></picture><figcaption>Flex theme Collection liquid code</figcaption></figure><h4 id="brb2u">HOW TO ADD TEXT BELOW COLLECTION FEED IN SHOPIFY FLEX THEME?</h4>The general idea is to use the main Collection template (collection.liquid) and duplicate it for every custom Collection in which we want to include the custom text. We will then insert a code that includes the custom text below Sidebar section. You can use basic HTML elements like H1-H6, paragraph, bold text for example, but if you want to include unsorted list you will have to create custom CSS styling as well. You can do that by creating custom.scss style sheet in the Assets folder or amending styles.scss.liquid file (remember though to back up it first before you make permanent changes). Once the custom collection template is created, you can simply go to your Product > Collections page and change the Theme template to your custom template. You then repeat that action for every Collection in which you want to include the custom text below collection feed.<h4 id="7kmcg">HOW TO ADD ACCORDION BELOW COLLECTION FEED?</h4>If your content is long adding text with simple styling might not be enough. In such a case, hiding paragraphs in toggles is a perfect solution. Fortunately, somebody smarter than me already came up with the ideas, so let me simply send you to this article by Leighton Taylor ‘<a href="https://www.envision.io/blogs/ecommerce-pulse/28832705-how-to-add-an-faq-accordion-to-your-shopify-store">How to add an FAQ accordion to your Shopify store</a>‘. The tutorial includes a super easy 5 step guide, including a quick video and a demo of the solution that you will be implementing on your site. All you need to do is tweak CSS a bit for your needs and voila. And before you ask, the image was added with basic img tag.<blockquote><code><img src="yourimage.png" alt="your alt tag" style="box-shadow: 0 4px 8px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2), 0 6px 20px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.19);" align="middle"></code></blockquote>By combining the three solutions with adding text, image and toggle below Shopify Collection feed in Flex Theme, here’s what I was able to achieve in one of our client’s stores.<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/text-toggle-accordion-below-shopify-collection-flex-theme_268a0a23a02f9950ef769e974adb3fc7.gif 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/text-toggle-accordion-below-shopify-collection-flex-theme_268a0a23a02f9950ef769e974adb3fc7.gif 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Custom text in toggle with an image below" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/text-toggle-accordion-below-shopify-collection-flex-theme_268a0a23a02f9950ef769e974adb3fc7.gif" /></picture><figcaption>Custom text in toggle with an image below</figcaption></figure><h2 id="7qo5b">Step-by-step guide on how to add unique text below every Collection Page in Shopify Flex theme:</h2>1. Log in to your shop and navigate to ‘Online Store’ in ‘SALES CHANNELS’ section listed on the right-hand side of the screen;2. Hover over ‘Actions’ button (located in ‘LIVE THEME’ section) and select ‘Edit Code’ from the drop-down menu;3. Locate ‘Templates’ folder click blue command ‘Add new template’. In the pop-up window, select ‘collection’ after ‘Create a new template for’ and give it a name (stick to short names or if you need to use more than one word use dash instead of space bar). In our example we’ve chosen the name ‘coffee-tables’; then click ‘Create template’ button;<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/03-add-new-template_166c5cb5ac0e480ecdf141ba0236be3c_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/03-add-new-template_166c5cb5ac0e480ecdf141ba0236be3c_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Creating custom collection" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/03-add-new-template_166c5cb5ac0e480ecdf141ba0236be3c_800.png" /></picture><figcaption>Creating custom collection</figcaption></figure>4. Go to your newly created Collection tab and scroll down to the bottom and locate last two lines of code<blockquote></section> </div></blockquote>5. Copy and paste the following ‘Custom code’ and paste it just before those two lines and after ‘Collection sidebar’ section (in example below the code is pasted on line 58); then Save<blockquote>{% comment %} Collection manual description {% endcomment %} {% if template contains 'your-collection-name' %} Your custom text {% endif %}</blockquote><figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/04-custom-code_a09cc7b83452292b4ec51bb01f0d8af8_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/04-custom-code_a09cc7b83452292b4ec51bb01f0d8af8_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Pasting custom text code below Sidebar section" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/04-custom-code_a09cc7b83452292b4ec51bb01f0d8af8_800.png" /></picture><figcaption>Pasting custom text code below Sidebar section</figcaption></figure>6. From right-hand side panel go to ‘Products’ > ‘Collections’ and look up your custom collection7. Once the collection is loaded, change ‘Collection template’ in ‘THEME TEMPLATES’ section in the bottom right corner from default ‘collection’ to ‘collection-your-collection-name’ (in case of this example ‘collection.coffee-tables); then Save<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/06-shopify-select-collection_00600173fb324c9fdd0570a3d61cb9a2_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/06-shopify-select-collection_00600173fb324c9fdd0570a3d61cb9a2_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Changing Collection theme template" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/06-shopify-select-collection_00600173fb324c9fdd0570a3d61cb9a2_800.png" /></picture><figcaption>Changing Collection theme template</figcaption></figure>8. When you view your Collection page, you should now see ‘Your custom text’ below images.<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/07-shopify-select-collection_01acf31af7d5eba5c1a6d0125cb3bb82_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/07-shopify-select-collection_01acf31af7d5eba5c1a6d0125cb3bb82_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Custom text placement below collection feed" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/07-shopify-select-collection_01acf31af7d5eba5c1a6d0125cb3bb82_800.png" /></picture><figcaption>Custom text placement below collection feed</figcaption></figure>I hope this tutorial gave you a better understanding on how to create custom collections. If you have any questions on how to add text below collection page in Shopify Flex Theme, just drop me an email and I will do my best to help you out.  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/how-to-add-text-below-collection-shopify-flex-theme?id=707468721&type=12",title: "How to add text below Collection in Shopify Flex Theme by Out of the Sandbox?",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
Divi Pixel Plugin Review for Divi WordPress Theme

Fri, 01 May 2020 11:49:00 -0000

 TODAY I AM REVIEWING <a target="_blank" href="https://www.divi-pixel.com/">DIVI PIXEL PLUGIN FROM OCTOLAB OÜ</a>. THIS IS NOT AN AFFILIATE REVIEW; HOWEVER, I HAVE BEEN GRANTED ACCESS TO THE EARLY VERSION OF THE PLUGIN FOR FREE FOR THE REVIEW PURPOSES. OK, SO WITHOUT ANY FURTHER ADO, HERE ARE MY THOUGHTS UPON TAKING DIVI PIXEL FOR A SPIN. <figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/divi-pixel-plugin-wordpress_a67be09da11f6cbef1bf9f6131faade1_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/divi-pixel-plugin-wordpress_a67be09da11f6cbef1bf9f6131faade1_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Divi Pixel Plugin for Divi Wordpress Theme" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/divi-pixel-plugin-wordpress_a67be09da11f6cbef1bf9f6131faade1_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>Divi Pixel Plugin for Divi Wordpress Theme</figcaption></figure>Divi Pixel is one of those tools compatible with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.elegantthemes.com/">Divi Builder by Elegant Themes</a> that makes your life easier when it comes to customising basic settings. In an ideal world, Divi should have implemented them a long time ago. Furthermore, Divi Pixel offers some advanced styling solutions that can only be achieved with custom CSS. I also think this plugin will save you some money since there is no need to purchase separate plugins to improve or speed up your design process. It combines many great solutions that are available as different plugins in one. The most important thing, however, is that if you do not need some of the options that Divi Pixel offers, then you can disable them and no additional scripts will load on your w website to slow it down.<h2 id="7ta4m">User Experience with Divi Pixel</h2>Upon Divi Pixel plugin installation, you will be able to access all its features through the left-hand side panel (Dashboard > Divi > Divi Pixel). Right of the bat, I can see that the developers knew exactly <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/tag/ux/">what UX is</a>. That is how to design with user experience in mind. I would be surprised if anyone ever had to skim through the documentation file as the set up of the plugin is pretty much self-explanatory. The design is great for the eye but most importantly, very clean and straightforward. You can jump onto customisations right away.<h2 id="d8ett">Divi Pixel Options</h2>When you open Divi Pixel panel, you will see that the plugin has seven main features or control settings if you like:<ol><li>General</li><li>Blog</li><li>Social Media</li><li>Mobile</li><li>Modules</li><li>Layout Injector</li><li>Settings</li></ol><figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/divi-pixel-settings-panel-02_06a8e1e8bce23e54a15734e9b8eca88d_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/divi-pixel-settings-panel-02_06a8e1e8bce23e54a15734e9b8eca88d_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Divi Pixel plugin Settings" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/divi-pixel-settings-panel-02_06a8e1e8bce23e54a15734e9b8eca88d_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>Divi Pixel plugin Settings Panel</figcaption></figure><h3 id="blbei">General Settings in Divi Pixel</h3>General settings take care of some basic items that allow you to make your website ‘yours’ or in other words, apply some branding in a sense. It also has some options that I am only guessing did not fit into any other category. However, they remain handy none the less.In terms of mentioned ‘personalisation’, you can adjust the login page, add a page preloader, custom browser scrollbar, change logo on scroll and zoom on it as well as customise back to top button. If you use Google API for maps instead of embedding them, you will appreciate an option to add Custom Map Marker. There are several options to customise your footer and one that allows you to upload SVG files which are blocked by WordPress by default.<h3 id="e1cck">Blog adjustments</h3>The Blog adjustments in Divi Pixel are a bit of a hit and miss for me. The reason being some of the options are already available in Divi Theme builder. For example, removal of sidebar or adjustment of Archive pages. But where the Divi Pixel Blog adjustments stand out is the Customisation of comments section that currently requires custom CSS, so it makes for a great addition. It gives you some additional customisations for Archive pages as well so if you want your blog related pages to look a bit fancier than the standard, this functionality will help.<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/divi-pixel-blog-settings-03_99f9681279091f72efa7e485db2ec944_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/divi-pixel-blog-settings-03_99f9681279091f72efa7e485db2ec944_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Blog adjustments in Divi Pixel Plugin" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/divi-pixel-blog-settings-03_99f9681279091f72efa7e485db2ec944_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>Example of Blog adjustments in Divi Pixel Plugin</figcaption></figure><h3 id="9psh0">Social Media</h3>Social Media section will come in handy for those of you who are not graphic pros, and you would like to customise social media icons. Divi Pixel gives you more options when it comes to where you can display social media icons – be it the header, footer or mobile menu. It also gives you control over individual icons, so that you can choose the display location for them separately.<h3 id="9ege6">Mobile Settings</h3>Divi Pixel Mobile adjustments allow you to modify some essential mobile view settings, including making it full screen (make sure to Enable Custom Mobile menu Style first, so you don’t miss it ;). Yes, some options are available in Theme Builder already, like fixed position and swapping logo in mobile view. But the plugin gives you an opportunity to change breakpoint for mobile menu, collapse submenus on mobile and animate hamburger menu icon among others. Mobile menu settings are one of the best features of Divi Pixel plugin.<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/divi-pixel-full-screen-menu-04_3b7c788422a55b3bb492c24f1f0432bd_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/divi-pixel-full-screen-menu-04_3b7c788422a55b3bb492c24f1f0432bd_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Full screen mobile menu in Divi Pixel Plugin" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/divi-pixel-full-screen-menu-04_3b7c788422a55b3bb492c24f1f0432bd_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>Example of Full screen mobile menu in Divi Pixel Plugin</figcaption></figure><h3 id="7p57b">Modules</h3>Where Divi Pixel stands out is the Modules section which adds 17 custom modules to the Divi Builder. You can, of course, review all of them directly on their website, so let me just mention my picks: before and after effect, tilt image, typing effect, masonry gallery, and my absolute favourite image hot spot and floating images.<h4 id="4k61v">IMAGE HOT SPOT BY DIVI PIXEL</h4>Divi Pixel is not the first plugin to have this feature, but I have yet to see one that does it so well. <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/create-interactive-websites-vistag-review/">We once reviewed Vistag tool</a> that allows you to tag any element on an image and display more info upon hovering over selected points, but the company closed in February 2020. So, I was pleased to see that the idea was implemented by somebody else. I would say the room for improvement is in expanding options for tablet and mobile view, but with the right mindset, you can make it work. And I hear further enhancements are in the development stage.<figure class="image regular "><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/divi-pixel-image-hotspot-05_6fd3807567e26cedd0a182a8912910b7_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/divi-pixel-image-hotspot-05_6fd3807567e26cedd0a182a8912910b7_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Divi Pixel Image Hotspot Module" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/divi-pixel-image-hotspot-05_6fd3807567e26cedd0a182a8912910b7_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>Divi Pixel Image Hotspot Module</figcaption></figure><h4 id="86v24">FLOATING IMAGES</h4>Yet another feature that will make your website stand out among others. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.divi-pixel.com/modules/floating-images/">Floating images</a> allows for a subtle animation of your images. In fact, the subtle animations trend started back in 2019, and it continues to be quite popular in 2020. A great feature to present your team photos, locations on a map or product highlights.<h3 id="er5lb">Layout Injector</h3>Divi Pixel allows you to inject any saved section in Divi Library where by default it was not possible. For example, before or after the navigation section, footer or on specific pages only. There are also several options for blog pages.<h3 id="p3da">Settings</h3>If you decide to return to default settings on your website, you can reset them in plugin Settings. Do not worry if you ever want to retrieve them, as Divi Pixel plugin allows you to import and export said settings. And if you would like to remain up to date with future developments, you can enable Beta Updates although you probably don’t want to use that option on your client websites.I have not listed all the options that Divi Pixel provides as I wanted to focus on those functionalities that I find most useful. So if you would like to learn what is the full scope of Divi Pixel Plugin, please head over to their Documentation page.<h2 id="lqmb">Divi Pixel Review Summary</h2>Upon using Divi Pixel I can state with confidence; this is a very handy plugin that will save you a lot of time when developing a website. It provides certain basic solutions which Divi should already have, in my opinion. If you often find yourself injecting the same template codes to disable footers, adjust menu breakpoints or blog layouts in your websites, Divi Pixel will save you a lot of time.In addition, Divi Pixel offers 17 design solutions that will take your website to the next level and help you build a unique design that does not look like thousands of other Divi websites.Before wrapping up, I think it would be a great addition if the developers included some templates to go along with this plugin, which would further speed up the design process. Time-saving and unique design options are my biggest takeaways from using Divi Pixel, and I would recommend it to those who are looking to speed up and improve their website design process.  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/divi-pixel-plugin-review-wordpress?id=703064332&type=12",title: "Divi Pixel Plugin Review for Divi WordPress Theme",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
CognitiveSEO Review: How All-in-One SEO Toolbox Can Help You With Your Organic Traffic

Sat, 04 Apr 2020 14:50:00 -0000

CognitiveSEO provided me with access to their SEO tools, and I thought I'll do something productive and review the entire tool collection. <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/marketing-automation-tools-for-business/" target="_blank">I like to look at the SEO tools</a> from a purely pragmatic angle or with the entrepreneurial mindset: "Get me the SEO data fast - the less friction, the better. And have some of it quickly copy-pasted/shown to my clients such that they understand it without me explaining too much." <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-all-seo-tools_5d50dd6820329afdf54b8d8aa44b4ddc.gif 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-all-seo-tools_5d50dd6820329afdf54b8d8aa44b4ddc.gif 1x"></source><img alt="CognitiveSEO review of all-in-one SEO software to rank your business on top of SERP with Keyword Explorer, Content Optimizer, Site Explorer, Site Audit and other SEO Tools" height="324" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-all-seo-tools_5d50dd6820329afdf54b8d8aa44b4ddc.gif" width="640" /></picture><figcaption>Use CognitiveSEO all-in-one SEO software suite to rank your business on top of SERP with Keyword Explorer, Content Optimizer, Site Explorer, Site Audit and other SEO Tools</figcaption></figure> (TL;DR) After running my SEO errands through entire<a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/"> CognitiveSEO Tools Suite</a>, I've concluded that founders successfully built a highly specialised all-in-one SEO toolkit, especially for technical SEO and link building, organic ranking and affiliate marketing. Practical SEO uses you're getting with CognitiveSEO Tools: <ul> <li>detailed website analysis that can work for an SEO expert but also stand as a beginners guide to technical SEO (it can replace Screaming Frog SEO for most important SEO analysis)</li> <li>Keywords Rank monitoring lets you see the direction your SEO strategy is heading toward - all accessed with nifty data slicers for a super-fast ranking assessment and SEO analysis</li> <li>inBound Link Analysis follows the suite and presents all the data you may want to analyse your/competitors backlink profile and their relationship with your domain (note: the link explorer is surprisingly accurate - more on that below)</li> <li>(my personal favourite) Content Optimizer & Keyword Tool will make your content rank your pages and keywords better with half (or none!) of the backlinks that you'd normally need - super easy to use and built for 100% practicality in mind</li> <li>BONUS: they also have a reporting tool that alerts you on Google Search volatility, algorithm update changes and potential ranking alterations. In essence, it's great not only to make you aware of the "search algorithm updates", but you can also use it to inform your online marketing endeavours. And let your clients see that you have your finger on the pulse (by the way, that feature should be added to Google Webmaster Tools or Google Search Console by default).</li> </ul> <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-google-algorithm-changes_fbe4c2cd54ea43874d16ed385c69c494.gif 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-google-algorithm-changes_fbe4c2cd54ea43874d16ed385c69c494.gif 1x"></source><img alt="CognitiveSEO Tool for measuring the Google Algorithm updates and its impact on the Search Ranking and SEO" height="327" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-google-algorithm-changes_fbe4c2cd54ea43874d16ed385c69c494.gif" width="640" /></picture><figcaption>CognitiveSEO Tool can help you monitor the Google Algorithm updates and its impact on the Search Ranking and SEO</figcaption></figure> <h2 id="ephu5"> SEO Campaigns </h2> <h3 id="eh2ar"> In-depth metrics for advanced SEO and search engine optimizing</h3> After the initial step-by-step campaign set up - I must say, it's very quick and to the point - the SEO Campaigns Dashboard welcomes you with "Quick Overview" modules similar to what you'd seen in other SEO Tools like SEMRush, Ahrefs and others. You got a standard set of: <ul> <li>Crawled Pages</li> <li>Referring Domains</li> <li>On-Page SEO errors</li> <li>Traffic/Sessions</li> <li>Data about Keywords and SEO Visibility</li> </ul> And scrolling below you'll see a selected data from your Google Search Console and Google Analytics (providing you've plugged them in during the initial campaign set up). <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-dashboard_e1fe03c3b36e6deac7330d577a3a4c76.gif 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-dashboard_e1fe03c3b36e6deac7330d577a3a4c76.gif 1x"></source><img alt="Dashboard overview of all CognitiveSEO SEO Tools" height="327" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-dashboard_e1fe03c3b36e6deac7330d577a3a4c76.gif" width="640" /></picture><figcaption>Dashboard overview of all CognitiveSEO SEO Tools</figcaption></figure> <h4 id="62pvc"> So how can I use the data, and what is the point of those SEO metrics?</h4> I would mainly use it for the client meeting and to support the overall direction of my... well, SEO campaigns. The Dashboard could also easily replace separate <a href="https://reportz.io/" target="_blank">premium data analysis tools like Reportz.io</a>. Having everything in one place is convenient and greatly reduces the time you would spend on putting the entire SEO campaign together for yourself or your customers. CognitiveSEO even lets you add widgets or change the placement of the modules and shown data. For me, however, the default dashboard is spot on as I lean towards a quick general overview of the stats that it gives me right away. The Dashboard's reporting aspect is then further expanded under Reports & Schedules tab where you can plan and build branded PDF documents that get automatically delivered to your clients' inboxes (note, the full Whitelabel Reporting feature is only enabled with the Business Plan). <h2 id="cq2bq"> Site Audit</h2> <h3 id="6plpq"> You can use the On-Page SEO Auditing Tool as a beginners guide to technical SEO</h3> During the SEO Campaign set up, CognitiveSEO recommends to also sent an SEO spider to analyse a targeted domain thoroughly. So upon the first launch of the campaign, the spiders went and shortly after returned with expected large-number of in-depth data that they grabbed from my website. For any project I'm working with, I prefer to build websites correctly right from the beginning, and for any out-of-the-ordinary project, I use Screaming Frog SEO, which means that I use my on-page auditing tool sparsely. <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-site-audit_14d5475974f50ccfcb5565dec40580a1.gif 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-site-audit_14d5475974f50ccfcb5565dec40580a1.gif 1x"></source><img alt="Ditch Screaming Frog SEO and use CognitiveSEO Site Audit as a beginners guide to SEO and start your Google Search Rank domination" height="327" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-site-audit_14d5475974f50ccfcb5565dec40580a1.gif" width="640" /></picture><figcaption>Use CognitiveSEO Site Audit and start your Google Search Rank domination</figcaption></figure> However, I was pleasantly surprised by CognitiveSEO's website analysis and the way it sorted out and displayed the data. They're doing that in a very concise and task-oriented manner. I can easily see myself just launching the Site Audit and after several minutes taking it for a spin squashing most of the "SEO bugs" on my sites: - all meta tags, title tags, image alt tags, etc. - broken link and duplicate content checks - XML sitemap and structured data review etc. etc. And if there is something I don't understand they've sprinkled informative tooltips all over the place so you could easily use it as a beginners guide to SEO analysis (and any SEO expert should also benefit). The PageSpeed Insights tab was also available, but "the data was missing" - this is possibly one of those SEO analysis tools that they still working on. For a to-the-point fast SEO website audit software, I actually prefer CognitiveSEO over <a href="https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/">Screaming Frog SEO</a>. The latter gets overwhelming sometimes. So well done CognitiveSEO. <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveseo-custom-client-reports_d33b4f51697d272709a3cf3d68d52515_800.png 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveseo-custom-client-reports_d33b4f51697d272709a3cf3d68d52515_800.png 1x"></source><img alt="Schedule and send whitelabel SEO reports on automate via CognitiveSEO Reporting feature" height="328" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveseo-custom-client-reports_d33b4f51697d272709a3cf3d68d52515_800.png" width="640" /></picture><figcaption>Schedule and auto-send whitelabel SEO reports via CognitiveSEO Reporting feature</figcaption></figure> <h2 id="35jvj"> Rank Tracking</h2> <h3 id="71hdg"> Organic keyword rank tracker with a direct comparison to your competition keywords positioning</h3> CognitiveSEO goes in lengths analysing Google Search results to assess the daily keyword standing, and it does help you see if your SEO rank strategies are making dents in the search results grid. They also implemented "data slicers" or a type of quick view tabs that filter out the keywords in the areas of importance. For example: <ul> <li>Keywords Ranked in top 1-3 positions or 4-10 / 11-20 and so on until 100</li> <li>Keywords you're "not ranking" yet</li> <li>Only the keywords that "improved ranking" and also the ones that remained "static"</li> <li>and below the chart, you can find a timeline slider to narrow down to a point in your ranking project instantly</li> </ul> <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveseo-rank-tracking_b5cb91852f001fc53e990500ffe8315e_800.png 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveseo-rank-tracking_b5cb91852f001fc53e990500ffe8315e_800.png 1x"></source><img alt="Monitor and measure how your domain ranks on Google Search Engine with targeted keywords, and compare your SERP positions against your competitors" height="328" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveseo-rank-tracking_b5cb91852f001fc53e990500ffe8315e_800.png" width="640" /></picture><figcaption>Monitor and measure how your domain ranks on Google Search Engine with targeted keywords, and compare your SERP positions against your competitors</figcaption></figure> These slicers are amazing, and with provided search volumes, you can quickly predict your expected organic traffic. The tracking tools also lets you pin the competitors' tabs with their keywords rankings and, later, check up on them and see if they're working on the same keywords positioning. However, it would be even better if there was some way of a direct side-by-side comparison between my focus-domain and my competitors. Maybe CognitiveSEO will figure it out at some point. To summarise CognitiveSEO Rank Tracking tool is decent for what it is, however, I'd like to see them expanding it into more automated organic keywords data gathering. A type of advanced SEO tool that encompasses LSI and recent Google's neural network-based technique for natural language processing (NLP) - <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-bert-update/332161/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">BERT update from the end of 2019</a>. I think this is the future of keyword tools. <h2 id="3m86r"> CognitiveSEO Site Explorer and inBound Link Analysis</h2> <h3 id="34qam"> A great contender to Ahrefs Site Explorer</h3> Their backlink database and crawling scope are surprisingly accurate and resemble <a href="https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer">Ahrefs backlink checker</a> that is often touted as the "backlink gold-standard" in the SEO industry. I've made several side-by-side random domain comparisons, and in most instances, CognitiveSEO came very close in showing the number of backlinks to that of Ahrefs Site Explorer. <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-site-explorer_aea214d83b4aec7311c49e33e9789e5d.gif 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-site-explorer_aea214d83b4aec7311c49e33e9789e5d.gif 1x"></source><img alt="Check your domain SEO score and analyse linking performance and anchor text distribution with CognitiveSEO Site Explorer" height="327" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-site-explorer_aea214d83b4aec7311c49e33e9789e5d.gif" width="640" /></picture><figcaption>Check your domain SEO score and analyse linking performance and anchor text distribution with CognitiveSEO Site Explorer</figcaption></figure> Although, this small sample is by no means a comprehensive study of "which SEO site analysis software found more backlinks" but a pleasant surprise I wasn't expecting to see. And the Ahrefs Site Explorer was still slightly better in any case. What is also interesting is that you can upload your own backlinks to increase the accuracy further. I can't recall that backlink feature with any other Site Explorers I've used, and I found it worth exploring. In summary, CognitiveSEO is a reliable source of SEO backlink analysis for sure. <h4 id="aqg8l"> Link Rank Checker</h4> It's worth mentioning the CognitiveSEO Link Rank (measured from 0-100). This is a more targeted SEO website grader that we already know from Majestic SEO Trust Flow (TF), MOZ Domain Authority (DA) or Ahrefs Domain Rank (DR). <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-in-bound-link-analysis_dbd523032e42e4b1fed8af1dbc8e8ce3.gif 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-in-bound-link-analysis_dbd523032e42e4b1fed8af1dbc8e8ce3.gif 1x"></source><img alt="Dive-deep into the domain on-page and off-page SEO structure, analyse and monitor domain’s performance and plan fool-proof SEO link-building strategy" height="327" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-in-bound-link-analysis_dbd523032e42e4b1fed8af1dbc8e8ce3.gif" width="640" /></picture><figcaption>InBound Link Analysis helps you dive deep into the domain on-page and off-page SEO data</figcaption></figure> CognitiveSEO Link Rank is influenced by a host of different SEO metrics as calculated by their link explorer, website audit and other SEO analysis tools. The score I got my domain was the harshest of the above-mentioned research tools (and probably closest to Majestic SEO). Also, the Link Rank score is only accessible at the SEO Campaign level. When you research via the CognitiveSEO Site Explorer, the score is replaced with vague Page/Domain Influence score marked as either "Low", "Average" or "High". <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveseo-site-explorer-score_9a7564c5683e15355404ff3959590975_800.png 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveseo-site-explorer-score_9a7564c5683e15355404ff3959590975_800.png 1x"></source><img alt="Assess your page and domain authority with deep-analysis of your backlinks and SEO ranking performance" height="328" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveseo-site-explorer-score_9a7564c5683e15355404ff3959590975_800.png" width="640" /></picture><figcaption>Peek at your competitors' websites, assess page and domain authority scores and check backlinks and SEO ranking performance</figcaption></figure> Among the other SEO metrics, the most prominent are: - Referring Domains - Total Links (note, they cap their backlink checker showing up to 20 strongest backlinks from any given domains) - Link Velocity with Visual Explorer that can stand as a link building guide Then there is a boat-load of SEO data, filters and slicers. Among all CognitiveSEO optimization tools, this one is the most overwhelming and requires a lot of time to familiarise yourself with. I'm using Ahrefs Site Explorer already, and I have a tough time to switch - its mechanics and the interface is much different than to what I'm used to. <blockquote> Side note: I suspect that as Ahrefs grows more and more popular, their web crawler bot will become a persona non-grata blocked now by various hosting providers in an effort to save server load. In such circumstance, the multi-source data agglomerates like CognitiveSEO may take precedence and show more accurate SEO stats in some areas.</blockquote> <h4 id="dm6bf"> How can Site Explorer help you in your SEO positioning?</h4> To me, the whole backlink checking option serves one purpose - recognise the general trend. Meaning, I want quick info on whether a particular domain/page holds any SEO authority or not. And also monitor what, if any, spam attach to my website backlink portfolio. I won't bother making sure the tool finds every single backlink. Why? Because it NEVER will. <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-link-building-strategy_09a5cd7f5db1159475050b222b439bff.gif 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-link-building-strategy_09a5cd7f5db1159475050b222b439bff.gif 1x"></source><img alt="CognitiveSEO Link Building Strategy" height="360" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-link-building-strategy_09a5cd7f5db1159475050b222b439bff.gif" width="640" /></picture><figcaption>Use Link Velocity and backlink analysis to build an effective link building strategy</figcaption></figure> All SEO Tools will always just attempt to follow Google, but they will never be 100% accurate or even close to being correct. It has always been just a guestimation at best - and the Traffic Estimators, Backlink Checkers or Keywords Ranking tools role is just to show us the general trend and pointers for the next step in our SEO strategies. And same goes for CognitiveSEO Site Explorer - I use it for: <ul> <li>domain authority assessment (they have this great and straightforward Page Influence and Domain Influence at the top bar - by the way, it's NOT vague, it's perfect for showing your SEO clients and prospects on a sales meeting)</li> <li>backlink analysis and anchor text redistribution as a quick link building guide or to simply check my links health</li> <li>BONUS! Broken Pages: this is a unique feature most push to SEO Site Analysis only; I love that CognitiveSEO shows the 404-data in the Site Explorer, and they're making it a superbly useful to quickly analyse outdated content or subjects you could attempt to revive or repurpose. All without resorting to a tedious SEO Audit.</li> </ul> There is a slight difference between Site Explorer and inBound Link Analysis wherein the latter CognitiveSEO seems to combine multiple tab views from the Site Explorer detailed overview under one. The inBound Link Analysis appears only under Campaign SEO for a given project where the tracking and data measurement is also updated in real-time from several sources at the same time (including Google Analytics and Google Search Console if you've connected them). If you're doing some search engine positioning work and focusing on a particular domain, it would be advisable to launch a full-fledged SEO Campaign and monitor things that way rather than searching the Site Explorer each time. <h2 id="acofa"> Content Optimizer & Keyword Research Tool</h2> <h3 id="3dhce"> A secret SEO tool that gets your pages and content ranked on Google without link building</h3> I was <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/seo-content-optimization-cognitiveseo-vs-similarcontent/">raving about the CognitiveSEO Content Optimizer</a> in another post already. And I'm also planning to shoot a video about it soon. Here I just wanted to summarise quickly what it is and why I like it so much. <h4 id="8o7op"> What is CognitiveSEO Content Optimizer all about?</h4> CognitiveSEO Content Optimizer is a web text editor that scans your submitted text (article) and lists tons of supporting keywords and topics to improve your article and, ultimately, your content marketing strategy. The tool bases its recommendations on Google's complex algorithms (mostly LSI, NLP, and large data comparisons). Content Optimizer starts with a regular Keywords Explorer that we know from many other SEO tools. As per usual, you plug your main keyword idea (seed keyword), set the country and off you go. <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-keyword-explorer_be544cc79be0bffa1e1f1d43f9ed8a16.gif 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-keyword-explorer_be544cc79be0bffa1e1f1d43f9ed8a16.gif 1x"></source><img alt="Search and analyse best performing keywords with CognitiveSEO Keyword Explorer suite" height="327" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-keyword-explorer_be544cc79be0bffa1e1f1d43f9ed8a16.gif" width="640" /></picture><figcaption>Search and analyse best performing keywords with CognitiveSEO Keyword Explorer suite</figcaption></figure> <h4 id="cjk7m"> Keyword Explorer</h4> I like the fact that CognitiveSEO decided to trim the fat, leaving us with the most important factors related to the <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/keyword-tool/" target="_blank">Keyword Explorer</a>: <ul> <li>Content difficulty from 0-100: it's calculated based on the top-performing articles on the subject - highly relevant score based on CognitiveSEO's LSI and sophisticated article scanning; this is one of the best keyword difficulty metrics I've seen around; as it informs you with what you'd be doing next - namely, optimising your content</li> <li>Links Difficulty 0-100: same as before but you should consider the amount of backlinking efforts that will go into the project</li> <li>Monthly Searches: a Google Trend graph to see the overall search volume course over the years</li> <li>Relevancy score 1-5 "stars": i.e. how close the (long-tail) keyword is to your seed keyword - this is great for a quick "search intent" assessment</li> <li>No. of words: you can check the "long-tail"-ness factor of any given keyword</li> <li>Search Volume: CognitiveSEO Keyword Explorer uses "from-to" brackets rather than absolute numbers - this is also my preference</li> <li>CPC $-value: this one is something I wouldn't expect there, and I'm a bit unsure about its ultimate purpose in that space - possibly to know if the keyword is monetised via PPC ads (?) (but what impact that would have on your optimisation decisions, I don't know...)</li> </ul> <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-keyword-research_0821dcebe18de5fee68714aeacce695d.gif 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-keyword-research_0821dcebe18de5fee68714aeacce695d.gif 1x"></source><img alt="Research & Analyse thousands of money-making keywords, pick the most relevant and export them on CSV file " height="327" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-keyword-research_0821dcebe18de5fee68714aeacce695d.gif" width="640" /></picture><figcaption>Research & Analyse thousands of money-making keywords, pick the most relevant and export on CSV </figcaption></figure> Similarly to the Keyword Tracking approach, CognitiveSEO implemented a lot of data slicers to filter out the most important SEO bits from a substantial volume of keywords. So other than the filters referred to the data points mentioned above, you can refine your keyword search with: <ul> <li>Search Suggestions</li> <li>Focus Keywords</li> <li>Questions</li> </ul> And then you can also: <ul> <li>Group by Topic</li> <li>Copy All or</li> <li>Export All to CSV spreadsheet</li> </ul> I must say, the keywords research is comprehensive and lands a lot of keyword suggestions to look at. On the Standard plan, it may not be the biggest keywords database out there (Ahrefs lands about 10-30% more depending on the query), but CognitiveSEO keyword analysis serves you the most relevant SEO keyword ideas you should be considering on your website. And apparently, you can also expand the results count up to 3x on higher paid plans. There is so much more to keyword analysis than you could ever see on Google Trend or Keyword Planner from Google so give it a go. <blockquote> Side note: the "search intent" behind the keyword is one of the most important factors in generating revenue from the content that many SEOs struggle with, and I find CognitiveSEO's Keyword Explorer makes it a little bit easier.</blockquote> <h4 id="1pia9"> Rank Analysis</h4> CognitiveSEO also lists top 20 articles/pages that currently occupy the top search grid for a given "seed keyword". This is the next logical step (tab) in your SEO Content Optimization journey which reveals who you are up against via the following self-explanatory data points: <ul> <li>Content Performance</li> <li>Focus Keywords</li> <li>No. Of Words</li> <li>Domains To Url</li> <li>Domains To Site</li> <li>Date Published</li> </ul> <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-serp-analysis_8e46de527b88d4e37570ec1db0148122.gif 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-serp-analysis_8e46de527b88d4e37570ec1db0148122.gif 1x"></source><img alt="SERP Analysis SEO tool is a part of CognitiveSEO Keyword Explorer suite" height="327" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-serp-analysis_8e46de527b88d4e37570ec1db0148122.gif" width="640" /></picture><figcaption>SERP Analysis SEO tool helps you see who ranks what, where and why</figcaption></figure> The most apparent is the Content Performance progression bar from 0-100 that you can eye-ball and immediately grasp who makes an SEO effort and where. I also found myself using the tool as a unique content curator: <ol> <li>The grid is a swift SEO checker and gives me a quick insight into the web pages that comprise of the juiciest content.</li> <li>While using it as a rank checker, I can filter-out a blog post or two that ranked due to backlinks alone, got a low number of keywords or were published a long time ago (and are possibly outdated).</li> <li>I can also click on the given record and analyse the LSI keywords that are prominent in the article! In any case, CognitiveSEO Ranking Analysis equips me with the most important data points that allow me to see what's behind the Google Search curtains.</li> </ol> I'd love to see CognitiveSEO expanding on that content curation theme a little bit more and provide the full top-100 pages breakdown with data slicers and filters. Note, you can expand to the top-100 articles on their higher-paid plans (but I'm not sure if it comes with any additional features). Again, they offer so much more than what you can find in other keyword explorer tools or even SEO toolbar and Chrome extension widgets. And definitely more than plain keyword suggestions you get out of Googles Keyword Planner. <h4 id="613kh"> Content Optimizer</h4> Once you know what you are writing about or you already have something that needs optimizing, you can go ahead and fire the Content Optimizer tool. Again, I've devoted a few good words in an attempt to perform the Content Optimizer's detailed analysis in my other article, so definitely check it. Here, I'll just quickly recap why I find their SEO optimizer so essential to my digital marketing activities. <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-content-optimizer_7941f6615017d3ab4f63d0ff9e53c818.gif 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-content-optimizer_7941f6615017d3ab4f63d0ff9e53c818.gif 1x"></source><img alt="Content Optimizer helps you to create better articles by providing LSI keywords, long-tail keyword suggestions and NLP data from Google Search index" height="327" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-content-optimizer_7941f6615017d3ab4f63d0ff9e53c818.gif" width="640" /></picture><figcaption>Content Optimizer helps you to create better articles by providing LSI keywords, long-tail keyword suggestions and NLP data from Google Search index</figcaption></figure> Firstly, the Content Optimizer interface is superbly intuitive. With the use of colours and strategic layout, it takes very little guesswork on what you need to be doing there. This is essential for speed of implementation and handing it over to VA or someone who might not necessarily want to learn some complex SEO-tool (i.e. non-SEO content marketers) but would greatly benefit from it anyways. For any ambitious content marketer or resourceful digital marketing strategy, that tool is a must. Secondly, I've ranked unbelievable keywords for my clients on top of Google completely without launching any link building campaigns. Simply by using Content Optimizer and producing a great article. This isn't to say that "tHe bAcKlinKing iZ DeAd". I'm saying that there is more to the keywords LSI (and now Google BERT updates) than one might conclude from following a basic "beginners guide to SEO" or "SEO keyword research tutorial" on YouTube. Slapping all your H1-H3 with "{marketing consultant|consultants of marketings}", duplicate content and a broken grammar is slowly but surely a practice that Google is working hard NOT to reward anymore. And last but not least, I truly believe that with the proper use of Content Optimizer in your online marketing you're going to produce a much better, juicer and, what we like to call, well-researched articles. With this tool, I often find myself deriving new ideas as I'm optimising the content within the tool. The "Keywords you should use" or "you should use more often" suggestions, as well as "content ideas via questions people ask" are a fantastic resource in and of itself. Many times I found pointers to the new ideas and avenues about the subject that I've missed or not realised before I sat down to write the piece. To simply put, optimization tools like Content Optimizer make the Internet a better place. <figure class="image regular "><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-content-optimizer-editor_19f2478abcb7e3e939db4a015218746c.gif 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-content-optimizer-editor_19f2478abcb7e3e939db4a015218746c.gif 1x"></source><img alt="Content Optimizer can help you rank your website on Google Search Engine without backlinks" height="327" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-content-optimizer-editor_19f2478abcb7e3e939db4a015218746c.gif" width="640" /></picture><figcaption>Content Optimizer can help you rank your website on Google Search Engine without backlinks</figcaption></figure> <h3 id="7vik4"> What I'd like to improve about Content Optimizer</h3> The one thing that is apparent in the keywords software is how detached it is from the rest of the platform. It almost seems like it's done as a side-kick to the main SEO Campaign tools. At the moment, the articles are mixed up all over the "Continue Where You Left Off" section, and it would be nice to have them at least categorised or assigned to different projects (domains). So what I'd love to see is better integration with the rest of the SEO toolkit. For example, it would be nice to be able to launch an SEO campaign project and have the selected pages and articles listed for "content optimization". And while we're at it, why not have a trigger button for the tool to scrape the existing content from the selected pages for you to optimise it. Further, have it automatically calculating the improved LSI performance - listing the organic keywords ranking that are popping up on Google Search. This could be similar to the Site Auditor step-by-step SEO guides but for all your projects content optimisation instead. <h2 id="dvqe3"> CognitiveSEO Review Summary</h2> As Google Search Algorithm becomes more and more complicated and new layers of complexity are added on top of an already intricate network, an all-in-one SEO software companies will have to make a choice. <ul> <li>Either they'll attempt to predict and replicate what the biggest company in the world is up to next. That means pouring resources in an attempt to the ultimate SEO toolkit by combining everything there is while trying not to sacrifice baseline user experience (think how convoluted Google Analytics Dashboard is - and that's just analytics!).</li> <li>OR they will take a specific direction and put all their efforts to help their customers achieving targeted results (think MOZ Local)</li> </ul> From a pragmatic point of view to the whole SEO, I see the second possibility much more compelling. And fortunately, I see CognitiveSEO taking precisely that direction - to become a highly specialised SEO tool for organic SEO projects and affiliate campaigns. And this isn't to say they don't have their bases covered - quite the contrary. The software interface is very responsive and didn't take me long to learn the basics (apart maybe from the Site Explorer). I found all the SEO features highly practical and aligned to make a substantial difference in my organic SEO rankings - whether for my domain or my clients. There are also Free SEO Tools available to take a look but they are very limited. If you're an SEO beginner and you're looking for free SEO tools at CognitiveSEO you will need to supplement them with something else like <a href="https://answerthepublic.com/" target="_blank">Answer The Public</a>. <blockquote> The entry-level CognitiveSEO package cost $129, which is $30 more than popular SemRUSH or Ahrefs basic packages (or Majestic SEO / MOZ Pro). However, neither SemRUSH nor Ahrefs provides Content Optimizer, and eventually, you'll have to look for it somewhere anyway. Maybe it would be a good idea for CognitiveSEO to offer it separately for a smaller price?</blockquote> <figure class="image regular "><a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/pricing.php" target="_blank"><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-paid-plans-pricing_cbf60886693ec0fe1f8d160917eb819e.gif 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-paid-plans-pricing_cbf60886693ec0fe1f8d160917eb819e.gif 1x"></source><img alt="CognitiveSEO Paid Plans Pricing table" height="327" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/cognitiveseo-paid-plans-pricing_cbf60886693ec0fe1f8d160917eb819e.gif" width="640" /></picture></a><figcaption>CognitiveSEO Paid Plans Pricing - Monthly or Yearly (30% off) with 7-day Trial</figcaption></figure> Additionally, big "all-in-one" marketing agencies and everyone who also require PPC analysis, social media marketing or some complicated data associations while exporting hundreds of spreadsheets with unlimited data to play around with - those will need additional solutions anyway. Still, if you specialise in organic SEO or in search of fast and practical SEO guide both for SEO experts and beginners (even to jump start their SEO training), I recommend investing in CognitiveSEO. It'll be worth it, and the software will pay itself back faster than you think. Article originally posted on <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/cognitiveseo-review/" target="_blank">https://colorpeak.co.uk/cognitiveseo-review/</a>  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/cognitiveseo-review?id=586521178&type=12",title: "CognitiveSEO Review: How All-in-One SEO Toolbox Can Help You With Your Organic Traffic",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
SEO Content Optimization – CognitiveSEO vs SimilarContent

Sat, 09 Nov 2019 12:43:00 -0000

 WE’VE OPTIMIZED THIS ARTICLE WITH <a href="https://similarcontent.com/">SIMILARCONTENT SEARCH ENGINE CONTENT OPTIMIZATION TOOL</a> MARKETING AUTOMATION - The “marketing automation” keyword and the optimized content I’m referring to throughout the article is here: Marketing Automation Tools – The DIY for BeginnersNON-AFFILIATE REVIEW - This review is my honest feedback as a dedicated SEO enthusiast in constant pursue of optimisation tools that provide the best results.SPOILER ALERT! <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/">COGNITIVESEO CONTENT OPTIMIZATION SOFTWARE</a> WINS (WITH A BIG CAVEAT WORKING IN FAVOUR OF <a href="https://similarcontent.com/">SIMILARCONTENT OPTIMIZER</a>, BUT MORE ON THAT BELOW). IF YOU’RE AFTER SEO CONTENT OPTIMIZATION IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, BOTH TOOLS WILL GIVE YOU VERY CLOSE RESULTS. AND THE RESULTS BEING HIGHER RANKINGS ON GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE FOR YOUR OPTIMIZED ARTICLES.SO, HERE’S HOW BOTH OF THE TOOLS GO ABOUT DOING CONTENT OPTIMIZATION.<h2 id="4a8f4">How To Do Content Optimization Correctly? – Seed Keyword Analysis</h2>First, both CognitiveSEO and SimilarContent analyse the top searches to find who gets the Google engine ranking right and who doesn’t. After the tools combine the findings, an equation is run to assess the outcome. The idea is to get you information that is easy to interpret and provide you with a general direction in which to take your raw, unoptimized article. As an example, I decided to drop a hard keyword: “marketing automation”.<h3 id="9cb6g">CognitiveSEO Keyword Analysis</h3>The tool does an excellent job of showing you the entire picture at first sight. Without clicking away, I see:<h4 id="7820n">🠮 CONTENT DIFFICULTY</h4>The “gist” of the keyword analysis step and the number from 0-100 that tells you how sharp your content optimization needs to be if you want to enter the content marketing competition at the top of Search Engine Result Page (SERP). “Marketing automation” scored 77, marking it as a “very hard” keyword.<h4 id="8ueng">🠮 LINKS DIFFICULTY</h4>CognitiveSEO goes an extra step here and also lets you know that the content optimization alone ain’t going to cut it. The same scale as before – from 0-100 – and “marketing automation” is marked at 72 (“very hard”). Underneath the Links difficulty score, I see an extra piece of information about how many referring domains do “Score 72” actually mean (“~49 sites” backlinking to my “marketing automation” article to enter the top SERP online competition).<h4 id="2d2cr">🠮 MONTHLY SEARCHES</h4>It shows a popularity trend (Google Trends) of a given keyword in the selected country. For “marketing automation” keyword in Google.co.uk the Monthly Searches feature did not work (the result was “N/A”). Surprisingly it did work for Poland or the USA but not for the UK.But it doesn’t end there. Still, in the same birds-eye view, CognitiveSEO goes even deeper with the Keyword Analysis. And if there was ever any doubt if you should spend the next several hours working on your SEO content optimization, Keyword Explorer and Rank Analysis features should swiftly dispell any uncertainty.<figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveSEOgroup-by-topickeywordexplorer_70507a59eaa7217a2b2ba1c1cd1b0960_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveSEOgroup-by-topickeywordexplorer_70507a59eaa7217a2b2ba1c1cd1b0960_1600.png 2x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveSEOgroup-by-topickeywordexplorer_70507a59eaa7217a2b2ba1c1cd1b0960_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveSEOgroup-by-topickeywordexplorer_70507a59eaa7217a2b2ba1c1cd1b0960_1600.png 2x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="SPOILER ALERT! COGNITIVESEO CONTENT OPTIMIZATION SOFTWARE WINS (WITH A BIG CAVEAT WORKING IN FAVOUR OF SIMILARCONTENT OPTIMIZER, BUT MORE ON THAT BELOW). IF YOU’RE AFTER SEO CONTENT OPTIMIZATION IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, BOTH TOOLS WILL GIVE YOU VERY CLOSE RESULTS. AND THE RESULTS BEING HIGHER RANKINGS ON GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE FOR YOUR OPTIMIZED ARTICLES. SO, HERE’S HOW BOTH OF THE TOOLS GO ABOUT DOING CONTENT OPTIMIZATION. How To Do Content Optimization Correctly? – Seed Keyword Analysis First, both CognitiveSEO and SimilarContent analyse the top searches to find who gets the Google engine ranking right and who doesn’t. After the tools combine the findings, an equation is run to assess the outcome. The idea is to get you information that is easy to interpret and provide you with a general direction in which to take your raw, unoptimized article. As an example, I decided to drop a hard keyword: “marketing automation”. CognitiveSEO Keyword Analysis The tool does an excellent job of showing you the entire picture at first sight. Without clicking away, I see: 🠮 CONTENT DIFFICULTY The “gist” of the keyword analysis step and the number from 0-100 that tells you how sharp your content optimization needs to be if you want to enter the content marketing competition at the top of Search Engine Result Page (SERP). “Marketing automation” scored 77, marking it as a “very hard” keyword. 🠮 LINKS DIFFICULTY CognitiveSEO goes an extra step here and also lets you know that the content optimization alone ain’t going to cut it. The same scale as before – from 0-100 – and “marketing automation” is marked at 72 (“very hard”). Underneath the Links difficulty score, I see an extra piece of information about how many referring domains do “Score 72” actually mean (“~49 sites” backlinking to my “marketing automation” article to enter the top SERP online competition). 🠮 MONTHLY SEARCHES It shows a popularity trend (Google Trends) of a given keyword in the selected country. For “marketing automation” keyword in Google.co.uk the Monthly Searches feature did not work (the result was “N/A”). Surprisingly it did work for Poland or the USA but not for the UK. But it doesn’t end there. Still, in the same birds-eye view, CognitiveSEO goes even deeper with the Keyword Analysis. And if there was ever any doubt if you should spend the next several hours working on your SEO content optimization, Keyword Explorer and Rank Analysis features should swiftly dispell any uncertainty." src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveSEOgroup-by-topickeywordexplorer_70507a59eaa7217a2b2ba1c1cd1b0960_800.png" /></picture><figcaption> SimilarContent Topic Difficulty screenshot - establishing keyword difficulty for SEO content optimization</figcaption></figure><h4 id="8qo7o">🠮 KEYWORD EXPLORER</h4>The software breaks it down on a table with primary filters such as Search Suggestions, Focus Keywords and Questions. These I believe, are self-explanatory keyword categorisations that provide a full panoramic view of your seed keyword landscape.There is also “Filter” option for a more refined inspection and an excellent feature “Group by Topic” that in one click reveals the central themes around your chosen keyword. Here you can educate yourself on the search intent behind the chosen keyword. A handy feature and possibly a game-changer if the topic you attempt to target is new to you.Keyword Explorer also shows a set number of keywords they called “opportunities”. For “marketing automation” I was given 916 keyword ideas, that CognitiveSEO artificially limits on my “Starter Plan” ($129.99/mo). Apparently, I could enable the hidden data and “up to triple” the number of keyword opportunities listed if I was to upgrade to the “Business Plan” with “custom pricing”.<h4 id="cnca2">🠮 RANKING ANALYSIS</h4>The tool shows you the other performing websites and their optimized content ranked at the top of the Search Engine grid. It lists the main ingredients of your digital content optimization and marketing strategy you need in order to compete with the top contenders, such as:<ul><li>Content Performance (from 0-100),</li><li>Focus Keywords (the number of topically related keywords),</li><li>No. Of Words (of the entire article)</li><li>Domains To Url/Site (backlinks needed)</li><li>Date Published (how old is the original piece)</li></ul>I was able to review the Top 20 Pages on the Google Search, again with an option to expand it up to the Top 100 on a “Business Plan”.Finally, the Content Assistance tool is where the rubber hits the road. I’ll break it down right after I visit…<h3 id="dlbrb">SimilarContent Keyword Analysis</h3>The software splits it down to three separate tools. Suddenly I wasn’t getting the useful “birds-eye” overview that CognitiveSEO provides in one spot. I think the analysis and content strategy tips are much more partitioned and hard to follow when compared to the other software.<h4 id="3fjqf">🠮 TOPIC DIFFICULTY (TD)</h4>The gist of your keyword investigation will happen under Topic Difficulty tool. SC runs their formula against the top 20 articles on Google Search and presents you with the 0-100 scale of keyword difficulty at the top of the side panel. “Marketing automation” scored 79.9, which is similar to CognitiveSEO. There is no backlink analysis letting you know the number of referring domains needed for your optimized content, but rather a vague statement “Hard & Need High Authority Site”.Next to the Topic Difficulty score, SC presents you with a bar chart of the top 10 articles and their current SEO content Performance Score (from 0-100). I have to note that the Bar Chart was confusing to me at first, and I had to watch the instructional video to confirm what it actually shows (the Article Performance for each page ranked).A little bit below, I’m happy to see a summary of Google Entities (or Snippets) for my “marketing automation” keyword:<ol><li>Ads: 3</li><li>Video: 2</li><li>Questions: 0</li><li>AMP: 20 (and why 20 suddenly? Shouldn’t it be the top 10… ?)</li></ol>It is a nice feature and… utterly inaccurate in my case. I’m not sure if this is desktop or mobile SERP or both? The entities I see on “my Google” are (desktop/mobile version):<ol><li>Ads: 4/4</li><li>Video: 0/6</li><li>Questions: 4/4</li><li>AMP: 0/2</li></ol>Also missing from the tool are: Featured Snippet, People Also Search For, BoP (Bottom of the Page) Ads. I’d like to see those search engine services to be counted in the KD’s SERP guide.<figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentTopic-Difficultytoolmulti-languageSEOsupport_2882ede0538cb2ac1835b985fb797ac6_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentTopic-Difficultytoolmulti-languageSEOsupport_2882ede0538cb2ac1835b985fb797ac6_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="SimilarContent Topic Difficulty screenshot - establishing keyword difficulty for seo content optimization" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentTopic-Difficultytoolmulti-languageSEOsupport_2882ede0538cb2ac1835b985fb797ac6_800.png" /></picture><figcaption>SimilarContent Topic Difficulty screenshot - establishing keyword difficulty for seo content optimization</figcaption></figure> META Title/Description OptimizationFor some strange reason, SimilarContent thought to place “To Optimize Title/Description” suggestions and take 30% of the screen’s real-estate for that information. There, in fine-grain detail, SC tells you where you should put your focus/LSI/variable keywords to compete on organic searches. But why do I need to see these recommendations here?In any regular SEO content optimization workflow or blog creating practices, the META Title/description content optimization is the very last part that you sort out AFTER the entire article is thoroughly developed, optimized and implemented on your website or blog.Therefore at the early stages of the Topic Difficulty checks, the Title/Description content suggestion is an entirely unnecessary technical trivia. A one that you usually sort out at the end of the journey with different page optimization tools for your convenience (like Yoast or PageOptimizerPro). However, if SimilarContent insists on informing me of how the top 20 strategised their Titles/Descriptions and existing content, I’d rather had that info located somewhere on the main table grid. And use the saved space for something more useful, like Keyword Brainstorming or MicroNiche Finder that are separate tools but could easily fit in that view (and be much more relevant to what I intend to do at the Topic Difficulty search phase).Keyword “Synonym(s)”Then there is the “Synonym” feature that I can only describe as some kind of digital content creation helper or a keyword ideas/opportunities tool in its early-stage zygote form. For “marketing automation”, it revealed “About 5 results” (SIC!), and, I suspect, there are some issues with pulling in the data like search volume and frequency of appearance. Currently, it offers less than Google Suggestions but, hopefully, something better will come out of it. Although I can’t say if it’s a “boy” or a “girl” (or something else) yet…<figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentTopicDifficultySERPSEOcontentanalysis_1844d4c35cd958aecb198dc579b3b484_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentTopicDifficultySERPSEOcontentanalysis_1844d4c35cd958aecb198dc579b3b484_1600.png 2x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentTopicDifficultySERPSEOcontentanalysis_1844d4c35cd958aecb198dc579b3b484_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentTopicDifficultySERPSEOcontentanalysis_1844d4c35cd958aecb198dc579b3b484_1600.png 2x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="SimilarContent Topic Difficulty screenshot - establishing keyword difficulty for seo content optimization" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentTopicDifficultySERPSEOcontentanalysis_1844d4c35cd958aecb198dc579b3b484_800.png" /></picture><figcaption>SimilarContent Topic Difficulty screenshot - establishing keyword difficulty for seo content optimization</figcaption></figure> Topic Difficulty Competitive Breakdown and Content Optimization StrategyFinally, we have the Topic Difficulty table breakdown, and similarly to CognitiveSEO, they go about exploring the chosen topic and its digital landscape.But rather than listing keywords ideas or content “opportunities”, they focus your attention on the Top Sites that rank for the keyword in two different types of views: an existing page content data breakdown and a Search Engine list.In my opinion, both SimilarContent Data and SERP breakdown views show almost the same information (Rank, Domain, Score, Score Chart and Facebook Shares all repeat). Both views could easily be put together under one tab and have another tab(s) revealing something different and aiding your marketing research.In any case, the Keywords Difficulty keyword breakdown is more akin to what CognitiveSEO shows under Ranking Analysis tab. Although the table goes in-depth in some areas, I’m not sure about the practical use of what SC analyses:<ul><li>The table lists only the top 10 SERP results with no possibility to expand (CognitiveSEO shows 20 or more on a higher tier plan) – this is strange because SimilarContent claims they run analysis against the top 20 domains – so, why would they “hide” half of their data findings from us…?</li><li>for “marketing automation” the top 10 SERP are somewhat similar, but I find CognitiveSEO to be a bit closer to what I see when Googling “marketing automation” keyword in my (UK) browser – it is not a big difference though</li><li>both tools show the SEO content optimization performance/score for each ranked domain and, although the approach is different, the conclusions are very similar</li><li>KD displays the entire SERP snippet with META Title and Description (CognitiveSEO shows only the URL path) – I like that and find it useful to see there, but I’m missing the addition of Google Entities and Snippets (CognitiveSEO has it)</li><li>KD also shows the number of times the targeted keyword appeared in the description (it doesn’t count the title and the slug for some reason, so I find it half-done or not that useful)</li><li>Finally, KD goes into great detail to analyse how many times each focused/recommended/similar word is used in the competitive articles – but I’m struggling to understand the usefulness of that information at that particular stage of the keyword research. I mean, I’ll go and keep working on the article under a different tool/view – SC’s Content Optimization. There I’m expecting to find all the fine-grain keyword suggestions and where to put them. I find the Topic Difficulty detailed analysis – “who-used-how-many-keywords” examination – completely inconsequential at the point of reviewing target keywords and searching for opportunities. The “who-used-how-many-keywords” information has no weight whatsoever on whether I chose to pursue the keyword or not.</li></ul>The Topic Difficulty Tool is the weakest point of SimilarContent and a one that requires almost complete revamp to be able to compete with CognitiveSEO Keyword Explorer tool.<figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentTopicDifficultyKeywordSearch_30c6b0598fb4c015ed85ad195d26c51c_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentTopicDifficultyKeywordSearch_30c6b0598fb4c015ed85ad195d26c51c_1600.png 2x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentTopicDifficultyKeywordSearch_30c6b0598fb4c015ed85ad195d26c51c_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentTopicDifficultyKeywordSearch_30c6b0598fb4c015ed85ad195d26c51c_1600.png 2x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="SimilarContent Topic Difficulty screenshot - establishing keyword difficulty for seo content optimization" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentTopicDifficultyKeywordSearch_30c6b0598fb4c015ed85ad195d26c51c_800.png" /></picture><figcaption>SimilarContent Topic Difficulty screenshot - establishing keyword difficulty for seo content optimization</figcaption></figure> <h4 id="fnjnu">KEYWORD BRAINSTORMING/MICRONICHE FINDER (SEPARATE TOOLS/VIEWS)</h4>Once again, SimilarContent thought to split the Keyword Research onto separate tools/views. I don’t quite understand that. If you’ve done your Topic Difficulty due diligence already, surely Brainstorming and MicroNiche Finder are a step back at that point, no? Why are these tools/views “a next step” on the interface grid? Their placement makes no sense for any keyword search workflow I can think of.Keyword Brainstormingis just a list of keyword ideas that contain all of the terms of a target keyword in them, e.g. “marketing automation tools”. It also shows the frequency of their appearance in the top 10 search engine results. For my “marketing automation” I was presented with “About 15 results” under “Similar and top 1 words” (meaning a Target KW + 1 additional keyword) and “About 5 results” under “Similar and top 2 words” (TKW+2).The results were disappointing and knowing what other search engine optimization companies provide in the “keyword brainstorming” department; the tool is completely unreliable. For example, <a href="https://ahrefs.com/blog/keyword-research/">Ahrefs Keyword Explorer</a> “Having the same terms” tab for “marketing automation” suggested 2001 keywords for the UK alone and 8064 keyword suggestions for the USA (+ 500 “Questions” and 1641 “Also rank for”). Now THAT is what I call a “Brainstorming”. But even CognitiveSEO with its 916 “keyword opportunities” comes out much better. I use Google Suggestions or Answer the Public with much better outcomes than SC keyword ideas.Keyword Brainstorming gets F- and Gryffindor loses 150 points.<figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentkeywordbrainstormingtoolforSEO_5fbf71f70b5d8eb1d6043e8ec55bc75b_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentkeywordbrainstormingtoolforSEO_5fbf71f70b5d8eb1d6043e8ec55bc75b_1600.png 2x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentkeywordbrainstormingtoolforSEO_5fbf71f70b5d8eb1d6043e8ec55bc75b_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentkeywordbrainstormingtoolforSEO_5fbf71f70b5d8eb1d6043e8ec55bc75b_1600.png 2x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="SimilarContent Topic Difficulty screenshot - establishing keyword difficulty for seo content optimization" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContentkeywordbrainstormingtoolforSEO_5fbf71f70b5d8eb1d6043e8ec55bc75b_800.png" /></picture><figcaption>SimilarContent Topic Difficulty screenshot - establishing keyword difficulty for seo content optimization</figcaption></figure> <h4 id="201d0">MICRONICHE FINDER</h4>this, on the other hand, is a very interesting idea that can aid your SEO content. Especially useful if you want to nail an accurate tag(s) or a category to your article. MicroNiche Finder is just a category path or a breadcrumb of the topical relevance of your targeted keyword. It listed seven different paths for my “marketing automation” keyword, and I found it uniquely missing from other tools, including CognitiveSEO or even Ahrefs.Ahrefs “Parent Topic” or CognitiveSEO’s “Group by Topic” could be considered a similar option. Still, it’s not entirely the same, and SimilarContent seems to define the “root path” or the theme’s origin of the keyword more in-depth.I can also see myself using the paths for topical interlinking within my website content. Or at least as an optimized content tiering and content creation strategy.I think if applied correctly across a website or blog, MicroNiche Finder feature could make a positive difference for your search engine optimization ranking.<figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContent-microniche-content-breadcrumbs_4aa0e2b83c51493a85fa71c1b5b148d6_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContent-microniche-content-breadcrumbs_4aa0e2b83c51493a85fa71c1b5b148d6_1600.png 2x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContent-microniche-content-breadcrumbs_4aa0e2b83c51493a85fa71c1b5b148d6_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContent-microniche-content-breadcrumbs_4aa0e2b83c51493a85fa71c1b5b148d6_1600.png 2x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="SimilarContent Topic Difficulty screenshot - establishing keyword difficulty for seo content optimization" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/SimilarContent-microniche-content-breadcrumbs_4aa0e2b83c51493a85fa71c1b5b148d6_800.png" /></picture><figcaption>SimilarContent Topic Difficulty screenshot - establishing keyword difficulty for seo content optimization</figcaption></figure> <h4 id="ecv8f">CONTENT REWRITER</h4>Like the name suggests it is an article spinner. I use other tools for that already and don’t find it particularly beneficial. SC claims to use “advanced AI” in the text spinning and suggests to use it only in “chunks” of no more than 100 words for the best results. I tried a couple of short eCommerce product content descriptions I’m working on at the moment. The results were mediocre, not terrible and better than some “mainstream” content spinners. Although it is a nice addition and SC says they’ll keep improving it, I won’t hold my breath, because this isn’t something I’m after when I’m logging in to SimilarContent dashboard.<h4 id="3s7qu">TODAY’S FRESH KEYWORDS</h4>This is just a Google Trends with the most popular search terms for a given day. This feature is cute, but not particularly useful in my opinion (unless you’re working on a gossip/news niche – but even then would “Today’s Fresh Keywords” feature be a real “game-changer” for you? … ).<h2 id="2j5as">Content Optimization vs Content Optimisation</h2>We arrived at the heart of the matter. The point of all those previous searches and crafting strategy was to figure out the subject and write what I call a “raw version of an article”. I’ll take a step back and introduce my 7-step workflow for an optimized content creation that looks roughly like this:<ol><li>An idea pops in my head, or I’m ranking client’s website/blog.</li><li>I do keyword research.</li><li>I create a raw version of an article.</li><li>I drop it to the content optimization tool and edit it.</li><li>I launch it on the website.</li><li>I further optimize page content and run the URL through SEO on-page optimization tool.</li><li>The fully optimized page or blog gets officially launched and spreads on my IFTTT and social media network.</li></ol>I use multiple SEO, content optimization and marketing strategy tools to wrap it all up. CognitiveSEO or SimilarContent can only play a partial role in all that, but an important one. Here’s how each plays it.<h3 id="cmqth">CognitiveSEO’s Content Optimization</h3>You drop an article to the editor, and a list of suggestions appear on the right-hand sidebar. CognitiveSEO groups the suggestions into five “dropdowns” or lists where numerous “focus keywords” are given:<ol><li>Keywords already used</li><li>Keywords you should use</li><li>Keywords you should use more often</li><li>Keywords stuffing (so the ones you’ve used too many times)</li><li>Content Ideas via Questions People Ask</li></ol>The sidebar also provides you with current Performance Score of your article (0-100), a number of focus keywords used, Flesch-Kincaid readability score (0-100) and the overall number of words you used in the article. Further, underneath the article Performance Score, the tool tells you whether your optimized content “can rank in the top 3 Google results”, and what the possible Searchers Intent is for the targeted keyword. CognitiveSEO Keyword Highlighter (FTW)However, the real highlight of the CognitiveSEO Content Optimization editor is the “Highlight Keywords” feature. I love that feature. It highlights all the keywords in your article with colours matching the keyword suggestion dropdowns. That way, you can really see the spread of keywords in your article, strategise the placement and have your material, literally, coming to light right in front of your eyes. CognitiveSEO Keyword Highlighter is a simple feature aiding your content strategy, and it’s an unbelievably fun one. It motivates me to pursue the content optimization further and max-out the performance score of my articles. Well done, CognitiveSEO!The keyword suggestions given are spot on as CognitiveSEO uses a complex <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/seo-evolution/">Search Engines LSI</a> with multiple other indicators and formulas to lay them down for you and transform your text into a search engine friendly content. In fact, all the articles that I’ve treated with CognitiveSEO content optimization immediately ranked in top 20 without any backlinks, while the “marketing automation” – which is a tough keyword – picks up in the top 50 (without backlinks).The overall <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/flat-vs-depth-web-design/">interface is clean, sharp</a> and extremely well-thought-out. CognitiveSEO Content Optimization Tool is an A++ product and a true highlight of their search engine optimization software package.If you want an excellent content optimization software and can afford it, this is it, folks!<figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveSEOkeywordhighlightercontentstrategy_2785ece3cdc1f6eedd8c80c872575858_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveSEOkeywordhighlightercontentstrategy_2785ece3cdc1f6eedd8c80c872575858_1600.png 2x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveSEOkeywordhighlightercontentstrategy_2785ece3cdc1f6eedd8c80c872575858_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveSEOkeywordhighlightercontentstrategy_2785ece3cdc1f6eedd8c80c872575858_1600.png 2x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="CognitiveSEO content optimization tool screenshot - how to position your article using LSI, keyword highlighter and keyword research" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveSEOkeywordhighlightercontentstrategy_2785ece3cdc1f6eedd8c80c872575858_800.png" /></picture><figcaption>CognitiveSEO content optimization tool screenshot - how to position your article using LSI, keyword highlighter and keyword research</figcaption></figure> <h3 id="25q90">SimilarContent’s Content Optimization</h3>Similarly to CognitiveSEO, SimilarContent uses a sidebar to list keyword suggestions grouped in three distinct tabs:<ol><li>One word (meaning single-word suggestions)</li><li>Multi-word</li><li>Questions</li></ol>SC computes each tab’s keyword suggestions under four distinct indicators:<ol><li>Not found</li><li>Low</li><li>Good</li><li>Extremely (poor choice of words, should be “overused”, “excessive” or something…)</li></ol>The content strategy implications are similar to that of CogniticeSEO list dropdown, but I see a potential to fine-grain the keyword placement. I am starting to like the idea of “one-word” and “multi-word” suggestions, and I’m beginning to see how it could work to my advantage. CognitiveSEO is much more rigid in that, and the suggestions are fixed – which has its own pros, like keeping it simple, and making it easy to implement. The main thing is the SimilarContent keyword suggestions overlap with CognitiveSEO ones, and I suspect they use similar formulas to pull them out.Worth noting is that SimilarContent uses “AI text analysis” that is available only in English. I believe that feature makes all the difference in the quality of the keywords scoring and suggestions. That makes the optimization in other languages inferior.SimilarContent also gives you a Relevancy Score, which is the same as Performance Score on CognitiveSEO but works a bit different. While the first tool gets you to score from 0 to 100, SC makes you land somewhere between 55-75 points for the best results. More would be over-optimized, which is a strong (negative) signal for Search Engines. CognitiveSEO has its Keyword Stuffing list of course, but SC might be more risk-aware in not letting you go overboard. “Marketing automation” example on CognitivSEO has nothing listed under Keywords Stuffing, while the same article on SimilarContent lists 36 keywords under “Extremely”. These are all suggestions only, but important ones and SC does a great job at letting you know whenever you’re trying too hard.Finally, there is a current article data breakdown, and SC’s Content Optimization tool informs you what language you use (duh!) and the number of words in your article; but also, the tool computes the number of letters, phrases, and even sentences. These are great additions to the overall excellent content optimization SaaS for <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/seo-agency/">SEO</a>.The main thing that I miss is the Keyword Highlighter, which makes working on SimilarContent dull. But once the content strategy highlighter is implemented, and they get the interface cleaned up a bit, SimilarContent Content Optimization offer is going to be hard to dismiss. And all those $100+ ticket SEO tools may struggle to make a case against it.Overall, SimilarContent Content Optimization for SEO is extremely well priced and well done for a product in just under a year of development.<h2 id="e705i">Multi-Language Content Optimization</h2>I primarily work in the realm of the English language, but I always felt that the part reason for my reluctance to work in my native language is the lack of focus and effective tools that support search engine optimization in non-English (hence, lack of awareness). And I don’t blame anyone. I can’t expect an SEO SaaS companies “from California” to focus on some small country with an obscure language no-one else is using. Traffic and users behaviour will dictate what we bet all our chips on. However, the fact is that the non-English language countries are left behind, only catching-up to the SEO cutting edge. This ultimately can mean only one thing: the audience from these countries hold keys to uncharted Gold Mines. Some of these digital markets are like Lost Cities of Z waiting to be explored by Westerners looking for treasures and fame.<figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/Lost-City-of-Z_20ddf84266140f81cf1c6a9334f8f9b7_800.JPG 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/Lost-City-of-Z_20ddf84266140f81cf1c6a9334f8f9b7_800.JPG 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/Lost-City-of-Z_20ddf84266140f81cf1c6a9334f8f9b7_800.JPG" /></picture></figure> My point is that there is a massive discrepancy in the way SEO works in the UK when compared to the USA. There is an even bigger difference when I compare the UK to other European countries. Some premium tools already support general Keyword Research in multiple languages, but we need more focus on niche languages.At the beginning of October 2019, CognitiveSEO added all Google supported languages in their Content Optimization Tool. I checked the Polish language option, and I can see that I could use the tool right away.I think this is a sign of maturity in the industry when such advanced tools start including other languages than just English. Although I find CognitiveSEO Content Optimization for Polish slightly miscalculated in difficulty scoring, it is extremely helpful to have that in my SEO tool kit.SimilarContent already supports 15 languages and claims to add more. Unfortunately, my language (Polish) is not one of the supported (yet) and the fact I didn’t pay attention to my German teacher in school; I just couldn’t test the multi-language options. Hopefully, when they update the software to include the Polish language, I check it out and submit my findings in this article. In any case, kudos to both for a great attempt to include more languages and open more countries to an advanced SEO.<figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveseo-polish_8bfe4ca9572727767844e407b01ce84a_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveseo-polish_8bfe4ca9572727767844e407b01ce84a_1600.png 2x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveseo-polish_8bfe4ca9572727767844e407b01ce84a_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveseo-polish_8bfe4ca9572727767844e407b01ce84a_1600.png 2x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="planer słów kluczowych seo - pozycjonowanie stron przy użyciu CognitiveSEO " src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveseo-polish_8bfe4ca9572727767844e407b01ce84a_800.png" /></picture></figure><figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveSEO-polish-content-optimiser_a8ae1034cc4b7dcae76e758c95162c92_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveSEO-polish-content-optimiser_a8ae1034cc4b7dcae76e758c95162c92_1600.png 2x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveSEO-polish-content-optimiser_a8ae1034cc4b7dcae76e758c95162c92_800.png 1x, https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveSEO-polish-content-optimiser_a8ae1034cc4b7dcae76e758c95162c92_1600.png 2x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="seo copywriting - jak pisać teksty seo i pozycjonować bloga przy użyciu narzędzia CognitiveSEO" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/cognitiveSEO-polish-content-optimiser_a8ae1034cc4b7dcae76e758c95162c92_800.png" /></picture></figure> <h2 id="bksnq">How much SEO content optimization tools cost</h2>Content optimization tools follow a <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/ppc-ads/">“pay-per-click” pricing</a> model we know from Google, Facebook Ads. In that, certain operations cost you “a credit/query balance”. This means that you will have to work on optimizing all your clicks to get the most out of each tool. The prices range wildly and I’ll try to explain the value you get out of each SEO package below.CognitiveSEO starts at $129 per month and has its balance calculation simplified. They give you one pile of credits/points (“queries” they call it), 250 points per month on the Starter Plan, and every “Submit” costs one point. If you’re not careful, you can nuke the entire balance at the beginning of the month. And with the way CognitiveSEO approaches the thing, it is easy to do. For example, I found that when I click the “back” button on my browser, points disappear. When I do a repetitive search, something I searched a second ago without an update, points disappear. Or I merely open previously edited article, again, points disappear. I also find it vial that clicking to analyse the entire existing content carries the same point value as peeking at some obscure long-tail keyword in their keyword database. Because I don’t use their Keyword Search or Site Explorer tools much, I was lucky enough to have never run out of my credit balance, but I hate that aggressive approach to quota, anyway, and I see it as the weakest point of CognitiveSEO package.SimilarContent range from $19 to $79 per month and handles the balance computation much better than CognitiveSEO. SC splits the clicks into four different segments and count each separately: Keyword Ranking, Analyze Article, Keyword Research, Niche Discovery. The best thing is that the quota resets every day rather than every month. So there is some freedom in that, and if you go overboard one afternoon, you only need to wait till the next day to have a blast again. Also, SimilarContent gives you plenty of options to scale your use as different pricing tiers are available – starting from only $19/m is a tremendous value. CognitiveSEO shoves you at one fixed tier ($129/m) and then offers a “business plan with custom pricing”, which I guess means higher costs. SimilarContent is a clear winner here.<h2 id="ds797">What about CognitiveSEO Campaign Tools and the Site Explorer?</h2>I deliberately skipped the more fundamental SEO tools that CognitiveSEO offers, because I don’t think they hold any relevance to the subject of this comparison (SimilarContent doesn’t offer anything like it). Ahrefs or Semrush would be more suitable to line up against CognitiveSEO, and that is a <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/blog/">subject for another article</a>.<h2 id="a0dj7">Summary and which content optimization tool should you choose</h2>While I find the Content Optimizers a head-to-head competition, CognitiveSEO wins with SimilarContent in the Keyword Analysis department by a long shot. But here’s the thing: both are sore losers to Ahrefs. I find it especially saddening information for CognitiveSEO that put a lot of effort to provide as much information as Ahrefs Keyword Explorer does. And for a price of $129 – CognitiveSEO is not even close, I’m afraid. I can have Ahrefs with all their bells and whistles for a not-far-off price of $179/m and completely smash whatever I can find on CognitiveSEO’s Keyword Explorer and all other tools they provide. Which is precisely what I do: I use Ahrefs for all the keywords, backlinks, content/site explorers and web-audit analysis. Then I use CognitiveSEO/SimilarContent for LSI Content Analysis and Content Optimization. And even further, I use <a href="https://pageoptimizer.pro/">PageOptimizationPro</a> for a technical onPage SEO. That way, I can enjoy the best of all worlds without taking half-measures.In that sense, I find SimilarContent a much better option than CognitiveSEO somewhat steep entry point package. If you use Ahrefs/Semrush for keyword research/backlink analysis already, you really should consider checking out <a href="https://similarcontent.com/pricing/">SimilarContent offer</a>. If you work in English, for a price of $19/m you get enough to put your articles next to whatever comes out of CognitiveSEO’s Content Optimization soft. Just make sure you’ve done your due diligence on Ahref/Semrush keyword explorer tools first. Otherwise, if you like to keep all your essential SEO tools in one place and looking for an accurate, extremely well thought-out and fricktionless Content Optimization tool, CognitiveSEO should be the one. A high ticket price but no comprimises on the optimizations either.<h2 id="2kq25">Epilogue</h2>SimilarContent is a startup, and an exciting roadmap is in place. They have a long journey ahead of them. Still, if they stay the course and keep themselves out of depth (e.g. not trying to be second Ahrefs), they may be one of the top contenders in their particular “multi-language diverse and multi-national inclusive content optimization niche”.I truly wish them well and not just because I had the opportunity to <a href="https://appsumo.com/similarcontent/">get my spot at the front seat</a> but, because, SEO is so much more than “Yoast and backlinks”. Better content optimization tools = better content = better Internet. <h2 id="40rmi">Things I’d like to see SimilarContent focusing on:</h2><ol><li>Keyword Highlighter – I love that feature on CognitiveSEO. I think many people do. CognitiveSEO gives you a visual overview of your entire keyword placement strategy right inside your text. It is also a strange psychological trick that motivates me to keep filling-in the text with “more colours” (missing LSI keywords). Looking at the block of boring text on SC takes all the fun away.</li><li>Article History – this obvious feature is a must… I wasn’t happy when I discovered that I could not reaccess the past articles I worked on… Or still working on – the optimization takes time and often cannot be done in one sitting! Now I need to go through the entire process back again, copy-paste (fortunately I’ve made an external copy!) and waste additional credit. Really?!</li><li>Default Settings – I’d like to have my default country and language saved in my profile. Majority of my searches go against the UK market and are in English. I don’t want to set it all up every time I log in to commit another search.</li><li>Topic Difficulty (TD) – the Bar Chart with the Article Performance Score has the same purple colour as the Topic Difficulty Score placed next to it. It is, therefore, confusing on what score the bar chart shows as there is no tooltip explanation. There are multiple places on the dashboard where I’d like to see tooltips and different colours used to make it more clear. Also, some of the descriptions are inaccurate or confusing (e.g. “Extreme”… ?).</li><li>The option “To Optimize Title/Description” in Topic Difficulty is unnecessary. Keyword Brainstorming/MicroNiche Finder tools are unnecessarily separate and in the wrong place on the dashboard. SC needs to rethink the whole KD and other supportive tools from scratch. </li><li>Google Entities / Snippets summary in KD are inaccurate and they could be upgraded with additional Snippets that are missing (Bottom of the Page Ads, People also ask/Related Questions.</li></ol><h2 id="14qdu">Check out YouTube Channel for more SimilarContent and Cognitive SEO info</h2><ul><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQMrMnn9ySK7ieo3fi9bsZA/videos">Cognitive SEO YouTube Channel</a></li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa00gZqaSLlGBaJ6Wh9YHmQ/videos">SimilarContent YouTube Channel</a></li></ul>This article was originally posted on Colorpeak Blog - <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/seo-content-optimization-cognitiveseo-vs-similarcontent/">SEO Content Optimization – CognitiveSEO vs SimilarContent</a>.<a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cognitiveSEOgroup-by-topickeywordexplorer.png"> </a>  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/seo-content-optimization-cognitiveseo-vs-similarcontent?id=429297578&type=12",title: "SEO Content Optimization – CognitiveSEO vs SimilarContent",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
How to Get Facebook & Google Pixel Ad Tracking using PixelMe

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 12:51:00 -0000

It's important that you understand, how people move around your website. The business intelligence you gather, compile and make sense of provides a big picture of your company direction. Online tracking or pixel ad tracking is a fundamental instrument in your marketing automation tool-kit.Whether you like it or not, savvy-marketeers and modern businesses use pixel ad tracking to tailor their products and services to sell more, serve better and grow faster. It is then not surprising that several companies built entire businesses to serve just this single purpose – tracking you. Web analytics are a must these days and tracking user behaviour cannot be guesswork if you want to optimise your ads.<figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/remarketing-pixelme-colorpeak_31c5ad411ad2af27dea357a2354fefe3_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/remarketing-pixelme-colorpeak_31c5ad411ad2af27dea357a2354fefe3_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Graphic representation of Pixel Ad Tracking" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/remarketing-pixelme-colorpeak_31c5ad411ad2af27dea357a2354fefe3_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>Remarketing</figcaption></figure><h2 id="910hg">Marketing Analytics – the Key to Your Company Success</h2>Nowadays, you can find many tracking and marketing automation tools to provide an almost infinite amount of data to track users and user behaviour. Most heard of (or used) is Google Analytics and their pixel tracking– a staple among online marketing communities. And Google’s Secret Weapon used to dominate the Digital World (ever asked yourself why such a sophisticated marketing tool is… free?). Some even go as far as to say <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/07/how-google-analytics-ruined-marketing/">it ruined the marketing</a>.Whatever your opinion is, Analytics is a powerful piece of marketing software for conversion tracking that you shouldn’t underestimate. But does it end there? Certainly not!<figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/test_2ec9c893159aba5e0a886c053a05a3d4_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/test_2ec9c893159aba5e0a886c053a05a3d4_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Google Analytics dashboard" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/test_2ec9c893159aba5e0a886c053a05a3d4_800.png" /></picture><figcaption>Google Analytics dashboard</figcaption></figure><h2 id="3146k">Google Analytics – The Easiest Most Difficult Marketing Tool to Implement</h2>One of the Analytics problems is its interface and complexity. Or its ‘sandboxiness’. Google indeed puts all the effort to make it super-easy for virtually everyone to plaster their tool on their websites. But once it’s there and you enter Analytics, it kind of leaves you hanging. It takes a lot of time and knowledge to understand the jargon, the mechanics of the tool, and how to set things up like tracking pixel or conversion tracking for yourself – not only on your website but also on the overview dashboard. We’ve seen many business owners withdraw to just tracking… traffic instead of tracking user behaviour. Or whatever the default GA dashboard shows. With many not even understanding what “Bounce Rate” is.<blockquote>I once had someone ask me why their website "got only 43% of the <a href="https://i.chzbgr.com/full/6400116736/hE1C20CE8/">"bouncy score"</a> – thinking it's Google's "coolness" metric of some sort… indeed, the "bouncy score" should be the next big (bouncy) thing in internet marketing.</blockquote><h2 id="fdb9m">PixelMe – Going Beyond Google Analytics</h2>No wonder many marketers took their expertise in data analysis to and decided to build a tool that gave their own spin around Pixel Ad tracking and business intelligence. One of those tools is <a href="https://pixelme.grsm.io/colorpeak">PixelMe</a>.Folks at <a href="https://pixelme.grsm.io/colorpeak">PixelMe</a> looked at all that GA-sandbox confusion and decided to just cut to the chase. "What do marketers and website owners need to really know from people visiting their websites?". They created a tool that is 100x easier to understand, navigate around, and implement than Google Analytics ever has been. And it’s great!<figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/pixelme-dashboard-pixel-tracking_98d93fb2b22dce95a80ce09316852692_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/pixelme-dashboard-pixel-tracking_98d93fb2b22dce95a80ce09316852692_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="PixelMe Dasboard tool for Pixel Ad Tracking" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/pixelme-dashboard-pixel-tracking_98d93fb2b22dce95a80ce09316852692_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>PixelMe Dasboard</figcaption></figure><h2 id="8d7ss">How does a pixel tracker work?</h2>To better understand Pixel ad tracking, first, you need to understand what a tracking pixel is. In a majority of cases, it is a code snippet that is triggered when a visitor lands on your website, clicks on a link or opens an email. The pixel script communicates with the source server, which registers a user-triggered action. Meanwhile, the user is “tagged” with a unique ID, and the entire website session gets recorded in “a browser cookie” file.It is worth noting that the Internet browsers refer back to cookie files every time users come back to websites. And, as you already suspect, the pixel server is then getting informed as well.For example, every <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/pixelme-divi-cta-tracking-onclick-events/">click made by the user</a> can be captured and tracked so you can adjust your conversion actions. In other words, tracking pixel allows you to gather data to improve your digital ad and marketing strategy. All that is based on the user behaviour tracking data that is provided by a pixel code. By collecting all that data about user behaviour, you can optimise your ads, content and improve retargeting.<h2 id="6r4ao">Here are Top 5 Benefits that make PixelMe worth giving a shot and what you should expect from their Pixel ad tracking tool:</h2><ol><li>Retargeting (re-marketing) via Short-Links – you can develop super-effective retargeting audience groups from any link you share. <a href="https://pixelme.grsm.io/colorpeak">PixelMe</a> starts as a web-link shortener but then allows you to incorporate them with advertisement retargeting pixels, attributions and various marketing automation hacks.</li><li>Assign Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) – with the ability to include UTM tags to all your web links you will know where every website conversion comes from. When used in your marketing campaigns, you can further evaluate and also enhance your financial investments through the first touch, multi-touch, or last touch attribution versions.</li><li>Serve as your All-in-One Marketing Platform – PixelMe automatically combines data from multiple platforms in one convenient dashboard. Within few minutes, you can plug most of your ads’ systems (Facebook, Google, etc.), many CRM platforms, as well as various analytics platforms (like Segment or Google Tag Manager).</li><li>Test and decide what works for you – test and see which of your marketing channel brings the highest ROI and which should you abandon. Because PixelMe allows you to measure the influence of any kind of paid or natural network, you no longer have to guess if a given investment is worth throwing money at it.</li><li>Map your customer journeys – all that data means nothing if you can’t test your assumed touchpoints and paths to conversion. PixelMe allows you to look at each customer touchpoint and help you to understand its contribution in making or breaking the sale.</li></ol><h2 id="5obcm">Business Analysis, Marketing Attribution And Tracking – Making It All Count</h2>The one thing shared among many business marketers (and especially social media influencers) is the obsession with data hoarding. Everyone seems to obsess around clicks, likes, followers, subscribers… But not many take it to the next level and ask a question – “what it all really means to my business?!“. Because so many of those “stats” are just completely arbitrary. We call them the “Vanity Metrics” for a reason. But thanks to marketing tools like <a href="https://pixelme.grsm.io/colorpeak">PixelMe</a>, we can look at the pixel ad tracking data and the real-world examples that it provides. And then take an information-based action. If you dig deep enough, you may even find your own “Bouncy Score”.<h2 id="co47h">Using Divi Theme with PixelMe together</h2> See <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.fleeq.io/l/y279wyz36b-3t6kf6xk25">here</a> how you can track every click via the Event Tracker on your website! <h3 id="52l3">Check our YouTube Channel for more Divi Tips & Trick and Marketing Tutorials:</h3><ul><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjnCza-fV81-ub-xxY63jrQ/videos">Colorpeak YouTube Channel</a></li></ul>  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/how-to-facebook-google-pixel-ad-tracking?id=1041467792&type=12",title: "How to Get Facebook & Google Pixel Ad Tracking using PixelMe",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
Tracking (onclick) CTA’s via PixelMe in DIVI Theme

Wed, 11 Sep 2019 11:09:00 -0000

<figure class="video regular"><div class="embed-container"><div style="max-width: 100%; position: relative; padding-top: 74.9455%;"><iframe width="459" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tdegFfpIM1A?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 100%; height: 100%;"></iframe></div></div><figcaption>PixelMe set up in DIVI</figcaption></figure>We make it easy for you! Follow <a target="_blank" href="http://social.clrpeak.com/vDQJVBQw">this step-by-step process on our Fleeq</a> page to implement <a target="_blank" href="https://pixelme.grsm.io/colorpeak">PixelMe</a> in Divi.If you work with Divi Theme and <a target="_blank" href="https://pixelme.grsm.io/colorpeak">PixelMe</a>, you quickly realise that adding a simple 'onclick event' to their Call-To-Action buttons isn't straightforward (Divi's buttons are styled anchor tags rather than regular HTML wrappers). <figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/Pixelme-divi-tracking-onclick-set-up_27718070a4f84c55e5c3552c7bdfa2ba_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/Pixelme-divi-tracking-onclick-set-up_27718070a4f84c55e5c3552c7bdfa2ba_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Event Tracker of PixelMe in Divi promo image" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/Pixelme-divi-tracking-onclick-set-up_27718070a4f84c55e5c3552c7bdfa2ba_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>How to implement Event Tracker of PixelMe in Divi</figcaption></figure><h2 id="6k0gj">Here's how to implement Event Tracker of PixelMe in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.elegantthemes.com/">Divi Theme by Elegant Themes</a> in 5 easy steps:</h2><ol><li>Pick a button you want to track - either for a single CTA button or all buttons at once.</li><li>For ALL CTA's, identify the default CSS Class of your DIVI Theme buttons (e.g. ".et_pb_button"). Use your browser's default inspector to confirm the right Class name for your button. Or to narrow down to a single CTA - input a custom CSS Class name in DIVI CTA Module Settings - Advance Setting - Custom CSS field (e.g. "callus")</li><li>Next, log in to your PixelMe Dashboard and go to Smart Attribution - Settings - Tracking code</li><li>Select "Tracked events" from the dropdown. You should choose whatever is closest to your CTAs event you are trying to record. Copy the generated event script.</li><li>Log in to your WP Dash and go to Divi - Integration - Header. Insert the following jQuery script with the button's Class and your copied script from PixelMe:</li></ol><figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/pixelme-divi-tracking-script_c9bdd47cc43ced46f623776f4976e9b9_800.PNG 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/pixelme-divi-tracking-script_c9bdd47cc43ced46f623776f4976e9b9_800.PNG 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="PixelMe in Divi event tracker example" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/pixelme-divi-tracking-script_c9bdd47cc43ced46f623776f4976e9b9_800.PNG" /></picture><figcaption>PixelMe in Divi event tracker example</figcaption></figure>Now every time someone clicks on the CTA(s) the event gets recorded on your <a target="_blank" href="https://pixelme.grsm.io/colorpeak">PixelMe</a> Dashboard.This article was originally posted on Colorpeak.co.uk: <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/pixelme-divi-cta-tracking-onclick-events">Tracking (onclick) CTA’s via PixelMe in DIVI Theme </a>  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/pixelme-divi-cta-tracking-onclick-events?id=1141346471&type=12",title: "Tracking (onclick) CTA’s via PixelMe in DIVI Theme",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
4 key skills of a WordPress web designer – a beginners guide

Thu, 14 Mar 2019 17:14:00 -0000

AS A PERSON WHO WENT FROM HAVING NO DESIGNER SKILLS TO BUILDING WEBSITES FOR A LIVING, I THINK IT’S WORTH SHARING SOME BASIC PRINCIPLES THAT HELPED ME BECOME A WORDPRESS WEB DESIGNER. TODAY I WILL TALK YOU THROUGH SOME CRITICAL SKILLS THAT ONE SHOULD DEVELOP TO BECOME A FULL-TIME WEB DESIGNER.If you’ve ever considered becoming a web designer, but you’re not interested in learning to code, now is a great time to give it a try. Why may you ask? The answer is simple – there are so many tools that allow you to design without the back-end knowledge that you can become a WordPress web designer with a bit of imagination and some skills. But to become a successful web designer I would advise you to start with research. The reason why is because there is much more to <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design/">web design</a> than just translating your vision into a working and functional website using some software (that I will talk about as well).<figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/wordpress-web-designer_a5e4a5d940ea0df38604fcd82525b9fa_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/wordpress-web-designer_a5e4a5d940ea0df38604fcd82525b9fa_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Wordpress Web Designer" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/wordpress-web-designer_a5e4a5d940ea0df38604fcd82525b9fa_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>WordPress Web Designer</figcaption></figure><h2 id="3ldh2">1. Plan to become a WordPress web designer</h2>First, to build a website you need to have an understanding of who is it for, what features are required and what are your client’s expectations. Don’t have a client yet? Perfect! You don’t want your first website, which is going to be a disaster anyway, affect your confidence. Start small. Does your mum have a hobby? That’s how I started. I had built a website where she could showcase her cat sweaters. I was not ready for e-Commerce yet to sell them to other animal lovers, but I could start with a nice portfolio showcasing her creations (and my basic WordPress web <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/tag/designer/">designer </a>skills). So, whether it’s your mum or a neighbour sit down with them and ask all the questions that you think will be important to build a website. I would discourage you from skipping this step and interviewing yourself. There are certain things you can learn only when you’re surprised. Therefore, an interaction with somebody else is the best way to do it.<figure class="image regular"><a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design-company/"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/wordpress-web-designer-questionnaire_35a6bf223b195a9cf5cafe08fb70e7d3_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/wordpress-web-designer-questionnaire_35a6bf223b195a9cf5cafe08fb70e7d3_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="WordPress Web Designer Questionnaire " src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/wordpress-web-designer-questionnaire_35a6bf223b195a9cf5cafe08fb70e7d3_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>We design questionnaire </figcaption></figure><h4 id="3ua9b">The Importance of a Questionnaire </h4>Check out our basic web design questionnaire that I used at the early stage before Colorpeak was an agency. It does not matter whether you’re a WordPress web designer or developer. If you’re building a website, then you need one. Below, I also included some additional links with other questions that may turn out handy for your project specifically. Be cautious though as too many questions will bore your client. Be accurate but don’t go overboard with three pages of questions. As part of a large marketing agency, there will come a time for fancy shmancy questions about the company’s vision or whether their solutions are better than their competitors. Now you need to know if they have a domain, what colours do they like (or hate), what is the website for and do they have content or do you need to create it.Remember to use the questionnaire as a guide for your conversation; don’t just send it to them point blank. A discussion is a key to land a client. You will not get them through cold calling or emails. Therefore, you should practice this skill as often as you have an opportunity to do so.<h4 id="e3j2d">Handy links for building your own Questionnaire </h4><ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.treefrog.ca/web-design-questionnaire">WEB DESIGN QUESTIONNAIRE BY TREEFROG</a> - A simple yet effective questionnaire created by Canadian web design company. Basic questions and tick boxes make the experience of filling in the form seamless. </li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://contentsnare.com/website-design-questionnaire/">WEBSITE DESIGN QUESTIONNAIRE KNOW HOW</a> - A know-how guide explaining what's important when creating a questionnaire. If you subscribe to their newsletter, you get access to the question list & ready to use form. </li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/06/45-incredibly-useful-web-design-checklists-and-questionnaires/">45 INCREDIBLY USEFUL WEB DESIGN CHECKLISTS & QUESTIONNAIRES</a> - Checklists that cover multiple areas from content to usability to accessibility to standards, you’re a lot less likely to overlook important parts of a site.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://marketingland.com/100-questions-you-must-ask-when-developing-web-site-86342">100+ QUESTIONS YOU MUST ASK WHEN DEVELOPING A WEBSITE</a> - You certainly don't have to ask all of them, but this list may help you figure out whether you missed out something important.</li></ul><h2 id="esu9k">2. Technical - Hosting, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, UX</h2>There is no way around technical skills development in web design. Fortunately, with WordPress, you can start without any and develop the understanding as you go. Of course, knowing HTML, CSS and JavaScript will help, but you can start without them to become WordPress web designer. When you finally get to that stage when working on WordPress templates is not good enough, learn HTML first, then CSS and JavaScript will be the cherry on the top. HTML will take you no time; you will just need a few hours to know the basics. With CSS it will be much more, but you can do a day course learning the principles. Knowing those principles will allow you to look up specific things when you need them. JavaScript is a solid coding skill so you should have many websites in your portfolio that you are proud of before you jump into this deeper dive.<figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/wordpress-web-designer-technical-skills_5ce8de966443c61fa91a6d52dec893e4_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/wordpress-web-designer-technical-skills_5ce8de966443c61fa91a6d52dec893e4_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Technical skills of a WordPress Web Designer " src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/wordpress-web-designer-technical-skills_5ce8de966443c61fa91a6d52dec893e4_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>Technical skills of a web designer</figcaption></figure>But at the very beginning, the technical skills that you need as a WordPress web designer are how to set up a website on a hosting platform and install WordPress on it.<h4 id="clorn">WordPress themes that speed up design process</h4>Start your first website by using one of the WordPress free templates. This will help you learn how it works and what are the principles of working with Gutenberg design engine. To make your website look more appealing there are some themes that offer more flexibility and will allow you to be more creative. These are Divi from Elegant Themes, Elementor or Beaver Builder. You can find out the pros and cons of each one on this YouTube video.<figure class="video large"><div class="embed-container"><div style="max-width: 100%; position: relative; padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eYI8TVNPCu4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 100%; height: 100%;"></iframe></div></div><figcaption>Elementor vs Divi Builder vs Beaver Builder: Ultimate Comparison </figcaption></figure> To state the obvious, as a WordPress web designer you will need some <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/graphic-design-agency/">graphic design</a> skills. Fortunately, these days there are many free repositories that you can source images from. If you combine them with basic skills of working with Photoshop or Gimp image processing tools you are set. Also, don’t forget to go through some <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/tag/ux/">User Experience (UX)</a> guides. They will teach you the principles of good web design that will help the visitor of the website enjoy the experience. <h2 id="cgdi8">3. Marketing</h2>When creating a website in 2019, some marketing skills are a must. A WordPress web designer won’t get away without knowing basics of copywriting and<a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/seo-agency/"> Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)</a>, like keyword research and on-page optimisation. I know many people who would argue with me on that point, but I believe that a competent web designer should have this knowledge.<h4 id="4tb4e">Content writing - copywriting is the key</h4>You may not have to write content for your website as the client will provide it, but you need to recognise when it’s crap. It's part of your job to advise your client that they need to hire a better writer. Even better, to leave the copywriting to you (or your trusted freelance copywriter - you will find them on Fiverr and People Per Hour, although it takes few orders before you can find somebody trustworthy).<figure class="image regular"><a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/marketing/"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/wordpress-web-designer-copywriting_44d6fae5ccdd3db56e9adb3684caa118_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/wordpress-web-designer-copywriting_44d6fae5ccdd3db56e9adb3684caa118_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Wordpress web designer copywriting" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/wordpress-web-designer-copywriting_44d6fae5ccdd3db56e9adb3684caa118_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>Copywriting skills of a web designer</figcaption></figure>You will also need to skilfully describe what each page is all about in between 120 and 158 characters in a page description. That requires not only copywriting skills but also some keyword research and SEO knowledge. Fortunately, there are plugins for that! For example, Yoast will not only tell you whether your meta description or page title is too short or too long but also it will score your keyword strength. It will also suggest how to correct your text to make it more readable and point the header tag structure (H1-H3) in relation to the keywords. It’s a great tool. Optimising images is also important, and you need to have tools to decrease image size to speed up page loading time. As a WordPress web designer, you need to know how to add Alt Tags and descriptions and geotag them, which helps with Local SEO.<h4 id="a0jl7">Keyword research and why is it important</h4>In terms of keywords, clients will often tell you what keyword they want to rank for. Nine times out of ten they will be wrong. Sometimes because the competition is too strong and sometimes because nobody searches for that keyword, so there is no point to rank for it. I have included some articles below that will give you a better grasp on keyword research. After that use Google Trends or Answer the Public tools to judge the value of your keywords.<ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/keyword_research/">Keyword research - what is it?</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo">Beginners Guide to SEO</a></li></ul>Tools that will help you do the keyword research<ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://trends.google.com/trends/ ">Google Trends</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://answerthepublic.com/">Answer the public</a></li></ul><h2 id="a0l11">4. Hungry for knowledge</h2>Last but not least! In fact, wanting to learn is a major player in changing your career path to a WordPress web designer or any website designer or <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/tag/developer/">developer</a>, to be frank. The web design field is vast, and there are many stages to learn about it before you can confidently say you are a competent web designer. You will need to be passionate about it and be hungry for knowledge. We live in the time where there is a YouTube or GitHub answer to every problem that you may encounter when designing a website, whether you want to change the colour of the font or animate something in JavaScript… and yes, I’m thinking about my mum’s cat presenting his favourite sweater on a catwalk….<figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/wordpress-web-designer-learning_20a4551d88e7a63fad7ce6bf95d98daa_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/wordpress-web-designer-learning_20a4551d88e7a63fad7ce6bf95d98daa_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="WordPress web designer learning process" src="https://images.storychief.com/account_2648/wordpress-web-designer-learning_20a4551d88e7a63fad7ce6bf95d98daa_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>Learning web designer skills</figcaption></figure><h2 id="b2c4m">Conclusion</h2>It seems like a lot, but do not feel overwhelmed. You will simply acquire all these skills while designing websites and being open to self-learning. I am a firm believer in "learning on the job" and acquiring abilities that you need to resolve problems one by one as you approach them. This is why the best way to learn WordPress web designer skills is to actually try and design some websites for fun and google your way through obstacles. So, go ahead, start now. Just register your new site on WordPress today, and tomorrow… well, the sky is the limit… OK, if you think this is cringy, then it is, but do it regardless. No postponing!The above skills won’t make you a Frontend Web developer yet, we will get to that in another article, but it will get you started. Don’t miss the opportunity. Today is the day when you choose the path to become a WordPress web designer.<h3 id="6ja4a">Find out More:</h3><ul><li><a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/4-key-skills-graphic-designer/">4 key skills of a Graphic Designer</a></li><li><a href="https://coder-coder.com/learn-web-development/">Learn web development as an absolute beginner (2018 guide)</a></li></ul>This article was originally posted on Colorpeak Blog - <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/4-key-skills-wordpress-web-designer">4 key skills of a WordPress web designer - a beginners guide</a>  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/4-key-skills-wordpress-web-designer?id=1968072574&type=12",title: "4 key skills of a WordPress web designer – a beginners guide",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
Feed suspended! Please contact the owner.

Fri, 01 Mar 2019 10:00:01 -0000

Inoreader Pro plan is required to export RSS feeds.If you are the owner of the feed, please consider upgrading to Pro.
Web Design: 10 Year Challenge

Sun, 27 Jan 2019 15:44:00 -0000

The internet kicked off the beginning of the year 2019 with #10yearchallenge. It started on <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%2310yearchallange&src=tyah">Twitter</a> and soon picked up speed there and on Instagram with thousands of people following the hashtag. Majority of <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/social-media/">social media</a> users began sharing their photos taken a decade ago and compare it with the most recent one, showing how much they have changed. But we thought to take another spin and jump in on the 10 years challenge bandwagon comparing how most popular websites in the UK today looked like in the past! So, here is 10 Year Challenge in <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design/">web design</a> according to Colorpeak's team.<h2>Google - steady as a rock</h2>We will start our 10 Year Challenge in web design, of course, with arguably the most important website - <a target="_blank" href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?ei=1b5NXKjuGIfMwQKK052gBA&q=10+year+challenge&oq=10+year+challenge&gs_l=psy-ab.12...0.0..1693...0.0..0.0.0.......0......gws-wiz._d7StzfCL7E">Google</a>. And contrary to most of the sites on our list, they have not changed much, at least in terms of grid design. When you go on Google you will be welcomed by a white page with logo and search bar in the middle. And guess what! It was no different back in the days. Most noticeably <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_logo">Google has changed its logo</a> which in 2019 fits into popular <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/tag/flat-design/">flat design</a> <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/tag/trends/">trend</a>. The company logo that was in use ten years ago was also the longest lasting up until now (from May 31, 1999 to May 5, 2010). It used serif typeface font called Catull designed in the '80s.<figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design-10-years-challenge"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-2009-2019_be957e3caa6cb5f055cd28621daf9ee1_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-2009-2019_be957e3caa6cb5f055cd28621daf9ee1_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="10 Year Challenge in web design - Google" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-2009-2019_be957e3caa6cb5f055cd28621daf9ee1_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>See before and after interactive view on Colorpeak Blog</figcaption></figure>It seems that Google wasn't happy with the initial change as the old 20-year-old logo was revamped twice in the last ten years. In 2015 Google finally arrived at what we see today - a geometric sans-serif typeface called Product Sans. The font was created in-house at Google. It's also worth mentioning that the logo colours, as well as remaining body-font Arial, hasn't been changed since 1998.<h2>YouTube - ever-changing story</h2>Since YouTube's acquisition by Google in November 2006, the experiments and testing with the website's UX and <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/tag/ui/">UI</a> began. However, for the longest time, we were just seeing different versions of classic view with the menu at the top, followed by Promoted Videos horizontal panel and the vertical list of featured videos. In 2010 sections “Recommended for you” and “Videos watched now” started popping up. Recommended videos are available to this day, but Videos watched now eventually turned into ”What’s trending”. A side panel menu replaced top one in 2012. In the meantime, <a target="_blank" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130219004839/http://www.youtube.com/">YouTube has experimented with newspaper website-like grid</a> showing categories such as sports, music, entertainment and many others. These, however, have come to past. Current view hasn’t changed much since 2014. We choose whether we want to see the content in a grid or list view. We also saw some minor updates to the side panel menu structure and cosmetic changes to align with modern design. <figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design-10-years-challenge"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/youtube-2009-2019_15800a37d29a0d1307db3d0e96ae824b_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/youtube-2009-2019_15800a37d29a0d1307db3d0e96ae824b_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="10 Year Challenge in web design - YouTube" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/youtube-2009-2019_15800a37d29a0d1307db3d0e96ae824b_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>See before and after interactive view on Colorpeak Blog</figcaption></figure><h2>Facebook - complete revamp, or is it?</h2>Oh gosh, where do we start Facebook's 10 Year Challenge in web design? Facebook has changed so much and yet so little over the years. The most noticeable is huge photo replaced by a smaller, round profile picture and a profile banner that now sits at the top of our profile page. However, these days we have a 2-column grid on our profile page (it used to be 3): with left hand-side being filled with our info and the feed filling in the rest. In regards to the page that we interact with on a daily basis, after logging in to <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a>, it remained mostly unchanged with a navigation panel on the left, the feed in the middle and some ads on the right followed by suggestions for people that you may know. <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Stories">Facebook Stories</a> that sit on top of ads panel have only been introduced in 2018, though.<figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design-10-years-challenge"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/facebook-2009-2019_89df02065026c4ac787c41acfc524279_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/facebook-2009-2019_89df02065026c4ac787c41acfc524279_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="10 Year Challenge in web design - facebook" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/facebook-2009-2019_89df02065026c4ac787c41acfc524279_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>See before and after interactive view on Colorpeak Blog</figcaption></figure><h2>Amazon - knows tricks of the trade</h2>Amazon turned <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/ecommerce/">eCommerce</a> selling into art and <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/">Jeff Bezos</a>, the owner, to <a target="_blank" href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/03/06/jeff-bezos-unseats-bill-gates-forbes-2018-richest-billionaires-list/398877002/">the wealthiest man on earth</a>. The landing page of Amazon has changed quite a bit. We now have access to good old categories on the left side panel as ten years ago, but they are not available on the Landing page. When you visit Amazon in 2019, you are welcomed by a dark navigation panel at the top of the page allowing you to search for items and manage your account. The rest of the page is covered by a slider that keeps changing showing you the most recent deals in a very pleasing <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.instagram.com/">Instagram</a>-like form of large photos with added descriptions here and there. Each slide is different and grabs your attention thanks to significant changes in colour. Amazon seems to know all the triggers that will make you want to purchase something… anything!<figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design-10-years-challenge"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/amazon-2009-2019_306515529d98864bcdeff4da56450f37_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/amazon-2009-2019_306515529d98864bcdeff4da56450f37_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="10 Year Challenge in web design - Amazon" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/amazon-2009-2019_306515529d98864bcdeff4da56450f37_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>See before and after interactive view on Colorpeak Blog</figcaption></figure><h2>BBC - understands the readers</h2>Look at the BBC website from 2009! Ten years ago, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bbc.com/">BBC website</a> would change its theme colour every day, but you won’t see that these days any more. In 2019 BBC is pushing the <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/minimalism-web-design/">minimalistic design</a>. We can see more photos than text, which is in complete opposition to how it was before. This is evidently a sign of our times, and BBC recognised that internet users have a lower attention span and a picture or video can capture their attention more effectively than lines of text. This is one of the strongest examples in our 10 Year Challenge in web design.<figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design-10-years-challenge"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/bbc-2009-2019_09c24f6b3783eb3317fafa54dfbb8dd3_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/bbc-2009-2019_09c24f6b3783eb3317fafa54dfbb8dd3_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="10 Year Challenge in web design - BBC" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/bbc-2009-2019_09c24f6b3783eb3317fafa54dfbb8dd3_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>See before and after interactive view on Colorpeak Blog</figcaption></figure><h2>Wikipedia - does not fix what is not broken</h2>One must appreciate how little <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.wikipedia.org/">Wikipedia</a> has changed over the years. The main grid remains the same with logo and menu on the left, login options at the top and the rest of the page filled in with definitions and descriptions. We can notice however subtle changes in the visual design. <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/flat-vs-depth-web-design/">Flat design</a> has definitely captured the attention of the people responsible for the layout, making it a tiny bit more modern following Google’s direction. On a side note, I think Wikipedia would benefit from introducing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.w3schools.com/howto/howto_css_two_columns.asp">column layout</a>. These days with screens that have high resolution it’s hard to read from left to the right of the screen without dropping the line once or twice when moving to the next row. <figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design-10-years-challenge"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/wikipedia-2009-2019_04801bfa54e7c76ddac094893d358bc7_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/wikipedia-2009-2019_04801bfa54e7c76ddac094893d358bc7_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="10 Year Challenge in web design - Wikipedia" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/wikipedia-2009-2019_04801bfa54e7c76ddac094893d358bc7_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>See before and after interactive view on Colorpeak Blog</figcaption></figure><h2>Reddit - ruffles some feathers</h2>Highly criticised new design (beta) was first rolled out on 1st of April 2018. It introduced Facebook-like feed in the middle with an additional supportive column on the right and a significant amount (33%) of white space surrounding it. The latter being especially prominent on high-resolution desktop screens. Notably, new design removed the blue header fonts that resembled Google Search results and replaced them with a black font (IBMPlexSans) that looks more like news portals. <blockquote><a target="_blank" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/7a4bjo/time_for_my_quarterly_inquisition_reddit_ceo_here/dp70sul/">According to Reddit's CEO Steve Huffman</a>, the new design aims mostly at new users: “Many of us evangelise Reddit and tell people how awesome it is ... then when those new people decide to check out Reddit for the first time they’re greeted with dystopian Craigslist. We’d like to fix that.” </blockquote><figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design-10-years-challenge"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/reddit-2009-2019_92a91c896d85a13bdd3a2648b46f3002_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/reddit-2009-2019_92a91c896d85a13bdd3a2648b46f3002_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="10 Year Challenge in web design - Reddit" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/reddit-2009-2019_92a91c896d85a13bdd3a2648b46f3002_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>See before and after interactive view on Colorpeak Blog</figcaption></figure>To mitigate some of the criticism, Reddit introduced three types of views that users can pick: Card, Classic, Compact. And, as of now (Jan 2019) the "Old-Redditers" can still switch back to the "old view" in their account preferences. Reddit's re-design approach heavily polarised the community and divided it into two camps: "Old-Redditers" and "New-Redditers" - who could've thought that you can find an analogy to the political situation in the United States in something like "10 Year Challenge in web design"...<h2>eBay - follows in the footsteps of the best</h2>Ebay seems to be following Amazon’s suite by introducing a slider to it’s landing page. It’s big, it’s colourful, it grabs your attention. They learned how to use white (negative) space to their benefit, contrary to the home page from a decade ago. It was packed with categories (who really uses them on the home page...? That’s right. No one!), banners and images - it seemed very crowded. There’s also the case of the logo. I would argue the old one was more recognisable. Now we have this Google-like simple font - a popular trend in the past three years, but I think eBay’s logo used to be more distinct.<figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design-10-years-challenge"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/ebay-2009-2019_e1112dc860bfa4994070926c074a3e91_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/ebay-2009-2019_e1112dc860bfa4994070926c074a3e91_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="10 Year Challenge in web design - eBay" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/ebay-2009-2019_e1112dc860bfa4994070926c074a3e91_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>See before and after interactive view on Colorpeak Blog</figcaption></figure><h2>Twitter - the proper 10 year challenge in web design</h2>Complete transformation! That’s the first thing that comes to my mind when I compare the Twitter layout from 10 years ago to its current version. Is this the winner of Colorpeak's 10 Year Challenge in web design? Not quite. This is yet another example of a website that takes simplicity and turns it into an advantage. A very intuitive layout that encourages you to simply tweet, re-tweet, and consume other tweets. Blue background has been replaced with white one, the logo became smaller and “What’s trending” panel has been added on the right-hand side of the feed. Twitter understands that the vast majority of its users access their feed from mobile phones, so it seems they design with a small screen and quick load time in mind. Then they follow with desktop design extending few elements a bit but refusing to include anything unnecessary. 5 stars when it comes to <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/tag/ux/">UX </a>and UI design if you ask me!<figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design-10-years-challenge"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/twitter-2009-2019_3396d1209541a3953a84722a54399803_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/twitter-2009-2019_3396d1209541a3953a84722a54399803_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="10 Year Challenge in web design - Twitter" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/twitter-2009-2019_3396d1209541a3953a84722a54399803_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>See before and after interactive view on Colorpeak Blog</figcaption></figure><h2>10 Netflix - the winner dresses for success</h2>Last but not least is my favourite example which shows that sometimes one needs to start with MVP ("Minimum Viable Product") to put the ball rolling and the success will come later. It is also the winner of our 10 Year Challenge competition! When you look at Netflix website from ten years ago, you will laugh. I did! But then we have to remember that back in the days there was no fast internet connection and renting (RENTING!) a movie through a website to be delivered to your home was shockingly innovative. Since then, Netflix has made a leap jump, and their navigation page that allows you to select movies is what created a binge-watching experience and trend. Whoever is behind Netflix Landing Page is an excellent web <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/tag/designer/">designer </a>and developer team that understands how our brains work and how to trigger them to consume more and more content. Bravo!<figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design-10-years-challenge"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/netflix-2009-2019_67fbdf1dbacbe4ed5210b51166978a5e_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/netflix-2009-2019_67fbdf1dbacbe4ed5210b51166978a5e_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="10 Year Challenge in web design - Netflix" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/netflix-2009-2019_67fbdf1dbacbe4ed5210b51166978a5e_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>See before and after interactive view on Colorpeak Blog</figcaption></figure>This concludes our 10 Year Challenge web design comparison. Of course, top ten visited websites in the UK change very often, so in a while, you may find this list outdated, but if you're here in January 2019 these are the websites UK residents visit the most. We hope you enjoyed our take on #10YearChallenge so go ahead and subscribe to our <a target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/ColorpeakLtd/">facebook</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/ColorpeakLtd">twitter</a> and other social media accounts for more interesting articles from Colropeak team.---This article was posted originally on <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/10-year-challenge-web-design">Colorpeak Blog</a>  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/10-year-challenge-web-design?id=1505741349&type=12",title: "Web Design: 10 Year Challenge",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
Marketing Automation - Use These Tools To Improve Your Business Immediately

Sun, 20 Jan 2019 12:42:00 -0000

I have yet to meet a business owner who has never been in need of automation. Today startups, SMBs and large companies have one thing in common - they're all thrown in the game of pursuing the holy grail of business and marketing automation (The Automation Singularity). As you’re reading this, I wouldn't be surprised if you've got your feet wet trying a marketing automation software at some point. MailChimp for example or even chatbots...?<figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/marketing/"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/business-marketing-automation_76409152e5cd862dc6bb899656bd0937_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/business-marketing-automation_76409152e5cd862dc6bb899656bd0937_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Marketing Automation" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/business-marketing-automation_76409152e5cd862dc6bb899656bd0937_800.png" /></picture></a><figcaption>Marketing Automation</figcaption></figure>But maybe you have been doing all your marketing the "old school" way, and you want to get some of the piling work volumes off your shoulders, and you don't want to hire, train, pay and manage additional employee(s). Well, I share your viewpoint, because running a business means innovation. So, you either work on out-innovating your competition or your practices get inefficient and your business becomes outdated pretty quickly. I will try my best in this article to help you get started with choosing the lowest hanging fruit of marketing autopilot platforms. You should finish the piece having a grasp on what is marketing automation, why marketing automation is the next big thing in coming years, and how to use the power of automation platforms and tools to their fullest potential. Remember, you can't turn your eyes away and pretend the business innovations don't affect you. I will argue here that 2018/19 is a perfect time to jump on board and benefit from at least some of the cheap and accessible business automation out there. As you read on pick one or two solutions and over the next few weeks try to integrate them for the betterment of your business and your life.<h2>Why do businesses need marketing automation?</h2>The traditional marketing as a scientific field goes back to <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations">early 1900s or even earlier</a> with the development of modern capitalism and <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumerism">consumerism</a>. In a nutshell, business owners and (modern) marketers discovered that by studying consumer behaviour they can predict and influence sales profits. Businesses then went on developing step-by-step processes to anticipate the needs and wants of potential consumers so they could satisfy them more effectively in comparison to its competitors. Several decades later we use complex data and scientific methods to measure and design specific procedures to sell more to more people. Marketing and sales funnels evolved and it's no longer just printed ads in papers and magazines or lump mail ads. With the technological revolution, especially the Internet and social media's worldwide blitz, we've opened several channels enabling us to communicate more effectively and build relevant relationships with our customers. What it means for marketers like you is that a need for a more sophisticated and technologically enhanced approach with complex, multivariate sales funnels is required. Hence, marketing automation.<figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/email-marketing-newsletter-campaigns/"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/email-auto-responding-system_c6de396f299237875eb2e8833bf36809_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/email-auto-responding-system_c6de396f299237875eb2e8833bf36809_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Marketing Automation Sales Funnels" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/email-auto-responding-system_c6de396f299237875eb2e8833bf36809_800.png" /></picture></a><figcaption>Marketing Automation Sales Funnels</figcaption></figure><h2>What Marketing Automation meant up until 2018</h2><blockquote>"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." - Steve Jobs</blockquote>Despite the overblown claims and inflated marketing slogans, marketing automation is NOT an artificial intelligence (AI). The real AI doesn't exist (yet) and we're likely far away from it. Some moderate that and use "semi-AI" but it's misleading because the "semi-" isn't clearly defined and means anything. I just call it for what it is for now. Marketing automation is a set of logical rules, processes and tactics that run on autopilot, making some tasks or even segments of your business autonomous and independent from human input. Besides the obvious profits like time, money and energy saving, such marketing practices bring a real and quantifiable added value to your business. Although the philosophy of business management and <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing">marketing</a> orientation remains intact and pretty solid, the tools and methodology seem to evolve and set new milestones almost every week.Today, marketing automation software has never been more accessible. And in such high demand. Entrepreneurs keep coming up with creative ideas and cutting-edge technology to help businesses design their perfect strategies to predict the needs and personalise the copywriting.So new <a target="_blank" href="https://appsumo.com/browse/">marketing software</a> is springing up like mushrooms.But let's step back to something basic, like MailChimp which is an email auto-responding system. Their automated software is free (to the extent) and allows for:<ul><li>Easy integration on your website so you can quickly start building your email list</li><li>Getting your prospects details in an engaging form (MailChimp Lead Magnet)</li><li>Designing an auto-responder with a drag-and-drop visual builder</li><li>... and Sending automated and targeted emails to your recipient's list</li></ul>----------------------・・・----------------------<h3>Here're a few triggers you can use:</h3><ul><li>Email your tagged contacts - Send a targeted message when you add a tag to a contact.</li><li>Welcome new subscribers - Introduce yourself to people when they sign up for your list.</li><li>Say 'happy birthday' - Celebrate with an exclusive offer or cheerful message that will be sent out based on the birthday field in your list.</li><li>Share blog updates - Help contacts keep up with your blog by sending new posts straight to their inboxes. </li><li>Now you can essentially build "set and forget" email sequences.</li></ul>(did I mention it's free? ;) ----------------------・・・----------------------Check this video on how to set one up with this step-by-step tutorial:<figure class="video regular"><div class="embed-container"><div style="max-width: 100%; position: relative; padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iQVg2vL1TME?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 100%; height: 100%;"></iframe></div></div></figure>----------------------・・・----------------------<h2>The top 5 essential gains of automation</h2>To summarise, here are the top 5 essential gains of automation in the area specific to marketing:<ul><li>Automated marketing tools build complex customer journeys and sales funnels (e.g. <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://mailchimp.com/">MailChimp</a>)</li><li>Marketing artificial intelligence software learns your customers' behaviour or who they are and tries to make your product and services highly personalised (e.g. <a target="_blank" href="https://unless.com">UNLESS</a>)</li><li>Marketing bots aim to leave your customer informed, happy and engaged (e.g. <a target="_blank" href="https://quriobot.com/">Quriobot</a>)</li><li>Marketing analytics enables you to quickly test and change the direction of your marketing strategy (e.g. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.customerlabs.co/">CustomerLabs</a>)</li><li>Automated sales software makes your marketing efforts more efficient, faster to adapt and scale (e.g. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.datagran.io">DataGran</a>)</li></ul><h2>What Automation means for the future of business</h2><blockquote>"In peace prepare for war, in war prepare for peace." - Sun Tzu.</blockquote>The future of automation in 2019 and beyond looks bright. And it isn't just Tesla and their self-driving autonomous cars. Interestingly enough, I find those same principles that drive Musk and his robo-vehicles towards automation apply to any aspect of the business. Here's what we all are after:<ul><li>multiplied productivity (ROI)</li><li>exponential growth</li><li>multitasking (that actually works)</li><li>large data processing power</li><li>and, yes - if used correctly, a much better life</li></ul>----------------------・・・----------------------See Marquees driving Yandex self-driving car around California<figure class="video regular"><div class="embed-container"><div style="max-width: 100%; position: relative; padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gfWjsKsEry0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 100%; height: 100%;"></iframe></div></div></figure>----------------------・・・----------------------<h2>Sales and marketing automation software - who's on the frontend?</h2>Let's bring it down to a business application and see what benefits businesses can expect from automated systems in 2019 moving forward.The most common use of marketing automation software appears to be in sales, but this limited utility expands very quickly.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.emarketer.com/Article/What-Benefits-of-Marketing-Automation/1011966">eMarketer reports</a> that only 5% of companies have never benefited from marketing automation (I couldn't dig their source though, so take it with a grain of salt). But that makes sense, given the power of computing and how technology penetrated the entire world of economy. It is clear that customer journey maps are extensively used by Googles, Amazons and eBays of this world to accurately map out how customer behave in relation to businesses. And the same applies to Social Media giants like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Their optimisation is so granular, and it developed so fast, that <a <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.tristanharris.com/">some people stood to consider its ethics</a> and what we want as a civilisation.Nevertheless, the value in sales is so obvious and tempting that it only makes sense to continue using it. Providing your primary incentive is to quickly "help" your prospects who are travelling the distance from being a bystander to a raving fan. And the distance, no matter the length, is measurable and categorisable. Therefore, prone to endless optimisations (and exploitation). <h2>Is marketing automation software difficult to access?</h2>As of today, experts agree that by learning different ways how customers interact with businesses, pretty much guarantees big profits. For this reason, social scientist and marketers flock to use all sorts of automation tools that help with just that. Meanwhile, Marketing SaaS companies try to meet their prospects midway offering easy to understand but potentially vastly scalable in its application software. In fact, lowering entry level is now the name of the game with most marketing automation software.One such software is <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.fullstory.com/">FullStory</a>. The software works based on simple principles but the results, which it draws through different modes of user interpretation, provide comprehensive and quite elaborate customer journey maps."See your site through your users' eyes. More than the sum of its clicks, FullStory replays your customer's journey – like a DVR for your website – so you can search, see, and understand your user experience."There is certainly a learning curve associated with implementing any new system or technology. However, with much lowered entry-level bars the fruit has never hung so low.<h2>Large Data Set Calculations - how to optimise your website running costs and business spending for free?</h2><figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/social-media-management/"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/marketing-automation-data-analysis_34e4663013ae0093ac1d46a2e4dfa0f2_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/marketing-automation-data-analysis_34e4663013ae0093ac1d46a2e4dfa0f2_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Data analysis in marketing automation" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/marketing-automation-data-analysis_34e4663013ae0093ac1d46a2e4dfa0f2_800.png" /></picture></a><figcaption>Data analysis in marketing automation</figcaption></figure>Back in the days, gathering and calculating any large data sets was done by businesses who could afford full-time data analyst and a "numbers person". So it was reserved usually for enterprise-level companies and agencies, or outsourced and never looked at closely again. Today, with tools like Google Analytics, you have quick and easy access to software that with a click of a button displays almost complete picture of your company's money flow. It's free and offers a tremendous amount of actionable data that is automatically gathered and calculated from your website, ads and email campaigns, to mention just a few sources. It's also worth mentioning that Facebook, Pinterest or LinkedIn Ads platforms use sophisticated dashboards where data is calculated and presented to you in any way you want. It takes time to figure it all out, though. I'd suggest to start with finding answers to simple questions like: <ul><li>What is my website's monthly traffic?</li><li>Which of my ads increased traffic the most?</li><li>How long an average visitor spends on my homepage?</li><li>Is my traffic local or international?</li><li>Using what device (mobile/tablet/desktop) people are visiting my website?</li><li>Which of my web pages are most popular?</li><li>Where is my traffic coming from?</li></ul><h2>The Rise of The Marketing Bots</h2>One of the most significant aspects of marketing automation is the sudden spread of bots and various auto-messengers. Apart from built-in Facebook Messenger Bots, platforms like Quriobot and MobileMonkey are rapidly developing and are more and more sophisticated in methods of visitor engagement on your website. The key to a great visitors engagement appears to be: <ul><li>the speed of response</li><li>24/7 availability</li><li>useful and relevant bot responses based on the keyword and intelligent intent recognition</li><li>and so-called "triggers"</li></ul>Speaking of "triggers". These can be heavily customised to adhere to the customers' behaviour on your site and provide visual and heavily targeted responses. For example, imagine you have someone checking on your "Home Page" then going to "Pricing" where they spend two minutes and decide to leave. Normally this particular visitor could be classified as a prospective customer, that you may want to engage further. Therefore, at each individual stage, your bot can enhance your visitors' experience by way of targeted messages, additional content and offers. Even at the point of departure, a bot can be configured to throw an "exit intent" trigger and, hopefully, stop the visitor from leaving the website.<figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design-company/"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/ai-bots-activechat-automation_5421ea4e7b4440f36fe2e122f597e4e4_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/ai-bots-activechat-automation_5421ea4e7b4440f36fe2e122f597e4e4_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="AI bots - chat automation" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/ai-bots-activechat-automation_5421ea4e7b4440f36fe2e122f597e4e4_800.png" /></picture></a><figcaption>AI bots - chat automation</figcaption></figure>The "AI" in bots gets also increasingly sophisticated. For example, tools like <a target="_blank" href="https://activechat.ai/">ActiveChat</a> try to mimic human-like responses and with it infinite visual building blocks you can make it up as complicated as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.simplemost.com/14-challenging-lego-sets-build/">Lego's Star Wars Millennium Falcon set</a>. It can also integrate with e-commerce systems so you can have an actual "digital counter" right on your website. No wonder bots are the next big thing and we will hear about them more and more.<blockquote>"I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better, and questioning yourself." - Elon Musk</blockquote><h2>Conclusion</h2>It may be hard to start learning all these platforms today. However, in the long run, it will pay back immensely. Also, know that 99% of your competitors aren't doing it.So, it’s better to start giving marketing automation some attention before it is too late. Whatever industry you're in, it will be driven by the same principles as any other, whoever puts in the hours to innovate will increase the odds of success over the business owners that procrastinated and neglected to do the homework.You may not have enough resources to go all in with learning the marketing tools, but there is no harm in trying. I have probably been guilty of procrastination more than anyone in the business. But eventually I have learned to take little steps from early on, and over time I realised that I made a quantum leap in growing my business and developing myself. So, if you are reading this article right at this moment, stop wasting your time and jump right in. These are obviously just a few tips and the ocean of automated tools is filling in with more and more fish. There are few more things that I have learned over the years, so pop back in and check this article for updates. But most importantly start with making your first marketing automation funnel, no matter how big your goals are. From my experience, the right actions will pay off. I wish you good luck with your marketing automation journey.  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/marketing-automation?id=1278035989&type=12",title: "Marketing Automation - Use These Tools To Improve Your Business Immediately",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
How has SEO evolved throughout the years?

Sat, 05 Jan 2019 17:29:00 -0000

<h2>The early beginning before SEO became a thing.</h2>1991 Before SEO there was the beginning of world wide web. In on March 6th, 1991 the first ever website - <a target="_blank" href="http://info.cern.ch ">info.cern.ch</a> - was launched by Tim Berners-Lee.1994 Stanford University students Jerry Wang and David Filo start Yahoo, the first Search Engine to be used by masses followed by AltaVista, Excite, and Lycos.1996 Backrub search engine is created that ranks sites based on inbound link relevancy and popularity. Backrub would ultimately become Google. 1998 The King is born. Google launches in September, and so the story of SEO really begins. Before it, search engines positioned results based on on-page content, domain names, directories and breadcrumbs. Google introduced PageRank algorithm that also took into account the quantity and quality of links pointing to a website and anchor text.<h2>The Google SEO revolution</h2>2003 First Google algorithm update named Florida takes down a lot of websites in their ranking, especially those that would stuff keywords. Repeating keywords would be hidden at the bottom of a page in a font colour that matches the background. That way reader would not see them, but the bots would feed off them and rank websites position higher. Actions like that became to be known as Blackhat SEO tactics. Around this time a new tactic of link building is born. A race to build as many backlinks as possible begins as the savvy marketers quickly learn how to abuse the system.2005 Google makes its first attempt to fight back linking exploitation and launches its "rel=nofollow" attribute preventing the authority of websites to be passed on. Following this update, Google launches the Jagger and Big Daddy algorithms just before the end of 2015 to prevent link farming and other suspicious SEO tactics.<figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/business-photography-video-promo/"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-youtube-03_7e6cad1b71e1c3914c7f28ba420c043e_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-youtube-03_7e6cad1b71e1c3914c7f28ba420c043e_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Google YouTube SEO evolution" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-youtube-03_7e6cad1b71e1c3914c7f28ba420c043e_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>Google YouTube revolution</figcaption></figure>2006 YouTube gets acquired by Google for the whopping amount of $1.65 billion. Eventually, it would become the second most used search engine in the world. In the same year, Google also launches Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools giving developers profoundly deep insight on how Google sees their websites.2008 <a target="_blank" href="https://searchengineland.com/googlecom-finally-gets-google-suggest-feature-14626">Suggestion Box</a> is finally launched after four years of development and testing. Continuing its path of improving the user experience, Google focuses on understanding better how we surf the web and interact with content. It may seem like the most obvious Google feature these days, but back then showing related searches to automatically appear below, after you start typing in the search box, was a major hit.2009 Bing goes online or rather Microsoft gives a new name to its Live Search tool. By then Google has nearly 70% of the search engine market in the USA. 2010 Google announces that site speed is a ranking factor following "Caffeine" update, dubbed a next-generation search architecture that is faster, more precise and provides more relevant results. All that thanks to fast "spider-bots" that can quickly crawl website and cover larger parts of the internet.<figure class="gallery regular"><div class="strchf-gallery"><div class="strchf-gallery-preloader" style="background-color:#f8f8f8;line-height: 0;margin-top: 40px;padding: 30% 0;text-align: center;width: 100%;"><div style="background:url(data:image/gif;base64,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); display:block; height:44px; margin:0 auto -44px; position:relative; top:-22px; width:44px;"></div></div><div style="display:none;" class="strchf-gallery-images"><div style="margin-left:0;margin-right:0;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;max-width:100%;padding-left:0;padding-right:0;padding-bottom:0;padding-top:0"><picture style="margin-left:0;margin-right:0;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;max-width:100%;padding-left:0;padding-right:0;padding-bottom:0;padding-top:0"><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-panda-06_73eecd2f08c0d27055e2ff19eb12231c_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-panda-06_73eecd2f08c0d27055e2ff19eb12231c_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;max-width:100%;padding-left:0;padding-right:0;padding-bottom:0;padding-top:0" alt="Google Panda SEO Evolution" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-panda-06_73eecd2f08c0d27055e2ff19eb12231c_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>Google Panda</figcaption></div><div style="margin-left:0;margin-right:0;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;max-width:100%;padding-left:0;padding-right:0;padding-bottom:0;padding-top:0"><picture style="margin-left:0;margin-right:0;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;max-width:100%;padding-left:0;padding-right:0;padding-bottom:0;padding-top:0"><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-penguin-05_73eecd2f08c0d27055e2ff19eb12231c_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-penguin-05_73eecd2f08c0d27055e2ff19eb12231c_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;max-width:100%;padding-left:0;padding-right:0;padding-bottom:0;padding-top:0" alt="Google Penguin SEO Evolution" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-penguin-05_73eecd2f08c0d27055e2ff19eb12231c_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>Google Penguin</figcaption></div><div style="margin-left:0;margin-right:0;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;max-width:100%;padding-left:0;padding-right:0;padding-bottom:0;padding-top:0"><picture style="margin-left:0;margin-right:0;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;max-width:100%;padding-left:0;padding-right:0;padding-bottom:0;padding-top:0"><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-hummingbird-07_73eecd2f08c0d27055e2ff19eb12231c_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-hummingbird-07_73eecd2f08c0d27055e2ff19eb12231c_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;max-width:100%;padding-left:0;padding-right:0;padding-bottom:0;padding-top:0" alt="Google Hummingbird SEO Evolution" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-hummingbird-07_73eecd2f08c0d27055e2ff19eb12231c_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>Google Hummingbird</figcaption></div><div style="margin-left:0;margin-right:0;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;max-width:100%;padding-left:0;padding-right:0;padding-bottom:0;padding-top:0"><picture style="margin-left:0;margin-right:0;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;max-width:100%;padding-left:0;padding-right:0;padding-bottom:0;padding-top:0"><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-pidgeon-08_73eecd2f08c0d27055e2ff19eb12231c_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-pidgeon-08_73eecd2f08c0d27055e2ff19eb12231c_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;max-width:100%;padding-left:0;padding-right:0;padding-bottom:0;padding-top:0" alt="Google Pigeon SEO Evolution" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-pidgeon-08_73eecd2f08c0d27055e2ff19eb12231c_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>Google Pigeon</figcaption></div></div><div style="display:none;" class="strchf-gallery-controls"><div class="strchf-gallery-control-prev" role="button">‹</div><div class="strchf-gallery-control-next" role="button">›</div></div><div style="display:none;" class="strchf-gallery-nav"><div role="button" ></div><div role="button" ></div><div role="button" ></div><div role="button" ></div></div></div><figcaption>Algorithms releases</figcaption></figure>2011 "Panda" update causes a notable impact on SEO which resulted in affecting optimisation field to this day. In an attempt to clean up search results, 12% of them were impacted. Websites with low quality and irrelevant content (better known as "content farms") drop down in the rankings. A similar thing happens to websites with unoriginal, static and auto-generated content.2012 The following "Penguin" update doubles-down on eliminating aggressive, black-hat SEO spam tactics. Gone are the sites that violated Google's Webmaster Guidelines such us buying links, keyword stuffing and keyword matching anchor text to the dot. Eventually, Penguin and previously mentioned Panda release become part of Google’s real-time search architecture.2013 "Hummingbird" release centres around the growing market of mobile users. It is the biggest update to Google’s algorithm since 2001 and deals better with natural language questions, conversational search, and it lays the foundations of Voice Search. Original content becomes a major factor in ranking along with blogs. Google starts to reward websites that provide useful, unique and lengthy answers to visitor’s queries. "Long-tail keywords" or, in other words, detailed and specific search queries become a thing.2014 The release of "Pigeon" is all about better local search results. Google improves location and distance ranking parameters to provide relevant results to users based on proximity. Local businesses with strong organic presence showed higher in traditional search within the area of the searching person’s location. The "Local SEO" finally gets its own genre, now distinct from the general SEO.<h2>AI & Machine Learning algorithms</h2>2015 Some would say a breakthrough year in which Google reported <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://adwords.googleblog.com/2015/05/building-for-next-moment.html">more mobile searches in comparison to desktop search</a>. "RankBrain" - a self-learning search architecture is introduced as part of the Hummingbird algorithm. It determines the most relevant results to search engine queries. At first, it runs only on 15% of searches that the system had never encountered before, but eventually, it applies to all of them. 2016 Google confirms that the search engine's <a target="_blank" href="https://searchengineland.com/now-know-googles-top-three-search-ranking-factors-245882">top three ranking factors</a> are: links, content, and RankBrain.<figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/seo-agency/"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-fred-10_8e122c0448300a222b4b4484f83e0f9e_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-fred-10_8e122c0448300a222b4b4484f83e0f9e_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Google Fred SEO evolution" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/google-fred-10_8e122c0448300a222b4b4484f83e0f9e_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>Fred - catchall name for multiple Google algorithm updates</figcaption></figure>2017 Google "Fred" update hits mostly websites with poor content. In general, Google tries to deal with aggressive monetisation, misleading and deceptive ads, poor mobile compatibility and poor content. Fred is not a stand-alone algorithm update, rather a catchall name for every quality tweak to Google system intended to improve it and get rid of the content that violates the Webmaster Guidelines. It's been a known fact for a while that Google does quality updates on a regular basis and most go unnoticed and are unannounced.2018 A year of Webmaster Tools modernisation. Google Search Console, Google My Business and, most notably for SEO, Google’s <a target="_blank" href="https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/">PageSpeed Insights</a> tools receive their updates. There are of course multiple changes to Google's ranking algorithm done almost every day, but there were three Broad Core Algorithm Updates that were actually announced. PageSpeed Insights update becomes a significant player in ranking and slow sites with low optimisation score on mobiles are affected. Google announces <a target="_blank" href="https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/rules">nine factors that influence Optimization Score</a>.And so, the story continues. What will 2019 bring? Most likely further updates toward mobile-friendly AMP enabled websites that load fast on slow 3G networks. A lot has changed since the first Google SEO revolution. An easily abused system based on keywords evolved into sophisticated learning machine that thinks like a human. Content became a king, and mobile device accessibility will further shape the ranking.Sources:<ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://searchenginewatch.com/cheat-sheet-google-algorithm-updates-2011-2018">Search Engine Watch</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-algorithm-history/">Search Engine Journal</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.smamarketing.net/blog/25-years-of-seo-a-timeline-of-search-engine-optimization-infographic ">SMA Marketing </a></li></ul>This text was originally published on: <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/seo-evolution">Colorpeak Blog - How has SEO evolved throughout the years?</a>  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/seo-evolution?id=851140061&type=12",title: "How has SEO evolved throughout the years?",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
Shine Auto Spa

Wed, 05 Dec 2018 17:33:14 -0000

<img src='https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/projects/404/9ee08273397311.Y3JvcCw4MDgsNjMyLDE2LDA.jpg' style='float:left; margin-right:15px;' />
Create interactive websites - Vistag review

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 19:37:00 -0000

I thought I'd drop a few words about Vistag as we've tested the tool a little bit on two of our now interactive websites (not e-commerce, yet...). The first website did not work due to, what we believe was <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://revolution.themepunch.com/">Slider Revolution</a> interference. Vistag and Slider Revolution tandem renders our website completely unusable. Therefore, we decided to switch it off there.<figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://vistag.com"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/vistag-logo-black_4904a375ea4923763dff3631521475e2_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/vistag-logo-black_4904a375ea4923763dff3631521475e2_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Vistag logo" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/vistag-logo-black_4904a375ea4923763dff3631521475e2_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>Vistag.com</figcaption></figure>The second of our interactive websites, a static WordPress site, was (is) much better. We're still testing it there but performance is all good and Pingdom/GTMetrix/PageSpeed did not mark any meaningful drops in loading speed scores. Even with 10+ or so tags thrown on two web pages.<h2>Vistag Highlights and PROs</h2>To cut to the chase, I really like the visual presentation and interactive aspects of Vistag. Objectively looking at it - Vistag WILL make you and others hover, click, poke, fondle and (hopefully) buy-through those flashing gems. There is just no way around it given how our brains and eyes work.However, at this point in time, Vistag isn't finished tool yet and many fundamental options are missing.<figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/vistag-create-ecom-interactive-websites/"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/vistag-review_48b2cf00457f1bac47aa856e4207b9a6_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/vistag-review_48b2cf00457f1bac47aa856e4207b9a6_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Vistag interactive websites" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/vistag-review_48b2cf00457f1bac47aa856e4207b9a6_800.jpg" /></picture></a></figure><h2>Vistag's missing features (or rather Not-There-Yets)</h2>Some of the things we'd like to see rather sooner than later include:<ul><li>"mailto:"/"tel:" and other HTML special links to enable CTA's (Call-To-Actions) for anything that is not e-commerce</li><li>images within the tags that could be fed from WP Media / external URLs</li><li>CSS selectors and more customisations</li><li>global UTM trackers</li></ul>The dashboard and interface would also benefit from some conscious cleanup and re-planning for easier navigation. The User experience (<a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/tag/ui/">UI</a>) is a bit all over the place on the admin side.I've also looked at this new "Lookbook" feature, which allows to add images to tags. I'm sure this is probably my pure ignorance, but I still don't get it. Again, it could be lack of my attention but how is this better or more important than just feeding and tagging pictures from WP Media or external URLs. The link on the dashboard takes me to some vague Documentation on how to make it work, but nothing else.I've mentioned CSS customisations already but let me reiterate the fact that the default font size and colour (light-grey on a white background?) is just unreadable. To change that you need to do some CSS gymnastics on your website. But it seems to be in development now, so fingers crossed that we won't wait long for this must-have feature for interactive websites to work as intended.<blockquote> Your images. Shoppable. Create visual content that sells like crazy. </blockquote><h2>Vistag - an ultimate web design enhancing tool?</h2>At this point, I can't give it a 5-stars review because Vistag is incomplete; clearly in beta stage, and an exorcism on their bugged code is yet to be performed by the developers. However, I can confidently score this tool 4 out of 5 because this brilliant, yet simple idea serves you a ready-made link between human behaviour and computer science that you can use to your sales advantage, this very evening. And all this without the need of getting two PhDs in the respective fields trying to sweat something like that in your own basement. A fine <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/marketing/">marketing tool</a> with great potential to make your plain web become one of truly interactive websites.You simply install Vistag, place tags over your e-commerce images and the job of selling fidget spinners and made-in-China "what-have-you's" is done for you.<h3>You can check Vistag on their website or, if it hasn't left the station yet, you may even jump on their AppSumo bandwagon.</h3><h4>Find out more about interactive websites and tools:</h4><ul><li><a target="_blank" href="https://appsumo.com/vistag/">AppSumo Vistag Deal</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://vistag.com/">Vistag official website</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a">Using anchor element to create special links - Mozilla</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.awwwards.com/websites/web-interactive/">Examples Of Well Designed Web & Interactive Websites</a> </li></ul>  <script> if(window.strchfSettings === undefined) window.strchfSettings = {}; window.strchfSettings.stats = {url: "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/vistag-create-ecom-interactive-websites?id=2078972412&type=12",title: "Create interactive websites - Vistag review",id: "565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9"}; (function(d, s, id) { var js, sjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {window.strchf.update(); return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"; js.async = true; sjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, sjs); }(document, 'script', 'storychief-jssdk')) </script>
Colorpeak web design

Wed, 21 Nov 2018 12:06:53 -0000

<img src='https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/projects/404/d595c572842647.Y3JvcCwxODQxLDE0NDAsNDEsMA.jpg' style='float:left; margin-right:15px;' />
Colorpeak Web Design

Wed, 21 Nov 2018 12:06:18 -0000

<img src='https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/projects/404/2411b572842631.Y3JvcCwxODQxLDE0NDAsNDEsMA.jpg' style='float:left; margin-right:15px;' />
Colorpeak promo

Wed, 21 Nov 2018 12:04:08 -0000

<img src='https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/projects/404/d0eb3072842545.Y3JvcCw4MTAsNjMzLDAsMA.jpg' style='float:left; margin-right:15px;' />
Colorpeak Web Design & Marketing

Wed, 21 Nov 2018 11:57:50 -0000

<img src='https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/projects/404/72c1fe72842265.Y3JvcCwxMzQyLDEwNTAsNTMsMA.jpg' style='float:left; margin-right:15px;' />
Who should build your professional business website? Web designer, web developer, graphic artist or graphic designer?

Sat, 29 Sep 2018 10:15:00 -0000

<h1>Who should build your professional business website? Web designer, web developer, graphic artist or graphic designer?</h1> This isn’t a trick question, or is it…? It used to be much easier to answer it. Back in early 2000 when web design reality was situated around ‘Is that person capable of creating a website?’ rather than ‘Is that person capable of designing a beautiful website, that is functional and makes people buy products?’ And it is an important matter especially when you're considering who should design your professional business website.<figure class="image regular"><a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/web-design-for-professional-businesses_8e0df9af5e20f8bc8779f9e4ad5a93a3_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/web-design-for-professional-businesses_8e0df9af5e20f8bc8779f9e4ad5a93a3_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Web design for professional business website" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/web-design-for-professional-businesses_8e0df9af5e20f8bc8779f9e4ad5a93a3_800.png" /></picture></a><figcaption>Web design for professional business by Colorpeak</figcaption></figure><h2>Developing websites in the past</h2>In the past, knowing how to code was necessary. Without understanding HTML or flash, you could not build a website. There was no question about whom should you hire to design it. The problem was that tech people were not known for their exquisite sense of visual style. Making a professional business website that looks good was not a priority if it's appearance was considered at all. You can see for yourself by visiting the <a target="_blank" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20050101091959/http:/bbc.co.uk/">Wayback Machine</a> to see how the internet looked like back in 2005! Very few heard of good <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/tag/ui/">UI</a> (User Interface) or <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/tag/ux/">UX</a> (User Experience). These words may sound silly to a "full-stack-web-developer-engineer” however, now coding skills are not necessary just put a functional website up. <h2>Cheap Websites (or "web design on a budget")</h2>Which is not to say skilled coders and web developers aren't necessary. Not at all! The "no-coding" approach works if we think about a general site, with a basic purpose like displaying simple information. Having an online space that functions as a visual business card or a leaflet is useful to describe and promote your company quickly. And there is a rapidly growing market for that type of web design. The reason? A website is often the first thing your potential customers will look for when they want to learn more about the product or service that you sell. So, you won't get away with not having a website. At least not if you want to appear as a forward-thinking business owner. If you need to outsource the creation of this type of website, an experienced <a target="_blank" href="https://work.chron.com/graphic-artist-vs-graphic-designer-18514.html">graphic artist</a> should be enough allowing you to save some time and money on more elaborate developments and designs. But there is no question that thousands of entrepreneurs, start-ups and resourceful individuals benefit from available (often free) web design tools that enable non-techies to "DIY" their websites. You probably heard of Squarespace, Wix or Weebly.<h2>Making a website using free website builders - the "DIY"-way</h2>If you’re on a budget, have lots of spare time, and you're determined enough, there is no reason why you shouldn't try to bootstrap your online portfolio! The disadvantage, however, is that there is a lot of technical, functional and visual limitations imposed by online web builders. So, websites built with those tools are also almost impossible to expand beyond their generic purpose and are often locked to the system they've been designed with - so forget about easy migration and scale! Moreover (and assuming you don't know CSS), your website won't be bespoke, and you will likely cringe while stumbling upon an identical one (your competitor's!). Therefore, your expectations towards DIY website builders shouldn't be to create professional business website that really stands out and takes you to the next level, which is...<h2><a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design/">Web design</a> for professional businesses</h2>If you’re a small or medium business owner that cares about how the website presents the company brand, and how good it is in actually making money (i.e. conversions) you’re probably better off hiring a professional web designer. We get to live in the lucky times where a good web designer has a solid understanding of coding, so you no longer need to choose between functionality and the looks. It's also often the case that an experienced web designer will have a good understanding of <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/4-key-skills-graphic-designer/">graphic design</a>. So is undoubtedly qualified to pull off a bespoke, professional business website that will lift you above the rest of the "DIY-crowd" and your competitors. If you're treating your website as an active advertisement or a real business asset that can draw the attention of your customers - and you should! - then having it done by a professional web designer is without question the best way to go. <figure class="image regular"><a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design-company/"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/graphic-artist-designer-web-developer_5100506c5924fe09a53288ebe26d1884_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/graphic-artist-designer-web-developer_5100506c5924fe09a53288ebe26d1884_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Professional website development" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/graphic-artist-designer-web-developer_5100506c5924fe09a53288ebe26d1884_800.png" /></picture></a><figcaption>Professional website development by Colorpeak</figcaption></figure><h2>High-level functionality in web design</h2>If you need your website to do more than the above, you probably will have to consider investing your money in a developer, especially if you’re thinking about managing large databases of information through your website. If you have a bunch of money on a large team of web developers, front-end designers, artists, project managers, etc. and have plenty of time for everyone to team-up then you can deliver a great professional business website project that will look stylish and modern. If all goes well, it will also be more reliable and capable of handling more complicated tasks like bespoke e-commerce shopping carts and payment processing systems. In a sense, a well thought-out and properly executed high-level website/IT project is infinitely scalable and can handle billions of active users like this <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://facebook.com">website </a>or <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://amazon.com">this one</a>.However, expect a bill to the floor and, as unfortunate as it sounds, a high risk of failure. As it often is with large, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_failed_and_overbudget_custom_software_projects">overbudget IT projects</a>. <h2>Who should I higher to design my website?</h2>It really depends on your goals. There will always be some work for developers who get higher paychecks and can pull magical websites that do more than looking good. Some people don’t need to spend a fortune on online advertising or <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/marketing/">marketing</a> if they can stitch up a basic site from a template for free. However, the sweet spot has never been as available as it is now and you can have a professional, beautiful and functional website with a reasonable price tag and realistic ROI for your business at the same time.<h3>Source: <a href=" https://colorpeak.co.uk/who-should-build-professional-business-website">Who should build your professional business website? Web designer, web developer, graphic artist or graphic designer?</a> </h3>   <script type="text/javascript"> var _paq = _paq || []; var url = "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/who-should-build-professional-business-website?id=1588127654&type=12"; const queryDict = {}; location.search.substr(1).split("&").forEach(function(item) {queryDict[item.split("=")[0]] = item.split("=")[1]}); if ('contact' in queryDict){ const separator = (url.indexOf("?")===-1)?"?":"&"; url = url + separator + "contact="+queryDict['contact']; } if ('list' in queryDict){ const separator = (url.indexOf("?")===-1)?"?":"&"; url = url + separator + "list="+queryDict['list']; } _paq.push(['setDocumentTitle', 'Who should build your professional business website? Web designer, web developer, graphic artist or graphic designer?']); _paq.push(['setCustomUrl', url]); _paq.push(['trackPageView']); _paq.push(['enableHeartBeatTimer', 15]); _paq.push(['enableLinkTracking']); (function() { var u="//storychief.piwikpro.com/"; _paq.push(['addTracker', u+'piwik.php', '565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9']); var d=document, g=d.createElement('script'), s=d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; g.type='text/javascript'; g.async=true; g.defer=true; g.src=u+'piwik.js'; s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s); })(); </script>  <script async src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"></script>
4 key skills of a Graphic Designer

Sun, 23 Sep 2018 20:01:00 -0000

<h1>4 key skills of a Graphic Designer</h1> A graphic artist of any kind is a person who may not necessarily possess the skills needed to be able to call themselves a graphic designer. On the other hand, not every graphic designer is an artist. You can learn the craft of design and techniques needed to create graphics that can carry one’s message. With the right set of tools and knowledge, the world is yours. The best of the best will have both and will be the leaders who inspire others; creating graphic designs that are admired and shared.<h2>Who is a Graphic Artist?</h2>If it only was so easy to define a graphic artist. Some will say you need to be born an artist, that you need an artistic soul, but for the purpose of this article, we will focus on a more down-to-earth approach. In short, a graphic artist is a creative person such as an illustrator, photographer or somebody designing <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://ilovetypography.com/">typography</a> to list just a few; an artist that works with a visual medium.<h2>Who is a Graphic Designer?</h2>A graphics designer will most often be a part of a graphic artists group, though not necessarily. Many freelancers are working in this area by themselves. A graphic designer specialises in supplying graphic illustrations for an editorial piece, web developer or advertising, among many others. Your job as a graphic designer is to produce a visual design (a digital one most of the time these days) that conveys a specific message for whatever purpose.<figure class="image regular"><a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/graphic-design/"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/96f4d201bd336c876e5f0c5fe44a5e74_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/96f4d201bd336c876e5f0c5fe44a5e74_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/96f4d201bd336c876e5f0c5fe44a5e74_800.png" /></picture></a></figure><h2>What skills do you need to be a Graphic Designer?</h2><ul><li>Soft skills</li><li>Tools</li><li>Knowledge</li><li>Degree (skills confirmation)</li></ul><h3>Soft skills in graphic design</h3>You would think that there are more important skills to have as a graphic designer. However, this is not always one of those jobs where you sit behind a desk all day and work on your computer. Your task as a <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphic_designer">graphic designer</a>, especially in a large company, is to communicate the client’s written or spoken message through visual means. That requires you to have well-developed communication skills. It’s not a one-man job so you will also find yourself participating in brainstorm meetings where you and your colleagues will have to agree on the best marketing strategy. You will have to be able to understand the team leader’s vision and confront them if your experience tells you this or that won’t work. And you need to be a team player, so knowing some negotiation skills will come handy when putting your thoughts out there for others to think through. If you need a qualified Graphic Designer, please call Colorpeak at <a href="http://tel:00441916451645">0191 645 1645</a>.<h3><a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/graphic-design/">Graphic design</a> tools</h3>I could tell you there are plenty of tools that you can use as a graphic designer, but there are only a few that truly count and enable you to create with no limitations. These days, knowing how to use (and use well!) Adobe CS is a must. As a freelancer, you may want to dip into <a target="_blank" href="https://www.gimp.org/">Gimp</a>, Inkspace or Krita freeware software. If you’re looking for a job in a respected Graphic Design company, however, then having InDesign, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshop.html ">Photoshop</a> and Illustrator listed in your CV is a necessity. <h3>Knowledge of graphic design field</h3>In terms of "know-how", there are certain things that you need to know by heart and most importantly understand, like typography or branding. However, there are others that you only need to be aware of, like printing technicalities.<figure class="image regular"><a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design-marketing-trends-2019/"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/ac168ae8133237cdba44e7a85f1998f0_800.png 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/ac168ae8133237cdba44e7a85f1998f0_800.png 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/ac168ae8133237cdba44e7a85f1998f0_800.png" /></picture></a></figure><h3>Areas of knowledge that every Graphic Designer should be familiar with:</h3><ul><li>UI/UX Design</li><li>HTML/CSS</li><li>Typography</li><li>Branding</li><li>Printing</li></ul>UI/UX design (User Interface/User Experience), typography and basic HTML/CSS knowledge are essential if you are considering working as a graphic designer in web design field. One could argue that you don’t need any coding skills to produce a website, but that is not true. You need to understand if and how a web developer will be able to reproduce your design using programming skills. I would say you can be a graphic artist without this knowledge but to be a good and respected graphic designer you won’t get away from the necessity of understanding HTML and CSS. Studies show that 36% of companies prefer their graphic designers to know HTML. Typography is another of those skills that you need to obtain but we have a separate article that talks about typography in <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/minimalism-web-design/">minimalistic design</a> if you’re interested.When it comes to branding, there are specific guidelines that you need to be aware of. Fortunately, it usually lies within a team leader’s scope to decide what needs to be designed. It is good to have experience in creating a brand for a company. However, in the end, you simply need to produce what the client needs, so most of the time you learn as you go.Need a brand design? We can do it all! Call <a href="http://tel:00441916451645">0191 645 1645</a> for more information.You do not need to know how the printer operates. Frankly, you’re not working at the printer. Regardless of that, you should know how to prepare your design for printing purposes. When applying for a graphic designer position, trust me, you will not get it unless you know what bleed or CMYK is.<h3>Degree for the graphic design industry</h3>We’re living in the era of Skillshare, Treehouse and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.udemy.com/">Udemy online courses</a> as well as YouTube where you can find anything from instructions on how to clean the coffee spill from your carpet to creating a 3D logo for your client. Yet, if you browse available positions on Indeed, Jobsite or especially the <a target="_blank" href="https://findajob.dwp.gov.uk/">Government Find a Job website</a> you will hardly find an offer that does not require an educational background. In fact, in more than 80% of cases, you would not even be invited for an interview unless you have a degree. But then again, you can always become a freelancer and there are plenty of websites like Fiverr or PeoplePerHour where you can <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/ppc-ads/">advertise your services</a>.<h2>Conclusion</h2>Although it is not easy and takes time to acquire graphic design skills you can do it yourself especially if design is your passion. You can get a degree and end up being a part of a graphic artist team that works for large advertising agencies. You can also be a free spirit working on your own from the comfort of your home. Whichever path you take, remember there are certain skills you need to possess without which you can’t be successful in the field of design.Source: <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/4-key-skills-graphic-designer">4 key skills of a Graphic Designer</a>For any Graphic Design queries <a href="mailto:mailto:info@colorpeak.co.uk">drop us an email</a>, and we will be in touch shortly.   <script type="text/javascript"> var _paq = _paq || []; var url = "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/4-key-skills-graphic-designer?id=1018656194&type=12"; const queryDict = {}; location.search.substr(1).split("&").forEach(function(item) {queryDict[item.split("=")[0]] = item.split("=")[1]}); if ('contact' in queryDict){ const separator = (url.indexOf("?")===-1)?"?":"&"; url = url + separator + "contact="+queryDict['contact']; } if ('list' in queryDict){ const separator = (url.indexOf("?")===-1)?"?":"&"; url = url + separator + "list="+queryDict['list']; } _paq.push(['setDocumentTitle', '4 key skills of a Graphic Designer']); _paq.push(['setCustomUrl', url]); _paq.push(['trackPageView']); _paq.push(['enableHeartBeatTimer', 15]); _paq.push(['enableLinkTracking']); (function() { var u="//storychief.piwikpro.com/"; _paq.push(['addTracker', u+'piwik.php', '565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9']); var d=document, g=d.createElement('script'), s=d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; g.type='text/javascript'; g.async=true; g.defer=true; g.src=u+'piwik.js'; s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s); })(); </script>  <script async src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"></script>
Flat design vs depth in web design

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 17:03:00 -0000

<h1>Flat design vs depth in web design</h1> CSS has been with us for over two decades, but its use properly kicked in 2003 when Jeffrey Zeldman published his book "Designing with Web Standards". Since then the use of flash templates for web design started to slow down, and CSS became widely used. <figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://cowboy.bike/"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/0c7354ade72673e37eb1f9f115e617bc_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/0c7354ade72673e37eb1f9f115e617bc_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Depth in web design" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/0c7354ade72673e37eb1f9f115e617bc_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>View website <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://cowboy.bike/">cowboy.bike</a></figcaption></figure>By the time flat design was introduced in 2006 by Windows with their Zune player release, web designers were in a phase showing off their skills using flashy illustrations and animations that int their minds were to wow website visitors. It was a minefield full of colours, textures and simple animations that constantly distracted people to no end. You can check out how the internet looked like in early 2000 by visiting <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery?page=1&year=2000,2005&category=&style=&open=year&order=popular">Web Design Museum</a>. <h2>What is flat design?</h2>Flat design emphasises usability in its <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/minimalism-web-design/">minimalistic approach</a> toward the interface. It focuses on being clean and simple, emphasising open space, 2D illustrations, contrast and crisp edges. As a principal, the less stylistic elements seen as unnecessary clutter in web design, the better. One can say that flat design goes back to the basics of web design in terms of being a functional tool. The focus shifts from how it looks to how well it works. Don't get me wrong, the looks are still important and need to please the eye, but at the same time when your end goal is to implement flat design it needs to equally be user-friendly. <figure class="image regular"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/73fe89abb9cd07601e9d8168d41f4190_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/73fe89abb9cd07601e9d8168d41f4190_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Flat design showcasing website" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/73fe89abb9cd07601e9d8168d41f4190_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>View website <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://artisantalent.com/">artisantalent.com</a></figcaption></figure><h2>Here are some basic principles of flat design:</h2><ul><li>clean and simple</li><li>two-dimensional illustrations and icons</li><li>crisp edges</li><li>use of contrast</li><li>decluttered space</li></ul><h2>Depth in web design</h2>On the other hand, the use of depth in web design has been equally popular. Designers who use it tend to say they like to “breathe life” into their work and add depth as a way to do it. By adding shadow, which is very popular to create a 3D perception, you can emphasise specific elements on the website and make them more realistic.According to some, a real-looking interface can boost people’s interaction with the website which is always important when it comes to web design, as it must be pretty but more importantly, functional. Some specific tools can be used to achieve depth in web design.<h2>How can depth be achieved in web design?</h2><ul><li>parallax backgrounds</li><li>focal points and perspective</li><li>subtle shading and lighting</li><li>overlapping layers</li><li>gaussian blur</li><li>skeuomorphism (interface objects that mimic their real-world counterparts in how they appear or how the user can interact with them - definition by <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/skeuomorphism">Interaction Design</a>)</li></ul>Skeuomorphism became popular thanks to Apple. Steve Jobs was always the one who emphasised that people should use devices thanks to intuition and should not have to read manuals to enjoy the technology. But after a few years, <a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design-marketing-trends-2019/">this trend</a> seems to be overused, and even Apple followed the Windows approach and introduced flat design in their devices.<figure class="image regular"><a target="_blank" href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/web-design/"><picture style=""><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/d59dec48b3d24e5b5b78528675f2fc95_800.jpg 1x" media="(max-width: 768px)" /><source srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/d59dec48b3d24e5b5b78528675f2fc95_800.jpg 1x" media="(min-width: 769px)" /><img style="" alt="Flat design versus skeuomorphic design of Safari icon" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/d59dec48b3d24e5b5b78528675f2fc95_800.jpg" /></picture></a><figcaption>Skeuomorphic vs flat design</figcaption></figure>These days everything seems to be mixing, and although we see the flat design in the lead, it has some depth elements incorporated into it like subtle shadows and micro-animations. It is the best of two worlds combined for better visuals and user-experience. That's a win-win if you ask me. Source: <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/flat-vs-depth-web-design">Flat design vs depth in web design </a>   <script type="text/javascript"> var _paq = _paq || []; var url = "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/flat-vs-depth-web-design?id=1514311566&type=12"; const queryDict = {}; location.search.substr(1).split("&").forEach(function(item) {queryDict[item.split("=")[0]] = item.split("=")[1]}); if ('contact' in queryDict){ const separator = (url.indexOf("?")===-1)?"?":"&"; url = url + separator + "contact="+queryDict['contact']; } if ('list' in queryDict){ const separator = (url.indexOf("?")===-1)?"?":"&"; url = url + separator + "list="+queryDict['list']; } _paq.push(['setDocumentTitle', 'Flat design vs depth in web design']); _paq.push(['setCustomUrl', url]); _paq.push(['trackPageView']); _paq.push(['enableHeartBeatTimer', 15]); _paq.push(['enableLinkTracking']); (function() { var u="//storychief.piwikpro.com/"; _paq.push(['addTracker', u+'piwik.php', '565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9']); var d=document, g=d.createElement('script'), s=d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; g.type='text/javascript'; g.async=true; g.defer=true; g.src=u+'piwik.js'; s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s); })(); </script>  <script async src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"></script>
Minimalism in Web Design

Fri, 07 Sep 2018 20:19:00 -0000

<h1> Minimalism in Web Design</h1> <div class="3stj9"> When you think about minimalism in today’s websites, you most likely have a specific light-weight style in mind recognised across many fields. In many ways, the concept of minimalism has been a constant presence in the designer's world of art and architecture for almost a century. It has also become a dominant trend in website design, especially in 2018, and likely will only grow stronger in the upcoming years. I hope you will be interested in learning what Colorpeak has to tell you about what it means to design a minimal website.</div> <h2> What is minimalism? </h2> <div class="9o7a6"> You've probably heard the phrases "the art of less" or "less is more" many times. It's a cliché, but there is truth to it. One can say that simplicity represents the essence of a minimalistic approach in modern design.</div> <blockquote> “The term minimalism is also used to describe a trend in design and architecture, wherein the subject is reduced to its necessary elements”. </blockquote> <div class="ff4ei"> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalism" target="_blank">- Wikipedia</a></div> <div class="5ikpe"> However, today I would like to focus on exploring minimalism as it’s applied in digital web design. I will also go through its main principles and show you actual examples of beautiful minimalist websites.</div> <h2> Minimalism in web design</h2> <div class="6e7b3"> Most designers agree that minimalism in web design means simplifying the interface by removing unnecessary elements. Some will also argue that you need to strip down the website to its bare bones, especially since <a href="https://www.ampproject.org/learn/overview/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">AMP </a>was introduced. However, no matter which approach you prefer, remember that there are some restrictions in deleting the elements of your design before it loses its main goal of providing information to the visitor or generating sales.</div> <h2> The main principles of minimalism in web design</h2> <ol> <li>Invisible or subtle navigation</li> <li>Negative/empty space</li> <li>Use of contrast</li> <li>Power of typography</li> <li>User-friendly layout</li> </ol> <h3> Invisible or subtle navigation</h3> <div class="fccmn"> Most people are in a hurry, or to be more accurate, are impatient. Simple navigation will encourage them to look for what they came to your website for. Unless you're building a large retailer website that requires a <a href="https://www.r2integrated.com/r2insights/an-seo-view-of-mega-menus" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">mega menu</a>, keep it simple, and you will be rewarded.</div> <figure class="image regular"><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/7c190a60bba4823e3e42a0a59abc9aec.gif 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/7c190a60bba4823e3e42a0a59abc9aec.gif 1x"></source><img alt="" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/7c190a60bba4823e3e42a0a59abc9aec.gif" /></picture><figcaption>Visit website <a href="https://charbonneltowns.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">charbonneltowns.com</a></figcaption></figure> <h3> Negative/empty space</h3> <div class="fgamr"> White space can be a powerful tool, helping you to draw people's attention toward what little remains on your minimalistic website. It is commonly used, but often its inclusion is an accident, especially when a designer building an e-commerce website will tend to focus on making sure the shop works. How it looks is a secondary concern. In such instances, you end up with a website of a five-year-old who did not learn yet how to fill in the background between the grass and the sky on that picture they drew for grandma.</div> <figure class="image regular"><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/1c6323cf830871f83f67b56a9371c1d1.gif 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/1c6323cf830871f83f67b56a9371c1d1.gif 1x"></source><img alt="" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/account_2648/1c6323cf830871f83f67b56a9371c1d1.gif" /></picture><figcaption>View website <a href="https://www.l2f.ch/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Learn 2 Forecast</a></figcaption></figure> <h3> Use of contrast</h3> <div class="9hkqt"> In terms of contrast, you can play with light or dark colours (resist using too many in one project). In addition, you can strategically place some of the website elements in the foreground vs background to emphasise them. Another contrast to consider is size and shape. These come especially handy when designing <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/call-to-action-examples" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Call to Action</a> buttons that should draw the attention of the visitor.</div> <figure class="image regular"><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/f147c98a25539f6c080e2a53c33bd84e_800.jpg 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/f147c98a25539f6c080e2a53c33bd84e_800.jpg 1x"></source><img alt="" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/f147c98a25539f6c080e2a53c33bd84e_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>View website <a href="http://fleurmoreau.fr/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">fleurmoreau.fr</a></figcaption></figure> <h3> Power of typography</h3> <div class="odud"> There are hundreds of fonts to choose from these days, and with minimalistic design in mind, it's not about which one you choose but how you use it. You can even use bold fonts and huge letters. No website should use one font only, but do not go overboard. Do not go over three. Even better, stick to two and play with the size, weight, and letter spacing to achieve balance and simplicity.</div> <figure class="image regular"><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/235a1faabae50f3b8f28fde018237794_800.jpg 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/235a1faabae50f3b8f28fde018237794_800.jpg 1x"></source><img alt="" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/235a1faabae50f3b8f28fde018237794_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>View website <a href="http://www.klobouckalesni.cz/en/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.klobouckalesni.cz</a></figcaption></figure> <h3> User-friendly layout</h3> <div class="6ro5s"> Large images will empower you to bring life to empty spaces. But they only work in certain cases like when designing a website for interior design, or photographers etc. Pictures can be very heavy and can slow down your website, so they need to be well balanced with the text between them.</div> <figure class="image regular"><picture><source media="(max-width: 768px)" srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/5d4c4067ec08c6b6624f67bfb526f557_800.jpg 1x"></source><source media="(min-width: 769px)" srcset="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/5d4c4067ec08c6b6624f67bfb526f557_800.jpg 1x"></source><img alt="" src="https://d2ijz6o5xay1xq.cloudfront.net/account_2648/5d4c4067ec08c6b6624f67bfb526f557_800.jpg" /></picture><figcaption>View website <a href="http://primalinea.com.br/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">primalinea.com.br</a></figcaption></figure> <h2> When should you choose minimalism for web design?</h2> <div class="es2bk"> There are certain benefits to choosing minimalistic web design, but it's not suitable for all projects. On the one hand, they often seem a good choice for one-page websites or to sell a few products but won't work on large retailer e-com stores.</div> <div class="40evk"> It also depends on your audience. A professional corporate worker may not care about the aesthetics but for a musician, or in fact any artist, a minimalistic look can be appealing. It is quite clear that you need to keep your end user in mind at all times and design for them. Will your customer appreciate the ease of navigation? Or will they feel like something is missing and flee to your competitor's website?</div> <h2> Conclusion</h2> <div class="f1a3f"> Whether you choose to design a minimalistic website or not, remember that what seems simple at first glance, usually requires a lot of effort from a designer’s perspective. There is no point in stripping things from the website to make it light and user-friendly if it's not going to be functional. With a bit of time, dedication and a proper approach to never sacrificing usability for the sake of visuals, you can create a beautiful and useful website in no time... Kidding! Every designer knows that it takes time to design any good website. At least now you know what you should keep in mind to design a minimalistic one!</div> <div class="f1a3f"> </div> <div class="f1a3f"> View source: <a href="https://colorpeak.co.uk/minimalism-web-design/" target="_blank">Minimalism in Web Design</a></div>   <script type="text/javascript"> var _paq = _paq || []; var url = "https://colorpeak.storychief.io/minimalism-web-design?id=1056001909&type=12"; const queryDict = {}; location.search.substr(1).split("&").forEach(function(item) {queryDict[item.split("=")[0]] = item.split("=")[1]}); if ('contact' in queryDict){ const separator = (url.indexOf("?")===-1)?"?":"&"; url = url + separator + "contact="+queryDict['contact']; } if ('list' in queryDict){ const separator = (url.indexOf("?")===-1)?"?":"&"; url = url + separator + "list="+queryDict['list']; } _paq.push(['setDocumentTitle', 'Minimalism in Web Design']); _paq.push(['setCustomUrl', url]); _paq.push(['trackPageView']); _paq.push(['enableHeartBeatTimer', 15]); _paq.push(['enableLinkTracking']); (function() { var u="//storychief.piwikpro.com/"; _paq.push(['addTracker', u+'piwik.php', '565b8427-1664-46d1-ae81-6e8e0925dae9']); var d=document, g=d.createElement('script'), s=d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; g.type='text/javascript'; g.async=true; g.defer=true; g.src=u+'piwik.js'; s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s); })(); </script>  <script async="" src="https://d37oebn0w9ir6a.cloudfront.net/scripts/v0/strchf.js"></script>
5 Sectors Blockchain Is Disrupting That Are Not Cryptocurrency

Wed, 08 Aug 2018 18:23:00 -0000

 For a few years now, “blockchain” and “cryptocurrency” have gone hand-in-hand. The blockchain concept is complicated, and involves constant-growth record lists linked together and secured through cryptography (think of the Cryptex from The Da Vinci Code). Each block of the chain envelops a hash pointer relating to the previous block, as well as transaction data and a timestamp. The idea of a blockchain isn’t relegated to the infant-era cryptocurrency revolution. Massive worldwide corporations are beginning to incorporate blockchain technology into their systems. The technology behind the blockchain is far more valuable on a global scale than any market capitalization of cryptocurrencies. Here are five large sectors currently being disrupted by the potential of this technology: Related: Why Bitcoin Is the MySpace of Cryptocurrencies, But the Blockchain Is Here to Stay <img alt="Image 2018-08-08 at 7.14.07 pm" class=" wp-image-18 aligncenter" data-attachment-id="18" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Image 2018-08-08 at 7.14.07 pm" data-large-file="https://lucashawro.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/image-2018-08-08-at-7-14-07-pm.png?w=840" data-medium-file="https://lucashawro.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/image-2018-08-08-at-7-14-07-pm.png?w=525&h=368" data-orig-file="https://lucashawro.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/image-2018-08-08-at-7-14-07-pm.png" data-orig-size="1772,1239" data-permalink="https://lucashawro.wordpress.com/2018/08/08/5-sectors-blockchain-is-disrupting-that-are-not-cryptocurrency/image-2018-08-08-at-7-14-07-pm/" height="368" sizes="(max-width: 525px) 85vw, 525px" src="https://lucashawro.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/image-2018-08-08-at-7-14-07-pm.png?w=525&h=368" srcset="https://lucashawro.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/image-2018-08-08-at-7-14-07-pm.png?w=525&h=368 525w, https://lucashawro.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/image-2018-08-08-at-7-14-07-pm.png?w=1050&h=734 1050w, https://lucashawro.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/image-2018-08-08-at-7-14-07-pm.png?w=150&h=105 150w, https://lucashawro.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/image-2018-08-08-at-7-14-07-pm.png?w=300&h=210 300w, https://lucashawro.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/image-2018-08-08-at-7-14-07-pm.png?w=768&h=537 768w, https://lucashawro.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/image-2018-08-08-at-7-14-07-pm.png?w=1024&h=716 1024w" width="525" /> <h4> 1. Crybersecurity</h4> Although one of the main draws to the blockchain is the transparency of its public ledger, the data communication piece is verified via advanced cryptographic systems. This ensures the data arrived through the proper channels, without interception by a third party in the transmission process. This idea brings about the strong possibility that blockchain can provide severe reductions in cybersecurity risks. The removal of human interaction in the data communication process will severely lessen the threat of data corruption, human error, and hacking. Additional cybersecurity applications of the blockchain include large-scale authentication of data. A startup called Guardtime is currently experimenting with a blockchain-centric keyless signature infrastructure. This KSI works by tagging and verifying data transactions, providing crypto-level assurance of data authenticity and integrity. <h4> 2. Elections and voting</h4> Voting manipulation has become an active pain point in the election process at many levels. Elections require not only the authentication of the voters’ identities, but also secured record-keeping, vote tracking, and win tallying. Looking to the future, blockchain technology could enable tools to serve as an infrastructure from start to finish. This could potentially eliminate the need for recounts, as it removes the human element involved in vote manipulation and voter fraud. Through the capture of votes as blockchain “transactions,” government entities would have a public and verifiable trail of votes, ensuring none are changed or removed, and no illegitimate votes are added. A blockchain-based election focused startup called Follow My Vote is in the process of developing a beta version of their complete blockchain-centric voting solution. <h4> 3. Transaction-based real estate</h4> The purchase and sale of property come with many pain points, including massive stacks of paperwork, an overall lack of transparency, public record errors, and the possibility of fraud throughout the process. Blockchain instead offers a method to reduce the need for paper recordkeeping, while simultaneously speeding up transaction times, helping those involved in the process reduce transaction costs and improve overall efficiency. Technology and finance startup Ubitquity has begun offering a SaaS platform centered around blockchain technology, geared toward mortgage, title, and financial companies. The service provider is working with various recordkeeping entities in foreign countries to gather property information and documents for their blockchain. <h4> 4. Analytics for forecasting</h4> As industries continue to embrace the concept of the blockchain, the power expands into the analytics and forecasting niche. With entirely accurate transaction records to support data analysis, forecasting technologies can adapt to a less error-prone foundation for things such as machine learning algorithms to develop more accurate insights and predictions based on blockchain data. Even in the current day and age, blockchain is in the process of allowing for a new market focused on predictions. A program called Augur has been developed using the Ethereum blockchain. Augur allows its users to forecast events, incorporating a reward system for accurate predictions. The parent company of the program claims that the full process will be decentralized, enabling their users to place bets on everything from stock market predictions to sports, to natural disaster occurrences. <h4> 5. Ridesharing applications</h4> Lyft and Uber are definitions of centralization in business models. The companies, in essence, operate as cloud-based dispatch hubs, using algorithms to control fleets and dictate charges. Blockchain could allow new technologies into these dynamics. Decentralized and distributed ledgers could provide a more user-driven and value-oriented market environment. <h4> Final thoughts</h4> While still relatively new technology, blockchain is easily poised to become one the most useful technological innovations of the 21st century. With massive corporations already incorporating blockchain into their systems, and hundreds of chain-centric startups pushing into the mainstream, the potential utilization of this cryptographic process is unfathomable. The above five sectors scratch the surface of the disruption blockchain has caused, and the technology is likely already an unbeknownst part of your daily life. Cryptocurrency platforms are only the beginning. As first seen on <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/305009" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">5 Sectors Blockchain Is Disrupting That Are Not Cryptocurrency</a>
Online Marketing Effectiveness on Integrated Marketing Communications

Fri, 03 Aug 2018 10:02:00 -0000

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7WN27OY2ccZGMxsKnz3x35CC1zASSspLWMJ_D4KcBhy-iJM36tIhBaEj5RWmWUQieSS4Ph6LRQ3zzlfdOJPwuLn0lwAY5ckjQpsRtwa-x3cTsV85cHeby_QtpJS4ZKo5hxMNl5kLFl24B/s1600/Image+2018-08-03+at+10.46.42+am.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="857" data-original-width="1600" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7WN27OY2ccZGMxsKnz3x35CC1zASSspLWMJ_D4KcBhy-iJM36tIhBaEj5RWmWUQieSS4Ph6LRQ3zzlfdOJPwuLn0lwAY5ckjQpsRtwa-x3cTsV85cHeby_QtpJS4ZKo5hxMNl5kLFl24B/s640/Image+2018-08-03+at+10.46.42+am.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GaryVee by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm7Hp03CgzY" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">GaryVee</a></td></tr> </tbody></table> Online marketing is becoming a hot topic in every business sector and gradually plays a truly important role in any company's multi-channel marketing strategy or its integrated marketing communication. <h3> Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) is a marketing concept that ensures all forms of communication and messages are carefully linked together.  </h3> At its most basic level, Integrated Marketing Communication or IMC means integrating all the promotional tools, so that they work together in harmony. Promotion is one of the Ps in the marketing mix. The promotion has its own mix of communication tools. All of these communication tools work better if they work together in harmony rather than in isolation. Their sum is greater than their parts - providing they speak consistently with one voice all the time, every time. <h4> Tools of Online Marketing:</h4> Display advertising - Display advertising conveys its advertising message visually using text, logos, animations, videos, photographs, or other graphics. Display advertisers frequently target users with particular traits to increase the ads' effect. Web banner advertising - Web banners or banner ads typically are graphical ads displayed on a web page. Banner ads can use rich media to incorporate video, audio, animations, buttons, forms, or other interactive elements using Java applets, HTML5, Adobe Flash, and other programs. Frame ad (traditional banner) - Frame ads were the first form of web banners. The colloquial usage of "banner ads" often refers to traditional frame ads. Website publishers incorporate frame ads by setting aside a particular space on the web page. Pop-ups/pop-unders - A pop-up ad is displayed in a new web browser window that opens above a website visitor's initial browser window. A pop-under ad opens a new browser window under a website visitor's initial browser window. Floating ad - A floating ad, or overlay ad, is a type of rich media advertisement that appears superimposed over the requested website's content. Floating ads may disappear or become less obtrusive after a preset time period. Expanding ad - An expanding ad is a rich media frame ad that changes dimensions upon a predefined condition, such as a preset amount of time a visitor spends on a webpage, the user's click on the ad, or the user's mouse movement over the ad. Expanding ads allow advertisers to fit more information into a restricted ad space. Interstitial ad - An interstitial ad displays before a user can access requested content, sometimes while the user is waiting for the content to load. Interstitial ads are a form of interruption marketing. Text ads - A text ad displays text-based hyperlinks. Text-based ads may display separately from a web page's primary content, or they can be embedded by hyperlinking individual words or phrases to advertiser's websites. Text ads may also be delivered through email marketing or text message marketing. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) - Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is designed to increase a website's visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). Search engines provide sponsored results and organic (non-sponsored) results based on a web searcher's query. Search engines often employ visual cues to differentiate sponsored results from organic results. Search engine marketing includes all of an advertiser's actions to make a website's listing more prominent for topical keywords. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) -Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, attempts to improve a website's organic search rankings in SERPs by increasing the website content's relevance to search terms. Search engines regularly update their algorithms to penalize poor quality sites that try to game their rankings, making optimization a moving target for advertisers. Many vendors offer SEO services. Sponsored search - Sponsored search (also called sponsored links or search ads) allows advertisers to be included in the sponsored results of a search for selected keywords. Search ads are often sold via real-time auctions, where advertisers bid on keywords. Social media marketing - Social media marketing is a commercial promotion conducted through social media websites. Many companies promote their products by posting frequent updates and providing special offers through their social media profiles. Mobile Advertising - Mobile advertising is ad copy delivered through wireless mobile devices such as smartphones, feature phones, or tablet computers. Mobile advertising may take the form of static or rich media to display ads, SMS (Short Message Service) or MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) ads, mobile search ads, advertising within mobile websites, or ads within mobile applications or games (such as interstitial ads, "advergaming," or application sponsorship). Email Advertising - Email advertising is ad copy comprising an entire email or a portion of an email message. Email marketing may be unsolicited, in which case the sender may give the recipient an option to opt-out of future emails, or it may be sent with the recipient's prior consent (opt-in). <h4> Benefits of Online marketing:</h4> •       The Internet gives you a wide access to your potential customers. It has been estimated that a couple of billion people around the world use the Internet, and more are becoming aware of the Internet with each passing day. So, marketing your business to such a large group of people is only possible through the Internet. The Internet is the only medium that is able to cross geographic and national boundaries. •       The cost of promoting your business on the Internet is cheaper than other mediums of marketing. This makes it easy for small and mid-sized businesses to advertise their products. •   The Internet allows the ability to stay connected with customers on a real-time basis. If any discount going on, then it is easier to send an email to customers and they can buy the product instantly. The Internet also allows sending of multiple messages at the same time, which saves the tedious task of sending a newsletter to every client. •       Internet marketing facilitates an instant feedback from the customers. Customers can share about their experience after using the product. •       Internet marketing saves a lot of time and effort. Instead of having a customer service representative to answer the queries of customers, one can put all the information about the product or service on the Internet so that customers can go through it. The most common way of doing it is to have a section dedicated to frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the product so that customers get all the required information about the product or the service. •       Internet marketing allows businesses to be available 24/7, which means increased sales and profits. <h4> Limitations of Online marketing:</h4> •       Although Internet marketing allows a wider reach, the start-up costs of a website can be high. This includes the cost of the required software and hardware and maintenance costs. •       There are still a lot of customers who use the Internet just for having more information about a product and prefer to buy it in person. For example, Internet marketing allows a customer to view how a phone looks like and its technical specifications, but customers prefer having a look at the phone in the store to get a hands-on experience. •       There are a lot of customers who are not proficient in using the Internet and focusing solely on Internet marketing can cause you to lose these customers. •       The rules of the trade change rapidly in Internet marketing, and it requires constant attention and monitoring to ensure that your marketing strategy does not look out-of-date. •       The biggest disadvantage of Internet marketing is its vulnerability to fraudulent activities. There are a lot of illegitimate websites out there which look similar to original websites and rob the customers of their money. Spamming is also one of the biggest challenges for Internet marketing and confidential data can be easily stolen by hackers. •       Internet marketing lacks the human touch that is involved when a customer buys a product from a salesperson. This hampers the prospects of relationship building which plays an important part in repeat sales and word-of-mouth publicity. •       Internet marketing depends heavily on technology, which is vulnerable to technical faults. For example, if a customer clicks on your advertisement but due to a technical glitch, is unable to buy the product, he may easily become irate and take his business somewhere else. Although there are some challenges involved in Internet marketing, it can be safely said that Internet marketing has led to increased transparency and ease of buying products. The need of the hour is to counter the challenges so that Internet marketing proves to be truly beneficial for all. <a href="http://thesisexamples.blogspot.com/2017/08/online-marketing-effectiveness-integrated-marketing-communications-IMC-thesis.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Online Marketing Effectiveness on Integrated Marketing Communications</a> - as posted on here first.
The Death of Don Draper

Fri, 03 Aug 2018 09:32:00 -0000

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNkDOLMWRwZ1__A2nxlxffcnWhmaJ0oJLL5X0geRTavrGXN_fLTHkFk7rdiRE1gyHHR3x8pDxpevHH5ywP_3Dg_Wivg7Z_OYnzi7dd5leTnOHMxKrrfRVIfyt9_A4KaDogeEvG6UEEc3_J/s1600/Image+2018-08-03+at+10.14.40+am.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="850" data-original-width="1415" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNkDOLMWRwZ1__A2nxlxffcnWhmaJ0oJLL5X0geRTavrGXN_fLTHkFk7rdiRE1gyHHR3x8pDxpevHH5ywP_3Dg_Wivg7Z_OYnzi7dd5leTnOHMxKrrfRVIfyt9_A4KaDogeEvG6UEEc3_J/s640/Image+2018-08-03+at+10.14.40+am.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Hamm by <yt-formatted-string class="style-scope ytd-video-owner-renderer" has-link-only_="" id="owner-name" style="--yt-endpoint-hover-color: var(--yt-channel-owner); background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.6rem; text-align: start;"><a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4KA3qEEEM7lj7I9NCWgOAQ" rel="nofollow" spellcheck="false" style="cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">GQ Australia</a></yt-formatted-string></td></tr> </tbody></table> Advertising, once a creative industry, is now a data-driven business reliant on algorithms. The implications are deeply sinister – not only for the consumer but for democracy itself. The advertising industry is currently enthralled by a prophet of its imminent demise. Scott Galloway is a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business and founder of a marketing consultancy. In a much-shared YouTube video, he delivers a talk entitled “The Death of the Advertising-Industrial Complex” to an audience of young marketers. In it, he argues that businesses can no longer rely on advertising to compensate for mediocre products. Until the 1990s, says Galloway, the path to success lay in taking “an average beer, average car, or average suit” and wrapping it in appealing associations – this one makes you feel more elegant, this one makes you feel younger. Now, we live in an age in which the intangible haze of soft-sell is no longer necessary, and the battle for market share comes down to the raw strength of your product. “The sun has passed midday on brand,” he says. Galloway, lean of frame, dresses in the austerely casual manner of technology entrepreneurs. Glasses with thick black frames perch on his shaven head. He begins his lecture, disarmingly, by warning that he can get things wrong: he once predicted Amazon would decline in value right before its stock began a record-breaking ascent. But there is nothing equivocal about his presentation. Traditional advertising is unforgivably wasteful, he says. “Nothing resembling targeting takes place. Ninety-eight per cent of what you see in broadcast media is irrelevant to you as an individual. I find that the advertising on Facebook and Google sucks less.” These days, consumers are less likely to have favourite brands, since “their favourite brand is going to be whatever Google tells them at that moment is going to match their exact needs”. The brand getting the most buzz in the car industry is Tesla. “What’s different about them? No advertising. Innovation in the car industry is not about putting Cindy Crawford in a TV ad. It’s about building a better battery.” Galloway closes with a cruel assessment of the ad industry’s relevance. “When’s the last time you saw an ad agency executive on the cover of Business Week? No one cares what they think. Don Draper has been killed, drawn and quartered. The big idea in advertising is a small idea nobody cares about.” Until recently, it was possible to identify somewhere called “Adland” on a map. In New York, advertising agencies clustered on or around Madison Avenue, near the big department stores. In London, the action was in Soho, among the film and TV production houses. The industry was a small world, with all the collegiality and parochialism that implies. In both cities, ad agencies are now dispersed randomly around town, as if an earthquake had destroyed their habitat, forcing them to scatter in different directions. Once so sure of their place in the world, they now seem a little lost. The earthquake, of course, was the internet, and the subsequent seizure of the ad business by technology companies. Between them, Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon (about whom Galloway has written an acclaimed, critical book, The Four), have transformed advertising’s terms of trade. Clients pour billions into a digital ecosystem that revolves around Google and Facebook in particular. The ad industry, run by people who pride themselves on creativity, is being displaced by the ad business, which prides itself on efficiency. Clients are spending less on the kind of entertaining, seductive, fame-generating campaigns in which ad agencies specialise, and more on the ads that flash and wink on your smartphone screen. The ad industry views itself as a field of applied artistry, a next-door neighbour to the entertainment industry. Though it often fails, it aspires to surprise, charm, move and delight people on behalf of its clients. The ad business is obsessed with data science and distrusts the messy stuff of story, image and idea. The ad industry thinks of itself as the custodian of a brand’s meaning in popular culture. The ad business could not care less about such fluff. Instead, it seeks to identify the precise moment that a consumer needs something so that it can trigger a sale. Shopping, on its model, is essentially an engineering problem to which a satisfyingly logical solution has finally been found. The ad business is largely automated. Clients only have to decide how many people they want to reach, and how much they want to spend; algorithms do the rest. In the milliseconds before a page loads on to your screen, a virtual auction takes place. Advertisers bid for the chance to place their client’s ad on it, based on data about your online behaviour: where you live, whether you’re young or old, recently shopped for shoes or searched for a car brand. The advertiser might create multiple ads and serve different executions to different slices of its audience. Some companies, such as Cambridge Analytica, claim to be able to target personality types using this method. The more valuable your particular profile is to the advertiser, the higher price its algorithm will pay the publisher to get an ad in front of your eyes. In this way, every scintilla of attention is transformed into money. The ad business is insanely profitable. It has turned Google (worth $750bn) and Facebook ($600bn) into bloated zeppelins of cash. It is also the engine of the free internet, providing the funds for most of what you read and watch online. But the ad business has problems. Algorithms are poor at making judgements that seem obvious to humans, like whether or not a soap brand will be happy having its ads run next to an Isis recruitment video. Consumers have proved ungrateful for the increased “relevance” of the ads that pop up on their screens, partly because so many of them are bafflingly irrelevant. Tiring of the aggressiveness with which online ads insert themselves between them and the content they wish to see, more and more people are using ad-blockers to combat what they regard as an infestation. Clients have even started to question the ad business’s claim to efficiency. The model I described above is a simplified version of a dizzyingly complex system whose details few can fathom, involving multiple companies taking multiple fees. Unsurprisingly, fraud is rampant. It is estimated that at least a third of the audience for online ads are bots: criminal groups make millions of dollars selling fake clicks to advertisers and their agencies. Nobody can say for sure how well advertising on Facebook works since Facebook refuses to share data with industry bodies. Because of concerns such as these, the world’s biggest advertiser, Procter & Gamble (P&G), cut its digital marketing budget by $200m in 2017 and reallocated the money to other media, including television. Rather than recovering lost ground, the ad industry is paralysed by an identity crisis. Most agencies are owned by a handful of global advertising groups, such as Omnicom or WPP, founded by Martin Sorrell, which have moved their operating firms out of homes in expensive parts of town and into anonymous office blocks, partly to disguise the deterioration of their core business. The groups have made a half-hearted attempt to transform themselves into data-driven technology companies, but have succeeded only in legitimating the overblown claims of their competitors and disappointing the stock market. Ad agencies no longer seem to know what they are for. Their executives like to declare that they don’t work in advertising, since “ads” are associated with a pre-internet world. Yet when asked to say what it is they actually do, they become vague (“communication”) or grandiose (“create culture”). The industry is Balkanised, the engineers talking a different language to the storytellers. Scott Galloway’s lecture articulates the worst fear of the latter: that there is no need for them any more. Yet not everyone is ready to accept redundancy. **** <iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FPs6k-GHlZk/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FPs6k-GHlZk?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>“Flowers are ads. Peacocks’ tails are ads.” Rory Sutherland, vice-chairman of Ogilvy & Mather, and the ad industry’s most vigorous defender is in full flow over lunch at his agency’s offices in Blackfriars. “One reason I’m not predicting the death of advertising any time soon is that you can see how important it is in nature. A flower is basically a weed with an advertising budget.” Sutherland believes that something in the mindset of technologists makes it hard for them to see or admit the value of advertising. Peter Thiel, one of Silicon Valley’s more unconventional thinkers, once observed that “nerds are sceptical of advertising, marketing and sales because they seem superficial and irrational. But advertising matters because it works. It works on nerds, and it works on you.” Engineers tend to conceive of advertising – insofar as they think about it at all – as a mere conduit for information about the product, which in their mind should speak for itself, without the superfluous operating system of a brand. Rory Sutherland argues that efficiency is overrated, and that excess and superfluity are weapons that marketers surrender at their peril. “Knowing that the seller has faith in their product is a hugely valuable piece of information,” he says. “In luxury goods, for instance, the ad says almost nothing; the cost of the ad almost everything.” Biologists regard the peacock’s tail as an expensive and so unfakeable signal of fitness – a sexual status symbol. Similarly, an ad can emit a powerful signal about a brand, regardless of information content. Online ads are cheap and easy to make, but the problem is, they look at it. “You don’t invite people to your wedding by email,” says Sutherland. Sutherland is somewhat peacockish himself, his generously proportioned figure clothed in tweed and red corduroy, his speech bubbling with jokes, analogies, and asides on Austrian economists. What the ad industry brings to the corporate world, he says, is something it cannot afford to do without, even if it doesn’t know it: absurdity. Successful marketing must not be too rational because, as in military strategy, it depends on surprise. “In battle, if you’re always efficient, you’re predictable. In marketing, you have to do something slightly absurd in order to be distinctive – in order to avoid making the competition a kind of race to the bottom.” It isn’t enough for a signal to be costly or surprising, of course; it has to resonate with an audience. An axiom of the data-driven ad business is that an ad should be as tightly targeted as possible. Why waste money reaching millions of people when most of them are not in the market for your product? P&G’s top marketer, Marc Pritchard, a critic of Facebook, is nevertheless a devout believer in what he calls “one-to-one brand building”. But the doctrine of micro-targeting has a major lacuna. It is only by being visible to everyone at once that advertising can perform its most valuable role: shaping the cultural meaning of a brand. Before Christie’s sold Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi in 2017, it staged high-profile public exhibitions of the painting around the world and made an expensively produced video to showcase it – in effect, an ad. On the face of it, all this activity was a flagrant waste of money: almost nobody who consumes the marketing for a da Vinci is in the market for it. Christie’s salespeople knew all the potential buyers personally. They can, and did, visit them in the privacy of their penthouses. Yet Christie’s realised that those buyers would pay an extra few million for the privilege of owning a painting that was “iconic”. This isn’t some quirk of billionaire art collectors; it’s human nature. We value things more highly when we know that others value them. In his 2001 book Rational Ritual, the academic Michael Suk-Young Chwe argued that advertising solves what economists call a “coordination problem”. It helps us to see the world as others see it, and adapt our behaviour accordingly. If I know that a particular beer brand is associated with “quality” in the eyes of most people in the bar, then I will find it easier to drink it in public, regardless of my own personal preference, presuming I even have one. That wouldn’t be the case if I didn’t know that those people have seen the same ads as me. Being able to solve a problem like that is highly valuable for a brand, which is one reason why the cost of Super Bowl TV advertising has risen so steeply in the era of the internet: a 30-second commercial in 2018 cost about $5m, up from $1m in 1995. Messages can be microtargeted, but the meaning has to be mass-produced. Trust, too. The very act of advertising in public tends to make a brand more trusted since people can see it has a social reputation to maintain. When ads are invisible to people outside their target audience, it is easier to send messages that would fare badly in the light of public scrutiny – for political actors, Facebook is a dog-whistler's paradise. Researchers have consistently found that ads in broadcast media are taken more seriously than online ads: one reason for this is that people can see that other people can see them too. Even Mark Zuckerberg understands this at some level. Seeking to restore trust in Facebook in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, he ran full-page ads in newspapers. The need to have a meaningful brand forces a company to reflect on how it wishes to be perceived by society at large. Once that imperative disappears, all that is left is the battle for attention.  All gravy: Lynda Bellingham’s Oxo family were on our screens throughout the 1980s and 1990s It’s weird,” says Tom Goodwin, a prominent advertising executive and author of a new book, Digital Darwinism. “Adverts have never felt less significant, ad agencies have never seemed less important, but the advertising business has never dominated more aspects of modern life. Mostly in a bad way.” In a recent article for the New York Times, the sociologist Zeynep Tufekci recounted how, during the 2016 presidential campaign, she watched videos of Donald Trump’s rallies online, and noticed that YouTube started recommending and “auto-playing” videos of white supremacist rants and Holocaust denials. Curious, she set up another YouTube account and watched a lot of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders rallies. She was soon being directed to conspiracy theories about 9/11 and secret government agencies. Tufekci found the same pattern on non-political topics: videos about vegetarianism led to videos about veganism; videos about jogging led to videos about ultra-marathons. The stakes were always being upped. YouTube, she concluded, was a “radicalising instrument”. That isn’t, she says because YouTube’s engineers are zealots. It’s because Google (YouTube’s owner) is selling attention to advertisers, and its algorithms have learnt that the best way to keep people hooked is to push ever more extreme material on them. Attention was always important to the ad industry, but so were entertainment and storytelling, since what makes a person laugh, think or cry is more likely to be remembered. Historically, ads in broadcast media needed to be memorable, because they were not going to be seen very often, and would be absent at the point of purchase. It was important, therefore, to “build a brand” – a set of visual and emotional associations easily recalled to mind when deciding between options. At the supermarket, a shopper was more likely to reach for Oxo than other stock cubes, because its long-running TV campaign, featuring Lynda Bellingham, was funny and acute enough to have forged a link in the public imagination between Oxo and the consoling rituals of a British family meal. Oxo was instant gravy wrapped in cultural code, or perhaps cultural code disguised as instant gravy. Now that people carry media around with them everywhere, advertisers have less incentive to create memorable brands. Instead, they concentrate on forcing our attention towards the message or offer of the moment. The ad business doesn’t care about the future of its audience, only its present. That has had far-reaching consequences. In 2016, Facebook in effect charged the Trump campaign lower rates than the Clinton campaign, because Trump’s ads made people angrier and thus generated more clicks. Nobody took a decision to charge Trump less. It was the logical outcome of the ad business’s core principle: the more attention you win, the more you get paid. Since negative emotions are more likely to win and hold attention than positive emotions, the system has an incentive to spread fear and loathing. Russia’s entire propaganda campaign relies on an advertising model that rewards paranoia and spite. Meanwhile, we stoop over our phones when we should be doing almost anything else. A senior analyst at the Bank of England recently published an article making a case that one of the causes of Britain’s poor productivity is the spread of smartphones. A comprehensive US study, sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, identified a strong association between social media use and depression. It’s not just Facebook: every app on your phone is engineered to hook and hold your attention, at the expense of your work, sleep, family and mental health. Every app with ads, that is. Scott Galloway is only the most eloquent exponent of the view that brand-led advertising is a vestige of a less rational world, to be superseded by a more scientific system (at the now legendary congress of Online Marketing Rockstars, Alexander Nix, then chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, gave a presentation entitled “From Mad Men to Math Men”). But if there is a bug in the software, it is the human mind. The way we choose what to buy, like the way we choose how to vote, will never be logical. Trying to make it so has created an environment in which our basest impulses are relentlessly stimulated and amplified. The philosopher Gilles Deleuze once remarked, “It is not the slumber of a reason that engenders monsters, but vigilant and insomniac rationality.” If ever there was a creation of insomniac rationality it is the 21st-century advertising business. Its monsters roam the planet. <div> </div> <div> <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/internet/2018/07/death-don-draper" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The death of Don Draper</a> as appeared first on <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.newstatesman.com</a></div>