Google loves a website with built-in and well thought out SEO (search engine optimization). There are many other ways to improve your site’s optimization that SEO Experts will try to sell you – digital advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) ads … these have merit, but can’t compare to an already optimized from head-to-toe website.  SEO is important for businesses because it helps you attain visibility for search queries organically. This helps you earn rankings organically without paying for it time and time again. Ranking well in search results for queries related to your content, products, or services can increase your website traffic. This can translate into revenue if you convert prospects into customers. If you want to know how to make Google love you, keep reading.

Generally speaking, the more relevant your site content is to users searching for certain keywords, the higher within the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) you will appear.  On-site SEO is the process of optimizing the website itself. Google looks at both the public face of your website and the behind the scenes coding and technical set-up, so if you’re thinking either are unimportant to your overall SEO, you’d be wrong. Creative Juices Marketing does NOT specialize in SEO, but we hold current SEO expert certifications and we stay current in all of the new SEO trends.  We believe that the best way to set your business up for online success is to build your website with all of the right stuff from the very beginning and then analyze, update, and manage for any needed changes going forward.  Google changes, industries change, online searching changes … it’s best to have an expert keep a watchful eye to make sure you’re keeping up.  A maintenance fee of about $100 a month to take care of this and other programming updates is well worth it, in our estimation.  

What is Google Ranking?

Google’s ranking metrics are designed to sort out billions of web pages to meet search intent by offering the most relevant and useful results to searchers within the shortest time possible. Domains acquire ranking through Google’s algorithmic process that considers different factors to evaluate the quality, relevancy, and utility of an answer to a search query.

Here are some of the top factors in Google Ranking. There are 200+ other factors that Google takes into account, but these are the ones that you should focus on first if you’re interested in knowing how to make Google love you:

• Quality Content: Google wants to show users high-quality, informative, and relevant content.
• Backlinks: Links from other websites to your website are very helpful. They act like votes of confidence. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the higher your website will rank.
• Technical SEO: The technical aspects of your website, such as its website speed, mobile-friendliness, and crawlability. Make sure that your website is technically sound so that search engines can easily index and understand your content.
• Keyword Optimization: The process of using relevant keywords throughout your website’s content. This helps search engines understand what your website is about.
• User Experience (UX): A measure of how easy and enjoyable it is for users to use your website. Google wants to show users websites that provide a good UX.  If you have too many flying photos or shifting content, Google won’t like it.
• Social Signals: The more likes, shares, and other social interactions that your website’s content receives, the better. Make sure your website is built to encourage social interaction and that it’s easy to share it’s content.
• Brand Signals: Your website is the best representation of your brand.  It allows you to build brand perception.  Make sure that your site makes a solid brand impression so you are well-known and respected.

What Is SEO?

SEO is the process of improving a website’s ranking on the natural (unpaid) listings in Google. There are a number of factors Google considers when deciding where to rank a site, both on your website and externally. Hundreds of factors determine your position.

Google looks for relevant and helpful content within the body text of a page along with your page titles, header tags and a number of other factors.  One of the major factors Google uses to rank websites is their popularity, or more specifically the number of external links pointing at them. The more links you have from relevant and authoritative websites, the higher you’ll rank.

Google doesn’t like people gaming the system and building links.  They expect you to create content that people will naturally want to share and link to.  It is smart to utilize a range of social media and content marketing techniques to help earn the links you require to climb above your competitors.  Also, utilizing your website URL in every online listing of your business, every social media account and any other websites you might be connected to is extremely important.

Google provides a number of tools for your SEO arsenal. The most obvious is Google Analytics, which offers an in-depth analytics suite to help even the most basic user understand and improve traffic to their website. But Google Search Console gives the advanced search expert another perspective on planning and evaluating his or her search efforts and will help improve your website’s ranking In Google.

See also Importance Of Mobile Optimized Websites

Google Search Console: The Background

Google Search Console is essential for improving your Google ranking and for any strong SEO effort. It will help you see your website as Google sees it. The toolset gives you insights into what pages have been indexed on your site, what links are pointing to it, your most popular keywords, and much more. Having someone who knows how to use the search console and analyze your content is important.

A site that’s active on the Google Search Console has a better shot at being fully indexed and ranked well. There are also a number of deeper insights that can be turned into SEO tactical gold.

The Search Queries section is broken down into five main indicators:

• Query: Query gives you details on what keywords your site is currently ranked for. This is one of the fastest ways to decode whether your efforts to get on the map for a specific keyword are working. It’s important to remember that “rank for” means showing up in the SERPs – not necessarily actively attracting traffic (yet). This feature can help you quickly identify keywords that are relevant, but need a boost from linking or further content optimization.
• Impressions: If you’ve ever wondered how many people are seeing your website for a specific keyword search, this will tell you. This metric gives you a good sense of how many people are seeing specific sections of your content. This is another way to confirm the value of a keyword in addition to traffic data from the Google Keywords module and other tools.
• Clicks: Of the people who are seeing your site, how many are clicking? This information lets you know how many searchers seeing your site are taking action and clicking on your search result.
• CTR: Your CTR, or click-through rate, is the percentage of people that are clicking on your site in the search results. If your click-through rates are low, look at whether you can improve your meta description for that page. Can the content be made more relevant to the queries driving the most impressions for that page, or can you add a stronger call to action in the title tag or meta description? You should also consider the broader search landscape: is PPC activity driving traffic away from your branded results in the search, for example?
• Average Position: This metric tells you where your site typically ranks for each keyword. Since the vast majority of traffic goes to the sites in the top 2 positions for a given term, it’s helpful to see how you’re performing and the impact that has on your traffic.

See also Website Content Readability

Local SEO

Local SEO is about optimizing your website and related properties to increase local visibility and traffic. While it doesn’t apply to all businesses, it’s extremely important for those that have a local focus or a physical location.

Local SEO includes several factors, including optimizing your Google Business Profile, adding local business schema, researching and targeting local keywords, NAP (name, address, and phone number) citations, and more. The importance of search engine optimization for local businesses is unique. Your directory listings are important to your ability to be discovered, but monitoring them and making sure they’re accurate and effective also helps drive motivated customers to your business.

Focusing on organic search gives you the potential to attract even more traffic over time if you’re able to increase your rankings. Because  a clear correlation between high rankings and high click-through rates.

Organic SEO is obviously a more cost-effective way to drive traffic to your website compared to paid digital advertising, but it also works really well when combined with digital advertising.  With SEO, you have to spend on your website and on content production. But you don’t have to buy an ad placement.

Companies that invest in SEO tend to maintain or grow their results over time, even with reduced effort. But paid channels require continued ad spend to remain competitive.  So if you want to know how to make Google love you, it starts with a great website built with great organic SEO from the ground up.  Creative Juices Marketing and Advertising Agency is highly experienced in building search engine optimized websites that Google will really appreciate.  Call us to learn more 434 964 7511.

See also Why You Need A Responsive Website

The post How To Make Google Love You appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

See also Website Content Readability

Visual Appeal

When people visit your site, they will see it as a reflection of your organization. If your site looks professional and is loaded with useful information, visitors will see you as an authority and expert. Likewise, if the site looks poorly designed and structured and/or out-of-date, they may make the same assumptions about your company. The website should highlight your product and/or service and the layout should look harmonious and consistent. If your website has blogs or articles that are dated, it makes sense to keep up posting and not look like you’ve neglected your site.

In general, as websites mature and grow, it often becomes apparent that certain parts just aren’t working well anymore. Website development is a complex thing. What makes your existing website tick will constantly be tested by new online technology sweeping through. You can’t just “set it and forget it” if you want your website to always look perfect. You may need to consider updating your website to achieve optimal effectiveness.

 Responsive & Mobile Friendly

If you don’t know this by now, the USA is a SMARTPHONE SOCIETY. We’re all spending on average 7 hours online on our smartphones every day. If you factor that the constant indexing updates that Google throws at us, ignoring the mobile market is a very risky business. The common practice to make a website mobile-friendly (responsive design).

Responsive Web Design is a collection of techniques that allow a website to flex and adapt to the size of the screen it’s being viewed on. Someone opening your site on a small smartphone could be shown on the same site as the person opening it on their laptop etc. For many businesses, it may even make sense to design your website “mobile-first”. If you haven’t updated your website in a while, chances are you may be driving mobile users and potential customers away.

Find information on our responsive on mobile website design.

Technique & Coding

Is your website browser compatible? Is your source code valid (HTML and CSS)? Does your website meet the basic web standards? Is the technique and/or (version) PHP programming language outdated? Do you have any idea about any of this? :) Every year web standards change radically and techniques to build websites become more advanced to comply with these latest standards. If your site was developed several years ago, it could have a lot of unnecessary HTML code, outdated SEO, non-optimized images and more. This all may be slowing down your website loads speeds – which may, in turn, impact your ranking in the Google search results. TEST YOUR SITE FOR YOURSELF – go to GTMetrix.com and put your businesses domain into it. Here’s how we graded:

We have no secrets here. GTMetrix is an actual Google tool that anyone “in the know” can use to see where their site’s weaknesses or strengths are. Performance, structure, layout, SEO, SO MANY THINGS make up your site and you want them to all be working at their optimum. Although you may be able to check your website’s grade yourself, what you do ABOUT issues may certainly concern you. That is why you should consider speaking with a website developer about your options. If website design isn’t what you do, it’s just not smart to rely on yourself to do it properly.

Content

Your website’s first impression really depends on the overall layout of it, but ultimately, the visitor is there because they are looking for useful information. A full site redesign could allow you to re-address how you communicate with all of your visitors and to write easy-to-understand copy that is specifically on target and more effective – remember, in the modern “go faster and faster” world you only have 2 to 4 seconds to engage new visitors.

The content of a website should be considered to be the most important thing, as it helps in determining how effective a website is. Fresh and unique website content is a very important factor in encouraging people to revisit your site more often.

If your website needs updating for optimal effectiveness OR if your business needs a new website developed, consider collaborating with Creative Juices Marketing Agency. We’ll use our creativity and ever-expanding experience to make sure your business is in the right position to compel your customer base, improve and build on your brand, and ultimately increase your revenue.  Contact Denise Hood at 434 964 7511.

The post Updating Your Website For Optimal Effectiveness appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

A Great User Experience

Unintelligible copy on your website makes for a bad user experience. If you want people to understand your business, clearly state it. What services do you offer? What is your mission? Your website could have all of the latest technology and responsiveness for ease of navigation. The WORDS must be understandable and helpful.  Nobody likes to read something that’s difficult to follow, boring and/or overflowing with keywords. All of your online copy should be aimed and focused on your audience. It should be providing them with the information they need, a solution to their problem, or an answer to their question.  If you can do that, your audience will have a great user experience. Google will love you too.  Wasting time trying to trick the Google algorithm into high ranking your website isn’t necessary. Just give your audience what they’re looking for! 

Bottom line – Don’t repeat keywords because you think that’s what will draw people to you. Give helpful, intelligently-written content that lets visitors know they’ve come to the EXACT right place.

Get Your Site To Rank Higher Organically

You may think your content should be angled at “the bots”. Search engine bots are looking for cues to your site’s content on behalf of the search engine. It is MORE important that you provide great copy for your site’s visitors. THEY are the ones who USE the Search Engine’s to find you in the first place.  The user-experience on your website has a direct effect on your site’s organic SEO.  Google analyzes user signals (behavioral patterns) to determine how visitors relate to your site. For instance: if a user puts website design into Google’s search tool, Google gives them results that fit with that search.  If the user gets there and doesn’t find what they are searching for, they will bounce back to Google. This is a signal that the website does not fit the search query. It’s a sign to Google that the website they served up for that search is WRONG for it. Google uses this type of information to determine whether your site should come up for that specific search query. The content on your site needs to immediately show that it relates.

Bottom line – Thoughtfully written copy and strategically placed images should directly relate to the keywords that your audience will use to search for you.

Getting Higher Rankings On Google

There used to be a time when jamming keywords into your copy would improve your website’s rankings. Those times are long gone. Nowadays, you really need to consciously spread around your keywords in ways that read well.  Google has gotten really good at recognizing quality content.  It now recognizes synonyms, understands which words, entities, and content are related to each other.  In addition, search engines are becoming better at predicting what people want to read.  Whether you like it or not, those cookies (and we don’t mean chocolate chip) you pick up when you visit websites are being served up to search engines so they know more and more about what you’re looking for.  Search engines use that information to predict where users want to go. There is no guarantee for higher rankings. No SEO expert can promise that you’ll be at the top of the list. Getting higher rankings on Google is possible if the person writing your content really knows what they are doing.

Bottom line – keywords are very important, but use them carefully and be sure they flow with the surrounding content.

Google’s Algorithm

Overall, Google’s algorithm is trying to mimic a human. It tries to read text like a human would. As Google becomes more capable of understanding and scanning texts in a human-like way, readability will become even more important for your rankings. So, long story short, the trick to getting higher rankings on Google is writing easy-to-read content that is focused on your businesses purpose AND using keywords naturally and reasonably throughout your content.

Bottom line – Keep your copy smooth, concise, and interesting.  Is that too much to ask?  If you’re thinking so, GET HELP FROM AN EXPERT.

Accessibility Is Important

Keep in mind that not everyone who visits your website will experience it in the same way. Some people will visit on their phones while waiting for an appointment.  Reading lengthy text on a small device isn’t fun, even if the site is mobile responsive (which it SHOULD be). Much like Google itself, mobile users rely on the proper use of headings to understand what your text is about. Accessibility is important not only for mobile users, but any visitors to your website.

Bottom line – Well-written headers will lead your visitors right where they want to go and not scare off any mobile users.

Well-written headers will lead them right where they want to go.

See also The Importance of Mobile Optimized Websites

Readability For The Average Person

One of the most important things to remember with website content readability is making sure that the average person understands what you’re talking about. If I’m writing a blog about content writing (and I am), I won’t start throwing out a stream of tech terms and internet jargon that you folks may not have ever been exposed to. If I do use a tech term like Google’s algorithm, I’m going to hot-link it to an explanation of what it is. ;) In addition to that, the typical person visiting a website will scan through its text. They’ll read subheadings and the first sentences of the paragraphs they deem relevant. It’s very important that you get to the point and get there FAST. Again, remember –  All the things people do while reading your text are things Google will also do. That means that the structure of your text and the way you write your paragraphs becomes increasingly important. Core sentences – the first sentence of every paragraph – will need to contain the most important message. Making text easy to read and having a clear and logical structure in your text will be invaluable.

Bottom line – If your site considers the readability for the average person, it will be beneficial to the overall user experience AND the site’s search engine likeability.

Let’s Be Clear

Let’s be clear: your rankings won’t immediately soar when you improve the readability of your content. Improving your website content readability is an essential part of every SEO strategy. Strategically written content will result in more returning visitors and a higher conversion rate.

If your business needs help with your website content readability, consider hiring a professional marketing and advertising professional like Creative Juices Marketing Agency. We’ll use our creativity and experience to make sure your business is in the right position to compel your customer base, improve and build on your brand, and ultimately increase your revenue.  Contact Denise Hood at 434 964 7511 or send us this CONTACT FORM.

The post Website Content Readability appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

See also Website Content Readability

Glassmorphism – bringing a sense of depth to your website

Website designers have come up with some pretty clever tricks to give their work a sense of physicality. It’s very important that visitors feel interested, intrigued and comfortable on a website. Adding dimensionality to the design, for instance, if we combined a blur effect with transparency, pixels take on the slightly opaque quality of frosted glass. Extravagant gradients, heavy drop shadows, and excessive reflections are dominated websites. Textures meant to look like plastic, metal, and even wood grain are very popular. As exciting trends in website design go, this one is a cool one! Below is an example of glassmorphism.

App-Like Design Experiences – small, clean and user experience focused

Looking forward, it seems that smaller, experience-focused sites are the future of web design. Getting directly to the point of what you WANT from the user right away in a clean, simple way. The world has gotten used to apps, where interaction, animation, and dynamic experiences are the norm. The logical next step is bringing that energy to websites and creating more unique experiences there.

Some imagine we’re headed back to times where sites were self-contained, esoteric, and curious. But new tools for site building make dynamic, interaction-focused designs significantly easier to build.

One Page Websites – keep it simple, stupid :)

Sometimes the most effective sites are the least complex ones. We have seen the increasing popularity of the one-page website that forgoes menus and navigation in favor of simple scroll navigation. One-page sites work best when the business’s subject matter is narrower without so many complex offerings.

Basically, good one page websites offer the visitor ALL of the information they need right in front of them. This delivers a better user experience because they’ll get a complete overview of what your business has to offer them without having to click away. That’s not to say you can’t have additional pages that offer more in depth information, but essentially, you’re giving the user a way to ‘skim’ your offerings all on one page. On the list of exciting trends in website design, this one is a little tame, but it also perfectly suits the way most people are absorbing information these days.

See also 5 Reasons Creativity Is A Must

Oversized Typography – bold design trends

Typography of unusually large size is a fresh, bold website design trend for this year. At a certain size, words become more of a graphic element than simply part of the copy. This is a versatile technique that can be used in minimalist or maximalist designs alike.

Motion Design – subtle, playful movement

Now that we’re talking about interactivity, it’s time to talk about responsible motion design, which we see starting to become a standard practice. While movement is an intriguing facet of web design, it’s easy to not go overboard, so motion should be used in subtle ways and responsibly. Take a look at the Lady Street Builders website that we designed. Scroll down to the READY TO COLLABORATE section and you’ll see how we added a subtle movement to the background photo. This draws the user’s eye to this very important section and also makes you feel that you’re touring the inside of a home as well.

Page Speed Prioritization – reacting to Google’s 2021 algorithm update

On the technical side of exciting trends in website design, page speed has become even more of front-of-mind consideration for web developers this year. Google’s 2021 algorithm update makes speed a more important consideration for SEO. This also reflects a users’ higher expectations for site speed performance since research shows that 53% of users will abandon a page that takes more than 3 seconds to load. To improve the user experience, website speed is essential. Google PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse are tools that can be used to assess your page speed optimization if you’d like to check your website’s speed. Good website developers use optimized images, specific fonts, and keep the access to a minimum. The best way to prioritize speed is to do it from the very beginning.

If your business needs a new website developed and employ these exciting new trends in website design, Creative Juices Marketing Agency is here to help! We’ll use our creativity and ever-expanding experience to make sure your business is in the right position to compel your customer base, improve and build on your brand, and ultimately increase your revenue.  Contact Denise Hood at 434 964 7511 or send us this CONTACT FORM.

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Social Commerce

Social commerce (the use of social network in the context of e-commerce- ie selling products online) is nothing new, but it is probably going to dominate social media in 2022. Consumers want to have experiences in the places where they are already spending time. We will see more brands testing shoppable functionality on all social media platforms. From shop buttons to livestreams to ads to influencers, the ‘social sale’ will be at the forefront of smart social strategies for product-selling businesses.

Customer Service

Businesses will find that getting back to the basics of relationship building and customer service on their social media platforms would be VERY beneficial. Communicating and connecting on social media was always what it was there for, but from a business’s standpoint, it hasn’t really been a thing in the past. Business accounts were communicating the SELL SELL SELL ideas to drive revenue – which is their main goal. More recent social media trends show businesses that leverage a more personal communication with their audience are also building trust and loyalty within that group. I realize that organic engagement is tough, but people just don’t want to be treated like they aren’t important or focused on. Working the customer service angle on social media will be a very important trend for businesses in the future.

Recruiting

As Gen-X and Z-ers search for workforce opportunities, social media strategies must shift to meet them on their preferred platforms. Facebook’s popularity (57%) among Gen X-ers barely trails behind YouTube (60%); while Instagram (37%), TikTok (20%), and Snapchat (20%) follow at a distance.  Among Gen Z adults, however, falls behind YouTube (69%) and Instagram (67%). Using next-gen social platforms such as TikTok for employer branding and recruiting will be critical for both B2C and B2B in 2022. While TikTok videos aren’t heavily branded, they provide a great opportunity to humanize your brand and give talent a behind-the-scenes view of life at your company.

Showcasing Your Human Side

We talked a little about this earlier, but something that should never go out of style is a business being HUMAN on social media. Consumers are sizing up more than products and services in their social feeds. They are looking at how aligned a brand is to its purpose, mission and social issues. Marketers should lean into this and use social media to showcase their brand’s personality and perspective. Showcasing your human side will also make your audience feel they know you better and to KNOW you is to TRUST you. It’s a win win!

Dominating Video Content

Video content remains one of the most engaging forms of content on Social Media. According to a Cisco study, by 2022, 82% of all online content will be video content. This clearly shows how important it is to start utilizing dominating video content to stay relevant in the social media domain.

If your business is interested in leveraging the latest social media trends but doesn’t quite know where to start, Creative Juices Marketing Agency is here to help! We’ll use our creativity and ever-expanding experience to make sure your business is in the right position to compel your customer base, improve and build on your brand, and ultimately increase your revenue.  Contact Denise Hood at 434 964 7511 or send us this CONTACT FORM.

The post Leveraging Social Media Trends appeared first on Creative Juices Marketing Agency.

SEO is the process of improving a websites ranking on the natural (unpaid) listings on Google. There are a number of factors Google considers when deciding where to rank a site both on your website and externally, there are hundreds of factors that determine your position and even more important terms and phrases you won’t know the meaning of that you’ll hear along the way.

Google looks for relevant and helpful content within the body text of a page along with your page titles, header tags and a number of other factors.  One of the major factors Google uses to rank websites is their popularity, or more specifically the number of external links pointing at them. The more links you have from relevant and authoritative websites, the higher you’ll rank.

Google doesn’t like people gaming the system and building links though, they expect you to learn them by creating content that people will naturally want to share and link to.  It is smart to utilize a range of social media and content marketing techniques to help earn the links you require to climb above your competitors.  Also, utililzing your website URL in every online listing of your business, every social media account and any other websites you might be connected to.

Google provides a number of tools for your SEO arsenal. The most obvious is Google Analytics, which offers an in-depth analytics suite to help even the most basic user understand and improve traffic to their website. But Google Webmaster Tools gives the advanced search expert another perspective on planning and evaluating his or her search efforts and will help improve your website’s ranking In Google.

Read the information below for a closer look at how to use Google Webmaster Tools to get the most out of your SEO campaign.

Google Webmaster Tools: The Background

Google’s Webmaster Tools are essential for improving your Google ranking and for any strong SEO effort. To understand their full potential, it’s helpful to think about what Google Webmaster Tools’ role is for webmasters: it helps you see your website as Google sees it. The toolset gives you insights into what pages have been indexed on your site, what links are pointing to it, your most popular keywords, and much more.

A site that’s active in Webmaster Tools has a better shot at being fully indexed and ranking well. There are also a number of deeper insights from Google Webmaster Tools can be turned into SEO tactical gold. If you haven’t set your site up on Google Webmaster Tools yet, getting started is simple. Once you’ve signed up for an account, login to the Google Webmaster Tools dashboard. From there, you’re able to add your site.

You’ll have to first verify that you own the domain. Depending on your host, Google may provide verification through an easy pop-up process that allows you to login and verify in just a couple steps. Other options include entering a Google-provided meta tag to your homepage, uploading an HTML file to your site’s root folder, or confirming ownership via Google Analytics if it’s already installed on your site. After you’ve verified your website, it’ll usually start populating data within 24 – 48 hours.

Google Webmaster Tools Features You Should Be Using

Once your site is set up, it’s time to log in and get to know the interface. If you need an introductory tutorial.  At its core, Google Webmaster Tools is all about metrics: what’s getting indexed, what’s getting linked, and what’s getting traffic.

Breaking down that data in different ways and looking at it with an eye toward learning specific things will help you make the most of the information. From this data, you can quickly formulate a plan around what next steps you need to take.

Why not just consult Google Analytics? Actually, Google Webmaster Tools gives a completely different (and possibly more holistic) view. It doesn’t just show you the breakdown of the traffic that made it to your site; it shows your traffic potential via impressions and site ranking across Google search results as well.

The Search Queries section is broken down into five main indicators:

• Query: Query gives you details on what keywords your site is currently ranked for. This is one of the fastest ways to decode whether your efforts to get on the map for a specific keyword are working. It’s important to remember that “rank for” means showing up in the SERPs – not necessarily actively attracting traffic (yet). This feature can help you quickly identify keywords that are relevant, but need a boost from linking or further content optimization.
• Impressions: If you’ve ever wondered how many people are seeing your website for a specific keyword search, this will tell you. This metric gives you a good sense of how many people are seeing specific sections of your content. This is another way to confirm the value of a keyword in addition to traffic data from the Google Keywords module and other tools.
• Clicks: Of the people who are seeing your site, how many are clicking? This information lets you know how many searchers seeing your site are taking action and clicking on your search result.
• CTR: Your CTR, or click-through rate, is the percentage of people that are clicking on your site in the search results. If your click-through rates are low, look at whether you can improve your meta description for that page. Can the content be made more relevant to the queries driving the most impressions for that page, or can you add a stronger call to action in the title tag or meta description? You should also consider the broader search landscape: is PPC activity driving traffic away from your branded results in the search, for example?
• Average Position: This metric tells you where your site typically ranks for each keyword. Since the vast majority of traffic goes to the sites in the top 2 positions for a given term, it’s helpful to see how you’re performing and the impact that has on your traffic.

Viewing Data With Change to See Trends Over Time

If you’ve recently launched a new SEO strategy and want to see how effective it is, one of the best ways to do that is to use the “With Change” feature. While you’re in the Search Queries section, activate the “With Change” button. This shifts the perspective and shows your current statistics as well as looking at your change in performance over time.

This data can be useful in a number of ways. Have you recently changed your site copy? If so, this can help to gauge the effectiveness of your updates. It’s also useful in the context of Google updates to see how your average rankings and conversions have been affected. Tracking this information over time is the best way to consistently adapt your SEO strategy to the broader SEO landscape.

Drilling Into Individual Keywords

To understand how you’re performing for an individual keyword, click on that term while you’re in the search query section. Diving into the data for individual keywords gives you insights on which pages are ranking for those words. Not only will this help you better understand your overall SEO successes, it specifically informs different elements of your content strategy.

It lets you know if content you’re developing is effectively targeting your selected terms. It also helps you identify connections you might not have perceived previously between existing content and target queries. Individual keywords with potential can also be given more focus when you’re developing new content such as blog posts, videos, and more.

Finding Optimization Opportunities with Top Pages

Within the “Search Queries” area, you’ll have the opportunity to see the “top pages.” This metric tells you which content on your site gets the most impressions and clicks. You can identify low-hanging fruit opportunities that are easy to capitalize on.

For example, if you have content that gets a great CTR but is ranking on Page 2 of the SERPs, you could build some links to that page in order to bump it to the first page. If you’ve been working hard to optimize content that’s not getting traction, you will often find other pages that are organically capturing visitors and can adjust your strategy. The key here is to understand that sometimes your audience focuses on something unexpected, and by uncovering that information you’re able to deliberately build your strategy to make the most of it.

Refining Your Page-Level Strategy

When you structured your site, you likely chose specific keywords to target with each page or section of content on your site. Google Webmaster Tools allows you to take that process in reverse, and identify what keywords each page of your content ranks for. Likely these will include both your target keywords and some surprises.

Once you’ve mapped out the keywords for each page, add those keywords to a rank tracking tool to find out additional data like traffic and competition. This will help you uncover any unexploited opportunities. Once you get a list of what keywords a particular page ranks for, you should make sure your page actually contains all those keywords. Pay specific attention to high value real estate like your page titles and the first paragraph of your article.

Using Google Webmaster Tools Labs: Author Stats

Google’s Labs are where they test new features that are still being refined. Some will make it into the standard Google Webmaster Tools feature set, while others will fade away (like Site Performance). One popular option is the Author Stats information.  Author Stats allows you to tie in guest posts on other sites by connecting it to your Google + author account. Google Authorship is a major topic in the SEO world: it’s easily accomplished by “rel=author” tag that’s imbedded as a link in specific articles.

Your picture will appear next to content in the search engines, and it’s much easier for readers to find related material that you’ve written. It will also likely be used by Google in the future in the form of Author Rank. “Author Stats” functionality can be used to identify the search statistics for your guest posts.

Up to now, it’s been hard to know what kind of traffic your posts on various sites get. This data can be a major input into your guest posting strategy. Now it’s possible to look quantitatively at not only which links are valuable, but how each posting is exposing your brand in a meaningful and scaled way.

Summary

When you’re developing an SEO strategy, consulting Google Webmaster Tools can give you a unique perspective. Diving into the data provides new opportunities to understand how your site is performing and help improve your overall campaign performance.

See also Why You Need A Responsive Website

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