All this helps Google understand our expertise, which builds trust and increases our chances of being referenced in AI Overviews. For example, when I talk about case studies within the content, I always link to the case studies section of the site. This adds credibility to your own content and increases the chance of being featured in an AI Overview. Almost all of your pages should have at least 1-2 outbound links as citations. Think of a citation as borrowing someone else’s expertise to add more credibility to your own content. Citations are an easy way to demonstrate expertise and trustworthiness in your content.
As you navigate the world of SEO, remember that tracking your progress is key to achieving your goals. With the right tools at your disposal, you’ll be better equipped to enhance your site’s performance and reach your target audience. Listings with images and videos receive more clicks, calls, and direction requests, making it a crucial factor for Google Maps visibility. To avoid this, make sure your NAP matches exactly across your Google Business Profile, website, social media, and all online directories. If your business has ever changed locations, phone numbers, or branding, check for outdated listings and update or remove any incorrect information.
Tracking and Indexing Best Shopify SEO Apps and Third-Party Tools
With this knowledge, you can prioritize which keywords to target based on their potential impact on your website traffic. Claiming your GBP makes your business look more credible and professional, ensuring that customers see accurate, up-to-date information. It also gives you full control to respond to reviews, post updates, and optimize your listing — key factors in improving your Google Maps ranking. Before you can start optimizing for Google Maps, you need to create or claim your GBP. Without it, your business has no control over how it appears in local search results, and potential customers may see outdated or incorrect information.
This helps people in your area find you when they search for what you offer. By making your site easy and fun to use, you’ll make both Google and your visitors happy. Their purpose is to aid both humans and search engines in comprehending a page’s primary subject matter. Headers (H1, H2, H3, etc.) help readers and search engines understand your content’s structure.
Before we jump into the nitty-gritty of ranking, let’s ensure you’re set up for success. You can either start with a blank sheet or open an existing one with data you’d like to rank. If you’re new to Sheets, don’t worry—it’s user-friendly, and with a few clicks, you’ll get the hang of it. However, despite the fact that long-form content tends to be best for link building, we found no direct relationship between word count and rankings. Since the early days of search engines, the title tag has been considered the most important on-page SEO element. This page has many of the traditional metrics that typically correlate with high Google rankings.
- For brick-and-mortar businesses or local SEO campaigns, rankings can differ significantly within a small area.
- If you’re new to Sheets, don’t worry—it’s user-friendly, and with a few clicks, you’ll get the hang of it.
- Remember, it’s not just about the quantity of backlinks but also the quality.
- This can help you better understand what’s working and what’s not, so that you can optimize and fix any potential issues that are hurting your campaigns.
As we established, there are over 210 known factors that influence your rankings. Therefore, appearing higher in the search result pages for a given search query directly means you’re the most relevant and authoritative result for it according to Google. After all, Google wants to rank content that provides the best user experience (UX). Sign up to receive more well-researched small business articles and topics in your inbox, personalized for you. Not only can you research competitors’ websites on Semrush, but you can research their Google Ads history too.
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Sitting on top of the Google SERP ensures that you’ll get clicks—lots of clicks. More than that, it’s an instant credibility boost in most people’s eyes. Quality is far more valuable than quantity when it comes to your website. If you have a large number of pages that aren’t delivering value to your audience, they could be harming your rankings.
Sure, you can still use synonyms, but you’ll need to use LSI keywords too. The reason for this is that search engines evolved over time. Nowadays, you no longer need to be guilty of keyword density just so that Google will grasp what your page is all about. If for some SEO Anomaly strange reason you don’t have HTTPS yet, make it a priority to get an SSL certificate in 2024 to authenticate the identity of your website. After all, it shouldn’t be just about appeasing the search engines, but also about keeping your users safe. The fact that Google will reward you for this extra measure is merely a nice gesture.
Luckily, there is a way to create ranked choice voting in Google Forms. With the search engines’ recent shift to mobile-first indexing, this has never been more important. To help bolster your SEO efforts, here’s a collection of free and paid keyword research tools, backlink analysis software, and more.