Everything You Need to Know About Google Search Essentials (formerly Google Webmaster Guidelines) One of the most important parts of having a website is making sure your audience can find your site (and find what they’re looking for). The good news is that Google Search Essentials, formerly called Google Webmaster Guidelines, simplifies the process of optimizing your site for search performance. After all, getting your target audience to your site and converting them is the whole point of having a website in the first place. In fact, big-picture marketing strategy is one of the most important conversations I have with clients when they come to me for messaging and website copy. Sure, I focus on creating conversion-focused site maps and website copy. Still, it’s also about SEO optimization and having an effective long-term content strategy so that cold traffic can find the site once it goes live. Even though I use best SEO practices on the main pages, optimizing blog content (and future articles) is an ongoing process that requires staying on top of the latest guidelines. That’s why Google Search Essentials is a helpful tool for anyone with a website. So, let’s dive into what they are and how to use them. What are Google Webmaster Guidelines? What’s actually in the guidelines? More key webmaster guidelines of Google Search Central Following best practices What I Learned… What are Google Webmaster Guidelines? Because most people don’t use the term “webmaster” anymore, the name shifted from Google Webmaster...

Duplicate Content Issues on Your Website? Easy Ways to Find and Fix Them It's easy to be fooled into thinking SEO is just about link building or ranking first for specific keywords. While those are important factors, and staying up on best practices is essential, resolving duplicate content issues should be your top priority. Often, the hidden cause of lost rankings and decreasing traffic isn't that someone else does better at link building or keyword optimization. On the contrary, the problem lies in finding and fixing issues on our sites that prevent searchers from finding us. And when it comes to duplicate content, the devil is in the details — finding it and fixing the problem it causes on our sites. Luckily, you have control over your website, so you have the power to fix it. That’s precisely what I’m covering today. What is duplicate content? Duplicate content simply refers to identical chunks of content on different web pages. If it's a sentence or a phrase, it’s not usually an issue. After all, there are only so many ways to say, "Contact us about our services." What's more, if you frequently write about similar topics, you most likely have some common phrases For instance, on my blog, I talk extensively about brand messaging, my framework for copywriting and content creation, and marketing strategy. And if you read several articles from me — whether on my blog or a guest post — you’ll find several places where I may...

Does Google Think Your Website Is Spam? Everyone who uses the internet knows the frustration of web spam, where you find a promising page in search results that is useless. And we all know Google hates spammy websites, probably even more than we do.  But as a site owner, how do you know if your site visitors and Google consider your website spammy? And what should you do to ensure it isn't considered *GULP* web spam? If you have concerns about your website being considered spammy, here is helpful information to know when optimizing your website. As you read through these items, ask yourself, "Do I or has anyone working on my website ever employed these practices? Does this describe my business — even if it wasn't intentional?" In this post, we’ll cover: 8 Qualities of a Search Engine Web Spammer Spam Website Example What then, Does Google Care About? How do you track all this? Let’s say you did get penalized. How would you know? 8 Qualities of a Search Engine Web Spammer Google’s overall goal is to help people find helpful content without any roadblocks, and its strict content and spam policies support that goal.  It’s entirely possible that something you do accidentally, with no malicious intent, flags Google to investigate your site as spam. Because of this, it’s worth familiarizing yourself with what is considered spam to prevent any action by Google that could place your...

Image Alt Text: What It Is, How to Write It, and Why It Matters to SEO Today, nearly 19% of Google's SERPs show images. That means, despite your best SEO efforts, you could still miss out on another organic traffic source: your website's images. How do you get in on this traffic source? Image alt text. In this piece, we’ll cover how to write image alt text so your images rank highly in search engines and drive traffic. Table of Contents What is alt text? Why is image alt text important? How to Add Alt Text to Your Images 3 Image Alt Text Examples Image Alt Text Best Practices How Alt Text Affects SEO Whether or not you perform SEO for your business, optimizing your website's image alt text is your ticket to creating a better user experience for your visitors, no matter how they first found you. Why is image alt text important? Image alt text is important for three reasons: accessibility, user experience, and image traffic. Understanding these reasons will help you write effective alt text for all of your images. Let’s dive in. Accessibility In 1999, W3C published its Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 to explain how to make content more accessible for users with disabilities. One of these guidelines was to “Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual...

Full List of Meta Tags, Why They Matter for SEO & How to Write Them Meta tags can be used to increase the visibility of a website on search engines, so they're undeniably important for SEO. On the other hand, they can negatively affect your website's SEO ranking if written improperly. Let's discover what meta tags are, why they matter for SEO, and how to use them correctly to reap the benefits. What are meta tags? Meta-tags are snippets of HTML code capable of being crawled by search engine robots such as Google. They are influential in determining the visibility of a web page on the SERPs. Meta tags are added to the <head> section of pages and can only be seen in the HTML code: Why do meta tags matter to SEO? Meta tags are one of the main channels that a website has to communicate with search engine robots — those responsible for crawling the content of the pages to be indexed. Meta tags are used to indicate to search engines whether a page should be indexed or not, and adds additional information about its content. This turns meta tags into core aspects of an SEO strategy for two main reasons. With a good writing and configuration of meta tags, we can help robots to have a better understanding of the content of each page of a website, so that we are more likely to rank higher in the SERPs. Additionally, meta tags can offer...

The Top 6 Search Engines, Ranked by Popularity Oftentimes, marketers focus heavily on Google when vying for traffic. It makes sense considering Google is undoubtedly the most popular search engine, with over 80% of the search market share. But that popularity makes it the most challenging search engine on which to rank highly. You might be missing critical opportunities for traffic if you neglect the other search engines. Here, we're going to explore the top six search engines worldwide, so you can discuss some other potential traffic sources in your next SEO meeting. Note: To compile our list, we looked at the worldwide market share of search engines on desktop and mobile from August 2021 to August 2022. 1. Google Image Source With over 80% of the search market share, Google is undoubtedly the most popular search engine. Additionally, Google captures almost 95% of mobile traffic. The large traffic potential makes Google a viable option when aiming to capture organic or paid search — the downside, of course, is almost everyone is competing for the same traffic. Also keep in mind Google's algorithm, like featured snippets, aims to fulfill users' needs directly on Google, so they don't need to click any links. These features , and Google's popularity, might make it hard for you to capture the website traffic you want. 2. Bing Image Source Bing, Google's biggest contender, rakes in 15% of U.S. searches and also powers Yahoo, the U.S.'s...

16 Top Website Mistakes to Avoid in 2021 Since 86% of consumers rely on the internet to find local businesses, having a website is a no-brainer regardless of your business type. Although building a website is great for business, you'll want to avoid making common mistakes that will stop you from getting the most out of your investment. All of these mistakes are easy to identify for free using a handy tool called Website Grader. In this post, I'll show you the most common website mistakes we've seen here at HubSpot and exactly how to fix them if they apply to you. 1. Lengthy Page Title A page title, like the one in the Google search result below, tells visitors what a page is about. Search engines and browsers may cut off your page title if it's too long. From a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) perspective, a concise page title yields the best reader experience. If your page title is too long, it will dilute the importance of each term in the title. This might even prevent you from ranking well on the search engine results page (SERP). It's best practice to keep your page title under 70 characters so that the reader can see the entire title and make a decision to click through to the post. Website Fix #1: Use a Headline Analyzer Tool to Write Concise Headlines Use a tool like Coschedule's Headline Analyzer to draft a concise and keyword-rich description of your...

The Quick & Easy Guide to Fixing 504 Gateway Timeout Errors If you've ever visited a website that served you an error page, you know how frustrating it is. One of the worst things you can do as a brand is not meet your audience's needs and expectations. If your website visitors see an error page when they're looking for help or information, they could get frustrated and lose trust in your brand, permanently damaging your reputation. The 504 Gateway Timeout Error is one type of error that can hurt the user experience in this way. To help you avoid losing brand sentiment and consumer trust, we’ve fleshed out exactly what this error means and what its most common causes and solutions are. Here's how a 504 Gateway Timeout Error might appear in your user's browser: Image Source 504 Errors Wording The screenshot above depicts how a 504 Gateway Timeout Error appears in one server. Below are some other common ways a 504 error might appear, depending on the server, operating system, or browser you're using. In Google Chrome, a 504 error will appear as HTTP ERROR 504. This code will appear below a message that reads something like: “This site can’t be reached. _____ took too long to respond.” Image Source In Windows-based programs, a 504 error will appear as ERROR 504, HTTP_STATUS_GATEWAY_TIMEOUT, or “The request was timed out waiting for a gateway message.” Here's how it may appear when using...

500 Internal Server Errors: What They Are & How to Fix Them Troubleshooting an HTTP 500 internal server error is like solving a mystery. You don't know what exactly happened or why it happened — all you know is that something's wrong and you need to fix it. To guide you through the hassle of troubleshooting the dreaded HTTP 500 internal server error, let's go over what it exactly means and its most common causes and solutions. Here's what your 500 error page might look like in your browser: How to Fix a 500 Internal Server Error Unlike other server-side errors like a 502 code or a 503 code, a 500 internal server error is it doesn't immediately tell you what the problem is, nor does it tell you how to fix it. If the error persists for too long on your site, it could even negatively impact your SEO. So, let's dive into a few potential causes of the error. Then, we'll present some solutions so you can try to fix the issue. Potential Causes of a 500 Internal Server Error A 500 internal server error is, as the name implies, a general problem with the website's server. More than likely, this means there's an issue or temporary glitch with the website's programming. Some potential causes of a 500 internal server error include: Corrupted or broken .htaccess file A permissions error Faulty third-party plugins or themes The PHP memory limit...

The Parts of a URL: A Short & Sweet Guide If your website is like a house, then your website’s URL is like that house’s address. It defines where your website lives online, similar to how your home address determines where you live in a neighborhood, helping your visitors easily find your site. URLs also help Google understand what your website's pages are about. There are technically five elements of a URL, and they’re discreetly important for optimizing your site’s user experience (UX) and SEO. To help you develop a concrete understanding of every part of a URL, let’s explore each of them in detail. Below is an illustration of the different parts of a URL.  Let's break down this URL structure below.  URL Structure Scheme The scheme tells web servers which protocol to use when it accesses a page on your website. Nowadays, HTTPS — which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure — is the most common scheme. It tells your web browser to encrypt any information you enter onto the page, like your passwords or credit card information, so cybercriminals can’t access it. This security protocol protects your website visitors and implementing it will help your site rank better on Google. That's why implementing SSL is a must-do on any technical SEO guide.  Other schemes you might see are mailto://, which can open your computer’s default email service provider to help you draft an email to the email address you entered in the URL, and ftp://, which...