Google made an announcement on August 22, 2023, stating that they were commencing the rollout of their latest core update. This update process wrapped up on September 7, 2023, spanning a total of 16 days to reach completion. 

This marks the second significant algorithm update in 2023, with the preceding one having been initiated in March 2023.

How To Recover

• Make sure your web content is of the utmost quality with valuable information that aligns with the interests of your target audience. Moreover, it is essential to continuously deliver new and relevant content to maintain engagement and interest.
• To rank higher on Google, create valuable and trustworthy content that follows the E-E-A-T guidelines (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). This will help your content be recognized as reliable and shown to users when they search related queries.

Additional Insights

• It’s evident that enhancing your website may not result in an immediate shift in your rankings. However, you need to look for opportunities to continually improve.
• A decrease in rankings could be attributed to modifications made during the core upgrade, rather than being indicative of issues with your website’s structure or content. It’s important not to make any drastic changes to your site just because your site’s traffic has declined after the update.
• Brands who observed declines in their rankings should focus on enhancing the quality of their websites rather than seeking immediate technical remedies. If low traffic persists, then consult an expert.

Further Reading

• Google Downgrades Visibility of FAQ-rich and How-To Results
• A Beginner’s Guide To Local SEO
• How To Optimize SEO For Future AI-Driven Search Engines

The post Google August 2023 Core Update appeared first on NetElixir.

FAQ-Rich Results:

We will see FAQ-rich results less frequently with Google’s latest update. FAQ-rich results will now only appear for well-known, authoritative government and health websites that Google deems eligible and trustworthy to share this information. For all other sites, this rich result will no longer regularly appear. 

Google says marketers can drop the FAQ schema from their sites; however, we believe that there is no harm in keeping your FAQ schema as of now. 

We recommend maintaining your FAQ schema for now; although a rich result is not guaranteed, it can still help search engines to understand your content more efficiently and answer direct queries your customers have about your products, services, brand, or industry.

How-To-Rich Results:

Only desktop searches will display how-to-rich results moving forward. Mobile searches will no longer activate how-to-rich results. 

Although this update isn’t a direct ranking adjustment, its potential implications on website traffic and engagement are noteworthy. Websites that heavily rely on these rich results for generating traffic and brand awareness might experience a significant impact on their real estate and click-through rates. You should keep a close eye on these metrics.

Supercharge Your Search Strategy With Generative AI

These adjustments to FAQ-rich and how-to-rich results are the first steps Google is taking to create its Search Generative Experience (SGE), which will roll out more concretely next year. As generative AI can answer the majority of FAQ and how-to queries, it makes sense for Google to reduce the visibility of those schemas now in preparation. 

As we continue to monitor the latest SEO changes in Google and other search engines, we will keep you informed on how to gain more real estate in SERPs and optimize your AI growth marketing strategy. 

Recap Of Other SEO News

• How To Optimize SEO For Future AI-Driven Search Engines
• How To Stay On Top Of The Search Engines
• A Beginner’s Guide To Local SEO
• Benefits of International SEO

The post Google Downgrades Visibility of FAQ-rich and How-To Results appeared first on NetElixir.

But if your business has a local presence – either a physical store, or a targeted regional area for sales – local SEO is a tool in your marketing strategy that you might not be currently using to its fullest potential.

For some quick insights into improving your local SEO strategy, check out our recap video! Keep reading for a detailed overview.

What is Local SEO?

You’ve spent hours working on SEO for your brand website to help search engines find you, but have you taken the time to think about how your potential local customers browse? Their search engine terms – or Google Maps searches – likely include local indicators, like the city, town, or region where they hope to make a purchase.

By optimizing your content to include keywords that reflect locality, and by setting up business profiles and place cards like Google Business Profile and Apple Business Connect, you can help your business to rise in local search rankings and reach the customers most likely to purchase your products or services. 

Why is Local SEO Important for Small Businesses?

As a small business, it can be hard to break out digitally from the herd of online competitors. But many of your potential customers prefer to shop locally, so taking the time to understand and leverage local SEO will help guarantee that those customers can find you, online and in person. 

Local SEO has a number of key benefits for small businesses, including:

• Increasing brand visibility, making it easier for new customers to find you
• Offering opportunities for customers to rate and review your business
• Building trust with consumers, raising the likelihood they’ll return
• Being associated with a higher conversion rate

Why is Local SEO Important for an Overall SEO Strategy?

A healthy SEO strategy has many facets, and local SEO is one of them. Keywords and relevant, up-to-date website content is still useful for local SEO, but tools like your Google Business Profile are critical for making sure your business appears in the Local Pack at the top of SERPs and among the listed businesses in services like Google Maps. 

How Do I Know If I Need Local SEO?

Does your small business have a physical, brick-and-mortar location – or even multiple physical locations? You need local SEO. 

Does your small business serve specific regional areas? You need local SEO.

Is your business currently lost among local and national competitors on SERPs? You need local SEO.

The bottom line: Local SEO helps you reach nearby customers who would like to find your business. Why wouldn’t you want to make that search easier for them?

How Do I Improve Local SEO?

Improving local SEO means doing the market search to understand what information and localized keywords will best help you to reach your customers and using that knowledge to enhance your business’s web presence. Here are a few places to start:

• Build out your Google Business Profile, Apple Business Connect place card, Bing Places card, and other tools that interact with key local searches.
• Include product and services descriptions that use localized keywords and otherwise follow SEO best practices, including within image descriptions on your profiles and site.
• Ensure that profiles and websites have accurate contact information like your address, phone and email, and hours of operation.
• Monitor your profiles and website to keep their content fresh with new photos, video, and posts, as well as responses to reviews.
• Create targeted FAQs to answer pointed questions on products and services, allowing search engine crawlers to see this information so that users will be able to click through directly from SERPs.
• Get your business listed in local directories and on review sites like Yelp and Bing to increase your local citations and improve the likelihood other sites will link to your business.
• Where useful, post maps on your site showing the area your business serves.  

How Do I Use Local SEO for Multiple Locations?

Your business might be small, but if it operates in multiple locations, how are you meant to use local SEO for all of them? Just like with international SEO, you will need to develop your site and your profiles to encompass all of your locations so your business will rank well in local searches in each area. 

That means understanding how folks in different locations and regions search differently, including regional differences in language – like how some parts of the US use the word soda and other use pop! If what is offered by your business differs between locations, you’ll need location-specific pages so customers know exactly what is available to them in their area. If you focus your local strategy on your potential customers, you will be able to better tailor the browsing and shopping experience to meet their needs.

How Do I Use Local SEO with My Google Business Profile?

Your business must be visible in local organic and Map Pack search results if you want potential high-value customers to find you. Tools like Google Business profile are invaluable for this. While Google draws local business information from a wide variety of sites, directories, and networks around the web, the search engine uses its own profiles as a single source of truth about any local business. In fact, you don’t even need a business website to have a Google Business Profile and be present in the Local Pack.

Today, GBPs provide key business information such as location and contact information, as well as enable you to:

• Help searchers understand the experience they’ll have at your business through a variety of high-quality photos and videos.
• Showcase offers, events, and more with Google Posts.
• Interact with customers via Messaging, Q&A, and responding to reviews.
• Proactively share differentiating features, health and safety information, payment methods, and more.

Google is open about the fact that there are three main local ranking factors: Relevance, Distance, and Prominence. Reviews are part of Prominence, and high review counts and scores can have a positive impact on local search. By maintaining a complete profile with useful data, you help Google to properly position your business for nearby customers who want to find your products or services.

Work with NetElixir

New to local SEO or looking to revise your approach? NetElixir’s SEO experts are here to help you design a digital marketing strategy that will connect your business with local customers and help convert their interest into sales. 

Additional Resources

• The Future of Digital Marketing
• How To Stay On Top Of The Search Engines
• Search Marketing Redefined

The post A Beginner’s Guide to Local SEO appeared first on NetElixir.

As the world of search continues to evolve with Google’s AI-driven algorithms, Search Engine Optimization is faced with fresh challenges and opportunities. The key to success in SEO is no longer just about keywords, backlinks, and mastering algorithms; instead, it’s about understanding the trend towards more sophisticated, contextualized search experiences tailored to individual users. In order to stay ahead of the competition and reach wider audiences, it is essential for businesses to keep up with these emerging trends.

Adaptability is an essential tool for today’s SEO practitioners. Staying open to new concepts and embracing change is vital if one wishes to stay ahead in the AI-driven search landscape. With the right attitude and willingness to grow, individuals in this industry will not just survive, but thrive.

It’s necessary to start contemplating how to optimize your website with new trends and searcher expectations to remain at the top of SERP.

Three Key SEO Areas To Focus On

Use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to Optimize your Content

NLP is a form of Artificial Intelligence that helps machines comprehend human language. To make sure your content is well optimized, you can use NLP to incorporate keywords and phrases that are typically used by people in search queries.

Create High-Quality Content

To secure a high ranking in Google, content creation is essential. AI can detect the intent of queries and determine which websites are able to provide relevant and engaging answers that meet consumer needs. In order to ensure the best outcome for your SEO efforts, it’s important to create quality content that is pertinent to your target audience.

Stay Updated On the Latest Trends

AI is constantly evolving so it’s essential to keep up with the current developments in the field. Staying aware of the latest trends will help ensure that your website is using the most efficient and effective algorithms available. Keeping track of these changes is an important part of staying successful in this ever-changing tech landscape.

4 Tips To Elevate Your Website Experience Further

Google’s Bard and Bing’s ChatGPT-powered search are the future of AI-driven search engines. It is important to stay ahead of trends and new innovations in the landscape to optimize your SEO strategy.

Structure Your Content for The New Search Experience

Bard uses a variety of factors to determine the ranking of websites, including the structure of your content. This means that you need to structure your content in a way that makes it easy for search engines to understand. Use headings and subheadings, and also include images and videos with alt text to give search engines as much context to work with as possible.

Create Multimedia Content

Multimedia content like images, videos, and infographics can be of huge help in improving your website’s ranking on Google. This is because Google’s algorithms are competent enough to recognize and understand such content, which can significantly boost your search result rankings. Users connect with different materials when conducting their search so having a wide variety can help you maximize your reach.

Improve the User Experience on Your Website

You can improve the user experience on your website in a number of ways, including providing personalized recommendations, suggesting related content, and answering user questions. Consider conducting a survey of your current customers to get their feedback on what works or could be improved on your site and analyze where prospects are dropping off to improve those pages.

Understand User Intent

Grasping the intent behind search queries can be beneficial in creating relevant content that exceeds users’ expectations and results in a better website experience.

Utilizing these tricks and techniques, you can optimize your website for AI-optimized search engines, ensuring that you stay on top of the rankings. Doing so will help your website attract more attention and reach more people.

Further Reading

• Benefits of Google Analytics 4
• Benefits of International SEO
• Optimize Your SEO Strategy for Valentine’s Day

The post How To Optimize SEO For Future AI-Driven Search Engines appeared first on NetElixir.

The aim of international SEO (just like a local SEO strategy) is to ensure as good a user experience as possible for each potential site visitor. You want your content to be relevant to each and every customer, no matter where they are searching.

Why You Need An International SEO Strategy

International SEO is most important for brands with an international presence (or expanding international presence) who need to adjust their content to the styles and preferences of each regional target audience.

Creating an international SEO strategy means optimizing your brand’s website experience for the end user by keeping their regional contexts and language specifics in mind. You want to ensure that your customer is browsing the right version of your site that contains the right language for them, sells products in their own currency, and can easily ship to their location. 

If you’re selling internationally or looking to expand, you definitely need to consider how your international SEO strategy can support your business’s scale. Optimizing for international users boosts your sales as your website has the potential to rank in different countries, thus creating an additional surge of shoppers. According to Statista, India, Brazil, and Italy have the greatest share of search traffic originating from Google (the United States falls 11th on that list with just over 75% of search traffic originating from Google).

How International SEO Differs From Local

As with all SEO strategies, users should be at the center of your international strategy, meaning, as DeepCrawl notes, “that you will have to tailor your efforts to each individual market and audience.”

Going global is not a simple copy and paste of your current SEO strategy into the new country’s domain; each digital marketing effort, from SEO to email marketing to social to product descriptions, has to consider the specific needs, expectations, and behaviors of the target audience and their associated region. The modern consumer expects authenticity in a brand’s message; if a website is appearing in their native language, but it’s sloppily translated or not defaulting to the standard currency, users will notice and may opt for a brand who thought of them, their country, and their needs specifically first.

When building your international SEO strategy, you’ll do the same keyword and market research to identify key vocabularies, search inquiries, and online habits that your localized target audience is using. Translation is not a simple matter and it is important to get a native speaker to help you understand different turns of phrases and contexts. For example, the American term Buy Online Pick Up In Store is coined Click and Collect in England.

Deepcrawl’s guide to international SEO notes that a successful international growth strategy has three pillars: engaging content, relevant links, and technical implementation. It is not enough to simply set up some international parameters on the technical side and then just let them run; ensure you have the resources and knowledge to create enough localized, relevant content for your website variations to keep your content strategy fresh and timely to users across the globe.

International SEO Best Practices

When creating and optimizing your international SEO strategy, it is important to keep the following best practices in mind:

• Choose a consistent domain structure for specific geolocated pages. 
• Use Hreflang tags to explicitly indicate different languages and region-specific pages (and be sure to attend to any errors!). Use a single language and region per page so as not to confuse search engines.
• Localize your website content strategy (this includes navigation, titles, headings, currency, main text, etc.) to reflect the country and language you are targeting.
• Don’t use cookies or scripts to show pages in different languages, as search engines cannot crawl that type of dynamic content; instead, use different URLs for different language versions (but be consistent with this structure).
• Avoid using code to automatically redirect users based on location, as most crawl bots crawl from America and can thus share inaccurate information and make inaccurate assumptions about what variation is best for a specific user.

An additional non-technical best practice is a business one: successful international businesses often have international teams that regularly communicate with and can learn from each other. They unite to have a central brand strategy that the international SEO strategy supports.

You don’t have to be a global brand to employ the tenets of international SEO. We live in a multicultural world where diverse people come together and expect personalized experiences in regards to messaging, products, search behavior, and more. Getting a deeper understanding into the range of unique complexities across all your audiences is imperative. For a truly successful international (and local) SEO strategy, think of the user first and build out from them. Global success will come after, as Google and other search engines reward brands and user experiences that speak directly to the end user.

To ensure your website is optimized for both local and global audiences, contact NetElixir’s international SEO experts. At NetElixir, we employ the Hofstede cultural dimensions model for a “glocalization” approach that helps our clients sustainably grow their global brand.

Further Reading

• The Future of Digital Marketing
• How To Stay On Top Of The Search Engines
• Search Marketing Redefined

The post Benefits of International SEO appeared first on NetElixir.

Invest in the Mobile Experience

Heading into 2023, users are tied to their smartphones more than ever, and your e-commerce site needs to be easy to find and intuitive to use on a phone, wherever your customers happen to be when they search. Visual search is increasingly popular, especially among younger users, with many customers likely to use the images results on search to find the product that they want – and increasingly likely to make their purchases from their phones. High-quality, attractive product images with accurate alt-text and content with great SEO will help your site rise to the top of the rankings. Once customers have found your business, it’s important to ensure your site has quick load times and a smooth user experience (UX) on mobile.

Use Customer Feedback to Develop Content

You may not realize it, but when it comes to content creation, you already have a wealth of information available to inform your digital marketing strategy. Look to product reviews, customer feedback, and email campaigns to discover what information your current customers wish they had about your product and business and develop thoughtful, search engine-optimized answers to those questions. Your current customers will thank you and your prospective ones will find you more easily as your content helps your business rise to the top of search results.

Create Content for Multichannel

As you plan your content strategy for 2023, keep in mind the many channels with which your potential customers engage. Whether they find your brand through a search for a specific product, through a post or ad on social media, through reading a review, or directly on your site, customers are likely to research across channels to inform their decision to purchase a product. As they circle through exploration and evaluation (also known to marketers as the “messy middle” of the typical sales funnel), relevant content for every point in the funnel, with actionable next steps, will keep customers moving toward conversion. 

This doesn’t mean you need to create unique content for each phase. With Google’s August 2022 Helpful Content Update, search is becoming more focused on prioritizing human-first content over search-engine-first content. Use the same core content idea and adapt it for different media, from blog posts to videos to infographics, that work well for various channels. Exploring the same key topic from different angles can offer meaningful information for your target audience. 

Enhance Your Social Media Strategy

The social media landscape – and social media advertising – may be undergoing changes, but it’s as important as ever to meet your customers where they are by creating an engaging and seamless social commerce experience that makes it easy for users to convert to a sale. What does that mean for your business?

• Prioritize short-form video. Whether we’re talking TikTok or Reels on Instagram and Facebook, audiences are turning to short-form video not only for entertainment but also for information – and that includes organic and paid ads. Users spend five times longer looking at a video ad than a static one, and Facebook video ads on average have a lower CPC at $1.86. 
• Create engaging, native-feeling ads. It’s not enough to just put out a quick video and hope for the best. Users prefer native ads that don’t break the flow of their experience of their feeds and instead seem like organic content. Your business can take this one step further by creating authentic, immersive, and interactive augmented reality ads. These ads instruct users who click on them on how to interact with the ad and offer users an opportunity to experience your product or service. 
• Optimize for AI recommendations. TikTok has created user expectations for relevant AI-selected content based on their in-app habits. In 2023, we expect that AI-recommended posts will infiltrate Facebook feeds, and the push for more content from Pages and people that you don’t follow will give Facebook a much-needed boost. 
• Engage with customers via DMs. Brand engagement via direct messages continues to rise, and Meta is looking to feature more tools to help brands tap into this shift. Meta recently highlighted the growth in Click-To-Message ads across Messenger and WhatsApp. In 2023, marketers should expect additional ad options that align with this new form of engagement.

Take Advantage of Trends…. 

NetElixir’s trend researchers have a few ideas of what design trends we can expect in 2023:

• The retro trend will continue strong, so if it suits your brand, consider using subtle cues to the 90s and other relevant decades in your designs, including colors and fonts. 
• We’re seeing more use of realistic-looking photography that doesn’t look overproduced, as it helps brands connect with their customers on a human level. 
• Gradients will still be big in 2023, with liquid-looking gradients adding another level to this visually appealing style.
• Tap into the coming metaverse by adopting or creating the sci-fi-augmented, futuristic reality feel that comes with avatars.
• Grab attention with cinemagraphs, still photographs stitched together as a video clip or animated GIF to show very subtle movement.

…But Stay True to Your Brand

From design to strategy, brand authenticity is important to your customers. If your brand tone relates to a current trend, do make the most of it – but don’t force it. Your brand will draw attention by presenting a consistent identity that customers connect with and remember.

Leading with your brand’s values and staying true to them will continue to position your business for success. In 2022, companies like United Airlines, Keystone Light, and Miller Lite tapped into their identities and values to promote on-topic messaging that draws attention to their brand: remember UA’s commitment to carbon neutrality and other environmentally-friendly stances, Keystone Light’s focus on their rural customers’ sense of community and self-sufficiency, and Miller Lite’s emphasis on Americana. In 2023, consider how your brand can explore its own values in ways that capture the interest of potential customers. 

Work with NetElixir

Whatever your plans for 2023, NetElixir can help your business develop a digital marketing strategy that will resonate with current customers and connect with new ones. From web development to prepare for the cookieless future and make your e-commerce site more mobile-friendly, to SEO and thoughtful content creation, to engagement with trends, NetElixir’s team of experts will work with you to frame a strategy for success in the new year and beyond.  

Additional Resources

• Crafting an Effective Social Media Marketing Strategy
• How to Optimize Your Website With The Latest Digital Marketing Trends
• Recent Changes In Google Search Console

The post NetElixir’s Insights and Trends for 2023 appeared first on NetElixir.

As we move into the new year, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve and be aware of the latest trends in the SEO industry. Make sure you consider these 2023 SEO trends to find success in the new year.

The Most Emergent Factors in SEO For 2023

Core Web Vitals

Focus on Core Web Vitals to improve user navigation. Google continually emphasizes the importance of the user experience and prioritizes websites that consider the end user.

If users have a negative experience on your website, your site rankings will suffer. One key component of delivering a positive user experience is page speed. If a page takes over three seconds to load, more than 53% of users will abandon it, leading to an increase in your bounce rate. There are a set of metrics that measure your page load speed from the user’s perspective. The three key aspects of the user experience, loading, interactivity, and visual stability, will be a big focus for 2023:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

This tracks the time it takes to render the largest content element visible in the view port, from when the user first requests the URL. The largest element is typically an image or video, or perhaps a large block-level text element. This is important because it tells the reader that the URL is actually loading. To provide a good user experience, LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds of when the page first starts loading.

First Input Delay (FID)

This is the time from when a user first interacts with your page (when they clicked a link, tap on a button, and so on) to the time when the browser responds to that interaction. This measurement is taken from whatever interactive element that the user first clicks. This is important on pages where the user needs to do something because this is when the page has become interactive. To provide a good user experience, pages should have an FID of 100 milliseconds or less.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

The amount that the page layout shifts during the loading phase. The score is rated from 0–1, where zero means no shifting and 1 means the most shifting. This is important because having page elements shift while a user is trying to interact with it is a bad user experience. To provide a good user experience, pages should maintain a CLS of 0.1. or less.

Reinforcing E-A-T signals

E-A-T is a key quality indicator that shows a page is a high quality and useful. E-A-T stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness – the three primary factors that Google uses to determine the quality of a page. Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines have repeatedly emphasized the importance of boosting your E-A-T signals that were relevant to your website. This can be done through social proof, customer testimonials, links to authoritative sites, expertise, badges, and much more.

According to their guidelines, content should be:

• Helpful to users.
• Created by an expert.
• Posted on an authoritative site.
• Trustworthy.
• Updated regularly.

Video Marketing 

Google Search is a starting point for people to discover and watch videos. By marking up your video with a video object, Google provides explicit information such as the description, thumbnail URL, upload date, and duration and can then better show it to the appropriate user. Videos can appear in Google Search results, video search results, and Google Discover, thus increasing its reach across Google’s inventory.

Video marketing also allows you to improve your SEO content to fit the standards set by search engines, and improve your chances of ranking at the top. Furthermore, Google has implemented features to help users find information more quickly through videos.

In particular, when creating videos for your marketing strategy, keep in mind these features:

Clip markup: Clip markup enables you to highlight key points of your video so that users can hop straight to those parts. If you had a video containing tips, for example, you could create a markup for each tip.

Seek markup: Seek markup tells Google how your URL structure works. This information is critical because it allows Google to display the key moments of your video automatically. It enables Google to link within a specific point in your video.

Structured Data

Within the realm of SEO, structured data is organized and labeled with particular groups of text that assist search engines in understanding how to interpret and display the content. Not only does structured data provide information about a page, but it also classifies its content. This is a significant way to prepare for the future of search, as Google and other engines are continually personalizing the user experience and answering questions directly on their SERPs. Consequently, this leads to more user attention and CTRs. Furthermore, it aids a site’s domain authority in a niche while leaving a positive impression on audiences.

Voice Search

Voice search is another area that is seeing rapid growth, especially amid the rising popularity of voice-activated assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Home. As more and more people use voice search to find information online, businesses will need to adjust their SEO strategies to ensure these users are finding their content.

Mobile SEO

Given that over 65% of Google searches are now conducted on mobile devices, it is not surprising that the search engine is prioritizing mobile-optimized content in its results. This shift to mobile-first indexing is liable to cause a big shake-up in the SEO world in the next year, as businesses make sure their websites and content are optimized for mobile users.

Mobile-first content also means offering mobile-friendly payment options (such as Apple Pay and Google Pay) and making checkout a breeze. So, by optimizing for mobile devices, you will help provide a positive experience that enables you to rank better in search results and complete a conversion.

SERP Features

SERP features are important because they help your website stand out on the search results page. If you have a SERP feature that is relevant to the user’s query, it can help you attract more clicks and traffic to your website. 

Snippets are the different elements that appear on a Google search results page. These can include things like organic listings, paid ads, and rich results. It can vary depending on the query, and some features are only triggered for certain types of searches. If your page offers valuable information that people frequently search for, you’re probably eligible for a featured snippet.

Google Discovery

Discover is essential to SEO since it is such a large part of Google Search that allows users to stay current on topics relevant to them. Discover shows not only new content, but top article posts regardless of their publication date. Any business’ content strategy is not complete without Discover since its reporting feature in Search Console provides brands with valuable performance data for their content. Having this information can help businesses improve their content, rank better in search engines, and increase the likelihood of appearing in Google Discover. The best way to optimize Google Discover is to continue producing user-centric content.

AI and machine learning are areas that are expected to make big waves in the coming year.

NetElixir’s SEO Team Is Here To Help

At NetElixir, we are always striving to help our clients stay ahead of the curve when it comes to their e-commerce brand. That is why we offer SEO services to help improve your website and increase your chances for success. Our team of experts can provide you with custom insights and suggestions to help you get the most out of your website. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at growth@netelixir.com. We would be more than happy to help you boost your e-commerce website’s success.

Further Reading

• What are Core Web Vitals and How Do They Impact Your Organic Rankings?
• Quick Shopify Hacks for SEOs & Website Developers
• Recent Changes In Google Search Console

The post The 2023 E-Commerce SEO Strategy: How To Stay On Top Of The Search Engines appeared first on NetElixir.

Cookies have historically offered businesses a streamlined approach to reaching consumers across sites and platforms with targeted paid ads informed by customer data. As third-party tracking will soon become a tool of the past, connecting with customers through ads on their favorite sites or apps and at the top of their search results will no longer be as dominant a strategy as it has been. Paid ads will begin to move from individual user data-informed efforts to models like Google’s Performance Max campaigns, which use automation and audience signals to reach multiple audiences.

Businesses can continue to track and report on customer spending habits by updating to Google Analytics 4 and ramping up efforts to collect first-party data through brand loyalty programs and other initiatives. But as third-party tracking is phased out, and with changes to privacy laws, regulations, and norms regarding what customer data is tracked, your paid search strategy will need to evolve to continue driving results. What does this mean for your business? Organic search and SEO are more important than ever.

How Does The Shift To A Cookieless World Impact SEO? 

Search engine optimization (SEO) has always worked alongside targeted ads as an organic way to introduce customers to your e-commerce products and services. Successful SEO helps your business to stand out from its competitors. Search engines like Google are constantly refining how they process pages to serve the most relevant content to users; Google algorithm updates, including the May 2022 Core Update, often inspire changes in best practices for SEO. 

The shift away from cookies does not constitute a change in best practices so much as it suggests doubling down and committing more resources to consistently refining and updating your content. As other channels become less reliable and third-party tracking becomes obsolete, optimizing content so consumers find your products and services organically through search engine results will be necessary to ensure revenue growth. 

What Should I Do To Update The SEO Strategy For My E-Commerce Business?

If you haven’t already dedicated time and budgetary resources to SEO, consider this your wake-up call. Invest in your content optimization and market research so Google’s algorithms identify your products and services as the most relevant to users searching for related keywords and topics and ranks your site or marketplace listings at the top of their search engine results pages (SERP). Focusing on your organic presence and moving away from the kind of paid ads that require a steady flow of third-party data that will soon dry up will create sustainable growth for your business.

In the past, paid search and paid ad channels could seed interest in a brand, but e-commerce businesses will now need to develop new ways to build brand awareness and find and engage loyal customers. When reviewing your e-commerce content to optimize it for effective organic search, be sure to:

• Reduce crawl errors by determining if all of your links work and updating those that don’t so your pages can be indexed by search engines.
• Refresh on-page content, FAQs, and blogs so your site is informative and uses relevant, timely keywords and language.
• Update structured data to ensure Google and other search engines find critical microdata to inform their search result displays.
• Prioritize user experience (UX) by confirming your core web vitals are on point with a site that is mobile-friendly, loads quickly, is visually stable while it loads, engages viewers, and is easy to navigate.
• Check out your competitors’ websites and marketplace listings to see if there are improvements you can make to yours to keep your offerings more competitive and appealing.
• Nurture your social media accounts to increase organic traffic and searches for your brand. 

How NetElixir Can Help

NetElixir can work with you to create an SEO strategy that will draw organic traffic to your business through optimized content. We will help ensure that the right customers are checking out your business and engaging with your products. With our AI-driven SEO platform, we will work with you to determine the relationship between user intent, topics, and keywords to better refine your content strategy and drive more qualified traffic to your site. Our SEO experts will collaborate with you to design engaging user experiences with compelling content that will push your site to the top of the SERP. If your site needs a refresh to improve UX, we’re here to support you with our web development services.

NetElixir stays current on search engine algorithm updates so your SEO strategies are always on trend and miles ahead of the competition. Whether your business uses marketplaces like Amazon and Walmart or you sell directly to consumers, NetElixir is here to make sure your ideal customers can move from search to final conversion seamlessly. Learn more about NetElixir’s SEO expertise and services. 

Additional resources:

• SEO Strategy to Responsibly Engage Your Customers
• Blog Optimization Strategies
• SEO Advantages to Your CMS Platform

The post Go Organic: Your SEO Strategy In The Cookieless World appeared first on NetElixir.

Overall, SEO as a digital marketing vertical has morphed to a great degree. Looking back on how SEO used to function — from keyword stuffing to backlink-building practices — it has evolved significantly from the early 2000s. Google introduced a number of Google Panda (February 2011) & Penguin updates (April 2012) to ensure effective quality search results for its users. Any website engaging in unscrupulous practices was penalized and dropped off from the Search Index. 

Key Features of SEO

The updates made over the last few years have changed the search experience, making results more dynamic, focused, and, of course, relevant. 

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

This was one of the biggest game-changers in the field oand,f Artificial Intelligence as it helped minimize the communication gap between computers and humans. Google launched their search engine algorithm Hummingbird in September 2013, which added more meaning to the words that users were putting in their queries. In October 2015, Google launched RankBrain to move one step further into the Hummingbird Algorithm. RankBrain helps users get the most relevant search results based on their queries. To take things up a notch further, in October 2019, Google released the BERT update to ensure that the search engine more easily understood the context of search queries.

Website Security Prioritization

Starting back in 2014, Google doubled down on their mission to make the internet a safer place by enabling the https encryption as a required ranking signal for websites. The https signal also helped websites win the user’s trust that their confidential information is safe. It became one of the important stepping stones for search engines to ensure that their user’s data integrity is maintained.

Quick Answer Feature

As if competing for the number one rank position wasn’t already hard enough, Google introduced the quick answer feature snippet in 2014. The quick answer feature uses short text snippets to answer a search query at a glance. Through the quick answer feature snippet, websites could rank for position zero on the SERP, driving up competition even more. For users, however, this feature makes looking for quick answers a piece of cake as they don’t even have to visit a website for an answer to their query. Although competition for position zero is stiff, the quick answer feature poses a good potential to boost a website’s traffic.

Smooth UX and Page Speed

Back in 2010, Google announced that page speed will be considered as a ranking signal for desktop searches. And, nearly ten years later, in July 2018, Google started considering page speed a ranking factor for mobile searches as well. Hence, over the past decade, website UX design has undergone certain adjustments, such as prioritizing intuitive and clear navigation, concise direction, and good page speed to ensure an efficient on-page user experience. 

Mobile Search Update

Over the years, as mobile phones continue to get smarter, it became imperative for websites to be mobile-friendly. The summer of 2015 saw the first sharp rise in mobile queries, compared to desktop queries and mobile optimization has become a must since then. To adapt to the changing digital landscape, Google finally officially launched in July 2019 the mobile-first indexing update. This update primarily uses the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking.

Social Media

Although it is not a direct contributor to SEO rankings, the link-sharing done on social media platforms increases brand awareness, brand visibility, substantial content distribution, and incoming organic traffic. John Mueller, Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst said:

Do social media signals have an impact on organic rankings in Google? Not directly. No. So it’s not that there’s any kind of a ranking effect there. To a large part, social networks also have a nofollow on the links that they provide when they post this content, so it’s not the case that would give you any kind of a ranking boost there. What you do sometimes see however is that the social posts show up in the search results.”

Hence, we can say that social media can help in attracting users to one’s website who might be interested in what the brand has to offer. A proper social media presence can nurture trust with one’s audience while also cultivating a good online reputation.

Intelligent Searches

The world of search is still evolving: voice search, image search, virtual chatbots, and virtual personal assistants have been gaining traction in making a user’s search journey a lot simpler and easier. While the first virtual assistant appeared in 2011 (you know her as Apple’s Siri), other virtual assistants, such as the Google Assistant from Google, Cortana from Microsoft, and Alexa from Amazon, were developed soon after. Now, these virtual assistants formed a new battleground of deciding who is the smartest and most helpful to consumers!

NetElixir’s SEO Solution

NetElixir thrives on one principle — being customer-oriented! Our goal is to make businesses succeed online. Over the years, we have been helping our clientele by equipping them with strong digital insights and informed strategies to broaden their business’s growth horizon and make a mark in the digital landscape.  

The journey that started 18 years ago in 2004 has now reached a new chapter. Throughout this journey, along with changing times, NetElixir’s growth strategies have also come a long way. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, and Paid Search are some of our key offerings which have all the more solidified the path. One of the key handles of this success story has been SEO.

We have been seeing a lot of upgrades this past decade and the digital space is only going to grow more, as evidenced by the new emerging concept of Zuckerberg’s Metaverse. The idea of the Metaverse is for a user’s virtual world to evolve based on the decisions and interactions they make within the space. There aren’t any specific metrics to determine the KPIs in this space yet, but for now, user engagement can be a good indicator of the results. One can try to reap the benefits of a first-mover advantage in this channel. Soon, impressing your human audience won’t be enough; you’ll need to impress their virtual avatars as well!

Further Reading

• SEO Strategy To Responsibly Engage Your Customers
• What Are Core Web Vitals?
• Google’s “Link Spam Update”: What You Should Know
• Google’s Page Experience Algorithm Explained

Sources: 

1. https://searchengineland.com/8-major-google-algorithm-updates-explained-282627
2. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-guide/seo-history/#close
3. https://seo-hacker.com/throwback-greatest-seo-ten-years/
4. https://monsterspost.com/seo-evolution/
5. https://www.techprevue.com/what-is-seo-how-has-it-changed/
6. https://www.brightedge.com/blog/google-bert-algorithm-update-what-is-it#:~:text=Google%20BERT%20Algorithm%20Update%3A%20What%20Is%20It%3F&text=In%20October%202019%2C%20Google%20released,algorithm%20update%20since%20RankBrain%20%E2%80%93%20BERT.
7. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-beliefs-that-make-no-sense/260533/
8. https://developers.google.com/web

The post Staying On Trend With The Evolution of SEO appeared first on NetElixir.

While the 2020 holiday season saw many new-to-online customers browsing e-commerce sites for their holiday gifts, this year brands need to keep those customers engaged to convert them into loyal shoppers. Online shopping behavior and trends are continuously evolving, but consumer sentiment remains largely the same as last year: customers are searching for deals, convenience, and optimal delivery choices. Consumers will return to brands that have their product availability status clear and updated, a site that is user-friendly and easy to navigate, gift ideas that are within budget, and more.

Convey all the necessary information your customers need easily and simply through holiday landing pages. 

Creating Holiday-Specific Landing Pages

Building out holiday landing pages for key shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday and other holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Friendsgiving, and more is one of the cornerstones of optimizing your holiday SEO strategy. Create these pages well in advance of the days themselves to give the search engines time to crawl and rank your pages.

While your site will benefit from the high-volume keywords of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, be sure to showcase products and categories that your customers want. Add products that have historically been effective at drawing in new customers to engage holiday shoppers. Conduct thorough research into keywords and industry trends to optimize these landing pages, both in product descriptions and in products offered. NetElixir found that aspects of the 90s are trending again, so you can position your products as the must-haves of the season. 

However, be sure not to burden the webpage with too many deals and seemingly random products; you don’t want to confuse or overwhelm customers. Consider creating a separate page for each broader product category you plan to have discounts on. Repackage products into easy-to-navigate pages that are catered to specific demographics, popular hobbies, and the best deals — you don’t necessarily need to create whole new product offerings, but just tweak the messaging and description of products you have readily available. 

To determine how to best categorize your products, start with your customer personas and target audience. Based on this data, consider segmenting your products by:

• Gender, like “Best Gifts for Her”
• Profession, like “Best Gifts for Nurses”
• Price, like “Best Gifts Under $20”
• Hobby, like “Best Gifts for Car Lovers”

Be sure to keep your buyer personas and high-value customers in mind, however, so you’re not optimizing for customers who don’t convert on your website.

Create a schedule to continually launch new products or deals on your site to keep customers returning. Coincide these new releases with social posts, emails, and other marketing campaigns to get people to visit your website and talk about your brand. Not only do you create greater exposure for your site, but you organically boost your backlink strategy. 

This holiday season will be uncertain. Drive enthusiasm by starting early promotions and exclusive deals.

Creating Urgency In Your Holiday Promotions

Add a countdown timer to your landing page to let customers know when the deal is ending. Consider adding in lightning deals leading up to key shopping days throughout the season to encourage impulse buys and keep customers returning. Regular announcements via newsletters and social posts will remind your customers of the limited time they have left to buy.

Before your brand’s biggest holidays, plan out a promotional schedule such as:

• 45 days in advance: Leverage your website calendar, social media, and any emails or newsletters to start driving traffic and garnering interest. Be sure to link your holiday landing pages to your home page so it is prominently displayed.
• 7 days in advance: Begin highlighting key products or customer reviews for daily posts to draw customers to your site.
• 1 day in advance: Make your onsite countdown prominent to focus on your upcoming deals and drive home the sense of urgency as the deadline approaches.

5 Steps For A Successful Holiday SEO Strategy

1. Start sooner rather than later. 
2. Create landing pages specifically for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, as well as other holidays that fit your brand.
3. Identify relevant keywords for your niche and build out content around those keywords.
4. Coordinate your SEO strategy with your other marketing efforts for a seamless brand experience.
5. Track and measure success frequently to adjust your strategy accordingly.

According to Google’s research, 23% of people start their holiday search three to six months before the holidays. To succeed this holiday season, you want to get an early start on perfecting your holiday SEO strategy. This includes checking your site for any user experience issues that could affect performance and hurt your ranking. Make your products easily searchable and accessible through holiday-specific landing pages and blog posts. 

While last year brought its own host of problems, we learned a lot. Learn from last year’s trends, solutions, and wins to adapt the successes to your holiday strategy this year.

Boost Your Holiday SEO Strategy With NetElixir’s Specials

Reach more customers this holiday season with NetElixir’s SEO holiday solutions! Our packs help minimize risk and maximize conversions by ensuring your site is ready for the holiday rush. Our holiday packs help tell your brand story, build a bigger content basket, increase visibility, show off your brand’s unique style, and more!

 Our SEO Holiday Readiness Audit will get your site in the holiday spirit by offering:

• Keyword research specific to the holidays
• Micro-focus user experience audits for PDP and cart
• Holiday deal landing page creation or optimization
• Up to 25 pages optimized for H1s and minor on-page copy editing
• And more!

Request your SEO Holiday Readiness Audit now and browse our other Holiday Packs at https://stage.netelixir.com//services/holiday-specials/.

The post Your 2021 Holiday SEO Strategy appeared first on NetElixir.