1. Google says Internal Links Impact your Rankings
The internal links on your website do have an impact on the rankings of your website on Google. Google's John Mueller confirmed this in a Google Webmaster Central hangout. He talked about internal linking best practices and shared information about the impact of internal links.
Previous news:
SEO and Google News Update - May 2020
SEO and Google News Update - April 2020
Top Internet and Google News Update - March 2020
Top Internet and Google News Update - February 2020
Google News Update - January 2020
What are internal links?
Internal links are links that go from one page of your website to another page of your website. The words that you use in these links help search engines to understand the context of the link. These linked words are called "anchor text" in SEO.
If the anchor texts contain particular keywords, it's more likely that the linked page will be ranked for these keywords.
What happens if you have two equally important pages for a keyword?
That's what a webmaster asked in the webmaster hangout:
"Let’s say I have two strong URLs about cheese in my website. One is an e-commerce page where you can buy cheese. The other is a complete guide about cheese.
So two different pages talking about the same topic, but both really relevant. What’s the best practice for internal linking?
Is it okay to link to both pages using the same anchor text cheese? Or should one be linked differently?"
John Mueller said that internal links are very important and that Google gets the context from both the anchor text and the linking page.
"Internal linking helps us, on the one hand, to find pages. So that's really important. It also helps us to get a bit of context about that specific page.
And we get some of that through the anchor text from the internal linking, and some, of course, from understanding where these pages are linked within your website.
So with regards to that, thinking specifically about the anchor text here, I don't think you need to do anything specific there if you're already linking to those pages. If you're using a reasonable anchor text or for 'cheese,' in this case, that sounds perfectly fine."
Of course, you can always improve the anchor texts for your users:
"I don't think you need to change the anchor text to be, 'Buy Your Cheese Online Here,' and it's like 'The Ultimate Guide To All Types Of Cheese' here.
It's something you could do if you wanted to, if you think it makes sense for your users."
In general, it's best to use anchor texts that describe what users will get on the linked page.
Previous news:
SEO and Google News Update - May 2020
SEO and Google News Update - April 2020
Top Internet and Google News Update - March 2020
Top Internet and Google News Update - February 2020
Google News Update - January 2020
Fewer pages can be better than more pages
John Mueller also said that fewer pages can be better than many pages if you want to avoid cannibalization.
"I think it's always kind of a tricky situation when you have multiple pages on the same topic or multiple pages for the same keyword, in that people often worry about cannibalization, which essentially means that you have multiple pages ranking for the same term.
And maybe you would be ranking better if you had just had one page ranking for that term. That's definitely something legitimate to think about.
And from my point of view, I generally prefer to have fewer pages rather than more pages."
If you have different pages that deal with exactly the same topic, better use one page. If the pages are different (a commercial page about cheese and an informational page about cheese) then it's better to have two pages.
What you should do now
John Mueller says that you should use 'reasonable' anchor text. That means that the anchor texts should say what the page is about. Check if the links on your website are intact and you also use the most popular internal anchor texts on your website.
Check your web pages for errors that have a negative impact on your search engine rankings.
Previous news:
SEO and Google News Update - May 2020
SEO and Google News Update - April 2020
Top Internet and Google News Update - March 2020
Top Internet and Google News Update - February 2020
Google News Update - January 2020
2. Google Says Random Or Unrelated Links Aren't Necessarily Bad
Google's John Mueller was asked if one should disavow random or unrelated links pointing to his site. The question was "if a domain has a lot of irrelevant links that are not related to the service the site offers would you suggest to disavow or contact the site owners and get them pulled." John said just because the links are random, it doesn't mean the links are bad.
3. Google Says it Does Not Rank Pages Before Content Analysis
Google's John Mueller was asked if Google maybe does a first round of ranking of a new page based on the URL, even before it does any content analysis. John responded on Twitter "not that I'm aware of."
Now, this does seem like a farfetched question. Like why would Google bother trying to rank a page without first trying to understand the content. But we do know that Google can rank pages that are not fully indexed just based on the links and other signals.
But still, I have never seen someone suggest that Google does a first round of ranking just based on the URL. Interesting theory.
4. Google announces new "page experience" ranking algorithm for User Ex2021
Google announced a new ranking algorithm that is going to go live in 2021. The new ranking algorithm has a focus on good user experience. If the user experience isn't good, websites won't be ranked as highly as today.
What is page experience?
The page experience algorithm tries to understand how website visitors perceive a web page: how quickly it loads, how well the page is displayed on mobile phones, how ads are shown on the page, etc.
The new page experience algorithm uses existing Google ranking factors. For example, the page speed update, the mobile-friendly update, the interstitials update and the HTTPS update are part of the new algorithm. Google is going to refine the metrics that deal with usability and speed.
What are core web vitals?
Google's announcement also explains core web vitals. These are a set of real-world, user-centered metrics that quantify key aspects of the user experience. They measure dimensions of web usability such as load time, interactivity, and the stability of content as it loads (so you don’t accidentally tap that button when it shifts under your finger).
The core web vitals signals and the existing ranking signals make Google's new page experience algorithm:
These are the core web vitals metrics:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): how quickly a web page loads. The LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds of when the page first starts loading.
- First Input Delay (FID): how quickly users can interact with a page. Pages should have a FID of less than 100 milliseconds.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): the visual stability of a page (jumping buttons, etc.). Pages should maintain a CLS of less than 0.1.
In addition to this, a web page should work on mobile devices, it should not contain malicious or deceptive content, it should not contain intrusive interstitials, and it should be servers over HTTPS.
When will this update be live?
According to Google, the ranking changes will not happen before next year, and Google will provide at least six months notice before they're rolled out. There is no immediate need to take action.
Good content will still be the most important ranking factor: "While all of the components of page experience are important, we will prioritize pages with the best information overall, even if some aspects of page experience are subpar.
A good page experience doesn’t override having great, relevant content. However, in cases where there are multiple pages that have similar content, page experience becomes much more important for visibility in Search."
Optimize your web pages now and get better rankings on Google and other search engines.
5. We Don't Explicitly Measure EAT In Searc, Says Google
Google's John Mueller said on Twitter that Google Search does not explicitly measure E-A-T in search. John was asked about which signals does Google use to measure E-A-T and John said "that's not something we'd explicitly measure for Search -- it's a concept we wrote about in our Quality Rater's guidelines."
6. Google Does Support Nofollow On HTML Link Tag
Gary Illyes from Google, after multiple days of research, has confirmed that Google indeed supports the use of the nofollow link attribute on HTML link tags.
He said on Twitter this is supported in "the form of rel="alternate nofollow", and that will prevent Google from using the link from the href attribute. If you don't specify a nofollow, the URL from href will be extracted as a weightless outlink."
Gary added that Google has "many systems that can do URL extraction that may be used for discovery. For instance, Googlebot itself can do some minimal extraction, rendering can do advanced extraction, HTML parser can do extraction," he said this is why it took him several days to get an answer on this question.
7. Google Ads Stats In Search Results
Google Ads will soon start showing you how your Google Ads campaigns are performing directly in the search results. All you would need to do is search for [my ads] or [google ads] and you will see this little stats box at the top of the search results.
Google will show if your ads are active, the last 7 days of impressions, clicks and spend on your campaigns:
This assumes you are logged into the Google account managing your ads, of course.
This is similar to how Google shows stats in the search results for Google Search Console owners and Google My Business.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
8. SEO Tip of the Month: How to find the best keywords for your website
Search engine optimization (SEO) can help you to grow your business dramatically. The keywords that you choose for your SEO campaigns determine the audience that will come to your site. How do you find the right keywords that attract the right audience?
This article helps you to find the keywords that work best with your website.
Step 1: set your goals
Of course, you want to get more traffic and you want to increase revenue. However, there's more to that when it comes to choosing the right keywords.
SEO is a long-term strategy. It takes some time to get high rankings for competitive keywords. If you want fast results, you have to start with low-competition keywords.
You also have to decide if you want to increase brand-awareness, or should visitors buy on your website? Do you need very targeted visitors, or is it enough to attract people who are only slightly interested in your offers?
Step 2: find your seed keywords
The seed keywords are the keywords that you use to start your keyword research. Seed keywords are search terms that consist of one or two words (sometimes three). These keywords usually have a high search volume and a high competition.
Think about what people might search for when they are looking for the products or services that you offer. Avoid jargon and try to use the words that your customers use.
Step 3: use a keyword suggestion tool
Use your seed keywords with the keyword suggestion tool in any SEO analysis tool. For example, one of your seed keywords might be 'tax software'. Enter that seed keyword in the keyword suggestion tool:
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How to do keyword research: seed keywords
You will get many keyword suggestions that are related to the seed keyword. For every keyword, you will get the average monthly search volume, the search volume progression from January to December, the cost per click (CPC), the competition value, and the opportunity value.
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It's not a good idea to start with high-competition keywords.
Keywords with a high competition value are keywords for which many websites advertise on Google Ads. In general, these keywords aren't a good start. You'll get quicker results by optimizing your web pages for less competitive keywords. Use the filters above the result list to sort the results by opportunity:
Step 4: create keyword lists
Use your seed keywords and the filter methods above to find the best keywords for your website.
Your keyword list should be as specific to your business as possible. Only relevant keywords will deliver good results.
Step 5: benefit from low hanging fruit
Keyword suggestion tools offers additional features. For example, it helps you to optimize pages of your website for your keywords, and you can check the rankings of your web pages for these keywords by adding the keywords to the ranking monitor.
Find your keywords now
Optimize your web pages for your keywords and check how they perform. Keep on adding new keywords to your website and optimize your work to get as many targeted website visitors as possible.
Monday, July 6, 2020
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