Google Question Hub is a Google-developed platform focusing on the unanswered questions asked on the internet. Google organizes information to find the most relevant results for each user’s search query. If there is no content available, Question Hub collects unanswered questions to identify content gaps that are online. This allows digital marketers to use these insights to create better content for their audience. 

How Does Google Question Hub Work?

Google Question Hub collects unanswered search queries to help you find relevant questions to your industry. You can search for a particular term or topic and Google will show you all the questions related to those key terms and subjects that people have not answered yet. You can use these questions to create richer content and to track your impact to see if your content helped your users. 

Google is giving access to 100 questions at once from multiple categories. Once you have selected the list of questions that are most relevant for you to answer, you can export those questions to a CSV file. If you do not wish to export the entire list of questions, you can easily star mark the ones you deem important and come back to them later. The starred questions can be found in a separate tab on the left side of your screen when you check back on them. 

There is also an Add Questions button, which takes you to the section where you need to add questions related to your key term or subject. If you want to find all the questions added, there is a tab called Questions you can access. In the platform there is also a History button where you can look at the previously gathered questions from the Google Questions Hub. If you need to change the language, update your email address, or delete your account, there is a settings option in the platform as well that lets you easily manage your account.

Why Should You Use Google Question Hub Tool?

Google Question Hub is a great tool for bloggers, writers, and strategists looking to increase their audience. It speeds up looking for valuable content users want answers to. Your work for creating articles will become much easier with having access to hundreds of questions relevant to your industry. You’ll be able to gain some great rankings and prime real estate on the first page of Google to enhance your search visibility. 

Content Marketing Experts at Today’s Business 

At Today’s Business, we strongly recommend using Google’s Question Hub tool to enhance your content marketing efforts moving forward. Our SEO strategists develop articles and valuable blog content using Question Hub to gain more users to our client’s websites and boost your online presence. Our experts will work with you to develop a content strategy that takes your company to the next level. Contact us today to see how our strategists can help you!

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What SEO Tasks Should you Prioritize

It is no secret that search engine optimization is one of the most important aspects of website ownership for any business owner. However, with so many pieces to your site, how do you decide which SEO tasks to prioritize for the most benefit in return for your time. Over the course of the past few months I have had the opportunity to work with the SEO team at Today’s Business. Working on projects with the team has helped me understand when and why it is important to take on specific SEO tasks to see the greatest impact for your efforts. Below I have listed in order categories and tasks to help you succeed at developing your very own SEO strategy.

SEO Priorities Overview:

• Set Specific Goals
• Improve Structural Site Errors
• Improve Content
• Develop  Backlinks/ Internal Links
• Track Your Site Health and Continue Improving

Set A Specific SEO Goal

One important task before even beginning your SEO journey is to set specific and achievable goals. This will help inform the scope of the SEO changes you need to make as well as be the metric by which you track the success of your SEO efforts. Also, be sure to set a realistic time frame to achieve these goals. On average SEO improvements can really kick in after about 3 months. However, if you are new to SEO, give yourself a reasonable buffer and wait about 4-5 months before re-evaluating your strategy.

Improve Structural Site Errors

Before we can get into more creative methods of boosting your ranking, it is important to make sure that your website’s foundation is solid. Without a solid base your users will not be able to interact easily with your pages and Google will have a hard time determining important information about your site. This can include url structures, broken pages, or having pages not be indexed correctly.

Make Your Site Mobile Friendly

Every year it becomes increasingly important to ensure that your site is accessible to mobile users. They represent 60% of internet users and are growing each and every day.  Ensuring that your page is useful to mobile users is crucial to accessing one of the largest demographics on the web as well as ranking highly in Google. You can check the mobile friendliness of your website via Google’s mobile friendly test.

Update Your Website Schema

Often referred to as structured data, schema is a type of code designed specifically to give vital information about your website to search engines. This is a final element of a high ranking site and lucky you don’t need to have a degree in computer science to write schema code. Use a schema code generator, choose the correct form of schema and upload it on your webpage. There are also plugins available that can handle many of these items as well. 

*The schema generation process will vary from platform to platform so you may need to research your specific situation separately.* 

Improve Content

Content is the backbone of a great SEO strategy. The content of a page is the reason users visit your site and oftentimes determines whether or not they convert. This makes it vitally important for answering users questions and ranking for high value keywords. A thorough understanding of your audience and the keywords you want to rank for will be necessary to developing valuable content. Once you understand both of those aspects you can start developing pages using the tips below.

Write Areas Served Pages

If you are a local company or simply want to target a specific local audience then writing one or more area served pages could be beneficial. An area served page is simply a page describing your product or service you offer to a specific local audience. This can help boost your ranking for members of that community seeking your services.

Title, URL, and Meta Description

Some of the most important and often overlooked aspects of improving content are your title, url, and meta description. These are ideal locations to place keywords that you want a page to rank for. In combination with a well written page these can be powerful tools in boosting the page rankings and click through rate.

Update Old Pages

If an old page still has relevant information that can be expanded or reformatted it may help bring in and retain more visitors without needing to write entirely new content. Simply updating some headers and adding in a new paragraph may be enough to boost a page’s ranking 1 or 2 spots.

Develop Backlinks/ Internal Links

Great for their own purposes respectively backlinks and internal links are vital to the overall health and flow of your website. However, they can be some of the hardest aspects of any SEO strategy. Backlinks often require an existing high ranking website and internal links need to be continuously updated and added.

Backlinks

A backlink is when a site other than your own links to a page on your site. This often requires a page to already be highly ranked as others will need to find the page, find it useful, and add a link to it from their site. Luckily there are some ways to get easy backlinks. If you are a very new site, adding yourself to free directories may help get some initial backlinks going. Also, one of the most common and powerful backlinks is a Google my Business listing. Similarly listings from local organizations or other listing sites like yelp could help to boost your overall website ranking without waiting for other pages to link to yours.

Internal Links

Not as powerful as backlinks yet still vital to a healthy site are internal links. This is when one page on your site links to another. One simple way to improve these is to run through your site once each month and link previously written to new content via anchor text that could be beneficial to the reader. If you are completely overhauling your site, it will be beneficial to write content with backlinks in mind. For example, if you’re listing the products you use on your services page, link each product to a page about that brand on your site. 

Track Your Site Health and Continue Improving

No SEO strategy is perfect. Google is constantly changing and there are always new ways to improve and grow your site. Using programs like SEMRush to track your website’s health will help you know when something needs to be changed and how your changes affect your site. This way you can guarantee that your site will always be on the up and up.

When to Seek SEO Experts

If you want a well developed SEO strategy guaranteed to boost your website or simply do not have time to optimize your site it may be time to seek expert assistance. Today’s Business is a multichannel digital marketing company that has been providing expert SEO services to business owners since 2011. Our experts will work with you to develop a plan and attack your goals to take your business to the next level. Contact Us today to get a free evaluation of your site and see how we can help boost your businesses online presence.

The post How to Prioritize SEO Tasks for Your Site in 2021 appeared first on Today's Business.

Blogs are one of the best ways to improve search rankings and draw in new visitors for your website. But, with so many blogs out there, how do you make your blog stand out? For the past few months I have had the opportunity to work at Today’s Business learning every aspect of SEO. As content is one of the most important ranking factors, I have written everything from areas served pages to blogs and have learned a lot about how to create well crafted and impactful blogs for all types of businesses.

How Blogs Improve Rankings

Blogs are a great way to explore a very specific topic in great detail. This allows you to draw in a very niche and easy to track audience for your website. Google will then rank your page higher based on how satisfied viewers are with the content on the page. This often leads to blogs being some of the most visited pages on websites and also some of the most important. By creating a network of high quality blog posts, you can become the number one spot for questions within your industry.

What Steps to Take to Make a Good Blog

Now that we understand why blogs are important and how they help boost SERP Rankings, we can begin to talk about what you can do to improve your chances of writing a great blog. 

Pick a Specific Keyword

Blogs are one of the easiest forms of content to keyword optimize. Because of this, it is beneficial to pick a very specific target. Oftentimes questions are the best keyphrases to use when writing a blog, this is because they allow you to naturally create sections to answer the original query. Be sure that your blog structure easily answers the users question, using constant headers, bulleted information, and lists are three popular ways to allow users to easily find the information they are looking for. 

Look at your Competition

One of the biggest mistakes people make when beginning to write a blog is they assume they are in a vacuum. Every business has competitors and yours are most likely also using blogs to their own advantage. Before you ever begin writing, type your keyphase into Google SERP and do some research on what the top organic links for that search term are doing.

Out Content Others

Once you have taken a look at the top blogs for your term and taken note of their main points, outdo them. So long as it does not impact readability, having more information for your visitors is always a good thing. One caveat – content should still be quality over quantity. Do not simply add words just to make it longer. By expanding on the content you found on other websites your readers can get a unique, thorough curation of content that will best solve their query. You can read more about the the SEO benefits of longer blogs here.

Although it depends on the industry and blogs complexity, a good rule of thumb is to keep your blog between 600-800 words long.

Use Images

Images can help to explain to your readers what they may not be able to gather through words. If you are writing about a complex topic images can not only offer a nice break from the information but also offer a visual representation of what you want to get across. However, be careful not to overuse images as too many images may break your contents flow too often, only use them when further clarification is necessary.

Link to Useful Pages

Blogs can be a great way to add links to your website. When writing, if there is any information in previous blogs you have written be sure to link to it. Adding links to other useful pages will not only help your users find the answers they are looking for, it will also boost search rankings. You can also link to other sites if you mention them when necessary.

Links in a blog should also be used to certify what you’re saying. If there’s a study you reference, link to the study. Are you the top ranked business in your industry? Prove it by linking to the rankings. This builds trust for both users and Google.

Check out link building tips for 2021.

Have Others Read It

Don’t forget, blogs represent your brand and having countless spelling and grammar mistakes is not a great way to display your company to the world. However, Mmistakes will happen, which is why it is important to always have a fresh set of eyes look at what you are writing and give feedback on grammar, rhetoric, and spelling.

Track Your Progress

Writing your blog is just the beginning, SEO is a constantly changing field and blogs are regularly in need of updates to remain competitive. Once you have made your blog public using tools like SEMrush’s on page SEO checker is a great way to view how your blog stacks up against the top ten in your industry, get backlink ideas, and improve your content.

Need Help With Your Content Marketing?

If you are looking to boost your company’s online presence the experts at Today’s Business can help. Their years of experience have made them leaders in their industry, with a team SEO experts ready to help! By filling out the online application their team will take a look at your company and develop a personalized strategy to help you and your brand grow.

The post How to Write a Good Blog appeared first on Today's Business.

If you want your pages to rank in organic search, you need to acquire backlinks. However, your web pages won’t rank just by obtaining more links, you need quality links and that means using the right tactics. Below are five effective strategies to build your link portfolio. 

1. Unlinked Brand Mentions

One way to acquire relevant links is to find unlinked mentions of your brand. A website that already mentions your company is more likely to link back to your site to provide more context. When searching for unlinked mentions, remember that your brand name is not the only way your company may be mentioned. Other ways include employee names, employee quotes, old brand names, or unique services you offer. 

2. Image Link Building

Image link building is a similar process to acquiring unlinked brand mentions. You can find where websites are using your images online and ask if they could cite the image with a link back to your site. Thank them for sharing your image, and ask if they could provide more context to users who want to learn more about where the image came from. Search for old and new logos, brand imagery, product photos, or company buildings. 

3. Competitor Backlink Analysis

Although an older method of acquiring backlinks, a competitor analysis is still an effective strategy to find relevant link opportunities. Any site that links to your competitor should link to you as well. However, stay away from lower-quality backlink profiles. You need to make sure competitor link opportunities add value to your website like any other link prospect. You can look for competitor backlinks through SEMrush, Majestic, and Ahrefs to help you analyze and acquire new links. 

4. Broken Link Building 

Broken link building is the technique of finding broken links on websites, and suggesting a page of your own as a replacement link. Your page needs to be a relevant and a quality link in order to replace the previous. Also make sure that the page you found the broken link is still being updated regularly. Because you are helping the webmaster by reporting the broken links, the odds of a backlink back to your website is much higher. 

5. Resource Pages

Resource pages contain a list of links and resources that website owners think are beneficial to their audience. The goal of resource page link building is to get your website included on that page as one of the resources. Audiences tend to find resource lists more credible, which means there’s a greater likelihood of people clicking and seeing your link. To find relevant resource pages, search for your industry keyword terms plus “helpful resource” or “resource list.” 

Link Building Services in New Jersey

If you are looking to build your link portfolio, start working with Today’s Business in Pine Brook, NJ today! We offer Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services where our team diligently works on acquiring your company quality backlinks. Contact us to learn more about our SEO and digital marketing services so you can start seeing results!

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As part of their internship, Today’s Business had an SEO intern blog about their experiences and what they learned. This blog was written after being an intern for a little over a month.

What is SEO: A Beginner’s Perspective

Have you ever wondered what makes you click on a certain website or why one site appears on the first page of Google’s search results while others don’t? About a year ago, I did too. Since then, I have had the opportunity to intern at Today’s Business as part of their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) team, where I have begun learning the ins and outs of SEO. Simply put, SEO is the practice of optimizing a website so that it appears as high as possible in Google search results. Although it sounds simple in principle, as I have learned, it is anything but. There is a lot to learn in the SEO world, and since it can feel intimidating to tackle it all, I have highlighted some key points that helped me move forward when I first began learning SEO.

Learning the SEO Vocabulary

The first part of learning SEO actually has nothing to do with website optimization. Before you can do that, you need to understand the terms that those in the industry use when talking about SEO and all of its elements. Understanding these terms is key to working with your team or industry experts when discussing strategies for optimizing your website and gaining more traffic.

Content

Content is king in SEO – it is one of the primary tools that website owners use to get their site to rank higher organically. Content is the information contained within a page on a website. The premise is that if a website has valuable and relevant content, Google and other search engines will rank it higher since it is more likely to answer the questions that people are searching for. Content can be optimized in a variety of ways, and there are a wide range of content types that are beneficial for SEO. For example, if you wanted your site to rank for social media marketing, you would focus on creating a dedicated social media marketing service page along with blog content related to the topic to help improve rankings.

Google SERP

One of the most common phrases used in SEO is Google SERP, which stands for “search engine results page.” This is not a specific SEO tactic, but one of the most important end goals of SEO is to rank highly in Google search results. It is also important to note that although there are other search engines, I will be focusing on Google for this article as it is the most widely used.

Keywords

The next SEO term you should know is keywords. SEO keywords are the words and phrases used when someone is searching for a query. Keywords are important for SEO because by inserting them into content, Google’s algorithm will recognize that the page is likely to contain answers or relevant information related to the search query you are targeting. There are two types of keywords: short-tail keywords (which consist of one or two words used to search for a topic) and long-tail keywords (which are longer and more specific phrases that users search for). Overuse of keywords can be a problem, as Google will notice this tactic and assume that you may be trying to rank for a topic rather than actually answer a user’s question. With this in mind, keywords should be used strategically and in places where they naturally fit into the content.

Meta Description

Next up is the meta description, or the description seen below a URL on a Google search engine results page. Meta descriptions serve as the first source of information that a user will see before they click on your website, making this feature very important for drawing users in. This SEO element should also be keyword optimized in order to aid with rankings. As meta descriptions are meant to give your users a quick idea of what your website or page is about, keeping them around 150 characters will offer the best results.

Alt Text

Alt text is another important aspect of SEO. Alt text is a short description of a photo that is used to make websites more accessible, and helps Google to understand what is shown in the image. Having optimized alt text attached to the images throughout your site helps with SEO because Google’s algorithm will analyze the alt text and determine the image’s relevance to the page. This can also help your images to rank in image searches, bringing more traffic to your site. Alt text is another area of SEO where keyword optimization comes into play.

Learning the Programs

If understanding the vocabulary is like learning key terms of a new language, understanding the programs is like learning the sentence structure. Although the programs commonly used by SEO experts can take some time to learn, they will advance your understanding of SEO and its impact on your site. Ranging from the ability to track the actions people take on your website all the way to analyzing your competitors, you will be able to make the most informed digital marketing decisions for your business using the following tools.

Google Analytics

The most powerful tool for SEO is Google Analytics. A free tool offered by Google themselves, Google Analytics gives website owners the power to take stock of everything happening on their website, including impressions, clicks, the amount of time users spend on a page, and much more. All of this information is vital when looking for issues with a website or areas that could use improvement. For example, if we see that a blog has a very low average session duration, we can assume that it may not be answering the search query it is ranking for. However, Google Analytics data needs to be analyzed carefully, because outside forces and seasonal changes can easily play a role in a site or page’s performance over time.  

SEMRush

Have you ever wondered how your competitors are doing? Doing competitor research for brick and mortar stores can be very difficult. Online, it is a different story – SEMRush allows you to see what keywords you and your competitors are ranking for so you can better exploit those areas and gain a leg up. For your own site, you can use SEMRush to research keywords, track keywords, or run a crawl in order to identify problems that could be hindering your rankings. It is important to remember to run crawls regularly, as any changes to your website or Google’s algorithm could affect your SEO.

Local Programs

Finally, we have BrightLocal and Localeze – two programs to help you track and keep your local listings up to date and stay on top of local keywords. Both BrightLocal and Localeze make this task simple by not only tracking your listings, but distributing your information to listing sites and relevant directories, so you don’t have to worry about editing multiple listings for your business. With nearly 46% of all Google searches focusing on local information, keeping your local listings up to date is essential to getting your website in front of a high converting audience. 

Why Should You Care?

So, why should you care about SEO? Although it may seem intimidating, SEO is worth the effort, as it works to deliver your site directly to your target audience. By creating relevant content, optimizing your site with relevant keywords, and catering to your local audience, you are working towards reaching an audience that is looking for your specific services or products. SEO work delivers results over time, and is an excellent way to gain Google’s trust in your site and bring in users organically. With all the factors that contribute to SEO, you are sure to be able to come up with strategies that cover the basics and beyond and fit perfectly with your business needs and goals. Up to 64% of all clicks on the web are on organically-based URLs, meaning that with SEO, you’ll reach stable, relevant traffic that is targeted towards an audience that is most likely to convert. Understanding SEO or finding experts in the industry to help grow your business is the best way to move your company to the modern era – with SEO you can organically grow your brand and gain an audience that will stick with you.

Need Help With SEO?

Looking to improve your organic search presence but not sure how? Today’s Business is a multichannel digital marketing agency and is ranked as a Top New Jersey SEO Company by DesignRush with a team of experts ready to help you with all of your online marketing needs. With 10+ years of experience we have worked with companies in all industries and of all sizes. Whether you’re just starting or are already an established brand. You tell us your budget and we will work with you to develop an in-depth strategy to help you grow your company. Contact us today to begin growing your online brand. Edit Collapse Description

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Structured data, which is a standardized format to mark up the information about a web page, is an essential element of Search Engine Optimization. Names are paired with values that help search engines categorize and index content, all of which contribute to a positive SEO impact. Testing your structured data is crucial to ensuring that everything is performing properly before it is implemented, and SEOs at all levels have used Google’s Structured Data Testing tool since 2015 to tackle this task. However, Google announced in July that the Rich Result Test tool, which was created as an upgrade for the original tool in 2017, has been moved out of the beta stage and will serve as a replacement for the original. With Google saying that it will begin to deprecate the Structured Data Testing Tool and remove it at some point in the future, the Rich Results Test tool will become the new normal for structured data testing. Keep reading to learn more about this change, and what you need to know about the Rich Results Test tool.

What Are Structured Data Testing Tools Used For? 

Although the answer to the above question seems self-explanatory, there are many uses for the structured data testing tools that Google has rolled out over the past few years. Along with checking structured data for errors or inconsistencies (such as invalid usage, syntax, and more), the original tool is also used to visualize website properties and optimize structured data by providing a clear view of what would work and what wouldn’t. The Rich Results Test tool serves a slightly different purpose – this tool tells users whether code is eligible for Rich Results, as well as showing any errors that are present in the structured data. The newer tool also has more complex testing abilities – focused on either the whole URL of a page or an isolated code snippet. It essentially paints a more accurate picture of how a page will be displayed in search results once structured data is applied, but many are still expressing disappointment about seeing the older tool go. 

Why Use the Rich Results Test Tool

When the Rich Results Test tool was first introduced in 2017, it was only capable of testing four types of structured data – recipes, jobs, movies, and courses. Now that Google has removed the beta label from the tool it is capable of testing all types of markup. To encourage users to embrace the new tool, Google has provided some reasons why the new tool will serve its purpose better than the old tool:

• It shows which Search feature enhancements are valid for the markup you are providing
• It handles dynamically loaded structured data markup more effectively
• It renders both mobile and desktop versions of a result 
• It is fully aligned with Search Console reports

SEO Tool Updates – Staying Ahead of the Curve

Google has said that the original structured data testing tool will still be available for a short time, but they highly recommend getting familiar with the new tool and its capabilities. Some people see the update as a downgrade from the original tool, while others are looking forward to taking advantage of its capabilities. The best way to prepare for this change is to dive into the new tool, because learning how it works and what it’s best for are better done sooner rather than later. SEO is constantly evolving, and we can only assume and expect that the tools we use will evolve along with it. 

Timeless SEO Expertise from Today’s Business

At Today’s Business, our team of digital marketing experts is always staying ahead of the game in all corners of digital marketing. We specialize in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Management, Digital Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, Website Development & Maintenance, and more. We work with clients and businesses of all kinds to bring their digital presence to the next level, all while providing the most up-to-date knowledge of the industry. Please contact us today to learn more about our digital marketing services and how we create personalized digital marketing strategies to achieve the best possible results.

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At the end of July/beginning of August, Google updated its page quality guidelines and initiated a broad core algorithm update – a significant alteration of how it chooses to rank pages in search results. This represented one of the most significant changes to Google in years.

It has been nicknamed the “Medic Update” because the most notable changes have been seen in the health care sector. However, nearly every industry has seen some degree of impact from the algorithm update since the beginning of August.

Google utilizes a significant number of ranking factors and does not make the majority of the public. As far as the changes that have occurred, Google has announced that there is no “official fix” for any effects from the algorithm change. That requires TB to research, analyze, and conclude based on patterns that are being seen within the SEO industry.

OVERVIEW OF UPDATED
SEARCH QUALITY RATER GUIDELINES:

What is it?

Google utilizes over 10,000 search quality raters across the world. These individuals are meant to be a manual, human element to complement Google’s algorithm. While the algorithm and AI systems are extremely efficient, they do miss things. That’s where the individual raters can help.

Why Make Changes?

Google’s goal is to provide quality search results to consumers. If those results provide clickbait content with little value and high on spam, advice from people that are not experts (and potentially dangerously wrong), or fake news, Google gets bad press and consumers become less trusting of its search engine.

https://www.rt.com/news/421198-sweden-google-holocaust-jews-nazi/

The story above is an example of exactly this. By updating guidelines and refining its algorithm, Google hopes to only have the most qualified search results and prevent stories like this from appearing.

What’s New to the Page Quality Guidelines?

Increased focus on not just the website but the authors of the content themselves. Google labels this as “E.A.T”

Expertise. Authority. Trust

This is particularly important for sites that fall into Your Money or Your Life sites (sites that influence lifestyle, health, places you spend money or invest, etc.).

In other words, they want to be able to say confidently that the site is an authoritative source on the topic that is being discussed based on the content itself, not simply because it’s on a major website.

In addition, raters are being encouraged to decide whether the content that was created serves a benefit to its users, and is not simply being created for nothing but search queries.

In summation, Google is looking for professionally-toned content that is well written, is well-sourced from people with a good reputation, as well as providing a quality user experience.

The Power of A Quality Rater’s Scoring:

Quality raters do not impact your site directly. Oftentimes certain elements of style, rhetoric, and website design can be somewhat subjective, so putting everything into the hands of the quality raters is not Google’s intent. Instead, quality raters will be utilized as quality control to see whether an algorithm change is successful towards the batch of search queries that is under the rater’s review.

GOOGLE ALGORITHM CHANGES OBSERVED:

Today’s Business has spent significant time this month to study and ascertain the changes that have occurred and what is influencing them. As part of our September review of August, we will be attaching an accompanying document that goes into more detail. However, here is a summary of many of the different factors that we believe are contributing to initiate action sooner.

Query Intent

Google revised its algorithm in an attempt to more accurately provide search results that match a user’s initial intent when searching. This seems to be one of the biggest factors that has changed for many search queries. Some sites may see reduced traffic but improved behavior scores of the users; this is because ideally sites are more effectively reaching their target demographic.

Content

Content length, quality, and authoritativeness have all been upped in standard relative to their niche. A piece doesn’t have to necessarily be a certain length, but it will be held to the standard of its competitors. Content should be professionally well written, use quality imagery/graphics/videos to improve engagement, and be well structured for readability.

Content has always been a major part of SEO, but a few tweaks may be required to content strategies, particularly for linking and visual elements.

Content Trustworthy-ness

Google has an increased desire to feel comfortable with knowing that the creators of the content are authoritative in what they’re writing about. Despite all the press that has been written about the E.A.T aspect of the page quality guidelines, there has been limited effect seen within the algorithm change.

Still, adding about the business/author information to pages, further fleshing out bios, adding links to noteworthy publications about individuals or their research, etc. is worth exploring. For E-commerce websites, a review of customer service site elements, such as privacy policies and return policies, should be conducted to improve consumer trust.

Trustworthy Linking

Making sure that the links to the website are from trustworthy sites has been given more emphasis. Bad links are potentially seeing greater penalties. In addition, many sites that are part of a large network of sites have seen those network links potentially be devalued. This was originally designed to even the playing field for smaller sites that are being boxed out by major publishers. Just 16 companies control a significant number of search queries within their niches and do so by linking to each other. But there may be a trickle-down effect that hurts other networks of businesses.

Linking can be utilized for both improving your website’s trustworthy-ness and raising domain authority. If a website has been potentially hurt because many of its best links come from within a specific network of sites, it is advisable to spend more resources on this area in order to diversify.

Social activity can also be beneficial in terms of improving credibility. The sharing of any news or quality content that can gain shares on social networks and forums can help provide added traction for a website.

Design and User Experience, particularly for Mobile

Websites with contemporary designs and features that ensure a great user experience are absolutely paramount now. Implementing modern website design typically brings other SEO benefits as well, as long as factors such as page speed and unique content are being followed.

Many websites in July were finally moved to mobile-first indexing. With that in mind, any design changes to a website should be prioritized with mobile experience first.

Technical and Semantic SEO

Technical elements such as sitespeed, duplicate content, thin content, header structure, and other page structure elements on an html/css/javascript level at time saw a small boost or penalty. Meanwhile, semantic SEO that addresses the meaning of a keyword saw a boost.

MOVING FORWARD

At this time, it is still early on in terms of fully understanding the implications of this algorithm change. It is also likely that rankings will continue to fluctuate in the near future. In the past when Google made changes this significant, it also issued a correction. With that being said, if a site has lost notable amounts of traffic, it cannot be expected that the numbers will bounce back to where they were.

However, Today’s Business will be applying what it knows and keeps learning to continually improve our client’s performance on search engines. We will be pushing at the core of our SEO tactics quality content, technical refinements to websites for SEO, creating engaging website pages and generating backlinks, continuing a focus on increased lead generation.

FOR MORE READING ON THE GOOGLE MEDIC UPDATE:

News Articles:

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-medic-update-26177.html
https://searchengineland.com/googles-august-first-core-algorithm-update-who-did-it-impact-and-how-much-303538

Forum Activity of Upset Business:

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/ogHEOSDoAZo

The post Google’s “Medic Update” and How it is Impacting SEO appeared first on Today's Business.

The BERT update was announced on October 24, 2019, but had started rolling out to parts of the search engine as early as October 18th. Due to the significance of Google’s statements attached to the announcement, Today’s Business has sought to inform clients on how BERT may impact performance as well as future strategy.

HOW MIGHT BERT DIRECTLY IMPACT
YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING PERFORMANCE

RANKINGS VOLATILITY:

• Performance of many keywords may have greater variance in the second half of October. This should stabilize as the algorithm continues to mature.
• Pages that were indirectly ranking for a query despite not being entirely accurate are less likely to hold their rankings. By and large, these should not impact traffic and lead generation significantly because the people searching were less likely to be finding what they want to begin with.

KEYWORD CHANGING:

• While BERT is focused on improving its accuracy for search intent, it may also change the type of search results that Google provides. A search query that was previously displaying service pages may now be focused entirely on articles. This has been occurring with greater frequency over the past 18 months, with BERT being Google’s ultimate culmination of  experimentation. Because of this, paying attention to the types of results being displayed is more crucial than ever.

PAGE LENGTH:

• Page length standards are likely to show greater variance depending on the needs of addressing a search, which means that once again some pages may be needing more content while others less.

STRUCTURED DATA:

• Greater implementation of Q&A, FAQ Page, How-To, and Speakable schema types should be considered.

MORE LONG-TAIL KEYWORDS TO TARGET

• As search behavior becomes more closely aligned to natural language, there is likely going to be more diversity in search queries by users, meaning even more opportunities to target and leverage for traffic.

WHAT IS THE BERT UPDATE?

BERT is a deep learning algorithm related to natural language processing – in other words, Google is seeking to better enable people to use natural language while searching instead of keyword-based queries. Google uses BERT to try to better understand the context of a search query and to more accurately interpret the meaning of the individual words. This breakthrough is built on mathematical models called Transformers: These analyze a word in relation to all the other words in the sentence – or in the case of Google search the search query – and do not simply look at the meaning of words in isolation. This is particularly useful when interpreting the meaning of prepositions and the position of individual words within a search query

EXAMPLE ONE:

• A query for “Can you get medicine for someone pharmacy” would have previously returned a result simply for instructions on getting a prescription. Because of the BERT update, the result closely matches the intent of the search by picking up on the fact that the searcher is actually looking for information on retrieving a prescription for another person.

EXAMPLE TWO:

• In this case, the query is “2019 brazil traveler to usa need a visa”. Previously, Google had difficulty understanding the significance of the word “to” in context as well as the function of “brazil” as an adjective towards the type of traveler in the subject. The user’s intent is to find out whether a visa is needed for a Brazilian to travel to the USA. But Google’s result was geared towards Americans traveling to Brazil. After the update, it is now displaying the US Embassy website for Brazilian tourists, a much more relevant search.

WHAT IS THE BERT UPDATE GOING TO IMPACT?

Overall, the BERT update is more subtle in the immediate future than many core algorithm updates in the past 18 months. Below, you can see that a check of how significant this shifted rankings indicated this as being moderate.With that being said, it appears the sites that were most commonly affected fall into the “Your Money Your Life” category
(Websites that involve your health or items you may buy):

• Shopping

• Apartments

• Food

• Healthcare

THE BERT UPDATE WILL IMPACT ONE OUT OF TEN QUERIES

• Google described this update as a massive change impacting 10% of all queries and called it one of their biggest steps forward for search in the past 5 years (and one of the biggest steps forward in the entire history of search).
  Google is now trying to match results with the user’s search intent rather than the exact keywords they used. This also applies to featured snippets

BERT IS FOCUSED ON UNDERSTANDING LONGER-TAIL, NATURAL LANGUAGE QUERIES.

• Google’s implication that BERT will impact 10% of searches may mean that long-tail searches are on the rise. It is important to note that long-tail keywords already represent nearly 70% of search volume and that 15% of all annual search queries have never been seen before by Google.

Example of Short Tail vs. Long Tail keyword:“Broken leg treatment” Short Tail

“What are the treatment options for a broken leg” Long Tail

Long tail queries that are not always targeted by SEOs and businesses because they tend to send less traffic to sites than shorter-tail queries.

• The intent of Google is to provide users with more detailed and helpful information:

Search will be able to understand the context of the words in the query (for conversational queries or searches where the words “for” and “to” are significant).

Users can search in a way that is more aligned with the way they
would speak.

BERT also aims to take learnings from one language and apply them to others, which helps Google to return relevant results in all the languages that search is offered in.

WHAT CAN BE LEVERAGED
FOR SEO PURPOSES?

Initial strategies are limited. The BERT Update is to enhance Google’s natural language processing, essentially creating a stepping stone for Google to research and understand the natural language used in context within search queries, not the content on a page. Google can already pick up on synonyms and misspellings, however, according to Search Engine Journal, with addition to BERT, Google will better interpret the queries.

• Optimizing pages to incorporate more FAQ sections, focused not just on keyword density, but quality answers can pose a positive impact on BERT. To the extent of featured snippets, marking up pages with FAQ Page, How-to, and Q&A schema is recommended for increasing the page’s probability of being picked up by BERT. There is not an extensive amount of page optimizing to go along with BERT other than to continue to produce relevant content of excellent quality.

• BERT will also have a big impact on voice search as well. If users are seeing more accurate results for natural language being used, searches are likely going to expand. Utilizing schema to help google identify more conversational text should be considered by more sites. This should not be considered for pages not yet ranking in the top 10.

• Creating shorter FAQ-style individual posts that satisfy a query can enable ranking for longer tail keywords.

• Reducing the use of Keyword heavy sections/language and focusing more on properly addressing each concept attached to a topic.

In the upcoming months, changes to the update may occur as Google often tweaks algorithm updates once they are rolled out. Today’s Business will be monitoring these changes moving forward and reporting on any significant updates made that could impact our clients’ performance.

The post BERT ALGORITHM UPDATE appeared first on Today's Business.

Your future customers, patients, and clients are already using Google to research their decisions and purchases. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization is the process of maximizing the visibility of your site on search engine results pages. The higher you rank, the more traffic your website will get.

Here are five reasons why SEO should be a top priority for your business.

Organic search drives traffic.

SEO doesn’t just drive traffic, it drives quality traffic. The people clicking on your website are already interested in the products and services your business offers. They have determined a need for something, and when they visit your site, there is a good chance they will take action. The higher your ranking on Google, the more traffic will go to your website.

Conversions, conversions, conversions.

Search traffic has the highest conversion rate primarily because it is an inbound marketing technique. It markets to a consumer who is already searching for the services your business provides. Unlike an ad, you’re not trying to persuade someone to find your content, they have already searched for it themselves. When content is optimized and SEO-friendly, website visitors are likely to produce a conversion. Your website is one of your greatest salespeople. If it’s visible on search results pages, then you are going to see an amazing return on investment.

Build awareness and credibility.

Improving your ranking has many factors, and one of them involves building relationships with other sites by gaining internal backlinks. Backlink research doesn’t just boost your ranking on Google, it boosts awareness and credibility.

Keep up with your competitors.

Your competitor is already implementing the best SEO practices, so why aren’t you? The higher up in the results you are, the more likely a potential customer is going to visit your site. It’s time to start ranking higher than your competitor.

Great for local businesses.

Local search is growing as we speak. By 2021, mobile devices alone will influence $1.4 trillion in sales and 46% of Google searches are already local. As a small local business, you can benefit immensely from a quality SEO strategy.

Optimize Your Business for Search at Today’s Business

Today’s Business can help you implement SEO tactics in the most effective way possible. Our experienced strategists’ knowledge of the marketing world and competitive mindset will only serve to benefit you. Contact us today to talk about how Search Engine Optimization can elevate your brand and boost conversions!

The post 5 Benefits of SEO and Why Your Business Needs It appeared first on Today's Business.

• Medical
• Finance
• Legal
• E-Commerce

*Other pages include if determined dangerous if done by the average layman (IE. Car Repair)J

As with any update, some sites may note drops or gains. There’s nothing wrong with pages that may now perform less well. Instead, it’s that changes to our systems are benefiting pages that were previously under-rewarded….

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) March 12, 2018

While the key term here is ‘medic’, this is a broad core update which involves all searches, not just the medical vertical. Here at Today’s Business, we have seen everything from 40% increases to 40% decreases in a variety of industries, which makes this the most impactful update since Mobilegeddon in April 2015. The most frustrating thing about this update is that there is no “Quick Fix” for those sites who saw a negative impact.

There is a high chance we may soon not show up in your search results anymore. Please use the search on the PsychonautWiki and bookmark the site!

We are being suppressed from a daily growing number of keywords since the August 1st Google "Medic" Core Update. pic.twitter.com/izXP13Uf9w

— PsychonautWiki (@PsychonautWiki) September 18, 2018

VS.

The August 1, 2018 Google Update Strongly Affected YMYL Sites (Medic Update): I have been covering algorithm updates for a long time and this is one of the biggest updates that I can recall. It is important to note that most sites that I monitor did not… https://t.co/elTvbOsZ39 pic.twitter.com/Xin7dR5BB9

— The Tiggerito Times (@TiggeritoTimes) September 18, 2018

Now more than ever, Google is prioritizing quality content and user intent, which is why I recommend taking a deep dive into your SEO strategy before years end. Instead of harping on what happened, focus on what you can do to make your site better by utilizing these five techniques.

1. E-A-T: Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness

Google’s update has been based around assuring that the information in SERPS (Search Engine Results Page) is correct and engaging. That is based around having trust in the authority and having trust in the content for each website they portray. This all falls under the E-A-T: the experience, the authority, and the trust. Some of the best ways to represent these to Google are:

• The page has associated content on the website which is linked to properly and easily navigable
• The website includes enough Informational Pages (About Us, Contact, Customer Service) that make it easy for your visitors to learn and contact you; Especially important for e-commerce
• The website is maintained and updated regularly

Meanwhile, examples of low-quality pages include:

• Misleading page titles that are exaggerative or shocking
• Pages have content that can have the potential to spread hate
• Pages that potentially misinform or deceive users
• Pages have an unsatisfying amount of content for the purpose of the page

Put yourself in Google’s shoes. The Internet is full of nonsense, we all know it. They just have the daunting task of filtering it. Google’s objective is to not only provide the correct information but making sure its users receive the best experience once they leave that site. That just happens to include a lot more things now.

2. Prioritize Query Intent

The Google search results page has drastically changed throughout time, and the days of 10 search results in blue links are long gone. The results page is made up of the Semantic SEO:

• Local Search Results (Mappack)
• Google Images
• Knowledge Graph/Answer Boxes 
• Featured Snippets 
• Rich Cards/News 
• Vertical Search
• People Also Ask
• Twitter
• Shopping Results and more

Google is trying to drive more engagement within the search results page and keeping you within their ecosystem. This is why you see stats like 60% of Google mobile searches do not result in a click because Google is giving you answers in your results.Google’s search results page differs from YouTube or Amazon in the simple fact that people are not just looking for a product or a video, they are going to Google for both. Users are expecting the correct results for every conceivable area and it is Google’s job to classify the question and in the next step present the right matches to the user.

1998 Google search: “toothbrush”
2018 Google search: “where to buy toothbrush near me now”#SearchIs20 https://t.co/eT1EfZ939P pic.twitter.com/ViMlBZ1XlB

— Think with Google (@ThinkwithGoogle) September 25, 2018

How does this affect you?  As previously stated, Google’s latest algorithm update has strongly impacted query intent. As we covered in section one, when a user is utilizing Google, in general, they have a specific question but they may only enter certain search terms. Their expectation for the results is completely dependant on the ‘intention’ of their query. In order for Google to deliver the expected result, the search process must also understand the intention behind the query.  Going into 2019, individual location and service pages are going to be critical for local businesses to succeed in organic search. Just like when trying to answer questions, when thinking about what to include on your location pages, consider what users are going to be looking for when they are on those pages. Reviews, directions, hours, and accommodations can all be utilized to create strong, location based content.

3. Importance of Semantic SEO

Over 60% of mobile Google searches do not involve a click. This is because when users are typing into Google, they are asking a question that the search engine is then able to provide an exact answer for. This latest update has also taken a big jump into a higher authority on Semantic SEO.

Search results are becoming more dynamic, where categories can easily be scanned, selected and let you change all your results to be relevant to a subtopic. You can see this live now for some dog breeds and other topics will come. https://t.co/biKO3hXb5W pic.twitter.com/CganYbcy4d

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) September 24, 2018

But what is Semantic SEO? It is metadata that provides Google and other search engines more context about the content on your website. It is great for many different types of information, like recipes, business locations, definitions/exact questions, and the list is growing as Google begins to support additional schema types. Using Semantic SEO helps increase your website’s chances of appearing as the featured snippet, or position zero, on search results. Google has also taken one extra step into auto defining words on Chrome browsers without even involving a search. When generating content on your website, you should consider writing in a tone that explains the answer thoroughly but directly, with the semantic code included so that Google knows what question and answer you are providing.

4. Blog For Engagement, Not SEO

Just as your service pages should include quality content that answers potential questions, your blog content should be equally informative and engaging for the user. One of the biggest things the Medic Update has done is penalize blogs with too many ads on them. Google wants you to not only provide the right answer, but also an optimized user experience. Blogs that are just static content with no images, graphs or breakups have seen significant decreases, whereas thorough blogs with relative images and engaging content have seen a drastic increase.

As the Internet develops, your blog is no longer a place for you to add content for SEO purposes. Google now sees it as a place for users to engage on your website and participate in the conversation. Additional metrics like social engagement, average session duration, as well as the overall markup of the page seem to be some of the ultimate outliers in who saw your blog and who didn’t.

For blogging, another change based on the Medic Update is the importance of outbound links to high authoritative websites. Google has put a precedent on not only having one point of view. Setting up bio and about pages to prove your blog author has experience, authority, and trust is critical, but Google still wants more. Including high authority outbound links makes your blog look more credible simply because you are linking to sources that Google already trusts. In similarity to how having an inbound link adds domain authority, an outbound link to an authoritative page adds to your quality rating score.

5. Quality Over Quantity

When it comes to determining what quality content means for your website, ask yourself:

• Is my content answering questions or providing value?
• Are there relative search terms and query intents that will drive people to my website?

When a user conducts a search on Google, they have an expectation of what the search results are going to look like and they know the type of experience they want to have. This latest algorithm change has provided Google the opportunity to grade your website on just that. In the past, you probably had one service page with a bulleted list. Now, if your page has any bullets on it, the bullet should probably have its own page. Your content should go from broad to specific and funnel down accordingly.

This week we released a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. Our guidance about such updates remains the same as in March, as we covered here: https://t.co/uPlEdSLHoX

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) August 1, 2018

I used to say if you wanted to show up for Google you needed to have a page dedicated to it on your website. That is no longer the case. That being said, always be sure to talk about things that are relative to the services you provide and don’t stretch it. When writing thorough content, always remember that you need to be answering the question. Trouble for brands comes when they are not creating unique content from each service offering and choosing to cut corners instead. In addition, it’s important to know when you shouldn’t build a new page but build out the page instead.

Where do we go from here?

At this point in time, we can only fully understand certain things. We understand that Google wants quality and they want users to get their questions answered in one place. And finally, we realized that anything that was half-assed previously is going to hurt you tomorrow.

If your website taken a hit or reaped the benefits since the medic update, I’d love to hear about it! Share your thoughts with me below.

The post 5 Ways I’ve Updated My SEO Strategy for Google’s Medic Update appeared first on Today's Business.