I believe that once everyone starts thinking clearly again after the last round of Penguin updates — focusing on their business rather than on ways to game the system or mass produce activities that are not scalable — we can get down to action that can actually move the needle. One such action? Focus on your site search queries. While most keyword research best practices suggest you take a look at them, I have found very few companies that actually do it. At a recent search conference, for example, I asked a room of 250 how many had even looked at their site search queries, let alone mine them. Only four people raised their hands. From talking to attendees afterward, it seemed that most didn’t think it would yield any value, did not know where to get the data, or just did not think about it. Why Are Site Search Queries Important? Site search queries are the voice of intention of your customers. Site search queries represent products, services or information the … [Read more...] about Monetizing Site Search Queries
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Use Site Search Data To Fuel Your Content & Key Phrase Strategy
Blindfolded, Dave listened carefully to his guide. Her clues about what lay beyond the two doors were interesting, but vague. Then the horn blared. He was out of time! He had to choose his path. But how? He needed more information! Much like Dave, marketers are often in the dark when they make content strategy decisions. More often than not, they rely on data gleaned from out-of-the-box analytics (that only tells half the story). But, you have better options! Why not fuel your content strategy with signals created by your own audience? Your site search data can help you do exactly that. Site search is an internal website function that enables users to search your site’s content. It can either be part of your CMS/infrastructure (most CMS systems come with their own search functionality), or a third-party solution, such as Google Site Search. Customers often turn to site search when they are unable to locate what they need on your site. By entering a query in the search box … [Read more...] about Use Site Search Data To Fuel Your Content & Key Phrase Strategy
5 steps to optimizing your site for Google’s mobile-first index
Google has started testing its mobile-first index. This new index will look first at the mobile version of your website for its ranking signals and fall back on the desktop version when there is no mobile version. Google has been slowly moving toward a mobile-first index for quite a while now. Google first hinted at their intentions of a mobile-first index about a year ago, but November 4 was the first time Google has posted details about the mobile-first index on their own blog. So if you have been slow in joining the mobile revolution, now is the time to take action. As mobile continues to dominate search, Google and the other search engines are going to place more and more emphasis on mobile. Here are five steps you can take to optimize your site for Google’s mobile-first index. 1. Speed In Google’s Site Performance for Webmasters video (below), Developer Programs Tech Lead Maile Ohye, states that “two seconds is the threshold for e-commerce website acceptability. … [Read more...] about 5 steps to optimizing your site for Google’s mobile-first index
How to Make Your Site Search Engine Ready
The more I use WordPress, the more I love it as a platform for building beautiful and robust websites. But it probably wasn’t until I was invited to speak at WordCamp in 2014 that I began to truly appreciate the awesomeness that is WordPress. Being with so many knowledgeable people whose sole goal is to help others use WordPress to earn a living, broadcast their message, or fulfill their passions, and it’s difficult not to learn of all the things that make WordPress such a powerful content management system. Because WordPress is open source, there are plenty of plugins you can use to help make your website more search engine friendly and web marketing ready. While I don’t want to focus too much on specific plugins in this post, I do want to highlight a lot of native WordPress and plugin settings that you can–and should–be implementing on your WordPress site. This guide covers three main areas: How to Optimize Your WordPress Site for Search How to Optimize … [Read more...] about How to Make Your Site Search Engine Ready
4 Great WordPress Site Search Plugins
If you’ve ever searched a WordPress site, you have likely noticed the results you get back from any search query leave a lot to be desired. And if you use WordPress as your content management system of choice, you may have noticed pages finding their way into site search results, which you would prefer people didn’t see. The unfortunate truth is that native WordPress site search needs some work to ensure it’s delivering your readers the best results. So what can you do to improve the relevance of your site search results? Fortunately, there are a number of easy-to-use WordPress plugins that can help – no need to mess around with code, just install, activate, and tweak the settings to make them work how you want them to. 1. Search Everything With over 80,000+ active installed, Search Everything has a solid user base and it’s served me well on several websites. There are no hoops to jump through, just activate, tweak the settings, and you’re ready to … [Read more...] about 4 Great WordPress Site Search Plugins