Category Archives: Search Engine Optimization

SEO Update, Page Experience, Coming In May

Page Experience, New Ranking Factor Coming to Google in May

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Google has a new set of ranking factors coming in May, and they’re all part of “Page Experience”. Here’s the quick info you need:

  • The new factors: loading time, interactivity time, and visual stability.
  • Combined with these under “Page Experience” are the existing factors: mobile friendly, safe browsing, HTTPS, no intrusive pop-ups.
  • Relevant Content is still the top ranking factor. These new factors won’t necessarily change your rankings.
  • How your competitors optimize their sites affects your placement in search results. If they have similar SEO as your site, Page Experience could be a significant factor.
  • Google announced this well ahead of time, which could indicate a significant change.
  • Predictions among SEO experts are mixed. The impact is a uncertain.
  • Google has indicated that this will apply first to mobile search, but that was in December.

Predictions on the impact range from “it depends” to “big deal, why else would Google announce it well ahead of time?”. SEO is based on hundreds of factors, including how much competition you have for your search terms. The effect on one site might be different than another. You should assess your site.

What To Do

  • If SEO is important for you, review your site for the Page Experience. Google published details about the signals they use.
  • Update your site including content and the software running it.
  • If search optimization is critical, you should review and update you site at least quarterly. If SEO is day-to-day critical, you’re probably already monitoring your site and backing up on a weekly basis. If you not, you should.

Check the video below for how to assess your site’s speed and get details about how to improve it.

Keepin’ On With Business in 2020

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Our clients are keeping on with business. They’ve made adjustments, of course, but they’re keeping on. Here are a few tips on how.

HTML tags and

Website SEO Checkup: Headlines

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Here’s how to check headlines on your website. It’s something you can do during quarantine downtime

Why is this important? Headlines are a priority in search engine optimization (SEO).

Quick Explanation: Heading tags are in the code of websites. The tags are H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6. The should have keywords that are:

  • relevant to the content on the page
  • likely to be used in searches on search engines

If you know how to check these in the software you use (WordPress for example), use that software. Add and edit the keywords if needed.

Universal Headline Check

Here’s a way to see the H tags using any computer or mobile device.

  1. Go to https://validator.w3.org/
  2. Type or copy-paste the address of the page you’re checking into the Address field.
  3. Click More Options.
  4. Select Show Outline.
  5. Click Check.
W3 Validator Form

Next, scroll down to the Heading-level outline in the results. This validator tool shows errors and warnings, but they’re not important for checking headlines. Ignore the warnings and errors.

W3 Validator Results showing Heading-level outline

If you don’t see this section, make sure you selected the option Show Outline.

Important Advantage: The W3 Validator shows all the headlines on a page including those in the header and footer.

WordPress with Gutenberg Headline Check

On WordPress using the Gutenberg editor for a page or post, find the headline outline under the “i” icon near the top.

Important Shortcoming: This shows only headline blocks in the content of a page. It excludes the header, footer, and headlines created by shortcodes.

Click the “i” icon to see the Document Outline.

WordPress Gutenberg Content Structure, Document Outline and heading tags

Keywords in Heading is First Priority

First, these headlines should have keywords. That’s what’s most important about headlines and SEO. Edit your page or have your web editor add some keywords if you think they’re lacking.

Heading Organization is Important but Not Critical

Google says headlines should be nested like an outline. If you can, do this. But this is not critical to SEO.

Find more details in our blog post about organizing headings.

Bonus: Updated Page

I think Google gives a slight bump to pages and sites that are recently updated. Making a small change might-could give you a .0001% boost… that is, a minor boost.