Uncategorized – REWARDJACKPOTQUEST

Is Google Crawling Your Site A Lot? That Could Be A Bad Sign via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Administrator — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 10:01:44 +0000

According to a recent LinkedIn post by Gary Illyes, Analyst at Google, you should be cautious if Google starts aggressively crawling your website.

While an uptick in crawling can be a good sign, Illyes says it may indicate underlying issues.

Illyes cautions:

“Don’t get happy prematurely when search engines unexpectedly start to crawl like crazy from your site.”

He says there are two common problems to watch out for: infinite spaces and website hacks.

Infinite Spaces Could Cause Crawling Spike

An issue Illyes highlighted is sites with “infinite spaces”—areas like calendar modules or endlessly filterable product listings that can generate unlimited potential URLs.

If a site is crawled a lot already, crawlers may get extra excited about infinite spaces.

Illyes explains:

“If your site generally has pages that search users find helpful, crawlers will get excited about these infinite spaces for a time.”

He recommends using the robots.txt file to block crawlers from accessing infinite spaces.

Hacked Sites Can Trigger Crawling Frenzy

Another troubling cause of a crawling spike is a security breach where hackers inject spam onto a reputable site.

Crawlers may initially interpret this as new content to index before realizing it’s malicious.

Illyes states:

“If a no-good-doer somehow managed to get access…they might flood your site with, well, crap… crawlers will get excited about these new pages for a time and happily crawl them.”

Remain Skeptical Of Crawling Spikes

Rather than assuming a crawling spike is positive, Illyes suggests treating it as a potential issue until the root cause is identified.

He states:

“Treat unexpected sharp increases in crawling as a symptom…until you can prove otherwise. Or, you know, maybe I’m just a hardline pessimist.”

Fixing Hacked Sites: Help From Google

For hacked sites, Illyes pointed to a page that includes a video with further assistance:

Here are the key points.

Tips From Google’s Video

Google’s video outlines the steps in the recovery process.

1. Identify The Vulnerability

The first crucial step is finding how the hacker gained access. Tools like Google’s Webmaster Tools can assist in detecting issues.

2. Fix The Vulnerability

Once the security hole is identified, it must be closed to prevent any future unauthorized access. This could involve updating software, changing passwords, etc.

3. Clean The Hacked Content

Check the entire site’s content and code to remove any spam, malware, defaced pages, or other injections by the hacker. Security plugins like Wordfence can assist in this process.

4. Harden Security

Beyond fixing the specific vulnerability, take additional measures to harden the site’s security. This could include enabling firewalls, limiting user permissions, and more frequent software updates.

5. Request A Review

Once the vulnerability is patched and any hacked content is removed, you can then request Google to review the site and remove any security warnings or blacklists once it’s verified as clean.

The video notes that the review process is faster for malware issues (days) than spam issues (weeks) since Google has to inspect spam cleanup efforts further.

Additional Tips From Google’s John Mueller

Google’s John Mueller has previously offered specific advice on recovering from the SEO impact of hacked pages:

Use the URL removal tool to deindex the hacked pages quickly.
Focus on improving the overall site quality beyond removing hacked content.
Lingering impacts may persist for months until the site recovers Google’s trust.

Why SEJ Cares

Website security is crucial for all businesses, as hacked content can impact trust and search engine rankings.

Google’s Gary Illyes pointed out that sudden spikes in crawling activity could indicate security breaches or technical issues that need immediate attention.

Featured Image: Stacey Newman/Shutterstock

Reddit Traffic Up 39%: Is Google Prioritizing Opinions Over Expertise? via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Administrator — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 09:03:42 +0000

Reddit’s website traffic has grown 39% compared to the previous year, according to data from Similarweb.

This growth seems fueled by Reddit’s increased visibility in Google search results.

Why is Reddit growing so fast, and what does this mean for businesses and SEO professionals?

Here’s our take on it.

Why Is Reddit Growing?

Several factors, including Google prioritizing “helpful content” from discussion forums in a recent algorithm update, have likely contributed to Reddit’s improved search rankings and visibility.

A report from Business Insider indicates that more people are now finding Reddit through Google searches than by directly visiting the reddit.com website.

Mordy Oberstein, Wix’s Head of SEO, shared recent data showing a consistent increase in the share of Reddit sources appearing in Google’s Discussion and Forums SERP feature.

A week ago I anecdotally “noticed” that perhaps there is less Reddit in the Discussion & Forums SERP Feature. @type_SEO noticed the same.

Asked the folks at @semrush to pull data to see if I was crazy or not and the answer is… maybe?

There is a slight yet consistent… pic.twitter.com/D93d35NU61

— Mordy Oberstein *This guy’s still here? C’mon man* (@MordyOberstein) June 19, 2024

Lily Ray, Senior Director of SEO and Head of Organic Research at Amsive Digital, tweeted about Reddit’s increased visibility in Google search results.

She noted that Reddit appeared in “Discussions and Forums” for various medical queries in recent weeks but not anymore today.

Oh heyhttps://t.co/jXwei3CStU https://t.co/s2GclYw9wY

— Lily Ray (@lilyraynyc) June 19, 2024

Ray also observed that the number of Discussion and Forum features with multiple Reddit URLs has decreased slightly over the past months.

Google’s $60 Million Deal with Reddit

Google recently signed a $60 million deal to license Reddit data for AI products.

The timing of the deal and Reddit’s search growth raise questions.

Google has denied a direct connection between the deal and Reddit’s search visibility, but the coincidence is notable.

Implications For Marketers & SEO Professionals

Reddit’s newfound dominance in Google search results presents business challenges and opportunities.

Challenges

Roger Montti, a staff writer for Search Engine Journal, raises concerns about the expertise and trustworthiness of Reddit content:

In the article “Let’s Be Real: Reddit In Google Search Lacks Credibility,” Montti states:

“Opinions shared on Reddit by people who lack expertise and are sharing opinions in anonymity qualify as dubious. Yet Google is not only favoring Reddit in the search results, it is also paying millions of dollars for access to content that is lacking in expertise, experience, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.”

This is challenging because it means your expert-written content could get outranked by the opinions of anonymous Reddit users.

Opportunities

Search Engine Journal owner Brent Csutoras offers a more optimistic view, believing marketers should lean into Reddit’s newfound prominence.

In the article “Why Every Marketer Should Be On Reddit,” Csutoras states:

“If your brand has something meaningful to say and is interested in truly connecting with your audience, then yes, you should be on Reddit.”

However, Reddit’s community-driven nature requires a delicate approach, Csutoras adds:

“Reddit communities can be highly negative toward self-serving promotion. But if you put in the effort and solve people’s needs and problems, Reddit has the potential to be a high-performance channel.”

Related: Why Every Marketer Should Be On Reddit

Why SEJ Cares

SEO professionals and marketers should be mindful that expert-written resources could be outranked by Reddit threads that reflect personal opinions rather than authoritative information.

However, by providing genuine value and respecting Reddit’s community guidelines, businesses may be able to leverage the platform’s prominence for increased visibility and audience engagement.

Featured Image: rafapress/Shutterstock

Marketo’s June 2024 releases upgrade Interactive Webinars, Dynamic Chat Flows

Administrator — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 09:01:33 +0000

Adobe Marketo’s June updates improve the functionality of the platform’s Interactive Webinars and Dynamic Chat Conversational Flows. Also this month comes word that LinkedIn LaunchPoint connections in Marketo will require re-authentication before Dec. 15, 2024.

Templates for Interactive Webinars

Marketo users now have the ability to create custom templates for room layouts in Interactive Webinars.

Room templates are a great way to standardize the webinar experience for different types of digital engagements. With the June release, marketers can now customize which pods appear throughout the webinar and access Interactive Webinar templates from within the Marketo Design Studio.

Why it’s a win: Interactive Webinars already have superior functionality with respect to webinar experience. Marketers can create visual layouts for chat, Q&A, screenshare, whiteboards, polls and more, which allow for a highly branded experience from webinar start to finish. This release makes it even easier to find and manage templates.

Conversational Flow cards

Much like tokens in a Marketo program, marketers are now able to manage flow actions across Dialogues by using a Conversational Flow card.

Why it’s a win: Marketers no longer need to recreate the same flow across multiple Dialogues or edit each flow in each Dialogue. Conversational Flow cards allow marketers to create a flow, and then deploy it across Dialogues, saving time and minimizing errors.

Inferred fields data source

Adobe is making minor changes to the inferred fields underlying data source. Person records created via form fill with no prior web activity will now use the same data source for Marketo inferred fields as the data sources used for other person-collection methods.

Why it’s a win: Marketers will now see inferred data from the same source regardless of point of entry into Marketo. This will provide more consistent inferred data for marketers to use.

LinkedIn integration re-authentication

Marketers using a LinkedIn LaunchPoint integration will need to re-authenticate their LaunchPoint service between July 26, 2024 and Dec. 15, 2024. You can find instructions on how to re-authenticate here for Lead Gen Forms and here for Matched Audiences. Integration functionality will not change.

Why it’s a win: LinkedIn is improving the stability of its integration with Marketo. Re-authentication is a one-time step to migrating to the newer Marketo API versions.

You can read the full release notes for Marketo Engage and for Dynamic Chat release notes.

The post Marketo’s June 2024 releases upgrade Interactive Webinars, Dynamic Chat Flows appeared first on MarTech.

How to Use STAT to Find SEO Opportunities at Scale

Administrator — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 08:59:33 +0000

The author’s views are entirely their own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

You may already be familiar with STAT Search Analytics and its rank tracking abilities, but did you know it can also help you discover SEO opportunities on a massive scale? In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Cyrus shows you how to dig into STAT to do just that.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a larger version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hi, everybody. Welcome. My name is Cyrus. Today the thing I want to talk about is how to use STAT to find SEO opportunities at scale, and I mean massive scale.

Now a lot of you have probably heard of STAT. You may know that it has an excellent reputation. But it’s possible you haven’t actually used it or have a very good understanding of what it actually does.

So that’s what I’m going to try to cover today and explain how powerful it is at discovering SEO opportunities in ways that can inform content strategy, competitive analysis, and a lot more.

What is STAT?

So STAT, the full name of STAT is actually STAT Search Analytics. On the surface, what a lot of people understand is that it is a rank tracker, tracking thousands of keywords at a time anywhere across the globe. But underneath the hood, it’s actually a lot more than a rank tracker. It’s a rank tracker. It’s a competitive landscape tool. It’s SERP analysis and intent. It allows you to do some pretty incredible things once you dig into the data.

Keyword attribution

So let me dig into a little bit about how it actually works. So like a lot of keyword rank trackers, you start with keywords. But one of the differences is all the different attributes that you can assign to each of your keywords.

So first is very familiar, the market or the search engine. So you want Canadian English results or Canadian French results. Any market in the world that’s available it’s pretty much available for you to use in STAT.

The second is location, which is a slightly different concept. So you can define ZIP Codes, cities, be as specific as you want. This is very important for multiple location businesses or if you’re running an advertising campaign in a certain part of the country and you want to track very specific results. But you can define location very specifically for each of your keywords.

Third is device, mobile or desktop, especially important with mobile-first indexing and increasing mobile results. But also tags, smart tags, and this is where the true power of STAT comes in, the ways that you can use smart tagging.

Smart tagging

So you can tag your keywords in multiple ways, assigning multiple tags to slice them and dice them any way you want.

So different ways that you can tag keywords in STAT is anything that’s important to your business. For example, you can create keyword groups based on what’s important to you. On Moz, we tag keywords with “SEO” in it or anything that’s important to your business that you want to create a keyword cohort out of. Or location, like we were talking about, if you’re running an advertising campaign in Indiana and you want to tag certain keywords that you’re targeting there, something like that. Or all your Kansas city keywords or your London or Berlin keywords.

Product categories. So if you sell multiple categories, you sell TVs, books, dresses, anything you want, you might want to tag all of those into a particular keyword category. Or attributes, such as a 55-inch television versus a 48-inch television, when you want to get very, very specific across your product line.

Also your brand. At Moz, we track everything with the word “Moz” in it, or Nike or Apple or whatever your brand is or if you have multiple brands. Basically, anything that’s important to your business, any KPI that you measure, anything that’s relevant to your marketing department or finance or anything else like that, you can tag, and that’s where the true power comes in, because once you tag, you’ve created a keyword cohort or a group.

Share of voice

Then you can see your share of voice across that entire market using just that group. So if you want to track yourself against a very specific set of keywords, you can see your share of voice, share of voice meaning how much visibility you have in Google search results, and STAT will show you your exact competitors and how you rank among those.

Generally, you want to see yourself going up and to the right. But if you’re not, you can see exactly who’s beating you and where their movement is, and how you’re doing for that specific keyword group, which is incredibly valuable when you’re working on a particular set of keywords or a campaign.

SERP features + intent

But my favorite part — and this is where the true power comes in, because it can inform your content strategy and this is where the SEO opportunities are actually at — is the analysis of SERP features and intent. Because what STAT will do is, out of the thousands of keywords that you put into it, it will analyze the entire SERP of each of those and it will collect all the SERP features that it finds and tell you exactly what you own and don’t own and where your opportunities are.

So let’s give an example that’s a little more concrete. So let’s say you track a bunch of keywords within a particular cohort and you see that most of the results have a featured snippet. STAT will show you exactly what you own and what you don’t own. Now what’s cool about this is you can click into what you don’t own and you can see the exact featured snippets that your competitors own that you can actually create some content strategy around and try and go steal those.

A different way is images or news. So let’s say that you notice that you’re selling TVs or something like that and almost all the SERPs have images and you don’t own any of them. So something like that can inform your content strategy, where you go to your team and you say, “Hey, folks, we need to create more images, or we need better structured data to get Google to show the images because this is the intent for this type of keyword, and we’re simply not owning it in this way.”

Same thing with news. If you notice a lot of news results and you’re not a news organization but you’re competing for these keywords, that can inform your content strategy and maybe you need to go after those news keywords or try something else. Video is another one. More and more SERPs have video results with video carousel and things like that. You can see exactly what you own and what you don’t own.

A lot of times you’re going to find that certain domains are beating you on those videos and that may inform, especially for the high volume keywords that you want to go after, you may want to be creating more video content for that. But it all depends on the SERP, and you’re going to find different feature sets and different combinations for every keyword cohort that you do.

So what’s important to you and what’s important to track it’s going to show up differently every time, but it’s going to show you exactly where the opportunities are. FAQs are another thing, rich snippets sort of results. You may find that your competitors are all using FAQ markup. You’re not using any. That could inform your SEO strategy, and you might start incorporating more FAQs because Google is obviously rewarding those in the SERPs and your competitors are gaining those and not you.

Other things, virtually any SERP feature that’s trackable. You can find local results. Twitter boxes. You may find that for certain queries Google is surfacing Twitter results and maybe that means you need to be on Twitter more than you actually are right now and see who’s ranking for those results instead of something that you’re doing on-site.

Maybe it’s you need to do more YouTube. It’s not all necessarily on your site. But this will tell you where you need to invest those opportunities. Review stars, podcasts, and more. All of this will tell you what’s important and where the opportunities are and where you’re winning and losing and the exact keywords that you can go after if you want to win and the exact feature sets where your competitors are getting traffic and you aren’t.

So I use STAT, I love it, every week. It’s a great tool. If you want to try it out, I encourage you to do so. That’s it for me. Thanks, everybody.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com.

Business leaders believe AI can deliver a competitive advantage

Administrator — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 08:57:31 +0000

No fewer than 89% of B2B and B2C directors and above believe that ethical use of AI can deliver a competitive business advantage. That’s the takeaway from the new “State of Personalization 2024” report from Twilio Segment.

A similarly large portion, 86%, expects artificial intelligence to support a shift from reactive to predictive personalization. The full report, based on a survey of over 500 business leaders representing companies with over 500 employees in 12 countries can be found here (registration required).

Why we care. Of course Twilio Segment is a CDP and has skin in the personalization game. But the question the report inadvertently raises and does not fully answer is how a technology that is foreseen to be very widely (if not universally) adopted will ultimately provide a competitive advantage. The simple answer might be that some brands will use it well and some will use it badly. It can be predicted that some will fail, likely inadvertently, to use it ethically.

The question is particularly relevant to the case of generative AI. How long will it be before everybody has AI assistants of AI chatbots and the opportunity for customers to get product information or recommendations using natural language prompts? Brands that don’t have those capabilities will certainly struggle, but for the rest, genAI will surely create a level playing field not a competitive advantage.

Dig deeper: AI is a game changer, but not generative AI

Other takeaways. Here are some of the other data-points from the report:

73% of business leaders believe that AI will change personalization strategies.

58% of business leaders believe that AI chatbots will have the most impact on personalization over the next 5 years.

59% of businessesexpect their teams to be using AI daily by 2025.

72% of companies are using a CDP for personalization while 48% are using a data warehouse.

Are you getting the most from your stack? Take our brief 2024 MarTech Replacement Survey

Email:

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See terms.

The post Business leaders believe AI can deliver a competitive advantage appeared first on MarTech.

New Bluehost Agency Partner Program For WordPress Agencies via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Administrator — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 08:55:15 +0000

Bluehost announced a partner program that’s expressly designed to support WordPress agencies and freelancers that service small-to-medium size businesses (SMBs). The program offers revenue generating opportunities in the form of commissions, exclusive discounts, priority customer service, and other benefits that will help agencies grow their client base and earn more revenue.

Focus On WordPress Websites

Bluehost is an active member of the WordPress community, which includes helping to develop the WordPress core itself by directly sponsoring six WordPress core contributors. Bluehost is well-positioned to offer agencies the products, community, service and revenue generating opportunities that align with the goals of WordPress-based development agencies and freelancers that service SMBs.

A key element of the Agency Partner Program is Bluehost Cloud, a managed WordPress hosting platform that provides a 100% uptime SLA. Bluehost managed WordPress Cloud is designed as a secure high performance solution, which makes it ideal for freelancers and agencies that depend on performant hosting.

Exclusive Benefits for Partner Agencies

Acceptance into the program grants agencies early access to Bluehost’s referral program (commissions), product discounts, learning webinars, access to priority customer support, and membership in an exclusive LinkedIn network.

According to the Bluehost announcement:

“By partnering with Bluehost, agencies can now provide their clients with the highest quality customer service, WordPress expertise and some of the most comprehensive hosting products, including Bluehost Cloud, Yoast SEO and eCommerce plug-ins.”

The Bluehost Agency Partner Program offers the resources for WordPress agencies and freelancers to level up their service offerings, generate new revenue streams, and the resources to deliver superior results for their clients. It’s a win-win partnership that may be worth looking into.

Visit the Bluehost Partner Program page:

Early Applications: Introducing the Bluehost Agency Partner Program.

Read the official announcement here:

Bluehost Unlocks New Opportunities For WordPress Agencies

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Shift Drive

How to Calculate Your SEO ROI Using Google Analytics

Administrator — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 08:55:14 +0000

The author’s views are entirely their own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

You’ve spent hours learning the most effective SEO tactics, but they won’t be useful if you can’t measure them.

Measuring SEO return on investment (ROI) involves two factors: KPIs (key performance indicators) and the cost of your current SEO campaigns. Tracking these key metrics monthly enables you to tweak and optimize your strategy, as well as make educated business decisions.

To get the most bang for your buck (or time), consider using Google Analytics (GA) to calculate your ROI. With GA, you can pinpoint where your audience is coming from, set goals to stay on track, and incorporate the most attractive keywords to rank better in search engines.

Ways to calculate your SEO ROI using Google Analytics
#1 Page value

Page value is an important aspect to consider when talking about ROI.

Think about it like money. In the US, paper money has been dated back to the late 1600s as a way of symbolizing the value of something. Instead of bartering, citizens began attaching a value to a 10 dollar bill or a 100 dollar bill to obtain an item they needed that was worth the equivalent value.

Page value assigns an average monetary value to all pages viewed in a session where a transaction took place. Specifically for e-commerce sites, it helps assign a value to non-transactional pages such as articles and landing pages. This is useful to understand because although a blog didn’t necessarily produce revenue, that doesn’t mean it didn’t contribute to a customer’s buying decision in the future.

With lead generation pages, a value can be assigned to a goal like the contact form submission, so you can more accurately measure whether or not you’re on track.

Below is a visual that depicts how page value is calculated according to Google:

In the first example, Page B is visited once by a user before continuing to the Goal page D (which was assigned a value of $10) and Receipt page E (which generated $100). That means a single pageview of Page B generated $110, which gives us its Page Value.

In equation form, this is how it looks:

Page Value for Page B =E-commerce Revenue ($100) + Total Goal Value ($10)Number of Unique Pageviews for Page B (1)= $110

But not all pageviews lead to a conversion. That’s why it’s important to keep track of data and recalculate your Page Value as more information comes in. Let’s see how this works with the second example.

Here we see two sessions but only one converted to an e-commerce transaction (session 1). So even if we have two unique pageviews for Page B, the e-commerce revenue stays the same. We can then recalculate our Page B’s Page Value using this new information.

Page Value for Page B =e-commerce revenue ($100) + Total Goal Value ($10 x 2 sessions)Number of Unique Pageviews for Page B (2)= $60

With more sessions and more data, you’ll get a better idea of which pages contribute most to your site’s revenue.

#2 E-commerce settings

If you’re not managing an e-commerce business, skip this section. For those of you who do, there’s a more advanced feature on Google Analytics that can prove extremely useful. By turning on the e-commerce settings, you can track sales amounts, the number of orders, billing locations, and even the average order value. In this way, you can equate website usage to sales information and better understand which landing pages or campaigns are performing the best.

How to turn on e-commerce settings

In your Google Analytics left sidebar panel, click on ADMIN > under the VIEW panel (rightmost panel), click on “E-commerce Settings” > Enable E-Commerce > Enable Enhanced E-commerce Reporting.

To finalize this go over to where it says, “Checkout Labeling” underneath the Enhanced E-commerce settings, and under “funnel steps” type in:

Checkout view

Billing info

Proceed to payment

Below is a picture to better explain these steps:

If you have Shopify or Woocommerce, make sure to set up tracking over there, too, so that Google Analytics can communicate and relay this crucial information to you.

Once you have the E-commerce tracking setup, you’ll have access to the following data:

An overview of your revenue, E-commerce conversion rate, transactions, average order value, and other metrics

Product and sales performance

Shopping and checkout behavior

These give you a better understanding of how your customers are interacting with your site and which products are selling the most. In terms of calculating SEO ROI, knowing the steps that your customers take and the pages they view before making a purchase helps you analyze the value of individual pages and also the effectiveness of your overall SEO content strategy.

#3 Sales Performance

Again, this is for e-commerce only. The sales performance feature shows sales from all sources and mediums. You can view data for organic traffic only and identify its revenue.

How to view your sales performance

This gives you an overview of your revenue and a breakdown of each transaction. Tracking this through time and seeing how it trends guides your content strategy.

What is the average transaction amount and what does it tell you about your customers? Does tweaking your copy to promote up-sells or cross-sells have an impact on your per-transaction revenue?

Another set of data that helps you calculate your SEO ROI and optimize your content strategy is your customers’ shopping behavior.

How to see your customers’ shopping behavior in-depth

At a glance, you can see how effective your purchase funnel is – how many sessions continue from one step to the next? How many people went to your page and didn’t purchase, or added to the cart but didn’t follow through with payment?

This helps you identify areas that need more SEO attention. This also helps you draw projections on how much your revenue can increase by optimizing your copy and implementing SEO to boost organic traffic, which helps you get a better idea of your SEO ROI.

For instance, if there’s a high percentage of users visiting your page but not going through the buying cycle, maybe you need to tweak your copy to include searchable keywords or copy that resonates better with your audience.

Additionally, it’s worth remembering that while this does show organic sales, you can’t identify the keyword that led to that sale, but organic traffic can be an indicator of holistic marketing efforts working. For example, PR may increase brand searches on Google.

Quick tip: you can get an idea of which keywords bring in the most traffic to your website with Google Search Console and then follow the navigation history from Google Analytics in order to connect specific keywords with sales.

Overall, to truly measure the ROI of your SEO you need to discover which keywords are working for your business, because although people may be interested in your business due to some amazing PR exposure, they might not actually be interested in your services. To really hit this one home, select keywords that have purchase intent. That way you can attract more qualified leads to your site.

#4 Engagement Events

If you’re not working on an e-commerce site (hint, hint, my fellow B2B marketers), here’s where you’ll want to pay attention. Both e-commerce and lead generation sites can make use of engagement events.

Align with your sales team to assign a value to a goal based on average order value, the average number of sign-ups, and conversion rate. Although useful for e-commerce, these analytics are likely to be most beneficial for lead generation sites who have longer sales cycles and transactions that occur off-site or after multiple sessions (for example, B2B SaaS or a marketing agency).

Examples of engagement events include:

Newsletter sign up

Contact form submission

Downloads

Adding to a cart

How to view your campaign engagement data

Below is an image so you can follow along:

This type of tracking gives greater insight into how people are interacting with parts of your website, and how engaged they are at different parts of the journey. Use it to set goals for your lead generation and investigate whether or not your SEO efforts are paying off.

Let’s say you find that your website gets a ton of traffic to your services page, and a high percentage of those visitors download a case study. This means they’re interested in what you have to offer and would like to see more case studies from you.

Use ROI calculations to make better strategic decisions for your business

Ultimately, when using Google Analytics for SEO, you should work to align business goals with specific measurable metrics so that you can create a long-term plan for sustainable growth. It’s no secret SEO is a powerful tool for your business, but putting it into an actionable and personalized plan to get the train continuously going uphill is what counts.

How to create high-performing email campaigns

Administrator — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 08:53:19 +0000

Imagine it’s Monday morning and your inbox is overflowing. Amid the sea of emails, one catches your eye — a message from your favorite sports store about the perfect running shoes for the marathon you’re gearing up for. The subject line hooks you instantly and a click later, you’re looking at content crafted just for you, complete with training tips and a tempting discount.

What made this email stand out? Let’s dive into the key elements that make email campaigns effective, including how to:

Create irresistible subject lines.

Personalize content to resonate deeply.

Enhance messages with compelling visuals.

Time your emails for maximum impact.

Dig deeper: Email marketing strategy: A marketer’s guide

Build your email from the ground up

Every high-performing email starts with a strong foundation. This foundation includes several core components: the subject line, preheader, header and footer. Each part plays a crucial role in attracting and retaining the reader’s attention:

Subject line: This is the first touchpoint and must make an immediate impact to encourage the recipient to open the email.

Preheader: Often overlooked, the preheader text complements the subject line by offering a sneak peek into the email content.

Header: The header often contains your logo or brand name, establishing brand identity right at the outset.

Footer: This section typically includes contact information, legal disclaimers and unsubscribe links, ensuring compliance and offering one last engagement opportunity.

A well-structured email looks more professional and enhances user engagement by making the content easy to navigate and read. Ensuring these elements are thoughtfully crafted and aligned with your brand’s voice sets the stage for the rest of your email content.

How can you ensure your email content converts?

Creating content that resonates and drives action is central to any email campaign’s success. Here’s how you can ensure your email content converts:

Craft subject lines that captivate

Your subject line is the first impression — make it powerful:

Be specific: For instance, a sports equipment retailer might use “Slash 20% Off Triathlon Gear This Weekend Only!”

Personalize: Try “John, Gear Up with Our Exclusive Triathlon Training Kits!”

Keep it short: Limit to 50 characters to prevent cutoffs in most email clients.

Test variations: Employ A/B testing to find what works best. A sports store could compare a direct offer like “Get 30% Off Now!” against a curiosity-driven one such as “Discover What’s New in Triathlon Wear!”

Write engaging body content

Make the body of your email irresistible:

Structure your content: Use headings for each section, bullet points to highlight benefits and short paragraphs to maintain focus.

Direct address: Use direct phrases like “You can conquer your next race” to personalize the message.

Provide clear solutions: Explain how your products help solve specific problems, such as “Our latest running shoes feature enhanced cushioning to minimize race-day fatigue.”

Enhance with visuals and design

Elevating your message’s impact requires careful attention to the visuals you choose. Here’s how to select and design images that captivate and communicate effectively:

Choose relevant images

Select images that directly relate to your message: For a sports equipment campaign, use high-quality photos of athletes using your products in real scenarios, such as a runner in a marathon wearing your latest gear. This demonstrates your product in action and inspires your audience.

Create engaging infographics

Infographics are excellent for breaking down complex data or instructions into easily digestible, engaging content.

Design infographics that simplify your training programs, nutrition plans or gear benefits. Use clear, readable fonts and colors that stand out while remaining on-brand.

Optimize visuals for all devices

Responsive design: Ensure your images are responsive, meaning they automatically adjust to fit the screen size on which they are viewed, from desktops to smartphones. This prevents images from appearing too large or too small.

Image quality and size: Use high-resolution images that are compressed for web use. This maintains visual clarity while ensuring the images load quickly on all devices, which is crucial for keeping your audience engaged and not bouncing off due to slow loading times.

Maintain brand consistency

Color scheme: Use colors that align with your brand palette across all your visuals. This reinforces brand identity and improves recognition.

Logo placement: Integrate your logo subtly but visibly in images and infographics. This can be as a watermark or placed in a corner that does not distract from the content but ensures your brand is noticeable.

Alignment and composition

Alignment: Align images to guide the reader through the content. For example, placing an image to the right of text that describes a product can help maintain a clean and organized layout that naturally draws the reader’s eyes across the page.

Composition: Choose or create images with a clear focus point that communicates your message. Avoid cluttered backgrounds that can distract from the main subject of the image.

Dig deeper: 5 impactful ways to level up your email marketing designs

How can you make each email feel like a one-on-one conversation?

Effective personalization and segmentation transform your email marketing into a personal dialogue with each subscriber.

Understand your audience

Gather data: Use sign-up forms and purchase histories. Employ CRM tools to streamline and manage this information.

Create meaningful segments: For a sporting goods store, this might involve segmenting customers who purchase high-end running gear from those looking for basic equipment.

Customize communications: Tailor emails to meet the specific interests of each segment. For avid gear buyers, highlight cutting-edge technology or offer sneak peeks of new arrivals.

When to hit send

Timing your emails correctly can significantly enhance their effectiveness.

Refine your email scheduling

Analyze past performance: Use analytics tools to determine when your emails have the highest open and click rates.

Segment by time zone: Ensure emails arrive at an optimal time for each recipient, especially if your audience is global.

Continuous testing: Regularly experiment with different sending times and days. While midweek mornings might generally perform well, your specific audience could have different preferences.

Refine frequency: Begin with a base frequency, such as weekly and adjust based on subscriber feedback and engagement metrics.

Example: A fitness apparel brand uses A/B testing to determine the optimal time to send their emails. They discovered that emails sent on Tuesday mornings receive an 18% higher engagement rate than those sent on weekends. Based on this insight, the brand shifted its primary email schedule to Tuesday mornings, significantly improving open rates and conversions.

Dig deeper: Frequency testing: The key to unlocking more email revenue

Make your CTAs impossible to ignore

A well-crafted call to action (CTA) transforms your email from informative to actionable. Here’s how you can design CTAs that command attention and drive engagement, particularly for a sporting goods store:

Clarity is key

Use direct, imperative language that clearly states what you want the subscriber to do. For instance, a sporting goods store might use CTAs like “Score Your Free Training Guide,” “Join Our Fitness Community Now!” or “Gear Up Today.”

Design with purpose

Create your CTA buttons with bold colors that stand out against the email’s design. Ensure they are large enough for easy clicking, especially on mobile devices. A sports store might use vibrant, energetic colors like bright blues or greens to invoke a sense of activity and energy.

Strategic placement

Place your CTA prominently, ideally above the fold, for immediate visibility. For longer emails, include another CTA at the end to capture those who have engaged with the entire message.

How can you ensure your email marketing continuously improves?

Master the art of A/B testing

A/B testing is crucial for refining your email strategies. Here’s how to leverage it effectively, illustrated with a sporting goods store example:

Focus on one variable: Test one aspect at a time — whether it’s the subject line, content layout or a CTA. For instance, compare “Get 30% Off on Running Shoes” versus “Limited Time: 30% Off for Marathon Runners” to determine which resonates more with your audience.

Use the right tools: Employ the A/B testing capabilities of your email marketing platform to directly compare the performance of different versions.

Example: A sporting goods retailer tested two subject lines over a month: “Unlock Exclusive Running Tips!” vs. “Exclusive Running Tips Just for You!” The personalized approach increased open rates by 15%.

Analyze and adjust based on data

Continuous improvement in email marketing hinges on the effective use of data:

Monitor key metrics: Keep track of metrics such as open rates, click-through rates and conversion rates. Tools like Google Analytics can help provide deeper insights into how your emails are performing.

Make data-driven decisions: If engagement drops, consider adjusting the timing of your emails, the content provided or how you segment your audience, based on what the data suggests.

The tools of the trade

Modern email marketing combines creativity with advanced technology. Here’s how the right tools can boost your campaigns:

Choose the right platform: Select email marketing tools like Constant Contact or Mail Mint that offer comprehensive features suited to your needs — such as A/B testing, automated campaigns, detailed analytics and customizable templates.

Set up automated emails: Automate your email processes to enhance efficiency. Set triggers for specific subscriber actions, like sending a welcome email after signup or a special offer following a customer’s first purchase.

Benefits of automation: Automated emails ensure consistent communication with your customers and help maintain engagement without requiring daily management from your team.

Maximize your email marketing impact

To sum it up, effective email campaigns are crafted with thoughtful design, precise timing and content that truly connects with your audience. When you personalize messages and segment your audience, you make each email more relevant and engaging. Clear calls to action push these tailored messages towards successful conversions.

Here’s how you can take immediate action to enhance your email marketing:

Audit your emails: Quickly review your recent campaigns. Identify what’s working and pinpoint areas for improvement.

Test and learn: Employ A/B testing on elements like subject lines or CTA wording to discover what captures your audience’s attention.

Deepen personalization: Use insights from customer data to refine your audience segments. Tailored emails are more likely to engage and convert.

Ensure mobile compatibility: Make sure your emails look great on any device, considering many users read emails on their phones.

Optimize send times: Analyze the performance data to choose the best times to send your emails for maximum open rates.

Take the first step today — refine your email approach and watch your engagement and conversions grow.

Dig deeper: Why you should track your email’s long tail to measure success (plus a case study)

Email:

Business email address

See terms.

The post How to create high-performing email campaigns appeared first on MarTech.

Responsive Search Ads: 5 Best Practices for Google Ads PPC Search Campaigns

Administrator — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 08:51:31 +0000

The author’s views are entirely their own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

What are responsive search ads?

Responsive search ads are very flexible ads that automatically adapt to show the right message to the right customer. You enter multiple headlines and descriptions when creating the ad. Google’s machine learning systems will mix headlines and descriptions and test different combinations of the ads to learn which performs best over time. The most relevant message will be shown to the customer.

Responsive search ads are the default ad type in Google Ads Pay Per Click (PPC) search campaigns as of February 18, 2021. This change isn’t surprising, considering Google’s increased focus on automation in Google Ads.

Since responsive search ads adapt their content to show the most relevant message to match customer search terms, they help you reach more customers and may help to increase conversion rates and campaign performance. According to Google, advertisers who use responsive search ads in their ad groups can achieve an increase of up to 10% more clicks and conversions as compared to standard text ads.

But responsive search ads have many more benefits:

Here is an example of a responsive search ad from Google search results:

How to set up responsive search ads in your Google Ads PPC search campaign

Sign into your Google Ads PPC account and select Responsive Search Ad from the Ad menu:

Select Ads and extensions in the left menu

Click on the blue plus button on the top

Select Responsive Search Ad in the menu

Now you can enter the headlines and descriptions and the landing page for the responsive search ad:

Select a Search Campaign

Select an Ad Group

Enter the Final URL ( this is the landing page URL).

Enter the display paths for the Display URL (this is optional).

Enter at least 5 unique headlines. The minimum is 3 and the maximum is 15. The tool will suggest keywords from the ad group to include in the headlines.

Enter at least 2 unique descriptions. The minimum is 2 and the maximum is 4.

As you create the ad, an ad strength indicator will indicate the ad strength.

As you type the ad, you will see a preview of the Ad in different combinations in the preview panel.

Save the ad

Follow the best practices below to optimize responsive search ads for better performance.

5 best practices when using responsive search ads in your Google Ads PPC search campaigns

These tips will help you optimize your responsive search ads in your Google Ads search campaigns and increase clicks and conversions.

1. Add at least one responsive search ad per ad group with “good” or “excellent” ad strength

Google recommends adding at least one responsive search ad per ad group. Use the ad strength indicator to make sure the responsive search ad has a “good” or ”excellent” ad strength, as this improves the chances that the ad will show. Remember, the maximum number of enabled responsive search ads allowed per ad group is three.

It’s best to create very specific ad groups based on your products with at least three quality ads, as recommended by Google. This enables Google’s systems to optimize for performance and may result in more clicks.

2. Add several unique headlines and descriptions

The power of the flexible format of responsive search ads lies in having multiple ad combinations and keywords that can match customer search terms. This helps to increase search relevance and reach more customers.

When building your responsive search ads, add as many unique headlines as you can to increase possible ad combinations and improve campaign performance.

The headlines and descriptions in a responsive search ad can be shown in multiple combinations in any order. It’s therefore important to ensure that these assets are unique from each other and work well together when they are shown in different ad combinations.

When creating a responsive search ad, you can add up to fifteen headlines and four descriptions. The responsive search ad will show up to three headlines and two descriptions at a time. On smaller screens, like mobile devices, it may show with two headlines and one description.

Here are tips for adding headlines and descriptions:

1. Create at least 8-10 headlines so that there are more ad combinations to show. More ad combinations helps to increase ad relevance and improve ad group performance.

To increase the chances that the ad will show, enter at least five headlines that are unique from each other. Do not repeat the same phrases as that will restrict the number of ad combinations that are generated by the system.

You can use some headlines to focus on important product or service descriptions.

Include your popular keywords in at least two headlines to increase ad relevance. As you create the responsive search ad, the tool will recommend popular keywords in the ad group to include in headlines to improve ad performance.

Make sure that you DO NOT include keywords in three headlines so that more ad combinations are generated. Instead you can highlight benefits, special services, special hours, calls to action, shipping and return policies, special promotions, taglines, or ratings.

Try adding headlines of different lengths. Do not max out the characters in every headline. Google’s systems will test both long and short headlines.

There are 30 characters for each headline.

2. Include two descriptions that are unique. The maximum is four descriptions.

Descriptions should focus on describing product or service features that are not listed in the headlines, along with a call to action.

There are 90 characters for each description.

An example of creating a responsive search ad with headlines and descriptions is shown in the figure below.

3. Use popular content from your existing expanded text ads

Use headlines and descriptions from your existing expanded text ads in the ad group when writing your headlines and descriptions for the responsive search ads. This helps you get more ad combinations with keywords that have already been proven to be successful in your marketing campaign.

4. Pin headlines & descriptions to specific positions to control where they appear. Use sparingly.

Responsive search ads will show headlines and descriptions in any order by default. To control the positions of text in the ad, you can pin headlines and descriptions to certain positions in the ad. Pinning is a new concept introduced with responsive search ads.

According to Google, pinning is not recommended for most advertisers because it limits the number of ad combinations that can be matched to customer search terms and can impact ad performance.

Use the pinning feature sparingly. Pinning too many headlines and descriptions to fixed positions in the responsive search ad reduces the effectiveness of using this flexible ad format to serve multiple ad combinations.

1. If you have text that must appear in every ad, you should enter it in either Headline Position 1, Headline Position 2 or Description Position 1, and pin it there. This text will always show in the ad.

2. You can also pin headlines and descriptions that must always be included in the ad to specific positions in the ad. For example, disclaimers or special offers.

3. To pin an asset, hover to the right of any headline or description when setting up the Ad and click on the pin icon that appears. Then select the position where you want the headline or description to appear.

4. Pinning a headline or description to one position will show that asset in that position every time the ad is shown. For increased flexibility, it is recommended to pin 2 or 3 headlines or descriptions to each position. Any of the pinned headlines or descriptions can then be shown in the pinned position so that you still have different ad combinations available.

5. Click Save.

The image below shows a headline pinned in position 1 and a description pinned in position 2. The Ad will always show this headline and description in the pinned positions every time it runs.

5. Increase ad strength to improve performance

As you create a responsive search ad, you will see an ad strength indicator on the right with a strength estimate. The ad strength indicator helps you improve the quality and effectiveness of your ads to improve ad performance.

Improving ad strength from “Poor” to ‘Excellent’ can result in up to 9% more clicks and conversions, according to Google.

1. Ad strength measures the relevance, diversity and quality of the Ad content.

2. Some of the ad strength suggestions include

Adding more headlinesIncluding popular keywords in the headlinesMaking headlines more uniqueMaking descriptions more unique

3. Click on “View Ideas” to see suggestions provided by the tool to improve ad relevance and ad quality.

4. The ad strength ratings include “Excellent”, “Good”, “Average” , “Poor” and “No Ads”.

5. Try to get at least a “Good” rating by changing the content of headlines or descriptions or by adding popular keywords. If you have a lot of assets pinned to specific positions, try unpinning some of the assets to improve ad strength.

Are expanded text ads still supported?

Expanded text ads are still supported but they are no longer the default ad format in Google Ads paid search campaigns.

You can still run expanded text ads in your ad groups along with the responsive search ads. Google recommends having one responsive search ad along with two expanded text ads in an ad group to improve performance.

However, Google has removed the option to add a text ad directly from the Ads and extensions menu. When you add a new ad, the menu now lists only options to add a Responsive Search Ad, Call Ad, Responsive Display Ad and Ad variations.

You can still add an expanded text ad although you cannot add it directly from the Ads and extensions menu. Follow these steps,

In the Ads and extensions menu, click to select Responsive search ads.

This opens up the editing menu to create a responsive search ad.

Then click on “switch back to text ads” on the top to create a text ad.

The removal of expanded text ads from the Ad and extensions menu certainly suggests that Google may be planning to phase out expanded text ads in the future. However, they continue to be supported at this time.

Conclusion

In summary, responsive search ads continue the progression towards automation and machine learning in Google Ads. We have used responsive search ads in PPC search campaigns at our digital marketing agency, and have seen an increase in clicks and CTR as compared to expanded text ads.

You can improve the performance of your Google Ads PPC search campaigns by following these five best practices for responsive search ads:

Add at least one responsive search ad per ad group.

Add several unique headlines and descriptions.

Use popular content from your expanded text ads.

Pin some of the assets to control where they appear in the ad.

Increase ad strength to at least a “good” rating to improve ad performance.

Other best practices recommended by Google include:

Have other optimization tips? Share them with #MozBlog on Twitter or LinkedIn.

12 Important Image SEO Tips You Need To Know via @sejournal, @lorenbaker

Administrator — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 08:49:15 +0000

Images often make up the largest part of webpages.

They have their own tab on Google results and even their own algorithm. Appearing in image results should be part of a complete SEO strategy to reach users looking for images.

Your content should contain high-quality images either way, so why not optimize them too?

It’s like the search engines are giving away Oreos and milk for free. Don’t only take the Oreo – it’s way better dunked in milk.

This article will discuss each aspect of image SEO in detail and guide you on optimizing your images for better visibility in search engines.

How Search Engines Index And Understand Images

Search engines crawl webpages to discover images and extract data from images, such as metadata and file names.

Google considers factors – such as surrounding text, image file name, alt text, captions, and page content – to understand the context of images and uses image recognition technologies to understand the content of the images.

What Is Image SEO?

Image optimization is a set of techniques for increasing visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) based on our knowledge of how search engines crawl, understand, and rank images.

This involves compressing images to reduce load times, using responsive images for different screen sizes, implementing lazy loading, adding relevant alt text for a better user experience, using descriptive file names, and implementing structured data for images.

With this background, let’s dig into each optimization tip below.

1. Choose The Right Image Format

There are dozens of image formats available, but Google search supports only these formats: JPEG, PNG, WebP, BMP, GIF, and SVG.

Let’s understand the differences between these formats and how they impact your website and SEO.

PNG: Uses lossless compression, meaning no image data is lost. Thus, it produces better-quality images and supports transparency, but it comes with a larger file size and is ideal for printing.
JPEG: Uses lossy compression and causes image quality degradation, but you can adjust the quality level to find a good balance.
WebP: Developed by Google, it uses lossless or lossy and is more efficient than JPG (ranging from 25% to 80%), thus providing smaller file sizes at comparable quality levels. It is supported by all major browsers.
GIF: Uses lossless compression but is limited to 256 colors, making it less suitable for high-quality images and more suitable for simple graphics and animations.
SVG: This vector-based format is used for logos, icons, and other designs because it can be scaled to any size without increasing file size. This makes it ideal for responsive web design.
BMP: Large and uncompressed image files that maintain very high quality. Due to its size, it is not typically used for websites, as it can significantly slow down page loading times.

For me, the best option is PNG, which can then be converted into WebP format for web deployment.

Regarding GIF conversion to WebP, note that old browsers, such as Safari 15.6 (macOS Catalina) and older, don’t support animated WebP formats.

Typically, only a few users utilize outdated browser versions, so you don’t need to worry about it.

As a general rule, when you use a certain technology, it is advisable to regularly monitor the percentage of your traffic’s devices that support it via Google Analytics.

How Compression Affects Image Quality And Load Times

To understand this, let’s use a sample image in BMP format and convert it into different formats.

Look at how file size and load time on the webpage change based on my experience.

Image Format
File Size
Load Time on 3G Connection
Load Time on Fast Connection (128 MB/sec)

BMP
1900 KB
17.22 sec.
311 msec

PNG
552 KB
9.16 sec.
156 msec

GIF
265 KB
5.89 sec.
89 msec

JPG
91.5 KB
2.91 sec.
47 msec

WebP
41.2 KB
1.77 sec.
29 msec

As a testing environment, we used a local Apache web server and included images on a sample HTML page.

This illustrates how effective a WebP format is. It has the lowest file size and loads five times faster than PNG and almost twice as fast as JPG files.

That is why it is recommended to use WebP. If you have done that, it means you already made great progress in optimizing for the load. (There are cases when WebP image size can be higher than the original file. Learn more about it at Google’s FAQ page.)

However, changing the image format, a.k.a. applying a compression algorithm, may cause it to lose its quality and sharpness. This means that you should choose the appropriate format based on the nature of your website.

For example, if you have a photography website where retaining high-level details in images is key to user experience, it is advised to use PNG rather than JPG or WebP.

In that case, you can display WebP format thumbnails that link to the full-quality PNG images.

We have learned about the various image formats and their respective compression methods.

You might be wondering what different image compression tools, such as ShortPixel or TinyJPG, do.

Image compression services use advanced algorithms and strip out unnecessary metadata (like EXIF data and GPS tags) to reduce file sizes beyond the basic compression inherent in standard file formats.

These services apply enhanced lossy or lossless compression techniques, selectively removing data that is less noticeable to the human eye.

For example, when the sample image above is converted from JPG to WebP using ShortPixel lossy, it results in an 8.3 KB file, while TinyJPG generates a slightly different 8.7 KB file.

Below is a list of image compression services you may consider using:

However, be aware that compression using these tools may noticeably degrade the quality of images. For example, when done in screenshots containing text, it may distort the text on the image.

Therefore, it is always recommended that optimization types be checked and chosen carefully.

What About The AVIF Format?

AVIF is a new format that is supported across all major browsers – but it is not yet supported by Google, so we didn’t include it in our initial list.

It offers an even higher level of compression using lossy compression.

The same image file, for example, is 11 KB in AVIF compared to 41 KB in WebP.

However, as you may notice from the comparison below, it degrades the quality of the image. This is evident in the flattening of irregularities that occur in an image when compressed using AVIF compression algorithms, as opposed to using WebP on the right.

However, if you are satisfied with AVIF quality and want to use it, you can do so by including it in the tag as the first .

Browsers that support AVIF will render it even smaller.

Google, which still doesn’t support it as of the writing of this article, will simply ignore it and proceed to the next format specified in tag.

Here is a sample code:

alt=”Description of the image”>

This progressive enhancement guarantees maximum compatibility across various browsers and devices.

We will cover the srcset and sizes attribute later in this article, explaining how to use them to optimize images for different devices and screen sizes, thus ensuring they load efficiently and are mobile-friendly.

2. Create Unique Images

Too many websites are cluttered with the same generic stock photos, so you want your photos to pop on your site and bring unique value to the users.

If you fill your website with stock imagery, you’ll look unoriginal because Google understands the content of the image. Since the same stock photo can be used on other websites, it will be treated as duplicate content.

Think about a corporate website, a consulting firm, or a business that prides itself on customer service. All these websites use virtually the same-looking stock image of a businessman smiling.

I’m sure you’ve seen one that looks like this:

While you may have your stock images perfectly optimized, it won’t have the same impact or potential SEO benefits as an original, high-quality image.

The more original pictures you have, the better the user experience will be and the better your odds of ranking on relevant searches.

Remember, large images are more likely to be featured in Google Discover.

Google recommends images be at least 1200 px wide and enabled by the max-image-preview:large setting in robots meta tag to ensure they are surfaced as large images in Google Discover.

Here is an example of how that can help your images appear big:

However, here is a caveat. As you can see, thumbnails can also appear small even though webpages use the required setting.

Google doesn’t guarantee that it will always be surfacing big thumbnails.

The best you can do as an SEO is to include the required setting in robots meta tag and make sure images are at least 1200px in width:

3. Optimize Image File Names

When it comes to SEO, creating descriptive, keyword-rich (not stuffed) file names is absolutely crucial.

Image file names alert Google and other search engine crawlers as to the subject matter of the image.

Typically, file names that look like “IMG_722019” or something similar don’t help Google better understand the image.

Even though Google can now understand the content of the image, it doesn’t hurt to set meaningful file names and help Google understand images better.

Change the file name from the default to help the search engines understand your image and improve your SEO value.

Depending on how extensive your media library is, this involves some work, but changing the default image name is always a good idea.

4. Write SEO-Friendly Alt Text

Alt tags are text alternatives to images when a browser can’t properly render them. Similar to the title, the alt attribute describes the contents of an image file.

When the image won’t load, you’ll get an image box with the alt tag present in the top left corner. Make sure the alt tags fit with the image and make the picture relevant.

Paying attention to alt tags also benefits the overall on-page SEO strategy.

You want to ensure all other optimization areas are in place, but if the image fails to load for any reason, users will see what the image is supposed to be.

Plus, adding appropriate alt tags to the images on your website can help your website achieve better rankings in the search engines by associating keywords with images, as alt text is a ranking factor.

It provides Google with useful information about the subject matter of the image. Google uses that information to help determine the best image to return for a user’s query.

Here is an example of bad and good alt text per Google’s official documentation.

Additionally, alt text is required under the American Disabilities Act for individuals who are unable to view images themselves.

A descriptive alt text can alert users to exactly what is in the photo. For example, say you have a picture of chocolate on your website.

The alt text could read:

However, a better alternative text that describes the image would read:

For further SEO value, the alt text can act as the anchor text of an internal link when the image links to a different page on the site.

5. Optimize Your Page Title & Description

Google uses your page title and description as part of its image search algorithm.

All your basic on-page SEO factors, like metadata, header tags, copy on the page, structured data, etc., affect how Google ranks your images.

It’s like putting all your toppings on your burrito; it tastes way better with guacamole. So, make sure to add the guac to improve image rankings.

6. Define Your Dimensions

Image dimension attributes are important for preventing Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) issues that can interfere with your Core Web Vitals optimization. This stops the page from jumping when it loads.

Making sure that you include width and height attributes for every image and video element is key.

This tells the browser how much space to allocate for the resource and prevents the annoying content shifting that lowers your CLS score.

Check out the short video demo below on how images without the width and height attributes set can cause a page to jump up and down.

7. Make Your Images Mobile-Friendly

As you may have noticed, we briefly touched upon the srcset and sizes attributes when discussing image formats.

In essence, these attributes enable responsive images, allowing them to scale according to the size of the user’s device or resolution and load at optimal size by saving precious bandwidth, particularly on slow network connections.

Now, let’s dive deeper into these attributes to understand how they function.

Let’s break down this sample code:

srcset=”https://www.searchenginejournal.com/image-300w.webp 300w,
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/image-600w.webp 600w,
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/image-1200w.webp 1200w”
sizes=”(max-width: 600px) 300px,
(max-width: 900px) 600px,
1200px” >

srcset=”https://www.searchenginejournal.com/image-300w.jpg 300w,
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/image-600w.jpg 600w,
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/image-1200w.jpg 1200w”
sizes=”(max-width: 600px) 300px,
(max-width: 900px) 600px,
1200px”
alt=”Description of the image”>

The srcset attribute is used within the tag to specify different image files and their widths.

Each file is listed with a ‘w’ descriptor indicating the width of the image in pixels. This is necessary because browsers cannot identify image sizes until they are downloaded.

That is why you must specify the width to inform the browser about the width of each version. For example: srcset=”https://www.searchenginejournal.com/image-300w.jpg 300w, https://www.searchenginejournal.com/image-600w.jpg 600w”

The sizes attribute is used by the browser, along with the srcset attribute, to pick a resource. It specifies the intended display width of the image for different viewport sizes.

For viewports up to 600 px wide, it will choose a 300 px wide image; for viewports up to 900 px, a 600 px wide image; and for larger viewports, a 1200 px wide image.

Without this attribute, the browser defaults to using the viewport’s full width to select an image from the srcset.

You can also use the “x” descriptor, which tells the browser to choose the most suitable image size based on the device’s screen resolution (like 1x, 2x, or 3x for standard, retina, and super retina screens).

Additionally, you may use “x” descriptors for different screen resolutions (for example, retina displays) where the image size remains constant.

Meanwhile, “w” descriptors are suitable for fluid, responsive layouts where the image size varies based on the viewport size.

I can read your thoughts as you ponder how working with sizes and srcset attributes is quite challenging to automate, even if you know the layout of your webpages well.

Fortunately, Chrome recently started developing support for , which will instruct the browser to determine the size of the lazy-loaded images from the srcset attribute based on the HTML layout and CSS.

This means that the browser will consider downloading the appropriate image size according to how it would be displayed on the page, as dictated by your CSS rules, rather than assuming it takes up the whole viewport width.

Remember that this feature will work only on lazy-loaded images. This is because the layout is already rendered when lazy-loaded images start downloading, allowing the browser to accurately calculate the size they occupy on the webpage specified in CSS.

However, note that you always need to specify the width and height attributes of the largest size available.

By specifying image dimensions and utilizing CSS (width: 100%; height: auto;) to maintain the aspect ratio, the browser can accurately select and display the image from the srcset attribute when using the .

8. Lazy Loading And Preloading

Lazy loading is deferring the loading of images that are not visible in the user’s viewport (above the fold).

Instead of loading all images when the page loads, lazy loading downloads images only as they are about to come into view when users scroll.

This reduces initial load time, speeds up page performance, and can significantly improve LCP, especially on pages with many images.

Implementing lazy loading is as simple as adding loading=”lazy” attribute in your tag.

But never lazy-load images above the fold, as this can negatively affect the First Contentful Paint (FCP) metric.

Instead, preload them or use the fetchpriority=”high” attribute.

The advantage of preload over the “fetchpriority” attribute is that preload is supported by all browsers, while the latter isn’t supported by Firefox and Opera browsers.

Below are examples of preload and use of fetchpriority:

By using preload or fetchpriority, you instruct the browser to start loading the images as a priority, which is beneficial for improving Largest Contentful Paint (LCP).

9. Add Images To Your Sitemap

Whether adding your images to your sitemap or creating a new sitemap for images, you want images somewhere in your sitemaps.

Having your images in a sitemap greatly increases the chances of search engines crawling and indexing your images. Thus, results in more site traffic.

If you’re using WordPress, Yoast and RankMath offer a sitemap solution in their plugin.

If you don’t use WordPress, you may consider using software like Screaming Frog to generate a sitemap.

10. Add Structured Data

Adding structured data to your images can enhance your webpages by guiding Google and other search engines to deliver better visual results.

For example, you can include images of your products along with details like price, availability, and ratings in the product schema. This makes your products stand out in search results, attracting more attention from potential buyers.

Another use case involves adding an image schema in Article schema with multiple sizes to enhance the visibility of your articles in Google Discover and different devices in Google Search.

Google may select the best matching size when surfacing them.

Here is an example:

11. Using CDN For Daster Image Delivery

Content Delivery Network or CDN is a set of servers spread worldwide that hosts your content and delivers it to the users from a server location nearest to them geographically.

However, delivery is not the only advantage of CDNs; they also offer transformation and optimization capabilities.

By passing parameters along with image URLs, you can request different image sizes or convert images to more efficient formats like WebP.

For instance, services like Cloudflare’s Polish can automatically optimize image formats by detecting the browser’s compatibility with WebP format. It can serve PNG and JPEG images in WebP format upon request.

For example, at Search Engine Journal, we use that technique to serve WebP format with our server’s built-in CDN.

Even though images have “.jpeg” or “.png” extensions, our CDN serves WebP if browsers support it.

When validating pages with PageSpeed Insights, it is advisable to ensure that you pass the audit “Serve images in next-gen formats.”

Below are a few of the most known CDN services you may consider using:

12. Beware Of Copyright

Regardless of the image files you choose to use, make sure there’s no copyright conflict.

The Postal Service is paying $3.5 million in an image copyright lawsuit, and Skechers was sued for $2.5 million.

If Getty, Shutterstock, DepositFiles, or some other stock photo provider owns an image you use – and you don’t have a license to use it – then you’re risking an expensive lawsuit.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), you could be issued a notice if you have violated any copyright issues. If the owner of a piece of content sees their content on your website, they can issue a DMCA Takedown, which you must comply with.

Image Optimization Key Takeaways

So, before you begin uploading your image to your site, follow the image optimization rituals from above.

The most important thing is ensuring the image and alternative text are relevant to the page. Other key takeaways:

Choose the right file format.
Serve the right file size for faster page load speed.
Make sure your on-page SEO elements (metadata, structured data, etc.) pair with your image.
For crawlability, create an image sitemap or make sure your images are featured in your sitemap.

Optimizing images is no joke. With recent advances in search, especially when Google started prioritizing visuals in search results, your entire site will benefit from taking the steps above.

Happy optimizing!

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Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal