Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi all,

What is the best Wordpress theme for a professional DM blog? I am looking for something minimalistic where I can add my personal profile and have articles nicely listed, potentially grouped within categories.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Katarina

Hi,

First of all, there is no way you can submit a URL to any tool and it will provide you with a definite number of keywords you rank for. Why? Because you can have thousands of long-tail keywords that would bring your URL in search results.

There are a couple of things I would advise. The first one is a tool called SemRush - this will show you limited number of keywords your URLs rank for - you can explore your competitors' pages and their keywords too. The tool is really interesting, it allows you to submit projects and track changes over time.

Another tool is your own Google Search Console which is probably the best solution - simply select a date range and you will see all search queries you received impressions for. You can also see clicks and positions. You can select a particular landing page (equivalent of your URL) and this way explore all search queries that triggered this page for impressions. If you are not sure how to do it, let me know and I'll send some screenshots across to guide you through. It will be very useful for you indeed!

i hope this helps. Let me know how you get on! Good luck!

Katarina

Hi there,

DA 37 is fine, but if you can see the website is rubbish, Google will realise it soon too! What if they carry on with this strategy and they will be marked as a proper spammy website? No one wants a backlink marked as a spam. Google sees backlinks as recommendations/testimonials. You want them to be top quality not only when it comes to DA, but all other aspects - such as spam score, relevancy to your website (niche), etc.

So even though your competitors might have a free backlink from them, is it really worth to you? Instead, don't be desperate for the backlink & challenge yourself and find another relevant website for a backlink instraf and make sure you are happy with the quality of the website. Feel free to check the directory discussed in future and see if they improved or not. If yes, then go for the backlink. For now, I wouldn't. It's about both quality and quantity - but quality is more important when it comes to backlinks.

I hope this helps. Good luck with your backlinks!

Katarina

Hi all,

I manage a website for a software company. Many terms can be quite tricky so it would be nice to add a Glossary page. Other than that, I have 2 questions:

1. What would be the SEO benefits?

2. How would you suggest to implement this glossary so we can get as much SEO benefit as possible (for example how would we link, where would we place the glossary in the terms of the sitemap, etc.). Any advice appreciated!

Katarina

Hi there,

What SERP results you get depends on your search queries. If you search for a niche category of your products and you see your results, naturally you will see the URL where these products sit. So it is the exact URL of the result.

Potential benefits:

• You see the search term a few times which might look appealing and increase CTR's
• You can easily run research on competitors and see how they organise their sitemap or in which category they place a particular product
• Potentially it can be more eye-catching as it takes more space than a short URL.

I hope this helps.

Katarina

Hi there,

Yes, definitely!  Don't forget to update not just content, but also titles, H1's and other H's - so Google can index them with the local info. Also, make sure you update your contact details and use identical details for all social accounts and directories. You can add a new article that is more location focused and add a map. Don't forget Google My Business - optimise it and make sure you have your website link there.

If you are coming with fresh content, I would recommend researching long-tail keywords or the most frequent search queries via Keyword Planner. Try multiplying keyword lists, i.e. generic terms x location (town, area, state etc.). This should give you a good idea, and I would start there. Publish regularly. All this will work for you!

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Katarina

Hi there,

First of all, if your competitors have only links from directories, that's perfect for you! You can see they have no proper backlink strategy in place and your options are really open.

When it comes to directories, you are right, they are mostly ignored. I would still recommend you submit your business there as you might be found through their searches. So don't hesitate and list yourself everywhere relevant and make sure you use your details exactly as on your website and there is no discrepancy.

I don't know enough about your business and website, however I would recommend you make sure you have content. Since it's all that counts - amazing content and backlinks. If you neglect one, you might struggle. Keep adding relevant content, maybe blog articles such as case studies, industry facts etc. and share. Infographics can be a very interesting way of how to earn backlinks - you just need to select some interesting data and share - via your own social or getting in touch with third parties. I would prefer publishing infographics on your website and have a code to share. I always prefer activities that give me a bit of PR - so if your content (whether infographics or a guest post) can receive backlinks, get shared and bring relevant traffic, you won!

I don't like backlinks for the sake of having them as many as possible. Make sure you focus on relevancy. I would recommend to create a spreadsheet and search where your relevant traffic might be. Maybe you can team up with an online magazine and offer a competition (details on your site), maybe your customers/suppliers/institutions you are a member of are happy to give you a backlink. Very often they will want something in return, so it's up to you how creative you can be.

Have a look at Google mentions and find out where your business is mentioned. Just get in touch and ask if they could give you a backlink. Can you provide a placement for students, sponsor an event or provide an interesting article to benefit .edu organisations? .edu links are very powerful. Also, don't forget review sites - submit your company for your customers to review to receive a backlink and traffic.

If I were you, I would start here - with a brand new spreadsheet and I would just start generating ideas within your niche. If you get stuck at any point, just let me know! Also, any more questions, I'm happy to answer.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Katarina

Hi there,

Keywords are just one of the factors - probably the most obvious one.

However, without you noticing, they might have rebuilt the website's foundations which means the website is improved technically - stronger and faster. Obviously, we would need to analyse before & after, but it can be anything from responsive design, accelerated mobile pages, internal links and overall site structure (even thought it might seem the same).

It can also be any of the following: gained a number of good backlinks (e.g. launched an intensive backlink strategy), increased their traffic, reduced their bounce rate, improved the quality of their reduced content, focused on meta descriptions, increased their social following/engagement/shares etc. Perhaps you have noticed they changed their URL structure? This could deliver good results too.

So without any further info, it is very difficult to tell as it can be a few of the factors I mentioned above.

Thanks.

Kat

Hi,

I'll give you an idea how I approach this. If there is an image of red shoes, I describe as accurate as I can: 'red high-heels suede shoes with a bow on the top' (I'm being creative!). There is no harm in adding the brand if the shoes are this brand or if you want these shoes to be shown under Images when searching for your brand.

So always be descriptive and feel free to add the brand if it makes sense.

Hope this helps.

Katarina

Hi Jim,

This is not an experiment. It is selected by Google - you cannot choose/set up the sitelinks there. You should check the sitelinks once a while to make sure you are happy with how these pages are optimised. They give you a massive advantage so you should treat these pages as landing pages as they can drive traffic and be a good shortcut to conversions.

I hope it helps. Thanks.

Katarina

Hi there,

Yes, the overall website situation impacts particular pages. Shortly:

It's not only about how the particular page is optimised, it's also considered what it's surrounded by - i.e. other pages / rest of the website. So when you analyse your page, you should also analyse your website to see bounce rates, or time on site for example. If you want to improve pages, you should look at its complexity. I don't believe you can succeed long-term if you have 5% of over-optimised pages and 95% don't even rank. Google is becoming more and more clever. Try to optimise those 95% of pages (or at least some of them), get them some backlinks and you'll see DA growing and it should have positive impact on PA of your focus pages.

I hope this helps. Good luck!

Katarina

Hi,

Currently we have the following url structure for all pages, regardless of the hierarchy: domain.co.uk/page, such as domain/blog name.

Can you, please confirm the following:

1. What is the benefit of organising the pages as a hierarchy, i.e. domain/features/feature-name or domain/industries/industry-name or domain/blog/blog name etc.

2. This will create too many 301s - what is Google's tolerance of redirects? Is it worth for us changing the url structure or would you only recommend to add breadcrumbs?

Many thanks

Katarina

Thanks again Kate. This makes sense to me now and it seems to be a nice, easy method. I just have one final question when it comes to differentiating content between UK and US pages.

If we have a page that is relatively similar in terms of content, but the language has been amended to match the local dialect, will this remove the duplication issue if hreflang is in place?

Say, for example, there are 5 key features about a product on a page, and 3 of them are suited to both the US and UK markets. Is it enough to add localised spellings to each description, or would the entire paragraph have to be re-written from scratch to create 2 unique copies?

I see that some competitors re-write their content entirely which makes sense if they're appealing to differing local user intent but some only alter the spellings and their price points where needed. What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks
Katarina

Hi Cesare,

I made purely content changes to my page and I resubmitted it to Google. I could see the changed rank immediately - in my case from not having any results to result 50. I observed it on a weekly basis and the rank kept improving every time (without any further activity): 50, 37, 24, 18, 16, 13, 11, 6 - and I believe it's not over.

Can you rely on the actual position? No! My rank grows in a pretty unique way. Normally it fluctuates and the pattern would be more like 50, 24, 37, 11, 24, 16 - basically up and down. This is what I keep experiencing with majority of our keywords. Especially nowadays, Google is not as static as in the past and you can see this fluctuation very frequently, sometimes daily.

I agree, I would recommend at least 8 weeks' observation and between week 8 and 12 you might know where you are and optimise accordingly. I hope this works for you.

Good luck!

Katarina

Thanks for your time.

Excellent! Now I'm super scared haha But I  understand what you are saying and will share your advice with the team.

Many thanks.

Katarina

Thank you for taking the time to help me with all of my questions Kate. It is refreshing to know that experienced SEO marketers like yourself are happy to help others build their knowledge.

I hope you have a good weekend!

Hi there,

Google tries to select the search results that are most likely to satisfy the search queries - I.e. they provide answers, resolve issues, etc. in comparison with results that will be diverse but likely to result in bounce rates. Therefore, it is irrelevant that multiple results come from the same domain. Any brands search can be a quick example that will just confirm this claim.

I hope it helps.

Katarina

Thanks Roman,

You are right, Pluto is really nice, but I am not sure if it would work for a DM blog. It looks awesome for recipes, possibly would for fashion or interior design. I think Writing lacks something but Newspaper looks like it offers many options. I will definitely consider this.

What do you think about MyBlog? https://demo.mythemeshop.com/s/?theme=MyBlog

Thanks.

Katarina

Hi Rick,

I don't know the details but you could have a collapsable section under the video. If not, then perhaps under the video you could provide a link to a new blog post and add it there. Make sure you know what keywords you target on these pages so they don't compete.

Hope helps a bit.

Katarina

Hi,

We just migrated our website from /uk to the global one (but we still kept /us). We are expanding our business to Australia. Is there any point having the global .com site duplicated as .com/au provided the content will be identical?

What's the /au impact on the domain strength and rank in Australia in comparison to having just .com.

Is there any point? Anyone has direct experience? What's the best practice?

Many thanks for the answers.

Katarina