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Our website is a new version of our old site. We rank well for our search terms and have good domain authority, but seem to still sit at #3 on average for our important terms. I have always chalked this up to technical seo issues with our site. We worked hard to optimize our new site and cover all of the relevant technical seo challenges so that we could overcome the hump.
We just recently launched a new version of our website. This new version allowed us to integrate research into technical SEO updates to enhance our search visibility. Based on experience from those viewing this post, what is a good average timeframe in which I should start seeing some effects from these changes in Google? I know this question is hard to answer because of all the variables that are part of the answer but I need something to take to the c-level as an estimate of what to expect. I figured experience might tell a good story here.
We are currently blogging at a high volume to hit keywords for our 1,500 locations across the country. We are trying to make sure we rank well near each location and we have been using our blog to create content for that reason. With recent changes on Google, I am seeing that it is more about content topics than hitting all variations of your keywords and including state and city specific terms.
We are now asking ourselves if the blog channel portion of our content strategy is incorrect. Below are some of the main questions we have and any input that is backed by experience would be helpful.
1. Can it hurt us to blog at a high volume (4 blogs per day) in an effort to include all of our keywords and attach them to state and city specific keywords (ie. "keyword one" with "keyword one city" and "keyword one different city")?
2. Is it more valuable to blog only a couple of times per month with deeper content, or more times per month with thinner connect but more keyword involvement?
3. Our customers are forced to use our type of product by the government. We are one of the vendors that provide this service. Because of this our customers may not care at all about anything we would blog about. Do we blog for them, or do we blog for the keyword and try and reach partners and others who would read the content and hope that it also ranks us high when our potential customers search?
4. Is there an advantage/disadvantage or does it matter if we have multiple blog authors?
Big questions for sure, but if you have insight on any one of them, please provide and maybe we can answer them all with a group effort. Thanks to all of you who are taking the time to read this and contribute.
I appreciate the response Chris. It makes sense that the tags would be more an of internal IA piece. I have come across some blogs that mention SEO in association with Tags so I wanted to make sure. In my mind it would seem conflicting to have Yoast providing meta and the tags providing the same.
Do others of you out there agree with all of this as well?
We have locations across the US and are trying to develop content so that we rank well for specific keywords on a local level. For instance, "long tail keyword search in state" or "long tail keyword search near 76244", etc. The goal is to develop those content pages via blogs to rank for those keywords. We are using Yoast and will be optimizing each post using that tool. My questions are:
1. Are there any benefits to adding a long list of tags to each post?
2. If yes, do I need to limit the number of tags?
3. Do we need to block the indexing of yoast to those tags and categories for duplicate content issues?
Any insight on the best way to optimize these blog posts with the use of tags or other avenues would be greatly appreciated.
So below is a recent email chain with Google I thought I would share.
Question Good morning! I have spoken with a Google representative that informed me that I should used hashtags in my GMB descriptions, and that these hashtags will help push my business result up in the results. She said the hashtags could include key search terms or the category I want to be known as. For example, #keyword and #keywords. I'd like to confirm that this information is accurate before I implement it in my listings.
Answer My name is Sophia, following up on your query for adding related keywords in the business description.
Yes, this is a good idea and you can also add the city name with the most searched terms and this also plays important role in pushing up the ranking of a business page. However, we cannot promise that it will get effective overnight as the search results are something which is automatically pulled up by algorithm. Additionally, here are some tips which will definitely help in getting better ranking of your business on Google search :
Prefer to watch a video? We have one for you here. And don’t forget to get insights for your business’ online presence via your Google My Business Account (more details).
I hope that you will find this information helpful. In case you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to reach out. We’re here to help you grow your business!
Question To confirm, we should just use the keywords in the description without the pound symbol (hashtag)?
Answer In regards to the hashtags, you can either use them or if you prefer only the related keywords to be used, that works as well. Also, you can follow the tips I have shared in my previous email.
We called in to Google and asked a few questions. This is when they provided this "suggestion." I think at this point it was an untrained rep that didn't know what they were saying. If there were any legitimacy to this, I think others would have some insight to it.
They meant the description. However we have since had a conversation with a different representative they didn't agree. Sounds like Google is doing some stellar training for their representatives.
I was told by a Google My Business representative to include #{keywords} in my description. I was told this would boost my rankings. Has anyone else heard of this?
Miriam,
1. These are shops that perform our services using our equipment but are located inside of another business, similar to what happens with Starbucks in a Target. This is not a "we proudly brew" situation, but our actual interaction point with our customers.
2. Yes.
3. Yes.
Our website is a new version of our old site. We rank well for our search terms and have good domain authority, but seem to still sit at #3 on average for our important terms. I have always chalked this up to technical seo issues with our site. We worked hard to optimize our new site and cover all of the relevant technical seo challenges so that we could overcome the hump.