SEO Ranking Factors & Correlation: What Does It Mean When a Metric Is Correlated with Google Rankings? - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by randfish

In an industry where knowing exactly how to get ranked on Google is murky at best, SEO ranking factors studies can be incredibly alluring. But there's danger in believing every correlation you read, and wisdom in looking at it with a critical eye. In this Whiteboard Friday, Rand covers the myths and realities of correlations, then shares a few smart ways to use and understand the data at hand.

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Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we are chatting about SEO ranking factors and the challenge around understanding correlation, what correlation means when it comes to SEO factors.

So you have likely seen, over the course of your career in the SEO world, lots of studies like this. They're usually called something like ranking factors or ranking elements study or the 2017 ranking factors, and a number of companies put them out. Years ago, Moz started to do this work with correlation stuff, and now many, many companies put these out. So people from Searchmetrics and I think Ahrefs puts something out, and SEMrush puts one out, and of course Moz has one.

These usually follow a pretty similar format, which is they take a large number of search results from Google, from a specific country or sometimes from multiple countries, and they'll say, "We analyzed 100,000 or 50,000 Google search results, and in our set of results, we looked at the following ranking factors to see how well correlated they were with higher rankings." That is to say how much they predicted that, on average, a page with this factor would outrank a page without the factor, or a page with more of this factor would outrank a page with less of this factor.

Correlation in SEO studies like these usually mean:

So, basically, in an SEO study, they usually mean something like this. They do like a scatter plot. They don't have to specifically do a scatter plot, but visualization of the results. Then they'll say, "Okay, linking root domains had better correlation or correlation with higher organic rankings than the 10 blue link-style results to the degree of 0.39." They'll usually use either Spearman or Pearson correlation. We won't get into that here. It doesn't matter too much.

Across this many searches, the metric predicted higher or lower rankings with this level of consistency. 1.0, by the way, would be perfect correlation. So, for example, if you were looking at days that end in Y and days that follow each other, well, there's a perfect correlation because every day's name ends in Y, at least in English.

So search visits, let's walk down this path just a little bit. So search visits, saying that that 0.47 correlated with higher rankings, if that sounds misleading to you, it sounds misleading to me too. The problem here is that's not necessarily a ranking factor. At least I don't think it is. I don't think that the more visits you get from search from Google, the higher Google ranks you. I think it's probably that the correlation runs the other way around — the higher you rank in search results, the more visits on average you get from Google search.

So these ranking factors, I'll run through a bunch of these myths, but these ranking factors may not be factors at all. They're just metrics or elements where the study has looked at the correlation and is trying to show you the relationship on average. But you have to understand and intuit this information properly, otherwise you can be very misled.

Myths and realities of correlation in SEO

So let's walk through a few of these.

1. Correlation doesn't tell us which way the connection runs.

So it does not say whether factor X influences the rankings or whether higher rankings influences factor X. Let's take another example — number of Facebook shares. Could it be the case that search results that rank higher in Google oftentimes get people sharing them more on Facebook because they've been seen by more people who searched for them? I think that's totally possible. I don't know whether it's the case. We can't prove it right here and now, but we can certainly say, "You know what? This number does not necessarily mean that Facebook shares influence Google results." It could be the case that Google results influence Facebook searches. It could be the case that there's a third factor that's causing both of them. Or it could be the case that there's, in fact, no relationship and this is merely a coincidental result, probably unlikely given that there is some relationship there, but possible.

2. Correlation does not imply causation.

This is a famous quote, but let's continue with the famous quote. But it sure is a hint. It sure is a hint. That's exactly what we like to use correlation for is as a hint of things we might investigate further. We'll talk about that in a second.

3. In an algorithm like Google's, with thousands of potential ranking inputs, if you see any single metric at 0.1 or higher, I tend to think that, in general, that is an interesting result.

Not prove something, not means that there's a direct correlation, just it is interesting. It's worthy of further exploration. It's worthy of understanding. It's worthy of forming hypotheses and then trying to prove those wrong. It is interesting.

4. Correlation does tell us what more successful pages and sites do that less successful sites and pages don't do.

Sometimes, in my opinion, that is just as interesting as what is actually causing rankings in Google. So you might say, "Oh, this doesn't prove anything." What it proves to me is pages that are getting more Facebook shares tend to do a good bit better than pages that are not getting as many Facebook shares.

I don't really care, to be honest, whether that is a direct Google ranking factor or whether that's just something that's happening. If it's happening in my space, if it's happening in the world of SERPs that I care about, that is useful information for me to know and information that I should be applying, because it suggests that my competitors are doing this and that if I don't do it, I probably won't be as successful, or I may not be as successful as the ones who are. Certainly, I want to understand how they're doing it and why they're doing it.

5. None of these studies that I have ever seen so far have looked specifically at SERP features.

So one of the things that you have to remember, when you're looking at these, is think organic, 10 blue link-style results. We're not talking about AdWords, the paid results. We're not talking about Knowledge Graph or featured snippets or image results or video results or any of these other, the news boxes, the Twitter results, anything else that goes in there. So this is kind of old-school, classic organic SEO.

6. Correlation is not a best practice.

So it does not mean that because this list descends and goes down in this order that those are the things you should do in that particular order. Don't use this as a roadmap.

7. Low correlation does not mean that a metric or a tactic doesn't work

Example, a high percent of sites using a page or a tactic will result in a very low correlation. So, for example, when we first did this study in I think it was 2005 that Moz ran its first one of these, maybe it was '07, we saw that keyword use in the title element was strongly correlated. I think it was probably around 0.2, 0.15, something like that. Then over time, it's gone way, way down. Now, it's something like 0.03, extremely small, infinitesimally small.

What does that mean? Well, it could mean one of two things. It could mean Google is using it less as a ranking factor. It could mean that it was never connected, and it's just total speculation, total coincidence. Or three, it could mean that a lot more people who rank in the top 20 or 30 results, which is what these studies usually look at, top 10 to top 50 sometimes, a lot more of them are putting the keyword in the title, and therefore, there's just no difference between result number 31 and result number 1, because they both have them in the title. So you're seeing a much lower correlation between pages that don't have them and do have them and higher rankings. So be careful about how you intuit that.

Oh, one final note. I did put -0.02 here. A negative correlation means that as you see less of this thing, you tend to see higher rankings. Again, unless there is a strong negative correlation, I tend to watch out for these, or I tend to not pay too much attention. For example, the keyword in the meta description, it could just be that, well, it turns out pretty much everyone has the keyword in the meta description now, so this is just not a big differentiating factor.

What is correlation good for?

All right. What's correlation actually good for? We talked about a bunch of myths, ways not to use it.

A. IDing the elements that more successful pages tend to have

So if I look across a correlation and I see that lots of pages are twice as likely to have X and rank highly as the ones that don't rank highly, well, that is a good piece of data for me.

B. Watching elements over time to see if they rise or lower in correlation.

For example, we watch links very closely over time to see if they rise or lower so that we can say: "Gosh, does it look like links are getting more or less influential in Google's rankings? Are they more or less correlated than they were last year or two years ago?" And if we see that drop dramatically, we might intuit, "Hey, we should test the power of links again. Time for another experiment to see if links still move the needle, or if they're becoming less powerful, or if it's merely that the correlation is dropping."

C. Comparing sets of search results against one another we can identify unique attributes that might be true

So, for example, in a vertical like news, we might see that domain authority is much more important than it is in fitness, where smaller sites potentially have much more opportunity or dominate. Or we might see that something like https is not a great way to stand out in news, because everybody has it, but in fitness, it is a way to stand out and, in fact, the folks who do have it tend to do much better. Maybe they've invested more in their sites.

D. Judging metrics as a predictive ranking ability

Essentially, when I'm looking at a metric like domain authority, how good is that at telling me on average how much better one domain will rank in Google versus another? I can see that this number is a good indication of that. If that number goes down, domain authority is less predictive, less sort of useful for me. If it goes up, it's more useful. I did this a couple years ago with Alexa Rank and SimilarWeb, looking at traffic metrics and which ones are best correlated with actual traffic, and found Alexa Rank is awful and SimilarWeb is quite excellent. So there you go.

E. Finding elements to test

So if I see that large images embedded on a page that's already ranking on page 1 of search results has a 0.61 correlation with the image from that page ranking in the image results in the first few, wow, that's really interesting. You know what? I'm going to go test that and take big images and embed them on my pages that are ranking and see if I can get the image results that I care about. That's great information for testing.

This is all stuff that correlation is useful for. Correlation in SEO, especially when it comes to ranking factors or ranking elements, can be very misleading. I hope that this will help you to better understand how to use and not use that data.

Thanks. We'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

The image used to promote this post was adapted with gratitude from the hilarious webcomic, xkcd.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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How to Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

Posted by sherrybonelli

An important first step in any local SEO strategy is to claim and verify your local business’ Google My Business (GMB) listing. Getting on Google My Business can increase your chances of showing up in Google’s Local Pack, Local Finder, Google Maps, and organic rankings in general. Qualifying local businesses can claim this free listing on Google and include basic information about their company, like their address, phone number, business hours and types of payments accepted.

If you haven’t claimed and verified your Google My Business Listing yet, that’s the first step. To get started, visit http://ift.tt/1pNiNe9.

Many local businesses just claim their GMB listing and forget about it. What most businesses don’t realize is that there are a variety of other features you can use to optimize your Google My Business listing and several reasons why you should frequently check your business listing to ensure that it’s accuracy stays intact. Want to know more?

Complete all the information Google asks for

There are a variety of questions you can answer to complete your Google My Business profile. When done, your listing will have valuable data that will make it easier for potential customers to find your company. And if you don’t fill that information in, someone else could. Many business owners don’t realize that anyone can suggest a change to your business listing — and that includes competitors.

When a searcher clicks on your GMB listing they can see a “Suggest an edit” option:

When someone clicks on that option they can literally edit your Google My Business listing (and make some pretty dramatic changes, too):

This is just one reason why it’s very important that you login to your Google My Business dashboard regularly to ensure that no one has attempted to make any unwanted changes to your listing. You'll see a notification that changes are pending if someone has made suggested changes that need your approval.

Also, it’s important to realize that Google encourages people who are familiar with your business to answer questions, so Google can learn more information about your company. To do this they can simply click on the “Know this place? Answer quick questions” link.

They’ll then be prompted to answer some questions about your business:

If they know the answer to the questions, they can answer. If not, they can decline.

Now, some business owners have cried foul, saying that competitors or others with malicious intent can wreak havoc on their Google My Business listings with this feature. However, Google’s philosophy is that this type of “user-generated content” helps to build a community, more fully completes a business’ profile, and allows Google to experiment with different search strategies.

After you get your Google My Business listing verified, continue to check your listing regularly to be on the safe side.

Google My Business Posts

Google Posts are “mini-ads” that show up in Google search in your Google My Business listing (in the Knowledge Panel and on Google Maps.)

You can have fun with your Posts by adding an image, a Call to Action (CTA), and even including a link to another page or website. If you’re using Yext, you can create GMB Posts directly from your Yext dashboard.

Here are just a few Post ideas:

• If you’re having an event (like a webinar) you can set up an event Post with a date and time and then add a link to the registration page.
• Do you have a sale going on during a specific time? Create a “sale” event Post.
• Does your latest blog post rock? Add a short description of your blog post and link to the post on your blog.
• New product you want to feature? Show a picture of this cool gadget and link to where people can make the purchase.
• Want to spread holiday joy? Give potential customers a holiday message Post.

The possibilities with Posts are endless! Posts stay “live” for seven days or “go dark” after the date of the event. Google is great about sending you reminders when it’s time to create a new Post.

TIP: To grab a searcher’s attention, you want to include an image in your Post, but on Google Maps the Post image can get cut off. You might have to test a few Post image sizes to make sure it’s sized appropriately for Maps and the Knowledge Panel on desktop and mobile devices.

To get started with Posts, login to your GMB dashboard and you’ll see the Posts option on the left-hand side:

Do Google My Business Posts help with search rankings? Joy Hawkins and Steady Demand tested whether Posts had an impact on rankings, and they found that making Google My Business Postsmaking Google My Business Posts can improve rankingsimprove rankings.

Booking button feature

Google’s new Booking button feature can really help your business stand out from the crowd. If you have any type of business that relies on customers making appointments and you’re using integrated scheduling software, people can now book an appointment with your business directly from your Google My Business listing. This can make it even easier to get new customers!

If you have an account with one of Google’s supported scheduling providers, the booking button is automatically added to your Google My Business listing.

Messaging

Did you know that you can allow potential customers to send you text messages? This is a great way to connect directly with potential customers.

If you don’t want text messages sent to your personal phone number, you can download Google’s Allo app. When you set up your Allo account, use the same phone number connected to your Google My Business account. Now when someone messages you, Allo will send you a notification instead of the message appearing in your personal text messages.

To get started with Messaging, login to your GMB dashboard and click on “Messaging”:

This feature is still in its infancy, though. Right now, messaging is only available to mobile web users and is not available to mobile app or desktop users. People also won’t see the Messaging option in the Knowledge Panel or on Google Maps.

The ONLY way someone can message your business is if they perform a mobile web search on Chrome. (I expect that Google will expand the Messaging feature once they work the kinks out.)

Questions & Answers

Questions & Answers is a relatively new feature to Google local search. It’s very cool! Just like it sounds, Q&A allows people to ask questions about your business and you can answer those questions.

Here are a few things to keep in mind about Questions & Answers:

• The Q&A feature is not visible on the mobile GMB app.
• You need to login to the GMB dashboard to see if you have any new questions that need answering.
• You cannot monitor the Questions on a mobile device unless you have an Android phone.
• You can use the Google Maps App on Android devices to manage the Q&A feature as the business. To do this, download the Google Maps app, sign in with the email address you use for your GMB listing, and you will get push notifications if someone asks your business a question.

TIP: It’s important to note that just like “Suggest an Edit” on GMB, anyone can answer questions asked of your business. Therefore, you want to keep an eye out and make sure you answer questions quickly and ensure that if someone else answers a question, that the answer is accurate. If you find that someone is abusing your GMB listing’s Q&A feature, reach out to the Google My Business support forums.

Google My Business online reviews

Unlike Yelp, which vehemently discourages business owners to ask their customers for reviews, Google encourages business owners to ethically ask their customers or clients for online reviews. Online reviews appear next to your listing in Google Maps and your business’ Knowledge Panel in search. Reviews can help your business stand out among a sea of search results.

Additionally, online reviews are known to impact search result rankings, consumer trust, and click-through rates. According to BrightLocal’s 2017 Consumer Review Survey:

• 97% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses in 2017, with 12% looking for a local business online every day
• 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
• Positive reviews make 73% of consumers trust a local business more
• 49% of consumers need at least a four-star rating before they choose to use a business
• Responding to reviews is more important than ever, with 30% naming this as key when judging local businesses
• 68% of consumers left a local business review when asked — with 74% having been asked for their feedback
• 79% of consumers have read a fake review in the last year

If you follow Google’s guidelines for Google My Business reviews, you can ask your customers for reviews. (However, if you violate any of these policies, your reviews could be removed.)

When customers leave reviews for you — good or bad — make sure you respond to them. Not only does it show that customer that you appreciate their feedback, it also shows potential customers that you care.

What happens if you get a negative review? First, don’t freak out. Everybody has a bad day and most people recognize that. Also, if you have a troll that gave you a one-star review and left a nasty comment, most people with common sense recognize that review for what it is. It’s generally not worth stressing over.

To learn more about strategically getting more online reviews, check out this article from Moz.

---

Get more out of your GMB listing

Hopefully these features have given you a new reason to login to your Google My Business account and get busy! If you have any other questions about optimizing your GMB listing, let me know in the comments.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

http://ift.tt/2AaS4C8

How to Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

Posted by sherrybonelli

An important first step in any local SEO strategy is to claim and verify your local business’ Google My Business (GMB) listing. Getting on Google My Business can increase your chances of showing up in Google’s Local Pack, Local Finder, Google Maps, and organic rankings in general. Qualifying local businesses can claim this free listing on Google and include basic information about their company, like their address, phone number, business hours and types of payments accepted.

If you haven’t claimed and verified your Google My Business Listing yet, that’s the first step. To get started, visit http://ift.tt/1pNiNe9.

Many local businesses just claim their GMB listing and forget about it. What most businesses don’t realize is that there are a variety of other features you can use to optimize your Google My Business listing and several reasons why you should frequently check your business listing to ensure that it’s accuracy stays intact. Want to know more?

Complete all the information Google asks for

There are a variety of questions you can answer to complete your Google My Business profile. When done, your listing will have valuable data that will make it easier for potential customers to find your company. And if you don’t fill that information in, someone else could. Many business owners don’t realize that anyone can suggest a change to your business listing — and that includes competitors.

When a searcher clicks on your GMB listing they can see a “Suggest an edit” option:

When someone clicks on that option they can literally edit your Google My Business listing (and make some pretty dramatic changes, too):

This is just one reason why it’s very important that you login to your Google My Business dashboard regularly to ensure that no one has attempted to make any unwanted changes to your listing. You'll see a notification that changes are pending if someone has made suggested changes that need your approval.

Also, it’s important to realize that Google encourages people who are familiar with your business to answer questions, so Google can learn more information about your company. To do this they can simply click on the “Know this place? Answer quick questions” link.

They’ll then be prompted to answer some questions about your business:

If they know the answer to the questions, they can answer. If not, they can decline.

Now, some business owners have cried foul, saying that competitors or others with malicious intent can wreak havoc on their Google My Business listings with this feature. However, Google’s philosophy is that this type of “user-generated content” helps to build a community, more fully completes a business’ profile, and allows Google to experiment with different search strategies.

After you get your Google My Business listing verified, continue to check your listing regularly to be on the safe side.

Google My Business Posts

Google Posts are “mini-ads” that show up in Google search in your Google My Business listing (in the Knowledge Panel and on Google Maps.)

You can have fun with your Posts by adding an image, a Call to Action (CTA), and even including a link to another page or website. If you’re using Yext, you can create GMB Posts directly from your Yext dashboard.

Here are just a few Post ideas:

• If you’re having an event (like a webinar) you can set up an event Post with a date and time and then add a link to the registration page.
• Do you have a sale going on during a specific time? Create a “sale” event Post.
• Does your latest blog post rock? Add a short description of your blog post and link to the post on your blog.
• New product you want to feature? Show a picture of this cool gadget and link to where people can make the purchase.
• Want to spread holiday joy? Give potential customers a holiday message Post.

The possibilities with Posts are endless! Posts stay “live” for seven days or “go dark” after the date of the event. Google is great about sending you reminders when it’s time to create a new Post.

TIP: To grab a searcher’s attention, you want to include an image in your Post, but on Google Maps the Post image can get cut off. You might have to test a few Post image sizes to make sure it’s sized appropriately for Maps and the Knowledge Panel on desktop and mobile devices.

To get started with Posts, login to your GMB dashboard and you’ll see the Posts option on the left-hand side:

Do Google My Business Posts help with search rankings? Joy Hawkins and Steady Demand tested whether Posts had an impact on rankings, and they found that making Google My Business Postsmaking Google My Business Posts can improve rankingsimprove rankings.

Booking button feature

Google’s new Booking button feature can really help your business stand out from the crowd. If you have any type of business that relies on customers making appointments and you’re using integrated scheduling software, people can now book an appointment with your business directly from your Google My Business listing. This can make it even easier to get new customers!

If you have an account with one of Google’s supported scheduling providers, the booking button is automatically added to your Google My Business listing.

Messaging

Did you know that you can allow potential customers to send you text messages? This is a great way to connect directly with potential customers.

If you don’t want text messages sent to your personal phone number, you can download Google’s Allo app. When you set up your Allo account, use the same phone number connected to your Google My Business account. Now when someone messages you, Allo will send you a notification instead of the message appearing in your personal text messages.

To get started with Messaging, login to your GMB dashboard and click on “Messaging”:

This feature is still in its infancy, though. Right now, messaging is only available to mobile web users and is not available to mobile app or desktop users. People also won’t see the Messaging option in the Knowledge Panel or on Google Maps.

The ONLY way someone can message your business is if they perform a mobile web search on Chrome. (I expect that Google will expand the Messaging feature once they work the kinks out.)

Questions & Answers

Questions & Answers is a relatively new feature to Google local search. It’s very cool! Just like it sounds, Q&A allows people to ask questions about your business and you can answer those questions.

Here are a few things to keep in mind about Questions & Answers:

• The Q&A feature is not visible on the mobile GMB app.
• You need to login to the GMB dashboard to see if you have any new questions that need answering.
• You cannot monitor the Questions on a mobile device unless you have an Android phone.
• You can use the Google Maps App on Android devices to manage the Q&A feature as the business. To do this, download the Google Maps app, sign in with the email address you use for your GMB listing, and you will get push notifications if someone asks your business a question.

TIP: It’s important to note that just like “Suggest an Edit” on GMB, anyone can answer questions asked of your business. Therefore, you want to keep an eye out and make sure you answer questions quickly and ensure that if someone else answers a question, that the answer is accurate. If you find that someone is abusing your GMB listing’s Q&A feature, reach out to the Google My Business support forums.

Google My Business online reviews

Unlike Yelp, which vehemently discourages business owners to ask their customers for reviews, Google encourages business owners to ethically ask their customers or clients for online reviews. Online reviews appear next to your listing in Google Maps and your business’ Knowledge Panel in search. Reviews can help your business stand out among a sea of search results.

Additionally, online reviews are known to impact search result rankings, consumer trust, and click-through rates. According to BrightLocal’s 2017 Consumer Review Survey:

• 97% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses in 2017, with 12% looking for a local business online every day
• 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
• Positive reviews make 73% of consumers trust a local business more
• 49% of consumers need at least a four-star rating before they choose to use a business
• Responding to reviews is more important than ever, with 30% naming this as key when judging local businesses
• 68% of consumers left a local business review when asked — with 74% having been asked for their feedback
• 79% of consumers have read a fake review in the last year

If you follow Google’s guidelines for Google My Business reviews, you can ask your customers for reviews. (However, if you violate any of these policies, your reviews could be removed.)

When customers leave reviews for you — good or bad — make sure you respond to them. Not only does it show that customer that you appreciate their feedback, it also shows potential customers that you care.

What happens if you get a negative review? First, don’t freak out. Everybody has a bad day and most people recognize that. Also, if you have a troll that gave you a one-star review and left a nasty comment, most people with common sense recognize that review for what it is. It’s generally not worth stressing over.

To learn more about strategically getting more online reviews, check out this article from Moz.

---

Get more out of your GMB listing

Hopefully these features have given you a new reason to login to your Google My Business account and get busy! If you have any other questions about optimizing your GMB listing, let me know in the comments.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

How Does Mobile-First Indexing Work, and How Does It Impact SEO?

Posted by bridget.randolph

We’ve been hearing a lot about mobile-first indexing lately, as the latest development in Google’s ever-continuing efforts to make the web more mobile-friendly and reflect user behavior trends.

But there’s also a lot of confusion around what this means for the average business owner. Do you have to change anything? Everything? If your site is mobile-friendly, will that be good enough?

IS THIS GOING TO BE ANOTHER MOBILEGEDDON?!!

In this post I’ll go over the basics of what “mobile-first indexing” means, and what you may need to do about it. I’ll also answer some frequently asked questions about mobile-first indexing and what it means for our SEO efforts.

What is “mobile-first indexing”?

Mobile-first indexing is exactly what it sounds like. It just means that the mobile version of your website becomes the starting point for what Google includes in their index, and the baseline for how they determine rankings. If you monitor crawlbot traffic to your site, you may see an increase in traffic from Smartphone Googlebot, and the cached versions of pages will usually be the mobile version of the page.

It’s called “mobile-first” because it’s not a mobile-only index: for instance, if a site doesn’t have a mobile-friendly version, the desktop site can still be included in the index. But the lack of a mobile-friendly experience could impact negatively on the rankings of that site, and a site with a better mobile experience would potentially receive a rankings boost even for searchers on a desktop.

You may also want to think of the phrase “mobile-first” as a reference to the fact that the mobile version will be considered the primary version of your website. So if your mobile and desktop versions are equivalent — for instance if you’ve optimized your content for mobile, and/or if you use responsive design — this change should (in theory) not have any significant impact in terms of your site’s performance in search results.

However it does represent a fundamental reversal in the way Google is thinking about your website content and how to prioritize crawling and indexation. Remember that up until now the desktop site was considered the primary version (similar to a canonical URL) and the mobile site was treated as an “alternate” version for a particular use case. This is why Google encouraged webmasters with a separate mobile site (m.domain.com) to implement switchboard tags (which indicated the existence of a mobile URL version with a special rel=alternate tag). Google might not even make the effort to crawl and cache the mobile versions of all of these pages, as they could simply display that mobile URL to mobile searchers.

This view of the desktop version as the primary one often meant in practice that the desktop site would be prioritized by SEOs and marketing teams and was treated as the most comprehensive version of a website, with full content, structured data markup, hreflang (international tags), the majority of backlinks, etc.; while the mobile version might have lighter content, and/or not include the same level of markup and structure, and almost certainly would not receive the bulk of backlinks and external attention.

What should I do about mobile-first indexing?

The first thing to know is that there’s no need to panic. So far this change is only in the very earliest stages of testing, and is being rolled out very gradually only to websites which Google considers to be “ready” enough for this change to have a minimal impact.

According to Google’s own latest guidance on the topic, if your website is responsive or otherwise identical in its desktop and mobile versions, you may not have to do anything differently (assuming you’re happy with your current rankings!).

That said, even with a totally responsive site, you’ll want to ensure that mobile page speed and load time are prioritized and that images and other (potentially) dynamic elements are optimized correctly for the mobile experience. Note that with mobile-first indexing, content which is collapsed or hidden in tabs, etc. due to space limitations will not be treated differently than visible content (as it may have been previously), since this type of screen real estate management is actually a mobile best practice.

If you have a separate mobile site, you’ll want to check the following:

• Content: make sure your mobile version has all the high-quality, valuable content that exists on your desktop site. This could include text, videos and images. Make sure the formats used on the mobile version are crawlable and indexable (including alt-attributes for images).
• Structured data: you should include the same structured data markup on both the mobile and desktop versions of the site. URLs shown within structured data on mobile pages should be the mobile version of the URL. Avoid adding unnecessary structured data if it isn’t relevant to the specific content of a page.
• Metadata: ensure that titles and meta descriptions are equivalent on both versions of all pages.
  • Note that the official guidance says “equivalent” rather than “identical” - you may still want to optimize your mobile titles for shorter character counts, but make sure the same information and relevant keywords are included.
• Hreflang: if you use rel=hreflang for internationalization, your mobile URLs' hreflang annotations should point to the mobile version of your country or language variants, and desktop URLs should point to the desktop versions.
• Social metadata: OpenGraph tags, Twitter cards and other social metadata should be included on the mobile version as well as the desktop version.
• XML and media sitemaps: ensure that any links to sitemaps are accessible from the mobile version of the site. This also applies to robots directives (robots.txt and on-page meta-robots tags) and potentially even trust signals, like links to your privacy policy page.
• Search Console verification: if you have only verified your desktop site in Google Search Console, make sure you also add and verify the mobile version.
• App indexation: if you have app indexation set up for your desktop site, you may want to ensure that you have verified the mobile version of the site in relation to app association files, etc.
• Server capacity: Make sure that your host servers can handle increased crawl rate.
  • (This only applies for sites with their mobile version on a separate host, such as m.domain.com.)
• Switchboard tags: if you currently have mobile switchboard tags implemented, you do not need to change this implementation. These should remain as they are.

Common questions about mobile-first indexing

Is mobile-first indexing adding mobile pages to a separate mobile index?

With mobile-first indexing, there is only one index (the same one Google uses now). The change to mobile-first indexing does not generate a new “mobile-first” index, nor is it creating a separate “mobile index” with a “desktop index” remaining active. Instead, it simply changes how content is added to the existing index.

Is the mobile-first index live and affecting my site now? If not, when does it go live?

Google has been experimenting with this approach to indexing on a small number of sites, which were selected based on perceived “readiness”. A wider rollout is likely going to take a long time and in June 2017, Gary Illyes stated that it will probably take a few years before “we reach an index that is only mobile-first.”

Google has also stated the following on the Webmasters Blog, in a blog post dated Dec 18 2017:

“We will be evaluating sites independently on their readiness for mobile-first indexing based on the above criteria and transitioning them when ready. This process has already started for a handful of sites and is closely being monitored by the search team.

“We continue to be cautious with rolling out mobile-first indexing. We believe taking this slowly will help webmasters get their sites ready for mobile users, and because of that, we currently don't have a timeline for when it's going to be completed.”

Will Google only use my mobile site to determine my rankings?

Mobile-first means that the mobile version will be considered the primary version when it comes to how rankings are determined. However, there may be circumstances where the desktop version could be taken into consideration (for instance, if you don’t have a mobile version of a page).

That being said, you will potentially still see varying ranking results between mobile search results and desktop search results, so you’ll still want to track both. (In the same way that now, Google primarily uses the desktop site to determine rankings but you still want to track mobile rankings as these vary from desktop rankings based on user behavior and other factors).

When might Google use the desktop site to determine rankings vs. the mobile site?

The primary use case I’ve seen referred to so far is that they will use the desktop site to determine rankings when there is no mobile version.

It is possible that for websites where the desktop version has additional ranking information (such as backlinks), that information could also be taken into consideration - but there is no guarantee that they will crawl or index the desktop version once they’ve seen the mobile version, and I haven’t seen any official statements that this would be the case.

Therefore one of the official recommendations is that once the mobile-first indexing rollout happens, if you’re in the process of building your mobile site or have a “placeholder” type mobile version currently live it would actually be better to have no mobile site than a broken or incomplete one. In this case, you should wait to launch your mobile site until it is fully ready.

What if I don’t have a mobile version of my site?

If you don’t have a mobile version of your site and your desktop version is not mobile-friendly, your content can still be indexed; however you may not rank as well in comparison to mobile-friendly websites. This may even negatively impact your overall rankings on desktop search as well as mobile search results because it will be perceived as having a poorer user experience than other sites (since the crawler will be a “mobile” crawler).

What could happen to sites with a large desktop site and a small mobile site? Will content on your desktop site that does not appear on the mobile version be indexed and appear for desktop searches?

The end goal for this rollout is that the index will be based predominantly on crawling mobile content. If you have a heavily indexed desktop version, they’re not going to suddenly purge your desktop content from the existing index and start fresh with just your thin mobile site indexed; but the more you can ensure that your mobile version contains all relevant and valuable content, the more likely it is to continue to rank well, particularly as they cut back on crawling desktop versions of websites.

How does this change ranking factors and strategy going forward?

This may impact a variety of ranking factors and strategy in the future; Cindy Krum at Mobile Moxie has written two excellent articles on what could be coming in the future around this topic.

Cindy talks about the idea that mobile-first indexing may be “an indication that Google is becoming less dependent on traditional links and HTML URLS for ranking.” It seems that Google is moving away from needing to rely so much on a “URL” system of organizing content, in favor of a more API type approach based on “entities” (thanks, structured data!) rather than URL style links. Check out Cindy’s posts for more explanation of how this could impact the future of search and SEO.

Is there a difference between how responsive sites and separate mobile sites will be treated?

Yes and no. The main difference will be in terms of how much work you have to do to get ready for this change.

If you have a fully responsive site, you should already have everything present on your mobile version that is currently part of the desktop version, and your main challenge will simply be to ensure that the mobile experience is well optimized from a user perspective (e.g. page speed, load time, navigation, etc).

With a separate mobile site, you’ll need to make sure that your mobile version contains everything that your desktop site does, which could be a lot of work depending on your mobile strategy so far.

Will this change how I should serve ads/content/etc. on my mobile site?

If your current approach to ads is creating a slow or otherwise poor user experience you will certainly need to address that.

If you currently opt to hide some of your mobile site content in accordions or tabs to save space, this is actually not an issue as this content will be treated in the same way as if it was loaded fully visible (as long as the content is still crawlable/accessible).

Does this change how I use rel=canonical/switchboard tags?

No. For now, Google has stated that if you have already implemented switchboard tags, you should leave them as they are.

---

Has this overview helped you to feel more prepared for the shift to mobile-first indexing? Are there any questions you still have?

I’d love to hear what you’re thinking about in the comments!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

http://ift.tt/2A3spvj

How Does Mobile-First Indexing Work, and How Does It Impact SEO?

Posted by bridget.randolph

We’ve been hearing a lot about mobile-first indexing lately, as the latest development in Google’s ever-continuing efforts to make the web more mobile-friendly and reflect user behavior trends.

But there’s also a lot of confusion around what this means for the average business owner. Do you have to change anything? Everything? If your site is mobile-friendly, will that be good enough?

IS THIS GOING TO BE ANOTHER MOBILEGEDDON?!!

In this post I’ll go over the basics of what “mobile-first indexing” means, and what you may need to do about it. I’ll also answer some frequently asked questions about mobile-first indexing and what it means for our SEO efforts.

What is “mobile-first indexing”?

Mobile-first indexing is exactly what it sounds like. It just means that the mobile version of your website becomes the starting point for what Google includes in their index, and the baseline for how they determine rankings. If you monitor crawlbot traffic to your site, you may see an increase in traffic from Smartphone Googlebot, and the cached versions of pages will usually be the mobile version of the page.

It’s called “mobile-first” because it’s not a mobile-only index: for instance, if a site doesn’t have a mobile-friendly version, the desktop site can still be included in the index. But the lack of a mobile-friendly experience could impact negatively on the rankings of that site, and a site with a better mobile experience would potentially receive a rankings boost even for searchers on a desktop.

You may also want to think of the phrase “mobile-first” as a reference to the fact that the mobile version will be considered the primary version of your website. So if your mobile and desktop versions are equivalent — for instance if you’ve optimized your content for mobile, and/or if you use responsive design — this change should (in theory) not have any significant impact in terms of your site’s performance in search results.

However it does represent a fundamental reversal in the way Google is thinking about your website content and how to prioritize crawling and indexation. Remember that up until now the desktop site was considered the primary version (similar to a canonical URL) and the mobile site was treated as an “alternate” version for a particular use case. This is why Google encouraged webmasters with a separate mobile site (m.domain.com) to implement switchboard tags (which indicated the existence of a mobile URL version with a special rel=alternate tag). Google might not even make the effort to crawl and cache the mobile versions of all of these pages, as they could simply display that mobile URL to mobile searchers.

This view of the desktop version as the primary one often meant in practice that the desktop site would be prioritized by SEOs and marketing teams and was treated as the most comprehensive version of a website, with full content, structured data markup, hreflang (international tags), the majority of backlinks, etc.; while the mobile version might have lighter content, and/or not include the same level of markup and structure, and almost certainly would not receive the bulk of backlinks and external attention.

What should I do about mobile-first indexing?

The first thing to know is that there’s no need to panic. So far this change is only in the very earliest stages of testing, and is being rolled out very gradually only to websites which Google considers to be “ready” enough for this change to have a minimal impact.

According to Google’s own latest guidance on the topic, if your website is responsive or otherwise identical in its desktop and mobile versions, you may not have to do anything differently (assuming you’re happy with your current rankings!).

That said, even with a totally responsive site, you’ll want to ensure that mobile page speed and load time are prioritized and that images and other (potentially) dynamic elements are optimized correctly for the mobile experience. Note that with mobile-first indexing, content which is collapsed or hidden in tabs, etc. due to space limitations will not be treated differently than visible content (as it may have been previously), since this type of screen real estate management is actually a mobile best practice.

If you have a separate mobile site, you’ll want to check the following:

• Content: make sure your mobile version has all the high-quality, valuable content that exists on your desktop site. This could include text, videos and images. Make sure the formats used on the mobile version are crawlable and indexable (including alt-attributes for images).
• Structured data: you should include the same structured data markup on both the mobile and desktop versions of the site. URLs shown within structured data on mobile pages should be the mobile version of the URL. Avoid adding unnecessary structured data if it isn’t relevant to the specific content of a page.
• Metadata: ensure that titles and meta descriptions are equivalent on both versions of all pages.
  • Note that the official guidance says “equivalent” rather than “identical” - you may still want to optimize your mobile titles for shorter character counts, but make sure the same information and relevant keywords are included.
• Hreflang: if you use rel=hreflang for internationalization, your mobile URLs' hreflang annotations should point to the mobile version of your country or language variants, and desktop URLs should point to the desktop versions.
• Social metadata: OpenGraph tags, Twitter cards and other social metadata should be included on the mobile version as well as the desktop version.
• XML and media sitemaps: ensure that any links to sitemaps are accessible from the mobile version of the site. This also applies to robots directives (robots.txt and on-page meta-robots tags) and potentially even trust signals, like links to your privacy policy page.
• Search Console verification: if you have only verified your desktop site in Google Search Console, make sure you also add and verify the mobile version.
• App indexation: if you have app indexation set up for your desktop site, you may want to ensure that you have verified the mobile version of the site in relation to app association files, etc.
• Server capacity: Make sure that your host servers can handle increased crawl rate.
  • (This only applies for sites with their mobile version on a separate host, such as m.domain.com.)
• Switchboard tags: if you currently have mobile switchboard tags implemented, you do not need to change this implementation. These should remain as they are.

Common questions about mobile-first indexing

Is mobile-first indexing adding mobile pages to a separate mobile index?

With mobile-first indexing, there is only one index (the same one Google uses now). The change to mobile-first indexing does not generate a new “mobile-first” index, nor is it creating a separate “mobile index” with a “desktop index” remaining active. Instead, it simply changes how content is added to the existing index.

Is the mobile-first index live and affecting my site now? If not, when does it go live?

Google has been experimenting with this approach to indexing on a small number of sites, which were selected based on perceived “readiness”. A wider rollout is likely going to take a long time and in June 2017, Gary Illyes stated that it will probably take a few years before “we reach an index that is only mobile-first.”

Google has also stated the following on the Webmasters Blog, in a blog post dated Dec 18 2017:

“We will be evaluating sites independently on their readiness for mobile-first indexing based on the above criteria and transitioning them when ready. This process has already started for a handful of sites and is closely being monitored by the search team.

“We continue to be cautious with rolling out mobile-first indexing. We believe taking this slowly will help webmasters get their sites ready for mobile users, and because of that, we currently don't have a timeline for when it's going to be completed.”

Will Google only use my mobile site to determine my rankings?

Mobile-first means that the mobile version will be considered the primary version when it comes to how rankings are determined. However, there may be circumstances where the desktop version could be taken into consideration (for instance, if you don’t have a mobile version of a page).

That being said, you will potentially still see varying ranking results between mobile search results and desktop search results, so you’ll still want to track both. (In the same way that now, Google primarily uses the desktop site to determine rankings but you still want to track mobile rankings as these vary from desktop rankings based on user behavior and other factors).

When might Google use the desktop site to determine rankings vs. the mobile site?

The primary use case I’ve seen referred to so far is that they will use the desktop site to determine rankings when there is no mobile version.

It is possible that for websites where the desktop version has additional ranking information (such as backlinks), that information could also be taken into consideration - but there is no guarantee that they will crawl or index the desktop version once they’ve seen the mobile version, and I haven’t seen any official statements that this would be the case.

Therefore one of the official recommendations is that once the mobile-first indexing rollout happens, if you’re in the process of building your mobile site or have a “placeholder” type mobile version currently live it would actually be better to have no mobile site than a broken or incomplete one. In this case, you should wait to launch your mobile site until it is fully ready.

What if I don’t have a mobile version of my site?

If you don’t have a mobile version of your site and your desktop version is not mobile-friendly, your content can still be indexed; however you may not rank as well in comparison to mobile-friendly websites. This may even negatively impact your overall rankings on desktop search as well as mobile search results because it will be perceived as having a poorer user experience than other sites (since the crawler will be a “mobile” crawler).

What could happen to sites with a large desktop site and a small mobile site? Will content on your desktop site that does not appear on the mobile version be indexed and appear for desktop searches?

The end goal for this rollout is that the index will be based predominantly on crawling mobile content. If you have a heavily indexed desktop version, they’re not going to suddenly purge your desktop content from the existing index and start fresh with just your thin mobile site indexed; but the more you can ensure that your mobile version contains all relevant and valuable content, the more likely it is to continue to rank well, particularly as they cut back on crawling desktop versions of websites.

How does this change ranking factors and strategy going forward?

This may impact a variety of ranking factors and strategy in the future; Cindy Krum at Mobile Moxie has written two excellent articles on what could be coming in the future around this topic.

Cindy talks about the idea that mobile-first indexing may be “an indication that Google is becoming less dependent on traditional links and HTML URLS for ranking.” It seems that Google is moving away from needing to rely so much on a “URL” system of organizing content, in favor of a more API type approach based on “entities” (thanks, structured data!) rather than URL style links. Check out Cindy’s posts for more explanation of how this could impact the future of search and SEO.

Is there a difference between how responsive sites and separate mobile sites will be treated?

Yes and no. The main difference will be in terms of how much work you have to do to get ready for this change.

If you have a fully responsive site, you should already have everything present on your mobile version that is currently part of the desktop version, and your main challenge will simply be to ensure that the mobile experience is well optimized from a user perspective (e.g. page speed, load time, navigation, etc).

With a separate mobile site, you’ll need to make sure that your mobile version contains everything that your desktop site does, which could be a lot of work depending on your mobile strategy so far.

Will this change how I should serve ads/content/etc. on my mobile site?

If your current approach to ads is creating a slow or otherwise poor user experience you will certainly need to address that.

If you currently opt to hide some of your mobile site content in accordions or tabs to save space, this is actually not an issue as this content will be treated in the same way as if it was loaded fully visible (as long as the content is still crawlable/accessible).

Does this change how I use rel=canonical/switchboard tags?

No. For now, Google has stated that if you have already implemented switchboard tags, you should leave them as they are.

---

Has this overview helped you to feel more prepared for the shift to mobile-first indexing? Are there any questions you still have?

I’d love to hear what you’re thinking about in the comments!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

How to Rank in 2018: The SEO Checklist - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by randfish

It's hard enough as it is to explain to non-SEOs how to rank a webpage. In an increasingly complicated field, to do well you've got to have a good handle on a wide variety of detailed subjects. This edition of Whiteboard Friday covers a nine-point checklist of the major items you've got to cross off to rank in the new year — and maybe get some hints on how to explain it to others, too.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to a special New Year's edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to run through how to rank in 2018 in a brief checklist format.

So I know that many of you sometimes wonder, "Gosh, it feels overwhelming to try and explain to someone outside the SEO profession how to get a web page ranked." Well, you know what? Let's explore that a little bit this week on Whiteboard Friday. I sent out a tweet asking folks, "Send me a brief checklist in 280 characters or less," and I got back some amazing responses. I have credited some folks here when they've contributed. There is a ton of detail to ranking in the SEO world, to try and rank in Google's results. But when we pull out, when we go broad, I think that just a few items, in fact just the nine we've got here can basically take you through the majority of what's required to rank in the year ahead. So let's dive into that.

I. Crawlable, accessible URL whose content Google can easily crawl and parse.

So we want Googlebot's spiders to be able to come to this page, to understand the content that's on there in a text readable format, to understand images and visuals or video or embeds or anything else that you've got on the page in a way that they are going to be able to put into their web index. That is crucial. Without it, none of the rest of this stuff even matters.

II. Keyword research

We need to know and to uncover the words and phrases that searchers are actually using to solve or to get answers to the problem that they are having in your world. Those should be problems that your organization, your website is actually working to solve, that your content will help them to solve.

What you want here is a primary keyword and hopefully a set of related secondary keywords that share the searcher's intent. So the intent behind of all of these terms and phrases should be the same so that the same content can serve it. When you do that, we now have a primary and a secondary set of keywords that we can target in our optimization efforts.

III. Investigate the SERP to find what Google believes to be relevant to the keywords's searches

I want you to do some SERP investigation, meaning perform a search query in Google, see what comes back to you, and then figure out from there what Google believes to be relevant to the keywords searches. What does Google think is the content that will answer this searcher's query? You're trying to figure out intent, the type of content that's required, and whatever missing pieces might be there. If you can find holes where, hey, no one is serving this, but I know that people want the answer to it, you might be able to fill that gap and take over that ranking position. Thanks to Gaetano, @gaetano_nyc, for the great suggestion on this one.

IV. Have the most credible, amplifiable person or team available create content that's going to serve the searcher's goal and solve their task better than anyone else on page one.

There are three elements here. First, we want an actually credible, worthy of amplification person or persons to create the content. Why is that? Well, because if we do that, we make amplification, we make link building, we make social sharing way more likely to happen, and our content becomes more credible, both in the eyes of searchers and visitors as well as in Google's eyes too. So to the degree that that is possible, I would certainly urge you to do it.

Next, we're trying to serve the searcher's goal and solve their task, and we want to do that better than anyone else does it on page one, because if we don't, even if we've optimized a lot of these other things, over time Google will realize, you know what? Searchers are frustrated with your result compared to other results, and they're going to rank those other people higher. Huge credit to Dan Kern, @kernmedia on Twitter, for the great suggestion on this one.

V. Craft a compelling title, meta description.

Yes, Google still does use the meta description quite frequently. I know it seems like sometimes they don't. But, in fact, there's a high percent of the time when the actual meta description from the page is used. There's an even higher percentage where the title is used. The URL, while Google sometimes truncates those, also used in the snippet as well as other elements. We'll talk about schema and other kinds of markup later on. But the snippet is something that is crucial to your SEO efforts, because that determines how it displays in the search result. How Google displays your result determines whether people want to click on your listing or someone else's. The snippet is your opportunity to say, "Come click me instead of those other guys." If you can optimize this, both from a keyword perspective using the words and phrases that people want, as well as from a relevancy and a pure drawing the click perspective, you can really win.

VI. Intelligently employ those primary, secondary, and related keywords

Related keywords meaning those that are semantically connected that Google is going to view as critical to proving to them that your content is relevant to the searcher's query — in the page's text content. Why am I saying text content here? Because if you put it purely in visuals or in video or some other embeddable format that Google can't necessarily easily parse out, eeh, they might not count it. They might not treat it as that's actually content on the page, and you need to prove to Google that you have the relevant keywords on the page.

VII. Where relevant and possible, use rich snippets and schema markup to enhance the potential visibility that you're going to get.

This is not possible for everyone. But in some cases, in the case that you're getting into Google news, or in the case that you're in the recipe world and you can get visuals and images, or in the case where you have a featured snippet opportunity and you can get the visual for that featured snippet along with that credit, or in the case where you can get rich snippets around travel or around flights, other verticals that schema is supporting right now, well, that's great. You should take advantage of those opportunities.

VIII. Optimize the page to load fast, as fast as possible and look great.

I mean look great from a visual, UI perspective and look great from a user experience perspective, letting someone go all the way through and accomplish their task in an easy, fulfilling way on every device, at every speed, and make it secure too. Security critically important. HTTPS is not the only thing, but it is a big part of what Google cares about right now, and HTTPS was a big focus in 2016 and 2017. It will certainly continue to be a focus for Google in 2018.

IX. You need to have a great answer to the question: Who will help amplify this and why?

When you have that great answer, I mean a specific list of people and publications who are going to help you amplify it, you've got to execute to earn solid links and mentions and word of mouth across the web and across social media so that your content can be seen by Google's crawlers and by human beings, by people as highly relevant and high quality.

You do all this stuff, you're going to rank very well in 2018. Look forward to your comments, your additions, your contributions, and feel free to look through the tweet thread as well.

Thanks to all of you who contributed via Twitter and to all of you who followed us here at Moz and Whiteboard Friday in 2017. We hope you have a great year ahead. Thanks for watching. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!