Technical SEO Checklist for a Strong Foundation

by Ian | 26 Sep 2023 | SEO

Reading Time: 8 minutes

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) forms the backbone of any organisation’s online digital presence: elevating it through the ranks of content found by search engines to gain exposure to the correct audience.

However, no matter what businesses may try to improve their search ranking (in particular above their competitors), their efforts may be in vain without strong technical SEO in place building the foundation from which to grow.

But what is technical SEO and how does it contribute toward an overall positive SERP (Search Engine Results Page) position? Let’s investigate…

Technical SEO Fundamentals: The Basics

Technical SEO refers to the optimisation activities that can be undertaken to improve a website’s structure for it to be better understood and ‘crawled’ by the programs that manage and integrate their algorithms.

In many cases, these tasks also improve the UX (User Experience) of a website and so improve the usability of the website to make it more easily navigable and likely to result in positive conversions.

As something from which the rest of SEO efforts can be built upon, technical SEO is a critical component of any optimisation strategy – and forms an element of the Woya Digital SEO success wheel for a comprehensive and whole approach.

Understanding Technical SEO: Why We Do It & Why It’s Important

Technical SEO underpins how a search engine is able to ‘crawl’ and comprehend a website’s content, so builds the foundation from which content SEO and other such elements can be built.

As a result, it’s a ‘must-have’ to get right, as without it having been completed correctly, other SEO efforts will fail.

As technical SEO is integrated within a site’s structure, it also impacts the experience that users of the site have. While not traditionally a ranking factor for search engines, good UX is now considered an integral contributor to SEO.

While Google doesn’t publicly release details of the exact formula for ranking success, they do state that UX elements are more important than ever in the analytic process of judging which sites rank where.

Understanding Technical SEO: Why Hire a Professional?

Technical SEO doesn’t just involve cosmetic tasks aimed at optimisation but also the setup and structure of the website at hand. As a result, such activities must be carried out correctly as errors could result in disruption to the website’s service, formatting, ranking or even uptime.

It is always recommended that an SEO specialist is hired for technical SEO tasks to mitigate the risk of any issues occurring.

Woya Digital has a team of exactly these specialists, ready to enact SEO improvements right into the foundations and coding of your website before embarking on work across more cosmetic elements.

Understanding Technical SEO: Setting The Stage For On-Page And Off-Page SEO

Technical SEO is one of the earlier steps in the process of managing and running an SEO campaign as it’s so deeply embedded within a website’s structure. As a building block from which other activity is then created, it sets the scene for both on-page SEO and off-page SEO activity.

On-page SEO refers to the optimisation of the content placed within a website and includes the provision of relevant SEO keyword usage, easy formatting and the implementation of shareable options for all pages. This presents the topic, relevancy and authenticity of a brand to search engines.

Off-page SEO refers to the optimisation of the way other sites direct and refer to the one in question. This includes links to the site, mentions of the brand and listings in appropriate directories – all of which demonstrate the authority and trust of a brand to web browsers.

Once the technical SEO basics are in place, on and off-page SEO can be worked on successfully.

Understanding Technical SEO: Key Factors

There are several key factors to technical SEO that need focus in order to best present a site to a search engine for its analysis:

Website Crawling and Indexing

Web crawlers (also known as search bots or spiders) are automated programs that scan websites and index their content to categorise and rank them.

The aim of this analysis is for web browsers to learn what is on every webpage and understand it well enough to file it for download when a user makes a query (search) for something relevant. This, combined with the search engine’s algorithm system for determining the importance of factors, ranks the results end users see.

Web crawlers are, in essence, analysis and filing systems. However, they must be able to move through a website in totality and catalogue it to understand what a site is, who it is for, and what it offers. If they are unable to do so, the site will either be presented incorrectly in search results or excluded from results altogether.

The technical SEO aspect of website crawling involves making the site as easy for crawler programs to navigate as possible. This means fixing any broken internal links, ensuring pages are titled and labelled accurately, and following links to and from external sources to build a picture of industry relevance.

Common issues that hinder web crawlers from properly indexing a website include not having a proper robots.txt code file in the site’s web server (this specifies the rules for such bots to access the site) and having broken links or incorrect internal navigation menus.

These are easily created and fixed and can have vast benefits on the SERP position of a website. Once the problems have been resolved, search engines can even be manually instructed to ‘re-crawl’ the site and update their records.

Site Architecture and Structure

A website’s architecture refers to the planning and design of the site that establishes how it works, its structure and usability.

This includes the grouping of content across pages into relevant themes: to make the site easily navigable and ensure information can be found without too many clicks for users, as well as for search engine crawlers.

A well-structured website is easy for search engine crawlers to work around and analyse, and so allows for the best possible comprehension of the site for technical SEO purposes. A coherent sitemap aids this, and if not included on the website already, can be manually submitted to search engines for their scanning.

Site Speed and Performance

Site speed is a key factor in SEO as well as UX as it provides a swift way for users to identify and consume the content they want to, or move on to another page (or site) if it’s not what they were searching for.

Now, fast-loading pages and content across devices is considered a critical factor of SEO as it has been confirmed to be an important element for the algorithm’s positioning in SERPs.

If a website doesn’t perform in the way it should, is laggy, or doesn’t load content in the way users would expect then it will be down-ranked by Google and other web browsers.

It’s imperative, therefore, that the infrastructure and content on a site load as wholly and quickly as possible. There are various online tools to test a site’s performance, such as GT Metrix.

Mobile Optimisation

With now well over half of search engine searches taking place on mobile or portable devices (Google US estimates that over 63% of their total daily searches happen on a mobile device), it is no longer enough for businesses to have a website that displays beautifully on a laptop or desktop PC but doesn’t format to smaller screen sizes.

Google now has separate crawlers to check for desktop and mobile optimisation and will prioritise those websites that perform well on both.

This mobile-first approach to indexing makes the correct and appropriate formatting of a site for smaller devices a critical job for SEO purposes. It is best practice for webmasters to take on a ‘responsive design’ approach that automatically adapts the formatting of their site to whichever device it is being accessed from.

Security and Accessibility

A key part of website UX is that the content within can be accessed by all who wish to. As such, a site should be as accessible as possible for a range of users and secure in them doing so – allowing users to browse and utilise the website without any risk to them and their devices.

Accessibility improvements are frequently considered just to be for the benefit of those with a disability, sensory, cognitive or motor impairment issue, but in fact, benefit all users. A variety of tools and technologies can be implemented into a website to improve its accessibility as well as technical SEO activities such as labelling the alt-text of images, allowing for keyboard menu navigation, and providing accurate and thorough meta tags and descriptions.

All websites to be indexed by a search engine should reside under HTTPS. This uses the SSL/TLS protocol to encrypt communications and ensure that any malicious hackers are unable to steal data as well as to authenticate web servers to prevent cyber attacks.

Structured Data and Schema

Structured data is a markup code within a site’s back-end that helps web browsers understand how to interpret a site’s data and display its content.

Google, Bing, Yahoo and Yandex have all collectively agreed to support certain structured data and schema so that it doesn’t need tweaking or changing to rank on each. This is a further signal for search engines to help boost SEO performance.

Web pages by themselves are considered ‘semi-structured’, usually just unstructured content with some metadata input to speak to search engine algorithms. Including structured data within schema markup allows for a boost to the ranking that metadata achieves, tailoring it more to the user’s needs and intentions to communicate better to both the search engines and the user searching.

Implementing schema on a website can be difficult so is usually managed by an SEO specialist alongside a web developer.

Core Web Vitals and UX

Core Web Vitals are a set of factors that Google ranks as important in a site’s UX. They grade a URL’s performance based on various elements within a page, from Poor to Good, identifying areas for improvement to boost SEO.

Currently, there are three Core Web Vital measurements: Largest Contentful Point, First Input Delay and Cumulative Layout Shift. Google considers sites with good UX to be the best to rank highly, and so those with decent scores can enjoy good rankings on SERPs.

Improving the metrics related to Core Web Vitals can help a website gain a competitive advantage against others displaying in their search results as well as providing a better UX overall, likely to result in a positive brand perception and increased conversion rates.

Redirects and HTTP Status Codes

HTTP status codes are backend server codes that communicate to a search engine the health of a website or webpage at any given time. These three-digit codes are essentially error messages returned to a browser when a server is unable to fulfil a request.

Where content isn’t available for a user to access (or, therefore, a search engine), a code is delivered. Businesses may opt to install redirects to other content on their domain rather than return a blank page while any issue is being rectified.

Proper redirects prove to a search engine that any content unavailability is only temporary and so avoids being down ranked as a result of an area being ‘down’.

A 307 redirect acts as a temporary fix in this instance and can be programmed in by an SEO specialist while the issue is being resolved. Without such a redirect in place, the search engine will assume there is a permanent problem and will rank it negatively accordingly.

Analytics and Monitoring

A website’s SEO efforts should not be tackled as a ‘one-and-done’ effort and form part of a continuous improvement cycle. Therefore, a website’s performance should be monitored on an ongoing basis. This can be achieved through tools such as Google Analytics to set up and present SEO-related metrics.

However, it is also recommended that a specialist service is used to best display and understand these statistics to avoid any misunderstanding and to ensure that any improvements can be made as swiftly as possible in line with algorithm developments and changes.

Google doesn’t release exact details of its algorithm updates and the frequency of them, but it’s believed that changes are made as often as twice a week – so websites must be updated often and not just left to meet the needs of requirements that may be quickly outdated, as its search engine rankings will suffer as a result.

Understanding Technical SEO: The Bottom Line

Technical SEO forms a critical part of a business’s digital marketing efforts and is the foundation from which SEO excellence can be achieved.

Investing time and resources in optimising a website from a technical perspective cements the best possible position from which to build SEO strategies and campaigns that will succeed time and time again.

To begin your SEO journey, get in touch with Woya Digital. Our team of SEO specialists will provide a full audit of your website to ascertain existing performance as a baseline from which efforts can be concerted and enacted.

Function better, convert better and rank better – all with the help of some clever behind-the-scenes technical SEO!

Woya Digital’s SEO Marketing Success Strategy

by Ian | 21 Aug 2023 | SEO

Reading Time: 8 minutes

SEO marketing (search engine optimisation) should be a key focus for those looking to grow a competitive and advantageous online presence.

The lack of transparency in the search engine results sector however, does create confusion amongst those seeking support with search engine related services.

At Woya Digital, our expert SEO team have curated a structured, considered and balanced blueprint which guides us through all SEO campaigns. This blueprint is based on years of vast expertise, knowledge and experience.

The elements of SEO are constantly changing, meaning it is imperative that businesses choose not just a trusted partner for their SEO marketing, but also one that keeps up to date with the ongoing developments in the sector and is therefore able to maintain SEO growth and success.

Here we provide an overview of the main elements contained within SEO marketing, and just how we at Woya manage a strategy for SEO success.

Why is Search Engine Optimisation so important for modern businesses?

There are few businesses still in existence who don’t benefit from a digital presence – and while this can make brands, products and services easier to find for those seeking them, it also means that the online market place is pretty crowded.

Focussed SEO efforts allows for organisations to differentiate themselves and stand out from the crowd in their given sector or industry, gaining competitive advantage and converting online visitors into paying customers.

With more understanding than ever of search engine optimisation practices amongst marketers, but with a frequently updated marketplace in which to function (it’s estimated that search engines such as Google tweak their algorithms and programming more than once a week), it is critical that businesses invest in successful and strategic SEO marketing in order to maintain their presence in search results.

Organic SEO

A well understood SEO tactic is to buy advertisements and essentially ‘pay your way’ to a high search engine ranking, but this aspect of SEO does not prove genuine authenticity and prestige in the way that organic efforts do.

Organic SEO refers to the practice of optimising a website in order to enhance its search engine ranking without any paid advertising. This doesn’t involve investing money into the search engine as a straight transaction, but as we have mentioned, it is subject to regular and ongoing changes.

Organic SEO must take into account the balance of the importance weighed on different factors within a website and exactly how each one contributes toward the overall ranking of the site. While the exact perfect ranking formula has never been revealed by any search engine to the public, there are many elements of organic SEO that can be managed as a baseline, including:

Overall page content
Accessibility factors
UX (User Experience) factors
Domain authority (DA), experience and trust
Quantity and diversity of link building and linked websites
Use of unique SEO keywords, images, video and other content.

Overall, it is proven that search engine results that appear organically receive more clickthroughs than those that have been paid for (PPC), and these are marked as paid adverts. Organic results also perform even better when combined with paid search engine marketing, and so form a great base from which to manage all search engine optimisation SEO marketing strategies and gain the most competitive advantage from it.

Working with Proven SEO Marketing Experts

Hundreds of thousands of SEO agencies and support services exist spanning all industries, territories and specialisms. It should be noted that there is currently no regulation of the SEO industry and so it can be difficult for businesses to identify which organisations are likely to deliver successful, white-hat search engine marketing strategies, and which aren’t.

In particular, in an age where companies are struggling for survival post-pandemic and in financially tumultuous conditions worldwide, not all have ability to invest vast sums into SEO marketing without the guarantee of success and ROI.

It is hugely important that the SEO experts or business chosen by those looking for help and support is experienced in the field. Without being able to rely on any single accreditation or regulation mark, instead it is recommended that:

Proof is sought of successful campaigns – in the form of case studies, testimonials and other happy customers who have experienced enough success through SEO marketing and other SEO related services to recommend the provider
Reviews are read on the company – preferably on an independent third-party review platform that allows for genuine, verified and unedited reviews to be left by those who have purchased a service from the provider in question
Checks are made into the sector-specific experience of the SEO agency – in order to ensure that the business will be able to support the specialism of the organisation at hand. There are several industries that may require some bespoke focus and it’s handy to know that those working within the firm are able to offer such support

How Woya Digital Works with SEO

Woya Digital has worded with companies globally, across many sectors, supporting them with search engine opitimisation and associated digital marketing services for many years, with a team of experts in all professional marketing fields.

We work to The Woya Guarantee for all of our customers – guaranteeing measurable success in all SEO campaigns delivered so that you’re able to rest assured you’ll see an uptick in traffic, conversions and search engine ranking. We’re so confident in our team and their expertise that if we don’t improve keyword ranking and traffic within 6 months, then you won’t pay until we do.

Indeed if we don’t believe that we can make a positive difference to your SEO, we’ll let you know and won’t take you on as a client. Your business deserves the best and if we feel that our experience doesn’t fit or that we can’t help you improve, we’ll help you find a partner that can.

Alongside working directly with business clients on their SEO marketing strategies and campaigns, Woya Digital also offers white-label SEO services to other digital agencies. The level of respect we’ve received in our industry is unrivalled; and we’re pleased to say that we’ve accomplished the partnership of peers in the digital space who entrust their own client’s SEO performance to us.

The Woya Digital SEO Wheel

The Woya Wheel is what we refer to as our guiding pathway to organic search results success.

Profitable and well-performing search engine optimisation is made up of focus on a range of elements that, when combined and balanced, will boost SEO ranking and in turn, online visibility.

Where many businesses who refer to themselves as SEO ‘agencies’ actually only provide a single service (such as link building or accessibility optimisation), we at Woya Digital focus on on elements all in order to provide an all-encompassing SEO solution.

Driven by our expert team who specialise in all areas of search engine rankings and their years of experience and onward success, we created the Woya Wheel and apply it to every organic SEO strategy and campaign in order to develop and optimise successful search ranking results. The elements that make up the wheel include:

Website SEO Analysis

In order to begin to develop any SEO strategy, first the potential of the online presence must be established. This involves undertaking a full analysis of the existing website to understand best its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This provides a baseline from which work can begin and allows for the full possibilities of success to be explored.

A website analysis does not always just take place at the beginning of any SEO marketing project, but instead should be revisited periodically to allow for new or amended strategies to form and further improvements to be made – especially in line with the ongoing updates and changes made to search engine algorithms.

SEO Keyword Research

While the days of ‘keyword stuffing’ website pages with as many relevant keywords and phrases as possible is now long gone, search engine algorithms still rely on the content of a website in order to understand what it is, who it’s for, and how well-presented it is for its users.

Woya Digital enact keyword research regularly in order to ensure that the content on the site is ever-current and that it fits the developing needs of user searches.

Recent Google updates have included the analysis of Natural Linguistic Programming (NLP) patterns as the way in which users search changes and develops all the time.

SEO Competitor Analysis

While the goalposts of SEO itself are always moving, so too are the activities, achievements and appetites of industry competitors. It is critical that businesses understand who their true competitors are in the online space – with the recognition that competing websites do not always equate to their ‘in-person’ competitors off line.

Woya Digital provides competitor analysis of competitor’s websites, social media, online presences and other SEO related activities to help our clients gain understanding and then advantage above them and ultimately, perform and rank higher within search engine results within which they appear.

Technical SEO

There is much ‘behind the scenes’ of a website that can be changed and improved in order to best demonstrate to search engine algorithms the authenticity, trustworthiness, relevancy and user experience of a site.

Technical SEO related activities include the creation and submission of site maps to Google (and other search engines as appropriate), creating an SEO-friendly site structure, improving loading speed issues, enacting mobile responsiveness changes for multi-device display and finding and fixing duplicate content issues.

On-Page SEO Optimisation

On-page SEO optimisation includes that of content already on a website to ensure search engines can read, understand and comprehend the site’s pages.

Woya Digital manages on-page optimisation across all websites including meta tags and descriptions, keyword usage, responsive formatting, internal linking, URL optimisation and sharing facilities.

Blogging and Guest Posts

To ‘blog’ has existed since 1994, and (contrary to some belief) is still an important element of SEO marketing. While the concept of blogging has evolved vastly since the 90s, it is used by organisations to present useful and shareable content aimed at its target audience; often to cement a brand reputation and position itself as an industry leader, and to add fresh new relevant content to a website – content is king!

A blog post can be published either on a business’ website itself or as a guest post on other relevant websites – and may be used directly as sales content or as more general marketing.

At Woya Digital we support clients both with content writing and creation, for publishing on site and for promoting to third parties in order to present guest posts on other domains.

Digital Press Releases

PR is no longer the domain of busy newsrooms but now primarily managed online by publications worldwide who need (and want) to access articles as quickly as possible in order to present onward to their own audiences.

Woya Digital provides a simple digital press release service which provides the potential of coverage and publicity across territories, targeted specifically to an audience segment or demographic.

The high quality backlinks achieved from such coverage can be hugely beneficial as part of an SEO campaign, with respected news services and websites on-board for partnership.

Directory Submission

SEO directories remain an important digital marketing factor, but the facilitation of submissions to directories must be carefully managed to avoid false or damaging listings.

Woya Digital maintains a database of only genuine and current digital directories, and will submit clients details to them in order to create one-way, regional and free backlinks.

Quality SEO Link Building

Quality link building is a critical element of search engine marketing. Working with our strategic partners across industries and the world, Woya Digital are able to build mutually beneficial business relationships to enhance the SEO credentials of all parties.

High quality, well-respected websites with good Domain Authority (DA) are the most effective links to receive, and our existing relationships allow for these to be created and maintained.

Monthly SEO Reporting

There is little point in investing in SEO marketing as a one off, search engine optimisation it is a moving target and something that requires continuous and consistent focus. Woya Digital provides easy-to-understand search engine results reports for all clients on a monthly basis.

Each report includes in-depth analysis alongside a quick overview for ease, highlighting the most relevant changes and explaining different aspects of search engine optimisation worked on.

If you’d like to start your spin of the Woya Wheel and learn how we can support your business with SEO efforts and to increase your website organic traffic, drop Woya Digital a message. The SEO journey starts here!

What Is Your Website Bounce Rate Telling You?

by Natalie Karr | 8 Feb 2023 | SEO

Reading Time: 4 minutes

SEO can seem a minefield, with a myriad of acronyms, jargon and industry terms to navigate and ever-changing goalposts of algorithm preferences, best practice protocols and software tools.

One such term amongst the many is ‘website bounce rate’. Let’s explain what it means, how important it is, and how it can be improved to boost overall SEO performance.

What is a Website Bounce Rate?

A website bounce rate is a statistic usually expressed in a percentage, and refers to the amount of users who arrive on a web page and then leave the site altogether without navigating through to another page, or taking an action on page.

Also known as a ‘single page session’, it gives an indication of the prevalence of those visiting a page, not taking any other action on the website, and leaving. This is considered a sign of the effectiveness of any given webpage on a site as, unless the desired effect for a page is solely to be read and then abandoned, its purpose is not being properly fulfilled.

What is Considered a Good Website Bounce Rate?

Website bounce rates vary hugely between industries and site types and so a perceived ‘good’ or ‘bad’ rate can be difficult to ascertain. The average website bounce rate online varies hugely, and so it’s near impossible to set a goal for a business’ online presence without some solid market research.

Website bounce rates also vary dependent on the device users are accessing the site from. Mobile devices result in an average bounce rate of 51% across all industries simply due to the brief nature of their typical usage, whereas tablets sit at around the 45% mark and desktop computers nearer 43%.

This means that it’s critical for businesses to take device usage into account, as they are more likely to have a higher website bounce rate if the majority of their users are using mobile devices. Traffic sources are also sometimes responsible for increasing website bounce rates, with visits originating from social media and paid ads often resulting in less engaged traffic.

It’s near impossible for any website bounce rate to be below 20%, as human behaviour simply can’t be accounted for, and so it’s not advisable for organisations to aim for 0%.

A bounce rate over 70% would, in most industries, be considered negative but is usually fairly easy to decrease as it’s often due to UX (User Experience) issues: such as poor design, excessive bots, browser incompatibility or tracking code errors.

How Website Bounce Rate Interacts with Other Aspects of SEO

There are many aspects to the overall discipline of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and so it’s worth noting that website bounce rate is just one of many factors that contribute to digital activity, presence and performance.

Technically, website bounce rate doesn’t directly influence page ranking – but it is an indirect factor. Higher bounce rates are often indicative of a UX issue that will impact on the overall performance of the site and demonstrates its usefulness to the algorithms of search engines.

How Overall Time-On-Site Affects SEO

Similar to website bounce rates, the time on-site (also known as the dwell time) is the amount of time a user spends on a web page or site before clicking elsewhere. A very low dwell time indicates that the page doesn’t meet the user’s search intent, and a longer dwell time shows genuine engagement. This metric demonstrates to search engines the authenticity, topic and overall usefulness of the website and so longer times are considered bette, but after 30 minutes of inactivity on a site, the session ends to account for untrue inflation due to windows/tabs left open unintentionally.

Website bounce rates and dwell times are different measures but both allow marketers and webmasters to understand user satisfaction and engagement with the content created.

What Bounce Rates Tell Us About a Site/Page

A website’s bounce rate can be considered a reliable informant factor of a page’s perceived value by users. Where a bounce rate is high or conversions aren’t happening where desired, new approaches can be trialled as the existing content obviously isn’t landing correctly with its audience.

One important metric to monitor is bounce rates from content that’s being linked to as a part of a paid campaign, as this can demonstrate the ROI (Return On Investment) on money spend. High bounce rates or low conversions from paid ads indicate a disconnect between the advert and the landing page and may result in wasteful expenditure unless the issue is addressed and resolved.

Website Bounce Rates Should Be Constantly Monitored

People change, attitudes change, online best practices change and website bounce rates change – and this is exactly why bounce rates need to be monitored on a continuous basis and not just as a one-off measurement of website performance.

With the algorithms behind search engines being constantly updated as well as consumer behaviours shifting, it’s not unheard of for bounce rates to ebb and flow, too. A rapidly changed website bounce rate can indicate a sudden website error or issue and so may be the first symptom of a problem that can be rectified swiftly.

Get Support With With Your Website and SEO

If you need to improve your website’s bounce rate or just need to understand where it currently sits and why, a specialist SEO company such as Woya Digital can help you comprehend things – and better your position.

Bounce rates are often easily shifted into more positive territory with a little knowhow, and with the expert team at Woya on-board, you can be sure of a move in the right direction.

What Is The Google Algorithm, and How Does It Work?

by Ian | 12 Dec 2022 | Digital Marketing, SEO

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Businesses worldwide are competing to rank highly on Google search and other search engines, and the internet is full of tips for ranking number one on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), SEO tips and tricks and ways to influence the Google search algorithm behind-the-scenes to do better without having to pay for traditional web advertising.

Indeed, much is said about the Google algorithm and how it works, but here we present the facts: in order to best help you strategise your SEO and plan it to benefit your digital presence.

What is the Google Search Algorithm?

The Google search algorithm is a complex system of programming and coding used to retrieve data from its search index which can then present the most appropriate search results for the search queries made by the search engine user.

Google’s ‘crawler’ bots index the internet and store the data on what it thinks each web page is about, what purpose it serves and who the appropriate audience for its content are. The Google algorithm then works through the index it has created to deliver web pages ranked by relevance on its SERPs. Google’s search algorithm prioritises and marks out relevant results it believes best suited to the user’s search intent to give them the answer, information or data they’re trying to find.

What is an Algorithm?

Algorithms are now referred to often as consumers better understand the internet and the presence they hold on it, and in many circles are seen as a mythical beast to be defeated in order to get more likes, gain more exposure, get more traffic, or be ranked above competitors in search query rankings.

While indeed it is true that only a very few senior coders at any tech company will know the exact details of a website’s algorithm and its calculations, much of what an algorithm follows can be worked on through common sense.

In general terms, an algorithm is a set of rules to be followed in calculations by a computer program. For example, the Google’s search algorithm is the program that calculates which webpages rank where for a specific user search query made. In the case of Instagram, the algorithm is the program that calculates which users are presented with which content. In the case of TikTok, the algorithm is the program that calculates what the user is interested in, and features videos related to this in their feed.

Every website or program that has a bespoke user ‘feed’ will have an algorithm operating behind it.

How Does Google’s Algorithm Work?

Google search algorithm works by referencing its search index and analyses the factors upon each page to determine its relevance for ranking. While we don’t know the exact weight that Google puts behind each of the many factors of a webpage, we do know what constitutes a priority for SEO purposes. This includes:

- The exact search terms of the query made on the search engine
- The domain age, authenticity and domain authority (DA)
- The usability of the website including its loading speed, accessibility functions and security
- The mobile responsiveness of the site’s performance and its ability to switch format to one appropriate to the device on which its being viewed
- The keywords and topics used throughout the content on the site, and if there is relevant content
- Other websites that link to the site and how trustworthy they are.

Considering all of these factors, the Google algorithm judges which website pages are most appropriate to be featured and in what order.

This means that the more concise, clear and usable a site is, the higher it will rank when a relevant search query is made.

What are Algorithm Updates?

Of course, as with all tech, the Google algorithm is constantly changing to improve the service it delivers. While there are a couple of major updates made every year which cause a considerable shift to the algorithm and its programming priorities, its estimated that smaller algorithm updates are made around once a week!

Where a major update does occur (referred to as a broad core algorithm update), Google announces this ahead of time and provides some basic details on it so that businesses are able to prepare and shift their online practices to meet the new ranking factor requirements.

Top Factors of the Google Algorithm

No one knows exactly what the exact formula is for Google top ranking factors, as this information remains confidential to all but a few senior execs within the company. However, we do know that the following ranking factors are amongst the most important:

- High-quality content
- A mobile-first experience
- Page experience
- Page loading speed
- On-page optimisation
- Internal links between pages
- External links to and from other relevant sites.

Historically focus has been laid just on the usage of keywords and search query phrases but since Google’s technology has developed and improved, many more factors are now included and considered. While there are businesses who do continue just to rely on the same keywords and keyword repetition throughout their content, this can no longer form a comprehensive and strategic SEO approach.

Realistically, it doesn’t matter exactly which ranking factor is the most important, as all should be focused on with equal priority in order to develop a well-rounded user experience (UX).

What is the Latest of the Google Algorithm Updates?

The most recent minor Google updates were both in September 2022. One was a core algorithm update and the other focused on new product reviews. The latter didn’t offer any particular advice for site owners but the former was covered in an entry on the Google Search Central Blog. This advised that the update wasn’t anything for webmasters to worry about or that they should need to take direct action, but that high quality content was being uprated in its priority rating.

The most recent major Google broad core algorithm update was in August 2022 and was known as the Google Helpful Content Update. This focused on the concept of ‘people first content’. This update advised businesses to strive toward content creation for a target audience with their search intent and needs in mind, rather than the common approach of creating content simply for SEO purposes and because the business assumed that their website’s ranking would benefit from the repeated use of keywords and phrases.

While other small algorithm updates take place in Google weekly (if not daily), these do not require any specific action and businesses can consider their existing SEO efforts sufficient to weather such changes.

How Does the Google Algorithm Affect SEO?

The Google search algorithm is what businesses are speaking to when they enact their SEO strategies, and must ensure that relevant, accurate and clear information is conveyed throughout their site in order for the algorithm’s programming to best understand it.

This means that continuous improvement of all the website’s page factors must be made a digital marketing business priority, in order to rank as high as possible and ideally do so above competitors. While it may not prove productive for businesses to focus too much on the search algorithm and what it demands, it can make for a great foundation from which companies can understand what smart content creation and a positive UX means.

Get Support to Manage Your Business Google Ranking

Of course, not all businesses can hire a full-time SEO lead to work in-house. That’s why businesses choose to work with Woya Digital.

Our team of SEO specialists stay at the forefront of Google’s updates and best practices in order to ensure our clients gain competitive advantage and receive great exposure to both new and existing customers. Get in touch with our team to discuss how we can support you and to best understand what impact this could have on your bottom line.

What is Google Indexing in SEO?

by Ian | 21 Nov 2022 | Digital Marketing, SEO

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Businesses simply can’t afford for their website to not be listed on Google. With the Google search giant processing over 99,000 searches every single second, the potential is extremely important.

But for Google search results to list a website or page, it must first know it exists and match it up to relevant search terms ‘behind-the-scenes’ using its algorithm programming. This is called Google indexing.

But how does this happen and what is its relevancy to an overall SEO strategy?

What is Google Indexing?

Search engine indexing (or Google indexing in the case of Google), is the automated process of a system collecting, parsing and storing data it finds online. This data is then stored in the Google search index database so that when a search engines user carries out a search, Google can reference this index for the appropriate information and indexed pages, rather than scouring the entirety of the internet every time.

Google indexing is a highly complex process and incorporates interdisciplinary concepts from computer science, cognitive psychology, mathematics and probabilities, informatics and even neuro-linguistic programming.

Why is Google Indexing Important?

Google is the world’s biggest search engine, with a market share of over 90% worldwide. This means that even if it isn’t the most popular search engine in a business’ target location, it is still simply too large to ignore when it comes to strategizing for digital marketing.

If Google doesn’t undertake crawling and indexing on your website, it won’t just not rank well on Google – it won’t rank at all on Google.

If businesses don’t ensure that their digital presence is listed on Google in some way, shape or form they will lose competitive advantage to brands who are listed, who will benefit from the massive traffic that ranking well on the Google search engine can bring.

While not all other sites rely on Google’s search index in particular for their search results, several other systems do, and so it should not be discounted even if it isn’t the primary target system.

How Does Google Indexing Work?

Google indexing takes place when Google’s ‘crawlers’ (that is, automated software programs) visit publicly accessible website’s pages and follow their links.

This helps them travel from page to page and store information on what the pages on your site are about, who they’re for and what they’re aiming to do. The Google algorithm also judges the the site/all of your pages on their User Experience (UX), performance, accessibility and content quality to ascertain how and for what the site should rank when users completes a relevant search.

Google indexing can only happen if a website is publicly available. If it requires a log-in, is in a test environment or is ‘hidden’ from public consumption, this will prevent Google’s ability to read the site and it will remain un-ranked. This allows businesses to present exclusive content to subscribers or members but does mean that anything they wish to include on search engine rankings must be prioritised for public pages.

How to Tell Google to Index Your Site

If a website or page has yet to be indexed by Google, the webmaster can request that the crawlers navigate it on the next occasion they’re able to. To do this, a webmaster tells Google through the Google Search Console tool and the crawlers will index the page/s whenever possible.

Where webmasters or digital marketers wish to rank, they should prioritise Google indexing as once a site has been crawled it will be periodically re-visited, so can be ranked on search engine results pages even before the full site content has been populated.

How Long Does Google Indexing Take?

There’s no one-size-fits-all timeframe for Google to index a website, although generally it takes longer for larger sites with more content than it does individual pages with little or short-form content.

The amount of time it takes to get a site indexed is influenced by Google’s current workload (ie it will take longer during periods where a major update or change is being rolled out), but also how many websites are being submitted for indexing at any one time.

Anecdotally, webmasters and digital marketers state that it has taken anywhere from 4 days to 6 months to get their site indexed for the first time. However, this is almost always expedited by requesting indexing through the Google Search Console (as mentioned above), so this is recommended.

Duplicate content will harm the quality of your site and Google will penalise you for this.

How Does the Process of Google Indexing Relate to an Overall SEO Strategy?

Any digital marketer embarking on enacting an SEO strategy should prioritise Google ranking as an effective way to gain targeted organic traffic. In order to best ensure adequate and appropriate ranking for relevant searches, all websites should be subject to timely, consistent and pertinent new content upload as well as hosting a clear sitemap, offering mobile responsiveness and ensuring fast load times.

Google indexing can be considered the foundation for an SEO strategy. Once the site and all the pages have been indexed, a more thorough online presence can be built using target keywords and advertising, further new content creation and an increased focus on the overall User Experience.

How To Fix Indexing Issues

It is not enough for webmasters to create web pages and just expect them to be crawled and indexed by Google, instead there are a variety of best practices they should look to meet. If any of the following issues are experienced, they can be easily rectified by doing the below:

Site is not indexed because it’s too new – you can still request indexing through Google Search Console, but a newer domain is unlikely to get higher rankings than an older one as its authenticity and trustworthiness can’t yet be fully verified. As more website content is added and the site ages, it will be re-indexed and re-prioritised.

A recent redesign should have improved SEO, but hasn’t – it may simply be that Google hasn’t re-indexed the site since it has been improved. A request for re-indexing can be submitted through Google Search Console.

A sitemap wasn’t in place when the site was indexed – all websites should have a sitemap somewhere in order for Google to easily crawl its pages. If, for whatever reason, this wasn’t the case when the indexing happened, the site map can be submitted directly to Google through the Google Search Console tool and then it’ll be re-read the next time the site is crawled.

Site isn’t mobile responsive – Google prioritises websites that provide a good User Experience over those that don’t, and so if a site isn’t mobile responsive, Google is very unlikely to favourably rank it. In this instance, the webmaster should seek out a redesign of the site to ensure better accessibility.

Where to Get More Help with Google Ranking

At Woya Digital we have a whole team of SEO specialists who work around-the-clock on keeping up with Google’s latest updates and developments.

We work not just for but also with our customers to ensure their SEO goals are met and that their online presence works perfectly to fit their needs and wants, as well as the idiosyncrasies of their business and target audience.

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