What is SEO?

As we mentioned above, positioning is a process, the correct execution of which makes the website attract more users who enter certain phrases in the search engine. In a nutshell, SEO activities are divided into two types – both are necessary to properly position the website in search engines and ensure high positions on the list of results:

A. On-site SEO – activities that we perform at the level of our own website. They mainly include:
– publication of well-matched content, containing carefully selected keywords,
– presenting content in a search engine-friendly form – using appropriate headers, taking care of the structure of the text and division into paragraphs, graphic descriptions (alt),
– ensuring fast operation of the website – choosing a server, CMS system, code optimization, image compression,
– internal linking – simplifies navigation for the user, but also influences better page indexing;
– equipping the website with an SSL certificate,
– setting friendly addresses,
– responsiveness – the website must be displayed correctly on various devices – not only computers, but also smartphones and tablets.

The first step in positioning, however, is always choosing your keywords. The analysis should be detailed and based on reliable data. You have to consider what phrases users may enter when looking for products or other content on our website. A good start will be an analysis of competing pages – what words are they positioned on and what “power” they have in the context of SEO. To check various aspects related to the selection of key phrases, the market offers a large number of programs and services – from free ones, such as Google Trends, to paid ones, such as Ahrefs or Semstorm.

B. Off-site SEO – activities aimed at acquiring as many valuable links leading to a given page as possible.

Linking is a key element of website positioning. As a website gains popularity, it most often also gains links in a natural way – users share content they consider valuable by placing hyperlinks to it on their own websites or blogs. In the vast majority of cases, however, it will not be enough to ensure high positions in search results, especially if the industry is highly competitive and there are many candidates for sharing the online pie.

Websites that help us buy links from different sites come to the rescue. Their form varies – it may be the purchase of a hyperlink in an already existing article on a similar topic as our website. It can also be buying space and publishing your own sponsored article on a given website, thanks to which we have full control over keywords and the form of the text. Some websites also allow you to buy a copywriting service, which consists in writing such an article, thanks to which the need to generate the text yourself disappears.

The key in this case is the quality of the page from which we want to obtain the link – the quality is calculated by the Google algorithm and depends on the SEO level of the website.

Another option is to build a network of your own pages to improve the positioning of your main site. On such pages, called backend, keywords are placed along with links, thanks to which the positioned landing page increases its results. However, building an effective back-up facility requires a lot of know-how. Usually they have to be projects based on valuable domains with a rich history, and there should be a lot of well-profiled content on the website itself. It is not enough just to “set up” a simple CMS and wait for the results – the Google algorithm very easily detects pages of little value from the perspective of the search engine, so unskillful preparation of the back-end will only be a waste of resources and time.

The principle is simple – the more links from websites defined as valuable, the greater the value of our website, and thus, the higher the position.

It is also important that the links leading to our website have the dofollow parameter, i.e. they are indexed by search engine robots. Links with the nofollow parameter, i.e. very little valuable from the SEO point of view, are, for example, links in social media – of course, they still lead to a given page and attract users to it, but they do not noticeably improve its position after entering a given phrase in the search engine.

However, link building is not easy. If suddenly many links from different sources appear to our website, the algorithm of Google (or another search engine) may determine this activity as suspicious, which will limit the effects, and in the worst-case scenario, the website will be punished, which will result in the opposite positioning result.

Is it possible to position the website for free?

Technically, it is of course possible, and with an extremely niche industry and relatively large effort, quite likely. A well-chosen strategy and on-site and off-site SEO carried out on-site in the long run may lead the website to the top of search results. One of the biggest allies here is Google Analytics along with the Google Search Console tool – these are free services officially provided by Google. However, their installation itself can be problematic (depending on the website structure and the CMS used), and improper implementation will make the results distorted.

When it comes to acquiring links, we can of course count on a natural flood of hyperlinks – especially if, for example, an entry from a company blog is substantively very valuable and solves a widely encountered problem or raises an issue that has not been explained in such a comprehensive way so far. Usually, however, you should not expect spectacular results.

We can also ask for help in linking friends who run their pages – preferably on topics related to our site. In the vast majority of cases, however, the number and power of links will not be sufficient to catch up, let alone overtake the competition in a clear way. In individual cases, free positioning can be successful, especially if the website is run as a hobby and it concerns a little-known topic. However, if we want to promote a profit-oriented business, and there are recognizable brands in the industry with marketing and SEO budgets, our chances of high positions are illusory.

Why is it worth working with professional positioners?

First of all, because website positioning is a complicated process that requires experience, specialist knowledge, professional tools, resources and time to bring good results. Many agencies allow you to conduct a free SEO audit after entering the address. This automated audit is able to find the most pressing problems related to indexing and page construction, giving an overall picture of the situation. This is a good start, but the tool will provide us with much less data than a professional audit performed by an experienced specialist.

Tools supporting the analysis of links and keywords are paid:
– Ahrefs,
– Senuto,
– Semstorm,
– SurferSEO,
– ScreamingFrog.

Professional agencies use a whole package of various programs, thanks to which they are able to correct the SEO strategy on an ongoing basis and operate on the basis of a large set of data. When working on SEO, Paraphrase-Online.com uses tools whose monthly cost for one company (one page for positioning) is over $ 2,000.

The cost of website SEO

There is no simple answer to this question. The cost of website positioning depends on the competitiveness in a given industry, the “strength” of the competing pages, previous SEO activities, content quality, site construction and many other factors. However, you can put the entire SEO process into the overall framework, relying on the rates offered by experienced agencies.

Remember: in SEO it is not possible to guarantee the result and agencies that declare the certainty of achieving TOP1 or TOP3 on a popular phrase within a certain period of time actually predict coffee grounds. Certainly, an experienced team of reputable specialists will improve positioning results, but how high the page will be is the result of so many factors that precise prediction.

The problem here is also the fact that the search engine displays different results to different users. The core of the positioning “value” of the page remains the same, but Google, based on the location, history of visited pages and Internet behavior of a given Internet user, will probably present him with a slightly different order in the rankings than his friend.

The minimum cost of website SEO in cooperation with the agency

It can be assumed that in the case of cooperation with a good agency, the monthly cost of website positioning is at least $ 1000-1500 in the case of small service websites (local small business) and online micro-stores from less popular industries. As part of such a package, we typically get about 30-50 monitored phrases and optimization up to 10-20 subpages. These values are slightly lower for service companies and higher for e-commerce stores – due to the specificity of sales, positioning of stores is generally more difficult, and therefore costs more.

SEO of a service company – cost

A company that operates on the local market in a moderately competitive industry and plans to significantly increase the number of leads from search engines must take into account a slightly higher cost – $ 1,899 (up to 100 phrases, up to 30 pages). Extending the scale of operations if we take into account a niche industry – nationwide, it is already $ 2,700 (up to 170 phrases and up to 60 subpages) and $ 4,200 (up to 250 phrases and up to 100 subpages). Nothing stands in the way of, of course, getting involved even more on the basis of an individual valuation.

The cost of SEO an online store

A small e-shop from a relatively niche industry, offering a small number of products, should spend at least $ 2,000-3500 on SEO. As part of such a package, it will receive monitoring of 100-250 phrases and from 30 to 100 optimized subpages. Medium and large e-commerce websites with a larger assortment can consider higher packages – from 5,000 to 8,000 $ (in Paraphrase-Online.com, up to 250 phrases and up to 100 subpages or up to 400 phrases and 150 subpages, respectively). The largest platforms from the most crowded sectors of the market are subject to individual pricing – “sky is the limit”, both in terms of costs and returns on investment.

The cost of website positioning may seem high – especially in the case of microbusinesses – but the traffic coming to the website directly from search engines (the so-called organic traffic) is very valuable in the context of acquiring customers. Users come to the website in search of specific products, services or information, which means that they usually do not get there by accident, which significantly increases the chance of conversion.

We say it often, but this quote will most likely never become outdated: SEO is a race of sorts. Certainly, however, he is closer to a marathon (or even an ultramarathon) than a sprint, and a good result requires know-how, effort and, above all, time.

SXO – Search Experience Optimization

Among the relatively new terms that should be taken into account when designing a corporate website, the SXO abbreviation, developed as Search Experience Optimization, comes to the fore of the pack. SXO is a combination of SEO (search engine optimization) and UX (user experience) terms that have been popular for years. In a nutshell, the idea is not only to effectively attract the search engine user and encourage him to enter a given page (with the help of SEO), but also to keep him on the page for longer and persuade him to convert thanks to the appropriate UX.

A refined SXO will work well with virtually any type of website. The most common conversion goals are:
– Online stores and widely understood e-commerce industry – main goal: increasing the number of transactions; additional goals are, for example, increasing the number of subscriptions to the newsletter or adding a product to the wish list;
– Service industry – main goal: increasing the number of leads, additional goal: for example downloading a PDF guide or filling in a survey;
– Content websites – main goal: increasing the user’s stay on the website, clicking on related articles, additional goal: for example, playing a video in the content.

Of course, the main and secondary goals can change places smoothly – it depends only on the industry and assumptions of the website owner. However, this does not change the fact that the emphasis on SXO (Search Experience Optimization) with the correct implementation of solutions will improve conversion – regardless of the specific goal.

But let’s start from the beginning. As mentioned above, SXO is a combination of two terms – SEO and UX. Let’s take a look at them in turn:

SEO – website positioning

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, means positioning a website in search engines. This process is designed to ensure that the page in response to a specific phrase appears at the top of the search results – or at least on the first page of search results. According to statistics, few internet users, after entering keywords, visit websites placed outside the TOP10 of displayed results, and the farther away, the lower the number. If the site is not at least in the TOP50, it can be concluded that the site will not attract anyone to a given phrase, except for individual Internet users who are either very determined or “lost” during the search. The goal of every website owner who would like to increase traffic on a long-term basis at a relatively low cost (compared, for example, to advertising in social media or Google Ads systems), should be appropriate optimization.

Positioning is a complicated process – the position of a page in the Google search engine is influenced by over 200 different factors. Some are officially published by the Mountain View company, but many of them are not disclosed to the public. For this reason, effective SEO requires a lot of knowledge and experience, but also requires constant experimenting and testing new solutions.

SEO activities are basically divided into two branches. The first one is called on-site SEO and consists in adapting the website and its content to Google’s requirements. This includes:
– speeding up the operation of the site (users often drop out of the visit if the loading time is too long – after all, it’s all about time);
– appropriate responsiveness, i.e. the ability of the website to display properly on various devices (including mobile – smartphones and tablets);
– enriching the content on the website with long, substantive texts that are adequately saturated with key phrases – that is, words for which the website should be displayed to users in search engines;
– presentation of content in a friendly form – division into paragraphs, use of headings (H1, H2, H3), appropriate use of graphics, internal linking.

The second branch of activities is off-site SEO, i.e. activities carried out through other websites. Each link on a different site to the target site strengthens its “strength” – that is, it signals to the search engine’s algorithm that the page is valuable and its rank should be raised. First of all, the link parameter is important – the link can be marked as dofollow or nofollow – in the first case, the link “invites” the Google bot to go to the page, which translates into SEO. The nofollow parameter also allows the user to click, but will be ignored by crawlers, so positioning will be impacted to zero.

However, not all dofollow links are created equal. A link placed on a small, unknown page will not be of much value. The key to off-site SEO is acquiring links from as large as possible, widely recognized by web bots, pages that are themselves placed in top positions in the rankings.

Why SEO Matters?

It’s worth remembering that SEO is the most cost-effective option in the long term to generate traffic to your website. Both Google Ads and social media advertising systems in the hands of specialists can be effective marketing tools. When using these solutions, when we turn off the campaign, traffic immediately disappears. Positioning effects last much longer, which in the long run generate noticeably lower customer acquisition costs. By investing in SEO, you ensure that your business is always exactly where the potential customer is.

UX – User Experience

User Experience, i.e. the user experience, is the whole experience felt by the internet user visiting the website. UX is a multifaceted field, covering not only technical studies, but also psychology, cognitive science and other disciplines.

An important component of the user experience is the UI, i.e. the user interface. A UI can be called a demonstration of how a user gives commands to a program – for example, a content management system (CMS) on a website. Any fragment of a page that, when clicked, causes the page to execute a specific command can be considered a UI element. The interface, or more precisely its graphical representation (GUI – Graphical User Interface) is extremely important – it is responsible for the simplicity of navigation on the website and its intuitiveness, as well as various visual aspects. On some pages, the combinations of colors, fonts or even borders make the use of the site difficult to define, while on others – very similar – it irritates or arouses some anxiety. Color psychology, typography, compositional solutions and many, many more – all these elements must be taken into account when designing a website in terms of interface.

User interface is an important element of UX, but user experience is a much broader term. The UX specialist takes on the wallpaper, among others, the user’s profile – his digital competences, demographic aspects, brand persona. It is also an in-depth analysis of competing parties. The most important in the work of a UX specialist are extensive experiments based on recording sessions, generating heat maps, A / B tests, and even examining the user’s eye movements.

UX, and in a broader perspective also SXO, takes three perspectives into account:
– user (who cares about simple, trouble-free and pleasant use of the website);
– site owner (focusing on valuable traffic and high conversion rate);
– web bots (analyzing the website in various respects, which translates into a specific result in the search results).

Why UX Matters?

A well-designed user experience can completely change the statistics on the website. Forrester’s research from a few years ago showed that just redesigning the user interface can change the conversion rate by 200%, and changing the UX by up to 400%. These are the results that can certainly be considered a business game changer. Of course, this is an extreme case and in the vast majority of cases the results of the website reconstruction will not be that spectacular (it also depends on what level we are starting from). However, it cannot be denied that in the business context, any positive change may herald the survival or dynamic development of the company. UX audit is therefore the first step to improve the effectiveness of your own website.

SXO – the future of web development

Search Experience Optimization is an evolutionary form of approach to web development, which combines the advantages of website positioning and UX design, and at the same time focuses on maximizing conversions. According to SXO, the mere transition of the user to the page from the search results does not mean anything – it must be supplemented with a possibly personalized experience, based on a number of variables.

Internet Marketing allows you to advertise on the web through multiple channels. The key to achieving goals is combining them skillfully, but before that happens, at least basic knowledge about each of them is necessary. What are the most popular ways of reaching the customer?

Google Ads is one of the most popular advertising channels on the Internet. Its potential is used by thousands of companies from hundreds of different industries and allows you to increase profits and improve brand exposure on the Web.

The most common option advertisers use is text ads on the search network. Thanks to them, the advertisement can be placed above the results, ahead of “normal” pages on Google – placing a link in such a place is characterized by a high likelihood of a click, and thus redirecting the user to the advertiser’s website.

Although Google Ads ads are often identified only with the above-described display of sponsored links in the search results, this system offers much more possibilities. In addition to text ads, Google allows you to advertise your company on YouTube and – thanks to the Google Display Network (GDN) – on millions of different pages. GDN is one of the components that make up Google Ads. It includes micro websites and personal blogs, as well as big websites with a multi-million audience. These are both expert websites, comprehensively describing specialist topics, as well as websites with show business gossip or sports news. Advertising on YouTube can also be extremely profitable – YT is after all the second largest search engine in terms of traffic. Another interesting option may be to use the Display & Video 360 service, which allows, among others, finding and renting space in the largest VOD (Video on Demand) streaming services.

For online stores, the Google Shopping system is also important, thanks to which, after entering a specific phrase – for example “adidas predator sports shoes” above the search results (as well as over “classic” sponsored links), product suggestions will appear. Such a panel contains a photo of the item, the name of the store, price and a link redirecting to the product page in a given store.

Ads in Google Ads are billed in the CPC (cost per click) system. This means that we only pay when the user clicks on the ad and goes to the page being promoted. The mere display of an ad is completely free. There are no lower or upper spending limits in Google Ads – it all depends on the industry, business competition, and even the time of day.

SEO

In a nutshell, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), also known as page positioning (wrongly because SEO is one of the elements of positioning), deals with increasing the visibility of the website in search engines. After entering a specific phrase into the search engine, the engine usually returns to us an ordered list of several thousand pages. The essence of positioning is to get a specific page at the top of the ranking – and if not, at least high enough to successfully generate entries and attract potential customers. The vast majority of users do not look at the second page of the search results, or even the items at the bottom of the first page. For this reason, the presence in the “top” of the results is of enormous importance and the thought about which marketing channels to choose usually starts with the positioning of the pages.

The position of the page is determined by the search engine’s algorithm on the basis of over 200 factors of different “strength”. Web bots analyze the content on the website, the technical aspects of building the website, as well as the links leading to the website. Due to the constant updates of the algorithm and the fact that a large part of the aforementioned factors has never been officially disclosed by Google, effective positioning requires a lot of experience and constant experiments at the same time.

We divide SEO activities into:

A. On-site SEO
This term defines the actions that we can perform on the website – often increase the amount of content and refine its quality, adjust the content to keywords, and also take care of reducing the loading time of the site, compression of graphics, implementation of the SSL certificate or correct display on various resolutions and devices ( this is very important – most of the traffic today is via smartphones).

B. Off-site SEO
This SEO department gathers links that lead to a positioned page. Google assumes that users share links to websites they consider valuable – regardless of whether it is an online store with interesting promotions or a website with study aids for students. Therefore, an important factor in determining the ranking of pages after entering a given phrase is the profile of links from external websites leading to the website. Of course, each link has a different value – some do not affect the “strength” of the site, while others will be important. The goal is to collect links that have a real impact on the position of the site – moreover, it must be done as naturally as possible, according to Google’s “social proof of rightness”.

What else should you know about SEO at the beginning? First of all, it’s important to remember that positioning takes time. In the case of campaigns implemented with the use of the Google Ads or Facebook Ads system, the increase in traffic occurs almost immediately. SEO usually brings results only after a few months – PPC campaigns are often compared to a sprint, and positioning activities to a marathon. On the other hand, SEO as a long-term activity is, in the end, the cheapest way to increase website traffic and attract new customers.

It is worth remembering that positioning works not only for companies operating on a national scale. On the Web, we also look for facilities, services or products in our immediate vicinity, and due to the increasing popularity of smartphones and services based on GPS technology, many companies can change their Internet presence thanks to local positioning.

Social Media

Over the years, social media has become an inseparable part of life, and thus also of business. In most industries, running profiles on various websites – for example Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and increasingly also TikTok and others – has become a necessity. With the help of such profiles, we can attract customers, make contact with those already present, get feedback and present not only our products, but also the company as such – its approach to business, values or a team of employees.

Advertising in social media has come a long way. While just a few years ago it was enough to have a profile and run it “smartly”, today Facebook and other portals often limit the organic reach, so that the published post will be shown in extreme cases to only a fraction of subscribers. PPC ads come in handy, as they operate in a similar way as Google Ads, they reach a large number of users and help in acquiring customers or increasing brand awareness. In the vast majority of cases, in 2021 it is no longer possible to promote in social media without investing in advertising.

The key to efficient communication in social media is to adjust the communication code to the customs and users prevailing on a given platform. On Instagram, the main medium is graphics, and text – especially content longer than 2-3 sentences – is of little importance. LinkedIn brings together professionals and although it has long been more than just an “online CV”, work-related content is still the most important there (which means that it is worth looking for B2B clients there). Teens and young adults are the dominant group on TikTok, but due to the dynamic growth, more and more older users can also be found there. Facebook, on the other hand, is still the largest social platform with great potential for brand owners, but has long since lost the sympathy of the youngest users. This does not mean that they cannot be found there, but in the collective consciousness Facebook is slowly becoming “booming”.

This shows how vigorous social media changes are, and nothing is given forever. Due to the number of users, companies and brands present on various portals, building recognition based on adjusting to trends becomes the key. Therefore, marketing channels require constant tracking and adapting messages to the current social situation.

SEO of Magento stores – why is it worth it?

Are you using the Magento platform? It’s a good choice. The system currently developed by Adobe is available in many languages, and its rich functionality makes it very easy to manage the sales process. The many advantages include adapting this portal to SEO needs. Indeed, positioning of stores on Magento gives you a wide range of possibilities. Here, however, nothing happens by itself.

In order for your store to be displayed high in Google search results and its offer to effectively reach interested customers, you should take care of it through positioning. It is a series of activities thanks to which Google recognizes your e-store as valuable in terms of SEO for people entering certain key phrases into the website. For this to happen, the search engine algorithms, after reviewing your store on Magento, must recognize that:
– it is easy to use,
– quickly provides information consistent with the search intention for a given keyword,
– it is credible.

How to “convince” Google algorithms to each other? This is a process that requires, first of all, refining the store itself – in terms of its code, security, hosting parameters, but also the content posted. That’s not all, of course, because additionally there is also the issue of linking and other related issues.

Seems like a lot of work? Yes. In order to position a store on Magento, you need to have the appropriate knowledge, experience, tools and time. However, the effort and budget invested in this process pay off many times over. Well-planned and performed SEO activities will allow you to:
– get high positions in Google search results for phrases related to your business,
– attract the interest of recipients who belong to your target groups,
– increase the number of visits to the website, and thus maximize the chance that the visitor will make a purchase,
– strengthen the brand awareness of your store,
– compete more effectively with other e-stores in your market niche.

Our experience shows that a well-carried out positioning of Magento stores means a significant decrease in the cost of acquiring customers, especially when compared to the cost of running intensive Ads campaigns. In addition, the effects of SEO activities are long-term and you will benefit from them for many months or even years.

How to SEO stores on Magento?

The Magento platform itself is well suited to conducting activities related to positioning. The tools available to users include such functionalities as automatic creation of a site map and robots.txt file or grouping of metadata for individual categories and subcategories. This can make your work much easier and help increase the visibility of the site for Google. However, the question is whether such actions will be enough.

It is worth realizing that the positioning of stores on Magento is carried out by an increasing group of their owners. This means ever-increasing competition and ever higher efficiency requirements. Therefore, in many cases, independent actions, even based on quite extensive SEO options of this platform, may not be successful. When positioning a store on Magento, even the slightest mistake or omission may decide about the failure of the entire investment.

For this reason, the answer to the question of how to position stores on Magento is: using the help of experts. However, before you start working with a digital agency, be sure to find out what elements should be taken care of by specialists so that their work translates into measurable results.

SEO of Magento stores – what elements do you need to remember?

At the beginning, the most important thing: how your store will be positioned depends largely on the specifics of its operation or industry. The fact that it is created using Magento also matters as you may find it necessary to correct the script code. Nevertheless, the basic principles according to which SEO activities should be carried out remain consistent with those used when positioning websites on a different basis. Here is a list of the elements that will ensure the success of all actions taken.

SEO audit – the basis for effective Magento store positioning

In theory, it may seem that positioning your store is a simple task. After all, it is all about selecting keywords and their skilful use in the resources of the website. However, this is a very big simplification of the whole process, which in fact is much more complicated. It must be remembered that the Google algorithms themselves change even several hundred (!) Times a year. The rules followed by the search engine are very extensive and cover not only content-related aspects.

That is why, before you start positioning your store on Magento, you should carefully look at the current situation. Experts have to assess how the store looks in terms of SEO and what needs to be changed to be visible in the first places in SERPs. Therefore, they assess, among others:
– technical aspects of the e-shop – incl. its code, page loading speed, its security, as well as the number of errors,
– content posted on the website – their quantity, quality are important, but also keyword saturation and uniqueness,
– page meta data and linking.

But this is not the end. You still need to look at the specifics of the company’s business processes, target group, and how competition is promoted. This information can be very important when choosing keywords for which positioning will be carried out.

Remember: keywords should not be selected “by eye”, but based on in-depth analysis and precise statistics. It is important, among others how much competition there is in positioning for specific phrases, as well as what potential they bring. Contrary to appearances, sometimes it is more profitable to choose less popular keywords, but it is much easier to get higher. When making your decision, follow the tips of SEO experts. Thanks to this, the positioning of the Magento store will be more efficient.

E-shop code optimization

Once the audit is done and experts provide concrete information on what needs to be done to get results from SEO, you can move on to action. Experts usually first look at the website of the e-shop itself and check whether it works properly.

There are many important issues in this aspect, but the most important ones are:
– page loading speed and smooth operation – may depend, among others, on from the “heaviness” of the e-store (the higher it is, the more data the user has to download to open it), as well as the hosting server parameters,
– correct operation of the website, i.e. whether it opens well on various devices and does not generate various types of errors,
– security – is extremely important, because the customer leaves his data in the store, so it must be transferred without the risk of passing through third parties. The basis is a valid and up-to-date SSL certificate.

These are all “programming” and technical tasks that SEO specialists must perform. It’s good for them to know about Magento store positioning, because the script of this platform is specific and needs to be skillfully optimized.

Verification of the site map and its layout

A site map is a record of its layout and “organizational chart”, i.e. how individual categories and subcategories branch out. It should be as logical, precise and orderly as possible. Why? Because the lack of a clear breakdown is problematic for both the user and Google’s algorithms. It should be remembered that it is unacceptable that all products are thrown into one bag, which can be seen not only in the structure of the website itself, but also in URLs. This leads to improper indexing of the e-store in Google, and thus preventing effective positioning.

SEO specialists carefully look at the layout of products in the store and, if necessary, propose a new, logical and more nested level. Remember: the more articles you sell, the more “densely” you should go into them. Thanks to this, finding individual elements will be easier for the customer clicking on categories, and positioning the Magento store – easier.

After making changes, of course, you need to generate a new sitemap and a robots.txt file. On Magento, this can be done automatically.

Meta tag optimization

Meta tags are additional content that does not appear directly on the store’s page, but is important information for search engines. The most important and visible tags are title and description, i.e. the title and description of the page. They are visible in the Google results list. That is why it is worth taking a closer look at them and making sure that they are:
– unique – repeating the same meta tags reduces their value in the eyes of Google, which consequently weakens the positioning of stores on Magento,
– saturated with keywords – it is worth including those that dominate in a given tab,
– attractive in terms of marketing – they should encourage visitors to the site, so it is worth including a CTA in them, i.e. a slogan prompting you to do so.

In addition to these basic meta tags, it is also worth taking a look at the ALT descriptions of images placed on e-shop pages. Adding them can also help from a positioning point of view. This is another place that you can saturate with keywords related to a given tab.

Remember: although Magento offers automatic adding of meta tags, it is worth at least to verify them when generated and edit them if necessary. Thanks to this, you will avoid problems that will weaken the effects of SEO activities.

Store content on Magento – SEO depends largely on them

The texts for the e-shop website are important not only from the marketing point of view, although it must be admitted that this aspect is also important. However, the SEO perspective is just as important. The content must be adapted to the rules governing the positioning of Magento stores. Otherwise, you may have trouble achieving high SERP scores.

The question, however, is: what do SEO-adjusted content mean? There are several elements that must absolutely be taken care of.

First, the uniqueness of the texts. And it is understood in two ways. First of all, don’t duplicate content found on other sites. You may be entitled to use promotional material from the manufacturer of the items you sell. However, filling individual subpages with such texts will reduce the SEO value of your Magento store. Why? Because Google will consider the content repetitive, and thus – little needed by the user. It is also important not to copy the same content on multiple pages of the website. Perhaps you sell goods in twin similar subcategories, so you thought about changing a few words in the text describing one of them and copying it to the other. The resulting duplicate content will also be misinterpreted by algorithms. So avoid such mistakes.

Second, the right amount of texts. Quantity can also be considered in several different ways. On the one hand, it is about the number of characters on individual subpages. On the other hand – how many tabs will be filled with content. We advise: more is better. However, text resources should be expanded gradually – also due to the budget that must be allocated for it. Remember that texts that are too short will translate into little space for key phrases.

And where and what content should be placed in the Magento store for positioning? They’ll be useful:
– content for the home page and subpage about the store – should contain the most general phrases related to your distribution activities,
– descriptions of the main categories followed by sub-categories and products. The process of preparing these texts should be spread over time, step by step extending the range of positioning,
– articles for a shop blog – they can be useful both for SEO reasons (including long tail positioning) and for image purposes. They will also help you reach your customers at different stages of the buying funnel. Therefore, it is definitely worth investing in them later.

Third, the quality of the texts – with the positioning of Magento stores in mind, it is worth remembering that the amount of content should go hand in hand with their substantive and persuasive value. The times of the so-called “pretzels” or texts, which were the proverbial “pouring water”, are long over. Today, not only the customer, but also Google pay attention to the information value of the content. This is important for their credibility.

Fourth, the clarity and layout of the texts – with SEO in mind, texts should be written with appropriate headings (H1, H2, H3), as well as bullets, as well as bold and underlines. They make the content easier for the user to read and are an additional hint for Google robots.

It is worth considering that the content should be prepared by a professional copywriter in consultation with an SEO specialist. This will ensure that they meet the requirements of Magento store positioning.

Linking matters

Another important element for positioning Magento stores is the proper use of linking. You should check if the links already used in the content are correct and expand their base. It is important to both increase the number of internal links (but so that they do not cross each other) and external links. These can be obtained, among others on blogs, social networks or by publishing sponsored articles with links to the store.

How long does it take to position stores on Magento and can they be accelerated?

The process of positioning the store on Magento will take several months until the first clear results are achieved. How much exactly? It depends, among others on the condition of the website before starting SEO activities or how competitive the industry in which you operate is. The budget you can spend on positioning is also important. Most often, however, results can be expected after about 3-6 months. They last much longer.

Is it possible to somehow speed up the positioning? It is difficult, especially if you expect really good results. However, if you need a much faster increase in website visits and support in stimulating sales, you can be tempted to advertise a Magento store with the help of Ads systems, e.g. offered by Google. The combination of activities in these two fields: paid advertising and SEO, will bring satisfactory results in the short and long term.

Shopify store SEO – what does it do?

Shopify is a Canadian e-commerce platform that allows you to quickly create an online store, adapt it to your needs and start selling. This system gives you access to many plugins and extensions that allow, among others, integrate the website with the Amazon platform or selected payment systems. A well-configured store is user-friendly, and the sellers allow for efficient execution of orders. However, in order for customers to show up, you need to position your Shopify store.

What exactly is Shopify store positioning? This is the process by which your website is visible to Google. As a result, when the customer enters phrases related to your offer in the search engine, he will see a link to the store high on the list of search results. How high your website will appear depends on how valuable your website is. Therefore, the e-shop must be adapted to the requirements of the search engine and “prove” that the information it contains is valuable for potential customers.

How well your Shopify e-store positions itself on Google is influenced by many factors, which we’ll cover a bit later. However, it is worth knowing that thoughtful SEO activities can significantly increase its sales potential and make acquiring one customer much cheaper. Positioning will make:
– you will hit high places on the list of search results for phrases related to your business,
– you will increase traffic on your store’s website, which will give you a better chance of convincing the customer to your offer,
– you will strengthen your brand on the web, which will allow you to compete better with other e-stores offering similar products,
– you will get long-term results – you will stay in high positions in SERPs for a long time, and the cost of acquiring a client will regularly decrease.

That is why positioning your store on Shopify is a basic SEO strategy worth investing in.

Is it worth SEO a shop on Shopify yourself?

The Shopify platform itself offers a wide range of possibilities when it comes to planning SEO activities. The website provides, among others possibility:
– automatic generation of links with SEO-friendly addresses,
– generating a sitemap and a robots.txt file, which are important from the point of view of indexing the page on Google,
– editing meta tags and their automatic creation,
– optimizing ALT attributes when uploading photos to product pages.

These functionalities can be additionally extended by using appropriate extensions and additions – such as, for example, All In One SEO and similar. It must be admitted that all these tools can make your positioning work much easier. However, the question is whether they will be enough for the results of all the activities carried out to bring measurable effects.

Keep in mind that the tools that increase the functionality of Shopify alone are not enough to effectively position your store. You still need to know how to use them. Effective SEO activities consist of many elements that must be coherently combined within one strategy – this is the only way you have a chance to achieve the expected success.

That is why, especially if you have no experience in positioning Shopify stores or any other website, it is better to entrust this task to specialists. Although service by a digital agency is associated with costs, in fact … it can bring you huge savings. The reason is simple: the budget you have for positioning your store on Shopify will be used wisely, and experts will skillfully refine the strategy to translate into more effective customer acquisition.

How to SEO your shop on Shopify?

First things first: positioning your Shopify stores is a multi-step process that takes a lot of time. Don’t expect the results to come a week or two after placing the order for SEO activities. What it comes from? Positioning requires, first of all, refining the website of your store – both on the technical and content level. In addition, it begins with an in-depth audit, which is the foundation of the work carried out.

It is during the audit that specialists define:
– what the current state of your store looks like and what needs to be changed in order to match SEO requirements,
– how your direct competitors are positioning and where there is a potential to overtake them,
– what keywords can be well positioned – it is worth remembering that those promoted by many stores in the industry at the same time will be more difficult. This means that entering the TOP 10 or a higher position in the ranking will take longer and will be associated with a higher financial investment. To reduce the level of these expenses, you can choose slightly less popular phrases at the beginning, and broaden their scope, by selecting Shopify store positioning in the long-tail model,
– how to modify and expand the content in the store so that it allows for better positioning results.

The more precisely such an analysis is carried out and the better the experts understand the sales process and the specifics of the industry, the better the subsequent SEO activities will be “set”.

What about after the audit? See what exactly you need to take care of in order to successfully position your shop on Shopify.

Fast loading of the store and its flawless operation

What do you do when you want to visit a website, but the website, instead of loading in the blink of an eye, opens endlessly? Nobody likes to wait these days. That’s why most people just close that page and move on to the next one. Your clients would do likewise. Google algorithms, which determine the position of individual pages in SERPs, are designed to present the user with the most precisely matched and most accessible results. Therefore, if your e-shop on Shopify is loading slowly, do not count on good positioning results. Google will lower your ranking.

What can make your Shopify store run slow? Shopify is a SaaS platform, which means that you are not responsible for hosting the servers – although the service itself ensures their high performance and reliable operation. But not only they translate into the loading efficiency of the website. Equally important are issues such as:
– the number of installed plug-ins and add-ons – if there are really many of them, it may turn out that some will “clash” with each other, delaying the opening of the website,
– image file sizes that have been posted on product pages – if they are “heavy” and there are a lot of them, they will download slower.

Various types of errors can be an equally big problem – for example, looping redirects between tabs or many subpages with the error code 404. These elements cause discomfort to the user, and thus, they look bad in the eyes of Google.

That is why the first stage of preparing a website for positioning is to look at all the technical aspects of its operation. It also includes security issues – it is important that the website uses an appropriate SSL certificate, which eliminates the risk of data leakage. You should also update the software and other elements that are responsible for the operation of the e-store on the web.

Correct site map

How are the products in your Shopify store organized? Positioning requires a very clear division into individual categories and subcategories. If all goods are simply thrown into the store “just like that” and only the general catalog on the home page leads to them – there is no question of the effectiveness of SEO activities.

All goods should be divided into categories and subcategories – so that their structure is as ordered as possible. This is important both for the positioning of the Shopify store and for the convenience of the user himself. A well-designed sitemap will make it easier for him to find interesting products, which will increase the chance of a purchase.

Improving the site map and organizing information and product pages in general is also one of the first steps to take when positioning your store on Shopify.

Content tailored for SEO

It is in the texts on the store’s website that you can include important key phrases, which will translate into a better position in the ranking. But be careful! Good content for store pages on Shopify is not one that is filled to the brim with keywords. Yes, they should be included in the texts, but in reasonable saturation, so that the texts are natural. In addition, SEO-specific content is the one that:
– have the optimal length – currently Google prefers longer texts, provided that they have actual substantive value and meet the requirements of positioning the store on Shopify,
– contain precisely selected key phrases – should be selected through SEO analysis using advanced tools, not “by eye”,
– are clear and easy to read, and therefore contain, inter alia, H2, H3, and sometimes even deeper headings, and use content highlights,
– they are unique – you absolutely cannot afford to copy them from other websites, even if you have the right to do so. Why? Because Google considers such copies of the content to be of little value, which will translate into a decrease in your position in the SERPs.

And what are the types of texts that are expected to appear with Shopify SEO in mind? He mainly judged:
– descriptions of categories and sub-categories of products, containing keywords that are related to them thematically – if you provide accesses with budget or news, and then introduce the main ones, then add more,
– product descriptions – one will also be an addition and expanded. In the store you want them to run, or even how you want them to continue,
– content on the main page – it is worth inserting a fragment that will also present the text of the store and will be the next page that will be the sale from the service point of the website.

In the longer term, it is also worth considering a company blog that allows you to combine SEO activities with typical content marketing. By choosing the right topics of the content and taking care of regularly publishing new ones, you can significantly increase and expand the SEO potential and maintain the results achieved at the beginning.

Linking matters

The content – both in the store itself and on external portals – should contain properly created links referring to individual sub-tabs of the website. Why is it so important? Because such links also affect the efficiency of positioning your store on Shopify. The more of them, the more valuable your e-shop is in a given context by Google. So let’s fight for it.

Links can be added both in the content of individual tabs with categories and subcategories, as well as in blog articles and in texts prepared for external websites – e.g. in sponsored articles.

Don’t forget about the metadata

The metadata is primarily the title and description parameters. What are they for? In a nutshell, they are displayed in Google search results. Therefore, they fulfill marketing roles, but most of all SEO. Therefore, these metadata should:
– have the appropriate length so that they are displayed well – in the case of title it is about 60 characters, and in the case of description – about 160. It is worth sticking to these values,
– be unique – they cannot be the same for individual subpages, because it will be problematic for Google, and thus unfavorable for the positioning of the Shopify store,
– contain appropriate keywords, preferably similar to those used in H1 headers on the subpage they refer to.

While Shopify allows you to automatically create your metadata, it’s a good idea to edit it for each tab and make sure it’s unique. This will bring many benefits when it comes to website positioning.

Also, be sure to add ALT attributes to your photos – especially those posted on your product pages. These parameters are also important for SEO, and in addition, they are important from the point of view of better accessibility to published content for people with disabilities.

How long does it take to position Shopify stores?

Wondering how long will you wait for your Shopify store SEO results? Be patient as this process can take up to 6 months. However, it is worth waiting calmly – the effects of good SEO activities will last for a long time.

But be careful! A one-time “setup” of positioning is not enough. At later stages, it is worth adding new content to the e-store and updating current texts with a focus on positioning for specific phrases. All these tasks, along with monitoring the effectiveness of positioning, will be performed by a good digital agency – so that you can be sure of visible results. What if you need your store’s advertising effects on Shopify faster? Then you can invest in solutions such as Google Ads or Facebook Ads. Paid campaigns, especially those using remarketing elements, will allow you to quickly attract the attention of buyers. However, they are relatively expensive, and their effects, although immediate, are short-lived. Therefore, it is best to combine SEO and paid advertising activities into one, well-thought-out and coherent strategy. Thus, problems can be avoided and a synergy effect can be achieved.

Google Tag Manager – what is it?

Google Tag Manager is a tool that allows you to easily add scripts (or tags) to the website, remove or modify them. In other words, thanks to it, you can manage all the tags we need from one place to analyze data from the website more effectively, increase conversion, track traffic sources, etc. Using GTM, we do not have to interfere directly with the website every time we want to implement a new script. site code. It is a kind of intermediary, thanks to which you do not have to insert any tags “rigidly”, burdening and slowing down the page. It also allows you to avoid errors that may occur when you try to implement the tag manually.

Over time, we place more and more tags on websites. The most popular are the Google Analytics tag, thanks to which we can collect data on traffic and conversion on the website, the Facebook pixel that allows us to measure the effectiveness of advertisements, or the Google Ads remarketing tag. However, there are also many other scripts that are useful from a marketing point of view. Thanks to GTM, we do not have to place all of them manually on the website – we just need to implement the Google Tag Manager code once, and we can implement all other tags through it.

How is Google Tag Manager built?

In Google Tag Manager, the account is the highest in the structure – it collects all the smaller subsets in the tool. Within the account, we can create containers, i.e. figuratively speaking, separate boxes for collections of tags. Each container has its own code to be implemented in the code of the page. After its implementation, the entire collection of tags contained in it is active on the website.

The tag itself is a type of tracking code that, once installed on your website, starts collecting data – this could be information about traffic, conversions, etc. – depending on the type of tag. Each tag should have an assigned rule that says when the script should run – we can add a rule that the tag should work on all subpages or only on some of them – for example, when measuring the conversion, we will assign a rule that the script should collect data only from the purchase confirmation page.

Assigning permissions in Google Tag Manager

In Google Tag Manager, we can grant permissions both at the account level and at the level of the container itself. If we want a user to have access to all the containers we have created, we should give them account-level permissions. We have two types of permissions here: Read Only and View, Edit and Manage. However, it is worth knowing that the second type of permissions cannot be edited within the containers – it only allows you to see what settings have been selected for each of them.

If we want to give the user the ability to edit the container or do not want to give him access to the entire account, we should grant permissions at the container level. In this case, we have three options: View Only (view only), View and Edit (view and editing) and View, Edit, Delete & Publish (view, edit, delete and publish). Thanks to this, we can freely manage access to the account and maintain full control over the data it contains.

Why is it worth having a Google Tag Manager?

Facilitation when making changes to the website
Sooner or later, most pages need updating or even more radical corrections. If, however, we change the appearance of the website, CMS system or template, it is necessary to transfer all scripts implemented directly in the code. When there are a lot of them, it is easy to skip any of them or paste them incorrectly, and in addition, it is simply tedious and time-consuming. By using the Google Tag Manager, we have an easier task – you just need to move the code to the container in which we placed the tags from a given site to trigger all the scripts on a given page. Therefore, it is worth thinking about implementing GTM at the beginning of running a website – at first it may seem that there are not many scripts, so this is an unnecessary difficulty, but their number can quickly grow and make any changes difficult.

Faster website loading
Each additional script in the page code makes the site a bit slower, and the longer the page load time, the more likely the user will get impatient. Thanks to GTM, it is easier to keep order in tags and to easily remove those that we do not need, so as not to unnecessarily burden the site. However, using this solution has one more important advantage – thanks to it, tags can be loaded asynchronously. what does it mean? Simply put, faster loading scripts do not have to wait for others, which shortens the overall page loading time.

Container template import option
If we have prepared and implemented a set of tags on one page, we can easily import it to a new account. Thanks to this, we do not have to waste time creating a completely new container with scripts if we launch a second or another website.

Ability to disable tags
If we implement the scripts directly on the website, we have to completely remove them if we do not want them to collect data further. However, we do not always want to decide on such a radical solution – sometimes we are not sure whether we will need a given tag in the future. With the help of Google Tag Manager, we can simply temporarily disable a given script.

Ability to quickly verify the correctness of the script implementation
Google Tag Manager gives you the ability to preview and debug, so you don’t have to wait to see if the tag has been properly implemented. Otherwise, we would have to wait for the tag to collect the data to be sure the implementation was successful.

Possibility to implement tags without the help of a programmer
When it comes to tampering with the website code, most people prefer to seek the help of a specialist to make sure that the change does not cause problems with the website. The need to involve a programmer in the implementation not only extends the entire process, but may also be associated with an additional cost. However, if we use Google Tag Manager, we can implement new scripts ourselves, being sure that we are not threatened by a long-term failure of the website caused by the new tag. If, as a result of our actions, the website starts to work incorrectly, it is enough to return to the container settings before the last script was deployed.

Medic Update and its SEO-echo

Let’s go back to August 2018 for a moment … then it once again shook the search results. The SEO community was in a panic – websites related to certain industries were changing their positions rapidly. The victims were not only smaller sites, but also big players who had been occupying the tops for years. These changes were due to an algorithm update that quickly became known as the “Medic Update”.

Why “Medic”? The spikes in visibility were most severe on health-related websites. Losses were also noticed on portals related to finance, law, politics, e-commerce and others. Soon, Google confirmed that the update was mostly about YMYL sites – “Your Money, Your Health”.

The update coincided with the refreshed of the guide for Google testers, responsible for assessing the quality and credibility of the content on websites. The guide is available on the search engine pages, and its last update took place in October 2020. The document contains detailed guidelines on how to evaluate websites and their classification.

YMYL websites – Your Health, Your Money

The acronym YMYL appeared for the first time in 2013, but the buzz around it only got on the occasion of “Medic”. This category includes websites that have the potential to affect your well-being, safety, health and financial stability.

According to information from official Google sources, the following sites fall into the “YMYL” drawer:
– news – sites presenting information on current world events, politics, business, science, technology and so on … Interestingly, not every type of news fits into this category – entertainment and generally understood lifestyle are not taken into account here, similarly as well as sports news;
– law and politics – sources of information on state policy, voting systems, public institutions, etc. and portals dealing with law and publishing articles with legal advice on issues related to, for example, family law, property law and others;
– finance – market analysis services reporting the latest changes in the global stock markets and pages containing information on loans, pension plans, insurance and other types of websites related to the circulation of money. Sites that allow money transfer, such as online exchange offices, are given special attention;
– shopping – online stores and websites containing information on e-commerce; health and safety – portals with health articles, information on disease symptoms and drug descriptions – composition, action and adverse reactions. This collection also includes websites that focus on diets and ways to lose weight;
– groups of people – websites dealing with topics related to race, origin and religion as well as other sensitive topics, such as sexual orientations, nationality and disability.

The list is not exhaustive – there are many topics that can be considered in terms of YMYL, and the final evaluation in this regard belongs to the testers.

Google assumes that the information contained on YMYL websites may have a potential impact on the well-being of users. Hence the need to maintain high standards in terms of the method of providing information, as well as its content. Verification of pages and information control is also one of the ways to eliminate “fake news” from the search engine space.

E-A-T – the quality of information on your website

E-A-T was created to evaluate the quality of the website content. In English, this acronym is unambiguously associated with the word “eat” and all metaphorical connections are perfectly appropriate here. In this case, the data transmitted within the website will be consumed.

E-A-T is:
E – Expertise
A – Authoritativeness
T – Trustworthiness

Let’s decode what is behind the three passwords listed above:

Expertise – relates to the person responsible for the text on the site. The content is assessed on the basis of the writer’s competence – his education, knowledge of the subject, experience. Placing this type of information and the exact selection of authors of texts is important especially in the context of YMYL websites.

Sites that deal with less sensitive topics are rated lightly and Google allows for “less formal expertise” based on the user’s daily experience. As a result, it positively receives, for example, extensive product reviews in online stores, which – although not signed by a specialist with an academic title – constitute a valuable source of information for potential buyers of the assessed equipment. It is similar with restaurants or service premises – here all you need is “common sense” and a desire to describe the place visited in detail.

Google does not penalize websites created by people without formal education in the subject they are discussing, but “only” with life experience that allows them to obtain the status of an “expert”. As an example, he gives thematic forums, bringing together people interested in a given topic and sharing their own observations. In the case of websites touching, for example, medical topics, these places are treated as a space for the exchange of experiences and are not assessed through the prism of specialist knowledge.

Authoritativeness – relates to the author of the content, the content itself, and the page on which it was posted. Website evaluators are encouraged to look for external sources that can testify to high-quality content and its creator. Interestingly, as a source of information about companies, organizations and authors, Google points to … Wikipedia. Assumes that wikipedia.org is a neutral source that publishes proven information and deals with topics that organizations want to show off on an equal footing with information about an individual’s controversies and problems.

Building the authority of an organization or an employee should not, however, be based on a single source. Google points out that in order to form an opinion about the reviewed website, it is also worth checking the reviews and opinions related to it, posted on independent portals.

It should be noted here that while reviews on independent portals will be issued by users who are not necessarily related to the industry and do not have specialist knowledge, while building the website’s reputation, Google will follow the opinion of experts dealing with a given topic.

Trustworthiness – , i.e. the assessment of the legality and transparency of information. In this context, the level of data accuracy is also assessed and applies not only to the content, but also to the entire website.

The basis for the assessment of credibility is primarily information about the person who is the author of the information on the website. This is especially important in the case of websites dealing with sensitive topics, falling under the YMYL categories. In the case of e-commerce websites, the element proving the authenticity of the store will be the address of the office or warehouse, as well as other information allowing direct contact with employees. Other solutions enabling obtaining help during transactions, e.g. chat, are also positively assessed. On the other hand, problems with the functioning of the website and omissions on the part of webmasters, e.g. lack of a secure connection during the transaction, indicate low credibility.

When it comes to the credibility of the website / article content itself, the consistency of the facts on the topic is taken into account. The greater the compatibility with external sources, the better.

E-A-T or … “it depends”

It has been established that when it comes to SEO, most of the problems can be summed up with the phrase “it depends”, changed in all possible ways. It is no different and in the case of E-A-T:
– the analysis is based on general guidelines which, however, may not be applicable in all cases. The specificity and level of formalization of industries or topics covered on the Internet differs to a considerable extent;
– the evaluation belongs to a Google employee who is responsible for the final interpretation of the site.

It also has its advantages. The Google algorithm, despite the high level of complexity, still works in zero-one. The assessment is based on guidelines, but in the real world, “all shades of gray” are not taken into account. The solution to this potential problem are testers who analyze the search results and check how the program coped with building the SERP. The evaluators not only check the credibility of the sites, but also take into account the local color of the results.

E-A-T analysis and quality testers are another way for Google to make sure that the results posted on the search engine best respond to the user’s queries and provide them with reliable information.

E-A-T and website quality in practice

The concept of E-A-T covers only part of the guidelines for awarding high quality “medals” to websites. Suffice it to say that the guide itself has over 170 pages …

There is no simple formula for improving the quality of your website, but you can extract guidelines from the content that should support your website. So let’s start:

1. Goal – the overriding goal of Google is to provide the user with reliable information. The search engine also imposes it on our websites and indicates the need to create pages with the user’s needs in mind. This idea applies to both the technical and textual layer of the website.

The most popular purposes include:
– providing information on the topic in question,
– providing information about persons,
– sharing photos, videos,
– expressing opinions,
– entertainment,
– sales,
– Questions and Answers,
– sharing documents and software.

Of course, this is only a fraction of the list of ideals behind the creation of websites. The task of the Google algorithm and employee is to determine how well the website meets its goal. The better the presentation and value of the information, the higher the site’s quality rating will be.

For purely damaging sites (phishing, misleading), the rating will be downgraded accordingly.

2. Who are you? Sites that provide information about your business are more reliable. The same is true for content creators. A few words about the authors should be included in the bio placed next to the article or on a dedicated page.

It is worth mentioning the company, its origins and mission in the About us tab or similar. Another subpage can be used to present individual teams and employees. Activity content should be supplemented with information about successes – publications, exhibitions, awards and more.

3. Take care of your image! Reputation is built not only on the basis of information contained on our website, but also thanks to data from external sources.

Bearing in mind not only Google’s recommendations, it is worth taking care of your social media, not only those focused strictly on communication with customers (Instagram, Facebook), but those that will allow you to appear as part of the industry (LinkedIn and others). Building an expert position is also helped by publications in thematic magazines, participation in conferences, trainings, fairs and other forms of presenting your own brand or yourself. Independent publications are also excellent sources of links.

When cooperating with external specialists and influencers, it is worth choosing people related to the industry, recognizable in the community. Cooperation does not always have to mean advertising, sometimes an interview or an article dealing with issues of interest to both parties is enough.

4. Opinions and reviews… the number of websites where the user can express his opinion about the services and products is constantly growing. This situation is favorable primarily for the perspective of the consumer, who can not only share his impressions, but also do appropriate research before making a decision.

A large number of positive reviews and opinions helps to strengthen the brand and convince new customers to choose our company. Good grades make the company’s activities more credible and facilitate building authority. In the guide, Google points out the special value of longer statements by reviewers, which describe in detail the pros and cons of a good or service.

Note – a large number of ratings does not always confirm the high credibility of the company or website. Google, testers and potential customers are more and more effective in “catching” sponsored comments, especially if they are added on a large scale.

Negative reviews arise from strong emotions that perfectly motivate you to throw out frustration in a larger forum. For more neutral and positive impressions, the user may not always need to share them publicly. It is worth encouraging him to do so by, for example, e-mail requests, sent a few days after the transaction or visiting the facility.

5. Update – not only the CMS, but also the content. Its reliability proves the high quality of information. Ditching older blog posts or articles is not in a good mood. Supplementing the content or directing the user to a subpage with more recent data is good for the reputation of our website and increases trust in our business.

By the way … it is also worth remembering to check the information provided by our domain and in the case of external data – to put links to the websites from which they were downloaded.

6. Contact! As I mentioned earlier, one of the key ways to authenticate your online activity is to provide users with the data necessary to make contact – e-mail address, telephone numbers and physical address.

More contact details are necessary primarily for websites falling under the YMYL category.

Another ranking factor?

Discussions about whether E-A-T is a ranking factor or not have been ongoing since the publication of the tester guidelines. He referred to it, inter alia, Danny Sullivan.

Contrary to the technical aspects of the site, which can mostly be assessed in a very specific way, E-A-T standards are more fluid. It is impossible to describe them by awarding points.

A website is a type of business card that allows you to present our business. Its appropriate appearance, adaptation to the needs of users and the reliability of the information provided on it represent the approach to the client and can influence his decisions. Providing high-value information, provided in an accessible way, causes natural interest of users and the willingness to share, i.e. link to our website.

Summary. High quality = more interest = natural links = longer time on the website = higher position in the ranking.

Theory, or what is this creation – JavaScript?

The website is in the form of code that is read by browsers and rendered as indicated. The next elements of the website are added via HTML tags. The appearance of the page requires adding an additional file, written in css. The most common styles are located in the style.css file.

Websites built on HTML and CSS are relatively simple. Creating complex websites requires the use of more technically advanced solutions, allowing for dynamic content delivery, HTML rendering at the server level, and processing information from users and saving them in a database. The use of additional technologies also makes the form of providing information on the website more attractive.

Building dynamic applications is possible thanks to a wide range of programming languages, extending the functionality of websites. One of the most popular programming languages in recent years has been JavaScript. This is confirmed, inter alia, by The 2020 State of the Octoverse report summarizing the activities of developers within the GitHub platform.

JavaScript was created in late 1995. Initially, it was used primarily to validate information entered by the user (e.g. the correctness of an e-mail address in a form), today it allows you to build dynamic websites. Thanks to the scripts, the website “lives” and reacts to the user’s actions – the image gallery becomes interactive, pop-ups can be closed, and Google Analytics collects information about the traffic on the site. JS is also responsible for other elements without which websites do not seem to meet modern standards:
– infinite scroll (i.e. loading subsequent elements, e.g. products without reloading the page),
– comments and ratings,
– internal linking,
– “the best” lists of products or articles.

The choice of JavaScript as the technology on which the website will be based allows you to place on it elements downloaded from external sources, for example the Google Maps API or API from social networks.

JavaScript code is in a file saved as .js (usually script.js) – a link to it is inserted in the head section of the page or immediately before the final body tag (which is recommended). However, some code fragments are also placed directly between html tags (e.g. the script responsible for Google Analytics), which allows the code to be executed (i.e. the appearance of a specific action on the page) before the entire HTML and CSS structure is loaded. Unfortunately, such treatments usually have a negative impact on the rendering speed of the website – so it is worth using this option to a limited extent.

Within websites built according to this standard, at first the HTML structure is loaded, which is then supplemented with CSS code. Finally, the JS code is executed according to the sequence of the following items in the file – top to bottom.

Client-side Rendering or Server Side Rendering?

JavaScript is a specific language – it can be executed on the server side (server-side) and on the browser side (client-side). Both options allow you to build a modern web application that is attractive to users and web robots.

Server-side rendering (SSR) is the most popular method of displaying web pages. The browser sends information to the server, which sends the response in the form of rendered HTML, which is displayed on our screen. The response speed depends on, among others:
– internet connection,
– server location (distance from the computer from which the query was sent),
– traffic on a given page (how many inquiries are sent at the same time),
– from website optimization, e.g. cache and the possibility of storing some files in the browser cache).

Each subsequent click causes the necessity to reload the page – the server sends a response containing HTML with the same elements as the previous subpage.

Client-side Rendering allows you to render responses on the client side – most often the web browser. In this case, in response to the browser request, the server sends a JavaScript file, which is responsible for creating the HTML structure and adding content to it. In the case of moving to the next subpage, the website does not have to be reloaded – JS downloads the necessary content from the server and complements the previously rendered HTML skeleton. The server response is faster and the Internet connection is less loaded.

Client-side rendering is usually faster, but due to the need to execute all JS code, the first loading of the website may be longer than with SSR. Client-side rendering – rendering a view only for a given browser may cause problems with effective website positioning.

Google vs. JS – a bumpy road to success

The possibilities offered by JavaScript code had a significant impact on its popularity. JS allows, among others to create dynamic pages, based on a template written in html + css, supplemented with data downloaded, for example, from databases. Moreover, the potential of this language allows you to manipulate templates, create additional elements and render the page “on the fly” – while the program is running. On this principle, in the first years of its existence, Wix site builder – rendered websites based on JS code.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, this solution is not conducive to ranking high in the Google search engine. Network robots from the Mountain View company for many years were not able to analyze JavaScript pages well, which in turn resulted in the inability to compete in SERPs. In recent years, Google has declared to improve its capabilities in this area, but the effectiveness of reading the code files is not always satisfactory.

SEO JavaScript pages requires, first of all, to know how Googlebot processes JS code. For static pages, the robot’s flowchart is quite simple.

Google checks if it can enter a given address (access for robots can be blocked in the robots.txt file or tag in <head>), then downloads the page data – HTML structure and at the same time checks what is on all links in the code. Then the CSS files are read and the page is sent for indexing. This process is different for JavaScript pages.

As you can see, the path that Googlebot has to travel is much more complicated. After downloading the HTML file, it downloads the CSS and JS code which is necessary to render the page. It then supplements it with resources from external sources (if any) and renders the page. The appearance of the page and the necessary elements of its structure are contained in the JS code, which allows you to manipulate individual fragments and adapt them to the user’s needs.

Rendering the code before it is indexed may take a long time and Google does not guarantee that it will get all the information we wanted to include on the page. It has to do with with the number of URLs the robot scans during the day – the so-called “Crawl budget”. Taking into account the needs of Googlebot allows it to effectively crawl under the page, which translates into the visibility of the site in search results.

Drawing a Googlebot path gives a clear overview of the complexity of positioning JavaScript-based pages. Unfortunately, it does not inform about the risks and problems that may arise during the next steps.

JS pages – what does Google see?

Websites based largely on JavaScript code have always been a big challenge for Google robots. Their indexation level is increasing, but they are still not as high as we could wish for.

Google renders pages differently than the average browser, and uses the page in a different way than the user. The algorithm of operation focuses primarily on the elements that are necessary to render the website. It may omit those it deems less important and, as a result, ignore them during indexing. This is problematic especially in a situation when these fragments contain the content of the page, which was intended to become a ticket to high positions in search results. Data dependent on cookies are particularly exposed to the risk of remaining invisible – if the content is served on their basis, Google will probably not reach it. Additional issues are also the speed at which the code is executed – bad optimization may extend the entire process and cause the robot to abandon it.

The second problem is the lack of Googlebot activity when visiting the website – Google does not scroll the page, does not click where the user is and blocks automatic video playback. Unlike other visitors to the site, it may not reach all the prepared content and not have a complete picture of the site.

Information on how Google renders our site can be obtained using the Mobile Optimization Test. After entering the address, Mobile Test will download the subpage indicated by us and return information about the rendering process – including messages about problems. A preview of the rendered page will also appear on the right.

You can also check the page in Google Search Console – “URL Check”. Both forms of site rendering control allow you to obtain the data necessary to introduce any changes and improve the indexation of the site based on JS.

Single Page Apps – React, Vue.js and other frameworks

Strong emphasis on the speed of data delivery and the popularity of technologies used in mobile applications has resulted in the growing popularity of Single Page Apps websites. This type of website has one html file, which is used to render subsequent subpages. The content is downloaded dynamically from the server through JS requests.

SPAs are fast and well received by users. During the visit, the browser downloads all static elements, the remaining content is read during the visit. Transitions between successive fragments of the page are dynamic – we avoid the moment of reloading the page. From the user’s position, it looks the same as in the case of more traditional pages – e.g. links in the menu have a familiar form, but after clicking on them, the browser does not download data from the next html file – in fact it remains in the basic index.html, and the content is downloaded are from the database and rendered with JS.

To build Single Page Apps, the AJAX model is used, which allows communication with the server in an asynchronous manner, which does not require the document to be refreshed with each user interaction with the site. Pages are built with what Wikipedia refers to as the “application framework” framework. The framework is responsible for the application structure, mechanism of operation, components and necessary libraries. The most popular frameworks include React, which is used to build application interfaces. Vue.js and Ember.js are also frequently used. The framework developed and promoted by Google is called “Angular”. The most popular frameworks allow for server-side rendering of websites (which is recommended from the perspective of easy page crawling by Googlebot) and take into account the requirements of mobile browsers.

As we mentioned earlier, Google is not always able to deal with these types of sites, which makes the positioning of some Single Page App based on JavaScript without proper optimization may be impossible. A good example is the website. The website provides a lot of historical information (taken from Wikipedia), but Google does not see its potential.

While in the case of a website of this type, the lack of presence in Google is not that significant, in the case of a store it can significantly affect the interest of customers. Pages created using popular frameworks – React, Vue.js or Angular, allow you to introduce elements necessary to appear in the Google index and serve content in a way that allows you to compete in terms of position.

SEO and optimization of JS pages

The solutions enabled by the JavaScript code have a positive impact on the speed of the website and its reception by users. However, seeing the page by potential customers is only half the battle – most of them reach our URL only when they find it in Google search results.

Optimizing web pages with a lot of JavaScript code requires changes that seem obvious to static pages.

Access for network robots
As mentioned earlier, Googlebot will first check if the URL it encounters is accessible to it. This applies to all resources within it – including JS and CSS files. Google’s rendering of JS pages requires full code access, so avoid blocking these resources in your robots.txt file.

Urls
One of the problems that can be encountered when optimizing a site based largely on JS, is the lack of “traditional” links to subsequent pages of the site. Googlebot focuses only on the links placed in the href attribute, in the <a> tag.

Another problem with URLs typical of sites with lots of JS is the use of URLs with “#”. The cross allows you to avoid the need to scroll through the document and move directly to the selected fragment.

One solution to these problems is to use the HTML5 History API. It allows you to manipulate the browser’s history – e.g. change the address in the browser’s address bar and change the content, without having to reload the subpage. The API is built into most frameworks (including React Router), which makes it much easier to build websites that allow for positioning in Google. Note – such solutions will not be effective with old versions of browsers.

Among other problems with URLs, it is also worth noting quite a lot of potential for duplicate pages, with addresses that differ in case of letters or slash at the end. Placing a canonical link in the <head> section fixes this problem. The address they contain will be unambiguous information for Google.

Sitemap.xml
The element that makes indexing the site much easier are files containing links to all addresses within the domain – sitemap. The sitemap is a list to which all addresses to which we want to invite the bot should be included.

Redirects and the problem of apparent errors 404
One of the important elements of the website optimization process is catching broken URLs and directing them to new, correct ones. Redirects 301, 302, etc. are performed within the server. However, in the case of the Single Page App, this solution cannot be applied. As the Google Help Center suggests, and as proven by Search Engine Land’s testing, proper use of JS code will work in a similar way.

Redirecting JS will allow you to redirect the address to the next subpage, but it will not give the answer typical for redirects made on the server. However, from the point of view of presence in search results, this is not a problem. Redirecting effectively replaces the old address with a new one that may go further in the ranking.

window.location.replace replaces the current document with the one at the given address. The address and contents of the original document will not be cached. This type of procedure is another example of the effective use of the previously mentioned HTML5 History API.

Other important server response codes for network robots include 404, “Not Found”. In the case of JS pages (although this problem also occurs with badly configured static pages), the lack of a document at the given address will be read by the server as a correct 200 answer. As a result, the search engine index may find non-existent addresses with no content. In order to overcome this problem and inform robots about the need to look at other subpages, it is worth supplementing the code with a fragment that allows you to get the desired answer from the server.

Loading delay
Page speed is one of the factors contributing to good website visibility. The optimal speed of content delivery and other content elements allows for comfortable use of the website without overloading the user’s internet connection. One of the most effective solutions is lazy loading – delaying the loading of certain website elements. Note – incorrect implementation may block access to important website resources and, as a result, prevent Googlebot from accessing key content for positioning.

When loading, priority should be given to the HTML structure that allows you to “build the page” and its content. Next in the queue are the graphics, which most often have the greatest impact on the amount of data downloaded to load your site. The use of lazy loading allows you to render successive elements visible on the screen in the first one, allowing for later loading of fragments available after scrolling below.

Titles, descriptions …
You can’t do effective SEO without optimizing your titles and descriptions. In the case of Single Page App pages, based on frameworks such as React, Ember or Angular, it is worth considering adding a module or library that allows for any modification of these tags. In the case of applications built on React, the most frequently chosen library is React Router and React Helmet. The Gatsby framework based on React is also becoming more and more popular.

Testing and troubleshooting JavaScript application SEO

Positioning of Javascript-based websites has not been possible for many years. The development of methods to deliver content to web crawlers is in line with improving Google’s ability to render and read JS sites. However, there is still a significant risk of errors when indexing the content of our website – the solution provided by Google is not perfect.

The guarantee of the appearance in the SERPs is to allow access to the site by Google robots and control the content displayed by them. For this purpose, it is worth not to limit yourself to testing the website, especially with the help of the previously indicated Google tools.

Dynamic rendering – ready for Googlebot

As part of improving the relationship between Googlebot and JavaScript, Google in its documentation suggests using various tricks that allow for better processing of JS code. One of them is dynamic rendering.

Dynamic rendering is based on identifying the client (e.g. a browser or a web robot) and providing him with a response tailored to his technical capabilities. In practice, when the query is made by the user (web browser), the page will be rendered in the normal way – the HTML file will be downloaded and the desired content will be downloaded from the database with the help of a request sent by a JS script. When Googlebot asks for a given URL, the server will send a render of the page containing static HTML, which will enable faster indexing of its content.

An API called Rendertron can be used to implement dynamic rendering, which works as a standalone HTTP server. It renders the contents of URLs readable by bots that don’t execute JavaScript correctly. Rendertron allows you to save the rendered file in the cache, which significantly speeds up the sending of responses to the bot. The data in the cache will be updated automatically at intervals specified by us.

Pre-rendered documents are also useful from the point of view of other clients – they allow you to prepare content suitable for readers used by the visually impaired.

SEO and JavaScript – summary

The growing emphasis on the speed of serving content will certainly result in a further increase in the popularity of the JavaScript language. Google also takes this into account and is constantly working to improve the indexing of the content accessible with the help of JS. Appropriate optimization and the use of bot-friendly solutions are the key to high positions in search results, even for Single Page App and other JS-based sites.

Quantity over quality – linking in the first decade of the 21st century

Before SEO became a sophisticated art, SEOs didn’t play around with conventions. Optimization for the search engine guidelines was simplified, and the keywords just poured out of every line of code. Nobody cared too much about the user’s needs, which was due not only to the lack of technical capabilities (these have developed with the growing popularity of HTML5 and CSS3), but also to a smaller number of network users.

How did we link these several years ago? I think the term “without moderation” will be the most accurate here. Initially, it was mainly the quantity that mattered, hence the spammer websites popped up like mushrooms and immediately became a base for various types of websites. Sites of this type were called “presell pages.” These types of sites were the perfect answer to the question “where to link the page?”. Some of them were not moderated or thematic – it was enough to find access to the site, set up an account, sometimes pay a few dollars and prepare a text suitable for use in a blender. These types of programs allowed for the creation of synonymized texts that could be used on a larger scale. The texts were similar, but the use of synonyms gave the illusion of uniqueness. Unfortunately, reading them was not recommended – the written texts did not contain valuable information, and were only carriers of links to positioned pages.

Over time, the weight of the links has changed – high positions were provided by links from educational (edu) and government (gov) sites, and the role of blogs piled up with junk articles began to decline.

Penguin – the Google update that turned the SEO world upside down

In 2012, an update was added to the search engine’s algorithm that ended the golden years of carefree linking. An update called “The Penguin” has reduced the importance of links from spammy sites and significantly reduced the possibility of black hat link building practices.

The “Penguin” analyzed the links coming to the website and assessed their naturalness. Links from cluttered pretzels, low-quality internet forums and other sources with dubious reputation received very low marks, which for the website usually resulted in a drop in the Google ranking. It also performed the detection of duplicate linking patterns, suggesting the operation of linking scripts on a massive scale.

Initially, the Penguin update was “fired” from time to time – its operation was most often manifested by a rapid change in the visibility of the site and a decrease in traffic. The penguin filter forced the SEOs to rapidly “clean” the profile of incoming links. Resignation from low-quality links allowed for a stable increase in position, but the return to its former glory was not always possible. In some cases, the banned page returned to the Google search engine only after a few months, when a new version of Penguin was added to the algorithm.

The update that wreaks havoc on links on Google debuted at the end of March 2012, and the effects of its subsequent hits could also be seen in October 2012, May and October 2013 and October 2014. In September 2016, Penguin joined the basic elements of the search engine algorithm and since then works in real time. Its constant activity allows you to react faster to the negative effects of ineffective linking, without having to wait for the next update. Additionally, the version of the update, which has become a permanent fixture in the search engine’s repertoire, seems to be milder for reckless linkers – controversial links are usually simply ignored. However, this does not mean that you are allowed to link from everywhere – sites that practice spammy tricks can still be punished with elimination from search results.

Link anatomy – how to link?

Linking, while different from Google’s early days, still matters a lot. Therefore, it is worth taking a closer look at the correct link structure.

A link, also known as a link to a page, is one of the basic elements of HTML – a markup language commonly used to describe web pages. Link – hyperlink – is an element referring from one document to another, which is displayed most often after clicking on the indicated tag. The structure of the global internet is based on links.

What does the link look like?
– <a> – tag
– href – attribute containing the address of the link’s landing page,
– anchor – link text visible on the website,
– the link can point to documents within the same document (href = “#”), within the same domain (href = “/ about us /”), or to any document on the Internet,
– In the <a> tag, there may also be a title that will be displayed when you hover the cursor over the link, and a target that will determine whether the document will open, for example, in a new browser tab. In the hyperlink tag, you can also add guidelines for web robots, e.g. prohibiting them from going to the specified URL.

In the context of positioning, the importance of the link anchor element is often emphasized – this is where you can place a keyword that will be the “title” of the link pointing to our website. In the case of planning a link-building strategy, selecting the right anchor will be one of the key elements that will make our activities look natural. The most important thing here is diversification, i.e. the use of various methods of link labeling:
– URL address – the anchor is the website address pasted into the content of the article or post. It looks the most natural – after all, who of us want to describe a link sent in forum posts or comments? Hyperlinks with an anchor containing a URL are often created automatically, such as by pasting the address into text in Google Docs;
– brand – name of the company or website to which we link. It is a safe form of link naming that allows you to promote your brand;
– keyword – a more risky form of linking, which too careless use may be punished by the search engine. An anchor link containing a keyword looks the least natural. Keyword linking helps in website positioning, but it should be used in moderation as one of many solutions;
– graphics – a link to the page can also be placed within a photo or file with the company’s logo. It is then necessary to describe it in accordance with the requirements of the <img> tag.

Links can be placed in any section of the website – in the menu (top, side), in the text, in comments, in the footer. They can be located on one subpage of the website or repeat within a category or the entire domain – then they are called site-wide.

Link quality – where to find high-quality links?

With the advent of the Penguin era, collecting links to a site has become a more demanding activity. Finding a good source of links requires more selection and rejection of pages of questionable quality – for example, which are dominated by texts consisting of chaotic texts with a high concentration of keywords.

So where to link the page? It is worth looking for sources of links with high authority, i.e. a good Google rating. The search engine does not officially inform about the scores obtained by the site, but there are external tools that allow you to determine their level. One of them is Ahrefs, which uses the Domain Rating indicator, which evaluates the number and quality of links.

When looking for the perfect place to throw your link, we should also look at the number of users visiting the site. High organic traffic is associated with a high level of visibility of the domain, and this in itself tells a lot about the assessment of it by Google. This type of information can be obtained with the help of SEO Surfer programs.

Another element worth our attention is the link profile of the website, which is to be the carrier of our hyperlink. The number of outbound links is also important – too many links weaken the “link juice” directed towards our website. What is “link juice”? This is how the power (authority) is transferred from one domain to another. Too many links to external websites “watered down the juice” and reduces the value of the obtained link.

In addition to these techniques, the seeker of links should direct their attention to websites thematically related to the content of the linked page. It will also be helpful to get links from local websites promoting activities in our country. Links that are to direct to the domain in English should be placed on native websites and similar – other language versions on the corresponding portals.

Where to link the page?

Gaining links is a tedious process that requires attention as long as the idea of good online visibility is important to our business. Activities in this area should be wisely planned and take into account other aspects of marketing activities undertaken under our brand.

So let’s discuss the most popular link sources:

NATURAL
Natural links are created without the participation of interested parties – Internet users spontaneously share interesting links in comments, on forums or within their blogs. These types of links testify to good quality content on our subpages, and sharing it by users can bring a lot of traffic within our website.

Gaining links in this way will require a lot of involvement in the preparation of website content. Elements that are willingly recommended by users are, among others tips, rankings, summaries and attractively presented smaller doses of knowledge, e.g. in the form of infographics. In some industries, it is also possible to prepare witty material that will have a chance to become a “viral”, which will quickly reach many potential recipients. After this type of online fame, there will probably be links that will complement the profile of the domain that we want to position.

FORUMS
Internet forums in recent years have lost their popularity in favor of thematic groups on Facebook, but those that have remained in the Internet reality are a source of high-quality links. Adding links in these places, however, must be consistent with the topic of the forum and its rules, mostly limiting the possibility of spamming. Links placed in response to a question asked by another person have the best chance to escape the harsh judgment of admins and support the site for a long time. It is worth linking in places where we already have an account and were previously participants in the discussion.

COMMENTS
Some websites and blogs allow you to comment on articles and even supplement them with active links. Links left here should be thematically related to the entry. Adding a link in a comment does not constitute its approval by the webmaster. In addition, this type of link will often have the rel = “nofollow” parameter, which will not allow web robots to go to our site, but users can still click the link.

CATALOGS
This is one of the older forms of getting links, which allows for a large increase in the number of links in a relatively short time. However, modern catalogs boast much higher quality and oblige the link provider to be more involved. A good catalog will require supplementing the entry with basic information about the company’s activity, a unique description, and sometimes also graphics. Catalogs allow for additional promotion of activities, e.g. by higher positions of our entry in the search engine for services of a given website or by placing a link to the entry on the main page of the catalog.

GUEST ARTICLES
A fairly popular method of getting links and new readers is publishing articles outside your website, e.g. on a blog. A guest article allows the blog owner to get new, valuable content. It is assumed that these types of publications are not advertising in nature, but rather focus on providing information and sharing knowledge. Adding an active link to the content depends on the goodwill of the portal owner.

SPONSORED ARTICLES
Sponsored articles are aimed at promoting the site, although the texts published in this way do not have to be typically advertising texts. Articles usually contain 1 to 2 links, most often with an anchor of your choice. This type of service is payable, and the cost depends on the reputation of the portal – the greater the traffic and size of the website, the higher the price.

Cooperation in the field of sponsored articles can be established in person, through the site administrator and the marketing department. Websites specializing in mediation between publishers and those looking for space for content marketing activities are also very popular.

BACKGROUND
A good source of links is your own backend – websites, mostly thematic, where links to the promoted pages will be placed. The back office requires the purchase of a domain, space on the server and a CMS system or other solution that will allow you to conveniently add articles. Additionally, content creation should be added to the costs – especially if we do not plan to do it on our own.

For building your backend, it’s a good idea to choose legacy domains that can be captured when they expire. Those with a good story are especially valuable – the content previously posted on it coincides with the topic of our website, the website has not been penalized by Google, and the incoming links come from trusted sources.

High-quality facilities can also be the subject of other marketing efforts – well-written, widely read articles can become an additional source of traffic and an element of building the position of an expert.

PARTNER SITES
The cooperation of two companies can be expressed in many ways, including by mentioning partners or contractors within the website. The partner’s logo is usually placed on the website, entered in the <a> tag. When analyzing your marketing activities, it is worthwhile to review the list of places where the name of our business is mentioned and ask for a link next to it pointing to our website.

It is also worth approaching other places in a similar way – e.g. lists of companies offering certain services in a given area, prepared by an independent unit. It is worth finding those that have been operating for a long time and complete the data about your company.

OFFLINE ACTIVITY
One of the effective ways to get high-quality links is to increase the reach of impact also outside the Internet. These types of treatments are very effective, especially in the case of local positioning – social activity, participation in meetings or financial support for events, usually results in the mention of our brand on the event pages. These “few words about us” can always be supplemented with a link to the website (usually with an anchor with the name), which will perfectly complement link-building activities. Among other places, it is also worth mentioning biographical notes, e.g. on the website of the university or conferences in which we participate.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Links from social media do not allow us to accelerate the climbing of our site in SERPs, but they do help to increase traffic on the site. Profiles in SM are an excellent channel of communication with customers and it is here that the links to attractive content are usually transferred the fastest.

Other linking ideas

Getting valuable links is not an easy task and in many cases requires creativity. Some approaches will be effective in one industry and may not be feasible in another. An example is an attempt to get a link from Wikipedia. In the case of promoting the website of famous people, sportsmen, politicians, etc., the publication of an entry with a short biography and description of activities will not be hindered by the editors of the online encyclopedia. Attempting to get a link to the website of a company specializing in screw production will require a lot of effort, e.g. creating a source complementing Wikipedia content, and will probably be rejected anyway.

It is also worth looking for inspiration from the competition – thanks to tools such as Ahrefs, Majestic or Seo Surfer, we have the opportunity to see links directed to their websites. Note, they will certainly not contain information about all links! Some sources may block bots collecting this type of data. “Parroting” the linking sites allows you to get a good link to your site and weaken the link to your competitor – on the principle of the aforementioned “lens” dilution.

When looking for places where you can link your website, it is worth paying attention to the quality of links and emphasizing their naturalness. Brazen, rapid building of the link profile usually does not improve the health of the website … As in the case of some on-site activities, off-site also pays off thanks to systematic work, control and analysis of effects.

When starting the business several years ago, any mention of an enterprise on the Internet was an innovative activity. Even underdeveloped websites already looked modern, but few companies and consumers appreciated the value of the web. Now having a website is essential. For several years, the race for the highest positions in TOP10 results in the most popular search engine – Google has been going on. Currently, among the billions of websites on the web, everyone wants to stand out and be on the first page in search results when asked by a user.

SEO a company website consists of many factors, stages and optimization activities performed on the website and beyond. This process requires an individual strategy, constant analysis of variables and adaptation of optimization activities to the current guidelines.

How does the Google search engine work?

By entering a query in the Google search engine, you get from thousands to millions of websites that potentially contain information relevant to you. It is Google that decides what it displays in the search results, but everyone can help with this by positioning their company page.

Indexing
Google uses crawlers to organize information from websites. They analyze websites, open the links they contain and collect and send data about these websites to Google servers. The systems scan the content of the page and the information obtained is registered in the search index.

Algorithms
Google’s ranking systems analyze billions of websites thanks to algorithms. After entering a query into the search engine window, you get certain results – however, many factors affect the display of certain pages, including:
– content of the inquiry,
– the relevance of the page,
– source value,
– user location,
– as well as about 200 other ranking factors.

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information in such a way that it becomes widely available and useful for everyone. Hundreds of new websites are published on the web every second. Google handles billions of queries annually. In the maze of this information, the company, as it emphasizes, tries to protect the search results from dishonest companies and spammers who try to bypass individual systems and algorithms. On the other hand, however, they try to help business owners succeed by providing a variety of SEO tools and tips.

Goals of website SEO in the Google search engine

For many years, Google has been in the first place in the ranking of the popularity of search engines in the world. Therefore, the positioning of the company’s website on Google is decided by business owners who want to increase the visibility of the website in search results and are aware of how many benefits this can bring:
– increasing traffic on the website,
– more conversions (e.g. purchases or registrations),
– brand recognition,
– building awareness among consumers,
– creating the image of an expert and market leader.

Therefore, the website positioning process focuses on both sales and image goals. It is worth emphasizing that online activities also translate into reality and life outside the Internet. For example: a properly positioned website of a restaurant may be displayed to the user on the query: “Boston restaurant” in the first place in Google. A virtual user, even without going to this website, decides to trust the search engine and goes to this restaurant, turning from a user into a real customer. Such positioning effects, although impossible to measure, emphasize the essence of the entire process and confirm that it is worth investing in SEO and promoting the company on the Internet.

A multi-stage process of website SEO

The activities related to the optimization of the website in terms of search results (called Search Engine Optimization – SEO) include the optimization of the content, structure and code of the website. Positioning, apart from the aforementioned SEO, also includes activities in the field of content marketing, link profile building and web analytics.

The process consists of a series of works on the website, which are used to prepare the website for cooperation with the previously mentioned Google robots.

Website audit
The first step in the SEO process should be a website SEO audit. The verification and analysis should apply to both the technical side and the content available on the website. Information relating to organic traffic on individual subpages can be collected using Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

Based on the audit, a website positioning strategy is created. The most important thing is to be aware of the company’s business and marketing goals while working together, not forgetting the rules prevailing in the SEO world.

Key words or phrases
Another of the initial stages of website positioning on the web is the selection of appropriate keywords and phrases. The phrases are selected, after entering which in the search engine window, the positioned website would appear in the results. Words or phrases must be consistent with the nature of the company and the expectations of Internet users who are looking for information about products, services or issues that interest them.

Company website optimization

One of the key elements of positioning is website optimization, i.e. SEO. At this stage, the following occurs:
– domain link profile verification,
– developing content to be completed on the website,
– indexation of the page in the search engine,
– optimization of headers and metadata or execution of appropriate redirects,
– improvement of technical elements within the website (such as finding and removing broken subpages, using the 404 error in a positive way, optimizing the size of graphic files loading the page, etc.).

Verification and development of content for a website is an extremely important process – it is necessary to identify whether the website has internal duplicates and whether such duplicates do not appear on other websites. You should also verify that the content available on the website is unique and properly saturated with key phrases. It is therefore important to create or edit the content on the home page, product and category descriptions, and build valuable content. It is not only texts, but also graphics and photos. In cooperation with marketing specialists, you can optimize a website in such a way that it is valuable not only for Google robots, but above all for users and potential customers of a given company. Both Google’s guidelines and the usability and appearance of the website are taken into account.

An equally important element is the aforementioned optimization of headers and meta data (title and description) both on the main page and on individual subpages. Their proper use allows Google robots to find a given subpage and analyze the data contained therein. Meta title and meta description are displayed in the search results, showing users the topic and content of the page.

However, many technical aspects, such as the optimization of ALT attributes or HTTP headers, are invisible from the user’s perspective. It may also take into account, inter alia:
– page loading speed,
– responsiveness,
– redirects,
– SSL certificate,
– website code.

The work then focuses on improving the internal linking structure, which is one of the highly regarded SEO practices. This properly performed optimization stage helps to direct the attention of Google robots to the most important content on the page.

SEO the company website – one timer or a marathon?

Looking at the above-mentioned components of website positioning, SEO cannot or should not be a one-time action. If the work is to bring the intended results, it requires thorough analysis, diligently carried out activities and constant monitoring of the effects. Google guidelines, algorithms, the system and even the market are changing so dynamically that in order to stay in the position you have earned, you have to work on it all the time. Time is needed for proper indexing, planning and creating content, as well as building a link profile.

Google offers many business owners many opportunities to grow their businesses. It provides tools that make promoting your own business even more effective.

Google My Business

For example, a company’s showcase in Google Maps supports local positioning, improves the website’s visibility in search results and confirms the credibility of a given company. It is a free tool thanks to which you can inform the user about the days and hours of the company’s opening, as well as indicate the physical address and the company’s website.

Online advertising is a huge support for the conducted marketing activities. Positioning the company website is one of the most powerful advertising tools which, if used properly, can guarantee great success for almost any company.