While you might think of Google as the trustiest internet search engine in the world, the tech company has seen its fair share of scandals. Most notably, many antitrust scandals have cast doubt on the tech company’s popular advertising services.
In 2017, a data report by the tech firm SEMrush revealed that Google had been using its own platform to promote its products. From thermostats to Google pixel smartphones, the report revealed that Google had been plugging several products sold via its parent company, Alphabet Inc, using their own Google ad space.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Google advertising model, it’s a PPC (pay-per-click) system that awards ad space via an automated auction. By advertising its own products on the Google platform, the tech company breached the EU’s guidelines on competitive advertising, and after an investigation conducted by the EU, was fined $2.8 billion for its malpractices.
So, what does this mean for the future of PPC advertising and online marketing? Let’s take a look.
It’s also important to note that Google Ads (previously Google Adwords) uses an automated auction – rather than a manual auction – to assign ad space. What this means is simple: whoever selects the top bid (provided that their product is considered ad-friendly) will bag the top spot for their chosen keyword. Typically, companies will have several keywords that they’re trying to target and monopolise on Google’s search engine.
For example, a tech company might want to target a highly competitive keyword such as “smartphone cheap.” For Google to suggest their product when users type this particular keyword into the search bar, the company would need to set an incredibly high maximum bid to outdo their competition.
As you can imagine, Google Ads is a highly competitive – and financially lucrative – platform for businesses.
In the analysis conducted by SEMrush, Google were found to be promoting products under their own brand name (such as their Google Home Speakers) while also giving top ad space to Nest Labs, a tech company acquired by Google back in 2014.
For highly competitive hardware keywords such as “laptops”, again Google appeared to be manipulating their own algorithm to direct users to Google-owned sites and products. What was more damning was just how frequent these manipulations appeared to occur:
While Google strongly denies any claims of ad manipulation, the company was nonetheless investigated by the EU for anticompetitive malpractice. In a statement, the EU claimed:
“Separately, the Commission has also informed Google in a Statement of Objections of its preliminary view that the company has abused its dominant position by artificially restricting the possibility of third party websites to display search advertisements from Google’s competitors.”
After a lengthy court process, Google was fined $2.8bn by the EU for violating the EU’s antitrust rules. According to the EU court proceedings, the company was found guilty of “relegating the results from competing comparison services” in order to direct users to Google products.
They were also fined for other various antitrust violations, including abusing the dominance of their Android services, as well as another $1.7billion for anti competitive behaviour in their AdSense programme. The cumulative fines on the company totalled $9.5 billion. While Google appealed this decision, their appeal was rejected.
While this news might strike a blow in trust between advertisers and the tech company, Google still remains the most popular advertising platform in the world, with 80% of businesses worldwide using Google to promote their products or services.
Not only is their advertising business highly lucrative for Google themselves (with billions of pounds generated every year) it’s also one of the most heavily-utilised platforms by companies trying to target their core demographics.
This is because Google users really do click on Google ads more than other forms of advertising. What makes Google Ads different from other advertising platforms is that they are able to target users who are already on the lookout for a particular service or product. Google Ads generated over $140 billion in profit in 2020 alone, and users are four times more likely to click on an advert on Google than on any other platform.
It’s for this reason that the company’s anti competitive behaviours were so damning: 91% of Google’s revenue comes from advertising, with the tech company making over $100million (or around £84m) per day.
With Google doing all it can to monopolise its own services and products on their platform, it’s not surprising that many are turning away from the PPC model. When it comes to marketing a business online, it’s difficult to compete with corporations who are willing to spend tens of thousands – or hundreds of thousands – on advertising per year.
While PPC advertising can generate quick results, high competition for keywords makes it difficult – and expensive – to get a high ROI. Plus, as soon as you stop paying, Google pulls your ads. When it comes to creating a sustainable, long-term advertising model, PPC isn’t particularly lucrative for young businesses.
For this reason, many are now opting for organic growth strategies rather than the expensive PPC model. Organic growth – also known as SEO – can offer a much higher ROI and be as effective as a PPC campaign.
SEO (search engine optimisation) is a marketing strategy designed to make your online content more appealing to Google’s algorithm. We all know already that only 1-2% of users click through to the second page of Google, so it’s important for your business to rank high if you want to avoid eye-watering advertising costs.
If you produce high-quality online content on your website (such as informative blogs, FAQs, and SEO-optimised product pages related to your business niche) Google will be more likely to rank your website high in organic search results. “Organic results” refer to the non-paid results that Google provides whenever you type in a specific keyword to their search engine.
PPC and SEO are both effective marketing strategies, but SEO has the edge when it comes to creating long-term sustainability. A high-ranking piece of online content is a bit like an eternal top slot in Google’s ad space – without the high costs.
The evidence also suggests that SEO is a more viable strategy when it comes to building consumer trust: in general, around 70-80% of users click through to organic search results and ignore paid and sponsored ads completely. The only downside to SEO is that it takes time; but with the help of an expert SEO consultancy in London, you can expect to see concrete results from a high-quality SEO campaign in anything from 3-12 months.
While Google has been found guilty of manipulating ad results on its platform, it can’t manipulate organic search results. While SEO is a competitive and often complex strategy, it’s also the most cost-effective marketing tool for maintaining steady and organic growth – provided that you have experts on-board to help.
When it comes to comparing SEO vs PPC, it’s simple: either you want fast results (and you have hundreds of thousands of pounds to keep your campaign rolling month-to-month) or you want to create an affordable, long-term strategy that can help to grow your business organically.
And as the old adage goes, slow and steady wins the race.
Are you a business owner who needs to stay current with every news update? While most people have succumbed to having to rely on social media updates, it could be tiring and less effective. This is where RSS feeds come in. It is a wonder why they are less spoken of.
Although RSS feeds are one of the effective ways to improve your brand’s SEO ranking; they are unfortunately, underrated.
This may be because most business owners have no idea about RSS feeds or they don’t understand how it works.
In this article, everything you need to know about RSS feeds including what they are, why they are important, and how they can be utilised to improve your SEO ranking will be discussed. Grab a jotter before you read on!
RSS feeds are recognized to be a handy way of keeping track of new content on websites you are interested in, without having to check them all the time, which in turn, helps you channel your energy and focus on more important things.
RSS, which stands for “Really Simple Syndication” is a format for delivering content from websites to readers. Despite being the most powerful tool to stay on track, it is pretty much a straightforward process.
All you need to do is subscribe to an RSS feed which automatically informs your reader to keep you regularly updated by sending you an alert (usually in the form of an email or a notification), this way, you never miss the chance to remain on the top.
It is typical for a professional SEO consultant to recommend utilising RSS feeds if you need to keep up with your favourite sites but don’t have the time to visit them all every day or if you are constantly on the go.
In the early days of the internet, keeping up with the ever-changing keyword was challenging for search engines. This issue became bigger, especially with website updates, which would often go unnoticed by the search engines.
To deal with this recurring problem, website owners and bloggers started using RSS Feeds. When a business signs up for RSS Feeds, it provides a way for websites to share their content automatically with other websites. When a website syndicates your RSS Feed, they are essentially saying “We trust this website enough and think you also should”.
It is this trust that helps improve and also determines how SEO rankings will be. By syndicating your content to high-quality websites, you are basically telling the search engine that your website is trustworthy and worth ranking higher than others.
Many people seem to be confused about RSS feed SEO benefits. They wonder if RSS feeds, in any way, will help improve their SEO rankings.
Well, now that you know what an RSS feed is, it is also good to know that RSS feeds offer many important SEO benefits not only for website owners but also for readers.
For website owners:
RSS feeds provide a simple way to syndicate content and increase traffic which is an RSS feed SEO benefit all businesses covet.
– When you provide an RSS feed for your content, you are making it relatively easy for readers to subscribe and automatically receive updates when new content is published from your end.
Doing this helps to increase your website traffic and automatically improve your SEO rankings.
For readers:
You don’t have to worry about visiting many websites just to stay current. RSS feeds offer a practical and convenient way to keep up with the latest news and updates from your favourite websites.
– You can stay up-to-date on the latest news and developments in your respective fields by using a variety of tools and readers to customise your RSS feeds to get only the information you are interested in.
A lot of small businesses want to rank top in search engines, but don’t know how to go about it. When it comes to SEO, there are a lot of factors to consider, but the most important ones are either the targeted keywords of keywords you are targeting and how you wield the use of brand vs non-brand keywords.
In this article, we will help you solve every bugging question you seem to have about brand vs non-brand keywords. Apart from discussing how to get branded and non-branded searches, we will also teach you how to track them for a better output.
If you have been trying to rank your website for a while, you must be familiar with brand vs non-brand search.
Branded keywords are those that are specifically related to your company or product while non-branded keywords, on the other hand, are keywords that are generic and can be applied to any business in a given industry.
For example:
When it comes to SEO, you not only want to use effective strategies but also consult an SEO Agency which is the fastest way to rank top as soon as possible.
The results are so versatile that sometimes a brand becomes so known that its associated keyword gains as much popularity as the non-branded keyword.
Whereas, there are times when a non-branded keyword becomes so relevant to a particular business that it performs way better than even the brand’s associated keywords.
However, you can effectively use these simple hacks:
1. First and foremost, start by checking the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). If the brand search of a word ranks more, then the word is likely to be branded.
2. The next hack is to use a tool like Google AdWords Keyword Planner or SEMrush to study the monthly search volume of a certain keyword. If the results for a branded search seem to be more, then, people are more likely to search for a specific company or product than they are for a general term.
3. Lastly, you should utilize Google Search results to take a look at the organic search results for a given keyword. The keyword in the first 3 brand results that show up is likely to be branded.
A lot of businesses would rather focus on ranking their brand name so they can control the search engine result page (SERP). This is so they can help their potential customers enjoy a seamless experience that ultimately leads to them clicking through to their business website.
However, focusing on this strategy implies that you will have to rely on how much people are aware of your brand and how often they type it into the search bar. This can be a huge challenge, as people often use different alterations of a keyword (or even misspell it) when they are searching.
Non-brand keywords are essentially any other keywords related to your business that you want to rank for. Here, you don’t have to rely on people knowing your brand or typing it into the search bar correctly. All you need to do is to target any relevant and related keywords you want and still rank high on the search engine results pages.
Although, the major drawback here is that you are likely to have more competition so you will have to put extra effort into your research and planning to ensure the right keywords are targeted.
Most business owners are stuck between using branded keywords and non-branded keywords. Now the question becomes, “Which approach is better for SEO ranking?”
Nonetheless, the answer to this question isn’t all black and white. This is because having your business show up as a brand or non-brand search heavily depends on a variety of factors, such as the uniqueness of your industry and how competitive your targeted keywords are.
Although, most times, branded keywords are often more effective than non-branded keywords.
Branded keywords are specific to your company or product and are easier to rank because there is less competition. Here, you are targeting people who are already conversant with your brand, are more likely to be interested in what you have to offer and are more likely to convert into customers but you will have to be limited to the number of people looking for your company or specific product.
Non-branded keywords, on the other hand, are less targeted and less effective because there’s more competition, and they’re less likely to generate traffic because they’re not specific to your business. Besides, your ranking is more likely to be affected by consistent changes in search engine algorithms.
As much as you want to rank top, you must also try not to use branded words as they can be classified as spammy which will, in turn, affect your SEO ranking. Rather, try sticking to one or two brand keywords for each page and augment them with non-brand keywords.
The strategy you end up using has to be dependent on what you are trying to achieve.
– If you need to drag traffic to your website and also increase your brand awareness, then targeting brand keywords is the way to go.
– If all you need is to rank higher for specific products or services, then targeting non-brand keywords is the better strategy.
Now that you have a better idea of how branded and non-branded searches work, you don’t have to be in a rush, trying to fix things.
You can use both the branded and non-branded keywords in your SEO strategy so you don’t have to choose one to forego the other.
Just pay attention to using the right keywords in the right places. For a better understanding, use these simplified steps as a guide:
1. Using a branded keyword as an anchor text for your website links is the fastest way to improve your website’s SEO ranking for those specific keywords.
2. Utilize non-branded keywords as the focus of your content marketing strategy, if you intend to keep attracting new visitors who are searching for information on those specific keywords.
3. Use a mix of brand and non-brand keywords in your paid search campaigns. This will help you to reach more people who are interested in both types of products or services via brand and non-brand search.
The most effective way to improve your SEO ranking is to use a combination of the aforementioned brand and non-brand strategies. Now that you understand the benefits and drawbacks of these strategies better, choosing the best option for your business may be more confusing. If you’re still not sure which strategy is right for you, our team of SEO experts are ready to review, analyze your data and provide solutions to help you rank top on search engines.
Google Autocomplete, sometimes called Google Suggest, is one of the oldest and most useful tools on the Google search engine for optimising organic rankings. It is said to reduce the search time of searchers by about 25% because it reduces the time used in typing characters.
Asides from aiding searchers in their search, Google Autocomplete is also an important marketing tool. It is used by SEO professionals, analysts and digital marketers to get keywords, find out potential problems that customers face, and the questions they ask.
All this information enables them to get informed answers that can be used in marketing and improving their services. We shall discuss how Google Autocomplete is used to achieve all these, but before that, let us go in-depth on what it is all about.
Google defines its Autocomplete tool as a tool “designed to make it faster to complete searches that you’re beginning to type”. Also known as Google search predictions or Google search suggestions, It is embedded in the Google search box and the Chrome address bar.
The main function of Autocomplete is to reduce the time used in typing by giving predictions and suggestions, which oftentimes are correct. It is estimated that these Google search suggestions cut back a whole 200 years of typing by users. Typically, it reduces the average user’s typing time by 25%.
Since 2004, it has been a feature on desktop devices. However, it is a more welcome advancement on mobile phones, as most people find it harder to type on mobile devices, as opposed to the big keyboards that desktop devices have. The Autocomplete feature saves time for many and makes Google searches easier.
As mentioned above, the Google search predictions provided by Google Autocomplete can be used to get content ideas, improve SEO strategies, get keyword suggestions, customer problems, and so on. This valuable feature can either be used by an SEO agency, digital marketer or business analyst.
When you start typing a query on the Google search bar and predictions start popping up, you might wonder, “how does Google autocomplete this query?”. Well, it does this using certain data. These data include;
Using these data, Google Autocomplete can then predict your search and show results that are unique to your location, e.g., breaking news.
Additionally, Google search predictions might also predict individual words and phrases based on data from other searchers, as well as word patterns found across the web.
To start analysing the Google search predictions for SEO, it is important to do these three things:
Keywords are the bedrock of every SEO campaign, and it is important to carry out a thorough search on them before beginning your campaign. It helps in understanding a brand’s contents, website’s strengths and weaknesses, etc.
While the Autocomplete tool may not do all the work involved in keyword researching, it is a great place to start when developing keyword lists and content calendars. Using it with other keyword research tools helps to get an idea of the right keywords for your niche by measuring factors like monthly search frequency, competition, and cost-per-click (CPC).
One unique advantage that Google Autocomplete provides is that it can produce quality long-tail keywords that are commonly searched. Since one of the search parameters is based on the ability to provide results based on previous searches, you can dig up those high-quality keywords if you search well enough. A simple way to get these long keywords is by doing the steps outlined below:
Using Google search predictions can provide you with different content ideas relating to your niche, especially when you are looking for content ideas for your content calendar. Content marketing is important in SEO, so by using the Google Autocomplete tool, you get to explore different keywords which will help you generate creative content for topics around your niche.
SEO specialists know that understanding user intent is essential because it helps in the website’s messaging, layout, and overall goals. When a web page fully satisfies user intent, they perform best. While it can be labour intensive using the Autocomplete tool to understand user intent better, the information is quite valuable.
Autocomplete helps you understand the intent surrounding different high-quality long-tail keywords and also helps you spot the long-tail keywords and intent stages that can be optimised for better results.
Imagine searching for your company name or something relating to your company, and having a negative word attached to it. Something like that is sure to dent your brand’s image. Google Autocomplete can be a threat to your brand image if you don’t realise it quickly. If you’re in a situation where your company is in a bad light and is exposed on Google Autocomplete, here are a few tips to handle it:
Address the problem— if the negative prediction refers to something true, address the problem. While it won’t solve it quickly, the search volume for that term will eventually reduce and disappear from the list of Google search predictions.
Improve your brand image— Good PR is one of the fastest ways to keep your brand in the good books of your customers. You can do this by doing giveaways, loyal customers’ recognition, organising a local event, blog features, customer interaction on social media etc. Doing this improves customer trust and loyalty.
It is essential to always keep up with Google search suggestions regarding your company to ensure that there is no negativity surrounding it. This helps in preventing further damage, and also solving the problem on time.
Google Autocomplete tool is helpful to not only searchers but digital marketers. It helps to keep updated with search trends, high-quality keywords and other essential online tools that improve SEO campaigns.
As a digital marketer, the Google Autocomplete tool should be one of the most important tools in your arsenal for creating quality content that adheres to search trends, so as to give the high engagement you need as a reward for your hard work.
Duplicate content refers to similar content appearing at multiple locations or URLs on the web. As a result, when a piece of information is searched for, search engines don’t know which URL to show in the search results. Duplicate content could appear on 2 or more URLs. Duplicate content is an issue as they conflict with search engines such as Google.
Similar to most issues, Duplicate contents have solutions. Ranging from the use of an SEO agency to utilizing unique page titles and meta descriptions in the HTML code of the page or sites. Specifically, we’ll discuss solving this issue on WordPress sites later on.
It might be of importance to note that there are two types of duplicate content.
Internal duplicate content is found on the same site. This is a result of multiple URLs leading to similar content on the same site.
Unlike the first, this occurs across different domains. It is therefore also referred to as cross-domain duplicates. Multiple domains have the same page copy indexed by the search engines.
Duplicate contents are strains on Search Engine Optimization and in turn your site’s ratings. This is a result of search engines being forced to choose one of the similar pages it should rate in the top search results. Following a decision on what site to pick and rank in the search result, other sites get rated lower.
Irrespective of the originality of the content or who produced the content, there is a high possibility that the original page will not be the one chosen for the top search results. As result, plagiarism of original content might not mean a thing. The search engine just chooses the sites with identical contents that it analyzed to be better.
Another issue is the filter from search engines. Take Google for instance. While there are no penalties imposed on duplicate content, Google tends to filter synonymous content on the websites. Consequently, this would cause a loss of content coupled with a lesser ranking of the web page in search results. Despite the intensity of this issue, solutions have been preferred.
One of the said solutions is the SEO agency. An SEO company offers services in form of search engine optimization to businesses to improve their online visibility. Search engine optimization simply means making your website more mesmerizing to the search engines. Consequently, the said website will get a higher ranking in top search results increasing visibility to online surfers and market targets.
Duplicate content is a major issue hurting SEO on WordPress. It’s a common reason as to why WordPress websites don’t get ranked. Duplicate contents can mostly be avoided by not directly copying the content. SEO is a major feature boosting the originality and visibility of WordPress sites. Duplicate content lowers the performance of sites with similar specific content descriptions.
Tags are features used on WordPress sites to help with the organization of the contents. Unlike categories, another feature, they are non-hierarchical. The issue with tag is when a user tag one of their articles, a page is established containing other relevant content. This page contains bits of articles or complete article contents which could be from the user’s main site. The establishment of this page on the user’s WordPress site has itself become a competition. Consequently, causes a content duplication issue.
Solving this issue requires one of two methods. The first is simple. You can remove the tags completely. The second is to add a meta robots no index no-follow. The no index dofollow tag will serve as an indication to the search engine that the tag is a lesser result in comparison to your main site. Your main site is, therefore, rated higher enhancing your SEO.
Categories just like tags are features used in WordPress. They contain contents organized more hierarchically. In some cases, some WordPress sites tend to sometimes make categories dedicated to channels and niches within a channel. This makes them worthy of being readily available for search engine results.
The issue would arise if neither the category nor the core website pages are designed to be rated more than the other. The search engine could then rate both lower and non-available on search results. To solve this, you add a meta robot index and dofollow tags. Likewise, peculiar or unique titles and copies should be incorporated into the category to introduce it. Ultimately, queries asked, better replied to by the contents of the categories will be referred to the categories as they are made available in search results.
Another common duplicate content issue is competing topics. Some WordPress sites with the same niche, food, nutrition, technology, and business, when creating content about similar topics bring about competition. Popular examples include specific recipes for a snack or the latest flagship phone or gadgets. Some contents can’t help but be similar creating competition and duplicate content. To solve this issue, adding a category or subcategory for the gadgets, snacks, etc. is advised. Modifiers also help fix the issue (e.g., for recipes, spicy, chewy etc.). Following this, use “copy” making sure to stay relevant to the topic and indicating why your category or subcategory is unique
In recognition of another way to boost ranking and SEO, SEO agencies have proven useful and effective. SEO agencies in a nutshell help sites or organizations and businesses to rank higher on Google. That way when online customers/ consumers or internet surfers search for content about your niche, your site or blog is one of the highest-ranked results available.
Relative to duplicate content issues on WordPress, an SEO agency helps your site to get an edge over other competitors in your niche. When it comes to SEO, knowledge is power and that is what SEO agencies offer.
That being said there are some things to look out for when researching SEO agencies of choice.
If you’re trying to grow your WordPress site organically by hiring an agency to do so for you, it’s only logical that said agency made its growth organically also.
Experience is needed. So be sure to check for agencies that have been at the job long enough to know the nooks and crannies of the job. High-volume keywords will be needed, so it’s best to be in business with big players in the game.
All the rave about ratings should give you an insight into searching for top rated SEO agencies. Reputation is everything in the SEO world, it will be efficient to work with agencies that have continued good long-term relationships and have received excellent reviews from other businesses and possibly even a 5-star rating from Google.
Solving duplicate content issues on sites such as WordPress and websites as a whole is important to enjoy the full benefits of SEO. Without SEO, there would be no point to your content as they are going to rarely grace the screens of internet consumers. While duplicate content is a nasty yet common issue, these solutions highlighted above should help keep it in check.
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